1916 – Page 2 – Old Magazine Articles

An Interview with Woodrow Wilson
(Collier;s Magazine, 1916)

In 1916 Ida Tarbell (1857 – 1944) interviewed President Woodrow Wilson and came away with these impressions:

The common things of life interest him, and this fact somewhere strengthens enormously the estimate which any candid examination of his career forces, and that is that here at last we have a president whose real interest in life centers around the common man and on whom we can count to serve that man so far as his ability goes.

Silent Films and the Lexicographers
(Motion Picture Magazine, 1916)

This small notice appeared on the pages of the March, 1916, issue of MOTION PICTURE MAGAZINE reporting that the overwhelming popularity of the new entertainment medium, and the public’s curiosity with the manner in which they are produced, is beginning to have an impact on the everyday language of the English-speaking world:

When a thing takes hold of a whole people its idiom enters the language; its individual verbiage begins to limber-up the common speech.

So the idiom of active photography has entered the English language, at least wherever the English language is Americanized. The self-conscious valedictorian is told not ‘to look into the camera’. The reporter writing of a street murder terms his description of the underlying cause a ‘cut-back’.

– and most interestingly, one of the most popular elements of Hollywood verbiage is mentioned as having been noticed by the lexicographers: close-up.

The N.Y. TIMES reported that the verb to film was entered into the dictionary in 1914,.

Blanche Sweet Interviewed
(Motion Picture Magazine, 1916)

An interview with the silent film actress, Blanche Sweet (1895-1986) who, at that point in her career, had been a photoplayer (ie. an actor) for only six years. Prior to her contract with The Lasky Company, where she was obliged to perform at the time of this interview, she had toiled in the vineyards of such studios as Reliance and Biograph (where she was nick-named, The Biograph Blonde). Unlike her co-swells in that young industry, who liked to read and re-read their recent interviews from Motion Picture Magazine while loitering around the sets, we read that Blanche Sweet was very fond of reading Tennyson, Kipling and the novels of Edward Phillips Oppenheim (1866-1946). During the course of her career she had appeared in well over one hundred films.

Click here to read magazine articles about D.W. Griffith.
Click here to read articles about another Hollywood blonde: Marilyn Monroe.

Letter from a Veteran
(NY Times, 1916)

An experienced Canadian trench fighter gives some tips to an American Guardsman.

Men enthuse over descriptions of bayonet charges. They are no idle pastimes, so it behooves all soldiers not only to become absolutely perfect in bayonet exercises, but to practice getting under way, keeping abreast with your mates and having a firm hold on your rifle. The soldier may say, ‘Oh, that bayonet exercise isn’t practical in a charge. No? Very well, that may appear right to some, but I should advise every one knowing every parry, thrust and counter so thoroughly that after they become second nature you can then do whatever your intuition at the moment directs.

Trench Warfare Tips from a Veteran
(NY Times, 1916)

An experienced Canadian trench fighter wrote the attached columns offering sound advice to the American National Guardsmen he knew were bound to enter the war at some point.

Poilu’ is not the Right Word!
(NY Times, 1916)

The novelist, journalist, anti-Semite and French Academy member Maurice Barres (1862 – 1923) had some opinions regarding the word Poilu (the popular and affectionate slang term for the French front line soldier, which translates into English as hairy guy). In the following one page essay he presented a history of the word and continued with an explanation as to why it bugged him:

It lacks dignity. To my taste it belittles those whom it is meant to laud and serve. A hero can hardly be expressed by this brazen-faced and slanderous epithet. And yet, since it has taken root in our battlefields now for more than a year, one hesitates to speak ill of this word, in which so many admirable acts are somehow visible. It is winning it’s historic titles.

In the end, no one really cared what Maurice Barres had to say on this topic and the sobriquet poilu remained in place.

Poilu’ is not the Right Word!
(NY Times, 1916)

In the end, no one really cared what Maurice Barres had to say on this topic and the sobriquet poilu remained in place.

Top-Drawer Golf Accessories
(Vanity Fair Magazine, 1916)

A quick look at some of the golf shoe offerings from the spring of 1916. Ties for the sport are also pictured, as is a portable ash-tray for use on the links.

Music’s Debt to the Ballet
(Literary Digest, 1916)

Some of our music critics look askance at the Russian Ballet, and apparently, only deign to notice it at all because the music employed is such as falls within their province to review. Having the task forced upon them, they relieve their feelings by deploring the forced association of, for example, Schumann and patterning feet…

Sergei Diaghilev and Russian Art
(Vanity Fair, 1916)

Charlie Chaplin and His Imposters
(Motion Picture Magazine, 1916)

With the popularity of Charlie Chaplin (1889 – 1977) came a large number of artificial, bootlegged Charlie Chaplin movies and a host of fraudulent ‘Charlies’. All the fake Chaplins were clad the same and all answered to the same name yet all had different biographies and were not terribly funny in the slightest degree. Chaplin No. 1 did not care for this one bit and did not hold back while talking to this correspondent from Motion Picture Magazine.

Crepe de Chine Makes it’s Appearance on the Tennis Court
(Vanity Fair Magazine, 1916)

In 1916 Coco Channel was not a household word in American fashion circles yet, but judging by this fashion editorial that appeared in Vanity Fair magazine, one can assume that her presence was being felt.

The Noises of Battle
(The Cambridge Magazine, 1916)

This letter is very short and was composed by a German soldier who is simply identified as a socialist. Writing to his wife from the war-torn Eastern European front in Moldavia, he describes what the man-made Hell of industrial war was like – the gas shells, the grenades, the ceaseless rattle of machine guns and the never ending groans of the wounded. The soldier concludes that if only the kings who were responsible for the war could witness this carnage for only fifteen minutes, then surely the war would end.

Click here to read about the foreign-born soldiers who served in the American Army of the First World War.

A Look at at What the Prohibition Amendment Might Look Like
(The Outlook, 1916)

Two years before the Prohibition Amendment would be passed, the New York State Superintendent of the Anti-Saloon League, William H. Anderson (1874 – 1959), wrote this piece defending a draft of the amendment that was, at that time, sitting before Congress.

Wars Affect the Art of a Nation
(Literary Digest, 1916)

Various musings concerning the influences that war has had on art through the centuries are discussed in this article, with particular attention paid to the historical belief that wars are won by those nations that host the more vibrant and original arts communities.

A Letter from a Bombardier in the French Air Corps
(Vanity Fair, 1916)

In the attached letter from the artist Bernard Boutet de Monvel (1884 – 1949), the artist explains thoroughly his thoughts and adventures as an bombardier in a Vosin biplane; experiences which contrast greatly with his days in the trenches and he writes well on the feelings of lonliness that an aviator can experience at 2000 feet.

For those who are interested in learning about the living conditions and daily life of World War One pilot officers this article can only help you. Click here

Liquid Fire
(Literary Digest, 1916)

– A well-illustrated article which sought to explain to American readers the workings of one of the most heinous inventions of the First World War:

This idea of projecting upon the adverse trenches and their occupants a rain of liquid fire was no sudden afterthought of the German mind. It was conceived, studied, and perfected for several years before the war, and its history may be traced in the German patent office.

Above Verdun
(Cambridge Magazine, 1916)

ARBEITER ZEITUNG, a Viennese newspaper, quoted the following swelled with hubris recalling his flight over crushed French Village in the Verdun sector:

I felt like a king, loaded with my bombs… I flew over Saint Privat quite low, so that I could see all the houses, and if I dropped my bombs there, I should have been able to to destroy half the village…