Nightlife – A New Yorker State of Mind

A Joycean Odyssey

Above, James Joyce and his longtime partner Nora Barnacle, in Zurich, 1930. They would marry the following year when Joyce established residency in the UK. (SUNY Buffalo)

It began 103 years ago when the American literary magazine The Little Review published its latest installment of James Joyce’s landmark novel Ulysses—a chapter that featured an account of a wanker on a beach.

Jan. 20, 1934 cover by **Adolph K. Kronengold.**

More specifically, the passage described the novel’s main character, Leopold Bloom, pleasuring himself while gazing at a teenage girl. It didn’t take long for the pearl-clutchers at the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice to go after the editors of The Little Review, who were ultimately fined for obscenity and banned from publishing the remainder of the novel, which, by the way, Joyce had structured along the lines of Homer’s epic poem, the Odyssey.

Scenes in the novel that frankly described sexual acts and mocked rituals of the Catholic Church kept the book off American shelves until 1934, when District Judge John M. Woolsey ruled that the book was neither pornographic nor obscene. One wonders if Judge Woolsey took a cue from the end of Prohibition.

Lovers of literature, including New Yorker book reviewer Clifton Fadiman, rejoiced at the judge’s decision. We skip ahead to the Jan. 27 issue for Fadiman’s thoughts on the matter:

DUBLINER…**James Joyce** in 1928, as photographed by **Berenice Abbott**; announcement by Shakespeare & Company (Paris) of the first publication of *Ulysses,* 1921; cover of the American first edition, 1934, with **Ernst Reichl’s** “calmly audacious” jacket design. (Wikipedia/Abe Books)

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Pleasurable Diversion

We now turn to the Jan. 20 issue, in which Robert Benchley concluded his stage reviews with a generous nod to his dear friend and colleague, Dorothy Parker, whose short stories were being performed as sketches at the Barbizon-Plaza Hotel, the first fully-equipped music and arts residential center in the U.S.

INCIDENTAL ATTRACTION…Stories from **Dorothy Parker’s** 1933 collection *After Such Pleasures* were performed as sketches at the Barbizon-Plaza Hotel; at left, Parker with her husband, actor/author **Alan Campbell.** (Pinterest/Biblio)

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Une Séduction Américaine

Janet Flanner began writing her weekly New Yorker column “Letter from Paris” in September 1925, keeping readers informed on a variety of subjects ranging from arts and culture to politics and crime. In the Jan. 20 issue she introduced readers to French actor Charles Boyer (1899–1978), who was preparing to try his luck in Hollywood. Actually, Boyer made his first trip to Tinseltown in 1930, but his return would mark the beginning of a successful run in American cinema, including the 1944 mystery-thriller Gaslight and the 1967 romantic-comedy Barefoot in the Park.

MAKING BEAUTIFUL MUSIC…**Charles Boyer** as the ” gypsy” vagabond Latzi, with **Jean Parker** (center) and **Loretta Young** in 1934’s *Caravan*. (MoMA)

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The Way Of All Flesh

Lois Long continued to chronicle New York nightlife in her “Tables for Two” column, exuding “rapture” over the new theatre/restaurant Casino de Paree, which featured ample nudity as well as top performers dancer Bill “Bojangles” Robinson and comedienne Sheila Barrett.

The Casino de Paree featured revues, dancing, and side shows such as fire-eaters and animal acts. It closed in 1937, and the building later became home to the trendy 80s–90’s hot spot Studio 54.

CLOTHES OPTIONAL…A 1934 brochure offered glimpses of the entertainment to be had at the new theatre/restaurant Casino de Paree.

The Casino de Paree’s menu gave patrons some idea of what could be expected on the stage…

…but if food and drink was the only thing on your mind, you could enjoy lobster thermidor for a buck seventy-five…

(The Culinary Institute of America Menu Collection; Craig Claiborne Menu Collection)

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From Our Advertisers

How reliable were Goodyear’s tires? Hopefully more reliable than this adage, which Abraham Lincoln apparently never uttered…

…major exhibitions at the Grand Central Palace changed like the seasons, the National Automobile Show ceding to the National Motor Boat & Engine Show…

…if you’d rather have someone else do the sailing, the Bermuda line could take you on a round-trip cruise for as little as $60…

…with the end of Prohibition, the folks at White Rock were doubtless pleased to overtly advertise their product as a cocktail mixer…

…on to our cartoonists, Al Frueh contributed this rendering for the theatre review section…

…Daniel ‘Alain’ Brustlein found this salon conversation a bit Mickey Mouse…

…Helen Hokinson explored the results of family planning…

…E. Simms Campbell gave us an unlikely den of thieves…

…Gilbert Bundy had us wondering what ensued at this gentlemen’s club…

…and James Thurber fired the first shot in The War Between Men And Women…

…on to Jan. 27, 1934…

…where writer W.E. Woodward profiled Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951), whose manner had changed noticeably after receiving the Nobel Prize. An excerpt (with caricature by Al Frueh):

I’M SOMEBODY NOW…**Sinclair Lewis** (far right) with his 1930 Nobel Prize for literature. Other 1930 prize winners were, from left, **Venkata Raman** (physics), **Hans Fischer** (chemistry), and **Karl Landsteiner** (medicine).

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We begin with this lovely color illustration by Helen Hokinson, which also graced the cover of the January 1934 issue of The Stage…

…the vintners at Moët & Chandon let New Yorkers know that their fine Champagne could be had from sole distributors Labourdette and Company…

…cultural critic Gilbert Seldes advised drinkers to abandon their degraded ways and return to the civilized consumption of an old favorite…

…while the folks at Guinness reminded us of their product’s deep history as well as its health benefits…

…and for the teetotalers the purveyors of Joyz Maté encouraged Yankees to take up this “strange” South American drink…the ad claimed it “fortifies the body against fatigue” (thanks to the generous amount of caffeine) and acts as a “corrective and a balancer” (it helped stimulate bowel movements)…

…on to our cartoons, we begin with Gardner Rea, borrowing from a running gag in the Marx Brothers’ 1930 film Animal Crackers, which featured Harpo chasing a sexy blonde around a mansion (apologies for the poor reproduction quality—the archival image was quite faint)…

…Gilbert Bundy gave us a couple confronting the subtleties of Times Square…

…Robert Day commented on the latest trend in taxicab conveniences: coin-operated radios for passengers…

…this two-page Little King cartoon by Otto Soglow revealed another side to our diminutive potentate…

…and the war between the sexes raged on, with James Thurber…

Next Time: Under the Knife…

America’s Love Affair

New York’s first big event of the new year was the annual National Auto Show centered at the Grand Central Palace.

The year 1934 was all about aerodynamic design, with Chrysler leading the way with its ill-fated Airflow, a bit too ahead of its time. Other companies followed suit in more subtle ways, especially smaller manufacturers looking for novel ways to grab a cut of market share.

The trend in streamlining was inspired by such designers as Norman Bel Geddes, R. Buckminster Fuller and John Tjaarda…

SLIPPERY SEDANS…Top left, a 1933 Briggs concept car, designed by John Tjaarda, on display at the Ford Exposition of Progress in Detroit; right, a 1932 concept model of Motorcar No. 9 by **Norman Bel Geddes**; below, a reproduction of **R. Buckminster Fuller’s** 1933 Dymaxion car. (detroitpubliclibrary.org/Harry Ransom Center/Wikipedia)

Chrysler pulled out all stops to promote its radical new design at the National Auto Show, even producing a special seven-page newspaper, Chrysler News, to promote the car’s many wonders…

…the inside pages featured the New Yorker’s Alexander Woollcott marveling over the Airflow’s design (at the time Woollcott was a Chrysler pitchman).

Although other manufacturers didn’t go as far as Chrysler, the streamlining trend was seen in slanting radiators and sweeping fenders.

LAIDBACK DESIGN…Clockwise, from top left, 1934 Hudson Terraplane K-coupe; 1934 Studebaker President Land Cruiser; 1934 Graham-Paige; 1934 Hupmobile. (hemmings.com/auto.howstuffworks.com/YouTube)

The review also noted the novel way Pierce-Arrow sound-insulated their motorcars:

IT’S STUFFY IN HERE…For sound insulation, luxury carmaker Pierce Arrow used kapok, a fine, fibrous, cotton-like substance that grows around the seeds of the tropical ceiba tree. (Pinterest)

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Wearing the Pants

In 1934 it was still something of a scandal for a woman to wear trousers. Like Marlene Dietrich, Greta Garbo was an actress who could and would defy gender boundaries, and in Queen Christina she effortlessly portrayed the Swedish queen, who in real life was given an education and responsibilities expected of a male heir and often dressed as a man. The film was a critical success, although John Mosher felt Garbo overwhelmed the movie.

