politics – Page 2 – A New Yorker State of Mind

Pining for Tin Lizzy

In 1922, a young Cornell graduate named E.B. White set off across America in a Model T with a typewriter and a sense of adventure.

Nov. 12, 1932 cover by **Constantin Alajalov.**

Years later, 1936 exactly, White would recall the America he had discovered as a 22-year old in his book From Sea to Shining Sea, which would include an essay “Farewell to Model T” that first appeared in the New Yorker as “Farewell My Lovely.” For this Nov. 12, 1932 “Notes and Comment” column, it appears White is already pondering his paen to the Model T, contrasting its freedom with the glassed-in claustrophobia of modern cars:

OUT WITH THE NEW, IN WITH THE OLD…Despite their many shortcomings, **E.B. White** seemed to prefer the cars of yesteryear, including (above) the 1904 Pope Tribune and 1917 Ford Model T Roadster; White likened modern cars, such as the 1932 Ford and Chevrolet sedans (bottom, left and right) to riding in a “diving bell.”(Wikimedia/vintagecarcollector.com/Pinterest)

Here’s the cover of From Sea to Shining Sea, which features a photo of White and his wife, Katharine, in a Model T Roadster…

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An Appreciation

Mary Cassatt (1844-1926) was an American painter who for most of her adult life lived in France among fellow Impressionists. Like her friend Edgar Degas, Cassatt excelled in pastels, works that were admired by critic Lewis Mumford in an exhibition at New York’s Durand-Ruel Galleries:

TRY A LITTLE TENDERNESS…Mothers and children were **Mary Cassatt’s** favorite subjects. Among the examples shown in 1932 at the Durand-Ruel Galleries’ *Exhibition of Pastels* were Cassatt’s A Goodnight Hug (1880) and *Françoise, Holding a Little Dog, Looking Far to the Right* (1909). (Sotheby’s/Christie’s)

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Hollywood Slump

We go from treasure to trash with John Mosher’s latest cinema dispatch, in which he recounts his experience watching the “strenuous melodrama” Red Dust, starring Clark Gable and Jean Harlow. Mosher assured readers that the film is trash, but better trash than Scarlet Dawn with Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and Nancy Carroll.

DUMB AND DUMBER…**Jean Harlow** attempts to distract **Clark Gable** from his work in *Red Dust;* at right, **Douglas Fairbanks Jr.** is tempted by a servant girl’s affection (**Nancy Carroll**) in *Scarlet Dawn.* (IMDB)

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From Our Advertisers

The folks at W.J. Sloane decided that the best way to sell their housewares would be to build an actual house in their Fifth Avenue store…

…do you really want to buy Kraft cheese after looking at this ad? From the look on the woman’s face, that tiresome old wheeze-bag probably smells like aged cheese, and not in a good way…

…The makers of Log Cabin syrup continued to parody the popular taglines of tobacco companies with ads featuring a several New Yorker cartoonists, here Peter Arno…

…yep, when I’m relaxing on the beach I like to talk about ink pens, especially those Eversharp ones…

…nor do I mind some weirdo in a dark coat seeking my opinion of said pen while I frolic near my fashionable Palm Beach hotel…

…yes, we all know that Chesterfields are milder, but will someone help that poor man on the left who appears to be blowing out his aorta…

…the New Yorker’s former architecture critic George S. Chappell (who wrote under the pen-name T-Square) had moved on to other things, namely parodies of societal mores, including this new book written under his other pen-name, Walter E. Traprock, with illustrations by Otto Soglow…

…on to our cartoons, we begin with James Thurber and the travails of menfolk…

…Richard Decker gave us the prelude to one man’s nightmare…

…Carl Rose found a titan of industry puzzling over his vote for a socialist candidate…

…and we move on to Nov. 19, 1932…

Nov. 19, 1932 cover by **William Steig.**

…and this compendium of election highlights by E.B. White…

…and Howard Brubaker’s wry observation of the same…

BUSY DAYS AHEAD…**Franklin D. Roosevelt** celebrates his landslide victory over **Herbert Hoover** in the 1932 presidential elections. (AP)

…and on an even lighter side, poet David McCord’s take on a Robert Louis Stevenson classic…

…speaking of children, the New Yorker was looking ahead to Christmas, and what the little ones might be hoping for under the tree…

ALL HUNG UP ON MICKEY…Mickey Mouse puppet was popular with the kiddies in 1932. (Ebay)

…if Mickey Mouse wasn’t your thing, you could spring for The Fifth New Yorker Album…

…on to our other Nov. 19 advertisements, Mildred Oppenheim (aka Melisse) illustrated another whimsical Lord & Taylor ad…

…while B. Altman maintained its staid approach to fashion to tout these duty-free, “practically Parisian” nighties created by “clever Porto Ricans”…

…Walter Chrysler continued to spend big advertising bucks to promote his company’s “floating power”…

…in my last entry I noted E.B. White’s musings regarding Lucky Strike’s new “raw” campaign…this appeared on the Nov. 19th issue’s back cover…

…on to our cartoons, we have Helen Hokinson’s girls pondering the social implications of a cabbie’s identity…

…James Thurber explored the dynamic tension provided by passion dropped into mixed company…

…Carl Rose offered a bird’s eye view of the 1932 election…

…William Crawford Galbraith showed us one woman’s idea of sage advice…

…and George Price continued to introduce his strange cast of characters to the New Yorker in a career that would span six decades…

…on to our Nov. 26 issue, and a cover by William Crawford Galbraith that recalled the post-impressionist poster designs of Toulouse-Lautrec…

Nov. 26, 1932 cover by William Crawford Galbraith.

…and in this issue we have Lewis Mumford back on the streets assessing New York’s ever-changing landscape, including an unexpectedly “monumental” design for a Laundry company:

ALL WASHED UP?…**Irving M. Fenichel’s** Knickerbocker Laundry Building seemed a bit too monumental for **Lewis Mumford**. (ribapix.com)

…the building still stands, but is substantially altered (now used as a church)…

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Wie Bitte?

Attributed to E.B. White, this “Talk of the Town” item, “Besichtigung” (sightseeing) told readers — in pidgen German — about a visit to the German Cruiser Karlsruhe docked in the New York harbor.

…I try my best to avoid contemporary political commentary (this blog should be a respite from all that!), so I will let Howard Brubaker (in “Of All Things”) speak for himself regarding the outcome of the 1932 presidential election:

…in researching the life and work of Lois Long, there seems to be a consensus out there in the interwebs that her “Tables for Two” column ended in June 1930, however she continued the write the column from time to time, including this entry for Nov. 26 with a bonus illustration by James Thurber…

MARLENE DIETRICHING…was how **Lois Long** described the star’s appearance at the Bohemia club. Above is a photo of **Marlene Dietrich** and **Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney** dancing at the New York club El Morocco in the 1930s. (New York Daily News)

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From Our Advertisers

More Christmas ideas from the folks at Rogers Peet…hey, I could use a new opera hat!…and look at all those swell ash trays…

…yes, Prohibition is still around for another year, but the wets are ascendent, FDR is in office, so let’s get the party started…

…on to our cartoonists, we begin with this illustration by James Thurber for the magazine’s events section…note the familiar theme of the sculpture, pondered by the young man…

…we are off to the races with William Steig, and some news that should kick this fella into high gear…

…and we close, with all due modesty, via the great James Thurber…

Next Time: Cheers For Beer…

The Red House

From the 1930s until the 1950s, New York City was the one place where American communists almost became a mass movement.

(Above: Daily News photo shows Communists marching in New York's May Day parade in 1935.)

Sept. 10, 1932 cover by **Theodore Haupt.**

Writing in the New York Times opinion section (Oct. 20, 2017), Maurice Isserman observed how in those days New York party members “could live in a milieu where co-workers, neighbors and the family dentist were fellow Communists; they bought life insurance policies from party-controlled fraternal organizations; they could even spend their evenings out in night clubs run by Communist sympathizers…” The journalist Matthew Josephson penned a report on the movement for the Sept. 17 (yes we are skipping ahead) “Reporter at Large” column titled “The Red House”…excerpts:

According to Isserman (a professor of history at Hamilton College), in 1938 the Communist Party of America counted 38,000 members in New York State alone, most of them living in New York City. A Communist candidate for president of the board of aldermen received nearly 100,000 votes that same year, with party members playing a central role in promoting trade unions.

