fads & crazes – Page 3 – A New Yorker State of Mind

Broadway Soap Stars

Lux Toilet Soap was launched in the United States in 1925 by its British parent company, Lever Brothers, which had been making soap since 1899. To capture the hearts and pocketbooks of American women, the company launched an advertising blitz that featured advertisements in a number of magazines including The New Yorker.

We look at two issues this week: March 17, 1928 cover by **Peter Arno** / March 24, 1928 cover unsigned, probably by **Ilonka Karasz**.

The earliest ads appealed to upscale women who saw the French as arbiters of taste and style. In the following Lux ad (from the Feb. 5, 1927 New Yorker), note that every paragraph and headline includes the words France or French:

The big blitz came in 1928, when Lux pioneered the use of female celebrity endorsements on a mass scale. The campaign focused more on the roles played by Broadway and movie stars than on the product itself. The March 24, 1928 issue of The New Yorker featured these ads splashed across two center spreads.

The captions I have provided below the ads give brief information on each actress. Note that many of these actresses did stints with Broadway’s popular Ziegfeld Follies. Most also had long lives, including Mary Ellis, who lived in three centuries, sang with Enrico Caruso, and died at age 105.

Click Images to Enlarge

LEFT TO RIGHT, TOP TO BOTTOM: **Marilyn Miller** (1898-1936) was one of Flo Ziegfeld’s top talents and one of the most popular Broadway musical stars of the 1920s and 30s; **Ada May** (1896-1978), a theater actress most of her career, in 1927 played a lead role in Ziegfeld’s *Rio Rita*; **Mary Eaton** (1901-1948) was a leading stage actress, singer and dancer in the 1910s and 20s. She was featured in three editions of the Ziegfeld Follies; **Helen Morgan** (1900-1941) was considered the quintessential torch singer. A draped-over-the-piano look became her signature while performing at Billy Rose’s Backstage Club in 1925. She performed with Ziegfeld Follies in 1931; **Helen Hayes** (1900-1993) was called “the First Lady of American Theater.” Her awards included the EGOT– an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and a Tony; **Adele Astaire** (1896-1981) was part of popular act with her brother, Fred. After the 1931 Broadway revue *The Band Wagon* she retired to marry Lord Charles Cavendish and moved to Ireland’s Lismore Castle; **Violet Heming** (1895-1981) was a dependable Broadway star with many theatrical credits; Hungarian-born **Mitzi Hajos** (1889-1970) specialized in musical comedy but faded from acting in midlife; **Barbara Stanwyck** (1907-1990) got her start as a model and “Ziegfeld Girl” before going on to become one of Hollywood’s biggest stars. She made 85 films in 38 years before turning to TV; **Madge Kennedy** (1891-1987) appeared in dozens of films from *Baby Mine* (1917) to *Marathon Man* (1976). She had a recurring role on TV’s *Leave it to Beaver* as Aunt Martha; **Nydia d’Arnell** was a musical comedy actress. Almost no record of her after 1928. She died in 1970.

FROM LEFT TO RIGHT, TOP TO BOTTOM: **June Walker** (1900-1966) was the first actress to portray Lorelei Lee in 1926’s *Gentlemen Prefer Blondes*. Mostly stuck to the stage; **Mary Lawlor,** (1907-1977) was active on Broadway 1922-32; **Judith Anderson** (1897-1992), later awarded British title of Dame, was considered one of the world’s greatest classical stage actors; **Mary Ellis** (1897-2003) was star of the stage (including opera with Caruso) as well as radio, TV and film. Best known for musical theater, she performed into the 1990s and died at age 105; **Wilda Bennett** (1894-1967) was a Broadway musical comedy star in the 1920s whose career quickly faded. Appeared in 9 films between 1914 and 1941, mostly uncredited; **Polly Walker** (1904-1983) also faded quickly from the stage in the early 1930s, appearing in just 2 films; **Mary Nash,** (1884-1976) was a noted stage actress best known for two Shirley Temple films. Played Katharine Hepburn’s mother in 1940’s *The Philadelphia Story*; **Norma Terris** (1904-1989) had a long career as a performer and musical theater supporter. Last surviving adult actor from original 1927 production of *Show Boat*; **Vivienne Segal’s** (1897-1992) career was mostly in musical theater, including the 1924-25 Ziegfeld Follies. She appeared in a few films in the 1930s, as well as on TV in the 50s and 60s. **Claudette Colbert** (1903-1996) was a Hollywood leading lady for more than two decades. Won an Oscar for 1934’s *It Happened One Night*; **Vivian Martin** (1893-1987) appeared in 44 silent films in the teens and twenties before returning to the stage; **Dorothy Peterson** (1897-1979) made her screen debut in *Mothers Cry* (1930), a drama that required the 29-year-old to age three decades. She was typecast in careworn maternal roles for the rest of her career; **Sylvia Field** (1901-1998) enjoyed a long career on stage, screen, and TV. Best known for playing Martha Wilson on TV’s Dennis the Menace; **Jeanette MacDonald** (1903-1965), an influential soprano best remembered for 1930s musical films with Maurice Chevalier and Nelson Eddy.

