1956

Articles from 1956

San Francisco: 1906
(Collier’s Magazine, 1956)

These historic pen portraits were compiled and re-worked for publication some fifty years after the San Francisco Earthquake; together they serve to illustrate the collective, yet individual, acts of suffering and heroics that took place April 18, 1906:

On the front steps of an abandoned house she had seen a young Chinese mother nursing a baby. The mother’s face was besmirched, and drawn with weariness. Her own child slept in swaddling blankets beside her. The child on her breast was white.

‘School Crises in Dixie”
(American Magazine, 1956)

Not since the Civil War has the nation faced such an explosive situation as it will when public schools in the South open their doors next month. In a plea for tolerance, sympathy and understanding in the South as well as the North, Pulitzer Prize award winning journalist Virginius Dabney (1901 – 1995) analyzes and interprets a problem serious to Americans in every section of the country.

The Depression and Humor of President Lincoln
(National Park Service, 1956)

This 1956 article addressed the issue of Lincoln’s depression:

Lincoln’s story telling proclivities were well known in his own time. On the old eighth circuit in Illinois his humor and fund of anecdotes were proverbial. What was not so well known was that the tall, homely man needed a blanket of humor to suppress the fires of depression, gloom, and sense of tragedy that almost consumed him.


Click here to read about Lincoln, the joke teller.

The Blitz Diet of 1956

A confident declaration makes clear at the top of these columns that all adherents will lose 5 pounds in 2 days if they seriously follow the dictates of the Blitz diet:

Breakfast, lunch and dinner are the same… Eight ounces of fresh creamed cottage cheese; two or three Elberta peach halves and juice…

(F.Y.I. – the Blitz diet allows for Norwegian flat bread, butter, sugar, and cinnamon.)

The Military Results of the Korean War
(Dept. of the Army, 1956)

Attached is an article concerning a page from American Military History and it outlines the losses and gains of the Korean War (1950 – 1953). In five sentences this article gives the number of American dead and wounded, the number of U.N. dead and wounded and the amount of ground lost to the Chinese and North Korean military; a map of the stabilized front is provided.

William Holden
(Coronet Magazine, 1956)

The attached profile of actor William Holden (1918 – 1981) appeared in print when his stock was about to peak.


When the summer of 1956 rolled around, Holden was already a double nominee for a BAFTA (Picnic), an Oscar (Sunset Boulevard) and was the grateful recipient of an Academy Award for Best Actor one year earlier (Stalag 17). In 1957 his performance in the Bridge on the River Kwai would bring even more pats on the back (although the Best Actor statue would go to Alec Guinness).


This five page interview tells the story of Holden’s initial discovery in Hollywood, his devotion to both the Screen Actor’s Guild and Paramount Pictures. His Hollywood peers held him in especially high-regard:

In a poll of Hollywood reporters recently he was designated ‘the best adjusted and happiest actor around’; by contrast, the same poll identified Humphrey Bogart as a total pain in the keister – click here to read that article.

1863: The Importance of Chattanooga and East Tennessee
(National Park Service, 1956)

Situated where the Tennessee River passes through the Cumberland Mountains, forming gaps, Chattanooga was called the Key to East Tennessee and Gateway to the deep South. The possession of Chattanooga was vital to the Confederacy, and a coveted goal of the Northern armies. Chattanooga’s principal importance during the Civil War was it’s position as a railroad center.


Click here to print American Civil War chronologies.

1863: The Importance of Chattanooga and East Tennessee
(National Park Service, 1956)

Situated where the Tennessee River passes through the Cumberland Mountains, forming gaps, Chattanooga was called the Key to East Tennessee and Gateway to the deep South. The possession of Chattanooga was vital to the Confederacy, and a coveted goal of the Northern armies. Chattanooga’s principal importance during the Civil War was it’s position as a railroad center.


Click here to print American Civil War chronologies.

1863: The Importance of Chattanooga and East Tennessee
(National Park Service, 1956)

Situated where the Tennessee River passes through the Cumberland Mountains, forming gaps, Chattanooga was called the Key to East Tennessee and Gateway to the deep South. The possession of Chattanooga was vital to the Confederacy, and a coveted goal of the Northern armies. Chattanooga’s principal importance during the Civil War was it’s position as a railroad center.


Click here to print American Civil War chronologies.

‘The Dictator and his Woman”
(Coronet Magazine, 1956)

The article attached herein is oddly titled The Dictator and his Woman; a more apt title would have been The Woman and her Dictator

From the start, the relationship between Peron and Evita was a curious and contradictory liason. It is true that she was still a struggling actress when Peron met her, but she had achieved a considerable reputation for spreading her favors around with a sharp eye to the future,


Read about Fascist Argentina…


Read about the post-war Nazi refuge that was Argentina…

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