Author: David O

I read and write about history from the perspective that history is not some artifact from the past but a living, breathing condition we inhabit every moment of our lives, or as William Faulkner once observed, "The past is never dead. It's not even past." I read original source materials, such as every issue of The New Yorker, not only as a way to understand a time from a particular perspective, but to also use the source as an aggregator of various historic events. I welcome comments, criticisms, corrections and insights as I stumble along through the century.

Moses Parts a Yacht Club

Power broker Robert Moses always made sure he was few steps ahead of any possible opposition to his grand development plans in and around New York City. That included the yacht clubbers along the Hudson River, who were more or less erased from the scene by Moses in one fell swoop.

May 19, 1934 cover by **Ilonka Karasz.**

The Upper West Side’s Columbia Yacht Club probably thought it was just swell that the city was dumping waste and rock along the shores of the Hudson River, since it eventually created driveway access for members who previously had to access the club via a footbridge over the New York Central’s tracks. What hadn’t occurred to them was that nearly 25 years-worth of infill had also created a new strip of land that extended from 79th to 96th street, land that Moses envisioned as an expansion of Riverside Park (and the abrupt end of the West Side yacht club scene). “The Talk of the Town” explained:

LOCATION, LOCATION…Two views of the Columbia Yacht Club at West 86th Street, circa 1930. The club was razed to make room for **Robert Moses’s** expansion of Riverside Park. Moses’s ambitious project, which cost twice as much as Hoover Dam, put the train tracks underground and topped the park with the Henry Hudson Parkway. (newyorktoursbygary.blogspot.com/NYPL Digital Collections)

HEADS UP…**Elsie Henneman** dives into the water near the Hudson River Yacht Club, circa 1930. Located at the foot of West 74th Street, the club moved onto a barge at 145th Street to escape Moses’s park expansion plans, but it was eventually banished from the West Side. (Reddit)

* * *

Ode to the Road

We now shift gears to E.B. White, who was poetically inspired by an advertisement in the Herald Tribune that featured Prince Alexis A. Droutzkoy (a member of the exiled White Russian colony in New York) praising the “magic silence” of the new “Dodge Six” automobile:

SILENCE OF THE CAMS…The 1934 Dodge Six. (detail from a vintage ad)

* * *

Führer’s Filmmaker

The ability (or inability) to separate art from an artist’s personal conduct or beliefs has been a particular topic of the last two decades, given the litany of stars who have been “cancelled” despite the quality or importance of their work. The work of German filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl (1902–2003), still debated nearly ninety years after her collaboration with Nazi leaders, demonstrates the fine line many a film historian or critic must walk when assessing the career of an innovative artist (for an American example, see filmmaker D. W. Griffith). Riefenstahl’s 1932 film, The Blue Light (Das blaue Licht), made prior to her Nazi collaborations, was praised for its beauty by American critics, including the New Yorker’s John Mosher, when it was released in the U.S. in 1934.

The Blue Light also captivated Adolf Hitler, who saw the attractive and athletic Riefenstahl as an ideal of Aryan womanhood. A subsequent meeting with Hitler would result in Riefenstahl’s controversial 1935 Nazi propaganda film Triumph of the Will (Triumph des Willens). We will explore that film, and Riefenstahl’s role, in a later post.

CAREER MOVE…Clockwise, from top left, **Leni Riefenstahl** demonstrated her acting ability, athleticism and filmmaking talents in 1932’s *The Blue Light* (Das blaue Licht); Riefenstahl filming in Nuremberg during the 1934 Nazi Party congress—the footage was used in 1935 Nazi propaganda film **Triumph of the Will**; working at a film cutting table, 1935; with **Adolf Hitler** at Nuremberg, 1934. (IMDB/Library of Congress/UTK Cinema Studies/The Irish Times)

HI HITLER…Nazi propaganda minister **Joseph Goebbels** and **Adolf Hitler** pay a visit to Leni Riefenstahl at her Berlin estate, circa 1937. (Roger-Viollet)

* * *

From Our Advertisers

We begin with more Carl “Eric” Erickson-inspired artwork, here promoting the bygone elegance of transatlantic travel…

…perhaps a bit less upscale but still pretty nice, the “Santa” line of ships operated by the Grace Line between New York and Latin America included air-conditioned interiors paneled with aluminum (a fireproofing measure) and spacious cabins with private baths that faced to outside…

…this ad must have been a happy sight to folks who had to endure more than a decade of bootleg Scotch during Prohibition…

…Smirnoff vodka had its origins in 1860s Russia, capturing two-thirds of the Moscow market by the mid-1880s…forced to leave Russia in 1904 after the Tsar nationalized the Russian vodka industry…Smirnoff relocated to Turkey, then Poland, and then Paris, each time with limited success…at the end of Prohibition the brand relocated once again to a distillery in Bethel, Connecticut, hence this advertisement…

…the habanero pepper has been used to infuse everything from tequila to vodka to whiskey…this particular product was marketed as something new that could be mixed with a variety of spirits or topped up with club soda or ginger ale…

…I include this ad from the maker of Spud cigarettes for its sheer audacity…it claims your mouth will feel dewdrop fresh after an entire day of smoking menthols…

…stunt driver Billy Arnold was one of the “Hell-Drivers” Chrysler employed to tout the safety of its low-priced Plymouths at promotional events…

…including Chicago’s “Century of Progress”…below, a crowd watches Arnold take his Plymouth for a roll and emerge unscathed…

…the folks at Redi-Spred employed a murder theme to promote their “Pâté de Foie”…which foie was used…duck, goose or lord knows what, is not specified…

…the signature is muddled, but this looks like another illustration by Herbert Roese, who never published a cartoon in the New Yorker but sure had its style down, especially Peter Arno’s…

…Harold Ross’s high school friend and cartoonist John Held Jr. was a frequent contributor to the New Yorker from 1925 to 1932 (he also contributed to Life, Vanity Fair, Harper’s Bazaar), but when demand for his Jazz Age cartoons and illustrations fell off in the 1930s, he turned to painting and illustrating children’s books. So it was a surprise to catch this glimpse of Held’s work in a one-column ad promoting a Held-drawn map of New England inns…

…speaking of elusive illustrators, I am often challenged to discover the identities of spot illustrators in the early issues…this one appears to be signed by “Maurice Dreco”…

…the signature on this one looks like “Saphire,” but again, it is not clear…

…but there is no doubt this little gem is by Daniel ‘Alain’ Brustlein…

…which leads us to Richard Decker, and a hostage situation gone flat…

…and Decker again, with a back-handed compliment…

…James Thurber was in his familiar world of dogs and battling sexes…

…Mary Petty found some good news on the dentistry front…

…Otto Soglow’s Little King believed more is merrier…

…and we close with William Crawford Galbraith, and a wedding day surprise…

Next Time: Isle of Ill Repute…

A Tadpole on Wheels

Above: British architect Norman Foster's 2010 recreation of R. Buckminster Fuller's 1933 Dymaxion car. (Wikipedia)

Despite the limitations of 1930s technology, a few architects and designers were hell-bent on building a streamlined future that until then was mostly the stuff of movies and science fiction magazines.

One of them was R. Buckminster Fuller (1895–1983), architect, designer, and futurist probably best known today as the inventor of the geodesic dome (think Disney’s Epcot Center). In the 1930s Fuller was all about a concept he called Dymaxion. Derived from the words dynamic, maximum, and tension, when applied to architecture and design it would supposedly deliver maximum gain from minimal energy input. The writer of the New Yorker article (pseud. “Speed”) was fascinated by the Dymaxion’s motorboat-type steering, no coincidence since Fuller intended to adapt his futuristic car for use on and under the water, as well as in the air.

THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME…Clockwise, from top left: Workers at a Bridgeport, Conn., plant creating the first of three Dymaxion cars; the Dymaxion at Chicago’s 1933 Century of Progress exposition—the car was involved in a fatal accident at the fair; interior view of the Dymaxion; using the same engine and transmission as a Ford sedan (pictured), the Dymaxion offered three times the interior volume with half the fuel consumption and a 50 percent increase in top speed. (Buckminster Fuller Institute/Poet Architecture)

THINKING WITHOUT THE BOX…In 1927 **R. Buckminster Fuller** (pictured) developed a Dymaxion House, a “Dwelling Machine” that would be the last word in self-sufficiency. Although the aluminum house was intended to be mass-produced, flat-packaged and shipped throughout the world, the design never made it to market (however its ideas influenced other architects); at right, a Fuller geodesic dome at Disney’s Epcot Center in Florida. (archdaily.com/Wikipedia)

The 1933 Century of Progress exposition in Chicago was supposed to be a major showcase for Fuller, but when professional driver Francis Turner was killed while demonstrating the first prototype of the Dymaxion, the car’s prospects dimmed considerably. According to an article by Stephanie d’Arc Taylor (cnn.com Oct. 30, 2019), during the demonstration a local politician tried to drive his own car close to the Dymaxion—to get a better look—and ended up crashing into the unwieldy prototype, which rolled over, killing the driver and injuring its passengers. “The politician’s car was removed from the fracas before police arrived, so the Dymaxion was blamed for the accident,” writes Taylor, who notes that the rear wheel–powered car, though unconventional, was not necessarily the problem. However, “the thing that made the Fuller death-mobile singularly deadly was the fact it was also steered by the rear wheel, making it hard to control and prone to all kinds of terrifying issues.”