ADELE AGAIN…In the March 31 issue of *The* *New Yorker* Lux followed up with this ad featuring Adele Astaire all by herself.

Over the years dozens of famous actresses would appear in colorful ads singing the praises of Lux soap…

STAR POWER…Lux ads from 1954, 1956 and 1959 featuring, respectively, **Audrey Hepburn, Debbie Reynolds** and **Sophia Loren**. (Pinterest)

A final note. Lever Brothers began selling Lux soap in India in 1909, years before it was introduced in the U.S., and through the decades Bollywood actresses were prominently featured in their advertising…

NEW AGE…Bollywood Star **Katrina Kaif** in a 2010 Lux advertisement. (afaqs.com)

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Meanwhile, back on earth…

The March 17, 1928 “Talk of the Town” marveled at the rising structure between Madison and Park avenues that would become the New York Life Building. Designed by Cass Gilbert, who also designed the Woolworth Building, its gilded roof, consisting of 25,000 gold-leaf tiles, remains an iconic Manhattan landmark.

From 1837–1889, the site was occupied by the Union Depot, a concert garden, and P.T Barnum’s Hippodrome. Until 1925, the site housed the first two Madison Square Gardens, a memory that lingered amidst the city’s rapidly changing skyline…

ETHEREAL…The New York Life Building shortly after its completion in 1928. (Museum of the City of New York)

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Following the lead of a Roosevelt Hotel advertisement in a previous issue, Macy’s Department Store also called out The New Yorker’s popular nightlife columnist “Lipstick” (Lois Long) in this ad featured in the March 17 issue…

Our cartoon from the March 17 issue explored the hurried life of the idle rich, as depicted by Long’s husband, Peter Arno…

Landmark in Name Only

In the March 24, 1928 issue another building caught the attention of the magazine–a six-story structure designed by theatrical scenic artist and architect Joseph Urban for William Randolph Hearst. The International Magazine Building was completed in 1928 to house the twelve magazines Hearst owned at the time.

An important monument in the architectural heritage of New York, the building was designated as a Landmark Site by the Landmarks Preservation Commission in 1988. The six-story International Magazine Building was originally built to serve as the base for a proposed skyscraper, but the construction of the tower was postponed due to the Great Depression. The new tower addition by Norman Foster was finally completed nearly eighty years later, in 2006. It is probably not what either Hearst or Urban had in mind in 1928:

START OF A BIG IDEA…The International Magazine Building circa 1960. (Hearst)

ALIEN INVASION…The 2006 Norman Foster tower rises from the hollowed-out shell of the International Magazine Building. (Benjamin Waldman / Wikipedia)

And finally, cartoonist Leonard Dove listens in on some tea time chatter…

Next Time: Conventional Follies of ’28…

To Bob, or Not to Bob

Perhaps no other hairstyle has a stronger link to a historical period than the “bob cut,” associated not only with the flapper lifestyle in the 1920s but with women in general who wished to signal their independence from old cultural norms that defined femininity.

March 10, 1928 cover by **Ilonka Karasz**.

Women in Western cultures typically wore their hair long, but in the early years of the 20th century a few women of prominence began to flout convention and wear their hair in a bobbed style, including French actress Polaire, who began wearing her hair short in the 1890s; English socialite Lady Diana Cooper, who wore her hair short as a child and continued to do so as an adult; and dancer Irene Castle, who unveiled her “Castle Bob” to Americans in 1915. By 1920 the style was all the rage.

EARLY TRENDSETTERS…From left, **Lady Diana Cooper** in the mid 1920s; dancer **Irene Castle** with her pet monkey, Rastus, in 1915; and French actress **Polaire** in 1910. (Cooper & Polaire photos from Library of Congress; Castle photo courtesy Wisconsin Historical Society)

AMERICAN BOBS…Perhaps the most famous bob belonged to 1920s silent film star Louise Brooks (at right, wearing the “King Tut” bob, circa 1925), who was considered the very definition of a Roaring Twenties flapper. At left, another version of the bob as worn by **Anita Loos**, circa 1930. Loos was a screenwriter and author who achieved great fame in the 1920s with her blockbuster comic novel Gentleman Prefer Blondes. (fashion1930s.tumblr.com / *Smithsonian*)

Another famous bobbed flapper of the 1920s was The New Yorker‘s own Lois Long, who wrote under the pseudonym “Lipstick” for her nightlife column “Tables For Two,” but signed her fashion column (“On and Off the Avenue”) with a simple “L.L.” Long was also a regular unsigned contributor to “The Talk of the Town,” and is credited as one The New Yorker’s early writers who gave the magazine its voice.

