advertising – Page 34 – A New Yorker State of Mind

The Shape of Things to Come

(Photograph by Flickr user August Fischer)

It is often observed that when we look to the past we can see our the future. More than 90 years ago, Swiss architect Le Corbusier (Charles-Édouard Jeanneret) wrote an influential book on modern architecture, Vers une Architecture (1923) that helped to radically change how we looked at our built environment. Translated into English in 1927 under varying titles (Toward an Architecture, or Towards a New Architecture), the book caught the appreciative eye of New Yorker architecture critic George Chappell, who wrote under the pseudonym “T-Square.”

6a4881d9250d214bed267228a8881e08 — Nov. 12, 1927 cover by **Theodore G. Haupt.**

Given that most new architecture in Manhattan was adorned in architectural stylings from the past, or gussied up in Jazz Age art deco, Chappell was introducing his readers to something very different, to ideas that would transform their city within two generations.

slide31-720x540 — A SOBER-MINDED THINKER…**Le Corbusier** at work in his apartment at 20 Rue Jacob, Paris, in the late 1920s. (Brassai Paris)

In his embrace of technology and mass production, Corbusier maintained that houses should be built in standardized forms that allowed for continuous refinement, designed as “machines for living” with the same precision as automobiles and airplanes…

In case you doubt the architect’s fervor, here is Corbusier’s manifesto on mass production included in Towards a New Architecture:

0195a9893bd41cf67cb5cd7b0bacc4f9 — MACHINES FOR LIVING…This two-family structure on the outskirts of Stuttgart, Germany, was designed by **Le Corbusier** and his cousin, **Pierre Jeanneret** in 1927. It was one of the first built manifestations of Corbusier’s *Five Points of a New Architecture*, a manifesto written in 1926. The house set an important precedent for the emerging International Style associated with Germany’s Bauhaus movement. (noordinaryhomes.com)

In Towards a New Architecture, Corbusier wrote that while architecture was stifled by custom and lost in the past (“to send architectural students to Rome is to cripple them for life…”), engineers were embracing new technologies and building simple, effective and “honest” structures. Rather than rely on past forms or contemporary trends such as art deco, Corbusier said architecture should fundamentally change how humans interact with buildings.

monoskop-org — ALL DRESSED UP WITH NOWHERE TO GO…A photograph from Towards a New Architecture. Corbusier said contemporary architecture was stifled by custom and lost in the past. (monoskop.org)

fig_7_page_29_copy_0 — FORM FOLLOWS FUNCTION…Examples of “honest” and functional industrial buildings featured in Towards a New Architecture. (monoskop.org)

Corbusier concluded his book with a moral imperative and an ominous choice for the future: “Architecture or Revolution.” He asserted that the “great disagreement between the modern state of mind…and the stifling accumulation of age-long detritus” would force modern man to live in an “old and hostile environment” and deny him an “organized family life,” ultimately leading to the destruction of the family.

In less than ten years the Nazis would chase the “degenerate” Bauhaus out of Europe and into the embrace of American academe. In short order Corporate America would adopt Corbusier’s International Style, if imperfectly, but most Americans would prove resistant to making their homes into “machines for living.”

Corbusier would doubtless be shocked (and disappointed) to know that 100 years hence people still live in mock Tudors and “Tuscan Villas,” especially in the midst of so much advanced technology.

villa-savoye-near-paris-france_le-corbusier_unesco_flickr-august-fischer_dezeen_936_0-1 — HOME SWEET HOME…Villa Savoye near Paris, France. Designed by Le Corbusier in 1928, completed in 1931. Named a World Heritage Site in 2016. (Photograph by Flickr user August Fischer)

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AS HE WAS SAYING…

The new Sherry-Netherland apartment hotel near Central Park was exactly the sort of architecture Corbusier detested. “The Talk of the Town,” however, seemed impressed with its elegant appointments…

SUMPTUOUS…The foyer of the Sherry-Netherland, restored to its former glory in 2014. (Wikipedia)

screen-shot-2017-01-24-at-9-28-00-am — ROOM WITH A VIEW…The Sherry-Netherland penthouse, priced at $35,000 a year in 1927, is now worth more than $100 million. (TripAdvisor/Robert Caplin for The New York Times)

“Talk” noted that beneath the Sherry-Netherland’s spire the penthouse apartment could be had for $35,000 a year, roughly equivalent to $477,000 today. The building went co-op in the 1950s, and that would have been a good time to buy the penthouse. Today it is valued at more than $100 million.

Poo on Pooh

Dorothy Parker lamented the state of children’s literature in the “Books” section, and expressed her displeasure with A.A. Milne, a former humor writer for Punch who “went quaint” with his Winnie the Pooh stories.

by Howard Coster, half-plate film negative, 1926 — OLD SOFTIE…**A. A. Milne** with his son **Christopher Robin** and Pooh Bear, at Cotchford Farm, their home in Sussex, in 1926. Photo by Howard Coster. (npg.org.uk)

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New Game in Town

Niven Busch Jr. wrote about the growing popularity of professional hockey. Tex Rickard’s two-year-old franchise, the New York Rangers, were a major draw at the new Madison Square Garden (they would win the Stanley Cup in their second year), and even Texans were into the sport–Busch noted that a game between Dallas and Fort Worth teams drew 20,000 spectators.

192728_lg — ICE MEN…Stanley Cup winners, the 1927-28 New York Rangers. (rangers.ice.nhl.com)

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And finally, from the world of advertising, here is one in a series of classically themed ads for the McCreery department store…

…and this advertisement for the Marmon 8, an “ideal woman’s car”…

Next time: Mutt & Jeff…

You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby

Above: Noël Coward and Gertrude Lawrence in a 1930 performance of Coward's Private Lives. Encyclopedia Britannica.

