For the Byrds

Since time immemorial human beings have clung to the idea that unknown lands must surely contain vast mineral treasures.

July 26, 1930 cover by **Helen Hokinson.**

Such was the case when Admiral Richard Byrd returned from his Antarctic expedition, during which he conducted a number of geological studies. Ever ready to tweak a senator’s nose, the New Yorker’s James Thurber imagined an exchange between Byrd and a U.S. Senate subcommittee that was more interested in exploitable commodities than in scientific discoveries:

HMMM, NO OIL HERE…**Richard Byrd’s** expedition building their “Little America” encampment at the South Pole in 1928. (osu.edu)

One passage of particular interest in this imaged exchange dealt with the speed of climate change in relation to potential mineral extraction…

BIRDS MEET BYRD…Admiral Richard Byrd onboard the *USS Bear* during his second expedition to the South Pole. (Wikipedia)

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Before CNN

Newsreels came into their own with the advent of sound, offering moviegoers a selection of news stories from the around the world. In his “Notes and Comment,” E.B. White observed that newsreels depicted foreigners as people who just liked to hang out (note the racial slur directed at Latin Americans). White’s characterization of Germans as an indolent lot is also noteworthy, given the country was just two and half years away from Nazi takeover.

TANZEN UND TRINKEN…Kroll’s Biergarten in Berlin in September 1928; English visitors raise a glass at a beer hall in Hesse, 1929. (YouTube)

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Speaking of Slurs

Here is what passed for a humorous anecdote in the July 26, 1930 “Talk of the Town”…

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Star Power

William Powell and Kay Francis were frequent co-stars, and would team up for the 1930 courtroom drama For the Defense. Powell and Francis would be two of Hollywood’s biggest stars in the 1930s.

LET’S MAKE A PICTURE…Frequent co-stars **William Powell** and **Kay Francis** in a publicity photo for 1930’s *For the Defense.* Francis was a longtime friend of the *New Yorker’s* **Lois Long**. (IMDB)

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From Our Advertisers

What Depression? As bread lines lengthened so did the “super-chassis” of this monster Cadillac…

…in contrast, this ad in the Aug. 2 issue questioned the necessity of a 4,000-pound car (or in the case of the 16-cylinder Cadillac, 6,500 pounds), and touted this “common sense” British import…imagine the America of today if this idea would have taken hold in the 1930s…

…we return to the June 26 issue to find an ad that would likely not appear in today’s New Yorker…

…another unlikely ad is this spot from the makers of Farina cologne featuring a skinflint applying the stuff to his armpit…yeah, I’ll take a bottle…

…and Rea Irvin continued his series of illustrations for Murad cigarettes…

…in cartoons, Irvin gave us this interpretation of country life in a full-page panel originally featured sideways…these “Country Life in America,” scenes depicted common folks enjoying the outdoors at the expense of country squires…