Gertrude Stein on America
(’47 Magazine, 1947)
What our most famous literary expatriate really thought of her country.
‘The Plainsman” by Cecil B. DeMille
(Stage Magazine, 1937)
Why should a director risk it all with some anonymous film critic when a he is given the chance to review his own movie? With this thought in mind, Cecil B. DeMille (1883 – 1959) typed up his own thoughts concerning all his hard work on the 1937 film, The Plainsman, which starred Gary Cooper:
I think ‘The Plainsman’ differs from any Western we have ever seen for many reasons
– it is at this point in the article that DeMille rattles-off an extended laundry list
of reasons that illustrate the unique qualities of his Western. One of the unique aspects of the film mentioned only by publicists concerned the leading man Garry Cooper, who, being a skilled horseman from his Montana youth, chose to do most of his own riding stunts in the film, including the shot where he rode hanging between two horses.
Click here to read a 1927 review of Cecil B. De Mille’s silent film, King of Kings.
‘Tich” of El Alamein
(Coronet Magazine, 1960)
This is the story of Tich – the little black dog was the well-loved pet of the British Eighth Army. An admired veteran of three bitter World War II campaigns, she saw battle from North Africa to Sicily and on to Paris – thousands of Allied troops came to know her and like her. Due to her ability to predict in-coming artillery shells, many men owed their lives to her.
On July 1, 1949 Tich was awarded the Dickin Medal at Wembley Stadium, cheered by 10,000 onlookers. Ironically, having survived combat for nearly five straight years, Tich allowed malaria to get the better of her; she was buried at Ilford Animal Cemetery in her adopted home country.
The Western Front Elephant
(Der Welt Spiegel, 1915)
Animals have played important rolls in war from the beginning and World War One was no exception. Throughout the war the widespread use of dogs, horses mules and pigeons are all well documented and there have been some very interesting books written on the topic. Not so well documented is the presence of this one elephant who, being loyal to the Kaiser, is pictured in the attached photograph from 1915.
From Amazon: War Elephants
1918, Trench CoatsTrench Coat by Sears
Trench Coat by Sears
(Sears and Roebuck Catalog, 1918)
Strikingly similar to the American Army officer’s 1912 great coat, Sears manufactured this cotton khaki trench coat in the same olive drab shade as the enlisted man’s slicker.
The Illegal Comedy in Occupied Paris
(Yank Magazine, 1945)
In Nazi occupied Paris there was a secret underground movie theater (93 Champs Elysees) operating throughout the entire four year period and it charged an excessive sum of francs to gain entry. Guess which Chaplin film was shown?
Summer Fashions
(Stage Magazine, 1934)
Illustrated with three nifty black and white fashion illustrations, this critic lays it all on the line as to what the most exciting part of ladies fashions will be for the summer of 1934 – there is much talk of the Paris offerings from Marcelle Dormoy, hats by Tappe and smocks by Muriel King. However, no other fashionable bauble attracts her attention more than the concept of the net dress:
The thing that everyone is going for now is net and, when you see that new net dresses, it is pretty hard to understand why this frivolous fabric was forgotten so long. It is being made into dresses and jacket dresses which are called cafe clothes; street-length skirts and crisp, starchy necklines and usually, short sleeves, each with its individual brand of ingenuity.
Click here to read an article about the nature of adultery.
Promoting Citizenship
(Touchstone Magazine, 1920)
To encourage the making and distributing of films that will promote faith in America, the Americanism Committee of the Motion Picture Industry was organized.
A Post-War Visit to Metz
(Literary Digest, 1919)
This is a letter from an American infantry Major, James E. White, who wrote home to explain that there was still much to do six days after the armistice.
The major’s letter relayed his experiences as being one of the first Allied officers to enter the formerly occupied city of Metz, in order to evacuate wounded American prisoners:
The following Tuesday the grand entry of the French troops took place, but no welcome was more spontaneous than than that given to the group of American officers who on that Sunday peacefully invaded the fortress of Metz.
On U.S. Imperialism
(The Book League, 1930)
Attached is a review of The Imperial Dollar
by Hiram Motherwell.
