Kennedy vs. Nixon: a Cartoon
(Monocle, 1961)
This is a very funny cartoon that was published in a long forgotten satire magazine from the early Sixties – you’ll enjoy it.
Anticipating Elizabeth II
(Literary Digest, 1937)
When Edward VIII chose to abdicate, the world’s attention shifted to the new heir, the Duke of York (George VI: 1895 – 1952) and his daughter, Elizabeth (Elizabeth II: b. 1926). This magazine article served to introduce the future queen to American readers – making clear that the princess was something like a British version of the Hollywood child star, Shirley Temple – often imitated and recognized as the gold standard of girlhood. Written during the depression, her lavish, story-book existence seemed unreal to many.
Queen Elizabeth: HOTTIE
(Pageant Magazine, 1966)
Actor Richard Burton, CBE (1925 – 1984) was no stranger to pretty feminine faces – and as a Welshman, he was no fan of British royalty; so it must have turned some heads when he listed Britain’s Queen Elizabeth as one of the most beautiful women in the world for the editors of Pageant Magazine.
Her Coronation
(Pageant Magazine, 1953)
Judging by the photographs in this eleven page article, the editors of PAGEANT MAGAZINE must have finally decided to take their name quite seriously when they decided to dispatch a correspondent across the sea to report on all the glorious pageantry and glamour that made up the 1953 Coronation of the 27-year-old Elizabeth II (b. 1926):
When Elizabeth arrives at Westminster Abbey for the two-and-a-half-hour ceremony of the Coronation, it will mark the first time in fifty years that a queen has been crowned in England. Three queens have ruled over Albion in 800 years: Elizabeth I, Ann and Victoria; each of their reigns have brought great progress and prosperity. That is one reason why her subjects look forward with such glowing hope to the reign of Elizabeth II.
(Although it is no reflection on her, Britain’s power has decreased dramatically since 1953)
Princess Elizabeth During the Second World War
(Collier’s Magazine, 1947)
A printable article (excerpted from a longer one) outlining what exactly Princess Elizabeth II was up to during World War II:
…and it was decided that Elizabeth must not enlist in anything, that her training for the throne was of the first importance. But Elizabeth felt that she would be a slacker and carry about an inferiority complex for life. So for a year, relentlessly, she persisted. Just before her nineteenth birthday, her father gave in…
‘The New Deal Was Not Fascist”
(The Atlantic Monthly, 1933)
In certain quarters it is asserted that Mr. Roosevelt’s ‘New Deal’ is nothing other than the first stage of an American movement toward Fascism. It is said that, although the United States has not yet adopted the political structure of Italy and Germany, the economic structure of the country is rapidly being molded upon the Fascist pattern.
FDR’s D-Day prayer can be read here
Duke Ellington: Twenty Years in the Spotlight
(Click Magazine, 1943)
The top man in Negro music climbed on the bandwagon when he and his band played a hot spot called the Kentucky Club. That was twenty years ago, in New York City’s Harlem. This year, Duke Ellington (1899 – 1974) made another debut, at Carnegie Hall, goal of the great in music…Piano lessons bored Ellington when he was six years old. He never learned to play conventionally, but he was only a youngster when his flare for improvisation reaped attention and landed him a job in a Washington theater…one by one, his compositions hit the jackpot: ‘Mood Indigo’, ‘Sophisticated Lady’, ‘Ebony Rhapsody’, ‘Solitude’, ‘Caravan’.
Ellington calls his work Negro Music, avoids the terms ‘jazz’ or ‘swing’.
Hermann Goering as Fop: a Cartoon
(The Jesters in Earnest, 1944)
Here is a W.W. II gag cartoon by the Czech chuckle-meister himself, W. Trier (probably a pseudonym) that was smuggled out of his occupied homeland to Britain where it was published in Jesters in Earnest (1944). The cartoonist truly succeeded in satirizing Goering’s love of costume and his precious self-image. However glorious the drawings may be, they fail to impart to the viewers just how enamored the Reichsmarschall was with perfume (and he was)
Stalingrad Exordium
(PM Tabloid, 1942)
A short article explaining the significance of Stalingrad to Stalin (aside from its name) and the battle that took place there 24 years earlier during the revolution – when the city was called Tsaritsyn.
Anticipating A Robert Kennedy Presidency
(Coronet Magazine, 1968)
Three months prior to the assassination of Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, the editors of CORONET MAGAZINE posed the question: ‘Will Bobby make a great President?’ Or even a good one? What would his policies be? The numerous assorted answers were all enthusiastically positive – the one that stood out came from the perennial contrarian of the time:
‘The inevitability of Bobby’ comes just after that of death and taxes, say Conservative quipster William F. Buckley, only half in fun.
Ogden Nash on Fashion
(The American Magazine, 1940)
In one of his other verses poet Ogden Nash (1902 – 1971) wrote that women are not female men. In the attached poem he expanded on that thought to a greater degree as he observed women and their approach to fashion.
Slaughter of the Innocents’
(See Magazine, 1943)
Terrible accounts of the Nazi murders that took place in the occupied nations in Europe between 1939 through 1943. The journalist pointed out that these massacres were not the work of the SS or the Gestapo, but of the Wehrmacht.
The Drive On Berlin
(Newsweek Magazine, 1945)
(Newsweek Magazine, 1945)
– two books from Amazon: KEY WORDS: Marshall Zhukov Berlin Campaign 1945,soviet army assault on berlin 1945,soviet onslaught 1945,sovietRead more
Paris Fashion: Spring, 1915
(Vanity Fair, 1915)
During the Spring of 1915 Mme. Parisienne had decided that it was time to add some gaiety into her wardrobe. Since August of the previous summer there had been such bad news and although the rationing of fabric continued, there was still much available for the asking.
Click to read about the U.S. fabric rationing during W.W. II.
‘Fear of the Police”
(Pageant Magazine, 1964)
As 1964 came to a close this venom-packed column was read by many in the white American middle-class and it must have seemed very clear to many among them that matters between the races would not be righted for decades to come. Written by the Harlem-born writer James Baldwin (1924 – 1987) on the occasion of the 1964 Harlem Race Riot, Baldwin did not simply denigrate the NYC Police Department but the culture, government and sacred documents of the entire nation.
The Decline of Masculine Elegance
(Vogue Magazine, 1922)
A Parisienne with a good many thoughts regarding menswear goes to some length to impart that men are dressing worse, not better, and the substitution of the dinner jacket (read: Tuxedo) for the tail-coat is an example of the slovenliness to come.
You are entirely wrong in imagining that we pay no attention to the way men dress…The truth is that while we may say nothing, we do not in the least consent, and we find, messieurs, that for some time now you have been very much changed, and for the worse.
Click here to read about the fashion legacy of W.W. I…
To read about one of the fashion legacies of W.W. II, click here…
Click here to read about the origins of the T-shirt.
An Islamic View of Western Imperialism
(Literary Digest, 1908)
The Indian Muslim scholar Syed Ameer Ali (1849 – 1928) is remembered as a man who, at times, fully recognized that there were indeed some benefits in store for the developing nations serving as colonies with the British Empire; but in the attached 1908 column, the man preferred to only list the damnable qualities of colonization:
A few years ago ‘Spread-eagleism’ was used for mere purposes of ridicule; christened ‘Imperialism’ it has acquired a holy meaning – it sanctions crusades against the liberty of weaker states…England treats her provincials worse than Rome did.
[NOTE: The author of this piece mistakenly assumed Ali to have been a follower of Hinduism.]
An article about the Muslim opinion concerning
Christianity can be read here…