1946 Broadway
(Pic Magazine, 1946)
Click here to read about Broadway during the Second World War… KEY WORDS: 1946 Broadway theatre productions,Post-War Broadway Theatre Productions,Late […]
Home FrontSports on the Home Front
Sports on the Home Front
(Yank Magazine, 1945)
A page from a 1945 YANK MAGAZINE which offers a smattering of sports info.
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.
The War in Winter
(Pathfinder Magazine, 1940)
KEY WORDS: 1940 diplomacy between japan and italy,1940 sino-japanese war,1940 sino-japanese war winter campaign,japanese admiral mitsuma yonai cabinet minister,1940 diplomacy
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.
Dance International
(Pathfinder Magazine, 1937)
In New York last week, on the polished floor of the Rainbow Room, Rockefeller Center’s skyscraping night club, Hawaiians, Chinese, Scandinavians and Africans stamped whirled, leaped, and gesticulated to a dozen different kinds of music…it was an exposition of no little cultural and social importance – ‘Dance International,’ a festival showing the progress of the dance in all nations since 1900.
In their quest to document the evolution of dance in the United States, the audiences were treated to Modern Dance performances by Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey, Paul Weidman and Paul Haakon.
BBC Television Broadcasting Begins
(Literary Digest, 1935)
The British Broadcasting Corporation announced that they were capable of transmitting television programming as early as 1935:
The British engineers plan to begin with a single broadcasting tower, capable of transmitting television images to receiving sets within a radius of about thirty miles…British engineers are not the first to try television broadcasting. A station has been operating regularly in Berlin for several months.
1933, Sino-Japanese Wars, The Literary DigestThe Japanese Drive on Beijing
The Japanese Drive on Beijing
(The Literary Digest, 1933)
The aggressive ambitions of Japan know no bounds. The occupation of Peiping [Beijing] will lead to further aggression in Shantung and Shansi and other northern provinces, and will result either in the establishment of a new puppet regime in North China.
The Shanghai SHUN PAO, an independent newspaper, bewails the futility of the uncoordinated resistance which has prevailed among China’s forces since the capture of Jehol, and it adds:
The only possibilities now are peace by compromise or a continuance of war. Despite the dangers of the latter course it is the only possible solution, but resistance must be coordinated under an able leader, China must fight or become a second Korea.
Waiting for Television
(Literary Digest, 1937)
Written in response to the loud cries generated by those would-be pioneering couch-potatoes, this article presents a lengthy list of all the technical difficulties the young television broadcasting industry had to deal with in 1937.
First to have commercial television, it is agreed, will be New York City, then Philadelphia. In both of these cities transmitting-stations already exist. Advancement to other urban centers will be slower. Chicago, for example will have commercial television only after it has been made to pay in New York and Philadelphia. As each city’s television enterprises become self-supporting, installation will be begun in a new center.
One Cartoonist’s View of Depression Era Hollywood…(Ken Magazine, 1939)
A full page drawing of the sound stage-spangled Hollywood landscape picturing all the usual suspects – the Hollywood glory girls, studio yes-men and sub-literate European starlets -all sweltering beneath the intense heat of the occidental sun.
Click here to see cartoons about the silent movie culture.
Click here to read historic magazine articles about American animated films.
Rudy Vallee: ‘Vagabond Lover’
(Film Spectator, 1929)
It is not surprising to think that one of the first sound movies to be made had to consist of a plot that involved a musical number, and when put to the task of writing his review of VAGABOND LOVER (1929: RKO Pictures) the well respected film critic Welford Beaton dished-out some lukewarm opinions concerning it’s star, crooner/teen-idol Rudy Vallee (1901 – 1986):
The laddie’s face is set in a sort of perpetual sorrow which, added to the fact that he seldom looks the camera in the eye, makes him seem like the wraith of some calamity walking through the scenes. Only the voice is virile…
Cars from Europe Get Tinier
(Vanity Fair Magazine, 1921)
One thing is absolutely certain- Europe is economizing. It must. Everything in the motor world points to an enormous increase in the number of 10 h.p., four cylinder cars and in the even smaller 7-8 h.p. two cylinder machines.
The Tennis Blazer
(Vanity Fair Magazine, 1916)
This article dates to a the dear, dead days when tennis balls were white and landscapers (rather than diesel machinery) were relied upon to make tennis courts; it was also a time when the abilities of a skilled tailor were required for tennis clothing. These court-side stylists would not simply monitor the drape of tennis trousers but they would anticipate the unspoken needs of their tennis dandies – and in so doing, the tennis blazer was born.
1918, Golf HistoryThe Working-Class Golfer
The Working-Class Golfer
(A and N Catalog, 1918)
The 1920s editors of VANITY FAIR MAGAZINE would never have endorsed this ready-wear golfing jacket, nor would they have thought much of the country club that would permit such togs; but by today’s barbarian standards which decide what passes for acceptable golf apparel, we think it’s pretty nice.
1925, Fashion, Recent Articles, The Delineator MagazineHats from the Spring of 1925
Hats from the Spring of 1925
(The Delineator, 1925)
Tenderly ripped from a copy of Delineator Magazine was this one page that featured nine chic illustrations of the fashionable hats for the Spring of 1925.
The small hat trimmed on top with an artichoke bow, pom-poms, gardenias, roses, water lilies, violets or quills is very popular…Hats for general wear remain head-size. The large hat is seen occasionally with afternoon gowns and will be worn with more formal Summer frocks.
Click here to see a beautifully photographed article about the fashionable hats of 1947.
1922, Golf History, Vanity Fair MagazineMen’s Golf Suits of 1922
Men’s Golf Suits of 1922
(Vanity Fair Magazine, 1922)
A look at some of the ready-to-wear golf suits for the spring of 1922. The chic golfer of that year was seen wearing pleated knickers and a smart action-back jacket sporting cargo pockets (formerly known as billows pockets).
Golf HistoryGolf Accessories
Golf Accessories
(Vanity Fair Magazine, 1915)
If you intend to tarry on the links dressed in knickers, or plus fours, you will be needing a sturdy pair of ‘Scotch wool’ stockings in which to pull the look off; and should the assembled golf ruffians jeer at you from the comfort of the nineteenth hole, you can bludgeon them with your very smart, pleated golf gloves, circa 1915.
Paris Puts a Stick in the Mode…(Vogue Magazine, 1919)
Fashion, like all empires, has it’s slaves. The slaves are treated cruelly but, strangely, they never seem to mind; they do what ever is required of them. Many are the examples of fashion’s tyranny: in the past it has demanded that it’s slaves wear cowboy boots, although none could rope a steer, and it has demanded of it’s slaves that they wear uniforms, although none could fight. In fashion’s name the slaves have removed ribs and teeth, reduced or enlarged body parts, dyed hair cross-dressed and tattooed themselves like jail-birds. The slaves do it all and there seems to be no limit to fashion’s fickle whims that will ever make them say, no.
To illustrate this point, you can read this beautifully illustrated Vogue magazine article from 1919 in which the beast demands perfectly healthy young women to walk with canes.