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Click here to read about what was involved in training a WAAC.


''I'm No Communist'' (Photoplay Magazine, 1948)

Months after his appearance as a spectator at the House Committee on Un-American Activities, actor Humphrey Bogart wrote this article for the editors of Photoplay Magazine addressing the topic of communist infiltration in the Hollywood film industry:

"In the final analysis, this House Committee probe has had one salutary effect. It has cleared the air by indicating what a minute number of Commies there really are in the film industry. Though headlines may have screamed of the Red menace in the movies, all the wind and the fury actually proved that there's been no Communism injected on American movie screens."


There was Illegal Immigration from Mexico Back Then, Too (Ken Magazine, 1938)

This 1938 magazine article can be filed in the "the more things change, the more they stay the same folder". It lists all the assorted means by which Mexicans have attempted to illegally cross over the Southern border, whether to smuggle others, import illegal drugs or for their own gratification.

Marijuana was becoming a problem in 1938, too. Read about it here.

Click here to read about the U.S. Border Patrol.

The Border Patrol (Collier's Magazine, 1940)

This article lays out the many responsibilities and challenges that made up the day of a U.S. Border Patrol officer stationed along the Rio Grande in 1940:

"In one month these rookies must try to absorb French and Spanish, immigration law, criminal law, naturalization, citizenship and expatriation law, fingerprinting, criminal investigation, first aid, firearms and the laws of the open country through which refugees are tracked down in the desert and forest."

Click here to read a 1937 article about the illeagal immigrants who came through Ellis Island.


''Daughters of Valor'' (American Legion Monthly, 1939)

Here is an interesting history of the U.S. Army Nurse Corps during the First World War. The author, Robert Ginsburgh, delves into how many nurses served, how many were killed, how they were recruited and trained, where they served in Europe, and the decorations they earned.


''The Nisei Problem'' (Yank Magazine, 1945)

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?"


Douglas Fairbanks on Hollywood (Vanity Fair, 1918)

Attached is a very funny article written by the great matinee idol Douglas Fairbanks (1883 – 1939) concerning the predictability of silent films:

"Whether eastern or western, the villain is never without a big black cigar. On the screen a big black cigar represents villainy; on the stage it represents General Grant."

Click here to read magazine articles about D.W. Griffith.


''The Girl Who Started the Civil-Rights Breakthrough'' (Pageant Magazine, 1964)

This article recalls the story behind the 1954 Supreme Court case Brown vs. the Board of Education.


Kicking God Out of the Schools (Newsweek Magazine & PM Tabloid, 1945)

"A religion-in-the-schools trial, held last week in the Champaign, Illinois Circuit Court, will probably make history. The plaintiff was Mrs. Vashti McCollum, 32, pert, wide-eyed wife of a University of Illinois professor, demanding that the Champaign School Board discontinue a five-year program of religious instruction in school buildings, on the ground that the constitutional separation of church and state is jeopardized."

Click here to read about Darwin in the schools.


A Leftist Review of It's a Wonderful Life (The Nation, 1947)

James Agee, the film reviewer for The Nation (1942 - 1948), was charmed by the warmth of It's a Wonderful Life and believed that it was an admirable and well-crafted piece of film making; he nonetheless came away feeling like he'd been sold a bill of goods and rejected the movie primarily because he believed that films created in the Atomic Age should reflect the pessimism that gave birth to the era.