READY FOR HER CLOSEUP…Clockwise, from top left, in one of cinema’s most iconic scenes, Queen Christina (**Greta Garbo**) stands as a silent figurehead at the bow of a ship as the camera moves in for a tight close-up; Garbo with co-star and real-life romantic partner **John Gilbert**—it was the last of the four films the two would make together; Christina kisses her handmaiden Ebba (**Elizabeth Young**)—some have suggested Garbo was portraying the queen as bisexual, however the kisses with Ebba were quite chaste; MGM film poster. (moviemaker.com/pre-code.com/IMDB)

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She Also Wore Pants

Katharine Hepburn quickly took Hollywood by storm, earning her first Oscar at age 26 for her performance in 1933’s Morning Glory. However, New Yorker drama critic Robert Benchley didn’t see that talent necessarily translating to the Broadway stage, at least not in The Lake:

A RARE FLOP…**Robert Benchley** thought it was “almost cruel” to foist **Katharine Hepburn’s** stardom onto the stage in a flop like *The Lake.* At left, cover of the *Playbill*; at right, Hepburn in one of the costumes for the production. (Playbill/Facebook)

Benchley correctly surmised that the play’s producer, Jed Harris, was trading on the young star’s “meteoric” film success, but Hepburn’s beauty and intelligence were not enough to save this critical flop, which closed after 55 performances.

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On the Town

The chronicler of New York fashion and nightlife, Lois Long, detested Prohibition but after repeal also missed the intimacy of speakeasy life. In her latest “Tables for Two” column Long seemed to be settling into a routine and finding new favorites, like the Waldorf’s Sert Room and Peppy de Albrew’s Chapeau Rouge.

THIS WILL DO NICELY…**Lois Long** sipped Casanova ’21 champagne while enjoying the music of Catalonian violinist **Enric R. Madriguera** (bottom left) amid the murals of Madriguera’s countryman **Josep Maria Sert** (right images) in the Waldorf-Astoria’s Sert Room. (waldorfnewyorkcity.com/Wikipedia)

FAMILIAR FACES…No doubt **Lois Long** knew Argentine dancer **Abraham “Peppy” de Albrew** (left) from his days at **Texas Guinan’s** notorious 300 Club; Long found de Albrew’s new club, Chapeau Rouge, to be a welcoming slice of Paris, enlivened by the dancing of Antonio and Renee de Marco, pictured at right with their dogs in front of San Francisco’s Fairmont Hotel, circa 1937. (Wikipedia/digicoll.lib.berkeley.edu)

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From Our Advertisers

Thanks to the auto show the New Yorker was raking in a lot of advertising dollars on top of the steady income from tobacco companies and the new infusion of revenue from purveyors of adult beverages…Lucky Strike grabbed the back cover for this striking ad…

…and contrary to the wisdom of the ages, American speed skater Irving Jaffee (who won two gold medals at the 1932 Winter Olympics) credited his athletic prowess in part to smoking unfiltered cigarettes…

…finally, real French Champagne was arriving on American shores…

…as was authentic Scotch whisky…

…John Hanrahan was the New Yorker’s policy counsel from 1925 to 1938 and is credited with putting the magazine on firm financial footing during its infancy…in 1931 Hanrahan rebranded the Theatre Guild’s magazine, renaming it The Stage and filling it with the same splashy ads he was also able to bring to the New Yorker…the Depression was a tough time to launch a magazine, and even though Hanrahan added articles on motion pictures and other forms of entertainment in 1935, the magazine folded in 1939…

…and with the National Auto Show in town, car manufacturers filled the New Yorker’s pages with expensive ads…we’ll start with Walter Chrysler’s long-winded appeal on behalf of the Airflow…

…the folks at the usually staid Packard tossed in some unexpected color…

…Pierce-Arrow, at the time America’s top luxury car, offered this sneak peak of its 1934 Silver Arrow…

…Cadillac bought this spread to announce both its luxury and down-market brands…

…Hudson Motor Car Company invested in three color pages to announce the rollout of their 1934 Hudson 8…

…and their low-priced yet powerful Terraplane…

…Fisher, which made car bodies for General Motors, offered up this color photo of a pretty aviatrix to suggest their interiors were as fresh and clean as the clear skies above…

…Studebaker also paired flying with their latest models…

…Nash employed cartoonist Wayne Colvin for a series of six ads sprinkled across the back pages…here are two examples…

…on to our cartoonists, Perry Barlow used the auto show as inspiration for this cartoon, which appeared along with the review…

…Al Frueh drew up these images for the theatre section…I believe this is the first appearance of Bob Hope in the magazine…

…some housekeeping…I accidentally included this James Thurber cartoon and…

…this Rea Irvin cartoon in my post for the Dec. 30, 1933 issue…they belong with the Jan. 6 issue…

…Robert Day offered up a roving reporter…

…Carl Rose looked in on a wine connoisseur…

…and we close with a steamy image, courtesy Alan Dunn…

Next Time: A Poke at Punch…

Genesis of Genius

It’s hard to believe in this day and age that a theoretical physicist could enjoy rock star status, but then Albert Einstein wasn’t your everyday theoretical physicist.

Dec. 2, 1933 cover by **Helen Hokinson.**

A two-part profile of Einstein (1879–1955) by Alva Johnston (with terrific caricature by Al Frueh) examined the life and “idol” status of a man who would define the idea of genius in the 20th century. Although Einstein desired to live an almost reclusive existence at Princeton University, Johnston noted that he had become “fairly reconciled to the occupation of popular idol.”

Einstein was at Princeton thanks to the rise of Adolf Hitler, who came to power in Germany in early 1933 while Einstein was visiting the United States. Returning to Europe that March, Einstein knew he could not return to his home country (indeed, the Gestapo had raided his Berlin apartment and eventually seized all of his property), so when Einstein landed in Antwerp, Belgium on March 28, 1933, he immediately went to the German consulate and surrendered his passport, formally renouncing his German citizenship.

I’M OUTTA HERE…**Albert Einstein** with a Zionist delegation from France, Belgium, and England upon leaving the SS *Belgenland* in Antwerp, Belgium, 1933. (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum)

After some time in Europe and Great Britain, in October 1933 Einstein accepted an offer made earlier by from the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey to serve as a resident scholar. When he arrived with his wife, Elsa, he said he would seclude himself at the Institute and focus on his teaching and research.

EINSTEIN WASN’T FIDDLIN’ AROUND when he played his cherished violin—he once said that if he hadn’t been a scientist, he would have been a musician. This photo was taken at Einstein’s Princeton home in November 1933—he and fellow members of a string quartet were practicing for a December concert at the Waldorf-Astoria to raise money for German-Jewish refugees. From left to right, sitting: **Arthur (Ossip) Giskin, Toscha Seidel, Albert Einstein**, and **Bernard Ocko**; standing: **Estelle Manheim** (Seidel’s wife), **Elsa Einstein** and unidentified man. (Leo Baeck Institute)

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Stop and Go

E.B. White devoted his “Notes and Comment” to Manhattan’s traffic situation, which he found manageable as long as tourists stayed out of the way…

White also noted the perils of Park Avenue, especially the taxi drivers (distracted by those newfangled radios) darting between the islands…

Park Avenue in the 1930s. (geographicguide.com)

…and then there was Fifth Avenue, notorious for traffic jams, made worse on weekends by the tourist traffic…

Fifth Avenue in 1932. (New York State Archives)

…later in “The Talk of the Town” White continued his thoughts on New York taxis, namely the introduction of coin-operated radios installed for use by passengers…

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Fly Newark

Albert L. Furth took us off the mean streets and into the air when he filed this account about the Newark Metropolitan Airport for “A Reporter at Large.” Furth seemed put off by the cachet of European airports and their many amenities, given that the Newark airport—although admittedly utilitarian—was the busiest in the world. An excerpt:

FREQUENT FLIER…**Albert Furth** noted that Newark Municipal Airport logged a landing or departure every thirteen-and-a-half minutes. Above, passengers boarding a Boston-bound American Airlines Condor at Newark Airport in 1930. In those simpler times, passengers just walked to the runway and climbed on board. The airport had opened two years earlier on 68 acres of reclaimed swampland along the Passaic River. It was the first major commercial airport in the New York metro area and the first anywhere with a paved runway. (njmonthly.com)

