April 2017 – A New Yorker State of Mind

To Bob, or Not to Bob

Perhaps no other hairstyle has a stronger link to a historical period than the “bob cut,” associated not only with the flapper lifestyle in the 1920s but with women in general who wished to signal their independence from old cultural norms that defined femininity.

March 10, 1928 cover by **Ilonka Karasz**.

Women in Western cultures typically wore their hair long, but in the early years of the 20th century a few women of prominence began to flout convention and wear their hair in a bobbed style, including French actress Polaire, who began wearing her hair short in the 1890s; English socialite Lady Diana Cooper, who wore her hair short as a child and continued to do so as an adult; and dancer Irene Castle, who unveiled her “Castle Bob” to Americans in 1915. By 1920 the style was all the rage.

EARLY TRENDSETTERS…From left, **Lady Diana Cooper** in the mid 1920s; dancer **Irene Castle** with her pet monkey, Rastus, in 1915; and French actress **Polaire** in 1910. (Cooper & Polaire photos from Library of Congress; Castle photo courtesy Wisconsin Historical Society)

AMERICAN BOBS…Perhaps the most famous bob belonged to 1920s silent film star Louise Brooks (at right, wearing the “King Tut” bob, circa 1925), who was considered the very definition of a Roaring Twenties flapper. At left, another version of the bob as worn by **Anita Loos**, circa 1930. Loos was a screenwriter and author who achieved great fame in the 1920s with her blockbuster comic novel Gentleman Prefer Blondes. (fashion1930s.tumblr.com / *Smithsonian*)

Another famous bobbed flapper of the 1920s was The New Yorker‘s own Lois Long, who wrote under the pseudonym “Lipstick” for her nightlife column “Tables For Two,” but signed her fashion column (“On and Off the Avenue”) with a simple “L.L.” Long was also a regular unsigned contributor to “The Talk of the Town,” and is credited as one The New Yorker’s early writers who gave the magazine its voice.

In the March 10, 1928 issue Long wrote in “On and Off the Avenue” about the challenges in maintaining her bobbed hairstyle:

LIFESTYLE CHANGES…**Lois Long** helped define the flapper lifestyle of the Jazz Age in her writing for *The* *New Yorker*. Long’s own bob evolved during the decade, from the straight boyish cut at right, circa 1925, to a “shingle style” bob at left in 1929, where she is pictured with her husband, New Yorker cartoonist Peter Arno, and their newborn daughter, **Patricia.** (Patricia Arno / Wikipedia)

Many women in the 1920s preferred to have a permanent wave treatment applied to their bob, which usually involved the application of high heat via a complex array of wires and hot rollers. In the March 10 issue, this ad promoted an alternative “cool method”…

…and in the March 17, 1928 issue, the Ace Comb company made a pitch to improve its market share by touting their hard rubber combs as ideal for the “ragged bob”…

…and for some further context on all things bobbed, following are some images gleaned from glamourdaze.com, including a page from a 1920s movie magazine featuring Paramount’s bobbed stars; a 1920s salon advertisement promoting bobs for all ages; and finally, a helpful reference card from the American Hairdresser, circa 1924…

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A New Plot for Billy Haines

William “Billy” Haines was a top male box office draw in the 1920s, and throughout the decade was typecast in a number of comic roles as a conceited baseball player (Slide, Kelly, Slide), conceited cadet (West Point), conceited football star (Brown of Harvard), conceited golfer (Spring Fever), and conceited polo player (The Smart Set). It was that last picture that left The New Yorker wanting Haines to consider taking a different approach in his next picture:

Haines would eventually escape being typecast as a wisecracking, arrogant leading man, not by choosing different roles but by quitting acting altogether in 1935. The head of MGM, Louis B. Mayer, had demanded Haines deny his gay lifestyle (which he had lived quite openly despite the times) and marry a woman for appearances. Haines went on to become a successful interior designer, with clients ranging from Joan Crawford and Gloria Swanson to Ronald and Nancy Reagan.

TYPECAST…**Billy Haines** (left), **Eleanor Boardman** and **Ben Lyon** in *Wine of Youth*, 1924. (whenwewerecool.tumblr.com)

FAN FICTION…Movie fan magazines until mid-century were tools of the major studios with portrayals of the “real lives” of stars that were nearly as fictional as their film roles. **Billy Haines** (upper left) was one of the Hollywood “bachelors” featured in this article from an unidentified fan magazine. (Unknown/Pinterest)

In our featured cartoon from March 10, 1928, Helen Hokinson spied on her famous spinsters passing the time with a Ouija board:

Next Time: Broadway’s Soap Stars…

Amen Aimee

It what would become a longstanding tradition, The New Yorker marked its third anniversary by featuring the original Rea Irvin cover illustration from Issue No. 1. The New Yorker was a very different magazine by its third year, fat with advertising and its editorial content bolstered by such talents as Peter Arno, E.B. White and Dorothy Parker.

