Prior to the establishment of the New York School in the 1940s, there has always been a popular belief among Europeans (and a few Americans) that the art produced in the U.S. was purely derivative and lacked true originality in conception and style. In this 1922 article some of these Europeans and Americans step forward and identify themselves while continuing to crack wise on the topic; however, the editors of 'Art News' will not suffer this abuse and they return fire offering plenty of evidence to the contrary.
"Thus any traveler in Germany feels that the future grows darker and darker for both Germany and Europe. There is no doubt that the German people have learned little from their war experiences and that it would require only a spark to set them off in another wild rush down through Europe behind Russian guns. It is a dismal prospect, and it is a terrible one, for it would mean, in the final analysis, the utter destruction of European civilization."
This gag concerns itself with another kind of American Expeditionary Force; when Pershing's Doughboys left, they were replaced by the American tourists. The U.S. had had invented a new category of tourist that the world had never seen before, and they must have been a site to behold: middle class tourists.
There is another article on this site (click here) that states a popular belief held by the Europeans of 1919 that American men were all clean shaven, tended to sport gold teeth, and were most easily recognized by their "big tortoise shell glasses" (a strikingly accurate description of this site's editor!); however, this is the first visual manifestation of this caricature that we could find. This "Punch" cartoonist did not simply believe that this was a fitting description of the white guys, but black guys, too -and the white women as well; an entire nation resembling Harold Lloyd.
"Not pacifists, but soldiers, have signed what several editors term one of the most striking and remarkable appeals for peace that have come to their tables."
Veterans of the 1914-1918 slaughter called for their respective governments to "oppose territorial aggrandizement" and demanded "that an international court be established to outlaw war"; following the establishment of said court, the immediate effort "to disarm and disband sea and air forces and destroy the implements of warfare" should begin. The American Legion Commander-in-Chief, Alvin Owsley (1888 - 1967), was among the signators.
Click here to read an article about the German veterans of W.W. I.
An outraged opinion writer argued that the time had arrived for government to issue flying licenses to responsible pilots, while keeping the others grounded:
"...President Harding and thousands of spectators at the dedication of the Lincoln Memorial are placed in jeopardy by an irresponsible, low flying aviator; and the lives of countless thousands of innocent spectators at the Yale Bowl and other stadiums are risked unnecessarily because the House of Representatives has so far failed to provide, as forty other nations have provided, for Government regulation of civil aviation"
This is the story of the First Gas Regiment. It was organized at American University (Washington, D.C.) in August of 1917 and arrived in France in time to disperse noxious gas all over the Germans as they launched their March offensive in 1918:
"Company B of the First Battalion was the outfit that participated in the first show. The attack was launched on a two-mile front extending from Lens to Hill 70 near Loos, and held by the Canadians... It was a tough job. The nature of the work was graphically described by a Yankee buck, who said in a moment of disgust: 'This is a job for grave diggers, hod carriers and piano movers, instead of chemists, pipe fitters and mechanics."
"Time is the satirist in its recompense as in its revenge. Who of that youthful generation who read Dime Novels stealthily and by night, with expense of spirit and waste of shame, imagined that he would one day review his sins by broad daylight in the exhibition room of the New York Public Library? The thin volumes which were wont to lie so flat under pillows or slip so readily into pockets are now enshrined in glass case, and the yellow covers and inky pages which suffered such persistent search and seizure and were burnt so freely as literary garbage are now gathered and appraised as prizes of the bibliophile."
Lady Nancy Astor (1879 - 1964) is remembered as the first woman to take a seat in the British House of Commons (she was not the first woman to be elected, but she was the first woman to serve in the House of Commons). Born in Virginia, she was the daughter of a former Confederate officer who refused to send her to college, thereby sparking her interests in the Suffrage movement. Following the divorce from her first husband in 1903, she set sail for Britain and met Waldorf Astor (1879 1952) while on board ship. The two were wed in 1906 and soon developed and interest in British politics. She became a Member of Parliament in 1919 and served in the House of Commons until 1945.
An Atlantic Monthly article by LeRoy Percy (1860 1929), a well-off planter who had successfully fought the spread of the KKK into Washington County, Mississippi. This article explains how the Klan operated in 1922. Their wide-spread appeal is also discussed.
"One of the strangest aberrations in American life since the war is the growth of the Ku Klux Klan. In the North that organization, when considered at all, has been thought of as a colossal buffoonery, a matter unworthy of the time or thought of intelligent folk; and indeed for the average American, with his common sense and his appreciation for the ridiculous, any other attitude of numbers would seem unlikely...The Klan excludes from membership Negroes, Jews, Catholics and foreign-born, whether citizens or not. In its own phrase, it is the only Gentile White Protestant American-born organization in the world. It is secret... When asked if he is a member, the custom is for a good Klansman to evade, more rarely to reply in the negative, but in any event not to avow his membership."
Click here to learn about the origins of the term "Jim Crow".
The World War I American uniform data attached herein answers the question as to how often Doughboy uniforms would wear out and need replacing. This information was all transcribed by U.S. Army Quartermaster Corps and published in a book titled THE OFFICIAL RECORD OF THE UNITED STATES IN THE WORLD WAR (1922).
"France has discovered Lafayette in this age only because America never forgot him"
This article reports that the Marquis de Lafayette (Marie-Joseph-Paul-Yves-Roch-Gilbert du Motier de Lafayette, 1757-1834), who seemed heaven-sent when he appeared in Philadelphia in order to aid the Americans in their revolt against the British, had been largely forgotten by the French in the Twentieth Century. Indeed, the French were baffled to hear his name invoked as often as it was during the period of America's participation in the Great War. It was said that some disgruntled wit in the A.E.F. woke up one morning in the trenches and mumbled: "Alright, we paid Lafayette back; now what other Frog son-of-a-bitch do we owe?" Oddly, there is no mention made whatever of that unique trait so common to the Homo Americanus- "selective memory": during the 1870 German invasion of France there seemed to have been no one who recalled Lafayette's name at all.
Contrary to the headline written above, this interesting article does not simply discuss the (temporary) Japanese rejection of European and American clothing in the Twenties but also touches upon earlier days when Western styles were fully embraced by the nobility of that country.
"There is in Japan a growing revolt against European clothing...The Japanese have endured agonies in their efforts to get our hats, our trousers, our corsets..."
A two page article reporting on the growth of the KKK throughout the United States in the early Twenties, it's general rise in popularity and the resolve of elected officials at both the state and Federal levels to contain the "Invisible Empire".
Interesting comments can be read by a reformed Klansman named H.P. Fry, who authored a cautionary memoir titled, The Modern Ku Klux Klan.
An essay by one of the founders of Dada, Tristan Tzara (Sami Rosenstock a.k.a. Samuel Rosenstock; 1896 1963), who eloquently explains the origins of the movement:
"Dadaism is a characteristic symptom of the disordered modern world..."
During his seven month-stay in New Mexico, D.H. Lawrence (1885 1930), pen-pushing British rhapsodist and highly lauded versifier in the 20th century's republic of letters, was baffled to find that the Natives of America were held in total contempt and largely confined to isolated swaths of land. Arriving in Taos in September of 1922, it didn't take him long to recognize the admirable qualities inherit within their culture and the injustices that had been done to them. His restrained response was expressed in these three brief paragraphs that appeared in The New Republic toward the middle of December of that year.
Attached is a 1922 report from THE LITERARY DIGEST regarding how remarkably close two KKK candidates for governor came to winning their respective state primaries. The two political contests in question, Oregon and Texas, caught national attention and became popular subjects for concern across the United States:
"The closeness of the vote ought to be a warning...If the Ku Klux Klan insists on entering politics, good citizens must show it the way out."
A few paragraphs on the difficulties faced by the medical establishment of the Confederacy as a result of the Union naval blockade of Southern ports. We were surprised to learn that the scarcity of quinine and other medicinal aids forced the doctors of the South to embrace herbalism.
Click here to read about the heavy influence religion had in the Rebel states during the American Civil War.
These pleated golf knickers anticipated the full-cut trouser craze of the thirties, however, soon many golfers (both on and off the field) would be wearing the very full-cut pleated knickers known in the day as "plus-fours". Plus-fours were one of any number of men's fashion trends which originated with the masculine fashion-muse the Edward VIII (1894 - 1972).
Georges Clemenceau (1841-1929) served as one of France's wartime Premieres (1917-1920). The following is an excerpt from his "letter to the American people" imploring them to share in his outrage concerning Germany's open contempt for their obligations agreed to under the Versailles Treaty. Clemenceau would die seven years later, fully convinced that another devastating war with Germany was just around the corner.
Click here if you would like to read about the 1936 Versailles Treaty violations.
Teddy Roosevelt's (1858 - 1919) magazine The Outlook, was often quite critical of the Ku Klux Klan, yet in this brief notice the editors seemed surprisingly Milquetoast in their reporting of the organization's growth and assorted activities. The article passively noted bizarre rumors that stood in contrast to the Klan's history:
"There have been some queer developments in the Ku Klux Klan. Thus in Georgia it has been alleged that Negroes have been asked to join..."