That history did not stop architect Norman Foster from building a replica of the Dymaxion in 2010. Foster worked with Fuller from 1971 to 1983, and considers Fuller a design hero.

GIVING IT ANOTHER GO…Architect **Norman Foster** with his 2010 recreation of the Dymaxion. To build a new Dymaxion, Foster sent a restorer to the National Automobile Museum in Reno, Nevada (home of the only surviving Dymaxion, Car No. 2), and after thousands of photos and measurements Foster had the car recreated using only materials available in 1933: Foster’s Dymaxion consists of an ash frame sheathed in hand-beaten aluminum, mounted on the chassis of an old 1934 Ford Tudor Sedan. (CNN/The Guardian)

According to Taylor, Foster cleaved so closely to Fuller’s original designs that he refers to his creation as a fourth genuine Dymaxion—not a replica. “The car is such a beautiful object that I very much wanted to own it, to be able to touch as well as contemplate the reality for its delight in the same spirit as a sculpture,” said Foster. “Everything in (the car) was either made in 1934, or recreated using techniques and materials that Bucky would have had access to in that period.”

* * *

Meanwhile, At The Tracks…

If Fuller’s attempt at the streamlined future was a bit of bust, the Burlington railroad was making a splash with its gleaming new Zephyr. E.B. White reported:

ZOOM ZOOM…The Burlington *Zephyr* set a speed record for travel between Denver and Chicago when it made a 1,015.4-mile (1,633 km) non-stop “Dawn-to-Dusk” dash in 13 hours 5 minutes at an average speed of almost 78 mph (124 km/h). In one section of the run it reached a speed of 112.5 mph. Following a promotional tour that included New York, it was placed in regular service between Kansas City, Missouri, and Omaha and Lincoln, Nebraska, on November 11, 1934. Other routes would be added later in the Midwest and West. (BNSF)

…we continue with E.B. White, here with some observations regarding Mother’s Day and bank robber/murderer John Dillinger, who had escaped from prison in March 1934 and was on the FBI’s Most Wanted List…

I REMEMBER MAMA…**John Dillinger** posed with Lake County prosecutor **Robert Estill**, left, in the jail at Crown Point, Ind. while he awaited his trial for murder in January 1934. Dillinger would escape from the jail in March and would be on the lam until July, when FBI agents would gun him down outside a Chicago movie theatre. (NY Daily News)

…and a last word from White, about an important change at Radio City:

* * *

Voice In The Wilderness

A combination of newsreel footage, documentary, and reenactment, Cornelius Vanderbilt Jr’s Hitler’s Reign of Terror played to capacity crowds for two weeks in New York City, despite the refusal of the state’s censor to license the film. Disinherited by his parents when he became a newspaper publisher, Vanderbilt was a determined journalist, covertly filming scenes in Nazi Germany and even briefly encountering Adolf Hitler outside the Reichstag, where Vanderbilt yelled to Der Führer, “And what about the Jews, Your Excellency?” (Hitler ignored the question and referred Vanderbilt to one of his lackeys). Unfortunately, Vanderbilt wasn’t much of a filmmaker, and although he warned Americans about the emerging threat in Germany, few took the film, or his warning, seriously, including John Mosher:

UNHEEDED…Audiences flocked to see **Cornelius Vanderbilt Jr’s** *Hitler’s Reign of Terror,* but critics dismissed the rather amateurish film—*Film Daily* scoffed at the film’s prediction that Hitler’s Germany was a future threat to world peace; at right, in the film Vanderbilt confronted “Hitler” in a recreation. (TMDB/Library of Congress)

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From Our Advertisers

It wouldn’t seat eleven people like a Dymaxion, but a Body by Fisher (coach builder to General Motors) certainly impressed this young woman…but better check with the hubby just in case…

…in this next ad, we find what looks like the same woman, perhaps celebrating her decision with a nice smoke…

…this spot seems out of place in the New Yorker, like it snuck over from Better Homes & Gardens...

…on to our cartoons…with James Thurber’s war of the sexes over, life returned to normal…

…and both sides shared in the gloom of a rainy afternoon…

…by contrast, Perry Barlow brightened things up with this life of the party…

…but a good time doesn’t always translate over the airwaves, per George Price…

…Alain illustrated the consequences of losing one’s nest egg…

…Peter Arno didn’t leave any room for dessert…

…and Charles Addams returned, a macabre cast of characters still percolating in his brain…

…on to May 12, 1934…

…and back to the movies, this time critic John Mosher found more cheery fare in 20th Century, a pre-Code screwball comedy directed by Howard Hawks and starring John Barrymore and Carole Lombard. Battling alcohol abuse since age 14, Barrymore nevertheless managed to display his rare genius as a comedian and turned in what is considered to be his last great film performance.

GETTING HER KICKS…Top, **Carole Lombard** delivers a swift one to **John Barrymore** in the screwball comedy *20th Century.* Below, director **Howard Hawks** with the cast. (greenbriarpictureshows.blogspot.com)

* * *

Playing the Ponies

Horse racing correspondent George F. T. Ryall (pseud. “Audax Minor”) considered a losing wager at the Kentucky Derby in his column, “The Race Track.”

A HORSE OF COURSE…Jockey **Mack Garner** rode Cavalcade to victory at the 1934 Kentucky Derby. (Appanoose County Historical Society)

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More From Our Advertisers

We begin with Camel cigarette endorsers Alice and Mary Byrd, residents of Virginia’s famous Brandon plantation and cousins of Virginia Senator and Governor Harry F. Byrd, known for his fights against the New Deal and his “massive resistance” to federally mandated school desegregation...

…also to the manor born, Whitney Bourne, a New York deb who would go on to a brief stage and film career that would end when she married her first husband (diplomat Stanton Griffis) in 1939…

AN EYE FOR STYLE…**Whitney Bourne** in a scene with **Solly Ward** in 1937’s *Flight From Glory.* Named in 1933 as one of America’s best dressed women, Bourne was a noted New York socialite, skier, golfer and tennis player as well as an occasional actress.

…we move along from the effervescent Whitney Bourne to the sparkling waters of Perrier…

…Gardner Rea followed other New Yorker cartoonists by illustrating an ad for Heinz…

…which brings is to more cartoons, where according to Richard Decker, the move to streamlined trains wasn’t welcomed by everyone…

…Carl Rose illustrated this two-page spread with an imagined right-wing response to the recent left-wing May Day parades…

…William Steig eavesdropped onto a saucy little conversation…

…Barbara Shermund continued her explorations into the trials of the modern woman…

…James Thurber was back to his old tricks…

…and we conclude our cartoons with Eli Garson, and a new perspective…

Before I close, a bit of housekeeping. The first issues in 1925 sometimes ended “The Talk of the Town” with…

…but on May 23, 1925, “Talk” signed off with —The New Yorkers. That continued until the March 31, 1934 issue (below), the last time the New Yorker signed off “The Talk of the Town” with —The New Yorkers:

Next Time: Moses Parts a Yacht Club…

Lord of the Apes

In 1912, Edgar Rice Burroughs published the short story Tarzan of the Apes. Since then at least ninety books, 350 radio serials, three TV series and forty-five full-length films have told the story of the Lord of the Apes.

April 28, 1934 cover by **Ilonka Karasz.**

Tarzan was the first pop culture icon to attain worldwide fame, paving the way for a host of comic-book superheroes that would follow. Recalling his youth in post-war Leningrad in the early 1950s, Joseph Brodsky wrote of the bootleg Tarzan movies he devoured at the local cinema, and the effect a “long-haired naked loner” had on the regimented, inhibited lives of Soviet youth: “The Tarzan (film) series alone, I daresay, did more for de-Stalinization than all of Khrushchev’s speeches.”

ME ELMO, YOU ENID…**Elmo Lincoln** as Tarzan and **Enid Markey** as Jane Porter in the 1918 silent film *Tarzan of the Apes*. The movie was released just six years after the publication of **Edgar Rice Burroughs’** short story and subsequent book. (times-herald.com/Wikipedia)

Starting with Elmo Lincoln in 1918, four different silent film actors portrayed Tarzan before Johnny Weissmuller (1904–1984) swung onto the screen with co-star Maureen O’Sullivan. Other Tarzan portrayers would follow, but it was Weissmuller—winner of five gold medals as an Olympic swimmer—who defined the role over two decades, starring in twelve Tarzan films from 1932 to 1948, O’Sullivan playing Jane in the first six of those films. Critic John Mosher sensed that Weissmuller was in for the long haul in just his second outing:

FAUX JUNGLE…Critic **John Mosher** was impressed by the wild and forbidding jungle scenes portrayed in *Tarzan and His Mate—*actually locations around Los Angeles. At left, MGM poster proclaims “Johnny Weissmuller is back again,” a reference to the 1933 dud *Tarzan the Fearless* starring **Buster Crabbe** (his single turn at Tarzan); top, Indian elephants taken from MGM’s zoo had attachments fixed to their ears and tusks to suggest African elephants; bottom, Weissmuller rides a rhino (named Mary), imported from a German zoo to appear in the scene. (Wikipedia/IMDB/Reddit)

NOTHING TO HIDE…*Tarzan and His Mate* has acquired cult status mainly due to **Maureen O’Sullivan’s** skimpy halter top and loincloth—in 1934 it was one of the most revealing costumes ever seen on the silver screen. Hays Code puritans had fits over scenes that showed O’Sullivan nude in silhouette and swimming *sans* bathing suit with Weissmuller (the swimming scene used a body double, Olympic swimmer **Josephine McKim**). On April 24, 1934, all prints of *Tarzan and His Mate* were ordered changed, the nude scenes removed—the original print was not restored until 1986. At bottom left, O’Sullivan on the set of *Tarzan and His Mate,* looking quite unperturbed. (IMDB/hotcorn.com/Twitter)

In 2003, the Library of Congress deemed Tarzan and His Mate “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant” and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry.

