editor – Page 133 – Old Magazine Articles

1919, Aviation History, The Literary Digest

Harry Hawker
(The Literary Digest, 1919)

By editor / June 2, 2020

An article on the pioneer aviator Harry Hawker (1889 – 1921), written on the heels of his his failed attempt to beat the Yankees in crossing the Atlantic. Australian by birth, Hawker came to Britain specifically to seek a career in the infant aviation industry. His wish was answered in 1912 when he was hired by Tommy Sopwith. Hawker saved his wages to afford flying lessons and acquired his flying permit in the September of that same year. The following month he won the British Michelin Cup with a grueling endurance flight of 8 hr, 23 min. Sopwith was impressed and Hawker was promoted to chief test pilot. The rest is told herein…

from Amazon: Hawker: Aviator, Designer, Test Pilot

1910, Aviation History, Popular Mechanics Magazine

New York to Philadelphia in Record Time
(Popular Mechanics, 1910)

By editor / June 2, 2020

Pilot Charles Hamilton (1886 – 1914) made the first round-trip flight from Philadelphia to New York and back again flying a Curtis bi-plane in 1910:

He flew from New York to the Philadelphia in one hour and fifty minutes. His average speed on trips to the Quaker City was 46.92 miles per hour, but returning he averaged 51.36 miles per hour.

The NEW YORK TIMES paid Hamilton $5,000.00 for this achievement.

Louis Pierre Mouillard Article | Louis Pierre Mouillard Aviation Prophet

1912, Aviation History, The Literary Digest

Mouillard: Aviation Pioneer
(The Literary Digest, 1912)

By editor / June 2, 2020

The attached 1912 Literary Digest article addresses the debt that past and future aviators owe to Louis Pierre Mouillard (1834 – 1897); an aviation visionary whose relentless study of bird flight throughout the last half of the Nineteenth Century paved the way for aviators yet unborn.

1919, Current Opinion Magazine, D.W. Griffith

REVIEWED: Broken Blossoms
(Current Opinion, 1919)

By editor / June 2, 2020

A 1919 film review of Broken Blossoms, directed by D.W. Griffith and starring Lillian Gish and Richard Barthelmess:

Broken Blossoms came to the screen a masterpiece in moving pictures. Bare narration of the story cannot hope even to suggest the power and truth of the tragedy that Mr. Griffith has pictured.

You can read more about Lilian Gish here

1919, D.W. Griffith, Vanity Fair Hall of Fame

Publicity Spot for D.W. Griffith
(Vanity Fair, 1919)

By editor / June 2, 2020

A thumbnail biography of the celebrated silent film director,D.W. Griffith, appears on a page from a fashionable magazine paid for by the publicity office of the film studio. Directors back in the teens had to be fluffed and soothed, too.

1920, Silent Movie History

The Scenario Formula EXPOSED
(Photplay Magazine, 1920)

By editor / June 2, 2020

Cartoonist Ralph Barton and funny man Howard Dietz put together this nifty six-panel comic strip in order to ridicule the Hollywood screen writers and expose that crowd to be the tiresome dullards that they were (they’ve since reformed) and they also had the odd vision that the gag would be posted on a web page some eighty-six years in the future.

1920, Photoplay Magazine, Silent Movie History

Converted Film Haters
(Photoplay Magazine, 1920)

By editor / June 2, 2020

Tin Pan Alley songster (and later Hollywood musical composer) Howard Dietz (1896-1983) penned this verse for Vanity Fair in celebration of the persuasive charm of film:

We used to sneer at movies; they were vulgar

To our aesthetic, cultured sort of mind;

Amusement for the lowbrows or people who had no brows…

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

1920, Cartoons, Liberty Magazine

Gluyas Williams vs. The U.S. Senate
(Liberty, 1920)

By editor / June 2, 2020

Cartoonist Gluyas Williams (1888 – 1982) would in no way be shocked to learn that the U.S. Senate is still occupied by pompous, old, wind-bags.

1921, Aftermath (WWI), The Smart Set

As Europe Saw America in the War’s Aftermath
(The Smart Set, 1921)

By editor / June 1, 2020

H.L. Mencken and George Jean Nathan, editors of The Smart Set, surmised that as the Europeans bury their many dead among the damp, depressing ruins of 1920s Europe, America is neither admired or liked very much:

…the English owe us money, the Germans smart under their defeat, the French lament that they are no longer able to rob and debauch our infantry.

chinese warlord Zhang Zuolin magazine article 1927 | Article Concerning Zhang Zuolin

1927, China - Twentieth Century, Pamphlet Produced by the National Park Service

Zhang Zuolin: Chinese Strong Man
(The Nation, 1927)

By editor / June 1, 2020

An interview with Zhang Zuolin (1873 – 1928), the Chinese warlord who oversaw Manchuria and much of North China during the last fifteen years of his life. The article was written by the old China-based correspondent Randall Gould.

