1938 – Page 3 – Old Magazine Articles

Hitler Goes Wife Shopping
(Ken Magazine, 1938)

An illustrated five page article that will key you in on all the actresses, nieces, Mifords and assorted divas courted by handsome Adolf throughout the Twenties and Thirties. It was said that the dictators co-tyrants wished deeply that he would marry if only to end his moods of melancholy, storms of anger, alternate depression and driving energy, hoping it will make Hitler more human.

Click here to read about the magic Hitler had with German women…

Hitler’s Sister Tells Her Story
(Ken Magazine, 1938)

For twenty years Paula Hitler lived in a Vienna garret, never hearing from [her] lost brothers, Gustav and Adolf… When Adolf Hitler became Chancellor, he at last wrote to [her]. Paula, embittered by his long desertion and the loss of her youth, declared that he was no longer her brother. She gave out an interview revealing that their father was an illegitimate child. The Fuehrer’s emissaries told her to keep quiet, she refused. But finally when Hitler came as ruler to Vienna, there was a reconciliation, and family Anschluss.

Click here to read about the fall of Paris…

British Fascists
(Ken Magazine, 1938)

This article is about the founder of the British Union of Fascists, Oswald Mosley (1896 – 1980). The article outlines much of his life and political career up to the year 1938, with heavy emphasis concerning some of the least admirable aspects of his character

His father’s comment sums Mosely up admirably:
‘He has never done an honest days work in his life.’

Click here to read about the origins of Fascist thought…

His Female Chief-of-Staff
(Literary Digest, 1938)

Missy Le Hand (1896 – 1944) was a pretty big deal in the life of President Franklin Roosevelt. FDR had many secretaries, but only one was a woman (and she was the first woman to ever serve in this capacity to a U.S. president). When the Germans attacked Poland, the State Department called her first, knowing full well that she was the only one in the White House with the permission to wake him up. Although this article lists many of the personal tasks she was charged with, it should be known that Missy Le Hand was the target of many Washington influence-peddlers.

Fortune
(Scribner’s Magazine, 1938)

Fortune is the world’s outstanding exponent of plush journalism. Its editors, long accustomed to prodigal expenditures, proudly talk of doing things ‘in the Fortune manner’. The Fortune manner may mean spending $12,000 on research for a single story. It means commissioning oil paintings of industrial tycoons for the sole purpose of reproduction in Fortune. It mean de luxe color gravure and high-priced writers…

Nose-Bobbing
(Click Magazine, 1938)

In the parlance of today it is politely called Rhinoplasty but back in the day, the verb bob was in use – which meant to cut short and no matter what you call the procedure, you’ll see that the gent pictured in this photo-essay needed a nose-job PRONTO!

Hollywood Stylists vs the Fashion Industry
(Click Magazine, 1938)

The attached article from 1938 heralded a new day in the fashion industry where fashion magazines would no longer be relied upon to set the trends in clothing; henceforth, that roll would only be played by movie actresses in far-off Hollywood.

It was Hollywood movie stars who introduced sunglasses to the world of fashion…

Government Funding for the Arts Praised
(Direction, 1938)

An editorial by the artist Philip Evergood (1901 – 1973) who believed that the Federal Arts Project of the Thirties had not simply made the lives of artists a little better but has also created a far better society:

The Federal Arts Project has pointed the way to an American Culture. It has set a weight in motion, it has let loose a force that has affected hundreds of thousands of lives. It has made murals depicting the history of our country and the lives of our people have been placed on the walls of our schools, hospitals, libraries and public buildings making them of greater beauty and of greater community interest – monuments and small sculpture have been added in equal numbers, easel paintings and prints now hang in thousands on the walls of public buildings…

Evergood likened this government funding to the Renaissance, when the church served as the artist’s patron and culture flourished.

Click here if you would like to read a 1939 article about the closing of the Federal arts funding program.
Click here to read a 1942 article by Rockwell Kent on the proper roll of American artists during wartime.

A Foreigner’s View of 1930s America
(Focus Magazine, 1938)

In his effort serve his editors at Focus Magazine and alert their curious readers just how Europeans saw the American culture, German photographer Bernd Lohse (1911 – 1995) traveled throughout the country taking snap-shots of everything that charmed and repulsed him – take a look for yourself.