Those of us who still remember cigarette ads on television will recognize the tagline that heads this blog–“You’ve come a long way, baby,” was the jingle for Virginia Slims–which in 1968 was a new, thin cigarette from Phillip Morris marketed specifically to women.

9983e8cd5c5a373ecc556a6012f32c9a — October 29, 1927 cover by **Julian de Miskey**.

The campaign launched by the Leo Burnett Agency sought to make Virginia Slims an “aspirational” brand for the liberated woman of the Swinging 60s…

1968-virginia-slims-ad — These ads from 1968 announced a new cigarette for the liberated woman. (flashbak.com)

Forty years earlier, the folks at Liggett & Myers Tobacco Company also thought they could trade on the image of the Jazz Age’s liberated woman with this famous ad from 1926:

154997-chesterfield2 — (History News Network)

Although the woman in the ad was not smoking, a taboo had been broken by merely suggesting she might be a smoker. The New Yorker first explored this topic in their July 24, 1926 issue, with this item in “The Talk of the Town”…

In the Oct. 29, 1927 issue they returned to the topic in the “Talk” column, now that advertisers had gone a step further and actually depicted women with lighted cigarettes between their fingers:

screen-shot-2017-01-04-at-3-17-10-pm — BRAZEN…Ads from 1927 depicting women smoking Old Gold and Marlboro cigarettes.

The Oct. 29, 1927, The New Yorker itself featured ads with women smokers, including this installment in a series for Old Gold by cartoonist Clare Briggs…

…and this ad for the tipless Smokador ashtray, which was featured in many issues of The New Yorker…

What Flattery Will Get You

In addition to women smokers, The New Yorker was also agog about a visit to the city by the great French fashion designer Paul Poiret (1879–1944), who upon his arrival proclaimed American women to be the best-dressed in the world:

screen-shot-2017-01-04-at-4-00-32-pm — THE LIBERATOR…**Paul Poiret** on a stroll with models, circa 1930. Poiret led a fashion renaissance that introduced free-flowing dresses and “harem pants.” He is often credited with liberating women from the corset. (trendmano.blog.hu)

Perhaps Poiret’s flattery of American women could be attributed to the fact that his designs had lost popularity in France after World War I, and his fashion empire was on the brink of collapse. (Indeed, his fashion house would close in 1929). However today he is recognized as the first great modernist in fashion design, often compared to Pablo Picasso in terms of the contributions he made to his field.

The New Yorker took advantage of his visit to the city by featuring him in a lengthy profile in the Oct. 29 issue, written by Paris correspondent Janet Flanner under the pseudonym “Hippolyta.” Despite Poiret’s diminished presence in France, Flanner nevertheless understood his enormous contribution to modern fashion design. She concluded her profile with this observation:

Something Fishy

The New Yorker appealed to young, upscale urban dwellers, so it was no wonder that Harper’s Bazar advertised in the magazine, including this ad in the Oct. 29, 1927 issue that announced the debut in its pages of the English artist known as “Fish”…

Anne Harriet Fish (1890-1964) was famed for her witty depictions of high society in Condé Nast’s Vanity Fair and The Tatler, where she began work in 1914. A rival “smart set” magazine, Harper’s Bazar, was eager to boast that it had finally “landed” the Fish.

6fb43ab16b45d6f41329fef80bd1baf0 — A February 1916 *Vanity Fair* cover by **A. H. Fish.** (Condé Nast)

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Broadway Ballet

The Oct. 29 “Talk of the Town” noted that Albertina Rasch and her ballet dancers were making quite a splash on Broadway. Her success in staging dances for Flo Ziegfeld’s “Follies” and George White’s “Scandals” would lead to a career in Hollywood, where she would be instrumental in elevating the role of dance director to what we now call a choreographer. Among her many firsts, she is credited with helping to establish Cole Porter’s “Begin the Beguine” as a popular standard by incorporating it into a dance in the 1935 film Jubilee.

The Albertina Rasch Dancers in costume for *Rio Rita* (1927). (songbook1.wordpress.com)

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Where Were You Last Year?

Writing under the pseudonym “Constant Reader,” Dorothy Parker penned a vigorous defense of Ernest Hemingway’s short fiction in the “Books” section of the Oct. 29 issue. Specifically she took issue with critics who continued to rave about Hemingway’s novel The Sun Also Rises, but mostly ignored a collection of short stories he had previously published under the title In Our Time.

screen-shot-2017-01-05-at-1-19-48-pm — HE’S PRETTY GOOD…**Ernest Hemingway** in 1927, shortly after publication of his novel *The Sun Also Rises.* At right, **Dorothy Parker** in the 1920s. (AP/Bookriot)

And finally, Barbara Shermund explored the intersection of high culture and flapper culture in this cartoon…

Next Time: Death Avenue Days…

Wits of the Round Table

Two big voices from the famed Algonquin Round Table were prominently featured in the Oct. 1 and Oct. 8, 1927 issues of the New Yorker–journalist and champion of the underdog Heywood Broun wrote his own “Profile” under the title, “The Rabbit That Bit the Bulldog,” and Dorothy Parker served up biting satire in “Arrangement in Black and White,” a clever exposé of racism among the fashionably “open-minded” upper classes.

488a50459a792547010d30e8bfe5ddf4 — October 1, 1927 cover by **Gardner Rea**.

The Rabbit That Bit the Bulldog

Hiding under the signature “R.A.”, Heywood Broun (1888–1939) was merciless as his own profiler, describing himself as a coward, hypochondriac, and a slob (there is truth to the latter, however, as friends often likened him to “an unmade bed”).

