Celebutantes & GIs (Pic Magazine, 1941)They're not with the U.S.O. but the barracks-happy GIs were delighted to see them just the same. One Editor's Obsession (Pic Magazine, 1941)It seemed to have made no difference to the editors of PIC MAGAZINE how dark and thick the clouds of war were that encircled the United States one month prior to the Pearl Harbor attack - they ran yet another puff piece on Jane Russell five months after they had published their last puff piece on Jane Russell. Aid From The Farm Service Administration (Pic Magazine, 1942)"It matters not that we're fighting a war on, under and over all the seas and on half the continents of the earth. Uncle Sam is determined that there shall be be no new army of 'forgotten men' to make a mockery of all the things for which we are now fighting...The Farm Security Administration [has been] detailed to look out for migratory defense workers - the kind who can't find a place to live in overcrowded war-boom towns"
Click here to read about the effects that the Great Depression had on the clothes we wore...
Cecil B. DeMille Tries his Hand at Radio
(Pic Magazine, 1941)"At the age of 63, after 44 years in show business, and ten years as director of the Lux Radio Theater , Cecil B. De Mille is still producing. He can't stop and he probably never will. He is first, last and all the time a showman. The show business is in his blood, and whether he is on a set or taking his leisure at home, his heart and mind are in the theater. He loves to have people around him so that he can play a part, for consciously or unconsciously, he is always acting... C.B.'s father was an actor and playwright, and later a partner of David Belasco. His mother was an actress, and later a very successful play agent."
The Post-War Miracle that was Volkswagen (Pic Magazine, 1955)Out of the smoldering ruins of Japan came the Honda factories, while Germany amazed their old enemies by rapidly beating their crematoriums into Volkswagens. Confidently managed by a fellow who only a short while before was serving as a lowly private in Hitler's retreating army, Volkswagen quickly retooled, making the vital improvements that were necessary to compete in the global markets.
Ludwig Erhard (1897 – 1977), West Germany's Minister of Economics between the years 1949 and 1963, once remarked that Germany was able to launch its "Wirtschaftswunder" (economic miracle) by implementing the principles of a market economy and laissez-fair capitalism within the framework of a semi-socialist state. Building the Suburban Dream (Pic Magazine, 1955)The author Thomas Hine pointed out in his 1986 tour-de-force, Populuxe , that by the time the Eisenhower years rolled around, suburban houses were growing in size, as is typified in the attached article that was created to sell the plans for a 1,290 square foot piece of suburban splendor . Gone were the days of the "little boxes" that dotted the countryside throughout the late Forties and early Fifties; these newer and larger domiciles were built in the shapes of "U" or "L" and the most popular models were built in the "Ranch House" style with attached garages (gasp!).
''The Story of GI Joe'' (Pic Magazine, 1945)The Story of G.I. Joe was released shortly before the war ended and was praised by General Eisenhower for being the best war movie he had ever seen. Directed by William Wellman, the film was applauded by American combat veterans of the time for it's accuracy - in their letters home, many would write that Wellman's film had brought them to tears. The movie was based on the war reporting of Ernie Pyle as it appeared in his 1943 memoir, Here Is Your War: Story of G.I. Joe . Although it is not mentioned here, Pyle himself had spent some time on the set as a technical adviser, and the film was released two months after his death.
More on Ernie Pyle can be read here...
Preston Sturgis, Director (Pic Magazine, 1944) Lucille Ball Gets Noticed (Pic Magazine, 1940)Among all the many lovelies who resided in the Hollywood of 1940, the wide-awake editors of PIC MAGAZINE singled-out Lucille Ball (1911 – 1989) as the one to watch:
"Barring accidents, Lucille Ball tomorrow will occupy the spot now disputed by Carol Lombard, Joan Crawford and Ginger Rogers - as First Lady of Hollywood. Lucille deserves to get it and she has what it takes to get there. The red-headed ex-chorus girl has talent, ability looks, personality and willingness to take every punishment on her way up."
