Recent Articles – Page 88 – Old Magazine Articles

The Talent for Sniping: Native Americans on the Western Front
(The Stars and Stripes, 1919)

It was not beyond the editors of THE STARS and STRIPES to indulge in ethnic stereotyping from time to time and, no doubt, they exercised that privilege here as well, however the performance of the American Indian soldier got high marks for a number of valued skills from many Allied officers on the Western Front. It was not simply their ability to shoot well which invited these compliments, but also their instincts while patrolling No-Man’s Land in the dark in addition to a common sense of bravery shared by all. The article is rich with a number of factoids that the Western Front reader will no doubt enjoy; among them, mention is made of German women serving in combat.

Read some magazine articles about one of the great failed inventions of the Twentieth Century: the Soviet Union.

The Talent for Sniping: Native Americans on the Western Front
(The Stars and Stripes, 1919)

Read some magazine articles about one of the great failed inventions of the Twentieth Century: the Soviet Union.

The Talent for Sniping: Native Americans on the Western Front
(The Stars and Stripes, 1919)

Read some magazine articles about one of the great failed inventions of the Twentieth Century: the Soviet Union.

The Talent for Sniping: Native Americans on the Western Front
(The Stars and Stripes, 1919)

Read some magazine articles about one of the great failed inventions of the Twentieth Century: the Soviet Union.

Children in Need
(Pathfinder Magazine, 1940)

In respect to their economic status, it has been estimated that one-half to two-thirds of the city children of America are in homes where annual income is too low to permit the family to buy items called for in an ordinary ‘maintenance’ budget – a budget of about $1,261 to meet the normal needs of living in a family of four.

CLICK HERE to read about African-Americans during the Great Depression.

Slandering Gandhi
(The Literary Digest, 1921)

An uncredited column by an American journalist who seemed to hold that the British Empire could do no wrong in their rule over the colony of India, and that the man who most vociferously opposed this governance, Gandhi, was an old-fashioned, eccentric monk with Bolshevik leanings…

Thoughts on the American Films of 1941
(Direction Magazine, 1941)

Here is a film review from DIRECTION MAGAZINE that discussed many of the forthcoming movies of 1941 and how they so rarely depict American culture in an accurate light:

In bringing back the usual revelations from a trip through the Middle West, I want to repeat the oft-declared amazement that American films… reflect the barest minimum of the American scene in these United States. The rare attempts of the Grapes of Wrath and Primrose Path to seek and show new dramatic settings, are the exceptions that prove the rule of formula.
Many of the American films of 1941 are listed herein and the article can be printed.

Lincoln Without the Myths
(Coronet Magazine, 1961)

Relying on the expertise of various Lincoln scholars (Paul M. Angle, Dr. William Barton, Reinhard Luthin and David Mearns), efforts were made to verify whether or not all the many aphorisms, bon mots, maxims and plentiful epigrams attributed to Lincoln were indeed authored by the slain president, or were they the product of the hundreds of forgers and prevaricators that followed in his wake.

The Betrayal of French Jewry
(Newsweek Magazine, 1942)

The Nazis quickly extended the dread Nuremberg laws to the occupied territory. Jews lost jobs, businesses, property, liberty, even their lives. They were flung into primitive concentration camps and deported to Polish ghettos. And with them the Nazis brought the usual wave of Jewish suicides.

ISAMU NOGUCHI
(Creative Art Magazine, 1933)

This is an early Thirties profile of a young American sculptor named Isamu Noguchi (1904 – 1988). In the years to come, Noguchi would become well known for his innovative designs for lamps and furniture; but when this article first appeared he was admired for simply having served as an apprentice to Constantin Brancussi.

Click here to read a 1946 art review concerning the paintings of French architect Le-Corbusier.

Free Enterprise And The Assimilation of Immigrants
(Readers Digest, 1923)

The testimony given in this column from the early Twenties is as true today as it was then. It was written by a 1905 immigrant who observed that the first word immigrants learn when arriving in America is BUY. When presented at every corner with products they’d never seen before in tandem with the smiling and encouraging face of the sales staff, the immigrant can’t help but feel an inner drive to join the American society:

And when he succumbs, why wonder that he grows more aggressive, demanding higher wages and striking when the demand is denied?

