politics – A New Yorker State of Mind

The Happy Warrior

Above: Al Smith waving to crowds on arrival at Chattanooga, Tennessee during his presidential campaign in 1928. (Museum of the City of New York)

It’s hard to not like Al Smith, the governor of New York from 1923 to 1928, a man who avoided the temptations of political power and stayed true to his working class roots of the Lower East Side.

The son of Irish, Italian and German immigrants, Alfred Emanuel Smith (1873–1944) was raised in the Tammany Hall-dominated Fourth Ward, and although he was indebted to Tammany’s political machine throughout much of his professional life (including stints in the New York State Assembly and as York County Sheriff, President of the Board of Alderman, and finally Governor) he remained untarnished by corruption. Smith’s unsuccessful bid for the U.S. presidency in 1928 put an end to his political life, but there was still much to do, as “The Talk of the Town” explained:

HALL MONITORS…At left, **Charles “Silent Charlie” Murphy** with **Al Smith** in 1915. Murphy was the longest-serving head of Tammany Hall (1902 to 1924), and was known for transforming Tammany’s image from one of corruption to semi-respectability; at right, in 1929, Smith greets **Franklin D. Roosevelt,** who had just succeeded him as governor. (Library of Congress/Wikipedia)

Smith first sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 1924. According to historian Robert Slayton, Smith advanced the cause of civil liberty by decrying lynching and racial violence at the 1924 Democratic National Convention, where Franklin D. Roosevelt delivered the nominating speech for Smith and saluted him as “the Happy Warrior of the political battlefield.”

Following his 1928 presidential election loss to Herbert Hoover, Smith became president of Empire State, Inc., the corporation that built and also operated the Empire State Building, which was then the tallest building in the world. Smith was also known for his fondness of animals, and in 1934 Parks Commissioner Robert Moses made Smith “Honorary Night Zookeeper” of the renovated Central Park Zoo. Smith was given keys to the zoo and often took guests to see the animals after hours. According to Rebekah Burgess of the NYC Department of Parks and Recreation, “As a resident of 820 Fifth Avenue, directly across the street from the entrance of the Central Park Zoo, Smith was known to appear with snacks for the animals or to launch into impromptu lectures for visitors. Al Smith took his honorary title to heart. Throughout the rest of his life, Smith could often be found attending to the animals at the zookeepers’ sides during open hours. At night, Smith visited with guests, or more often, one-on-one with the animals.”

Smith was also a humanitarian, and in addition to advocating for the working class, he was an early critic of the Nazi regime in Germany, vigorously supporting the Anti-Nazi boycott of 1933. Here is another excerpt from the “Talk” piece:

LIFE OUTSIDE THE OFFICE…Scenes of post-political life, clockwise from top left: **Al Smith** fishing in 1933; with his family at the May 1, 1931 opening of the Empire State Building—Smith’s grandchildren cut the ribbon; golfing in 1930 with baseball great **Babe Ruth** in Coral Gables, Florida; with Rosie, the hippopotamus, at the Central Park Zoo, 1928. (Museum of the City of New York/Wikipedia)

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Culture Club

In the Nov. 9, 1929 issue of The New Yorker Murdock Pemberton hailed the opening of the Roerich Museum. For the July 14, 1934 issue, “The Talk of the Town” took another look. A brief excerpt:

MORE THAN A BUILDING…”The Talk of the Town” noted the changing shades of the art deco landmark Master Building on Riverside Drive (left, in 1929) which originally housed the Nicholas Roerich Museum. Today the Roerich is located in this brownstone at 319 West 107th. (Wikipedia)

FOOTNOTES FROM A FULL LIFE…Two of **Nicholas Roerich’s** paintings from the 1920s: at top, *Remember,* 1924; below, *Drops of Life,* 1924. (roerich.org)

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Itinerant Showman

Alva Johnston filed the first installment of a three-part profile of famed sports promoter Jack Curley (1876–1937). A brief excerpt:

FIGHT CLUB…Sports promoter **Jack Curley** (left) with boxing manager **Eddie Kane,** circa 1920. (Library of Congress)

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Over There

In his column “Of All Things,” Howard Brubaker made this brief mention of the “Night of the Long Knives;” on June 30, 1934 Adolf Hitler ordered SS guards to murder the leaders of the paramilitary SA along with hundreds of other perceived or imagined opponents.

Here is a clip from the front page of The New York Times, July 3, 1934:

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Pimm’s and Soda

July in England meant Wimbledon, and The New Yorker was there to observe the “snobbish and sacred” rite…

WATCH THE BOUNCING BALL…British tennis great **Fred Perry** (left) and Australian **Jack Crawford** before their men’s singles final at the 1934 Wimbledon tournament, which Perry won. Perry would claim three consecutive titles between 1934 and 1936. (Image: Mirrorpix)

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Midsummer Dreams

In the summertime (and before widespread use of air conditioning) stage entertainments such as theater and musical performances took to the outdoors during their off-season, seeking the evening cool of intimate rooftops or large, open venues such as Lewisohn Stadium, A brief excerpt describing a performance of Samson et Dalila:

EVENING SHADE: **Andre Kostelanetz** conducts at Lewisohn Stadium in 1939. The stadium was demolished in 1973 to make way for City College of New York’s North Academic Center. (PressReader.com)

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From Our Advertisers

The folks at struggling carmaker Hupmobile took out this bold, full-page ad to tout their flashy “Aero-Dynamic” by noted designer Raymond Loewy…

…this ad from Harriet Hubbard Ayer was bold in a very different way, essentially calling some women ugly unless they used the company’s “beauty preparations”…

…consommé, a clear soup that was particularly popular among the upper classes, offered up some keen competition between two food giants…here Heinz enlisted the help of William Steig to move their product…

…while the folks at Campbell’s offered up this lovely patio setting for their “invigorating” consommé…

…meanwhile, White Rock mineral water could be found on patios all over Manhattan, as this ad attested…

…this is a reminder that most city folks had their milk and other dairy products delivered in the early part of the 20th century…by the early 1960s about 30 percent of consumers still had their milk delivered, dropping to 7 percent by 1975 and .4 percent by 2005…

…affordable home air-conditioning wouldn’t be available to the masses until after World War II…this unit (designed for a single room) from Frigidaire retailed for $340 (a little less than $8,000 today)…

…on to our cartoonists, we begin with Robert Day in the “Goings On’ section…

…Day again, exploring the baffling, glassy interiors of modern restaurants…

…the birdwatching continued with Rea Irvin…

…Alain (Daniel Brustlein) gave us a swimming somnambulist…

…Helen Hokinson explored the paranormal, via domestic plumbing…

…and we close with James Thurber, and the missing Dr. Millmoss…

Next Time: His Five Cent’s Worth…

Ring Ding

Back in the days before we had a zillion different entertainment options, almost anyone with a pair of ears would tune in to hear the radio broadcast of a heavyweight title fight.

