Articles from Pageant Magazine
Ewing Krainin (1912 – 2004) was a popular photographer in his day, and the darling of many a magazine editor. His most revered image was the Life picture of the scantily clad fashion model Chili Williams (1921 – 2003) – an image that is recalled and explained in the opening paragraphs of this article.
“Teachers, during the war period, have been undergoing unprecedented, exhausting struggle in the classroom. And in their ranks have been casualties that add up to a dangerous teacher shortage. According to the National Education Association, ‘the economic status of teachers has been pushed back 20 years since Pearl Harbor’… The combination of overwork, underpay and the thanklessness of teaching has created an army of deserters from the profession.”
More on the hard lot of teachers during the war can be read here.
Eleanor Metheny (1908 – 1982) enjoyed a full life in academia, spanning over forty years. Mid-way through her career she wrote the attached article explaining to one and all why she found teaching such a fulfillment.
“For three consecutive years, 1946 through 1948, Betty Grable was the highest salaried woman in the world. For the past ten years she has never left the list of the nation’s ten biggest box office attractions. She also gets more fan mail (from 3,000 to 10,000 letters a week) than any other star in the motion picture industry. Oddly enough, most of it comes from women hungering for the Betty Grable beauty secrets.”
Like the Penitent Thief who was crucified next to Jesus, Ernest Gaither (1924 – 1947), also found salvation during the closing moments of his life. While biding his time on death row, Gaither was taught a neat little trick that all doubters should try, God showed up and Gaither learned of his worth.
“What kind of a man is Joseph Stalin? How does he get along with his family? How does he treat them? I can tell you. Because for many months I was the French tutor of Stalin’s daughter, Svetlana, At Stalin’s country home. I met Stalin himself numerous times.”
In another article on this site, these words were quoted from the captured dispatches of a Japanese general writing to his superiors:
“[The Yank] is a wizard at handling machinery and he can build airfields, roads and advance bases with uncanny speed.”
– he was, of course, referring to the famous Construction Battalions (Seabees) of the U.S. Navy. This article will tell you all about them.
In another article on this site, these words were quoted from the captured dispatches of a Japanese general writing to his superiors:
“[The Yank] is a wizard at handling machinery and he can build airfields, roads and advance bases with uncanny speed.”
– he was, of course, referring to the famous Construction Battalions (Seabees) of the U.S. Navy. This article will tell you all about them.
Attached is an interesting article by the noted poet and poetry anthologist, Louis Untermeyer (1885 – 1977). He praised the soldier poets of the First World War and expressed his bafflement concerning the absolute dirth of competent rhyme-slingers in the Second World War:
“Why then, it has been asked again and again, is the poetry of this war so thin, so emotionally anemic, so unrepresentative of the fierce struggle in which the world is engaged? Why has no poet, not even a single poem, emerged to stir the heart and burn into the mind?”
