The Literary Digest – Page 9 – Old Magazine Articles

The Similarities Between Fascists and Bolsheviks
(The Literary Digest, 1933)

Here is a brief glance at various observations made by a correspondent for The London Observer who compared the two dominate tribes found in 1933 Moscow and Berlin. The journalist was far more distracted by the similarities in their street hustle and their speechifying rather than their shared visions in governance and culture – for example, both the Nazis and Soviets were attracted to restrictions involving public and private assembly, speech and gun ownership while sharing an equal enthusiasm for May Day parades and the color red. Additionally, both totalitarian governments held religion as suspect and enjoyed persecuting their respective dupes – for the Nazis that was the Jews and for the Communists it was the bourgeoisie.

Read a magazine piece that compares the authoritarian addresses of both Hitler and Stalin – maybe you will see how they differed – we couldn’t.

Read an article explaining how the Soviets used early radio…

Catholic Hierarchy Pressured in 1930s Germany
(Literary Digest, 1937)

With every organization in Germany gobbled up, the Evangelical and Roman Catholic churches continue their valiant, tortured struggle against absorption in the totalitarian state.

Last week Michael Cardinal von Faulhaber (1869 – 1952), Archbishop of Munich, mounted the pulpit of old St. Michael’s and basted Nazi violations of the Concordat, the 1933 treaty between the Reich and the Vatican under which Catholics agreed to a ban on the political activities clergy and lay leaders, in exchange for religious liberty in their churches and schools.

Modern Dance: Spreading the News
(Literary Digest, 1933)

Quoting the apostles of Modern Dance quite liberally, this article presents for the reader their impassioned defense as to why the era of a new dance form had arrived and why it was deserving of global attention and much needed in America’s schools. The column centers on the goings-on at Teacher’s College, N.Y.C., where a certain Mary P. O’Donnell once ran the roost at that institution’s dance department; it was O’Donnell’s plan to send her minions out in all directions like the 12 Apostles of Christ, spreading the good news to all God’s creatures that Modern Dance had arrived.

The Boy at Vicksburg
(Literary Digest, 1912)

After reading the attached article, we concluded that baby-sitters must have been pretty hard to come by in the 1860s – and perhaps you’ll feel the same way, too, should you choose to read these columns that concern the recollections of Frederick Dent Grant (1850 – 1912) – son of General Ulysses S. Grant, who brought his son (who was all of 13 years-old at the time) to the blood-heavy siege of Vicksburg in the summer of 1863. The struggles he witnessed must have appealed to the boy, because he grew up to be a general, too.

The Atlantic Monthly in the Beginning
(Literary Digest, 1897)

Forty years ago the Boston publisher, Phillips, with the assistance of that famous coterie of American writers that included Longfellow, Lowell, Emerson, Whittier, Holmes, Motley, Quincy, Parker, Cabot and Underwood launched
The Atlantic Monthly

It was Holmes who named the magazine, and it was he, probably, more than any other, who assured its success… The prime object of The Atlantic was in the beginning and has continued to be the making of American literature, ‘to hold literature above all other human interests.’

Click here to read the articles from The Atlantic Monthly

The Eight World War One American Cemeteries
(Literary Digest, 1923)

Written five years after the Armistice, this is an article about the eight U.S. W.W. I cemeteries that were erected in Europe (with the help of German P.O.W. labor) and the money that was set aside by the veterans of The American Legion to aid in the upkeep of these memorials:

The American flag is still in Europe, even tho the last Doughboy has left the Rhine. It floats over eight cemeteries, six in France, one in Belgium and one in England…It is the high honor of the American Legion to represent the American people in the fulfillment of the sacred national obligation of decorating the graves of our soldiers abroad on Memorial Day. The Legion pledges itself always to remember and honor our dead on foreign soil on the day when the heart of all Americans is thrilling with reverence for them.

Secular America on the Rise
(Literary Digest, 1933)

The most fundamental change in the intellectual life of the United States is the apparent shift from Biblical authority and religious sanctions to scientific and factual authority and sanctions.

So, at any rate, Professor Hornell Hart, of Bryn Mawr College reads the signs…Two other investigators find evidence of a decline in dogma and a rise in the ‘social gospel’ as evidence of the humanist form of religion which Professor Hart sees foreshadowed by the morning sun.

In 1900 people wanted to know why men didn’t like going to church…

Schools Should Not Fly ”An Emblem Of War”
(Literary Digest, 1929)

Here is one from the everything old is new again collection. This 1929 article asks whether it was appropriate for schools to fly the American flag, believing as the this one cleric did, that the starry banner is an emblem of war.

The Flapper Debate
(Literary Digest, 1921)

This article is made up of the musings of various editors, university presidents and social reformers discussing the cultural relevance of the Flapper and the cultural changes she has brought forth.