Jack Dempsey and Gene Tunney dominated the late 1920s, while Joe Louis, Max Schmeling and Jack Sharkey were marquee names in the 1930s along with Max Baer and Primo Carnera, who met on June 14, 1934 at the outdoor Madison Square Garden Bowl in Long Island City. The reigning champ Carnera (1906–1967), who stood six-and-a-half feet tall and weighed in at 260 pounds, had won more fights by knockout than any other heavyweight champion. But Baer (1909–1959) was known as a knockout puncher who beat one opponent so savagely that he died the following day.

DEADLY DUEL…**Max Baer** (right) fought **Frankie Campbell** on Aug. 25, 1930, in San Francisco for the unofficial title of Pacific Coast champion. In the fifth round Baer got Campbell against the ropes and hammered him senseless. Campbell died the next day. An autopsy revealed that Campbell’s brain was “knocked completely loose from his skull.” Baer was profoundly affected by Campbell’s death, and donated purses from succeeding bouts to Campbell’s family. (thefightcity.com)

Baer was also something of a showboater, a quality Morris Markey found distasteful when he wrote about the Baer–Carnera bout in “A Reporter at Large.”

ALL SMILES…A year before their championship bout **Max Baer** (left) and Primo Carnera starred with **Myrna Loy** in *The Prizefighter and the Lady. (theusaboxingnews.com)*

GIANT SLAYER…The Italian prizefighter and wrestler **Primo Carnera**, nicknamed the “Ambling Alp,” was the reigning heavyweight champion when he faced **Max Baer** on June 14, 1934 at the Madison Square Garden Bowl. Baer felled the champion eleven times before the fight was stopped in the eleventh round. Baer would only hold the title for a year, losing to **James J. Braddock** on June 13, 1935, in what has been called one of the greatest upsets in boxing history. (theusaboxingnews.com)

Markey further explained why Baer’s behavior in the ring was so bothersome, and how it differed from the comic antics of other famous athletes:

RETIRING TYPES…Both **Primo Carnera** and **Max Baer** acted in films during their boxing careers, and continued acting after their retirements (Carnera in 1944, Baer in 1941). At left, Carnera with **Bob Hope** in the 1954 American comedy *Casanova’s Big Night* (Carnera appeared in eleven Italian films and in a half-dozen American films); at right, **Max Bae**r and brother **Buddy Baer** (also a boxer) with **Lou Costello** in the 1949 comedy *Africa Screams.* Baer would appear in more than 20 films.(theusaboxingnews.com/monstermoviemusic.blogspot.com)

Complications from diabetes would take Carnera down for good at age 60. Baer would die even younger, from a heart attack, at age 50. His last words reportedly were, “Oh God, here I go.” Baer’s son, actor and director Max Baer Jr. (best known as Jethro Bodine from TV’s The Beverly Hillbillies) is still with us, at age 85.

We aren’t quite finished with the Baer–Carnera fight…E.B. White led his “Notes and Comment” with this observation regarding the fight’s mass appeal and seeming universality:

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Apologies to Ms. Winslow

I seem to have given short shrift to author Thyra Samter Winslow (1886–1961) who published more than 200 stories during her career in magazines such as The Smart Set and The American Mercury. She published more than thirty in The New Yorker, from 1927 to 1942, including the serialization of her short story collection, My Own, My Native Land. The story “Poodles” was featured in the June 23 issue.

According to the Encyclopedia of Arkansas, Winslow’s early life in Fort Smith (Ark.) “provided background for her view of small towns as prejudiced, hypocritical, and suffocating places…many stories expose the hypocrisy, prejudice, and carefully maintained social structures of both small town and urban life. She was particularly adept at portraying women of every social class, often in an unfavorable light. Money, especially the pursuit of it as a means to happiness or status, is an important theme throughout her work.”

THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS…**Thyra Samter Winslow** with friend, 1937. (findagrave.com)

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Hot Enough For Ya?

So what did New Yorkers do when the summer heat set in? The next few items offer some clues, beginning with this poem by E.B. White:

SUMMER STOCK…Theatergoers fled to shady villages in New York, New Jersey and New England in the 1920s and 30s when summer stock theater was at its height. The above photo shows theatergoers leaving a performance at the Lakewood Theatre near Skowhegan, Maine. The theater was claimed to be the oldest and finest summer stock company in America with a Broadway cast. Nearby Lakewood Inn provided recreation, camping, and tourist bungalows. (mainememory.net)

You could also take in some entertainment while enjoying the cooling breezes of the Hudson River. Robert Benchley hopped aboard the Alexander Hamilton to enjoy Bobby Sanford’s showboat revue:

SOME REAL SHOWBOATING…Clockwise, from top left, the steamboat *Alexander Hamilton* hosted **Bobby Sanford’s** showboat revue; comedian **Lester Allen** served as emcee for the show; the Meyer Davis Orchestra supplied the music; the revue featured the “exotic” **DuVal sisters** (image from program) among other diversions. (Hudson River Maritime Museum/IMDB/vintagebandstand.blogspot.com/Worthpoint)

“Tables for Two” took a look at summer dining options, from sidewalk cafes to hotel rooftops featuring dinner and dancing—this “Tables” was not written by Lois Long, but by Margaret Case Harriman, who knew a thing or two about nightlife (she was the daughter of the Hotel Algonquin’s owner, Frank Case)…

DANCING WITH THE STARS…The Waldorf-Astoria’s “Starlight Roof” was a popular summer restaurant for dining and dancing. Image from a 1935 publication *The Waldorf-Astoria* by Richard Averill Smith. (The Waldorf-Astoria)

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Doing Swimmingly

Historian Henry F. Pringle published part two of his series on President Franklin D. Roosevelt, here marveling at the president’s health despite his serious bout with polio (drawing by William Cotton).

