Life Magazine

Articles from Life Magazine

The Enormous Room by E.E. Cummings (Life Magazine, 1922)

This is a short, pithy review of E.E. Cummings’ (1894 – 1962) novel, The Enormous Room I1922), which was based upon his experience as an American volunteer ambulance driver and his subsequent incarceration in a French jail for having admitted to pacifist sympathies. The reviewer believed that the book provided:

the last word in realistically detailed horrors.


F. Scott Fitzgerald is said to have remarked:


Of all the work by young men who have sprung up since 1920 one book survives – The Enormous Room by E.E. Cummings.

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Harvard University Charged with Antisemitism (Life Magazine, 1922)

Although Abbott Lawrence Lowell (1856 – 1943) enjoyed a lengthy tenure as the president of Harvard University (1909 – 1933), his reign there was not entirely free from controversy. One of the more unpleasant policies associated with his term was one in which he stated that Jewish enrollment to the university should be confined to an admissions quota that should not exceed the 15-percent mark.

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WINGS: Directed by William Wellman (Life Magazine, 1927)

Appearing in an issue of [the old] Life Magazine, that was almost entirely devoted to the 1927 American Legion convention in Paris, was this Robert Sherwood review of the blockbuster silent film Wings. Directed by an American Air Corps veteran, William Wellman (1896 – 1975), Wings was the only silent film to win an Academy Award for Best Picture (at that time the category was titled Most Outstanding Production).

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War Profiteers (Life Magazine, 1919?)

Although the year 1919 (and spanning throughout much of the Twenties) was a period marked by a strong sense of anti-communism in the United States, the words war profiteer proved to be a term capable of getting a good many people in both camps riled up. This is a fine cartoon by Rollin Kirby that nicely satirizes that low breed of opportunist.


Click here to see how weird the first car radios looked.

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Rea Irvin Did His Bit (Life Magazine, 1917)

Cartoonist Rea Irvin (1881 – 1972) did the work of ten George Creels during America’s participation in the Great War by consistently producing a number of funny gags that served to belittle Imperial Germany. Unlike most cartoonists who were active during the Gilded Age, Irvin has been published at least once a year every year since 1925: he was the creator of ‘Eustice Tilly’ -the Regency dandy who graced the very first cover of THE NEW YORKER that is re-printed every February. Other cartoons in this series are available upon request.

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Reviewed: ‘The Garden Party and Other Stories’ (Life Magazine, 1922)

The Life Magazine review of The Garden Party and Other Stories
by the New Zealand writer Katherine Mansfield (1888 – 1923) is attached here for your enjoyment. Mansfield lived a short but productive life before tuberculosis got the best of her in 1923. This was one of any number of favorable reviews that she enjoyed in her lifetime and she is today often considered one of the best short story writers of her period.

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Reviewed: ‘The Garden Party and Other Stories’ (Life Magazine, 1922)

The Life Magazine review of The Garden Party and Other Stories
by the New Zealand writer Katherine Mansfield (1888 – 1923) is attached here for your enjoyment. Mansfield lived a short but productive life before tuberculosis got the best of her in 1923. This was one of any number of favorable reviews that she enjoyed in her lifetime and she is today often considered one of the best short story writers of her period.

Reviewed: ‘The Garden Party and Other Stories’ (Life Magazine, 1922) Read More »

Her Next Task (Life Magazine, 1919)

An excellent cartoon that serves to illustrate the difficulty that the American suffragettes had to overcome in post World War I America. Following the demobilization of so many women who played vital roles during the course of the war, the next task at hand was to see to it that her fathers, brothers and uncles understood that these veterans of the war expected greater opportunity and would not reside gladly in the same world of low-expectations that saw them off at the docks in 1917

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