A note of trivia: Irish actress Maureen O’Sullivan (1911–1998) was the mother of actress Mia Farrow and grandmother of journalist Ronan Farrow. She’s also the grandmother of Soon-Yi Previn, Mia’s adopted daughter and current wife of Mia’s ex-partner, Woody Allen.

* * *

Spring Has Sprung

E.B. White began his weekly column with some thematic suggestions for the Maypole’s ceremonial ribbons. Excerpt:

A few of White’s references explained:

SPRING IS IN THE AIR, or in **E.B. White’s** case, horse manure, likely used to amend the soil in Bryant Park. In 1933 Parks Commissioner **Robert Moses** had the park’s Federal Hall replica demolished (erected in 1932 to commemorate the bicentennial of **George Washington’s** birth) and embarked on an ambitious facelift that included elevating the park from street level and planting numerous trees and hedges. The bottom image shows a 1934 view of the reconstruction looking south on 6th Avenue from 42nd Street. (Untapped Cities/NYC Parks Dept.)

White also referenced the “Neo-Angle” bathtub, shown here in an ad from the same issue:

…James Thurber added this embellishment along the bottom of White’s column…

* * *

Freaked Out

Alva Johnston contributed his third and final installment on the world of circus freaks, using descriptive language that would not pass muster today:

THE LONG AND SHORT OF IT…In his third installment of the world of circus freaks, **Alva Johnston** referenced the following performers, clockwise, from top left: circus giant Jack Earle; **Lady Little**, aka “Anita The Doll Lady,” on a 1918 postcard that described her as “26 inches high, 36 years old”; **Artie Atherton**, aka “Skeleton Dude,” weighing in at 38 pounds; Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus advertised “Geniune Ubangi Savages”—the word “Ubangi” was made up, plucked from a map of Africa because it sounded exotic. These “savages” were actually Congolese natives. (Pinterest/University of Sheffield/Worthpoint/Harry Ransom Center)

* * *

Biding Its Time

“The Talk of the Town” took notice of a lighthouse that was mounted atop the Seamen’s Church Institute, which overlooked New York Harbor from Battery Park. A time ball above the lighthouse would drop down a pole to signal twelve noon to ships in the harbor. Installed on April 15, 1913—to mark one year after the sinking of the RMS Titanic—the lighthouse and time ball were relocated to the South Street Seaport Museum in 1968.

REFUGE BY THE SEA…The Seamen’s Church Institute at 25 South Street (left) could house up to 580 seafarers in dormitory-style rooms. The building also housed a shipping bureau, a restaurant, a postal service and a chapel. When the building was demolished in 1968, the lighthouse and time ball were salvaged and relocated to South Street Seaport Museum. (southstreetseaportmuseum.org)

* * *

Gall of a Gaul

French writer Céline, aka Dr Louis Ferdinand Auguste Destouches (1894–1961), is considered by some to be one of France’s greatest 20th century writers, influencing the likes of Henry Miller, Samuel Beckett, and Charles Bukowski. However Céline is also widely reviled as a Nazi sympathizer and anti-semite, but whatever one thinks of the writer, most agree that he hated pretty much everyone. Clifton Fadiman tried to make sense of the bilious Céline and his most celebrated novel, Journey to the End of the Night (Voyage au bout de la nuit). An excerpt:

DON’T STAND SO CLOSE TO ME…The French writer **Céline** in a 1932 photograph. (Bibliothèque nationale de France)

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From Our Advertisers

There’s nothing hateful about these brightly colored blankets and throws if you were looking for something for Mother’s Day…

…it’s interesting how Fifth Avenue department stores such as Bonwit Teller embraced new-fangled synthetics made by Dupont—not exactly material favored by those to the manor born…

…however Lyda Roberti, the “Bright Particular Star” of the Broadway musical Roberta, seemed pleased to be sporting a gown spun from “Lastex,” formed from a combination of silk and rubber…

…more fashionable women, this time paired with Buick’s latest model displaying a bit of streamlined flair…

…the folks at General Tire touted the safety of their blowout-proof tires, but as with most things in the 1930s, the scene suggests little regard for safety in general…the boy driving the soapbox racer perilously close to the limo is not a supporter of the National Rifle Association—in the 1930s NRA stood for the New Deal’s National Recovery Act…

…recalling a style perfected by fashion illustrator Carl “Eric” Erickson, this lovely ad beckoned us to an outdoor cocktail party courtesy of Martini & Rossi…

…working the growing market of female smokers, the folks at Lucky Strike gave us this sophisticate caught in a pensive mood…

…of course advertisers also appealed to another female market, the majority of women stuck at home doing the cooking and cleaning…and so we have pandering ads like this one from Heinz (did people really read these things?)…

…another approach was to cast women as a nagging emasculators, here illustrated by James Thurber…

…however, in Thurber’s cartoon world, it was the men who got the upper hand in the final installment of his “war” series…

…Thurber was busy in this issue, also supplying this spot illustration…

…we switch to a more leisurely pace with Syd Hoff…

…and check in with Clarence Day, who in addition to his continuing “Life With Father” series occasionally contributed these illustrated poems…

…and we close with Otto Soglow, and an early bird who should have stayed in bed…

Next Time: A Tadpole on Wheels…

Model Citizens

Above: Modeling agency founder John Robert Powers poses with participants of a fashion queen contest at the 1939 New York World's Fair. (NYPL)

John Robert Powers was a household name in the 1930s, founder of one of the world’s first modeling agencies—he supplied countless advertisers with mostly female models, some moving on to Hollywood careers.

Writing for “A Reporter at Large” under the title “Perfect 36,” frequent New Yorker short story contributor Nancy Hale (1908 –1988) looked into the mysteries behind the fabled “John Powers Book” and its collection of sophisticated models.

TYPING BOOK…**John Robert Powers** (1892–1977) wrote a bestselling 1941 book, *The Powers Girls*, that told “the story of models and modeling and the natural steps by which attractive girls are created,” organizing various models by type; at right, a page from the book featuring **Elizabeth ‘Liz’ Gibbons**—despite her Alabama roots, she was described by Powers as being “The Urban Type.” (Wikipedia/lastyeargirl.blogspot.com)

Hale was given a tour by a company representative who described the types of women the Powers company represented, noting the successes of women who landed in major cigarette ads or went on to become Hollywood stars:

SMOKE AND MIRRORS…Clockwise, from top left: Powers model **Janice Jarratt** (in a 1934 publicity photo from her only film, *Kid Millions*), who for a time was known as the “Lucky Strike Girl” as well as the “most photographed woman in the world”; Jarratt offering a Lucky to a nervous young man in a 1935 ad; Powers model **Ethelyn Holt** in a publicity photo for the Billy Rose Theatre; Holt in a 1933 ad for Camel cigarettes. (MGM/NPR/NYPL/propadv.com)

A number of Hollywood stars got their start or were discovered through their work with Powers, who himself was a sometime actor and the subject of a 1943 musical comedy, The Powers Girl.

POWER STARS…Former Powers models turned Hollywood stars included, from left, **Norma Shearer,** **Frederic March** and **Kay Francis**. (TCM/TMDB)

A note about the author, Nancy Hale: A brilliant short story writer, Hale published her first short story in The New Yorker in 1929 (when she was just 21) and would publish more than eighty stories in the magazine through 1969—she holds the record for the most stories in the magazine in a single year, publishing twelve between July 1954 and July 1955. New Yorker editor William Maxwell regarded Hale’s writing technique as “flawless.”

PROLIFIC…**Nancy Hale** published more than a hundred short stories in her lifetime, ten of which were recipients of an O. Henry Prize. Writer **Joanne O’Leary** (*London Review of Books*) notes that Hale also worked for *Vogue* (where she “pinch-hit as a model”) and became the first female news reporter at the *New York Times. Above left,* Hale in an undated photo; *at right*, Hale photographed in 1936 for *Harper’s Bazaar*. (Nancy Hale Papers, Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College)

* * *

Tat For Tat

Alva Johnston explored the world of “tattooed people” in his second installment of a three-part profile series titled “Sideshow People”…

MARKED FOR LIFE…**Alva Johnston** noted such celebrated tattooed ladies as **Mae Vandermark** (left, circa 1920s), and **Lady Viola**, pictured at right with tattoo artist **Fred Clark**, 1930s. (Vintage Everyday)

INKSLINGER…**Charlie Wagner,** a tattoo artist who lived from 1875 to 1953, is considered one of the kings of American tattooing. Practicing his art in New York’s Bowery, he not only developed an influential art style; he invented new machinery that helped spread the art of modern tattooing. (nyctattooshop.com)

* * *

Bloody Satisfying

Film critic John Mosher declared David O. Selznick’s production Viva Villa! to be “thoroughly satisfying”—with a screenplay by Ben Hecht and starring actor Wallace Beery as Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa, the film was considered violent and bloody by 1934 standards.