TAKING THE WATERS…President **Franklin D. Roosevelt** took to swimming for therapy and exercise. (FDR Presidential Library and Museum)

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Get Yourself to Chi-Town

The Chicago World’s Fair (The Century of Progress) was in its second and final year, and The New Yorker found everything “terrific.” Excerpt:

MAKING A SPECTACLE OF ITSELF…The 11-acre Ford Motor Company exhibit at Chicago’s Century of Progress became the most talked-about exhibit of 1934, featuring a central rotunda designed to simulate graduated clusters of gears. At right, Proof of Safety Exhibit in the Ford Building. (chicagology.com)

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From Our Advertisers

Just a couple of entries this week…You could take a plane to the Chicago World’s Fair on a United Airlines Boeing 247…

…the lower section of the ad claimed you could fly to Chicago in about five hours in planes featuring “Two pilots…stewardess…two-way radio…directive radio beam”…

TSA? WHAT’S A TSA?…United Airlines Boeing 247-D at an airport terminal with passengers and crew. (digitalcollections.lib.washington.edu)

COZY CONFINES…Passengers enjoy a game of checkers aboard a Boeing 247 in 1933. (digitalcollections.lib.washington.edu)

…and what would our advertising section be without two fashionable people lighting up?…

…on to our cartoonists, we begin with Reginald Marsh’s illustration of a Rep Theatre production…

…Otto Soglow’s Little King found his artistic side…

…Rea Irvin continued his examination of native fauna…

…Gardner Rea correctly predicted the global domination of Mickey Mouse…

…Peter Arno showed the dizzying effects of a Coney Island ride…

…however at the altar the thrill was gone, per Garrett Price…

…another take on the ways of love, with Barbara Shermund...

…the newfangled diagonal bathtub continued to dazzle, with George Price…

…Gardner Rea offered up some subtle irony on the farm…

…and we close with James Thurber, in a poetic moment…

Next Time: A Light in Darkness…

Coney Summertime

Above: Wooden Horses(detail) by Reginald Marsh, 1936. Marsh was a frequent visitor to Coney Island, a place that inspired numerous sketches and paintings. (Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art)

We officially kick off the summer with a visit to Coney Island, where “The Talk of the Town” took in the latest sights and amusements.

June 16, 1934 cover by **Constantin Alajalov.**

This excerpted “Talk” piece, attributed either to an “H. Beckett” or Francis Steegmuller, describes a post-Prohibition Coney Island with liquor to be had (although at only three locations) and new attractions including several imported from the 1933-34 Chicago’s World’s Fair (aka “The Century of Progress”).

CLANKITY CLANK…The mechanical man referred to in the “Talk” piece was likely similar to the one pictured above in this October 1933 feature in *Popular Mechanics.* Like many “robots” of that era, they were often pictured smoking cigarettes. (Google books)

WET YOUR WHISTLE…Beer flowed up and down the boardwalk at Coney Island, but if you wanted something stronger you had to stop by the Half Moon Hotel or one of these establishments, Childs (left) or Feltmans’. (www.coneyislandhistory.org)

LEAVE SOME FOR ME…An estimated one million New Yorkers visited Coney Island on July 4, 1934 to get away from the heat of the city. (stuffnobodycaresabout.com)

DIFFERING INTERPRETATIONS…In his 1934 painting, *Coney Island* (left), artist **Paul Cadmus** portrayed beachgoers as ridiculous and uncouth rabble, while Cadmus’s friend and fellow artist **Reginald Marsh** took a somewhat kinder approach to the same subject in his 1936 *Coney Island* (right). (Jon F. Anderson, Estate of Paul Cadmus, licensed by VAGA, obtained via lacma.org / Syracuse University Art Collection)

Of course it wouldn’t be Coney Island without grisly wax museum scenes inspired by the latest sensational headlines…bank robber John Dillinger was still on the run, and “little June Robles” was finally free and apparently unharmed after being kidnapped and locked in a desert cage for 19 days…

THANKS WINDY CITY…At left, the Chicago World’s Fair inspired Coney Island to build a trackless, bobsled-style “flying turns” coaster in Steeplechase Park (the wooden ride was destroyed by fire after only five years of operation). At right, a postcard image of the Eden Musee wax museum. (riverviewparkchicago.com / New York Public Library)

ON THE BOARDWALK…Another Coney scene by **Reginald Marsh**, titled *Pip and Flip,* 1932. (Terra Foundation for American Art, Chicago Daniel J. Terra Collection via artblart.com)

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Luck of the Irish

The Irish Hospitals’ Sweepstake (more commonly known as the Irish Sweepstakes) was established in 1930 to raise funding for hospitals in Ireland. Although lotteries were generally illegal in the U.S., millions of tickets were sold in the States, many of them in New York and New England. In his “Notes and Comment,” E.B. White wondered what would become of the lottery’s newest American winners, including former Ziegfeld Follies showgirl Alma Mamay, who won $152,000 in the Irish sweepstakes. White might have been pleased to know that Mamay moved to California, married a millionaire oil tycoon, and lived to the age of ninety-one.

CALIFORNY IS THE PLACE YOU OUGHTA BE..Ziegfeld Follies showgirl **Alma Mamay** took her Sweepstakes winnings and fled to California, where she married a millionaire oil tycoon. (ziegfeldfolliesgirls.com)

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Rugged Individual

Matthew Alexander Henson (1866–1955) was an African American explorer who accompanied Polar explorer Robert Peary to the Arctic seven times, participating in a 1908–1909 expedition that arguably made Henson the first explorer to reach the geographic North Pole. “The Talk of the Town” caught up with Henson on the feat’s 25th anniversary.

GO NORTH YOUNG MAN…At left, **Matthew Henson** circa 1910. At right, photograph of Henson and four Inuit guides on the last stretch of their 1908–09 expedition, taken by Robert Peary at what they believed to be the North Pole. Henson (center) planted the flag. (Wikipedia)

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POTUS Profiled

Pulitizer Prize-winning historian Henry F. Pringle published the first installment of a three-part profile of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. In this excerpt Pringle writes about FDR’s sense of humor (illustration by William Cotton):

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Mattress Campers

The “About the House” column featured the latest in home-cooling devices. Couldn’t afford the zillions it would cost to install a home air-conditioner? Well the folks at Crosley—an electronics company known for its radios—offered a more affordable solution: an air-conditioned tent that could be erected over one’s bed for $150 (about $3,500 in today’s dollars):

Here is a 1934 ad for the contraption I found at worldradiohistory.com:

…and we continue with more from our advertisers, including the Broadway magazine The Stage, which offered up this idyllic scene showing what folks did in the days before air-conditioning…

…you could also escape the heat by taking to the high seas aboard the Italian liner SS Rex…

…seen below arriving in New York in this 1932 photo, the 911-foot SS Rex was the largest ship built in Italy before World War II…it was destroyed by the British RAF in 1944…

(adventures-of-the-blackgang.tumblr.com)

…you could also cool off like these two old gents, sharing a toast and some Budweisers…

…or you could get yourself a jug of applejack brandy and mix it 1:1 with pineapple juice…not sure who or what is being “saved” here…

…long before there were Nikes or Adidas, golfers could hit the links in a pair of Sportocasins…

…Hupmobile was still hanging in there, enlisting the talents of illustrator Herbert Roese to extol the comforts and the beauty of its “air-line design”… it isn’t clear why it required five middle-aged men to take her on that beautiful ride…

…the real-life bellboy Johnny Roventini made his debut in the New Yorker as the spokesman for Phillip Morris cigarettes…

