This illustrated fashion review shows four images that depicted the sophisticated offerings by Jacques Fath and Elsa Schiaparelli from their respective 1951 mid-summer collections. What the American women who gazed upon these pages learned is that the era of the padded hips was continuing its march into the next decade.
The attached article will give you some indication as to the high level of anti-Soviet intensity that existed in the U.S. in 1951. This short piece, and others like it, fanned the fires that lead to the downfall of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh (1882 – 1967) in the well-known 1953 coup that was launched by both the CIA and MI5. The results of of this joint effort (Operation Ajax) were fruitful in the short run, but set in motion a series of events that have created the Iran we enjoy today.
Illustrated with a military-style map, abounding with footnotes and an ominous-looking red Soviet arrow, rudely pointing at the Abadan oil fields, the uncredited journalist hinted that Mosaddegh’s rise and subsequent nationalization of all foreign-owned oil wells would only create a new Iran that was firmly in the Soviet camp. This was not to be the case, for Mosadegh really never trusted the Reds.
Attached is an article by One Take Woody (Woodbridge Strong Van Dyke, Jr. 1889 – 1943) on the topic of the two Thin Man films he had directed:
Looking back into the infinite past, I seem to recall that a certain motion picture was made and that I had something to do with it. It stirs restlessly in my memory, for it was immediately seized by the theater public as a new cycle in screen entertainment. In Hollywood, things are often done in cycles – gangster cycles, G-man cycles, historical romances, sea stuff,even Shakespeare. Somebody starts it and others fall in line to catch the shekels that bounce to the floor after the first jack pot.
Click here to read an article about Dashiell Hammett.
By posting this notice that appeared in a 1944 issue of YANK, we had hoped to play a useful roll by bringing to an end some of the bar room arguments and late-night dorm bickerings that came about as a result of the unlikely story line that was presented in the movie, Saving Private Ryan (Paramount Pictures, 1998).
Although this article was written at a time when the television screen was a mere eight by eleven inches square, culture critic Gilbert Seldes addressed the question as to whether or not movies and radio will be voted off the island in favor of the television broadcasting industry.
A single page article on the topic of Ginger Rogers (1911 – 1995) and her career as it had progressed up to the year 1939:
Virginia Katherine McMath is the real name of this famous star and she was born in Independence, Missouri, on July 16, but most of her childhood was spent in Fort Worth, Texas.
She is five feet, four inches tall and weighs 108 pounds. She never has to diet because dancing keeps her in perfect condition. Dancing is listed as her very favorite hobby, too.
She had her first taste of real success on the screen with the winning roles in ‘Gold Diggers of 1933′ and ’42nd Street’.
Click here to read about the young Lucile Ball.
Seven years after his film debut in Steamboat Willie, Mickey Mouse continued to pack the theaters of the world. Prior to the release of Disney’s animated film,William Tell, STAGE MAGAZINE correspondent Katherine Best was rightfully in awe over the world-wide popularity the rodent was enjoying and at the time this essay appeared in print, he had already been seen in over sixty cartoons.
Although Euro Disney would not be opening until 1990, this article by Hollywood costume designer Howard Greer implied that it would have done quite well had they opened eighty-six years earlier:
You know everyone in Hollywood? they asked. I blushed modestly and admitted that I did.
Don’t you want to know about the stars? I went on.Shall I tell you about Garbo?
‘A smile passed across their faces.’
‘Garbo? Yes, we like her. But the star we ‘d love to know everything about is – Mickey Mouse!’
For those of you looking for some dish in the music history department, this article recounts a conversation between Rimsky-Korsakov (1844 – 1908) and Leo Tolstoy (1828 – 1910) as to which Russian composer Rimsky-Korsakov preferred the best: Anton Rubinstein or Peter Tschaikovsky. Opinions flew in all directions and many more names were dropped before the conversation came to a close…
To mark the opening of the Museum of Modern Art’s 1938 exhibition, Bauhaus 1919 – 1928, the over-paid editors at ART DIGEST published this single page review for it’s American readers explaining what the art school was, why it closed and what was in the mind of the school’s founder, Walter Gropius (1883 – 1969):
The Bauhaus program proceeded to teach students manual dexterity, in all the crafts, to investigate the laws of the physical world, to plumb the spiritual world, and to master the machine. Out of the Bauhaus came the first experiments in tubular furniture, in modern typography, in modern lighting, and many significant developments in architecture, photography, abstract art, textile and other crafts.