As early as 1922, the British Foreign Office could recognize the economic promise of Israel. This article sums up a report on British Palestine submitted to the British Government by High Commissioner Sir Herbert Samuel concerning the Jewish population growth to the region, as well as the establishment of schools and businesses.
"It is especially interesting as reflecting the development of Palestine as the future home of the Jewish race. The High Commissioner points out that the country, if properly developed, ought to experience a future far more prosperous than it enjoyed before the war".
"Conscription and Conscience" by John W. Graham is very briefly reviewed here; the summation provides some fast facts on the history of British conscientious objectors during World War One, yet tactfully fails to mention that during the course of the war, the British Army ordered 306 conscientious objectors be shot at dawn. In 2006 the British government pardoned them; just in time.
Excerpts from the diary of Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815 1902) on the matter of the 1850s Women's Suffrage Movement, Bloomers and the public reaction to that queer attire...
Nasty adjectives fly in this nifty essay concerning the friendship that soured between American writers Mark Twain (1835 - 1910) and Bret Harte (1836 - 1902). The two men were quite close during their younger days as journalists in San Francisco; in 1877 the bond between them was so strong that the two agreed to collaborate on a play, which they titled, "Ah, Sin". However, Twain insisted that it was notoriety that killed his friend and "it might have been better ...if Harte had died in the first flush of his fame":
"There was a happy Bret Harte, a contented Bret Harte, an ambitious Bret Harte, a bright, cheerful, easy-laughing Bret Harte to whom it was a bubbling effervescent joy to be alive. That Bret Harte died in San Francisco. It was the corpse of that Bret Harte that swept in splendor across the continent..."
Attached is one of the first American reviews of T.S. Eliot's poem The Waste Land, it was penned by literary critic Gilbert Seldes (1893 - 1970):
"In essence The Waste Land says something which is not new: that life has become barren and sterile, that man is withering, impotent, and without assurance that the waters which made the land fruitful will ever rise again."
This funny announcement from the yellowing pages of FLAPPER MAGAZINE made it clear to one and all that all flappers were eligible to enter their "Flapper Beauty Contest":
"You don't have to be beautiful to be a flapper, and if you're not a flapper you wouldn't be considered beautiful. So there!"
The article attached concerns the past and future of chemical warfare (at least as this was understood in 1922) and was written by Captain J.M. Scammell, Brit who wrote a good deal on the matter throughout much of the Twenties and Thirties. Like so many other articles we find from the immediate post-war period, Captain Scammell argued that chemical warfare can be one of the most humane options available to a general:
"The really significant figures are those showing that while gas caused 27.3 percent of all casualties, of these only 1.87 percent died! That is less than one-twelfth the percentage that died from the effects of other wounds. Gas, moreover, does not mutilate or disfigure..."
Attached is a digest of a Zionist article that appeared some weeks earlier in THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY written by Rabbi Joel Blau who tended to believe that antisemitism could only be eradicated if the Jews of the world were to return to Israel.
With the 1922 American economy as strong as it was, questions regarding what to wear on the links were seen as important queries and were not easily tossed aside. The following article illustrate the best golf jackets offered by the master-tailors at Cohen-Rissman, Fashion Park and The House of Kuppenheimer.
Shortly before his movie The Kid was released, Charlie Chaplin (1889 - 1977) wrote a few "remarks on the discovery of Jack Coogan, and the picture built around him" in the attached Vanity Fair article, "The Marvelous Boy of the Movies".
The "Napoleon" who plays the Monday-morning-quarterback in these columns was created by the tireless researcher Walter Noble Burns (1872 1932); his version of Bonaparte explains what went wrong on the Western Front and how he would have beat the Kaiser - but not before he dishes out liberal amounts of defamation for the senior commands on both sides of No Man's Land.
"The war's stupendous blunders and stupendous, useless tragedies made me turn over in my sarcophagus beneath the dome of the Invalides. I can not conceive how military men of even mediocre intelligence could have permitted the Allied Army to waste its time by idly lobbing over shells during a three-years' insanity of deadlocked trench warfare."
Click here to read an article about life in a W.W. I German listening post...
Vanity Fair's Edmund Wilson (1895 1972), reported his view on Dada as it existed in Paris, the influence of Jazz and the art of Jean Cocteau (1889 1963). The article is subtitled:
"The Influence of Jazz and Americanization of French Literature and Art"
An in-depth interview with the great silent film comedian Harold Lloyd (1893 1971) accompanied by a seldom seen picture of the man WITHOUT his glasses (he didn't really need them).
One blogger read the attached article and wrote the following:
"I've never read this before - it's great. It's always good to hear Harold's own thoughts on his films; I enjoyed his description of the stunt he did in on top of the locomotive at the mouth of an approaching tunnel in the film "Now or Never". It's a spectacularly funny gag, but we sometimes forget the effort that went into these scenes; Harold was one comedy star who was prepared to suffer for his art!"
Another article on this site marks 1912 as being the year that saw the first airborne wedding ceremony; but this article reported on the first wedding to be performed in a Fokker Monoplane with the added benefit of a wireless radio transmitter that broadcast the event to numerous well-wishers down below. The wedding was officiated by non-other than "the Flying Parson" himself, Belvin W. Maynard. Maynard was a legend in early aviation and he died in a crash some four months later.
The number of in-flight nuptials that have been performed since the first in 1912 are too numerous to count; however the last high-profile event took place in the Fall of 2007, when Sir Richard Branson (b. 1950) of Virgin Airlines presided over an in-flight wedding ceremony at 35,000 feet en route from San Francisco to Las Vegas.
A profile of Marcus Mosiah Garvey (1887 1940), Jr.; National Hero of Jamaica. During his lifetime Garvey worked as a publisher, a journalist, and an entrepreneur. A devoted Black nationalist and a black separatist, Marcus Garvey was the founder of the Universal Negro Improvement Association and the African Communities League (UNIA-ACL). He rubbed a good many white folk the wrong way and this article from The Literary Digest covers much of his activities leading up to 1922.
An article which discusses the growing number of state legislatures given the task to vote up or down on the issue as to whether or not to allow the Darwin theory of evolution to stand as a legitimate topic for discussion and instruction in their respective school systems. Mentioned in the article was one of the major players leading the charge on behalf of creationism: William Jennings Bryan (1860-1925). The journalist interviewed many assorted hot-heads from the most polished universities on behalf of Darwinists and the reader will no doubt be amused to see that so many years have past yet the arguments remain exactly the same.
Three years after this article was printed Bryan would be standing in defense of Christian Fundamentalism during the famous Tennessee Scopes Trial.
The historian Henry Steele Commager ranked Charles Darwin at number 43 insofar as his impact on the American mind was concerned - click here to understand his reasoning...
In the attached column, a high-spirited editorial writer hails the Flapper Revolution and singles out Paris fashion designer Paul Poiret (1879 - 1944) for being so out of step with the women of his day for continuing to design long dresses:
"When flappers rise en masse and say that they can see no reason for giving up a style that means comfort, freedom and health, then indeed, out of this welter of strikes, injunctions and warfare may be seen a glimmer of hope for mankind."
"M. Poiret, designer of Paris, has seen fit to take up the cudgels on behalf of the long skirt, and therefore he cannot object if the shafts of ridicule are hurled at him in return..."
A 1920s cartoon from a well-known British humor magazine depicted the doomed British adventure in Iraq as a result of an unbridled lust for oil and nothing else.
The attached golf article first appeared in a 1922 Vanity Fair titled The Royal and Ancient Game. Penned by golf legend Charles "Chick" Evans, Jr. (1890 - 1979) it traces the birth of the game and its migration across the sea where the game was heartily welcomed:
"Golf seemed a gift from an high. Across the water it came and our best people took it up. They had discovered it in their travels abroad. It is true that poor people played it in Britain, but it seemed very sure that they would not do so in America..."
Click here to read about the American cars of 1922.
Georges Clemenceau (1841 - 1929) served as one of France's wartime Premieres (1917-1920). The following is an excerpt from his "letter to the American people" imploring them to share in his outrage concerning Germany's open defiance to the Versailles Treaty. Clemenceau would die seven years later, fully convinced that another devastating war with Germany was just around the corner.
Click here to read more articles about the German violations of the Versailles Treaty.
James Joyce (1882 - 1941) refers to many different subjects in this 1922 interview, among them was Ulysses, his recently released book. The interview was written by Djuna Barnes (1892 - 1982); avant-garde writer, illustrator and playwright.
This article reported that as of 1922, the United States Government saw fit to deny 19,000 immigrants U.S. citizenship. This number, when added to the other repatriated applicants of the previous ten years, totals up to 760,000 people; which was, at that time, more than the entire population of North Dakota. The Ellis Island based naturalization service classified all rejected immigrants in fifteen different categories, this reporter preferred to name just two: "Ignorance" and "Immoral Character". "Immoral Character" speaks for itself. And "Ignorance" covers those who didn't appear to know enough to exercise the rights of citizenship intelligently." Oddly, there seemed to have been no talk of "amnesty".