…Roventini (1910–1998), who stood less than four feet tall as an adult, was working as a bellboy at the New Yorker Hotel when he was discovered by an advertising executive in 1933. Apparently the exec had Roventini shout the line “Call for Philip Morris!” and learned the bellboy could repeatedly, and on cue, vocalize a perfect B-flat tone. Representing the company for more than forty years, he helped Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz with the initial success of I Love Lucy (Philip Morris was the show’s sponsor)…

WHAT’S HIS LINE?…TV producers **Mark Goodson**, left, and **Bill Todman** greet **Johnny Roventini** during a 1952 radio broadcast of their quiz show, *What’s My Line?* The program’s sponsor was Phillip Morris. Note Goodson and Todman both hold cigarettes. (Wikipedia)

…by the looks of it, Anne Gould (heiress daughter of Jay Gould II and Anne Douglas Graham Gould) didn’t need anyone to tell her what to smoke…

…on to our cartoons, we continue our birdwatching with Rea Irvin…and we also get…

…high-flying nuptials with Isadore Klein…

…a mismatch with George Price…

…the prospects for war with Otto Soglow…

…marital bliss with James Thurber…

…and a courtship scene, with an expiration date, from Mary Petty…

Next Time: A Ring Ding…

Genesis of Genius

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Stop and Go

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

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

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

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

Fifth Avenue in 1932. (New York State Archives)

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

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Fly Newark

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

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

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Goodnight, Speakeasy

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

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

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From Our Advertisers

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Dreamscapes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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More From Our Advertisers

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

…Carl Rose found an unlikely customer at a newsstand…

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

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

…and we close with the delightful Barbara Shermund…

Next Time: Going With the Flow…

Disappearing Act

British actor Claude Rains made his American film debut in a 1933 movie where the actor’s face isn’t revealed until the final scene.

Although praised by critics in 1933 and today, The New Yorker’s John Mosher had but a paragraph to offer on the The Invisible Man, calling it a “bright little oddity” and an “absurd and diverting film.” Mosher also reviewed the Arctic adventure Eskimo, a film he found to be less than convincing about life on the frozen tundra.

FROM A TEST TUBE, BABY…Dr. Jack Griffin (**Claude Rains**) develops a secret formula that renders him invisible, much to the distress of his former fiancée Flora Cranley (**Gloria Stuart**). Some of you may recall Stuart from 1997’s *Titanic*, in which she portrayed the 100-year-old Rose. In real life Stuart had a career spanning nearly eighty years. And wouldn’t you know, she died in 2010 at age 100. (IMDB)

NOW YOU SEE HIM…Special effects in 1933 were no mean feat. To create the effect of invisibility, Rains was covered head to foot with black velvet tights and wore whatever clothes he required for the scene. The invisibility scenes were then shot against a black set, the negative areas later manually masked to create the effect of invisibility. (IMDB)

…on to our other film, Eskimo…Mosher had doubts about the authenticity of the Eskimo family portrayed in the movie, suggesting (rather unkindly) that the lead actress, Lotus Long, looked like a client of the noted beautician Elizabeth Arden. The film was well-received by critics, but did poorly at the box office. However, it did receive the first-ever Oscar for Best Film Editing.

ICEBREAKER…Although MGM publicists portrayed Eskimo as a steamy love story set against a backdrop of adventure in the wild, the film was ahead of its time in some ways, including the use of Inuit dialogue, which was translated in English intertitles. Directed by **W.S. Van Dyke**, who also directed 1932’s *Tarzan the Ape Man,* the cast included (top photo, from left), **Ray Mala** and Lulu Long Wing (older sister of famed Hollywood actress **Anna May Wong**) with unidentified child actors. Bottom right, Mala with actress **Lotus Long.** (IMDB)

* * *

Numbers Racket

Little known today, the sliding number puzzle “Imp” was hugely popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Plastic versions were produced following World War II—I recall one of them being quietly deployed from my mother’s purse during church, to keep me occupied during lengthy sermons.

* * *

Hammered and Sickled

“The Talk of the Town” commented on a Union Square riot in which American communists attacked a group of Ukrainians protesting the Soviet-imposed mass starvation in their country. Following is an excerpt from a longer piece that also noted the arrival of New York police, who “charged into the Square, riding their horses into the crowd and taking a crack at a head here and there.”

SEE NO EVIL…American Communists attack a group of Ukrainians protesting the Soviet-caused Holodomor famine in 1933, which killed at least four million Ukrainians. (Public domain)

* * *

Party Girl

Elsa Maxwell (1883–1963) was an Iowa girl who grew up to become a gossip columnist and a hostess of high society parties—throughout the 1920s she was known for throwing lavish affairs for Europe’s wealthy and entitled. A 1963 Time magazine obituary noted that Maxwell developed a gift for staging games and diversions for the rich, making a living devising treasure-hunt parties, including a 1927 Paris scavenger hunt that created disturbances all over the city. Excerpts from a profile by Janet Flanner:

GETTING AN EARFUL…**Elsa Maxwell** hobnobbing with actress **Constance Bennett** and producer **Darryl Zanuck** in 1939. (Pinterest)

* * *

Masked Man

Novelist Sherwood Anderson offered his impressions of the late Ring Lardner in a piece titled “Meeting Ring Lardner.” Anderson wrote that although Lardner “seemed surrounded by a little halo of something like worship wherever he went,” he had no satisfaction in his achievements. Anderson recounted Lardner’s encounter with a shy banker, when for a moment Lardner dropped the “mask” that he often wore to shield himself from humanity. Excerpts:

SPHINX…**Sherwood Anderson** (right) wrote of **Ring Lardner:** “You wanted him not to be hurt, perhaps to have some freedom he did not have.” (AP/hilobrow.com)

* * *

Phooey on Huey

When Louisiana Senator and former Governor Huey Long published his autobiography, Every Man a King, the reaction from the press was resoundingly negative; in the Saturday Review, Allan Nevins wrote that Long “is unbalanced, vulgar, in many ways ignorant, and quite reckless.” The New Yorker’s Clifton Fadiman went further, calling him the “Goebbels of Louisiana” and compared the senator to Adolf Hitler. Excerpts:

IT’S ALL ABOUT ME, REALLY…**Huey Long’s** 1933 autobiography, *Every Man a King*, was excoriated by the press, which largely viewed the senator as a fascistic demagogue. Long was assassinated in 1935. (Wikipedia)

* * *

From Our Advertisers

Christmas was coming, and parents with the means could consider buying a “Skippy” brand racer for their little tykes. The cartoon character at the top of the ad—Skippy—was the star of one of the most popular American comic strips of its day…

…written and drawn by Percy Crosby (1891–1964) from 1923 to 1945, the Skippy comic was a big influence on later cartoonists including Charles Schulz (Peanuts) and Bill Watterson (Calvin and Hobbes)…note the football gag below later made famous by Schulz’s Lucy and Charlie Brown…

