The State of African-Americans in 1929 (The Book League, 1929)This book review of Scott Nearing's Black America
was published on the eve of the Great Depression and it provides a very accurate account of that community.
"There are in the United States today, if statistics do not lie, some twelve million Negroes. The population of the Argentine is not so large, nor that of Holland, nor that of Sweden. Eight million of these dark Americans live in the South. In Georgia alone there are more than a million colored people...How do they live - these blacks in a country controlled by whites.
Author Scott Nearing (1883 1983) was an American naturalist, educator and civil rights advocate.
Click here to read an article by Ralph Ellison concerning Black writers of the 1930s.
The 1920s Craze for Flagpole Sitting (Literary Digest, 1929)Here is a 1929 magazine article that makes clear for us in the digital age just how appealing the fad of flag pole sitting was to the YouTube-starved teenagers of the Twenties. This article tells the tale of Avon "Azie" Foreman and Jimmy Jones, two courageous flag pole sitting sons of Baltimore who inspired their feminine Maryland counterparts, Ruth McCruden and Dorthy Staylor, to ascend to perch. This journalist was probably not alone in believing that anyone who was capable of placing their keister where the flag should be was a rare and distinct breed of individual - possessing a faultless character and was destined for great things in the future.
Good; they will need such sturdy souls in two months - when the bottom falls out of the N.Y. Stock Exchange and the Great Depression begins - you can read about that here... The Women's Air Derby: Santa Monica to Cleveland (Literary Digest, 1929)To those of us living in the digital age, the concept that the pilots of an airplane race should be segregated by gender in order to compete seems just like a dictate from Sharia law - but for our great-grandfathers, it made perfect sense. This article is about the Women's Air Derby of 1929, which had a list of women pilots that read like the "Who's Who" of 1920s women aviation.
Amelia Earhart was one of the competitors. The World After W.W. I (The Bookman, 1929)The book review of Winston Churchill's 1929 tome, The Aftermath:
"All too frequently Mr. Churchill passes lightly over the story he alone can tell and repeats the stories that other men have told."...[Yet] no one who wants to understand the world he lives in can afford to miss The Aftermath. Would that all contemporary statesmen were one-tenth as willing as Mr. Churchill to tell what they know."
More about Winston Churchill can be read here.
Read the thoughts of one W.W. I veteran who regrets having gone to war... The New Guy Who Took Her Place (Literary Digest, 1929)"Making his bow to the nation with the praise of the Anti-Saloon League and of Andrew J. Volstead, father of the Prohibition law, ringing in his years, Mr. Youngquist (1885 1959) was quick to announce that
"I am dry politically and personally, but I am not a fanatic on the subject." ''The Americans in the Argonne Won the War''
(You Can't Print That, 1929)
Here is a segment of the famous interview with General Paul von Hindenburg that was conducted just days after the close of hostilities in which the journalist George Seldes (1890 1995) posed the question as to which of the Allied Armies played the most decisive roll in defeating Germany; whereupon the General responded:
"The American infantry in the Argonne won the war".
Read on...
Click here to read about sexually transmitted diseases among the American soldiers of the First World War...
Turning Back The Fashion Revolution (Literary Digest, 1929)Periodically we run across articles on this subject and it makes us sit up and recognize that this must have been a constant fear for numerous women (and fashion journalists) during the Twenties. Each article centers on a widespread belief that the Deep State behind the fashion industry had plans afoot to force women back into long skirts and corsets and that women would not be allowed any say in the matter.
Click here to read a similar article and here to read our other article on the subject. ''A Plan to Make Chinese Canadians'' (Literary Digest, 1929)A brief column from an American magazine that lucidly explained the mounting frustrations within 1920s Canada concerning the influx of Chinese immigrants to that country.
Click here to read about the Canadian POWs who collaborated with the Nazis.
Click here to read about the Nazis in 1930s Canada.
Germany's Discomfort Over the War-Guilt Clause (Literary Digest, 1929)The Treaty of Versailles was signed ten years before the printing of the attached article, and within that time the German press had literally published hundreds of thousands of editorials objecting to the treaty's clause that placed all blame entirely on Germany for the start of the war. In order to mark this anniversary, the editors of The Literary Digest decided to run this article that reported on how that country felt about "the war-guilt lie". Is Bobby Jones Losing Interest in Golf? (Literary Digest, 1929)The two page article attached herein addresses the meteoric rise of the American golf legend Bobby Jones (1902 1971). Said to have been a child prodigy in the game, he made his mark early, winning the 1923 U.S. Open against Bobby Cruickshank (1894 1975) at the age of 19. Trophies came to him effortlessly during the course of the following six years and, judging from the question posed above, the golf journalists were right: Bobby Jones was losing interest in the game - he would leave competitive golf the following year. *Look at the Swing of Bobby Jones* All Quiet on the Western Front (Saturday Review of Literature, 1929)Henry Seidel Canby (1878 - 1961) was one of the founding editors of The Saturday of Literature
and in this article he put pen to paper and presented his readers with a concise summation of what he liked to call "the five phases" of war literature. Canby sensed that since 1919 there had been five unique types of war books, all produced by veterans, and that Erich Maria Remarque's (1898 1970) All Quiet on the Western Front was typical of the fifth variety that was appearing in 1929: "The balance hangs true in Remarque. Pacifism is a theory, militarism is a theory, war is a necessity - not in its causes, for who really hates the enemy! - but for this doomed generation it is a fact. War for these men is normal, which does not mean that they like it."
