A History of THE BOB
(Coronet Magazine, 1955)
A single page history essay concerning the most popular hairstyle of the 1920s.
Coronet Magazine
Articles from Coronet Magazine
The Musicians Duke Ellington Admired
(Coronet Magazine, 1951)
Of all the jazz musicians who link yesterday’s ragtime with today’s dance music, Duke Ellington is the dean. In his 27 years as a pianist and composer, the Duke has played alongside every great brass, reed, and rhythm man of his day. Now he picks those music makers who, ‘on the basis of their over-all contribution, their all-time record, consistently good performance, and love of music,’ constitute 1951’s All-American jazz band.
Duke Ellington made a list of his favorite eleven musicians; some of the names may surprise you.
The Blowtorch Blonde
(Coronet Magazine, 1952)
Here is an article about the legendary Marilyn Monroe (né Norma Jeane Mortenson: 1926 – 1962), her painful beginnings, the cheesecake pictures, the bit-parts and her enormous popularity as a star are all woven into a narrative that never lets the reader forget that her unique type of appeal was something entirely new.
The Back Story of the Star-Spangled Banner
(Coronet Magazine, 1948)
Here is one of the few histories that explain the Star-Spangled Banner that seldom mentions its author. This short column will tell you about Sam Smith, the Militia general who kept the flag at Fort McHenry waving throughout that perilous fight.
Home Front Spy-Hunters
(Coronet Magazine, 1944)
Appearing in 1944, this article listed numerous reports relayed to the FBI by amateur spy-hunters of all the imagined foreign agents who they stumbled upon daily. Some of the accounts ended up being true and lead to actual confessions, but most were just plain silly – either way, the G-men had to investigate each account.
The First Thirty Years of Television
(Coronet Magazine, 1954)
Countless scientists contributed to the phenomenon [of television]. Marconi gets credit, as do Farnsworth and Lee de Forest. But the real starting line was strung by an RCA scientist named Vladimir K. Zworykin in 1923, when he applied for a patent on a iconoscope…
Illustrated with 27 pictures, this article lists a number of historic and semi-historic events that were captured by the early TV cameras and seen by millions of souls who otherwise would have only had to read about them in their respective newspapers, if they cared to.
News of the World
(Coronet Magazine, 1960)
Unlike other publications that enter this world with high ideals and lofty ambitions in matters concerning free-speech, the right-to-know, good form and all that sort of stuff – only to slowly devolve into petty, libelous innuendo rags before they cease publication altogether – the British daily The News of The World (1843 – 2011) made its appearance on Fleet Street seeming as if it was already on its way out. As the saying goes, it sold out early and beat the rush.
Although its earliest editions covered the Crimean War, as well as all the other Victorian military adventures, the paper’s editorial policy had always been positioned somewhere to the left of Whoopee.
The ‘Raise Your Vitality’ Diet
If you are seeking that alive-all-over glow your body radiates when you are in excellent health, try the 15-Day Revitalizing Diet listed on the pages following. It is designed to give you the protein, vitamins and minerals your body needs for dynamic living…
The Blitz Diet of 1956
A confident declaration makes clear at the top of these columns that all adherents will lose 5 pounds in 2 days if they seriously follow the dictates of the Blitz diet:
Breakfast, lunch and dinner are the same… Eight ounces of fresh creamed cottage cheese; two or three Elberta peach halves and juice…
(F.Y.I. – the Blitz diet allows for Norwegian flat bread, butter, sugar, and cinnamon.)
Yves Saint Laurent Takes Over the House of Dior
(Coronet Magazine, 1958)
When Christian Dior died quite suddenly in 1957, the eggheads of the fashion world got their knickers in a twist as they wondered who would serve as the creative force for the great fashion house that he had established just ten years earlier; all eyes turned to his very young assistant, a 21 year old man named Yves Saint Laurent (1936 – 2008).
Click here to read a 1961 article about Jacqueline Kennedy’s influence on American fashion.
Mexico: American Ally
(Coronet Magazine, 1943)
When Manuel Avila Camacho (1897 – 1955) came to power as the president of Mexico (1940 – 1946) he immediately went to work kicking out the Fascist spies from Japan and Germany
He banned Nazi newspapers and cut Nazis off the air. He squashed the anti-Semitic Gold Shirts of Monterey and purged fifth columnists in key positions. He washed his hands of the Nazis and extended a hearty handclasp to Roosevelt.