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Goodnight, Speakeasy

Lois Long was an 17-year-old Vassar student when Prohibition went into effect in 1919, so when she started her career in New York in 1922 the only nightlife she knew revolved around speakeasies. Although she held Prohibition officers in disdain, she also believed that the repeal of the 18th Amendment would lower the quality of New York nightlife—the food, the “adroit service,” and the “genial din” of the speakeasy. Excerpts:

FROM LOUCHE TO LEGAL…**Lois Long** was saying a sad goodbye to her beloved speakeasies; perhaps the Algonquin Hotel (here, circa 1930) would offer some cheer. (Pinterest)

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Abercrombie & Fitch (then an outfitter for the elite outdoorsman) was offering holiday shoppers everything from multi-tool knives to cocktail shakers…

…while the folks at Clerevu telescopes found a growing market for folks who used their product for anything but stargazing…

…with Repeal just days away, the Pleasant Valley Wine Company of New York hoped folks would pop a few of their corks before the good stuff arrived from France…

…the British were coming to the rescue via the Berry Brothers, who were overseeing the importation of liquor from their offices at Rockefeller Center’s British Empire Building…

…let’s look at an assortment of one-column ads…the center strip features an ad promoting Angna Enters’ appearance for “one evening only” at The Town Hall (123 West 43rd Street)…Enters (1897–1989) was an American dancer, mime, painter and writer who likely performed her piece Moyen Age…

FEEL THAT STRETCH…**Angna Enters** performing *Moyen Age*, circa early 1930s. (NYPL)

…we begin our cartoons with Gardner Rea, and a dedicated bell ringer…

…Otto Soglow showed us a softer side of The Little King…

…Peter Arno revealed the human side of the posh set…

…and we close the Dec. 2 issue with this classic from James Thurber…

…on to Dec. 9, 1933, and a cover by an artist we haven’t seen in awhile, Ilonka Karasz…

…and we open with this comment by E.B. White, who along with critic Lewis Mumford had once voiced displeasure over the massive Rockefeller Center project. However, while viewing the floodlit tower by night, he decided that he would have to eat his words, observing how “the whole thing swims up tremendously into the blue roxyspheres of the sky”…

MEA CULPA…**E.B. White** gained a new perspective on Rockefeller Center, pictured here in December 1933. (Wikipedia)

…we continue with White, who also offered his thoughts on something heretofore unthinkable—a proposal to start putting beer in cans…

…it would happen about a year later…on Jan. 24, 1935, the Gottfried Krueger Brewing Company, in partnership with the American Can Company, delivered 2,000 cans of Krueger’s Finest Beer and Krueger’s Cream Ale to drinkers in Richmond, Virginia…

…and despite White’s doubts, apparently ninety-one percent of the first drinkers of the product approved of the canned beer, although when Krueger’s launched their ad blitz they had to include instructions (and a new tool) to open the darn things…

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Dreamscapes

Critic Lewis Mumford offered his thoughts on a recent exhibit by a young surrealist named Salvador Dali…

MIDDLEBROW SURREALIST…*The Triangular Hour* by Salvador Dali, 1933. (wikiart.org)

…and we move along to moving pictures, where John Mosher was showing some appreciation for Joan Crawford (1906–1977) in the pre-Code film Dancing Lady…

SHE HAD IT ALL…Audiences and critics alike were wowed by Joan Crawford’s performance in *Dancing Lady*, which featured a star-studded and eclectic cast. Clockwise from top left, **Clark Gable** plays a Broadway director who becomes Crawford’s love interest; Crawford displays her dancing talent in a Broadway rehearsal; *Dancing Lady* featured an early film appearance by **The Three Stooges**, pictured here with Gable and the Stooges’ leader at the time, **Ted Healy**; Crawford with Stooge **Larry Fine**—in the original film, Fine completes his jigsaw puzzle only to discover (to his disgust) that it’s a picture of **Adolf Hitler.** The Hitler scene was removed by the Production Code; its enforcers claimed it insulted a foreign head of state. (IMDB)

In addition to Crawford, the star-studded cast included Clark Gable, Fred Astaire (in his film debut), Franchot Tone (who was married to Crawford from 1935-39 and made seven movies with her), The Three Stooges, Nelson Eddy, and Robert Benchley, who played a reporter in the film.

Dancing Lady was the film debut of Astaire, making Crawford the first on-screen dance partner of the famed hoofer…

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We begin with this full-page advertisement from Heinz, which went to great lengths and expense to make their ad appear to part of the New Yorker’s editorial content, even featuring a Perry Barlow cartoon of a boy making a mess with their product…

…another New Yorker contributor who occasionally went over to the advertising side was Alexander Woollcott, here shilling for Chrysler…

…Kayser, purveyor of women’s hosiery and underthings, was going for some humorous holiday cheer, but the effect is a bit unsettling…

…liquor-related ads began to proliferate with the end of the Prohibition…this one from Martini & Rossi…

…Continental Distilling was hoping to grab its share of gin sales with its Dixie Belle American gin…

…from the same folks who brought us Fleishmann’s yeast (and kept The New Yorker afloat in its early lean years) came this American dry gin…

…Ruppert’s Beer was back with another full-page color ad by Hans Flato…

…on to our cartoons, and Santa again, this time besieged by an aggressive tot as rendered by Helen Hokinson…

…Carl Rose found an unlikely customer at a newsstand…

…here is the last of four cartoons Walter Schmidt published in the New Yorker between 1931 and 1933…

…Peter Arno left his glamorous world of nightclubs and high society parties to look in on life at a boarding house…

…and we close with the delightful Barbara Shermund…

Next Time: Going With the Flow…

Keeping Their Cool

The heat came early to New York in June 1933, so folks flocked to air-conditioned cinemas or sought the cooling breezes of rooftop cafes and dance floors. And thanks to FDR, there was legal beer to be quaffed at various beer gardens popping up all over town.

June 24, 1933 cover by Rea Irvin. Providing a bookend to **Constantin Alajalov’s** June bride cover (May 27), Irvin gave us the newlyweds now contemplating a fixer-upper.

Lois Long kept her cool on the beach or at home with a cold Planters’ Punch, but one gets restless, and Ethel Waters was at the Cotton Club, so Long headed out into the night; an excerpt from her column “Tables for Two”…

STORMY WEATHER AHEAD…**Ethel Waters** was “tops” during a June 1933 performance at the Cotton Club, according to nightlife correspondent **Lois Long**. Left, Waters circa 1930. At right, the Cotton Club in the early 1930s. (IMDB/Britannica)

SHOWER THE PEOPLE…Children gather around a center stand sprinkler (connected to a fire hydrant) on a Harlem street in 1933.

POP-UP PLAYGROUND…Play street and street shower alongside the Queensboro Bridge, June 22, 1934. (NYC Municipal Archives)

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From Our Advertisers

Legal beer and hot summer days combined to bring some much-needed advertising revenue to The New Yorker…

…here we have dear old dad telling the young ‘uns (all in formal wear, mind you) about the good old days before Prohibition took away his favorite tipple…

…notable about the magazine’s first beer ads was the target market…this is akin to the cigarette manufacturers, who were also targeting women as a new growth market for their products…curious how this PBR ad is illustrated…is she getting ready to drink the beer, or serve it?…

…also joining the party were the folks who made mixers like White Rock mineral water…note the reference at bottom right to the anticipated repeal of the 18th Amendment…

…the purveyors of Hoffman’s ginger ale were less subtle, encouraging drinkers to mix those highballs right now…

…you could enjoy that cool one while sitting in front of a Klenzair electric fan, which was probably nothing like riding a dolphin—a strange metaphor, but then again perhaps something else is being suggested here besides electric fans…

…no doubt Lois Long took in one of these breezy performances on the rooftop of the Hotel Pennsylvania…

…an evening with Rudy Vallée would have been a lot cheaper than one of these “compact” air conditioners, available to only the very wealthy…

…but you didn’t need to be J.P. Morgan to own a Lektrolite lighter, which was kind of clever…this flameless lighter contained a platinum filament that would glow hot after being lowered into reactive chemicals in the lighter’s base…

…another ad from the Architects’ Emergency Committee, which looked like something an architect would design…

…our final June 24 ad told readers about the miracle of Sanforizing, which was basically a pre-shrinking technique, like pre-washed jeans…

…we kick off our cartoons with George Price at the ball game…

…Alan Dunn was in William Steig’s “Small Fry” territory with this precocious pair…

…James Thurber brought us back to his delightfully strange world…

…and Whitney Darrow Jr gave us a trio at a nudist colony dressing a man with their eyes…

