Like his New Yorker colleague Reginald Marsh, Otto Soglow trained in the “Ashcan School” of American art, and his early illustrations favored its gritty urban realism. He had his own life experience to draw upon, being born to modest means in the Yorkville district of Manhattan.
We look at two issues this week. At left, cover of March 31 issue by Peter Arno; at right, June 7 cover by Constantin Alajalov.
But Soglow (1900-1975) would soon abandon the gritty style in the work he contributed to the New Yorker…
RAGS TO RICHES…At left, Otto Soglow’s first cartoon in the New Yorker, Nov. 14, 1925, was rendered in the Ashcan style ; at right, an example of the sparer style he later adopted, one of his manhole series cartoons from March 2, 1929.
…and in the June 7, 1930 issue, Soglow would publish his first Little King strip, which would soon launch the 29-year-old into fame and fortune…
Did Soglow know he was on to something big with that first Little King cartoon? Well Harold Ross (New Yorker founding editor) liked what he saw, and asked Soglow to produce more. After building up an inventory over nearly 10 months, Ross finally published a second Little King strip on March 14, 1931. It soon became a hit, catching the attention of William Randolph Hearst, who wanted the strip for his King Features Syndicate.
KING OF COMEDY…Otto Soglow working on an illustration for The Ambassador, a short-lived comic strip he created in 1933 for King Features Syndicate. The strip was replaced by The Little King in 1934 after Soglow fulfilled his contractual obligation to the New Yorker. (comicartfans.com)
After Soglow fulfilled his contractural obligation to the New Yorker, The Little King made its move to King Features on Sept. 9, 1934, and the strip ran until Soglow’s death in 1975. After his move to King Features, Soglow continued to contribute cartoons to the New Yorker, but with other themes.
Left, Soglow cartoon from the book Wasn’t the Depression Terrible? (1934); at right, King Features strip from Nov. 19, 1967. (Wikipedia/tcj.com)
During the summer of 1925, a young writer at Vanity Fair named Lois Long would take over the New Yorker’s nightlife column, “When Nights Are Bold,” rename it “Tables For Two,” and set about giving a voice to the fledgling magazine as well as chronicling the city’s Jazz Age nightlife. There were accounts of Broadway actors mingling with flappers and millionaires at nightclubs and speakeasies, but Long also spoke out on issues such as Prohibition, taking the city’s leaders to task for raids on speakeasies and other heavy-handed tactics contrary to the spirit of the times. “Tables For Two” would expire with the June 7, 1930 issue, and appropriately so, as the deepening Depression gave the the city a decidedly different vibe. In her final column Long would write about the Club Abbey, a gay speakeasy operated by mobster Dutch Schultz…
PARTIED OUT…In her final nightlife column, Lois Long wrote about the new Club Abbey in the basement of the Hotel Harding (left), which was operated by mobster Dutch Schultz (inset). The club’s emcee was Gene Malin (right), Broadway’s first openly gay drag performer. The club was short-lived (as were Schultz and Malin), closing in January 1931 following a mob brawl. (infamousnewyork.com/Pinterest)
…and she would update her readers on “Queen of the Night Clubs” Texas Guinan, whose Club Intime was sold to Dutch Schultz and replaced by his Club Abbey…
FINAL ACT…Clockwise, from top left, Texas Guinan at Lynbrook, circa 1930; Joseph Urban murals on the rooftop of the St. Regis Hotel; Duke Ellington and his orchestra at the Cotton Club, circa 1930s.
Long’s final nightlife column would signal a definitive end to whatever remained of the Roaring Twenties. It would also signal the end to some of those associated with those heady times. Texas Guinan’s Lynbrook plans would flop, and Gene Malin’s Club Abbey would close in less than a year. Both would both be dead by 1933. As for Dutch Schultz, he would be gunned down in 1935.
Lois Long, however, would continue to write for the New Yorker for another 40 years, and would prove to be as innovative in her fashion column, “On and Off the Avenue,” as she was as a nightlife correspondent.
* * *
Gone to the Dogs
In another installment of his pet advice column (June 7), James Thurber gave us one of his classic dogs…a disinterested bloodhound…
…while Thurber’s buddy and office mate E.B. White commented (in the March 31 issue) on a recent poll conducted among students at Princeton, discovering among other things that New Yorker cartoonist Peter Arno was preferred over the old masters…
FAN FAVORITES…The Princeton Class of 1930 named (from left) Rudyard Kipling, Lynn Fontanne and Peter Arno as favorite poet, actress and artist respectively in a student poll. (YouTube/Wikipedia/giam.typepad.com)
* * *
We Like It Fine, Thank You
The New Yorker dedicated a full page of the March 31 issue to a tongue-in-cheek rebuttal directed at the New York Evening Journal, which had reprinted one of Peter Arno’s cartoons to illustrate the moral cost of Prohibition. I believe the author of the rebuttal is E.B. White (note how he refers to Arno as “Mr. Aloe”).
…also in the May 31 issue, Rea Irvin changed things up, at least temporarily, with some new artwork for the “Goings On About Town” section. The entries themselves were often clever, such as this listing for a radio broadcast: PRESIDENT HOOVER—Gettysburg speech. Similar to Lincoln’s but less timely…
* * *
From Our Advertisers
New Yorker cartoonists can be found throughout the advertisements — from left, Julian De Miskey, Rea Irvin and John Held, Jr…
…and in the June 7 issue we find an unusual ad for a used car…a sign of the times, no doubt…
…before it was associated with Germany’s Nazi Party (especially after it seized power in 1933), for thousands of years the swastika had been widely used as a religious or good luck symbol…
…Actress Clara Bow was famously pictured sporting a “good luck” swastika as a fashion statement in this press photo from June 1928, unaware that in a few years the symbol would become universally associated with hate, death and war…
From an unidentified publication dated June 6, 1928. (@JoHedwig/Twitter)
…on to our cartoons, I. Klein illustrated a cultural exchange…
…Garrett Price gauged the pain of a plutocrat…
…Alan Dunn eavesdropped on some just desserts…
…Helen Hokinson found humor in the mouths of babes…
…as did Alice Harvey…
…Leonard Dove examined one woman’s dilemma at a passport office…
…and Peter Arno, who found some cattiness at ringside…
Before we launch into the latest offering from Tinseltown, a note about the cover artist for the April 26, 1930 issue.
April 26, 1930 cover by Barney Tobey.
Barney Tobey (1906-1989) was known for gently humorous cartoons that appeared in the New Yorker for more than fifty years. He also contributed four covers, the first of which appears above. In the Sept. 21, 1998 issue, illustrator Richard Merkin offered this remembrance:
* * *
Star-spangled Banter
All-star musicals were all the rage in the early sound era, as they gave studios the opportunity to showcase contract players (who were virtually owned by the studios) doing things they usually didn’t do on screen. Following the success of MGM’s Hollywood Revue of 1929, Paramount Studios released Paramount on Parade in April 1930, much to the liking of New Yorker critic John Mosher, who also praised the film’s accompanying cartoon, 1929’s The Prisoner’s Song:
You can watch The Prisoner’s Song here (and ponder how far animation has advanced)…
Mosher also praised a number of Paramount’s contract players, and especially actors Jack Oakie and Maurice Chevalier…
MUCH ADO…A great crowd gathers for the premiere of “Paramount on Parade” at the New York’s Rialto Theatre in April 1930. (cinematreasures.org)SEEING STARS…Clockwise, from top left, Helen Kane (possibly the inspiration for the cartoon character “Betty Boop”) and Jack Oakie do a little footwork; Clara Bow, Hollywood’s “It Girl,” pops through a Navy recruitment poster at the beginning of her song and dance number (with Stuart Erwin and Richard ‘Skeets’ Gallagher); one of Hollywood’s top actresses in 1930, Kay Francis, portrays “Carmen” in the revue; Ruth Chatterton entertains doughboys Stuart Erwin, Fredric March, Jack Oakie, and Stanley Smith in Paramount on Parade. (IMDB)BOOP GIVES A BOP…Helen Kane (left) and child star Mitzi Green in a sketch from Paramount on Parade. (IMDB)
* * *
Lost In the Crowd
In his “Notes and Comment,” E.B. White lamented the fact that the world’s tallest building appeared less than lofty, since neighboring skyscrapers were nullifying its grandeur:
DOWN IN FRONT…E.B. White found the streetview of the world’s tallest building wanting after it was completed in 1930; the iconic Flatiron Building, however, enjoys some elbow room even today. (spectator.co.uk/walksofnewyork.com)
* * *
Full of Hot Air
That was another opinion shared by E.B. White, this time regarding the Empire State Building’s top promotor, former New York Governor Al Smith, who spoke of plans to attach a mooring mast to the top of his skyscraper (which would eclipse the Chrysler as the world’s tallest in 1931):
* * *
View From the Top
The New Yorker featured a profile of Aloysius Anthony Kelly (1893?-1952), better known as the Roaring Twenties most famous pole-sitter, “Shipwreck” Kelly. He achieved his greatest fame in the 1920s and 1930s, sitting for days at a time on elevated perches — often atop buildings — throughout the U.S.
