Recent Articles – Page 93 – Old Magazine Articles

The First Five Year Plan
(The Literary Digest, 1933)

A 1933 magazine article that reported on the success of the Soviet Union’s first (of many) Five Year Plans.

The myriad five year economic development plans dreamed-up by the assorted butchers of the dear dead Soviet Union all had one thing in common that was never lost on the Russian people: they always involved the construction of new factories, but never the construction of new housing.

Additional magazine and newspaper articles about the Cold War may be read on this page.

Charlie Chaplin and His Popularity
(Vanity Fair Magazine, 1921)

The Irish playwright St John Ervine (1883 – 1971) wrote this article for VANITY FAIR in an attempt to understand Charlie Chaplin’s broad appeal; rich and poor, highbrow and lowbrow, all enjoyed his movies.

Mr. Chaplin is the small boy realizing his ambitions.

The Milliner’s Collaboration
(Collier’s Magazine, 1951)

In 1951 the finest minds in American millinery were asked to put their collective craniums together and design some hats; each brought something unique to the table – the most humorous design element that appeared in each hat included a telephone!

Collaborators in the struggle to produce a taller plume, a more involved bird’s nest, are the hat designer’s – to whom carrots and cornstalks, bean bean pods and bumper-shoots are all perfectly acceptable decorations for the head.

‘Political Killings in Korea”
(Quick Magazine, 1951)

South Korean firing squads had executed hundreds of men, women and children accused as Red sympathizers before President Rhee stopped the practice last week and set up a special board to review death sentences.

Tango Fashions
(Vanity Fair Magazine, 1913)

The urgent word from Belle Époque Paris on the matter of proper Tango gowns was published in this 1913 article and accompanied by seven illustrations.

What shall you wear to the Tango Teas? Let me whisper to you a secret, only to be revealed when it is found out, my dear, there is no Tango in America, or, at least in New York. But it is quite different in Paris and it is for Paris and the Tango that the French dance frocks are made.

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

History of the Necktie in America
(Men’s Wear, 1950)

This illustrated column points out a number of interesting historic facts about ties in America; most notably that up until 1865 the preferred form of neck wear in the U.S. was a pre-tied bow that fastened in the back. In the 1920s the United States became the premiere manufacturer of men’s neckties – a record that was comfortably held for some time afterword.

Click here to read about the fabric restrictions imposed on
the American fashion world during the Second World war.

Germany’s Dictated Peace Terms for the World
(Omnibooks Digest, 1942)

During the opening months of 1941 Nazi Germany was positively drunk with power; their army seemed able to march wherever it chose and all of Europe was trembling. Foreign correspondent for the Hearst papers, H.R. Knickerbocker (1898 – 1949), pointed out that on April 29, 1941 the Axis forces had printed, what he termed, a trial balloon on the pages of The Japan Times Advertiser that clearly indicated the peace terms that were acceptable to them.

The Rise of Islamic Outrage
(Current Opinion, 1922)

I predict increasing ferment and unrest throughout all Islam; a continued awakening to self-consciousness; an increasing dislike for Western domination.

So wrote Lothrop Stoddard (1883 – 1950), an author who was very much a man of his time and tended to gaze outside the borders of Western Civilization with much the same vision as his contemporary Rudyard Kipling, seeing the majority of the world’s inhabitants as the white man’s burden. Yet, for all his concern on the matter of Anglo-Saxon hegemony, he seemed to recognize the growing discontent in Islam, even if he was some sixty years early.

‘The Hell Bomb”
(Pathfinder Magazine, 1950)

This article from February, 1950 goes on in some detail explaining why Americans should not be worried in the least about the fact that the Soviets now have atomic capability because the U.S. military has bigger and far more destructive bombs.

A hydrogen bomb could cause damage almost without limit. The Nagasaki plutonium bomb affected an area of 10 square miles. The new weapon could destroy an area of 100, or 1,000 square miles.

P.O.W. Camp for the S.S. Women
(Yank Magazine, 1945)

Among the many dubious legacies of the Second World War is a growing cult of males who have tended to feel that the German women of the SS are worthy of their attention (Kate Winslet’s appearance in the 2008 movie, The Reader didn’t help). This article (and the accompanying photographs) make it quite clear that no one would have found these men more pathetic than the G.I. guards of Prisoner of War Enclosure 334, who were charged with the task of lording over these Teutonic gorgons and who, to the man, found these women to be wildly unattractive.