…we move along to July 1, 1933…

July 1, 1933 cover by **Helen Hokinson.**

Where in this issue we find the Nazis not keeping their cool. In an article titled “Unter Dem Hakenkreuz” (“Under the Swastika”) American journalist and activist Mary Heaton Vorse commented on the changes taking place in Berlin, where the vice, decadence and other freedoms of the Weimar years had been swept away, including women’s rights…an excerpt:

SIT UP STRAIGHT AND PROCREATE…Swastika flags hang from a Berlin building in the 1930s. In Hitler’s Germany, women of child-bearing age were expected to produce lots of babies and not much else. (collections.ushmm.org)

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Some Strings Attached

Back in the states, Alvin Johnston published the first installment of a two-part profile on John P. O’Brien (1873–1951) who served as mayor of New York from January to December 1933, the second of two short-term mayors to serve between the disgraced and deposed Jimmy Walker and the reformer Fiorello LaGuardia. Considered the last of the mayoral puppets of Tammany Hall, he was known for his brief, heartless, and clueless reign during one of the worst years of the Depression; while unemployment was at 25 percent, O’Brien was doling out relief funds to Tammany cronies. A brief excerpt (with Abe Birnbaum illustration):

A PIOUS, LABORIOUS DULLARD and “a hack given to malapropisms” is how writer **George Lankevich** describes **John P. O’Brien.** According to Lankevich, to a crowd in Harlem O’Brien proudly proclaimed, “I may be white but my heart is as black as yours.” (TIME)

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That Pepsodent Smile

The author James Norman Hall (1887–1951), known for the trilogy of novels that included Mutiny on the Bounty, offered these sobering thoughts about a famed actor he spotted on a South Pacific holiday:

IT ISN’T EASY BEING ME…Fifty-year-old **Douglas Fairbanks Sr,** teeth and all, was apparently looking worse for the wear when he was spotted by writer **James Norman Hall** in Tahiti. His glory days of the Silent Era behind him, Fairbanks would die in 1939 at age 56. (fineartamerica.com)

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More cool ones for those hot summer days courtesy of Schaefer…

…and Rheingold, here served by a sheepish-looking woman who doubtless wished that the tray supported champagne or cocktail glasses…and leave it to the Dutch to be one of the first countries to get their foot into the import market…when I was in college this was as good as it got, beer-wise…

…Dr. Seuss again for Flit, and even though this is a cartoon, it demonstrates how in those days no one really cared if you sprayed pesticides near your breakfast, or pets, or kids…

…here’s one of just four cartoons contributed to The New Yorker in the early 1930s by Walter Schmidt…

…Otto Soglow’s Little King found an opportunity to stop and smell the flowers…

…Mary Petty gave us two examples of fashion-conscious women…

…James Thurber explored the nuances of parenting…

…and we close with George Price, master of oddities…

Next Time: The Night the Bed Fell…

A Slice of Paradise

Lois Long welcomed 1933 by venturing out into the New Year’s nightclub scene…

…where she encountered the new Paradise Cabaret Restaurant at Broadway and 49th, where there was no cover charge and not much covering the showgirls, either…

THE GANG’S ALL HERE…Everyone from gangsters to sugar daddies (and a number of *New Yorker* staffers) took in the sights and sounds of the Paradise Cabaret Restaurant (shown here in 1937). (Pinterest)

THE SPIRIT OF NEKKIDNESS, as **Lois Long** put it in her “Tables for Two” column, could be found at the Paradise Cabaret Restaurant: clockwise, from top left, marquee on the corner of the Brill Building advertises a 1936 appearance of the comedy team of **Dewey Barto** and **George Mann** (photo by **George Mann** via Flickr); menu cover made it clear that food was not the main attraction at the Paradise; a 1933 poster advertising “a Galaxy of Stars”; a 1943 “Paradise Girls” poster; circa 1930s matchbook; circa 1930s noisemaker. (Flickr/picclick/Pinterest)

THE LONG AND SHORT OF IT…known as the “laugh kings” of vaudeville, the comedy team of Barto and Mann rehearse at the Paradise in 1936. Their humor played on their disparities in height — Barto was under 5′ and Mann was 6’6″. If Mann (top right) looks familiar, later in life he portrayed “King Vitaman” in commercials for the breakfast cereal of the same name. As I recall it tasted like Cap’n Crunch. (Wikipedia)

While Mann went on to become King Vitaman, another Paradise performer, 16-year-old Hope Chandler, found the love of her life while performing in next-to-nothing at the Paradise…

SHE WAS ONLY SIXTEEN…**Hope Chandler**’s photo (right) was featured on the Dec. 20, 1937 cover of *LIFE* Magazine, which proclaimed the 16-year-old as the “Prettiest Girl in Paradise”. Photo at left was included in the magazine article. (Twitter)

…namely the 22-year-old son of William Randolph Hearst, who spotted Chandler during one of his visits to the Paradise. David Whitmire Hearst married Chandler in 1938 and they lived happily ever until his death in 1986.

YOUNG LOVE…**David Whitmire Hearst** and his new wife, **Hope Chandler,** after their wedding ceremony in New York, 1938. They would be married 48 years until David’s death in 1986. Hope would remain active in the Hearst organization until her death at age 90 in 2012. (Tumblr)

* * *

Tragic Opera

Yes, the lovers die at the end of Tristan und Isolde, but for New York opera buffs the real tragedy belonged to Samuel Insull (1859–1938), a Chicago utilities magnate responsible for building a new Chicago Civic Opera House in 1929. When Insull’s opera house went bust in 1932, the Met landed two of its principal stars. Robert Simon reported for the New Yorker:

CHICAGO’S FINEST…Soprano Frida Leider (left) and mezzo-contralto **Maria Olszewska** were stars of the Chicago Opera from 1928 to 1932. When the company went belly-up, the singers headed for New York to appear in a much-acclaimed performance of *Tristan und Isolde.* (metoperafamily.org)

Insull was a famed innovator and investor who was a driving force behind creating an integrated electrical infrastructure in the U.S. In 1925 he addressed the financial difficulties of the Chicago opera community with a proposal to build a skyscraper with an opera house on the ground floor — he thought the rental of office space would cover the opera company’s expenses. The building was completed in 1929 — the same year as the market crash — and suddenly his grand plan didn’t look so grand.

Then Insull’s companies went under, and he was charged with fraud and embezzlement. He fled to Europe, but in 1934 he was arrested in Istanbul and brought back to Chicago to stand trial. Although he was acquitted, he was left a broken (and broke) man, his $3 billion utilities empire in shambles.

DUELING ARIAS…New York’s rival in the opera scene, the Chicago Civic Opera erected this skyscraper in 1929 with the help of **Samuel Insull**; a door at the Cook County jail in Chicago is opened for Insull in May 1934, his $3 billion utilities empire in shambles. He was unable to raise the $200,000 bail in fraud charges, which were eventually dismissed; New York’s Metropolitan Opera House in 1909. (classicchicagomagazine.com/Wikipedia)

FAME TO INFAMY…Insull’s appearances on the cover of *Time* said it all: left to right: issues from November 29, 1926; November 4, 1929; and May 14, 1934. (classicchicagomagazine.com)

* * *

From Land to Sea

The National Auto Show left town to be followed by the annual Boat Show at the Grand Central Palace, featuring boats that were priced to meet the needs of some Depression-era buyers:

CRUISIN’ CRUISETTE…You could buy an Elco Cruisette for just under $3,000 in 1933, but that was roughly equivalent to $64,000 today, so it was still out of reach for most Americans in the 1930s. (Pinterest)

* * *

From Our Advertisers

Yes, the boat show was in town, but automobile manufacturers were still making their points to potential customers including Chrysler, one of the New Yorker’s biggest advertisers in the early 1930s…here’s a two-page spread for the Dodge 8…

…Chrysler’s DeSoto line claimed a luxurious interior that would inspire even regular folks to put on the “haughty air” of a French Duchess…

…on the other hand, the folks at Cadillac went for understatement with this announcement of a limited edition V-16…

…with 16 cylinders under the hood, this thing could really tear down the road, but it was the Depression, and even though this edition was limited to just 400 cars, only 125 were sold…

…it really bothers me that the Savoy Plaza Hotel (1927) was knocked down in 1965 and replaced by the monolithic GM Building…and look, in 1933 you could get a single room for five bucks a night…

…maybe you’d rather take to the seas on the Hamburg-American Line…

The SS Reliance in 1937. Gutted by fire in 1938, she was scrapped in 1941. (Wikipedia)

…or you could chase away the winter blues in a steaming bath that the folks at Cannon Towels called “almost the ultimate in mortal content”…

…and no doubt a few lit up a Camel or two during their soak…note the tagline “I’d walk a mile for a Camel!”…it was a slogan the brand used for decades…

…I still remember these from when I was a kid…

…on to our cartoons, and we begin with William Crawford Galbraith, still up to his old tricks…

…Gilbert Bundy gave this exchange between old mates…

…Alan Dunn showed us what happens when you hire a chatty governess…

…in the spirit of the 2022 Winter Olympics, one from George Shellhase…

…and we close with James Thurber, and the trials of married life…

Next Time: Belle Geste…

Cheers For Beers

Good cheer was in short supply during the worst year of the Depression, but as 1933 approached many New Yorkers could at least look forward to legal beer in the New Year.

