Collier’s Magazine – Old Magazine Articles

Nazis on Trial
(Collier’s Magazine, 1946)

War correspondent Martha Gellhorn (1908 – 1998) filed this article concerning her observations and insights gleaned at the Nuremberg Trials:

“The second charge against these twenty-one men was crimes against peace. War is the crime against peace. War is the silver bombers, with the young men in them, who never wanted to kill anyone, flying in the morning sun over Germany and not coming back. War is the sinking ship and the sailors drowning in a flaming sea on the way to Murmansk. War is the casualty lists and bombed ruins and refugees, frightened and homeless and tired to death, on all the roads.”

Nazis on Trial
(Collier’s Magazine, 1946)

War correspondent Martha Gellhorn (1908 – 1998) filed this article concerning her observations and insights gleaned at the Nuremberg Trials:

Rationing on the Germn Home Front
(Collier’s Magazine, 1940)

A weird article. This journalist seemed to admire much of what he saw in Nazi Germany.

Linda Darnell Downsizes
(Collier’s Magazine, 1943)

Everyone on the home front was used to making sacrifices, and Hollywood star Linda Darnell (1923 – 1965) was no exception:

“Allowances must be made for Linda Darnell who has been sorely tried. Instead of six servants, she now has two – and she hears strange sounds from the kitchen that convince her she will soon be alone. Her chauffer has been drafted; her butler is working at Lockheed. Her flower gardens are a wreck because the Japs who once tended them are in internment camps… ‘Why, this gas rationing… it’s worse than being bombed!'”

The Home front Knuckles Under
(Collier’s Magazine, 1942)

Having heard from assorted armchair generals, radio oracles and ink-stained bums that the heart of the American home front was not in the fight, journalist Quentin Reynolds bought some train tickets to scour the country and see if it was true.

It wasn’t.

Click here to read about the rationing of makeup.

”The New Order” in Japan
(Collier’s Magazine, 1941)

After reading this 1941 article you will come away with a full understanding as to how misguided Imperial Japan was to enter into a war with the United States and the British Empire. At the time of the printing, Japan had been engaged in its second war with a very underdeveloped China; even though Japan had held the momentum in that war, it had still driven the Japanese into a life of highly uncomfortable rationing, which would only get worse as their new war expanded.

When Bushido Took a Back Seat
(Collier’s Magazine, 1945)

During the closing days of the Okinawa campaign, Japanese infantry decided to treat the much-ballyhooed Bushido warrior code as if it was a plate of week-old sushi.

“The mass-surrenders were a circus for our troops. It became a race to see which outfit could take the most prisoners. And Major General Lemuel C. Shepard’s Sixth Marine Division won the championship with 3,279 prisoners, while Major General Archibald V. Arnold’s 7th Army Division was runner-up with 2,627.”

More about the Battle of Okinawa can be read here.

When Bushido Took a Back Seat
(Collier’s Magazine, 1945)

During the closing days of the Okinawa campaign, Japanese infantry decided to treat the much-ballyhooed Bushido warrior code as if it was a plate of week-old sushi.

More about the Battle of Okinawa can be read here.

High Hopes for Child Welfare
(Collier’s Magazine, 1940)

In this 1940 article, Eleanor Roosevelt (1884 – 1962) argues for a benevolent government that would see to the prenatal needs of expectant mothers and their growing children:

“But all children, it seems to me, have a right to food, shelter, an equal opportunity for education and an equal chance to come into the world healthy and get the care they need through their early years to keep them well and happy.”

British Palestine, 1940
(Collier’s Magazine, 1940)

For the first time since the Balfour Declaration was decreed, the Jews in British Palestine organized an avenging force and attacked numerous Arab villages after suffering random murders for 23 years. This happened in May of 1939; Collier’s ran the attached article a year later – it concerned the slow-burn that was heating-up Jerusalem.

William Powell – Smooth Operator
(Collier’s Magazine, 1940)

This is a 1940 article that recalls William Powell’s climb to the top of the Hollywood pantheon:

“When the talking pictures came in, the transition didn’t bother him at all. Many of the silent stars turned out to have voices that squeaked like the brakes of a 1914 automobile. Powell had been training his voice ever since the fateful days of high school.”

Hitler’s Men in Mexico
(Collier’s Magazine, 1940)

This 1940 article covers the Nazi shenanigans that were regularly pulled by elements of the German Legation stationed in Mexico City during the late Thirties, early Forties. Within a few months, the Mexican authorities would banish the Nazi presence from their land; click here to read about that.

Marathon Dancing in the Thirties
(Collier’s Magazine, 1932)

When marathon dancing first became popular in the Twenties there was an amusing, lighthearted aspect to it. However, when the Great Depression came, and the jobs evaporated, marathon dances took a darker turn. As desperation fell across the land, enrolling in a marathon dance contest became, in many cases, the only way to put bread on the table.

The Beginning of the End
(Collier’s Magazine, 1941)

This article heralds the slippery slope in men’s fashion. Our’s is the era in which it is not odd to see billion-dollar businesses being run by men in flipflops and gym shorts – this is a far cry from how their grandfathers would have dressed were they in the same position. The well-respected fashion journalist (Henry L. Jackson, 1911 – 1948: co-founder of Esquire)
opined in this article that it was suitable for men to cease wearing the darker hues to the office and wear country tweeds; next stop – flipflops.

Looking for Spies on the Japanese Home Front
(Collier’s Magazine, 1941)

“The spy phobia possesses all inhabitants of Nippon. No one believes a foreigner can possibly be living in or visiting Japan for any simple reason such as business or pleasure. He must be in the pay of a foreign government. This entails a counterespionage system in which every Japanese joins with enthusiasm.”

Impressions of Tokyo
(Collier’s Magazine, 1945)

During the August of 1945, C.C. Beall (1892 – 1970), popular commercial illustrator of the Forties, was dispatched by Collier’s to illustrate the surrender of the Imperial Japanese Empire on the decks of the battleship Missouri – and to draw-up whatever else caught his fancy on mainland Japan. Much of his account concerns his search for food and suitable lodgings.

”Impregnable Pearl Harbor”
(Collier’s Magazine, 1941)

Six months before Japan’s devastating assault on Pear Harbor came this article concerning how remarkable the Navy’s defensive measures were and how unlikely it would be if the installation was ever to be attacked. A large part of the article concerned how overwhelmingly Japanese the Oahu population was, and the many steps taken by the Army and Navy to keep them off-base. How terribly unimaginative of them to think that Japanese Naval Itelligence wouldn’t think to farm-out spying to an Englishman like Frederick Rutland – which they did.

Leaving Hollywood
(Collier’s Magazine, 1956)

Here is a short, well illustrated article about the love shared between Grace Kelly and Prince Rainnier III:

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen two people who looked more in love. Every time I turned around to change film or grab another camera, they’d start whispering, holding hands… like any just-engaged couple. Pretty romantic.”