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European Praise for American Silent Comedies (Photoplay Magazine, 1931)

Written at a time when it was widely recognized that the silent film era had finally run it’s course and talking pictures were here to stay, the film critic for the Sunday Express (London) stepped up to the plate and heaped praise on the Hollywood film colony for having produced such an abundance of sorely-needed comedies which allowed Europe to get through some difficult times:

While German films were steeped in menacing morbidity and Russian films wallowed in psychopathic horrors; while Swedish film producers turned to Calvinistic frigidities, and Britain floundered in apologetic ineptitude…Hollywood’s unfailing stream of fun and high spirits has kept the lamp of optimism burning in Europe.

The Era of Bartering (Pathfinder Magazine, 1934)

Scrip (sometimes called chit) is a term for any substitute for legal tender and is often a form of credit – so reads the Wikipedia definition for those items that served as currency in those portions of the U.S. where the bucks were scarce.
The attached news column tells a scrip story from the Great Depression – the sort of story that was probably most common on the old frontier.

The Pessimism That Followed W.W. I (Atlantic Monthly, 1923)

A few years after the Great War reached it’s bloody conclusion, literary critic Helen McAfee discovered that a careful reading of the prominent authors and poets writing between 1918 and 1923 revealed that each of them shared a newfound sense of malaise – a despairing, pessimistic voice that was not found in their pre-war predecessors.

Certainly the most striking dramatization of this depth of confusion and bitterness is Mr. Eliot’s The Waste Land. As if by flashes of lightening it reveals the wreck of the storm… The poem is written in the Expressionist manner – a manner peculiarly adapted to the present temper… It is mood more than idea that gives the poem its unity. And the mood is black. It is bitter as gall; not only with a personal bitterness, but also with the bitterness of a man facing a world devastated by a war for a peace without ideals.


If you would like to read another 1920s article about the disillusioned post-war spirit, click here.

Mad Magazine (Coronet Magazine, 1960)

When Mad Magazine first appeared on newsstands in 1952 it was immediately recognized as something quite new in so far as American satirical magazine humor was concerned. The earliest issues were produced in comic book format with almost all content produced by its founding editor, Harvey Kurtzman (1924 – 1993); by 1955 the magazine’s lay-out was altered to its current form. From its earliest days, Kurtzman and his publisher, William Gaines (1922 – 1992), began receiving unsolicited gags from many of the finest writers and performers on radio and TV. This article lists some of the scandals (both foreign and domestic) that the magazine inadvertently generated.

Charles Lindbergh: American Hero (Literary Digest, 1927)

Truth is stranger than fiction’ is an old writer’s saw that the pen plodders know and the general reader doubts. But that truth and fiction may be one and the same thing in comes to light in the story of Charles Lindbergh’s flight. No fiction writer could have contrived a story more perfect and right in it’s details…In a few short days an unknown lad has become the hero of the world. His name is on the lips of more people than any under the sun. His face etched in more minds than any living human. The narrative question of the story, ‘Will he make it?’ is on everybody’s lips, from President to beggars.

A Foreigner’s View of 1930s America (Focus Magazine, 1938)

In his effort serve his editors at Focus Magazine and alert their curious readers just how Europeans saw the American culture, German photographer Bernd Lohse (1911 – 1995) traveled throughout the country taking snap-shots of everything that charmed and repulsed him – take a look for yourself.

The Plot to Assassinate Eisenhower Foiled by Cartoons…(Lion’s Roar, 1946)

An interesting W.W. II story was passed along by actor, announcer, producer and screenwriter John Nesbitt (1910 – 1960), who is best remembered as the narrator for the MGM radio series Passing Parade. Five months after the end of the war, Nesbitt relayed to his audience that during the Battle of the Bulge, U.S.-born Nazi agents, having been ordered to kill General Eisenhower, did not even come close to fulfilling their mission, suffered incarceration among other humiliations – all due to a lack of knowledge where American comic strips were concerned. Read on…


Here is another Now it Can be Told article…

A Child’s Interview With Dickens (The Literary Digest, 1912)

Kate Douglas Wiggin recalled her childhood train ride in the 1840’s in which she was able to have a chat with one of her favorite authors, Charles Dickens (1812 – 1870), as he traveled the United States on a reading tour.

‘Of course, I do skip some of the very dull parts once and a while; not the short dull parts but the long ones.’ He laughed heartily. ‘Now that is something that I hear very little about’ he said.

Skiiers Discover Aspen (Collier’s Magazine, 1948)

A late Forties travel article that simultaneously announced the end of Aspen, Colorado, as a ghost town and the beginning of it’s reign as a ski resort of the first order.

Aspen is a tiny Colorado village tucked away in one corner of a lush green valley ringed by snow-capped peaks rising to altitudes of more than 14,000 feet…

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