But as with all things political, new rules and regulations would need to be hashed out before the taps could flow, and both brewers and beer drinkers would have to recalibrate a relationship that had been suspended for nearly 13 years. Alva Johnston gave this (excerpted) report in “A Reporter at Large”…

WHILE YOU WERE AWAY…Vaudeville star **Rae Samuels** holds what was purportedly the last bottle of beer (a Schlitz) distilled before Prohibition went into effect in Chicago on Dec. 29, 1930. The bottle was insured for $25,000. After Prohibition ended in late 1933, Schlitz reappeared with gusto and quickly became the world’s top-selling brewery. (vintag.es)

* * *

National Treasure

Chester Dale (1883–1962) began his career in finance at age 15, working as a runner for the New York Stock Exchange. Just 12 years later he would marry painter and art critic Maud Murray Dale, and together they would amass an art collection that would include significant works by Claude Monet, Paul Cézanne, Amedeo Modigliani, Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso. In 1932 the Dales were well on their way to building a collection that would eventually end up in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. “The Talk of the Town” featured the Dales in this except:

WAYS OF SEEING…**Maud Dale** was a staunch supporter of artist **Amedeo Modigliani**, whose 1919 painting *Gypsy Woman with Baby* (top left) was among 21 of his works collected by the Dales. Maud also commissioned a number of her own portraits, including (clockwise, from top center) ones rendered by **George Bellows** in 1919, by Jean-Gabriel Domergue in 1923, and by **Fernand Léger** in 1935. At bottom left is a 1945 portrait of **Chester Dale** by **Diego Rivera.** (National Gallery of Art)

SAINTED PATRONS…Clockwise, from top left, a 1943 photo of **Chester Dale** in the West Garden Court of the National Gallery of Art, which today holds the *Chester Dale Collection* of 240 paintings among other items; **Maud Dale**, c. 1926; *Madame Picasso* (1923) by **Pablo Picasso** on view in the Dale residence, c. 1935; a 1926 caricature of Chester by Mexican artist Miguel Covarrubias, a close friend of the Dales and early New Yorker contributor. (National Gallery of Art)

* * *

Smoke Screen

E.B. White noted the historic meeting of outgoing U.S. President Herbert Hoover and his successor, Franklin D. Roosevelt. White speculated on at least one topic of discussion:

DO YOU INHALE?…Outgoing President **Herbert Hoover** (left) and President-elect **Franklin D. Roosevelt** on their way to the inauguration ceremonies, 1933. (National Archives)

* * *

No Longer “It”

Here is how IMDB describes the 1932 pre-Code drama Call Her Savage: “Sexy Texas gal storms her way through life, brawling and boozing until her luck runs out, forcing her to learn the errors of her ways.” The actress who portrayed that “Texas Gal,” Clara Bow, was getting sick of Hollywood and would make just one more film before retiring at age 28. Although in some circles the silent era’s “It Girl” sex symbol was finally beginning to earn some credit as an “artiste,” critic John Mosher was reserving judgment:

WHIP IT GOOD…**Clara Bow** brawls her way through life in her second-to-last film role, **Call Her Savage.** (IMDB)

* * *

From Our Advertisers

Is this really how the smart set lived in 1932 Manhattan? Here we have an old toff dressed like Santa (in a top hat) sneaking presents onto the Christmas tree…and caught in the act by, I presume, his wife and a chambermaid?…

…in sharp contrast, here is an ad from the Golden Rule Foundation, which annually designated the second week in December as “Golden Rule Week”…the foundation raised funds to help needy children throughout the world…

…and here’s a bright, back cover ad from Caron Paris…apparently the face powder industry had been good to them in 1932…

…on to our cartoons, we start with a smoking tutorial from William Steig…

…some sunny optimism from one of Helen Hokinson’s “girls”…

…in this two-pager by Garrett Price, an artist asks his patron: All right then, what was your conception of the Awakening of Intelligence through Literature and Music?…

…Izzy Klein dedicated this cartoon to the much-anticipated launch of a new literary magazine, The American Spectator (not to be confused with today’s conservative political publication by the same name) and its illustrious line-up of joint editors…

…Crawford Young’s caption recalled the precocious child in Carl Rose’s 1928 cartoon caption, a collaboration with E.B. White — “I say it’s spinach, and I say the hell with it”…

…and speaking of Carl Rose, this next cartoon by James Thurber has an interesting history…New Yorker cartoonist Michael Maslin explains in this Carl Rose Inkspill bio: In 1932, Rose submitted a drawing captioned, “Touche!” of two fencers, one of whom has just cut off the head of the other. Harold Ross (according to Thurber in The Years With Ross) thinking the Rose version “too bloody” suggested Thurber do the drawing because “Thurber’s people have no blood. You can put their heads back on and they’re as good as new”…

…as we close out December 2021 (which I am dutifully trying to do the same in 1932), we move on to the Dec. 10 issue…

Dec. 10, 1932 cover by **William Steig.**

…and Samuel N. Behrman’s profile (titled “Chutspo”) of comedian Eddie Cantor, who made his way from vaudeville and the Ziegfeld Follies to fame on the radio, in film and on early television. Theater great Katherine Cornell certainly appreciated Cantor’s gift for making his routine look easy: Here’s an excerpt:

AH, IT WAS NOTHIN’…Comedian Eddie Cantor was adored by millions of radio listeners as the “Apostle of Pep.” At right, caricature for the profile by Al Frueh. (bizarrela.com)

* * *

Christmess

Lois Long’s “On and Off the Avenue” column was thus titled to reflect the annual challenge of buying that special something for that special someone. Here is the opening paragraph:

One of the items suggested in Long’s column was a game named for our friend Eddie Cantor called “Tell it to the Judge”…

…or you could select one of these gifts from A.G. Spaulding…my grandfather had one of those perpetual desk calendars…I would stave off boredom by endlessly flipping those numbers while the adults conversed in German…

…on to our cartoonists, James Thurber provided this nice bit of art for a two-page spread…

…Kemp Starrett gave us some biscuit (cookie) execs contemplating a new, streamlined design for their product…

…Norman Bel Geddes is perhaps best known for designing the “Futurama” display at the 1939 New York World’s Fair…here is Bel Geddes’ “Cobra Lamp”…

…George Price gave us a fellow peddling more than a simple top…

…and with Peter Arno, the party never ends…

…on to Dec. 17, 1932…

…and Arno’s ex Lois Long was back with another “Tables for Two,” still feigning the old spinster (see “shawl and slippers” reference in first graf) when in fact she was an attractive, 31-year-old divorcee who apparently still had plenty of fire for late night revelry…

According to the Jeremiah Moss blog Vanishing New York, Long was likely describing 52nd Street between Fifth and Sixth avenues that “began as a row of speakeasies, which turned into jazz clubs that then evolved into burlesque houses.” The speakeasies got their start when the city lifted residential restrictions on the brownstones and businesses moved in, including Tony’s, the Trocadero and later Place Pigalle…

(vanishingnewyork.blogspot.com via NYPL)

…it was at the new Place Pigalle that Long enjoyed the “knockout” after-midnight show featuring ballroom dancers Frank Veloz and Yolanda Casazza and the diminutive singer Reva Reyes…

AFTER HOURS entertainment at the Place Pigalle included **Frank Veloz and Yolanda Casazza** (left, in a 1930 portrait by **Edward Steichen**) and Mexican singer **Reva Reyes**. (Vanity Fair/El Paso Museum of History)

…and there was more entertainment to be had in Midtown with the upcoming opening (Dec. 27, 1932) of Radio City Music Hall, a dream project of Samuel “Roxy” Rothafel. Hugh Blake had the scoop for the New Yorker in the “A Reporter at Large” column…an excerpt:

AIN’T IT GRAND?..of Radio City Music Hall would open its doors on Dec. 27, 1932, fulfilling a dream of theater owner **Samuel “Roxy” Rothafel.** (nypap.org/Wikipedia/dobywood.com)

…Radio City Music Hall was built to host stage shows only, but within a year of its opening it was converted into a movie venue…and speaking of movies, we have film critic John Mosher finally finding a movie to his liking, and a novel-to-film adaptation to boot…

FAREWELL TO ALL OF THOSE ARMS…**Gary Cooper, Helen Hayes** and **Adolphe Menjou** in Paramount’s *A Farewell to Arms*, directed by **Frank Borzage.** The film received Academy Awards for Best Cinematography and Best Sound. (buffalo.edu)

…and back to the stage, Al Frueh lent his artistry to the play Dinner At Eight, which opened October 22, 1932, at the Music Box Theatre, and would close May 6, 1933, after 232 performances. The popular play had revivals in 1933, 1966 and 2002 as well as a George Cukor film adaptation in 1933 with an all-star cast.