…on to some of our one-column ads…Raleigh cigarettes were promoted to the growing women’s market, while Dunhill touted a “cocktail pipe” that allowed women to get in on the fun of pipe smoking…and with Disney’s Three Little Pigs penetrating every nook and cranny of America, the makers of Stahl-Meyer sausages decided to join in the fun…

…I include this razor ad mainly for the bold typography…advertisers were in a transitional phase, experimenting with new forms and more white space, but still holding on text-heavy pitches…

…in the case of Goodyear, if you wanted to inspire confidence in your product, you propped an old codger in a rocking chair and offered some homespun wisdom…

…here is a closer look at the old-timer’s advice…

…another tobacco ad, this one displaying the glorious blooms of a tobacco plant…how could something so lovely be bad for you?…

…a small back page ad announced a big-time book for James Thurber, including a satirical blurb from Ernest Hemingway…

…and that makes a nice segue to our cartoons, with Thurber again…

…Otto Soglow demonstrated the unexpected effectiveness of hair tonic…

…Perry Barlow gave us a look at the posh and precocious set…

…and we close with George Price, and 1933’s version of Black Friday…

Next Time: Genesis of a Genius…

As Thousands Cheer

ABOVE: Broadway's As Thousands Cheer (1933) featured evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson (Helen Broderick) trying to persuade Mahatma Gandhi (Clifton Webb) to end his hunger strike and join her act. (NYPL)

Broadway gave Depression audiences a lift with As Thousands Cheer, a revue featuring satirical sketches that skewered the lives and affairs of the rich and famous and served as a precursor to sketch shows like Saturday Night Live.

With a book by Moss Hart and music and lyrics by Irving Berlin, the revue was a big hit, playing for nearly a year on Broadway in its initial run.

TOON TIME…**Marilyn Miller** led a chorus of cartoon characters in a sketch titled “The Funnies” in *As Thousands Cheer*; leading the revue were **Miller, Clifton Webb** and **Helen Broderick**, here featured on the cover of the *Playbill*. The production would be Marilyn Miller’s last—one of Broadway’s biggest stars known for playing sunny characters, her personal life was filled with illness and tragedy, and she would go to an early death in 1936. (playbill.com)

Wolcott Gibbs took his turn as Broadway reviewer, and pronounced As Thousands Cheer “the funniest thing in town.”

Not everything was roses in As Thousands Cheer: In a poignant star turn, Ethel Waters sang—at Irving Berlin’s request—his famous tune “Supper Time,” a Black woman’s lament for her lynched husband. The revue was the first Broadway show to give an African-American star (Waters) equal billing with whites, however she was segregated from her co-stars and did not appear in any sketches with them. Her co-stars even refused to bow with her at the curtain call until Berlin intervened. According to the James Kaplan biography Irving Berlin, “The show had a successful tryout at Philadelphia’s Forrest Theatre in early September, although opening night was marred by an ugly incident all too in tune with the times: the stars Clifton Webb, Marilyn Miller, and Helen Broderick refused to take a bow with Ethel Waters. To his everlasting credit, Berlin told the three that of course he would respect their feelings—only in that case there needn’t be any bows at all.

“They took their bows with Waters at the next show.”

NEWSMAKERS…Each sketch in *As Thousands Cheer* was preceded with a newspaper headline. Clockwise, from top left, in the sketch headlined JOAN CRAWFORD TO DIVORCE DOUGLAS FAIRBANKS, JR, **Marilyn Miller** and **Clifton Webb** portrayed the stars arguing over publicity rights to their divorce; **Webb** as 94-year-old John D. Rockefeller; the headline FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT INAUGURATED TOMORROW featured Mr. and Mrs. Herbert Hoover on their last day in the White House, portrayed by **Leslie Adams** and **Helen Broderick**; **Ethel Waters** singing **Irving Berlin’s** “Supper Time.” (New York Public Library)

* * *

A Final Byline

E.B. White opened his column with a tribute to Ring Lardner, who died at age 48 of a heart attack and other complications. In the months before his death Lardner had contributed a number of comical “Over the Waves” radio reviews.

JOURNALIST AT HEART…**Ring Lardner** (1885-1933) worked for several newspapers before settling at the *Chicago Tribune* in 1913—it became the home newspaper for his syndicated column, *In the Wake of the News.* (Chicago Tribune)

Lardner’s first contribution to The New Yorker came shortly after the magazine’s founding. “The Constant Jay” was published in the April 18, 1925 issue: Readers appreciated his subtle wit, including this oft-quoted gem:

“The race is not always to the swift nor the battle to the strong—but that’s the way to bet.”

Lardner also liked to poke fun at himself and his aw-shucks view of things. Here are the opening and closing paragraphs of his final New Yorker contribution, “Odd’s Bodkins:”

* * *

Macy Modernism

As Lewis Mumford observed in his “Skyline” column, Macy’s was the first department store to embrace a modern approach to interior design, but as Marilyn Friedman notes in her book, Making America Modern: Interior Design in the 1930s, Macy’s modernism was a bit toned down to blend into more traditional settings. A case in point was Macy’s 1933 Forward House exhibition, which Mumford described as “a brilliant piece of modern showmanship.”

EASY ON THE EYES…”Living room in the Suburban House of Forward House” at R.H. Macy & Co., New York, 1933, from *The Upholsterer and Interior Decorator*, October 15, 1933. (artdeco.org)

* * *

Fishing for Commies

Geoffrey Hellman profiled New York House Rep. Hamilton Fish Jr (1888–1991), a staunch anti-communist perhaps best known for establishing the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery. I feature this brief excerpt mainly for the great caricature by Abe Birnbaum.

MINDING THE HOME FRONT…**Hamilton Fish, Jr** making a speech in Los Angeles, 1935. Fish served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1920 to 1945 and during that time was a prominent opponent of intervention into foreign affairs. (UCLA Special Collections)

* * *

All Wet

Eleven years before Esther Williams made her first aqua-musical, Ruby Keeler took the dive under Busby Berkeley’s direction in Footlight Parade. E.B. White served as film critic for the Oct. 7 issue, and found Footlight to be a feast for the male gaze, as well as mindless entertainment.