In her 1922 essay, Marriage, Jane Burr (nι Rosalind Mae Guggenheim, 1882 - 1958) refers to the modern marriage as "progressive monogamy". She writes knowingly about the blessings and damnation of matrimony and believed that the institution has only improved since we entered an age where unions between man and woman can be so easily dissolved.
"Over the civilized globe there hangs this tragedy of women and this tragedy of men - those who are free longing for bondage, those who are in bondage longing for freedom, everybody searching for the pure white flame, yet everybody compromising with sordidness that could be avoided, if only a new attitude could be legitimized."
An article that marks the date of November 13, 1922 as a poor one for the assembled masses who happened to have been of Japanese ancestry in the United States. On that date Justice George Sutherland (1862-1942), of the United States Supreme Court, handed down the ruling that "the Japanese can not be citizens of this country". The opinions of many American Newspapers are presented herein, among them an excerpt from the St. Louis "Star" which summed up the opinion just so:
"The law which prevents the naturalization of Japanese is plainly intended to exclude the Japanese because they are racially unassimlable and their presence creates economic difficulties."
You can read more about Justice Sutherland HERE...
A Paris fashion review written by pioneering fashion photographer Adolph de Meyer
(1868 - 1949). His column is illustrated by six of his photographs illustrating the autumnal offerings from the houses Worth and Chanel. The collections generated by Maria Guy, Jean Lanvin, Marthe Collot, Doucet, Cheruit, Poiret and Patout were also addressed at some length.
"Of course 'collections' must be seen by me. The round of all the big maisons de couture must be made. I must know what is worn and what I shall decide to present to the readers of HARPER'S BAZAAR."
Like many Americans in the Twenties, the journalist who penned the attached article was totally irked by the concept of an American territory - bound for statehood - having a majority Asian population. He wrote at a time when the nation was deeply concerned about assimilating America's immigrants and his indignation can clearly be sensed.
A look at some of the ready-to-wear golf suits for the spring of 1922. The chic golfer of that year was seen wearing pleated knickers and a smart action-back jacket sporting cargo pockets (formerly known as "billows pockets").
By the time this piece first appeared in THE CHICAGO DAILY NEWS (prior to being picked up by the fast crowd at FLAPPER MAGAZINE) Colleen Moore was all of twenty-one years of age with fourteen Hollywood films to her credit. This interview was conducted over lunch by the polished Hollywood reporter Gladys Hall, who no doubt, picked up the check; on that day Miss Moore wanted to talk about flappers.
The wise elders of Hollywood were perfectly fine about casting flappers to play in various movies, but they didn't always produce films that were sympathetic to their causes; for example, the editors of FLAPPER MAGAZINE hated this movie.
"Will Paris succeed in imposing long skirts on the flappers of America?"
"Not if most of them have their way! When Paris started the short skirt fad and America eagerly aped it, the dressmakers figured that it would probably run its course and then die a sudden death. But no! For American flappers may be fickle but they know a good thing when they see it. And they intend to hang on to it."
Click here to read about another icon of the Twenties: Rudolph Valentino.
Prior to the establishment of the New York School in the 1940s, there has always been a popular belief among Europeans (and a few Americans) that the art produced in the U.S. was purely derivative and lacked true originality in conception and style. In the attached article from the early Twenties, some of these Europeans and Americans step forward and identify themselves while continuing to crack wise on the topic; however, the editors of ART NEWS will not suffer this abuse and they return fire offering plenty of evidence to the contrary.
A couple of years after the membership lists of the Ku Klux Klan had swelled to record levels, and just seven years after a chic Hollywood film director made a movie that ennobled their crimes,the Administrative Committee of the Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America issued a statement which served to distance the Protestant churches from that hate-filled organization.
The book reviewer for The New Republic, by Sidney B. Fay, summed-up his reading of the dethroned Crown Prince's (1882 - 1951) post-war memoir in this way:
"This is a remarkable book in at least three respects: it's literary cleverness, it's revelation of a new Crown Prince chastened by adversity, and it's vivid pictures of men and events."
An appreciative essay celebrating the work of Guillaume Apollinaire (born Wilhelm Apollinaris de Kostrowitzky: 1880 1918) by the high-brow art critic Paul Rosenfed (1890 - 1946).
"For Apollinaire possessed the perfect adjustibility of the born poet. He would have found himself much at home in any environment into which he would have been born, whether it would have been one of pampas and herds and lonely hamlets, or one of concrete, newspapers, war and steel."
The two page article attached herein served to alert the 1922 subscriber-base of Confederate Veteran Magazine that Boy Soldiers of the Confederacy (1905) - was no longer in print and isn't that too bad and just in case no one shared the reviewers feelings on this matter, she recalled some of the Civil War experiences of the boys who fought throughout that war.
"Gifted, but perverse" was the opinion of this reviewer, who considered the whole of D. H. Lawrence'
writings up to 1922 in this review for CURRENT OPINION:
"He is like those modern sculptors who, feeling that civilization has reached it's last refinement, and that there is no more work left for observation to do, have gone back to the crude beginnings of stone carving to learn again the essentials of their art..."
A large part of the American publicity machine has always involved the creation of a memoir; attached herein is The Literary Digest review of the World War One memoir of American war hero Sergeant Alvin York (1887 - 1964): Sergeant York and His People.
To read an account of Sergeant York's deification in Gotham, click HERE.
Click here to read about the regrets of the American invalids from W.W. I.
The Vanity Fair sports writer Fred Hawthorne was filled with high praise for tennis star "Molla" Bjurstedt Mallory (1884 1959):
"To-day Mrs. Mallory's backhand shots are on par with her famous forehand drive, and her all-around play has improved tremendously. She is a splendid volleryer, too, though not in our typical American style. Mrs. Mallory has won the national singles title five times and last August defeated Mlli. Suzanne Lenglen, of France, probably the most finished woman tennis player in the world."
It was discovered in 1922 that when the German school system made mention of the recently ended war (if they addressed the topic at all), the subject was often white-washed or inaccurately characterized. When approached by a foreign reporter concerning the matter, teachers claimed that new books were too expensive and that the prevailing political forces could never agree on an accurate history of the war:
"When do you think you will be able to begin studying the history of the war in your schools?" I asked.
"In the war society of the South, religion played a leading roll... The Methodist and Presbyterian churches cut themselves away from their Northern brethren and cast their fortunes with the Southern cause... The churches of the South entered so whole heatedly into the cause of the war that they were invariably closed by the Union commanders. Throughout the war many revivals, special prayer meetings, and fasts were held for the success of Southern arms... The army was swept by religious fervor. All regiments departing for the front were consecrated. Many clergymen joined the army as chaplains... ."
Click here to read about the chaplains in the Confederate Army.
Speaking about why she loved the Twenties, Diana Vreeland (1903 1989) - observant fashion editor and unique fashion phenomenon, once remarked on a chat show that "there's never been a woman with her clothes chopped off at the knee in history". Indeed - Vreeland would find the attached article about flappers to be spot-on.
If you've been in search of an historical article that clearly indicated that Americans were irked by white immigrants just as much as they've been bugged by non-white immigrants - then search no more. The journalist who penned this 1922 column chides the U.S. Government, and the people who granted them authority, for the difficulties that were placed in the path of all the various poor European migrants "yearning to breathe free":
"Whilst it does seem most expedient to curtail immigration, it ought to be done in a way which would impose least hardship on those who after all have had a supreme belief in America. One of America's weaknesses lies in red tape, did it need to be said; another lies in a sort of contempt for the poor whites of Europe - the 'Wops' and the 'K*k*s' and the 'Dagoes' and 'Hunkies' and the rest. They are unfortunate - after all, that is the chief thing against them."
"France has discovered Lafayette in this age only because America never forgot him"
The attached article reported that the Marquis de Lafayette (Marie-Joseph-Paul-Yves-Roch-Gilbert du Motier de Lafayette, 1757 - 1834), who seemed heaven-sent when he appeared in Philadelphia in order to aid the Americans in their revolt against the British, had been largely forgotten by the French in the Twentieth Century.
"A Fool There Was" was originally produced in 1915 starring Theda Bara in the vampire roll; but as the view of women changed in society, to say nothing of popular culture, the producers in the early Hollywood dream-factory decided to re-stage the production with a racier woman in the lead -a "flapper-vampire", if you will. The reviewer was sympathetic as to the need for a new adaptation but pointed out that the actress who was re-cast in the Theda Bara roll, Estelle Taylor (1894 1958), left the audiences wanting. It was also pointed out that "the censorship menace hangs heavy over 'A Fool There Was'.
In 1919 Theda Bara wrote an article for VANITY FAIR MAGAZINE in which she swore off ever playing a vampire again; click here to read it.
Five sketches of motor car designs which won cash prizes or honorable mention at the recent [1922] first annual 'Body Builders' Show in New York. In this competition were entered many leading custom body builders.