Kelly’s fame was already on the wane when this profile appeared, and by 1934 he was reportedly working as a dance hall gigolo. Kelly’s last flagpole stunt was at a 1952 event sponsored by a Lion’s Club in Orange, Texas — he suffered two heart attacks while sitting atop their 65-foot flagpole. After climbing down he announced, “This is it. I’m through.” He died one week later after he was struck by car on West 51st Street in Manhattan.
LOFTY AMBITIONS…Alvin ‘Shipwreck’ Kelly atop a flagpole near College Park, Maryland, in October 1942. At right, undated photo circa 1940s. (CSU Archives/Digital Commonwealth)
* * *
Brand X
Folks were still abuzz about the discovery of a ninth planet in the solar system, soon to be dubbed “Pluto” by an English schoolgirl. Howard Brubaker, in “Of All Things,” observed…
…and Kindl illustrated the problem a new planet posed for astrologers…
* * *
I Beg Your Pardon
Will Rogers was a beloved comedian with a few rope tricks up his sleeve, but I’ve never known him for working blue. However, one critic for the New Yorker (“A.S.”– not sure who this is) found Rogers’ new radio show both humorless and gauche…
CAN YOU TAKE A JOKE?…In photo above, Will Rogers debuts his new radio show in April 1930. It would become the most popular Sunday evening radio show, and Rogers would prove to be the second biggest motion picture box office draw in the U.S. before his death in 1935. (Will Rogers Memorial Museum)
* * *
Before He Got Axed
Ten years before he was murdered by one of Stalin’s NKVD agents, Leon Trotsky published an autobiography that was written in his first year of exile in Turkey. The review is signed “G.H.” so I am assuming the author is Geoffrey Hellman, who contributed for decades to the New Yorker’s “Talk of the Town.” Excerpts from the review:
RED ALERT…Leon Trotsky wrote his autobiography, My Life, while exiled in Turkey. (Wikimedia)
* * *
From Our Advertisers
The makers of Bozart rugs and fabrics invited New Yorker readers to “introduce a breath of summertime indoors”…
…while Macy’s urged the same by gracing a sunroom or terrace with one of their Marcel Breuer-inspired chairs…
…Colonial Airways touted an early form of radar — an “invisible pilot” — as the latest safety feature in its airplanes…
…the Douglas L. Elliman company promoted its yet unbuilt River House, which would feature a pier where residents could dock their yachts…
The 26-story River House in the 1930s. Originally, the Art Deco building featured a pier where residents could dock their yachts, but that feature was lost with the construction of FDR Drive in the early 1950s, effectively sealing the building off from the water. The building has been home to author Barbara Taylor Bradford, US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, and actress Uma Thurman. (observer.com)
…and then we have our more unfortunate ads, such as this one from Macy’s that shows grandpa passing along his racist tendencies to a grandchild…
…and this sad appeal from the makers of Lucky Strike to keep puffing and avoid that hideous double chin…
…our cartoons include Garrett Price and thoughts of spring…
…Barbara Shermund eavesdropped on tea time…
…Alice Harvey found an awkward moment in a hosiery department…
…Peter Arno revisits a familiar theme — chorus girls and sugar daddies…
…and Otto Soglow looked in on a fat cat’s moment of pride…
If you lived in small town America in the 20th century, it was a big deal when the circus came to town with its entourage of clowns, acrobats and exotic animals from distant lands.
April 19, 1930 cover by Gardner Rea.
Even New Yorkers, it seems — who could be quite blasé about such things — got a thrill when the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus rolled into town for its annual spectacle at Madison Square Garden. The New Yorker marked the occasion with its April 12 cover by Theodore Haupt:
For the April 19 issue, E.B. White welcomed the circus on a cautionary note, airing concerns in his “Notes and Comment” column that this old-timey entertainment might be falling under the “base influences” of broadcast radio, Broadway, and Hollywood:
SEND IN THE…YOU KNOW…THOSE GUYS…Top, clowns in town for the 1931 Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus at Madison Square Garden. Below, circus poster announcing the arrival of “The Greatest Show on Earth.” (potterauctions.com)
José Schorr, who wrote a number of humorous columns in the New Yorker from 1926 to 1930 on the subject of “how to the pass the time” in various situations, offered this advice on attending the spectacle at Madison Square Garden…
I’D RATHER BE FLYING…1930 poster advertising “The Human Projectile”; 1931 photo of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus at Madison Square Garden. (worthpoint.com/bidsquare.com)
…for example, Schorr advised circus-goers to pass the time by considering the inner lives of performers such as “The Human Projectile”…
* * *
Funny Farm
Perhaps you’ve never heard of Joe Cook (1890-1950), but in the 1920s and 30s he was a household name and one of America’s most popular comedic performers. “Talk of the Town” looked in on his antics at his Lake Hopatcong farm, “Sleepless Hollow”…
BATTER UP…Comedian Joe Cook’s residence at Lake Hopatcong, NJ, was known for its celebrity-studded parties. At left, Babe Ruth takes a swing with a giant bat on Cook’s wacky three-hole golf course; at right, Cook relaxing on the steps of his farm. (lakehopatcongnews.com)
* * *
Fun With Balloon Animals
One thing that distinguishes the 1930s from today is that era’s apparent lack of safety standards, or fear of liability. A case in point was Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, which began a tradition in the late 1920s of releasing its giant balloons into the sky at the conclusion of the parade — a $50 reward was offered by Macy’s for their return. “The Talk of the Town” explained:
GOING, GOING, GONE…When Felix the Cat (left, in 1927) was released after the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, it floated into a power line and caught fire; in 1931 the parade’s Big Blue Hippo (right) was apparently spotted floating over the ocean, never to be seen again. (Macy’s/hatchingcatnyc.com)
Perhaps the craziest anecdote attached to the parade’s annual balloon release belonged to Annette Gipson. While flying a biplane at 5,000 feet with her instructor, she spotted the parade’s 60-foot “Tom Cat” balloon rising high above Queens. Looking to have a bit of fun, the 22-year-old Gipson flew the plane directly into the cat. According to the book Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, “Upon impact, the balloon wrapped itself around the left wing. The plane went into a deep tailspin (nearly throwing Gipson from the cockpit) and sped toward the ground out of control.” Fearing the plane would catch fire when it hit the ground, the instructor killed the ignition, and somehow managed to pull the plane out of the spin and land it safely at Roosevelt Field.
KITTY LITTER…Annette Gipson, right, nearly killed herself and her flight instructor after she deliberately crashed her biplane into a Tom Cat balloon (left) that had been released following the 1932 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Of her near-death experience,Gipson told reporters, “It was a sensation that I never felt before—the whirling housetops, rushing up to meet me—and the thoughts of a whole lifetime flashed through my mind.” (ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com)
A footnote: Following Gipson’s brush with death, Macy’s announced it would not give prize money to those who tried to down the balloons with their airplanes. The incident also brought an end to the company’s tradition of releasing the balloons.
* * *
Birth of the Soundtrack
Songs from popular theater productions were first made available to the masses in the mid-19th century via printed sheet music and later through early recordings. Part of this lineage is the movie soundtrack, which has its origins in the early days of sound pictures. According to the New Yorker’s “Popular Records” column, these new recordings would bring the talkies into your home, albeit without the picture…
FROM MAMMY TO MAMMA MIA…Left, a 1930 Brunswick 78 RPM recording of Al Jolson’s “To My Mammy”; at right, soundtrack from the 2008 film Mamma Mia! (popsike.com/amazon.com)
* * *
Cosmo Calvin
Before Helen Gurley Brown came along in the 1960s and sexed it up, Cosmopolitan was known as a somewhat bland literary magazine, and it was certainly bland enough in 1930 to welcome the scribblings of America’s blandest president to its pages. E.B. White mused in his “Notes”…
NOTHING COMES BETWEEN ME AND MY CALVIN…At left, the May 1930 issue of Cosmopolitan;Kourtney Kardashian on the cover of the October 2016 issue. (Pinterest/Cosmopolitan)
* * *
How Dry I Am
After a decade of living under Prohibition, John Ogden Whedon (1905-1991) put pen to paper and shared his sentiments in a poem for the New Yorker…
…Whedon would go on to a successful career as a screenwriter, especially finding acclaim for his television writing on The Donna Reed Show, Leave It to Beaver, The Andy Griffith Show, and The Dick Van Dyke Show, among others. He was also the grandfather of screenwriter and director Joseph “Joss” Whedon and screenwriters Jed Whedon and Zack Whedon.