The Little Things That Made Babe Ruth
(Colliers’ Magazine, 1924)

A confidant cashed-in on his chum Babe Ruth and provided numerous factoids regarding the baseball legend’s habits, manias and obsessions that are not likely to be added to the Baseball Hall of Fame archives.

Sammy Sosa in our day may use steroids, but unlike Babe Ruth, at least he wears underwear…

Stalin and His Cronies
(Pageant Magazine, 1947)

Here is an expose that revealed the hypocrisy of Stalin and the Soviet party members – who spoke of the inherit nobility of the laboring classes and the triumph of the worker’s paradise while they lived like the czars of old:

The children of the country’s rulers already regard themselves as the hereditary aristocracy… The absence of a free press and consequently, of public criticism, allows them to retain this psychology even beyond their adolescence.

Un-Americanism
(The American Magazine, 1946)

New York’s Cardinal Francis Joseph Spellman (1889 – 1967) wrote the attached editorial explaining why Marxism was the polar opposite of everything Americans holds dear:

My sole objective in writing is to help save America from the godless governings of totalitarianism…if you believe with me that freedom is the birthright of the great and the small, the strong and the weak, the poor and the afflicted, then you would be convicted as I that [Socialism] is the antithesis of American Democracy.

Click here to read another argument opposed to socialism.

Dale Carnegie on Winning Friends and Influencing People
(Collier’s Magazine, 1949)

Dale Carnegie (1888 – 1955) was a phenomenon unique to American shores; he was a publishing marvel whose book How To Win Friends and Influence People has sold over fifty million copies since it’s first appearance in 1937.
Similar to his contemporary Napoleon Hill
(1883 – 1970), Carnegie was one the preeminent self-help authors of the last century who recognized that success can be found within all of us if we simply know how to harness those elements properly. He had a strong belief that the powers of self-determination can be mastered in one’s ability to communicate clearly, and his followers are legion.

This article coincided with the printing of his second book, How to Stop Worrying and Start Living (1948), and explains the author’s philosophy –

… be a good listener, talk in terms of the other man’s interests, and make the other person feel important.

Germany and the Next War
(Collier’s Magazine, 1951)

No sooner had the curtain descended on the tragedy that was World War II when the Allied nations found themselves having to put together a coalition of nations that would be willing to contain Soviet expansion throughout Europe. A COLLIER’S journalist wandered among the rubble of West Germany and found that a great number of draft-age men simply replied nein when asked if they would be willing to fight alongside the Americans, French and British. One of the wiser observers opined:

Remember that Germany is a convalescent country…These people have lost two world wars in a generation. The last one cost them nearly 3,000,000 dead and another 1,000,000 or so still missing, to say nothing of some 4,000,000 wounded. They just don’t want to take a chance of being on the losing side again.

The West Germans joined NATO in 1955.

The Spirit of the War at Eton
(Cornhill Magazine, 1918)

Published during the closing months of the war, the following five page article is a beautifully written account, by an Old Etonian illustrating the strange atmosphere felt on the Eton campus as a result of the Great War with all it’s sadness and uncertainty.

Click here if you would like to read a magazine article about World War I as it was experienced on the Harrow campus.

Cosmetic Surgery in 1930s Hollywood
(Photoplay Magazine, 1930)

Published in a 1930 fan magazine, this article tells the story of the earliest days of cosmetic surgery in Hollywood:

Telling the actual names of all the stars who have been to the plastic surgeon is an impossible task. They won’t admit it, except in a few isolated instances…It is only lately that a few of them are beginning, not only to to admit that they’ve had their faces bettered, but to even go so far as to publicly announce it.

Click here to read more articles from PHOTOPLAY MAGAZINE.

Click here to read about feminine conversations overheard in the best New York nightclubs of 1937.