Broun cut his teeth in journalism as a sportswriter and war correspondent. In 1921 he went to work for the New York World, where he penned his popular syndicated column “It Seems to Me.” Broun’s New Yorker “Profile” was written after he was fired from the World following a disagreement with his editor over his critical commentary on the sentencing of anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti. Broun would move on to The Nation, where he would write a regular column, “It Seems to Heywood Broun,” that would offer criticism on a number of topics including his former employer, the World.

**Heywood Broun.** (Denver Newspaper Guild)

The New Yorker profile included this caricature by Peter Arno…

…a portrayal Broun claimed was inaccurate due to his “habitual stoop,” among other faults…

…and he mused about his future with the Nation, and how that august publication would square with his various foibles…

…and as for his personal appearance and habits, Broun weighed in thusly…

Broun married social activist Ruth Hale in 1917. A son born the following year, Heywood Hale Broun, would have a long and successful career as an author, sportswriter, commentator and actor.

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The Long Count

Oddly, The New Yorker had little to say about the famous Chicago rematch between heavyweight boxers Gene Tunney and Jack Dempsey, which Tunney won after the controversial “long count.” The fight took place under new rules that gave a fallen fighter ten seconds to rise to his feet, but the count would not begin until his opponent moved to a neutral corner.

tumblr_mti3g257h11rnxl9do1_500 — DAZED AND CONFUSED…Referee **Dave Barry** motions Jack Dempsey to a neutral corner before he begins his count. **Gene Tunney** got back up and went on to win the fight. (*Chicago Tribune* archive photo)

Although Tunney dominated the fight, Dempsey unleashed a flurry in the seventh round that knocked Tunney to the canvas–it was the first time in Tunney’s career that he’d been knocked down. Instead of going immediately to a neutral corner, Dempsey just stood and observed his opponent for several seconds until finally retreating. Those extra seconds proved just enough time to allow Tunney to return to his feet and eventually win the bout. To one observer quoted in “The Talk of Town,” those extra seconds really dragged…

From the Ad Department

We feature this Julian de Miskey-illustrated advertisement for Faultless Nobelt Pajamas. Apparently these special PJs had some sort of newfangled rubber elastic band…

…and this cartoon from the Oct. 1 issue featured Helen Hokinson’s ditsy society women at New York’s Fashion Week…

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Dorothy Takes On the Snobs

In the Oct. 8 issue, our other Round Table wit, Dorothy Parker, took aim at the less savory aspects of society women in her short fiction piece, “Arrangement in Black and White.”

f19964a9d1e1b6179fe2715bb3b1aa72 — October 8, 1927 cover by **Rea Irvin**.

Parker began her piece by introducing us to a woman who enters a party wearing a wreath of “pink velvet poppies” in her golden hair. In short order she asks the party’s host to “pretty please” introduce her to the party’s guest of honor, an African American singer named Walter Williams.

The woman with the pink velvet poppies goes on to tell her host that she came to the party alone because her husband, Burton, preferred not to socialize with “colored people”–but she however was “simply crazy” about some of them. “They’re just like children–just as easy-going, and always singing and laughing and everything.” Before she met the singer she observed to the host:

screen-shot-2016-12-06-at-1-16-57-pm — The woman with the pink velvet poppies meets the singer Walter Williams, as illustrated by **Peter Arno**.

Then the woman with the pink velvet poppies meets Walter Williams:

She continues to patronize the guest of honor, then notices a stage actress at the party:

Finally, the host guides the woman with the pink velvet poppies away from Walter Williams…

05325779fdf286303013d76dc9e89388 — BITING WIT…**Dorothy Parker** in the 1920s.

We will see more of Dorothy Parker in issues to come as she continues to take aim at the pretentious, hypocritical, self-absorbed snobs of the Jazz Age and beyond.

Baseball’s Lament

The Oct. 1 and 8 issues covered yacht racing, polo, tennis, golf and college football, but still no baseball. The 1927 New York Yankees would be one of the greatest teams of all time, but as the World Series commenced all we got from The New Yorker was a personality profile of Yankees manager Miller Huggins in the Oct. 8 issue (with a drawing by Reginald Marsh)…

…and this advertisement for “Sport Glasses” for those attending the World Series…

Perhaps The New Yorker had no one on staff who could competently write about baseball. The strangest reference to the game was this article about polo, but for some reason it was illustrated with baseball images. Perhaps the editors felt sheepish about their lack of baseball coverage, and offered these illustrations by Howard Baer as a token acknowledgement…

At any rate, we end with this cartoon by Julien de Miskey, who like his colleagues explored the comic richness of wealthy old men paired with their young mistresses…

Next Time: The Ephemeral City…

The Wages of Beauty

“The Very Golden Apple” was the title of an essay by E. A. Tosbell in the Sept. 3, 1927 issue that examined the transformation of the Miss America pageant–just seven years old–into a big money concern.

31c2a728e871acb0cd991e761bcb7f76 — September 3, 1927 cover by **Theodore G. Haupt**.

