1912 – Page 4 – Old Magazine Articles

The First Casualty of an Air War
(Popular Mechanics, 1912)

It was during the Italian-Turkish War (1911 – 12) that aircraft began to play active rolls in support of military operations. This article is remarkable in that it reports that as early as 1912, aircraft was used not merely to aid in the observation of enemy troop movements but also to drop bombs.

Captain Monte of the Italian army aeroplane corps has achieved the distinction of being the first airman wounded in battle while in the air with his machine.

Russian Composers Preferred by Rimsky-Korsakov
(Review of Reviews, 1912)

For those of you looking for some dish in the music history department, this article recounts a conversation between Rimsky-Korsakov (1844 – 1908) and Leo Tolstoy (1828 – 1910) as to which Russian composer Rimsky-Korsakov preferred the best: Anton Rubinstein or Peter Tschaikovsky. Opinions flew in all directions and many more names were dropped before the conversation came to a close…

The Airborne Machine Gun
(Literary Digest, 1912)

This remarkable aeroplane gun is the invention of Lieutenant-Colonel Isaac N. Lewis of the United States Army Coast Artillery Corps. Curiously enough, the gun was designed primarily for infantry and cavalry use.

Click here to read a 1918 article about the Lewis Gun.

The German View of the Next War
(Literary Digest, 1912)

Attached is a short review of a book that turned many heads in the diplomatic circles of Europe in 1911: Germany And The Next War, written by Germany’s General von Bernhardi (1849 – 1930):

A very influential military writer in Germany declares that Germany must win her place as a world power through warfare.

The book sales in Germany were quite meager up until the first shot was fired in August of 1914, when they picked up considerably.

When the U.S. Navy Got A Little Larger…
(Current Literature, 1912)

This article heralds the construction of two American battleships that would later become famous for the rolls they played during the Second World War. Both ships, U.S.S. Oklahoma and U.S.S. Nevada, would be commissioned in 1916 and assigned to the Atlantic Fleet during the Great War; Oklahoma protected convoys and later, in 1919, escorted President Wilson to France to the Versailles Treaty.

A Fiscal Report on the Immigrants of 1911
(America Magazine, 1912)

This is a short notice concerning which of the prominent immigrant groups were the poorest and the richest in the year 1911 – and from which nations did they originate.

Of the arrivals during the fiscal year, 1.6 percent were debarred from entering this country. Special mention is made of the fact that immigrants from Canada carried the greatest amount per capita, and those crossing the Mexican border brought with them the least money.

Are the Indians of Jewish Origin?
(The Literary Digest, 1912)

The earliest encounters with the Native American had left the brain trust of Europe entirely baffled. The persistent matter as to who these people were remained an unanswered question well into the Nineteenth Century, for in order to qualify as a member of enlightened classes, a fellow had to show some sufficiency in at least two fields: classical literature and the Bible. Therefore, it stood to their reasoning that the inhabitants of the Americas had their story told in one of those two fields of study. Some of Europe’s elite were convinced that these people were descendants of the survivors of Troy, who, fearing the Greeks, caught a strong wind which allowed them to sail both the Mediterranean as well as the Atlantic and arrive on that far distant shore. Others tended to believe that the Native American could only have descended from the lost tribes of Israel, which is the topic of this one page article.

The Trail of Tears
(The North American Review, 1912)

Twenty five years after the long march that has come to be known as the ‘Trail of Tears’, an account of that sad injustice was written by one of the first archeologists of the American south-west, O.K. Davis.

The troops and Indians marched side by side for two days for Fort Bowie. Then, Geronimo, Natchez, and about twenty men…escaped…

The second half of the article is available upon request.

The Weirdest Invention of 1912
(Popular Mechanics, 1912)

Up all hours and badly in need of sleep, the pointy headed historians at this website have examined all other possibilities and – leaving no stone un-turned, mind you – have unanimously voted in favor of dubbing this the weirdest invention of 1912…

Father and Son Discord: Wilhelm II and the Crown Prince
(Current Literature, 1912)

Relations between Emperor William (Kaiser Wilhelm II, 1859-1941)and his son and heir, the German Crown Prince (Wilhelm III, 1882-1951), have now become so strained as to be a source of embarrassment to the whole court of Berlin. Vienna, a sort of clearing house for gossip of this sort, is filled with sensational stories…

Click here to read what the Kaiser thought of Adolf Hitler.

Advance of the Low-Priced Automobile
(Current Literature, 1912)

In answer to the cry for more affordable cars that can easily be purchased by working families, the French automobile industry of 1912 produced a line of long, narrow, boat-like cars, mounted on four wire wheels, carrying it’s passengers in tandem fashion. The production of these one and two cylinder air-cooled motors was based more upon the production lines of motorcycles rather than cars.

The Pankhursts
(Life Magazine, 1912)

In the digital age, we are able to recognize civil disobedience and call it by name, but this was certainly not the case for this Old Boy writing in 1912; he read about the criminal past-times of Mrs. Pankhurst (Emmeline Pankhurst, 1850 – 1928) and her two daughters (Christobel Pankhurst, 1880 – 1960; Estelle Sylvia Pankhurst, 1882 – 1960), and thought that no good could possibly come of such rabble-rousing.

The First Folding Wing Monoplane
(Popular Mechanics, 1912)

A passing glance at aviation magazines from the early Twentieth Century reveals that that particular sub-culture was very concerned with the ability to allow for trouble-free ground transport of aircraft. There were many magazine articles picturing how biplanes could be deconstructed for this purpose and up until 1912, or so we are led to believe by the editors of Popular Mechanics, the de Marcay-Mooney monoplane was the first flying machine that was able to have it’s wings fold back (much like a bird or a beetle) and when re-set at 90 degrees for take-off, could fly successfully.