Recent Articles – Page 41 – Old Magazine Articles

This Guy Coached Astaire and Rogers (Literary Digest, 1936)

A magazine profile of RKO Studio Dance Director Hermes Pan (1909 – 1990); his work with Fred Astaire (1899 – 1987) and Ginger Rogers (1911 – 1995) and the lasting impression that African-American dance had made upon him. It is fascinating to learn what was involved in the making of an Astaire/Rogers musical and to further learn that even Bill Bojangles Robinson (1878 – 1949) was a fan of the dance team.

Astaire liked the youngster’s blunt answers. He realized the need of a critic who would talk back to a star.

This Guy Coached Astaire and Rogers (Literary Digest, 1936)

Astaire liked the youngster’s blunt answers. He realized the need of a critic who would talk back to a star.

A Profile of Cary Grant (Stage Magazine, 1939)

A fabulous three page article from STAGE MAGAZINE on the early career of Cary Grant:

Cary Grant appeared in six Broadway productions and twenty-seven Hollywood pictures before anybody took notice. Then he played a dead man.

Where was General Lee Headed? (W.C. Storrick, 1951)

A brief explanation as to what General Lee had in mind when he invaded the North in the Summer of 1863, why he chose a route through the Shenandoah and Cumberland valleys, where his army was actually headed and what the South had intended to gain if the campaign had been successful.

From Amazon:

Lee’s Real Plan at Gettysburg

Amelia Earhart: Hawaii to California (Literary Digest, 1935)

All well’, Amelia Earhart (1897 – 1937) radioed repeatedly during her 2,400-mile flight from Hawaii to California last week. ‘Alls well that ends well,’ she might have said as she set her monoplane down at Oakland Airport Saturday afternoon, eighteen hours and sixteen minutes after she took off from Wheeler Field, Honolulu. What she actually said was, ‘I’m tired’

Thus she has become the first woman to fly the Pacific from Hawaii to California, and the first person of either sex to fly it alone. Her record has been studded with ‘firsts’ ever since she learned to fly in 1918.

1970: #ME TOO (Coronet Magazine, 1970)

If you were a woman with leftist inclinations during the 1960s and wanted to join one of the many revolutionary groups that promised to burn it all to the ground, you wouldn’t be required to bring a lighter – that was for the male hippies only – the women were required to bring coffee percolators and feather dusters:

In the New Left, some people – men – are more equal than others. The revolutionary girl is distinguished from her male counterpart by one significant difference. The male can cut his hair, shave his beard and step back into the society he condemns. In trying to help the oppressed, the girls found they wear a uniform that they can’t remove anymore than the Blacks can remove their skin. They can’t remove their sex – and the men make use of it only too well.

The Arrests of David Greenglass and Alfred Slack (Quick Magazine, 1950)

The arrests of David Greenglass (1922 – 2014: Soviet code name Kalibr) and Alfred Slack (1905 – 1977: Soviet code name El) were the result of the FBI having arrested and interrogated a vital Soviet courier a month earlier: Harry Gold (1911 – 1972: Soviet code name Arno). When Gold began to sing, the spies began to fall like leaves of autumn day. This quick read concentrates on Gold’s fellow chemist, Slack, who had been passing along information to the Soviets since the mid-Thirties, however between the years 1944 and 1945 Slack had been assigned to work in Oak Ridge Tennessee with the Manhattan Project. Greenglass had also been on the Manhattan project, and he was a far bigger catch.

Top Model Jinks Falkenburg (Click Magazine, 1940)

In the Sixties the most popular fashion model was Twiggy (né Lesley Hornby, b. 1949), and in the Fifties the top model was Suzy Parker (1932 – 2003: truly the first Super Model). But in the 1940s the honor went to Jinx Falkenburg (1919 – 2003).
The 1940’s was the decade in which the advertising world began to gaze more favorably upon photographers rather than illustrators, who had long held the prominent place since printers ink was first invented. During the earliest days of her career Falkenburg’s likeness was often painted until the her bookings with photographers quickly picked up. She was the firstMiss Rheingold (appointed, not elected), she appeared in movies, entertained the troops and when she stood before the cameras she was paid all of $25.00 an hour (the term super Model wouldn’t come about until the Seventies).

The attached photo essay will give you some more information.

From Amazon:

JINX by Jinx Falkenburg

Government Heath Care for California Migrants (PM Tabloid, 1940)

This is a report on the 1939 government-sponsored medical outreach program for California’s Grapes of Wrath migrants:

The counties of San Joaquin Valley have well organized health departments… [Migrants] are entitled to drugs, special diets, eyeglasses and appliances if authorized by the medical director. Since many patients are in need not so much of medicines than of food, the Association may pay a medical grocery bill just as it pays the druggist. It also provides school lunches and nursery meals.

More on migrant laborers can be read here…

What Will Save Us? (Pathfinder Magazine, 1932)

The author of this brief paragraph points out that prior to the Great Depression that commenced in 1929, there were as many as five other economic slumps that existed in America’s past. He remembered that in each case something unexpected has come along to not only put us back on our feet again but to boom things in addition.

Will it be the sudden perfection of television? Or further development of electrical appliances, particularly air-conditioning and cooling? Or some new novelty?