1934

Articles from 1934

Antisemitism Grows Globally
(New Outlook Magazine, 1934)

Although the title of this 1934 article pertains to “racial prejudice”, make no mistake: it actually addresses the growth of Jew hatred. Reporter Cedric Fowler examined numerous hate groups throughout the United States, such as the German-American Bund, the Silver Legion of America, the American Fascists, the White Shirts of California, the White People’s Club of West Virginia, and the Patriotic Speakers Bureau. Nasty groups all.

Frank Coffyn
(Collier’s Magazine, 1934)

Frank Coffyn (1878 – 1960) was one of the earliest pioneer aviators in the United States. In this article he recalls those heady days when he regularly broke bread and talked shop with the likes of Orville Wright and other assorted fathers of aviation. Coffyn has long been remembered for being the first pilot to fly his camera-mounted Wright Flyer over Manhattan and under both Brooklyn and Williamsburg Bridges in 1912 – which he recalls herein.

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The Great Depression and the Failings of FDR
(New Outlook Magazine, 1934)

The columnist whose opinions are attached bitterly pointed out that the first year of FDR’s administration had marginalized the Congress – and further opined that Roosevelt’s rhetoric clearly implied his arrogant conviction that his administration alone was the only alternative to out right revolution, and should therefore to be seen as a mandate of the people. The article lists the numerous failings of FDR’s New Deal.


CLICK HERE to read more criticism from FDR’s loyal opposition…


When W.W. II began and the factories reopened, the reality of having money and full-time employment made so many people giddy with excitement it proved to be too much for them – click here to read about that…

The Junior Brain Trusters
(New Outlook, 1934)

I have gathered my tools and my charts… I shall roll up my sleeves – make America over!

This was the motto to which the young folk began their work, nearly a thousand of them, which may be grouped for study purposes under the generic title, ‘Junior Brain Trusters’. They were, for the most part, young men from the colleges and universities of the larger eastern cities…. Many of them came as protégés of the Senior Brain Trusters themselves, brought from the classrooms by [Guy] Tugwell, [Raymond Charles] Moley, [Felix] Frankfurter – Professor Frankfurter being especially successful in drafting students and recent graduates from the Harvard Law School.

The Brain Trusters
(New Outlook Magazine, 1934)

A year and a half into FDR’s first term, journalist William E. Berchtold caught wind of a growing realization in Washington that most of the ’emergency’ legislation will become permanent. This didn’t bother him nearly as much as the fact that such imperishability also meant that the host of beta males who were positioned to maintain this behemoth would also be remaining (History has taught us that it was not FDR’s alphabet agencies that became a mainstay, but those of LBJ).

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During the Depression Unskilled Labor Flocked to Hollywood
(Photoplay Magazine, 1934)

Illustrated with the images of shanties and tents that once surrounded Universal Studios, this article tells the sad story of Hollywood movie extras and the challenging lives they led during the Great Depression:

Tossed out of other work by the recent depression, attracted by the false stories of Hollywood’s squanderings and extravagances, excited by the thrill of living and working in the same town and the same industry with world famous personalities, they drifted to Hollywood and attached themselves to the motion picture industry. They registered with the Central Casting Bureau, and joined the great army of extras.
These people saw no glitter, no romance, no bright mirage of stardom. To them, it was hard work and serious work…


From Amazon: Hollywood Unknowns: A History of Extras, Bit Players, and Stand-Insstyle=border:none

The Alphabet Bureaucrats
(New Outlook Magazine, 1934)

It would be difficult to select the typical New Deal bureau. In not a few there is considerable friction between different degrees and elements of thought as to how far the New Deal should really go… The program is so vast, the limits of its intent so completely shrouded in the vague phraseology of the new idealism, that there appears to be plenty of work for all. [For example] unwanted surplusses were found in the electrical power and appliance field. It was perceived that here was a case of ‘under-consumption’ on the part of American homeowners. How to solve the problem? With another bureau, of course. And so we have the EHFA – the Electric Home and Farm Authority.

FDR’s Alphabet Agencies
(Pathfinder Magazine, 1934)

Listed herein are the sixty-two alphabet agencies as they existed in 1934. More were on their way and, as this article makes quite clear, a good number of them were created by the Hoover administration. If you’re looking for an article indicating that Hoover and Roosevelt had similar approaches to governance, this might be a good place to start.