BOSS’S DAY…Communists march at Union Square against “the boss class” at a 1930 rally in New York City. (Oxford Research Encyclopedias)

PARTY INVITATION…**William Z. Foster** and James W. Ford were on the Communist ticket in the 1932 U.S. presidential elections. Ford (1893–1957) was also on the 1936 and 1940 tickets as a vice-presidential candidate. (peoplesworld.org)

Josephson commented on the candidates appearing on the Communist ticket in the 1932 U.S. presidential elections, finding James W. Ford to be “much more intellectual” than his running mate:

THE HQ…Communist Party of America headquarters, 13th St., New York City, 1934; a close-up view of the Workers’ Bookshop display window in 1942. (USC Libraries/Library of Congress)

A regular New Yorker contributor, journalist **Matthew Josephson** (1899–1978) popularized the term “robber baron” with the publication of his 1934 book, *The Robber Barons: The Great American Capitalists.*

Josephson concluded his article with observation of a party protest event, and one unmoved police officer…

Postscript: The Cold War in the 1950s and a renewed Red Scare spelled the end of the party’s heyday, as did Nikita Khrushchev’s 1956 speech that denounced the murderous legacy of his predecessor, Josef Stalin.

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Très Chic

For those with means, the idea of living in the same building with other non-family humans seemed unseemly, but in 1870 Rutherford Stuyvesant hired Richard Morris Hunt to design a five-story apartment building for middle-class folks that had a decidedly Parisian flair. The Sept. 10 “Talk of the Town” explained:

According to Ephemeral New York, the apartments were initially dubbed a “folly,” but the building’s 16 apartments and four artists’ studios — located near chic Union Square — were quickly snapped up, creating a demand for more apartments. The building remained fully occupied until it was demolished in 1958. According to another favorite blog — Daytonian in Manhattan—demolition of Morris Hunt’s soundly built, sound-proof building was a challenge.

IT DIDN’T GO QUIETLY…Stuyvesant Flats at 142 East 18th Street, 1935, in a photo by **Berenice Abbott.** It was demolished in 1958. (New York Public Library)

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Some Characters

I include this brief snippet of the Sept. 10 “Profile” for the jolly illustration by Abe Birnbaum of Al Smith, Jimmy Hayes and the Prince of Wales…

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Down In Front

E.B. White was always on the lookout for the newfangled in the world of transportation, but this latest development by the Long Island Railroad was not a breath of fresh air…

STACK ‘EM UP…A woman wears a bemused expression (left) as she takes in her surroundings on one of the Long Island Railroad’s new double-decked cars in 1932. (trainsarefun.com)

White also looked in on the latest news from the world of genetics—with hindsight we can read about these developments with a degree of alarm, since Hitler was months away from taking control of Germany…

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Showing His Colors

On to lighter matters, critic John Mosher enjoyed an eight-minute animated Walt Disney short, Flowers and Trees—the first commercially released film made in full-color Technicolor…

SEEING GREEN…**Walt Disney’s** *Flowers and Trees* won the very first Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film in 1932. (intanibase.com)

…Mosher also took in light entertainment of the live-action variety with Marion Davies and Billie Dove providing some amusement in Blonde of the Follies, although the picture could have used a bit more Jimmy Durante, billed as a co-star but making an all-too-brief appearance…

WHERE’S THE DUDE WITH THE SCHNOZ?…**Billie Dove** (left) starred with headliner **Marion Davies** in *Blondie of the Follies*, but another co-star, comedian **Jimmy Durante**, was mostly absent from the picture. (IMDB)

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From Our Advertisers

Lord & Taylor announced the return of Edwardian styles as the latest in fashion among the younger set, once again proving what goes around comes around, ad infinitum…

…except when it comes to “college styles”…I don’t see this look returning to our campuses anytime soon…

…the end of Prohibition was still a year away, but at least in New York it was all but over…I like the Hoffman ad and its winking line “with or without”…

…as a courtesy to readers (and to fill a blank space) the New Yorker “presented” a full page of signature ads touting a variety of specialty schools and courses…the Carson Long Military Academy (right hand column) closed in 2018 after 182 years of “making men”…

…on to our cartoonists and illustrators, we begin with this Izzy Klein illustration in the opening pages…

…Rea Irvin gave us a nervous moment at the altar…

…and Richard Decker showed us one groovy grandma…

…on to the Sept. 17 issue (which we dipped into at the start)…and what a way to begin with this terrific cover by Peter Arno…

…in his “Notes and Comments,” E.B. White offered some parting words for the departing (and scandal-ridden) Mayor Jimmy Walker…

THAT’S ALL FOLKS…Deposed New York Mayor **Jimmy Walker** skipped town shortly after he left office and caught a boat to Europe. He is seen here at his wedding to **Betty Compton** in Cannes, April 1933. (Library of Congress)

…and Howard Brubaker added his two cents regarding Walker and his replacement, Joseph McKee, who served as acting mayor until Dec. 31, 1932…

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Heady Role

The British actor Claude Rains earned his acting chops on the London Stage before coming to Broadway, where in 1932 he appeared in The Man Who Reclaimed His Head — E.B. White was subbing for regular critic Robert Benchley, and concluded that Rains should have used his own head before agreeing to appear in such silly stuff…

NO MORE HEAD JOKES, PLEASE…Although he got a late start on his Hollywood career, **Claude Rains** (1889—1967) became one of the silver screen’s great character stars. (Playbill)

…and speaking of the silver screen, we turn to critic John Mosher and his review of the 1931 German film

WOMEN IN REVOLT…*The New York Times* (in 2020) describes 1931’s “expression of anti-fascism and a lesbian coming-out story.” The film was a success throughout Europe, but was later banned as “decadent” by the Nazi regime. Above, **Ellen Schwanneke**, left, and **Hertha Thiele** in Mädchen in Uniform. (Kino Lorber)

Mädchen in Uniform was almost banned in the U.S., but Eleanor Roosevelt spoke highly of the film, resulting in a limited US release (albeit a heavily-cut version) in 1932–33.

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From Our Advertisers

I’m featuring this detail from an Elizabeth Arden ad because the illustrator’s style is so distinct…if someone knows the identity of the artist, please let us know (on other drawings I’ve seen a signature that looks like “coco”)…

…invented in 1918, this “cheese food” made from milk, water, whey, milk protein concentrate, milkfat, whey protein concentrate and sodium phosphates — among other things — was acquired by Kraft in 1927 and marketed in the 1930s as a nutritious health food…I have to say I haven’t seen any Velveeta ads in the New Yorker as of late…

…”Pier 57, North River!” barks the successful-looking man to the admiring cabby who’s thinking “lucky dog!”…

…on the other hand, Peter Arno (kicking off our Sept. 17 cartoons) gave us a Milquetoast who wasn’t getting anywhere near the French Line, or First Base…

…and speaking of the mild-mannered, James Thurber offered up this fellow…

…Helen Hokinson’s “girls” were perhaps wondering if their driver was among the Commies at Union Square…

…John Held Jr. entertained with another “naughty” Victorian portrait…

…Robert Day, and wish unfulfilled at the zoo…

…and we close with Richard Decker, and trouble in the Yankee dugout…

Next Time: A Picture’s Worth…

A New Outlook

New York Governor Al Smith and the man who succeeded him in that office, Franklin D. Roosevelt, were both Democrats, but when it came to personalities, they were more like oil and water.

Sept. 3, 1932 cover by **Ilonka Karasz.**

A popular governor (1923 to 1928) from working-class roots, Smith thought he could ride that popularity to the White House, but lost to Herbert Hoover in the ’28 presidential elections. He then hoped to be of some use to his gubernatorial successor FDR, but was more or less snubbed by his fellow Democrat – the regal Roosevelt branded himself as a reformer, and didn’t want Smith’s deep Irish Tammany connections to sully that reputation. Smith did find something to do, however, by becoming president of the corporation that built and operated the Empire State Building.

THINGS ARE LOOKING UP…**Al Smith** (pointing) extolls the wonders of the Empire State Building at the May 1, 1931 grand opening. (chrismurphy.com)

But after the building’s dedication, Smith took another shot at the White House, this time against Roosevelt in the 1932 Democratic presidential primaries. Smith lost the nomination in a bitter convention battle (he eventually endorsed FDR) but kept busy with another venture: editor of the New Outlook magazine…

SECULAR SHIFT…*The Outlook* began publication as *The Christian Union* (1870–1893). The issue at left is from July 1, 1893, when the magazine became The Outlook to reflect its shift from religious subjects to social and political issues. That magazine went bankrupt and became the *New Outlook* in 1932; the issue at right is from October 1933, a year after Al Smith became editor. The magazine folded in 1935. (Wikipedia/Abe Books)

…which Smith used as a platform to attack his Democratic rival, and, particularly the New Deal policies following Roosevelt’s successful election to the White House. The election was still a couple months away when E.B. White offered these observations about Smith’s new publishing venture:

…Otto Soglow provided this interpretation of Smith’s new job for “Notes and Comment”…

…while other cartoonists made hay over the Roosevelt/Smith rift:

COMIC APPEAL…**Cyrus Cotton “Cy” Hungerford** produced daily cartoons for the *Pittsburgh Post-Gazette* for 50 years, including this gem at left that aptly illustrated the political circus that featured **Al Smith** as its star attraction; during his 32 years as editorial cartoonist for *The Kansas City Star*, **Silvey Jackson (S. J. or Sil) Ray** amassed a portfolio of roughly 10,000 cartoons, including the one at right that depicts the ghosts of past *Outlook* contributors and editors including **Teddy Roosevelt, Lyman J. Abbott** and **Henry Ward Beecher.** (Museum of the City of New York/kchistory.org)

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Nein Bitte

The German artist George Grosz (1893–1959) was perhaps best known for his bitter caricatures and paintings of Berlin’s Weimar years (roughly 1918 to 1933). In June 1932 he accepted an invitation to teach the summer semester at the Art Students League of New York, then briefly returned to Germany before emigrating to the U.S. with his family in January 1933.

SEEING RED…Clockwise, from top left, **George Grosz** depicted Berlin as a hellscape awash in blood and corruption in *Metropolis* (1917); by contrast, Grosz celebrated the energy and freedom of New York in his 1915–16 work *Memory of New York;* Grosz in New York, circa 1932; after emigrating to the US in 1933, Grosz abandoned his harsh caricatures and corrupted cityscapes in favor of nudes and landscapes. He returned to the subject of the New York skyline a number of times, including his 1934 painting *Lower Manhattan.* (MoMA/Flickr)

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From Our Advertisers

Back in the day when it was still acceptable to drape dead animals around your neck, Gunther Furs offered these ensembles…the coat at left would cost the equivalent of $17,000 today…

…this 1932 photo gives us some idea of how these coats might have appeared…

FUR SURE…Models in 1932 wearing (from left) wool coat with fur collar and armbands; wool coat with blue fox collar by Lanvin; and wool coat with caracal collar and sleeve trimming by Mainbocher. Photo by **Edward Steichen**. (pleasurephotoroom.wordpress.com)

…perhaps you could wear one of the coats on a breezy day atop Ten Park Avenue…even this posh address felt the need to emphasize its affordability in those depressed times…also note the advertisement at the bottom for a “Milk Farm”…

…the 1930s saw a weight-loss fad that included dairy as a dietary must; one such “milk farm” was the Rose Dor Farm just up the Hudson from New York…

HUMP DAY…Top, Rose Dor Farm trainer **Steve Finan** directs mat exercises calculated to reduce hips and remove “widow’s humps” in the 1930s. Below, note the choice of footwear for the workout. (vintag.es)

…back to our apartment hunting, The Lombardy was built in the 1920s by William Randolph Hearst for his movie star mistress Marion Davies…unlike Ten Park Avenue, it wasn’t on Park, but the ad makes sure to note its close proximity, and the illustration assured that the clientele were sufficiently dour in their good taste…also note the ad for the Fraternity Clubs Building, which was going co-ed…

…The New York Times reported in August 1932 that “the ninety rooms of the fourth and fifth floors of the building have been redecorated and furnished with a ‘feminine touch'”…

NO ANIMAL HOUSE…The Fraternity Clubs Building, erected in 1923, went co-ed in 1932. The Renaissance Revival-style building was designed by the firm Murgatroyd & Ogden. Today it serves as the Jolly Madison Towers hotel. (New York Public Library via Daytonian in Manhattan)

…time to step out for a smoke with another Old Gold ad illustrated by Peter Arno…

…in contrast to Arno’s defiant vamp, this woman enjoyed her smoke with a sense of ease…

…if you’ve never heard of Richard Himber, he made a name for himself in New York beginning with his days in vaudeville and Tin Pan Alley. Described in a Wikipedia entry as “American bandleader, composer, violinist, magician and practical joker,” Himber ran a band-booking agency before forming an orchestra of his own at the Essex House that performed over NBC Radio…

…our last ad is a most unlikely one from the Sterling Engine Company of Buffalo, New York, definitely an outlier among the other New Yorker ads…

…our cartoonists include Perry Barlow on the campaign trail…

…along with Alain (Daniel Brustlein)…

…Carl Rose gave us two zoo animals who were less than keen to become movie stars…

…and we close with William Steig, who showed us one of his Small Fry coming of age…

…but before we close, here’s a brief nod to Halloween, 1932, and some popular costumes for the grown-ups, including a Minnie Mouse costume that is unintentionally creepy…

…Hollywood liked to get in on the fun by releasing studio “pin-ups” featuring stars of the day…

BOO…Paramount stars all pose with the same prop Jack ‘o Lantern circa 1931-32. From left, the original “It Girl” **Clara Bow**, who would retire from movies in 1933 at age 28 and become a rancher; **Robert Coogan** and Jackie Cooper were child stars of the film *Sooky*; **Nancy Carroll’s** latest film, *Hot Saturday,* was released a few days before Halloween 1932. The film also starred **Cary Grant** in his first leading role. (vintag.es/twitter/Pinterest)

Next Time: The Red House…

Jimmy’s Jam

New York City Mayor Jimmy Walker (1881-1946) was commonly referred to as “Beau James for his flamboyant lifestyle and his taste for fine clothes and Broadway showgirls.

June 4, 1932 cover by **Theodore Haupt.**

Mayor Walker was also a product of the powerful Tammany Hall machine that traded in political favors and outright bribery. When he took office in 1926, the economy was riding high, and few seemed to care that hizzoner was aloof, partying into the night (while openly flouting Prohibition laws), and taking numerous pleasure trips to Europe. He easily won reelection in 1929, but when the stock market crashed later that year his hijinks began to wear a bit thin, and reform-minded politicians like State Senator Samuel H. Hofstadter began looking into corruption in New York City. The actual investigation was led by another reformer, Samuel Seabury. The New Yorker’s E.B. White looked in on the proceedings and its star witness, Mayor Walker.

I DO NOT LIKE THIS, SAM I AM…Clockwise, from top left, **Mayor Jimmy Walker** was full of wisecracks during his testimony before **Samuel Seabury**, far left; Seabury’s role in the high-profile commission landed him on the cover of *Time* (Aug. 17, 1931); Tammany Hall’s support was writ large for Walker in the 1920s; **Vivian Gordon** was a surprise witness in the Seabury investigation, telling investigators police received bonuses for falsely arresting women on prostitution charges. After her testimony Gordon was found strangled in Van Cortland Park, leading many to believe Walker’s corruption played a role in her death. (Daily News/Time/archives.nyc/Pinterest)

Public opinion really started to turn on Walker with the death of star witness Vivian Gordon (see caption above). The final blow came from New York Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt, who like Walker was a Democrat but unlike Walker was not a Tammany product. Roosevelt was also running for president, and rightly seeing Walker as a liability, asked the mayor to resign, which he did on Sept. 1, 1932. That event was still three months away when E.B. White wrote these concluding lines:

SEE YA, SUCKERS…Eight days after he resigned from office, New York Mayor Jimmy Walker headed for Paris, where his mistress, Ziegfeld star and film actor **Betty Compton**, awaited with open arms. Clockwise, from top left, Compton and Walker on their wedding day in Cannes, France, April 19, 1933; and a 1920s photo portrait of Compton; Walker’s first wife, **Janet Allen Walker,** had sued for divorce a month earlier (March 10, 1933) claiming Jimmy had deserted her in 1928 and they had not lived together since; Walker and Compton on the deck of *SS Normandie*, June 17, 1936. (legacy.isle-of-wight-fhs.co.uk/IMDB/Pinterest/NYC Municipal Archives)

Eight days after Walker resigned from office he caught a boat for Paris, where his mistress, Ziegfeld star and film actor Betty Compton (1904-1944), awaited him. They married the following year in Cannes.

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Out of the Shadows

F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald were Jazz Age fixtures, cutting wide swaths through literary and society worlds filled with wild drinking and various infidelities. Francis Scott (1896-1940) was a chronicler of that age, most notably with The Great Gatsby, but Zelda (1900-1948) also took pen in hand, contributing short pieces to various magazines in the 1920s. By 1930 their self-destructive ways caught up with them both, and Zelda was admitted to a sanatorium in France that spring; it was the beginning of a long road of treatments that would end in her death nearly two decades later.

ALL THAT JAZZ…**Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald** (pictured here in 1926) embodied the riotous days of the Roaring Twenties. (beinecke.library.yale.edu)

In 1932, during her stay at the Phipps Clinic (Johns Hopkins), Zelda experienced a burst of creativity, writing an entire autobiographical novel — Save Me the Waltz — in just six weeks. Sadly, it was not well-received (by critics or by her husband), and fewer than 1,400 copies of the novel were sold — a crushing blow to Zelda. However, during that same time she published a short story in the New Yorker titled “The Continental Angle.” Here it is:

TALENTED AND TROUBLED…**Zelda Fitzgerald** in 1931, a year before she entered the Phipps Clinic and had a burst of creativity. (citizen-times.com)

A footnote: On the occasion of my birthday last April, my dear friends Sally and Lydia stopped by and presented me with these two cocktail glasses and a recipe for a White Lady, which apparently was named for our dear Zelda.

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From Our Advertisers

Yet another stylish and very modern-looking ad from Cody, thanks to the artistry of American fashion illustrator Ruth Sigrid Grafstrom…

…while later on in the issue French illustrator Lyse Darcy gave his subject an Art Deco look to promote Guerlain’s face powder…

…Darcy was famed for his Guerlain ads from the 1920s to the 1950s…

…Powers Reproduction turned to star power to promote their latest color engraving techniques…

…the actor Marguerite Churchill (1910-2000) had a film career spanning 1929 to 1952, and was John Wayne’s first leading lady in 1930’s The Big Trail…

…and we head back to the city, Tudor City, to be precise, where apparently it was common in the 1930s to spot a gent in formalwear relaxing with his pipe…

…on to our cartoons, we have James Thurber contributing some spots…

…Rea Irvin continued to visit the world’s “Beauty Spots”…

…Garrett Price showed us a couple looking for the “We Want Beer” parade…

…which happened three weeks earlier, on May 14, 1932…the parade was organized by none other than Mayor Jimmy Walker, who believed prohibition was making life difficult for New Yorkers…

…Barbara Shermund introduced two men with bigger issues than beer on their minds…

…John Held Jr. continued to plumb the depths of the naughty Nineties…

…and some more naughtiness, courtesy Gardner Rea…

Next Time: Summer Indulgences…

Dream Cars

Whether or not you could afford a new car in Depression-era New York, you could afford to take your mind off the hard times for a few hours and visit the annual National Automobile Show at Grand Central Palace.

The 1932 exhibition featured many familiar brands, and others that would not survive the decade. Bolstered in part by the largess of General Motors and its downscale LaSalles, Cadillac could offer a pricey edition of the Fleetwood (at $5,542, roughly equivalent to $100K today), but most car makers featured models with reduced prices and/or smaller engines, as well as new technologies and design features they hoped would attract buyers of modest means. Excerpts from the New Yorker’s “Motors” column:

CAN’T TOUCH THIS…The Cadillac V16 Fleetwood sat atop the American car world in 1932. (classicdriver.com)

LOOK, BUT DON’T BUY…The *New Yorker* noted the crowds gathered around the Studebaker –produced “Rockne” at the National Automobile Show. Named for the famed Notre Dame football coach **Knute Rockne** (who died in a 1931 plane crash), this 1932 model attracted plenty of gawkers at the show but few buyers. It was soon discontinued, and leftover Rocknes were disassembled and sent to Norway, where they were reassembled and sold to Scandinavian buyers. (conceptcarz.com)

DOUBLE VISION…The 1932 Oakland Roadster (left) marked the end of the Oakland Motorcar Company, which had been previously acquired by General Motors. That same year Oakland was reborn as the Pontiac division, and the Oakland Roadster was reimagined as the 1932 Pontiac Model 302 (right). (Hemmings/justamericanautomobiles.com)

PALACE OF DREAMS…Grand Central Palace (top right) sat at Lexington Ave. between 46th and 47th Streets. A favorite locale for manufacturers to display their latest wares, it was demolished in 1963; at left, images from the 1935 National Automobile Show; bottom right, 1932 copy of *The Wheel*, produced by Studebaker for distribution at auto shows. (freelibrary.org/chicagology.com)

Whether folks were able to shell out more than $5,000 for a Caddy or a mere $700 for Plymouth, many left the show with nothing more than dreams for better days. Howard Brubaker summed it up thusly in his “Of All Things” column:

* * *

Darling Lily

Coloratura soprano Lily Pons (1898 – 1976) was not well-known in her native France when she took the Metropolitan Opera stage by storm in 1931 — she would become the Met’s principal soprano and, in 1940, an American citizen. The singer was profiled by Janet Flanner in the Jan. 16 issue (caricature by Miguel Covarrubias). Excerpts:

FRENCH TOAST OF THE TOWN…Coloratura soprano **Lily Pons** was particularly associated with the title roles of *Lakmé* (pictured above, mid-1930s), and *Lucia di Lammermoor*. Pons was a principal soprano at New York’s Metropolitan Opera for 30 years, appearing 300 times from 1931 until 1960. (Pinterest/YouTube)

If you have a few minutes, check out Lily Pon’s 1935 performance of “The Bell Song” from the film I Dream Too Much, which co-starred Henry Fonda. Although the sound quality is not the greatest, you can still get a pretty good idea why Met audiences adored her.

* * *

Fantasy Bridge

Satirist Ring Lardner found something rotten in the behavior of robber barons and politicians in the midst of the Depression, so he imagined a bridge game that brought together banker J.P. Morgan (Jr), John D. Rockefeller (then the richest person in America and perhaps the world), Sen. Reed Smoot of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act (a catalyst for the Depression), and social worker Jane Addams. Excerpts:

* * *

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If you were one of J.P. Morgan’s bankers, you might have considered hopping on a United flight instead of taking the train — within 20 years, airlines would make a serious dent into railroad’s corporate travel business…

…and if you were a successful banker, your daughter or granddaughter might have been an aspiring deb with some very specific needs…

…the Little King also had some specific fashion needs, as Otto Soglow brings us to the cartoon section…

…with the Auto Show in town, Helen Hokinson got her girls into the conversation…

…the “wizard control” they refer to was Buick’s gimmick to attract more women drivers to their product…here’s an ad from the Feb. 6 issue of the New Yorker:

…back to our cartoons with James Thurber, and the “war” that continued to brew between men and women (note artwork on the wall)…

…Al Freuh offered his perspective on meagre predictions for prosperity…

…as did one of William Steig’s precocious children…

…and Helen again with another privileged view of the downtrodden…

…Barbara Shermund showed us one woman’s interpretation of “belonging”…

…and Denys Wortman gave us one salesman who probably dreamed of some solitary drinking…

…on to our Jan. 23, 1932 issue…

…and this item in “The Talk of the Town,” which noted the challenges of publishing a book about Adolf Hitler…

…and a few pages later, we are treated to an E.B. White “song” written for delegates to the Conference for the Reduction and Limitation of Armaments which was being convened in Geneva, Switzerland…

Delegates from sixty countries attended the Geneva conference. They were there to consider the German demand that other nations disarm to the same levels that had been imposed on them by the Treaty of Versailles. The conference deadlocked by the summer, and when it was reconvened in February 1933 Hitler had just assumed power in Germany. By fall 1933 Germany withdrew from both the Disarmament Conference and the League of Nations, and the stage was set for another world war.

Here is a 1933 photo of the delegates to the Disarmament Conference before things went south:

A detail of the photo (below) reveals the identity of the tiny man seated at center: the representative from Germany — Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda Joseph Goebbels. Just twelve years hence Goebbels would find himself trapped with Hitler and Eva Braun in a Berlin bunker as Soviet troops demolished the city above them. Goebbels and his wife, Magda, would poison their six children, and then themselves as the Third Reich crumbled to ashes.

A final note: The delegates weren’t alone in Geneva, as a number of peace organizations sent observers and demonstrators to the conference, many of them women:

APPEALS TO DEAF EARS…Women’s disarmament campaigner in Geneva, c.1932; right, a poster created by Dutch artist **Giele Roelofs** for the Northern Friends Peace Board and others. (London School of Economics/armingallsides.org.uk)

We’ll give the last word to Howard Brubaker in Jan. 30 “Of All Things” column:

* * *

From Our Advertisers

With the National Automobile Show wrapping up, the Grand Central Palace prepared to welcome exhibitors for the annual Motor Boat Show…

…the woman in this next ad might have been better off in a boat than on the beach…I’m wondering if the artist had any idea that his or her illustration would be used to promote coffee…it’s hard to tell what is going on here…apparently a young woman has almost drowned and is receiving oxygen, or maybe she doesn’t really need it, and the perverted lifeguard and cop just want to ogle the poor beachgoer, who seems bored by the whole predicament…

…there is also something vaguely sexual going on in this ad for Vicks (what is he looking out for in panel four?)…the artist (the cartoon is signed “Len”) seems to be channeling one of Rea Irvin’s series cartoons…

…in the early 20th century it was fashionable to smoke imported luxury Egyptian cigarettes, or counterfeits like Ramses II, produced in the U.S. by the Stephano Brothers…

…the makers of Camel were among the most successful counterfeiters of Egyptian cigarettes — the camel, pyramids and palm tree motifs were no mistake, but by 1932 this established brand (launched in 1913) went less for snob appeal and more for the active, fresh-faced youths whose pink lungs were highly coveted by R.J. Reynolds…

…on to our cartoons, we begin with James Thurber and some more sexual tension…

…Garrett Price found a young hostess eager to to please…

…Perry Barlow introduced us to a young man who (almost) never forgets a face…

…William Crawford Galbraith dined with the uppers, not necessarily known for their literary sophistication…

…Barbara Shermund gave us a proud collector who managed to evade the Puritans in U.S. Customs…

…William Steig showed us pride of a different sort…

…and another by Steig displayed the antics of one of his “Small Fry”…

…and we end with Helen Hokinson, who found a local women’s club joining the debate raging far away at the Disarmament Conference in Geneva…

Next Time: Back in the USSR…

The Mouse That Roared

In the spring of 1928, Walt Disney collaborated with cartoonist Ub Iwerks in creating a new cartoon character, Mickey Mouse, and later that year Mickey would be featured in the first-ever post-produced sound cartoon, Steamboat Willie. The film was an immediate hit, bringing almost instant fame to Disney.

Dec. 19, 1931…A classic cover by **Peter Arno.**

Just three years after the birth of Mickey, Disney had already carved a place for himself in American culture, drawing the attention of millions of Mickey fans — and one critic for the New Yorker — Gilbert Seldes, who penned a “Profile” of the “Mickey-Mouse Maker” (illustration by Hugo Gellert). Note in the second of these two excerpts how Disney was already connecting his product to patriotism and clean living through his Mickey Mouse Clubs:

CASH COW…ER…MOUSE…Left, **Walt Disney** poses with his famous creation in 1935; top right, the Disney family in 1915: Parents Elias and Flora Disney in back row, right; Walt is seated with sister Ruth in front; photo of Disney proves the merchandising value of his little mouse from the very start.

A THING OF NIGHTMARES…Before the television show there was a theater-based Mickey Mouse Club. Pictured above is an early meeting of the Club at a theater in Ocean Park, California. Although the Club had 1 million members in the U.S. by 1932, Disney pulled the plug on the clubs in 1935. They were revived through several television series in 1955-59, 1977-79, and 1989-1994 (that last class featured a number of future stars including **Ryan Gosling, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera**, and Justin Timberlake. (www.vintag.es)

In his conclusion, Seldes marveled at Disney’s productivity — a new picture made every two weeks — and his seemingly endless creativity. Little could Seldes imagine that one day the man and his mouse would become a multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate.

I’M YOUR VEHICLE, BABY…Mickey gives Minnie a ride in his cab in 1931’s *Traffic Troubles.*

You can watch 1931’s Traffic Troubles here:

* * *

Big Man on Canvas

It seems the earth almost shook when Mexican artist Diego Rivera arrived in New York for only the second one-man show at the Museum of Modern Art. His work habits, his comings and goings, and his enormous size (modest by today’s standards) were reported in the New Yorker, including this entry in “The Talk of the Town”…

COME TO MOMA…Cover of the Museum of Modern Art’s catalog for the **Diego Rivera** exhibition.

MAN AT WORK…Left, **Diego Rivera** at work on *The Uprising*, at the Museum of Modern Art, in 1931. Rivera painted five frescoes on portable supports of steel-braced cement in conjunction with his MoMA exhibition. Among the works featured was *The Rivals* (right), which sold for $9.76 million in 2018, overtaking an auction record for Latin American art previously set by his wife, **Frida Kahlo**. Her *Two Nudes in the Forest* sold for $8 million in 2016. (MoMA/Pinterest)

* * *

Winds of War

It’s the end of 1931, but one can already detect the rumblings of the future to come, namely world war. The former Allied and Axis powers of the First World War were all busy developing new weapons, particularly of the airborne variety that all believed would provide a decisive edge if (or rather when) the next war commenced. Japan was already making moves on China, and in just four years the Germans would reoccupy the Saarland and Italy would invade Ethiopia. E.B. White, in his “Notes and Comment,” found the current state of affairs more than a bit troubling…

PUSHING THE ENVELOPE…Wars and rumors of wars drove rapid advances in aviation in the 28 years following the Wright Brothers’ first flight. The Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company developed the A-8 (above) in 1930-31 to serve as a ground-attack aircraft. (ww2aircraft.net)

…and hints of the world to come could also be found in Howard Brubaker’s “Of All Things” column, where he made this observation:

Brubaker was likely referring to Franklin D. Roosevelt’s cautious approach to announcing his candidacy for president. The outcome, of course, proved quite different for the German people.

* * *

From Our Advertisers

Preparations for war drove the development of the aircraft industry, which quickly adapted its designs during peacetime for civilian purposes. This ad from United Airlines touted the advantages of plane over train travel for corporate executives. Within 30 years the airlines would indeed supplant railroads as the preferred means for business travel…

…Prohibition would remain in force until the end of 1933, so brewers like Anheuser-Busch continued finding ways to link their non-alcoholic products to the ghosts of drinking past…

…on to our cartoons, James Thurber rendered this apt portrait of our civilization…

…Barbara Shermund gave us an actress with a reputation to protect…

…and Garrett Price presented an unlikely harmonica player…

…on to our next issue, where we find more Diego Rivera…

Dec. 26, 1931 cover by **Madeline S. Pereny.** *Artist’s note:* Pereny (1893–1970) was born in Kecskemet, Hungary. A baroness, she studied at Vienna Art Academy before emigrating to the U.S. in the early 1930’s. In addition to creating cover art and illustrations for *The New Yorker,* she was also a cartoonist for the Disney Studios.

…and we begin with this entry from “The Talk of the Town,” attributed to James Thurber…

WHERE’S DIEGO?…in December 1931 he could be found working on his frescoes on the sixth floor of the Heckscher Building — the Museum of Modern Art’s first home. In the foreground is the **Cornelius Vanderbilt** mansion, demolished in 1926. (Library of Congress)

GET THE POINT?…Thurber referred to **Diego Rivera’s** *Indian Warrior,* one of five frescoes Rivera created during his Museum of Modern Art exhibition.

Thurber refers to “a lady” who accompanied Rivera, most likely Frida Kahlo, who was emerging as an artist in her own right around this time.

PORTRAIT OF A LADY…Wedding photograph of **Frida Kahlo** and **Diego Rivera**, 1929. (Throckmorton Fine Art)

More on Diego could be found in the art review section, where critic Murdock Pemberton offered a cautionary message to the rabble who might not abide some of the artist’s controversial themes:

* * *

Head Cracker

In the 1920s and 30s Johnny Broderick was known as New York’s toughest cop, known for personally assaulting gangsters (and suspects) and for once facing down armed gunmen during a prison break at the Tombs. His valor won him many fans (and some detractors), making him a local celebrity and a subject of gossip columns. Reporter Joel Sayre offered his assessment of Broderick in a “Profile” for the Dec. 26 issue (illustration by Abe Birnbaum). Excerpts:

WISE GUY, EH?…**Johnny Broderick** (see arrow) escorts an unfortunate perp in 1927. (Public Domain)

* * *

Something to Cheer About

On the lighter side, Hollywood took a shot at Noel Coward’s 1930 comedy of manners, Private Lives. The original play featured Gertrude Lawrence and Laurence Olivier, while the Hollywood version Norma Shearer and Robert Montgomery. For once, critic John Mosher actually liked this screen adaptation:

GIVE ME THAT LOVIN’ FEELING…**Norma Shearer** and **Robert Montgomery** in the film adaptation of **Noel Coward’s** *Private Lives*. (TCM)

* * *

From Our Advertisers

Just one ad from the Dec. 26 issue to close out the year, and what better way to say “Merry Christmas” than with a fresh cigarette…

…on to our cartoonists, William Crawford Galbraith offered a look backstage in this two-page illustration across the bottom of “The Talk of the Town”…

…Richard Decker showed us the importance of making oneself clear, especially when aloft in a dirigible…

…Robert Day found humor in a barren landscape…

…Garrett Price offered us a cheesy predicament…

…Helen Hokinson found a man about to make an important point…

…and we end 1931 with this classic from James Thurber…

Next Time: Thurber’s Dogs…

Asphalt Jungle

The zoos of yesteryear were joyless places, that is, if you were one of the animals. Children squealed with fear and delight at the sight of a caged lion, and many an adult had fun tossing peanuts at elephants or teasing enraged gorillas locked behind bars; but if you were a zoo animal in 1931, life was endless hours of boredom, sprinkled with moments of terror and humiliation.

It is instructive to look back 89 years and see how far we’ve come, and how far we still have to go, to see our fellow creatures as more than curiosities and amusements to be captured and gawked at, and to see their environments as something to be preserved, not only for their survival but for ours as well.

LIFE BEHIND BARS…Left, a zookeeper with chimps at the Central Park Zoo, 1936. Right, a rhino paces in a barred enclosure, 1937. (nycgovparks.org)

E.B. White paid a visit to the Central Park Zoo, and found it wanting in a number of respects:

Many zoos back then were more collections of curiosities than places where you could learn about various habitats. So when David Sarnoff, president of RCA, bagged a live opossum in the South, the critter was given a new home in an antelope enclosure, per this item in the Dec. 20, 1931 New York Times:

The Central Park Zoo was established in the 1860s as a “menagerie” behind the Arsenal, and by the turn of the century attracted millions of visitors to its displays of exotic animals.

GETTING AWAY FROM IT ALL…Postcard image of the Menagerie in Central Park, New York, 1905. (Museum of the City of New York—MCNY)

ANIMAL ATTRACTION…Postcard image of folks enjoying caged birds at the Menagerie, 1905. (MCNY)

O GIVE ME A HOME…In the early days of zoos, animals were presented in cages and fenced enclosures with no hint as to what their natural habitat might look like. Clockwise, from top left, “Fatima” the hippo, image from an 1896 stereograph card; a 1911 photo of a trainer and a dog perched on top of a hapless elephant; a bull bison around the turn of the century; a group of people observe animals in cages at the Central Park Menagerie, 1895. (Library of Congress/nycgovparks.org/MCNY)

* * *

He’s Your Future

The New Yorker featured two-part profile of the governor of New York, Franklin D. Roosevelt, who unbeknownst to writer Milton MacKaye would soon become the next president of the United States. Two excerpts (not continuous)…

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Ah yes, the first time I visited the Empire State Building’s observation deck (in the 1970s) a heavy smog enveloped the city (the air is much cleaner today). I like how the promoters spin disappointment into an opportunity — “The mysterious beauty of the city has a million constantly changing aspects”…

…if you were looking for bluer skies, Bermuda could have been an option if you had the means…

…or you could have stayed closer to home at a Long Island beach resort, as Helen Hokinson illustrated, and as we segue into our cartoons…

…I. Klein gave us a very unscientific, albeit humorous view of genetics…

…Richard Decker redefined the meaning of “volunteers”…

…and William Steig summoned the advice of Dorothy Dix, a forerunner of “Dear Abby” who was the most widely read female journalist of her time…

We move on to the Aug. 22, 1931 issue…

Aug. 22, 1931 cover by **Helen Hokinson.**

…in which James Thurber wrote about his experience with early television in “The Talk of the Town”…

NO CABLE BILL, YET…**Charles Francis Jenkins** demonstrates his “Radiovisor” console television in 1929. At right, the inner workings featured a rotating disc punctured with tiny holes, each projecting a line across the glass screen to compose an image. As Thurber noted, the pictures commonly were too dark for viewers to see anything more than silhouettes. (earlytelevision.org)

* * *

The Other Moving Pictures

The movies still had nothing to fear from television in 1931, and Hollywood continued to draw large audiences to “Pre-Code” films that featured doses of sex and violence. Novelist Viña Delmar gained famed in 1928 with her suggestively titled book Bad Girl, so when it was adapted into a film, audiences came running — even if the screen adaptation proved to be a bit tamer than the novel that inspired it. Critic John Mosher observed:

I’M JUST A LITTLE BAD…**Sally Eilers** played the title character in *Bad Girl* with co-star James Dunn. The film won two Oscars in 1932 for Best Director (**Frank Borzage**) and Best Writing, Adaptation **(Edwin J. Burke**). (IMDB)

* * *

Chic Chapeau

The Empress Eugénie hat was named for 19th century French empress Eugénie de Montijo, who was known as a fashion trendsetter. The hat was revived in 1930 after Greta Garbo was seen wearing a version of one in the popular film Romance. E.B. White was not exaggerating when he noted (in his “Notes and Comment”) that the jaunty hat was seen on “every other head” in the city.

LOOK WHAT YOU STARTED…**Greta Garbo** sported an Empress Eugénie hat in the 1930 film *Romance*, setting off a fashion craze that persisted through much of the decade. At right, **Kemp Starrett** referenced the trend in this Aug. 8, 1931 cartoon in the *New Yorker*. (Pinterest)

* * *

From Our Advertisers

Speaking of trends, these “roughies” were all the rage among the young folks, in the dorms and on the beach…

…one trend I wasn’t aware still persisted in 1931 was a top hat and tails for an evening out among the smart set…

…according to this ad, if you were a “smart” and fashionable New Yorker, then you needed an “Inebriates” themed cocktail set…

…examples of the glassware for sale on Worthpoint…

…Dr. Seuss was still busy selling pesticide with this four-panel ad…

…on to the cartoons, we start with James Thurber…

…and Rea Irvin continued to experiment with various motifs, this time an Egyptian-themed cartoon referencing the “wine bricks” sold by enterprising vineyards during Prohibition…

…Peter Arno found a big surprise during a mansion tour…

…and we end with Otto Soglow…

…and Richard Decker…both cartoons reminded me of Al Jaffee’s Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions…

…I grew up reading Mad magazine, and always looked forward to Jaffee’s fold-ins…he just retired from Mad at the young age of 99, so we conclude with one of his Snappy Answers panels from Mad #98, Oct. 1965…

Next Time: Unnatural History…

“

Wickersham Sham

Introduce the topic of the Wickersham Commission at your next dinner party and you will most likely be answered with a puzzled silence.

January 31, 1931 cover by **Constantin Alajalov.**

However, in January 1931 it was THE topic of the month, especially among New Yorkers keen to see the end of Prohibition, which was the focus of the commission.

Established by President Herbert Hoover, the 11-member Wickersham Commission (officially, the National Commission on Law Observance and Enforcement) was not seeking to repeal the 18th Amendment, but rather to examine the criminal justice system under Prohibition, everything from police brutality and graft to the rapid rise of organized crime.

SOBER UNDERTAKING…**George Wickersham** was featured on *Time’s* Feb. 2, 1931 cover for his leadership on the National Commission on Law Observance and Enforcement, better known as the Wickersham Commission. (Time)

To the chagrin of many New Yorkers, the report (released on Jan. 7, 1931) called for even more aggressive enforcement of anti-alcohol laws.

This caused such a stir that the New Yorker dedicated the entire first page of “The Talk of the Town” to a satirical commentary furnished by E.B. White. An excerpt:

LEAVE MY NAME OUT OF IT…Former US Attorney General **George Woodward Wickersham,** left, was tapped by President **Herbert Hoover** to lead the National Commission on Law Observance and Enforcement. Humorist **Will Rogers** weighed in on the likely outcome of the Commission’s report. (Wikipedia/PBS)

Humorist Will Rogers also commented on the report in this letter published on page 19 of the Jan. 26, 1931 edition of The New York Times…

…Algonquin Round Table co-founder Franklin P. Adams, on the other hand, summed up the Commission’s report with a poem:

Prohibition is an awful flop.
We like it.
It can’t stop what it’s meant to stop.
We like it.
It’s left a trail of graft and slime
It don’t prohibit worth a dime
It’s filled our land with vice and crime,
Nevertheless, we’re for it.

Back to the New Yorker, Howard Brubaker weighed in with his column, “Of All Things,” correctly noting that the majority of Americans wanted an end to Prohibition laws despite the Commission’s recommendations…

…and Rea Irvin gauged the mood of the parlor crowd in light of the report:

* * *

Polar Plunge

On to happier news, “The Talk of the Town” looked in on preparations for a North Pole trip by a refitted and renamed military submarine, Nautilus. An excerpt:

POLAR OBSESSED…Above, the *Nautilus* arrives at Plymouth, England, on June 26, 1931. It left New York City on June 4 on the first leg of a voyage that was to continue on to Spitsbergen, Norway and ultimately to the North Pole and a rendezvous with Germany’s *Graf Zeppelin*. At right, crew members **Cornelius P. Royster, John R. Janson**, and **Harry Zoeller** dine in the Nautilus galley, April 20, 1931. (amphilsoc.org)

HOW IT WORKED…The June 1931 issue of *Modern Mechanics* asked the question, “Will the Nautilus Freeze Under the North Pole?” Stay tuned. (Modern Mechanix)

* * *

Dorothy, Abridged

Laid up with the flu, Dorothy Parker turned to some reading during her convalescence, only to find that the books provided to her (for review) were far from uplifting. One in particular, a censored version of D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover, was downright galling. Excerpts:

FIFTY SHADES OF EMBARRASSMENT…**D.H. Lawrence’s** *Lady Chatterley’s Lover* was published privately in 1928 and swiftly banned by the United States the following year. Amazingly, the first unexpurgated edition would not be published in the U.S. until 1959, in the edition pictured above issued by the fledgling Grove Press. (mhpbooks.com/orbooks.com)

* * *

Old Before Her Time

Lois Long was only 29 years old when she wrote her “Doldrums” series for the New Yorker, but the chronicler of Jazz Age nightlife who once epitomized the flapper lifestyle felt much older given how much the world had changed in just a few short years. She was particularly appalled by the younger generation’s embrace of “health and vitality” over her own generation’s lust for the party life…

GETTING THEIR KICKS…**Lois Long** was appalled by the new generation’s healthier pursuits, left, contrasted with the flapper lifestyle Long embodied in the 1920s. (Pinterest)

…Long was mother to a toddler at the time, and would divorce husband and New Yorker colleague Peter Arno in the spring. This, no doubt, contributed to her feeling of estrangement from the younger generation:

Endnote: Bernarr MacFadden (1868-1955), referred to above, was an early proponent of body building and healthy diets that anticipated the rise of physical culture icons such as Charles Atlas and Jack LaLanne.

* * *

The Last Warrior

Paris correspondent Janet Flanner noted the passing of 78-year-old French Field Marshal Joseph Joffre, the last of the great World War I military leaders. Note that Flanner referred to Joffre’s war as “the world war,” since the next world war was still on the horizon.

AU REVOIR…French Field Marshal **Joseph Joffre** (saluting) in 1922. (Library of Congress)

* * *

From Our Advertisers

We have two of New York’s finest hotels advertised along with the newly opened National Hotel in Havana, Cuba. All three were under the same management at the time. The Cuban hotel would be heavily damaged two years later in a coup led by Fulgencio Batista. It would be restored, and eventually nationalized by Fidel Castro. The Savoy-Plaza would not be so lucky, demolished in 1965 to make way for the General Motors Building…

NOW YOU SEE IT, NOW YOU DON’T…The elegant Savoy-Plaza (left) was razed in 1965 to make way for the General Motors Building. (Wikipedia)

…and we have this lovely color ad from the makers of Alcoa aluminum chairs, which bespoke “the new vogue.” Alcoa created the market for aluminum furniture in the 1920s in an effort to increase demand for its aluminum products. It obviously worked, as all kinds of aluminum chairs and desks became ubiquitous by mid-century, especially in the workplace…

…on to our cartoonists…the Jan. 31, 1931 issue marked a big moment in New Yorker cartoons, as it featured James Thurber’s very first…

…Alan Dunn showed us a man who could not be distracted from financial woes…

…William Steig settled in as a New Yorker regular…

…Carl Rose gave us a lot of sour faces in a bank lobby…

…and Gluyas Williams demonstrated the effects of decaf coffee…

…and before I go, here is a scene from the Third Academy Awards, which are referred to as the 1931 awards, although they were actually held on Nov. 5, 1930 in the Fiesta Room of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles….

Next Time: And the Winner Is…

A Happy Fourth!

The July 5, 1930 New Yorker made a subtle nod to the Fourth of July holiday with this cover by Julian De Miskey. The title images above are of actress Alice White and child actor Jackie Coogan getting into the Independence Day spirit in the 1930s.

On Solid Ground

With massive skyscrapers going up all over the city, some New Yorkers apparently feared that the weight of those buildings would cause the earth’s surface to crack. “The Talk of the Town” offered some factual information to allay those fears:

Not guaranteeing the science on this, but here’s an image I gleaned from Reddit…

Dark gray lines are fault lines (why the brown soil drops in those places). The gray areas are bedrock known as Manhattan Schist, which one can see above ground in Central Park. The reddish brown at lower right is marble. The green area is either gneiss or sill rock.

* * *

War and Apple Pie

E.B. White had some fun at the expense of “Major” Frank Pease, president of the Hollywood Technical Directors Institute, an anti-communist activist organization. Despite the title of his organization, no film director had ever heard of Pease until he began issuing press statements labeling the 1930 film All Quiet on the Western Front as anti-American and anti-military. White responded:

MINOR MAJOR…”Major” **Frank Pease,** left, thought the depiction of the horrors of war in *All Quiet on the Western Front* was anti-American. Pease himself never rose above the rank of private, but claimed he was a retired major in the U.S. Army. (Wikipedia/IMDB).

In one of my recent posts, the New Yorker’s John Mosher reviewed the film, All Quiet on the Western Front.

* * *

Speaking of Un-American

City Hall organizers of a welcome home ceremony for Admiral Richard Byrd — back from his South Pole adventures — arranged to have a woman sing The Star Spangled Banner, but according to “The Talk of the Town,” not just any woman would do…

DISSED…Italian-American soprano Dusolina Giannini was born in Philadelphia, but deemed not American enough to sing at New York’s City Hall for **Admiral Richard Byrd**. (YouTube)

* * *

Five Alarm Fireworks

“The Talk of the Town” discussed at some length the challenges July 4 posed to New York’s firefighters. An excerpt:

Also in the “Talk” section, some spot illustrations by Abe Birnbaum, who apparently had returned from a trip to Paris. The first image appeared in the June 28 issue, the second the July 5 issue:

* * *

Just Say No

Helena Huntington Smith turned in a profile on American birth control activist Margaret Sanger (1879-1966). Sanger popularized the term “birth control” and opened the first family planning clinic in the United States. She established several organizations that eventually evolved into the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. The opening paragraphs of Smith’s profile:

**Margaret Sanger** circa 1930. At right, portrait for the profile by Ralph Barton.

Controversial 89 years ago as well as today, Sanger remains a target of both the right and left, labeled variously as a baby killer and a racist. Sanger was vocal in her opposition to abortion, maintaining that birth control would not only prevent abortions, but would give many women the ability to control family size and end their cycle of poverty. Sanger also spoke out against racism, but the case is more muddled here: She became involved in the eugenics movement through her belief that society needed to limit births by those least able to afford children, including those deemed “unfit” to raise them.

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From Our Advertisers

From 1920 to 1930, automobile ownership in America nearly tripled from eight million to 23 million. Along with that growth came the rise of oil giants such as Texaco, which in 1928 became the first U.S. oil company to sell its gasoline nationwide under one single brand name. So they had no problem taking out a three-page ad in the July 5 New Yorker…

…while Americans were ready to guzzle gas, British automaker Austin touted both fuel economy and compactness in its American entry…

…for several decades in the 20th century tobacco companies employed physicians to promote their deadly products…Fatima was one of the first…

…the makers of Old Gold, however, were pioneers in associating cigarette smoking with sporting activities and tales of derring-do…here the rapid spread of the Old Gold brand across the country is equated to the record-breaking feats of a young female pilot, Elinor Smith…

…I don’t know if Smith herself smoked, but she almost lived 100 years, and flew well into her her 90s…we looked at Smith’s feats in a recent post…

**Elinor Smith’s** flying career would extend from age 16 to her 90s. In March 1930 she set the women’s world altitude record.

…Carl G. Fisher bought a big chunk of the East End of Long Island in 1926 with the intent of turning it into the “Miami Beach of the North.” Fisher would build more than two dozen Tudor-style buildings at Montauk before losing his fortune in the 1929 market crash. This ad appears to be an attempt to draw renewed interest in the development, appealing to Anglophilic pretensions that sometimes afflicted New Yorker readers…

…speaking of Anglophilia, a cartoon by Denys Wortman offered an example…

…Barbara Shermund examined an aspect of society’s pecking order…

…and referenced a gay stereotype…

…Garrett Price looked in on a misunderstanding at the museum…

…Peter Arno discovered that a bite is worse than a bark in this case…

…and Leonard Dove gave us a double entendre courtesy of a mild-mannered building supervisor seeking to remove a draft block (or bung) from a chimney flue…

Next Time: Transatlantic Dreaming…

Robeson’s Othello

In 1930s America there were few if any opportunities for black actors to perform in mainstream stage or screen productions unless they conformed to racial stereotypes. An exception was Paul Robeson.

In 1930 Robeson (1898-1976) won rave reviews for his performance in Shakespeare’s Othello. That performance, however, took place in London, not New York, which London correspondent Anthony Gibbs took pains to point out in his dispatch for the June 21, 1930 New Yorker.

English actress **Peggy Ashcroft** as Desdemona and **Paul Robeson** as Othello in London’s Savoy Theatre production of *Othello* in 1930. Although only 22 at the time, Ashcroft was an established Shakespearean actress. The 32-year-old Robeson was already famous as both an athlete and actor. He was twice named a consensus All-American in football (Rutgers) and was the class valedictorian. He also received a law degree from Columbia while playing in the NFL. In 1930 he was already known to London audiences, having previously appeared in a 1928 London production of the American musical *Show Boat.* (theshakespeareblog.com)

CENTER STAGE…Left to right: **Maurice Browne** (Iago), **Paul Robeson** (Othello) and **Peggy Ashcroft** (Desdemona) in *Othello* at the Savoy Theatre, 1930. Maurice Browne was also the play’s producer; his over-the-top portrayal of Iago and his wife’s incompetent stage direction hurt the production, but Robeson nevertheless received high praise for his performance. (britishstageandscreen.tumblr.com)

Although the performance was a triumph for Robeson, the production itself was a mess. The play’s producer, Maurice Browne, enlisted his wife, Ellen van Volkenburg, to direct (Peggy Ashcroft later called her “a pretentious dud”). Writing in The Guardian (Sept. 3, 2003), Samantha Ellis observes: “Recognising that his Othello transcended the ropey production, the audience gave Robeson 20 curtain calls. He reprised the role all over the world and never lost his pleasure in it. For Robeson, it was more than just a part: it was, as he once said, “killing two birds with one stone. I’m acting and I’m talking for the negroes in the way only Shakespeare can.”

Robeson’s Othello would not make it to New York until 1943. It would run for almost 300 performances, setting an all-time record run for a Shakespearean play on Broadway.

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Restoring Order

In the aftermath of Grover Whalen’s disastrous (and sometimes violent) run as New York City Police Commissioner, E.B. White and his fellow New Yorkers welcomed the steady hand of Edward P. Mulrooney (1874-1960) to the helm:

THE COMMISH…**Edward P. Mulrooney** in a 1930s portrait by Edward Steichen. (Conde Nast)

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The Commander

American author and lecturer Virgilia Peterson Ross profiled Evangeline Cory Booth (1865 – 1950), who would become the fourth General of the Salvation Army in 1934. She was the first woman to hold that post. An excerpt:

…Ralph Barton returned to provide this caricature for the profile, one of the last works he would create for the New Yorker before his untimely death…

HEIRESS TO A LEGACY…**William Booth,** an English Methodist preacher who founded The Salvation Army and became its first General, poses with his grand-daughter **Evangeline Cory Booth** in this 1908 postcard image. (National Portrait Gallery)

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Home of the Dome

Architecture critic George “T-Square” Chappell was gladdened by the sight of scaffolding atop St. Bartholomew’s Church, which would finally get its dome to complete architect Bertram Goodhue’s vision…

NOW YOU SEE IT…Clockwise, from top left, St. Bartholomew’s Church at 325 Park Avenue, sans dome, in 1928; the church with dome in the 1950s; interior and exterior views of dome. (nyago.com/bostonvalley.com)

…Chappell also commented on the emergence of the Chrysler Building’s blindingly shiny dome and interior appointments…

BLINDED BY THE LIGHT…The Chrysler Building’s gleaming spire emerged in all its glory in June 1930. At right, an elevator in the building’s lobby. (Wikipedia)

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Below the Belt

It wasn’t Dempsey-Tunney, but the bout between Max Schmeling (1905-2005) and Jack Sharkey (1902-1994) was the next best thing for boxing fans. The World Heavyweight Championship had been vacant since Gene Tunney’s retirement in 1928, and Sharkey and Schmeling had emerged as the sport’s No. 1 and 2 contenders.

The bout ended in a controversial decision: Although Sharkey won the first three rounds, he was disqualified after he landed a punch below the belt late in the fourth round. Schmeling became the first boxer to win the World Heavyweight Championship on a foul. The New Yorker’s Niven Busch Jr. (with illustration by Johan Bull) offered these thoughts on the fight’s disappointing outcome:

LOW BLOW…Although **Jack Sharkey** (far right) led after three rounds, a low blow in the fourth delivered the World Heavyweight Championship to German boxer **Max Schmeling** (left). Sharkey would claim the title two years later in a rematch with Schmeling. Although boxing isn’t the healthiest pursuit, both men lived into their 90s; Schmeling died in 2005 just shy of his 100th birthday. (Wikipedia/boxrec.com/thefightcity.com)

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One Of Ours

The New Yorker included this brief review of a collection of short fiction pieces by Dorothy Parker, herself a literary critic of some renown at the New Yorker…

DOROTHY’S LAMENTATIONS…The *New Yorker’s* **Dorothy Parker** published this collection of short fiction in 1930.

…and on to our advertisers, this ad appeared on the opposite page of the review…

…speaking of ads, the makers of Marlboro cigarettes continued to sponsor gimmicky penmanship and writing contests to promote their deadly product…

…while promoters of the Empire State Building (still under construction) continued to draw on the historical significance of the building’s Midtown location…

…on to our cartoons, Garrett Price pondered the very real challenge of guiding a massive Zeppelin to the planned mooring mast atop the Empire State…

…a portent of what would happen to the Hindenburg just seven years later…

…the New Yorker made clever use of typesetting for this I. Klein entry…

…John Murray Anderson found humor in contrasting the grand with the mundane…

…Kindl eavesdropped on the small talk of a couple of ash haulers…

…and William Crawford Galbraith found humor at the public pool…

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On to the June 28 issue, with a cover featuring a satirical kakemono-style illustration by Rea Irvin, who was fond of Japanese scroll art…

Film critic John Mosher checked out the new documentary on Admiral Richard Byrd’s expedition to the South Pole…

A BYRD WITH WINGS…A Paramount Pictures movie poster promoting the 1930 documentary *With Byrd at the South Pole*; still images from the film at right. (Wikipedia/YouTube)

…if you’d like to see the actual film, here it is on YouTube…

“The Talk of the Town” also made note of the Byrd’s expedition and homecoming, contrasting his upcoming book, Little America, with the four-volume historical work planned by popular historian Will Durant.

In collaboration with his wife, Ariel, Durant would end up publishing an eleven-volume history of civilization (four million words across nearly 10,000 pages), written between 1935 and 1975. Will Durant was at work on a twelfth volume when he died in 1981 at age 96.

Admiral Richard Byrd’s *Little America,* left, and the 11-volume *The Story of Civilization*, by **Will and Ariel Durant.**

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American Lenin

The June 28 profile, written by Alva Johnston, featured radical American labor organizer and Marxist politician William Z. Foster. Despite Johnston’s portrayal of Foster as something of a genial pinko, in reality Foster was a strong supporter of Joseph Stalin and a dedicated and loyal ally of the Soviet Union’s Communist Party until his death in 1961. The Soviets even gave him a state funeral, with Nikita Khrushchev personally heading an honor guard in Red Square. An excerpt of Johnston’s profile:

RED AS A ROSE…Left, a campaign photo of **William Z. Foster** when he headed the Communist Party ticket in the 1928 U.S. presidential election; at right, illustration of Foster for the profile, by **Abe Birnbaum.**

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And to close…a colorful advertisement in the June 28 issue from Rex Cole…from the signature it appears to be the work of Mario Cooper, but this doesn’t look at all like his other work…

…and a two-page Rea Irvin cartoon, which demonstrates his visual storytelling skills…

Next Time…Happy Fourth!