Parker livened up the magazine’s books section, mincing few words as she took on writers both great and not so great.

In the latter category was Aimee Semple McPherson, a 1920s forerunner of today’s glitzy televangelists. In her column “Reading and Writing,” Parker took aim at McPherson — “Our Lady of the Loud-speaker” — who had just published a book titled In the Service of the King.

READY FOR MY CLOSEUP…Although she was an evangelical preacher, **Aimee Temple McPherson** was also considered one of the most glamorous women in 1920s America. (Foursquare Church)

McPherson (1890–1944) was a Pentecostal-style preacher who practiced “speaking in tongues” and faith healing in her services, which drew huge crowds at revival events between 1919 and 1922. She took to the radio in the early 1920s and in 1923 she based her ministry in Los Angeles at her newly completed Angelus Temple, which served as the center of the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel.

McPherson’s book detailed her conversion and her various hardships, including her mysterious “kidnapping” in 1926. Parker was having none of it:

Parker was referring to events beginning on May 18, 1926, when the evangelist visited Venice Beach for a swim and went missing. Some thought she had drown, others claimed they saw a “sea monster” in the area. McPherson reemerged in June on the Mexico-Arizona border, claiming she had been kidnapped and held captive by three strangers.

Numerous allegations of illicit love affairs targeted McPherson during her years of fame, so some were inclined to believe she went missing in order to engage in a love affair with her sound engineer.

Upon her return to Los Angeles she was greeted by a huge crowd (est. 30,000 to 50,000) that paraded her back to the Angelus Temple. However many others in the city found McPherson’s homecoming gaudy and annoying. A grand jury was subsequently convened to determine if evidence of a kidnapping could be found, but the court soon turned its focus to McPherson herself to determine if she had faked the kidnapping. Parker thought the condition of the preacher’s shoes, after a long trek through the desert, were evidence enough of a sham:

THE MEGACHURCH IS BORN…Angelus Temple, completed in 1923, is the center of the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel founded by McPherson. It is still in active use. (Loyola Marymount University)

SPECTACLE…**Aimee Semple McPherson** surrounded by massed choirs at Angelus Temple for a musical requiem in 1929. (Los Angeles Public Library/*Herald Examiner*)

**Aimee Semple McPherson** (second from left) joins tambourine players in a service at Angelus Temple. McPherson produced weekly dramas, often major spectacles, illustrating various religious themes. (Los Angeles Public Library/*Herald Examiner*)

McPherson, who was married three times and twice divorced, died in September 1944 from an apparent overdose of sleeping pills. She was 53. Her son Rolf took over the ministry after her death. Today McPherson’s Foursquare Church has a worldwide membership of about 8 million, and is still based in Los Angeles.

But How Do I Look?

The Feb. 25 issue profiled the young Jascha Heifetz, a Russian-born violin prodigy who seemed more interested in how he looked than in how he performed. An excerpt:

SARTORIAL PERFECTION…Detail of a 1928 photo of 27-year-old **Jascha Heifetz,** taken by **Edward Steichen.** (Condé Nast)

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Speaking of fashion, one of the world’s greatest fashion designers, Paul Poiret, was seeing hard times in the late 1920s with his designs losing popularity in his native France and his formidable fashion empire on the brink of collapse. But Francophile New Yorkers, always hungry for French fashion, greeted Poiret with open arms when he arrived in the city in the fall of 1927.

It is something of a surprise, however, to find this advertisement in the Feb. 25 issue in which Poiret endorses Rayon, a man-made substitute for silk. We don’t usually associate synthetics with haute couture, but then again maybe Poiret just needed the money. Better living through chemistry, as they say…

Also in the issue was a sad, Prohibition-era advertisement that extolled the virtues of an oxymoronic “non-alcoholic vermouth”…

And finally from the Feb. 25 issue, a cartoon by Carl Rose…

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One-eyed Monster

In the March 3 issue “The Talk of the Town” discovered the miracle of television during a visit to the Bell Telephone laboratories.

