A segment from a longer article on the origins of Dada by the father of Dada. This column pertains specifically to how the movement took root in Germany as a result of the First World War.
A segment from a slightly longer 1930 profile covering the high-life and Hollywood career of La Belle Swanson. Written by actor and theater producer Harry Lang (1894 – 1953), the article concentrates on her triumphs during her lean years, her assorted marriages and her healthy fashion obsessions.
Click here to read about feminine conversations overheard in the best New York nightclubs of 1937.
Andrew Carnegie (1835 – 1919) tried his hand at clairvoyance and wrote this article in response to the constant plea for money from the U.S. Department of War, which he found completely unnecessary and excessive.
Our naval and military officials must dream of wars since most of them never even see one.
Attached is an illustrated magazine advertisement from a polite, middle class American periodical which depicts two trim bucks in the full flower of youth wearing their under-lovelies so that all the internet gawkers can get a sense of how wildly uncomfortable men’s underwear used to be.
Click here to read about the introduction of the T shirt to the world of fashion.
The following must have been some sort of creative writing project for one of the many bored World War One Doughboys, however it clearly spells out how the necessities of modern war demanded that the wrist watch no longer be thought of as a piece of jewelry adorned only by fops and fems and evolved into a useful tool for soldiers on the field and men with masculine responsibilities. The column makes it quite clear that prior to the Great War, a good many wrist watch enthusiasts would have had their noses broken if they had worn the ‘gimmick’ into certain neighborhoods.
Attached is a review of The American Era by H.H. Powers. The reviewer disputes the author’s argument that the First World War made Britain a weaker nation:
Mr. Powers’ interpretation of the war and it’s squeals is that the Anglo-Saxon idea, having triumphed, will set the tone for the whole world. He also believes that the real depository and expositor of this idea in the future must be America. Britain, he thinks,in spite of her great geographical gains from the war– he considerately exaggerates these, has sung her swan song of leadership.
A similar article about American power can be read here.
Pictured in this file is Sis Hopkin’s Middy Blouse for tennis. Cut to resemble a sailor’s jumper, a popular look for girl’s upper-class leisure attire, the ad ran in VOGUE and TOWN & COUNTRY:
A chic and charming blouse for the charming summer girlie at the paddle, in the tennis court or in the school room.
A French photograph showing the entry to one of the many subterranean shelters that dotted the Western front during the First World War – also included is a diagram of what one of the smaller German dugouts with a similar entry-way.
This article appears on this site by way of a special agreement with L’Illustration.
Click here to see a 1915 ad for British Army military camp furniture.
These two 1932 magazine advertisements had a tremendous amount of relevance in the lives of those fellows lucky enough to still enjoy summer vacations, just two and a half years into the greatest economic down-turn in American history.
These two pages appeared in the swankiest of New York society rags during the era: STAGE, TOWN & COUNTRY and VANITY FAIR, promoting the white summer suits and linen leisurewear of the Palm Beachtailors.
Attached is a four page article that reported on the deserters of the U.S. Army who organized themselves into Chicago-style gangs in post-occupied Paris, replete with gun-molls, hideouts, fencing contacts and all the trimmings of a third-rate-blood-and-thunder detective story.
After years of material shortage, the accent is definitely on the feminine, with all of its flounces… A look at all the collections shows that black is the outstanding color for afternoon and dinner. Drapings, wrappings and swathings that girdle the hips are the outstanding line. The favored fabrics are velvet , velveteen, corduroy (used horizontally, as are other striped materials) monotone tweeds, Kashas (a twill-weave fabric of wool mixed with Cashmere), and some Scotch plaids.
Attached is the 1932 review of Woman: Theme and Variations by Major A. Corbett-Smith:
There is no mystery about women, he announces…she is never quite sure of herself in comparison with other women; but she is well aware of her superiority to man…
Click here to read about feminine conversations overheard in the best New York nightclubs of 1937.
A 1939 article that concerned the rapid growth of the German Air Force, but also referred to the scandalous business dealings of American manufacturers Boeing and Douglas Aircraft had in this expansion.
It has taken Field Marshall Hermann Wilhelm Goering a little over six years to build the German Air Armada, one of the world’s most formidable offensive forces, out of a magnificent bluff.
A similar article can be read here…
It was no secret around Washington that President Franklin Roosevelt was partial to the U.S. Navy. The admirals and other senior officers of the navy certainly knew – and loved it. The attached essay was an appreciative salute to FDR composed shortly after his death by Admiral William Pratt (1869 – 1957):
Other men, military in training and veterans of successful land campaigns, have sat in the White House, but never before in the history of our country has any man ever sat there whose instincts at heart were essentially those of a sailor.
Written two years prior to the Korean War, this article is about the joint occupation of Korea – the Soviets in the industrialized North, the Americans in the agrarian South, and how poorly both regions were being served before the 1950 war:
The issue in Korea is not Communism vs. Americanism, but occupation-trusteeship vs. freedom. On that issue, both Russia and the United States would lose after a free vote of the people, because the two powers have, each in their own way, failed Korea.
The Soviet Army moved into northern Korea during the August of 1945, click here to read about it…
A short article on the topic Native American music and the studies of Alice Cunningham Fletcher (1838 – 1923), who had overseen a number of Native American archival recording sessions around the time this article appeared in print. Fletcher once wrote:
We find more or less of it in Beethoven and Schubert, still more in Schumann and Chopin, most of all in Wagner and Liszt.
Reporter Robert Shaplen (1917 – 1988) filed this account of how the GIs have reacted to the strangest country they have ever encountered:
Looking at the Japanese, the average GI wonders how they ever managed to prosecute a war in the first place. Everything in Japan, even broken and blasted cities and factories, has a miniature toy-like appearance. Automobiles, the ones that are left, don’t work; trains bear little resemblance to the Twentieth Century Limited or a fast freight back home. The short, slight people are dressed poorly and drably.
A veteran of the U.S. First Division, Sixteenth Infantry, tells the chilling story of that rainy night in November, 1917, when the first German raid upon the American trenches took place:
It was on that night that Company F took over its first front line position, received its baptism of fire, bore the brunt of the first German raid and lost the first American troops killed and captured in the World War.
…two hundred and forty Bavarians, the widely advertised cut-throats of the German Army, hopped down on us. The first raid on American troops was in full swing. They had crawled up to our wire under cover of their artillery barrage and the moment it lifted were right on top of us.
The U.S. Army would not launch their own trench raid for another four months.
