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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.

One of the First Letters to the Editor in Favor of the Bomb (Yank Magazine, 1945)

Apparently the arguments that we still hear today concerning whether or not use of the Atomic Bomb in 1945 was justifiable popped-up right away. The following is a letter to the editor of Yank Magazine written by a hard-charging fellow who explained that he was heartily sick of reading the

-pious cries of horror [that] come from the musty libraries of well-fed clergymen and from others equally far removed from the war.

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…

Fortune (Scribner’s Magazine, 1938)

Fortune is the world’s outstanding exponent of plush journalism. Its editors, long accustomed to prodigal expenditures, proudly talk of doing things ‘in the Fortune manner’. The Fortune manner may mean spending $12,000 on research for a single story. It means commissioning oil paintings of industrial tycoons for the sole purpose of reproduction in Fortune. It mean de luxe color gravure and high-priced writers…

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…

Nose-Bobbing (Click Magazine, 1938)

In the parlance of today it is politely called Rhinoplasty but back in the day, the verb bob was in use – which meant to cut short and no matter what you call the procedure, you’ll see that the gent pictured in this photo-essay needed a nose-job PRONTO!

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.

Union General James Harrison Wilson (The Dial Magazine, 1912)

Attached is the review from a respected literary journal concerning the autobiography of Brigadier General James Harrison Wilson (1837 – 1925). Under the Old Flag Wilson is today best remembered as the U.S. Army cavalry officer who captured the Confederate President Jefferson Davis in his flight from Richmond. Following the Civil War, where he rose rapidly in the army hierarchy and finished as brigadier general, Wilson continued to play important rolls in the U.S. military; serving during the Spanish-American War and the Boxer Rebellion

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