Month: August 2019

The Woes of Mr. Monroe

Whether probing the battle of sexes or exposing the secret lives of daydreamers like Walter Mitty, James Thurber (pictured above) had a knack for revealing the frustrations and various tics that plagued ordinary people.

Aug. 9, 1930 cover by Rea Irvin.

That included the fictional John Monroe, whom Thurber placed in various awkward situations in a series of humorous stories, including this encounter with some moving men that required the rather inept Monroe to make a series of decisions usually left to his wife, Ellen. Some excerpts from the Aug. 9 issue:

ODD COUPLES…Sue Randall and Orson Bean portrayed Ellen and John Monroe on a 1961 episode of The DuPont Show with June Allyson. (findagrave.com/Wikipedia)
…a decade later, William Windom, left, and Joan Hotchkis portrayed John and Ellen Monroe on the Thurber-inspired (and award-winning) NBC comedy My World and Welcome to It (1969-70). (TV Guide)

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Beats the Heat

In the hot August of 1930, film critic John Mosher probably found the air-conditioned theaters to be the best feature of the cinema, given the generally mediocre quality of the summer movies. Mosher also noted the new trend of adapting Broadway plays to the screen, a practice that continues to this day.

THE SOUND OF 1930…Joan Crawford (left) examines a boom microphone on the set of Our Blushing Brides. Although most films were produced with sound in 1930, it was still something of a novelty to actors who began their careers in the silent era; at right, Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and Anita Page in Little Accident. (IMDB)

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From Our Advertisers

Well, who doesn’t love a whole chicken in jar, ready to “fry or cream” in just 20 minutes? This was actually a big deal in 1930, given that chicken dinners were not as common back in the days before factory farms and Chick-fil-A…

…the makers of Marlboro cigarettes abandoned their essay and penmanship contests and took another direction with their drab, back-page ads, appealing to a vague sense of status in the prospective smoker…

…this sad little bottom-of-the-page ad enticed readers to take a drive in the country to see Texas Guinan and her “Famous Gang” still whooping it up like it was 1925. The venture was short-lived…

…on to our cartoons, Peter Arno looked in on nightlife in the city…

…William Crawford Galbraith took in an outdoor concert…

…Ralph Barton offered his comic skills to a glimpse of domestic life…

…Garrett Price observed some boaters on an outing that would be frowned upon today (or at least I hope so)…

…and Constantin Alajalov examined the pitfalls of modern art…

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Speaking of art, we move on the Aug. 16, 1930 issue…

Aug. 16, 1930 cover by Barney Tobey.

…in which Robert Benchley has fun with the foibles of the art world…

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Rough Riders

In his “Reporter at Large” column, Morris Markey looked in on the working world of one chain-smoking ambulance driver…some excerpts…

SLIDE ‘EM IN…1930s Flexible ambulance and its rather cramped interior. (coachbuilt.com)

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From Our Advertisers

Hard to believe that zippers were a novel invention just 90 years ago…in this ad from the leading manufacturer, Talon, this “hookless” wonder was still referred to as a “slide fastener”…

…the Chrysler Corporation was never the biggest car company in America, but it was always known as a leader in both technology and design, as in these graceful lines that flowed over its new “Straight Eight” models…

…the makers of Camel cigarettes continued to push their product as a sound way to stay fit and trim…

…in the cartoons for Aug. 16, this drawing by Peter Arno appeared for the fifth time in the magazine, always with a different caption (the others appeared in three consecutive issues — June 5, 12 and 19, and on Aug. 2, 1930)…

…William Crawford Galbraith detected some wet vs. dry tension at the country club…

…Ralph Barton returned with another full-page illustration of a weekend domestic scene…

…Garrett Price found confusion in a lengthy queue…

…and Kemp Starrett gave us a bird’s eye view of a future New Yorker…

Next Time: Hell’s Angels…

The Drys Are All Wet

The end of Prohibition was more than three years away, but New Yorkers could already sense that the tide was quickly turning against the “drys” who had succeeded a decade earlier in enacting a nationwide ban on most alcohol production and distribution.