Another poem in the April 19 issue was contributed by John Held Jr., who was perhaps better known to New Yorker readers for his “woodcut” cartoons…
…example of Held’s work from the April 12 issue, featured in an Old Gold advertisement…
…and that provides a segue into our ads for the April 19 issue, beginning with this spot for an early electric dishwasher…
Here’s what that bad boy looks like in color. (automaticwasher.org)
…I couldn’t find a review in the New Yorker for Emily Hahn’s new book, Seductio Ad Absurdum, but her publisher did take out an ad to get the attention of readers. Many years later the New Yorker would call the journalist and author “a forgotten American literary treasure”…
Emily Hahn circa 1930; first edition of Seductio Ad Absurdum. Author of 52 books, her writings played a significant role in opening up Asia to the West.(shanghaitours.canalblog.com/swansfinebooks.com)
…and here we have another sumptuous ad from illustrator Carl “Eric” Erickson, a far cry from the “Joe Camel” ads that would come along decades later…
…on to our cartoons, Reginald Marsh offered a blue collar perspective on city fashions…
…Alice Harvey captured a moment of reflection by an overworked housewife…
…and I. Klein looked in on a couple of working stiffs in need of a dictionary…
…now over to the posh set, with Barbara Shermund…
…Leonard Dove found humor on the chorus line…
…and we end with this terrific cartoon by Peter Arno, and the perils of apartment life…
It’s easy to get into the weeds while digging through the New Yorker archives, as it is filled with a richly interconnected cast of characters whose lives and work still resonate with us today.
March 15, 1930 cover by Rose Silver. (Please see note on this artist at the end of this blog entry)
A case in point is Bert Lahr (1895-1967), who at age 15 dropped out of high school and joined the vaudeville circuit, working his way up to top billing in Broadway musical comedies including 1930’s Flying High, which received an enthusiastic welcome from New Yorker critic Charles Brackett…
…Brackett enjoyed the “feminine beauty” offered by a George White chorus that included the “Gale Quadruplets,” described in the Playbill as “The only Quadruplets in the world appearing on the stage”…
…although in fact the Gale Quadruplets were actually two sets of twins: June and Jane, and Jean and Joan (real names were Doris, Lenore, Helen and Lorraine Gilmartin). But I digress.
What really caught Brackett’s eye were the antics of Bert Lahr:
ONLY ONE BERT…Clockwise, from top left, publicity photo of Bert Lahr from the 1931 film version of Flying High; cover of the Apollo Theatre Playbill; the Gale Quadruplets, circa 1930; Lahr as the Cowardly Lion in the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz. (Everett/Playbill/Pinterest/Wikiwand)
The Gale Quadruplets are long forgotten, but the work of Bert Lahr still lives on thanks to his role as the Cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz (a film, incidentally, that was panned in 1939 by New Yorker critic Russell Maloney, who called it “a stinkeroo” that showed “no trace of imagination, good taste, or ingenuity”).
Lahr also connects us to today’s New Yorker magazine, where his son, John Lahr, has been a staff writer and critic since 1992. Lahr has written a number of stage adaptions (he won a Tony award in 2002, the first drama critic to do so) as well as nearly twenty books, including a 2017 biography of his father, Notes on a Cowardly Lion: The Biography of Bert Lahr.
DRAMATIC DUO…John Lahr with his father, Bert, backstage at the Belasco Theatre in the late 1940s; John Lahr today. (NY Times/Amazon)
* * *
Greener Pastures
We remain on Broadway with another writer who was deeply connected to the New Yorker’s origins. Marc Connelly (1890-1980) was a playwright, director, producer and performer who collaborated with George S. Kaufman on five Broadway comedies in the 1920s. Connelly was also a founding member of the Algonquin Round Table, around which orbited a number of writers, critics and assorted wits who would help bring the New Yorker to life in 1925. Connelly was listed as an advisory editor on the masthead of the very first issue:
Connelly’s play, The Green Pastures (based on stories from the Old Testament), had just opened on Broadway, drawing much acclaim for both Connelly and actor Richard B. Harrison (1864-1935). “The Talk of the Town” looked in on the playwright and the actor:
DID YOU HEAR SOMETHING?...Richard B. Harrison (left) and unidentified actor in 1930’s The Green Pastures. At right, Wesley Hill as the Angel Gabriel. (blackarchives.org/ngv.vic.gov.au)FINAL BOW…Richard B. Harrison in a 1930 publicity photo for the Broadway play, The Green Pastures. At right, Harrison on the cover of the March 4, 1935, Time magazine. He died of heart failure ten days after appearing on the cover. (Henrietta Alice Metcalf Collection/Time)
Connelly would receive the 1930 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for The Green Pastures. And nearly 60 years later he would be featured in a 1987 documentary about the Algonquin Round Table (The Ten-Year Lunch) as the Table’s last survivor. It would win an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. During his long career Connelly would act in 21 movies, including the 1960 romantic comedy Tall Story with Jane Fonda and Anthony Perkins. He also did some TV, included a stint from 1962 to 1964 as Judge Rampell in The Defenders.
HE COULD ACT TOO…Clockwise, from top left, Marc Connelly in a 1937 photo by Carl Van Vechten; a page from the Playbill for The Green Pastures; college student June Ryder (Jane Fonda) collides on campus with Professor Charles Osmond (Marc Connelly) in the 1960 romantic comedy Tall Story. (Wikipedia/Playbill/ridesabike.com)
Also in the “Talk of the Town” section of the March 15 issue was James Thurber’s latest installment of pet advice:
* * *
Lipstick’s Lamentations
Once the place to read about wild speakeasies and other nighttime diversions of the Roaring Twenties, Lois Long’s “Tables for Two” column had quickly become anachronistic in the Depression years. Although the decade was still young, Long reminisced about her column’s “golden days” as if they had existed in some distant time, and lamented the state of the speakeasy; once a place for cheap and sordid frivolity, it had become staid and even snobbish…
THAT WAS THEN…Lois Long lamented the state of the speakeasy in 1930. Once sordid and given to frivolity, it had become a rather staid institution. (prohibition.themobmuseum.org/Time-Life)
…and Long described some of these new upscale speakeasies, where the oilcloth had been replaced with fine linen…
* * *
Ozark Oeuvre
New Yorker art critic Murdock Pemberton, in his ongoing search for America’s best artists, took another look at that once “uncouth native” from the Ozarks, Thomas Hart Benton…
PAINTING FROM THE SOIL…Cattle Loading, oil on canvas, by Thomas Hart Benton, 1930. It was one of the works viewed by critic Murdock Pemberton at the Delphic Studios in New York. (wahooart.com)
* * *
From Our Advertisers
We start off with a couple of two-page ads, the first featuring caricatures of George Gershwin and Alexander Woollcott as rendered by the great Miguel Covarrubias…
click image to enlarge
…and then we have this ad from the makers of Lux Toilet Soap, who must have had a bottomless advertising budget given all the splashy ads and celebrity endorsements…
…in the ads we also find clashes between the old and new…the new being this art deco-styled appeal for the newest form of transportation…
…and the old, the makers of the luxury car Pierce-Arrow, still harking back to its patrician origins (“The Tyranny of Tradition”)…the firm would not survive the lean years of the 1930s…
…and once again a colorful ad from Church using snob appeal to sell something as pedestrian as a toilet seat…”Toilet Seats For Better Bathrooms”…
…on to our cartoons, we have a voyeur’s perspective courtesy Helen Hokinson…
…an exploration of the generation gap by Alice Harvey…
…and this terrifically quaint encounter, rendered by Perry Barlow…
…and before we go, a note about this week’s cover artist, Lisa Rhana, a.k.a. Rose Silver (1902-1985) who illustrated several New Yorker covers in the 1920s and early 30s. Her work is included in the permanent collections at the Whitney Museum, the Museum of the City of New York, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, which holds this watercolor (left) that graced the cover of the Jan. 30, 1932 issue:
When the fifth anniversary issue of the New Yorker hit the newstands in February 1930, the magazine was also setting down another milestone: its first-ever publication of a James Thurber cartoon* (*see comment section).
Feb. 22, 1930 cover by Rea Irvin.
Inserted into the top corner of page 25 (next to a short fiction piece by Emily Hahn), was Thurber’s first installment of his spoof on newspaper pet columns titled “Our Pet Department.”
Seeming a bit quizzical about his debut as a cartoonist, in February 1930 Thurber wrote to his friend Minnette Fritts Proctor (for whom he held lifelong romantic yearnings) that his drawings were “now coming into a strange sort of acclaim… The New Yorker is going to run a series of my animal pictures…and a concern wants me to do ads for it. Imagine!…I’m enclosing a few (pictures), which you can throw away. They’ll alarm you.”
PET WHISPERER…James Thurber, already well established as a writer at the New Yorker, made his debut as a cartoonist for the magazine in its fifth anniversary issue. The brilliant “Our Pet Department” would run through the spring in the 14 installments. (thurberhouse.org)
Animals of all sorts would pop up in Thurber’s cartoons throughout the 1930s (click image below to enlarge)…
Clockwise from top left, cartoons from the following issues: Jan. 30, 1932; April 6, 1935; July 14, 1934; and Feb. 13, 1937.
