FDR's Alphabet Agencies (Pathfinder Magazine, 1934)Listed herein are the sixty-two alphabet agencies as they existed in 1934. More were on their way and, as this article makes quite clear, a good number of them were created by the Hoover administration. If you're looking for an article indicating that Hoover and Roosevelt had similar approaches to governance, this might be a good place to start. Dormant Capital (Pathfinder Magazine, 1934)This article reported on a phenomenon that is common in our own day as well as the era of the Great Depression. It exists in any locale that fosters a lousy environment for business - for when the entrepreneurial classes loose their daring for investing in commercial ventures and when bankers refuse to loan money for fear that they will never be paid back, it leads to the creation of what is called "dormant capital" - money that should be working, but isn't.
"There is now piled up in banks some $46,000,000,000. As opposed to $39,000,000,000 at the low point of 1933, and the idle capital is on the increase. World trade has virtually broken down."
As one editorial makes clear, FDR had a tough time freeing up private capital for investments, click here to read it.
Bankrolling Economic Stagnation (New Outlook Magazine, 1934) The Blue Eagle (Pathfinder Magazine, 1934)"Blue Eagle, symbol of the National [Industrial] Recovery Act, is probably one of the best known figures in the country today. Gripping bolts of lightening and a cog wheel in its claws it now hovers over 95 percent of industrial America advertising the success of the first major move of the New Deal... With only one year behind it, it has brought about the cooperation of 2,300,000 employers and 60,000,000 consumers."
- so runs the introductory paragraph for this 1934 article that marked the first anniversary of the National Recovery Administration. This short-lived agency was the brainchild of FDR's administration that was shot down by the Supreme Court in 1935. Although this article is filled with praise for the NRA, it would not be very long before the editors of PATHFINDER MAGAZINE assumed a more suspicious approach when reporting on this president's efforts to repair the damaged economy.
More on NRA problems can be read here...
Incompetence at the Helm (New Outlook Magazine, 1934)A columnist writing for the magazine New Outlook following the first nine months of the New Deal, weighed carefully all the assorted alphabet agencies and edicts that President Roosevelt created in hopes that the U.S. economy would once more spring to life. He concluded that there was nothing to look forward to and compared FDR to the con-men on the street corners who scam the passersby into playing their shell games; difference being that FDR's shells were both empty.
Click here to read about the first 100 days of the Roosevelt administration.
The Big Spenders in Washington (New Outlook Magazine, 1934) Frank Coffyn (Collier's Magazine, 1934)Frank Coffyn (1878 – 1960) was one of the earliest pioneer aviators in the United States. In this article he recalls those heady days when he regularly broke bread and talked shop with the likes of Orville Wright and other assorted fathers of aviation. Coffyn has long been remembered for being the first pilot to fly his camera-mounted Wright Flyer over Manhattan and under both Brooklyn and Williamsburg Bridges in 1912 - which he recalls herein. The Alphabet Bureaucrats (New Outlook Magazine, 1934)"It would be difficult to select the typical New Deal bureau. In not a few there is considerable friction between different degrees and elements of thought as to how far the New Deal should really go... The program is so vast, the limits of its intent so completely shrouded in the vague phraseology of the new idealism, that there appears to be plenty of work for all. [For example] unwanted surplusses were found in the electrical power and appliance field. It was perceived that here was a case of 'under-consumption' on the part of American homeowners. How to solve the problem? With another bureau, of course. And so we have the EHFA - the Electric Home and Farm Authority."
Sean O'Casey: Laborer, Playwright, Poet (Stage Magazine, 1934)Drama critic Ruth Woodbury Sedgwick interviewed Irish playwright Seán O'Casey
(1880 – 1964) for the November, 1934, issue of STAGE MAGAZINE and wrote this piece which clearly illustrated his art and politics. Robert Benchley, Humorist (Stage Magazine, 1934)New Yorker theater critic, columnist, actor and Algonquin wit Robert Benchley (1889 – 1945) was interviewed for Stage Magazine and photographed by theater shutter-bug Ben Pinchot:
"Sometimes he writes digests of the news which The New Yorker calls 'The Wayward Press' and signs them Guy Fawkes for some quaint reason..."