REVOLUTIONARY…Clockwise, from top left, Pancho Villa (**Wallace Beery**) finds himself attracted to a benefactor’s sister (**Fay Wray**); MGM film poster; Beery with **Katherine DeMille** (who was **Cecil B. DeMille’s** adopted daughter) and **Stuart Erwin**; Beery striking a pose on the set of *Viva Villa!* (IMDB)

Mosher found some of the film’s violence to be startling. Being one the last Pre-Code films, censors would start clamping down on such scenes in the coming years.

MAKE SURE YOU GET MY GOOD SIDE…Pancho Villa (**Wallace Beery**) faces a firing squad before receiving a last-minute reprieve in *Viva Villa!* (IMDB)

* * *

From Our Advertisers

MGM took out a full-page ad to tout the success of Viva Villa and other MGM “hits”…

…note the bottom left hand corner of the MGM ad—a cartoon by Otto Soglow promoting the upcoming film Hollywood Party, a star-studded comedy musical featuring Laurel & Hardy, Jimmy Durante, Lupe Velez and Mickey Mouse…

…those looking for a different kind of entertainment could have been enticed by this lavish center-page spread from German ocean liner companies…they were inviting Americans to Oberammergau, Germany to witness the “only performances of the Passion Play until 1940″…the play was usually performed every ten years (years ending in the digit zero) but in 1934 a special performance was supported by the Nazi Party…incidentally, the 1940 play was cancelled due to World War II…

…the same German-American shipping companies also advertised an African cruise…with some racist imagery…

…perhaps you wanted to go to Europe on a ship with fewer Nazis on board…in that case you could grab a berth on a ship with the United States Lines, and hang out with these stiffs…

…the makers of Old Gold referenced a previous ad featuring Jimmy Durante with a new spot starring actor/comedian Eddie Cantor…both ads depicted impressionable young women admiring the smoking wisdom of older men…

…for reference, the creepy Durante ad…

…the famous “Call for Philip Morris” advertising campaign began during World War I, but in 1933 Johnny Roventini, a bellhop at the Hotel New Yorker, would become the living symbol of the cigarette brand…

…by contrast, Frankfort Distilleries showed us an image of man who would not represent them, namely Jed Clampett…

…Chevrolet continued its rebranding campaign, positioning itself as an affordable choice that was nevertheless favored by the posh set…

…who would rather be driving a Packard, here appealing to the nostalgic sensibilities of old-timers who had the means to afford one…

…on to our cartoons, and some “Small Fry” baseball from William Steig…

…an unusual captioned cartoon (from George Price) featured in the opening “Goings On About Town” section…

…Syd Hoff gave us an alarmed matron confronting the unthinkable…a doorman as a son-in-law…

…we haven’t seen Izzy Klein’s work in awhile—understandable, as he was busy in his career as an animator––in 1934 he worked on films for Van Beuren Studios (Rainbow Parade Cartoons) and in 1936 he would move to Disney’s Silly Symphonies…

…Paul Manship’s Prometheus at Rockefeller Center is iconic today, but when it was installed in 1934 it puzzled more than a few onlookers, including Robert Day…

…and we close with James Thurber, and a turn of events in his “war”…

Next Time: Lord of the Apes…

America’s Sweetheart

Above: A scene from Mary Pickford’s 1922 film Tess of the Storm Country. (Library of Congress)

In today’s celebrity-saturated culture it is difficult to find a parallel to silent film star Mary Pickford, who was dubbed Queen of the Movies more than a century ago. Indeed, during the 1910s and 1920s Pickford was regarded as the most famous woman in the world.

Pickford was also known as “America’s Sweet” for her portrayal of gutsy but tenderhearted heroines. In real life she was also a gutsy and shrewd businesswoman who co-founded United Artists in 1919 with Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, and director D. W. Griffith. Commanding a salary only rivaled by Chaplin, her stardom only grew when she married Fairbanks in 1920, forming the first celebrity supercouple; together they ruled Hollywood from their Beverly Hills mansion, Pickfair (apparently staging dull affairs, per the “Profile” excerpt below).

The end of the silent era also put an end to Pickford’s stardom, as well as to her fairytale marriage to Fairbanks. Margaret Case Harriman’s profile of Pickford, simply titled “Sweetheart,” gave readers a glimpse into the decline of a silent superstar. Excerpts:

SINGULAR STAR…Clockwise, from top left, **Mary Pickford** in a publicity photo, circa 1910; Pickford visits close friend and screenwriter **Frances Marion** during filming of *Straight is the Way* (1921); **Douglas Fairbanks** and Pickford in the early 1920s; Pickford with a movie camera in 1916—in addition to being a shrewd businesswoman, she was also skilled behind the camera. (thehollywoodtimes.today/Time/Library of Congress)

Harriman concluded her profile with some thoughts on Pickford’s future:

THE SOUND BARRIER…With the advent of sound movies **Mary Pickford** turned to writing books and serving various charities. From left, sharing ice cream with rising star **Bing Crosby** in 1934; center, **Al Frueh’s** caricature of Pickford for the profile; Pickford in a 1934 promotional picture supporting The Salvation Army. (Pinterest/Library of Congress)

A note on the profile’s writer, Margaret Case Harriman (1904-1966), who doubtless sharpened her people-watching skills at the Hotel Algonquin (famed birthing ground of the New Yorker), which was owned by her father, Frank Case. Douglas Fairbanks was one of Case’s best friends, and Harriman knew both Fairbanks and Pickford well, since they often stayed at the hotel.

HOME SWEET HOME…**Margaret Case Harriman**, photographed May 31, 1937 by Carl Van Vechten. Harriman was born in 1904 in room 1206 of the Hotel Algonquin, which was owned by her father, **Frank Case.** (Philadelphia Museum of Art)

* * *

Master of Masters

The founder of perhaps the world’s most prestigious golf tournament was an amateur and a working lawyer by profession. When Bobby Jones (1902–1971) co-founded the Masters Tournament in 1934 with investment dealer Clifford Robert, it was called the Augusta National Invitation Tournament (it was Robert’s idea to call it The Masters, a name Jones thought immodest). Jones dominated top-level amateur competition from the early 1920s through 1930—the year he achieved a Grand Slam by winning golf ’s four major tournaments in the same year. However, by the 1934 Jones’s skills began to wane. The New Yorker had little to say about the first Masters (it wasn’t a big deal yet), other than Howard Brubaker making this observation in “Of All Things”…

A SWING INTO HISTORY…**Bobby Jones** (center) drives during the first-ever Masters Tournament in Augusta, Georgia on March 22, 1934. (augusta.com)

* * *

From Our Advertisers

Wanna get away? This colorful advertisement beckoned New Yorker readers to take the next boat to sunny Bermuda…

…while the Grace Line offered a southern cruise through the Panama Canal…

…but who needed to travel when you could enjoy a beer that was beloved the world over?…

…Mrs. Potter d’Orsay Palmer nee Maria Eugenia Martinez de Hoz was content to stay home in Chicago and smoke a few Camels, apparently…

…we’ve encountered her before—she appeared in a Ponds ad (below) in the Aug. 8, 1931 issue of the New Yorker, where we learned she was wife No. 2 of Potter d’Orsay Palmer, son of the wealthy family of Chicago Palmer House fame…they would divorce in 1937, and the playboy Potter would marry two more times before dying of a cerebral hemorrhage in May 1939—following a drunken brawl in Sarasota, Florida with a meat cutter called Kenneth Nosworthy. Maria Eugenia would remarry and return to her homeland of Argentina to raise a family…

…this ad from Nash looks like a scene from Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, if she had a car to match, that is…

…the Cadillac V-16 was a truly massive automobile, but in contrast to the Nash ad, you can barely see the car as it approaches from the vanishing distance…

…E. Simms Campbell got in on the advertising game with this spot that features contrasting images of storm and calm…

…James Thurber offered this cartoon on behalf of Heinz soups…

…and Thurber again, as we kick off the cartoons with the ongoing battle…

…Adolph Schus made a rare appearance in the New Yorker…according to Ink Spill, he also contributed a cartoon on March 19, 1938, and was editor of Pageant Magazine in 1945…

…Gluyas Williams looked in on the sorrows of moneyed classes…

…Helen Hokinson’s “girls” were in search of lunch, and propriety…

…and Leonard Dove gave us a renter surprised by something not included in his lease…

…on to April 14, 1934…

April 14, 1934 cover by **Harry Brown.**

…and book reviewer Clifton Fadiman, who found F. Scott Fitzgerald’s literary gifts “bewilderingly varied”…

A NOT-SO-TENDER RECEPTION…**F. Scott Fitzgerald’s** status as a symbol of Jazz Age excess hurt his career during the Depression years. *Tender Is the Night* received mixed reviews, which didn’t help his alcoholism and deteriorating health. When **Carl Van Vechten** took this photo of Fitzgerald in June 1937, the author had a little over three years to live. (Wikipedia)

…speaking of F. Scott Fitzgerald, fellow author Ernest Hemingway defended Fitzgerald’s writing, arguing that criticism of his Jazz Age settings stemmed from superficial readings. One then wonders what Hemingway thought of E.B. White’s poetic “tribute” to his big game hunting excursions…

I ONLY SHOOT STRANGERS…Author Ernest Hemingway poses with a lion shot during a safari in Africa in 1934. (MPR News)

* * *

From History’s Ash Heap

Various reference sources cite “freak shows” as a normal part of American culture in the late 19th to the early 20th centuries, but I have to admit I saw exhibits at state fairs of half-ton humans and conjoined twins when I was a kid in the 1970s (not to mention things in jars at a carnival in St. Louis that should have been given a decent burial).

