editor – Page 227 – Old Magazine Articles

1916, Tennis History, Vanity Fair Magazine

The Tennis Blazer
(Vanity Fair Magazine, 1916)

By editor / July 29, 2015

This article dates to a the dear, dead days when tennis balls were white and landscapers (rather than diesel machinery) were relied upon to make tennis courts; it was also a time when the abilities of a skilled tailor were required for tennis clothing. These court-side stylists would not simply monitor the drape of tennis trousers but they would anticipate the unspoken needs of their tennis dandies – and in so doing, the tennis blazer was born.

European Styles in Cars (Vanity Fair Magazine, 1921)

1921, Cars, Vanity Fair Magazine

Cars from Europe Get Tinier
(Vanity Fair Magazine, 1921)

By editor / July 29, 2015

One thing is absolutely certain- Europe is economizing. It must. Everything in the motor world points to an enormous increase in the number of 10 h.p., four cylinder cars and in the even smaller 7-8 h.p. two cylinder machines.

1929, Talkies 1930, The Film Spectator Magazine

Rudy Vallee: ‘Vagabond Lover’
(Film Spectator, 1929)

By editor / July 29, 2015

It is not surprising to think that one of the first sound movies to be made had to consist of a plot that involved a musical number, and when put to the task of writing his review of VAGABOND LOVER (1929: RKO Pictures) the well respected film critic Welford Beaton dished-out some lukewarm opinions concerning it’s star, crooner/teen-idol Rudy Vallee (1901 – 1986):

The laddie’s face is set in a sort of perpetual sorrow which, added to the fact that he seldom looks the camera in the eye, makes him seem like the wraith of some calamity walking through the scenes. Only the voice is virile…

1939, Hollywood History, Ken Magazine

One Cartoonist’s View of Depression Era Hollywood…(Ken Magazine, 1939)

By editor / July 29, 2015

A full page drawing of the sound stage-spangled Hollywood landscape picturing all the usual suspects – the Hollywood glory girls, studio yes-men and sub-literate European starlets -all sweltering beneath the intense heat of the occidental sun.

Click here to see cartoons about the silent movie culture.

Click here to read historic magazine articles about American animated films.

1937, Early Television, The Literary Digest

Waiting for Television
(Literary Digest, 1937)

By editor / July 29, 2015

Written in response to the loud cries generated by those would-be pioneering couch-potatoes, this article presents a lengthy list of all the technical difficulties the young television broadcasting industry had to deal with in 1937.

First to have commercial television, it is agreed, will be New York City, then Philadelphia. In both of these cities transmitting-stations already exist. Advancement to other urban centers will be slower. Chicago, for example will have commercial television only after it has been made to pay in New York and Philadelphia. As each city’s television enterprises become self-supporting, installation will be begun in a new center.

1933, Sino-Japanese Wars, The Literary Digest

The Japanese Drive on Beijing
(The Literary Digest, 1933)

By editor / July 29, 2015

The aggressive ambitions of Japan know no bounds. The occupation of Peiping [Beijing] will lead to further aggression in Shantung and Shansi and other northern provinces, and will result either in the establishment of a new puppet regime in North China.

The Shanghai SHUN PAO, an independent newspaper, bewails the futility of the uncoordinated resistance which has prevailed among China’s forces since the capture of Jehol, and it adds:

The only possibilities now are peace by compromise or a continuance of war. Despite the dangers of the latter course it is the only possible solution, but resistance must be coordinated under an able leader, China must fight or become a second Korea.

1935, Early Television, The Literary Digest

BBC Television Broadcasting Begins
(Literary Digest, 1935)

By editor / July 29, 2015

The British Broadcasting Corporation announced that they were capable of transmitting television programming as early as 1935:

The British engineers plan to begin with a single broadcasting tower, capable of transmitting television images to receiving sets within a radius of about thirty miles…British engineers are not the first to try television broadcasting. A station has been operating regularly in Berlin for several months.

1937, Dance Magazine Articles, Pathfinder Magazine

Dance International
(Pathfinder Magazine, 1937)

By editor / July 29, 2015

In New York last week, on the polished floor of the Rainbow Room, Rockefeller Center’s skyscraping night club, Hawaiians, Chinese, Scandinavians and Africans stamped whirled, leaped, and gesticulated to a dozen different kinds of music…it was an exposition of no little cultural and social importance – ‘Dance International,’ a festival showing the progress of the dance in all nations since 1900.

In their quest to document the evolution of dance in the United States, the audiences were treated to Modern Dance performances by Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey, Paul Weidman and Paul Haakon.

1939, Early Television, Stage Magazine

Television with All It’s Possibilities
(Stage Magazine, 1939)

By editor / July 29, 2015

There wasn’t a single soul in 1939 would have imagined that television would be the sort of venue that would allow millions of strangers to see Tyra Banks get a breast exam, but that is the kind of institution it has become.

STAGE MAGAZINE correspondent Alan Rinehart was astonished that so much dough was being invested in such a young industry, yet he recognized that T.V. was capable of much good, but was also capable of generating the kind of banality that we’re used to.

What then, will be the entertainment value of television?…What’s to be the entertainment? Why should we tune in? Will we get more than we will on the radio?…The revolutionary idea about television is that the medium has been developed before the art. It’s as if the piano had been invented before music, or paint and canvas before drawing.