If nothing else, this verbiage simply spells out that the editors took themselves very, very seriously indeed and it was in that same spirit they gleefully went to work disemboweling a movie that they saw as anti-flapper to its very core. The film in question was
Nice People (Paramount, 1922) starring Bebe Daniels and Wallace Reid. Produced by Willam C. deMille (1878 1955), elder brother of Cecil, the film makers were clearly intimating that "nice people" will always keep their flapper daughters in line; it is at that point in the flick when the reviewer dipped her pen in the ink:
"This is one of the themes that 'old fogies' usually delight in; the 'reformation' of the flapper... The picture is replete with pithy subtitles, such as 'the smart girl of today removes the rouge from her lips only to kiss and make up.'"
"shows us Clemenceau dominating the conference by sheer force of mind; Wilson outmaneuvered; Lloyd George clever, alert, but not very deep; and Orlando precise and lawyer like. This book confirms the popular belief that the general scheme of the treaty was worked out by the British and French delegations without material aid from the Americans. As a consequence, the American delegation lost prestige."
"This new form of illusion cannot be called an art. Without the magic of the human voice, without the reality of the human form, lacking in color sound and poetry the film is purely an ocular illusion, an effect of light."
A beautifully illustrated page from VOGUE MAGAZINE reporting from Belgrade on the the royal wedding of Alexander I of Yugoslavia (1888 1934) and Marie of Romania (Marie of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen: 1900 1961). An earlier posting on this site indicated that the groom had been promised in 1913 to wed Grand Duchess Olga of Russia (1895 - 1918), but there were complications.
Following Alexander's 1934 assassination, their oldest son, Peter II (1923 1970) assumed the throne and presided as the last king of Yugoslavia.
A segment from a longer article on the origins of Dada by the father of Dada. This column pertains specifically to how the movement took root in Germany as a result of the First World War.
This four page history of the Battle of Belleau Wood is primarily concerned with the fighting that took place at Les Mares Farm; it was written in 1921 by William E. Moore, formerly a U.S. Army captain who was attached to the Historical Branch, General Headquarters of the A.E.F.. Throughout his article, Moore compared the fight at Les Mares Farm to the Battle of Gettysburg, and believed it to have been just as decisive:
"That was the last effort the Germans made to force their way to Paris... It is is truly at Les Mares Farm where the Gettysburg of the A.E.F. lies, and there some day a monument should rise to inform the world what deeds were done upon that field."
German historians have long maintained that the Battle of Belleau Wood was not as significant as the Americans have liked to think that it was.
The post-World War I American economy was humming along quite nicely when an inquisitive journalist took notice as to how many more cars there were on the streets (all told, there were 7.5 million). Perhaps there were no written studies documenting what we now call 'the order of durable goods' - that dependable yardstick we use to measure American opulence, and so this investigative journalist came up with a different way of figuring out just how many cars Americans could purchase -and we're mighty glad he did!
This cartoon was drawn by the New York artist Reginald Marsh (1898 - 1954), who had a swell time comparing and contrasting the bio-diversity along 1922 Fifth Avenue; from the free-verse poets on Eighth Avenue up to the narrow-nosed society swanks on Sixty-Eighth Street -and everyone else in between.
Click here to read a 1921 article about the growth of the Jewish population in New York.
Click here to read a magazine article about 1921 Harlem.
The British philosopher Bertrand Russell (1872 - 1970; Nobel Prize for Literature, 1950) used to get mighty hot under the collar when the topic of American society came up and this column is just one example. During his 1922 American speaking tour Russell rambled-on about how prone Americans were to confuse the truth with commercial messages; believing that altruism was seldom a motivating factor behind a single American undertaking. He will have none of the thinking that America's main concern for jumping into the meat grinder of 1914-1918 was entirely inspired by "wounded France" and "poor little Belgium" but was rather an exercise in American self-interest.
When the Five O'Clock Whistle Blows in Hollywood is attached;
it appeared in Vanity Fair eight years after Hollywood was declared the film capital of the world. This single page cartoon was created by one of the great American caricaturists of the Twenties: Ralph Barton, and all the kingpins of the young empire are depicted.
Princess Luciene Murat (1876 - 1951?), "a distinguished member of the French nobility" and a devotee to Paul Poiret, wrote this VOGUE article shortly after her return from Turkey in 1922. It is the sort of piece that could only be written by an over-indulged member of the post-war European high-society, which makes it all the more enjoyable to read. Her reminiscences of her visit to the city of Pera are especially interesting for the observations made regarding the White Russians of her acquaintance who reluctantly resided there in some discomfort.
Looking back on the American Civil War from a vantage point of fifty-seven years, these two versifiers, both highly schooled in Southern lore, penned these Dixie ditties for their South-land readers of Confederate Veteran Magazine.
This article appeared at a time when Eastern European immigration levels had been drastically curtailed, Klan membership was at it's peak, antisemitism in college admissions had been exposed, and the memory Leo Frank's murder was in it's seventh year. The article is about the chasm between the two groups and building the necessary bridges; Dr. Stephen S. Wise (1874 - 1949), columnist Walter Lippmann (1889 - 1974) and a cadre of others address the topic with the needed perspective. Dr. Wise remarked:
"Whatever Christians may have taught...their duty in the present is clear as are the heavens in the noon hour; the duty of affirming that incalculable and eternal is the debt of Christians to Israel, of whose gifts Jesus is treasured as the chiefest."
Here is a segment from a longer article found on this site that recalled the history of boys who had enlisted in the Confederate cause - this short paragraph tells the story of a Rebel colonel, W.H. Martin of the 1st Arkansas Regiment, who called out to his opposite number in the Federal ranks during a lull in the fighting for Kenesaw Mountain and allowed for a truce so that the immobilized wounded of the Northern infantry would be rescued from a fire that was spreading in no-mans-land.
James Montgomery Flagg (1877 1960) was one of the most celebrated illustrators of this era. He had been a contributing cartoonist for the old LIFE MAGAZINE since he was fourteen years old and he, like many of his colleagues, had a grand old time with the subject of Prohibition.
To read a satirical essay written and illustrated by James Montgomery Flagg, click here..
A much admired theatrical set designer was the author of this column - he was devoted to his craft and believed deeply that movies could only lead society to the lowest place:
"The Drama in the Cinema is held to be made 'of the people, by the people, and for the people' It is really made by the new school of the same old tyrants, to enslave the mind of the people."
"The Klan has set New York by the ears; Mayor Hylan has ordered the police to investigate the activities of an accredited representative of the Invisible Empire, and, save in one instance reported in the press, the order has been denounced in Protestant, Catholic and Jewish circles alike...Exciting much comment was the accusation that Calvary Baptist Church, the largest of its denomination in New York, was a hotbed of Klan propaganda; but the charge was vigorously denied in a statement signed by leading members and by Dr. John Roach Straton, Pastor..."
When the skirt hems began to rise in the Twenties, it was widely understood that the vision of a woman's leg was a rare treat for both man and boy; a spectacle that had not been enjoyed since the days of Adam (married men excluded). The flappers certainly knew this, and they generally believed that suffering the dizzying enthusiasm of the male of the species was a small price to pay in order to secure some element of liberty. The flappers liked their hem-lengths just where they were and, thank you very much, they were not about to drop them. Attached are some verses by an anonymous flapper who expressed her reaction regarding all that undeserved male attention her knees were generating.
Attached is a Gettysburg reminiscence by one W.T. White, veteran of the First Texas Regiment who had documented his experience on Little Round Top in his earlier writings, but preferred to dwell on some other "glorious moments" on this page.
As a result of their charge up Little Round Top, the boys of the Twentieth Maine sent the First Texas Infantry to the bottom of the hill leaving 25 dead, 20 missing and 48 wounded.
Having studied the global power structure that came into place following the carnage of the First World War, British philosopher Bertrand Russel (1872 - 1970; Nobel Prize for Literature, 1950) was surprised to find that the most dominate nation left standing was not one of the European polities that had fought the war from start to finish - but rather the United States: a nation that had participated in only the last nineteen months of the war.
Sounding a good deal like Simon Cowell (b. 1960), British painter C.R.W. Nevinson (1889 - 1946) had some nasty words for the American people and the art market they created.
"Here emphatically they have lost their courage. They are afraid to buy what they like; they rely entirely on the auction-room value. To read the American art news is like reading our "Financial Times". The American art critic has no use for a picture which does not tell a story..."
Pegged as a Futurist, Nevinson is best remembered for his W.W. I paintings of the Western Front, which can be read about here.
Here is the 1922 review of Ulysses by James Joyce as it appeared in the NEW YORK TIMES:
"Before proceeding with a brief analysis of Ulysses and comment on its construction and its content, I wish to characterize it. Ulysses is the most important contribution that has been made to fictional literature in the Twentieth Century."
