1941 – Page 4 – Old Magazine Articles

Novelty ”Victory Fashion” Makes An Appearance
(Newsweek Magazine, 1941)

It’s hard to believe – but Victory Fashion hit the American home front before it was even called the home front. However by mid-1941 Americans were pretty outraged by fascist aggression: the U-boats, London bombed, Nanking ravaged, France invaded – the list goes on. When this article went to press, we were not in the war but we were firmly on the Allied side. The word victory made its way into fashion circles and the nation’s couturiers began turning out novelty accessories and garments. Even the hairdressers contributed.

The John Powers Modeling Agency
(Coronet Magazine, 1941)

They sip your favorite coffee, drive your dream car, display the latest fashions, show you how to cook a waffle: they are potent forces in the scheme of American advertising. Their faces and figures adorn the covers of countless magazines…often they develop into stars of the cinema. They come from all over America to an office on Park Avenue, New York, where a quiet, discerning man named John Robert Powers appraises their charms and schools them for the job of selling sables to society or groceries to the great American housewife.

Beginning in the mid-Twenties and spanning the years leading up to the late Forties, John Robert Powers (1892 – 1977) created and maintained the first modeling agency in New York City (if not the world) and during the Forties, the Powers Agency grossed over five million dollars a year. Attached are nine photos of the most popular fashion models he represented in 1941; a unique breed of woman known at the time as Powers girls.

The Failures of W.W. I American Press Censorship
(Collier’s Magazine, 1941)

Seven and a half months before the second installment of the War-to-End-All-Wars was to begin, George Creel (1876 – 1953), America’s first official censor from World War I, wrote this article for the editors of Collier’s Magazine explaining why he believed that censorship in an open society cannot work:

As many scars bear witness, I was the official censor during the World War. For two years I rode herd on the press, trying to enforce the concealment demanded by the Army and Navy.

Alternative Lyrics for the National Anthem
(Pathfinder, 1941)

Do you fail to recall the words to our national anthem time and again? You’re not alone – a quick glance at Google’s records indicate that in the silence of their rooms, thousands of your fellow Americans suffer from the same malady (and smirk at others who make their memory loss public). To say that the Americans of today are not as patriotic as they used to be is an understatement to be sure – but some of you will no doubt be relieved to know that the Americans of yore, vintage 1941, didn’t know the lyrics to The Star Spangled Banner any better than we do – as you can tell by the attached verses which were penned over seventy years ago about his fellow Americans and their inability to keep the words of Francis Scott Key in their heads.

Adolf Hitler and the German-Americans
(Coronet Magazine, 1941)

This is a fascinating article not simply for what you’ll learn about Hitler, but for what you’ll additionally learn about the manner in which many Germans tended to view that queerest of hybrids, the German-Americans.

This article was written by Rene Kraus, who had been a German diplomat during the Wiemar Republic and a refugee under Hitler.

Click here to read about the German-Americans who called themselves Nazis.

Click here and you will learn that Kaiser Wilhelm was also bugged by German-Americans.

College Fashion
(Look Magazine, 1941)

Dusty, Peggy and Jean were just three of the co-eds that made up the six percent of American women who attended college in 1941 – and that’s all that was required of them in order for the trio to sample fashion’s latest wares and sound-off in the attached Fall fashion review. Go figure.

‘America’s No. 1 Negro”
(The American Magazine, 1941)

Paul Robeson (1898 – 1976) was a multi-talented man and this article lays it all out.

Paul Robeson thinks of himself as conclusive proof that there is no such thing as a backward race. Given a few generations of equal opportunities, he believes, any people – Eskimos, Malayans, Fijians or the Untouchables of India – can produce as talented statesmen, scientists, educators, inventors and artists as the whites.

In Search of the Average New Yorker
(Coronet Magazine, 1941)

A well-known writer consulted many different sources about that rarest of species, the New Yorker – he came away with these many different replies:

Yeah. New Yorkers are suckers, all right. They think they are so much smarter than anybody else, but they’re the biggest suckers of them all.

New York Beneath a Bombsight
(Coronet Magazine, 1941)

When this article hit the newsstands, W.W. II was in full swing throughout many parts of Asia, Europe and North Africa. America had not yet committed itself to the war, but the grim, far-seeing souls who ran New York City recognized that it was inevitable – and much to their credit, they had been studying the possibility of New York City air raids since 1939.

