Recent Articles – Page 62 – Old Magazine Articles

A Profile of Shirley Temple
(Film Daily, 1939)

As a phenomenon in the history of the show business and among all children, Shirley Temple (1928 – 2014) stands as absolutely unique. For four successive years she has led all other stars in the film industry as the number one box office attraction of the world. But Shirley’s influence has been wider than this – there is no country in the world, both civilized and uncivilized where at some time or another her pictures have not been shown.

In a few weeks Shirley’s fan mail reached avalanche proportions, with with the result in her next film, Bright Eyes, Shirley was starred. The old contract was torn up and the Temples were given a new one.

British Attempt to Prevent Jewish Growth in Palestine
(The Spectator, 1921)

Confronting the issue of growing unrest in British Palestine, Winston Churchill cautioned the British colonial administrators to soothe the tempers of the Arabs in Palestine by limiting the growth of the Jewish population.

Rejecting Socialism During the Depression
(American Opinion, 1963)

Novelist Taylor Caldwell (Born Janet Miriam Holland Taylor Caldwell: 1900 – 1985) recalled the bleak days of the Great Depression – and the perpetual appearance of American socialist who seemed always to be in recruitment mode.

Open or crypto-Communists, they had one unwavering theme: Communism was a System with a Heart. Communism was the new Christianity. Communism was the savior of the working people. America must become Communistic, if it was to pull out of the Great Depression. The Light of the World was not in my church. It was in Moscow.

Click here to read further about American Communists during the Great Depression…

In 1887 the NEW YORK TIMES reviewed the first english edition of Das Kapital by Karl Marx, click here to read it…

N.Y. Court Ruled That Women Can Smoke in Public
(Hearst’s Sunday American, 1917)

A brief notice from 1917 reported on the arrest of three women for smoking in the Times Square subway station in New York City.

When the socially astute, forward-thinking judge recognized that no real crime had been committed they were released, but in the high fashion world feminine tobacco abuse, these women are often said to be the Rosa Parks of nicotine:

Mary Driscoll, Edna Stanley and Elsie Peterson

let their names live ever more!

The Nazi Book Burnings
(Literary Digest, 1933)

American columnist Walter Lippmann of the The New York Herald Tribune wrote:

They symbolize the moral and intellectual character of the Nazi regime. For these bonfires are not the work of schoolboys or mobs but of the present German Government acting through its Minister of Propaganda and Public Enlightenment.

CLICK HERE to read an article from 1923 about the abitious Adolf Hitler.

Read about the American reporter who became a Nazi…

Soak the Rich States, Too
(Pathfinder Magazine, 1935)

This is an interesting article that assesses the financial abilities of each of the 48 states in 1935 in an effort to illustrate that the ten richest states, as a result of their minority status on Capitol Hill, were in no position to cry out about majority tyranny when the insolvent 38 states rigged a deliberately unfair tax code that would see to it that they alone would pay the nation’s bills.

The ‘rich’ people may howl and growl and moan at having to foot the bills for everything, but there’s no remedy for it… The reason is this: our parade of poor states totals 38, while the rich states number only ten. The figures show that these rich states, which have only one-third the population, have to pay two-thirds of the taxes. The 10 richest states have only 20 Senators in the Senate, while the 38 poor states have 76. The rich are decidedly in the minority and there is no way for them to change the set-up.

The Blowtorch Blonde
(Coronet Magazine, 1952)

Here is an article about the legendary Marilyn Monroe (né Norma Jeane Mortenson: 1926 – 1962), her painful beginnings, the cheesecake pictures, the bit-parts and her enormous popularity as a star are all woven into a narrative that never lets the reader forget that her unique type of appeal was something entirely new.

Jean Harlow, Star
(Photoplay Magazine, 1931)

When this interview appeared on the newsstands, Jean Harlow (1911 – 1937) had fifteen credits under her belt (most of them short films) and only six years left until she would assume room temperature as a result of kidney failure. Written by the PHOTOPLAY reporter Leonard Hall (who would like us to believe that he was a Hollywood studio psychiatrist), this is a light and breezy two page interview conducted at the New Yorker Hotel at a time when that establishment appealed to Hollywood Royalty.

Click here to read articles about Marilyn Monroe.

