Author name: editor

1940s Men's Fashions, 1941, Magazine Advertisement

Men’s Straw Hats from the Early Forties
(From a 1941 Magazine Ad)

By /

Attached are pictured six straw hats from a 1941 color ad promoting the Stetson Straws that appeared on the glossy pages of one of the more bourgeois American magazines just seven and a half months prior to the day when the bombs fell on Pearl Harbor and the bad-old days of World War II kicked-in for that rare breed of man known as homo-Americanus.


There can be no doubt that the fun-loving fashion-fan who was pictured sporting these organic chapeaus would soon find himself wearing one of Uncle Sam’s over-laundered denim stitch-brims, peeling potatoes and remembering wistfully the day that this ad was shot.

We hope he survived the carnage.

Wool of the 1940s (Click Magazine, 1945)
1940s Men's Fashions, 1945, Click Magazine

Wool of the 1940s
(Click Magazine, 1945)

By /

The attached 1945 article was intended to serve as a suit-buying-guide for all those young men who were in the throes of trading in their military uniforms for civilian attire.


The one kind of wool that is not discussed in this article is worsted: this was the wool that was specifically reserved for the uniforms of the U.S. military (enough to outfit 12 million souls) and there wasn’t a single thread of it that could be purchased on the civilian market.

General John Rawlins: General Grant's Chief of Staff (The Literary Digest, 1917)
1917, General Grant, The Literary Digest

General John Rawlins: General Grant’s Chief of Staff
(The Literary Digest, 1917)

By /

Attached is a review of a biography covering the life and times of Brigadier General John Rawlins (1831 – 1869). Rawlins distinguished himself as the Chief of Staff to General Ulysses S. Grant during the American Civil War. It is explained that the two met while Grant was engaged as a sales clerk at a leather shop which was owned by Rawlin’s brother; at the outbreak of the war, in 1861, Grant’s skill as an officer became clear to many and with each promotion he was able to secure Rawlins’ certain advancements in grade. By 1863 Rawlins was promoted to Brigadier General. During Grant’s term in the White House, Rawlins served as Secretary of War.
The author of the book, Major-General James Harrison Wilson, is remembered as the man who captured Confederate President Jefferson Davis in flight; the review of his autobiography can be read here.

Advertisement

Use shortcode [oma_ad position="summary_top"] (or other position) in your theme or widgets to display OMA Promotions here.

'Lady Macbeth of Mzensk'' by Dmitri Shostakovich (Literary Digest, 1935)
1935, Music History, The Literary Digest

‘Lady Macbeth of Mzensk” by Dmitri Shostakovich
(Literary Digest, 1935)

By /

The Cleveland Orchestra, on February 5 [1935], with Arthur Rodzinski conducting, will introduce to New York ‘Lady Macbeth of Mzensk’, an opera by twenty-eight year-old Soviet composer, Dmitri Shostakovich.

Shostakovich completed the work in December, 1932. It is the first of a projected cycle of four operas in which the composer plans to trace the condition of women in Russia…

'RETREAT? HELL!'' (The American Legion Weekly, 1922)
1922, Belleau Wood, The American Legion Weekly

‘RETREAT? HELL!”
(The American Legion Weekly, 1922)

By /

This four page history of the Battle of Belleau Wood is primarily concerned with the fighting that took place at Les Mares Farm; it was written in 1921 by William E. Moore, formerly a U.S. Army captain who was attached to the Historical Branch, General Headquarters of the A.E.F.. Throughout his article, Moore compared the fight at Les Mares Farm to the Battle of Gettysburg, and believed it to have been just as decisive:

That was the last effort the Germans made to force their way to Paris… It is is truly at Les Mares Farm where the Gettysburg of the A.E.F. lies, and there some day a monument should rise to inform the world what deeds were done upon that field.


German historians have long maintained that the Battle of Belleau Wood was not as significant as the Americans have liked to think that it was.

Advertisement

Use shortcode [oma_ad position="summary_top"] (or other position) in your theme or widgets to display OMA Promotions here.

Jacob Epstein: Firebrand of Art (Vanity Fair, 1915)
1915, Modern Art, Vanity Fair Hall of Fame

Jacob Epstein: Firebrand of Art
(Vanity Fair, 1915)

By /

Jacob Epstein was brought up in the city of New York, being one of a group of young men from the other side of the Bowery, some of whom have since become well known in the arts.

Attached is a photograph of the American expatriot sculptor Jacob Epstein and three of his pieces. This is a short notice heralding the great splash that the artist was making in the London art world of 1915. Although his work can be found in many of the world’s finest museums, Epstein is best remembered today for his creation of the monumental sculpture that marks the grave of Oscar Wilde.

Advertisement

Use shortcode [oma_ad position="summary_top"] (or other position) in your theme or widgets to display OMA Promotions here.

