Collier’s Magazine

Articles from Collier’s Magazine

Eleanor Roosevelt on Japanese-American Internment (Collier’s, 1943)

In this article, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt (1884 – 1962) attempted (very politically) to play both sides of the street, implying on the one hand that the creation of the Japanese-American internment camps seemed a reasonable measure in wartime; but the reader doesn’t have to have a degree in psychology to recognize that she believed otherwise:

‘A Japanese is always a Japanese’ is an easily accepted phrase and it has taken hold quite naturally on the West Coast because of some reasonable or unreasonable fear back of it, but it leads nowhere and solves nothing…

Eleanor Roosevelt on Japanese-American Internment (Collier’s, 1943) Read More »

The Guerrilla War That Never Was (Collier’s Magazine, 1945)

During the Autumn of 1944, when the great momentum was with the Allies and the German Army was in rapid retreat, the SS newspaper Das Schwartz Korps declared that an Allied-occupied Germany would not be a placid land:


The Allied soldiers shall find no peace. Death will lurk behind every corner. They might establish a civilian administration, but its leaders would not live a month. Nobody could execute the enemy’s orders without digging his own grave. No judge could pronounce sentences dictated by the enemy without being crucified in his own window frame in the dead of night.


This article goes into great detail concerning how the SS intended to make good on these words.

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A Child of the Bund… (Collier’s Magazine, 1941)

Similar to the one other piece of W.W. II historic fiction posted on this site, this short story is remarkably brief and to the point. Published weeks before America committed itself to the war, this little ditty was penned by Pat Frank (born Harry Hart Frank: 1908 – 1964) who wished to convey the inherit dangers of allowing the Nazi-sympathizing German American Bund to operate unchecked in the land of the free and home of the brave.

A tight little story succinctly told: print it out and read it.


The other short story is called Nesei Homecoming.


Click here to read about the origins of Fascist thought…

A Child of the Bund… (Collier’s Magazine, 1941) Read More »

The Ike Jacket Goes Mainstream (Collier’s Magazine, 1944)

In their book about American soldiers in the war-torn Britain of W.W. II, Overpaid, Over-Sexed and Over Herestyle=border:none (1991), authors James Goodson and Norman Franks recall how thoroughly impressed Americans were with the standard issue British Army uniform. The Supreme Allied Commander, U.S. General Dwight Eisenhower, was no exception – he promptly ordered his tailor to suit him in a similar get-up. Other American generals followed in his path as did the cocky young pilots of the Army Air Corps – shortly there after the look soon spread to other branches of the Army. This 1944 article discusses the broad appeal of this jacket and that civilian fashion designers had begun manufacturing the Ike Jacket for the Home Front.

The Ike Jacket Goes Mainstream (Collier’s Magazine, 1944) Read More »

Black Tie, Please (Collier’s Magazine, 1947)

One evening in 1947, Henry L. Jackson, co-founder of Esquire Magazine, realized that his magazine alone was not sufficient enough in circulation for passing the word along to his fellows that the rules for men’s evening wear were rapidly being rewritten; knowing full-well that Collier’s was one of the preeminent American magazines of its day, he no-doubt must have pleaded the urgency of his case to their editors and, in so doing, saved the collective faces of the homo Americanus once more! We’re delighted that he did so, because now you will have a more thorough understanding as to how you might have dressed had you lived in post-war America.

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Why Only Half Our Soldiers Fire Their Rifles (Collier’s Magazine, 1952)

In every engagement with the enemy during the Second World War, only 12 to 25 percent of American riflemen ever fired their weapons. This was an enormous concern for the brass hats in the Pentagon and they got right to work in order to remedy the problem. Five years later, when the Korean War rolled around, they found that the situation was somewhat improved: 50% of the soldiers were now able to return fire. This article tells the story of U.S. Army General S.L.A. Marshall (1900 – 1977) and his research in addressing this issue. A good read.

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One of the First Katherine Hepburn Interviews (Collier’s Magazine, 1933)

It was 1933 interviews like this one that made the studio executives at RKO go absolutely bonkers; what were they to do with Katharine Hepburn (1907 – 2003)? She simply refused to take all matters Hollywood with any degree of seriousness; although she hadn’t been a movie actress for very long at all, Katherine Hepburn was downright impious and goofy when reporter’s questions were put to her:

‘Is it true that you have three children?’ asked the interviewer.

‘I think it’s six,’ she answered.

Such responses served only to frustrate the members of the fourth estate to such a high degree and it seemed only natural that the fan magazine journalists would want to have the final word as to who Katherine Hepburn really was…


-But the Hollywood press did like her future co-star Carry Grant, click here to read it.

One of the First Katherine Hepburn Interviews (Collier’s Magazine, 1933) Read More »

The Escaped P.O.W.s That The F.B.I. Never Found (Collier’s Magazine, 1953)

Unlike Reinhold Pabel, the W.W. II German P.O.W. whose story is told in the article posted above, the five escapees in this article remained at large long after the war ended. Five minutes researching their names on the internet revealed that every single one of them remained in the U.S. where they held jobs, paid taxes and raised families well into their golden years.

The Escaped P.O.W.s That The F.B.I. Never Found (Collier’s Magazine, 1953) Read More »