* * *

From Our Advertisers

We begin with this helpful advice from the folks at the Lombardy…

…while we have a much less stuffy invitation from the French Line…

…the usually staid Brooks Brothers sprung for an all-color Christmas ad, featuring items that would suit any aspiring Bertie Wooster…

…and what would be the holidays without canned meat, eh?…

…and we end with James Thurber, who gets us into the proper mood for the New Year…

Next Time: Comrade Alex…

An Instant Star

George Cukor’s 1932 pre-Code film A Bill of Divorcement would make Katharine Hepburn an instant star in her screen debut…

… but New Yorker critic John Mosher seems to have missed the boat in spotting this new talent, who would go on to be — at least according to the American Film Institute, “the greatest female star of classic Hollywood cinema.” In A Bill of Divorcement, Hepburn portrays a young woman who fears she has inherited the same psychiatric problems that plague her father (John Barrymore). Mosher wrote:

A LOT ON HIS MIND…In *A Bill of Divorcement,* **John Barrymore** portrays a man who escapes from a mental hospital after 15 years of confinement, seeking to return to wife and family; his daughter, Sydney (**Katharine Hepburn**), fears she has inherited his psychiatric problems, while Sydney’s mother, Meg (**Billie Burke**) wants to start a new life with another man. (IMDB)

Although Mosher offered a rather tepid response to Hepburn’s debut role, critic Mordaunt Hall of The New York Times called the film “intelligent, restrained and often stirring.” Of Hepburn he wrote: “Miss Hepburn’s characterization is one of the finest seen on the screen and the producers have been wise in not minimizing the importance of her part because Mr. Barrymore is the star of the film.”

* * *

On Shaky Ground

E.B. White noted the sad state of the Pulitzer Fountain, which had stood at the Plaza since 1916. Although Joseph Pulitzer’s sons had put up funds to restore the landmark, the city had yet to act on a plan.

Fortunately the fountain still stands, thanks to restorations in 1933-35, 1971 and 1985-90. As to White’s concerns, the city finally accepted the Pulitzers’ offer, and after delays due to labor disputes it was completed in June 1935. The original limestone basin was rebuilt in Italian marble, and a limestone balustrade and columns that surrounded the fountain were demolished.

WHEN WE WERE YOUNG…The Pulitzer Fountain after it was completed in 1916. (New York Public Library)

White also mused about the nature of Long Island, soon to be transformed under Robert Moses’ system of parkways that would stretch across the island’s vast expanses.

EAT ME…Hundreds of truck farms dotted Long Island in the early 20th century, especially known for their potatoes. (Newsday)

…and we have more from White, also serving as the magazine’s theater critic and taking in the latest installment of Earl Carroll’s Vanities…I include this mainly to note the young vaudevillian Milton Berle’s first appearance on a big stage…

BEFORE UNCLE MILTIE…**Milton Berle** (1908–2002) made his first appearance on a big stage with **Earl Carroll’s** 1932 *Vanities.* It is also noteworthy that in that same year Chicago native **Vincente Minnelli** (see program cover) was getting his first breaks on Broadway as a stage and costume designer. (tralfaz.blogspot.com/Playbill)

* * *

Delirious Nights

Although Lois Long was primarily focused on her fashion column, she continued to file an occasional “Tables for Two” that gave readers a glimpse into New York nightlife, including the star-studded (Walter Chrysler, Howard Hughes, among others) opening of the Pierrette Club in the Waldorf-Astoria’s Sert Room…

DANCING WITH THE STARS…**Lois Long** reported on the star-studded opening of the Pierrette Club in the Waldorf-Astoria’s Sert Room, which featured a series of Saturday night supper dances; images of the Sert Room left and right; at center, the *New York Times’* account of the club’s opening, Oct. 2, 1932. (geographicguide.com/NYT/jstor.org)

* * *

From Our Advertisers

Simon & Schuster promoted George Gershwin’s Song Book, illustrated by New Yorker regular Constantin Alajalov…

…signed first editions go for up to $8000 these days…

…meanwhile, Farrar & Rinehart trumpeted the release of Evelyn Waugh’s latest novel (his third)…Black Mischief satirized the ways Europeans attempted to impose their customs and beliefs on other cultures…

…Squibb helped the New Yorker’s bottom line with three separate ads scattered throughout the magazine…back in the day the Squibb brand was associated with everything from toothpaste…

…to aspirin and shaving cream…founded in 1858, it merged with Bristol Meyers in 1989 to form one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies, Bristol Myers Squibb, which today is mostly known for manufacturing dozens of prescription pharmaceuticals and biologics…

…Squibb & Sons were the primary tenant (the top 12 floors) of New York’s landmark Squibb Building when it opened its doors in 1930…

…moving on, here are a couple of ads that show us one thing that has definitely changed in the past 89 years…when was the last time you wore a fur coat to a football game?…

…cigarette manufacturers had plenty of money to advertise during the depths of the Depression, but apparently so did the folks at Wamsutta Mills…Wamsutta sheets are no longer made in New Bedford — part of the circa 1847 mill complex is now loft-style housing…however, the Wamsutta brand still exists in the U.S. through Bed, Bath & Beyond and internationally as part of a Brazilian textile conglomerate…

…Micarta was a substance developed by Westinghouse in the early 20th century for use with electrical equipment…produced from a combination of linen, canvas, paper, fiberglass and other materials processed under heat and pressure, Westinghouse found a new use for this laminate — serving trays designed by George Switzer…you can read more about Micarta trays at Driving for Deco…reader Chris notes that Micarta is “still available in a wide range of grades and designer colors and is popular with hobbyists and craftsmen the world over”…

…in the Oct. 29 issue, E.B. White made this observation about Micarta trays…

…on to our cartoons, William Steig’s “Small Fry” learned about the birds and the bees…

…Gardner Rea visited some tobacco researchers challenged to keep pace with advertising claims…

…Barbara Shermund looked into the love lives of the modern woman…

…and Peter Arno got playful at the pipe organ…

…on to our Oct. 15, 1932 issue…

…where we check in on John O’Hara (1905–1970), who defined the short story at the New Yorker (and contributed more shorts to the magazine than any other writer). For the Oct. 15 issue O’Hara submitted a profile titled “Of Thee I Sing, Baby.” The profile is unusual because it is told as a story rather than as a biography, and the subject, a chorus girl, is not identified by her real name. A brief excerpt:

WRITING MACHINE…**John O’Hara** (pictured here in 1945) contributed more short stories to the *New Yorker* than any other writer. (Library of Congress)

* * *

…William Steig (1907–2003) was both a writer and illustrator, and every bit as prolific as O’Hara, publishing more than 50 books during his long life and career, including his very first, which received this mention at the end of the Oct. 15 book review section:

…on to our Oct. 15 advertisers, we have the makers of Chesterfields pairing their product with the sophistication of Paris fashions…

…Carl “Eric” Erickson illustrated a number of ads for R.J. Reynolds’ Camel cigarettes in the late 1920s and early 1930s…here he employed his signature sophisticated style for the French Line…

…RCA promoted the next great advance in radio technology — “bi-acoustic” sound that added “two more octaves” to radio broadcasts…it would take thirty more years to roll out something we take for granted today — stereo…

…on to our cartoons, Robert Day joined a misdirected fox hunt…

…Richard Decker gave us one man’s simple solution to a perilous situation…

…and we close with a classic from James Thurber…

Next Time: City On a Hill…

The Grand Garbo

Joan Crawford was an MGM star by the 1930s, and according to many critics, an absolute scene-stealer in 1932’s Grand Hotel. However, the New Yorker’s film critic John Mosher saw Garbo, and only Garbo, in this Academy Award-winning pre-code drama.

