Coronet Magazine

Articles from Coronet Magazine

Levi Strauss and his Denim
(Coronet Magazine, 1956)

The attached piece was written in the shadows of W.W. II – a time when Levi Strauss’ famous blue jean fabric was not simply being woven for the 12,000,000 souls in the U.S. military, but also the civilian war-workers who donned jean overalls and found them ideal for the heavy, industrial labor that they faced each day.


As if this wasn’t enough to keep the factories of Levi Strauss & Co. humming happily, the American teenagers also discovered blue jeans in the around the same time and have been devoted to them ever since. The author of this article could never have known that the social revolution that made the name Levi a household word all across the globe was only nine years away.



Read About the History of the T-Shirt


An article about 1940s denim can be read here…

The Submarine that Killed 9,400 People
(Coronet Magazine, 1958)

This article recalls an event in W.W. II history that is still remembered today as the greatest maritime disaster of all time: January 30, 1945, when Soviet Navy submarine S-13 sank the German liner Wilhelm Gustloff as she fled the Danzig port overloaded with fleeing refugees.


Written 18 years after the attack, this article erroneously attributes the sinking to two submarines and killing 8,000; but this was not the case.

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The FDR Assassination Attempt
(Coronet Magazine, 1960)

The attached article recalls that seldom remembered day in February of 1933 when Giuseppe Zangara (1900 – 1933) fired fifteen bullets wildly into a Florida crowd in an attempt to murder President-Elect Franklin Roosevelt.

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The Early CIA
(Coronet Magazine, 1951)

The CIA is a young and relatively untested child in the strange world of intelligence. The enemy dourly accuses it of ‘Black Warfare.’ But there is definite proof of its success. Radio Moscow never misses a chance to scream shrilly of ‘the extended spy network of the Wall Street mercenaries.’

The CIA formula avoids the fog of rumor that fills any world capital, and goes straight to the hard facts of the enemy’s economy, production, transportation, raw materials and manpower. A modern war must be organized, much of it in the open, long in advance. Guns must be manufactured; munitions, food, and raw materials stockpiled; railways and roads expanded and soldiers trained. The allocation of scarce Soviet-controlled steel is far more important than the minutes of the Politburo.


In 1958, Fidel Castro wrote an article for an American magazine in which he thoroughly lied about his intentions; click here to read it.

The Cold War Began with Igor Gouzenko
(Coronet Magazine, 1953)

On September 5, 1945, N.K.V.D. cipher clerk Igor Gouzenko (1919 – 1982) severed ties with his masters at the Soviet Embassy in Ottawa and high-tailed it over to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police with tales of extensive Soviet espionage throughout all of North America. The news of this defection and the intelligence he delivered sent shock waves throughout Washington, London, Moscow, and Ottawa – historians insist that this was the event that sparked the Cold War and altered the course of the Twentieth Century.

The Fabulous Brazil Nuts
(Coronet Magazine, 1956)

In 1956 the editors of CORONET Magazine saw fit to print this three page history of the Brazil nut; a fruit that has been popular in much of Europe for centuries but seldom known by the Brazilians or their neighbors:

The Brazil nut is the world’s most fabulous nut, fabulous in the manner of its growth, its gathering, its distribution and the perils associated with bringing it out of the Amazon jungle where it thrives.

The nut has been consistently exported to Great Britain, Germany and other European countries since 1633. After W.W. II, a large share of the annual crop was shipped to the United States, as well, where the raw nuts were shelled and reshipped throughout the world.

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Licorice
(Coronet Magazine, 1954)

Licorice – it ain’t just for watching movies any more because in the mid-to-late Forties scientists [had] found that there is a black magic in licorice, a versatile chemical which is already playing a considerable part in your life. Licorice has been harnessed as a fire retardant, weather insulation, medicine and a moisturizer for a few agriculture products. The ancient Egyptians were the first to discover it and they recognized its benefits from the start.

A Brief History of Pepper in America
(Coronet Magazine, 1956)

Told in this three page article is the story concerning the rise of the global pepper trade and the subsequent spread of that spice throughout the kitchens of the world:

Although Americans use more than one third of the world’s annual supply of nearly 90,000,000 pounds, it has been estimated that the average American family shakes only 7.1 ounces into their food a year. The balance is used by the makers of baked and canned goods, and meat-packing houses.

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Football’s First Half-Century
(Coronet Magazine, 1953)

No one is certain how football came to America. There are those who say it has always been here in the guise of an Indian game like lacrosse; its resemblance to English Rugby is apparent. But the game we know today is uniquely American, its place on the American scene secures. From September until long after the snow falls, Saturday afternoon means the Big Game to millions; and to millions the names of Heffelfinger, Grange, Harmon, Kazmaier and other gridiron greats will never lose their luster. This year [1953], more than 15,000,000 Americans – old grads, subway alumni and just plain football fans – will turn out to see their favorites do battle in a game that bears little resemblance to the scrambling, uncoordinated melees of 50 years ago. This is the story of how football grew up, of its heroes, and of the great games of yesteryear.

Milton Berle
(Coronet Magazine, 1951)

He was the biggest television star of the 1950s – Milton Berle (1908 – 2002):

An incurable extrovert of 43, Uncle Miltie is already a 36-year show business veteran and will probably go on forever. At the very least, his new 30-year contract with NBC will keep him in front of of the TV cameras until he is 72…

Rudolf Kasztner: Eichman’s Last Victim
(Coronet Magazine, 1961)

After reading this article I thought about how deeply Rudolf Israel Kasztner (1906 – 1957) probably longed for a quiet life as an anonymous journalist in his native Bucharest, but the Nazi invasion of Hungary put an end to any possibility of enjoying such a life. Recognizing what the occupying Nazis had in store for the Jews of Bucharest, Kasztner saw that there was no one about who was making any attempt to save them. Rather than close his eyes and hope for the best, Kasztner bravely made the decision to save as many Jews as he could by making deals with the horrible Adolf Eichman. Locating allies at home and abroad, Kasztner managed to save thousands while others died. Today, the descendants of the Jews he had saved number in the hundreds of thousands, but this meant little to the 15 year-old Israeli fanatic who labeled him a collaborator and shot him in 1957.

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Princess Margaret and Captain Townsend
(Coronet Magazine, 1958)

This snippet is about a major crisis (and a colossal media event) that took place in the life of Queen Elizabeth’s sister, Princess Margaret Rose (1930 – 2002) – when she was told in 1955 that the man she loved, Captain Peter Townsend, was not suitable for marriage.

Fashion Piracy
(Coronet Magazine, 1960)

Contrary to popular thought, the Fashion Police, so called, are not concerned with seemingly vulgar acts of dressing – mismatched colors, cheap accessories, gross fabrics, etc – but they do consider knocking-off the work of other designers as a serious violation – and when it comes to ripping-off the designs of Christian Dior or Pierre Balmain, that is when the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Coutre and police inspector Jacques Besson step in.

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