In the March 10, 1928 issue Long wrote in “On and Off the Avenue” about the challenges in maintaining her bobbed hairstyle:

LIFESTYLE CHANGES…**Lois Long** helped define the flapper lifestyle of the Jazz Age in her writing for *The* *New Yorker*. Long’s own bob evolved during the decade, from the straight boyish cut at right, circa 1925, to a “shingle style” bob at left in 1929, where she is pictured with her husband, New Yorker cartoonist Peter Arno, and their newborn daughter, **Patricia.** (Patricia Arno / Wikipedia)

Many women in the 1920s preferred to have a permanent wave treatment applied to their bob, which usually involved the application of high heat via a complex array of wires and hot rollers. In the March 10 issue, this ad promoted an alternative “cool method”…

…and in the March 17, 1928 issue, the Ace Comb company made a pitch to improve its market share by touting their hard rubber combs as ideal for the “ragged bob”…

…and for some further context on all things bobbed, following are some images gleaned from glamourdaze.com, including a page from a 1920s movie magazine featuring Paramount’s bobbed stars; a 1920s salon advertisement promoting bobs for all ages; and finally, a helpful reference card from the American Hairdresser, circa 1924…

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A New Plot for Billy Haines

William “Billy” Haines was a top male box office draw in the 1920s, and throughout the decade was typecast in a number of comic roles as a conceited baseball player (Slide, Kelly, Slide), conceited cadet (West Point), conceited football star (Brown of Harvard), conceited golfer (Spring Fever), and conceited polo player (The Smart Set). It was that last picture that left The New Yorker wanting Haines to consider taking a different approach in his next picture:

Haines would eventually escape being typecast as a wisecracking, arrogant leading man, not by choosing different roles but by quitting acting altogether in 1935. The head of MGM, Louis B. Mayer, had demanded Haines deny his gay lifestyle (which he had lived quite openly despite the times) and marry a woman for appearances. Haines went on to become a successful interior designer, with clients ranging from Joan Crawford and Gloria Swanson to Ronald and Nancy Reagan.

TYPECAST…**Billy Haines** (left), **Eleanor Boardman** and **Ben Lyon** in *Wine of Youth*, 1924. (whenwewerecool.tumblr.com)

FAN FICTION…Movie fan magazines until mid-century were tools of the major studios with portrayals of the “real lives” of stars that were nearly as fictional as their film roles. **Billy Haines** (upper left) was one of the Hollywood “bachelors” featured in this article from an unidentified fan magazine. (Unknown/Pinterest)

In our featured cartoon from March 10, 1928, Helen Hokinson spied on her famous spinsters passing the time with a Ouija board:

Next Time: Broadway’s Soap Stars…

Amen Aimee

It what would become a longstanding tradition, The New Yorker marked its third anniversary by featuring the original Rea Irvin cover illustration from Issue No. 1. The New Yorker was a very different magazine by its third year, fat with advertising and its editorial content bolstered by such talents as Peter Arno, E.B. White and Dorothy Parker.

Parker livened up the magazine’s books section, mincing few words as she took on writers both great and not so great.

In the latter category was Aimee Semple McPherson, a 1920s forerunner of today’s glitzy televangelists. In her column “Reading and Writing,” Parker took aim at McPherson — “Our Lady of the Loud-speaker” — who had just published a book titled In the Service of the King.

READY FOR MY CLOSEUP…Although she was an evangelical preacher, **Aimee Temple McPherson** was also considered one of the most glamorous women in 1920s America. (Foursquare Church)

McPherson (1890–1944) was a Pentecostal-style preacher who practiced “speaking in tongues” and faith healing in her services, which drew huge crowds at revival events between 1919 and 1922. She took to the radio in the early 1920s and in 1923 she based her ministry in Los Angeles at her newly completed Angelus Temple, which served as the center of the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel.

McPherson’s book detailed her conversion and her various hardships, including her mysterious “kidnapping” in 1926. Parker was having none of it:

Parker was referring to events beginning on May 18, 1926, when the evangelist visited Venice Beach for a swim and went missing. Some thought she had drown, others claimed they saw a “sea monster” in the area. McPherson reemerged in June on the Mexico-Arizona border, claiming she had been kidnapped and held captive by three strangers.

Numerous allegations of illicit love affairs targeted McPherson during her years of fame, so some were inclined to believe she went missing in order to engage in a love affair with her sound engineer.