April 23, 1932 cover by **E.B. White**. Although White’s friend and early office mate **James Thurber** had been contributing drawings for more than a year, it was White who would land the first cover — his only one (Thurber’s first cover would come in 1936). **Maria Popova** (brainpickings.org) shares this excerpt from a 1969 *Paris Review* interview, during which White explained to **George Plimpton**: “I’m not an artist and never did any drawings for *The New Yorker*. I did turn in a cover and it was published. I can’t draw or paint, but I was sick in bed with tonsillitis or something, and I had nothing to occupy me, but I had a cover idea — of a sea horse wearing a nose bag. I borrowed my son’s watercolor set, copied a sea horse from a picture in Webster’s dictionary, and managed to produce a cover that was bought. It wasn’t much of a thing. I even loused up the whole business finally by printing the word ‘oats’ on the nose bag, lest somebody fail to get the point.”

Greta Garbo’s previous films hadn’t exactly wowed Mosher, but the gossip he was hearing even before he screened Grand Hotel suggested it was not to be missed. Mosher touted the unseen film (in the April 16 issue), expressing his hope that the rumors would prove true — he feared Garbo would quit the business altogether and leave the country if she didn’t land a hit. His fears were laid to rest:

Adapted from the 1929 German novel Menschen im Hotel by Vicki Baum, Grand Hotel is considered the first all-star epic. The brainchild of MGM’s production head Irving Thalberg, the film proved a triumph for director Edmund Goulding, who somehow managed to direct five leading roles into one film classic.

GRAND OPENING…The April 12, 1932 opening of *Grand Hotel* at Broadway’s famed Astor Theatre was much anticipated by critic John Mosher and pretty much everyone else. (ny.curbed.com)

STELLAR CAST…Set at a luxurious Berlin hotel, *Grand Hotel* brought together the stories of five seemingly unrelated lives. Clockwise, from top left, crooked industrialist Preysing (**Wallace Beery**), trades innuendos with an ambitious stenographer, Flaemmchen (**Joan Crawford**); Baron Felix von Gaigern (**John Barrymore**), a once wealthy man fallen on hard times, supports himself by stealing from vulnerable marks like the depressed ballerina Grusinskaya (**Greta Garbo**), and also teams up with a gravely ill accountant (**Lionel Barrymore**, John’s real brother, not pictured here); hotel entrance from the film; MGM movie poster deftly juggled the film’s five big stars; advertisement from the April 16, 1932 *New Yorker* made much of the film’s star power. (Wikipedia/IMDB)

THE OTHER BIG STAR in *Grand Hotel* was the luxurious Art Deco set created by **Cedric Gibbons.** Centered on the hotel’s reception desk, the set allowed filming in 360 degrees. (IMDB)

And let’s not forget that it was in this film Garbo famously uttered “I want to be alone” — it ranks number 30 in AFI’s 100 Years…100 Movie Quotes. In 2007 Grand Hotel was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress.

* * *

She’s Back

Lois Long aka “Lipstick” turned in yet another “Tables for Two,” even though she had abandoned that column as a regular feature two years earlier. Unlike those earlier columns, Long seemed to have had her fill of the night life, but occasionally she found a diversion or two worth mentioning. She also offered her thoughts about the decline of civilization, indicated by such behaviors as dining at the early hour of 7 p.m. — “rawboned” she called it…

NIGHT LIGHTS…Singer **Kate Smith** and comedic performer Beatrice Lillie managed to keep **Lois Long** awake in the wee hours of nightclub entertainments. (katesmith.org/The Poster Corp)

* * *

Notes, and More Notes

Despite his cover contribution, and his continued presence in the “Notes and Comment” section, the year 1932 is regarded as one of E.B. White’s leanest as a full-time writer for the New Yorker. According to Scott Elledge in E.B. White: A Biography, White published only a few “Talk” pieces or signed contributions. With a toddler about the house (Joel White had just turned 1 the previous December), White and wife Katharine enjoyed what Elledge describes as perhaps “the happiest of their years together, “able to enjoy fully their professional and private lives in the city they both loved.” So perhaps that explains this particular “Notes” entry for the April 23 issue. Still, it’s good stuff:

(Note **Otto Soglow’s** Tammany-themed spot cartoon — the political machine was still chugging along, but its days were numbered)

* * *

From Our Advertisers

We begin with this colorful ad from McCutcheon’s to brighten our day…

…the Franklin Automobile Company responded to competition from other luxury car makers by introducing its own 12-cylinder model, the only American car to be powered by a 12-cylinder air-cooled engine (according to the H.H. Franklin Club)…

…introducing a 12-cylinder luxury car was not a good move in 1932 — one of the worst years of the Depression — and the company folded by 1934…but what a swell-looking car…

…one innovation that would stick around, however, was the lighted refrigerator, something to brighten those dim days of 1932, that is if you could even afford an electric fridge…

…named to evoke the luxury automobile, the British-made Rolls Razor made its debut in the back pages of the New Yorker with this panel cartoon ad featuring a hapless suitor and his girlfriend’s nosy kid brother…

…the razor came in a rigid case enclosed by two detachable lids; one carried a sharpening stone and the other a leather strop. When a lid was removed, the razor’s oscillating a handle drove a shaft along the frame, pushing the solid, hollow ground blade forward against the stone or dragging it against the strop…

…and here’s an ad you don’t see often in the New Yorker…one featuring children…

…on to our cartoonists, we have more kids via William Steig’s Small Fry…

…James Thurber continued to ply his cartooning craft with one of his favorite subjects:

…here is a more detailed look at the above…

…John Held Jr. continued to take us back to those saucy days of yore…

…Gardner Rea sketched this hereditary pratfall…

…E. McNerney gave us a woman whose beau was in alliance with architecture critic Lewis Mumford…

…Alan Dunn looked in on the fast-paced world of business…

…and Leonard Dove takes us out on a droll note…

Next Time: The Quiet Man…

Back to the Nightlife

Although she served as the New Yorker’s fashion editor for decades, and even laid the groundwork for fashion criticism in general, Lois Long will always be known as one of the pivotal early writers who shaped the magazine’s voice and image.

The New Yorker’s stated mission to be both “witty and sophisticated” was fulfilled in Long’s “Tables for Two” column, in which she — perhaps more than any other writer of the Roaring Twenties — vividly captured the decadence of New York’s speakeasy nightlife. Long wrote the weekly “Tables” column from September 1925 to June 1930, when she dropped the column to focus on her weekly fashion review “On and Off the Avenue” (she was also married to cartoonist Peter Arno, and they had a one-year-old daughter, Patricia, which doubtless put a cramp in her nightlife routines).

SALAD DAYS…**Lois Long** relaxes on a beach in this still image from a 1920s home movie; it was a time when hopping speakeasies until 4 a.m. — and writing about it — was her forte. (PBS)

In the midst of divorcing Arno in early 1931, Long embarked on a six-part series titled “Doldrums,” lamenting the state of New York nightlife, which she found to have very little life. However, in June of that year, her divorce was almost finalized, she filed another “Tables for Two” column. And now here we are, nearly a year later, with another “Tables” column, again with the familiar pen name “Lipstick,” now finding herself too old (at age 30) for the nightlife at the Pennsylvania Grill and the New Lido Club. Some excerpts:

HE DID IT ALL…Moonlighting from his Ziegfeld gig on Broadway, the versatile **Buddy Rogers** (top left) was also acting as bandleader at the Pennsylvania Grill — the popular stage and screen actor happily fronted various bands for the publicity, which he received from both Lois Long and from an ad in the back pages of the *New Yorker*; clockwise, from top right, the Hotel Pennsylvania; the hotel’s Grill restaurant; among the celebs spotted by Long was Broadway/gossip columnist **Ed Sullivan**, who would go on to other things; and **Jeannette Loff,** who “sang nicely” for those who danced along with the band. (Wikipedia/edsullivan.com/bizarrela.com)

About Buddy Rogers, Long wrote he “has a gleaming smile for the world and his-well-not-exactly wife,” a reference to famed silent film star Mary Pickford, also in the audience, and also married to actor Douglas Fairbanks (Pickford and Rogers had been carrying on a not-so-secret romance since 1927).

PICKY PICKFORD…**Mary Pickford** in 1932. (Culver Pictures)

Long also paid a visit to the Folies Bergère, which was basically a road show produced by the famed Parisian theater of the same name. She found the performances second-rate, and didn’t quite see the appeal of the cross-dressing comedian Jean Malin, whom we’ve seen in this blog before doing his Mae West schtick.

