The Literary Digest

Articles from The Literary Digest

America Vilified in the European Press (Literary Digest, 1928)

Envy and admiration as well as ridicule and praise are found in the many articles the European press devoted to this country. Our big business astonishes them, our so-called lack of culture inspires thinly veiled contempt, while our homicide records lead some rather irascible English critics to speak of the United States as ‘the Land of Liberty – for the murderer.’

Yet for all their contempt there was one thing they couldn’t live without: click here to read an article about how much the Europeans loved American silent comedies.

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More Laws for the Germans (Literary Digest, 1936)

With no check of legislative body or court, the Nazi triumvirate had decreed that smuggling money or shares out of Germany, and failure to bring into Germany money from goods sold abroad, should be punishable by death.Today shadows have fallen upon the once-proud German universities. The professors have been forced out of the temples of learning or driven into exile or subjected to a subtle pressure which has changed their academic detachment into clumsy conformity with Hitler’s ideals.


Click here to read Hitler’s plan for German youth.

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Martin Niemöller (Literary Digest, 1935)

Remembered as the poetic soul who penned the famous Holocaust verse, First they came for…, Martin Niemöller (Friedrich Gustav Emil Martin Niemöller 1892 – 1984) is characterized in this 1935 article as a remarkably brave theologian who was challenging the Nazi Reichsbishop Ludwig Mueller and Dr. Alfred Rosenberg for their assault on the Protestant Churches in Germany:

Now Niemöller is resisting the attack of the German Christian Party, a neopaganistic movement, on the old Protestant faith, in fact. He was not molested when he read to his congregation the manifesto of the Confessional Synod’ Brotherhood Council.All most know that there is a bitter propaganda campaign against the Church under way. We must fight against this and for active, not passive, Christianity.

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Martin Niemöller (Literary Digest, 1935)

Remembered as the poetic soul who penned the famous Holocaust verse, First they came for…, Martin Niemöller (Friedrich Gustav Emil Martin Niemöller 1892 – 1984) is characterized in this 1935 article as a remarkably brave theologian who was challenging the Nazi Reichsbishop Ludwig Mueller and Dr. Alfred Rosenberg for their assault on the Protestant Churches in Germany:

Now Niemöller is resisting the attack of the German Christian Party, a neopaganistic movement, on the old Protestant faith, in fact. He was not molested when he read to his congregation the manifesto of the Confessional Synod’ Brotherhood Council.All most know that there is a bitter propaganda campaign against the Church under way. We must fight against this and for active, not passive, Christianity.

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Martin Niemöller (Literary Digest, 1935)

Remembered as the poetic soul who penned the famous Holocaust verse, First they came for…, Martin Niemöller (Friedrich Gustav Emil Martin Niemöller 1892 – 1984) is characterized in this 1935 article as a remarkably brave theologian who was challenging the Nazi Reichsbishop Ludwig Mueller and Dr. Alfred Rosenberg for their assault on the Protestant Churches in Germany:

Now Niemöller is resisting the attack of the German Christian Party, a neopaganistic movement, on the old Protestant faith, in fact. He was not molested when he read to his congregation the manifesto of the Confessional Synod’ Brotherhood Council.All most know that there is a bitter propaganda campaign against the Church under way. We must fight against this and for active, not passive, Christianity.

Martin Niemöller (Literary Digest, 1935) Read More »

Martin Niemöller (Literary Digest, 1935)

Remembered as the poetic soul who penned the famous Holocaust verse, First they came for…, Martin Niemöller (Friedrich Gustav Emil Martin Niemöller 1892 – 1984) is characterized in this 1935 article as a remarkably brave theologian who was challenging the Nazi Reichsbishop Ludwig Mueller and Dr. Alfred Rosenberg for their assault on the Protestant Churches in Germany:

Now Niemöller is resisting the attack of the German Christian Party, a neopaganistic movement, on the old Protestant faith, in fact. He was not molested when he read to his congregation the manifesto of the Confessional Synod’ Brotherhood Council.All most know that there is a bitter propaganda campaign against the Church under way. We must fight against this and for active, not passive, Christianity.

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High Culture in World War One Prison Camps (Literary Digest, 1917)

This two page article is about P.O.W.s and the plays and concerts that they launched while in captivity; it is illustrated by numerous images of the prisoner/performers in costume.


If you are looking for an article that spells out how much more educated people used to be as compared to now, you might have found it.


Click here to read about the W.W. II Canadian POWs who collaborated with the Nazis.


Click here to read about American POWs during the Vietnam War.

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Her Divorces (Literary Digest, 1936)

An interesting article that reported on the the successful filing of Mrs. Simpson’s second divorce (a photo of the document is attached) with a few words mentioned regarding the stigma of divorce within court circles and how ruthlessly she was treated by the American press corps:

Nobody mentioned the King. For that matter, no British newspaper mentioned that Mrs. Simpson was his friend.
But minutes before the Baltimore belle slipped out of Ipswich Assizes with her second divorce in her pocket, a million conversations were being launched around the world with the phrase:

‘Now that she’s free-‘

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Can Mrs. Simpson Marry the King? (Literary Digest, 1936)

Once the cat was out of the bag and the whole world had learned of the whirlwind romance between the King of England and the twice-divorced American social-climber Wallis Simpson (1896 – 1986), one of the favorite social pastimes soon involved musing aloud as to whether British laws would permit him to marry such a woman. Constitutionally, the King cannot marry a Roman Catholic, which she was (although this journalist erroneously stated that she wasn’t); recognizing he couldn’t get around this law, he abdicated.

This article can be printed.

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