Tosbell opened with the lament that Miss Los Angeles, Adrienne Dore, should have won the 1925 contest save for a lapse in table manners…

screen-shot-2016-11-28-at-10-29-38-am — PASS THE SALT, PLEASE…**Adrienne Dore,** left, was runner-up to fellow Californian **Fay Lanphier**, who was crowned Miss America in 1925. Dore would go on to a modest movie career through the mid 1930s. (Allure/travsd.wordpress.com)

miss_america_contestants_1925 — ALL-AMERICAN LINE-UP…Contestants from a hodge podge of states, cities and towns vied for the Miss America crown in 1925. (Wikipedia) ***Click to Enlarge***

Tosbell offered us a taste of what contestants could expect upon their arrival in Atlantic City…

Norma Smallwood from Tulsa, Oklahoma was crowned Miss America 1926, the first Native American to capture the title. Smallwood was highly criticized in the press for her business savvy as she went on to earn $100,000 through personal appearance fees and product endorsements. Tosbell noted:

1926-crowned-by-king-neptune1925-looks-on-1 — THERE SHE GOES…**Norma Smallwood** of Tulsa, Oklahoma was crowned Miss America 1926 by “King Neptune” as Miss America 1925 Fay Lanphier (right) held her scepter. (missamerica.org)

In 1927 Smallwood would again draw criticism when she requested $600 from the pageant for her appearance in crowning the new winner, Lois Delander. Delander was a high school student who won her local contest in Joliet, Illinois by reciting Bible verses. Unlike her predecessors, Delander turned down lucrative offers in show business and returned home to continue her school studies.

missamerica-01_zps22408d2c — IT’S NICE, BUT…**Lois Delander** of Joliet, Illinois was a most unassuming Miss America of 1927. (Time.com)

In the case of a 1922 Miss America contestant, Georgia Hale, you didn’t have to win the pageant to make it to the Big Time. Hale was chosen by Charlie Chaplin to be his “leading lady” in 1925’s The Gold Rush, and in the following year she would play Myrtle Wilson in the first filmed version of The Great Gatsby. A savvy businesswoman, Hale would become wealthy through real estate investments in Southern California.

charlie_and_georgia_hale_original_ending_03_-_the_gold_rush_1925_-_pdvd_036 — SHE STRUCK GOLD…**Georgia Hale** and **Charlie Chaplin** in *The Gold Rush,* 1925. (Wikimedia Commons)

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The September 3 “Talk of the Town” offered some insights into the dressing habits (and tardiness) of New York’s dandified mayor, Jimmy Walker, who was preparing for an overseas journey. Excerpts:

Screen Shot 2015-07-24 at 1.01.10 PM — GOTHAM’S CLOTHES HORSE…New York City Mayor **Jimmy Walker** during a visit to Boston in the late 1920s. (c. Leslie Jones, digitalcommonwealth.org)

The New Yorker continued its commentary on the changing city skyline as urban residences continued their skyward climb, including the oddly named Oliver Cromwell apartment hotel:

An advertisement in the same issue touted the Cromwell’s serene, park-like setting:

There were numerous advertisements like these in The New Yorker. Another promoted the Beverly’s sky-high “wind-swept terraces…”

125-east-50th-top — The Beverly today (now the Benjamin Hotel). The 30-story building was designed by **Emery Roth** with Sylvan Bien and built in 1926-27. Commissioned by **Moses Ginsberg** to host middle-income visitors to New York City, it was recently submitted for landmark designation as an important fixture in Grand Central Terminal’s “Hotel Alley.” (Historic Districts Council)

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On to the Sept. 10, 1927 issue, and a couple of cartoons that aptly represented the spirit of Roaring Twenties…

e2f69e45ad57152eae57b86f94f11cb8 — Sept. 10, 1927 cover by **Theodore G. Haupt.**

…Johan Bull offered a glimpse of the new rich in the realm of culture…

…while Carl Rose captured the spirit of investors during the waning days of the red hot 1920s stock market…

Next Time: The Thurber Effect…

Picking on Charlie Chaplin

In 1927 silent film star Charlie Chaplin was working on his latest film, The Circus, when his second wife, Lita Grey, filed for divorce, accusing her husband of infidelity, abuse, and of harbouring “perverted sexual desires.” Life imitated art, and Charlie’s own life became a circus.

5128947dc365cb603134bbb6e56f67aa — July 23, 1927 cover by **Stanley W. Reynolds**.

The New Yorker’s Ralph Barton, who contributed countless illustrations for the magazine (and was a close friend of Chaplin’s), wrote about Chaplin’s latest travails in a column titled “Picking on Charlie Chaplin.”

chaplin1928circus — LIFE ON THE HIGH WIRE…**Charlie Chaplin** in *The Circus* (1928). (MoMA)

The “2” Barton mentioned were teenaged actress Lita Grey and her mother, Lillian Parker.

In 1924 the 35-year-old Chaplin married the 16-year-old Grey in a discreet ceremony in Mexico — because Grey was pregnant, Chaplin could have been charged with statutory rape under California law (it was Chaplin’s second marriage, and his second to a teenaged actress). Chaplin and Grey had two sons from their brief union–Charles Spencer Chaplin, Jr., was born in 1925, followed by Sydney Earl Chaplin in 1926.

The divorce made headline news as Chaplin was reported to be in a state of nervous breakdown. Filming for The Circus was suspended for ten months while he dealt with the mess:

Chaplin’s lawyers agreed to a cash settlement of $600,000—the largest awarded by American courts at that time (Roughly equivalent to more than $8 million today). Groups formed across America calling for his films to be banned (no doubt the same groups that had earlier protested his marriage to a pregnant, teenaged minor). Barton mused that the protests might cause Chaplin to abandon America for the more permissive atmosphere in Europe:

lita-charlie-flirtatious-angel — HERE’S LOOKING AT YOU…**Charlie Chaplin** first became acquainted with the 12-year-old **Lillita McMurray** (later Lita Grey) during the filming of *The Kid* (1921).

Charlie-Chaplin-and-Lita-Grey — PRATFALL…**Charlie Chaplin** and **Lita Grey** during their brief, tumultuous marriage. (The Artifice)

The Circus was released in January 1928 to positive reviews, and during the first-ever Academy Awards Chaplin received a special trophy, “For versatility and genius in acting, writing, directing and producing The Circus. Despite the film’s success, he rarely spoke of it again. For Charlie, it was a time best forgotten.

