Articles from 1956
Fads like ukulele strumming and flagpole sitting have not been seen on college campi since the 1920s – but the undergraduates in 1956 did adopt one fashion element from the Twenties – their father’s raccoon coats.
Click here to read about the Ivy League look for 1953.
THE RETURN OF THE RACCOON COAT (Gentry Magazine, 1956) Read More »
Fads like ukulele strumming and flagpole sitting have not been seen on college campi since the 1920s – but the undergraduates in 1956 did adopt one fashion element from the Twenties – their father’s raccoon coats.
Click here to read about the Ivy League look for 1953.
THE RETURN OF THE RACCOON COAT (Gentry Magazine, 1956) Read More »
Attached herein is an essay written during the mid-Fifties that briefly summarizes the primary global events spanning the end of World War II through 1955 which set the stage for that period in Twentieth Century history called the Cold War: the global containment of Soviet expansion.
Click here to read about espionage during the Cold War.
Early Cold War Events: 1948 – 1956 Read More »
This printable page from an R.O.T.C. manual concerns the American military efforts in World War I.
Attached is a useful summation in three paragraphs of the Aisne-Marne offensive. The reader will learn which American and French units participated, the dates on which the battle raged and the German defense strategy.
The battle had numerous and far reaching results. It eliminated the German threat to Paris, upset Ludendorff’s cherished plan to attack the British again in Flanders, gave the Allies important rail communications, demonstrated beyond further doubt the effectiveness of American troops on the offensive, firmly established Allied unity of command…
Summing Up the Aisne-Marne Offensive (Dept. of the Army, 1956) Read More »
Few realize that when we applaud the tremendous style that went into so much of the design of 1950s American cars, we are actually praising the fertile mind of Harley J. Earl (1893 – April 10, 1969):
Earl, who served as the Vice-President of Design at General Motors, conceived of so many design elements that are associated with that period, such as wrap-around windshields, tail-fins and two-tone paint styling. In the attached article, written when he was at the top of his game, Harley Earl tells his readers what is involved in automobile design:
Shakespeare has told us ‘neither a borrower nor a lender be’. An automobile stylist must be both. He must borrow his ideas from the creatures and creations of nature which are all about him…
Harley Earl on Car Design (Gentry Magazine, 1956) Read More »
This single page analysis of the North Korean People’s Army and the Army of South Korea will clue you in pretty quickly as to why President Truman hastened to get the necessary beans, bullets and band-aids delivered to the South as quickly as he did. This comparison, written by the U.S. Army History Section, clearly indicates that the North Korean force was intended to be an offensive army; well-equipped and fast-a-foot; the army of the South, by comparison, was intended (for some unexplained reason) to fight limited engagements – rather than prolonged, corps sized campaigns.
It was no surprise to the assorted military insiders of the world when the South Korean capital of Seoul was seized three days into the war.
The Two Korean Armies Compared (Dept. of the Army, 1956) Read More »
Widely remembered as the best dressed man of the Nineteenth Century, Beau Brummell, (né George Bryan Brummell 1778 – 1840), set the standard for male sartorial splendor and as a result, his name
liveth ever more.
The attached men’s fashion article was written at a time when American leisure wear was going through it’s birth pangs and slovenly attire was on the rise all over the fruited plain; it was thoroughly appropriate for the editors of GENTRY MAGAZINE to print this article which not only examined the clothing philosophy of the Beau but also paid heed as to which actors portrayed him on screen (oddly, there was no mention made whatever as to who the various costume designers were).
He dressed simply, without ornamentation. What was it then that set him apart so ostentatiously from the crowd? What made him the best dressed man of the century? The answer lies not, as history has decided, in his clothes. It lay entirely in the way he wore them.
The Beau (Gentry Magazine, 1956) Read More »
Here is the brief text to President Lincoln‘s very eloquent second inaugural address, that was delivered during the closing weeks of the Civil War.
Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address (National Park Service, 1956) Read More »
Shortly after Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, William H. Herndon (1816 – 1891), Lincoln’s law partner, devoted much of his life to collecting as much original source material on the man as he could possibly find. Indeed, scholars have pointed out that there never would have been an accurate word written about Lincoln if not for the efforts of Herndon. The following description of Lincoln is from a lecture delivered by Herndon in 1865.
Lincoln Remembered (National Park Service, 1956) Read More »
The Republican Party, which developed rapidly as a new political force following the enactment of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill in 1854, gathered its strength chiefly from those who opposed the extension of slavery into the territories. In the Lincoln – Douglas Debates this issue was paramount. Perhaps nowhere can a more concise and explicit statement of the position of the Republican Party on this issue be found than in Mr. Lincoln’s opening speech at Quincy [Illinois] in the sixth of the joint debates.
The Lincoln – Douglas Debates: Defining Slavery (National Park Service, 1956) Read More »