When Alva Johnston penned the first installment of a three-part profile series titled “Sideshow People,” such attractions could be found across the U.S. and Europe—Coney Island featured “Zip the Pinhead,” who was actually William Henry Johnson (1842–1926), one of six children born to former slaves living in New Jersey. His desperately poor parents agreed to allow P.T. Barnum to display him at a museum and at circus performances billed as a missing link, a “What-Is-It” supposedly caught in Africa.

FOR THE SUCKERS…**P.T. Barnum** exhibited **William Henry Johnson** as a “wild man”, a “What-Is-It” that subsisted on raw meat, nuts, and fruit, but was learning to eat more civilized fare such as bread and cake. Note the difference between the poster depiction at left and the actual man. Civil War-era photo at right by **Mathew Brady’s** photography studio in New York City. (National Portrait Gallery)

* * *

Floating and Sinking

As much as New Yorker cartoonists (and E.B. White) liked to take pokes at Chrysler’s futuristic Airflow, there was much to be admired by the innovations the car represented. Unfortunately, the car’s design was too advanced for the buying public, and despite a big manufacturing and sales push by Chrysler the car was shelved by late 1936.

Writing for Time, Dan Neil noted the Airflow’s spectacularly bad timing. “Twenty years later, the car’s many design and engineering innovations — the aerodynamic singlet-style fuselage, steel-spaceframe construction, near 50-50 front-rear weight distribution and light weight—would have been celebrated. As it was, in 1934, the car’s dramatic streamliner styling antagonized Americans on some deep level, almost as if it were designed by Bolsheviks.”

SEEMED LIKE A GOOD IDEA. A restored 1934 Airflow. (Hagerty Media)

* * *

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Maybe the buying public wasn’t ready for a car with a sloping hood and embedded headlights, but the folks at Cadillac were eager to unveil concepts for the new streamlined La Salle, which retained the familiar bullet headlights so as not to alarm consumers too much…

…and here’s a lovely image from Goodyear…I assume this woman is merely resting in a rumble seat, since this pose would not be possible above 25 mph…

…full-bleed color ads were coming into their own, as demonstrated by this stylish entry from the purveyors of silk garments…

…on the other hand, our well-heeled friends at Ponds stuck with the tried and true copy-heavy approach…here they offer the flawless features of Anne Gould (1913–1962), granddaughter of Gilded Age robber baron Jay Gould…

…R.J. Reynolds continued their campaign to convince us that Camels bring success to the average Joe and the champion athlete…

…the makers of Old Gold opted for the super creepy approach, asking entertainer Jimmy Durante to shove a pack of smokes into the face of what appears to be a teenager…

…here’s another ad from World Peaceways, reminding us of the futility of war…

…speaking of futility, you could visit the USSR, which doubtless took great pains to steer tourists away from mass starvation in Ukraine and mass executions of Stalin’s many “enemies”…

…while folks in the USSR were worshiping Lenin and Stalin, Americans were rightly transfixed by the miracle of Kellogg’s Corn Flakes…a producer of industrial and advertising films, Castle Films would become a subsidiary of Universal and would go on to make a line of science-fiction and horror films including The Wolf Man, The Mummy, and Creature from the Black Lagoon.

…on to our cartoons, Alain took on the recent MoMA exhibition of “Machine Art”…

…and speaking of machine art, George Price was to latest cartoonist to take a crack at the Airflow…

…James Thurber offered this bit of spot art for the opening pages…

…and returned to a somber scene on the battlefield of the sexes…

Next Time: Model Citizens…

Through the Looking Glass

Above, from left: When Teddy Roosevelt announced in 1912 that he would run for president against his former VP, William Howard Taft, Brown Brothers sent photographer Charles Duprez to Oyster Bay to take this famous photo; President Taft and his wife, Helen “Nellie” Taft, in 1909; famed New York Giants pitcher Christy Mathewson warms up before a game, circa 1912. (liveauctioneers.com/cabinetcardgallery.com/psacard.com)

Before there were photo agencies like Magnum or archives such as Getty Images there was a company named Brown Brothers, the world’s first stock photo agency founded by Arthur and Charles Brown in New York City in 1904.

March 24, 1934 cover by **Garrett Price.**

“The Talk of the Town” looked in on Brown Brothers, “the largest collection of photographs in the world—more than a million,” including a famous image of Teddy Roosevelt and the first photographic portrait of a woman’s face.

Brown Brothers photos could be seen everywhere in the early 20th century—their staff of twelve photographers provided images to New York newspapers at a time when the technology for publishing photos in the dailies was in its infancy and most papers didn’t employ staff photographers. Even the venerable New York Times hired the Browns to cover news events until they established their own team of photographers.

LITTLE DID **DOROTHY DRAPER** KNOW that she would become world famous when she sat for this photo (left) taken by her brother **Dr. John W. Draper** in his Washington Square studio at NYU in 1839 or 1840. Dorothy had to sit unblinking for the 65-second exposure—apparently her brother dusted her face with white flour to enhance the contrast. The Drapers still go down in history as creators of the oldest photo of a woman; at right, Dorothy Draper in the 1890s, in a photograph taken by her nephew. (boweryboyshistory.com/MCNY)

ONE IN A MILLION…The early 20th century image at left is just one of as many as three million images amassed in the Brown Brothers archive; at right, a Brown Brothers archivist at work. (Pinterest/sportscollectorsdigest.com)

Note: The Brown Brothers’ archive of photos and negatives went up for sale in 2014, and was ultimately acquired by Leland’s in 2020.

* * *

De Terraplane!

E.B. White (in “Notes and Comment”) was also looking at a photo, or rather scrutinizing one that was featured in a Saturday Evening Post advertisement for Hudson’s Terraplane:

…here is the ad from the Post…

…and a closer look at the image, which had White seeing double.

(Both images courtesy The Saturday Evening Post)

* * *

Escape Artist

In his “Of All Things” column, Howard Brubaker included the following item about a new telescope, ostensibly to set up a quip about John Dillinger’s recent prison break (his second):

YOUR DAYS ARE NUMBERED…The FBI issued this “Wanted” poster of gangster **John Dillinger**— “Public Enemy No. 1″—in June 1934. The Feds gunned him down a month later. (AP Photo)

* * *

Playing Nice

The New Yorker commented on the trend toward fewer fights in the world of hockey, and although fighting in general ebbed a bit through mid-century, it nevertheless remained a staple of the game. Indeed the New York Rangers founder, Tex Rickard, who also promoted boxing at Madison Square Garden, knew quite well that hockey fights were one reason folks attended the games.

FACE OFF?…At left, goaltender **Andy Aitkenhead** of the New York Rangers padded his legs and arms but put his clean-shaven mug on the line in December 1934— it wasn’t until 1959, 42 years into the NHL’s existence, that a league goalie wore a mask on the ice. At right, New York Rangers captain **Bill Cook** (right) flanks coach and manager **Lester Patrick** alongside **Frank Boucher** on the ice at the Chicago Stadium in November of 1934. (Pinterest)

* * *

From Our Advertisers

We begin with this sumptuous ad from Packard, appealing to those who could afford to own this luxury brand…

…if you couldn’t afford a Packard, you could rest assured that even a well-heeled deb could be happy with a Chevy…

…the folks at Powers Reproduction continued to tout the wonders of their color photography, even if their cake looked less than appetizing…

…Fanny Brice was appearing with the 1934 Ziegfeld Follies on Broadway, so the folks at Spud jumped on her celebrity bandwagon…

…while R.J. Reynolds was suggesting we replace our chewed up pencils with a nice Camel cigarette…now, don’t you feel better?…

…the Canadian distillery giant Gooderham & Worts offered all sorts of options to calm our jangled nerves in this two-page spread…

…while the Germans continued to entice us onto their cruise ships perfected by science and featuring “the strapping sons of sailor families”…hmmm…

…in 1934 the New Yorker began featuring mostly wordless cartoons on the opening page of “The Talk of the Town,” including this one by Robert Day featuring Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia checking up on city employees…

…Richard Decker gave us an Irish Sweepstakes winner from Brooklyn who displayed some modesty and media savvy…

…Decker again, with the latest in perambulators…

…Otto Soglow’s Little King put his back into a ceremonial groundbreaking…

…Peter Arno’s sugar daddy received some not-so-happy returns…

…one of William Steig’s “Small Fry” was doing some serious reading…

…and James Thurber’s war continued from the rooftops…

…on to March 31, 1934…

…where we find Alice Frankforter covering an exhibition dubbed “A Mile of Art.” I’m guessing critic Lewis Mumford passed on this opportunity to offer some blistering commentary. As for Frankforter, she found the spectacle puzzling, if not irritating. An excerpt:

Constantin Alajalov offered his perspective on the art world stunt with this bit of spot art…

…and more from Frankforter, now reaching a state of exhaustion and near-delirium as she approached the end of the exhibit:

* * *

Biblical Babbitts

Frank Buchman’s First Century Christian Fellowship (aka the Oxford Group) meeting in New York featured a lot of people chuckling and bubbling, but all that forced conviviality left critic Edmund Wilson feeling “quite morose.” Writing for the “A Reporter at Large” column, Wilson looked in on the group as they awaited Buchman’s arrival at a preliminary rally. The column was subtitled, “Saving the Better Classes and Their Butlers.” An excerpt:

Like other critics at the time, Wilson saw “Buchmanism” as bourgeois optimism and boosterism, interested more in converting the souls of the wealthy and celebrated rather than serving the needs of poor.