Upon her return to Los Angeles she was greeted by a huge crowd (est. 30,000 to 50,000) that paraded her back to the Angelus Temple. However many others in the city found McPherson’s homecoming gaudy and annoying. A grand jury was subsequently convened to determine if evidence of a kidnapping could be found, but the court soon turned its focus to McPherson herself to determine if she had faked the kidnapping. Parker thought the condition of the preacher’s shoes, after a long trek through the desert, were evidence enough of a sham:

THE MEGACHURCH IS BORN…Angelus Temple, completed in 1923, is the center of the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel founded by McPherson. It is still in active use. (Loyola Marymount University)

SPECTACLE…**Aimee Semple McPherson** surrounded by massed choirs at Angelus Temple for a musical requiem in 1929. (Los Angeles Public Library/*Herald Examiner*)

**Aimee Semple McPherson** (second from left) joins tambourine players in a service at Angelus Temple. McPherson produced weekly dramas, often major spectacles, illustrating various religious themes. (Los Angeles Public Library/*Herald Examiner*)

McPherson, who was married three times and twice divorced, died in September 1944 from an apparent overdose of sleeping pills. She was 53. Her son Rolf took over the ministry after her death. Today McPherson’s Foursquare Church has a worldwide membership of about 8 million, and is still based in Los Angeles.

But How Do I Look?

The Feb. 25 issue profiled the young Jascha Heifetz, a Russian-born violin prodigy who seemed more interested in how he looked than in how he performed. An excerpt:

SARTORIAL PERFECTION…Detail of a 1928 photo of 27-year-old **Jascha Heifetz,** taken by **Edward Steichen.** (Condé Nast)

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Speaking of fashion, one of the world’s greatest fashion designers, Paul Poiret, was seeing hard times in the late 1920s with his designs losing popularity in his native France and his formidable fashion empire on the brink of collapse. But Francophile New Yorkers, always hungry for French fashion, greeted Poiret with open arms when he arrived in the city in the fall of 1927.

It is something of a surprise, however, to find this advertisement in the Feb. 25 issue in which Poiret endorses Rayon, a man-made substitute for silk. We don’t usually associate synthetics with haute couture, but then again maybe Poiret just needed the money. Better living through chemistry, as they say…

Also in the issue was a sad, Prohibition-era advertisement that extolled the virtues of an oxymoronic “non-alcoholic vermouth”…

And finally from the Feb. 25 issue, a cartoon by Carl Rose…

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One-eyed Monster

In the March 3 issue “The Talk of the Town” discovered the miracle of television during a visit to the Bell Telephone laboratories.

Lab researchers demonstrated a “receiving grid” with a tiny screen that displayed images broadcast across the expanse of an auditorium:

WE’LL CALL IT THE BOOB TUBE…Engineer and inventor **Ernst Alexanderson** (right) and the TV projector he used for early public demonstrations of television, circa 1928. (edisontechcenter.org)

Another glimpse into the future in the March 3 issue came courtesy illustrator Al Frueh, who offered this fanciful look at the skyscraper of tomorrow:

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“Profile” featured the first installment of a four-part article (by Niven Busch Jr.) on a man who put America on wheels and into traffic jams. Excerpts:

And finally, from W.P. Trent, an analogy that would take on new meaning after the market crash…

Next Time: To Bob, Or Not to Bob…

Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner

Gene Tunney was not your typical boxer. Holder of the heavyweight title from 1926 to 1928, he defeated his rival Jack Dempsey in 1926 and again in 1927 in the famous “Long Count Fight.” But Tunney was no Palooka—he preferred to be known as a cultured gentleman, and made a number of friends in the literary world including George Bernard Shaw, Ernest Hemingway and Thornton Wilder.

d30ba2edfc3289f6c04c8dfd337ef06c — January 14, 1928 cover by **Julian de Miskey**.

So when given the opportunity to say a few words, Tunney made the most of it, including at a dinner hosted by boxing and hockey promoter Tex Rickard to honor champions in various sports. The New Yorker’s E.B. White was there tell us about it:

d2cf24cb8345bcbf47135ea359d6eaa4 — FETED FOR FEATS…World champion athletes are shown here from top row, left to right; Babe Ruth (baseball), Gene Tunney (boxing), Johnny Weissmuller (swimming), Bill Cook (hockey). On the bottom row is from left to right, Bill Tilden (tennis), Bobby Jones (golf), Fred Spencer and Charlie Winters (six-day bicycle race).