The girls who served in Adolf’s army are a sorry, slovenly looking lot. In a P.O.W. camp near Florence they spill their gripes to G.I guards.

Click here to read about a member of Hitler’s SS in captivity.

Setting the Trends from Paris
(Pathfinder Magazine, 1951)

So much had changed in the world as a result of the Second World War, and although those shifting sands had moved much of the fashion industry to New York, the heart and soul of women’s fashion was still in Paris. This article is all about the fashion kings and queens who remained in the French capital. These columns explain what all the finest French designers were up to: Dior, Balmain, Schiaparelli, Fath, Balenciaga, Lanvin etc, etc, etc…

To read further about post-war Paris fashion, click here…

A Weird Anti-Barb Wire Artillery Shell
(Scientific American, 1917)

During much of the war, inventors from all combatant nations had been trying to make a artillery projectile that could eradicate the obstacle that had become one of the symbols of trench warfare: barbed-wire. No one seemed up to the task and in the end, wire-cutters were still the best way to deal with the problem.

This article is about one inventor’s failed effort to create a time fuse artillery shell that would deploy hooks that grab the wire as it goes speeding by and thereby saving the day. Needless to say, the hook thing didn’t work out terribly well and the difficulty inherit with time fuse artillery shells would be perfected in the inter-war years.

Mike Wallace of ABC
(Pageant Magazine, 1957)

The early career of broadcast journalist Mike Wallace (1918 – 2012) are discussed at length in this six page magazine article from the late Fifties.

We were amused to read that in one of his earliest forays into broadcasting he played a character in a radio soap opera.

Read about the early career of Hugh Downs

The Biz
(Pathfinder Magazine, 1940)

Pulled from the business section of a 1940 issue of PATHFINDER MAGAZINE was this list of Hollywood statistics that should be of interest to all you old movie fans. If you’ve ever wondered how the Dream Factory fared following the Great Depression, you can stop scratching your head bone – herein you will learn how many souls were on Hollywood’s payroll, how many movies did the town make each year (give or take), what percentage of global film production was turned out by Hollywood and how many American movie theaters were there in 1940.

Can Congress Kill the New Deal?
(Click Magazine, 1943)

This is a 1943 editorial that was penned by Republican Senator Robert Taft (1889 – 1953) who explained in the most clinical terms that President Roosevelt’s loyal opposition on Capitol Hill can be relied upon to support him in all matters involving his roll as Commander-in-Chief. However, Taft implied, any further efforts to go gallivanting about the Capitol creating any more of those agencies with the New Deal trademark names like FSA, WPA, NYA, REA, TVA etc. etc. etc will be met with the stiffest opposition from the Republicans, who were well outnumbered, anyway.

Taft’s column was answered by his opposite number in the Democratic Party: New York Senator Robert F. Wagner (1877 – 1953); his column can also be read here.

The historian Henry Steele Commager chose to rank FDR at number 19 insofar as his impact on the American mind was concerned – click here to understand his reasoning…

In Search of a Truce
(Quick Magazine, 1953)

During the final months of the Korean war, when it seemed that both sides were willing to make an arrangement that would bring the hostilities to an agreed upon end, the Chinese diplomats upped the ante

… the Red regime in Peiping [Beijing] wanted a Great Power conference on Korea’s future as a preface to new truce talks… Zhou Enlai, premier in Mao Tse Tung’s government, has secretly proposed tossing all disputes – the prisoner exchange issue as well as the political future of Korea – into a conference of 11 nations.

Watch an informative Christian documentary on Korea in 1953 (- its in color).

Klaus Grabe
(Pathfinder Magazine, 1947)

An article from 1947 that clearly indicated that modern furnishings were a commercial hit in New York City during the immediate period following the war. The furnishings in particular were the product of German modernist named Klaus Grabe. A refugee from Hitler’s Germany, Grabe was a Bauhaus-educated designer who had first settled in Mexico with Josef Albers before moving to New York.

Shortly after this article appeared, Klaus Grabe would write this book: Build Your Own Modern Furniture.

The Truce of Tangku
(The Literary Digest, 1933)

This 1933 news piece concerned the cessation of hostilities that was agreed upon by both the Imperial Empire of Japan and China in the campaign that began two years earlier with the Japanese invasion of Manchuria.

When the withdrawal of Chinese troops is completed, the Japanese agree that their own troops will retire to the Great Wall, which the Japanese claim is the boundary of the state of Manchukuo.