Pathfinder Magazine

Articles from Pathfinder Magazine

Design for Modern Living (Pathfinder Magazine, 1949)

In an attempt to define modernism for a broad audience, architect/designer Alexander Girard curated the Exhibition for Modern Livingstyle=border:none that was housed at the Detroit Institute of Arts during the winter of 1949. It was a ground breaking exhibit that brought modernism down from the mountain and allowed people to see that modern design was intended to make life more pleasant:

Modern design implies shape for use, simplicity, new forms to utilize new materials, easier housekeeping, and honest expression of mass production… Up the richly carpeted ramp, viewers walk up to a dining room done by Alvar Aalto; past two studies Bruno Mathsson and Jean Risom and a bedroom and living-room representing a variety of designers; then up another level to a space furnished by Charles Eames; and finally to a small balcony overlooking George Nelson’s living area. The quiet simplicity of the rooms and the gentle tones of symphonic music have people talking in whispers. Sighed one woman: ‘I’d like to live here.’

Design for Modern Living (Pathfinder Magazine, 1949)

In an attempt to define modernism for a broad audience, architect/designer Alexander Girard curated the Exhibition for Modern Livingstyle=border:none that was housed at the Detroit Institute of Arts during the winter of 1949. It was a ground breaking exhibit that brought modernism down from the mountain and allowed people to see that modern design was intended to make life more pleasant:

Modern design implies shape for use, simplicity, new forms to utilize new materials, easier housekeeping, and honest expression of mass production… Up the richly carpeted ramp, viewers walk up to a dining room done by Alvar Aalto; past two studies Bruno Mathsson and Jean Risom and a bedroom and living-room representing a variety of designers; then up another level to a space furnished by Charles Eames; and finally to a small balcony overlooking George Nelson’s living area. The quiet simplicity of the rooms and the gentle tones of symphonic music have people talking in whispers. Sighed one woman: ‘I’d like to live here.’

‘A Red Is a Red is a Red” (Pathfinder Magazine, 1947)

The Cold War was not often seen as a subject for poetry – but that didn’t stop a popular versifier like Berton Braley (1882 – 1966). He took a look around at the post-war world and saw plenty subjects that rhymed:


You’ll meet, methinks, a lot of pinks
Whose statements are dogmatic
That Communists are Liberals
And really Democratic;
But when you hear that type of tripe
Keep this fact in your nut
– That Communists are Communists and nothing else but!


His poem went on for three more stanzas…

Atomic Researcher Arrested in London (Pathfinder Magazine, 1950)

In January, 1950, a British scientist named Klaus Fuchs (1911 – 1988) was arrested for passing atomic secrets on to Soviet agents.

In his confession Fuchs admitted that the transfer of information began in 1942, shortly after he joined the [British Ministry of Supply] as a German Refugee.

Cardinal Innitzer Stands Up (Pathfinder Magazine, 1938)

With the 1938 merging of Austria with Hitler’s Germany came the Nazi coercion of Austrian Christianity. One of the first clerics to rebel against their repression was Cardinal Theodor Innitzer (1875 – 1955) of Vienna who made clear his outrage in a series of open letters criticizing the various Nazi restrictions involving marriage and the removal of nuns and priests from various schools and hospitals.

Yamashita Sentenced to Death (Pathfinder Magazine, 1945)

The article posted herein lists the aleged crimes of General Tomoyuki Yamishita of the Imperial Japanese Army. The article also states the results of his sentencing, death by hanging. Two weeks after the trial he received a stay of execution by the United States Supreme Court.

Statism (Pathfinder Magazine, 1946)

Not long after the free world had conquered fascism, the long twilight struggle against Communism commenced. Stalin’s Soviet Union had refused to comply with the treaties it had previously agreed to and was occupying North Korea and many of the Eastern European countries that the Nazis had invaded. Furthermore, Stalin was was funding armed insurgencies in Greece, Vietnam and China. In an effort to help define the tyranny that is Communism, Pathfinder ran this column that defined Communism as Statism and explained it in simple terms.

‘Outmaneuvered” (Pathfinder Magazine, 1945)

Here is a short column that lists the impact that the American counterattack wrought upon the German forces as a result of their winter offensive during the Battle of the Bulge – no explanation was given as to how this information was attained.

The Secret Papers of Robert Lansing (Pathfinder Magazine, 1940)

In 1940, when America stood on the precipice preparing to enter another enormous conflict, the heretofore secret papers of Woodrow Wilson’s Secretary of State, Robert Lansing (1864 – 1928), were released – shedding light on the government’s reasoning as to why they felt U.S. intervention in the European war was necessary.