While Tunney was doubtless composing his thoughts at the banquet table, baseball legend Babe Ruth was wishing he could be someplace else…

…like hanging out with his old buddy Jack Dempsey…

ruthdempsey — BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS…Babe Ruth having breakfast with his friend, heavyweight boxing champion Jack Dempsey, at Ruth’s residence at the Ansonia Hotel in New York City, 1927. Dempsey reigned as the champ from 1919 until 1926, when he was defeated by Gene Tunney. (captainsblog.info)

Instead, the Babe would have to listen to a surprise speech by Tunney, who sought to prove to those in attendance that he had brains to match his brawn. No doubt to the relief of many in attendance, New York City’s flamboyant mayor, Jimmy Walker, was able to return the proceedings to party mode.

screen-shot-2017-02-14-at-3-00-04-pm — THAT’LL DO, GENE, THAT’LL DO…Newly crowned heavyweight boxing champion **Gene Tunney** (center) meets with New York City Mayor **Jimmy Walker** (right) at City Hall, September 1926. (josportsinc.com)

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The New Yorker writers found little to like about Hollywood, but Charlie Chaplin could always be counted on to knock out a humorous film. At least most of the time. Here is what “The Talk of the Town” had to say about his latest, The Circus:

LIGHTEN UP, CHARLIE…**Merna Kennedy, Charlie Chaplin** and **Harry Crocker** in *The Circus*. (1928). (Turner Classic Movies)

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Give ‘Em Dirty Laundry

In these days of clickbait and other news designed to attract our prurient interest, we can look back 89 years a see that the tabloids were doing much of the same, particularly in Bernarr Macfadden’s New York Graphic, which was making the most of the final days of death row inmates Ruth Snyder and Judd Gray. “The Talk of the Town” (likely Robert Benchley) made this observation:

screen-shot-2017-02-14-at-4-48-21-pm — TSK, TSK…Evangelist **Aimee Semple McPherson** (left), received a tidy sum to write about convicted murderer **Ruth Snyder** for the *New York Evening Graphic.* (Wikipedia/Murderpedia)

Former lovers Snyder and Gray were sentenced to death in 1927 for the premeditated murder of Snyder’s husband (they went to the electric chair at Sing Sing prison on Jan. 12, 1928). Newspapers across the country sensationalized their trial, but the Graphic went the extra step by paying large sums to celebrity correspondents, including evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson, to write about the sordid case. Sister Aimee used her Graphic column to encourage young men to “want a wife like mother — not a Red Hot cutie.” Semple McPherson herself would later be accused of an affair, but then what else is new in the business of casting stones?

screen-shot-2017-02-15-at-10-57-28-am — FAKE NEWS…Before the *National Enquirer* and *Weekly World News (and Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc.)*, **Benarr Mcfadden’s** *Evening Graphic* was the tabloid of choice among the less discerning. This issue from March 17, 1927, depicted silent actor **Rudolph Valentino** meeting the famed tenor **Enrico Caruso** in heaven. The *Graphic* was famous for these “Composographs,” — images cut and pasted together using the heads or faces of current celebrities and glued onto staged images created by employees in Macfadden’s studio. (bernarrmacfadden.com)

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Even His Skivvies?

We can also look back 89 years and see that people were just as celebrity-crazed then as they are now. Charles Lindbergh could barely keep the clothes on his back while being pursued by adoring mobs, according to “The Talk of the Town”…

col_charles_lindbergh — KEEP YOUR HANDS OFF MY BVDS

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Kindred Spirits

Dorothy Parker wrote a vigorous, even impassioned defense of the late dancer Isadora Duncan in her column, “Reading and Writing.” Parker reviewed Duncan’s posthumously published autobiography, My Life, which she found “interesting and proudly moving” even if the book itself was “abominably written,” filled with passages of “idiotic naïveté” and “horrendously flowery verbiage.” In this “mess of prose” Parker also found passion, suffering and glamour—three words that Parker could have used to describe her own life.

Parker elaborated on the word “glamour,” which she thought had been cheapened in her day to something merely glittery and all surface. True glamour, wrote Parker, was that of Isadora Duncan, coming from her “great, torn, bewildered, foolhardy soul.” Parker concluded with this plea:

**Isadora Duncan** circa 1910 (left), and Duncan in a publicity photo circa 1903. (Wikipedia)

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New Kid on the Block

Yet another high-rise dwelling was available to Jazz Age New Yorkers—One Fifth Avenue in Greenwich Village. One Fifth Avenue was an apartment with the word “hotel” attached to justify its 27-story height. To meet zoning requirements, the apartments had “pantries” instead of kitchens. But then again, your “servant” would fetch your dinner anyway…

one-fifth-avenue-december-1928 — GOING UP…The art deco landmark One Fifth Avenue signaled a dramatic change from the four-story mansions that once occupied the site. (New York Public Library)

Historical note: One Fifth Avenue marked a dramatic change in the character of Washington Square, one of the most prestigious residential neighborhoods of early New York City. A previous occupant of the One Fifth Avenue site was the brownstone mansion of William Butler Duncan. In addition to One Fifth Avenue, the residences at 3, 5, and 7 Fifth Avenue were also demolished to make way for the new art deco “apartment hotel.”

