Recent Articles – Page 144 – Old Magazine Articles

The Sten Gun (Collier’s Magazine, 1943)

The Sten gun was hastily created after the catastrophic retreat from Dunkirk when it was widely believed that the invasion of England was inevitable. The British Home Guard requested an easily produced sub-machine gun that could be quickly assembled and easily used by those who have never had any firearm training whatever. Dubbed the ten dollar gun, the Sten gun met all these requirements and more; over four million of them were manufactured throughout the Forties and although they were never used to defend the British Isles, they were parachuted en masse to the partisan armies in Europe.

The attached article is illustrated with six images and tells the story of the Sten Mark II and the small Canadian factory that produced them. Interesting stories are told and there are pictures of cute Canadian girls.

The Hungarian Uprising of 1956 (Collier’s Magazine, 1957)

The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 was a nationwide revolt against the government of the Hungarian People’s Republic and its Soviet-imposed policies, lasting from 23 October until 10 November 1956. Though leaderless when it first began, it was the first major threat to Soviet control since the USSR’s forces drove Nazi Germany from its territory at the end of World War II.

Social Washington During the Depression (Literary Digest, 1937)

Washington Society, long shackled, kicked the lid off last week, swung into the most dazzling season it has had since the Depression spawned bread lines, and knocked the wealthy back on their heels.

Money is spinning again; hostesses are plotting major campaigns; diamonds and pearls are coming out for renewed display; caviar and terrapin reign supreme once more…

Click here to read about American high society during the Depression years.

Supplying the A.E.F. in Siberia (The Stars and Stripes, 1918)

Special woolen coats and breeches and underwear, long mufflers, worsted socks and long stockings, gloves and gauntlets are other things which are being issued to the Doughboys in Russia. Alaska Yanks are said to be right at home in their new surroundings, although they complain sometimes of the heat.

An additional article is attached concerning the supply of medals that had to be shipped North; reading between the lines, you will get a sense that much gallantry was expected…

When the Doughboys complained, they complained heavily about their uniforms; read about it here.

1913 American Films (”Our Times”, 1936)

As the rosy fingered dawn came upon America in 1913 it found Douglas Fairbanks, the man who would soon be Silent Hollywood’s fair haired boy, wowing the crowds on Broadway. The play, Hawthorne of the U.S.A., starred Fairbanks in the title roll and closed after 72 performances; he was also married to a woman who wasn’t named Pickford – but rather named Anna Beth Sully, who had sired his namesake. Life was good for the actor and he wouldn’t turn his gaze West for another two years. By contrast, his future bride, Mary Pickford (né Gladys Smith, 1892 – 1979) had been prancing before the cameras since 1909 and by the time 1913 rolled around had appeared in well-over 100 short films and earned the nickname Little Mary.

A Profile of Mahatma Gandhi (The Independent, 1921)

Attached is a 1921 account of the anti-colonial struggles waged by the forty-eight year old Mahatma Mohandas Karamachand Gandhi (1869 – 1948). This well-illustrated article from THE INDEPENDENT touched on Gandhi’s popularity among the Indian people of all faiths, his various boycotts and acts of non-cooperation as well as comments made by his admiring British adversaries.

A Profile of Mahatma Gandhi (The Independent, 1921)

Bauhaus Exhibit Smeared by Critics (Art Digest, 1939)

With all the best wishes in the world, it is impossible to suppress the feeling that there is something essentially heavy, forced and repellent in most of the Bauhaus work. They are under suspicion of being modern for the sake of being modern and not because of any necessities of their system of living.

-so wrote the well-respected art critic Henry McBride (1867 – 1962) in response to the groundbreaking 1938 exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art, Bauhaus 1919 – 1928. McBride did not mince words in expressing his belief that the Bauhaus was not a genuine art school and that the MoMA showed poor judgment by lamenting it’s passing. McBride is remembered as having been a longtime advocate of modernism, a champion of the 1913 Armory Show, and supporter of the new and untried, but for him, the Bauhaus represented the art of the poseur.

Bauhaus Exhibit Smeared by Critics (Art Digest, 1939)

The Streamlining of Cars (Creative Art Magazine, 1936)

Industrial designer Egmont Arens (1889 – 1966) wrote the attached design review covering the American cars of 1937:

Perhaps it was just one of life’s little ironies that overtook the automobile manufacturers a year ago. In their zeal to provide what they called ‘streamlined’ design, they took the tear-drop for their model, and the results were tearful indeed – to the sales managers. For they all looked alike…

The word ‘Streamlining’ got everybody a little confused, I am afraid, and off the track. Here was a term out of aerodynamics, invented to describe a solid shape that moves easily through fluid mediums, as the wings and fuselage of an airplane. The human eye responded gratefully to the flow of line prescribed by the laws of physics, and thus streamlining became synonymous with modern beauty. Industrial designers sprang up at every hand, and their main business was ‘streamlining’.

Read about the Great Depression and the U.S. auto industry…