You can click here to read about I Love Lucy here
A Monopoly on Radio Talent? (Pic Magazine, 1941)This article will cue you in to a 1941 dust-up between the FCC and the biggest radio broadcasters in America. Apparently CBS, NBC and the Mutual Broadcasting System were in cahoots, united behind a scheme to fix the prices they had to cough-up in order to pay all the various assorted musicians and acting talents they needed to hire if they were to attract their radio audiences. The feds got wind of the plan and smelled a rat: "The big radio networks are currently worried by the Federal Communication Commission's accusation that they are talent monopolists, part of the FCC's blanket charge that the radio chains constitute a trust within the broadcasting industry..." Martha Vickers (Pic Magazine, 1945)Perhaps one of the first magazine articles about the beautiful actress Martha Vickers (1925 – 1971) who is best remembered by fans for her performance as the fabulously slutty "Carmen Sternwood" in the 1946 film The Big Sleep.
This article tells the tale of her early days in 1940s Los Angeles and her work as a photographer's model, which turned more than a few of the crowned heads of Hollywood.
••Watch A Martha Vickers Slide Show •• The Dos and Don't in Men's Suiting of the Forties (Pic Magazine, 1945)This article appeared in an issue Click Magazine that was deliberately edited to aid those young men who had been wearing uniforms for the past few years and, subsequently, had no knowledge whatever of tailoring or of fabric that was not government issued. It consists of a handy guide for the aspiring dandy showing just how a gentleman's suit should fit if it is to be properly worn.
Read an article about the history of Brooks Brothers The Hunt in Occupied-Germany (Pic Magazine, 1946)While the hunt for Nazis and hidden weapons cachés was taking place in allied-occupied Germany, a small number of U.S. Army detectives happened upon the entire archives of the Nazi Party.
The Nazis Liked to Flatter Themselves (Pic Magazine, 1943)The Nazis had so many wonderful things to say - about themselves...
"Yes, we are barbarians! We want to be barbarians. It is an honorable title. We shall rejuvenate the world." The Atlantic Heats Up (Pic Magazine, 1955)"Icebergs are disappearing from Canada's Atlantic coast; forests are growing in the sub-Arctic of the east and air bases have been established on Baffin Island." The Missing Star: Jane Russell (Pic Magazine, 1943)Those cheeky, ill-informed editors at PIC MAGAZINE impertinently protested that the Howard Hughes' movie The Outlaw should have been in the theaters ages ago - failing all the while to recognize that the film had been released a week prior to the publication of their article.
But they made up for it by providing their readers with six seldom-seen cheesecake pictures of the star, Jane Russell. Women War Workers (Pic Magazine, 1943)Attached is a photo-essay from a 1943 issue Pic Magazine illustrating the roll women played in a California bomber factory.
Click here to read about the women war workers of W.W. I.
Robert Best of South Carolina (Pic Magazine, 1943)On July 26, 1943, in the same U.S. Federal Court that tried the American poet Ezra Pound (in absentia) for treason, Robert H. Best (1896 – 1952), formerly of the Associated Press, was also convicted on the same charges. What Iva Toguri (the alleged Tokyo Rose) was believed to have done for Hirohito, and what Pound did for Mussolini is what Best did for Adolf Hitler: he had broadcast Nazi radio propaganda.
You might also care to read about the American Bund. A Clinic On The Move (Pic Magazine, 1941)Call it what you will - socialized medicine, the public largess or the community chest, it makes no difference, but let it be known that in the late Thirties the elders who presided over Shelby County, Tennessee, recognized that some measure of TLC was required in their dominion, and so they bought a big bus and stuffed it full of 12 nurses and a physician. The leading African-American doctors in the area were also instrumental in the creation of this behemoth - which was created to contain syphilis in Shelby County. The Amazing Volkswagen (Pic Magazine, 1955)Much of the credit for the success of Volkswagen immediately after the war was due to the visionary leadership of Volkswagen CEO Heinz Nordhoff (1899 - 1968), who was able to assess the faults of the existing model and make the necessary improvements:
"The power was low, and the engine had a life of only 10,000 miles. Nordhoff brought in new experts who redesigned every vital component, working on the original pre-war designs of Ferdinand Porsche... The new car was quieter and more powerful, and had hydraulic brakes and shock absorbers. Soon, models with luxury touches were introduced." Jane Russell Sur la Plage... (Pic Magazine, 1941)When these eight pictures of Hollywood actress Jane Russell (1921 - 2012) were snapped in the spring of 1941, she wasn't up to much. She was studying acting at Max Reinhardt's Theatrical Workshop in Los Angeles and more than likely waiting for her seven year contract with Howard Hughes to expire. The film that she'd made with him the previous year, The Outlaw, would not [be widely] distributed for some time and so we imagine that she jumped at the chance to put on a bathing suit and clown around on the beach when she got the call from the boys at PIC MAGAZINE. With the onslaught of the Second World War, she would be doing much of the same sort of posing for the pin-up photographers.
