Imagine your favorite Hollywood actress, maybe someone like Julia Roberts,Meryl Streep or Judi Dench. You’ve followed their careers and watched most of their movies, but you’ve never heard their voices.
March 22, 1930 cover by Gardner Rea.
That’s what it was like for Greta Garbo fans before March 1930, when she spoke her first onscreen words in the 1930 MGM drama Anna Christie, which was adapted from a 1922 play by Eugene O’Neill.
SWEDISH SPHINX…Greta Garbo’s mask-like qualities on display in this publicity still for Anna Christie. (IMDB)
The New Yorker’s film critic John Mosher, not always a fan of Garbo’s silent work, found a “special kind of glamour” in her first talking picture, even tossing out the word “legend” to describe this Swede who avoided publicity like a bad cold…
No doubt a few moviegoers saw the movie just to finally hear that voice, which Mosher described as “a surprise…a deep, low voice, a boy’s voice really, rather flat, rather toneless, yet growing more attractive as the picture advances”…
Director William H. Daniels (seated, left) with unidentified cameraman filming a scene from Anna Christie with actors Greta Garbo and Clarence Brown; at right, the actors contemplate the microphone hovering above them. Note how the camera in the first photo is contained in a soundproof case. (IMDB)
Publicized with the tag line “Garbo talks!,” Anna Christie premiered in New York City on Feb. 21 and would become the highest-grossing film of 1930. Later that year a German language version would be filmed featuring Garbo but with a different director and supporting cast.
SOUND DEBUT…Clockwise, from top left, Greta Garbo and Marie Dressler in Anna Christie; an MGM ad touting the film as one of the best pictures of the year (it would be the year’s highest-grossing, and Garbo would receive an Academy Award nomination); studio portraits of Garbo used in the film’s promotion. (IMDB)
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Chicken and Cocktails
En route to the South Seas, the French artist Henri Matisse (1869-1954) paid a visit to New York City, and by all accounts had a good time there. His visit was described by Murdock Pemberton in “The Talk of the Town”…
I ♥ NEW YORK…Henri Matisse arriving in New York City on the RMS Mauretania December 15, 1930. He described the city as “majestic.” (artistandstudio.tumblr.com)NICE PLACE, THIS…Henri Matisse sitting on the brick roof terrace of 10 Mitchell Place (formerly Stewart Hall), the Queensboro Bridge glimpsed in the background. The photo was taken in 1930 by his son, Pierre Matisse, who was living in New York. At right, 10 Mitchell Place today. A framed photograph of Matisse sitting on the rooftop hangs on the wall of the building’s lobby. (Henri-matisse.net/Ephemeral New York)
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The Last Page
The death of author D.H. Lawrence (1885-1930) was reported to New Yorker readers by Janet Flanner, the magazine’s Paris correspondent, who briefly detailed the writer’s rather sad decline…
FLEETING DAYS…D. H. Lawrence (right) with fellow writer Aldous Huxley at Bandol, in the South of France, 1929. (Topham Picturepoint)
* * *
What Depression?
We are nearly five months into the Great Depression, yet there is little evidence in The New Yorker of the catastrophe that was unfolding across the land. And true to form, the approach to the topic was made with humor, via E.B. White in “Notes and Comment”…
KNOW ANY GOOD JOKES?…At left, unemployed New York dockworkers; at right, folks enjoying the New York Public Library’s outdoor reading room in Bryant Park, 1930s. (Lewis Hine/National Archives and Records Administration/New York Public Library)
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Cathedrals of Commerce
E.B. White also observed the changing skyline, and how the towering skyscrapers were quickly overshadowing the once prominent steeples of the city’s churches…
REACHING TO THE HEAVENS…Clockwise, from top left, Trinity Church Wall Street and St. Patrick’s have been eclipsed by the towers of Mammon, but St. John’s and Riverside still dominate their surroundings. (Wikipedia/St. John’s/Riverside)
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The Other House of Worship
Perhaps a certain skyscraper ennui settled in, as architecture critic George S. Chappell was not all that impressed by the “huge” Lincoln Building (which today still seems huge)…
SIZE DOESN’T MATTER…Although the new Lincoln Building proved to be a massive addition to the New York skyline, its style seemed outdated in contrast to its flashy new neighbor, the Chrysler Building — one of its gargoyles, at right, seems poised to devour the Lincoln Building. (nyc-architecture.com)
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From Our Advertisers
We have a bit more evidence of the Depression in the ads, including this one from Abercrombie & Fitch, with two sporting gents opting to go fishing to take their minds off the markets…
…if fishing wasn’t your thing, perhaps you just wanted to escape into the “quiet” of the wide streets in the East Seventies…
…or relax with a smoke, which artist Carl Erickson made so appealing with his Camel ad illustrations…
…or take the humorous route to a relaxing smoke, with this ad for Murad as illustrated by Rea Irvin…
…on to our cartoonists, Garrett Price captured the mood of the times…
…while Alfred Krakusin captured an altogether different mood…
...Leonard Dove examined the path to stardom…
…Isadore Klein pondered modern art…
…William Crawford Galbraith found an unlikely victim of religious zeal…
…Mary Petty gave us a glimpse of a doctor’s office…
On March 1, 1930, the Empire State Building was still just a bunch of sketches and blueprints, as was much of the yet-to-be-built modern cityscape of Manhattan. But as the Depression slowly worked its gnarled fingers into the American landscape, some still dreamed of the sleek, streamlined world to come.
March 1, 1930 cover by Rea Irvin.
The New Yorker’s architecture critic, George S. Chappell, kept readers apprised of changes on the city’s skyline, as well as of the trends in modern design that were being displayed at various exhibitions including one held annually by the city’s Architectural League. Chappell observed:
A GLIMPSE INTO THE FUTURE…Opening pages of the Architectural League’s 45th Annual Exhibition, featuring an image of the Empire State Building. Construction had just begun on the iconic building at the site of the old Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. (mullenbooks.com)
The exhibition featured a variety of projects, from the Aluminaire House in Long Island to Boardman Robinson’s murals in Pittsburgh to Bertram Goodhue’s Nebraska State Capitol featuring Lee Lawrie’s sculptures and friezes…
ECLECTIC…Model of the Aluminaire House erected in full scale for the 45th Annual Exhibition of the Architectural League of New York; Boardman Robinson’sThe History of Trade murals in Kaufmann’s Department Store, Pittsburgh; detail of one of Boardman’s 10 murals displayed at Kaufmann’s; Lee Lawrie’s “The Sower,” a 19-foot-tall bronze statue mounted on top of Bertram Goodhue’s Nebraska State Capitol in Lincoln. In 1937 Lawrie would install his “Atlas” sculpture in front of Rockefeller Center. (archleague.org/archive.triblive.com/capitol.nebraska.gov)
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And Now For Something Old
While George Chappell contemplated the world to come, “The Talk of Town” looked back in time to Greenwich Village’s oldest drugstore…
FORM FOLLOWED FUNCTION…Quackenbush Pharmacy in 1930. Manager James Todd at right. (Library of Congress)
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Pet Project
The March 1 issue featured James Thurber’s second installment of “Our Pet Department”…
And while Thurber was doling out pet advice, his pal E.B. White was worrying over changes to the design of the Shredded Wheat box…
HORSELESS CARRIAGES replaced animal power on the packages of Shredded Wheat, much to the dismay of E.B. White. (oldshopstuff.com)
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A Prince of a Guy
A refugee from the Bolshevik Revolution, the Georgian Prince Matchabelli (Guéorgui Vassilievitch Matchabelli) was penniless when he landed on American shores in 1924. Two years later he launched a perfume business with three scents — Ave Maria, Princess Norina, and Queen of Georgia — sold in bottles that were said to be small replicas of the Prince’s lost Georgian crown. “The Talk of the Town” paid the royal perfumer a visit for the March 1 issue:
HIS CROWNING ACHIEVEMENT…A bottle of Princess Norina perfume from 1926, and its creator, Prince Matchabelli. (Pinterest/Wikipedia)
Those who were around the late 1970s and 1980s no doubt recall the Prince Matchabelli Windsong Perfume commercials and the catchy tune that kind of stuck in your head (for better or worse)…
* * *
Low Life Revue
Ben Hecht continued his exploration of the hardboiled world of journalists, bootleggers, nightclub singers and other lowlifes in his screenplay for Roadhouse Nights, a film that was apparently enjoyed by New Yorker film critic John Mosher. As for Hecht, an erstwhile member of the Algonquin Round Table and occasional contributor to The New Yorker in the 1920s, the film was just one of many to follow in a Hollywood career that the former Chicago journalist held in some disdain (see recent New Yorker article by David Denby)…
IT’S MOIDER, I SAY…Helen Morgan, Eddie Jackson Jimmy Durante, Fred Kohler, and Lou Clayton in 1930’s Roadhouse Nights. (IMDB)
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The Winds of Wynn
Ed Wynn wowed theater critic Robert Benchley in his portrayal of “Simple Simon” at the Ziegfeld Theatre. Wynn was one of the most popular comedians of his time, but is best known today for his portrayal of “Uncle Albert” in the 1964 Disney film Mary Poppins…
AGELESS…Ed Wynn in Simple Simon, 1930; at right as Uncle Albert in 1964’s Mary Poppins. (secondhandsongs.com/Pinterest)
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He Was No Palooka
The March 1 and 9 issues of The New Yorker gave considerable ink to Niven Busch Jr’s success story of a middleweight prizefighter. Titled “K.O. Middleweight,” the two-part article was about Stanislas Kalnins, who went by the name K.O. Keenen because it would go over better with the large majority of Irishmen at the fights. Peter Arno provided the art for the piece:
From Our Advertisers
We have another ad from the Franklin motorcar company touting its air-cooled engines, which thanks to the Depression were not long for the world…
…Saks shamelessly appealed to the “poor” little rich girl in this ad aimed at aspiring debutantes…
…Lenthric perfumes offered this all-French ad to those seeking Continental refinement…
…and this ad from Talon, advertising “Slide Fasteners” before the word “zipper” came into common use…
…Garrett Price was the latest New Yorker cartoonist to pick up some extra cash from G. Washington instant coffee…
…while John Held Jr. even lent his image (along with some drawings) to promote Chase and Sanborn’s coffee…
…this artist for Spud cigarettes borrowed Carl Erickson’s style from his famed Camel ads (see examples below)…
…examples of Carl “Eric” Erickson’s Camel ads from the late 1920s…
…and here we have another New Yorker cartoonist, Rea Irvin, helping the makers of Murad cigarettes move their product…
…Irvin also illustrated this cartoon for the March 1 issue…
…Reginald Marsh contributed these cartoons, no doubt based on a recent winter stay in sunny Havana (I’ve been to Sloppy Joe’s, and still looks pretty much like this)…
…back stateside, Peter Arno looked in on a cultural exchange…
…and we close with two from the issue by Barbara Shermund…
In his 2006 book, Flapper, Joshua Zeitz refers to The New Yorker’sLois Long as the epitome of the 1920s flapper, an “absolutely a wild woman” who wrote about Jazz Age nightlife “with a wicked sort of sexual sense of humor.”