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And now, an advertisement from the July 23 issue urging readers to buy the 1920s equivalent of “Smart Water” endorsed by the Sun King himself…

…and a cartoon by Reginald Marsh, portraying a distinctly American view of the grandeur of Niagara Falls…

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On to July 30, 1927 issue, in which The New Yorker once again takes a poke at our 30th President…

a5bc3067a36eb35927e56509e2fd7092 — July 30, 1927 cover by **Ilonka Karasz.**

…and his latest adventures in the wilds of South Dakota’s Black Hills:

BIG CHIEF…President **Calvin Coolidge** donned a headdress while being named an honorary Sioux chief (“Leading Eagle”) in Deadwood, South Dakota. His advisers cautioned that the headdress would make him look funny, but he apparently replied, “Well it’s good for people to laugh, isn’t it?” (AP)

Safely back in the environs of the big city, The New Yorker continued to take stock of summer sports such as tennis, polo, and the yacht races at Larchmont (but still no mention of the legendary ’27 Yankees). This illustration of the races (unsigned, but I guess it is Reginald Marsh) graced a double-spread below “The Talk of the Town”…

screen-shot-2016-11-02-at-1-02-09-pm — **(click to enlarge)**

…and if you were attending the races, or wanted to look stylish on your yacht (or if you just wanted to dress this way to appear that you owned one), you could check out the selections at B. Altman’s…

…looking smart was everywhere in the issue, from multiple ads for fall furs, to this come-on from Buick, which suggests that even though it is no Cadillac, and certainly not a Rolls, its smartness will prevail “on any boulevard”…

The Buick ad is somewhat revolutionary for an early automobile ad in that it doesn’t actually show the product advertised.

As for those not among the smart set, and not enjoying the races at Larchmont, there were other summer diversions, as rendered here by J.H. Fyfe:

Next Time: Babe Comes Home…

Fifteen Minutes is Quite Enough

Above image courtesy NASA History Office.

Charles Lindbergh was all over the July 2, 1927 issue of The New Yorker, which reported that Lindy was a better a flier than a writer, and as a celebrity the press had to be inventive with a subject who would rather be alone in a cockpit with a ham sandwich than be feted at countless banquets.

7b096a824e274d6b7b7c5e0f1a3e85e7 — July 2, 1927 cover by **Victor Bobritsky**.

“The Talk of the Town” commented on the display at Putnam Publishing of a few manuscript pages penned by Lindbergh himself for his upcoming book, WE.

A draft of the autobiography had already been ghostwritten by New York Times reporter Carlyle MacDonald, but Lindbergh disliked MacDonald’s “false, fawning tone” and completely rewrote the manuscript himself–in longhand–using MacDonald’s manuscript as a template. Those early results were displayed in Putnam’s 45th Street window to whet the appetites of eager readers:

dustjacket_for_the_book_%22we%22_by_charles_a-_lindbergh_first_edition_published_july_1927 — FLYING THE ATLANTIC WAS EASIER…The dust jacket (left) for Charles Lindbergh’s *WE.* The ghostwritten first draft was disliked by Lindbergh, who in less than three weeks re-wrote the book in longhand. About a week later the book was published (July 27, 1927) and quickly became a bestseller. (Wikipedia)

lindberghs-ticker-tape-parade-1927-science-photo-library — YEAH WHATEVER…Lindbergh appears less than thrilled during his ticker-tape parade in Manhattan on June 13, 1927. (Science Photo Library )

Nonplussed and often annoyed by all of the attention, Lindbergh was less than a colorful subject for the media. Philip Wylie (writing under the pseudonym “Horace Greeley Jr.”) in The New Yorker’s “Press in Review” column observed that reporters, seeking a more conventional image of a sentimental hero, decided to “supply him with emotions” he apparently lacked:

Other reporters resorted to treacly tributes…

…and if the subject himself wasn’t very interesting, you could always resort to listing quantities of food and drink as a measure of the spectacle…

cal_banquet — WHERE’S MY HAM SAMMICH?…Invitation to the WE banquet at the Hotel Commodore (Wikipedia).

And if the reception at the Hotel Commodore wasn’t to your liking, you could go to the new Roxy Theatre and put in a bid for 300 pounds of home-made candy:

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We’ll give Lindy a break and move on to excerpts from Upton Sinclair’s “How to be Obscene,” in which he tweaks the Boston bluenoses:

And then we have this advertisement for the Orthophonic Victrola, promising to bring the clear tones of racism into your home courtesy of the Duncan Sisters:

The Duncan Sisters were a vaudeville duo who created their stage identities in the 1923 musical comedy Topsy and Eva, derived from the novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe. The musical was a big hit.

18bcd1e588bb3456db02bd7de94cba31 — *THAT* WAS ENTERTAINMENT…Sisters **Rosetta** (left) and Vivian Duncan as Topsy and Eva. (silenceisplatinum.blogspot.com)

9a89aa65126941d43da14c086ed0f22c — **Rosetta** and **Vivian Duncan** in a promo photo. (silenceisplatinum.blogspot.com)

After a brief foray into movies in the early 1930s, the duo mostly entertained at night clubs and for many years continued to perform their Topsy and Eva routine even though appearing in blackface was considered impolite or offensive by later audiences. One of their final performances was on Liberace’s television show in 1956. The act ended in 1959 when Rosetta died in a car accident.

screen-shot-2016-10-27-at-4-22-32-pm — STILL TOGETHER…Vivian (left) and Rose Duncan on Liberace’s television show in 1956. They performed their Topsy and Eva routine, without the blackface. (YouTube)

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And to close, a cartoon from the July 2 issue, courtesy of Julian de Miskey:

Next Time: Summer in the City…

Mode de Vie

We cross the pond for the May 14, 1927 issue, for a look at all things French. As I’ve previously noted, New Yorker readers of the 1920s had a decidedly Francophile bent when it came to food, fashion and general joie de vivre.