A 1930 article about the movie can be read herecan be read here.
The Year of Sound (Theatre Arts Magazine, 1929)The oddballs who read old Hollywood magazines from the year 1929 seem to all be in agreement that these magazines all shared the same frenzied, enthusiastic energy; something new and wonderful and unpredictable had been introduced and it was going to cause an enormous shake up in every movie capitol under the sun: sound. "But it was in the past year that the newest art, that of the silent drama, like prehistoric Man, stood up on it's hind legs and began to talk. Like prehistoric man, it talked badly at first. But soon it's words came a shade more fluently, and gradually they began, when arranged, to make a small degree of sense". Read about the first "talkie movie star": Mickey Mouse... A Census of Skyscrapers (Literary Digest, 1929)Egged on by the 1929 completion of the Chrysler building, the curious souls who ran the New York offices of THE LITERARY DIGEST were moved to learn more about skyscrapers, both in New York as well as other parts of the U.S. and We were surprised to learn that as of 1929
"50 percent of the buildings in New York from 10 to 20 stories and 60 percent of those over 20 stories are located between 14th and 59th streets."
This article also presents statistical data concerning the number of tall buildings that could be found throughout the 1920s United States.
The Loud Noises of N.Y. (Literary Digest, 1929)The unsettling noises of New York City are as well-known to the New Yorkers of today as they were to the New Yorkers of yore:
"Soldiers get war shell-shock; New Yorkers get peace shell-shock, a condition of nerves less obvious, but more insidious. It makes the New Yorker smoke more cigarettes than any one else in the world...it keeps the speakeasies open, it builds skyscrapers and eggs him on to splendid achievement, or shatters his morale..." The Prophetic Dreams of Abraham Lincoln (Literary Digest, 1929)There are hundreds of stories concerning the life of President Lincoln. Some of them are true and some are not and we'll leave it up to other websites to decide; among the stories told are the ones that tell the tale of a Lincoln who had dreams of foreboding, dreams that came to him in the night and told of his own demise: "Gradually she drove him into telling of his dream."
"'About ten days ago I retired late. I soon began to dream. Then I heard subdued sobs, as if a number of people were weeping. I thought I left my bed and wandered downstairs...I arrived at the East Room, which I entered. Before me was a catafalque, on which rested a corpse, wrapped in funeral vestments. Around it were stationed soldiers who were acting as guards, and there was a throng of people, some gazing mournfully...others weeping pitifully. 'Who is dead in the White House?' I demanded of one of the soldiers. 'The President,' was his answer. 'He was killed by an assassin.' Then came a loud burst of grief from the crowd which awoke me from my from my dream.'"
It was argued that slavery in the United States did not end in 1865...
Schools Should Not Fly ''An Emblem Of War'' (Literary Digest, 1929)Here is one from the "everything old is new again" collection. This 1929 article asks whether it was appropriate for schools to fly the American flag, believing as the this one cleric did, that the starry banner is "an emblem of war". The Very First Football Referee Hand Signals (Literary Digest, 1929)With the widespread complaints on the rise from the football fans on the sidelines that they were completely in the dark as to why a play was called, the elders of the sport decided that action had to be taken to remedy the growing confusion... "Hence a system of signals has been devised whereby the officials on the field can let the people in the stand know what is what. A gesture of the arm by the field official will immediately telegraph to the stands that Whoozis College's penalty was for slugging. Another wave will inform the inquisitive public that the forward pass was incomplete by being grounded." The article is illustrated with eight photographs of assorted football penalty hand signals; none of the gestures have stood the test of time - the penalties have remained but today different signals indicate each infraction. Rudy Vallee: 'Vagabond Lover' (Film Spectator, 1929)It is not surprising to think that one of the first sound movies to be made had to consist of a plot that involved a musical number, and when put to the task of writing his review of VAGABOND LOVER (1929: RKO Pictures) the well respected film critic Welford Beaton dished-out some lukewarm opinions concerning it's star, crooner/teen-idol Rudy Vallee (1901 - 1986): "The laddie's face is set in a sort of perpetual sorrow which, added to the fact that he seldom looks the camera in the eye, makes him seem like the wraith of some calamity walking through the scenes. Only the voice is virile..." *Watch Rudy Vallee Croon in this 1929 Clip from 'Vagabond Lover'* ALL QUIET on the WESTERN FRONT (The Bookman, 1929)All Quiet On The Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque topped the U.S. bestseller list for all of 1929 and it was due in no small part to enthusiastic book reviews like the one we've posted here that must have numbered in the thousands throughout all of North America:
"Here is a book about the war of such extraordinary purity and force that, reading it, one seems actually never to have read of the wear before. Numberless books have been written that present the stark, physical horrors of the war in quite as full detail as "All Quiet on the Western Front, but their effects have been nullified by one's perception of the intent to shock. Many others have given us a more complete, more literary rendition of war as it strikes full upon the nerves of sensitive and intelligent men. Nothing could be less academic than Herr Remarque's book; but nothing could be more vivid."
