Recent Articles – Page 34 – Old Magazine Articles

Jihad Against ‘The New Look’
(See Magazine, 1948)

A former fashion model, Bobbie Woodward, was outraged when she awoke that morning in 1947 to find that the hidden hairy hand that decides which direction the fashion winds will blow had given the nod to some snail-eating Frenchman who stood athwart fashion’s unspoken promise to continue the skirt hem’s march ever-upward. Wasting no time, she quickly marshaled other equally inclined women and formed The Little Below the Knee Clubs, which spread to forty-eight states (as well as Canada) in order to let the fashion establishment know that they would not be forced into wearing this fashion juggernaut known as The New Look.

The attached SEE MAGAZINE article serves as a photo-essay documenting the collective outrage of these women and their doomed crusade against Christian Dior.

One 1947 fashion critic believed that the New Look suffered from a split personality. Click here to read her review.

The King Tiger Tank
(U.S. Dept. of War, 1945)

This article is illustrated with a photograph of the King Tiger tank and accompanied by some vital statistics and assorted observations that were documented by the U.S. Department of War and printed in one of their manuals in March of 1945:

The king Tiger is a tank designed essentially for defensive warfare or for breaking through strong lines of defense. It is unsuitable for rapid maneuver and highly mobile warfare because of its great weight and and low speed…The King Tiger virtually is invulnerable to frontal attack, but the flanks, which are less well protected, can be penetrated by Allied antitank weapons at most normal combat ranges.

The American answer to the Tiger was the M26 Pershing Tank; read about it here.

If you wish to read about the only German tank of World War I, click here.

The Outcast Americans
(American Magazine, 1942)

Economically, the departure of the [Japanese-Americans] presented no particular problem in the cities… But it was different in the country. [They] had owned or controlled 11,030 farms valued at $70,000,000. They had produced virtually all the artichokes, early cantaloupes, green peppers and late tomatoes, and most of the early asparagus. They owned or controlled the majority of wholesale produce markets and thousand of retail vegetable stands. When they disappeared, the flow of vegetables stopped. Retail prices went up. Many vegetables vanished entirely. There were rumors of a food shortage.

A Veteran Against War
(Rob Wagner’s Script Magazine, 1938)

Writer Paul Gerard Smith (1894 – 1968) was a U.S. Marine in World War I and in 1938, when he saw that another war with Germany was simmering on the the front burner he put a Fresh ribbon of ink in the typewriter and wrote this editorial which he titled, An Open Letter to Boys of Military Age. His column is a cautionary tale advising the young men of his day to make their decisions thoughtfully before committing themselves to such a dangerous undertaking as war. Smith advised youth to examine the causes for the war, verify whose commercial interests will be served in victory and only if –

you find that America and the future of America is threatened – then go and kick Hell of the enemy, and God be with you.

Click here to read an article about the German veterans of W.W. I.

CLICK HERE… to read one man’s account of his struggle with shell shock…

A Bewildering American Phenomenon
(Scribner’s Magazine, 1937)

This well-read writer recalls the great novels leading up to the publication of Gone With The Wind (1936). Along the way, she lists some of the many foibles of The Great American Reading Public – in the end she recognizes that she shouldn’t have been surprised at all that the historic romance was an all-time-best-seller and that Margaret Mitchell was awarded a Pulitzer.

Prohibition Era Prisons Filled with Women
(American Legion Weekly, 1924)

Four and a half years into Prohibition, journalist Jack O’Donnell reported that there were as many as 25,000 women who had run-afoul of the law in an effort to earn a quick buck working for bootleggers:

They range in age from six to sixty. They are recruited from all ranks and stations of life – from the slums of New York’s lower East Side, exclusive homes of California, the pine clad hills of Tennessee, the wind-swept plains of Texas, the sacred precincts of exclusive Washington… Women in the bootleg game are becoming a great problem to law enforcement officials. Prohibition agents, state troopers and city police – gallant gentlemen all – hesitate to embarrass women by stopping their cars to inquire if they are carrying hooch. The bootleggers and smugglers are aware of this fact and take advantage of it.

Verily, so numerous were these lush lassies – the Federal Government saw fit to construct a prison compound in which to incarcerate them; you can read about that here…

Mobsters and Their Nick-Names
(Confidential Magazine, 1958)

An article about Irving Izzy the Eel Cohen, Joseph Socks Lanza, Benjamin Bugsy Siegel, Jake Greasy Thumb Guzik and Albert Tick Tock Tannenbaum (among others) and how they earned such colorful names.

