editor – Page 152 – Old Magazine Articles

Secretary of War Newton Baker Newspaper Article | Secretary of War Newton Baker Visited U.S. Trenches 1918

Secretary of War Newton Baker Visits the Front Trenches
(NY Times, 1918)

By editor / January 1, 2020

Attached is a front page story from a 1918 NEW YORK TIMES that covered the important visit Secretary of War Newton Baker (1871 – 1937) had made to the American front line trenches during his World War I tenure at the Department of War. During this trip the former Ohio Governor donned trench coat, helmet and gas-mask while chatting it up with the Doughboys.

Click here to read an article from 1927 by General Pershing regarding the American cemeteries in Europe.

Poilu’ is not the Right Word!
(NY Times, 1916)

By editor / January 1, 2020

The novelist, journalist, anti-Semite and French Academy member Maurice Barres (1862 – 1923) had some opinions regarding the word Poilu (the popular and affectionate slang term for the French front line soldier, which translates into English as hairy guy). In the following one page essay he presented a history of the word and continued with an explanation as to why it bugged him:

It lacks dignity. To my taste it belittles those whom it is meant to laud and serve. A hero can hardly be expressed by this brazen-faced and slanderous epithet. And yet, since it has taken root in our battlefields now for more than a year, one hesitates to speak ill of this word, in which so many admirable acts are somehow visible. It is winning it’s historic titles.

In the end, no one really cared what Maurice Barres had to say on this topic and the sobriquet poilu remained in place.

1919, World War One

T.E. Lawrence
(NY Times, 1919)

By editor / January 1, 2020

One of the most romantic figures of the entire war was Thomas Lawrence, a young Oxford graduate who had specialized in archeology… To Colonel Lawrence more than any other man was due the efficient organization of the Hejaz Army. He worked in perfect harmony with King Hussein and Prince Faisal, to whom he was second in command.

The Germans and Turks alike soon discovered the presence of this young Englishman among their Arabic opponents in the desert and, realizing the menace of his mysterious and amazing successes, put a price of $5000,000 upon his head.

Blonde as a Viking, he walked about the streets of Jerusalem or other cities, in full panoply of Arab royal costume, plunged in some inner dream.

Read other articles from 1919.

1938 Munich Agreement Article | Consequences of the Munich Agreement 1938 | Munich Agreement and American Defenses

1938, Pathfinder Magazine

The Consequences of the Munich Agreement
(Pathfinder Magazine, 1938)

By editor / January 1, 2020

When England and France yielded to Germany in the Munich Agreement of last September, a significant change took place. The balance of power in Europe shifted from the democracies to the dictatorships… [and] the United States had to stop thinking of England and France as America’s ‘first line of defense’ in the time of a European war.

Thomas Mann article 1945 | Thomas Mann and post-war Germany 1945 | Thomas Mann After the War

1945, Aftermath (WWII), Prevent W.W. III Magazine

‘A Letter to Germany” by Thomas Mann
(Prevent W.W. III Magazine, 1945)

By editor / December 29, 2019

Not too long after the close of the war, exiled German author Thomas Mann (1875 – 1955) was invited to return to Germany. Walter von Molo, a German writer, who during the Nazi regime remained and worked in Germany, sent the invitation to Mann as an Open Letter in the name of German intellectuals. Attached an excerpt of the writer’s response.

Pre-Hitler Germany | Pre-Nazi-Germany | Germany before the Nazis | Germany 1919-1933

1933, Aftermath (WWI), New Outlook Magazine

Germany on the Eve of Hitler
(New Outlook Magazine, 1933)

By editor / December 26, 2019

The first half of this article succinctly summarizes the German political experience that took place between 1919 through 1933; the second half anticipated a new, stable beginning for Germany. The German correspondent seemed not be bothered at all about their incoming chancellor.

A similar article can be read here…

1917, The Literary Digest, World War One

Dissent in the Pulpit
(Literary Digest, 1917)

By editor / December 20, 2019

Shortly after the U.S. Congress declared war against Germany, a New York City minister named Dr. John Haynes Holmes (1879 – 1964) took to his pulpit and made a series of sound remarks as to why the United States had no business participating in the European war:

Other clergymen may pray to God for victory for our arms — I will not. In this church, if no where else in all America, the Germans will still be included in the family of God’s children. No word of hatred will be spoken against them, no evil fate will be desired upon them. I will remember the starving millions of Belgium, Servia, Poland, and Armenia, whom my countrymen may neglect for the more important business of killing Germans…

1917, Scientific American, World War One

Uniform and Equipment Cost Illustrated
(Scientific American, 1917)

By editor / December 20, 2019

A black and white magazine illustration from the cover of SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN that appeared six months after President Wilson’s declaration of war against Germany in order to let Uncle Sam’s taxpayer’s understand what it will cost them to put a million and a half men in the field.