304b9308de906b0c02f50b14add69c6d — May 14, 1927 cover by Rea Irvin.

In fact, readers were so enamored with France that the country merited its own New Yorker correspondent, Janet Flanner, who wrote under the nom de plume “Genêt.”

In the May 14 issue Flanner casually mused about the racing season at Longchamps, which attracted the likes of Anne Harriman Vanderbilt (identified here as Mrs. W. K. Vanderbilt), who was well-known in France for her philanthropic work during World War I, including her founding of an ambulance service and a hospital at Neuilly. Vanderbilt received the class of the Legion of Honor in 1919 in recognition of her war work, and in 1931 she was made an officer of the legion.

11733033805_35c6a9f8d5_b — BLUE BLOODS…**Anne Harriman** **Vanderbilt** (left) with **Martha Waldron Cowdin Bacon**, circa 1915-1920. Bacon served as chairman of the American Ambulance Committee. (Library of Congress)

In “Talk of the Town,” the editors suggested that readers go to Madison Square Garden and check out the world’s largest canvas painting, Panthéon de la Guerre, more for the spectacle than for any artistic merit:

pantheon_de_la_guerre_panorama_smaller — Section of *Panthéon de la Guerre* showing allies of World War I, now in Memory Hall, Liberty Memorial, Kansas City, Missouri. (theworldwar.com) **Click to enlarge**

Panthéon de la Guerre was painted during World War I as a circular panorama—402 feet in circumference and 45 feet high—displayed in Paris in a specially built building next to the Hôtel des Invalides. It was visited by an estimated eight million people between 1918 and 1927.

The painting was acquired by American businessmen in 1927 and exported to New York, where it was displayed at Madison Square Garden. Some changes were made to the painting for the benefit of an American audience, including the addition of an African-American soldier. The work later toured the U.S.—from 1932 to 1940 it went to Washington DC, Chicago, Cleveland, and San Francisco. It was then acquired by restaurant entrepreneur William Haussner for $3,400.

In 1956 Haussner donated the work to Leroy MacMorris to be adapted for display at the Liberty Memorial in Kansas City. MacMorris drastically reduced the size of the work and modified it to emphasize America’s contribution to WWI: Only seven percent of the original work was retained, and large French sections were left out. MacMorris likened it to “whittling down a novel to Reader’s Digest condensation.” And he didn’t stop there. He also modified some figures to represent post-WWI figures such as Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman.

exhibithall — A BIT OF THIS, A DASH OF THAT…Figure of Victory from the Temple to Glory cut to fit above a doorway at Memory Hall, Liberty Memorial, Kansas City, Missouri, with the staircase of heroes to either side. Compare to original below:

To reduce and reconfigure the painting, MacMorris first photographed it in detail, then cut out the figures in the photos and used them like puzzle pieces to work out his new condensed version, which was dedicated on Nov. 11, 1959.

As for the unused portions, what MacMorris did not use he threw away, sending several of the larger excised passages back to Haussner for display in his Baltimore restaurant. MacMorris also gave pieces to the art students who helped him reconfigure the painting and to a number of prominent Kansas Citians.

2qaatdogmghsne7v2y1e — Fragment from *Panthéon de la Guerre* depicting a British nursing sister. (theworldwar.org)

The National World War I Museum and Memorial in Kansas City recently held an exhibition on the painting and its recovered fragments.

* * *

Lois Long had returned from Paris and advised readers on where to shop in the City of Light. Her fashion column, “On and Off the Avenue,” featured recommendations for many stores and bargains. It began with a brief note from “Parisite,” aka Elizabeth Hawes, who occasionally contributed to Long’s column with cables sent from Paris).

And now for the advertisements, all from the May 14 issue, featuring various French themes, such as this one for Krasny makeup that evokes the glamour of Paris and the intrigue of Russian women…

…or exotic perfumes for only the most exclusive set…

…or the chic look of Revillon Freres spring coats and wraps…

…or fake vermouth…this odd little illustration in the back pages for non-alcoholic vermouth, served by a dutiful French maid to what appears to be a giant. You have to feel sorry for the writers of such ads during Prohibition, trying so hard to make this sad libation appealing to thirsty New Yorkers…

…but there were those lucky few who could actually travel to France and drink the real stuff, you could get a really swell send-off with a “Bon Voyage Basket” from L. Bamberger & Co…

…and while you were in France (at least for the men), Peter Arno could show you how to give the glad eye to the mesdemoiselles…

Next Time: Shock of the New…

Those Restless Natives

The evolution of filmmaking in the 1920s included the development of “docudramas.” Nanook of the North (1922), which captured the struggles of an Inuit hunter and his family, was received with great acclaim. A few years later Grass (1925), directed by Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack, followed a tribe in Iran as they guided herds to greener pastures. So when Chang: A Drama of the Wilderness opened at the Rivoli, The New Yorker was there (May 7, 1927) to share in the adventure.

43b9e74a7197a3d27d520d251a303549 — May 7, 1927 cover by **Ilonka Karasz**.

Chang, also directed by Cooper and Schoedsack, told the story of a poor farmer and his family (native, nonprofessional actors) in Issan—now northeastern Thailand—and their constant struggle for survival in the jungle. Cooper and Schoedsack attempted to depict real life but often re-staged events. The danger, however, was real to all involved, as was the slaughter of animals in the film.