…and his famous dogs would make frequent appearances, including on their own cover in 1946 to coincide with that year’s Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show…
Office mate, co-author and friend E.B. White, on the other hand, assumed his usual duty of marking the magazine’s anniversary in “Notes and Comment”…
FOOD FOR THOUGHT…As E.B. White pointed out in his “Notes and Comment,” there was another, earlier New Yorker published nearly a century earlier in the 1830s by Horace Greeley, who described his periodical as “A Weekly Journal of Literature, Politics, Statistics and General Intelligence.” Greeley published his New Yorker from 1834 to 1841. (rickgrunder.com)
…and contemplated his own magazine’s contributions to the advancement of civilization…
…and as E.B. White continued his tradition of marking the magazine’s anniversary, so too did Rea Irvin continue to mark the passage of time with a tip of the hat from Eustace Tilley…
…and most prominently the New Yorker marked each anniversary with a repeat of the original Rea Irvin cover (later with some slight alterations), a tradition that continued unbroken until 1994, when a series of parodied versions of Eustace Tilley began to appear on the cover. The classic Tilley cover reappeared in the 2000s and ran frequently during that decade, but sadly made its last appearance in 2011 (see below covers from the first issue and anniversary covers from 2011 and 2019). I hope to see the Irvin cover return next year, and most certainly for the 100th anniversary in 2025. You can read more about cover’s history in Michael Maslin’s indispensable Ink Spill.
* * *
Drama Queen
Chinese opera star Mei Lanfang (1894-1961) was known as “Queen of Peking Opera” for his graceful stage portrayals of young and middle-aged women. Considered one of China’s greatest “Dan” performers (Dan is the general name for female roles), Mei had many admirers outside of China including Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks, who welcomed Mei to Hollywood when he toured the U.S. in 1930. The New Yorker paid Mei a visit during his stay at the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan, recounted in these excerpts from “The Talk of the Town”…
QUEEN OF PEKING OPERA, Mei Lanfang, circa 1920, and as a “Dan” in Chinese opera, circa 1930s. (people.chinesecio.com/Wikimedia)
HE’S A FAN…Charlie Chaplin greets Mei Lanfang during a 1930 visit to Hollywood. At right, Mei with his family in the early 1940s. (thatsmags.com/Wikipedia)
* * *
A Kitty With Claws
“The Talk of the Town” also featured Kitty Marion (1871-1944) in a mini-profile. The German-born Marion moved to London at age 15, where she gained some prominence as a music hall singer. She found greater fame, however, as an activist, first standing up for the rights of fellow women performers and later crusading for voting rights. In response to attacks on women protestors by police officers, Marion embraced militant activism, throwing bricks through the windows of offices and handling a number of arson and bombing attacks that were intended to harm property, not people. Arrested numerous times (and enduring 232 force-feedings while on hunger strikes) she emigrated to the U.S. after World War I and joined forces with birth control advocate Margaret Sanger. The New Yorker takes it from there…
TRANSATLANTIC ACTIVIST…A British Criminal Record Office mugshot of Kitty Marion, circa 1912; cover of Margaret Sanger’sBirth Control Review, November, 1923; Marion handing out copies of the Review on the streets of New York, 1915. (Wikipedia/Smith College/British Library)
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Going Deep With Noguchi
It’s hard to imagine modern decor without the influence of Isamu Noguchi, but before he inspired everything from coffee tables to lamps, he was a noted sculptor, and in 1930 he was best known for his portrait busts. New Yorker art critic Murdock Pemberton observed:
TWO HEADS ARE BETTER…Left to right, Isamu Noguchi’s portraits of architect/inventor Buckminster Fuller (1929, chrome-plated bronze) and the painter Marion Greenwood (1929, cast iron). Despite being three years short of the age requirement for a Guggenheim Fellowship, Noguchi was nevertheless awarded the grant to study stone and wood cutting and to gain “a better understanding of the human figure.” It appears the grant paid off handsomely. (noguchi.org/Smithsonian)MODERN MASTER…Collection of Noguchi lamps available from the Noguchi Museum. At right, 1947 coffee table by Herman Miller, inspired by a 1939 Noguchi design. (noguchi.org/Wikipedia)
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From Our Advertisers
The makers of Pond’s Cold Cream continued to roll out endorsements from society figures, including a “Mrs. John Davis Lodge” (Francesca Bragiotti), described in this advertisement as possessing “starry wide dark eyes, hair golden as Melisande’s, and tea-rose skin”…
…for reference, Francesca Bragiotti’s wedding portrait, as featured in Vogue magazine, 1929…
…Doubleday Doran targeted the appropriate audience for its publication of The Second New Yorker Album, with cover illustration by Peter Arno…
…and we have another lovely Camel ad from illustrator Carl “Eric” Erickson, who conjured up more Continental imagery as an inducement to take up a bad habit…
…in a recent post we looked at Don Dickerman, who operated themed restaurants in Greenwich Village. In the Feb. 22 issue he promoted his four restaurants in a series of ads (illustrated by Dickerman himself) that ran on four consecutive pages (72-75)…
…and Barbara Shermund illustrated this ad for Frigidare…
…Peck & Peck touted the “mannish lines” of its “Hillbilly” suits…
…no doubt influenced by trendsetters like Marlene Dietrich.
…and lest we forget that it’s 1930, a “Cowboys and Indians” mentality was rife in the advertising business, as seen in this ad from Mendel Trunx, proud of 20th century progress (“we’ve come a long way…”) and yet…well, read on…
…the mentality was still alive and well 30 years later, as seen in this ad from 1962…
…and coincidently, in the same issue we have this scene illustrated by Peter Arno mixing “Redskins” and luggage, in this case, a matron who means to summon the aid of a “red cap” baggage handler…
…other cartoons included this dramatic scene courtesy William Crawford Galbraith…
…a rustic, slightly naughty woodcut by John Held Jr…
…a peek at fashion trends by Helen Hokinson…
…a look at social mores…from Alan Dunn…
…and Alice Harvey…
…and we end with Barbara Shermund, and a moment of art appreciation…
The imposing of image of a fat, fearsome banker greeted readers of the Jan. 4, 1930 issue of the New Yorker, an apt symbol for the dawn of a new decade in a country whose fate seemed wholly in the hands of the old moneymen.
Jan. 4, 1930 cover by Rea Irvin.
However bleak the outlook, the show still had to go on, and automakers did their best to entice crowds to the National Automobile Show at the Grand Central Palace. The New Yorker’sNicholas Trott wrote of a “tentative modernism” on display at the show as automobile styles continued to transition from “horseless carriages” to something that looked decidedly modern. Trott’s column, illustrated by Peter Arno…
…made note of the modern angles of Art Deco that were creeping into the designs…
DAZZLING DASHES…Clockwise, from top left, the 1930 Essex sported an Art Deco instrument panel, as did the 1930 Hudson Great Eight Sedan. (hemmings.com/Free Library of Philadelphia)
…Trott also noted the increasing popularity of eight-cylinder cars (as evidenced in ads featured later in this blog post)…
TEMPLE OF TRANSPORTATION…Top left, postcard image of the Grand Central Palace exhibition building, circa 1916. At right and below, new automobiles on display at the Palace in the early 1930s. (Wikipedia/NY Daily News)
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Flappers Get Flappy
Automobile designs weren’t the only changes seen on the streets of New York. In “Notes and Comment,” E.B. White lamented the introduction of “ear flaps” on women’s hats…
THEY FLOP, JUST LIKE THE STOCK MARKET…A selection of women’s hats from a 1930 Chicago Mail Order Company catalog. (elfsacks.com)
…while on the other hand, in “The Talk of the Town” White welcomed the addition of a namesake hotel to the New York skyline…
NAMESAKE…The 43-story Hotel New Yorker at 481 Eighth Avenue, by architects Sugarman and Berger, opened on January 2, 1930, with more than 2,500 rooms starting at $3.50 a night. At left, the hotel following its completion; top right, construction on the hotel began just 22 months earlier; bottom right, the Terrace Room nightclub was a popular spot for dancing in the 1930s and 40s. (The New Yorker Hotel/americanfoodroots.com)
…White noted that the “New Yorker” name seemed to be popping up everywhere…
A NEW LEASE ON LIFE…The hotel as it appears today. With the decline of train travel (the hotel was near Penn Station), the Hotel New Yorker closed in 1972 and was purchased by the Unification Church in 1975. Subsequently much of the original Art Deco detailing was lost, and the hotel’s famed Louis Jambor murals were painted over. Beginning in the mid-1990s the New Yorker Hotel Management Company launched a $100 million capital improvement project (top right). Fortunately, the Art Deco doors of the Manufacturers Trust Company offices (below) were preserved, as was company’s lobby. (Wikipedia/Daytonian in Manhattan)
…and White marveled at the building’s massive scale…
WHAT LIES BENEATH…Popular Science (April 1930) offered a view into the bowels of Hotel New Yorker, 78 feet below street level. (tparents.org)
According to Tom Miller’s excellent blog Daytonian in Manhattan, the New Yorker was the largest hotel in city: “it boasted 2,500 rooms, murals by renowned artist Louis Jambor, the largest barber shop in the world (42 chairs and 20 manicurists), 155 chefs and cooks for the five restaurants. Employing 92 telephone operators, the hotel had one of the largest switchboards in the country…Its basement power plant was the largest private plant in the United States. The Great Depression apparently never heard of the New Yorker Hotel as satin-gowned movie stars and top-hatted politicians crossed its marble-floored lobby.” (Inventor Nikola Tesla spent the last ten years of his life in near-seclusion in Suite 3327).