ODD COUPLE…**Frank Buchman** liked to be seen with the rich and famous. In 1939 he asked for a half hour of **Mae West’s** time, ostensibly to get this photo of him sharing some wisdom from his “Moral Re-assessment” booklet. West seems less than enamored by the encounter, regarding Buchman as some sort of alien creature; right, Buchman on the cover of April 20, 1936 edition of *Time*, which identified him as “Cultist Buchman.” (maewest.blogspot.com/Time)

* * *

Carnegie’s Couture

Vogue magazine fashion editor Nancy Hardin and the New Yorker’s fashion editor Lois Long teamed up on a profile about Hattie Carnegie (1889 -1956) titled “Luxury, Inc.” Born Henrietta Kanengeiser in Vienna, Carnegie immigrated with her family to New York in 1900; nine years later she adopted the name “Carnegie” after Andrew Carnegie, the richest person in America. Through hard work and an inherent instinct for what American women desired, she built a fashion design business that thrived in Depression and catered to stars and celebrities including Tallulah Bankhead, Joan Fontaine, Lucille Ball, and Joan Crawford. An excerpt, with illustration by Hugo Gellert:

FUR SURE…**Hattie Carnegie** posing for a 1951 *Vogue* magazine photo. (Vogue)

* * *

Steampunk Dream

In my previous entry I featured Robert Coates’s observations on the new Machine Art exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art. For the March 31 issue critic Lewis Mumford, celebrant of the simple and unpretentious, waxed nostalgic over the novel exhibit:

I’M A LITTLE TEAPOT that made a big advance in the design world, according to critic **Lewis Mumford.** (MoMA)

Alan Dunn was also inspired by the exhibit, as evidenced in this cartoon from the April 7 issue…

* * *

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Founded in October 1933, the men’s magazine Esquire took off with a bang, and the publishers were not shy about boasting of its early success…

…cover of the April 1934 issue, featuring the mustachioed mascot Esky…based on a drawing by cartoonist E. Simms Campbell, Esky was featured on the cover in various situations until 1961…

…Peter Arno’s “Whoops Sisters” appeared sixty-three times in the New Yorker between 1926 and 1927 before Arno retired them (they occasionally popped up in other publications, and in a 1931 Cunard ad)…it seems odd that they would make an appearance in a cheap thermometer ad in 1934…at any rate, it is difficult to tell if this is by Arno or by a clever forger…

…there’s no mistaking the cartoonist behind this ad…

…and this one by Otto Soglow…

…and we close our advertising section by raising a glass to Frankfort Distilleries…

…on to our March 31 cartoons, and a lineup of New Yorker regulars Abe Birnbaum…

…Barbara Shermund…

…Mary Petty…

…and James Thurber, with a break in the battle…

Next Time: America’s Sweetheart…

Art of the Machine

Above, at left, self-aligning ball bearing from SKF Industries, featured in MoMA's 1934 Exhibition of Machine Art; at right, judges for the exhibit were aviator Amelia Earhart and professors John Dewey and Charles R. Richards, holding first, second and third prizes, respectively. (MoMA)

The notion that machine-made objects have aesthetic value has been with us for some time, dating back to avant-garde movements of the early 20th century such as Futurism, which influenced other schools, including the Bauhaus and De Stijl. However, the idea that a museum would display a propeller or a vacuum cleaner as a work of art was startling to many in 1934.

It had been a little over twenty years since New York art patrons experienced their first shock of the new at the 1913 Armory Show. By 1929 the city had established the Museum of Modern Art, which opened the exhibition Machine Art on March 5, 1934, at MoMA’s second location—the old Barbour mansion at 11 West 53rd Street (razed in the late 1930s and replaced by today’s museum).

Novelist and art critic Robert M. Coates (1897–1973) paid a visit to the Machine Art exhibition and wrote of the experience in “The Talk of the Town.” Coates was no stranger to the avant garde, having himself embraced literary innovation and experimentation as a novelist. James Thurber is credited with bringing Coates to The New Yorker in 1927—the two became close friends—and Coates would stay forty years with the magazine. Excerpts:

EXTRAORDINARY ORDINARY…Clockwise, from top left: According to MoMA director **Alfred H. Barr,** Jr, the 1934 *Machine Art* exhibition celebrated the machine’s abstract and geometric beauty; MoMA found its second home—the Barbour mansion at 11 West 53rd Street—in 1932; sign on West 53rd advertising the exhibition; outboard propeller by Aluminum Company of America (Alcoa); collection of scientific beakers and flasks from Corning Glass Works. (MoMA)

KA-CHING!…*Machine Art* featured Model 1934 from National Cash Register; at right, Electrochef range, model B-2, designed by **Emil Piron** for Electromaster Inc. Objects featured in the exhibition were selected by noted architect **Phillip Johnson**, who was the founding chairman (1932-34) of the museum’s Department of Architecture. (MoMA)

IN A NEW LIGHT…Springs and wires took on new perspectives at the *Machine Art* exhibition. From left, the apparent first-prize winner (based on the photo of Earhart at the top of this entry)—a section of a large spring; cross-section of wire rope; and typewriter carriage and motor springs, all produced by American Steel & Wire Company, a subsidiary of US Steel. (MoMA)

* * *

Salad Days

Swiss-American restaurateur Oscar Tschirky (1866-1943), who was known throughout the world as Oscar of the Waldorf, worked as maître d’hôtel of the Waldorf Astoria in New York City from 1893 to 1943. He is credited with having created the Waldorf salad, along with any number of cocktail recipes. “The Talk of the Town” noted his latest concoction:

WINNING OSCAR…From 1893 to 1943 **Oscar Tschirky** was the Waldorf-Astoria’s public face and a gracious host who made both the great and the not-so-great feel welcome. At left, in 1923; at right, Tschirky samples the first shipment of beer to arrive at the Waldorf-Astoria when the brew became legal again in April 1933. (Library of Congress/Karl Schriftgiesser)

* * *

Unburdened

In the March 17 issue, writer and poet Langston Hughes (1901–1967) published the first of three fiction pieces that would appear in The New Yorker (one posthumously in 2016). In the short story “Why, You Reckon,” Hughes tells the tale of two hungry Black men who rob a rich white man by pushing him into a basement coal bin—one of the Black men takes the white man’s money, jewelry, shoes and overcoat, then rushes off, leaving his companion without any of the loot. To the companion’s surprise and befuddlement, the white man is left excited by the incident, because it is the first real thing that has happened to him. Here are the final lines of the story:

HARLEM RENAISSANCE LEADER **Langston Hughes** in a 1936 photo by **Carl Van Vechten.** A prolific writer and poet, Hughes published three short stories and three poems in *The New Yorker.* (Wikipedia)

* * *

From Our Advertisers

New Yorker ad sales were booming, and blooming with color…we kick it off with this ad from Coty touting “3 New Boxes for Face Powder!”…so why are there four boxes in the ad?…

…the obvious answer to the question posed below would be “wealth and privilege…and youth”…the “Eleanor Roosevelt” featured in this Pond’s ad is obviously not the wife of FDR, but rather Eleanor Katherine Roosevelt, the teenaged daughter of Assistant Secretary of the Navy Henry Latrobe Roosevelt…

…speaking of the high seas, I have to admit I sigh a little when I see ads like this, obviously staged, but suggest a style of travel that is as extinct as the T. Rex…

…perhaps those folks on the boat were enjoying a splash of Perrier in their evening cocktails…

…or maybe the domestic White Rock was on ice…why is the rich old coot so much shorter than his wife?…I guess it emphasizes her relative youthfulness and her maternal obligations to a child-like older man…

…their proportions are similar to Jiggs and Maggie, but that’s another story…

…R.J. Reynolds was back with their “jangled nerves” theme on behalf of Camel cigarettes…

…maybe your tires will hold, but have you checked your brakes lately?…

…in the 1930s the anti-war organization World Peaceways ran a series of provoking ads on the artificial glories of war…some magazines, including The New Yorker, ran these ads free of charge or at reduced rates…

…a closer view of the explanatory copy at the bottom of the ad…

…speaking of war, James Thurber opens our cartoons on a Connecticut battlefield…

…Al Frueh contributed this illustration for a two-part profile of entertainer and theatrical producer George M. Cohan…

…Alain (Daniel Brustlein) offered this spot art for the opening calendar section…

…Peter Arno gave us two fellows on thin ice…

…cartoonist Gregory d’Alessio made his first appearance in The New Yorker…

…Barbara Shermund was back with some tax advice…

…which this gentleman (by Alain) might have found useful…

…and we close with Mary Petty, and a little brown-noser with a taste for greens…

Next Time: Through the Looking Glass…

The Power Broker

Above: Robert Moses in 1939 with a model of his proposed Battery Bridge Park Reconstruction; at right, 1934 Bryant Park renovation, view to the south on 6th Avenue from 42nd Street. (Wikipedia/NYC Parks Department)

The title for this entry comes from Robert Caro’s landmark 1974 biography of Robert Moses, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York, which questioned the benefit of Moses’s monumental projects.

