Articles from 1958
An article about Irving Izzy the Eel Cohen, Joseph Socks Lanza, Benjamin Bugsy Siegel, Jake Greasy Thumb Guzik and Albert Tick Tock Tannenbaum (among others) and how they earned such colorful names.
(This article was brought into the digital world by Matt the Mad Scanner Jacobsen)
An Al Capone article can be read here…
Mobsters and Their Nick-Names (Confidential Magazine, 1958) Read More »
A young wife gets swept up in the whirlwind of blind compliance that was the condition of her marriage. Her husband forces her onto the abortionist’s gurney and she awakens an hour later with profound sorrow:
I had degraded myself and betrayed my baby…
Deepest Regrets (Pageant Magazine, 1958) Read More »
During the Cold war, as many as 400,000 American military personnel were forced to witness Atomic explosions. Having been sworn to secrecy, this veteran wrote his testimony under the penname, Soldier X:
Then I saw the true power and fury of nature as a giant fireball sluggishly rolled upward through the thick layer of dust: I estimated its distance at about 1500 feet up. Surrounding the red mass are twisting white snakes of clouds….This is color as few humans have ever seen it, magnificent, threatening and horrible.
‘They Dropped The A-Bomb On Me” (Tab Magazine, 1958) Read More »
The fastest-growing Protestant religion today is the Pentecostal movement… In barely half a century this dynamic young version of old-time fundamentalism has produced spectacularly successful leaders such as Oral Roberts and the late Aimee Semple McPherson, has won the devotion of at least 2,000,000 Americans of every racial and religious origin and through zealous foreign missionary work, has gained thousands of converts on every continent.
Assemblies of God (Coronet Magazine, 1958) Read More »
As the one-hundredth anniversary of the War Between the States grew ever nearer, a Pulitzer Prize winning Civil War Historian, Bruce Catton, wrote the attached article concerning the overwhelming popularity that the nation was finding in their study of that remarkable contest:
The requirements for becoming a Civil War Buff are very simple. All you need is a desire to join. If you are interested in the Civil War, you’re in… You may get to the point where you want to join a Civil War Round Table. [Overtime] commonplace words like Appomattox and Antietam and Perryville take on a new meaning for you; a good deal of the monotony and routine of modern life somehow evaporates, as you escape into a period of profound and haunting significance.
All in all, it’s quite an experience.
Welcome to the Army!
‘Beginner’s Guide to the Civil War” (Pageant Magazine, 1958) Read More »
Attached herein is a list the five lamest Generals of the American Civil War.
This two page compilation is made up of thumbnail descriptions outlining just how far from awesome these men were, and why, one hundred years later, they continue to be recognized as failures to the succeeding generations of Civil War historians.
The Bad Generals (Pageant Magazine, 1958) Read More »
Both Northern and Southern armies were composed predominantly of very young men. Almost all the generals were highly bewhiskered, but the enlisted men were almost all too young to shave.
Both sides carried a muzzle-loading rifle, cumbersome by modern standards, but nevertheless a highly effective weapon. It would kill at more than half a mile, and was deadly when used by veterans…
The Lot of the Fighting Man (Pageant Magazine, 1958) Read More »
Another article by a highbred, woebegone, blue-blood who, plagued by a boatload of distinguished primogenitors and over-burdened by a lavish trust fund – to say nothing of a bad case of affluenza, could take no more of it; she broke-down and scribbled the attached expose in hopes that the whole highfalutin’ plutocracy would come crashing down on top of all those icky, pompous know-it-alls.
Life for America’s so-called social aristocrats is colorless and uninspired. Our education, now that I look back at it, seems to have produced a frightening number of properly mannered, emotionally passive and intellectually sterile young snobs… This training is not easily overcome.
Gosh. We thought only Howard Zinn wrote like that.
‘The Low State of High Society” (Coronet Magazine, 1958) Read More »
Here is the skinny on the Bananas and Skim Milk Diet – also known as the Magic 888 – still in use today, the reducing plan is a crash diet designed to remove five pounds within three to four days.
Here is a moving account of the meteoric rise of Johnny Mathis (b. 1935) – from an impoverished child of the San Francisco slums to the last of the great-American crooners.
Johnny Mathis is just 23 years old , though he appears a hungry , vulnerable 17. When he sings a romantic ballad in high falsetto, his large eyes gaze out over the heads of the audience as if in search of someone.
Johnny Mathis (Coronet Magazine, 1957) Read More »
