The Literary Digest

Articles from The Literary Digest

Anticipating Elizabeth II (Literary Digest, 1937)

When Edward VIII chose to abdicate, the world’s attention shifted to the new heir, the Duke of York (George VI: 1895 – 1952) and his daughter, Elizabeth (Elizabeth II: b. 1926). This magazine article served to introduce the future queen to American readers – making clear that the princess was something like a British version of the Hollywood child star, Shirley Temple – often imitated and recognized as the gold standard of girlhood. Written during the depression, her lavish, story-book existence seemed unreal to many.

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An Islamic View of Western Imperialism (Literary Digest, 1908)

The Indian Muslim scholar Syed Ameer Ali (1849 – 1928) is remembered as a man who, at times, fully recognized that there were indeed some benefits in store for the developing nations serving as colonies with the British Empire; but in the attached 1908 column, the man preferred to only list the damnable qualities of colonization:


A few years ago ‘Spread-eagleism’ was used for mere purposes of ridicule; christened ‘Imperialism’ it has acquired a holy meaning – it sanctions crusades against the liberty of weaker states…England treats her provincials worse than Rome did.


[NOTE: The author of this piece mistakenly assumed Ali to have been a follower of Hinduism.]


An article about the Muslim opinion concerning
Christianity can be read here…

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Will Prohibition Create More Drug Users? (The Literary Digest, 1922)

It stands to reason that when one addictive drug disappears, the users will seek another drug to serve as a substitute – and although Wikipedia stated that drug addiction rose 44.6% throughout the course of Prohibition, this 1922 article reported that (at least for the first three years of the law) narcotics use remained at it’s pre-1919 levels.


Click here to read about the problems of American drug addicts in the Forties…

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‘Why Germany Must Pay” (The Literary Digest, 1921)

The war that Germany began and lost cost the Allies, according to a recent estimate, the stupendous total of $177,000,000,000. The Reparations Commission has named a principal sum of about $32,000,000,000 as the damages for which reparations by Germany is due under the Treaty of Versailles. The Supreme Council of the Allies, sitting at Paris in January, placed the amount to be paid by Germany at a present value of $21,000,000,000, which when paid with interest and in installments covering forty-two years, would amount to about $55,000,000,000.

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Russia’s Women Soldiers of W.W. I (Literary Digest, 1917)

The attached news article from 1917 reported on the a Russian combat unit that consisted entirely of women soldiers called The Battalion of Death:

The courage of the Battalion of Death when the actual test came is the subject of many enthusiastic Petrograd dispatches. They behaved splendidly under fire, penetrating into a first-line trench of the Germans and brought back prisoners.

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He Made the Pictures Move (The Literary Digest, 1921)

Ten million people a day go to the movies in the United States, but how many of them know who made the first movie? The Noes have it. The man who made the first motion-picture, as we know it today, is C. Francis Jenkins (1867 – 1934). Many [actresses] who have not been ‘in pictures’ a month are better known.


C. Francis Jenkins was also one of the brainiacs who contributed his talent to the invention of television.

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The Biggest Investor In The War (The Literary Digest, 1921)

Here is an article that deals with the money aspect of the First World War. Illustrated with two tables, the journalist explains that the United States laid out far more money than any of the combatant nations. Albeit the funds extended were in the form of loans to the Entente powers rather than the creation of their own military, in the end the U.S. ended up being the one nation that invested the most in the war.

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