Articles from 1942
Illustrated with thirteen pictures of the most popular U.S. makeup products used throughout the Forties, this article provides a fascinating look at how World War II effected the American cosmetic industry and how that same industry benefited the American war effort.
The U.S. cosmetics industry was effected in many ways, read the article and find out.
Click here to read a 1954 article about Marilyn Monroe.
The summer of 1942 found the German Army in the Soviet Union nearing the end of its oil reserves. It was decided that this problem could best be solved by seizing the Red oilfields of the Caucasus Mountains – and so began the Battle of the Caucasus (25 July 1942 – 12 May 1944).
Three years before terms such as Enola Gay and Atom Bomb would become household words, this five page article appeared in an American magazine informing the folks on the home front that this monstrosity was being developed silently behind the scenes.
We have no doubt that the FBI was knocking at the publisher’s door the very second that the issue appeared on the newsstands.
This article was penned by YANK correspondent Sergeant George Slim Aarons (1916 – 2006) concerning his travels throughout the Allied occupied portions of Tunisia in 1943. Aarons reported on the heavy presence of German military debris that could be found scattered throughout the deserts – evidence that spelled out the imminent eviction of the Germans from that continent:
Some of these tanks lay in groups, showing how they had clustered together and fought it out to the bitter end. Other iron carcasses were alone in the desert, burned and twisted – relics of a hopeless, single-handed struggle against the Allied forces.
Click here to read about the retreat of the German 7th Army from Normandy.
This article first appeared at the end of America’s first full year of war and it is composed of the names and pictures of Hollywood’s leading men who were absolved from fulfilling their military obligations during the war.
The personalities of the fabulous films are on the spot in the matter of serving their country. It is useless to deny that the motion picture stars have been getting the best of it. Some have been given special draft deferments and choice assignments and often have been allowed extra months to finish their pictures before having to report for duty.
Click here to read about the American draft-dodgers of the Second World War.
Today in Europe there are more slaves than ever existed on any continent at any time. Hitler had to fight for every one of them… They used gangs, particularly in Poland, to round up workers from the streets, to drag them from churches and theaters and even from homes to go to work in Germany.
At the time it was estimated that there were as many as 6,000,000 slaves in Germany; half of them were prisoners of war.
Click here to read about the enslavement of France…
We were very surprised to read in the attached editorial that the whole idea of draft deferments for actors and other assorted Hollywood flunkies was not a scheme cooked-up by their respective agents and yes-men, but a plan that sprung forth from the fertile mind of the executive officer in charge of the Selective Service System: Brigadier General Lewis Blaine Hershey (1893 – 1977) in Washington.
Always one to ask the difficult questions, Ernest V. Heyn (1905 – 1995) executive editor of Photoplay posed the query Should Stars Fight? and in this column he began to weigh the pros-and-cons of the need for propaganda and an uninterrupted flow of movies for the home front, and the appearance of creating a new entitled class of pretty boys.
In a message to the German Red Cross, Hitler referred to Russia as ‘an enemy whose victory would mean the end of everything’
When Hitler says ‘the end of everything‘ he means the end of Nazism.
It matters not that we’re fighting a war on, under and over all the seas and on half the continents of the earth. Uncle Sam is determined that there shall be be no new army of ‘forgotten men’ to make a mockery of all the things for which we are now fighting…The Farm Security Administration [has been] detailed to look out for migratory defense workers – the kind who can’t find a place to live in overcrowded war-boom towns
Click here to read about the effects that the Great Depression had on the clothes we wore…
The fact that more boy babies are born during and immediately after major wars is a phenomenon that was discovered by the underpaid statisticians employed by the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company in 1942. The articles that are attached are but two of what was probably four hundred articles that appeared on the topic that year. The writers and thinkers of the digital age continue studying this actuality – among them is the gang over at Psychology Today who wrote:
Scientists have known for a long time that more boys than usual are born during and after major wars. The phenomenon was first noticed in 1954 with regard to white children born during World War II in the United States. It has since been replicated for most of the belligerent nations in both World Wars. The phenomenon has been dubbed the ‘returning soldier effect.’ There is no doubt that the phenomenon is real, but nobody has been able to explain it. Why are soldiers who return from wars more likely to father sons than other men?