Motherwell wrote the book in 1929 not simply to impress his peers but also to provide them with an outline that illustrated America’s progress in achieving world domination. The author examined subjects such as why America alone, of all the nations on earth, tended to believe itself to be a non-imperialistic one.
Elihu Root on Teddy Roosevelt
(The North American Review, 1919)
Eight months after the death of Theodore Roosevelt (1858 – 1919), the now defunct Rocky Mountain Club asked the former Secretary of State Elihu Root (1845 – 1937: Nobel Peace Prize 1912), to say a few words of remembrance regarding his old friend and colleague:
No one ever misunderstood what Theodore Roosevelt said. No one ever doubted what Theodore Roosevelt meant. No one ever doubted that what he said he believed, he intended and he would do. He was a man not of sentiment or expression but of feeling and of action. His proposals were always tied to action.
The historian Henry Steele Commager ranked Theodore Roosevelt at number 17 insofar as his impact on the American mind was concerned – click here to understand his reasoning…
Social Customs in Washington, D.C.
(Vogue Magazine, 1921)
Although this VOGUE MAGAZINE article was written long before the need was ever created to discuss e-mail etiquette or the proper application for Velcro in custom tailoring, many of these tribal maxims in Social Washington (both official and non) are still adhered to, especially in so far as White House functions are concerned. This article summarizes in a mere three columns the social conventions of Washington D.C. in 1921 and it covers the rules that the First Lady and the Vice-President’s wife were expected to abide by as well as the proper manner of accepting White House invitations.
The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court is not invited to dine with an Ambassador, or a foreign Minister, or the Secretary of State, because their relative rank has never been established.
The article reads much like any rule book, but it will introduce you to a local deity whom the idolatresses of The Washington Social Register have long prostrated before: the Washington Hostess.
Click here to read an article about social Washington during the Depression.
Supplying Candy to the A.E.F.
(America’s Munitions, 1919)
Historians may ad the following to that list of the many firsts that World War I has claimed as its own:
The First World War was the first conflict in which the American soldier preferred candy to chewing tobacco.
Candy in the days of the old Army was considered a luxury. The war with Germany witnessed a change… Approximately 300,000 pounds of candy represented the monthly purchases during the early period of the war. Demands from overseas grew steadily. The soldier far from home and from his customary amusements could not be considered an ordinary individual living according to his own inclinations, and candy became more and more sought after. As the need increased, the Quartermaster Department came to recognize the need of systematic selection and purchase.
The suffering sweet tooth of the Yank was not appeased by candy alone. The third billion pounds of sugar bought for Army represents a tremendous number of cakes, tarts, pies and custards. An old soldier recently stated that the ice cream eaten by the Army during the war would start a new ocean…
Click here to read about the shipments of chewing gum that was sent to the American Army of W.W. I.
Joseph Conrad as Interviewed by Hugh Walpole
(Vanity Fair, 1919)
Hugh Walpole (1884-1941) interviewed his much admired friend, Joseph Conrad (1884-1941) for the pages of a fashionable American magazine and came away this very intimate and warm column:
There is a mystery first of the man himself– the mystery that the son of a Polish nobleman should run away to sea, learn English from old files of the ‘Standard’ newspapers when he was thirty, toss about the world as an English seaman, finally share with Thomas Hardy the title of the greatest living English novelist— what kind of man can this be?
The Difference Between Brits & Yanks
(Literary Digest, 1919)
The author of this piece interviews the poet Robert Nichols (1893 – 1944) and finds the writer was convinced that the differences between the two peoples rests in their understanding of the idea of freedom.
A Letter from the Freshly Dug Trenches
(New York Times, 1915)
This World War I letter makes for a wonderful read and it gives such a vivid picture of what the war must have been like once both sides had resigned themselves to trench warfare. The letter was dated October 8, 1914 and the British officer who composed it makes clear his sense that no war had ever been fought in this queer manner before.
Paris Fashion, 1913
(Vanity Fair Magazine, 1913)
The unknown author of this article believed deeply that the Paris fashions of 1913 were very much in keeping with the grand traditions established and maintained by that city since the eighteenth century. This critic was very impressed with the recent work of Paul Poiret
