Articles from 1937
Appearing in The American Legion Monthly some nineteen years after the end of the war was this nifty article written by a German veteran. The article explains quite simply how his forward listening post operated in the German trenches North of Verdun during the early Autumn on 1918.
The author of this 1937 column pointed out that the Equal Rights Amendment had been submitted before Congress for passage each and every year since 1923, and each time it received a nay vote.
Published one month before her disappearance, this is one of the last interviews Amelia Earhart was to give.
Late last week 30 prominent Ethiopians were tried as ringleaders in the attempted assassination [of Marshal Rodolfo Graziani]. They were to serve as public examples of Italy’s determination to rule over her new African domain. All other natives found in possession of arms were shot by Fascist firing squads, more than 1,000 terrified men being mowed down in a bloody Mussolini-ordered revenge.
Italy’s financial and human resources are being heavily drained, not only by a vast [Roman] road-building program in the conquered kingdom, but particularly by the efforts of 200,000 men who compose the fascist expeditionary force to pacify a warlike population of 9,000,000 natives in a territory larger than France and Italy combined.
A column about Mussolini’s Minister of Colonies, Emilio De Bono (1866 – 1944) and his popular book, La Preparazione E Le Prime Operazioni:
Last week, with the appearance of a third printing, following a sold-out second edition (both of which were marked for publication in 1937), Italians at home and abroad noted certain deletions, including the passage which intimated that Mussolini had been on the point of abandoning his campaign in the face of British armed intervention.
This well-read writer recalls the great novels leading up to the publication of Gone With The Wind (1936). Along the way, she lists some of the many foibles of The Great American Reading Public – in the end she recognizes that she shouldn’t have been surprised at all that the historic romance was an all-time-best-seller and that Margaret Mitchell was awarded a Pulitzer.
This is one of the most enjoyable early television articles: an eye-witness account of one the first T.V. broadcasts from the R.C.A. Building in New York City during the November of 1936. The viewing was set up strictly for members of the American press corps and the excitement of this one journalist clearly could not be contained:
In the semi-darkness we sat in tense silence waiting to see the premiere demonstration of television… Television! What would it be like?
By the year 1937 it became a concern that an eighth of all those admitted to the nation’s state-run mental hospitals were between the ages of 15 through 24. On a similar note, it was revealed that 40% of employable youth were entirely unable to secure positions during this this same period. These matters were made known as a result of the efforts put forward by the Youth Commission of the American Council of Education – a group that began compiling such data in 1935.
I always knew that I would one day find a reminiscence of the Great Depression – what I didn’t expect is finding it in a magazine from 1937. As mentioned in another part of this site, 1937 saw some measure of economic recovery (until it didn’t) and this reminiscence was penned by a fellow who wanted so badly to believe that the whole thing was finally over. He wished so earnestly that the Depression had ended that he listed just what he was missing about it already. Little did he know he had three more years to go.
Twenty-two years after wrap was called on the set of The Birth of a Nation, leading lady Lillian Gish (1893 – 1993), put pen to paper and wrote this reminiscence about her days on the set with D.W. Griffith.
When FDR saw fit to nominate a Klansman to the Supreme Court, Hugo Black, it prompted the editors at Literary Digest to recall the history of those terrorists and how they came into existence, their customs and practices, etc.
When Edward VIII chose to abdicate, the world’s attention shifted to the new heir, the Duke of York (George VI: 1895 – 1952) and his daughter, Elizabeth (Elizabeth II: b. 1926). This magazine article served to introduce the future queen to American readers – making clear that the princess was something like a British version of the Hollywood child star, Shirley Temple – often imitated and recognized as the gold standard of girlhood. Written during the depression, her lavish, story-book existence seemed unreal to many.
In early March, numerous governors convened and agreed that the WPA was dropping too many dependents from their rolls who were then becoming burdensome to their respective states. The executives then wrote a telegram to the White House insisting that the Federal program stop this practice.
The Federal Theater Project (FTP) was a division of President
Roosevelt’s Works Project Administration (WPA). The WPA was organized in order to dream up jobs for the many unemployed Americans during the Great Depression. They employed manual laborers with the Civilian Conservation Corps, musicians with the Federal Music Project and historians with the Federal Records Survey – to name only a few of the agencies within the WPA. The Federal Theater Project was intended to hire the nation’s actors, costumers,directors and stagehands:
At its peak in 1936, FTP employed 12,500 people…it had puppet shows, vaudeville units, circuses and stock companies traveling through every state.
As 1936 came to an end in Tokyo, the aftershocks of the February 26, 1936 failed military coup could still be felt throughout the halls of Japan’s Government. The uprising of the military hardliners resulted in four assassinations and a suicide before the constitutional powers regained control. This article covers a more peaceful dust-up on the Parliament floor – and when it was concluded the Generals had the upper hand.
Still the country’s most privileged class, military leaders – modern equivalent of the Samurai, medieval knights – can exert pressure on the government by reason of a 42-year-old imperial edict: the War and Navy Ministries must be headed by army and navy officers; if either resigns, the Cabinet falls.