Like him or not, few unelected officials have wielded more power than Moses, who through various appointed positions, including New York City Parks Commissioner, he was able to impose his will on mayors, legislators, congressmen, wealthy burghers, and even, on occasion, The White House. In turn he imposed his will on the city itself, clearing whole neighborhoods to lay down new roads that extended from Manhattan to the tip of Long Island, where neither farmer nor landed gentry could stand in his way. A profile written by Milton MacKaye examined what made Moses tick. An excerpt:

DON’T YOU DARE PUT ME ON HOLD…Relentless doesn’t begin to describe **Robert Moses’s** pursuit of power. Clockwise, from top left, Moses circa 1930; one of the swimming pools at the west bathhouse at Long Island’s Jones Beach, a project that helped launch Moses’s road to power; Long Island Expressway, which transformed Long Island from farm country (and a retreat for the rich) into a land of bedroom communities and public parks; the east parking field at Jones Beach. (Britannica/Library of Congress/U.S. National Archives)

In another excerpt, MacKaye noted that Moses had been named a member of the Triborough Bridge Authority; Moses would ultimately become chairman, and through this position would possess enormous, unchecked power and influence. Moses was skilled at creating legal structures that would favor his ambitions, burying language into legislative bills and other documents that would make him impervious to influence from mayors, legislators, governors and other elected officials.

A DIFFERENT KIND OF PLAYGROUND…Moses intensely disliked former New York Mayor Jimmy Walker, who used the Central Park Casino (top left) as his personal playground. Moses exacted his vengeance by having the historic casino razed in 1935 and replaced with the Rumsey Playground; at right, the 1936 Triborough Bridge (**Berenice Abbot** photo), a cluster of three separate spans connecting the Bronx, Manhattan, and Queens. It was developed through Moses’s Triborough Bridge Authority, which was impervious to influence from mayors, legislators and governors. While the city and state were strapped for funds, Moses reaped millions from tolls, which financed his other ambitions; bottom left, Moses in 1938. (Wikipedia/transalt.org/Library of Congress)

Final note, I highly recommend Caro’s The Power Broker—it’s a doorstop of a book, but also one of the best biographies of the 20th century and a must-read for anyone who wishes to understand how present-day New York came to be, and how it really works.

* * *

Let’s Talk About the Weather

Robert Benchley, writing under the pseudonym Guy Fawkes, took a turn at “The Wayward Press” column, commenting on the sensationalistic coverage of the weather by the local press. In all fairness to the press, New York City had endured a blizzard as well as the coldest temperature ever recorded for the city: 15 below zero (Fahrenheit) on Feb. 9, 1934. (According to newspaper accounts, it was 14.3 below).

Benchley also commented on journalist Ernest Gruening (1887–1974), who was the editor of the New York Post for only four months in 1934, but during those four months he really shook things up.

EASY BOSS…**Ernest Gruening** was editor of the *New York Post* for only four months in 1934, but during that time he made life better for his newsroom employees by implementing an unheard of 40-hour work week. Gruening went on to serve as the governor of the Alaska Territory from 1939 until 1953, and as a U.S. Senator from Alaska from 1959 until 1969. (Photo from 1935 via Wikipedia)

Robert Benchley thought the press made too much of the city’s snowy weather, but these newsreels tell a different story:

* * *

Punch Drunk

Critic John Mosher found slim pickings at the local movie houses, opting for Jimmy Durante’s Palooka as the best of crop:

RIBALDRY AT RINGSIDE…Clockwise from top left, Knobby Walsh (**Jimmy Durante**) tries to press his advantage during the weigh-in of boxer Al McSwatt (portrayed by **William Cagney,** the look-alike younger brother of **James Cagney**) in 1934’s Palooka; Durante thinks he’s found a winning fighter in Joe Palooka (**Stuart Erwin**); Joe’s father, Pete Palooka (**Robert Armstrong**) demonstrates why he’s nicknamed “Goodtime” with the help of Trixie (**Thelma Todd**); Durante with **Lupe Vélez**, who portrayed glamorous cabaret singer and fortune hunter Nina Madero. (IMDB)

* * *

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We start with a couple ads from the back pages…the promoters of Chicago’s famed Stevens Hotel offered a unique perspective as they appealed to New Yorkers to come check out the “Century of Progress” World’s Fair, which proved so popular that it planned to reopen in May for a second year…at right, The Gotham catered to the ladies with a special cocktail bar that only allowed men in the company of a woman…

NICE DIGS…At left, The Stevens Hotel (now Hilton Chicago) and, at right, The Gotham (now The Peninsula) are happily still with us today. (Wikipedia)

…cigarette manufacturers continued to work on their biggest growth market with ads like this one from the Lorillard Tobacco Company…here a perceptive woman chooses to ignore the “brazen claims” of other tobacco companies and makes an informed decision to inhale an Old Gold…

…Liggett & Myers, on the other hand, stuck with this subservient pose, suggesting both are happy with their cigarette, and their station in life…

…another colorful ad from the makers of Schlitz beer…following the end of Prohibition Schlitz quickly became the world’s top-selling brewery, a position it would hold into the 1960s until it switched to cheaper brewing methods…

…the makers of Fisher car bodies (owned by General Motors) continued their lavish two-page spreads touting the homey comforts of their interiors…

…and no more staid ads from luxury carmaker Packard, who ran this full-color, full-bleed spot…

…it’s almost springtime for Hitler, and Germany welcomed American tourists with promises of “Dreaming Villages” (whatever those are), charming health spas and places of romance and beauty…hmmm, no mention of swastika flags hanging from every building, or parades of goose-stepping thugs…

…this public service ad promoted the effectiveness of the National Recovery Act, offering the uptick in underwear sales as a sure sign of economic growth…

…on to our cartoonists, we begin with Helen Hokinson experiencing the results of the recent blizzard…

…as did Henry Anton, with a befuddled meteorologist…

…Alain (Daniel Brustlein) gave us this wordless gem…

…while Garrett Price presented a sculptor’s greatest challenge…

…Alan Dunn gave us two women who expected more pizzazz from a recent funeral…

…Peter Arno contended with some Peeping Toms…

…and James Thurber looked in on recent maneuvers in his war between the sexes…

Next Time: Art of the Machine…

Rocky’s Cover-Up

On April 28, 1933, just two days before the RCA Building was to open to new tenants, artist Diego Rivera added a portrait of Vladimir Lenin to the mural he was painting in the building’s lobby.

Feb. 24, 1934 cover by **Garrett Price.**

When Nelson Rockefeller asked Rivera to replace Lenin with a portrait of an “everyman,” Rivera refused, stating that he would prefer to see the whole mural destroyed than to alter it. Two weeks later Rivera was paid and dismissed from the job; carpenters immediately covered the mural in a white cloth. Fast forward to Saturday, February 10, 1934, when workers showed up late in the evening and began chipping away at the plaster bearing the mural, reducing Rivera’s artwork to dust. E.B. White, in his “Notes and Comment,” had this to say about that fateful night:

DUST TO DUST…**Diego Rivera** working on his mural, *Man at the Crossroads*, in the RCA Building lobby in 1933. At right, workers quickly covered up the mural after Rivera was dismissed from the job. One of Rivera’s artist assistants, **Lucienne Bloch**, clandestinely took the photo before she was escorted from the building. (Wikipedia/6sqft.com)

ARTEM INTERRUPTUS…Mexican artist **Diego Rivera** stands with a copy of the mural he painted at Rockefeller Center that was eventually destroyed. (A. Estrada /Courtesy of Museo Frida Kalho)

Rea Irvin shared his own thoughts on the issue with this illustration below, which referenced the hateful rhetoric of Charles Coughlin, a Canadian-American Catholic priest and populist leader and one of the first public figures to make effective use of the airwaves to spew his invective.

FAMILIAR RING…**Charles Coughlin**, a Catholic priest and populist leader, promoted antisemitic and pro-fascist views while also acting as a champion to the poor and a foe of big business. In the midst of the Depression he spoke to the hopes and fears of lower-middle class Americans throughout the U.S. One supporter recalled: “When he spoke it was a thrill like Hitler. And the magnetism was uncanny. It was so intoxicating, there’s no use saying what he talked about…” (BBC/NPR)

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Dog Days

E.B. White also chimed in about boorish behavior he witnessed at the Westminster Kennel Club show at Madison Square Garden. Terriers had dominated Westminster; the fox terrier that ultimately won the 1934 competition represented the 21st terrier of any type to win Best of Show since that category was introduced in 1907.

YOU AGAIN? Ch Flornell Spicy Bit of Halleston, a Wire Fox Terrier, took Best of Show at Madison Square Garden in 1934. (westminsterkennelclub.org)

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Anybody Home?

After the wealthy owner of the New York World, Joseph Pulitzer, died in 1911, his family moved out of his lavish East 73rd Street mansion, which was designed by Stanford White to resemble an Italian palazzo. The building sat empty until 1930, when investors planned to knock it down and replace it with an apartment building. The Depression foiled their plans, and another attempt to raze the mansion in the 1950s also miraculously failed, and the building was eventually converted into a co-op with sixteen apartments. Writing in “The Talk of the Town,” James Thurber pondered the Pulitzer mansion’s expected fate. An excerpt:

THEN AND NOW…With so many buildings reduced to dust these days in NYC, it’s good to see the Pulitzer mansion still standing. You can buy one of its sixteen apartments for roughly $6 million, if and when they become available. (ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com)

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The makers of Camel cigarettes combined three previous ads into one, featuring endorsements from society matrons in Boston, Washington, D.C., and New York…

…while Fanny Brice and the cast of the 1934 Ziegfeld Follies offered a chorus of endorsements for Lux detergent in this two-page spread…

…the Graham-Paige Motors Corporation is long gone, but in the early 1930s the company was still going strong, introducing many innovations (described in the ad below) that would be copied by other carmakers…

…in the 1930s an exiled Russian noble, Count Alexis de Sakhnoffsky, was known for his streamlined automobile designs…he influenced the look of the 1934 Nash Ambassador Eight, which was touted here as the choice of the budget-minded toff…note how the illustrator exaggerated the car’s length in this ad…

…as compared to an actual model of a Nash Eight…

A restored 1934 Nash Ambassador Eight. (classiccars.com)

…on to our cartoonists, Alan Dunn floated above the “Goings On About Town” section…

…William Steig gave us a tactless grocer…

…Howard Baer offered up some finer points from Madison Avenue…

…Gardner Rea illustrated a very special delivery…

…and James Thurber’s war continued to be waged on a snowy battlefield…

…on to our March 3, 1934 issue…

…which featured a profile of singer Kate Smith (1907–1986), written by none other than Joseph Mitchell (1908-1996), who began his career at The New Yorker in 1933. Smith was an American contralto often referred to as “The First Lady of Radio,” well known for her renditions of When the Moon Comes over the Mountain and Dream a Little Dream of Me. She was enormously popular during World War II for her rendition of God Bless America among other patriotic tunes.

