Articles from 1947
When Joe Martin received a shrapnel wound to the head it affected that region of his brain that processes language. He spent a good deal of time in military hospitals trying to regain his lost ability to communicate, as he articulated clearly in the attached article:
He then held up a pencil in front of me and asked, ‘Joe, what is this?’
I heard myself reply, ‘A paddle’.
An article from 1947 that clearly indicated that modern furnishings were a commercial hit in New York City during the immediate period following the war. The furnishings in particular were the product of German modernist named Klaus Grabe. A refugee from Hitler’s Germany, Grabe was a Bauhaus-educated designer who had first settled in Mexico with Josef Albers before moving to New York.
Shortly after this article appeared, Klaus Grabe would write this book: Build Your Own Modern Furniture
Fingered as the premier Soviet agent working in the United States by a former communist and editor of THE DAILY WORKER and PEOPLE’S WORLD, Gerhart Eisler (1897 – 1968) – was arrested in the Fall of 1947 and charged with espionage.
Standing before the House Committee on Un-American Activities, Eisler refused to take the oath, preferring instead to read a prepared statement. The committee refused to play along and the Justice Department soon leveled Eisler with additional charges. By 1949 things were looking dark for Eisler; jumping bail he made good his escape and secured passage across the Atlantic. Welcomed in East Germany as a hero, Eisler was soon named director of East German radio and became a prominent voice for the Communist government.
This is the story of Harry Crocker, a full-blooded Iroquois who lived in a house that was reserved for white people…
One can’t but help but cry a little when reading that the Americans of 1947 actually believed that their public school system was substandard; they had no idea the depths this same system would be thrust just thirty years hence. The Forties was a time when most school teachers believed that the school’s biggest problem was talking in the classroom or lingering in the halls. However, this article lists the ten firsts that both state and Federal governments had initiated in order to make a fine education system better.
To be sure, the motion pictures that Hollywood produced during the late teens were very self-conscious, but they were beginning to develop smartness…
Los Angeles and its environs were crowded with new motion picture companies. The American Film Company, the Vitagraph Company, the Universal Company Christie Comedies and Selig found competitors springing up like weeds after rain: the demand for flickers was enjoying its first boom.
This is the 1947 review of Robert Merrian’s history on the Battle of the Bulge, Dark December; the reviewer, T.E. Cassidy, had served as a U.S. Army intelligence officer in the Ardennes:
Merriam is at his best analyzing the actual confusion that was rampant from the very beginning of the German drive on December 16th. I know his handling is expert here, for I was in the midst of the chaos, and can vividly recall, for example, the blank stares I met at various headquarters when I would ask what road net was clear, and to what point. It was really no one’s fault, after the first day or two. People simply did not know what was happening. And it was days and days before there was any concerted agreement among the different levels as to just what was going on.
This is the 1947 review of Robert Merrian’s history on the Battle of the Bulge, Dark December; the reviewer, T.E. Cassidy, had served as a U.S. Army intelligence officer in the Ardennes:
Merriam is at his best analyzing the actual confusion that was rampant from the very beginning of the German drive on December 16th. I know his handling is expert here, for I was in the midst of the chaos, and can vividly recall, for example, the blank stares I met at various headquarters when I would ask what road net was clear, and to what point. It was really no one’s fault, after the first day or two. People simply did not know what was happening. And it was days and days before there was any concerted agreement among the different levels as to just what was going on.
Here is a W.W. II reminiscence of combat photographer Robert Capa (1913 – 1954) by the legendary airborne infantry commander General James Gavin. The remarks were addressed to the editors of ’47 Magazine in response to an article on Capa that had appeared earlier in the magazine.
The fashionable gowns will be one of two extremes: pencil slim or big skirted like a puff ball. Whatever its cut, its color may be anything from soft dove grey to something called satan red. Fabrics are rich and lustrous, particularly the nontarnishable metallic materials. Newest is aluminum, colored gold or silver and woven into lame or onto rayon or even wool in gleaming designs.