Although Abbott Lawrence Lowell (1856 1943) enjoyed a lengthy tenure as the president of Harvard University (1909 1933), his reign there was not entirely free from controversy. One of the more unpleasant policies associated with his term was one in which he stated that Jewish enrollment to the university should be confined to an admissions quota that should not exceed the 15-percent mark.
"The Ku Klux Klan victories in Texas and Oregon, where the influence of the hooded organization is said to have elected a United States Senator in one instance and a Governor in the other, indicates to "The Nation" that
"the Ku Klux Klan has now passed out of the amusing stage and has entered the domain of practical politics to challenge our existing parties."
Since the preceding article was jam-packed with intolerant remarks from the "lip-service" corner of the Holier-Than-Thou clerical crowd, it seemed only fitting that we post this article which dwelt upon the far more accepting and just a wee-bit more Christian feelings of yet another clergyman who tended to think that the flappers were not really as queer as everyone liked to think they were.
"Painting faces is no new thing except on occasion. Belles and famous beauties of the past painted for State occasions. But then it was not good form to wear paint in daylight. Now it is, apparently. That many young women now carry this to extreme is not unusual..."
Click here to read an article about the demise of a popular 1940s hairstyle.
A magazine review of John Maynard Keynes book, "A Revision of the Treaty" (1922). The reviewer wrote that "it lacks the prophetic fire of it's author's earlier book, "The Economic Consequences of the Peace", but continues the argument of that book:
"Mr. Keynes claims that almost everyone now has come around to his point of view. We practically all recognize, he says, the over-severity of the reparation clauses written into the Versailles Treaty."
We have all seen it many times before: the well-loved, widely accepted comedian who decides that being adored by the masses is simply not enough. For too many comic talents, sadly, there comes a time when they slip on one banana peel too many and it occurs to them that they want the world to appreciate them for their ability to think. Comics who fill this description might be Al Frankin, Woody Allen or Steve Martin.
This article tries to understand why Chaplin wanted to play a tragic part in a 1921 London stage adaptation of William Thackeray's 'Vanity Fair'. We have seen such behavior in comics many times before, they hadn't.
Aside from baring an uncanny resemblance to an actor who wouldn't be born until 1958 (Kevin Bacon), Confederate General E.M. Law (1836 - 1920) would be remembered for taking charge of Hood's division after that commander was wounded at Gettysburg.
"Marion Hall Zinderstein Jessup has one of the most versatile games on the courts. Overhead and off the ground, she possesses virtually all the strokes in tennis, forehand, backhand, lob, smash, volley and block volley, yet she has a weakness, one that has cost her many an important match, and when she met Mrs Mallory in 1920, probably the national championship."
"Heresy Hunters are on the war-path again, we are told, their latest attack being directed against Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick...who is charged with rejecting the four great doctrines of Christianity -the virgin birth, the inspiration of scriptures, the atonement of Jesus, and Christ's second coming..."
This is a quick read from a 1920s HARPER'S BAZAAR comparing the European and American limousines (a.k.a., 'coupe, town car, cabriolet'); these were the luxurious looking vehicles that we've all seen in pictures from that period in which the chauffeur was expected to perform his duties without the benefit of a roof over his head. The uncredited journalist talks about where cars such as these are likely to be found, their interiors, tufted seating upholstery, basket weaving applications, leather casings and more.
The anonymous old wag who penned this opinion column came to understand Gray's words - four years after the war he looked around and found that the world speeding by his window seemed untouched by the heavy-handed Victorians. For this writer, the Victorian poet and writer Matthew Arnold (1822 - 1888) represented the spirit of that age and it all seemed to come crashing down in 1922:
"Granting that the son of Arnold of Rugby was more troubled over the decay of Christian dogma than we are, it should be remembered that the decay symbolized for him a fact of equal gravity to ourselves -- the loss of a rational universe in which to be at home. But he never doubted how a new world was to be built -- by justice and by reason, not by claptrap and myth."
This article reported on the alarming growth and surprising appeal that the KKK was attaining in 1922. The unnamed journalist described numerous incidences that clearly reflected the Klan's open contempt for law throughout the country- concluding that the Klan "was beyond redemption." The article revealed that the newspaper editors who lived and worked in those regions where the Klan was most active had greater contempt for them than we otherwise might have been lead to believe.
A veteran of the U.S. First Division, Sixteenth Infantry, tells the chilling story of that rainy night in November, 1917, when the first German raid upon the American trenches took place:
"It was on that night that Company F took over its first front line position, received its baptism of fire, bore the brunt of the first German raid and lost the first American troops killed and captured in the World War."
"...two hundred and forty Bavarians, the widely advertised cut-throats of the German Army, hopped down on us. The first raid on American troops was in full swing. They had crawled up to our wire under cover of their artillery barrage and the moment it lifted were right on top of us."
Attached is an article filed during the closing days of the Greco-Turkish War (1919 - 1922) which takes into account that seven years after the 1915 Armenian slaughter in Asia Minor, the victorious governments of the West had never dolled out any punitive measures whatever, and the murder of Christians was continuing under cover of the Greek military withdrawal from that region.
"...the Christian population is flying, like herds of frightened sheep, and the fate of those who lag behind is death."
Luciene Murat (1876 - 1951?), "a distinguished member of the French nobility" wrote this Vogue article shortly after her return from Turkey in 1922. It is the sort of column that could only have been written by an over-indulged member of the post-war European high-society types, which makes it all the more enjoyable to read. Her reminiscences of her visit to the city of Pera are especially interesting for the observations made regarding the recently displaced White Russians of her acquaintance who reluctantly resided there in some discomfort.
At the request of The Literary Digest editors, a number of Italian-language journalists working in North America were asked to explain the great success that the Italian Fascists were experiencing in 1922 Italy. This article lists an enormous number of Italian language newspapers that existed in the United States at that time; virtually every medium-sized to large American city had one. We were surprised to find that the most pro-Mussolini Italian-American newspaper operating in the U.S. was located in New York City.
In the late Thirties, early Forties the FBI began to monitor the Italian-Americans who adored Mussolini - Click here to read about it
Although the steel tennis racket would not know true glory until Jimmy Connors used his Wilson T2000 in the 1970s, a big splash was made by William A. Larned (1872 - 1926; seven times champion of the U.S. Open) when he designed the Dayton Steel Racket in 1922. It wasn't the first steel racket, but it was an improvement on the existing ones.
At the peak of his fame, F. Scott Fitzgerald penned this opinion piece for a popular U.S. magazine:
"For one thing, I do not like old people - They are always talking about their "experience," and very few of them have any! - But it is the old folks that run the world; so they try to hide the fact that only young people are attractive or important."
Today, the name of O. Henry (1862 - 1910) has a far stronger association with New York City than with North Carolina, (his birth place) or Texas, where he spent much of his youth; however when you come to read the attached letters, and see his cartoons, you will hear a very distinct Western voice that is far removed from the New York that he wrote about.
The varying degrees of color found among American Blacks has been, and still is, a sensitive topic and it was addressed in 1922 with some wit by an African-American journalist whose work is attached. Its a good read and speaks of a social structure that, we like to think, is gone with the wind; words appear in this article that seem queer in our era - there is much talk of
A marvelous interview with the thirty-four year old playwright, Eugene O'Neill (1888 1953) -coincidentally published just as it seemed his stock was on the rise.
Click here to read a 1930s article about Eugene O'Neill.
"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.
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.
Appearing in their monthly column, "Repitition Generale", H.L. Mencken and George Jean Nathan briefly explored the reoccurring topic regarding Hollywood immorality:
"So long as the majority of figures in the field of movies are recruited from the social and aesthetic slums, so long will the smell of Lime house cling to the movie's scandals."
Most people, and you might very likely be one of them, tend to believe the old adage, "Show me your friends, and I'll tell you what you are"; but fashion diva Lady Duff Gordon (aka: 'Lucile') was of the mind, "Show me your bathroom, and I'll tell you who and what you are" and in 1922 she went out to prove it by scampering all over Paris in search of the finest bathrooms. Upon reading of the expedition, the editors of HARPER'S BAZAAR remarked:
"It makes one realize that many of us who fatuously remarked, 'So this is Paris', were really not at the party at all."
Click here to read a 1937 article about feminine conversations overheard in the best New York nightclub bathrooms.
The legendary sports writer, Grantland Rice (1880 1954), had his doubts as to whether tennis champ Bill Tilden (1893 1953) could keep his title for a third year in a row (he did; all told, "Big Bill" Tilden won the U.S. Tennis Championship 6 times in succession and 7 times altogether).
A shewed observer of fashion, Mary Alden Hopkins (1856 - 1930) noted how the Victorian dinosaurs who lorded-over the male-dominated, pro-corset fashion industry had attempted (unsuccessfully) to manipulate and coerce the shoppers of the early Twenties to reject the Chanel-inspired revolt that the young flappers were currently enjoying.
"How can I sell these styles?...the flappers won't buy them."