Feb. 8, 1930 cover by Theodore Haupt (the annual Westminster Kennel Club dog show was in town…)
This Vassar-educated daughter of a Congregational minister began her New Yorker career in the summer of 1925, at age 23. She took over Charles Baskerville’s rather dry column, “When Nights are Bold,” renamed it “Tables for Two,” and using the pen name “Lipstick” plunged into the nightlife scene with considerable brio.
TIMES CHANGE…At left, in a still image from a 1920s home movie, Lois Long relaxes on a beach; at right, Long with newborn daughter Patricia Arno in 1929. (PBS/Patricia Arno)
Two years later she would marry cartoonist Peter Arno, and in 1929 would give birth to a daughter, Patricia. During this time the almost weekly “Tables” column would appear infrequently as Long turned her attentions to her family and her fashion column, “On and Off the Avenue.” But as I’ve noted before, Long, along with many of her New Yorker colleagues, had grown weary of the Roaring Twenties many months before they were over. She would put an end (for awhile) to the “Tables” column in June 1930; the good times, as Long noted in her Feb. 8 column, had lost their “verve”…
BRITS AND TWITS…Lois Long recalled the nightlife entertainments of the past and present in one of her last “Tables for Two” columns. Photo at left (from left to right), Beatrice Lillie, Nelson Keys, and Gertrude Lawrence in Andre Charlot’s Revue of 1924. At right, the comedy trio Eddie Jackson, Jimmy Durante and Lou Clayton. (Museum of the City of New York/Herbert Mitchell Collection)
…Long found Don Dickerman’s latest themed restaurant, the Daffydil, to be a mildly amusing distraction…
HE WAS AN ARRRTIST…Greenwich Village personality and pirate aficionado Don Dickerman (left) failed to make a living as an artist, but found success with his various themed restaurants including the Pirate’s Cove, the Blue Horse, the Heigh-Ho (where Rudy Vallee started out), the County Fair and the Daffydil (which was financed by Vallee). At right, singing at the Daffydil were the California Collegians, a group that included actor Fred MacMurray (tallest in the photo). (Restaurant-ing through history)
…and she also looked to Harlem for some nighttime diversions, but the ex-flapper just wasn’t up for a rowdy scene…
FOR THE YOUNG AT HEART…Dancing the Lindy Hop at the Savoy in Harlem, circa 1930. (Pinterest)
…ten years later, in The New Yorker’s fifteenth anniversary issue (Feb. 17, 1940), the 38-year-old Long would look back to the Roaring Twenties in the column “That Was New York,” reprising her signature “Lipstick” as she recalled the days when “Harlem was a thrill” and “we smiled when we went dancing in 1925 even though there wasn’t a candid camera within miles. In those days people frequently laughed out loud in public.” She concluded the piece with this observation:
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Rise of the Débutantes
New York’s débutantes and The New Yorker had something of a symbiotic relationship during the magazine’s early days, beginning with a piece written by 22-year-old Ellin Mackay for the Nov. 28, 1925 issue that served as a manifesto of sorts for a new kind of débutante. Mackay’s essay explained why modern women were abandoning the forced social matchmaking of débutante balls in favor of the more egalitarian (and fun) night club scene.
Mackay’s piece provided a huge boost to The New Yorker’s circulation, the magazine barely staying afloat at the time. Nevertheless, its writers couldn’t resist taking occasional shots at the seemingly frivolous existence of debs, including E.B. White, who called out a one Katrinka Suydam in his “Notes and Comment” column for Jan. 4, 1930:
Perhaps White came across Suydam’s name in the Sept. 7, 1929 New York Times:
What he probably didn’t expect was a reply from Suydam herself, an act that seemed to impress the magazine’s editors, who printed the proud débutante’s letter in full on page 32:
Suydam would go on to marry Frederick Roelker later that June. Note in this excerpted wedding write-up how the couples’ European and colonial pedigrees were carefully detailed in the first paragraphs, distinguishing their union from couplings enjoyed by the unwashed masses…
Katrinka Suydam’s wedding as reported in the June 12, 1930 issue of The New York Times.
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Skirt Stakes
In 1930 hemlines plummeted along with the stock market. E.B. White, in “Notes,” welcomed the return of “mystery” to women’s fashions:
THEY DROPPED WITH THE MARKET…Women’s spring fashions with lowered hemlines on display in the April 1930 issue of Good Housekeeping. (fashion-era.com)
Frederick Lewis Allen, on the other hand, was having difficulty understanding the modern woman, circa 1930, based on what he was seeing in the display windows along Fifth Avenue. Excerpts:
NO NONSENSE WOMEN…Window displays on Fifth Avenue included (left) this “Travel Smartly in Tweed” window display for Franklin Simon (1929-30); and right, a window at Lord & Taylor, 1933. (Harry Ransom Center/Museum of the City of New York)
Allen noted that the “snooty” mannequins on display along Fifth Avenue represented a certain type who wouldn’t be caught dead riding a bus…
Whether or not he liked the Altman girls, the 39-year-old Allen felt like an “old fogey” in the presence of these “no nonsense” women:
* * *
Get A Room
Marion Sturges Jones pondered the life of another kind of modern woman, namely that of Virginia Woolf, who had recently published the extended essay A Room of One’s Own. Jones discovered that finding such a room was easier said than done…
IN HER ROOM…Virginia Woolf at Monk’s House in East Sussex, 1932; dust jacket of the first edition of A Room of One’s Own. (kaykeys.net/Beinecke Library, Yale)
* * *
The Way You Really Look
Franklin P. Adams penned a profile of the legendary songwriter and stage producer Jerome Kern, who created dozens of Broadway musicals and Hollywood films and wrote a substantial chunk of the American songbook (more than 700 songs) with such hits as “Ol’ Man River”, “A Fine Romance”, “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes”, and “The Way You Look Tonight.” Peter Arno provided this less-than-flattering caricature of the man…
…and this is how Kern actually looked, circa 1930…
(bloggingtonybennett.com)
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At the Talkies
Speaking of showbiz, New Yorker film critic John Mosher offered high praise for William Powell’s latest film, Street of Chance. Although Powell is often linked professionally to actress Myrna Loy thanks to their six Thin Man films (1934 – 1947), from 1930 to 1932 he also appeared with Kay Francis in six films, including Street of Chance. Both Powell and Francis would become major stars of the 1930s, and between 1930 and 1936 Francis would be the number one female star at Warner Brothers and the highest-paid American film actress. Francis was no stranger to wild living — she was a longtime friend of Lois Long’s (see above) and also shared an apartment with her at 381 Park Avenue before Long married Peter Arno. Mosher’s review:
TOUGH ODDS…William Powell and Kay Francis in Street of Chance (1930). Francis was a longtime friend of New Yorker columnist Lois Long. (IMDB)
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From Our Advertisers
We have an advertisement from the aforementioned County Fair, one of the themed restaurants operated by Greenwich village artist and personality Don Dickerman, who illustrated his own ads…
…I’m not sure who drew this Arno-esque illustration below for the Holmes Electric Protective Company, but I can tell you that the name Holmes was synonymous with home security in 1930…in 1857 Edwin Holmes bought a patent for an electric burglar alarm (invented in 1853 by Augustus Pope) and went on to successfully commercialize and popularize the electromagnetic burglar alarm. Holmes is also credited with creating the first large-scale alarm network in the United States…
…but I do know that Abe Birnbaum contributed this drawing (in “Talk of the Town”) of the beloved Colony restaurant owner Eugene Cavallero…
A PLACE TO SEE AND BE SEEN…From the 1920s to the 1960s New York’s smart set dined at the Colony. Rian James, in Dining In New York (1930) wrote “the Colony is the restaurant of the cosmopolite and the connoisseur; the rendezvous of the social register; the retreat of the Four Hundred.” Critic George Jean Nathan said the Colony was one of “civilization’s last strongholds in the department of cuisine.” Photo at left of the dining room around 1940; at right, owner Eugene Cavallero consults with a chef. (lostpastremembered.blogspot.com)
…on to our cartoons, we have a full page from Al Frueh…
…and another full-page from Rea Irvin…
…this terrific party scene courtesy Garrett Price…
A host of nature programs from Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom to Planet Earth owe their origins to a few intrepid filmmakers who 100 years ago gave Americans some of their first glimpses of life in exotic, remote regions of the world.