Marshall Zhang, drawn to Peking from his native Mukden ‘to cooperate with the foreign ministers in saving China from Bolshevism’, talks in terms of nations but continues to think in terms of provinces. Anyone who has spent half an hour with him knows this. The Strong Man of Mukden has improved his propaganda vocabulary but he is using the same old brain – shrewd, keen, but sharply limited.

Forgotten poem by Carl Sandburg | Charlie Chaplin Poem by Carl Sandburg

1922, Charlie Chaplin Articles, Vanity Fair Magazine

Carl Sandburg on Charlie Chaplin
(Vanity Fair Magazine, 1922)

By editor / June 1, 2020

This poem was submitted to the Vanity Fair editors by an obscure film critic named Carl Sandburg (1878 – 1967):

The room is dark. The door opens. It is Charlie
playing for his friends after dinner, ‘the marvel-
ous urchin, the little genius of the screen…’

Between the years 1920 – 1928, Sandburg served as the film critic for the Chicago Daily News.

death of MATTHEW ARNOLD | MATTHEW ARNOLD obituary

1922, Aftermath (WWI), Pamphlet Produced by the National Park Service

The Passing of an Era
(The Nation, 1922)

By editor / May 30, 2020

British Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey (1862-1922) was quicker than most of his contemporaries when he recognized what was unfolding in Europe during the August of 1914, and uttered these prophetic words:

The lamps are going out all over Europe; we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime.

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.

1922, Old New York History, Vanity Fair Hall of Fame

Fifth Avenue Observations
(Vanity Fair, 1922)

By editor / May 29, 2020

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.

1948, Charlie Chaplin Articles, Collier's Magazine

Charlie Chaplin Snubs Hollywood and Departs
(Collier’s Magazine, 1948)

By editor / May 29, 2020

George Jean Nathan
(Vanity Fair, 1917)

By editor / May 29, 2020

A witty if dry profile of George Jean Nathan (1882 – 1958), one of the more prolific essayists and reviewers of all things dramatic and literary during the Twenties. At the time of this printing he was serving as the co-editor (along with his friend H.L. Mencken) of the American magazine The Smart Set while contributing occasional drama reviews to Vanity Fair. You’ll read a very long list of Nathan’s likes and dislikes, which, in fact, comprise 99% of the profile.

Later in life, Nathan would wed Mary Pickford – read about her here…

1921, The Smart Set, Twentieth Century Writers

Conrad Reviewed by H.L. Mencken
(The Smart Set, 1921)

By editor / May 29, 2020

H.L. Mencken’s (1880 – 1956) short review of Joseph Conrad’s (1882 – 1941) collection of essays, entitled Notes on Life and Letters . The book contained Conrad’s thoughts on such subjects as the sinking of ‘Titanic’ to the writings of Henry James, Guy de Maupassant, Daudet and Ivan Turgenev were all touched upon in this collection of essays.

1915, Twentieth Century Writers, Vanity Fair Hall of Fame

Jules Romains and THE DEATH OF NOBODY
(Vanity Fair, 1915)

By editor / May 29, 2020

This very brief column appeared in Vanity Fair Magazine during the winter of 1915 as one element in the publicity campaign supporting the distribution of The Death of Nobody, Jules Romains’ (1885 – 1972) 1911 novel.

Prior to the First World War Romains was primarily known as a poet and founder (along with fellow poet Georges Chennevière) of Unanimisme, a movement that combined concept of international brotherhood with the psychological ideal involving a shared group consciousness. At the time of this printing, the novelist was serving in the French Army.

1919, The American Legion Weekly, Twentieth Century Writers

P.G. Wodehouse: Master of American Slang
(American Legion Weekly, 1919)

By editor / May 29, 2020

At the time this profile first appeared in 1919, P.G Wodehouse (1904 – 1975) had recently resigned his post as the drama critic for Vanity Fair in order to realize his ambitions as a novelist and playwright. This article revealed to all Wodehouse’s keen interest in American slang and American comic strips.

Author name: editor