Articles from The Literary Digest
This historic article appeared during the opening weeks of Roosevelt’s first term administration announcing that the new president was taking a novel approach in granting various appointments to government positions of leadership by selecting numerous women who had proved their mettle in the fiery furnace of 1920s Democratic party politics.
1924 was a very important year for American women in politics…
Bombs rained like hailstones and churned the waters all around the ship like geysers.’ said Earl Leaf, United Press correspondent in China and eyewitness of the sinking of the United States gunbpat PANAY
His Majesty’s Ambassador to Tokyo has made the strongest protest to the Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs.’
Click here if you would like to read more about the sinking of the U.S.S. Panay.
The British philosopher Bertrand Russell (1872 – 1970; Nobel Prize for Literature, 1950) used to get mighty hot under the collar when the topic of American society came up and this column is just one example. During his 1922 American speaking tour Russell rambled-on about how prone Americans were to confuse the truth with commercial messages; believing that altruism was seldom a motivating factor behind a single American undertaking. He will have none of the thinking that America’s main concern for jumping into the meat grinder of 1914-1918 was entirely inspired by wounded France and poor little Belgium but was rather an exercise in American self-interest.
Read the thoughts of one W.W. I veteran who regrets having gone to war…
The old flesh sculptor himself, Donald Loomis, late Physical Director for MGM Studios, let loose with some 1930s tips as to how he was able to make all those movie stars look so utterly fabulous – some are quite useful (some are pathetic).
Symmetry is the objective of Hollywood body sculptors. For bust-reduction, Loomis has a simple formula: Jump up and down with no support. Exercise in which the arms are forced backward and forward horizontally are used to develop the upper chest…
Click here to read an article about the demise of a popular 1940s hairstyle.
Attached are the thoughts of German socialist Karl Liebknecht (1871 – 1919) concerning the matter as to why he believed the British working classes seemed so thoroughly unenthusiastic about launching a socialist rebellion in their country.
For some in the U.S. Congress and for President Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924) in particular, the prohibition of alcohol in the United States (passed by Congress on November 1, 1918) was simply viewed as an appropriate war-time measure guaranteed to maintain the productivity of an efficient working class. However, with the First World War coming to a close, President Wilson saw little need in keeping the entire law as it was written, and he suggested allowing the sale and distribution of beer and wine. This article will inform you of the political will of the dry members of congress as well as the strength of the American clergy in 1919
The Franco-Russian Alliance (1892 – 1917) was a military partnership uniting the Russian empire of Alexander III Alexandrovich and the French Third Republic under President Marie François Sadi Carnot. It was a key element that contributed to the deep sense of insecurity experienced by Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany. When one reads the attached article from 1897, with it’s strong anti-German language, you will come away wondering why the First World War didn’t begin sooner:
France may now hope to regain her lost provinces with the help of Russia. The hour of revenge has come. Alsace Lorraine will once more be French…
Photographs of a small, hand-held helium balloon being loaded with German translations of President Wilson’s April (1917) war address in order that they might be released over the German trenches. This small notice makes clear that this particular method of persuasion resulted in fifty Germans surrendering.
While Western Europe was all ablaze during the Spring of 1915, many Americans were tapping their toes to a catchy tune titled, I Didn’t Raise my Boy to be a Soldier (by Alfred Bryan and Al Piantadosi). This really irked the editors at THE SPECTATOR who let their fingers trip across the typewriter keyboard at a tremendous speed spewing-out all sorts of unflattering adjectives; they even went so far as to rewrite a few verses.
In order to take advantage of the local talent abiding in the sleepy film colony of Hollywood, the far-seeing executives at NBC and CBS saw fit to open radio and television broadcasting facilities in that far, distant burg.
The trek to Hollywood of the Broadcasting companies began in earnest last winter when the National Broadcasting Company opened a large building – fire-proof, earthquake-proof, sound-proof and air-conditioned.
Americans of the mid-Nineteenth Century who entertained any social ambitions at all were totally at a loss as to how they might find their place in the business world, much less the swank and pomp of polite society, if they were without any understanding as to the manners required to open these doors. Unable to benefit from such T.V. shows as Dallas or Dynasty and finding that Emily Post was no where in view, they found a reliable ally in a collection of pamphlets briefly published by the firm of Beadle & Adams.
With the centennial re-running of the New York to Paris race beginning this May (2008), it is interesting to read about the authentic 1908 contest and the difficulties they faced in a world without proper roads.
Interest in the New York – to – Paris race, temporarily suspended by the failure to find a passable road in Alaska…
The German military maneuvers have aroused the attention of Europe to the splendid equipment and administration of the Army, not only in the fighting spirit, but in the commissariat and its medical service.
-so begins the attached article which referenced the overall sense of intimidation and uneasiness that was triggered by the display of bristling military might that was recently witnessed. The journalist mused about just what the Franco-Russian Alliance would mean in the face of such an advanced military force, touching upon the size of the German Army compared with other forces in Europe -openly stating that France could never stand up to an attack.
Written in response to the loud cries generated by those would-be pioneering couch-potatoes, this article presents a lengthy list of all the technical difficulties the young television broadcasting industry had to deal with in 1937.
First to have commercial television, it is agreed, will be New York City, then Philadelphia. In both of these cities transmitting-stations already exist. Advancement to other urban centers will be slower. Chicago, for example will have commercial television only after it has been made to pay in New York and Philadelphia. As each city’s television enterprises become self-supporting, installation will be begun in a new center.
The aggressive ambitions of Japan know no bounds. The occupation of Peiping [Beijing] will lead to further aggression in Shantung and Shansi and other northern provinces, and will result either in the establishment of a new puppet regime in North China.
The Shanghai SHUN PAO, an independent newspaper, bewails the futility of the uncoordinated resistance which has prevailed among China’s forces since the capture of Jehol, and it adds:
The only possibilities now are peace by compromise or a continuance of war. Despite the dangers of the latter course it is the only possible solution, but resistance must be coordinated under an able leader, China must fight or become a second Korea.
The British Broadcasting Corporation announced that they were capable of transmitting television programming as early as 1935:
The British engineers plan to begin with a single broadcasting tower, capable of transmitting television images to receiving sets within a radius of about thirty miles…British engineers are not the first to try television broadcasting. A station has been operating regularly in Berlin for several months.
…Christianity in America is divided into two camps. The one is orthodox. It’s orthodoxy is apt to degenerate into the senile attachment to the letter of Scripture…There is a lack of mental breadth, of intellectual enlightenment, about the members of this school which is a little disheartening to one who is in agreement with them on the central matters…The other school seems to have sacrificed almost everything which makes Christianity distinct from a temporary philosophy. It’s members have the bad habit of preaching eugenics or sociology in place of the Gospel. They appear to be afraid of the great epistles and the nobler passages of the Gospels, and are apt to speak in terms which would suggest that there was nothing distinctive in Christianity which can make it an absolute and universal faith.
The great meeting held recently in London to launch the Women’s National Anti-suffrage League was made additionally noteworthy by the participation of Mrs. Humphry Ward…
The real reason why women ought not to have the political franchise is the very simple reason that they are not men, and that according to a well-known dictum, even an act of Parliament can not make them men. Men govern the world, and, so far as it is possible to foresee, they must always govern it.
