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.
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…
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…
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.
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.
Recommended Reading: Edith Head: The Fifty-Year Career of Hollywood’s Greatest Costume Designer
Click here to read about physical perfection during the Golden Age of Hollywood.
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
Fashion Modeling Czar John Powers once said of model Georgia Carroll:
She is the most terrific thing that ever hit this business.
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.
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…
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
The attached article tells the story of the first Americans to cross the Rhine river into Germany following the capture of the Ludendorf Bridge at Remagen, Germany.
One of the most striking incidents of the first day’s action on the bridge was the way German snipers opened up on their own men who had been taken prisoners. As each batch of PWs was lead across the bridge, a storm of sniper fire from the surrounding hills swept its ranks. Several were killed.
Pictured on page two is a photograph of the first American to make it across: Sgt. Alexander A. Drabik (1910 – 1993) of the 27th Armored Infantry Division.
Click here to read about a popular all-girl band that performed with the USO.
One of the most popular women’s group of the 1940s was Ada Leonard and Her All-American Girl Orchestra; few were surprised to hear that they were first girl band to be signed by the USO when America entered W.W. II. Sired by two vaudevillians, Ada Leonard (1915 – 1997) briefly toiled as a stripper in Chicago nightclubs before embarking on her career in music.
This interview displays for the readers her salty, fully-armored personality and her disgust concerning the total lack of glamor that accompanies USO shows, topped-off by a photo of her pretty face.
Reading and listening from Amazon
Take-Off: American All-Girl Bands
During World War II
At the time this article went to press the Nazis and their European allies had been defeated and all eyes turned to the Pacific Theater as to when that enemy would also be forced to quit.
Click here to read about a popular all-girl band that performed with the USO.
An article by Atomic Age immigrant Juanita Wegner testifying as to her undying gratitude that she should be permitted to live in a nation with so many freedoms. Having spent much of her life on the run from the Fascists of Austria, Italy and Argentina, Wegner stated:
For all my life I’ve wanted to be an American. I’ve dreamed about it, studied, worked for it…I’ve been an American for only a few days. But if I could have one wish it would be to go up to everybody I meet and say: ‘Aren’t we lucky to have this chance! Let’s never forget it.’