Smith got her start in New York in 1926 when she appeared on Broadway in Honeymoon Lane. That year also saw the emergence of countless humiliating wisecracks about her weight that would dog her long career. A reviewer in The New York Times (Oct. 31, 1926) wrote, “A 19-year-old girl, weighing in the immediate neighborhood of 200 pounds, is one of the discoveries of the season…” In 1930, when Smith appeared in George White’s Flying High, she served as the butt of Bert Lahr’s often cruel jokes about her size.

An excerpt from the opening lines of Mitchell’s profile:

RISING STAR…At left, **Kate Smith** performing in the 1932 Paramount Pictures musical, *Hello Everybody!*; at right, on the cover of the October 1934 issue of *Radio Mirror.* (medium.com)

Toward the conclusion of the profile Mitchell suggested that Smith’s future was “doubtful.” She would prove that prediction wrong, however…

…23 years after her death her rendition of God Bless America would be discontinued pretty much everywhere when it was revealed that in the early 1930s she recorded such songs as That’s Why Darkies Were Born and Pickaninny Heaven (which was featured in Hello, Everybody!).

CANCELLED STAR…Since the late 1960s a rendition of *God Bless America* by Kate Smith served as a good luck charm for the Philadelphia Flyers. “The team began to win on nights the song was played,” the *New York Times* wrote in Smith’s 1986 obituary. Smith sang the tune live during game six of the 1974 Stanley Cup finals, which the Flyers went on to win against the Boston Bruins. When Smith’s racist songs were rediscovered in 2019, a statue of the singer that stood outside the Flyers’ arena was covered and ultimately removed. (Daily Mail)

A note on Joseph Mitchell, whose first credited piece in The New Yorker was a Nov. 11, 1933 “A Reporter at Large” column titled “They Got Married in Elkton.” The article described a small Maryland border town that became known for discrete “quicky” marriages. Mitchell would become known for his finely crafted character studies and expressive stories found in commonplace settings. His 1943 McSorley’s Wonderful Saloon is a prime example.

MAN ABOUT TOWN…At left, **Joseph Mitchell** circa 1930, wearing a brown fedora he was rarely seen without; at right, Mitchell in Lower Manhattan near the old Fulton Fish Market, as photographed by his wife, **Therese Mitchell**, circa 1950. (Estate of Joseph Mitchell)

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Acquired Taste

Occasionally New Yorker film critic John Mosher found himself at odds with other reviewers, and such was the case when Mosher sat down to watch Frank Capra’s It Happened One Night. While he described the 1934 pre-Code romantic comedy as “nonsense” and “dreary,” other critics found it generally enjoyable, and although it took audiences awhile to catch on, the film eventually became a smash hit.

In all fairness to Mosher, even the film’s co-star, Claudette Colbert, complained to a friend after the film wrapped, “I just finished the worst picture in the world.” As it turned out, It Happened One Night became the first of only three films to win all five major Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Adapted Screenplay. It is now widely considered one of the best films ever made. Go figure.

Back to Mosher, who thought so little of the film he didn’t even lead his column with the picture’s review:

PRE-CODE AND TOPLESS…An heiress (**Claudette Colbert**) and a reporter (**Clark Gable**) find themselves hitchhiking (and sharing a motel room) after their bus breaks down in *It Happened One Night*. The film famously featured a scene in which co-star Gable undresses for bed and takes off his shirt to reveal that he is bare-chested. An urban legend claims that, as a result, sales of men’s undershirts declined noticeably. (IMDB)

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If you wanted luxury with the price, you could buy a Nash Ambassador Eight for $1,800 (about thousand less than other luxury models) or opt for Studebaker’s Berline Limousine, practically a steal at $1,295…

…or you could opt for this fancy-looking Buick with “Knee-Action wheels”…Knee Action was a GM marketing term for independent front suspension, which made for a smoother ride…

…always colorful, the makers of Cinzano vermouth made their splash in The New Yorker…

…the folks at Lucky Strike continued their theme of colorful ads featuring attractive women enjoying their cigs…

…on to our cartoonists, Leonard Dove illustrated a domestic spat…

…Mary Petty captured a romantic interlude on the dance floor…

…and James Thurber introduced a new twist—espionage—into his “war”…

Next Time: The Power Broker…

And Now We Are Nine

Above: It took a few issues for the editors to sort out regular features and their order of appearance. The opening section of Issue No. 1 featured the famous Rea Irvin masthead that would introduce “The Talk of Town” for many issues to come. In Issue No. 1, however, “Of All Things” appeared first under the masthead, followed by “The Talk of the Town." Let us hope the magazine restores the original Rea Irvin masthead for its 100th anniversary.

Despite the lingering Depression The New Yorker entered its ninth year on strong financial footing. With nearly equal numbers of subscribers and single copy sales, circulation would approach 125,000 in 1934, with more than $2.2 million in advertising income.

Feb. 17, 1934 cover by **Rea Irvin** (naturally).

In his “Notes and Comment,” E.B. White commented on the “more vigorous times” the magazine was enjoying, declaring “it is fine to be nine.”

THE NEW YORKER SEVEN…In 1924, baking product heir **Raoul Fleischmann** put up $25,000 to help **Harold Ross** get his new magazine off the ground. To assuage Fleischmann’s doubts regarding his investment, Ross persuaded some of his Algonquin Round Table cronies to appear on the magazine’s purely ceremonial masthead. The seven who appeared on the first masthead were, from top left, **Ralph Barton, Marc Connelly, Rea Irvin,** and **George S. Kaufman;** bottom row, from left, are **Alice Duer Miller, Dorothy Parker**, and Alexander Woollcott.

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Daffy Dilettante

Another Algonquin Round Table crony, Harpo Marx, was a skilled artist when it came to comedy, pantomime, or the harp, but when he decided to take up a brush and palette he struggled to properly paint a female nude. In this account from “The Talk of the Town,” Harpo eventually abandoned his painting and switched places with the model.

BRUSHING UP ON HIS ART…Undated photo of **Harpo Marx** putting finishing touches on his painting of an accordion player; Harpo was a one of the Algonquin Round Table originals: a 1919 photo features (standing, left to right) **Art Samuels** and **Harpo Marx;** (sitting) **Charles MacArthur, Dorothy Parker,** and **Alexander Woollcott**. (Twitter/Wikipedia)

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Ode to Faraway Lands

A renowned author of children’s poetry, David McCord (1897-1997), was also a frequent contributor to The New Yorker for thirty years (1926-56). For the Feb. 17 issue he penned these sonnets to the Baedeker travel guide.

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Wimpy Vernacular

Architecture, art and cultural critic Lewis Mumford paused in his criticism of everything from liquor stores to cheap restaurants to offer some surprising praise to his city’s “black-and-white hamburger palaces.”

RED MEAT RIVALS White Tower and White Castle vied for customers in 1930s New York. Above, a 1933 photo of a White Tower in the 200 block of 2nd Avenue; below, a circa 1930 photo of a White Castle in the Bronx. (gothamist.com/Cision)

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Advertising income reached an all-time high at The New Yorker in 1934, and it showed with the numerous color ads enticing travel to Bermuda…

…or to the French wine country…

…Hiram Walker presented their Canadian Club whisky on what appeared to be a cloth napkin…

…artist Hans Flato continued his unusual Ruppert’s Beer series of mannequin people (and dogs) going about their lives stuck to yellow discs…

…according to the Ruppert’s ad, for six bottle caps you could get a tin coaster like those pictured below…

…from magicians and salesmen to sportsmen and high society, the folks pushing Camel cigarettes seemed to try every angle to get their product into the mouths of as many consumers as possible…

…the makers of Spud menthol cigarettes, on the other hand, tried a little humor to get smokers hooked on their “mouth happiness”…

…as one of the world’s most popular car brands, Chevrolet has long been considered a car for the masses, although this ad campaign launched in 1934 suggested that the ubiquitous Chevy was just the car for a connoisseur of the finer things…

…the staid luxury auto maker Pierce Arrow broke with tradition by placing this very modern, minimalist ad…

…the folks at Steinway also adopted a modern look with this single column ad touting the durability of their grand pianos…

…The Viking Press took out this full-page ad to announce the publication of Alexander Woollcott’s While Rome Burns, a collection of some of Woollcott’s writings for The New Yorker and other magazines…

…according to the ad, for six bucks you could get one of 500 limited edition signed copies…as of this writing, the inscribed and signed edition below was available for $350…