Recent Articles – Page 90 – Old Magazine Articles

Relief Bill Passed by Congress
(Pathfinder Magazine, 1932)

Republican President Herbert Hoover had made numerous attempts to get a Federal relief bill through the Congress to the ailing citizenry, but the Democratic congress repeatedly disagreed as to how the funds were to be distributed. Finally an agreement was reached as Hoover’s administration was reaching the end of his term and the Emergency Relief and Construction Act was passed into law.

The obnoxious features which had been injected into the legislation from time to time by Members of the House of Representatives and had so long delayed action, have been eliminated.

The New Commander-in-Chief: Harry S Truman
(Yank Magazine, 1945)

A heavily illustrated, four page article that served to answer the U.S. serviceman’s questions as to who Harry S. Truman (1884 – 1972) was and why was he deemed suitable to serve as President?

Mr. Truman now occupies the Presidency, of course, because he won the Democratic Vice-Presidential nomination in Chicago last summer. Two things won him the nomination. First was the fact that he alone was acceptable to Mr. Roosevelt and to both the conservative element of the Democratic Party and its liberal wing. The second was the excellent performance of the Truman Committee in the investigation of our government’s spending money for the war-effort…One of the main themes of his campaign speeches last fall was that the U.S. should never return to isolationism.

Click here to read about the busy life of President Franklin Roosevelt.

The Wandering Waistline
(Quick Magazine, 1951)

Looking back, the fashion silhouette of the 1950s is remembered as having a very narrow waistline, but in the early days of the decade, as this 1951 fashion review indicates, the feminine waist was a highly contested battle ground:

Where’s the waist? Paris popped the question, but has yet to give the answer. On the one hand, many leading designers showed a tendency to raise the waistline. But they were challenged by a strong minority that seemed determined to drop it [pictures of both high and low are provided herein]…Apparently, Paris has decreed it the year of the wandering waist. Where it will stop may well be up to American women.

If you’d like to read about the feminine silhouette of the early Forties, click here.

Japan Calls It Quits
(Newsweek Magazine, 1945)

In a dismal forest near Vladivostok, Japanese commanders removed their caps, bowed low, and surrendered their entire Manchurian forces to the Russians… Growing numbers of enemy troops threw away their arms and joined the long lines of ragged Japs trudging down dusty Manchurian roads to Soviet Prison stockades. When a number of of Jap officers objected to the wholesale surrender, they were killed by their own men.

Among the surrendered was the Japanese puppet, Henry Pu Yi (1906 – 1967), eleventh and last Emperor of the Qing dynasty.

Director Alfred Hitchcock
(Film Daily, 1939)

Now at work on his first American motion picture [since arriving in Hollywood], the glossily rotund Hitchcock, whose gelatinous appearance and jocose manner belie his sinister intent, and who brightly eyes all comers with a sort of controlled effervescence, happily declares that his first Hollywood opus will surpass anything he has yet done to keep an audience poised on the edges of its chairs.

Click here to read about Marilyn Monroe and watch a terrific documentary about her life.

Beauty as Duty: A Victorian Appreciation
(Manners, Culture and Dress, 1870)

The thought that one’s appearance should never be a burden for others is not entirely a Victorian concept, it was more than likely borrowed from the Greeks:

It is every woman’s duty to make herself as beautiful as possible;and no less the duty of every man to make himself pleasing in appearance. The duty of looking well is one we owe not only to ourselves, but to others as well.

Click here to read about physical perfection during the Golden Age of Hollywood.

Henri Matisse Viewing in New York
(Vanity Fair, 1915)

This article will give you a good look at how the seeds were sewn as early as 1915 to ensure the rise of New York City as one of the great art centers of the world. For the first time since the 1913 Armory Show, New York was again to host an important exhibition of the European modernists. Much of the article concerns Henri Matisse (1869 – 1954) and is illustrated with a portrait of the artist by the photographer Edward Steichen.

Things were changing – not long after New York was proclaimed as the commercial capital of the art world, America was recognized as the preeminent world power, click here to read about it…

Henri Matisse Viewing in New York
(Vanity Fair, 1915)

Things were changing – not long after New York was proclaimed as the commercial capital of the art world, America was recognized as the preeminent world power, click here to read about it…

Noël Coward
(Stage Magazine, 1933)

Noël Coward (1899 – 1973) was simply the best all-rounder of the theatrical, literary and musical worlds of the 20th century. He invented the concept of celebrity and was the essence of chic in the Jazz Age of the 20s and 30s. His debonair looks and stylishly groomed appearance made him the icon of ‘the Bright Young Things’ that inhabited the world of The Ivy, The Savoy and The Ritz. No one is totally sure when and why it happened but following his success in the 1930s he was called ‘The Master’, a nickname of honor that indicated the level of his talent and achievement in so many of the entertainment arts. -so say the old salts at NoelCoward.net, and they should know because they have a good deal more time to think about him than we do.