Lab researchers demonstrated a “receiving grid” with a tiny screen that displayed images broadcast across the expanse of an auditorium:

WE’LL CALL IT THE BOOB TUBE…Engineer and inventor **Ernst Alexanderson** (right) and the TV projector he used for early public demonstrations of television, circa 1928. (edisontechcenter.org)

Another glimpse into the future in the March 3 issue came courtesy illustrator Al Frueh, who offered this fanciful look at the skyscraper of tomorrow:

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“Profile” featured the first installment of a four-part article (by Niven Busch Jr.) on a man who put America on wheels and into traffic jams. Excerpts:

And finally, from W.P. Trent, an analogy that would take on new meaning after the market crash…

Next Time: To Bob, Or Not to Bob…

Speakeasy Nights

Before screenwriter Niven Busch Jr. headed to Hollywood in 1931, he cut his teeth as writer for The New Yorker, contributing a series of profiles (later compiled in Twenty-one Americans) as well as an intermittent series from May 1927 to Feb. 1930 on New York’s Prohibition-era speakeasies.

February 18, 1928 cover by **Theodore G. Haupt.**

Always careful to shield the identity of speakeasy owners and patrons, Busch described the often less-than-glamorous digs of New York’s illegal watering holes. In a speakeasy called “The No Trump,” two Irish brothers took turns mixing drinks “on a kitchen table in a cubbyhole” while Busch sat in a darkened bar and listened in on a conversation coming from the adjoining “bridge room”…

This illustration by **Reginald Marsh** accompanied **Niven Busch’s** article.

LAST CALL…Images taken by photographer **Margaret Bourke-White** for *Life* magazine during the last days of Prohibition. (Time.com)

WHO GOES THERE?…The familiar slot in the door came in handy for speakeasy owners wishing to screen clients before allowing entry into their illegal lairs. (Chicago Tribune)

BETTER SWILL…The Marlborough House, an East Side speakeasy for socialites during Prohibition, 1933. Photo by **Margaret Bourke-White** for *Fortune.* (Time.com)

Busch also described his visit to the “Circus Speakeasy,” operated by a man who “travelled for 21 years with the Ringling Circus”…

A young **Niven Busch Jr.**, circa 1930. (enetpress.com)

Busch and the third of his five wives, the actress Teresa Wright, in the 1940s. (danielmartineckhart.com)

In his later years as a producer and screenwriter in Hollywood, Busch would script movies ranging from The Man With Two Faces (1934) starring Edward G. Robinson, to The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946), with Lana Turner.

All Aboard

One of the prominent voices of the unsigned “Talk of the Town,” E.B. White was also a regular contributor of short pieces in The New Yorker, such as the following which described a mistaken encounter on an overnight train:

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Another way to calm the jitters

If you couldn’t legally (or illegally) buy Johnny Walker Scotch whisky in 1928, you had to settle for their brand of “vacuumed-cleaned, extremely mild” cigarettes, which were apparently sold as late as the 1950s…

And to get a taste of what was showing at the local cinemas, I’ve included this page-and-third spread of movie and theatre ads from the back pages. Note the film Sunrise featured prominently at the top left-hand corner.

Starring George O’Brien, Janet Gaynor, and Margaret Livingston, this 1927 silent romantic drama, directed by F.W. Murnau, used the new Fox Movietone sound-on-film system, making it one of the first feature films with a synchronized musical score and sound effects soundtrack. Sunrise (full title: The Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans) won the Academy Award in the category “Unique and Artistic Picture” at the 1st Academy Awards in 1929, and Gaynor won the first Academy Award for “Best Actress in a Leading Role.” Sunrise is considered one of the greatest films of the silent era and even today is widely considered a masterpiece.

AWARD-WINNING SMILES…**George O’Brien** and **Janet Gaynor** in 1927’s acclaimed *The Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans*. (The Red List)

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And finally, more hijinks from the moneyed classes, courtesy of Peter Arno:

Next Time: Amen Aimee…

Literary Rotarians

Dorothy Parker had a particular aversion to intellectual snobs, and in the Feb. 11, 1928 issue she wrote that the city had been beset with “Literary Rotarians” in search of bookish gatherings attended by people who, according to Parker, “looked as if they had been scraped out of drains.”

February 11, 1928. The cover is unsigned, but looks like a **Rea Irvin**.

I would have to say Parker was on firm ground here. Her own writing was clear and unaffected, and her tastes were democratic (she enjoyed and even wrote about comic strips). So when the book dandies crossed her path, there was trouble:

BOOK LOVERS…Rice University’s Pallas Athene literary society in 1927. No doubt most of them were interesting, bright young women. However, can you spot the “Rotarians?” (caralangston.com)

AND FROM THE OTHER GENDER…representatives of the Clio literary society at Elon University, circa 1920s. Did one of these lads ever cross Dorothy’s path? (belkarchives.wordpress.com)

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Parker continued, recalling the trauma she once endured at a literary association dinner:

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Thumb on the Scale of Justice

An unfortunate aspect of American life is how the law is selectively applied to favor those in power. Such was the case of Florence Knapp, who was elected as New York’s Secretary of State in 1924. After leaving office in 1926, she was accused of maladministration, and two years later was convicted of grand larceny while in office—Knapp put her stepdaughter’s name on the state payroll during the administration of the 1925 census, then cashed the checks herself, apparently using the funds to purchase clothes.

