editor – Page 165 – Old Magazine Articles

1910, Cars, The American Review of Reviews

A Dramatic Growth in the Number of Cars
(Review of Reviews, 1910)

By editor / May 17, 2019

An informative look at the rising number of cars and the decreasing amount of horses that were put to use in Britain, France and the United States.

In the American confederation it is estimated that there are more than 130,000 automobiles, besides some 35,000 motor trucks, delivery wagons, etc., and 150,000 motor cycles and tricycles. Eight years ago the number of automobiles in the United States did not exceed 6,000.

1922, Cars, The Literary Digest

The First Car Radio
(Literary Digest, 1922)

By editor / May 17, 2019

An article that your gadget-loving, audiophile pals will probably not enjoy from the days before woofers and tweeters. Will wonders never cease? A radio IN THE CAR and an antenna that looks like a luggage rack, for heavens sake…

1955, Miscellaneous, Pageant Magazine

The Predator
(Pageant Magazine, 1955)

By editor / May 16, 2019

The attached article, A Mother’s Ordeal with Homosexuality first appeared in 1955, a time when the term gay was not known, and the word homosexual was used in its place – and as you will learn, homosexual was essentially synonymous with the designations sex offender, Paraphilia and Child molester.

The charge of homosexuality against someone, anyone, is not a light one. It requires proof, the strictest proof there is; getting it is not an easy matter.

1946, Collier's Magazine, The Cold War

Meet Andrei Gromyko
(Collier’s Magazine, 1946)

By editor / May 15, 2019

When this magazine profile of Andrei Gromyko (1909 – 1989) appeared on the newsstands in 1946, the man was already a mainstay in the State Department Rolodex. Anyone who came of age during the Cold War (1947 – 1991) will certainly recognize his name, because as Foreign Minister for the Soviet Union (for 28 years), Gromyko was without a doubt one of the architects of the Cold War.

The attached article outlines Gromyko’s career highlights up to the Summer of 1946 when he was posted as the first Soviet Ambassador to the newly established United Nations.

1910, The American Review of Reviews, Twentieth Century Writers

Those Who Inspired Mark Twain
(American Review of Reviews, 1910)

By editor / May 15, 2019

This is a brief look at the up-bringing of Mark Twain (born Samuel Langhorne Clemens, 1835 – 1910), accompanied by two 1910 magazine photographs of the people who inspired the writer to create Becky Thatcher and Huckleberry Finn. Also interviewed was the the man who instructed the author in the skills required to pilot the Mississippi River.

The historian Henry Steele Commager chose to rank Mark Twain at number 4 insofar as his impact on the American mind was concerned – click here to understand his reasoning (does this still hold true?)…

Jeanette Rankin First Elected Congresswoman 1916 | First Women To Serve In The House And Senate

1938, Pathfinder Magazine, Women's Suffrage

The First Congresswomen
(Pathfinder Magazine, 1938)

By editor / May 14, 2019

This column recalls the earliest women to serve in the House and Senate (although the tenure of Senator Rebecca Latimer Felton was oddly excluded):

In 1916, the first Congresswoman was elected. She was Miss Jeannette Rankin (1880 – 1973), a Republican from Montana. On her first day in the House, war was declared; she voted against it. The next Congress had no women.

1929, Talkies 1930, The Film Spectator Magazine

Talking Pictures Fail to Impress
(Film Spectator, 1929)

By editor / May 14, 2019

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.

1917, Letters, Outing Magazine

Wide-Eyed and Fresh Off the Boat
(Outing Magazine, 1917)

By editor / May 14, 2019

Some observations of the earliest Doughboy experiences were recorded in a letter home by this anonymous A.E.F. lieutenant during the Summer of 1917. He was unusually interested in the French architecture and rustic culture that surrounded him but also noted the deeply depressed German P.O.W. laborers, his food and the different treatment between officers and men.

1923, Letters, The Atlantic Monthly

Letters from the Dying
(The Atlantic Monthly, 1923)

By editor / May 14, 2019

Printed five years after the war, an American nurse published these letters that were dictated to her in France by a handful of dying American soldiers; equally moving were the grateful responses she received months later from their recipients:

I am glad and thank God he had such a quiet, peaceful death. It is a very hard thing for a mother to realize she cannot be with [her son] in his last moments…I am proud to give up my only boy to his country, and that alone is a great consolation.

This is just a segment from a longer article; to read the six page memoir in it’s entirety, click here.

Click here for clip art depicting the nurses of World War One.