Click here to read unfavorable criticism about the Bauhaus exhibit.
Time is the satirist in its recompense as in its revenge. Who of that youthful generation who read Dime Novels stealthily and by night, with expense of spirit and waste of shame, imagined that he would one day review his sins by broad daylight in the exhibition room of the New York Public Library? The thin volumes which were wont to lie so flat under pillows or slip so readily into pockets are now enshrined in glass case, and the yellow covers and inky pages which suffered such persistent search and seizure and were burnt so freely as literary garbage are now gathered and appraised as prizes of the bibliophile.
In 1937 the Rare Book Department at the Library of Congress launched a surprising exhibit of what they called, ephemeral literature – these works were popularly known as Dime Novels and they were not simply the father of the modern comic book but also the father of one other form of popular literature:
The roots of the American historical novel are sunk in the so-called dime novel – the first effort at popular fiction. It began with the stories based on the Revolutionary War, then historical fiction of incidents in the War of 1812, the Mexican War and the struggle for Cuban independence, which stated about that period.
Although the dime novel was in full swing as a popular form of mass literature in 1900, the journalist titled this article as he did because the genre was undergoing so many changes at the time, departing from it’s original format. A short history of the dime novel is provided with an emphasis on it’s classic period spanning the years 1860 through 1870:
Some references are also made to the work of the Beadle and Adams bookkeeper, George Munro, who completely changed the direction of the dime novel when he took up the pen in 1865.
A review of T.S. Eliot‘s (1888 – 1965) second collection, Poems
Cummings at that time was living in Paris and writing his first book, The Enormous Room
This is a wonderful read in which the American World War One fighter pilot Eddie Rickenbacker (1890 – 1973), recounted his experiences in France. Arriving rather late in the game (March, 1918), he quickly racked up 26 kills, a Croix de Guerre, a Distinguished Service Cross, the Legion d’Honeur and the Congressional Medal of Honor (which would not be approved and awarded to him until 1930). He was the top Ace in the American Air Service. In his later life, he would go on to become one of the founders of Continental Airlines.
I learned pretty fast. Long practice in driving a racing-car at a hundred miles an hour or so gives first-class training in control and judging distances at high speed…
In his later life, Rickenbacker would go on to become one of the founders of Continental Airlines.
Click here to read an article about the development of aerial reconnaissance during W.W. I.
Read what the U.S. Army psychologists had to say about courage.
Princess Luciene Murat (1876 – 1951?), a distinguished member of the French nobility and a devotee to Paul Poiret, wrote this VOGUE article shortly after her return from Turkey in 1922. It is the sort of piece that could only be written by an over-indulged member of the post-war European high-society, which makes it all the more enjoyable to read. Her reminiscences of her visit to the city of Pera are especially interesting for the observations made regarding the White Russians of her acquaintance who reluctantly resided there in some discomfort.
An illustrated article from the chic Conde Nast magazine, VANITY FAIR, regarding one of the great Canadian disappointments of the immediate post-war years: the failure to build the Canadian war memorial building. By the summer of 1919 1,000 paintings and drawings depicting the experiences of the World War had been amassed with the intention of displaying them in a museum that was to serve as a remembrance to the Canadian servicemen of that war.
Throughout the Twenties and Thirties there were numerous advisory groups charged with the task of launching the museum, but they were never able to agree on key issues. With the outbreak of the Second World War the urgency of the project took root – and, finally, the Canadian War Museum was officially established in 1942 (and opend in 1967).
There are two paintings illustrating the article: Camouflaged Ships by E. Wadsworth and Strathcona Horse on the March by A.J. Munnings.
Attached you will find a segment from a longer article reviewing the W.W. I paintings of C.R.W. Nevinson (1889 – 1946). Trained by the Italian Futurist Severini, Nevinson made some of the most modern images of all the World War One artists:
C.R.W. Nevinson with unerring eye penetrated to the man behind the khaki and deliberately unveiled the son of toil. The hands of the foremost figures may be exaggerated (but probably not), and in any case they emphasize the essential truth that these men belong to the horny-handed class. They may not be beautiful, but they are strong…
Click here if you would like to read a 1922 article about C.R.W. Nevinson.
