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Television with All It’s Possibilities
(Stage Magazine, 1939)

There wasn’t a single soul in 1939 would have imagined that television would be the sort of venue that would allow millions of strangers to see Tyra Banks get a breast exam, but that is the kind of institution it has become.

STAGE MAGAZINE correspondent Alan Rinehart was astonished that so much dough was being invested in such a young industry, yet he recognized that T.V. was capable of much good, but was also capable of generating the kind of banality that we’re used to.

What then, will be the entertainment value of television?…What’s to be the entertainment? Why should we tune in? Will we get more than we will on the radio?…The revolutionary idea about television is that the medium has been developed before the art. It’s as if the piano had been invented before music, or paint and canvas before drawing.

The Hollywood Happenings in the Spring of ’44
(Yank Magazine, 1944)

Tenderly ripped from the brittle pages of a 1944 issue of YANK MAGAZINE was this short paragraph which explained all the goings-on within the sun-bleached confines of Hollywood, California:

Rita Hayworth steps into the top spot in the Columbia production, ‘Tonight and Every Night’; Ethel Barrymore returns to the screen after 11 years’ absence to share honors with with Cary Grant in ‘None but the Loney Heart’…In ‘Something for the Boys’ Carmen Miranda will sing ‘Mairzy Doats’… etc, etc, etc.

Can There be Peace with Stalin?
(United States News & World Report, 1948)

The Berlin Blockade was already six weeks old when this article appeared proclaiming that peace with the Soviet Union was still possible:

Russia and the U.S. are in the midst of another showdown on peace. Odds favor a settlement, not war.

Peace terms are shifting closer to compromise. Russia is more interested in seeking peace, less interested in stalling… Each side is out to get the best possible terms. But prospects for easing the tension of cold war are good.


Click here to read about the Berlin Blockade.

1950s Golf Attire
(Gentry Magazine, 1953)

Attached you will find a number of black and white images illustrating the general look for 1950s golfers – and if you’ve been looking for an article that explains the fashion sense of every single retired U.S. President for te past fifty years, you may have found it.

The fashions illustrated herein also provide today’s costume designers with a sense of how retired crooners preferred to look as well.

An Advertisement for W.W. I Officer Boots
(Stars and Stripes, 1918)

A black and white illustration showing the sort of British made boot favored by American officers during World War One. A look at the many pictures which depicted the officers of the A.E.F. and it is clear to see that the lace-to-the-knee style of trench boot was much preferred over other varieties. However, many pictures from the closing days of the war tend to also indicate the line officer’s preference for ankle-boots with puttees.

A.E.F. Deployment Compared to B.E.F. Deployment
(U.S. Gov. 1931)

Attached is a graph comparing the amount of time it took for both the British Army and the American Army to have 2,000,000 soldiers on the Western Front during World War One:

The British sent to France many more men in their first year in the war than we did in our first year. On the other hand, it took England three years to reach a strength of 2,000,000 men in France and the United States accomplished it in one half the time.

American Negros in the Great War
(Leslie’s Weekly, 1920)

This is a World War I article listing many of the patriotic commitments that the African-American community devoted to the 1917 – 1918 war efforts:

The war has transformed the American Negro into the Negro American. Because he has been doing big things for his country his sense of national unity grown; his citizenship became a living reality.

They have contributed 300,000 of their young men to the American Army. Of these 1,000 are commissioned officers of the line…One entire regiment was decorated for bravery and several individual soldiers have been cited for deeds of great valor.

Meet Ann Fish: Conde Nast Illustrator
(Vanity Fair, 1919)

Some ninety-three years ago, Fish was the name scribbled on those unique cartoon illustrations that could be found throughout VOGUE (both American and British) and VANITY FAIR. The editor of American VOGUE between the years 1914 and 1952, Edna Woolman Chase (1877 – 1957) called this English cartoonist brilliant and began running her drawings from her earliest days in that office; her full name was Ann Fish and this article will tell you all we know about her.

This most cosmopolitan of living black-and-white satirists has never stirred from England in all her days. She has never especially extended herself as a spectator of the London life which she so amusingly depicts. She has never gazed on Fifth Avenue.

The Evolution of the U.S. Army Web Belt
(Outing Magazine, 1918)

The attached article, How Our Soldiers Carry Their Ammunition, was originally published in a 1918 sporting magazine and gives an account as to how one uniform element unique to the U.S. and British military establishments came into prominence during the earliest years of the Twentieth Century. Written by Paul A Curtis, Jr., the essay describes the difficulties inherit with leather belting, the British need for an alternate material in order to maintain colonial regiments in India and the father of the American web belt, General Anson Mills (1834 – 1924).


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

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