The Kick-in-the-Pants from Sputnik
(Coronet Magazine, 1964)
When the Soviet Union (1917 – 1991) launched its first satellite, Sputnik, in October of 1957, the collective jaws of the United States hit the floor in complete surprise. It was broadly believed throughout the nation that the USSR was entirely incapable of such a technological achievement. The attached article is about the cumulative efforts of American educators across the fruited plane to buck-up and begin expecting more from their students.
German Submarines in American Waters
(Coronet Magazine, 1941)
This article is composed of a couple of paragraphs recalling the damages caused to American shipping as a result of the U-Boat menace on the East Coast of the United States during the First World War. Written at a time when the U.S. was once again having to deal with the same threat, this time by Admiral Karl Dönitz (1891 – 1980), the journalist wished that Henry J. James, the author of German Subs In Yankee Waters
be properly credited for having devised many of the more successful countermeasures.
The Clothing of Abraham Lincoln
(Coronet Magazine, 1950)
The attached article is a segment from a longer one about the history of Brooks Brothers and it confirms that the Great Emancipator was one of their customers, as were the Union Army Generals Grant, Sherman and Hooker.
Click here if you would like to read the entire article about the first 132 years of Brooks Brothers.
The Anderson Family History
(Coronet Magazine, 1941)
Statistically, Anderson is the the 12th most common surname in the United States and there are 894,704 Americans who bare this last name. The name stems from two sources: Scottish and Scandinavian. Both are derived from the Greek word Andreas, which means strong, manly or courageous.
In America today there are many Andersons high in achievement, some of them still spelling their name Andersen, who were born in Sweden, Norway or Denmark. This article broadly outlines the great and famous Andersons, the ones who have walked the halls of Congress, thrived in business, written the books, preached from the pulpits and fought the wars.
Oddly, very little column space is devoted to the infamous Andersons (ie. Confederate thug Bloody Bill Anderson).
The most common last name in the English speaking world (except Canada) is Smith – read about it…
Nudity And Smut Becomes the Norm In American Pop-Culture
(Coronet Magazine, 1968)
The Sexual Revolution began slowly building with the release of the Kinsey Report in 1948 (read about that here) and from that point on the whole ball of thread began to unravel. More and more mainstream magazines, that previously would never have done so, began publishing articles about sexual concerns: adultery, frigidity and homosexuality. Hollywood went right along for the ride; TV was slow to follow, but following nonetheless. By the time 1967 came around the social war on the old taboos was in full flower. This article concerns the new standards that came into place all across America in 1968. When this article went to press, the two most infamous assassinations of 1968 had not yet taken place – after that, the flood gates would open – but change was in the air.
More about the lowering of moral standards in American popular culture can be read here…
PR from the Jungles of Cuba…
(Coronet Magazine, 1958)
The last thing the aspiring Communist dictator Fidel Castro needed in the Fall of 1958 was to have the dreaded Yanquees breathing down his neck; and so to buy some time, he penned this seven page article for the easily-bamboozled editors of Coronet magazine and packed it full of hooey, with lines like:
A million unemployed bespeaks a terrible economic sickness which must be cured… lest it fester into communism. It was this article, among other deceptions, that made President Eisenhower believe that the new government of Cuba was deserving of diplomatic recognition in February of 1959. Less than two years later the Kennedy administration severed ties with the Cuban regime and shortly after launched an ill-fated attack on the island kleptocracy.
The Lady in the Harbor
(Coronet Magazine, 1955)
When this article first appeared, the Statue of Liberty was praised as the tallest statue in the world – today, it doesn’t even make the list of the tallest statues; nonetheless, here is a collection of facts about the Ladyy Liberty:
• 200,000 pounds of copper were used in the statue, enough copper for more than 100 stacks of pennies, each as tall as the Empire State Building.
• Trans-Atlantic voyagers do not see Liberty until their ship enters N.Y. Harbor, but her torch can be seen 15 miles out.
• Her index finger is eight feet long.