Feb. 1, 1930 cover by Julian De Miskey.
Among the first to do it were a couple from Kansas, Osa and Martin Johnson, who together explored unknown lands and brought back footage of the wildlife and peoples of the African continent, the South Pacific Islands and British North Borneo. Their first film, Among the Cannibal Isles of the South Seas (1918), was followed by several more, including Across the World with Mr. and Mrs. Johnson, which was released in early 1930.
The New Yorker film critic John Mosher was as eager as any audience to take in the adventures of the Johnsons, or even of someone who was inspired by the Johnsons, in this case a “Miss O’Brien” who had just released a “diverting diary” called Up the Congo. Mosher wrote about it in the Jan. 25 issue:
CONTACT…Image of a family from an unidentified Pygmy tribe posing with a European explorer in a 1921 Collier’s New Encyclopedia entry; a group of Mbuti posing with explorer Osa Johnson in 1930. (Wikipedia)
I can find no record of the film UptheCongo, however the exploits of the Johnsons are well documented thanks to the Martin and Osa Johnson Safari Museum in Chanute, Kansas, which has a treasure trove of photos and other information on the explorers.
The ad in the Feb. 1, 1930 New Yorker promoting Across the World with Mr. and Mrs. Johnson included an interesting “added attraction”…a film about Einstein’s theory of relativity that had caused a Jan. 8 “riot” at the American Museum of Natural History. That particular screening was intended for members of the Amateur Astronomers Association, but word got out and three times the invited number showed up at the museum, breaking down the lobby gates. Hard to imagine a mob today clamoring to view a science film…
Although the Johnsons made their movies under the auspices of the American Museum of Natural History, much of the footage was staged or edited to maximize the thrills (Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom did this in the 1960s and 70s, as did producers of Disney’s nature films from the 50s and 60s. The practice continues to this day on cable television).
The Johnsons also didn’t hesitate to gun down animals in the course of their movie-making…
YEP, THAT’S JUXTAPOSITION…Osa Johnson poses with a Photoplay magazine, a dead rhino, and a tribesman, circa 1930. (columbia.edu)
According to a 2011 review from Wild Film History, “in stark contrast to the conservation-themed wildlife films of today, the Johnsons approached their subjects armed with both camera and rifle, with the production including provoked behaviour, staged confrontations and animals shot to death on film. Relying heavily on cutting in kills from professional marksmen, numerous hunting scenes culminate in a heart-stopping sequence where, with the use of clever editing, the adventurous Mrs Johnson appears to bring down a charging rhinoceros with one well-aimed shot.”
Across the World with Mr. and Mrs. Johnson is presented as if the Johnsons were showing their film to a few friends in their New York City apartment. The film is a “silent with sound,” that is, scenes in the field are silent, but the cocktail party “home movie” opening has sound, including “mood music” Osa provides by turning on the radio as the film begins. For all of their film experience, the acting between Osa and Martin is wooden, as is Martin’s narration. The critic John Mosher, however, enjoyed the ride, writing in his Feb. 1 column:
If you are curious, you can watch some of the film here, including the opening home movie scene with Osa and Martin in cocktail attire…
* * *
My Kinda Town
TheNew Yorker occasionally enjoyed taking potshots at the Second City, as well as some good-natured jabs at a few of its former residents who were also denizens of the Algonquin Round Table. Here is E.B. White in the Feb. 1 “Notes and Comment”…
WINDY WITS…Chicagoans Charles MacArthur, Ben Hecht and Ring Lardner were well-known to The New Yorker crowd. (Wikipedia)
* * *
Not In This Century
This item from the Feb. 1 “Talk of the Town” is noteworthy for placing its admiration of technical achievement over any concerns for a child’s welfare. Today the couple would be arrested for this…
* * *
ThePerilsofAging
Irish-American actress and writer Patricia Collinge (1892-1974) wrote a series of short stories for The NewYorker, including this piece for the Feb. 1 issue written when she was 37 years old. It is a sad story about an older actress (37) who hoped to land the part of a younger woman. Some excerpts…
…the actress in the story is led to believe the part was intended for a woman of 28, and is crushed to learn that the agent was looking for “a young twenty-two”…
OH TO BE YOUNG…At left, Gladys Cooper, Alexandra Carlisle and 20-year-old Patricia Collinge in the Drury Lane production of Everywoman (1912); at right, Collinge in 1941. Unlike the sad actress in her short story, Collinge’s career spanned more than 60 years. (Wikipedia)
* * *
ComingAround
In previous issues art critic MurdockPemberton expressed skepticism about the new Museum of Modern of Art, founded by wealthy society women in November 1929. Pemberton held egalitarian views about art, and wondered if the old money set could create a venue for true modern artists. His review of “Painting in Paris,” MoMA’s third exhibition, seemed to allay his concerns…
PAINTING IN PARIS was the title of the Museum of Modern Art’s third exhibition featuring works by Georges Braque, Georges Rouault, Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró, Marc Chagall, Robert Delauney, Fernand Leger, Henri Matisse and Andre Derain among others. Image above is from the original exhibition at MOMA’s first home in the Heckscher Building at 730 Fifth Avenue. (MOMA)
Images above in color, from left, Pablo Picasso’sGreen Still Life Avignon (1914) and Seated Woman (1927); Georges Braque’sStill life (1927). (MOMA/WikiArt)
Pemberton expressed enthusiasm for the show’s new works that contained few traces of the familiar…
* * *
The King’s Speech
KingGeorgeV was not known for his public speaking, but when he addressed the third meeting of the London Naval Conference it was a big deal, even to American listeners who for the first time heard his voice over broadcast radio, still a very new medium in 1930…
ON THE AIR…The voice of King George V (pictured here in 1923) was broadcast across the Atlantic for the opening of the London Naval Conference at St. James’s Palace in 1930. The third in a series of five meetings, the conference was formed with the purpose of placing limits on the naval capacity of the world’s largest naval powers. (Wikipedia/Churchill Archives Centre)
* * *
Good Clean Fun?
In his theater review column, RobertBenchley lamented the state of burlesque shows at the National Winter Garden, where “leviathans of an earlier day” were being displaced by “agile wisps” in third-rate Broadway productions…
ON THE SHOULDERS OF GIANTS…from left, Viola Clifton, a fuller-figured 1890s burlesque dancer; center and right, Margaret Bourke-White photos from Minsky’s National Winter Garden, 1936. Theater critic Robert Benchley wrote that he missed the “leviathans” of an earlier age, who were replaced by girls who were nothing but “agile wisps.”(mashable.com/theguardian.com)
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From Our Advertisers
Just a couple of ads from the Feb. 1 issue, including this entry from the Shelton Looms offering advice on how one should appear among the Havana social set…
…and this ad from Harper’s Bazaar, also appealing to the smart set…
…our cartoons include this two-page illustration by ReaIrvin…
…AlanDunn’s look into the challenges of running a power plant…
…at the opera with PerryBarlow…
…GardnerRea and some bedroom hinjinks…
…man vs. mouse, by PeterArno…
…and this by LeonardDove, seemingly anticipating the work of CharlesAddams…
Before we launch into the Jan. 25 issue, the rendering of the old New York Aquarium in this Sue Williams cover bears some consideration.
Jan. 25, 1930 cover by Sue Williams.