"If one judges by appearances, I suppose I am a flapper. I am within the age limit, I wear bobbed hair, the badge of flapperhood. I powder my nose. I wear fringed skirts and bright colored sweaters, and scarves and waists with Peter Pan collars and low-heeled 'finale hopper' shoes. I adore to dance... But then there are many degrees of a flapper. There is the semi-flapper, the flapper, the super-flapper. Each of these three main general divisions has its degrees of variation. I might possibly be placed somewhere in the middle of the first class".
Attached you will be able to print the film review for Charlie Chaplin's movie, "Shoulder Arms" (1918). Printed in a popular humor magazine from the time, the flick (which had been re-released) was hailed by this one critic as "the greatest comedy in movie history".
Many moons ago, as it is also true this day, many people living outside the borders of the United States had a laugh concerning America's commonly held belief that they are an idealistic people whose motives are not always driven by self-interest; this is a broad topic and sound arguments can be made on both sides as to whether it is true or not. The British thinker Bertrand Russel (1872 - 1970) had some thoughts on the matter and in an address made to a number of assembled Americans he submitted that, in his view, Prohibition was not a 'noble experiment' that sought to inspire all Americans to lead a righteous life, but rather a gross perversion of Christian doctrine.
The attached column first appeared in Flapper Magazine and begins with three paragraphs outlining the ceaseless march of flappers throughout the centuries (Eve, Cleopatra, Madame Du Barry, etc...) and then dedicates the remaining three paragraphs to the various legal dust-ups flappers were causing throughout the fruited plane:
"In Vinland, Kansas, a town of 400 inhabitants, [the rustics are up-in-arms because] Alice Hansen and Maude Buchanan, 16-year-old flappers, and daughters of farmers, are wearing skirts shorter than those that are in vogue among the high school pupils....it is now up to the highbrows of the Supreme Court of Kansas to decide the case and bring a satisfying verdict...All this criticism of flappers is bunk and should be treated lightly."
The African-American comedian Bert Williams (1874 1922) was a funny fellow who ascended to great heights in his life; he performed in the great theaters of Europe and was adored by many of the foreign potentates of his time. Yet despite all his international glory, he never received acceptance in his own country. Like many African-Americans at the time, Williams simply came to accept the myopic views of race as it was understood by the majority of his countrymen, and learned to do without the appreciation he so craved. Bert Williams died in 1922. One of his more memorable lines:
"Being a Negro is not a bad thing, it's just terribly inconvenient."
A single paragraph review of Sir Philip Gibbs' (1877 - 1962) book, More That Must Be Told. The book was written as a sequel to his previous volume which cataloged the many blunders and assorted outrages of the Great War, Now It Can Be Told (1920). The reviewer wrote:
Click here to read about the new rules for warfare that were written as a result of the First World War - none of them pertain to the use of poison gas or submarines.
The attached article from LITERARY DIGEST will give you a clear understanding of all that Britain went through in order to govern Iraq in the early Twenties; Britain's treaties with the Turkish and Angoran Governments in regards to the oil-rich region of Mosul, the selection of an Arab King and the suppression of various Iraqi revolts.
"The Mesopotamian Adventure" required a tremendous amount of treasure and yielded very little excitement for either party:
"At the end of the war we found Iraq upon our hands, and our Government agreed to accept a mandate for the administration for this inhospitable territory."
Click here to see a Punch Magazine cartoon about the British adventure in Iraq.
-so ran the sub head-line for this news article from the early Twenties which attempted to explain to one and all what the new look for the winter of 1921 - 1922 was all about.
Reproduced here are the two pages from the Congressional Digest of 1922 which are composed of both the outline of the proposed legislation as well as the debate of the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill.
The bill, which was introduced by Representative Leonidas C. Dyer (1871 - 1957)of Missouri, was intended to make lynching a felony that would have resulted in a short prison term and a $5,000.00 fine for all guilty participants. The proposed legislation passed the House of Representatives but not the Senate. Congressional debates concerning anti-lynching would be a topic for many years to come, however, the arguments presented against passage of this bill by the Southern Representatives make an interesting read.
What did the smart, re-constructed Confederate soldier wear to the reunions, you ask? Why an eight buttoned sack coat with matching trousers composed of Dixie Gray wool, of course! It was all the rage among the apple-sauce crowd of 1922 - and by clicking the link below you will see a black and white ad from "Confederate Veteran Magazine" which pictured the togs.
An article from The Outlook reported on the enormous amount of discomfort that the Ku Klux Klan was generating among Catholics in 1922 Kansas. During a New York interview, Kansas Governor Henry J. Allen (1868 - 1950) remarked about the piles of letters his office received imploring that the state take action and how he, too, had been threatened by the organization.
"Kansas is engaged in trying out the Ku Klux Klan through an action in the State Supreme Court to restrain it's secret activities."
An article by one of the KKK's most outspoken enemies in the press, Stanley Frost (author of "Challenge of the Klan"), who reported on the political dust-up that took place in the Oklahoma state government when the Klan made serious attempts to be a dominate factor in Oklahoma politics.
"THE OUTLOOK sent Stanley Frost to Oklahoma to study the amazing political conflict which has taken place in the state. The forces at odds in the state may have a far-reaching influence upon national politics."
As 1922 came to a close, it seemed that some of the Suffragettes of the old-school had not lost their taste for violence, as the reader will discover in the opening paragraph of this one page article that primarily focused on the defeat of all but one of the women candidates who ran for Federal offices in the 1922 elections. "Thirty-three women running for Congressional and legislative seats in New York State went down to defeat" and there were no women elected or re-elected from any state for Congress that year. However, the state of Ohio elected it's first woman to that state's Supreme Court: Florence E. Allen (18841965).
wrote to the editors to point out an over site that was made concerning an important center of military production for the Confederacy. The reader wished to remind all concerned that Columbus, Georgia was home to numerous "manufactories" that served the rebels well in so far as the production of swords, brass cannons, harnesses, revolvers and rifles as well as wool and leather goods for the infantry.
Oddly, this essay has more to do with the evolution of golf from a shepherd's pastime to the sport of kings, however there are some references made to the evolution of golf clothing:
"Royalty did, however, dress up the game. It gave us the brilliant garments that golf captains wear in Britain. When I first went abroad I thought that I had never seen more splendid creatures. And the modern golf costume is a thing of mode and cut..."
A father/son gag cartoon by the seldom remembered cartoonist A.D. Walker from Harper's Magazine.
American cartoons drawn prior to the mid-1920s were created in the "he-said-she-said" manner until the cartoonist Peter Arno (1904 - 1968) shook things up a bit and introduced the format we are all familiar with today: one drawing, one caption.
"The 36th Division has a little corner by itself in the general field covered by the A.E.F. It was not brought into either of the American major operation or into any American sector. Off by itself, under French command, it came into line in Champagne... Theses troops came bang into the middle of the hardest fighting, without any quiet sector preliminaries, and without a relatively easy initiation like St. Mihiel."
An article which discusses the growing number of state legislatures given the task to vote up or down on the issue as to whether or not to allow the Darwin theory of evolution to stand as a legitimate topic for discussion and instruction in their respective school systems. Mentioned in the article was one of the major players leading the charge on behalf of creationism: William Jennings Bryan (1860-1925).
Three years following the publication of this magazine article, Bryan would be standing in defense of Christian faith during the famous Tennessee Scopes Trial.
A Parisienne with a good many thoughts regarding menswear goes to some length to impart that men are dressing worse, not better, and the substitution of the dinner jacket (read: "Tuxedo") for the tail-coat is an example of the slovenliness to come.
"You are entirely wrong in imagining that we pay no attention to the way men dress...The truth is that while we may say nothing, we do not in the least consent, and we find, messieurs, that for some time now you have been very much changed, and for the worse."
At the very peak of bourgeois respectability, one of the high priests of art and culture, Gilbert Seldes (1893 - 1970), sat comfortably on his woolsack atop Mount Parnasus and piled the praises high and deep for one of the lowest of the commercial arts. The beneficiary was the cartoonist George Herriman (1880 1944), creator of Ignatz Mouse and all other absurd creations that appeared in his syndicated comic strip, "Krazy Kat" (1913-1944):
"His strange unnerving distorted trees, his totally unlivable houses, his magic carpets, his faery foam, are items in a composition which is incredibly with unreality. Through them wanders Krazy, the most tender and the most foolish of creatures, a gentle monster of our new mythology."
"The zeal of the Ku Klux Klan to 'support the Church' has been displayed by many signs, and intimations multiply, we are told, that certain Protestant ministers are in its confidence and would seem on occasion to be directing it's activities. But to some ministers the Klan's mark of approval appears to be embarrassing, a favor which they would much prefer to do without. Scarcely a Sunday passes without the publication of the news that a Klan has visited a church in a body, simply to signify approval, or to remain decorously through the service."
This is a short, pithy review of E.E. Cummings' (1894 1962) novel, The Enormous Room I1922), which was based upon his experience as an American volunteer ambulance driver and his subsequent incarceration in a French jail for having admitted to pacifist sympathies. The reviewer believed that the book provided:
"the last word in realistically detailed horrors."
F. Scott Fitzgerald is said to have remarked:
"Of all the work by young men who have sprung up since 1920 one book survives - The Enormous Room by E.E. Cummings".
Here is an interview with Izzy Einstein (Isidor Einstein, 1880 1938): Prohibition agent and master of disguise:
"A day with Izzy would make a chameleon blush for lack of variation..."
"He prepared himself to move in high, low and medium circles - on the excellent theory that the taste for liquor and the desire to sell it are no respecters of persons - and in all those circles he has since been whirling with rapidity and a quick-change adeptness."
By the time this small paragraph appeared in the 1922 pages of Confederate Veteran Magazine the vast majority of their readership was living on their Confederate pensions. This article serves to remind the subscribers that there were numerous "faithful Negroes" who were also deserving of same. The author recounts a few stories of the devotion he witnessed.
This is an eyewitness account of the very first trench raid to have been suffered by the U.S. Army in France; like most first time engagements in American military history, it didn't go well and resulted in three dead, five wounded, and eleven Americans taken as prisoner. Historians have recorded this event to have taken place on the morning of November 3, 1917, but this participant stated that it all began at
"3:00 a.m. on November 2, after a forty-five minute artillery barrage was followed by the hasty arrival of 240 German soldiers, two wearing American uniforms, jumped into their trench and began making quick work out of the Americans within."
The reporter who filed this 1922 article for Literary Digest was concerned with the secular world on college campuses that was damaging the well-balanced minds of American women:
"Woman is learning the same things that are taught to her brother; scientific theories destructive of the faith she imbued at home...The women are not doing their duty - they are giving too much time to outside interests - they are degenerating! Women smoking! Women drinking! Women preferring adventures and amusement to caring for families! The flapper - the short skirt - the lack of corsets..."
Click here to read the review of a novel that dealt the feminist discomfort with Christianity.
This 1922 men's fashion article is illustrated with seven images and riddled with wise words for all those seeking information regarding 1920s backless vests, patent leather dancing shoes, madras dress shirts and kid suede gloves for semi-dress wear.
This gag concerns itself with another kind of American Expeditionary Force - when Pershing's Doughboys left, they were replaced by the American tourists.
There is another article on this site that states a popular belief held by the Europeans of 1919 that American men were all clean shaven, tended to sport gold teeth, and were most easily recognized by their "big tortoise shell glasses"; however, this is the first visual manifestation of this caricature that we could find. This cartoonist did not simply believe that this was a fitting description of the white guys, but black guys, too -and the women as well; an entire nation resembling Harold Lloyd.
Reverend Harry Emerson Fosdick (1878 - 1969) got some attention in the press when he preached that the work of saving of souls had much to do with man's maintenance of a sound and just economic system here on the earth. Dr. Fosdick gained much of this understanding in the slums of New York City, in 1903, where he worked as a Baptist Minister.
"In the twentieth century the greatest conflict in the world's life is centered in economics. The most vital questions with which we deal are entangled with economic motives and institutions."
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.
Unearthed by a team of underpaid urban anthropologists digging all hours in the skankiest and most vile of magazine repositories was this single page of feminine poesy representative of an obscure, forgotten genre of Twentieth Century prosody that celebrated a brash cast of woman that was once known as a Flapper. Alas, the name of the poet has been lost to time.
The author of this article, Gilbert Coleridge, has written an honest character study of Oscar Wilde (1854 - 1900) in hopes to better understand the man in the context of his time. One of the interesting hypothetical questions he poses asks how would Oscar Wilde (a man who lived only for pleasure) have got on during the highly rationed home front of 1914-1918 war?
This short notice is about Will Hays, an Elder in the Presbyterian Church, who was hired to be the conscience of the Dream Factory in 1922; he rode into Hollywood on the heels of a number of well-publicized scandals vowing to sober the place up. Widely believed to be a moral man, the Hays office was located in New York City - far from the ballyhoo of Hollywood. Hays' salary was paid by the producers and distributors in the movie business and although he promised to shame the film colony into making wholesome productions, he was also the paid apologist of the producers.
A few choice words concerning the Treaty of Versailles by the German anti-socialist author S. Miles Bouton (born 1876):
"Such a treaty could not bring real peace to the world even if the conditions were less critical and complex. As they are, it will hasten and aggravate what the world will soon discover to be the most serious, vital, and revolutionary consequences of the war."
The quote above is an excerpt from THE NATION's review of Bouton's 1922 book, And The Kaiser Abdicates: The German Revolution, November, 1918.
While debating the 1922 issue of benefits to be paid to the American W.W. I veterans, this record of salary and the post-war benefits paid by the other combatant nations was distributed to members of Congress.
When this profile of the thirty-tree year-old Thomas Hart Benton (1889 - 1975) was published, the painter was not as yet recognized as the eccentric that history remembers him to have been. The anonymous journalist took an enormous interest in understanding Benton's education and the source of his inspiration.
Click hereto read a 1936 art review regarding the paintings of Grant Wood.
This is an article about Harvard President Abbott Lawrence Lowell (1856 1943) who attempted to avoid the topic concerning his deep desire to admit Jews by quota and keep their numbers limited to a particularly low proportion.
In 1923 President Lowell came up with a politically palatable solution: he limited the size of the incoming class to one thousand, which meant incorporating an evaluation of each candidate's non-academic qualities into the admissions decision. How "manly" was the candidate, for instance? How congenial and "clubbable"? What promise, what potential for future leadership?
Over time meritocracy won out - until Asians began applying in large numbers...
The number of movie stars who have found Los Angeles a disagreeable spot in which to live and work is a far larger number than you could ever imagine; however, for those of you who are keeping just such a list, here is proof-positive that Charlie Chaplin hated the dump, too.
A collection of low opinions concerning the Flapper and her confederates, gathered from numerous clerical magazines throughout the fruited plane:
"There is a great deal of frank talk among them that in many cases smacks of boldness. One hears it said that the girls are actually tempting the boys more than the boys do the girls, by their dress and conversation..."
A 1922 magazine article concerning the dangers of black market liquor in the United States during the Prohibition period (1919 - 1933):
"When you drink bootleg the chances are better than nine out of ten that you are drinking rank poison."
"This is not the statement issued either by Prohibitionists to discourage drinking, or by a Anti-Prohibitionist to show what Prohibition has brought us to. It is the conclusion of a large newspaper service, which had it's men in various parts of the country buy the 'ordinary mine-run of bootleg liquor', and then had the samples analyzed to get an idea of what a man's chances are of getting poisonous booze."
Click here to read about President Woodrow Wilson and his wish to re-write the post-war Prohibition restrictions.
E.B. Osborn of the London Morning Post reviewed H.L. Mencken's book, The American Language (1921) and came away amused and in agreement with many of the same conclusions that the "Bard of Baltimore" had reached:
"...Americans show superior imaginativeness and resourcefulness; for example, movie is better than cinema...The American language offers a far greater variety of synonyms than ours; transatlantic equivalents for drunk are "Piffled, spifflicated, awry-eyed, tanked, snooted, stewed, ossified, slopped, fiddled, edged, loaded, het-up, frazzled, jugged and burned."
During much of the 20s and 30s satirist H.L. Mencken (1880 - 1956) was widely read and respected for the critic that he was -and as you read this British essay from the arts journal, The English Review, you'll get a sense that the author/groupie must have been waiting by the docks for several years in anticipation of his arrival.
The historian Henry Steele Commager ranked H.L. Mencken at number 9 insofar as his impact on the American mind was concerned - click here to understand his reasoning...
Click here to read an article about one of New York's greatest mayors: Fiorello LaGuardia.
Two LITERARY DIGEST articles, printed seven days a part, addressing the topic of the destruction of the U.S. military's semi-rigid airship, ROMA; much attention is paid as to where the blame for the disaster must be placed. The journalists concur that the U.S. Congress was answerable for the loss due to that body's unwillingness to pay for the necessary helium, rather than the less expensive, and highly flamable, hydrogen gas. Thirty-four lives were lost.
Responding to the old tale that General Lee offered his sword in surrender at Appomattox, and that the magnanimous General Grant, flush with victory, kindly refused this gesture of humiliation - this anonymous contributor to "Confederate Veteran Magazine" penned an article that exposes the old saw to be incorrect:
"And General Grant says specifically in his memoir (Volume II, Chapter 25, pages 344-346): 'No conversation, not one word, passed between General Lee and myself either about private property, side arms, or kindred subjects. The much talked of surrendering of General Lee's sword and my handing it back, this and much more that has been said about it, is pure romance.'"
The Life Magazine review of The Garden Party and Other Stories
by the New Zealand writer Katherine Mansfield (1888 1923) is attached here for your enjoyment. Mansfield lived a short but productive life before tuberculosis got the best of her in 1923. This was one of any number of favorable reviews that she enjoyed in her lifetime and she is today often considered one of the best short story writers of her period.