1940, Pathfinder Magazine, Sino-Japanese Wars

The War in Winter
(Pathfinder Magazine, 1940)

By editor / July 29, 2015

The Hollywood Happenings in the Spring of ’44
(Yank Magazine, 1944)

By editor / July 29, 2015

Tenderly ripped from the brittle pages of a 1944 issue of YANK MAGAZINE was this short paragraph which explained all the goings-on within the sun-bleached confines of Hollywood, California:

Rita Hayworth steps into the top spot in the Columbia production, ‘Tonight and Every Night’; Ethel Barrymore returns to the screen after 11 years’ absence to share honors with with Cary Grant in ‘None but the Loney Heart’…In ‘Something for the Boys’ Carmen Miranda will sing ‘Mairzy Doats’… etc, etc, etc.

1945, Home Front, Yank Magazine

Sports on the Home Front
(Yank Magazine, 1945)

By editor / July 29, 2015

A page from a 1945 YANK MAGAZINE which offers a smattering of sports info.

1946, Miscellaneous, Pic Magazine

1946 Broadway
(Pic Magazine, 1946)

By editor / July 29, 2015

“Old hits still with us, and likely to hold their stages indefinitely, include ‘Harvey’, ‘Born Yesterday’, ‘State of the Union’, ‘Oklahoma!’, ‘Show Boat’, ‘Carousel’ and ‘Call Me Mister’. And, to be sure, the booming ‘Annie Get Your Gun’. With such a crop heartily and tenaciously around, it again becomes apparent that the branch of the amusement business known as legitimate theatre could well make use of some playhouses that have been sold down the river to pictures and to radio. And right along with them went all of 42nd Street, once the most spectacular theatre street in the world but now shorn of the drama and a paradise for second-run films.”

1948, The Cold War

Can There be Peace with Stalin?
(United States News & World Report, 1948)

By editor / July 29, 2015

The Berlin Blockade was already six weeks old when this article appeared proclaiming that peace with the Soviet Union was still possible:

Russia and the U.S. are in the midst of another showdown on peace. Odds favor a settlement, not war.

Peace terms are shifting closer to compromise. Russia is more interested in seeking peace, less interested in stalling… Each side is out to get the best possible terms. But prospects for easing the tension of cold war are good.

Click here to read about the Berlin Blockade.

1949, China - Twentieth Century, Pathfinder Magazine

Washington Weighs in on China
(Pathfinder Magazine, 1949)

By editor / July 29, 2015

Seasoned Washington journalist Felix Morley (1894 – 1982) discussed the complicated issues involved in the diplomatic recognition of Communist China:

All the obvious arguments are against recognition. The Red regime in China has imprisoned our official representatives, confiscated American property, flouted and insulted us in a dozen different ways.

But in recent years we have mixed up diplomatic recognition and moral approval. The absurd result is that we recognize Russia and not Spain, and are at present opposed to recognizing China even though we fear that may be cutting off our nose to spite Stalin’s face.

1949, Aftermath (WWII), Pathfinder Magazine

The Bavarians Wanted a King
(Pathfinder Magazine, 1949)

By editor / July 29, 2015

An important news item came across the wire in mid-may, 1949:

The delegates from Western Germany’s 11 states gave final approval to the draft of the constitution for the new Federal Republic of Germany.

– but what matter was this to the thousands of Bavarians who were highly distrustful of the new government; they had their own gloried past that was largely due to the royal family known as the House of Wittelsbach:

A strong faction is campaigning for the return to the throne of former Crown Prince Rupprecht. The eldest son of King Ludwig III, deposed in 1918, Rupprecht is a tall, thin man of vast education. He led Bavarian troops under Kaiser Wilhelm. In World War II, he was exiled to Italy. Since then he has been living with his family at Leutstetten Castle on Lake Starnberg near Munich.

If the Bavarian people desire monarchy, I shall respect their desire.

Nice work if you can get it…

1956, The Dept. of the Army, The Korean War

The Fall of Seoul
(Dept. of the Army, 1956)

By editor / July 29, 2015

The very first engagement of the conflict, when the North Koreans crushed South Korean defenses at the 38th parallel, demonstrated the superiority of the North Korean Army. On June 28, three days after the opening attack, a tank/infantry force leading the main North Korean thrust entered Seoul… In the face of the onslaught, the South Korean Army retreated, leaving most of its equipment behind. Whatever effectiveness it may have possessed was already lost.

1950s Cars, 1956, Gentry Magazine

Color Styling and the Cars of the Fifties
(Gentry Magazine, 1956)

By editor / July 29, 2015

A 1956 article by Eugene Bordinat (1920 – 1987), one of Detroit’s grand old men of automotive design; during his reign at Ford, Bordinat oversaw the styling of such cars as the Mustang and the Falcon:

The average American likes to think that he is an independent thinker and a rugged individualist, while actually he is closer to a sheep and follows the herd. He resists change. He wants just enough change in cars so his neighbors will know it is the latest model, but not so much that he has to explain to his friends why he bought the strange contraption…The stylist must consider these factors when he out-lines his advanced thinking on trim and color…he must be sure that the scheme isn’t so radical that it will frighten the color-timid public.

Author name: editor