1939 – Page 2 – Old Magazine Articles

Sunglasses Make Their Mark in the Fashion World (Click Magazine, 1939)

Although sunglasses had slowly inched their way forward in popularity since the late Twenties, the attached article declared that by 1939 sunglasses were officially recognized as a full-fledged fashion accessory when the Hollywood stars Joan Bennet and Hedy Lamar began to sport them around town.

Like T-shirts and khaki pants, it would be W.W. II that would provide sunglasses with a guaranteed spot on fashion stage for the next sixty-five years.

Click here to read a 1961 article about Jacqueline Kennedy’s influence on American fashion.

Japanese Spies on the West-Coast (Ken Magazine, 1939)

A 1939 magazine article that reported on the assorted activities of Japanese spies operating around the Tijuana/San Diego region (their presence was well-documented by the Mexican military in addition to the F.B.I.).

A year and a half before the Pearl Harbor attack, Naval Intelligence sold a Japanese agent some bogus plans of the naval installation – more about this can be read here.

The Great Depression and American Communists (Click Magazine, 1939)

This photo-essay tells the story of the radical elements within the United States during the later period of the Great Depression – all of them were directed and financed by Georgi Dimitrov (1882 – 1949) in far-off Moscow. The leaders of the American Communist Party USA (CPUSA) were William Z. Foster, Earl Browder, and Ella Reeve Bloor.

In 1944, the city of Seattle, Washington elected a communist to the U.S. House of Representatives, click here to read about him…

Click here to learn how thoroughly the FBI had infiltrated the CPUSA.

Click here to read about an American woman who grew heartily sick of the socialists who pontificated on every street corner during the Great Depression…

Click here to read about the tactics that American Communists used in Hollywood during the Great Depression…

From Amazon: Demagogues in the Depression: American Radicals and the Union Party, 1932-1936,

MoMA Purchased Paintings from the Degenerate Art Exhibit(Art Digest, 1939)

The art that Hitler has exiled as ‘degenerate’ is finding ready homes in other lands that have not yet been culturally crushed beneath the heel of Europe’s twin tyrannies: Fascism and Communism. Because Hitler has embraced the calendar decoration as the supreme art form, the Museum of Modern Art in New York has been able to acquire five works that formerly were housed in prominent museums.

The article lists the purchased works.

Click here to read about the Nazi Art Battalions…

MoMA Purchased Paintings from the Degenerate Art Exhibit(Art Digest, 1939)

The article lists the purchased works.

Click here to read about the Nazi Art Battalions…

MoMA Purchased Paintings from the Degenerate Art Exhibit(Art Digest, 1939)

The article lists the purchased works.

Click here to read about the Nazi Art Battalions…

A Profile of Cary Grant (Stage Magazine, 1939)

A fabulous three page article from STAGE MAGAZINE on the early career of Cary Grant:

Cary Grant appeared in six Broadway productions and twenty-seven Hollywood pictures before anybody took notice. Then he played a dead man.

The Birth of the M-1 Garand Rifle (American Legion Magazine, 1939)

This article was written by the war correspondent Fairfax Downey (1894 – 1990) for a magazine that catered to American veterans of W.W. I, and it seemed that he simply could not contain his enthusiasm for the U.S. infantry’s newest rifle: the M-1 Garand:

What a gun it is! Its nine pound weight swings easily through the manual of arms. The eight-round clip (three more shots than the we used to have with the ’03 Springfield) slips in easily and the breech clicks closed. The old range scale slide has vanished; range and windage adjustments are made simply by turning two knobs… The new semi-automatic means, among other things, that the fire power of troops armed with it has increased at least two and a half times over the old Springfield.

For further magazine reading about John Garand and his rifle, click here.

The Klan in Miami (Pathfinder Magazine, 1939)

The night before [the Miami] citizens went to the polls to decide among 15 candidates for three commissionerships, the old specter of the Ku Klux Klan was raised to scare away the colored votes.

The scheme didn’t work.

Adolf Hitler and Women (Click Magazine, 1939)

This article about Adolf Hitler and women appeared on the newsstands two months prior the start of the Second World War, when the world learned how evil a man the lunatic truly was. The journalist wanted to confirm that there was no truth to the 1939 rumor that Hitler was dead and quickly began musing about other rumors:

More feasible is the theory that the sexless madman of Naziland is still alive and has merely discovered that he gets a vicarious thrill out of having women around him and likes to watch acrobatic dance routines.

Photographed in this article is Frau Scholtz-Klink, who had been dubbed the perfect Nazi woman by the Reichfuehrer, in addition to three curvy American burlesque dancers who performed before Hitler.

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