Recent Articles – Page 11 – Old Magazine Articles

America’s First Brush With Multiculturalism
(American Legion Weekly, 1922)

Like many Americans in the Twenties, the journalist who penned the attached article was totally irked by the concept of an American territory – bound for statehood – having a majority Asian population. He wrote at a time when the nation was deeply concerned about assimilating America’s immigrants and his indignation can clearly be sensed.

America’s First Brush With Multiculturalism
(American Legion Weekly, 1922) Read More »

She Fought in the Trenches (Liberty Magazine, 1938)

Well, Monsieur, did I ever tell you about the time I was a Doughboy in the Great war?

This is the story of Marie Marvingt (1875 – 1963), an amazing French woman who did indeed serve in the forward trenches disguised as a man during the Summer of 1917.

She Fought in the Trenches (Liberty Magazine, 1938) Read More »

The Birth of Airline Food (Coronet Magazine, 1945)

Newton Wilson, a modest, quiet, somewhat academic man who never leaps before he looks through, in and around a situation, became the 20th Century innovator of precise recipes; a sort of Fanny Farmer of flying.

Click here to read about the earliest airline stewardesses…

The Birth of Airline Food (Coronet Magazine, 1945) Read More »

Home Front Teen Slang (Yank Magazine, 1945)

A 1945 Yank Magazine article concerning American teen culture on the W.W. II home front in which the journalist/anthropologist paid particular attention to the teen-age slang of the day.

Some of today’s teenagers —pleasantly not many — talk the strange new language of sling swing. In this bright lexicon of the good citizens of tomorrow, a girl with sex appeal is an able Grable or a ready Hedy. A pretty girl is whistle bait. A boy whose mug and muscles appeal to the girls is a mellow man, a hunk of heart break or a glad lad.

To read about one of the fashion legacies of W.W. II, click here…

Click here to learn how the Beatniks spoke.
Click here if you would like to read a glossary of WAC slang terms.

•Suggested Reading• Flappers 2 Rappers: American Youth Slang

Home Front Teen Slang (Yank Magazine, 1945) Read More »

Greta Garbo’s First Impressions of Hollywood (Photoplay Magazine, 1930)

Greta Garbo (1905 – 1990) was well known for keeping to herself and preferring to act on movie sets free of executives, pals and all sorts of other hangers-on and she was very famous for refusing to grant members of the press corps interviews. With that in mind, it is a wonder that Katherine Albert of PHOTOPLAY MAGAZINE was able to piece enough together for this 1930 article:

She has no place in the life of Hollywood. She has never adapted herself to it.

Garbo will continue to remain an enigma…

Click here to read about early cosmetic surgery in Hollywood.

Greta Garbo’s First Impressions of Hollywood (Photoplay Magazine, 1930) Read More »

Who Pays the Bills Racked-Up in a Socialist State? (Literary Digest, 1894)

This article was written long before the crumbling Euro and the economic collapse of Greece, Spain, Portugal, Venezuela, East Germany and the USSR – it is an 1894 editorial that outlines why socialism cannot not work:

He insists that all previous Social evolutions have meant an improvement in production and an increase in income, but the peculiarity of the Socialistic programme is that “it is to be not a money-making, but a money-spending evolution,” in which “everybody is to live a great deal better than he has been in the habit of living, and to have far more fun.

This 1946 article argued that Socialism is simply un-American…

Who Pays the Bills Racked-Up in a Socialist State? (Literary Digest, 1894) Read More »

When President Truman Tried his Hand at ”Distributing Wealth” (Pathfinder Magazine, 1949)

It seems like a tough nut to swallow, but 12 years before President Obama was even born – U.S. President Harry S. Truman plugged the idea of ‘wealth distribution’ as a portion of a piece of proposed legislation that has come to be known as the the Fair Deal. The president’s scheme was introduced to the nation in his 1949 State of the Union address, it was composed of 21 points and the element that is discussed in the attached article involving distribution of income was called the Brannan Plan – for it was U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Charles F. Brannan (1903 – 1992) who was its advocate. Secretary Brannan wanted the government to establish a guaranteed income for farmers, while allowing the market forces to determine the prices of agricultural products.

When President Truman Tried his Hand at ”Distributing Wealth” (Pathfinder Magazine, 1949) Read More »

Discovering the Color of the Earth (Literary Digest, 1933

Generations before satellite photography, and long before the T.V. cameras were placed on the moon, an American astronomer named V.M. Slipher (1875 – 1969) figured out the predominate color of our planet when seen from afar. Read on…

Discovering the Color of the Earth (Literary Digest, 1933 Read More »

The Pandemic of 1918 (Scribner’s Magazine, 1938)

The Spanish Influenza (February 1918 – April 1920) struck hard in the U.S. Army camps. Every fourth man came down with the flu, every twenty-fourth man caught pneumonia, every sixth man died.

By the time the virus ran its course in the United States 675,000 Americans would succumb (although this article estimated the loss at 500,000).

The Pandemic of 1918 (Scribner’s Magazine, 1938) Read More »

Discovered: The Tomb of King Tutankhamun (Literary Digest, 1923)

One of the first American magazine articles heralding the November 4, 1922 discovery of the ancient tomb of King Tutankhamen (1341 BC – 1323 BC) by the British archaeologist Howard Carter (1874 – 1939); who was in this article, erroneously sited as an American:

What is thought may prove the greatest archeological discovery of all time has recently been made in Egypt, in the Valley of the Kings, near Luxor. Two chambers of a tomb have been found filled with the funeral paraphernalia of the Egyptian King Tutankhamen, and hopes are entertained that the third chamber, yet unopened, may contain the royal mummy itself.

Discovered: The Tomb of King Tutankhamun (Literary Digest, 1923) Read More »