Articles from 1939
This short, slanderous profile of Italy’s Victor Emmanuel III (1869 – 1947) is accompanied by a caricature of the potentate:
He chose Mussolini in 1922 in preference to dictatorship by Premiere (Luigi) Facta, aided him in attaining supreme power…Hasn’t had any choice about anything since.
Cash and carry was a diplomatic trade policy set in place by the FDR administration; it was crafted during a special session of the U.S. Congress on September 21, 1939, as a result of the outbreak of the Second World War in Europe. It replaced the Neutrality Act of 1937, by which belligerent parties would purchase only non-military goods from the United States so long as the client states in question paid in cash at the time of purchase and assumed full responsibility for transportation. The 1939 Cash and carry revision allowed for the purchasing of military arms to belligerents on the same cash-and-carry basis. The purpose of the policy was to maintain neutrality between the United States and European nations while giving aid to Britain by allowing them to buy non war materials.
Shortly after the 1940 election, British Prime Minister Churchill told FDR that Britain could no longer afford to buy military supplies under the code of cash and carry and a new agreement needed to be agreed upon. The President then persuaded Congress to swap cash-and-carry with Lend-Lease – a new piece of legislation that granted the president authority to sell, exchange, lend, or lease war materiel to any nation whose defense was vital to U.S. security.
Here is an article on the last American concert tour of Polish pianist (and composer, diplomat and politician) Ignaz Jan Paderewski (1860 – 1941). The article concentrates on the amount of money pulled-in by the performer, both on this tour as well as previous ones; his legendary generosity and his monumental reputation.
Click here to read more about Paderewski and other pianists of 1915…
Click here to see what the first car radios look like.
Here is a profile of a very young Al Hirschfeld (1903 – 2003) – long-time NY Times caricaturist.
From the Hot From Hollywood page in STAGE MAGAZINE came this tidbit reporting on the curious events taking place on the sets of ‘The Wizard of Oz’:
The cast was extraordinary, from the stars Frank Morgan, Judy Garland, Ray Bolger, Bert Lahr, Jack Haley to Toto, the Carin Terrier. But of them all, the most utterly enchanting were the midgets, two hundred and twenty-five of them, with their doll faces, their plastered hair that looked as though it had been painted on their heads, the little felt flowers that grew out of their shoes, the bells that jingled from their sleeves. They, of course, were in costume for the good little Munchkins.
Another article about this incredible film can be read here…
This 1939 magazine article addressed the matter of the communist organization Workers Alliance perverting the arts organizations that operated within the Federal Works Projects Administration (WPA), thus forcing the government agency to close:
When the arts projects of the WPA were instituted, many capable and culturally progressive individuals throughout the country hailed them as a banner raised against the gloomy depression sky to form a rallying point for youthful and ambitious artists whose task it was to carry the torch of aesthetic advancement on to that future time when we envisaged the return of ‘prosperity’…yet the obvious control of the arts projects by the communist party through its stooge, the Workers Alliance has forced the hand of Congress to abolish the agency.
CLICK HERE to read about African-Americans during the Great Depression.
As a phenomenon in the history of the show business and among all children, Shirley Temple (1928 – 2014) stands as absolutely unique. For four successive years she has led all other stars in the film industry as the number one box office attraction of the world. But Shirley’s influence has been wider than this – there is no country in the world, both civilized and uncivilized where at some time or another her pictures have not been shown.
In a few weeks Shirley’s fan mail reached avalanche proportions, with with the result in her next film, Bright Eyes
A short account regarding Hugh Harman (1903 – 1982) and Rudy Ising (1903 – 1992) who were a team of Oscar winning animators best known for founding the animation studios at Warner Brothers and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
In the last decade the animated cartoon has developed from its early grotesque form to its present lofty state and this development is really a miracle in art and achievement in entertainment… The significance of the animated cartoon can be realized only when we consider its world wide appeal and power of influence.
The same year this article went to press, Harmon-Ising produced their much admired anti-war cartoon, Peace on Earth.
On June 29, 1931, Pope Pius XI issued an encyclical letter that condemned Italian fascism’s “pagan worship of the State” and “revolution which snatches the young from the Church and from Jesus Christ, and which inculcates in its own young people hatred, violence and irreverence.” The Pope irritated Mussolini to a further degree by labeling the Italian Fascist government as anti-Catholic after Il Duce put the kibosh on numerous Catholic youth organizations throughout the land. A Truce was agreed upon but as Mussolini grew closer to the Nazis later in the decade, and the battle reemerged.
Written during the later years of the Great Depression, these columns summarize the sad lot of America’s Black population – their hardships, ambitions, leadership, and where they tended to live.
When the Depression struck, Negroes were the first to lose their jobs. Today, 1,500,000 colored adults are unemployed.
A 1938 article about the hardships of the Southern States during the Great Depression can be read here…
Click here to learn about the origins of the term Jim Crow.