American Nazis
(Click Magazine, 1938)

As you can see by glancing at some of the other articles on this page, the Italians and Germans were not the only nations to cultivate a taste for fascism; a franchise office was opened in the United States in the mid-Thirties. This article is essentially a photo-essay consisting of twenty-six images and a brief explanation regarding the American Nazi movement that once existed in New Jersey:

The pictures on these pages were not made in Germany. They may look like accurate shots of a foreign political movement, which they are, but they were made right here in these United States. Almost coincidentally with Hitler’s assumption of power in the Reich, our free democracy began to feel the long paw of Nazi propaganda…

Read about the American reporter who became a Nazi…

Click here to read about an admired American hero who was also attracted to fascist theology.

Television: God’s Gift to Hollywood
(Rob Wagner’s Script, 1938)

Young mother Hollywood has had another baby… a child some day destined to take its place in the playpen and howl the living pants off the rest of the brood – movies, radio, music, big theater, little theater, dance and festival. How soon television becomes the fair-haired boy of the village depends upon a number of manufacturing and economic factors…

Read another article about this Westward expansion…

Heinrich Himmler
(Collier’s Magazine, 1938)

A 1938 article covering the ascent of Reichfurhrer-SS Heinrich Himmler (1900 – 1945):

Himmler has dossiers on every man of substance in Germany. Nazi party functionary, business leader, churchman, diplomat, army officer or statesman; all are nicely indexed for the day when their case histories might be needed in a hurry. Because in Germany, everyone is suspect. Some Nazis will even tell you that Himmler has a dossier on himself.

Click here to read an eyewitness account of the suicide of Himmler.

Click here to read about the dating history of Adolf Hitler.

Scandal
(Pathfinder Magazine, 1938)

The New Deal’s Works Progress Administration, with its millions of employees and billions of dollars in relief funds, has long been recognized as a potential cesspool of graft where the unscrupulous are concerned. Last week, in the fierce heat of the 1938 campaign’s closing days, the stench of scandal began to penetrate the WPA administrations of two states…

Government Subsidized Art
(Direction Magazine, 1938)

This 1938 editorial by the artist Philip Evergood (1901 – 1973) stated that the Federal Arts Project of the Thirties had not simply made the lives of artists a little better, but had also created a far better society:

The Federal Arts Project has pointed the way to an American Culture. It has set a weight in motion, it has let loose a force that has affected hundreds of thousands of lives. It has made murals depicting the history of our country and the lives of our people have been placed on the walls of our schools, hospitals, libraries and public buildings making them of greater beauty and of greater community interest – monuments and small sculpture have been added in equal numbers, easel paintings and prints now hang in thousands on the walls of public buildings…

Evergood likened this government funding to the Renaissance, when the church served as the artist’s patron and culture flourished.

Benny Goodman, The King of Swing, on Park Avenue
(Stage Magazine, 1938)

To mark the momentous occasion of Benny Goodman and his Band performing for the ‘corsage clique’ on Park Avenue in 1938, ‘the King of Swing’ wrote this short essay concerning all his good work and the enjoyment that it brought to the Jitterbuggers of the world:

Swing is violent, at least so they tell me. But I’m willing to bet that Society is going to toss aside its toppers and tippers and really cut loose. They’ll all come slumming and stay for dancing.

The Invention of Nylon
(Pathfinder Magazine, 1938)

Last week, two of the nation’s leading manufacturers of synthetic textiles were taking important steps to woo the feminine heart from silk to synthetic hosiery. The E.I. Dupont de Nemours & Company announced that it had laid plans for construction of a new $7,000,000 plant near Seaford, Delaware, for manufacture of a new synthetic yarn called ‘Nylon,’ which, used in hosiery, was expected to compete successfully with all types of silk stockings.

The German Peace Delegation Crosses the Lines
(American Legion Monthly, 1938)

During the pre-dawn hours of November 7, 1918 the German peace delegation crossed through to the American sector at a battle-scared Argonne village named Cunel. A former private in the U.S. Fifth Infantry Division, Amico J. Barone, recalled that night and wrote this essay in 1938.

The Making of SNOW WHITE and the SEVEN DWARFS
(Photoplay Magazine, 1938)

The attached article is essentially a behind the scenes look at the making of Walt Disney’s 1938 triumph Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs:

• He employed 569 people who worked all day and frequently all night to finish it.

•The film took three and half years to make and cost $1,500,000.00.

•He concocted 1500 different paints to give it unmatched color.

•He spent $70,000.00 developing a brand new camera to give it depth.

•He threw away four times the drawings he made and the film he shot.

•He made over 2,000,000 separate drawings…

Although Disney’s wife, Lilian, was said to have remarked, No one’s ever gonna pay a dime to see a dwarf picture, the movie generated more box office receipts than any other film in 1938.