(This article was brought into the digital world by Matt the Mad Scanner Jacobsen)

An Al Capone article can be read here…

The Crash
(Coronet Magazine, 1946)

This is an article about the 1929 stock market crash – it was that one major cataclysmic event that ushered in the Great Depression (1929 – 1940). It all came crashing down on October 24, 1929 – the stocks offered at the New York Stock Exchange had lost 80% of their value; the day was immediately dubbed Black Thursday by all those who experienced it. When the sun rose that morning, the U.S. unemployment estimate stood at 3%; shortly afterward it soared to a staggering 24%.

In every town families had dropped from affluence into debt…Americans were soon to find themselves in an altered world which called for new adjustments, new ideas, new habits of thought, a new order of values. The Post-War Decade had come to its close. An era had ended. The era that followed was was the polar opposite of the one that had just gone down in flames: if the Twenties are remembered for confidence and prosperity, the Thirties was a decade of insecurity and want. The attached essay was penned by a popular author who knew the era well.

Yet, regardless of the horrors of The Crash, the United States was still an enormously wealthy nation…

The Lynching Records: 1885 – 1912
(NY Times, 1913)

A report from The New York Times stated that, relative to the population, 1912 saw a drop in the number of lynchings. Included in this brief is a record of lynchings that occurred between the years 1885 – 1912.-from Amazon:

The Father of American Conservativism
(Coronet Magazine, 1961)

Barry Goldwater (1909 – 1998) was the Republican presidential candidate for 1964, and although he lost that contest by wide margins to Lyndon Johnson, his political philosophy has played a vital roll in shaping the direction of American conservative thought. William F. Buckley, Jr. explained why in this article.

In 1887 The New York Times reviewed the first english edition of Das Kapital by Karl Marx, click here to read it…

Equal Pay for Equal War Work
(PM Tabloid, 1942)

The War Labor Board has decreed ‘equal pay for equal work’ for women in war industry… George W. Taylor, WLB vice-chairman, wrote the decision and said that any other condition than that of pay equality was ‘not conducive to maximum production’.

FDR’s Man in Foggy Bottom
(Collier’s Magazine, 1940)

This is a peculiar article about FDR’s Secretary of State, Cordell Hull (1871 – 1955); the man who penned the piece was so obsessed with Hull’s hillbilly upbringing that he didn’t get around to writing about the man himself until page six.

Why Do Detergents Have Such Wacky Names
(Pathfinder Magazine, 1952)

This column praises those brainiacs of Madison Ave who obsess over single syllable words (and sounds) in an effort to propel their client’s product to the tip-top of the profit-pantheon.

The right name can zoom a product into a commercial success. The wrong one can wreck its sales and waste the advertising dollars spent promoting it… If one day you hear of a product called ‘Heck’ or ‘Gosh’, don’t be surprised. Slang is more popular than the king’s English in product naming. Again, it’s because you use it more naturally. Newest proof of this came after the phrase ‘poof – there goes perspiration’ (a TV commercial for Stopette spray deodorant) made ‘poof’ a new American slang word.

Wanderers No More
(Pathfinder Magazine, 1938)

Here is a pretty middle-of-the-road type of article that explains the creation of British Palestine, the Jewish migration and the Arab unrest:

Writing in his History of Zionism, Nahum Sokalow looked in to the future: ‘The Jews have grown tired of their roll as the homeless Chosen People and would prefer to be a self-supporting small nation with a quiet spot of earth for themselves…’. The spot for which the Jews had yearned proved to be about as quiet as a live volcano.

American Indians Step Up – Again
(Newsweek Magazine, 1941)

…And last week the Office of Indian Affairs, reporting results of a sampling of 26 out of 80 Indian jurisdictions, revealed that out of 7,407 Selective Service registrants, 547 had already volunteered against 37 actually drafted – a ratio of 15 volunteers for each draftee.

FDR’s Sense of Sympathy
(PM Tabloid, 1942)

When a 22-year-old expectant father wrote to President Roosevelt complaining that he’d been unemployed for four months, FDR wasted little time in contacting one of his alphabet agencies and seeing to it that the gent was offered a defense job.

The Increased Suicide Rate
(Literary Digest, 1933)

With the arrival of the Great Depression came an increase in American suicides. When this article appeared on the newsstands the Depression was just three and a half years old – with many more years yet to come. As the Americans saw 1932 come to a close, the records showed that 3,088 more acts of self-immolation had taken place than had been recorded the year before.

Read about the the mood of the Great Depression and how it was reflected in the election of 1932 – click here…

The Korean War’s Effect on Wall Street
(Quick Magazine, 1950)

The outbreak of the war in Korea sent stocks tumbling in all important world markets. In N.Y., three months of profits were wiped out. At week’s end some stocks rose, but jittery brokers kept an eye on the war news and – an ear turned toward Washington, where announcements of increased U.S. participation in the fighting touched off further waves of selling>