His Female Chief-of-Staff
(Literary Digest, 1938)

Missy Le Hand (1896 – 1944) was a pretty big deal in the life of President Franklin Roosevelt. FDR had many secretaries, but only one was a woman (and she was the first woman to ever serve in this capacity to a U.S. president). When the Germans attacked Poland, the State Department called her first, knowing full well that she was the only one in the White House with the permission to wake him up. Although this article lists many of the personal tasks she was charged with, it should be known that Missy Le Hand was the target of many Washington influence-peddlers.

Women Candidates Win Higher Offices
(The Literary Digest, 1924)

The majority of women being natural-born housekeepers, why shouldn’t the infinite details of a Governor’s office appeal to the female of the species?

This deep thought was put to the public by the inquisitive souls at The Birmingham News just four years after the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, which granted American women the right to vote.

The attached article concerns the 1924 elections which saw many American women swept into high political offices all across the fruited plain; it lists all significant offices that would soon be held by women and clearly indicates that the year 1924 ushered in a new era in American political history.

Click here to read further about women in national politics.

In 1933 FDR named one of these women to serve as Director of the U.S. Mint…

The Prophetic Dreams of Abraham Lincoln
(Literary Digest, 1929)

There are hundreds of stories concerning the life of President Lincoln. Some of them are true and some are not and we’ll leave it up to other websites to decide; among the stories told are the ones that tell the tale of a Lincoln who had dreams of foreboding, dreams that came to him in the night and told of his own demise:

Gradually she drove him into telling of his dream.

‘About ten days ago I retired late. I soon began to dream. Then I heard subdued sobs, as if a number of people were weeping. I thought I left my bed and wandered downstairs…I arrived at the East Room, which I entered. Before me was a catafalque, on which rested a corpse, wrapped in funeral vestments. Around it were stationed soldiers who were acting as guards, and there was a throng of people, some gazing mournfully…others weeping pitifully. ‘Who is dead in the White House?’ I demanded of one of the soldiers. ‘The President,’ was his answer. ‘He was killed by an assassin.’ Then came a loud burst of grief from the crowd which awoke me from my from my dream.’

It was argued that slavery in the United States did not end in 1865…

The Invention of Rayon
(Literary Digest, 1937)

This magazine article reported on the Miracle Fabric of the 1930s: rayon – and rayon cannot be deleted from any study dealing with Thirties fashion any more than the word polyester can be separated from a discussion of 1970s fashion. The article presents a history of the fabric but makes it quite clear that the fabric was immediately embraced by all the fashion houses at that time.

Read about the 1930s revival of velvet.

Click here to read about feminine conversations overheard in the best New York bathrooms of 1937.

Impressions of John Brown
(Literary Digest, 1897)

This article from 1897 is a digest of Cheerful Yesterdays, a longer piece by Colonel Thomas Wentworth Higginson (1823 – 1911) originally appeared in The Atlantic Monthly. Having served actively in the anti-slavery movement during the days leading up to the Civil War, Higginson put to paper his memories of famed abolitionist John Brown, wishing to banish all thoughts that the man was mad.

Anticipating America’s Unique Relationship With Israel
(Literary Digest, 1917)

Some thirty-one years prior to the official establishment of Israel as a nation, one columnist could read the tea leaves well enough to see that the United States would serve as the protectorate of the young country.

Click here to read a 1933 magazine article concerning the rise of secularism in American society.

Decline of Religiosity Among College Women
(Literary Digest, 1922)

The reporter who filed this 1922 article for Literary Digest was concerned with the secular world on college campuses that was damaging the well-balanced minds of American women:

Woman is learning the same things that are taught to her brother; scientific theories destructive of the faith she imbued at home…The women are not doing their duty – they are giving too much time to outside interests – they are degenerating! Women smoking! Women drinking! Women preferring adventures and amusement to caring for families! The flapper – the short skirt – the lack of corsets…

Click here to read the review of a novel that dealt the feminist discomfort with Christianity.

Decline of Religiosity Among College Women
(Literary Digest, 1922)

The reporter who filed this 1922 article for Literary Digest was concerned with the secular world on college campuses that was damaging the well-balanced minds of American women:

Click here to read the review of a novel that dealt the feminist discomfort with Christianity.

Charles Darwin in the Schools
(The Literary Digest, 1922)

An article which discusses the growing number of state legislatures given the task to vote up or down on the issue as to whether or not to allow the Darwin theory of evolution to stand as a legitimate topic for discussion and instruction in their respective school systems. Mentioned in the article was one of the major players leading the charge on behalf of creationism: William Jennings Bryan (1860-1925). The journalist interviewed many assorted hot-heads from the most polished universities on behalf of Darwinists and the reader will no doubt be amused to see that so many years have past yet the arguments remain exactly the same.

Three years after this article was printed Bryan would be standing in defense of Christian Fundamentalism during the famous Tennessee Scopes Trial.

The historian Henry Steele Commager ranked Charles Darwin at number 43 insofar as his impact on the American mind was concerned – click here to understand his reasoning…