01-fifth_william-butler-duncan — DUST TO DUST…The William Butler Duncan residence at One Fifth Avenue. (daytoninmanhattan)

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To close, a two-page spread by Helen Hokinson exploring one woman’s challenge with the “flapper bob” (sorry about the crease in the scan–that is how it is reproduced in the online archive). Click the image to enlarge.

And a bit of fun on the streetcar, courtesy of cartoonist Leonard Dove…

…and a confession, from Otto Soglow…

Next Time: Machine Age Bromance…

Mutt & Jeff

We close out November 1927 by looking at a hugely popular comic strip—Mutt & Jeff—that made cartoonist Bud Fisher both famous and wealthy.

screen-shot-2017-01-26-at-10-05-52-am — Nov. 19 and Nov. 26, 1927 covers by **Rea Irvin.**

The editors of the Nov. 26, 1927 issue of The New Yorker thought Fisher interesting enough to feature in a lengthy “Profile,” written by Kelly Coombs. A brief excerpt:

According to John Adcock’s terrific Yesterday’s Papers blog, by 1916 Bud Fisher was the highest paid cartoonist on earth. The New Yorker suggested his annual income was $300,000 (roughly equivalent to more than $4 million today). In addition to the strips, created by Fisher and a team of ghost illustrators/writers, Mutt & Jeff were featured in vaudeville engagements, theatrical shows, animated cartoons, comic books and toys.

muttmagicdark1380 — DIE LAUGHING…*Mutt & Jeff* themed toys included this joke kit from Mysto Manufacturing. I don’t quite get the joke featured on the cover, depicting Jeff’s casually twisted approach to murdering poor Mutt. (*Copyright MEL BIRNKRANT via* melbirnkrant.com—a truly amazing collection)

m902d5g — IT’S A LIVING…**Harry Conway (Bud) Fisher,** drawing a likeness of the character “Jeff” at a *Chicago Daily News* event in 1915. (Chicago History Museum)

Fisher began his career as a sports cartoonist for the San Francisco Chronicle and started his strip about “two mismatched tinhorns” in 1907. It went into syndication the following year. Mutt and Jeff, originally titled A. Mutt, is regarded as the first American newspaper cartoon published as a strip of panels, making it the first “comic strip.”

There was obviously a time when American readers thought Mutt & Jeff hilarious, but I don’t quite get its appeal. In this strip from 1926, Jeff gets a pie in the face. The giant question mark was frequently employed by Fisher, as were the dotted eye lines and explanatory arrows like the one in the last panel. No, Jeff didn’t get his brains blown out by Mutt. It is only a pie! Hah!

muttjeff052326b — *Click on image to enlarge*

Another visual cliché from comics of yore was the angry wife wielding a rolling pin. Apparently Jeff refers to Mutt’s wife as an “Old Buzzard” and assumes she is already in bed (sorry about the poor quality of the reproduction). Jeff subsequently gets whacked with the rolling pin, and Mutt takes it on the bean with a flatiron. That is quite a feat, throwing a grown man through a window while simultaneously hitting him on the head with a flatiron…

muttjeff112429a — *Click on image to enlarge* (Both strips courtesy University of Michigan)

The duo were also featured in more than 300 animated “half-reelers” produced between 1913 and 1926, including Mutt and Jeff: On Strike from 1920. The short film (which can be viewed here) even includes rare footage of Bud Fisher himself, since the story–sort of a film within a film–involves the penniless Mutt and Jeff going on strike after they see a movie featuring Fisher’s lavish home.

screen-shot-2017-01-26-at-12-50-34-pm — STRIKEBREAKER…Still images from the silent half-reeler, *Mutt and Jeff: On Strike*. **Bud Fisher** is shown at home discussing terms over the phone with his striking characters. They lose. (www.filmpreservation.org)

Coombs concluded the profile with these observations concerning Fisher’s personal habits:

Fisher employed a number of assistants on the strip, including George Herriman (Krazy Kat) and a high-school boy named Maurice Sendak (Where the Wild Things Are). When Fisher appeared to lose interest in the strip in the 1930s, assistant Al Smith took over and drew the strip for nearly fifty years (but Smith didn’t sign his own name on the strip until after Fisher’s death in 1954).

In Yesterday’s Papers, Adcock notes that Fisher “was the unlikeliest person you could think of to draw Mutt and Jeff…along with most of his contemporary cartoonist-journalists pals, (he) enjoyed fights, chorus girls, gambling, and saloons. Fisher liked to shoot up hotel rooms with his pistols, one of which was a gift from Pancho Villa, indoors when he was drunk.”

