editor – Page 220 – Old Magazine Articles

1921, Manners and Society, Vogue Magazine

Social Customs in Washington, D.C.
(Vogue Magazine, 1921)

By editor / October 17, 2015

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.

1919, America's Munitions, World War One

Supplying Candy to the A.E.F.
(America’s Munitions, 1919)

By editor / October 16, 2015

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.

1919, Twentieth Century Writers, Vanity Fair Hall of Fame

Joseph Conrad as Interviewed by Hugh Walpole
(Vanity Fair, 1919)

By editor / October 9, 2015

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?

1919, Foreign Opinions About America, The Literary Digest

The Difference Between Brits & Yanks
(Literary Digest, 1919)

By editor / October 7, 2015

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.

1915, Letters, The New York Times

A Letter from the Freshly Dug Trenches
(New York Times, 1915)

By editor / October 7, 2015

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.

1913, Fashion, Vanity Fair Magazine

Paris Fashion, 1913
(Vanity Fair Magazine, 1913)

By editor / October 7, 2015

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 and Doeuillet and presented a number fashion illustrations to prove the point. Oddly, the article is credited simply to Worth which leaves one wondering whether the writer was one of the sons of Charles Frederick Worth (1825-1895); Jean Philippe Worth or Gaston Worth, both of whom had inherited their father’s great house of fashion.

1917, Miscellaneous

The Army Insignia of the World War I French Army
(1917)

By editor / October 3, 2015

The Post-War Miracle that was Volkswagen
(Pic Magazine, 1955)

By editor / October 1, 2015

Out of the smoldering ruins of Japan came the Honda factories; while Germany amazed their old enemies by rapidly beating their crematoriums into Volkswagens. Confidently managed by a fellow who only a short while before was serving as a lowly private in Hitler’s retreating army, Volkswagen quickly retooled, making the vital improvements that were necessary to compete in the global markets.

Ludwig Erhard (1897 – 1977), West Germany’s Minister of Economics between the years 1949 and 1963, once remarked that Germany was able to launch its Wirtschaftswunder (economic miracle) by implementing the principles of a market economy and laissez-fair capitalism within the framework of a semi-socialist state.

1945, General Marshall, Yank Magazine

Manpower Balance
(Yank Magazine, 1945)

By editor / October 1, 2015

General Marshall recalled the decisions made concerning how many American men would be drafted and in what branches of service they would be needed. He recalled the number of divisions each Allied nation raised and how many divisions the Germans and Japanese put in the field. The article also remembers that two thirds of the German Army was deployed along the Eastern front and he wondered what might the Americans have done had Germany defeated the Reds.

It is remarkable how exactly the mobilization plan fitted the requirements for victory. When Admiral Doenitz surrendered the German Government, every American division was in operational theaters.

1945, Compiled by the U.S. Dept. of War, German Army Studies

The German Army of 1945
(U.S. Dept. of War, 1945)

By editor / October 1, 2015

After five and a half years of ever growing battle against ever-stronger enemies, the German Army in 1945 looks, at a glance, much the worse for wear. It is beset on all sides and is short of everything. It has suffered appalling casualties and must resort to old men, boys, invalids and unreliable foreigners for its cannon fodder…Yet this shabby, war-weary machine has struggled on a in a desperate effort to postpone it’s inevitable demise. At the end of 1944 it was still able to mount an offensive calculated to delay for months the definitive piercing of the Western bulwarks of Germany.

1945, Compiled by the U.S. Dept. of War, German Army Studies

Total War
(U.S. Dept. of War, 1945)

By editor / October 1, 2015

The introductory essay from the U.S. War Department’s intelligence manual concerning fascist Germany:

Total war is neither a contemporary invention nor a German monopoly. But total mobilization, in the sense of the complete and scientific control of all the efforts of the nation for the purpose of war, and total utilization of war as an instrument of national policy have been developed to their highest degree by the German militarists.

To gain some understanding of the nature of total war, you might want to click here and read about how the American cosmetics industry of the 1940s was forced to alter their production patters.

1945, Compiled by the U.S. Dept. of War, German Army Studies

A Study of the German Tactical Doctrine
(U.S. Dept. of War, 1945)

By editor / October 1, 2015

A one page study of German World War II tactics that was created by the United States Department of War two months prior to the German surrender:

…the Germans have placed a considerable reliance on novel and sensational weapons such as the mass use of armor, the robot bomb, and the super-heavy tank. Their principal weaknesses in this regard have been their failure to integrate these new techniques with established arms and tactics –German field artillery, for example, did not maintain pace with German armor -and their devotion to automatic weapons at the expense of accuracy.