TAKING THE PLUNGE…Clockwise, from top left: According to **E.B. White,** there was no gainsaying “the general aahhhhh” of the semi-nude waterfall scene in *Footlight Parade*; promotional poster left no doubt as to what audiences might expect from the film; **Busby Berkeley** displayed his craft in water-based choreography; **Ruby Keeler** portrayed a dancer turned secretary who is transformed back into a dancer—just add water. (IMDB)

* * *

A Dog’s Life

Doubtless drained from writing The Waves, Virginia Woolf followed up with some historical fiction, namely Flush: A Biography, a book about Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s cocker spaniel. Clifton Fadiman had this to say about the unusual biography:

VIRGINIA WOOF…Frontispiece for *Flush: A Biography.* **Virginia Woolf** used the tale of a dog to explore social themes ranging from feminism to class conflict. (Heritage Auctions)

* * *

From Our Advertisers

When you market a car for only $445 you aren’t going after the luxury market, but hey, drop a ten-truck truck on this baby and you can live to tell about it…

…with legal beer flooding the market brewers were particularly keen to attract female drinkers of all ages…and apparently social classes…

…a couple of ads from the back pages, the first touting the smart-set writing of columnist and foreign correspondent Alice Hughes for the New York American, and the second an advertisement for Chase & Sanborn coffee, which relayed the story of a marriage on the brink due to stale coffee…

…I include this ad for the heroic scale of the ocean liner, particularly as depicted by the people in the background…

…we bounce on to our cartoons with Otto Soglow’s Little King…

…James Thurber continued to explore the unrest among our domestic youth…

…speaking of America’s youth, this gathering (courtesy Gardner Rea) appeared to have trouble finding some…

…Helen Hokinson found fun with flounder…

…Rea Irvin turned the tables on a life-drawing class…

…and we close with Richard Decker, over the moon with a stranded chorine…

…and in a nod to the approaching holiday, imagery from a 1933 Fleischer Studios animated short film, Betty Boop’s Hallowe’en Party…

Next Time: The Wild West…

Rumors of War

Above: German Panzer tanks on parade in the early 1930s. (alternativefinland.com)

The year 1933 marked a shift in the political winds, starting with Adolf Hitler’s rise to the chancellorship of Germany in 1933. By October he withdrew from the League of Nations and the Geneva Peace Conference, all the while clandestinely building up his war machine.

Sept. 16, 1933 cover by Harry Brown. The scene depicts the West Side’s infamous “Death Avenue,” where New York Central Railroad freight trains mixed with a jumble of automobiles, wagons and pedestrians amid factories and warehouses. Beginning in the 1850s “West Side Cowboys” rode in front of trains as a safety precaution. Still, there were hundreds of casualties until the rail was elevated in 1934—today’s High Line.

While some sounded alarms, most people, along with their nations, turned inward, focusing on domestic issues—FDR was busy with his New Deal agenda, Britain was dealing with its own economic woes, and Germany, Italy and Japan were keeping their populations in line by stoking the flames of nationalism. Few paid much attention to a 420-page book titled What Would Be the Character of a New War?, which accurately predicted the nature of the war to come. New Yorker critic Clifton Fadiman offered this sobering assessment (wryly titled “To the Gentler Reader”) of the work:

The book’s prescient warnings could be attributed in part to the experiences of the Inter-Parliamentary Union’s 19 authors—nearly half of them soldiers from Great Britain, Sweden, Germany and France, the others mostly scientists along with a statesman or two. In her Oct. 22, 1933, New York Times Book Review article, Florence Finch Kelly noted the authors’ general agreement as to the “utter uselessness” of international peace agreements. “This book is a sign-post that blazons in unmistakable language the distance the world has traveled—backward—during the last dozen years,” she wrote, concluding “the world very greatly needs this book…For it is the most ghastly, the most horrifying book about war that has ever been written.”

In my previous post we saw how H.G. Wells envisioned the next war, with destruction raining from the sky. So too was the conclusion of Inter-Parliamentary Union. Fadiman observed:

THEY LOVE A PARADE…Clockwise from top left: **Adolf Hitler** is cheered as he rides through the streets of Munich on Nov. 9, 1933; **Hideki Tojo** would be promoted to major general in 1933 and would go on to become minister of war and prime minister of Japan; the technologically advanced *Heinkel He 111* was secretly produced as part of the clandestine German rearmament in the early 1930s; when he wasn’t busy murdering his own people, **Josef Stalin** (pictured here on Nov. 7, 1933) was implementing his Five-Year Plan. (The Atlantic via AP/Wikipedia)

The rumblings heard in Germany were also on the mind of Howard Brubaker, who made these observations in his column, “Of All Things.”

* * *

Dining For Success

The Society for the Advancement of Better Living offered its own New Deal for Depression America—you could eat your way to better life. E.B. White noted the non-ideological nature of this new movement, where commies and capitalists could break bread together…

GUESS WHO’S COMING TO DINNER?…Hearty appetites make strange bedfellows, according to **E.B. White.** Clockwise, from top left, **Helena Rubinstein, Dr. Royal Copeland, Robert Morss Lovett, C. Hartley Grattan, Suzanne La Follette,** and **Henry Goddard Leach.** (Vanity Fair/Wikipedia/U of Nebraska)

* * *

Bread & Circuses

“The Talk of the Town” looked in on the game of college football, which some college presidents annually decried for becoming a “great spectacle.” If they could have only known what was to come…

THE HOME TEAM…Clockwise, from top left: Columbia University’s Baker Stadium in the 1920s; Columbia’s president in 1933, **Nicholas Murray Butler,** considered something of a blowhard in his day; Columbia’s Hall of Fame coach **Lou Little** in 1930; Columbia taking on archival Cornell in 1930. The Columbia Lions were a power in the 1930s—in 1933 the Lions won the Rose Bowl, beating Stanford 7–0. (Columbia University)

* * *

From Our Advertisers

The fine folks at Martini & Rossi were doing their part to get Americans ready for the end of Prohibition…

…meanwhile, the makers of Her Majesty’s perfume summoned the old and the new while also showing support for the New Deal (the NRA logo)…this image, however, doesn’t conjure up visions of “Tomorrow’s World”…

…and frankly neither does this tire, here linked to the wonders on display at Chicago’s Century of Progress…

…on to our cartoons, we have two by James Thurber, beginning with this cryptic drawing…

…and later in the issue, a more familiar Thurber at play…

…Helen Hokinson’s “girls” surmised a scandal aboard an incoming liner…

…Henry Anton gave us a kindly pawn shop owner with a money back guarantee…on a pair of brass knuckles…

…Isadore Klein conjured up a ghost who’d found a use for an executive’s wire recorder…

…and we close with Alan Dunn, and the perils of interior design…

Next Time: Music and Murder…

Keeping Their Cool

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

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

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

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

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

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

* * *

From Our Advertisers

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

…we move along to July 1, 1933…

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

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

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

* * *

Some Strings Attached

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

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

* * *

That Pepsodent Smile

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

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

* * *

More From Our Advertisers

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

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

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

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

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

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

…James Thurber explored the nuances of parenting…

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

Next Time: The Night the Bed Fell…

Making Hays

The name Will Hays will always be linked to the Motion Picture Production Code, a set of guidelines for self-censorship that studios adopted to avoid government intervention.