1st Jet Dog Fight | First MiG to be Shot Down in Korean War 1950
1950, Pathfinder Magazine, The Korean War

The Air War in Korea
(Pathfinder Magazine, 1950)

By /

Five days after China entered the Korean War, three U.S. Air Force F-80 Shooting Star fighter jets duked it out with three Soviet-made MIG-15s 20,000 feet above the the Korean/Manchurian border. Lieutenant Russell Brown of Southern California fired the decisive shot that sent one MIG down in flames. While engaged with the other two F-80s, the remaining MIGs were dispatched in a similar manner (although other sources had reported that these two fighters had actually been able to return to their bases badly damaged). In the entire sordid history of warfare, this engagement was the first contest to result in one jet shooting down another.

Vera Maxwell and Claire McCardell (Quick Magazine, 1952)
1950s Fashion, 1952, Quick Magazine

Vera Maxwell and Claire McCardell
(Quick Magazine, 1952)

By /

From the Great Minds Think Alike Department came this small piece about two American sportswear designers, Claire McCardell and Vera Maxwell and their admirable approach in creating a light weather coat that served to both keep women warm in springtime gales, yet accommodate the full, billowing skirts that complemented their feminine forms (as well as the hip padding that accompanied many skirts of the Fifties).

Advertisement

Use shortcode [oma_ad position="summary_top"] (or other position) in your theme or widgets to display OMA Promotions here.

President-Elect Eisenhower Visit to Korea 1952 | I Will Go to Korea
1952, Quick Magazine, The Korean War

Eisenhower Goes to Korea
(Quick Magazine, 1952)

By /

After trouncing Adlai Stevenson in the November Election, President-Elect Eisenhower made good on the vow he had made earlier and packed his bag for a fact-finding trip to the stagnant front lines on the Korean Peninsula.

No abrupt change in Korea is likely to follow Ike’s visit. He doesn’t plan to negotiate with the Reds there. He is interested in training, equipping and preparing South Koreans to defend themselves… The South Korean’s morale is good. About 400,000 of them are mobilized.

H.L. Mencken on American English (The Smart Set, 1921)
1921, American English, The Smart Set

H.L. Mencken on American English
(The Smart Set, 1921)

By /

Culture critic H.L. Mencken (1880 – 1956; author of The American Language reviewed American Englishstyle=border:none by Gilbert M. Tucker.

The fact is, of course, that American English is noticeably superior to British English in several important respects, and that not the least of these superiorities lies in the learned department of spelling. Here even the more intelligent Englishmen are against their own rules, and in favor of the American rules, and every year one notices a greater tendency among them to spell wagon with one g instead of two…The English -our ending, the main hallmark of English spelling, dies harder.

Advertisement

Use shortcode [oma_ad position="summary_top"] (or other position) in your theme or widgets to display OMA Promotions here.

Back-Handed Compliments for D.W. Griffith (Rob Wagner's Script Magazine, 1948)
1948, D.W. Griffith, Rob Wagner's Script Magazine

Back-Handed Compliments for D.W. Griffith
(Rob Wagner’s Script Magazine, 1948)

By /

This 1940s Hollywood journalist refrained from using the pejorative white cracker while condemning silent film director D.W. Griffith for his racial views -and yet at the same time did something rather bold in that he put in print his views that the man has been erroneously credited as the creator of various assorted film innovations that were pioneered by other filmmakers.

Tested in War: the Wrist Watch Becomes Fashionable (The Stars and Stripes, 1918)
1918, Stars and Stripes Archive, The Stars and Stripes

How the Furnace of War Made the Wristwatch a Masculine Fashion Accessory
(The Stars and Stripes, 1918)

By /

The following article must have been penned as a result of some sort of creative writing project for one of the many bored World War One Doughboys waiting for the boat home. The article spells out how the necessities of modern war demanded that the wrist watch no longer be thought of as a piece of jewelery adorned only by fops and fems and evolved into a useful tool for soldiers on the field. The column makes clear that prior the Great War, any man who dared to accessorize themselves with a watch was immediately suspect and likely to have their noses broken.

The T-shirt also had a military origin. Click here to read the article

•Read an article about the history of Brooks Brothers•

The Young Nancy Reagan (Modern Screen, 1951)
1951, Hollywood History, Modern Screen

The Young Nancy Reagan
(Modern Screen, 1951)

By /

Published in a Hollywood fan magazine some months prior to her engagement with Screen Actors Guild President Ronald Reagan (1911 – 2004) was this 1951 profile of the actress Nancy Davis (born Anne Frances Robbins: 1921 – 2016). A gossipy yet informative article that covers her days at Smith College, her relationship with capitol H Hollywood stars Alla Nazimova and Walter Houston, the eight films in which she had acted in up to that time and the various assorted reactions she instilled in such directors as William Wellman and Dore Schary.


A 1942 article by the young Ronald Reagan can be read here…

Advertisement

Use shortcode [oma_ad position="summary_top"] (or other position) in your theme or widgets to display OMA Promotions here.

Scroll to Top