Articles from 1938
This article is about the founder of the British Union of Fascists, Oswald Mosley
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…
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 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…
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!
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…
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.
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.
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.
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…
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.