According to Ray Young, writing for Viennale, the website for the Vienna International Film Festival (which is screening a retrospective of Chang this fall) Cooper and Schoedsack “open with scenes of domestic bliss and, offsetting title card warnings of the dangers of the jungle, a bucolic Eden ripe for development. But the tone soon shifts as tigers and leopards attack, and the picture evolves into a succession of episodes concerning their survival.”

The perils in Chang often feel rigged, notes Young, “most conspicuously in places where animals appear to have been killed simply for the beneﬁt of the camera. By most accounts, Schoedsack did most of the ﬁlming while Cooper covered him with a riﬂe.”

chang-criticsroundup — I’D BE WARY OF THOSE GUYS TOO…Image from the filming of *Chang.* (criticsroundup.com)

elephant-stampede-from-chang-1927 — JUST PASSING THROUGH…Elephants stampede a village in the film’s finale. (image capture from film)

Chang was nominated for the Academy Award for Unique and Artistic Production at the first Academy Awards in 1929. It was the only year when that award was presented (It lost to F.W. Murnau’s Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans).

However appalled as we are today by the film’s exploitation of humans and animals alike, those were different times, even for the usually discerning eye of The New Yorker:

In 1927 most people had a very limited view of the non-Western world, which was perceived as both savage and exotic, populated by child-like “natives” who in this case “lent their facial expressions and habits to the affair most successfully…”

And so in 1927 we also encounter cartoons like this one by Alan Dunn that at once dismisses out-of-town conventioneers (here: an Elks Lodge) as a bunch of ignorant racists, yet the early New Yorker’s own depictions of Blacks were usually minstrel-era stereotypes.

* * *

The massive Graybar Building made its debut at 420 Lexington Avenue, the multi-tiered edifice impressing the “Talk of the Town” editors with the latest technology, including push-button elevators:

The Graybar Building (history.graybar.com)

graybar-building-2 — PERMANENT INFESTATION…The Graybar’s rain canopy cables include anti-rat devices (cones) decorated with rats. If you look carefully, the rosettes anchoring the cables are also decorated with rat heads. (deadprogrammer.com)

* * *

The following advertisement needs some explanation: The 1867 Tenement House Act imposed constraints on height and lot coverage that large apartment buildings routinely violated.

According to an article in the Observer by Stephen Jacob Smith (April 30, 2013), “Some developers got out of these requirements by building co-operative buildings, without rental units, but others wanted to retain the revenue and control that came with rentals, while at the same time building larger structures than the tenement laws allowed. And thus was born the ‘apartment hotel.'”

The New York Times’s columnist Christopher Gray wrote (Oct. 4, 1992) that Apartment Hotels were a “widespread fiction of the period,” and “tenants in fact usually set up full kitchens in the serving pantries.” Smith adds that “one of the reasons apartment hotels were allowed to be built more densely than their fully residential counterparts was that there would be no cooking—a fire hazard in those days—in the units.” An so the ad:

Smith writes that by calling their buildings ‘apartment-hotels,’ builders could claim that as hotels they were outside of the rules of tenement legislation. He notes that “some of Manhattan’s most illustrious buildings were constructed using this legal sleight of hand,” including the Sherry-Netherland on Park Avenue.

The famous scaffolding fire at the Sherry-Netherland, which I featured in my last post, no doubt prompted developers to run the following ad in hopes that people would soon forget about the giant roman candle that burned bright near Central Park on the evening of April 12, 1927.

If you are ever in New York, check out the Sherry Netherland. It is a beautiful building.

And finally, this ad from the makers of Wildroot hair care products. I love the flapper artwork by John Held Jr., and even better the words “CRUDE-OIL SHAMPOO” displayed prominently as a selling point.

Next Time: Mode de Vie…

Unfit to Print

The journalist and screenwriter Ben Hecht wrote the “Reporter at Large” column for the early New Yorker, and for the April 30, 1927 issue took aim at the shoddy coverage of the Ruth Snyder murder trial at the Long Island City Courthouse.

e83e83f37e5b2787e23dd4ee7a85c62d — April 30, 1927 cover by **Carl Rose**.

Hecht was appalled by the media’s use of celebrity “experts” to cover the trial, which only served to sensationalize and trivialize the proceedings:

The Ruth Snyder trial dominated headlines in 1927. A housewife from Queens, Snyder began an affair in 1925 with Henry Judd Gray, a married corset salesman. After she persuaded her husband, Albert Snyder, to purchase life insurance, she enlisted Gray’s help to murder him. On March 20, 1927 the couple garrotted Albert (after bludgeoning him with a sash weight) and then staged the murder scene to look like a burglary.

The trial was covered by such figures as former Ziegfeld Follies showgirl Peggy Hopkins Joyce, the radio evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson, movie director D. W. Griffith, author Damon Runyon, popular philosopher Will Durant, and James M. Cain, a crime reporter who went on to write Double Indemnity, which was later made into a major Hollywood movie. Hecht (who would go on to co-write a hugely successful play about newspaper reporters, The Front Page) would have none of this celebrity circus. Some excerpts:

Ruth Snyder would not be acquitted (or live to write reviews), but instead would go to Sing Sing’s electric chair on Jan. 12, 1928. The 32-year-old Snyder would go to the chair first, followed shortly thereafter by her former lover and accomplice, 35-year-old Henry Judd Gray. The pair had sealed each other’s fate: During the trial, Snyder and Gray had turned on each other, contending the other was responsible for killing Albert Snyder.

screen-shot-2016-09-08-at-12-22-48-pm — BUSTED…**Ruth Snyder** in custody and behind bars at the Queens County Jail. (Criminal Encyclopedia/NY Daily News)

snyder-and-gray — END OF THE LINE…Mugshots of Ruth Snyder and Henry Judd Gray taken at Sing Sing Prison following their conviction. (Lloyd Sealy Library, CUNY)

connect_blog_ruth-snyder — NATIONAL SENSATION…The cover of Jan. 13, 1928, issue of the *New York Daily News*. Although photographs of the execution were not allowed, photographer **Tom Howard** took this now-famous photo of Snyder at the moment of her execution with the aid of a miniature camera strapped to his ankle. (newseum.org)

* * *

On to a lighter topic…The Sherry-Netherland Hotel has graced the corner of Fifth Avenue and East 59th Street since 1927, and when it was built it was the tallest apartment-hotel in New York City.