The Unification Church purchased the building in 1975, removing Art Deco details and painting over the Jambor murals. In 1994 the New Yorker Hotel Management Company launched what would be a $100 million capital improvement project. Miller writes that during the renovation “the original marble floors were exposed from under yards of threadbare carpeting.” And happily, “when the doors to the old Manufacturer’s Trust Company were opened, the old 1929 lobby was intact…the Jambor murals (in the Trust’s lobby) survived. The Art Deco terrazzo floors remained. And the tiled corridor to Penn Station still stretches diagonally beneath 8th Avenue, now used as storage for security reasons.”
EPHEMERAL ART…Murals by renowned artist Louis Jambor, seen in this photo of the ballroom in the 1940s. The murals were painted over in the 1970s after the hotel was acquired by the Unification Church. (The New Yorker Hotel)
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Ways of Seeing
Art critic Murdock Pemberton (1888-1982) continued to ponder the meaning of the new Museum of Modern Art, which was staging its second-ever exhibition in its galleries on the 12th floor of the Heckscher Building on Fifth Avenue:
ARE WE NOT MODERN? Charles Demuth’s My Egypt, (oil on composition board, 1927) was among works featured in the Museum of Modern Art’s second exhibition, Paintings by Nineteen Living Americans. From left, cover of the exhibition catalog, a page from the catalog featuring Demuth’s painting, and as the work appears in color. (MoMA/WikiArt)
No doubt Pemberton, who came from humble Kansas roots, found it difficult to warm up to a gallery founded in November 1929 by three society women — Mary Sullivan, Lillie Bliss and Abby Rockefeller…
…and wryly suggested that perhaps another museum could be founded, “The Modernest Modern Museum,” for those who lacked clout or patronage with MoMA’s well-heeled board of directors…
Pemberton’s grumblings caught the attention of Alfred Barr Jr., the first director of the Museum of Modern Art, who sought a correction (printed in the back pages of the Jan. 4 issue) regarding some of Pemberton’s earlier observations of the museum. No doubt Barr was feeling some Rockefeller heat as well:
HERE’S MUD IN YOUR EYE…Murdock Pemberton, apparently endorsing Taylor’s Port in 1937. (observer.com)
For some insight into Pemberton’s populist views (the old meaning of the word, not the new one), the critic’s granddaughter, Sally Pemberton, had this to say in a 2012 New Yorkerinterview:
“Being from humble roots in Kansas and having worked to help support his family since he was a young boy, Murdock had a love-hate relationship with the upper echelon of society. He visited “plush hung galleries” and saw how museums treated art and artists in the nineteen-twenties and thirties, and he wanted art to be more accessible. He asked that the Met set aside a room for the work of living artists. He called for art to be displayed in libraries and universities, and in some cases to be sold in department stores. He wrote about what a wonderful thing it was when the W.P.A. put murals in post offices around the country and how that changed the American public’s perception of art.”
Ms. Pemberton is the author of Portrait of Murdock Pemberton: The New Yorker’s First Art Critic.
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From Our Advertisers
More ink for the newly opened Hotel New Yorker in this advertisement on page 47…
…and with the automobile show in town, the magazine was filled with numerous splashy car ads…Franklin with its air-cooled engine, Hupmobile with its powerful eight, and Pierce-Arrow—America’s answer to Rolls Royce—would all fall victim in the 1930s to the Great Depression…
…the magazine also featured numerous ads beckoning the well-heeled to warmer southern climes, including society snowbirds seeking respite at Palm Beach…
…this ad from Flit (drawn by Dr. Seuss) seemed to recall the old filler joke from the first issues of the New Yorker, a riddle told backwards:
POP: A man who thinks he can make it in par. JOHNNY: What is an optimist, pop?
…Peter Arno offered his talents in this illustration for the theater review section…
…and this cartoon peek into society night life…
…glimpses of domestic life were provided by Perry Barlow…
Although two months remained in the decade, the New Yorker of the Roaring Twenties effectively ended with this issue, just days before a massive market crash sent the nation spiraling into the Great Depression.
Oct. 26, 1929 cover by Theodore Haupt. Wonderful rendering of The New York Central Building, with shades of Georgia O’Keeffe.
Not a soul at the New Yorker had an inkling of the bleakness that lay ahead — rampant unemployment, the rise of the Nazi party, the Dust Bowl, Busby Berkeley musicals…
E.B. White, in “Notes & Comment,” was concerned with little more than the changing countryside…
MADE YOU LOOK…Examples of roadside vernacular architecture from the 1920s included the Airplane Cafe in in the San Fernando Valley (1924) and a 1927 Wadham’s gas station in West Allis, Illinois, now on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. More than 100 of Wadham’s “pagodas” were built, but like much of roadside America, few examples remain. At top, right, a 1920s billboard advertising Moxie soft drinks. (last1onthebus.com/Pinterest/Wikipedia)THE DUCK STOPS HERE…The Big Duck in Flanders, New York, was built in 1930-31 by Long Island duck farmer Martin Maurer to sell duck and duck eggs to passing motorists. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2008. (Google Maps)
…and further on in “The Talk of the Town,” White shared these observations regarding the popularity of shirts worn by French actor Maurice Chevalier…
THAT’S SHA-VAHL-YEY…Claudette Colbert and Maurice Chevalier in 1930’s The Big Pond. (IMDB)
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Born to Be
The book review featured an autobiography, Born to Be, written by Taylor Gordon (1893-1971), a famed singer of the Harlem Renaissance, that traced his life journey from Montana to New York. The book included 10 full-page illustrations by Mexican artist Miguel Covarrubias, and forwards by Carl Van Vechten and Muriel Draper.
COMBINED TALENTS come together in Taylor Gordon’sBorn to Be: Mexican painter, caricaturist, and illustrator Miguel Covarrubias (left, in a 1920s photo by Nickolas Muray) and Harlem Renaissance singer Gordon (center, in a photo by Carl Van Vechten, who is pictured in a self-portrait at right). (Pinterest/minormoderns.blogspot.com/Wikipedia)
FROM MONTANA TO HARLEM…First edition of Taylor Gordon’sBorn to Be, and illustrations from the book by Miguel Covarrubias (including cover image). The image at bottom left features patron of the Harlem Renaissance Carl Van Vechten, with Gordon. (qbbooks.com/klinebooks.com/Pinterest)
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Little Narcissus
Although today she is known mostly as Errol Flynn’s first wife, the tempestuous French actress Lily Damita (1904-1994) knew how to light up New York and get noticed in Hollywood when she made her American debut in 1929. Henry F. Pringle looked in on Damita’s daily life in the Oct. 26 “Profile.” A brief excerpt:
Lily Damita in a 1931 publicity photo. (Flickr)DEBUT FILM…Lily Damita and Ronald Coleman in 1929’s The Rescue, Damita’s first Hollywood film. (Dr. Macro)
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A Master Achievement
Architecture critic George Chappell gazed upward in admiration for the new Master Building on Riverside Drive. It was one of the city’s first mixed-use structures and the first New York skyscraper to feature corner windows. The apartment building originally housed a museum, a school of the fine and performing arts, and an international art center on its first three floors. The building fell into decline in the late 1960s, but today it thrives as a housing co-operative. The Master was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2016.
…on to our advertisements, we find another art deco landmark, the 1930 Squibb building, designed Ely Jacques Kahn…
The Squibb Building at 745 5th Avenue, circa 1930. (Museum of the City of New York)
…Halloween was just around the corner (yes, I’m running a bit behind!) and although it wasn’t a huge holiday as it is today, its presence still permeated the pages of the New Yorker, including a humorous piece by John O’Hara on the challenges of planning a Halloween party…
From left, excerpt from John O’Hara’s piece; an ad from Doubleday featuring a jack-o-lantern; an ad from Breyer’s ice cream that employed the older spelling of the holiday; at bottom, a filler illustration by Julian De Miskey.