Aug. 2, 1930 cover by Julian De Miskey.

In the Aug. 2 issue Alva Johnston seemed to relish the opportunity to aim some withering fire at the retreating “drys”…

NOT EXACTLY LYSISTRATA…The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (left) and the Anti-Saloon League were major forces behind a nationwide constitutional ban on the production, importation, transportation and sale of alcoholic beverages in the U.S. (Pinterest/PBS)

Johnston noted how the “wet” forces were even using the Bible to beat down the moral crusaders…

DIDN’T SEE THAT COMING…What began as moral crusade led to the rise of some of America’s most notorious gangsters. Top, left to right, early 20th century temperance supporters included attorney and politician William Jennings Bryan, Anti-Saloon League leaders William “Meat-Axe” Anderson and Wayne Wheeler, and Ella Boole, head of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union; bottom, left to right, mugshots of Jack “Legs’ Diamond and Al Capone. (Wikipedia/findagrave.com/Flickr)

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Clear as Mud

In another installment of “Answers-To-Hard-Questions Department,” James Thurber fielded a question regarding The New Yorker’s policy on drawings and sketches. Here is Thurber, posing as “Wayne Van R. Vermilye”…

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Double Standard

In its first years The New Yorker looked down on the subtle and not-so-subtle racism in American life; that is, when it applied to black intellectuals and artists (Dorothy Parker’s “Arrangement in Black and White” in the Sept. 30, 1927 is a prime example). However, in its cartoons and in “Talk of the Town” shorts, working class blacks were almost always depicted as minstrel characters, mammies, pickininnies and the like. In the Aug. 2 book review section, we have an example of the former, more or less…

WITHOUT LAUGHTER…Eslanda Goode Robeson, left, in the avant-garde film Borderline (1929); Langston Hughes photographed by Carl Van Vechten in the 1930s. (columbia.edu/beinecke.library.yale.edu)

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From Our Advertisers

The 38-story Barbizon-Plaza Hotel was designed to appeal to artists and musicians and included soundproof practice rooms, art studios, and two performance halls. Apparently you could also enjoy a game of deck tennis on the rooftop, but one wonders how much damage one could inflict — on a car or person — with a solid rubber ring dropped from a height of nearly 400 feet…

ARTLESS…The Barbizon-Plaza Hotel opened at 106 Central Park South in 1930 with 1,400 ensuite rooms. Designed to appeal to artists and musicians, the Depression put an end to that dream, and the property was foreclosed on in 1933. Donald Trump purchased the building in 1981 with the intent of tearing it down, but eventually converted it into 340 condo units and renamed it the “Trump Parc.” (MCNY)

…Lorillard Tobacco Company, the makers of Old Gold cigarettes, tapped into the popularity of crooner Rudy Vallée to move their product, boasting that like Vallée their cigarette was something of an overnight sensation (residents of Chicago, the ad noted, smoked three million Old Golds every day)…

…on to our cartoons…a couple issues back, I noted how this Peter Arno drawing appeared in three consecutive issues with different captions…here it is again, and the story of the two lovers continues…

…also continuing were these full-page cartoons (originally displayed sideways) by Rea Irvin…his “Country Life in America,” scenes depicted common folks setting up camp and enjoying other other activities at the expense of country squires…

…and we end with Leonard Dove and a couple of city folk looking for some excitement in the country…

Note: the above cartoon refers to Texas Guinan’s move to country after reigning for a nearly a decade as Manhattan’s “Queen of the Nightclubs.” Facing declining fortunes, in 1929 she took her nightclub act to the quiet village of Valley Stream, New York, located just south of Queens in Nassau County. The venture quickly went bust.

Next Time: The Woes of Mr Monroe…