Hays, however, played both sides in the culture wars. A Republican politician, Hays (1879–1954) managed the 1920 election of Warren G. Harding before moving on to Postmaster General and then chairman of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America. During the so-called pre-Code era, roughly 1930 to 1934, the Production Code was barely enforced, giving filmmakers the freedom to explore themes ranging from prostitution to gangster violence. When Alva Johnston wrote a two-part profile on Hays for The New Yorker, pressure from Catholic Church and other morality groups was building for Hays to strictly enforce the Code, or else. An excerpt:

CLEAN IT UP, JOAN…**Will Hays** (top left) felt pressure in 1933 to start seriously enforcing the Production Code, and scenes such as the one at top right from *Blonde Crazy* (1931) with Joan Blondell would probably not pass muster after 1934; the Hays Code would also lengthen the animated **Betty Boop’s** skirts, and tone down gratuitous violence (**James Cagney** and **Edward Woods** in 1931’s Public Enemy). (Wikimedia/pre-code.com/Warner Brothers)

* * *

The Trouble With Money

In their investigation of the probable causes of the 1929 market crash, the Senate Banking and Currency Committee summoned J.P. Morgan Jr (1867–1943) on June 1, 1933, to testify on questionable banking practices. Committee counsel Ferdinand Pecora (1882–1971) set out to prove, among other things, that Morgan sold stock below market price to some of his cronies. Pecora also learned that Morgan and many of his partners paid no income tax in 1931 and 1932, big news to Americans still suffering from the effects of the Great Depression. E.B. White made these observations:

Although not mentioned by White, the hearing began with an odd little sideshow. Writing for the U.S. Capitol Historical Society blog, Joanna Hallac notes that because the hearings were slow to get started, newspaper reporters grew desperate to get something for the evening papers. Then one enterprising reporter, Ray Tucker, spotted circus dwarf Lya Graf with her agent, Charles Leef, outside of the hearing room (the Barnum & Bailey Circus was in town) and suggested Graf meet the famed banker. Hallac writes: “Although he was initially startled, Morgan was genial and rose and shook her hand. Naturally, the photographers were stepping all over each other to get a picture of the exchange. Leef, seeing a perfect press opportunity for himself and the circus, waited for Morgan to sit down and then scooped up Graf and placed her in J.P. Morgan’s lap. Morgan apparently laughed and had a brief exchange with the demure lady, in which he told her he had a grandchild bigger than her.”

THE LIGHTER SIDE OF FINANCE…Before being grilled by Senate counsel **Ferdinand Pecora** at a June 1, 1933 banking hearing, **J.P. Morgan Jr** was paid a surprise visit by **Lya Graf,** a Barnum & Bailey circus dwarf. At right, Pecora, circa 1933. Sadly, Graf, who was German, perished in a concentration camp after she returned to her homeland in 1935. She was condemned to death in 1937 for being half Jewish and “abnormal.” (*New York Magazine*/Wikipedia)

* * *

Single Member Plurality

Among other attributes, E.B. White was known for his use of the first person plural, the editorial or clinical “we.” White himself offered this insight:

I, ME, MINE…**E.B. White** at work in 1945. (Britannica.com)

* * *

Uncle Tom, Revived

Plays based on Harriet Beecher Stowe’s 1852 novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin were wildly popular throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but by the 1930s the story seemed antiquated and no longer relevant. That didn’t stop the Players (a Gramercy park actors club) from mounting a 1933 Broadway revival that proved popular with audiences and a New Yorker stage critic, namely E.B. White, sitting in for Robert Benchley…an excerpt…

SAY UNCLE…**Otis Skinner** (1858–1942), a beloved broadway actor, portrayed Uncle Tom in the 1933 Broadway revival. The all-white cast performed in blackface.

…on the other hand, White found the Frank Faye/Barbara Stanwyck play Tattle Tales tedious, a thin veneer over the stars’ crumbling marriage off-stage…

THAT’S ALL, FOLKS…Publicity photo of **Barbara Stanwyck** and Frank Faye for the Broadway production of Tattle Tales at the Broadhurst Theatre. The co-stars’ real-life marriage supposedly inspired the 1937 film *A Star is Born* (as well as subsequent remakes). As Stanwyck’s star rose, Faye’s faded—his heavy drinking and abuse led to their 1935 divorce. The play itself closed after 28 performances. (IBDB)

* * *

Frothy Air

E.B. White (via “The Talk of the Town”) took a stroll through Coney Island and found the place somewhat revived, perhaps thanks to the return of legal beer and Bavarian-style beer gardens…

RECALLING THE GOOD OLD DAYS…Feltman’s Restaurant on Coney Island operated this popular Bavarian Beer Garden in 1890s. (Westland.net)

* * *

Peace, He Said

Adolf Hitler was talking peace, but the French weren’t buying it according to The New Yorker’s Paris correspondent Janet Flanner—in just seven years her beloved City of Light would fall to the Nazis…

IF YOU CAN’T SAY SOMETHING NICE…**Adolf Hitler** makes his first radio broadcast as German Chancellor, February 1933. Hitler spoke of peace in Europe while preparing his country for war. (Detail of image courtesy Bundesarchiv)

…speaking of Janet Flanner, apparently her “Paris Letter” implied that the author Edna Ferber had married. Ferber offered this correction, in good humor:

* * *

From Our Advertisers

Class anxieties were (and still are) gold to Madison Avenue—look at this poor woman, pondering her very existence, lacking as she did the horsepower to lay some rubber at a green light…

…or this woman, who thought ahead and made sure she had some hair lotion to ward off cackles from the beach harpies…

…on the other hand, this cyclist seems to care less about appearances as she races toward us with a crazed smile, half-human, half-illustration…

…and then there’s this fellow, playing it cool in a white linen suit, which for a sawbuck seems like a bargain, even in 1933…

…the last two pages of the magazine featured friends racing to some swell destination…the lads at left are being propelled to the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair thanks to the wonders of leaded gasoline, while the women at right seem to be doing at least eighty…note neither car has a windshield, so you wonder how many bugs they will pick out of their teeth…

…an apt segue to our cartoons, where Peter Arno showed us a couple going nowhere fast…

…Otto Soglow’s Little King had his own marital situation to ponder after a visit from a sultan…

…a very unusual cartoon from Helen Hokinson, who rarely delved into serious socio-political issues (although her captions were often provided by others at The New Yorker)…this cartoon referred to a cause célèbre of the 1930s, the case of the prejudicial sentences of the Scottsboro boys that recalled the Tom Mooney frame-up two decades earlier…

…on to lighter topics, Robert Day checked in on the progress at Mt. Rushmore…

…George Price also went aloft for a challenge…

…and Carl Rose found this dichotomy in the conquest of nature…

…on to June 17, 1933…

June 17, 1933 cover by **Perry Barlow.**

…where Frank Curtis reported on the military-style schedule that put young men to work for the Civilian Conservation Corps…excerpts:

MARCHING ORDERS…New members of the Civilian Conservation Corps waiting to be fitted for shoes at Camp Dix, New Jersey, 1935. (Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.)