The aquarium was housed within the historic walls the South West Battery, constructed off the tip of Manhattan between 1808 and 1811 as a defense against the British. Renamed Castle Clinton in 1817 (in honor of former Mayor/Governor Dewitt Clinton), it was deeded to the city in 1823 to be used as an entertainment center. From 1855 to 1890 it served as an immigrant landing depot, then remodeled in 1896 (by the architectural firm McKim, Mead, and White) to become the popular New York City Aquarium.
FISH OUT OF WATER…Postcard image of the New York City Aquarium from the early 1900s; aerial view of the aquarium circa 1934; postcard image of aquarium interior; demolition of the aquarium in 1941, on orders from city planner Robert Moses. (thebattery.org/nycgovparks.org)
Although the aquarium proved to be a cultural and educational magnet, it stood in the way of master planner Robert Moses’s designs to build a bridge from The Battery to Brooklyn. After residents, preservationists and even Eleanor and President Franklin Roosevelt protested, the city opted instead to construct a tunnel under the East River. Nevertheless, Moses managed to get the aquarium knocked down before demolition was halted by the outbreak of World War II. After the war, Congress passed a bill declaring the site a National Monument, and preserved the walls of Castle Clinton.
HIGH AND DRY…Until it was demolished in 1941, the New York City Aquarium occupied the space in the center of Castle Clinton, which was added to National Register of Historic Places in 1966. (nps.gov)
* * *
Now, About That Band…
A play that satirized America’s enthusiasm for war—Strike Up the Band—was loved by critics but spurned by audiences when it opened in Philadelphia in 1927. Written by George S. Kaufman, with music and lyrics by George and Ira Gershwin, the play had the pedigree for success, but audiences weren’t quite ready for a show that poked fun at the U.S. military just nine years after the end of World War I (in the original play, America is goaded into declaring war on Switzerland by an American cheese tycoon).
Enter lyricist Morrie Ryskind, who reworked the script, softening its political message and remaking the war plot into a dream sequence. The revised play proved to a be hit, running for 191 performances at the Times Square Theatre. It also introduced a number of popular songs, including “The Man I Love” and “Strike Up the Band.” Robert Benchley was on hand for opening night:
TEAMWORK…Clockwise, from top, Ira (left) and George Gershwin at work circa 1930; lyricist Morrie Ryskind, who softened the tone of George S. Kaufman’s original script. (U of Michigan/Wikipedia)
Benchley noted that the antics of comedian Bobby Clark caused him to laugh so loud that his guffaws were even noted in the Herald Tribune’s review:
MAKE ‘EM LAUGH…The comedy team of Paul McCullough (left) and Bobby Clark were one of the play’s big draws. At right, Herald-Tribune illustration by Al Hirschfeld announcing the Broadway opening of Strike Up the Band. (aaronneathery.org)
* * *
Duncan Yo-Yos
We’ve seen the Duncan Sisters (Rosetta and Vivian) before in this blog, the sister vaudeville act that became famous with the 1923 hit musical Topsy and Eva, which inspired a silent 1927 film starring the duo. They were back on the screen in late 1929 with It’s a Great Life, which TheNew Yorker’sJohn Mosher found to be “pretty dreary”…
NOT SO GREAT, THIS…Clockwise from top, promotional poster for It’s a Great Life; a scene from a dance number in the film; Rosetta (in blackface) and Vivian Duncan as Topsy and Eva (characters derived from the novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin). It’s a Great Life flopped at the box office, along with the Duncan’s brief movie careers. In the years to follow the duo would became popular nightclub entertainers and would continue to perform their Topsy and Eva routine even though appearing in blackface was increasingly considered offensive. (Wikipedia/freewebs.com)
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Miracle Worker
TheNew Yorker profile, written by Robert Coates, featured Helen Keller (with illustration by Hugo Gellert). A brief excerpt:
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From Our Advertisers
Advertisers in the Jan. 25 issue included the new Fortune magazine, which announced its first issue with this full-page ad:
…the table of contents is fascinating, spare in descriptions of everything from “Hogs” to “Orchids”…
From left, issue No. 1, February 1930; table contents for the issue; a prototype of the magazine, September 1929. (Fortune)
…also listed in the new magazine’s table of contents was the name of a 24-year-old photographer, Margaret Bourke-White…
A photo of coal piles by Margaret Bourke-White in the first issue of Fortune magazine. At right, Bourke-White photographing atop a skyscraper circa 1930. (Fortune)
…on to our other advertisements, we have this entry from Elizabeth Arden…ads from this salon chain in the 1920s and 30s featured this ubiquitous image of a woman with a distant stare, her head tightly bound — mummy-like — as part of a firming treatment called “muscle-strapping”…
…in contrast to the rather cold, clinical look of the Elizabeth Arden ad, the Primrose House appealed more to social climbing than skin toning…
…while the makers of Pond’s cold cream continued to draw from their stable of debutantes and society ladies to move their product…
…long before there was Joe Camel, R.J. Reynolds also appealed to social climbers with a series of ads beautifully illustrated by fashion artist Carl Erickson…
…society’s smokers were advised to pack a tube of Bost toothpaste, or have their French maid do it for them…
…and once again we have an ad by Dr. Seuss for Flit insecticide that is very much of its time…
…as is this cartoon by Isadore Klein, perhaps the first in The New Yorker that depicted African Americans as something other than minstrel show stereotypes. Nevertheless, the rendering is still a bit crude — especially the boy’s face — as is the idea behind the “joke” — that a black boy could actually aspire to be a great violinist like Jascha Heifetz…
…John Reynolds explored a less troubling juxtaposition among the bohemian set…
…and we end with this peek into society life courtesy Barbara Shermund…
PeterArno’s cover illustration for The NewYorker’s final issue of 1929 aptly captured the mood of that decade’s last days.
Dec. 28, 1929 cover by Peter Arno.
As we’ve seen in the pages of the magazine in 1928 and 1929, people were growing weary of Jazz Age frivolity even before the great crash. For example, LoisLong’s weekly “Tables for Two” column, which deftly captured the nightlife scene of speakeasies and flappers, appeared infrequently in the decade’s last years, and would disappear altogether in 1930. Once herself the epitome of the carefree flapper, Long was now a mother with a one-year-old toddler.
In his “Notes and Comment” column, E.B. White ended the decade on a humorous, if somewhat doleful note:
In “The Talk of the Town,” White also looked to the new year, which would see AlSmith’s Empire State Building rise into the air and forevermore define the city’s skyline, even if his dirigible mooring mast proved to be more of a marketing stunt than a working feature of the new skyscraper:
A LOT OF HOT AIR…Image from the August 1930 issue of ModernMechanix. The idea of transatlantic dirigibles ferrying passengers to skyscrapers seemed plausible in 1930, but in reality giant bags of flammable hydrogen, attached to wind-whipped masts above densely populated areas, proved impractical, if not downright insane. (Modern Mechanix)
“Talk” (via E.B. White) took another shot at illustrator WillyPogany, who had recently updated the drawings in AliceinWonderland, transforming little Alice into a tween flapper. This time Pogany was “taking liberties” with dear old Mother Goose:
BIG DADDY…WillyPogany’s rendering of Old King Cole left something to be desired, according to E.B. White, who found the resemblance to investment banker OttoKahn (below) rather unsettling.(comic art fans.com/thoughtco.com)
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Historian FrederickLewisAllen, who would go on to write the definitive history of the 1920s in his bestselling Only Yesterday (1931), offered some tongue-in-cheek advice on how the average American could contribute to renewed economic prosperity. An excerpt:
HowardBrubaker also finished the decade on a wry note, his “Of All Things” column ending thusly:
The Dec. 28 profile (titled “The Wizard”) featured ThomasEdison, the first in a three-part series written by AlvaJohnston (with illustration by HugoGellert):
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The New Hollywood
The decade would begin with a new crop of “talkie” stars that would signal a new era for Hollywood. Among the emerging stars was the young GaryCooper…
SHE LIKES THE SILENT TYPE…MaryBrian as Molly Wood and GaryCooper as the Virginian in the Victor Fleming-directed film TheVirginian. (1929) (onceuponatimeinawestern.com)
FromOurAdvertisers
The Dec. 28 issue was filled with ads that enticed readers to escape the cold of winter and head south…
…and given the new economic climate, grasping social climbers could travel to nearby Havana and still claim to have visited a foreign land…
…and Pan American Airlines offered this unique take on the market crash to entice readers to sunny Havana…
…despite the crash, the folks at R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company still clung to the fantasy of the posh set…you might be flat broke, but you could keep a stiff upper lip while you sucked on a Camel, old sport…
…on to our illustrators, MiguelCovarrubias contributed this drawing for the theater review section…
…and our cartoons are by PeterArno…
…JohnReynolds…
…and IsadoreKlein, who gave us an appropriate image for the turn of a decade…
Construction workers line up for pay beside the first Rockefeller Center Christmas tree in New York in 1931. (ASSOCIATED PRESS)
E.B. White’s “Notes and Comment” column led off The New Yorker’s “Talk of the Town,” and as such helped set the tone for what was to follow in the magazine.