The building was nearing completion when around 8 pm on April 12, 1927, fire broke out on wood plank scaffolding surrounding the top floors. Firefighters responded only to find they lacked water pressure to fight the blaze.

According to the New York Times (“The Night a Hotel Turned Into a Torch,” Nov. 15, 2012), the fire was watched by hundreds of thousands, and “the windows of the Plaza Hotel across the street were ‘black with people’; every front room was engaged, either by news organizations or for spontaneous parties to watch the fire.”

Planks tumbled to the street for hours, and The Times said one “sailed in a crazy parabola” and crashed against the Savoy-Plaza, also nearly finished; occasionally minor collapses of the scaffolding turned the picturesque top into a “lofty Roman candle.” The crowds on the street could feel the heat on their faces, and the roar and crackle of the fire could be heard for blocks around. The fire burned itself out around midnight.

Oddly, the New Yorker had little to say about the fire, mentioning it only in passing in this “Talk of the Town” item:

screen-shot-2016-09-08-at-1-14-21-pm — HOT TIME IN THE CITY…In 1927 the Sherry-Netherland caught on fire, creating what *The New York Times* called “the best show of the season.” The newspaper ran this photo (left), retouching it for contrast (New York Times). At right, the hotel as it appears today (Wikipedia)

An interesting side note…at the time of the Sherry-Netherland’s construction, the nearby Vanderbilt mansion was being demolished. Carved limestone panels from the mansion’s porte-cochere as well as ornamental frieze roundels were salvaged and installed in the Sherry-Netherland’s lobby.

Hollywood movies continued to disappoint New Yorker critics, including Cecil B. DeMille’s silent epic The King of Kings.

Finally, a couple of advertisements from the April 30 issue. It was spring, and time to hit the links…

…and New Yorker cartoonist Peter Arno plugged his new book featuring the Whoops Sisters:

Next time: Those Restless Natives…

The Dinosaurs of Upper West Side

New York’s American Museum of National History unveiled its new Hall of Dinosaurs, and it was so impressive that even The New Yorker set aside its usual blasé tone toward popular attractions…

deb15aac127a5a9b06b890362c4878a1 — April 2, 1927 cover by **Toyo San**.

…and found its “Talk of the Town” editors to be quite taken with “sacred bones:”

2007 METRO Project | ImageDigitizationSpecifications v1.0 | Epson Perfection V750 Pro — NEW DIGS…Children studying a Brontosaurus skeleton in the American Museum of National History’s Hall of Dinosaurs, 1927. (AMNH Research Library)

* * *

The April 2, 1927 issue also found New Yorkers to be agog over “French-style” telephones:

Screen Shot 2016-08-22 at 12.39.27 PM — FRANCOPHONE…Trendy New Yorkers were switching from their old reliable candlestick telephones (left) to “French-style” phones (center) that were common throughout Europe. Western Electric answered their call with a sleek American version in 1928, right.

* * *

The April 9, 1927 issue featured the second of Peter Arno’s 99 covers for the New Yorker. His first cover appeared eighteen issues earlier (Nov. 22, 1926) and featured the same gardener, but this time he was inspecting a newly budded leaf rather than the last one to fall:

Note the difference in style between the two covers–the April 9 cover is rendered with more detail, depth and texture. These would be Arno’s only covers with rather sedate subjects. Subsequent covers would have more action and humor, such as this one from 1954, one of my favorites:

* * *

And now for a note about Paul Whiteman. One cannot write about the Jazz Age without mentioning the Paul Whiteman Orchestra. It was Whiteman who in 1924 commissioned George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, which premiered with Whiteman’s orchestra (and with Gershwin himself at the piano).

Whitemasn feb 26 — This ad in the Feb. 26, 1927 *New Yorker* announced the much-anticipated return of **Paul Whiteman** and his orchestra. The caricature of Whiteman was his trademark.

Even Lois Long, who seemed to be growing bored with New York nightlife, found reason to celebrate Whiteman in this column that appeared alongside the ad:

Whiteman had 28 number one records during the 1920s and dominated sheet music sales. He provided music for six Broadway shows and produced more than 600 recordings. Dubbed “King of Jazz” his style was actually a blending of jazz and symphonic music.

The folks at Victor Talking Machines played on Whiteman’s fame with this advertisement for their latest “Orthophonic” Victrola. Although it was the first consumer phonograph designed specifically to play “electrically” recorded discs and was recognized as a major step forward in sound reproduction, the claim that the machine would reproduce sounds “exactly as you would hear them at the smart supper clubs” seemed a little far-fetched.

And finally, in celebration of spring, Constantin Alajalov illustrated an April day in Central Park, which was featured in a two-page spread in “Talk of the Town.”

Screen Shot 2016-08-23 at 12.26.22 PM — *(click to enlarge)*

Next Time: The Enchanting Modernist…