The American Magazine

Articles from The American Magazine

‘Hello, Central, Give Me Heaven” (The American Magazine, 1943)

Recognizing that simply because he had retired from the ministry, it did not mean that he had retired from spreading the Good News; Reverend J.J.D. Hall immediately began to deliver a sermon with each and every wrong number he received. That was in 1940 – three years later his telephone number was recognized as an institution and a reliable source for those thirsting for knowledge of The Almighty.

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‘School Crises in Dixie” (American Magazine, 1956)

Not since the Civil War has the nation faced such an explosive situation as it will when public schools in the South open their doors next month. In a plea for tolerance, sympathy and understanding in the South as well as the North, Pulitzer Prize award winning journalist Virginius Dabney (1901 – 1995) analyzes and interprets a problem serious to Americans in every section of the country.

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A Blitzkrieg Refugee Speaks (The American Magazine, 1941)

One of Hitler’s refugees from Warsaw recalled the terror of the Nazi attack on her city:

In a mad panic I ran through streets that were a sea of flames, dragging by the hand my two children, aged eight and three. I have seen wounded and dead. I lost many friends and all my belongings. I was a refugee. And for months I suffered hunger and cold… I can still see myself pressed against the wall, holding the children tight, and waiting, waiting for the bomb to crash…


Click here to read about the fall of Paris…

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‘Why Hitler Thinks He’ll Win” (The American Magazine, 1942)

This is a great article, penned by an American correspondent who had actually sat face-to-face with Hitler on numerous occasions. He tells the reader many of his observations concerning the man’s personality, expressions and what he has observed regarding the German people:

I have presented [in this article] the essential psychological and material factors in Hitler’s conviction that he will still win the war. There were signs even while I was still in Germany that the German people have given up the dream of a ‘total victory’ to follow their total war.


More about Adolf Hitler can be read here…

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1920s Road Rage (The American Magazine, 1927)

Is it possible for a person to drive an automobile and remain a human being?

Do gasoline and courtesy mix?

Can you tell me why Ottis Throckmorton Whoozies, secretary of the Golden Rule Society, will smile sweetly, lift his hat and say graciously, ‘I beg your pardon. I’m really awfully sorry. Please excuse me,’ when he accidentally steps on a strange woman’s foot in a theater lobby, yet will lean out and make faces at his own grandmother if she fails to slow up her flivver and allow him to ‘cut in’ on a congested highway?

There’s something about a windshield that distorts a man’s outlook on life.


Click here to read about Lincoln, the joke teller.

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The Man Behind The WAAC Uniforms (The American Magazine, 1942)

Although the WAAC uniforms were designed by Dorthy Shavers (1893 – 1959) of Lord & Taylor, this short article credits U.S. Army Colonel L.O. Grice – who actually served more in the capacity as the Army’s artistic director who supervised the designer.

He picked everything from purses to panties for Uncle Sam’s powder-puff army…


Click here to read about the WAVE’s uniform…

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The Aerial Nurse Corps of America (The American Magazine, 1941)

To read the U.S. magazines and newspapers printed in 1941 is to gain an understanding as to the sixth sense many Americans had in predicting that W.W. II would soon be upon them – and this article is a fine example. One month before Pearl Harbor the editors of AMERICAN MAGAZINE ran this column about Lauretta Schimmoller (1902 – 1981) who established the Aerial Nurse Corps of America, which, at that time, was composed of over 400 volunteers:

All air-minded registered nurses, they stand ready to fly with medical aid to scenes of disaster…Now established on a nation-wide scale, ANCOA, with its 19 national chapters, has already handled more than 3,000 emergency cases.

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Badass (The American Magazine, 1943)

For those who survived it, the Second World War changed many lives – some for better, some for worse. Gale Volchok was rescued from a dreary job in New York retail and delivered to the proving grounds of two different infantry training camps in New Jersey. It was under her watchful eye that thousands of American soldiers learned to throw their enemies into the dirt and generally defend them selves.

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Engaging The Japanese Soldier (The American Magazine, 1945)

Wherever they have fought in this war, the Japs have shown an amazing aptitude for the queer and fantastic. They have staged solemn funeral processions in the midst of hot battle. They have blown themselves to bits with hand grenades, have stabbed themselves with daggers, sabers, bayonets and even with scythes. They plunged forward in stupidly blind Banzai charges. They have danced wildly atop ridges while exposed to American fire. And they have directed artillery action while lounging in hammocks.

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