Heads in the Clouds

Thanks to the race to fly across the Atlantic, toy models of Charles Lindbergh’s Spirit of St. Louis and other planes were in high demand for the Christmas season, according to this item in the Nov. 26, 1927, “Talk of the Town:”

screen-shot-2017-01-27-at-9-48-40-am — BUILT TO LAST…A Metalcraft model kit (box, upper image, contents below) from the late 1920s. It was all metal in the days before plastic model kits. (eBay)

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At a Loss For Words

Jumping back to the Nov. 19, 1927 issue, we go from the low art of Bud Fisher to the high art of John Marin featured in “The Art Galleries” section. Art critic Murdock Pemberton wrote:

screen-shot-2017-01-27-at-10-01-51-am — SAVAGE WORK…**John Marin,** *White Horses – Sea Movement off Deer Isle, Maine,* 1926. (Whitney Museum of American Art)

But perhaps “high art” is not an accurate description of Marin’s paintings, since Marin himself wasn’t into “highfalutin words” to describe his work…

12032401444_4bb042eb04_b — HAUNTING BEAUTY…**John Marin**, *Echo Lake Franconia Range White Mountain Country,* 1927 (National Gallery of Art, Washington DC.)

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In the previous week’s issue (Nov. 12) the Marmon 8 was advertised as an ideal car for women. Not to be outdone, the folks at Buick shot back with this colorful ad in the Nov. 19 issue:

The Nov. 19 issue also featured this strange advertisement from the famed Wanamaker department store. Strange mainly because of the illustration, which features a fashionable woman departing a fanciful aircraft studded with mullioned windows(!) and a stairway that stretches to improbable depths…oh, and in case the reader might miss the snob appeal associated with French furs, the words Paris, Parisian or French are featured ten times…

And finally, the ubiquitous New Yorker cartoon featuring the humorous mismatch of rich old sugar daddy and ditzy young mistress, courtesy of Julian de Miskey…

Next Time: More Funny Business…

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…

Electric Wonders

While Europeans in the 1920s dealt with frayed economies and political strife in the wake of World War I , Americans enjoyed a period of relative peace and prosperity along with an array of new electrical gadgets people didn’t even know they needed.

6ed825c70c3fd789a666a63ecc376b5d — October 22, 1927 cover by Julian de Miskey.

In the column “About The House,” The New Yorker wryly warned “timid souls” about the new push-button world they would encounter at the Electrical and Industrial Exposition at Grand Central Palace…

dffff4f6ca7374d0467ec29453344292 — Poster advertising the Electrical and Industrial Exposition. (public domain image)

screen-shot-2016-12-16-at-9-06-56-am — WILL WONDERS NEVER CEASE?…*The New Yorker* marveled over the latest electrical appliances on display at the Electrical and Industrial Exposition at Grand Central Palace including, clockwise from top left, the Toastmaster automatic toaster (which the magazine noted resembled an armored car), an electric washing machine, and the mighty Kitchen Aid mixer, which is still going strong in American kitchens today.

THE ICEMAN COMETH NOT…A saleswoman shows off the features of a GE Monitor Top Refrigerator on display at a product exhibition in the late 1920s. (Public Domain Image)

Nan’s No No

The New Yorker’s “Talk of the Town” featured one of the Roaring Twenties big scandals–Nan Britton’s affair with U.S. President Warren G. Harding (who died at age 57 in 1923) and the debate over the paternity of their love child, Elizabeth Ann. Britton had just published a “tell all” book, The President’s Daughter, which was bringing out the worst in a lot of people…

screen-shot-2017-01-03-at-10-26-29-am — LIFE WITHOUT FATHER…**Nan Britton** with her 8-year-old daughter, **Elizabeth Ann**, in 1927. (*New York Times/James Blaesing)*

Although at the time Britton was denounced by many (including the Harding family) as a liar who was only out to get money from the President’s estate, genetic tests conducted in 2015 have confirmed that Elizabeth Ann was indeed Harding’s daughter. Britton died in 1991 at the age of 94. Elizabeth Ann would follow in 2005, at age 86.

Porgy Hits the Stage

Porgy: A Play in Four Acts opened at the Guild Theatre, and New Yorker reviewer Charles Brackett was there to witness perhaps the first attempt at an authentic presentation of black culture on a Broadway stage. Based on a play by Dorothy and DuBose Hayward, the production was unusual for its time in featuring a cast of African American actors. The play would provide the basis of the libretto for the 1935 folk opera Porgy and Bess, which would feature George Gershwin’s famous score including the popular song “Summertime.” An excerpt from Brackett’s review, which included some unfortunate stereotypes…

porgy-verwayne-wilson-ellis — SOMETHING NEW ON BROADWAY…**Percy Verwayne** (Sporting Life), **Frank Wilson** (Porgy) and **Evelyn Ellis** (Bess) in *Porgy: A Play in Four Acts.* October 1929. (Wikipedia)

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Same to You, Fella

In his “Reporter at Large” column, Morris Markey sounded off on the rude behavior he had observed of late among his fellow New Yorkers. In relating a story about the crude behavior of a building’s security guard, Markey pondered the old nature vs. nurture question…

Aw, Shucks…

Not all New Yorkers were acting rudely. Some were even treating visiting rodeo cowboys with the utmost courtesy, as noted in the “The Talk of the Town,” although others found the sport to be brutal and unnecessary…

screen-shot-2017-01-03-at-1-30-42-pm — GIDDYAP…Program from the World Series Rodeo at Madison Square Garden, 1927. (Rare Americana)

1927 World Series Rodeo was produced by famed sports promoter, Tex Rickard, in Madison Square Garden as a benefit for the Broad Street Hospital.