…the makers of Marmon autos offered this lovely autumn scene…
…here is an unusual ad from a milliner named Mercedes who bid adieu to former clients in this hand-written, full-page entry…
…the name Michael Arlen no doubt caught many a reader’s eye in the Oct. 26 issue. The comings-and-goings of this hugely popular author of thrillers such as The Green Hat (1924) provided much-needed fodder for readers of the first issues of the fledging New Yorker. In this ad, Arlen’s wife, the Countess Atalanta Mercati, shills for Cutex nail polish…
The Countess Atalanta Mercati of Greece and author Michael Arlen were married in France in 1928. (Conde Nast/insiderguide.me)
…and we have more of the torch singer Helen Morgan, this time in an ad for Lux Toilet Soap…
…a couple of back page ads…the now ubiquitous metal folding table (and chairs) was something of a novelty in 1929…the ad on the right from Brunswick Records offers up the latest schmaltz from Al Jolson (I know it’s 1929, but come on Al, really?)…
…and since this is the last edition before the big market crash, here’s a collection of images clipped from various ads in the Oct. 26 issue…featuring high-living folks who should appear a bit less smug after they lose their mink coats and boiled shirts to the Depression…
Clockwise, top left, a sampling of illustrations from ads in the Oct. 26 issue: there seemed to be no item too mundane for the posh treatment—an illustration that graced an ad from Frigidaire; superior airs displayed on behalf of the Drake apartments, and below, also on behalf of (sniff) Gotham Gold Stripe stockings; “Arabella” surveys two of her hapless conquests as she descends the stair in an illustration for a Marie Earle salon ad; and an appeal to the city’s rampant Anglophilia from De Pinna of Fifth Avenue.
…on to our comics, Garner Rea demonstrated his mastery of space in this full-page entry…
…Alice Harvey eavesdropped on the chit-chat of some toffs at dinner…
…and Alice Harvey again in this sparer illustration of a spoiler at the opera…
…Peter Arno illustrated unexpected intimacy on a commuter train…
…and from John Reynolds, with a sign of things to come…
MGM piled so many stars and gimmicks into the premiere of The Hollywood Revue of 1929 that even the New Yorker’s jaded film critic John Mosher had to admit he was entertained.
Aug. 24, 1929 cover by Helen Hokinson.
Although today’s audiences would find the film quaint and corny (not to mention its tinny sound and crude editing), it was a big hit in 1929. A plotless revue featuring nearly all of MGM’s stars (Greta Garbo said no — she had a clause in her contract exempting her from such silly things; Lon Chaney, on the other hand, was in failing health), the film followed a variety format similar to such vaudeville productions as the Ziegfeld Follies. The Arthur Freed/Herb Nacio Brown song “Singin’ In the Rain” was introduced in this film, and would inspire the Gene Kelley musical by the same name 23 years later. A rarity for the time, the Hollywood Revue included four skits in an early version of Technicolor, including an all-cast performance of “Singing’ In the Rain.” Mosher observed:
One of the film’s color skits featured John Gilbert and Norma Shearer in a Romeo and Juliet parody filled with Jazz Age slang. It would mark the beginning of the end of Gilbert’s career and, sadly, his life. He was one of the silent era’s most popular leading men, but it was purported that his voice was not suited to the talkies. What really ended Gilbert’s career, however, was studio head Louis B. Mayer, who clashed with the actor both personally and professionally…click any image below to enlarge…
FAREWELL ROMEO…A lobby card promoting The Hollywood Revue of 1929 featured John Gilbert and Norma Shearer in one the film’s color sequences, a parody of Romeo and Juliet filled with Jazz Age slang. At right, a scene from the skit in which the director (played by Lionel Barrymore, far right) tells Shearer and Gilbert to put more pizzazz into the act. (IMDB/YouTube)STAR-STUDDED…Left to right, early silent film comedian Marie Dressler hammed it up in a royal court skit; co-emcee Jack Benny, with his trademark violin, and Cliff “Ukulele Ike” Edwards, and his trademark uke. (vickielester.com/doctormacro.com/thejumpingfrog.com)DANCING IS GOOD FOR YOUR HEALTH…Chorus girl Carla Laemmle in the film’s “Tableau of Jewels,” in which she emerged from a seashell to perform a seductive (and weird) dance number while other showgirls posed on a revolving crown — all set to a tune sung offstage by James Burroughs. The niece of Universal Pictures founder Carl Laemmle, Carla Laemmle was one of the longest surviving actors of the silent era. She died in 2014 at age 104. (songbook1.wordpress.com)GALAXY OF STARS…Clockwise, from top left, lobby card for The Hollywood Revue of 1929; Charles King, Joan Crawford, Conrad Nagel (a co-emcee along with Jack Benny) and Cliff “Ukulele Ike” Edwards show off their dancing skills; lobby card featuring actress Marion Davies; a popular act in vaudeville and on Broadway, the Brox Sisters—Lorayne, Patricia and Bobbe (along with Cliff Edwards) introduced the song “Singin’ in the Rain,” also sung by the entire cast near the finale of the movie. (joancrawfordbest.com/mubi.com)
…MGM deployed a number of stunts to generate publicity at the film’s New York premiere at the Astor Theatre, including a “human billboard” that featured scantily clad chorus girls precariously perched on a huge letters high above the theatre’s entrance. In a rather less dangerous stunt—during the movie’s “Orange Blossom Time” skit—a faint scent of orange blossoms wafted into the theatre. “The Talk of the Town” observed…
WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG?…Showgirls arranged along narrow catwalks atop the glowing HOLLYWOOD REVUE sign would pose for hours above crowds of gawkers; top, an advertisement promoting “The Stunt of the Century”; bottom, chorus girls lined up on somewhat safer ground in a skit from the movie titled “Lon Chaney’s Gonna Get You If You Don’t Watch Out.” Chaney himself was near death and did not appear in the film. (oldphotoarchive.com/anndvorak.com)Another angle shows just how precarious this stunt proved to be for these brave chorus girls, who held their poses for hours on end. (legendaryjoancrawford.com)
…here’s a clip from the film featuring MGM stars “Singin’ in the Rain”…see how many stars you can recognize…
…in the first row the camera pans by George Arthur, Joan Crawford, Marion Davies, Buster Keaton…second row, Bobbe Brox, Cliff Edwards, Patricia Brox, Gus Edwards, Lorayne Brox, Conrad Nagel, Anita Page, Charles King, Marie Dressler…not sure about the last two…
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Technological Adjustments
If you listened to the above clip, then you will understand what James Thurber was getting at when he observed that actors in talking pictures all sound as if they are speaking into cracker boxes. In this hilarious piece (titled “The Roaring Talkies”), he proposed a solution. An excerpt:
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A Happy Diversion
“The Talk of the Town” (via Theodore Pratt) looked in on the hobbyists who raced model boats at Central Park’s Conservatory Lake, a happy tradition that began in the late 19th century and continues to this day:
A DAY AT THE RACES….Model sailboats (left) prepare to face off in 1910 at Conservatory Lake (also called Conservatory Water); at right, model sailors at the same lake around 1920. (Library of Congress)
Pratt also described the old wooden boathouse, which was replaced in 1954 with a somewhat grander structure, Kerbs Boathouse, where model boats are still stored…
STILL SAILING…The copper-roofed Kerbs Boathouse replaced a wooden structure in 1954. Conservatory Lake served as the setting for a model boat race in E.B. White’s Stuart Little. (centralparknyc.org)
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On the Other Hand…
Leaving the cool and quiet of the park brought one quickly back into the dust and clamor of the metropolis. Pratt observed that the summer season lasted two weeks longer in the city than in the country, thanks to the city’s heat island effect— perhaps an unwelcome observation given the usually hot summer of 1929. Not only did the city’s heat extend the season, but it also kept the city enveloped in “an enormous cloud of dust”…
HAZY DAYS OF SUMMER…A dusty haze hangs over Lower Manhattan as the Third Avenue elevated train rumbles by in this circa 1950 photo. (AP)
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Already Feeling Old?
I found this “Talk” item curious for exploring the sentimental attachment some folks had developed for old cars from the 1910s, given those cars were barely 20 years old and cars in general hadn’t been in common use much longer…
…as for another “Talk” item, I doubt modern New Yorker readers would find any humor in this observation:
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On to sillier things, Robert Benchley turned in a casual titled “Boost New York!” Benchley ridiculed a promotional brochure from the New York Merchants Association that touted various statistics in a manner reminiscent of the fictional George Babbitt. Benchley imagined how an Iowa couple might respond to such dazzling numbers:
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A Drinking Life
Occasionally I like to feature infrequent or one-time New Yorker contributors who are nearly lost to history. Frank Ward O’Malley (1875-1932), a reporter for the New York Sun from 1906-19, was known for his humorous stories. In 1928 he published a book titled The Swiss Family O’Malley. In this casual (titled “The Fatty Degeneration of Broadway”) from the Aug. 24 issue, O’Malley described an alcohol intervention of sorts and then his fall off the wagon. Here are the opening and closing paragraphs, along with his photo circa 1910s.