…just one ad from this issue, another Flit entry from Dr. Seuss, who wouldn’t publish his first book until 1937…

…our cartoons are courtesy Otto Soglow, with some bedside manner…

…Kemp Starrett set up what should prove to be an interesting evening…

…Gluyas Williams considered the woes of J.P. Morgan Jr…

…and we close with another from George Price, doing some tidying up…

Next Time: Home Sweet Home…

March of Time

In the span of 112 minutes, the much-anticipated Fox production Cavalcade took movie audiences through the first thirty years of the 20th century.

Anticipating Upstairs, Downstairs (1971) and the more recent Downton Abbey, Cavalcade looked at life through the eyes of upper class Londoners—Jane and Robert Marryot, their children and close friends—and the Marryot’s servants. It was a calamitous ride that included both the Boer War and World War I among other historic events. Critic John Mosher thought it a memorable picture despite its mawkishness.

IT’S A SCARY WORLD OUT THERE…This Fox theater card promised audiences epic thrills with a cast of thousands. (IMDB)

AGING GRACEFULLY…**Diana Wynyard** and Clive Brook portrayed upper class Londoners Jane and Robert Marryot through three tumultuous decades in *Cavalcade*. (IMDB)

In the film, the first decades of the 20th century would claim the lives of both Marryot sons—Joe would perish in World War I, and Edward would make the unfortunate decision to take his bride on a honeymoon cruise…

ONE-WAY TICKET…Edward Marryot (**John Warburton**) and his childhood sweetheart Edith Harris (**Margaret Lindsay**) are thrilled to be celebrating their honeymoon on a “big boat.” When the couple walk away from the railing, the opposite side of the life preserver is revealed in a dramatic camera shot.

After World War I the film hastily moved on to the Jazz Age, where the social order was going to hell…

CRY WOLF…A creepy older dude puts the moves on a young blonde (portrayed by **Betty Grable** in an uncredited role) during a Jazz Age scene of a wild party that included glimpses of flirting gay couples. *Cavalcade* was one of the first films to use the words “damn” and “hell.” (IMDB)

Cavalcade is considered by some critics to be one of the worst films to receive an Academy Award (it actually won three—Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Art Direction). If you are interested in learning more about Cavalcade or about pre-Code films in general, visit the excellent pre-code.com website.

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Sad Songs

George White was famed for his lavish Scandals revues, especially during the Roaring Twenties—leggy showgirls and wisecracking comedians shared the stage with some of the era’s top singers and dancers. White’s Music Hall Varieties seemed to have all of the same elements as his Scandals, but something seemed amiss to Robert Benchley—an unnamed sadness that he chalked up to those depressing times:

THE SHOW MUST GO ON…Even during the Depression **George White** did what he could to keep the old Roaring Twenties spark alive. Clockwise from top left: White auditioning dancers for his *Scandals;* **Bert Lahr** preparing for a stage show in the 1930s (Lahr’s son, John, would later become a *New Yorker* drama critic); the **Howard Brothers, Eugene and Willie**, in 1936; and a young **Eleanor Powell** ready to do some toe-tapping circa 1932. (PBS/NYPL/Wikipedia)

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Journey of the Mind

Louise Bogan (1897–1970) was poetry editor at The New Yorker for nearly forty years (1931–1970) and in 1945 was the first woman to be appointed Poet Laureate to the Library of Congress. For the Jan. 14 issue she wrote “Journey Around My Room,” which begins with her recollection of a childhood train ride. Here are some excerpts:

POET LAUREATE…**Louise Bogan** in 1937. She was poetry editor at *The* *New Yorker* for nearly forty years and was named U.S. Poet Laureate in 1945. (Library of Congress)

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Silent Cal Silenced

Many folks were surprised by the sudden passing of former U.S. President Calvin Coolidge. He was just sixty years old when he succumbed to coronary thrombosis at his Northampton home, “The Beeches.” During The New Yorker’s first years Coolidge was the butt of many jokes…beginning with this Miguel Covarrubias cartoon in the magazine’s fourth issue (March 14, 1925)…

E.B. White offered this eulogy of sorts…

THRIFTY IDYLL…**Calvin and Grace Coolidge** outside their newly acquired home, “The Beeches,” Northampton, summer 1930. (Leslie Jones Collection)

…and mused about the state of politics in 1933, proving that some things never change…

Last time we learned Lewis Mumford’s views about the new artwork displayed in the RKO Roxy Theatre and in Radio City Music Hall. In the Jan. 14 issue he turned his attentions to the actual buildings, giving them an average grade and preferring the Music Hall over the Roxy (he disliked the oversized chandelier/electrolier). Mumford was decidedly not a fan of the Rockefeller Center development, evident in his closing lines:

SHOWPLACES…**Lewis Mumford** gave Radio City Music Hall (top) and the RKO Roxy some muted nods, but found the Roxy’s electrolier distracting.

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Parting Thoughts

Alexander Woollcott shared some final recollections of his visit to Moscow, in which he likens the Russians’ freedom under Josef Stalin to the freedom of a spirited schoolboy who desires to sit in the back of the classroom…

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From Our Advertisers

Bonwit Teller employed some modern typesetting, wryly using the word DULL — offset in large san-serif letters — to draw attention to their “Chardonize” fabric, which was essentially artificial silk…

…nothing subtle about this next advertisement…don one of these bathing suits and millionaires will bow before you, or rather, to borrow this ad’s odd metaphor, “fall like wheat before locusts”…

…we get a similar but far more muted pitch from Coty…so does this mean one out of every six desirable bachelors want to be seen with her? Not exactly knocking them down like locusts…

…now here’s a couple of self-assured souls who are neither troubled by hungry locusts nor face powders…they own a Cadillac, and wow, that is really quite the automobile, not like the Caddies you see today that are half-plastic and blend in with the rest of the shapeless blobs we call cars these days…

…the folks who pushed Chesterfield cigarettes were back with another ad aimed at their fastest growing demographic…note the sly reference to women’s suffrage…but that’s not why this woman (seated on a modern Breuer chair) smokes; she smokes because it gives her pleasure, and come to think of it, why should men have all the fun?…

…the Cunard Line suggested that you might run into some big-time celebrities on one of their ships, including actress Norma Shearer and banker/arts patron Otto Kahn (bottom of left-land page); or on the opposite page Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford, Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne among others…