1930s Fashion, 1938, Photoplay Magazine

Edith Head on Paris Frocks
(Photoplay Magazine, 1938)

By editor / December 19, 2019

A telegraph from Hollywood costume designer Edith Head (1897 – 1981) to the editorial offices of PHOTOPLAY MAGAZINE listing various highlights of the 1938 Paris fashion scene. Not surprisingly, it reads like a telegram:

Paris says:

• Long waistlines, short flared skirts, fitted bodices, tweeds combines with velvet, warm colors…

• Hair up in pompadours piles of curls and fringe bangs.

• Braid and embroidery galore lace and ribbon trimmings loads of jewelry mostly massive.

• Skirts here short and not too many pleats more slim skirts with slight flare.

The great Hollywood modiste wrote in this odd, Tarzan-english for half a page, but by the end one is able to envision the feminine Paris of the late Thirties.

Click here to read about physical perfection during the Golden Age of Hollywood.

Social Trends in American Culture 1930 - 1950 | 1930s Social Trends

1953, Americana, Pageant Magazine

America’s Ever-Changing Mind: 1929 – 1952
(Pageant Magazine, 1953)

By editor / December 17, 2019

In an effort to show how American thought can vary between decades, a retired pollster from the Gallup organization collected the data gleaned from various opinion polls that were launched between 1929 on up through the dawn of the Atomic Age in order to show what a different people we had become. The topics that were addressed were

• Racial tolerance

• Taxes

• Women in the work place

• Labor unions

• Women smoking

• Bathing Suits

1940, 1940s Modeling, The American Magazine

Georgia Carroll
(The American Magazine, 1940)

By editor / December 16, 2019

Fashion Modeling Czar John Powers once said of model Georgia Carroll:

She is the most terrific thing that ever hit this business.

WW2 Proxy Marriage Story | Proxy Marriage Trivia 1945 | Kansas Proxy Marriage Laws During WW2

1945, Home Front, Yank Magazine

‘The Most Married Man in America”
(Yank Magazine, 1945)

By editor / December 12, 2019

As a result of the generous proxy-marriage laws allowed by the citizens of Kansas City, Kansas, many young women, feeling the urge to marry their beaus residing so far afield as a result of the Second World War, would board buses and trains and head to that far-distant burg with one name on their lips: Finnegan. This is the story of Mr. Thomas H. Finnegan, a successful lawyer back in the day who saw fit to do his patriotic duty by standing-in for all those G.I.s who were unable to attend their own weddings.

New Deal Anecdote 1935 | FERA Agency History | Socialized Medicine Cons

1935, New Outlook Magazine, The Great Depression

The Benevolent Government…
(New Outlook Magazine, 1935)

By editor / December 12, 2019

Sadly, this is a story that has been duplicated numerous times throughout the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, Red China, Vietnam, Canada and every other nation where the people have entrusted their health care to a faceless bureaucracy. It was a pathetic anecdote that was adored by FDR’s critics.

More about New Deal spending can be read here…

Front-Line Mechanics of the US Army | US Army Mobile Repair Units in WW2 | Motor Transport Service During WW2

1942, The United States News, World War Two

The Front-Line Mechanics
(United States News, 1942)

By editor / December 6, 2019

Side by side with with the fighting men who ride to battle goes an army of men who fight with tools and machinery, instead of guns and tanks… That army of fighter-mechanics has grown in importance with the increase in the Army’s dependence on motorized equipment. They operate beyond the glow of headlines – but without the aid of mechanics the Army’s wheels would never turn.

1916, Golf History, Vanity Fair Magazine

Top-Drawer Golf Accessories
(Vanity Fair Magazine, 1916)

By editor / December 5, 2019

A quick look at some of the golf shoe offerings from the spring of 1916. Ties for the sport are also pictured, as is a portable ash-tray for use on the links.

WW I Trench Coat 1918 | WW I Trench Coat American Army

1918, The Stars and Stripes, Trench Coats

Trench Coat by Junior
(The Stars and Stripes, 1918)

By editor / December 4, 2019

Laboring under the most intense preasure, the harried ad man of 1918 enthused about the Junior Store’s latest trench coat just so:

This coat meets every specification of what a trench coat should be. The collar, when turned up, forms a Storm Proof Collar and has an extra wrap fixed to the shoulder to cover the fastening and make it waterproof.

1922, Golf History, Vanity Fair Magazine

The Evolution of Golf Clothes
(Vanity Fair Magazine, 1922)

By editor / December 4, 2019

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…

1947, Collier's Magazine, The Vietnam War

Ho Chi-Minh on the March…
(Collier’s Magazine, 1947)

By editor / December 3, 2019

A 1947 article reporting on the French desire to maintain their colonies in Indo-China, and their conflict with a Moscow-trained revolutionary Marxist (and Paris-trained pastry chef) named Ho Chi-Minh (1890 – 1969).

Click here to read about American communists and their Soviet overlords.

Author name: editor