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From Our Advertisers
This week we have an advertisement for the Drake Apartment Hotel, claiming to be the “smartest” in New York. Note how they employed what seems to be the same pointy-nosed, haughty couple that we saw last week (below) who endorsed the Park Lane (I want to believe there is a subtle joke here)…
…just 25 years removed from the Wright Brothers’ flight at Kitty Hawk, advertisers were treating flying as though it were routine…
A better photo of the Ireland Neptune Amphipian (aerofiles.com)
…and this young woman seemed to think flying was nothing more than “playing ring around the rosy with the clouds”…
…I like the reviews included in this bookseller’s ad, especially the first one for the book Ex-Wife by Anonymous (it was written by Ursula Parrott, a writer of romantic fiction)…
…our illustrations include Abe Birnbaum’s contribution to the casuals section (breaking up the copy of one of Josie Turner’s Elsie Dinsmore parodies)…
…Reginald Marsh illustrated the late summer beach scene at Coney Island…
…and for kicks this nice little filler by Constantin Alajalov…
…thanks to the skills of the New Yorker’s first layout artist, Popsy Whitaker, we have this whimsical pairing of Otto Soglow and Dorothy Parker…
…Mary Petty contributed a cartoon that looks contemporary…
…Peter Arno paid a visit to the doctor’s office…
…and commented on his life as a new father…the woman holding the baby was doubtless inspired by his wife, New Yorker columnist Lois Long…
…for reference, Peter Arno and Lois Long are pictured here with baby daughter Patricia Arno in 1928…Lois clearly had a better grasp on the situation than Arno had imagined…
Arno and Long with their baby daughter, Patricia, in 1928. (Vanity Fair)
…Alice Harvey eavesdropped on a conversation between teenagers…
…and like Peter Arno, Leonard Dove had two cartoons in this issue…here an editor finds the former Prohibition enforcer no longer newsworthy…
…and over on the East Side, rumors of gentrification…
In July of 1928, war was officially banned from the earth. Or so it was hoped when the Kellogg–Briand Pact became effective on July 24, 1929.
Aug. 3, 1929 cover by Gardner Rea.
Also known as the “Pact of Paris” and more officially the “General Treaty for Renunciation of War as an Instrument of National Policy,” its authors, United States Secretary of State Frank B. Kellogg and French foreign minister Aristide Briand, gathered world powers in Paris on Aug. 28, 1928 to sign a treaty that denounced the use of war and called for the peaceful settlement of all future disputes. The New Yorker, in the opening “Notes and Comment” section of “The Talk of the Town,” took its usual “What, Me Worry?” approach to world affairs, finding the whole thing unnecessary given that (in its view) Europe was already a peaceful, even benign continent:
GIVE PEACE A CHANCE…French foreign minister Aristide Briand, Myron T. Herrick (U.S. ambassador to France), and U.S. Secretary of State Frank B. Kellogg meet in the French Foreign Office for the signing of the General Treaty for Renunciation of War as an Instrument of National Policy, August 1928; at right, Briand speaking to the assembly. (NYTimes/Wikipedia)
In January 1929 the U.S. Senate officially ratified the Kellogg–Briand Pact with a nearly unanimous vote, 85-1. John James Blaine, senator from Wisconsin, cast the lone dissenting vote (although four years later Blaine would author another piece of legislation that would have a much greater impact, at least at the time: the 21st Amendment, which ended Prohibition).
SURE, WHY NOT?…The U.S. Senate approved the Kellogg–Briand Pact on Jan. 15, 1929. The treaty went into effect later that year on July 24. (NYTimes)
Another item in “The Talk of the Town” made further reference to the pact…
…and Howard Brubaker, in his column “Of All Things,” made special mention of the Sino-Soviet border conflict in referencing the pact:
Brubaker mockingly suggested that the pact marked the beginning of a thousand years of peace, an inadvertently prescient remark considering that in less than four years Hitler would seize power in Germany and announce the beginning of his “Thousand Year Reich” — which we know was quite the opposite of peace. Brubaker was also off the mark with this crude observation:
Just two years after Brubaker wrote those words, Japan would invade Manchuria. And only a decade would pass before Germany and Russia would invade Poland and ignite the biggest war of all time.
PARTY POOPERS…The New Yorker wasn’t alone in poking fun at the Kellogg–Briand Pact. At left, the pact is mocked during the Paris Carnaval in 1929; at right, British cartoonist Sidney Conrad Strube reminded readers of the outcome of America’s earlier efforts at world peace. (Wikipedia/Pinterest) click to enlarge.WE JUST CAME TO SAY HELLO…Germany, the first signatory to the Kellogg-Briand Pact banning all war, invaded Poland just 10 years after that treaty went into effect. Above, German troops parade through Warsaw after the invasion, September 28-30, 1939. (National Archives and Records Administration)
Although the pact was ridiculed for its perceived naïveté, and for the fact that it did not prevent the largest war in human history, some modern scholars see otherwise. Political scientists Oona A. Hathaway and Scott J. Shapiro observed (in 2017) that the pact “catalyzed the human rights revolution, enabled the use of economic sanctions as a tool of law enforcement, and ignited the explosion in the number of international organizations that regulate so many aspects of our daily lives.” In his recent book Enlightenment Now,Steven Pinker notes “virtually every acre of land that was conquered after 1928 has been returned to the state that lost it. Frank Kellogg and Aristide Briand may deserve the last laugh.”
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Gallows Humor
Other items in “The Talk of Town” included this brief anecdote, which I doubt many would find humorous today:
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On The Bowery
In the “Reporter at Large” column, Niven Busch Jr. paid a visit to “The Yellow Bowery,” as the piece was titled. Notable in this article (and in Brubaker’s quip above) is the use of term “Chinaman,” a term considered offensive today but in the 1920s was used indiscriminately for East Asians. In the following excerpts, the term seems pejorative:
THE BLOODY ANGLE…Clockwise, from top, this bend in Chinatown’s Doyer Street was known as “The Bloody Angle” due to the numerous killings among the Tong gangs that lasted into the 1930s. Hatchets were a popular weapon of choice, leading to the creation of the expression, “hatchet man”; another perspective of Doyer Street from 1932; the street was also the site of the first Chinese language theater in New York City. (boweryboyshistory.com/Museum of the City of New York/Wikipedia)
Busch’s piece was rife with stereotypes…
…and referenced the unsolved Bowery murder of 19-year-old Elsie Sigel, a missionary in Chinatown who was found strangled inside a trunk in 1909…
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE TRACKS…2 Doyer Street was the address of the Chinese Tuxedo Restaurant. It attracted non-Chinese patrons, particularly those who considered themselves ‘Bohemians’ as well as businessmen looking for an ‘exotic’ night on the town. And it helped that the Tuxedo was near the elevated train. (Courtesy Flickr/straatis/thelodownny.com)
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It Grows on You
The rapid demolition of old New York was a recurring theme in the New Yorker of the 1920s, the magazine often wavering between nostalgia and the thrill of the new. No place was perhaps more sacred than the stately row houses of Washington Square. When news circulated that a section consisting of the old Rhinelander mansion would soon fall (for the sake of a new apartment building), “Talk” tried its best to process the change:
IT LOOMS, BUT WE GOT USED TO IT…The New Yorker once resented the intrusion of the One Fifth Avenue building (built in 1927), looming above the cobbles of the early 19th century Washington Mews. (newyorkitecture.com/Viola Mai, Washington Square News)MIND THE GAP…Clockwise, from top, just east of this row of houses stood the mansion of William Rhinelander; although the New Yorker noted that its demolition was imminent in 1929, the mansion stood until 1951, when it was demolished and replaced by the 20-story 2 Fifth Avenue; next to the gap between the old row houses and the apartment stands the Roger Shattuck House, No. 19 Washington Square North. The Shattuck House was the scene of one of most sensational robberies in the city’s history—in 1922. (nyc-architecture.com/Google Maps)
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Old Boy
In one of my recent posts (Not Your Grandpa’s Tammany Hall) I noted a “Talk” item that described the new Tammany headquarters. In the August 3 issue the magazine introduced the patriotic society’s new leader, John Francis Curry, in a profile written by Henry F. Pringle. In the piece, titled “Local Boy Makes Good,” Pringle suggested that Curry’s old-fashioned approach to politics stood in contrast to the new image Tammany Hall was attempting to project:
Curry’s tenure would end abruptly in 1934 — the first Tammany boss to be booted out by his own followers. Curry made some bad decisions during a time when the political winds were shifting away from machine politics. It was under his leadership that Tammany backed Al Smith over the reform-minded Franklin Roosevelt for the 1932 Democratic presidential nomination. That same year, Tammany-backed New York Mayor Jimmy Walker would be forced from office amid scandal.
