Recent Articles

‘Americans All” (Pathfinder Magazine, 1938)

In an effort to keep the writers and actors of the Works Progress Administration busy, FDR’s Department of the Interior produced a 26-part radio program intended to prove that America could never have become so great without the contributions of all the various hyphenated groups that make up the country. On Sunday afternoon throughout much of 1938, Americans could gather around their radios, if they had them, and hear their identity groups being praised by the Government: African-Americans tuned in on December 18th; the WASP show was on December fourth.

The Temper of the Electorate (The New Outlook Magazine, 1932)

Just weeks before the U.S. presidential election of 1932 this article appeared in a political magazine that indicated how the Depression-tossed voters were feeling after three years of economic set-backs. The article consists of 21 pithy little paragraphs that sum up their feelings:

I BELIEVE it possible to feel hungry under either major party, but that under the Republicans it seems to hurt more.


Click here to read about the extensive press coverage that was devoted to the death of FDR…

A Woman War Worker Cartoon (NY Times 1917)

Attached is a cartoon that was created during the third year of the First World War by a British cartoonist who feared that women have, through the years, been loosing their feminine mojo – that charming thing that truly separates them from the males of the species.

Sunglasses Make Their Mark in the Fashion World (Click Magazine, 1939)

Although sunglasses had slowly inched their way forward in popularity since the late Twenties, the attached article declared that by 1939 sunglasses were officially recognized as a full-fledged fashion accessory when the Hollywood stars Joan Bennet and Hedy Lamar began to sport them around town.

Like T-shirts and khaki pants, it would be W.W. II that would provide sunglasses with a guaranteed spot on fashion stage for the next sixty-five years.


Click here to read a 1961 article about Jacqueline Kennedy’s influence on American fashion.

The Bund-Klan Connection (PM Tabloid, 1943)

Edward James Smythe, a whisky-guzzling old reprobate whose great sorrow is that Hitler is too merciful toward the Jews, has decided to tell all – if anybody will listen. Smythe called PM‘s city desk the other day and, after establishing his identity as the well-known American-bred tinhorn Fascist, now under indictment with 27 others on sedition charges, said:

‘Remember that joint meeting of the Klan and the Bund at Camp Nordland over in Jersey? Well I organized that…’

Swimwear (Pathfinder Magazine, 1947)

The only big fashion innovation popular enough to share the 1947 headlines with Dior’s New Look involved the evolution in women’s swimwear; most notably the Bikini. The attached single page article pertains to all the new fabrics being deployed in ladies beachwear and all their assorted coverups:

Sand-and-sun fashions for this summer are perter and briefer than ever before. Although the typical bathing suit covers just about 2.5 square feet of a swimmer’s anatomy, a costume-look for the beach is achieved with a companion cape, skirt of short coat… Favored fabrics are those made to ride the waves. Knitted wool shows up in both classic and unusual designs. Colors are softer and muted. Black and blue appear most often, with cider, gray and smudge the ‘high-style’ shades.

•Click here to learn about women’s fashions from the Summer of 1934•

Soviet Treaty Violations (U.S. Dept. of Defense, 1962)

This is a carefully cataloged list of the international treaties that the Soviet Union signed and agreed to abide by during the course of their first forty years (1920 – 1960). Printed next to these agreements are listed the dates the Soviets chose to violate the treaties and the direct results that ensued.


Promises are like pie crust, made to be broken. – V.I. Lenin


Click here to read about the Hitler-Stalin Non-Aggression Pact.

The Army Restrained (U.S. News & World Report, 1954)

Sitting before a senate committee convened in order to understand what went wrong in Korea, Lieutenant General Edward M. Almond (1892 – 1979), U.S. Army, was not shy to point out that it was the the back-seat drivers in Washington who interfered in their ability to fight the war.


Senator Welker: Could we have won the war in 1951…?


General Almond: I think so.


General Matthew Ridgway experienced the same frustration – click here to read about it.

Gandhi Urges Revolution (PM Tabloid, 1942)

Mohandas K. Gandhi tonight summoned India’s millions to rise in a struggle ‘for freedom or death’ after the full committee of the All-India Nationalist Congress approved by an overwhelming vote his call for mass passive resistance against British rule.

‘How We Made the October Revolution” (New York Times, 1919)

Here is Leon Trotsky’s reminiscence of those heady days in 1917 that served as the first step in a 75 year march that went nowhere in particular and put millions of people in an early grave – this is his recollection of the fall of the Kerensky Government and the creation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics(R.I.P.).

THE REVOLUTION was born directly from the war, and the war became the touchstone of all the revolutionary parties and energies…


The review of the first English edition of Das Kapital can be read here…

Scroll to Top