Click here to read more about the The New Yorker. The Fathers of Modern Advertising (New Outlook Magazine, 1934)This article is composed of 15 thumbnail biographies that serve to profile the most victorious men (and one woman) to have ever plied their craft in the world of American advertising during the Twenties and early Thirties. The fact that many of the clients listed herein are still around today will indicate how thoroughly these innovators had succeeded in making their names "household words". Some of the the brainiacs profiled are Stanley Resor of J. Walter Thompson, Raymond Rubicam of Young & Rubicam, Gerard Lambert of Lambert & Feasley, Bruce Barton of BBDO and copywriter Lillian Eichler. The Lot of Women in the Great Depression (New Outlook Magazine, 1934)An editorial by two American feminists who insisted that the economic depression of the Thirties had knocked the wind right out of the Women's Movement. They argued that some of the high ground that was earned in the preceding decades had been lost and needed to be taken back; their points are backed up by figures from the U.S. Census Bureau as well as other agencies. Much column space is devoted to the employment discrimination practiced by both state and Federal governments in favor of single women at the expense of the married. It is grievously made clear that even the sainted FDR Administration was one of the cruel practitioners of wage inequality.
CLICK HERE to read about the pay disparity that existed between men and women during the 1930s.
• A Video Clip About the Famous Picture The Brain Trusters (New Outlook Magazine, 1934)A year and a half into FDR's first term, journalist William E. Berchtold caught wind of "a growing realization in Washington that most of the 'emergency' legislation will become permanent". This didn't bother him nearly as much as the fact that such imperishability also meant that the host of beta males who were positioned to maintain this behemoth would also be remaining (History has taught us that it was not FDR's alphabet agencies that became a mainstay, but those of LBJ).
The group that advised FDR on all matters involving the African-American community was popularly known as "the Black Brain Trust"...
Summer Fashions (Stage Magazine, 1934)Illustrated with three nifty black and white fashion illustrations, this critic lays it all on the line as to what the most exciting part of ladies fashions will be for the summer of 1934 - there is much talk of the Paris offerings from Marcelle Dormoy, hats by Tappe and smocks by Muriel King. However, no other fashionable bauble attracts her attention more than the concept of the net dress:
"The thing that everyone is going for now is net and, when you see that new net dresses, it is pretty hard to understand why this frivolous fabric was forgotten so long. It is being made into dresses and jacket dresses which are called cafe clothes; street-length skirts and crisp, starchy necklines and usually, short sleeves, each with its individual brand of ingenuity."
Click here to read an article about the nature of adultery.
The American Culture of 1914 (American Legion Monthly, 1934)Appearing in a 1934 magazine for American war veterans (who by that year were well into their middle years and very much looking the part) was this curious column recalling the summer of 1914 and all the various goings-on that had taken place in the world and in American popular culture.
Is your name Anderson?
1914 Hollywood (American Legion Monthly, 1934)This is excerpt from a longer article about the goings-on in 1914 presented an interesting (if incomplete) list of Hollywood's offerings for 1914:
• The most popular screen performers were Mary Pickford, John Bunny, Ethel Barrymore and May Irwin.
• The most popular films were "The Peril's of Pauline" and an Italian film titled "Cabiria" (directed by Giovanni Pastrone, aka: Piero Fosco).
This reminiscence pays tribute to a stand-up comedian named Jack Gardner and his skit, "Curse You Jack Dalton", in which he interacted with the performers on a movie screen, "ordering" them about, cracking wise and even having the audience believe that he had shot one of them. The Junior Brain Trusters (New Outlook, 1934)"I have gathered my tools and my charts... I shall roll up my sleeves - make America over!"