Hugh Harmon & Rudolf Ising: Animators
(Film Daily, 1939)

A short account regarding Hugh Harman (1903 – 1982) and Rudy Ising (1903 – 1992) who were a team of Oscar winning animators best known for founding the animation studios at Warner Brothers and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

In the last decade the animated cartoon has developed from its early grotesque form to its present lofty state and this development is really a miracle in art and achievement in entertainment… The significance of the animated cartoon can be realized only when we consider its world wide appeal and power of influence.

The same year this article went to press, Harmon-Ising produced their much admired anti-war cartoon, Peace on Earth.

The Back Story of the Star-Spangled Banner
(Coronet Magazine, 1948)

Here is one of the few histories that explain the Star-Spangled Banner that seldom mentions its author. This short column will tell you about Sam Smith, the Militia general who kept the flag at Fort McHenry waving throughout that perilous fight.

The Degraded Lives of American Reds
(Script Magazine, 1935)

This article was written by an anonymous soul who wanted the Script readers to understand that the life of an American Communist during the Great Depression was not a good one. Their lives often involved constant police surveillance and harassment to say nothing of blacklisting.

What boon can membership in the Communist Party confer upon them in exchange for the martyrdom they almost inevitably suffer? But is any membership card ever printed worth having one’s skull fractured for?

More about American Communists during the Great depression can be read here

Stalin Puts Trotsky ”On Trial”
(Pathfinder Magazine, 1937)

In response to Stalin’s Moscow show trial convicting Leon Trotsky of anti-revolutionary sedition – a second kangaroo court was convened in Mexico in which Trotsky and his fellow travelers offered a public defense on behalf of the accused.

Eyewitness to Pearl Harbor
(Rob Wagner’s Script Magazine, 1942)

Attached is an eyewitness account of the Pearl Harbor attack as relayed to family members in a letter written home a few weeks after the assault:

The noise was like ten thousand factories gone nuts….Quicker than I can tell you, a bomb blows up the barracks with the gang in it, a ship explodes in front of me, a hangar goes up in flames…

The very next day President Roosevelt stood before the microphones in the well of the U.S. Capitol and asked Congress to declare war against the Empire of Japan; CLICK HERE to hear about the reactions of the American public during his broadcast…

Pearl Harbor Christmas: A World at War, December 1941

Click here to read about the Battle of Midway.

The Dying Lincoln: Could He Have Survived?
(Coronet Magazine, 1941)

In this article, the controversial author and prominent chemist, Otto Eisenschiml (1880 – 1963), recalled the events that unfolded at Ford’s Theater as Lincoln lay dying. A good deal of information is dispensed concerning the physical damage that was wrought by Boothe’s derringer (pictured) – as well as the various life-prolonging measures that were implemented by the 23 year-old doctor who was first on the scene.

The Boy Scouts of America
(Pathfinder Magazine, 1947)

When this article first appeared, the Boy Scouts of America, as an institution, was barely thirty-five years old:

The truth is that never in the history of mankind has a simple idea – an idea, incidentally, born in South Africa – so seized the imagination of boys the world over as has Scouting.

Both Boy Scots and Girl Scouts were active in the Japanese-American internment camps during W.W. II. Click here to read about that subject…

The Last Three Months
(Newsweek Magazine, 1945)

From inside Germany last week emerged the picture of a state that by all normal standards was in the last stages of dissolution… All signs indicated a physical breakdown perhaps as great as that of France in 1940… Refugees, mostly women and children with blankets around their bodies and shawls on their heads to protect them from the sub-zero weather, queue up for hours outside bakeries to get a loaf of bread. Draftees ride tanks in never-ending columns.

The First Thirty Years of Television
(Coronet Magazine, 1954)

Countless scientists contributed to the phenomenon [of television]. Marconi gets credit, as do Farnsworth and Lee de Forest. But the real starting line was strung by an RCA scientist named Vladimir K. Zworykin in 1923, when he applied for a patent on a iconoscope…

Illustrated with 27 pictures, this article lists a number of historic and semi-historic events that were captured by the early TV cameras and seen by millions of souls who otherwise would have only had to read about them in their respective newspapers, if they cared to.

A French Village Welcomes the Ninety-Second Division
(The Crises, 1919)

This is a lovely piece, originally written in French for a village paper, in which a journalist describes the collective excitement of the townsfolk in welcoming the Americans to their sleepy hamlet during the First World War, and how astonished they were to find that the arriving Doughboys were all of African descent!

Read an Article About American intervention in W.W. I and the Gratitude of France.