1941 – Page 2 – Old Magazine Articles

Weegee’s New York
(Spot Magazine, 1941)

“When most of Manhattan is sound asleep, the free-lance photographer Arthur Fellig (1899 – 1968) – better known as Weegee – begins his wide-awake work of catching the city’s nocturnal drama. Weegee sleeps by day and at midnight sets out to cruse the city in his car, equipped with [a] police radio and bought with the proceeds from crime photos. He earned his nickname through his uncanny Ouija Board ability to know about distant happenings and beat others to the scene.”

Click here to read more about New York City.

Blitzkrieg
(Newsweek Magazine, 1941)

“Lightning warfare suggests initiative and spirit of the offensive; it carries with it the element of surprise, not so much in the happening as in the speed and force with which the attack is launched and delivered.”

Click here to read about the nature of Total war.

Click here to read about a Kamikaze attack like no other…

Blitzkrieg
(Newsweek Magazine, 1941)

Click here to read about the nature of Total war.

Click here to read about a Kamikaze attack like no other…

”My Patient, Adolf Hitler”
(Collier’s Magazine, 1941)

Dr. Eduard Bloch (1872 – 1945) was the Austrian physician who treated the family Hitler throughout the 1880’s up until 1908. He knew the future tyrant well. Oddly, the doctor seems quite sympathetic toward Hitler – he couldn’t have known that his patient would become one of the greatest monsters of the Twentieth Century, but he had read Hitler’s book and knew what he was capable of.

“What kind of boy was Adolf Hitler? Many biographers have put him down as harsh-voiced, defiant, untidy; as a young ruffian who personified all that is unattractive. This simply is not true. As a youth he was quiet, well-mannered and neatly dressed.”

W.W. II-Era Immigrants and Americanization
(Newsweek Magazine, 1941)

“Convinced that the best way to combat fifth columnists is to teach aliens how to become good citizens, the Department of Justice announced a $14,000,000 program to expand Works Projects Administration classes in ‘Americanization’…”

The First Nazi Prisoners
(Spot Magazine, 1941)

The first Nazi prisoners to be incarcerated by the U.S. were not from North Africa or Atlantic U-boats, they were the officers and men of the German passenger liner Columbus in 1939.

The Radio Facsimile Transmitter
(Spot Magazine, 1941)

Throughout the course of the Second World War the Radio Facsimile Transmitter (Radio Fax) was used by the Allied Armies to transmit maps, orders and weather charts across God’s vast oceans. War correspondents used the technology to transmit articles and images to their editors.

Mr. Nystrom’s Car Won’t Quit
(Spot Magazine, 1941)

Mr. John Nystrom of New York City drove a 32 year-old Model T Ford. Judging by the writer’s tone, we can guess that not many cars from 1909 were around to see Roosevelt’s third term. The Flivver (as she was nicknamed) had 250,000 miles on her (no mention as to how that was known) and still got 20 miles per/gallon, with a top speed of 48 miles per/hour. We can assume that Mr. Nystrom went to his rewards some time ago, but his car is probably still out there being written about.

His Mail
(Spot Magazine, 1941)

Unlike his many predecessors, FDR used to encourage the American people to write him with their thoughts. At times, the President used to boast to Congress concerning the volume of his mail in favor of his programs, but the mails did not simply deliver stamped envelopes:

“Almost anything you can think of has arrived as a gift at some time or another – dogs, sheep, eagles, baby chicks, toads, alligators. Mr. Roosevelt has never received any lions, but Calvin Coolidge got two, from Johannesburg…”

Explaining the Need for the USO
(Spot Magazine, 1941)

This article said it all honestly and without flowery metaphors – plainly stating the facts that if American military personnel were not provided some wholesome distractions, they would simply loiter around barrooms and whorehouses during their leisure time and become a drag on society.

An Anti-Discrimination Law on the Home Front
(Collier’s Magazine, 1941)

Inasmuch as the Roosevelt administration believed that the integration the armed forces was far too risky a proposition during wartime, it did take steps to insure that fair hiring practices were observed by all industries that held defense contracts with the Federal government; during the summer of 1941 a law was passed making such discrimination a crime.

The attached editorial from Collier’s Magazine applauded the President for doing the right thing.

Weeding-Out the Nuts from the Draft Pool
(Collier’s Magazine, 1941)

As America was gearing up to fight another world war, the brass caps were reminded how incapable they were at identifying and isolating the mental incompetents during the last war, and they swore this war would be different. Numerous military and civilian psychiatrists were convened, and it was concluded that of the millions of men called, at least 15 percent would likely be off-their-rockers.

The Fashion Industry Kowtows
(PM Tabloid, 1941)

Two Weeks after the Pearl Harbor attack, the New York fashion industry hastily manufactured profiles that were both feminine and practical for the new lives American women were about to have thrust upon them. Overnight, durable and launderable fabrics became uppermost in the thinking of the new war workers and culottes gained greater importance as the need for bicycles became a viable mode of transport for getting to the defense plants.

King Named to Lead Fleet
(PM Tabloid, 1941)

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America’s Hemispheric Allies Declare War Before FDR
(PM Tabloid, 1941)

Within hours of the Pearl Harbor attack, the nations of Costa Rica, Nicaragua and the Dominion of Canada all declared war upon Imperial Japan. The United States wouldn’t do so until the next morning.

Although there were a number of Latin American countries that declared war on the Axis, only two, Brazil and Mexico, put men in the field (Mexican nationals served in the U.S. military)- click here to read about the Brazilians.

The Pilots War
(Newsweek Magazine, 1941)

Reviewed anonymously in the attached column are two books, I Was a Nazi Flyer, the diary of Gottfried Leske, and The Airmen Speak, which is a compilation of war stories told by assorted RAF pilots.

Yank Pilots in the RAF
(Newsweek Magazine, 1941)

“Many Americans are serving both with the British and Canadian Air Forces, but the RAF’s Eagle Squadron is the only unit that is all-American save for the British squadron leader who succeeded William Erwin Gibson Taylor (1905 – 1991), a New Yorker, released to rejoin United States naval aviation.”

New Deal Price Controls
(Newsweek Magazine, 1941)

This article appeared six months before the 77th Congress passed a price control law as a wartime measure in an attempt to stave off inflation. The column pertains to the early planning of a wartime economy as the nation prepared to devote itself to total war. You’ll remember that the Supreme Court found FDR’s price control schemes (the NRA) to be unconstitutional during the Thirties. Regardless of their efforts, inflation still kicked-in after the war, up until the Republican Congress cut taxes.