"This was the motto to which the young folk began their work, nearly a thousand of them, which may be grouped for study purposes under the generic title, 'Junior Brain Trusters'. They were, for the most part, young men from the colleges and universities of the larger eastern cities.... Many of them came as protégés of the Senior Brain Trusters themselves, brought from the classrooms by [Guy] Tugwell, [Raymond Charles] Moley, [Felix] Frankfurter - Professor Frankfurter being especially successful in drafting students and recent graduates from the Harvard Law School." Unskilled Labor Descended on Hollywood (Photoplay Magazine, 1934)With the unemployment level at an all-time high, many Americans heard that there were jobs to be had in Hollywood as movie extras; jobs that require one to simply walk back and forth, pantomime at a dinner table and wear nice costumes. With few other options available to them, thousands of people headed West only to find that there was very little work, sub-standard housing and too many sharks wishing to take advantage of them. This article tells their story and explains how FDR's National Recovery Administration took it upon themselves to decide who could pursue this work and who could not. The Problem With Codes (New Outlook, 1934) 1930s Golf Attire (Photoplay Magazine, 1934)The attached 1933 and 1934 photos will give some indication as to what golf clothes looked like during the early Thirties. Depicted in the first image are four actors of the Hollywood tribe: Adolphe Menjou (clad in plus-fours), a slovenly Johnny Weismuller, Bruce Cabot and Richard Arlen. Full-cut trousers were the rule of the day, as can clearly be seen in the second photo that was indifferently ripped from the browning pages of "Delineator Magazine", which also shows a smashing linen shirtwaist dress that was worn on the Bermuda links.
The 1934 German Economy (New Outlook Magazine, 1934)Attached herein are thumbnail reports on how the Third Reich economy was faring during the last six months of 1934. For the month of October a report begins -
"The developments in the German trade situation in recent weeks are best summed up in the following newspaper headline of recent date:"
"REICH TO GLORIFY HUNGER AS VIRTUE" The A.E.F. in North Russia 1918 - 1919 (American Legion Monthly, 1934)Illustrated by a photograph depicting the cold weather uniforms worn by each of the six Allied armies that served time in Siberia(North Russia), this article is a reminiscence told by one of the American veterans of that cold, uncomfortable and long-forgotten campaign.
- from Amazon:
Why did we go to Russia? by Harry J. Costello
Marie Dressler Succumbs (Literary Digest, 1934)Marie Dressler (b. Leila Marie Koerber: 1868 – 1934) left her mark on stage and screen (both varieties) and by the time she died of cancer in 1934 shed had acquired a sizable fan-base and two Academy Awards. FDR's Publicity Machine (New Outlook Magazine, 1934)"To those who have followed the political career of President Roosevelt, this unprecedented emphasis on public relations and publicity is no surprise. No president has ever been more alive to the potentialities of maintaining a 'good press', of gauging public reaction to his policies and of timing his announcements to obtain the widest and most sympathetic audience possible... No party organization could afford the elaborate press relations machinery which existed on March 4, 1933. Its cost, including salaries, printing, supplies etc., is today in excess of $1,000,000 annually, and it is being paid for by the American taxpayer."
Click here to read about President Harry Truman...
The Era of Bartering (Pathfinder Magazine, 1934)"Scrip (sometimes called chit) is a term for any substitute for legal tender and is often a form of credit" - so reads the Wikipedia definition for those items that served as currency in those portions of the U.S. where the bucks were scarce.
The attached news column tells a scrip story from the Great Depression - the sort of story that was probably most common on the old frontier. Unlikely Communists & Red Teachers (New Outlook Magazine, 1934)This article starts out discussing that during the Great Depression communism was beginning to appeal to a small number of unlikely Americans of the country club variety; by the fifth page, however, it heats up considerably when the subject turns to the number of communists who are charged with the instruction of American youth:
"Although no accurate statistics on the subject are available, surveys and various reports indicate that there are 150,000 enthusiastic, thinking young Communists in the public schools and state universities of the United States today. Not nearly that many men are enrolled in the American Army. And the figure is a minimum - some estimates place the scholastic communists at 250,000."
The favorite newspaper among American communists was THE DAILY WORKER - read about it here...
