Pathfinder Magazine – Page 21 – Old Magazine Articles

The Marshall Plan: Rebuilding Europe (Pathfinder Magazine, 1947)

The Marshall Plan was a U.S. Government aid program that was instrumental in the reconstruction and economic resurrection of 16 Western European nations following the devastation caused by the Second World War. It is named for Secretary of State George C. Marshall, who co-authored the initiative with the help of the prominent business leader William Clayton, and the American diplomat George F. Kennan.

The attached article concerns the first draft of the scheme that was drawn-up by Marshall and the representatives of these 16 nations during the Summer/Fall of 1947. The amount of cash to be distributed (and paid back over a period of 30 years) was $22.44 billion.

Marshall knew that such an economic stimulant (and the liberties that would follow) would serve to guarantee that Western Europe would not fall into clutches of the Soviet Union.

To read about the Soviet reaction to the Marshall Plan, Click here

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The Soviet Reaction to the Marshall Plan (Pathfinder Magazine, 1947)

To paraphrase Second Corinthians: Europe’s despair was Stalin’s opportunity – he delighted in the post-war unemployment, the inflation and the general lack of confidence in their governmental institutions. When the Marshall Plane came to the rescue in rebuilding Europe, the Soviets knew they were licked. This article reveals how totally bummed the Soviets were over the broad European acceptance of the Marshall plan. They hated it.

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One Month Into the Berlin Blockade (Pathfinder Magazine, 1948)

The firm of Uncle Sam and John Bull flying grocers, kept the Western Allies in the Battle for Berlin last week… If the peace continues, the U.S. British estimated, by mid-July there will be enough food in Berlin’s stockpile to feed the 2 million Germans in western sectors of the capital until September 1… Supplying fuel and coal was another problem…

The article is accompanied by one cartoon from THE NEW YORK HERALD TRIBUNE.

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Thoughts on Blouses (Pathfinder Magazine, 1947)

By the time 1947 was coming to a close, an enormous shift in the fashion winds had taken place that altered the silhouette of the fashionable woman. Waists were narrow, hips were padded – and the hemline had dropped as much as twelve inches. The New Look out of Paris dictated the appearances of suits and evening wear, but blouses were left out of the revolution – everyone had to figure it out for themselves and hope that the couturiers from across the sea would come to the rescue the following season.

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America Prepares… (Pathfinder Magazine, 1941)

By late November, 1941, only children and the clinically optimistic were of the mind that America would be able to keep out of a war – as you’ll be able to assume when you read the attached article that appeared on the newsstands just ten days before the attack on Pearl Harbor. It extolls the industrial prowess of the United States as the country prepared for war:

• William S. Knudson (1879 – 1948), Director of the OPM, declared U.S. arms output will soon ‘assure Hitler’s defeat’. Proof of this claim was seen in the celebration in New Haven, Connecticut, of one company’s production of it’s 10,000th machine-gun within a year of the time the contract was signed to build a plant.

• The launching of the 35,000-ton battleship INDIANA at Newport News, Virginia, the third battleship to come off the ways this year, indicated the increased tempo of defense production, which Admiral Land, of the Maritime Commission, said neared ‘superhuman’.

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Meet Joseph Goebbels (Pathfinder Magazine, 1938

Goebbels is the creator of the Hitler legend. He is the white-washer of the Nazi reputation. In the 1920s the party had an unsavory name because its ranks included a clique of of homosexuals. As early as 1922 a Nazi meeting at Munich voted that no woman should ever hold political office. Goebbels twisted the party’s abnormal dislike of women into something ‘respectable’ – the doctrine that a woman’s place was in the kitchen and the maternity ward.

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Goering in Italy (Pathfinder Magazine, 1937)

The journalist who penned the attached article was in the dark as to the reasons why Reichsmarshal Herman Goring appeared in Rome during the opening weeks of January, 1937, but he wisely presumed that it had something to do with the Spanish Civil War – and he was right.

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The 1938 Spies (Pathfinder Magazine, 1938)

Suddenly last June, a Federal grand jury in New York City hoisted the curtain on ‘America’s most significant spy prosecution since the [First] World War’ by indicting 18 persons for participating in a conspiracy to steal U.S. defense secrets for Germany. Subsequently, only four of the 18 could be found for trial. The others, including two high officials of the German War Ministry, were safe in – or had escaped to – the Fatherland.

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Modular Housing (Pathfinder Magazine, 1947)

After eight years of research, the National Retail Lumber Dealers Association and the Producers’ Council, an organization of building materials manufacturers, have polished up all the known short-cut, dollar-saving methods in building, packaged them into an industry-wide program, and labeled them the ‘four-inch module plan.’… The house is built on of three sections, each 16 x 24 feet, and bolted at floor, walls and roof. Wall joints are hidden by cabinets; by simply removing top and side cabinets, bolts can be loosened and the house readied for moving on trailers.

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The Solar Motor (Pathfinder Magazine, 1935)

Pictured herein is Dr. C.W. Hewlett – early proponent of solar energy.
He was employed by the research department at General Electric and can be seen demonstrating his brainchild, the Solar Electric Motor:

Four small, round iron plates constitute the cell which converts the light into power. The plates are coated with selenium over which is an extremely thin layer of platinum. Both of the metals are ‘light sensitive’ and convert certain of the the rays into electricity, but as to just how this is done science is pretty vague.

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