Author name: editor

Various Remarks About the First Talkies (Photoplay Magazine, 1930)
1930, Photoplay Magazine, Talkies 1930

Various Remarks About the First Talkies
(Photoplay Magazine, 1930)

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Assorted quotes addressing some aspects of the 1930 Hollywood and the entertainment industry seated there. Some are prophets who rant-on about the impending failure of talking pictures, others go on about the obscene sums of money generated in the film colony; a few of the wits are well-known to us, like Thomas Edison, George M. Cohan and Walter Winchell but most are unknown – one anonymous sage, remarking about the invention of sound movies, prophesied:

In ten years, most of the good music of the world will be written for sound motion pictures.


The 'Christy Girl' at War (Sea Power Magazine, 1918)
1918, Posters, Sea Power Magazine

The ‘Christy Girl’ at War
(Sea Power Magazine, 1918)

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When the songwriter Irving Berlin sat down in 1915 to write his well-loved ditty I love the Girl on the Magazine Cover, we have no doubt that it was the Christy Girl who inspired him. The Christy-Girl, so-called, was the creation of the American commercial illustrator Howard Chandler Christy (1873 – 1952) who placed her famous mug on thousands of magazine covers, newspaper ads and billboards.


The attached file consists of two articles, both pertaining to recruiting posters; one for the U.S. Navy and the other for the Marines. In the interest of national security, the Christy-Girl is depicted as a cross-dressing patriot in both of them, and the sailors loved it; they preferred to call her Honey Girl, and as far as they were concerned, that name fit her just fine.

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Natalie Wood (Coronet Magazine, 1960)
1960, Coronet Magazine, Hollywood History

Natalie Wood
(Coronet Magazine, 1960)

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This is one of the first profiles of Hollywood beauty and former child star Natalie Wood (1938 – 1981).

The journalist went into some details explaining how she was discovered at the age of five by the director Irving Pichel (1891 – 1954) and how it all steadily snowballed into eighteen years of semi-steady work that provided her with a invaluable Hollywood education (and subsequently creating a thoroughly out-of-control teenager).

At sixteen, Natalie co-starred with the late James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause, and the resulting Dean hysteria swept her forward with him… She cannot bear to be alone. She is full of reasonless fears. Of airplanes. Of snakes. Of swimming in the ocean.

The Colors in Men's Suits 1935 - 1950 (Men's Wear, 1950)
1940s Men's Fashions, 1950, Men's Wear Magazine

The Colors in Men’s Suits 1935 – 1950
(Men’s Wear, 1950)

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A chart produced by the editors of MEN’S WEAR MAGAZINE indicating the best-selling colored wool used in men’s suits spanning the years 1935 through 1950.


The pointy-headed soothsayers who attempt to predict which colors men would buy were very surprised to find that in the aftermath of World War II, American men were quite eager to buy browns and khaki-colored suiting after all.

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Adele Simpson and Her Fashions (Collier's Magazine, 1945)
1940s Fashion, 1945, Collier's Magazine

Adele Simpson and Her Fashions
(Collier’s Magazine, 1945)

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On the matter of the American fashion designer Adele Simpson (1904 – 1995), it must be remembered that she was a prominent player in American fashion for many decades; a woman who had been awarded both a Coty Award (1949) as well as a Neiman Marcus Award (1946). Her creations were highly sought after by the crowned heads of both Europe and Hollywood.


Click here to read about wartime fabric rationing in the 1940s.

The KKK Popularity in Indiana (Atlantic Monthly, 1923)
1923, Ku Klux Klan, The Atlantic Monthly

The KKK Popularity in Indiana
(Atlantic Monthly, 1923)

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Don’t ya know that ever’ time a boy baby is born in a Cath’lic’ fam’ly they take and bury enough am’nition fer him to kill fifty people with!

Such thinking is part of the state of mind that accounts for the amazing growth of the Ku Klux Klan in the old Hoosier commonwealth; that enables Indiana to compete with Ohio for the distinction of having a larger Klan membership than any other state. It helped make possible the remarkable election results of last fall, when practically every candidate opposed by the Klan went down in defeat.

