1936 – Page 3 – Old Magazine Articles

‘Thanks, America”: French Gratitude
(American Legion Monthly, 1936)

Almost twenty years after the First World War reached it’s bloody conclusion, Americans collectively wondered as they began to think about all the empty chairs assembled around so many family dinner tables, Do the French care at all that we sacrificed so much? Do they still remember that we were there? In response to this question, an American veteran who remained in France, submitted the attached article to The American Legion Monthly and answered those questions with a resounding YES.

Click here to read an article by a grateful Frenchman who was full of praise for the bold and forward-thinking manner in which America entered the First World War.

This Guy Coached Astaire and Rogers
(Literary Digest, 1936)

A magazine profile of RKO Studio Dance Director Hermes Pan (1909 – 1990); his work with Fred Astaire (1899 – 1987) and Ginger Rogers (1911 – 1995) and the lasting impression that African-American dance had made upon him. It is fascinating to learn what was involved in the making of an Astaire/Rogers musical and to further learn that even Bill Bojangles Robinson (1878 – 1949) was a fan of the dance team.

Astaire liked the youngster’s blunt answers. He realized the need of a critic who would talk back to a star.

This Guy Coached Astaire and Rogers
(Literary Digest, 1936)

Astaire liked the youngster’s blunt answers. He realized the need of a critic who would talk back to a star.

MODERN TIMES
(Stage Magazine, 1936)

The world, with the exception of those bright eyed youngsters under the age of five, has waited pretty breathlessly for the reappearance of a forlorn little figure in a derby, baggy trousers, and disreputable shoes. The fact that his reappearance was to be under the sinister title, Modern Times alarmed not a few of us. This hapless creature, whose name by the way, is Charlie Chaplin, had come to mean an unchangeable element to us…Disguised in current mechanistic ingenuity, veiled in lukewarm disapproval of the plight of the working man, and tinted a slight shade of Red, it remain, delightfully and irrevocably, Chaplin.

‘Art Finds A Patron”
(Our Times, 1936)

[As the 19th Century was coming to an end] salesmanship evolved a technique more refined than pulpit or platform oratory; advertising became more subtle in method, more concrete in results than any form of proselyting argument. The art which Milton put into selecting words which should make man think about God was excelled by the care with which American writers of advertisements assembled words designed to persuade man to consume more chewing gum. The man, or advertising agency, who wrote an effective selling slogan, such as ‘It Floats’, received far greater compensation than Milton for Paradise Lost.

More Laws for the Germans
(Literary Digest, 1936)

With no check of legislative body or court, the Nazi triumvirate had decreed that smuggling money or shares out of Germany, and failure to bring into Germany money from goods sold abroad, should be punishable by death.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.

Her Divorces
(Literary Digest, 1936)

An interesting article that reported on the the successful filing of Mrs. Simpson’s second divorce (a photo of the document is attached) with a few words mentioned regarding the stigma of divorce within court circles and how ruthlessly she was treated by the American press corps:

Nobody mentioned the King. For that matter, no British newspaper mentioned that Mrs. Simpson was his friend.
But minutes before the Baltimore belle slipped out of Ipswich Assizes with her second divorce in her pocket, a million conversations were being launched around the world with the phrase:

‘Now that she’s free-‘

Can Mrs. Simpson Marry the King?
(Literary Digest, 1936)

Once the cat was out of the bag and the whole world had learned of the whirlwind romance between the King of England and the twice-divorced American social-climber Wallis Simpson (1896 – 1986), one of the favorite social pastimes soon involved musing aloud as to whether British laws would permit him to marry such a woman. Constitutionally, the King cannot marry a Roman Catholic, which she was (although this journalist erroneously stated that she wasn’t); recognizing he couldn’t get around this law, he abdicated.

This article can be printed.

The End of the British Press Black-Out
(Literary Digest, 1936)

Attached is a 1936 article that addressed the issue of self-imposed censorship that the British press corps practiced during much of the Wallis Simpson scandal:

Innuendo about King Edward’s friend Mrs. Wallis Simpson, previously barred from London newspapers, crept in last week and even colored the august columns of the London Times.

What was Known About Her
(Literary Digest, 1936)

This article can be divided into two parts: the first half addresses King Edward VIII and his concern for the impoverished souls of his realm who languished daily in squalor, while the second half was devoted to gossip and innuendo as to who Wallis Simpson was, what was her Baltimore life like and when did she first see the king.

(She first saw him in 1920).