The Literary Digest

Articles from The Literary Digest

Helmets Along the Western Front (Literary Digest, 1915)

The tremendous advances in artillery that took place during the years leading up to the war helped to reintroduce an old, time-tested element to the uniforms of the 20th Century soldier: the helmet.


So numerous were head injuries from high-explosive shells during the first year of the war that it compelled the doctors on both sides to beg their respective generals to issue some measure of cranium protection in order to reduce the casualty figures. As you will read in the attached article, the French began to wear helmets in the fall of 1915; the British and Germans a year later.

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General John Rawlins: General Grant’s Chief of Staff (The Literary Digest, 1917)

Attached is a review of a biography covering the life and times of Brigadier General John Rawlins (1831 – 1869). Rawlins distinguished himself as the Chief of Staff to General Ulysses S. Grant during the American Civil War. It is explained that the two met while Grant was engaged as a sales clerk at a leather shop which was owned by Rawlin’s brother; at the outbreak of the war, in 1861, Grant’s skill as an officer became clear to many and with each promotion he was able to secure Rawlins’ certain advancements in grade. By 1863 Rawlins was promoted to Brigadier General. During Grant’s term in the White House, Rawlins served as Secretary of War.
The author of the book, Major-General James Harrison Wilson, is remembered as the man who captured Confederate President Jefferson Davis in flight; the review of his autobiography can be read here.

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‘Lady Macbeth of Mzensk” by Dmitri Shostakovich (Literary Digest, 1935)

The Cleveland Orchestra, on February 5 [1935], with Arthur Rodzinski conducting, will introduce to New York ‘Lady Macbeth of Mzensk’, an opera by twenty-eight year-old Soviet composer, Dmitri Shostakovich.

Shostakovich completed the work in December, 1932. It is the first of a projected cycle of four operas in which the composer plans to trace the condition of women in Russia…

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The First Five Year Plan (The Literary Digest, 1933)

A 1933 magazine article that reported on the success of the Soviet Union’s first (of many) Five Year Plans.


The myriad five year economic development plans dreamed-up by the assorted butchers of the dear dead Soviet Union all had one thing in common that was never lost on the Russian people: they always involved the construction of new factories, but never the construction of new housing.


Additional magazine and newspaper articles about the Cold War may be read on this page.

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Are the Indians of Jewish Origin? (The Literary Digest, 1912)

The earliest encounters with the Native American had left the brain trust of Europe entirely baffled. The persistent matter as to who these people were remained an unanswered question well into the Nineteenth Century, for in order to qualify as a member of enlightened classes, a fellow had to show some sufficiency in at least two fields: classical literature and the Bible. Therefore, it stood to their reasoning that the inhabitants of the Americas had their story told in one of those two fields of study. Some of Europe’s elite were convinced that these people were descendants of the survivors of Troy, who, fearing the Greeks, caught a strong wind which allowed them to sail both the Mediterranean as well as the Atlantic and arrive on that far distant shore. Others tended to believe that the Native American could only have descended from the lost tribes of Israel, which is the topic of this one page article.

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Fascists in Chile (Literary Digest, 1933)

Cabled from Santiago, Chile came this report that on May 7, 1933 the broad-belted boulevards of that grand city were filled with 15,000 Chilean fascists, cheered on by a crowed that was estimated at a number higher than 400,000 – a throng composed almost entirely of citizens who had all come to see the first parade of the Nacional Milicia Republicana:

Along the lines of the march there were many demonstrations for the Fascists, and a few against them. Women tossed flowers from flag-bedecked windows. Domingo Duran, Minister of Education and Justice, a regimental commander of the militia, received almost continual applause.

A squadron of Fascist planes flew overhead as the units, unarmed, and marching to airs played by two dozen bands and fife corps, moved through the spacious Boulevard Alamada, past the Presidential Palace to the Plaza des Aramas.


From Amazon: Chile and the Nazis: From Hitler to Pinochetstyle=border:none

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The Truce of Tangku (The Literary Digest, 1933)

This 1933 news piece concerned the cessation of hostilities that was agreed upon by both the Imperial Empire of Japan and China in the campaign that began two years earlier with the Japanese invasion of Manchuria.

When the withdrawal of Chinese troops is completed, the Japanese agree that their own troops will retire to the Great Wall, which the Japanese claim is the boundary of the state of Manchukuo.

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