VANITY FAIR‘s art critic, James Frederick Gregg, had a good deal to say concerning the art of the World War One American poster campaign:
…Indeed, so ineffective have most of the posters been as art, that it is ridiculous to imagine that they have had any effect whatever in stimulating in us the spiritual side of our share in the war.
The attached piece was written in the shadows of W.W. II – a time when Levi Strauss’ famous blue jean fabric was not simply being woven for the 12,000,000 souls in the U.S. military, but also the civilian war-workers who donned jean overalls and found them ideal for the heavy, industrial labor that they faced each day.
As if this wasn’t enough to keep the factories of Levi Strauss & Co. humming happily, the American teenagers also discovered blue jeans in the around the same time and have been devoted to them ever since. The author of this article could never have known that the social revolution that made the name Levi a household word all across the globe was only nine years away.
A 1944 YANK article tells the tale about a quiet little spot behind the front line where American GIs were able to enjoy 24 hours of peace before being returned to the meat-grinder:
Sergeant Carmine Daniello, of Brooklyn, New York, smoked a big cigar during the afternoon…he was taking it easy in his own way. He didn’t want to sleep just now. He said, ‘Just sitting around like this is all I want right now.’On the other side of the river it had been so bad…
CLICK HERE… to read one man’s account of his struggle with shell shock…
Pogroms and other less violent forms of Antisemitism in Eastern Europe had resulted in a large increase of the Jewish migration to the United States by 1922. This growth in the Jewish population swelled from an estimated 1,777,185 in 1907 to an estimated 3,390,301 by 1918. The following one page article includes a map of the continental United States featuring those portions of the U.S. with the largest Jewish populations in 1922.
Click here to read an article about the Warsaw Ghetto.
The Japanese censorship boards have drafted regulations for the press in territory under their control, and unsuccessful attempts were made to control news dispatches in Shanghai’s foreign-owned newspapers. In Peiping, Tientsin, Tsingtao and other cities where the Japanese are in complete control, foreign editors are having their troubles, as evidenced by the ‘secret’ instructions to the press issued by the Special Military Missions to China, with Headquarters in Peiping… Under the heading ‘Important Standards for Press Censorship’ come the following regulations…
-what follows is an enormous laundry list of DONT’S issued to the officers of the foreign press stationed in Japanese-occupied China.
The Jewish National Council of Palestine has issued a second manifesto to the Arabs, the text of which follows in it’s original translated form.
Semetic nations: our regeneration is your regeneration and our freedom is your freedom.
They’re not with the U.S.O. but the barracks-happy GIs were delighted to see them just the same.
In December of 1949 Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek’s anti-communist forces retreated to the island of Formosa (Taiwan).
To those of us living in the digital age, the concept that the pilots of an airplane race should be segregated by gender in order to compete seems just like a dictate from Sharia law – but for our great-grandfathers, it made perfect sense. This article is about the Women’s Air Derby of 1929, which had a list of women pilots that read like the Who’s Who of 1920s women aviation.
Amelia Earhart was one of the competitors.
In our times, the handsome face of Che Guevara can be seen everywhere – tee-shirts, hoodies, key,chains, tote bags and much more. But is it suitable? He was a common murderer.
Lloyd Cortez Hawks (1911 – 1953) was a U.S. Army private and a recipient of the United States military’s highest decoration for valor — the Congressional Medal of Honor. Hawks performed his celebrated acts of derring-do while serving as a medic attached to the 30th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Division outside of Carano, Italy.
In 1922 former Vanity Fair editor (1919 – 1920) and future Algonquin wit, Robert E. Sherwood (1896 – 1955), taking his job seriously as the film critic for LIFE MAGAZINE, journeyed West to visit the growing movie kingdom of Hollywood. The doors magically opened up for him and he was able to rub elbows with many of the crowned heads of the realm. He filed these eight paragraphs recounting his experiences and observations; you might be amused to read his thoughts concerning the unfinished Hollywood sign.
The article is adorned with cartoons by John Held Jr.. In the world of American 1920s satirical art, he was the gold standard.
Man, those Chinese are good soldiers… You can’t see ’em; you can’t hear ’em. You don’t know they’re there until they’re on top of you… They’re experts at camouflage and the best damn night-fighters I’ve ever seen. We could walk a company over the hill and see nothing. Then we’d look around and they’d be swarming on us like flies. It was just like they’d sprouted from the ground.
This is a consumer report concerning various bomb shelter plans that were commercially available to the American public in 1955:
The most elaborate of five government-approved home bomb shelters is a combination tunnel and emergency exit in reinforced concrete, extending outward under ground from cellar walls It holds six persons and offers maximum protection from all effects of an atomic explosion… But the FCDA (Federal Civil Defense Administration) also recommends a practical type type that can be put together by any do-it-yourselfer for around $20.00.
These days the Bush family is not much in vogue, but that was not always the case.
Attached is a small notice from a 1921 issue of VOGUE MAGAZINE announcing the marriage of George Herbert Walker’s daughter, Dorthy, to a Mr. Prescott Sheldon Bush in Kennebunkport, Maine. From this union would spring two U.S. Presidents, one Florida governor, and one Chief Executive of the Municipal Opera Association.
An interesting article, written with a sense of embarrassment regarding the injustice done to the Japanese-Americans, and published a few weeks shy of VJ-Day. The article reports on how the former internment camp families were faring after they were released from their incarceration. 55,000 Japanese-Americans chose to remain in the camps rather than walk freely among their old neighbors; one man, Takeyoshi Arikawa, a former produce dealer, remarked:
I would like to take my people back home, but there are too many people in Los Angeles who would resent our return. These are troubled times for America. Why should I cause the country any more trouble?
Important references are made concerning those families who had lost their young men serving in the famed 442 Regimental Combat Team: a U.S. Army unit composed entirely of Nisei that was awarded a Presidential Unit Citation for it’s fortitude displayed in Italy, France and Germany.
Attached is a printable fashion editorial from a 1939 issue of CLICK MAGAZINE which beautifully illustrated (in color) one of the chic, California beach fashions of the day.
This article tells the story of Susan B. Anthony, Dr. Anna Howard Shaw and the gang as they worked the state conventions in a effort to gain the right to vote. In states with large Republican majorities, they swore to vote vote Republican, in states with large Democratic majorities they promised to support that party:
The State Woman-Suffrage Association should remain non-partisan and each individual woman should feel free to ally herself with whatever party she approves.