Is your name Anderson?
W.W. II: Where were the war poets?
What the Negro Thinks (The Bookman, 1929)This is the 1929 book review of What the Negro Thinks
by Robert Moton (1867 1940).
"[To the Negro] the white man sometimes seems a bit pathetic in his insistence upon keeping the worth of the Negro hidden, in refusing to recognize skill and talent, honor and virtue, strength and goodness simply because it wears a black skin. To him, the white man's apparent dread of the Negro is incomprehensible..." Leniency For The Defendants of the Hebron Massacre (Literary Digest, 1929)"Jews do not seek vengeance, despite the opinions commonly held in certain quarters that the god of the Jews is a God of vengeance. We repudiated
this concept of God and religion since the days of when Joshua established the cities of refuge and have entirely outgrown it since the days of the Bible prophets... Wes stand with the majority proponents of the ennobling suggestion, and trust that the counsel of forgiveness, mercy and loving-kindness will prevail." Male Church Attendance Drops (Literary Digest, 1929)A report from The Literary Digest revealed that only one man out of every nine attended Sunday services with any regularity in 1929. The article quotes one wounded clergymen who predicted doom for the American culture as a whole, and interviewed an assorted number of church-goers of the male variety who offered a number sound reasons to attend weekly services, none of them having anything to do with the Gospels. However 317 out of 320 interviewed all concurred that their participation helps them attain "a sense of the presence of God" in their lives. Click here to read an article from 1900 about why men dislike going to church. When W.W. II started, Americans went back to church... ''What the Negro Means to America'' (Atlantic Monthly, 1929)In the attached article Count Hermann Alexander Keyserling (1880 1946), German philosopher and social critic, wrote about those uncommon cultural elements within the African-American culture that renders American blacks as an unprecedented, unique cultural force in the world:
"There has never been anything like the American Negro in Africa, nor is there anything like him in the West Indies or in South America."
Tiresome Will Hays (Film Spectator, 1929)When the silent film era had run it's course and the "talkies" were growing in popularity, Hollywood's honeymoon with Will Hays was long over. In 1929 Hays' association with Harry Sinclair of the Consolidated Oil Corporation was called into question by a number of Washington Senators. In 1924, Hays, the man who's reputation was supposed to be beyond reproach, performed poorly before a Senate committee when asked to explain his 1920 roll as the go-between who collected a $75,000.00 donation from Sinclair in order to fill the coffers of the Republican National Committee. There were allegations of dubious gifts in exchange for this service and the Hollywood community, which has no difficulty generating it's own scandals and needed no help from Will Hays, thank you very much, began to grumble. Various assorted unkind remarks concerning Will Hays were printed in this short article that appeared in a long forgotten Hollywood trade publication. Click here if you would like to read about Will Hays and his 1922 arrival in Hollywood.
If you would like to read about the films of the 1930s, click here. Click here to read a 1939 article about an alumni organization for the pioneers of silent films. ''STAY HOME!'' (Hollywood Magazine, 1929)"The advent of talking pictures has enormously increased the number of those who vision a fairyland of fame and fortune if they can only reach Hollywood... Rumor had it that voice was important for the new Talkies, and every female whose misguided family had 'cultivated' Mamie's vocal resources, usually without the faintest reasonable excuse, realized where her destiny lay. The rush was on... Several organizations in Hollywood find it possible to send girls back home before the tragedy point is reached... Periodically the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce broadcasts warnings".
Myths About Lincoln (Literary Digest, 1929)Myths After Lincoln is a book that documented many of the assorted tall tales that have, through the years, evolved in such a way as to have us all believe that Lincoln was a mystic who was blessed with dreams of foreboding.
The myth of Lincoln's funeral train appearing as an apparition once a year is discussed, as are the legends that John Wilkes Boothe, like Elvis, survived the Virginia barn fire, where he is believed to have died and escaped into the Western territories.
JOURNEY'S END by R.C. Sheriff (Theatre Arts Magazine, 1929)Robert Littell reviewed the first New York production of Journey's End by former infantry officer, R.C. Sherriff (1896 1975: 9th East Surrey Regiment, 1915 - 1918). We have also included a paragraph from a British critic named W.A. Darlington who had once fought in the trenches and approaches the drama from the angle of a veteran:
Click here if you would like to read another article about the WW I play Journey's End. Watch the Trailer for the 2018 Film Adaptation of Journey's End Babe Ruth Ranks and his Peers (Literary Digest, 1929)"The ten best players that Babe Ruth can pick from the major leagues go into an unofficial diamond hall of fame. Ruth started picking these teams as a result of a clubhouse argument... "That there has been no prejudice is best shown, I think, by the fact that I have named six men from the National League and only one from my own league, the American...I haven't named a single man from my own club, the New York Yankees, the men who play alongside me day after day through the season." The Rebirth of the Corset? (The Nation, 1929)This article is an editorial by an anonymous scribe at THE NATION who responded to a fashion article that appeared in the 1929 pages of THE NEW YORK TIMES declaring that skirts and dresses would once again sweep the floor, sleeves would button at the wrist and the corset was making a comeback after so many years on the lam:
"There is in this genuine cause for mourning. It is too bad that modern women should again be salves to fashion; it is a pity that the female form, happily free of entanglements for half a dozen years, is in a fair way to go back to them."
Read More 1920s Articles About Flapper Fashions... Prohibition Killings (Pathfinder Magazine, 1929)Two sources have been combined on one printable page in order to assess the body count that was created as a result of the murders that the prohibition laws had wrought. The complete number is not here - just the last four years:
1933, the year Prohibition was rescinded, seemed to have been the bloodiest year in this study - with 12,123 people murdered (being 9.6 per 1000,000 souls). The numbers began to drop from there: 1934 through 1936 saw a steady decline in urban homicide. Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man (The Bookman, 1929)Heartlessly torn from the brittle pages of a 1929 issue of The Bookman was this summary and review of Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man by Sigfried Sassoon:
"During the war something was lost to Englishmen which they can recapture in nostalgic memories but never recover in fact. This strange novel of Sassoon's reminds one of the faintly faded colors and old-fashioned security of English sporting prints."
Jews Barred from Fraternities at Yale (Literary Digest, 1929)An article concerning a nasty spat between Yale Jews and Yale gentiles, and when all was said and done and the dust had settled, no one came out looking terribly intelligent. Talking Pictures Fail to Impress (Film Spectator, 1929)There can be no doubt that at some point between the appearance of this brief notice and the release of "Gone with the Wind", culture critic Gilbert Seldes (1893 - 1970) was won-over to the side that believed sound-movies were the way to go- but in 1929, he wasn't buy'n it. *Watch a Film Clip About the Revolution of Sound in Movies* The Dress-Reform Movement and Male Attire (Literary Digest, 1929)A few short paragraphs from a late-Twenties issue of Literary Digest recalled the terribly unproductive plans of the short-lived dress-reform movement and the frustrating nature of the human male in most matters sartorial:
"The male is a shy creature, and has always been particularly fearful of appearing conspicuous..."
Click here to read an editorial about the need for reform in men's attire.
Click here to get a sense of men's slow and subtle slide from appropriate business attire in the office to slovenly sportswear.
ZMC-2: The First All Metal Airship (Literary Digest, 1929)1929 saw the creation of the U.S. Navy airship ZMC-2, the first metal dirigible (aluminum alloy) of its kind: "Heretofore, the trend in dirigible construction has been toward larger and longer ships; the egg-shaped ZMC-2 can withstand the buffeting of the winds much better than her larger and more unwieldy sister ships." Built by the Aircraft Development Corporation (Detroit), ZMC-2 was in use by the U.S. Navy until her retirement, in 1941. In Memorium, 1914 (Saturday Review of Literature, 1929)The editors for the August 3, 1929 issue of The Saturday Review of Literature removed their collective caps in deep solemnity for the disasters that began that week just fifteen years earlier when the opening shots were fired that began the First World War.
It was a fitting tribute coming from a literary magazine in 1929, for that would be the year that introduced some of the finest World War I books to the reading public: Undertones of War (Blunden), The Path of Glory (Blake) and All Quiet on the Western Front (Remarque), which are all mentioned herein.
Some British Opinions About the First Talking Movies (Literary Digest, 1929)Attached are excerpts from a few 1929 British newspapers that condemned all efforts made in Hollywood to produce talking pictures; one snide reviewer went so far as to insist that rather than calling the films "talkies", they should be referred to as "dummies":
"The majority of films in the future will be made stupidly for stupid people, just has been the case with the silent movies for twenty years..."
Read About the First Talkie Movie Star
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