Dec. 14, 1929 cover by Theodore Haupt. Opening image: Construction workers line up for pay beside the first Rockefeller Center Christmas tree in New York in 1931. (NY Daily News)
For the Dec. 14 issue White attempted to strike a positive note in the aftermath of the stock market crash, offering a few nuggets of hope for the holiday season:
HEAVYWEIGHTS…Both President Herbert Hoover and retired prizefighter Gene Tunney offered signs of stability to a nation reeling from economic collapse. At right, Gene and Mary Tunney return to New York on the ocean liner Vulcania after 14 months in Europe. (Wikipedia/AP)
Alexander Woollcott, however, described his financial woes in his “Shouts and Murmurs” column, where he parodied newspapers that listed charity cases during the Christmas season:
BOOK-END POOR…Alexander Woollcott, in a 1939 portrait by Carl Van Vechten. (Wikipedia)
Paris correspondent Janet Flanner noted how the ripples of the market crash were being felt in Paris: Americans no longer had wads of cash to lavish on booze, jewelry, antiques and real estate:
DON’T RAIN ON OUR PARADE…The Place de la Nation, Paris, 1930. (thevintagenews.com)
Flanner added that despite the past boorish behavior of American tourists, the level of schaudenfreude among the French was remarkably low…
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Sinful Diversions
For yet another sign that the Roaring Twenties were decidedly over, it appeared that even “Sex” had run its course. Theater critic Robert Benchley noted that Mae West’s scandalous 1926 play inspired a spate of shows that had little new to offer, save for amping up the salacious content: A Primer for Lovers, The Amorous Antic, and Young Sinners. Audiences were unimpressed. A Primer for Lovers closed after just 24 performances, The Amorous Antic after just eight. Only Young Sinners would survive into the spring season.
JUST LOOK WHAT YOU STARTED…”Sex” was panned by critics as vulgar, but Broadway audiences in 1926 loved it. After 375 performances police arrested Mae West on obscenity charges, which landed her in a prison workhouse for ten days. (boweryboyshistory.com)Actress Phoebe Foster (left) found success on Broadway, but not so much in The Amorous Antic, which closed after just eight performances. Dorothy Appleby (right) had better success with Young Sinners, which ran for 289 performances through August 1930. (IMDB)
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Final Bows
Theater was changing in other ways too. In the late 19th and early 20th century audiences patronized various playhouses based more on their reputation and tradition than on a particular play. E.B. White, in the “Talk of the Town” noted the imminent passing of one such house, the Knickerbocker Theatre, slated for demolition in 1930. The 33-year-old theater was Broadway’s first to display a moving electric sign (1906).
A HOUSE OF GOOD REPUTE…The Knickerbocker Theatre at 1396 Broadway was built in 1896 and demolished in 1930. (Internet Broadway Database)
White noted that smaller venues like the Knickerbocker, with their own distinct character and clientele, were falling victim to big theater-owning corporations that introduced more homogeneity into the play-going scene. In White’s estimation just two old-timers remained:
Both buildings still stand. The New Amsterdam, constructed in 1902–03, is now the oldest theater on Broadway. In the 1910s and 1920s it hosted the Ziegfeld Follies on its main stage and the racier Ziegfeld Midnight Frolics on the building’s rooftop. The Music Box was constructed in 1921 by composer Irving Berlin and producer Sam H. Harris to house Berlin’s Music Box Revues.
DISNEYFIED…The New Amsterdam, constructed in 1902–03, still stands today, now operated by the Disney Company, which signed a 99-year lease with the city in 1993. When it was built it was the largest theater in New York, with a seating capacity of 1,702. (Wikipedia)IRVING’S PLACE…The Music Box Theatre at 239 West 45th Street was constructed in 1921 by composer Irving Berlin and producer Sam H. Harris to house Berlin’s Music Box Revues. It was later co-owned by Berlin’s estate and the Shubert Organization until Shubert assumed full ownership in 2007. (Wikipedia)
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Stocks Down, Arno Up
Peter Arno could be found all over the Dec. 14 issue: an ad promoting his new book Peter Arno’s Parade, a blurb in the book section touting the same…this ad for Peck & Peck featuring his handiwork…
…in the cartoons, a full page with the economy as a theme…
…and this submission that was doubtless inspired by Arno’s own home life and his brief, tempestuous marriage to New Yorker colleague Lois Long…
…here’s a couple of comics featuring Milquetoast characters…this one by Garrett Price…
…and another by Leonard Dove…
…and two submissions from one of my favorite cartoonists, Barbara Shermund, so ahead of her time…
…Helen Hokinson examined a physician’s bedside manner…
…and I. Klein offered his take on the new economy…
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We move right along to the Dec. 21, 1929 issue, where things seemed to turn a bit more sour…
Dec. 21, 1929 cover by Rea Irvin.
…Elmer Rice’s serialized novel, A Voyage to Purilia, finally concluded in its 11th installment in the New Yorker…and E.B. White took on a more choleric disposition in his “Notes and Comment”…
Lois Long contributed a “Tables for Two” column, a feature that had become infrequent as she turned her full attentions to her fashion column “On and Off the Avenue.” In this installment of “Tables” we get her first mention of the market calamity…
…Robert Benchley finally found something to like on Broadway, because Billie Burke was the star attraction…
SHE”S THE GOOD ONE…Billie Burke in 1933. Most of us know her today for her performance as Glinda the Good Witch of the North in the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz. (Wikipedia)
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Violin Prodigy 2.0
The New Yorker raved about the twelve-year-old violinist Yehudi Menuhin when he wowed audiences at the Berlin Philharmonic earlier in the year. So when the ten-year-old Ruggiero Ricci expertly fiddled with the Manhattan Symphony, well…
YEAH, I GOT THIS…Ruggiero Ricci, about 1930, by then a touring professional. At age six Ricci began lessons with Louis Persinger, who also taught another San Francisco prodigy, Yehudi Menuhin. (Text and image, The New York Times)
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Namesake
Despite the market crash, the skyline continued to change at a rapid pace, and as we enter the 1930s the city would add some of its most iconic buildings to the skyline. George Chappell, The New Yorker’s architecture critic, had this to say about the magazine’s “namesake”…
ROOMY…The New Yorker Hotel, at 481 Eighth Avenue. When the 43-story Art Deco hotel opened 1930, it contained 2,500 rooms, making it the city’s largest for many years. (Wikipedia)
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Art critic Murdock Pemberton continued his quest to make sense of the upstart Museum of Modern Art…
…and the American artists showcased there…
…I would add Edward Hopper, John Sloan, Lyonel Feininger, and Rockwell Kent (also displayed at the exhibition) but then again, I have the advantage of hindsight…
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From Our Advertisers
We have more New Yorker cartoonists augmenting their income through advertising, including (once again) Rea Irvin for Knox Hatters…
…Raeburn Van Buren for G. Washington’s instant coffee (also a client of Helen Hokinson’s)…
…and Helen Hokinson for Frigidaire…
…and on to cartoons for Dec. 21, Hokinson again…
…and we end with Peter Arno, and another peek into marital bliss…
The effects of the October stock market crash were finally beginning to show in the pages of the New Yorker in the last month of the 1920s.
Dec. 7, 1929 cover by Julien De Miskey.
E. B. White was doing his best to keep things light, stating in his “Notes and Comment” column that despite the “time of panic,” the ad-packed Dec. 7 issue contained a whopping 176 pages…
Advertising income for The New Yorker would drop a bit in 1930 (from $1,929,000 to $1,922,000) and would continue to decline through 1932 (down to $1,448,000) before recovering slightly in 1933 and then really taking off again in 1934. And as White noted, even if they had to borrow the 15 cents, folks would still buy the magazine: circulation would top 100,000 in 1930, and except for a dip in 1932 would steadily grow past 150,000 by decade’s end.
KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON…E.B. White in 1946. (National Endowment for the Humanities)
The magazine was stuffed with ads as well as an extended “On and Off the Avenue” —which offered advice to holiday shoppers — and the continued serialization of Elmer Rice’s novel A Voyage to Purilia (installment No. 9).
But not all was sweetness and light. The biggest economic collapse in U.S. history was simply too pervasive to ignore, and even a feeling of hopelessness was creeping into magazine — here’s an observation by Howard Brubaker in his “Of All Things” column…
…and writing under the pseudonym “Guy Fawkes,” humorist Robert Benchley found little to laugh about in his “The Wayward Press” column. He chided the media for giving the public false hopes (which he labeled “propaganda”) regarding the state of the economy, and for concealing the suicide of prominent New York banker James J. Riordan, whosedeath announcement was postponed until Riordan’s bank closed for the weekend…
MARKET CASULTY…News of the suicide of prominent New York banker James J. Riordan (left) was suppressed to avoid a run on his County Trust Company. Robert Benchley (right) criticized the newspapers for working with power brokers to feed positive economic news to the masses. (NY Daily News/amsaw.org)
The following account excerpted from the Nov. 10, 1929 New York Times reveals how a nervous banking community responded to the market crash-related suicide of Riordan:
The popular historian Frederick Lewis Allen (1890 – 1954) offered a more lighthearted take on the events surrounding the market crash in his tongue-in-cheek casual, “Liquidation Day Parade,” in which he proposed a holiday to commemorate the end of the Big Bull Market.