U.S. Congress Approves Naval Expansion (Pathfinder Magazine, 1934)In 1934, the members of the U.S. Congress were able to see how ugly the world was becoming - and with this forethought they approved the Vinson Act. This legislation did not violate any of the restrictions agreed to under the Washington Naval Treaty and provided funds for 102 additional ships to be added to the American fleet by 1942. H.L. Mencken on the Brain Trust (Liberty Magazine, 1934)"The Brain Trust has devised a number of schemes for getting money away from the fellows who accumulated it during the Golden Age of Coolidge, and some of those schemes are working..." The Great Depression and the Failings of FDR (New Outlook Magazine, 1934)The columnist whose opinions are attached bitterly pointed out that the first year of FDR's administration had marginalized the Congress - and further opined that Roosevelt's rhetoric clearly implied his arrogant conviction that his administration alone was the only alternative to out right revolution, and should therefore to be seen as a mandate of the people. The article lists the numerous failings of FDR's "New Deal".
CLICK HERE to read more criticism from FDR's loyal opposition...
When W.W. II began and the factories reopened, the reality of having money and full-time employment made so many people giddy with excitement it proved to be too much for them - click here to read about that...
German Veterans of the War (American Legion Monthly, 1934)The Versailles Treaty insisted that Germany must have no W.W. I veterans organizations or conventions of any kind; 18 years later the Nazi leadership in Germany thought that was all a bunch of blarney and so the War Veterans Associations was formed. This article tells about their first convention (July 30, 1934).
During the Depression Unskilled Labor Flocked to Hollywood (Photoplay Magazine, 1934)Illustrated with the images of shanties and tents that once surrounded Universal Studios, this article tells the sad story of Hollywood movie extras and the challenging lives they led during the Great Depression: "Tossed out of other work by the recent depression, attracted by the false stories of Hollywood's squanderings and extravagances, excited by the thrill of living and working in the same town and the same industry with world famous personalities, they drifted to Hollywood and attached themselves to the motion picture industry. They registered with the Central Casting Bureau, and joined the great army of extras."
"These people saw no glitter, no romance, no bright mirage of stardom. To them, it was hard work and serious work..."
From Amazon: Hollywood Unknowns: A History of Extras, Bit Players, and Stand-Ins
Their Songs of Loathing (New Outlook Magazine, 1934)Well, here they are: the songs of the Nazi hit parade - all the ditties you've loved tapping your toes to - songs like Storm Troops on the March, or Up, Up, To Strife, Nation to Arms and who can forget that old classic: Wessle Song...
It doesn't get much better than this.
Click here to read Hitler's plan for German youth."
''Outlines of Fascism'' (New Outlook Magazine, 1934)"Will fascism come in the wake of the New Deal? The writer surveys its rapid post-war spread through Europe, reviews its origins in the writings of Pareto and Sorel and indicates steps that lead to its establishment."
An article about FDR's Alphabet Agencies can be read here...
An article that refutes the argument as to whether FDR was a fascist can be read here... Fake News? (New Outlook Magazine, 1934)A writer warns that since the advent of sound in movies, the journalists involved in the production of newsreels had grown absolutely giddy over the possibilities of the new technology being used to bend the truth any way they wanted, and frequently did. ''Nobody Starves'' (New Outlook Magazine, 1934)This article attempted to explain to that portion of the reading public fortunate enough to have jobs, just how the county relief programs worked and what was provided to the subscribers. The journalist did not weigh-in as to whether she approved or disapproved of the program but sought to explain that in places like the Mid-West, where houses outnumbered apartment buildings, allowances for such possessions were made. In the congested cities of the East it might be expected that the family car be sold prior to receiving relief funds, but in the states where distances were greater subscribers were permitted to hold on to their cars. ''The House the New Deal Built'' (New Outlook, 1934)Here is a short article that appeared a year and a half into the administration of President Roosevelt and it lays the nation's economic short comings right upon the doorstep of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. The writer articulated how unrecognizable the nation had become in such a very short span of time. The president's anti-competition policies were reeking havoc on an already damaged economy:
"The New Deal plan for cotton is destroying nothing less than the principal industry of the South... There is freshly disclosed evidence that the Public Works Administration works directly toward the retardation of private enterprise." | 