Written by Lowell Mellett (1886 – ?), hardy journalist and son of Indiana. Millett is primarily remembered for his W.W. II days serving at the helm of the U.S. government’s Office of War Information’s Bureau of Motion Pictures (BMP).

The Klan in New York City (Literary Digest, 1922)
1922, Ku Klux Klan, The Literary Digest

The Klan in New York City
(Literary Digest, 1922)

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The Klan has set New York by the ears; Mayor Hylan has ordered the police to investigate the activities of an accredited representative of the Invisible Empire, and, save in one instance reported in the press, the order has been denounced in Protestant, Catholic and Jewish circles alike…Exciting much comment was the accusation that Calvary Baptist Church, the largest of its denomination in New York, was a hotbed of Klan propaganda; but the charge was vigorously denied in a statement signed by leading members and by Dr. John Roach Straton, Pastor…

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Leo Disher of the United Press (Coronet Magazine, 1944)
1944, Coronet Magazine, War Correspondents

Leo Disher of the United Press
(Coronet Magazine, 1944)

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Leo Disher was among the war correspondents who sailed for Africa with the American invasion fleet late in October of 1942… Army authorities were so impressed with his conduct under fire that they presented him with a Purple Heart [he was the first W.W. II reporter to earn this distinction]. More important was the fact that the story he dictated from his hospital cot after the shooting was over was displayed on the front pages of most of the UP papers.

Bob Miller of the United Press (Coronet Magazine, 1944)
1944, Coronet Magazine, War Correspondents

Bob Miller of the United Press
(Coronet Magazine, 1944)

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On the day following the first landing made by United States Marines on Guadalcanal, United Press’ Bob Miller accomplished something which probably no other war correspondent has ever done. Singlehanded, he captured a Jap prisoner.

During the six weeks he spent on Guadalcanal, Miller’s group was bombed almost daily during the entire time, and Jap ground forces were a constant threat.


Miller was known to one and all in the Pacific Theater as Baldy. Shortly before this article appeared in CORONET he had fallen victim to malaria and was returned to the U.S. for convelesence. In 1944 his dispatches to the UnitedPress would concern the liberation of France and the Nuremburg Trials.

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The Lady was a Sniper... (Yank, 1944)
1944, World War Two, Yank Magazine

The Lady was a Sniper…
(Yank Magazine, 1944)

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This small notice from a post D-Day issue of YANK announced the capture of a German woman sniper named Myra. It is interesting to note that she was captured in civilian clothing; a male sharp-shooter would have probably been shot immediately. The popular reasoning on all sides during war stems from the fact that snipers do not take prisoners themselves, therefore why should they be afforded the privilege?


If you would like to read an article about women soldiers in W.W. I, click here.

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Prisoners of War

A Color Photograph of German Prisoners
(1915)

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A color photograph from the earlier part of the war, remarkable for it’s clarity and mood. It depicts ten German prisoners wearing their 1910 tunics, staring in a dazed stupor at eight truly bored Poilus struggling through their potato pealing detail.

US Army Deserters 1910 | Pre-WW I Desertion Rate
1910, Prelude, The American Review of Reviews

The U.S. Army: Plagued by Deserters
(Review of Reviews, 1910)

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As a wise, old sage once remarked: You don’t go to war with the army that you want, you go to war with the army that you have -no truer words were ever spoken; which brings us to this news piece from a popular American magazine published in 1910. The reader will be interested to know that just seven years prior to the American entry into World War One, the U.S. Army was lousy with deserters and it was a problem they were ill equipped to handle.


Click here to read some statistical data about the American Doughboys of the First World War.

Rumors of War (Review of Reviews, 1910)
1910, Prelude, The American Review of Reviews

Rumors of War
(Review of Reviews, 1910)

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This article refers to a temperate review of Anglo-German relations as understood by Dr. Theodore Schiemann (1847 – 1921), confidant of Kaiser Wilhelm II and professor at the University of Berlin. Interestingly, the professor predicted some aspects of the forth-coming war correctly but, by enlarge, he believed Germany would be victorious:

A German-English war would be a calamity for the whole world, England included; for it may be regarded as a foregone conclusion that simultaneously with such an event every element in Asia and Africa that is hostile to the English would rise up as unbidden allies of Germany.

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