UNDER COVER…Program for the New York version of the Folies Bergère from 1933; at right, **Jean Malin** with and without (inset) his costume. (Ebay/Pinterest)

A perusal of the 1933 Folies Bergère program suggests this was not family-friendly fare…

Long concluded her column with the familiar signature, and perhaps a sigh…

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The Other Lois

We aren’t quite finished with Lois Long. I happened to notice this ad in the back pages of the issue — although the folks at Van Raalte believed fishnet stockings (first introduced in the 1920s) were all a civilized girl could desire, Long maintained a skeptical distance in her “On and Off the Avenue” fashion column:

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The Brothers Mills

The “Talk of the Town” introduced readers to the Mills Brothers (Donald, Herbert, Harry and John Jr.), and if you haven’t heard of them, your parents or grandparents sure thought they were swell. Perhaps the most popular vocal group of all time, you can still hear them today, especially in old Christmas carol compilations.

SOLID GOLD…the jazz and pop vocal quartet, the **Mills Brothers,** made more than 2,000 recordings that sold more than 50 million copies. They garnered dozens of gold records. (Remarkable Ohio)

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Car Wars

As the Great Depression slowly crushed some of the smaller automobile manufacturers, the Big Three (Ford, GM and Chrysler) were duking it out the advertising pages, much to the amusement of E.B. White, who filed this in his “Notes and Comment” section:

FLOATS LIKE A BUTTERFLY…While Ford and GM fought over cylinders, **Walter Chrysler** outflanked them with his “Floating Power” Plymouth. (americanbusinesshistory.org)

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From Our Advertisers

E.B. White provides us a nice segue into our advertising section, where desperate automakers vied for the attention of cash-strapped Americans, including the makers of the luxury brand Lincoln, who hoped to convince the upper-middles that this 8-cylinder model was every bit as good as their 12-cylinder monster…

…the Lincoln Eight would still set you back a cool $2,900, roughly equivalent to a car costing $60k today…if I had a time machine I would opt for this sweet little Auburn, a bargain from a company that made some bonafide classics before the Depression plowed it under…

…Hudson would manage to hang around until the 1950s, when it merged with Nash to form American Motors, but I include this ad to remind readers that in 1932 many roads were like this, especially when you cruised beyond the city limits and headed upstate…

…the ads in the New Yorker are rife with social class cues, even unintended ones, like this illustration from Arrow shirts that suggested “old Cuthbert” was out of step with the more nattily dressed, when in fact old Cuthbert might have been old money and couldn’t have given a damn about his collar, let alone the opinions of the grasping new money crowd…

…this advertisement caught my eye initially because it was from the Theatre Guild, an organization not known to be flush with enough dough to spring for full-page spreads, but there’s more…

…John Hanrahan, who also served as the New Yorker’s policy council, became the publisher of Stage magazine in 1932, so he likely got a break from the New Yorker’s advertising department, and deservedly so: it was Hanrahan who helped put the fledgling New Yorker on a firm financial footing during some of its toughest years.

According to Lucy Moore’s book, Anything Goes: A Biography of the Roaring Twenties (excerpt found on Erenow) “the New Yorker was ‘the outstanding flop of 1925.’ Advertisers failed to materialize. Circulation dipped below 3,000. In early May, (Harold) Ross, (Raoul) Fleishmann, Hawley Truax and the professional publisher John Hanrahan met at the Princeton Club and decided to cut their losses. The initial investment of $45,000 had gone and Fleishmann was owed another $65,000. It was costing between $5,000 and $8,000 a week to keep the magazine afloat. As they walked away from the meeting, Fleishmann overheard Hanrahan say, ‘I can’t blame Ross for calling it off, but it surely is like killing something that’s alive.’ Hanrahan’s words struck Fleishmann deeply, and when he saw Ross later that afternoon he told him that he was willing to try and raise outside capital to help the New Yorker survive.”

As for Stage magazine, it managed to survive the Depression, but ceased publication in 1939. Here is the final issue:

…on to our cartoonists, we begin with this nice spot illustration by James Thurber…

…and Thurber’s cartoon contribution to the issue…

…William Steig gave us another of his “Small Fry,” coming dangerously close to being too cute for the New Yorker…

…Leonard Dove showed us some speakeasy owners appreciating an addition to the decor…

…this Otto Soglow contribution was a spot illustration, but had a lot to say about the approval ratings of President Herbert Hoover in 1932…

…those celebrated Southern manners, Mary Petty found, could be tedious in tender moments…

…and we close with the great Peter Arno, who gave us a peep into an awkward moment…

Next Time: The Shipping News…

dkdkd

The Coming War

While many Americans partied through the Roaring Twenties, there were a few voices out there, barely audible, that warned of economic collapse and another world war.

Oct. 3, 1931 cover by **Helen Hokinson.**

The humorist and New Yorker contributor Frank Sullivan was among the few who took notice of the dire predictions (of war, anyway) and turned it into a funny take on how a European war might unfold. Excerpts:

Sullivan’s last line is a wordplay on “air,” and not likely a prediction of the horrible firebombing and V-2 attacks that would devastate Europe in the following decade.

In Sullivan’s day two notable predictions of war came from British economist John Maynard Keynes and British author Hector Charles Bywater. In his 1919 book, The Economic Consequences of the Peace, Keynes warned that “unstable elements,” destroyed during the Great War (WWI), had not been replaced with more stable networks or institutions. Bywater’s prescient 1925 novel, The Great Pacific War, featured a hypothetical future war between Japan and the U.S. that predicted a number of events in World War Two’s Pacific Theatre.

I SEE DEAD PEOPLE…Economist **John Maynard Keynes** and British author **Hector Charles Bywater** both didn’t like what they saw coming on the horizon.

There were reasons for Keynes to be concerned. Germany found many ways to subvert restrictions imposed by the Treaty of Versailles, and continued to make technological advances in armaments and air power. Moreover, the Treaty’s humiliating terms and demands for costly reparations would lead to a rise in German nationalism in the midst of mass unemployment and a volatile economy. In just a little over a year Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party would seize control of the German state.

And as Bywater feared, the Japanese invaded Manchuria (under false pretenses) on Sept. 18, 1931, and then ignored orders to withdraw from the League of Nations (which had been established by a covenant included in the Treaty of Versailles). Japanese warlords were emboldened by the ease of this takeover and the toothless response from the international community. This scenario would be replayed by the Nazis when they invaded Czechoslovakia in 1939.

UGH, IT’S THAT GUY…Clockwise, from top left, **Adolph Hitler** rolls into Weimar as the Nazi Party continued to gain power in 1930; Hitler youth out for a bike ride in 1932; Japanese troops celebrate their easy invasion of Manchuria in September 1931; political cartoon illustrated Japan’s attitude toward international treaties. (Wikipedia/Pinterest)

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The Man Who Would Not Be King

The world that was gradually setting the stage for World War II was also the world of Edward VIII, the Prince of Wales. A renowned womanizer and major disappointment to his father, George V, this heir to the British throne would begin a secret affair with American socialite Wallis Simpson that would later lead to his abdication as king after a reign of just 326 days. In a two-part profile, the New Yorker’s London correspondent Anthony Gibbs could already see that Edward would not be like other monarchs, this lonely “fish out of water” bored with court protocol and finding escape in a bottle of whisky. Excerpts from Part I (caricature by Al Frueh):

HITLER HONEYMOON…**Edward VIII** abdicated the British throne in December 1936 and married the newly divorced **Wallis Simpson** in June 1937. Four months later (right) they would pay a visit to **Adolph Hitler** and his thugs at Hitler’s mountain retreat above Berchtesgaden. Edward was known to be sympathetic to the Nazis, and favored the type of appeasement that would embolden *Der Führer* to invade Czechoslovakia and much of Europe beginning in 1939. (Pinterest/Wikipedia)

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From Our Advertisers

The opening of the new Waldorf-Astoria Hotel on Park Avenue had everyone and their dog getting in on a piece of the action, including manufacturers who hoped to associate their wares with the world’s tallest hotel…we begin with an ad from the hotel’s promoters…

…I surprised to find pedestrian products such as rayon curtains and aluminum chairs associated with the luxury hotel…

…but perhaps the novelty of these things made them “must-haves” associated with modern living in 1931…this ad from the Oct 10 issue…

…one habit of modern living was cigarette smoking, and thanks to aggressive advertising droves of women were joining the menfolk in this activity…

…Camels were originally promoted as a woman’s cigarette, and in 1931 R.J. Reynolds shifted their ad style from chic illustrations of disinterested, continental types, such as the one below by Carl Erickson from the March 21, 1931 issue (and imitated by the Spud ad above)…

…to photographs of fresh-faced American women…

…Barney’s ran this recurring ad (with illustration by Peter Arno) in the back pages of the New Yorker, the latest touting the reopening of Barney Gallant’s “continental cabaret”…