Articles from 1940
Appearing in the pages of a slightly left-leaning New York paper was this obituary of Leon Trotsky (1879 – 1940):
Thus, at 9:25 last night, ended the life of the man who, with Lenin, brought about the world’s most profound revolution and with his death, ended the bitterest of modern feuds – Trotsky against Stalin.
To fulfill the [Pentagon’s requirements] the President plans to send Congress one more defense message asking for another $5,000,000,000. After that, with machine industries saturated with orders, Congress can sit back and survey the defense picture – provided England doesn’t collapse overnight… Acting Secretary of the Navy Compton announced yesterday the award of contracts for three aircraft carriers and two cruisers to the Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Co….
In spite of the incredible films that Hollywood churned out in 1939 – Gone With the Wind, The Wizard of Oz and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, it seemed that there were some folks in 1940 who just wouldn’t be satisfied. This completely irked the citizens of Hollywood. And so the editor of Variety dispatched pollsters hither and yon to ask why they
thought the movies stunk.
A British convoy in the Straits of Dover today ran the gauntlet of terrific cannonade of long range German artillery on the French cliffs from Calais to Boulogne. The spectacular Channel bombardment was witnessed by thousands on the Dover cliffs. They reported that none of the 18 ships in the British convoy appeared to have been hit.
In 1937 the elders of New Jersey passed a law that was tailor-made for the thugs of Camp Nordland. Knowing well who the Bundists were, the law clearly condemned
‘the unlawful assembly of three or more persons’ and ‘and the uttering of speeches, the sale of literature, display of emblems and uniforms which counseled… hatred, violence or hostility against groups of persons… by reason of race, color, religion or manner of worship.’
In 1940 the law netted a harvest of the three highest Bund leaders.
If you’ve been wandering the internet hoping to get some idea what the fair isle of Manhattan looked like on 1940s color film, then your search is over (for a little while). These color images first appeared in a 1940 issue of Click Magazine and you will get a glimpse of the Bowery, Broadway, and Fifth Avenue -there are also two color pictures of New York at night for all of you wanted to see what the door man at El Morocco wore or the club-crawlers in Harlem.
Attached is a brief photo-essay documenting the short-lived experiment with women’s football in California:
Anything can and does happen in California, the proving ground for all sorts of fads and fancies. The latest craze sweeping the land of the Ham-and-Eggers is girl’s football. Discarding their all-revealing bathing suits, Hollywood and Los Angeles lassies have taken to padded moleskins, hip pads, shoulder pads, head gears and rubber-cleated brogans. The transition from beach nymph to gridiron amazon is called a revolution against oomph in the capital of streamlined pulchritude…regardless of what is said, powder-puff football seems destined to stay.
Attached you will find the Nazi justification for organized slaughter which was encapsulated for the succeeding generations by Dr. Robert Ley, one of Hitler’s willing henchmen (1890 – 1945).
Ley was the mad founder of the Adolf Hitler Schools; to learn more, click here.
In the Sixties the most popular fashion model was Twiggy (né Lesley Hornby, b. 1949), and in the Fifties the top model was Suzy Parker (1932 – 2003: truly the first Super Model). But in the 1940s the honor went to Jinx Falkenburg (1919 – 2003).
The 1940’s was the decade in which the advertising world began to gaze more favorably upon photographers rather than illustrators, who had long held the prominent place since printers ink was first invented. During the earliest days of her career Falkenburg’s likeness was often painted until the her bookings with photographers quickly picked up. She was the firstMiss Rheingold (appointed, not elected), she appeared in movies, entertained the troops and when she stood before the cameras she was paid all of $25.00 an hour (the term super Model wouldn’t come about until the Seventies).
The attached photo essay will give you some more information.
From Amazon:
This is a report on the 1939 government-sponsored medical outreach program for California’s Grapes of Wrath migrants:
The counties of San Joaquin Valley have well organized health departments… [Migrants] are entitled to drugs, special diets, eyeglasses and appliances if authorized by the medical director. Since many patients are in need not so much of medicines than of food, the Association may pay a medical grocery bill just as it pays the druggist. It also provides school lunches and nursery meals.
More on migrant laborers can be read here…
From the 1940 editorial pages of PM came this column by Henry Paynter (1899 – 1960) who wrote amusingly about the many frustrations facing Japanese spies in North America.
The identity of almost every Japanese spy or saboteur has been known to U.S. authorities. Every instruction they have received or sent has been decoded…
At the height of their irritation, they confided in the German Consul-General stationed in San Francisco – only to learn after the war that he was an FBI informant (you can read about him here).
Sub-surface evidence that the war on the Russian Front is going into a more crucial phase is mounting… if the present German drive achieves the bulk of its objectives, the Russians will have had some of their resistance power taken away from them. They will not have quite the same communications, the same supply facilities or the same freedom of movement they have had to work with thus far.
An article by military historian and biographer Fairfax Downey (1894 – 1990) concerning the unique manner of mechanized warfare that the Germans had introduced to the world during the opening weeks of the Second World War.
The man who once peddled cleaning fluids on the crooked back streets of Vienna, today was preparing to march as conqueror into Paris beneath the arch built to commemorate the triumphs of Napoleon Bonaparte.
Colonel William J. Donovan and Edgar Mower, writing of fifth-column activities at the direction of Frank Knox, Secretary of the Navy, charged Fritz Wiedemann [as having been] praised by Hitler for helping to spike American legislation to aid the Allies in 1939.
Numerous nasty remarks were quoted in the attached article concerning the German Consul General in San Francisco, Fritz Wiedemann (1891 – 1970), but the journalist who penned the article could not possibly know that Wiedemann was at that time spilling his guts to the FBI. Having served under Hitler for some time as adjutant, by 1940 Wiedemann had denounced his devotion to the Nazi Party and told Hoover all that he Knew about Hitler and what the world could expect from the man.
In 1940, Japanese spies made the mistake of confiding in Wiedemann – more about this can be read here.
The week the French Army collapsed was the week Hollywood experienced the greatest number of production delays. Studio wags believed it was an indicator as to just how many European refugees were employed on their stages. Studio bosses banned all radio and newspapers from their properties in hopes that each production would maintain their respective schedules.