Allen, who also served as editor of Harper’s Magazine, would go on to write Only Yesterday, which chronicled American life in the Roaring Twenties. The 1931 book was a huge bestseller at the dawn of the Depression, and critically acclaimed, both then and now. Writing for the WashingtonPost (Nov. 28, 2007), book critic Jonathan Yardley observed: “It is testimony to both the popularity and the staying power of Only Yesterday that for more than three-quarters of a century it has remained steadily in print, and to this day enjoys sales that would please plenty of 21st-century writers.”
I CAN SEE CLEARLY NOW…in a little more than year after the Roaring Twenties came to a close, historian Frederick Lewis Allen would chronicle that decade in Only Yesterday, his most famous book. (Wikipedia/raptisrarebooks.com)
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Clipped Wings
We turn back to E.B. White, The New Yorker’s most enthusiastic proponent of the aviation age. In the previous issue (Nov. 30) White had rhapsodized about a flight he took on a huge, new Fokker F-32. In the Dec. 7 “Talk of the Town” White reported that the very same plane had crashed and burned (and also noted that another plane on which he had been a passenger, a Ford Trimotor, had crashed earlier that year in Newark). White speculated that aviation would soon head in a different, safer, direction along the lines of the autogyro, a flying contraption that was widely favored by futurists of the day:
IT’S A BIRD, IT’S A PLANE…In the 1920s and 30s the autogyro — part airplane, part helicopter — was seen as the future of air transportation. From left, cover of ModernMechanics magazine from January 1930; an article on the autogyro from the March 1931 issue of Popular Science; an XOP-1 autogiro at the Naval Air Station Anacostia in Washington D.C., 1931. (modernmechanix.com/navalaviationmuseum.org) Click image to enlarge
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Wonders Never Cease
“Talk” also reported the growing popularity of newsreel theaters, and marveled at the speed with which camera crews could deliver their finished product to movie screens. An example was the crash of a small plane onto the side of a YMCA (an incident also noted by White in the previous issue); a newsreel crew was able to go from scene to screen in about four hours:
BEFORE GERALDO…Fox Movietone news crew in 1930. (City of Toronto archives)
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High Wire Act
The artist Alexander Calder was already well known for his wire sculptures (his colorful mobiles would come later) when he embarked on his Cirque Calder in Paris in 1926. He brought “the show” to New York in 1929, where he used everything from eggbeaters to balloons to bring his wiry performers to life. Presumably art critic Murdock Pemberton wrote this account for “Talk of the Town”…
UNDER THE TINY TOP…Invitation to a performance of Cirque Calder (1926–31) at the Hawes-Harden apartment, August 28, 1929; AlexanderCalder with Cirque Calder (1926–31), 1929; Lion Tamer and Lion from Cirque Calder (1926–31). (calder.org)
And we also have Pemberton over at his art column, where once again he tried to make sense of the new upstart Museum of Modern Art. He seemed to be surprised by the large crowds drawn to the new museum as he pondered its next show…
AMERICAN MODERN…Among works featured at MoMA’s second exhibition, Paintings by Nineteen Living Americans, were, at left, Georgia O’Keefe’sRadiator Building (1927); top right, Edward Hopper’sAutomat (1927); and Max Weber’sThree Jugs (1929). (Wikipedia/theartstack.com)
Pemberton had yet to see MoMA’s stunning second exhibition, Paintings by Nineteen Living Americans, but had to (grudgingly) conclude that the museum was filling a need…
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The Toy Bazaar
From its beginnings in 1862 until the end of the 19th century, the F.A.O. Schwarz toy store was known to New Yorkers as the “Toy Bazaar,” and by 1929 was something of an institution. As part of a lengthy column featuring ideas for Christmas shoppers, The New Yorker offered some tips on what shoppers might find at the famed toy store:
FUNLAND…Left, the cover the 1929 F.A.O. Schwarz Christmas catalog; at right, the store’s location in 1929, 303 Fifth Avenue. (oldwoodtoys.com)
Some of the toys mentioned in The New Yorker article, from the 1929 F.A.O. Schwarz Christmas catalog. There’s nothing plastic here — plastics as we know them, such as polypropylene, would be developed in the 1950s:
The 1929 F.A.O. Schwarz Christmas catalog also featured a color spread of its stock of Lionel Electric Trains:
If you want to look at the entire 1929 F.A.O. Schwarz Christmas catalog, you can find it at this terrific site.
The column also offered advice on “gifts for servants,” at least for those who weren’t getting laid off due to the market crash. Note the somewhat patronizing tone, especially the final paragraph regarding nurses and governesses:
As usual, the shopping column was sprinkled with spot drawings celebrating the season: here are three from Julian De Miskey and one from Barbara Shermund:
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The Bard Does the Talkies
At the movies, critic John Mosher found much to like at the Rivoli, which was screening The Taming of the Shrew featuring the husband/wife team of Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford:
WILD AT HEART…Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford in 1929’s The Taming of the Shrew. (IMDB)
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Somerset Saga
When I first spotted this I thought it was an early edition of The New Yorker’s famed Christmas poem, but those were started by Frank Sullivan in 1932. Nevertheless, here is a clever “Saga of Somerset County” from our dear E.B. White:
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From Our Advertisers
For men who hadn’t lost their shirts and had an “ingrained taste for luxury,” here was a men’s toilet set from Coty featuring a talcum shaker that would have doubled as a fine whiskey flask…
…did the folks at Bergdorf Goodman miss the news of the market crash? Read the fine print about the coming “revolution in fur fashion”…
…Helen Hokinson illustrated another ad for G. Washington instant coffee…
…Atwater Kent offered up this sumptuous appeal to holiday shoppers…
…at first glance I thought this was an ad for a luxury apartment…the copy is almost identical, save for a couple of words like “death” and “crypt”…
…on to our artists, here is a spot by Constantin Alajalov that ran along the bottom of “Talk of the Town”…
…and a sight that would become more familiar as the Depression deepened, a look at an estate sale, courtesy Helen Hokinson…
…signs of the economic collapse were starting to creep into the cartoons, including offerings by Raeburn Van Buren…
…Leonard Dove…
…and Paul Webb…
…while the economy was headed into the pits, cartoonist Peter Arno saw his fortunes soaring as he headed into a new decade. In his excellent 2016 biography, Peter Arno: The Mad Mad World of The New Yorker’s Greatest Cartoonist,Michael Maslin writes, “By the time The New Yorker’s December 7, 1929 issue hit the newsstands, its readership had, within the year, seen three Arno covers and fifty-seven of his drawings.” Maslin notes that drawing number fifty-eight, which appears below, “ended the 1920s with a bang (so to speak).” The drawing, writes Maslin, “became a lightning rod for two New Yorker camps: the (James) Thurber camp, who chose to believe Harold Ross (the magazine’s founding editor, who forbade sex as a subject) was naive in sexual matters, and the (E.B.) White camp, convinced Ross would never have let the drawing appear in the magazine if he hadn’t understood its meaning.” If you enjoy Arno’s work, or are a fan of The New Yorker, Maslin’s book is a must-read…
As a book reviewer for The New Yorker, Dorothy Parker could eviscerate any writer with the tip of her pen, and often did so.
Nov. 30, 1929 cover by Adolph K. Kronengold.
One writer, however, who received consistent praise from Parker was Ernest Hemingway, whom she first met in 1926. In the pages of the 1920s New Yorker, Parker particularly lauded Hemingway’s short story collections, In Our Time (1925) and Men Without Women (1927), which bookended his 1926 novel The Sun Also Rises (which Parker thought OK but overly hyped). When The New Yorker profiled Hemingway in the Nov. 30, 1929 issue, it naturally turned to Parker to do the honors (although Robert Benchley, a good friend of Hemingway’s, could have offered his own take on the author) :
SHE’S A FAN…Dorothy Parker was a long-time admirer of the work of Ernest Hemingway. His last work of the 1920s, A Farewell to Arms, was serialized in Scribner’s Magazine and published in September 1929. The success of that book made Hemingway financially independent. (Mugar Library/Wikipedia)
During Hemingway’s Paris years Parker actually took a boat with him to France (in 1926, along with mutual friend Robert Benchley) and so got a firsthand taste of his bohemian adventures. By the time The New Yorker profiled Hemingway, the Jazz Age was dead and Paris’s so-called “Lost Generation” was a thing of the past. Indeed, Hemingway had already been in the States for more than a year, returning in 1928 with his second wife, Pauline Pfeiffer.