Eljas Erkko Foreign Minister of Finland | 1939 Negotiations Between Finland and USSR

1939, Pathfinder Magazine, The Winter War

Negotiations
(Pathfinder Magazine, 1939)

By editor / May 11, 2019

More articles about the Winter War can be read here… – from Amazon:Read more …

1928, Aftermath (WWI), The Atlantic Monthly

Post-War Diary
(Atlantic Monthly, 1928)

By editor / May 10, 2019

Printed posthumously, the attached article was written by British Lieutenant Colonel Charles A Court Repington (1858 – 1925) as he recalled his conversations with French Field Marshals Ferdinand Foch (1851-1929), Joseph Joffre (1852 – 1931) and a number of other French statesmen about the First World War during a series of chats that took place in the autumn 1924.

Historical Development of Social Studies in the USA | Social Studies Preferred To History | History of Social Studies

1933, Education, New Outlook Magazine

The Case For Social Studies
(New Outlook Magazine, 1933)

By editor / May 10, 2019

Although the author of this article, educator Cedric Fowler, does not offer a name for the subject he is proposing, it will not take you very long to recognize it as social studies. Fowler argued that the text books available at that time were more suited to the Nineteenth Century than the tumultuous Thirties, ignoring all the various hot topics of the day that would have made subjects such as history, geography and civics come alive for those students who were enrolled at the time of the Great Depression.

Life has become more complex for young Americans since the time of their fathers and grandfathers, and educational method has become more complex and more comprehensive with it… The work of Dewey, Thorndike and a score of other authorities has liberated the schoolroom from its stuffy atmosphere, has made it possible for it to become an ante-room to adult life.

1944, First Nations, Pathfinder Magazine

America’s Oldest Soft Drink
(Pathfinder Magazine, 1944)

By editor / May 9, 2019

Anticipating Germany’s Collapse
(United States News, 1944)

By editor / May 8, 2019

Taking into consideration the state of Germany’s military forces on land, air and sea, as well as the fragile state of the German populace after three years of steady bombardment, this 1944 NEWSWEEK MAGAZINE article concluded that Germany’s end was nigh – really, really nigh:

Thus on the face of it, Germany’s situation is desperate. She is encircled by powerful nations that are allied against her. Her chance of creating dissension to split those allies is gone. She is being beaten on every front and in every phase of the fighting. Her last chance to win has disappeared.

Germany would fight on for another sixteen months.

1916, Letters, The Cambridge Magazine

The Noises of Battle
(The Cambridge Magazine, 1916)

By editor / May 6, 2019

This letter is very short and was composed by a German soldier who is simply identified as a socialist. Writing to his wife from the war-torn Eastern European front in Moldavia, he describes what the man-made Hell of industrial war was like – the gas shells, the grenades, the ceaseless rattle of machine guns and the never ending groans of the wounded. The soldier concludes that if only the kings who were responsible for the war could witness this carnage for only fifteen minutes, then surely the war would end.

Click here to read about the foreign-born soldiers who served in the American Army of the First World War.

1952, Hollywood History, People Today Magazine

The Discovery of Audrey Hepburn
(People Today, 1952)

By editor / May 4, 2019

American audiences came to know Audrey Hepburn (1929 – 1993) when she was teamed up with Gregory Peck for the 1953 William Wyler production Roman Holiday (Paramount) – but the king makers of Hollywood sat up and took notice of her a year earlier, when she appeared in the European comedy Monte Carlo Baby (briefly reviewed herein). This movie was pretty quickly forgotten – and today Monte Carlo Baby cannot be found on DVD or cassette, and the film’s producer, Ray Ventura (1908 – 1979), is primarily remembered for his talents as a jazz pianist.

1939, Hollywood History, Stage Magazine

American Dominance in 1930s Film
(Stage Magazine, 1939)

By editor / May 4, 2019

The editors of STAGE MAGAZINE were dumbfounded when they considered that just ten years after audiences got an earful from the first sound movies, the most consistent characteristic to have been maintained throughout that decade was the box-office dominance of American movie stars, directors and writers. After naming the most prominent of 1930s U.S. movie stars the author declares with certainty that this could not have been an accident.

1945, Death Camps, Yank Magazine

When the U.S. Home Front Found Out About Nazi Atrocities
(Yank Magazine, 1945)

By editor / May 3, 2019

The editors of YANK reported that the week of VE Day the

…first-run movie houses showed films of a kind seldom if ever seen by American audiences. The films, made for the most part by the U.S. Army signal corps, showed piles of human bones, mass graves and beaten, starving men who looked more like corpses than human beings…Homefronters sat in shocked silence, broken now and then in by low gasps.

Author name: editor