Articles from Vanity Fair Magazine
A smartly illustrated review of the the equestrian fashions for the year 1918. Various illustrated equestrian profiles are provided and brief attention is paid to the newest boots available at that time.
If you would like to read another article about men’s equestrian attire, please click here.
1916 was a poor year if you happened to be a German sailor off the coast of Denmark; it was a terrible year if you were in the infantry on the Somme or near Verdun but if you were an American man fond of horseback riding and you happened to have been shopping for the perfect riding suit on Madison Avenue, then OldMagazineArticles.com is quite certain that 1916 was a great year for you!
If you would like to read another article about men’s equestrian attire, please click here.
Five sketches of motor car designs which won cash prizes or honorable mention at the recent [1922] first annual ‘Body Builders’ Show in New York. In this competition were entered many leading custom body builders.
Attached herein is a photographic study of the British golf champion Cecil Leitch (1891 – 1977) snapped with a high-speed, stop-motion camera. In nine black and white images depicting her drive from start to finish, we are able to gain an understand as to how she was able to win three British driving championships up until that time. She left the game after having won a total of twelve national titles; at the time of this printing, she was writing her first book: Golf (1922).
The Vanity Fair sports writer Fred Hawthorne was filled with high praise for tennis star Molla Bjurstedt Mallory (1884 – 1959):
To-day Mrs. Mallory’s backhand shots are on par with her famous forehand drive, and her all-around play has improved tremendously. She is a splendid volleryer, too, though not in our typical American style. Mrs. Mallory has won the national singles title five times and last August defeated Mlli. Suzanne Lenglen, of France, probably the most finished woman tennis player in the world.
Photographs of the Christmas Bullet, the flexible-winged strutless bi-plane, and the designer of the craft, Dr. William Christmas (1865 – 1960). Also pictured are the Curtiss two seater, the Dayton-Wright Air Limousine and the Dayton Wright bi-plane.
Click here to read the 1912 obituary of Wilbur Wright.
This poem was submitted to the Vanity Fair editors by an obscure film critic named Carl Sandburg (1878 – 1967):
The room is dark. The door opens. It is Charlie
playing for his friends after dinner, ‘the marvel-
ous urchin, the little genius of the screen…’
Between the years 1920 – 1928, Sandburg served as the film critic for the Chicago Daily News.
This cartoon was drawn by the New York artist Reginald Marsh (1898 – 1954), who had a swell time comparing and contrasting the bio-diversity along 1922 Fifth Avenue; from the free-verse poets on Eighth Avenue up to the narrow-nosed society swanks on Sixty-Eighth Street -and everyone else in between.
Click here to read a 1921 article about the growth of the Jewish population in New York.
Click here to read a magazine article about 1921 Harlem.
This very brief column appeared in Vanity Fair Magazine during the winter of 1915 as one element in the publicity campaign supporting the distribution of The Death of Nobody, Jules Romains’ (1885 – 1972) 1911 novel.
Prior to the First World War Romains was primarily known as a poet and founder (along with fellow poet Georges Chennevière) of Unanimisme, a movement that combined concept of international brotherhood with the psychological ideal involving a shared group consciousness. At the time of this printing, the novelist was serving in the French Army.
A segment from a longer article on the origins of Dada by the father of Dada. This column pertains specifically to how the movement took root in Germany as a result of the First World War.
Three photos and a few well-chosen words concerning Ruth St. Denis’ dance school in the wilds of California.
In the attached 1914 magazine profile, Joseph Edgar Chamberlin (1851 – 1935) asked, Who is Goldberg? and then jumped right in and proceeded to answer that question. However, the reader should understand that in 1914 it simply did not take very long to give the answer. With so much good work yet to come, this article outlined the cartoonist’s earliest employment record while making clear that he was already well known for his invention gags, which had already appeared in many papers across the United States.
If you would like to read a 1930 article written by Rube Goldberg click here.
Click here to see an anti-New Deal cartoon that Goldberg drew in 1939.
In 1918, the London-based American expatriot sculptor Jacob Epstein was living life to the fullest and enjoying all the benefits his talents had provided him. He had no intention of joining the army of his adopted country and had successfully avoided the draft since the outbreak of the war. However in 1918, conscription caught up with him. Epstein hated the idea of joining the colors, believing that the military would kill his creative soul, but this article puts a nice spin on all that.
A quick look at some of the golf shoe offerings from the spring of 1916. Ties for the sport are also pictured, as is a portable ash-tray for use on the links.
Oddly, this essay has more to do with the evolution of golf from a shepherd’s pastime to the sport of kings, however there are some references made to the evolution of golf clothing:
Royalty did, however, dress up the game. It gave us the brilliant garments that golf captains wear in Britain. When I first went abroad I thought that I had never seen more splendid creatures. And the modern golf costume is a thing of mode and cut…
A one page review by Edward Louis Bernays (1891 – 1995) writing under the nom du flak Ayhern Edwards in order to remove all suspicion that he was in reality the P.R. man who had been hired by Serge De Diaghilev (1872 – 1929) to smooth the way for his troupe as they toured the fruited plain throughout 1915. Strangely, he had nothing terribly critical to point out.
A Burberry’s tweed, self-belted golf suit for the fashionable woman of 1922.