Another article about wartime N.Y. can be read here…

Click here to learn about the New Yorkers who volunteered to fight the Germans and Japanese in W.W. II.

Harry Hopkins and Stalin
(The American Magazine, 1941)

Bromance was in the air when Harry Hopkins (1890 – 1946) went to Moscow to meet Joseph Stalin (1876 – 1953) for their second meeting:

He shook my hand briefly, firmly, courteously. He smiled warmly. There was no waste of word, gesture, nor mannerism. It was like talking to a perfectly coordinated machine, an intelligent machine. Joseph Stalin knew what he wanted, knew what Russia wanted and he assumed that you knew.

Mic-drop.

Reporter Under Fire
(PM Tabloid, 1941)

CBS war correspondent Betty Wason (1912 – 2001) reported in a very chatty way about how the war was proceeding along the shores of the Southern Mediterranean Sea. Of particular interest was her observation regarding how thoroughly lame the Italian Army appeared to their opposite numbers in the Albanian Army. Rather than eliciting feelings of dread and hatred, the Italian soldiers were pitied for their poor skills – their bodies were plentiful on every battlefield.

How Much Can the Germans Take?
(Collier’s Magazine, 1941)

The attached 1941 Collier’s Magazine article reported on how the people of Berlin were faring after one solid year of R.A.F. bombing. By war’s end it was estimated that as many as 580,000 Germans had been killed as a result of the Allied bombing campaign (many of them were children and far more women than men). This article examines what Berlin life was like when the bombs fell.

Click here to read about the bombing of Japan.

Charlie Chaplin’s Credo
(Direction Magazine, 1941)

This, the much-discussed final speech in The Great Dictator, is more than a climax and conclusion to Chaplin’s newest film, it is a statement of Chaplin’s belief in humanity, a belief in which his creative powers and artistic development are deeply rooted.

Hope…I’m sorry, but I don’t want to be an emperor. That’s not my business. I don’t want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone, if possible -Jew, Gentile -black man -white.

Propaganda Radio
(Direction Magazine, 1941)

This magazine article first appeared on American newsstands during February of 1941; at that time the U.S. was ten months away from even considering that W.W. II was an American cause worthy of Yankee blood and treasure; yet, the journalist who penned the attached column believed that American radio audiences were steadily fed programming designed to win them over to the interventionist corner. He believed that it was rare for isolationists to ever be granted time before the microphones and quite common for newscasters to linger a bit longer on any news item that listed the hardships in France and Britain. Objectivity was also missing in matters involving the broadcasting of popular song:

The morning after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor President Roosevelt stood before the microphones in the well of the U.S. Capitol and became the first president to ever broadcast a declaration of war; CLICK HERE to hear about the reactions of the American public during his broadcast…

The WPA Symphony Orchestras
(Newsweek Magazine, 1941)

This article lays out the enormity of the WPA Music Projects in the City of New York during 1941 – It sponsors the most extensive musical organization ever assembled in one city: two symphony and eight dance orchestras, two bands, two choral groups and three ensemble employing some 500 musicians, not to mention 96 music centers with 188 teachers instructing 22,000 students.

Integrating the Home Front
(Collier’s Magazine 1941)

Although the Roosevelt administration believed that integrating the armed forces was far too risky a proposition during wartime, it did take one important step to insure that fair hiring practices were followed by all businesses that held defense contracts with the Federal government; during the summer of 1941, while American industry was still fulfilling its roll as the arsenal of democracy, a Federal law was passed that criminalized racist hiring practices. The attached editorial from Collier’s Magazine applauded the President for doing the right thing.

Read an anti-Gandhi article from 1921…

American Apologist For The Purges
(The American Magazine, 1941)

FDR’s second ambassador to Moscow, Joseph E. Davies (1876 – 1958), wrote this stunning article in which he makes clear that he was all in favor of Stalin’s purges and believed that the trials indicated the amazing far-sightedness of Stalin and his close associates. He believed every one of the trumped-up charges and swallowed them hook, line and sinker. He concluded the article by advising other liberty loving nations to follow Stalin’s example.

The General Who Failed France
(Coronet Magazine, 1941)

General Maxime Weygand (1867 – 1965) is remembered as the French military commander who allowed himself to be out-maneuvered and out-generaled when France was invaded by the German Army in May of 1940. The Battle for France lasted roughly 42 days before Weygrand’s forces collapsed.