1919

Articles from 1919

Visions of the Trenches by Otto Dix (Artist’s Portfolio, 1919)

Attached are assorted W.W. I combat images by noted German Expressionist Otto Dix (1891 – 1969). Shortly after returning from the war, Dix threw away his uniform, locked himself in his print studio and began to diligently labor over a vast number of etching plates – all baring the dreadful images of trench warfare that had been burned into his memory during the course of living his beastly, troglodyte existence in the trenches of France.

The U.S. Army Trench Knives (America’s Munitions, 1919)

The American Army contracted two varieties of fighting knives throughout the First World War:


• the 1917 model trench knife with the nine inch triangular blade, and

• the 1918 Mark I trench knife with the 6.75 double-edged flat blade


The 1917 knife was the one that was carried during the war. The conflict had ended by the time it was decided to begin production on the second knife, which saw some use during W.W. II.


This article is illustrated with pictures of both and goes into some detail at to the manufacturers and the various matters that the Quartermaster Corps considered in weighing their decision as to what should be involved in designing such fighting knives.

Theater Intermissions and Prohibition (Vanity Fair, 1919)

Prohibition has been pretty rough on everybody, but there is no class of people which it has hit so hard as the theater-goers. The Federal Amendment has completely wrecked their evenings. It isn’t so bad while the show is going on; the blow falls between the acts. In happier times the intermissions were the high spots of the evening…

With pin-point accuracy, Vanity Fair was able to identify the new minority-victim class that emerged from America’s unfortunate experiment with Prohibition: Broadway theater enthusiasts (It might be argued that the real victims were American bar tenders, many of whom high-tailed it over to Europe where they established a number of American-style bars).

The attached page from the magazine can be classified as humor and is illustrated with six great sketches by Edith Plummer.

Read other articles from 1919.

The Paris Purses for Autumn (Vogue Magazine, 1919)

A VOGUE editorial from the Fall of 1919 praising the swank of six nifty Parisienne purses -each created from different materials and each displaying the industrious fingers of skilled craftsmen.


Click here to read about happy Hollywood’s discovery of plastic surgery…

The Aggressive (U.S. Army Study, 1919)

An assortment of opinions gleaned from various interviews with German soldiers who all made remarks about the naked aggressiveness shared by the A.E.F.:

The French would not advance unless sure of gaining their objectives while the American infantry would dash in regardless of all obstacles and that while they gained their objectives they would often do so with heavy loss of life.

Chez Poiret: the Hot Social Ticket in the Paris of 1919 (Vogue Magazine, 1919)

The post-war publicity machine of French fashion designer Paul Poiret was in fine form when he saw to it that his minions invited the Paris-based correspondent from American VOGUE to his house for a grand fete, seated her comfortably, drink in hand, right on the fifty-yard line in order that she might be better able to report to her handlers back in New York that Paris was back.


The correspondent who was not invited was the fashion journalist from FLAPPER MAGAZINE; American flappers did not approve of Poiret one bit. Click here to read what they thought of him.

Russian Modernism After the Revolution (Vanity Fair, 1919)

Art alone survives the earthquake shocks of revolution, and Russian art has been doubly secure because of it’s deep-rooted imagination and it’s passionate sincerity.


That was the word from Oliver M. Sayler writing from Moscow as it starved during the Summer of 1919. Sayler, known primarily for his writings on Russian theater from this period, wrote enthusiastically about the Russian Suprematist Casimir Malyevitch, Futurist David Burliuk and The Jack of Diamonds Group; believing deeply in the Russian Revolution, he wrote not a word about how the Soviets mistreated the modern artists of Russia.

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