This cartoon was drawn by the artist Reginald Marsh (1898 - 1954), who had a swell time comparing and contrasting the bio-diversity along 1922 Fifth Avenue; from the free-verse poets on Eighth Avenue up to the narrow-nosed society swanks on Sixty-Eighth Street -and everyone else in between.
Originally writing for the Forrest Park Review, Flapper advocate Myrtle Heilman (1895 - 1973) opined that the Flapper was the one and only topic of the day worth thinking about:
"Analyze her dress. It's the most sensible thing since Eve. She wears rolled socks and why shouldn't she? They are extremely cool and comfortable. Her toddle pumps are fairly low-heeled and she doesn't try to squeeze into a Cinderella. Her skirts are short because it's the fashion. Her bobbed hair is cool, sensible and sanitary. There is a twinkle in her eye and she has a saucy cock-sureness. And why shouldn't she?"
"She does respect her parents and she obeys them, just as well as her grandmother did hers, but she has common sense and she knows when it's time to use her own judgment and exercise her own authority".
"Why Dada?" is a thoughtful essay by Sheldon Cheney (1886 - 1980), a Dada enthusiast and founder of the American monthly Theatre Arts Magazine. This is a fine article which attempted to explain Dada to the American public and identified several American artists who subscribed to Dada principles.
"...at last years exhibitions the Futurists and Cubists joined the academicians in denouncing the Dadaists as fakers, charlatans, and ignoramuses who know nothing of the laws of art and only wish to shock the public into considering them a sensation! And the Dadaists get unlimited joy out of the situation, but hold to the center of the stage..."
Prior to the creation of cosmetic surgery, with odd procedures like tummy tucks and butt lifts, there was Helena Rubenstein (1871 - 1965), who had a long and stunning career in the cosmetic business and who is remembered for once having said:
"There are no ugly women, only lazy ones."
In this interesting 1922 interview, the matron saint of cosmetics made some very bright remarks on the issue of beauty, glamor and vanity.
Here is a mock society page that sought to belittle all the goings on among the sweet young things at Newport during the season of 1922. The article was illustrated by Clara Tice (Art Director of The Masses).
"A large and fashionably dressed group of Newport's 'creme de la creme' were observed on burning sands. Mixed bathing was indulged in...Many succulent bits of gossip and spicey rumor have been overheard in the ladies annex during the noon dressing hour and right merry time was had by all."
"In Three Soldiers, John Dos Passos exhibited the disillusionment of the soldiers in the field; The Last Mile by Frank Macallister exposes the disillusionment of the soldier come home". The reviewer remarked that both men had been "bamboozled by Woodrow and company".
British thinker Bertrand Russell (1872-1970; Nobel Prize for Literature, 1950) used to get mighty hot under the collar when the topic of 1922 American society came up and this report is just one example. On a speaking tour in the United States, the Cambridge Professor opined that
"love of truth [is] obscured in America by commercialism of which pragmatism is the philosophical expression; and love of our neighbor kept in fetters by Puritan morality."
He would have none of the thinking that America's main concern for jumping into the meat grinder of 1914-1918 was entirely inspired by "wounded France" and "poor little Belgium" but was rather an exercise in American self-interest.
Franklin Knight Lane (1864 1921) recalled his service as President Wilson's Secretary of the Interior and the eventful year of 1917 when Wilson lead the U.S. into it's first European war. Some may be amused as he reminiscences about the time Army Chief of Staff General Tasker H. Bliss (1853 - 1930) fell asleep during one of the cabinet meetings.
This article is a simply wonderful read for many reasons and the chief among them is that the journalist hated Los Angeles. The New York writer Karl K. Kitchen was dispatched to Beverly Hills to interview the recently divorced Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford and he seemed to have had a nice enough time with the estranged couple, so much so that the Hollywood Royals invited him to dine at their house. The whole article is written in a very chatty way and there is one small, but distinct, slanderous aside referring to Jewish power in the nascent film industry.
An article that your gadget-loving, audiophile pals will probably not enjoy from the days before "woofers" and "tweeters". Will wonders never cease? A radio IN THE CAR and an antenna that looks like a luggage rack, for heavens sake...
Art Young (1866 1943) was a cartoonist best remembered for his contributions to the radical magazine "The Masses", however the hypocritical behavior that was widely inspired by that "Noble Experiment", known as Prohibition, no doubt served as the muse for additional cartoons in other rags.
The attached article is yet another among the several tongue and cheek essays that the French composer Eric Satie (Alfred Ιric Leslie Satie 1866 1925) contributed for the amusement of the fun-loving readers of VANITY FAIR MAGAZINE. Published just three years prior to his death, it is beautifully illustrated, and stands as one solid page of pure silliness in which Satie considered the place of art in the animal kingdom, and concludes that of all the arts, architecture and music are the only two creative endeavors that the creatures of the field ever seem able to embrace:
"I know of no literary work written by an animal - and that is very sad."
It stands to reason that when one addictive drug disappears, the users will seek another drug to serve as a substitute - and although Wikipedia stated that drug addiction rose 44.6% throughout the course of Prohibition, this 1922 article reported that (at least for the first three years of the law) narcotics use remained at it's pre-1919 levels.
Click here to read about the problems of American drug addicts in the Forties...
"Having seen the international pantry shelf sadly depleted in the way of cups during the stirring campaign of 1921, extended preparations now underway beneath the Union Jack, indicate a counter attack of no slight proportions this coming summer."
By the time this piece appeared in The Chicago Daily News (prior to being picked up by the fast crowd at Flapper Magazine) Colleen Moore was all of twenty-one years of age with fourteen Hollywood films to her credit. This interview was conducted over lunch by the polished Hollywood reporter Gladys Hall, who we're sure picked up the check; on that day Miss Moore wanted to talk about flappers, a flock she was proud to be numbered among (and a subject she seemed to know well).
This two page article will answer some of your questions as to how the South was able to procure the necessary weapons needed to sustain their army as long as they did:
"The Southerners were a 'gun-totting race, so that there were enough firearms for the first round of the struggle at Bull Run."
Click here to read a similar article on this subject.
This small column from the pages of THE NEW REPUBLIC reported that women from five Southern states had gathered together in 1922 intending to pass a set of resolutions that would remedy "one aspect of the Negro question" (an illusive phrase that meant "lynching"). The attached article remarked that these women
"...feel a deep sense of appreciation for the chivalry of men who would give their lives for the purity and safety of the women of their own race," yet "They wish to bring about a state of public opinion which will compel the protection and purity of both races."
"Statistics of the World War prove, however, that war was, from the standpoint of mortality, not vastly different from other wars. In spite of the improvements in methods of killing by machinery,Nature managed to runup a higher score than the enemy's bullets and shells. The Surgeon General of the Army, at the request of The American Legion Weekly, has prepared the following figures for the period of the war, from April 1, 1917 to December 31, 1919."
When Fifth Avenue's Montross Gallery launched an exhibit featuring over one hundred creations by the American painter John Marin (1870 - 1953) in the winter of 1922, "art voyager" and all-around well-respected critic Paul Rosenfeld (1890 - 1946) was present, and very shortly put pen to paper in order to heap many bon-mots upon the man and his work:
"He applies his wash with the directness of impulse that is supposed to be discoverable only in the work of small children. One racks one's brain for memory of a water-color painter who reveals in every stroke of his brush a more uninhibited urge outward."
(Marie-Joseph-Paul-Yves-Roch-Gilbert du Motier de Lafayette, 1757-1834), who seemed heaven-sent when he appeared in Philadelphia in order to aid the Americans in their revolt against the British, had been largely forgotten by the French in the Twentieth Century. Indeed, the French were baffled to hear his name invoked as often as it was during the period of America's participation in the Great War. It was said that some disgruntled wit in the A.E.F. woke up one morning in the trenches and mumbled: "Alright, we paid Lafayette back; now what other Frog son-of-a-bitch do we owe?" Oddly, there is no mention made whatever of that unique trait so common to the Homo Americanus- "selective memory": during the 1870 German invasion of France there seemed to have been no one who recalled Lafayette's name at all.
.
" by John W. Graham is very briefly reviewed here; the summation provides some fast facts on the history of British conscientious objectors during World War One, yet tactfully fails to mention that during the course of the war, the British Army ordered 306 conscientious objectors be shot at dawn. In 2006 the British government pardoned them; just in time. 
writings up to 1922 in this review for CURRENT OPINION:
. In this, Lansing's follow-up to his earlier book, 
, the author 
who had documented his experience on Little Round Top in his earlier writings, but preferred to dwell on some other "glorious moments" on this page.
(1880 1954), had his doubts as to whether tennis champ 
(1893 1953) could keep his title for a third year in a row (he did; all told, "Big Bill" Tilden won the U.S. Tennis Championship 6 times in succession and 7 times altogether).
(1922). The reviewer was impressed:
(1921) and came away amused and in agreement with many of the same conclusions that the "Bard of Baltimore" had reached:
during the season of 1922. The article was illustrated by Clara Tice (Art Director of The Masses).