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Marie Dressler Succumbs
(Literary Digest, 1934)

Marie Dressler (b. Leila Marie Koerber: 1868 – 1934) left her mark on stage and screen (both varieties) and by the time she died of cancer in 1934 shed had acquired a sizable fan-base and two Academy Awards.

The Lot of Women in the Great Depression
(New Outlook Magazine, 1934)

An editorial by two American feminists who insisted that the economic depression of the Thirties had knocked the wind right out of the Women’s Movement. They argued that some of the high ground that was earned in the preceding decades had been lost and needed to be taken back; their points are backed up by figures from the U.S. Census Bureau as well as other agencies. Much column space is devoted to the employment discrimination practiced by both state and Federal governments in favor of single women at the expense of the married. It is grievously made clear that even the sainted FDR Administration was one of the cruel practitioners of wage inequality.


CLICK HERE to read about the pay disparity that existed between men and women during the 1930s.

Fake News?
(New Outlook Magazine, 1934)

A writer warns that since the advent of sound in movies, the journalists involved in the production of newsreels had grown absolutely giddy over the possibilities of the new technology being used to bend the truth any way they wanted, and frequently did.

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FDR’s Publicity Machine
(New Outlook Magazine, 1934)

To those who have followed the political career of President Roosevelt, this unprecedented emphasis on public relations and publicity is no surprise. No president has ever been more alive to the potentialities of maintaining a ‘good press’, of gauging public reaction to his policies and of timing his announcements to obtain the widest and most sympathetic audience possible… No party organization could afford the elaborate press relations machinery which existed on March 4, 1933. Its cost, including salaries, printing, supplies etc., is today in excess of $1,000,000 annually, and it is being paid for by the American taxpayer.


Click here to read about President Harry Truman…

The Blue Eagle
(Pathfinder Magazine, 1934)

Blue Eagle, symbol of the National [Industrial] Recovery Act, is probably one of the best known figures in the country today. Gripping bolts of lightening and a cog wheel in its claws it now hovers over 95 percent of industrial America advertising the success of the first major move of the New Deal… With only one year behind it, it has brought about the cooperation of 2,300,000 employers and 60,000,000 consumers.


– so runs the introductory paragraph for this 1934 article that marked the first anniversary of the National Recovery Administration. This short-lived agency was the brainchild of FDR’s administration that was shot down by the Supreme Court in 1935. Although this article is filled with praise for the NRA, it would not be very long before the editors of PATHFINDER MAGAZINE assumed a more suspicious approach when reporting on this president’s efforts to repair the damaged economy.


More on NRA problems can be read here…

Their Songs of Loathing
(New Outlook Magazine, 1934)

Well, here they are: the songs of the Nazi hit parade – all the ditties you’ve loved tapping your toes to – songs like Storm Troops on the March, or Up, Up, To Strife, Nation to Arms and who can forget that old classic: Wessle Song…


It doesn’t get much better than this.

Today shadows have fallen upon the once-proud German universities. The professors have been forced out of the temples of learning or driven into exile or subjected to a subtle pressure which has changed their academic detachment into clumsy conformity with Hitler’s ideals. Today shadows have fallen upon the once-proud German universities. The professors have been forced out of the temples of learning or driven into exile or subjected to a subtle pressure which has changed their academic detachment into clumsy conformity with Hitler’s ideals.


Click here to read Hitler’s plan for German youth.

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Winners in the 1920s Ad Game
(New Outlook Magazine, 1934)

This article is composed of 15 thumbnail biographies that serve to profile the most victorious men (and one woman) to have ever plied their craft in the world of American advertising during the Twenties and early Thirties. The fact that many of the clients listed herein are still around today will indicate how thoroughly these innovators had succeeded in making their names household words. Some of the the brainiacs profiled are Stanley Resor of J. Walter Thompson, Raymond Rubicam of Young & Rubicam, Gerard Lambert of Lambert & Feasley, Bruce Barton of BBDO and copywriter Lillian Eichler.

Incompetence at the Helm
(New Outlook Magazine, 1934)

A columnist writing for the magazine New Outlook following the first nine months of the New Deal, weighed carefully all the assorted alphabet agencies and edicts that President Roosevelt created in hopes that the U.S. economy would once more spring to life. He concluded that there was nothing to look forward to and compared FDR to the con-men on the street corners who scam the passersby into playing their shell games; difference being that FDR’s shells were both empty.


Click here to read about the first 100 days of the Roosevelt administration.

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