1945, Compiled by the U.S. Dept. of War, German Army Studies

The Discipline and Training of German Soldiers
(U.S. Dept. of War, 1945)

By editor / October 1, 2015

A one and a half page study on the training of the W.W. II German soldier – the soldier’s oath and the rigorous system of discipline that he had to adhere to. Also discussed is the German salute (Heil…), and the German Army’s understanding of soldierly duty.

Also discussed the German Army’s alternate pledge penned especially for atheists.

From Amazon: Soldat: Reflections of a German Soldier, 1936-1949

1943, World War Two, Yank Magazine

A Psychological Study of Valor
(Yank Magazine, 1943)

By editor / October 1, 2015

This is yet another excerpt from Psychology for the Fighting Man which addresses a grave concern that has been on the mind of all soldiers from time immemorial: how to be brave and safe?. In simply three paragraphs the psychologists charged with answering this question actually do a pretty feeble job, but they did a fine job summing up the heavy responsibilities that the front-line G.I. had on his mind when great acts of courage were expected of him.

Perhaps one of the most lucid definitions of bravery was uttered by an anonymous soldier from the Second World War who offered that courage is like a bank, with a finite balance; each soldier is allowed to make a small or a large withdrawal from the account and they can do so when ever they wish, but when the account is empty they can’t go to the bank any longer.

Click here to read a psychological study of fear in combat.

1939, Film Daily Magazine, Walt Disney

Growth and Expansion at the Walt Disney Company
(Film Daily, 1939)

By editor / September 30, 2015

Herein is a 1939 article from a defunct Hollywood trade magazine marking the construction of a 20 acre facility for the Disney studio in Burbank, California:

By 1930, the Walt Disney studio had grown in fantastic fashion. Instead of the 25 employees of 1929, there were now 40 people…By the end of the year there were 66 employees…In 1931 the total number of personnel had jumped to 106…When ‘The Three Little Pigs’ came along in 1933, the studio had grown 1,600 square feet of floor space in 1929, to 20,000 square feet. A hundred and fifty people were now turning out the Disney productions… In 1937, all the employees were still jostling each other… From around 600 employees in the summer of 1937, the organization had grown to almost 900 by the winter of 1938.

1945, Post-War Japan, Yank Magazine

Catching Up With Tokyo Rose
(Yank Magazine, 1945)

By editor / September 26, 2015

The Americans arriving in Japan after the surrender proceedings were hellbent on capturing the American traitor who presided over so many disheartening broadcasts — the woman they nicknamed Tokyo Rose:

…one of the supreme objectives of American correspondents landing in Japan was Radio Tokyo. There they hoped to find someone to pass off as the one-and-only Rose and scoop their colleagues. When the information had been sifted a little, a girl named Iva Toguri (Iva Toguri D’Aquino: 1916 – 2006), emerged as the only candidate who came close to filling the bill. For three years she had played records, interspersed with snappy comments, beamed to Allied soldiers on the Zero Hour…Her own name for herself was Orphan Ann.

Toguri’s story was an interesting one that went on for many years and finally resulted in a 1977 pardon granted by one who had listened to many such broadcasts: President Gerald R. Ford (1913-2006), who had served in the Pacific on board the aircraft carrier USS Monterey.

1940, Coronet Magazine, Design

The Designs of Gustav Jensen
(Coronet Magazine, 1940)

By editor / September 25, 2015

High-Ranking in the roll-call of New York’s industrial designer is a six-foot Dane with the voice of a Viking. Gustav Jensen is an artist, whether he is talking, eating, or performing Herculean labors in cleaning out Plebeian Stables. The creed of the industrial designer is that every implement of modern life can be made into a work of art. Jensen has pursued this creed to fabulous extremes. He has designed kitchen sinks, that have been compared to Renaissance caskets, and he meditates for months before he designs a doorknob….

The article is illustrated with eleven photographs; the image on the right shows Jensen’s design for a table model radio: The radio is a miracle. It should look like a miracle, remarked the designer.

1933, F.D.R., The Literary Digest

A New Deal for Women
(The Literary Digest, 1933)

By editor / September 25, 2015

This historic article appeared during the opening weeks of Roosevelt’s first term administration announcing that the new president was taking a novel approach in granting various appointments to government positions of leadership by selecting numerous women who had proved their mettle in the fiery furnace of 1920s Democratic party politics.

1924 was a very important year for American women in politics…

Author name: editor