In the attached photo-essay, the PIC editors went out on a limb and called her "one of America's greatest beauties". ••Is it me, or was she really bad in THE OUTLAW - watch some of her clips from that highly unimpressive 1943 movie•• The Star of THE OUTLAW (Pic Magazine, 1941)Here is well illustrated article (16 images) from the set of THE OUTLAW (1941) that celebrates the arrival of the young, curvaceous Jane Russell (1921 – 2011). • Watch a Few Clips from ''The Outlaw' • ''A Message to the White Collar Class'' (Pic Magazine, 1941)A very self-conscious column regarding the American class structure.
The Show-Biz Blood of Cecil B. DeMille (Pic Magazine, 1941)"At the age of 63, after 44 years in show business, Cecil B. De Mille is still producing. He can't stop and he probably never will. He is first, last and all the time a showman. The show business is in his blood, and whether he is on a set or taking his leisure at home, his heart and mind are in the theater. He loves to have people around him so that he can play a part, for consciously or unconsciously, he is always acting... C.B.'s father was an actor and playwright, and later a partner of David Belasco. His mother was an actress, and later a very successful play agent."
The article goes into more depth outlining De Mille various triumphs in silent film and his work on The Squaw Man . Puerto Ricans Arrive (Pic Magazine, 1955)In the early Fifties many of the people from the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico decided to pack their bags and move to New York City. Overnight, it seemed, a portion of Harlem came to be known as "Spanish Harlem" - where hastily assembled mambo dance halls could be found among restaurants serving the exotic cuisine of the Caribbean. There were also complications that emerged with the new comers that are addressed in this 1955 article:
"Today, however, there is a forceful change taking place, an influence so great that New York City officials have forecast a startling racial shift within a few years and are already making plans for meeting this switch..." Dan Burley, Editor (Pic Magazine, 1943)Dan Burley (1907 - 1962) was a much admired man of his day; noted editor and columnist who served at a number of respected African-American newspapers and magazines, a Boogie Woogie pianist, sports writer covering the Negro League and he was to Jive what Samuel Johnson was to English - a lexicographer. This PIC MAGAZINE profile centers primarily on his efforts to translate famous English lines into Jive talk and chronicle the "slanguage" .
More about the African-American press corps can be read HERE.
Wilson On The Eve of War (Pic Magazine, 1942)This article remembers the relationship Wilson enjoyed with a much admired editor and columnist for the N.Y. World, Frank Cobb (1869 - 1923). A page from the newspaperman's diary recalls his 1917 visit with the President on the night before he appeared before Congress seeking the declaration of war.
"I'd never seen him so worn down. He looked as if he hadn't slept - and he said he hadn't..."
More Reports on the War Reporters (Pic Magazine, 1944)Published four months after the above article, here is a similar, well-illustrated piece that lists the names of the photographers and reporters who were killed - and the younger breed of writers and lens-men who took their places. GI Joe and the Women of Japan... (Pic Magazine, 1952)Although this article is illustrated with imagery depicting American men and Japanese women appearing to genuinely be enjoying one another's company, the accompanying text says something quite different. The article centers on the observations of the woman who heads the YWCA in Japan who insists that the vulgar Americans stationed in that country are coercing Japanese women to become prostitutes. The journalist then goes into some detail as to what a big business prostitution in Japan has become and how many illegitimate births have resulted. 1946 Broadway (Pic Magazine, 1946) Lounges for WAACs and WAVES (Pic Magazine, 1943)All thanks to the efforts of a private donor, three lounges were built explicitly for the women volunteers of the WACs and WAVES. Furnished with vanities, hair dryers, magazines and ping-pong tables; they must have been a big hit - they look very much like the sets of a Fred Astaire movie.
Click here to read about the U.S.O. entertainers...
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was released shortly before the war ended and was praised by General Eisenhower for being the best war movie he had ever seen. Directed by William Wellman, the film was applauded by American combat veterans of the time for it's accuracy - in their letters home, many would write that Wellman's film had brought them to tears. The movie was based on the war reporting of Ernie Pyle as it appeared in his 1943 memoir, 
. Although it is not mentioned here, Pyle himself had spent some time on the set as a technical adviser, and the film was released two months after his death.