Articles from 1915
A few words, accompanied by a photograph, concerning the ‘traveler’s covered caddy bag‘ — another attempt at thwarting the efforts of ‘the golf thief’ as well as just plain lousy whether.
While Western Europe was all ablaze during the Spring of 1915, many Americans were tapping their toes to a catchy tune titled, I Didn’t Raise my Boy to be a Soldier (by Alfred Bryan and Al Piantadosi). This really irked the editors at THE SPECTATOR who let their fingers trip across the typewriter keyboard at a tremendous speed spewing-out all sorts of unflattering adjectives; they even went so far as to rewrite a few verses.
Attached is a 1915 magazine ad from a British society magazine that illustrates the profile of the British Service Hat (trench cap). This wool headgear was worn by all British and Commonwealth forces prior to the 1916 introduction of the Brody Helmet (tin hat), which was issued in order to reduce the high number of head injuries.
Here is a petite notice that appeared in a 1915 issue of VANITY FAIR heralding a new portrait by the British painter William Orpen (1878 – 1931), which depicted the likeness of a popular American stage actress Mrs. Oscar Lewisohn (Edna May Pettie 1878 – 1948). The anonymous reviewer compared the portrait styles of Orpen with that of London’s reigning portrait painter, John Singer Sargent:
Sargent had a way of showing his sitters as they didn’t think they looked. On the other hand, Orpen has a trick of making his sitters look like what they would like to be.
A hand tinted colour photograph depicting a French biplane in pursuit of a German Taube.
With the publishing of the first part of his autobiography, Reveries Over Childhood and Youth, W.B. Yeats (1865 – 1939) got some attention in the American press. Here is a small notice from an American society magazine which praises his ability as an artist to influence other writers, such as George Bernard Shaw, John M. Synge, George Moore and Dr. Douglas Hyde.
An illustrated magazine advertisement from 1915 which displays the variety of private purchase footwear available to British and Commonwealth officers during World War I.
Assorted photographs of the assembled German, Spanish, Belgian, Russian, Norwegian and British royal families, posed as they gathered to attend the the 1894 and 1896 Royal weddings at Coburg; also pictured is the group photo snapped at the 1898 shooting party at Sandingham. Queen Victoria appears in two of the pictures, while Kaiser Wilhelm II can be seen in all of them.
No doubt, this is one of the funniest pieces you are likely to find on the topic of acting and costuming in silent movies. It was written by Frederick Lewis Allen (1890 – 1954) and Frank Tuttle (1892-1963); both men approached the movies with the low expectations that were probably all too typical of theater lovers at that time. Frederick Lewis Allen is best remembered today as one of the better chroniclers of the Twenties and author of Only Yesterday (1931) while Frank Tuttle would find himself, in a few short years, directing movies in Hollywood. Tuttle was one of the few Directors who successfully made the jump from silent films to sound and continued working; at this writing, he was an Assistant Editor at Vanity Fair.