Biographer Jeffrey Meyers notes in his book Hemingway: A Biography, that Hemingway of the early Paris years was a “tall, handsome, muscular, broad-shouldered, brown-eyed, rosy-cheeked, square-jawed, soft-voiced young man,” features that were not lost on Parker:
HE’S TAKING NOTES…Ernest Hemingway (left), with Harold Loeb, Lady Duff Twysden (in hat), Hemingway’s first wife Hadley Richardson, Donald Ogden Stewart (obscured), and Pat Guthrie (far right) at a café in Pamplona, Spain, July 1925. The group formed the basis for the characters in The Sun Also Rises: Twysden as Brett Ashley, Loeb as Robert Cohn, Stewart as Bill Gorton, and Guthrie as Mike Campbell. (Wikipedia)
…more from Parker on Hemingway’s magnetic appeal…
MAN ABOUT TOWN…Ernest Hemingway (far right) in 1926 in Paris, outside the city’s famous Shakespeare and Company bookshop. He is pictured here with Sylvia Beach (on his right), the shop’s founder. (Collection Lausat/Keyston-France/parisinsidersguide.com)
Although Hemingway remains widely read and revered, such a hagiography — especially from someone as reliably critical as Parker — would be unlikely today. From his safari massacres of countless animals (in pursuit of his manhood) to his mistreatment of four wives and general misogyny, he is a far more complex and controversial figure today. One thing Parker got right: his short stories have held up much better than his novels. As for the profile, Parker concluded:
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Meet the Fokkers
In previous blogs we have established that E.B. White was an aviation enthusiast. He seems never to have missed an opportunity to catch a ride into the skies, so when pilots were conducting test flights of a prototype Fokker F-32 at New Jersey’s Teterboro field, he was there to file this brief for “The Talk of the Town”…
SKYTRAIN…Title card from a silent Paramount newsreel reporting on a November 1929 flight of the Fokker F-32 at Teterboro. Note how the title card uses a railroad reference (“Pullman”) as a descriptive for the passenger cabin. Indeed, early airplane passenger cabins were very much designed along the lines of Pullman cars. At right, a circa 1930 photo, possibly of a celebration of the plane’s arrival in Los Angeles. I imagine the FAA would not look kindly on this behavior today. (YouTube/petersonfield.org)
White’s enthusiasm for the aviation age is palpable in his description of the Fokker as it took off and climbed to a thousand feet:
ROUGHING IT…Passengers in Washington D.C. prepare to board what was perhaps the same plane White flew on at Teterboro. Note how they were required to walk across a muddy field to reach the plane’s entrance. The Fokker was the first four-engine commercial aircraft built in America and the largest land plane in the world at the time (there was a much larger amphibious German plane). At right, the plane’s four engines were configured back-to-back. (Wikipedia/petersonfield.org) click to enlarge
In line with The New Yorker’s stance of keeping things light, White described a scene just north of midtown, where a crowd had gathered near the site a plane crash. The pilot was killed, but a passenger managed to parachute to safety.
DOWN TO EARTH…Pilot Charles Reid died instantly when his plane slammed into a YMCA on 64th Street on Nov. 20, 1929. His passenger parachuted to safety. E.B. White referred to the crash in his “Talk” article. (digital-hagley-org)Excerpt from a Nov. 21, 1929 New York Times account of the crash. (NYTimes archives)
Speaking of crashes, the Fokker on which E.B. White was a passenger crashed a week later (Nov. 27, 1929) during a certification flight from Roosevelt Field to Teterboro Airport. No one was killed, but the aircraft was destroyed. The design itself didn’t last much longer — considered underpowered for its size, and too expensive at the dawn of the Depression, it was phased out by the end of 1930.
Perhaps after all of that flying, White needed something to calm the nerves, a subject he addressed in his “Notes and Comment” column:
THE WOMAN’S HOUR, according to E.B. White in his “Notes and Comment” column. (vinepair.com)
* * *
The Little Gallery That Could
“Talk,” via art critic Murdock Pemberton, had more to say about the new Museum of Modern Art, that is, not taking it very seriously…
UPSTART…Although New Yorker art critic Murdock Pemberton seemed dismissive of the new Museum of Modern Art, its first month’s attendance was more than 47,000 visitors. Image above from the MoMA exhibition Painting in Paris, Jan. 19-March 2, 1930. (MoMA)
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Welcome to Thurber’s World
In 1931 James Thurber published his second book, The Owl in the Attic and Other Perplexities, which consisted of pieces he had done for the New Yorker, including eight stories (from Dec. 29, 1928 to Aug. 9, 1930) that featured the marital escapades of a couple in their middle thirties, the Monroes, modeled on Thurber’s real-life marriage to his wife, Althea.
The Nov. 30, 1929 issue included Thurber’s fifth installment of the Monroe saga, “Mr. Monroe Holds the Fort,” in which a fearful Mr. Monroe, left home alone (his wife was visiting her mother), imagines there are burglars in the house:
…like his famous character Walter Mitty, which Thurber would introduce in 1939, Mr. Monroe had an equally lively imagination…
The character of Mr. Monroe would see new life in the fall of 1969 when NBC debuted My World… and Welcome to It, a half-hour sitcom based on James Thurber’s stories and cartoons. The actor William Windom portrayed John Monroe, a writer and cartoonist who worked for a magazine called The Manhattanite. In the show, Monroe’s daydreams and fantasies were usually based, if sometimes loosely, on Thurber’s writings.
THURBER AS A SITCOM…The actor William Windom portrayed John Monroe, a writer and cartoonist who worked for a magazine called The Manhattanite, on the 1969-70 NBC sitcom My World… and Welcome to It. Joan Hotchkis played his wife Ellen, and Lisa Gerritsen portrayed his inquisitive daughter Lydia. (tvguidemagazine.com/sitcomsonline.com)HOME SWEET HOME…Left, the opening credits for My World… and Welcome to It featured actor William Windom (as John Monroe) entering a animated house based on James Thurber’s famous “House and Woman” cartoon, which was originally featured in the March 23, 1935 issue of The New Yorker. (mikelynchcartoons.blogspot.com)
My World… and Welcome to It was cancelled after one season. Nevertheless, it would win two Emmys: one for Windom and another for Best Comedy Series.
* * *
Thank Heaven for Maurice
Things were looking up a bit in the talking movie department thanks to the Ernst Lubitsch-directed The Love Parade, featuring recent French import Maurice Chevalier and Jeannette MacDonald. Film critic John Mosher observed:
MUCH-NEEDED LAUGHS…Jeannette MacDonald and Maurice Chevalier in The Love Parade (1929), directed by Ernst Lubitsch. (MoMA)
Mosher was much less impressed by another musical, Show of Shows, featuring an all-star cast and Technicolor that added up to little more than a “stunt”…
IS THAT ALL?…Warner Brothers Show of Shows offered “77 Hollywood Stars” and “1000 Hollywood Beauties” — 80 percent of it in Technicolor, but that wasn’t enough to impress The New Yorker’s film critic John Mosher. At right, Arte Frank Fay (l) and comic Sid Silvers in a color scene from the film. (IMDB)
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A Guide to Christmas Shopping, 1929
Lois Long’s fashion column, “On and Off the Avenue,” predictably grew in length as the Christmas holiday approached, and in the Nov. 30 issue she offered advice on how to go about one’s shopping duties. Some brief excerpts:
TRAILBLAZER…Lois Long guided New Yorker readers through a list of “big, bewildering stores” in her “On and Off the Avenue” column. At left, the B. Altman department store, circa 1920s. (thedepartmentstoremuseum.org/PBS)
…Long’s column was peppered with holiday-themed spots, including this one by Julian DeMiskey…
From Our Advertisers
…we start with a couple of back page ads, including one from the National Winter Garden’s burlesque show and an ad announcing the imminent arrival of Peter Arno’sParade (just $3.50, or signed by Arno himself for $25)…
Cover and inside pages from Peter Arno’sParade. (Amazon)
…another ad hailed the arrival of The New Yorker’s second album (read more about it here at Michael Maslin’s excellent Ink Spill)…
The first and second New Yorker albums. (pbase.com/michaelmaslin.com)
…other ads, in full color, featured cultural appropriation by the Santa Fe railroad…
…bright silks available at the Belding Hemingway Company…
…silk stockings from Blue Moon…
…for our cartoons, Helen Hokinson on the challenges of holiday shopping…
…Hokinson again, at tea with her ladies…
…Barbara Shermund, and the miracle of broadcast radio crossed with the nuances of a dinner party…
…and Shermund again, with a hapless friend of a clueless family…
Just nine days after the stock market crash, three women opened a new museum on Fifth Avenue that would play a major role in defining the type of city that would emerge from the other side of the Depression and World War II.
Nov. 23, 1929 cover by Theodore Haupt.