BRIEF CAREER…**Florence Knapp** (left) and **Anna Drury DeWitt** at State Republican Convention Sept. 28, 1926. Knapp was Secretary of State and DeWitt was delegate and member of Women’s Republican State Executive Committee. (findagrave.com)

In a special article for The New Yorker, contributing writer Hugh O’Connor did not disagree with Knapp’s guilt, but found the hypocrisy of her accusers hard to stomach. Some excerpts:

Just in case anyone thought this was solely a Republican hit job, O’Connor concluded that the other side was just as complicit in keeping women from high office:

For the record, Knapp was the last Secretary of State elected to that office in New York. After Knapp the office became appointive by the governor, and remains so today. It would be fifty years until another woman would be elected to a statewide office in New York.

Opening Eyes to Red Russia

The New Yorker encouraged open-minded readers to check out a new exhibition on Soviet Russia that offered an alternative vision of a young country beset by famine and political violence:

The exhibition featured hand-carved toys probably similar to these:

SOMETHING FOR THE LITTLE COMMIES…Toy Red Army soldier and sailor from the Zagorsk area. Painted wood, circa 1930. (soviet-art.ru)

Also featured were pieces of “boldly propagandistic china.” Below are some examples of period pieces, not necessarily featured in the exhibition but perhaps give some idea of what New Yorkers were viewing in 1928. They range from kitschy…

At left, *Woman Embroidering a Banner*, by **Natalia Danko** of the State Porcelain Factory, Petrograd,1919. At right, decorative vase depicting *The Liberated People,* with **Vladimir Lenin’s** portrait below banners and scenes of life in different nations, by **Maria Lebedeva** of the State Porcelain Factory, Leningrad, 1929. (Photo © The Petr Aven Collection)

…to the stunningly avant garde….

At left, a vase with ornamental Suprematist elements by **Nikolai Suetin,** for the State Porcelain Factory, Leningrad, 1930. At right, a plate with Suprematist composition by **Kazimir Malevich,**1923. (Photo © The Petr Aven Collection)

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Woof for Westminster

The New Yorker’s “Talk of the Town” was abuzz with anticipation for the Westminster Kennel Club show at Madison Square Garden. The article noted that the record price paid for a dog was $9,500 (roughly equivalent to $133,000 today). By comparison, in 2014 a Chinese property developer paid nearly $2 million for a Tibetan mastiff puppy.

Note how the writer of the “Talk” piece already knows that the “wire-haired terrier” has the inside track to victory:

SPOILER ALERT…**Talavera Margaret**, a Wire Fox Terrier, was named winner (Best of Show) at the 1928 Westminster Kennel Club dog show. The Wire Fox Terrier breed has won Best of Show at Westminster more than any other breed, sweeping the award 13 times between 1915 and 1992. The Terrier Group overall is the most successful group, with 45 wins out of 103 occasions. (westminsterkennelclub.org)

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Advertisers in The New Yorker also had Westminster fever, including sporting goods purveyor Abercrombie & Fitch (note the breed of the tartan-clad dog):

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I found this advertisement in the back pages interesting because it called out The New Yorker’s Lois Long, who wrote her nightlife column, “Tables for Two,” under the pseudonym “Lipstick.” The drawing for the ad was provided by Rea Irvin, the artist who gave the magazine its signature look.

In her nightlife column Long played coy with her readers, careful not to reveal her true identity. She teased about being a “short squat maiden of forty,” but when she married cartoonist and fellow New Yorker contributor Peter Arno in August 1927, word was out about her true identity. Irvin’s drawing aptly captures Long in her early years at the New Yorker, on a writer’s salary but nevertheless fashionably dressed, partying all night and heading home with the rising sun.

THE REAL LIPSTICK…A staged and posed joke photo of a young lady in prim 1890s clothes (at left) pretending to be startled by a 1920s flapper (**Lois Long**, at right). Photo taken in the mid to late 1920s. (Wikipedia)

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And finally, a great illustration that graced the bottom of the “Talk” section. If anyone knows the artist, please comment!

Next Time: Speakeasy Nights…