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Well, She Didn’t Write the Script
We all know Greta Garbo as one of the greatest film stars of classic Hollywood. Her mysterious aura and subtlety of expression are still lauded by film critics today. The New Yorker, however, never seemed particularly enamored of the star’s performances. Here is a review of her 1929 silent film, The Single Standard:
THE KID STAYS IN THE PICTURE…Little Wally Albright played Greta Garbo’s son in The Single Standard. We just saw four-year-old Wally in my last post, in which he also appeared as Peggy Wood’s son in Wonder of Women. Apparently when a director needed a cute, curly head kid, they went for Wally—he appeared in seven films in 1929 alone. (Rotten Tomatoes)
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From Our Advertisers
Our first advertisement (image at right) is from the back pages of the Aug. 3 issue. It announced the opening of Long Island’s Atlantic Beach Club, which featured the entertainment of Rudy Vallée and his orchestra…
CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW? Images, top to bottom, aerial view of The Atlantic Beach Club; Rudy Vallée performing with emblematic megaphone, 1929; postcard image of the Nautilus Hotel on the Boardwalk of Atlantic Beach, Long Island. (longbeachlibrary.org/YouTube)
…a brand-new car—The Ruxton— was introduced to New Yorker readers in this color advertisement that spanned four pages (click image to enlarge)…
…produced in 1929-30 by the New Era Motors company of New York, the car was marketed for its innovative front-wheel drive and its distinctive low profile (a feat accomplished by eliminating the drive shaft to the rear wheels). While most cars in the late 1920s had an average height of 6 feet (1.8 meters); the Ruxton was less than 4 and half feet (1.3 meters) high. Producers of the car hoped to sell the rights of the Ruxton to an established car manufacturer. Moon Motors of St. Louis built just 96 of the cars during regular production (from June to October, 1930) before the whole deal fell apart…
SHORT RUN…Clockwise, from top left, Ruxton logo affixed to grille; dancer Rita La Roy poses with her Ruxton, 1930; some models sported Joseph Urban color schemes designed to lengthen the appearance of the car. (allcarcentral.com/Pinterest/hemmings.com)
…if you were one of the fortunate few to own a Ruxton, you might take it for a spin on the Lincoln Highway…or maybe not. Despite the appearance of this ad, a fully paved, transcontinental highway was still an incomplete dream in 1929. Although sections of the road were quite smooth from New York to Omaha, further west things could get a bit bumpy, especially on the unpaved stretches. However, as the ad claims, what really made the road viable was the availability of regularly spaced gas stations along the way…
…I liked this ad just for its sheer complexity…
…and then we have this ad from Saks, which somehow conflated new shoes and an intimate encounter with Aphrodite.,,
…on to our cartoonists, we have Helen Hokinson’s observations at “Old Narragansett…
…while out to sea, Alan Dunn found humor in a sensitive swabbie…
…Alice Harvey observed those still skeptical of human flight…
As I noted in my previous post, Prohibition never really caught on in New York City, and instead the law gave rise to thousands of the famed (or to some, infamous) speakeasies tucked away in the nooks and crannies of Jazz Age Manhattan.
Jan. 19, 1929 cover by Constantin Alajalov.
However, there were periodic attempts to reign in the city’s lawbreaking drinkers, including U.S. attorney Emory Buckner’s padlocking of speakeasies in the mid-1920s and New York Police Commissioner Grover Whalen’s strong-arm tactics in early 1929.
BOTTOMS UP!…New York speakeasy patrons in the 1920s. New York Police Commissioner Grover Whalen estimated there were 32,000 illegal speakeasies operating in the city in 1929. (boweryboyshistory.com)
The New Yorker took issue with Whalen’s attempt to enforce Prohibition at the end of a billy club (ironically, Whalen was appointed to the post by Mayor Jimmy Walker, who openly flaunted Prohibition). The magazine also attacked the New York Telegram for conspiring with Whalen to spread rumors among the public about poison alcohol being served in the city’s speakeasies. Research chemist Beverly L. Clarke took the Telegram to task in the New Yorker’s “A Reporter at Large” column:
IN YOUR CASE, I’LL MAKE AN EXCEPTION…New York Mayor Jimmy Walker swears in Grover Whalen as New York Police Commissioner in the fall of 1928. Whalen, a product of Tammany Hall, no doubt looked the other way when the mayor, another Tammany alum, openly violated Prohibition laws. (Getty)
There is also the oft-told account of the U.S. government adding poison to alcohol to discourage illegal consumption, but in truth the government never set out to poison anyone. Rather, it was continuing a practice used long before Prohibition to “denature” alcohol, usually by adding methyl alcohol (commonly referred to as “wood alcohol”) to grain alcohol to make it unfit for human consumption. According to Snopes, adding poison to alcohol was a way to exempt producers of alcohol used in paints and solvents from having to pay the taxes levied on potable spirits. Other denaturing agents were added to grain alcohol by mid-1927, including these listed in Clarke’s article:
ACETONE, WITH A MERCURY TWIST…An assortment of confiscated, adulterated spirits from the Prohibition era. (prohibition.themobmuseum.org)
Clarke not only accused the Telegram of spreading misinformation, but also of encouraging Whalen’s ruthless enforcement of Prohibition. Whalen was famously quoted as saying, “There is plenty of law at the end of a nightstick.” Clarke continued:
Clarke concluded that it was “patently unfair to discriminate” against the city’s speakeasies on the basis of “pseudo-scientific” evidence:
Illustration by Constantin Alajalov that accompanied Clarke’s article.
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He Was No Coward
The Jan. 19 issue also featured a lengthy profile of Noël Coward, written by his longtime friend Alexander Woollcott, a critic and commentator for the New Yorker and a founding member of the Algonquin Round Table.
American illustrator and portrait painter Neysa McMein with friends Noël Coward (center) and Alexander Woollcott (right).(spartacus-educational.com)
Woollcott wrote of his friend’s work ethic while taking a wry shot at the New Yorker magazine’s early days:
Abe Birnbaum provided this sketch of Coward for the profile:
By 1929 Coward was one of the world’s highest-paid writers, but he did have his setbacks, as Woollcott noted:
Woollcott was referring to Coward’s 1927 play Sirocco, which depicted free love among the posh set and was greeted with loud disapproval in London. According to Dick Richards in his 1970 book, The Wit of Noël Coward, Coward later remarked that his “first instinct was to leave England immediately, but this seemed too craven a move, and also too gratifying to my enemies, whose numbers had by then swollen in our minds to practically the entire population of the British Isles.”
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Par Avion
The New Yorker’s Paris correspondent, Janet Flanner, noted that 1929 would usher in a new era in French passenger air service:
Advances in aviation in 1929 were remarkable considering the Wright Brothers first flight occurred just a little more than 25 years earlier (for those of us in 2018 who can recall 1993, that isn’t a lot of time).
And although only the wealthy could afford to fly back then, it was definitely not for the faint of heart. According to an article by Georgia Diebelius for the Daily Mail, the engine noise could be deafening in the thinly-walled cabins (sometimes little more than painted canvas). The engines of a Ford Tri-Motor, for example, reached 120 decibels on take-off, just 40 decibels below the level that would result in permanent hearing loss. Diebelius writes that because of the noise level, flight attendants had to speak to their passengers through megaphones. As for the flight itself, planes would suddenly drop hundreds of feet at a time, causing passengers to make good use of air sickness bowls placed beneath their seats. Nevertheless, passenger travel increased from just 6,000 annually in 1930 to 1.2 million by 1938.
AND WE THINK WE HAVE IT ROUGH…London chorus girls help bring a French Air Union and Golden Ray (Rayon d’Or) passenger plane onto the tarmac at Croydon, England, in 1932, inaugurating the new summer service from London to Le Touquet. (Getty)ODD DUCK…This strange-looking Dyle et Bacalan DB 70 was also designed for French passenger service in 1929, but only one was built. The design was later adapted in the 1930s as a bomber. (Collection Hugues de Suremain)
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Skin As Soft As An Armadillo’s
Sampling the advertisements from Jan. 19 we have this message from Amor Skin announcing a youth treatment utilizing something called dasypodine hormones. The term “dasypodine” refers to critters related to the armadillo, so one wonders what they putting on their faces. The armadillo is known carrier of leprosy, so I don’t think I’d be using this stuff, thank you very much…
…and I include this ad for Murad cigarettes because it features artwork by A. H. Fish, renowned for depictions of members of high society. She illustrated dozens of magazine covers for The Tatler and Vanity Fair as well as hundreds of inside and spot illustrations for Condé Nast…
…another cigarette brand, Lucky Strike, convinced American silent movie star Constance Talmadge to endorse their “toasted” smoke…
…and our final advertisement, from Pan American Airliners. Could you imagine an ad for an airline today depicting a man firing a rifle at one of their airplanes?
I include this comic by Alice Harvey for its reference to the song, “I Can’t Give You Anything but Love, Baby,” made popular by Broadway’s hit musical revue Blackbirds of 1928. The song continues to be recorded to this day, and was even included on a 2014 collaborative album, Cheek to Cheek, by Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga.
And finally, a different perspective on Manhattan’s changing skyline, courtesy of Reginald Marsh:
A New Yorker State of Mind 