These visionary women would borrow works from modernists of the past century — the post-impressionists — to stage the first-ever exhibit of the Museum of Modern Art. Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, along with her friends Lillie P. Bliss and Mary Quinn Sullivan, had rented six rooms on the 12th floor of the Heckscher Building, and on Nov. 7, 1929, they opened the doors to the museum’s first exhibition, simply titled Cézanne, Gauguin, Seurat, Van Gogh. The New Yorker’s art critic Murdock Pemberton was on hand for the opening:
THE FOUNDERS…Mary Sullivan, Lillie Bliss and Abby Rockefeller, known socially as “the daring ladies,” founded the Museum of Modern Art in 1929. (virginiafitzgerald.blogspot.com/MoMA)OLD AND NEW…The 12th floor of the Heckscher Building (now called the Crown Building) at Fifth Avenue and 57th Street served as the first location of the Museum of Modern Art. The 1921 building was designed by Warren and Wetmore, the same architects who designed Grand Central Terminal. Note in the foreground the rooftop of the Vanderbilt mansion, demolished in 1926 to make way for the Bergdorf Goodman department store; at right, a page from the new museum’s brochure. (Museum of the City of New York/MoMA)
The gallery rooms in the Heckscher were modest — although Abby’s husband was John D. Rockefeller Jr., she had to find funding on her own (he was opposed to the museum, and to modern art). In his review, Pemberton noted the “inferiority complex” that had already set in at the new museum, which took a preemptive swipe at the Met in its pamphlet (pictured above):
AMBITIOUS…Although the museum was small and had no curatorial departments, MoMA produced a 157-page exhibition catalogue for its first show. (Image and text courtesy MoMA)MODEST BEGINNINGS…MoMA’s first gallery spaces on the 12th floor of the Heckscher Building were indeed modest, as these photos of the first exhibition attest. (MoMA)HOW THEY LOOKED IN COLOR…Works featured in MoMA’s first exhibition included The Bedroom (1889) by Vincent Van Gogh, and Pines and Rocks (c. 1897), by Paul Cézanne. (Art Institute of Chicago/MoMA)
Pemberton attempted to set MoMA straight regarding the Met’s reputation:
HOME AT LAST…After moving three times over the course of ten years, the Museum of Modern Art finally found a permanent home in Midtown in 1939. Although Abby Rockefeller’s husband, John D. Rockefeller Jr., was initially opposed to the museum, he eventually came around and donated the land for the 1939 museum (designed by Philip L. Goodwin and Edward Durell Stone) and became one of the museum’s biggest supporters. (MoMA)
Less than three years later, the museum would point to the world to come in 1932’s Modern Architecture: International Exhibition, curated by Philip Johnson and Henry-Russell Hitchcock. The exhibition showcased an emerging architectural style that would dominate the New York skyline in the postwar years.
Top, model of Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye from MoMA’s 1932 Modern Architecture: International Exhibition; below, model and photographs of works by Walter Gropius. Both architects would have major influences on the postwar New York skyline. (MoMA)
A footnote: The Museum of Modern Art hosts a remarkable website that features photographs of 4,875 exhibitions (plus images of catalogs and other materials) from 1929 to the present.
* * *
That’s Entertainment?
Theater critic Robert Benchley was looking for something to take his mind off the economic collapse, but he wasn’t finding it on Broadway. He found the drama Veneer to be depressing, and apparently so did a lot of other theatergoers; it closed the next month after just 31 performances at the Sam Harris Theatre:
NO LAUGHS HERE, EITHER…Joanna Roos and Osgood Perkins during a 1930 performance of the Chekhov play Uncle Vanya at the Cort Theatre. Roos was also in 1929’s Veneer, and she was singled out for praise by critic Robert Benchley, who otherwise found the play depressing. (New York Public Library)
Benchley also found little cheer in the play Cross Roads, which also closed the next month after just 28 performances at the Morosco Theatre:
FOR CRYING OUT LOUD…Actress Sylvia Sidney bawled out her lines in Cross Roads. (Photoplay, 1932)
Benchley finally found something to laugh about at the Alvin Theatre, which featured the musical comedy Heads Up! Tellingly, it ran much longer than its more somber competition: 144 performances…
CLOWNS…Victor Moore, left, and Ray Bolger delivered comic relief in Heads Up! Both actors provided much-needed levity on the Broadway stage during the Depression. (movie-mine.com/Pinterest)
* * *
Ideas for a Post-Crash Christmas
Creighton Peet (1899-1977) was best known as an author of books for young people with titles ranging from Mike the Cat (1934) to How Things Work (1941). A regular contributor to The New Yorker from 1925 to 1957, in the Nov. 23 issue Peet offered up some suggestions for a post-crash Christmas in a short piece titled “Helpful Hints for Marginaires.” An excerpt:
The recent market crash was also on the mind of Howard Brubaker. In his weekly column, “Of All Things,” he looked for divine guidance…
CAN YOU PUT IN A GOOD WORD? James Cannon Jr. was a bishop of the southern Methodist Church and a relentless advocate of Prohibition. (encyclopediavirginia.org)
…in the wake of recent elections, Brubaker also made this observation about voting rights in the South…
* * *
Solace of the Silver Screen
Americans would turn to the movies for a much-needed distraction from their economic woes, and critic John Mosher found a couple of mild diversions starring Greta Garbo and Clara Bow…
MUM’S THE WORD…Greta Garbo and Lew Ayres in The Kiss. The film was a rare silent in the new age of the talkies (although it did feature a Movietone orchestral score and sound effects). Audiences would have to wait until 1930’s Anna Christie to hear the voice of Garbo. (IMDB)PLEASE PASS THE BITTERS, DEAR…Greta Garbo and Anders Randolf trapped in a loveless marriage in The Kiss. (IMDB)
For a few laughs, moviegoers could check out Clara Bow’s second talkie, The Saturday Night Kid. A sex symbol of the Roaring Twenties, Bow’s career began to wane with the advent of the talkies and the onset of the Depression. Her kind would be eclipsed by a new type of sex symbol — the platinum blonde — embodied by the likes of Jean Harlow, who also appeared in The Saturday Night Kid, her first credited role…
SIBLING RIVALRY…Sisters Mayme (Clara Bow) and Janie (Jean Arthur) vie for the affections of next door neighbor William (James Hall) in a scene from The Saturday Night Kid. (doctormacro.com)SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER…Jean Arthur, Clara Bow, Jean Harlow and Leone Lane in a publicity photo for The Saturday Night Kid. (IMDB)
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From Our Advertisers
We begin with a couple of ads featured on back-to-back pages of products that no longer exist — the first promotes the use of Ethyl gasoline to increase performance and eliminate engine knock. Ethyl (tetraethyl lead) — a big contributor to soil, air and water lead pollution — was removed from gasoline beginning in the 1970s…the Marmon Motor Car Company introduced a more affordable (under $1,000) car to New Yorker readers in 1929, but it was too late for the struggling company, which due to the Depression folded in 1933…
…this seems an unusual ad for the New Yorker, but then again perhaps the White Company hoped to reach well-heeled readers who were also owners of companies in need of such things, although it is doubtful a lot of truck-buying was taking place after the crash…
…the 1920s are considered a golden age for American road-building, but if you wanted to travel across country, the national highway system was limited to just a few, mostly two-lane routes…
…with their frayed nerves, folks were doubtless smoking like chimneys…the makers of Fatima cigarettes acknowledged the pain felt by the market crash, while nevertheless justifying the higher cost of their brand…
…the holiday season was fast-approaching, and Bergdorf Goodman was ready to set the mood…
…on the lower end of the scale, the California Fruit Growers offered up this dandy “juice extractor” as the gift to delight a loved one (with illustration by Don Herold)…
…I suppose given its quasi-medicinal (digestif) qualities, Cointreau was able to sell their product at 6% alcohol content to dry Americans (although the full- strength Cointreau, not legally available to Americans, was rated at 40%)…at right, another back page ad from Reuben’s restaurant, with more handwritten endorsements from stars including singer Helen Kane (Boop-Boop-a-Doop), cartoonist Rube Goldberg, and Paramount Studio co-founder Jesse Lasky…
…Helen Hokinson’s society women were featured in two separate ads in the Nov. 23 issue…
…and the folks at Frigidare got an extra plug thanks to Leonard Dove…
…Lois Long’s “On and Off the Avenue” column began to grow in length as the holiday season approached, peppered with spot drawings including these two by Julian De Miskey and Barbara Shermund…
…and Isadore Klein offered his own take on the holiday shopping scene…
…Rea Irvin reprised his folk-satirical approach to life at the Coolidge house…
…John Reynolds found more humor in the clash of cultures…
…Helen Hokinson contributed this very modern rendering of writer’s block…
…and Peter Arno looked in on the challenges of commuting…
…and a quick note regarding a recent issue of The New Yorker (Dec. 3, 2018)…the cover featured a reprint of a Matias Santoyo cover from April 2, 1927…very cool…
No doubt a few moviegoers saw the movie just to finally hear that voice, which Mosher described as “a surprise…a deep, low voice, a boy’s voice really, rather flat, rather toneless, yet growing more attractive as the picture advances”…
A New Yorker State of Mind 