The attached article was no doubt written by one of his many groupies for a swank American theater magazine following the successful New York premiere of his play Design for Living:

Click here to read about Cole Porter.

Elsa Maxwell kept the party going during the Great Depression…

A Look at Oscar Wilde
(The Nineteenth Century, 1922)

The author of this article, Gilbert Coleridge, has written an honest character study of Oscar Wilde (1854 – 1900) in hopes to better understand the man in the context of his time. One of the interesting hypothetical questions he poses asks how would Oscar Wilde (a man who lived only for pleasure) have got on during the highly rationed home front of 1914-1918 war?

He was an arresting figure in person, of commanding height, with a clean-shaved oval face. The latter was marred by a weak mouth, from which poured, with fascinating languor sometimes, torrents of paradox, quaint wit, perverse and startling epigrams, all spoken in a tone which left the listener wondering whether the speaker was really in earnest, or only talking for effect.

Another article about Oscar Wilde can be read here.

Nordhausen
(Newsweek Magazine, 1945)

Here is an account by a war correspondent who was a part of the Allied advance through Germany. He filed this chilling report about the liberation of the Nazi death camp at Nordhausen:

No one who saw the charnel house of Nordhausen ever will be able to forget the details of that horrible scene… The Yanks stood there stunned and silent,

The Earliest Days of Training
(Newsweek Magazine, 1941)

Up by bugle at 5:45 in subfreezing temperature. Breakfast – boiled oatmeal, French toast and syrup, toast, jam, coffee. At 7:30 began ‘psychological test’ for mental alertness (typical question: An orange is a broom, bat, flower, or fruit?). Received complete uniforms. Try-on period after lunch resulted in many misfits, much swapping and revival of old crack about there being only two sizes in the Army – too big and too small…

‘Confessions of a Nazi Officer”
(New Masses, 1944)

Lieutenant K. F. Brandes of the German Army was killed on October 24 [1944] on the right bank of the Dnieper. A diary was found on him. I have seen many diaries of German officers and soldiers… It was written by a clever and educated man. Brandes was a Fascist. He calls the conquest of Europe the ‘German Spring’. Like his colleagues he came to Russia for ‘lebensraum’… But as distinct from other Hitlerites, Brandes saw the limit of his dreams. He faithfully described the disintegration of the German Army, showed the meanness of the men who are still ruling Germany. I will cite the most interesting excerpts from his diary.

Impressions of Elvis
(Gentry Magazine, 1957)

The artist-editor-author-publisher of TOPOLSKI’S CHRONICLE, the London fortnightly, recently visited America. These are his drawings and comments on an American-Greek-god-sex-hero phenomenon:

But, however mystically chosen, why Elvis Presley? Because, I think, he possess very happily the godlike value of all-embracing popularity: he is vulgar, yet stylish in the ‘zoot’ manner – thus he appeals to both the sophisticated and the simple. And his manhood is above suspicion…

The Great Depression and the Sexes
(Coronet Magazine, 1947)

Unemployment permitted a great deal more companionship between young men and young women, which ordinarily would have led to marriage. The only thing lacking was money. The arrangements called, simply, ‘living together’ became common. Often the man or woman was married, and couldn’t get , couldn’t afford, or didn’t want a divorce. Sometimes the man simply refused to marry, and the woman took him into her home or moved into his as the next best thing…

You Might Also Care to Know About The Sex Manners of the Twenties or Men & Women During W.W. II

The Great Depression and the Sexes
(Coronet Magazine, 1947)

You Might Also Care to Know About The Sex Manners of the Twenties or Men & Women During W.W. II

Gandhi’s Struggle Against British Imperialism
(Literary Digest, 1937)

A news article from a 1937 issue of LITERARY DIGEST pertaining to Mahatma Gandhi‘s ongoing struggle to break free from the bonds of English imperialism:

The basic policy of this Congress, Nehru admonished, is to combat the ‘Government of India Act’ (the Federal Constitution); resist in every way the attempt by British imperialism to strengthen its hold on India and its people; stress a positive demand for a constituent assembly, elected by adult suffrage.

Ground Zero: Washington, D.C.
(Pathfinder Magazine, 1950)

When it became clear to all that the Soviets had the bomb – and Washington was the target – the egg-heads in D.C. decided it was time to disperse various government offices to the suburbs:

Given any warning at all, the National Security Resources Board now seems confident it can preserve at least a skeleton Government. But as for the run-of-the-mine Federal employee, he’ll have to take his chances amid the irradiated rubble…