The other World Series, the one concerning baseball, was still absent from the pages of The New Yorker, even though the 1927 Yankees would win a record 110 games and sweep the Pittsburgh Pirates in four games to win the World Series title…and Babe Ruth would hit a record 60 home runs.

As I’ve noted before, there was a lot of sports coverage in the early issues of The New Yorker, everything from polo to college football. As for the omission of the Yankees and baseball in general from the pages of the magazine, perhaps the editors felt the game was still tainted by the Black Sox scandal of 1919 and was not worthy of coverage.

How’s the Weather Up There?

The city’s “heat affect” was another “Talk” topic, with editors noting that the city’s buildings and streets not only affected temperatures in the city, but also its air quality…

maiakovskii-in-new-york — IN HIS ELEMENT…Futurist poet Vladimir Mayakovsky amid the dusty haze of New York City in 1925. (thecharnelhouse.org)

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In “Of All Things,” Howard Brubaker chimed in on The New Yorker’s continuing criticism of Hollywood films, especially in the age of Will Hays and his continued attempts at film censorship…

Finally, a couple of cartoons from the Oct. 22 issue, including this one by Barbara Shermund that explores one of the magazine’s continuing themes regarding life among the portly, middle-aged sugar daddies and their ditzy young mistresses…

…and this jab at the dim-witted, idle rich by illustrator Ed Graham…

Next Time: You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby…

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…

Flapper Fitness

Lois Long stepped off her fashion beat to check out a new fitness salon on East 49th Street that used a combination of spa treatments, exercise and body shaming to get women into shape.

fd4accb02ed7d01ae3624ea180d47357 — September 24, 1927 cover by **Ilonka Karasz**.

Operated by a “Miss Marjorie Dork,” the salon offered a comprehensive and “rather sweeping program of making a new and perfect woman of you.” Long observed…

…and what gym would be complete without large placards shaming you for gaining weight or growing old?…

…or an array of newfangled electric gadgets one could use to melt away those extra pounds…

article-0-1a8ab29b000005dc-646_634x827 — ON THE BOARDWALK…Treadmill technology has advanced since these wooden numbers from the 1920s. It’s hard to believe anyone actually worked out in Mary Janes, but there it is. (*Daily Mail*)

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Another One Bites the Dust

The New Yorker bid farewell to yet another familiar landmark, the old Van Buren Place at No. 21 West 14th Street. Four stories high and five bays wide, the 1845 mansion was considered the height of early Victorian taste.

According to the blog Daytonian in Manhattan, in the 19th century the Van Buren estate had a large garden that extended through the block to 15th Street, and in the rear included a conservatory, a stable, arbors, dove cotes “and remnants of the farm life—chicken coops and a cow or two.”

van-buren-mansion-1906-oct-14 — REMNANT OF THE PAST…The old Van Buren Place (center) with its garden to the left. (Museum of the City of New York)

The August 7, 1927 issue of The New York Times reported that the mansion, erected “when all that section north of Washington Square was occupied principally by estates and truck farms, has finally succumbed to the march of improvements and will be demolished to make way for a theatre and office building.” The New Yorker managed to get one last look via “a hole in the fence”…

I don’t know if either a theatre or office building was ever erected on the site, but this is what stands there today:

daytoninmanhatten — THE GREAT WALL…The Van Buren estate site as it appears today. (daytoninmanhattan)

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Chill Out With Sanka

Sanka decaffeinated coffee was first marketed in the U.S. in 1923, but was only sold at two Sanka coffee houses in New York. The company made a big retail push in 1927, including sponsored broadcasts under various titles including the Sanka After-Dinner Hour on WEAF radio in New York. At least until the 1980s if you wanted a decaffeinated coffee you simply ordered a “Sanka.” According to a Wikipedia entry, the bright orange color of the Sanka can was so easily identifiable to consumers that even today a restaurant’s decaf coffee pot might sport a bright orange handle–the direct result of the public’s association of the color orange with Sanka, no matter which brand of coffee is actually served.

Our cartoon from the Sept. 24 issue comes from Alan Dunn, who explored the topic of the birds and bees among the posh set…

Next Time: Wits of the Round Table…

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: