Comedian Ed Wynn began his long acting career on a vaudeville stage in 1903, and beginning in 1914 his giggly voice would delight Broadway crowds flocking to the Ziegfeld Follies. So when he stepped in front of a movie camera for a talking picture, it was something of a sensation.
September 27, 1930 cover by Sue Williams.
It was not an easy transition for the stage veteran. As you can see from Morris Markey’s account below in “A Reporter at Large,” the early talkies presented all manner of challenges and restrictions for stage actors accustomed to a bit more freedom of movement and expression.
SCANDALOUS BUNCH…Ed Wynn (in hat) portrayed a character he developed on Broadway — “Crickets” — in his film debut Follow the Leader. At left is actor Stanley Smith, and at center, holding Wynn’s hand, is a brunette Ginger Rogers, with chorus girls from George White’s Scandals. (IMDB)
PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE MAN BEHIND THE WINDOW…Noisy cameras were enclosed in soundproof boxes in the early days of the talkies. Above, Woody Van Dyke directs Raquel Torres and Nils Asther in 1930’s The Sea Bat. (nilsasther.blogspot.com)TINSELTOWN IN QUEENS…For his article, Morris Markey visited the set of Follow the Leader at Astoria Studios in Queens. The original studio building, at 35th Avenue, is on the National Register of Historic Places. Although Paramount moved its movie operations to Hollywood in the early 1930s, the studio continued to be used for both film and television productions. At right, a bit of Paris was erected in the midst of Queens for the filming of 1929’sThe Gay Lady. (Wikipedia/Kaufman Astoria Studios)FILM DEBUT…A December 1930 magazine advertisement touting Ed Wynn’s first motion picture. (IMBD)
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False Modesty?
In Morris Markey’s second installment of his profile on Charles Lindbergh, Markey suggested that Lindbergh’s aversion to publicity might be a pose…
NO WI-FI, BUT YOU COULD SMOKE…Top, the posh set take wing with TWA circa 1930; below, passengers prepare to board an American Airways Curtiss Condor II in 1933. (historydaily.org/Sweezey Pictures/Ken Sweezey)
…and also wondered how much credit Lindbergh could take for sparking the aviation industry, given that flying was still an activity reserved for a very few…
…Markey also noted a “lively rumor” that Lindbergh wanted to be President…
…fortunately Lindbergh did not give truth to the rumor, or fulfill the alternate history created by Philip Roth in his 2004 novel The Plot Against America…
HANGIN’ WITH A BAD CROWD…Top, Charles Lindbergh accepts a ceremonial sword from Hermann Göring during a 1936 visit to Nazi Germany; below, right, Lindbergh in Germany, 1937. Philip Roth’s novel imagined Lindbergh’s election to the Presidency in 1940 and its chilling results. (Reddit/The New Yorker/Goodreads)
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Bad Moon Rising
In 1930 few, if anyone, were aware of Lindbergh’s proclivities toward nationalism and antisemitism. And lacking a crystal ball, Markey’s New Yorker colleague, Howard Brubaker, had little reason to be alarmed by the federal elections in Germany, which gave the Nazis the second largest number of seats in the Reichstag. In his “Of All Things” column, Brubaker quipped:
INCOMPATIBLE…As Howard Brubaker noted in “Of All Things,” the fascists led by Adolf Hitler, left, and the communists led by Ernst Thälmann (right) made big gains in the 1930 German elections. After gaining power in 1933, Hitler would arrest Thälmann and later have him shot. (Wikipedia)
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Gummed to Death
The New Yorker’sJohn Mosher took in the latest travelogue to exploit and misrepresent life on the African savannah. Africa Speaks included a scene depicting a fatal attack on a “native boy” by a lion — an attack that was actually staged at a Los Angeles zoo and involved a toothless lion…
STRANGE INDEED…At left, movie poster for Africa Speaks; top right, Pygmy drummers in the film; bottom right, explorer Paul Hoefler getting closer to nature. (IMDB/Wikimedia)
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From Our Advertisers
When Paris unveiled is spring and fall fashions, large department stores were always quick to respond with “copies”…
…while the higher end boutiques offered originals to “poor little rich girls”…
…perhaps some of these “poor little rich girls” socialized at the Panhellenic, a “club-hotel for college women”…
…and here are some views of the Panhellenic House, circa 1929…
Center, The Panhellenic House, at First Avenue and 49th Street; at left, the solarium; at right, a ballroom. (Avery Library/Museum of The City of New York)
…the makers of Old Gold cigarettes had some of the weirdest ads to push their smokes, including this one…
…and one wonders what the world would be like (and especially the U.S.) if car buyers would have favored a more compact version of the motorcar going forward…
…on to our cartoons…we begin with parenting tips from the posh set, courtesy Garrett Price…
…Alan Dunn explored modern matrimony…
…one of Helen Hokinson’s ladies demonstrated a unique taste in furniture…
…Otto Soglow continued to explore humor in a wavy fashion…
…and we close with this vertiginous view provided by Leonard Dove…
When Charles Lindbergh returned to New York after his solo, history-making transatlantic flight, he was mobbed by thousands of fans and adored by many millions more. The feeling was not mutual.
Sept. 20, 1930 cover by Theodore Haupt.
This image from his June 13, 1927 ticker-tape parade says it all, a disinterested, almost hostile-looking Lindbergh contrasted with that crowd-loving dandy, Mayor Jimmy Walker:
Detail of larger photograph. (Associated Press)
Morris Markey checked in on the famed flyboy three years later in a two-part profile for the New Yorker. Markey observed how Lindbergh had become “sucker-sour,” a phrase that described how someone could suddenly go wild “at the ceaseless procession of staring faces.” I encourage you to read the excerpt below about Lindbergh’s appearance at the 1929 Cleveland Air Races, where in a fit of temper he nearly forced a passenger plane to lose control and crash:
SAY CHEESE…Top photo, Charles and Anne Lindbergh pose with Cliff Henderson at the 1929 Cleveland National Air Races. Henderson was the managing director of the National Air Races and was often described as “the Barnum of aviation.” Below, Lindbergh flanked by Navy flyers Frederick Kivette and Frank O’Beirne at the 1929 air races. (Smithsonian)
Because he was a national hero of nearly saint-like dimensions, newspaper reporters did not dare to report on his antics at the Cleveland Air Races (so far, The New Yorker account is the only one I can find of the incident). Needless to say, he was not popular among members of the fourth estate:
WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG?…Fliers raced around a closed course near a crowded grandstand at the 1929 National Air Races in Cleveland. (Western Reserve Historical Society)
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Innocents Abroad
It was a nice surprise to find Lois Long once again writing under her pen name “Lipstick” in this casual piece (excerpted below) on Parisian life. I was also surprised to find the term “Amurrican” in the headline — I always thought it was a more recent derivation of redneck-speak…
OVER THERE…Left, a fashionable pair on the streets of Paris circa 1930; right, main staircase and grand foyer of the Ile de France. (Pinterest/akpool.co.uk)
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Imbiber in Chief
No doubt many a New Yorker enjoyed this bit of news from Howard Brubaker (in his column, “Of All Things”) regarding New York Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt, who later as president would preside over the end of Prohibition.
LEADING BY EXAMPLE…FDR and a gin martini. (Time/Life)
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From Our Advertisers
The Scottish Terrier was one of the most popular dog breeds in 1930s America (in addition to martinis, FDR was also fond of Scotties, including his loyal companion Fala), and you could show your love for the breed with bath sets from Best & Company…
…the handsome L.P. Hollander Company Building (designed by William Lamb) at 3 East 57th began life in 1930 as a women’s fashion boutique…
…and today it serves as the Fifth Avenue home to Yves Saint Laurent…
(Wikipedia)
…another exclusive New York destination, the Carlyle, opened as a luxury residential hotel in 1930, only to go into receivership in 1931 thanks to the deepening Depression. In the postwar years it would rise to prominence and become a favorite haunt of the Kennedy family. The Carlyle is also home to the Bemelmans Bar, which is decorated with murals painted by Ludwig Bemelmans depicting his storybook character, Madeline, in Central Park…
…the Carlyle’s cozy Bemelmans Bar…
(TripAdvisor)
…this next one goes in my terrible ads file…did the makers of this GE refrigerator really want to depict it bursting into flames?…
…it is 1930, and we are at the dawn of the age of plastics, and in this case “Beetleware” tumblers made from an early type of plastic formed from a urea formaldehyde powder developed in England and licensed to American Cyanamid …so bottom’s up!…
…the makers of Van Raalte stockings hoped to revive the sex appeal of the ankle…
…which provides a good segue to our cartoons, this one by Helen Hokinson, which was actually featured on the page opposite the stocking ad…
…Ralph Barton continued his series on the 1930’s…
…Alan Dunn took his work to new heights…
…Gardner Rea had fun with the garden club set (English-American S. Parkes Cadman was a pioneer Christian radio broadcaster in the 1920s and 30s)…
…while Peter Arno illustrated this cultural exchange on the streets of New York…
…and we end with Leonard Dove, and a walk in the rain…
Above image: Groucho Marx, Margaret Dumont, and Lillian Roth in the Marx Brothers second film, Animal Crackers, 1930 (IMDB)
The Marx Brothers were famous for a string of hit films in the 1930s, but some of the comedy on which those films were based went all the way back to the days of vaudeville and 1920s Broadway.
Sept. 6, 1930 cover by Peter Arno.
Animal Crackers was their second film (the first was 1929’s The Cocoanuts), and the last to be adapted from one of their stage shows. It was also the last Marx Brothers movie to be filmed at Paramount’s Astoria Studio in Queens before the brothers headed for Hollywood.
MUSICAL CIRCUS…Animal Crackers began as a Broadway stage production in 1928 before moving to film in 1930; from left to right: Groucho, Harpo, Chico and Zeppo in a publicity photo for the stage version of Animal Crackers. (www.georgeskaufman.com)
The New Yorker’s John Mosher reviewed the film version, which was playing at the Rialto Theatre:
SO LONG, NEW YORK…Animal Crackers was the second and final Marx Brothers movie to be filmed at Astoria Studios in Queens; from left, Chico, Zeppo, Groucho and Harpo Marx pose for a 1930 publicity photo. (IMDB)
Always partial to European directors, Mosher found Ernst Lubitsch’sMonte Carlo among the better films playing in the late summer.
OH YOU CAD!…Jeanette MacDonald and Jack Buchanan in Monte Carlo. (IMDB)
* * *
Fox in the Hen House
“The Talk of the Town” made light of Mayor Jimmy Walker’s plan to “rid the city of graft.” Ironically, Jimmy himself would be drummed out of office two years later for accepting bribes…
WHAT ME WORRY? Yes maybe. Mayor Jimmy Walker in 1930. (nymag.com)
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From Our Advertisers
We have another lovely illustration from Carl “Eric” Erickson promoting the joys of smoking unfiltered cigarettes…
…these small ads for apartments in the back pages of the magazine promoted the bucolic vistas in Westchester…
Images of Fleetwood Hills from The American Architect, June 1926.
…and European-style living on East 44th Street…
The Beaux-Arts Apartments (which still stand) consisted of buildings on both sides of E. 44th Street. (Museum of the City of New York)
…as for cartoons, Peter Arno continued this running gag…
…as did Rea Irvin in another tableaux (originally running sideways, full page) featuring the clash of country bumpkins and city elites…
…Garrett Price looked in on the burdens of the wealthy…
…and Barbara Shermund caught some small talk at a cafe…
…back to Peter Arno, and a heated game of table tennis…
…and Gardner Rea, witness to modern-day crime reporting…
On to the Sept. 13, 1930 issue…
Sept. 13, 1930: yet another satirical kakemono cover by Rea Irvin.
As I’ve noted many times before, the early New Yorker covered every sport under the sun (and especially elite sports such as yacht racing, tennis and badminton, golf and polo) but to my knowledge never covered a major league baseball game in its then five-year existence. Here, E.B. White, in his “Notes and Comment,” complains about the high price of tickets to polo matches…
…White, a well-known dog lover, offered a rather cruel solution to a problem cat in this feature:
* * *
Oh Never Mind
At first glance I thought this might actually be an article about a baseball game, but alas, it was a column by Ring Lardner (titled “Br’er Rabbit Ball”) that showed little enthusiasm for the game (the 1919 “Black Sox” scandal apparently soured his love for baseball). Excerpts:
Speaking of sports, we move to the advertisements and the helpful folks from Lucky Strike, who wanted to help you get in shape with a smoke…
…and another ad for Flit insecticide by Dr. Seuss, featuring an elephant that looked a lot like the future Horton, and some unfortunate racist imagery…
…yet another Peter Arno repeat with a new caption…
…and another in a series of 1930’s images by Ralph Barton…
We close out the boiling August of 1930 with Wolcott Gibbs and his fanciful musings regarding the future offices of The New Yorker, inspired by his recent visit to the glitzy new lobby of the New York Daily News Building.
August 30, 1930 cover by Julian De Miskey.
I include a brief excerpt of Gibb’s tongue-in-cheek fantasy of the future, which inadvertently foresees The New Yorker’s current offices (see contrast of old and new above) in the gleaming glass tower now known as One World Trade Center:
THAT WAS THEN…The New Yorker’s first offices were located at 25 West 45th Street, a 16-story building erected in 1913 (it still stands). It’s almost impossible to find images of The New Yorker’s early office spaces, but you can probably get some idea from these photos of another tenant of the building, the Y.M.C.A. Dental School. (Museum of the City of New York/New York Public Library)THIS IS NOW…Almost in fulfillment of Wolcott Gibbs’ fantasy, The New Yorker today occupies offices in the Condé Nast section (images above) of the 104-story, 1,776 foot One World Trade Center (floors 20 to 44). When The New Yorker moved onto the building’s 38th floor in early 2015 (one floor above Wired), it marked the first time the magazine was located outside of a small area in Midtown. (New York Magazine/interiordesign.net)
* * *
His Bit of Earth
“The Talk of the Town” noted an increasingly rare sight along Fifth Avenue, a private garden created by Thomas Fortune Ryan that in 1930 was occupied by his son Clendenin J Ryan:
DUST TO DUST…Thomas Fortune Ryan demolished the Charles T. Yerkes mansion and its art galleries (before and after photos, top, and image of a gallery, bottom right) to make way for his private flower garden, which is visible in the bottom left hand corner of the image at top right. An apartment building erected in 1937 (bottom left) occupies the site today. (Museum of the City of New York/Alice Lum)
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From Our Advertisers
Backgammon became all the rage in the 1930, so much so that one Grosvenor Nicholas, “a famous authority on backgammon,” commanded a fill-page ad from Saks…
…for reference, The New Yorker made note of Nicholas’s visit in the Sept. 6 “Talk of the Town”…
OR WATCH THE YOUTUBE VIDEO…Leila Hattersley, author of 1930s How to play the New Backgammon, teaching at a New York Club (bkgm.com)
…celebrity endorsements continued to grow in importance in the 1930s, here the famed Australian-born British actress Judith Anderson (1897-1992) marvels at the products manufactured by Angelus…
…Anderson would later be made a “Dame,” and would enjoy a long career and a long life, even appearing in 1984’s Star Trek III: The Search for Spock as the Vulcan High Priestess T’Lar…
VERSATILE…At left, Dame Judith Anderson in 1932. At right, Anderson on the set of 1984’s Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, with actor Leonard Nimoy. (Tumblr)
…this ad for Buick shows a rich gent dismissing his chauffeur, something he would probably have to do permanently as the Depression continued to ruin fortunes…
…and perhaps a lost fortune could lead to one being “difficult,” and in that case Dyers & Dyers could sooth the hurt with squab from a can…
…on to our cartoonists, we have Constantin Alajalov illustrating a scene at the Battery…
…Ralph Barton continued his interpretations of a new decade…
…some unfortunate racial humor from Al Frueh…
…an indelicate moment at the beach, courtesy Garrett Price…
…Perry Barlow looked at the challenges of city life…
…and Alan Dunn found a man with a case of the moderns…
Among the films in 1930 that marked a new era in motion pictures was Howard Hughes’s epic war film Hell’s Angels.
August 23 cover by Gardner Rea.
Originally shot as a silent, Hughes (1905-1976) retooled the film, and over a period of three years (1927-30) poured much of his own money into making what many consider to be Hollywood’s first sound action movie. The film also introduced audiences to 19-year-old Jean Harlow (1911-1937), handpicked by Hughes to replace Norwegian actress Greta Nissen in the lead role (Nissen’s accent posed a problem for the talkies). The film would make Harlow an instant star, propelling her to worldwide fame as the “Platinum Blonde” sex symbol of the 1930s.
Beset by delays due to Hughes’s incessant tinkering, the movie was famously expensive. For example, a total 137 pilots were used in just one flying scene at the end of the film. In addition to monetary costs, the filming also claimed the lives of three pilots and a mechanic, and Hughes himself would fracture his skull during a stunt flying attempt.
PRE-CODE…Before Will Hays imposed his moral code on Hollywood, films in the early thirties were frank with sexual references, as the image at left attests. When Howard Hughes switched the filming of Hell’s Angels to sound, he replaced Norwegian actress Greta Nissen with 19-year-old Jean Harlow (seen with co-star Ben Lyon). Harlow’s first major film appearance would make her an overnight star; at right, Frank Clarke and Roy Wilson flying an S.E.5A (front) and a Fokker D.VII (back, note camera) in the filming of Hell’s Angels. (Wikipedia)
The New Yorker’sJohn Mosher found the action scenes enticing, but the acting left something to be desired…
COSTLY VENTURE …This Sikorsky S-29A (left), repainted to represent a German Gotha bomber, would crash into the California hills during filming (right), killing mechanic Phil Jones, who failed to bail out along with the pilot. (Northrop Grumman)GEE WHIZ…The media often reported on the progress of the film, such as in this May 1930 article in Modern Mechanics and Inventions that detailed a $1 million sequence in which a fighter dives his plane into the top of a Zeppelin, causing it to explode and crash to earth. (Modern Mechanix)
We skip ahead briefly to the Aug. 30 issue, in which “The Talk of Town” featured a mini profile of Howard Hughes and his film. Note how Hughes’s extravagance is described through his frequent use of long-distance telephone calls:
A STAR IS BORN…19-year-old Jean Harlow and Ben Lyon in 1930’s Hell’s Angels. (IMDB/Pinterest)
* * *
A Whale of a Movie
Critic John Mosher also took in a film adaptation of Herman Melville’sMoby Dick, a very loose adaptation that excluded the novel’s central character, Ishmael, and invented a love story for the maniacal Capt. Ahab…
A WHALE OF A STORY…From left, Noble Johnson as Queequeg, John Barrymore as Ahab, and Walter Long as Stubbs in 1930’s Moby Dick. At right, top, the whale puts the hurt on a boat; bottom, Joan Bennett as Faith, a contrived love interest for the old salt. (IMDB)
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Daily Dazzle
“The Talk of the Town” gushed over the lobby of the new Daily News Building, likening it to the glitz of a Broadway revue:
HOME FOR CLARK KENT…The Daily News Building served as the model for the headquarters of the fictional Daily Planet, the building where Superman worked as mild-mannered Clark Kent; at right, an image from 1941 of the lobby, dominated by the world’s largest indoor globe. (Wikipedia/Public Domain)A LOBBY FOR LEARNING…The lobby includes an array of clocks, top left, that give the time in various global destinations. (Luke J. Spencer via atlasobscura.com)
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A Busboy’s Dream
Charles Pierre Casalasco left his life as a busboy in Corsica and studied haute cuisine in Paris before arriving at the shores of Manhattan in the early 1900s. He became a renowned headwaiter who by 1929 garnered enough financial backing from New York’s most powerful families to construct the exclusive Hotel Pierre. Writing under her pseudonym, “Penthouse,” New Yorker columnist Marcia Davenport described the building’s apartments to eager readers:
FUN WHILE IT LASTED…The 41-story, 714-room Hotel Pierre officially opened in October 1930 to great fanfare. The party would be short-lived, as the deepening Depression would force the hotel into bankruptcy just two years later. At right, photo of the Rotunda, before a 2017 remodeling. (New York Public Library)
* * *
So Much For Title IX
Then as now, women athletes were held to a separate set of standards, not only judged for their athletic abilities, but also for their “sex appeal,” as John Tunis suggests more than a few times in his profile of English tennis champion Betty Nuthall (1911-1983). Excerpts:
HOW’S THAT BACKHAND?…Betty Nuthall greets American tennis star Bill Tilden in September 1930; on the cover of Time after winning the 1930 U.S. Open. (Digital Commonwealth/Time Inc.)
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Free Expression
Robert Myron Coates (1897–1973) was a writer of experimental, expressionistic novels who later became a longtime art critic for The New Yorker (he is credited with coining the term “abstract expressionism” in 1946). In the Aug. 23 issue he contributed the first installment of “Dada City,” here describing street life in Harlem. Excerpts:
STREET LIFE…Scenes around Harlem’s 125th Street, clockwise from top left: the Apollo Theatre marquee punctuates a busy street scene in 1935; NW corner of 125th and Broadway, 1930; Regal Shoes storefront, 1940s, photo by Weegee; 125th and St. Nicholas Avenue in 1934. (Skyscraper City/Museum of the City of New York)AMERICAN ORIGINAL…Robert M. Coates’sThe Eater of Darkness (1926) has been called the first surrealist novel in English. (Goodreads)
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From Our Advertisers
New Yorkers who were still enduring the brutal summer of 1930 could find relief, if they could afford it, on a New York Airways flight…
…or if you had the means, you could take your yacht out to sea, like this chap in a coat and tie who calmly steers with one hand while offering a box of chocolates to his guests with the other…
…our sailor wasn’t the only one dressed to nines…here are two ads offering suggestions to young folks returning to college or prep school…
…for comparison, this is how a group of college students at Columbia University dress today…
(Columbia University)
…Dr. Seuss continued to crank out drawings on behalf of Flit insecticide…
…and on to cartoons, yet another rerun (the sixth) of this Peter Arno drawing with a new caption (Dorothy Dix was a popular advice columnist)…
…and another look at country life courtesy Rea Irvin (originally printed sideways on a full page)…
…and another country scene, this time among the toffs, thanks to Garrett Price…
…back in the city, some parlor room chatter as depicted by Barbara Shermund…
…downtown, Isadore Klein looked at the economic challenges of peep shows…
…and we close with this reflection on city life, by Reginald Marsh…
Whether probing the battle of sexes or exposing the secret lives of daydreamers like Walter Mitty, James Thurber (pictured above) had a knack for revealing the frustrations and various tics that plagued ordinary people.
Aug. 9, 1930 cover by Rea Irvin.
That included the fictional John Monroe, whom Thurber placed in various awkward situations in a series of humorous stories, including this encounter with some moving men that required the rather inept Monroe to make a series of decisions usually left to his wife, Ellen. Some excerpts from the Aug. 9 issue:
ODD COUPLES…Sue Randall and Orson Bean portrayed Ellen and John Monroe on a 1961 episode of The DuPont Show with June Allyson. (findagrave.com/Wikipedia)…a decade later, William Windom, left, and Joan Hotchkis portrayed John and Ellen Monroe on the Thurber-inspired (and award-winning) NBC comedy My World and Welcome to It (1969-70). (TV Guide)
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Beats the Heat
In the hot August of 1930, film critic John Mosher probably found the air-conditioned theaters to be the best feature of the cinema, given the generally mediocre quality of the summer movies. Mosher also noted the new trend of adapting Broadway plays to the screen, a practice that continues to this day.
THE SOUND OF 1930…Joan Crawford (left) examines a boom microphone on the set of Our Blushing Brides. Although most films were produced with sound in 1930, it was still something of a novelty to actors who began their careers in the silent era; at right, Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and Anita Page in Little Accident. (IMDB)
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From Our Advertisers
Well, who doesn’t love a whole chicken in jar, ready to “fry or cream” in just 20 minutes? This was actually a big deal in 1930, given that chicken dinners were not as common back in the days before factory farms and Chick-fil-A…
…the makers of Marlboro cigarettes abandoned their essay and penmanship contests and took another direction with their drab, back-page ads, appealing to a vague sense of status in the prospective smoker…
…this sad little bottom-of-the-page ad enticed readers to take a drive in the country to see Texas Guinan and her “Famous Gang” still whooping it up like it was 1925. The venture was short-lived…
…on to our cartoons, Peter Arno looked in on nightlife in the city…
…William Crawford Galbraith took in an outdoor concert…
…Ralph Barton offered his comic skills to a glimpse of domestic life…
…Garrett Price observed some boaters on an outing that would be frowned upon today (or at least I hope so)…
…and Constantin Alajalov examined the pitfalls of modern art…
* * *
Speaking of art, we move on the Aug. 16, 1930 issue…
Aug. 16, 1930 cover by Barney Tobey.
…in which Robert Benchley has fun with the foibles of the art world…
* * *
Rough Riders
In his “Reporter at Large” column, Morris Markey looked in on the working world of one chain-smoking ambulance driver…some excerpts…
SLIDE ‘EM IN…1930s Flexible ambulance and its rather cramped interior. (coachbuilt.com)
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From Our Advertisers
Hard to believe that zippers were a novel invention just 90 years ago…in this ad from the leading manufacturer, Talon, this “hookless” wonder was still referred to as a “slide fastener”…
…the Chrysler Corporation was never the biggest car company in America, but it was always known as a leader in both technology and design, as in these graceful lines that flowed over its new “Straight Eight” models…
…the makers of Camel cigarettes continued to push their product as a sound way to stay fit and trim…
…in the cartoons for Aug. 16, this drawing by Peter Arno appeared for the fifth time in the magazine, always with a different caption (the others appeared in three consecutive issues — June 5, 12 and 19, and on Aug. 2, 1930)…
…William Crawford Galbraith detected some wet vs. dry tension at the country club…
…Ralph Barton returned with another full-page illustration of a weekend domestic scene…
…Garrett Price found confusion in a lengthy queue…
…and Kemp Starrett gave us a bird’s eye view of a future New Yorker…
The end of Prohibition was more than three years away, but New Yorkers could already sense that the tide was quickly turning against the “drys” who had succeeded a decade earlier in enacting a nationwide ban on most alcohol production and distribution.
Aug. 2, 1930 cover by Julian De Miskey.
In the Aug. 2 issue Alva Johnston seemed to relish the opportunity to aim some withering fire at the retreating “drys”…
NOT EXACTLY LYSISTRATA…The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (left) and the Anti-Saloon League were major forces behind a nationwide constitutional ban on the production, importation, transportation and sale of alcoholic beverages in the U.S. (Pinterest/PBS)
Johnston noted how the “wet” forces were even using the Bible to beat down the moral crusaders…
DIDN’T SEE THAT COMING…What began as moral crusade led to the rise of some of America’s most notorious gangsters. Top, left to right, early 20th century temperance supporters included attorney and politician William Jennings Bryan, Anti-Saloon League leaders William “Meat-Axe” Anderson and Wayne Wheeler, and Ella Boole, head of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union; bottom, left to right, mugshots of Jack “Legs’ Diamond and Al Capone. (Wikipedia/findagrave.com/Flickr)
* * *
Clear as Mud
In another installment of “Answers-To-Hard-Questions Department,” James Thurber fielded a question regarding The New Yorker’s policy on drawings and sketches. Here is Thurber, posing as “Wayne Van R. Vermilye”…
* * *
Double Standard
In its first years The New Yorker looked down on the subtle and not-so-subtle racism in American life; that is, when it applied to black intellectuals and artists (Dorothy Parker’s “Arrangement in Black and White” in the Sept. 30, 1927 is a prime example). However, in its cartoons and in “Talk of the Town” shorts, working class blacks were almost always depicted as minstrel characters, mammies, pickininnies and the like. In the Aug. 2 book review section, we have an example of the former, more or less…
WITHOUT LAUGHTER…Eslanda Goode Robeson, left, in the avant-garde film Borderline (1929); Langston Hughes photographed by Carl Van Vechten in the 1930s. (columbia.edu/beinecke.library.yale.edu)
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From Our Advertisers
The 38-story Barbizon-Plaza Hotel was designed to appeal to artists and musicians and included soundproof practice rooms, art studios, and two performance halls. Apparently you could also enjoy a game of deck tennis on the rooftop, but one wonders how much damage one could inflict — on a car or person — with a solid rubber ring dropped from a height of nearly 400 feet…
ARTLESS…The Barbizon-Plaza Hotel opened at 106 Central Park South in 1930 with 1,400 ensuite rooms. Designed to appeal to artists and musicians, the Depression put an end to that dream, and the property was foreclosed on in 1933. Donald Trump purchased the building in 1981 with the intent of tearing it down, but eventually converted it into 340 condo units and renamed it the “Trump Parc.” (MCNY)
…Lorillard Tobacco Company, the makers of Old Gold cigarettes, tapped into the popularity of crooner Rudy Vallée to move their product, boasting that like Vallée their cigarette was something of an overnight sensation (residents of Chicago, the ad noted, smoked three million Old Golds every day)…
…on to our cartoons…a couple issues back, I noted how this Peter Arno drawing appeared in three consecutive issues with different captions…here it is again, and the story of the two lovers continues…
…also continuing were these full-page cartoons (originally displayed sideways) by Rea Irvin…his “Country Life in America,” scenes depicted common folks setting up camp and enjoying other other activities at the expense of country squires…
…and we end with Leonard Dove and a couple of city folk looking for some excitement in the country…
Note: the above cartoon refers to Texas Guinan’s move to country after reigning for a nearly a decade as Manhattan’s “Queen of the Nightclubs.” Facing declining fortunes, in 1929 she took her nightclub act to the quiet village of Valley Stream, New York, located just south of Queens in Nassau County. The venture quickly went bust.
Since time immemorial human beings have clung to the idea that unknown lands must surely contain vast mineral treasures.
July 26, 1930 cover by Helen Hokinson.
Such was the case when Admiral Richard Byrd returned from his Antarctic expedition, during which he conducted a number of geological studies. Ever ready to tweak a senator’s nose, TheNew Yorker’sJames Thurber imagined an exchange between Byrd and a U.S. Senate subcommittee that was more interested in exploitable commodities than in scientific discoveries:
HMMM, NO OIL HERE…Richard Byrd’s expedition building their “Little America” encampment at the South Pole in 1928. (osu.edu)
One passage of particular interest in this imagined exchange dealt with the speed of climate change in relation to potential mineral extraction…
BIRDS MEET BYRD…Admiral Richard Byrd onboard the USS Bear during his second expedition to the South Pole. (Wikipedia)
* * *
Before CNN
Newsreels came into their own with the advent of sound, offering moviegoers a selection of news stories from the around the world. In his “Notes and Comment,” E.B. White observed that newsreels depicted foreigners as people who just liked to hang out (note the racial slur directed at Latin Americans). White’s characterization of Germans as an indolent lot is also noteworthy, given the country was just two and half years away from Nazi takeover.
TANZEN UND TRINKEN…Kroll’s Biergarten in Berlin in September 1928; English visitors raise a glass at a beer hall in Hesse, 1929. (YouTube)
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Speaking of Slurs
Here is what passed for a humorous anecdote in the July 26, 1930 “Talk of the Town”…
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Star Power
William Powell and Kay Francis were frequent co-stars, and would team up for the 1930 courtroom drama For the Defense. Powell and Francis would be two of Hollywood’s biggest stars in the 1930s.
LET’S MAKE A PICTURE…Frequent co-stars William Powell and Kay Francis in a publicity photo for 1930’s For the Defense. Francis was a longtime friend of The New Yorker’sLois Long. (IMDB)
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From Our Advertisers
What Depression? As bread lines lengthened so did the “super-chassis” of this monster Cadillac…
…in contrast, this ad in the Aug. 2 issue questioned the necessity of a 4,000-pound car (or in the case of the 16-cylinder Cadillac, 6,500 pounds), and touted this “common sense” British import…imagine the America of today if this idea would have taken hold in the 1930s…
…we return to the June 26 issue to find an ad that would likely not appear in today’s New Yorker…
…another unlikely ad is this spot from the makers of Farina cologne featuring a skinflint applying the stuff to his armpit…yeah, I’ll take a bottle…
…and Rea Irvin continued his series of illustrations for Murad cigarettes…
…in cartoons, Irvin gave us this interpretation of country life in a full-page panel originally featured sideways…these “Country Life in America,” scenes depicted common folks enjoying the outdoors at the expense of country squires…
…and then we have the bohemian artist and set designer Cleon Throckmorton (1897-1965), with his one and only contribution to The New Yorker…
…in a previous issue (May 31, 1930) Throckmorton had placed this tiny, curious ad in a corner on page 46…
…and in the June 7, 1930 issue, he placed another ad in the bottom corner of page 94…
Cleon Throckmorton, well-known for his bohemian lifestyle, operated a backyard speakeasy called the Krazy Kat Club in Washington DC. He is pictured here (center) with a couple of “Klub” members in 1921. He was no slouch, however, designing 149 New York theatrical productions between 1920 and 1934. (messynessychic.com)
…back to our cartoons, we have Otto Soglow, who was going through a wavy period in his illustrations…
…Soglow would soon become famous for his Little King strip, but for now we’ll leave the king jokes to Peter Arno…
…Gardner Rea contributed this series cartoon that slid around page 20…
…Leonard Dove looked in on a domestic scene…
…and John Reehill contributed this weird little cartoon that reminded me a bit of the humor of Gahan Wilson…
From the late I.M. Pei to Frank Gehry, America has its share of “starchitects,” but only one architect in the history of the profession could claim to be a true household name: Frank Lloyd Wright.
July 19, 1930 cover by Peter Arno.
In a profile titled “The Prodigal Father,” Alexander Woollcott wrote about Wright’s “return” to American acceptance after nearly two decades of scandal and tragedy. Woollcott took great pains to defend Wright’s reputation, marred by his extramarital affair with Mamah Cheney, her murder in 1914 along with six others (including her children) at Wright’s Wisconsin home, Taliesin, and his subsequent remarriage, divorce, and remarriage that followed.
GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN…Clockwise, from top left, Reginald Marsh illustration for the profile; Frank Lloyd Wright, circa 1930; Tokyo’s Imperial Hotel, completed in 1923. Designed in the Maya Revival Style Wright favored throughout the 1920s, it was damaged by the 1923 Great Tokyo Earthquake just months after opening. It was demolished in 1967, however the iconic central lobby wing and the reflecting pool were disassembled and rebuilt near Nagoya. (Library of Congress/dezeen.com)
Note: Thanks to a reader’s correction (see comments at the bottom), the following has been revised:
Woollcott also wrote of his visit to Taliesin (the third version of the house, after the first two were destroyed by fires). What stands out about this profile is Woollcott’s praise for the architect, a rare hagiography from a man renowned for his savage wit.
MEETING OF THE MINDS…Above and below are photographs from a autumn visit to Taliesin by Alexander Woollcott. From left are Olgivanna Lloyd Wright, Frank Lloyd Wright and Woollcott. Wright invited Woollcott to the estate in the late 1920s: “This note will be witless as usual, but grateful…. Dear Man, why don’t you come up here? Bring any friend up here with you. Both of you can find an admirable place to work here…” (Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University, New York)
THIRD TIME’S A CHARM…The third version of Taliesin (built in 1925) is the one Woollcott would have visited in the late 1920s. (Wikipedia/Taliesin Preservation)
* * *
No Surprise Endings, Please
Although sometimes confused with Alexander Woollcott because of his first name, the timid, taciturn Wolcott Gibbs was a force at The New Yorker in his own right, perhaps even more so as he served the magazine from 1927 to 1958 as a jack-of-all-trades: copy editor, feature writer, theater critic, and overall wordsmith. So when the editors of The Writer’s Digest posed a question regarding The New Yorker’s policy for submissions, it was Gibbs who was tapped to compose a response, which was a particular challenge given the magazine didn’t have a clear set of editorial requirements. So Gibbs conjured up an “Answers-To-Hard-Questions Department,” and signed it “Mr. Winterbottom.” Some excerpts:
IN HIS ELEMENT…Wolcott Gibbs, left, relaxes at the Algonquin Hotel in 1937. At right is his New Yorker colleague Dorothy Parker. (Time)
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Munitions of Bremen
The German Ocean liner SS Bremen was one of the most technologically advanced ocean liners of its day, known for its speed and luxury. Author Eric Hodgins climbed aboard to file a report for the New Yorker, and in the excerpt below marveled at the “mechanical perfection” of the ship’s engine room:
PLOUGHSHARES INTO SWORDS…More than the length of three football fields, the streamlined SS Bremen, launched in 1928, was designed to have a cruising speed of 27.5 knots (50.9 km/h). After a 1941 fire, the ship was largely dismantled, its steel used to manufacture war munitions. (Wikipedia/greatoceanliners.com)
In 1941, while docked in Bremerhaven, a disgruntled crew member set fire to the ship, completely gutting its luxurious interior. During the war the ship was stripped of its steel for use in munitions, and in 1946 what remained was destroyed by explosives.
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From Our Advertisers
In my readings of recent issues I’ve noted numerous references to hot weather, and for good reason. The summer of 1930 would see record high temperatures and diminished rainfall that would usher in the “Dust Bowl” era of the 1930s. The Wallach Brothers adjusted by offering this “Dixie Weave Suit”…
…the hot weather also called for a tall glass of sparkling soda (mixed with your favorite bootleg beverage, of course)…
…smokers could keep cool by puffing on a Spud, the first menthol cigarette…
…or you could stick with your Luckies, endorsed by none other than this generic, genial doctor and some bogus survey…
…on to our cartoons…Isadore Klein showed us a downside of Edison’s invention…
…and Leonard Dove gave us two gentlemen on the skids, a frequent sight in Depression-era New York…
…after a long absence, we see suddenly see a flurry of activity from the pen of Ralph Barton, including this rare sequential cartoon…
…and with the hot summer New Yorkers took to the waters, at Coney Island with Denys Wortman…
When Apollo astronauts landed on the moon fifty years ago, many skeptics asked the question, “What good does this accomplish?”
July 12, 1930 cover by Constantin Alajálov.
New Yorker writer Morris Markey posed the same question 89 years ago about transatlantic flights, then limited to a handful of daredevils chasing various speed and distance records. Crossing the ocean in an airplane, Markey observed, was “one of the most difficult things imaginable.” He concluded that despite the heroics of a few pilots, “we are still not much nearer to transoceanic commercial service…”
TESTING THE LIMITS…In photo at left, Charles Kingsford Smith (second from left) and the crew of his airplane, Southern Cross, pause before embarking on their east-west crossing of the Atlantic in June 1930; photo at right: Dieudonné Costes (right) with Maurice Bellonte in Boston in 1930. On September 1-2, 1930, they flew the “Point d’Interrogation” from Paris to New York, the first heavier-than-air aircraft to reach New York in the more difficult westbound direction between the North American and European mainlands. (National Library of Ireland/Wikipedia)BIG THINKERS…Germany’s massive Dornier Do-X made its first test flight on July 12, 1929. A few months later, it carried a world-record 169 passengers on a 40-minute flight, an astonishing number given that the largest planes at that time rarely carried more than 20 passengers. In 1930, the Do-X took off on an international publicity tour through Europe, down the west coast of Africa, across the Atlantic to Brazil and up to New York before returning to Berlin. (Mashable)
Markey went on to detail the various obstacles facing transatlantic fliers, including fairly good odds that a plane, laden with fuel and supplies for such a journey, would crash on takeoff. He noted that a little over half of the attempts succeeded, while the others seemed doomed from the start.
ILL-ADVISED…With only 70 hours of flying experience, Montana rancher Urban F. Diteman (left, with his airplane “Golden Hind”) took off from Harbour Grace, Newfoundland, bound for London. He was never seen again; at right, the William Randolph Hearst-sponsored “Old Glory,” a Fokker F.VIIa single-engined monoplane that was used in 1927 on an attempted transatlantic flight from Old Orchard Beach, Maine to Rome, Italy. The overloaded plane and its crew were lost approximately 700 miles east of Newfoundland, where only a section of wing was recovered. (dailymontana.com/Wikipedia)
* * *
Glare of the New
Architecture critic George Chappell enthusiastically followed the construction of the world’s tallest building, but in its completion he found the Chrysler Building’s now-iconic spire to be little more than a stunt, and suggested that a covering of masonry might be in order:
MAYBE SOME VINYL SIDING?…George Chappell wasn’t too crazy about the Chrysler’s chrome dome, and also worried about the amount of steel that would clad the exterior of the Empire State Building, right, which is composed of limestone, chrome bars and aluminum panels. (Wikipedia)
* * *
Bottoms Up
In his “Notes and Comment,” E.B. White pondered the drinking habits of his fellow citizens in the tenth year of Prohibition:
MAKE THAT A DOUBLE…Finding refreshment in the dark days of Prohibition. (junkee.com)
* * *
Good Old Summertime
Along the bottom of “The Talk of the Town,” a Reginald Marsh interpretation of Coney Island fun and games…
* * *
Still the Same
Lois Long, who painted a picture of Jazz Age nightlife like no other in her “Tables for Two” column, teased her readers by disguising her identity, often claiming she was a frumpy old lady. With her “Tables” column now on hiatus, the fashionable and young Long maintained her pose, referring to herself as an “old war horse” in her fashion column “On and Off the Avenue.”
Problems of the Rich
John Mosher reviewed the 1930 American Pre-Code comedy Holiday, which told the story of a young man torn between his wild lifestyle and the tradition of his wealthy fiancée’s family. Films that explored the “problems” of the rich seemed particularly popular in the Depression years…
POOR LITTLE RICH GIRLS…Mary Astor and Ann Harding in Holiday. (IMDB)
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From Our Advertisers
The makers of Pond’s Cold Cream continued its campaign of endorsements by society women, including Philadelphia socialite, philanthropist and champion horsewoman Elizabeth Altemus…
Altemus (1906-1988) was a prominent owner/breeder of Thoroughbred racehorses for more than 50 years. Her first marriage was to Jock Whitney, U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom, publisher of the New York Herald Tribune, and president of the Museum of Modern Art. By the looks of this 1937 portrait of Altemus, the cold cream certainly didn’t do her any harm…
Mary Elizabeth Altemus Whitney in 1937. (geni.com)
…speaking of cold cream, when Kleenex was introduced in the early 1920s, it was marketed solely as a hygienic way to remove cold cream. It wasn’t until the 1930s that the makers of Kleenex began to suggest it could also be used as a tissue in place of a handkerchief. Of course it was also a great way to dramatically expand consumption of its brand, and help usher in a new age of disposable products…
…as the Depression deepened, ads for automobiles began to change with the times, most manufacturers emphasizing the affordability of their cars over performance or prestige, as this sad little ad from Packard attested….
…in three consecutive issues (June 5, 12 and 19) Peter Arno featured the same drawing with a different caption that gave readers a very brief courtship story…
…Alan Dunn offered a glimpse of life among the newsboys…
…Leonard Dove found Americans browsing newsstands along the Seine…
…Helen Hokinson looked in on an existential crisis…
…Perry Barlow was Out West at a dude ranch…
…Barbara Shermund eavesdropped on a couple of debs…
…Garrett Price gave us an awkward encounter among the yachting crowd…
…and finally William Crawford Galbraith, and a case of domesticus interruptus…
