Daniel ‘Alain’ Brustlein – Page 5 – A New Yorker State of Mind

America’s Sweetheart

Above: A scene from Mary Pickford’s 1922 film Tess of the Storm Country. (Library of Congress)

In today’s celebrity-saturated culture it is difficult to find a parallel to silent film star Mary Pickford, who was dubbed Queen of the Movies more than a century ago. Indeed, during the 1910s and 1920s Pickford was regarded as the most famous woman in the world.

Pickford was also known as “America’s Sweet” for her portrayal of gutsy but tenderhearted heroines. In real life she was also a gutsy and shrewd businesswoman who co-founded United Artists in 1919 with Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, and director D. W. Griffith. Commanding a salary only rivaled by Chaplin, her stardom only grew when she married Fairbanks in 1920, forming the first celebrity supercouple; together they ruled Hollywood from their Beverly Hills mansion, Pickfair (apparently staging dull affairs, per the “Profile” excerpt below).

The end of the silent era also put an end to Pickford’s stardom, as well as to her fairytale marriage to Fairbanks. Margaret Case Harriman’s profile of Pickford, simply titled “Sweetheart,” gave readers a glimpse into the decline of a silent superstar. Excerpts:

SINGULAR STAR…Clockwise, from top left, **Mary Pickford** in a publicity photo, circa 1910; Pickford visits close friend and screenwriter **Frances Marion** during filming of *Straight is the Way* (1921); **Douglas Fairbanks** and Pickford in the early 1920s; Pickford with a movie camera in 1916—in addition to being a shrewd businesswoman, she was also skilled behind the camera. (thehollywoodtimes.today/Time/Library of Congress)

Harriman concluded her profile with some thoughts on Pickford’s future:

THE SOUND BARRIER…With the advent of sound movies **Mary Pickford** turned to writing books and serving various charities. From left, sharing ice cream with rising star **Bing Crosby** in 1934; center, **Al Frueh’s** caricature of Pickford for the profile; Pickford in a 1934 promotional picture supporting The Salvation Army. (Pinterest/Library of Congress)

A note on the profile’s writer, Margaret Case Harriman (1904-1966), who doubtless sharpened her people-watching skills at the Hotel Algonquin (famed birthing ground of the New Yorker), which was owned by her father, Frank Case. Douglas Fairbanks was one of Case’s best friends, and Harriman knew both Fairbanks and Pickford well, since they often stayed at the hotel.

HOME SWEET HOME…**Margaret Case Harriman**, photographed May 31, 1937 by Carl Van Vechten. Harriman was born in 1904 in room 1206 of the Hotel Algonquin, which was owned by her father, **Frank Case.** (Philadelphia Museum of Art)

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Master of Masters

The founder of perhaps the world’s most prestigious golf tournament was an amateur and a working lawyer by profession. When Bobby Jones (1902–1971) co-founded the Masters Tournament in 1934 with investment dealer Clifford Robert, it was called the Augusta National Invitation Tournament (it was Robert’s idea to call it The Masters, a name Jones thought immodest). Jones dominated top-level amateur competition from the early 1920s through 1930—the year he achieved a Grand Slam by winning golf ’s four major tournaments in the same year. However, by the 1934 Jones’s skills began to wane. The New Yorker had little to say about the first Masters (it wasn’t a big deal yet), other than Howard Brubaker making this observation in “Of All Things”…

A SWING INTO HISTORY…**Bobby Jones** (center) drives during the first-ever Masters Tournament in Augusta, Georgia on March 22, 1934. (augusta.com)

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From Our Advertisers

Wanna get away? This colorful advertisement beckoned New Yorker readers to take the next boat to sunny Bermuda…

…while the Grace Line offered a southern cruise through the Panama Canal…

…but who needed to travel when you could enjoy a beer that was beloved the world over?…

…Mrs. Potter d’Orsay Palmer nee Maria Eugenia Martinez de Hoz was content to stay home in Chicago and smoke a few Camels, apparently…

…we’ve encountered her before—she appeared in a Ponds ad (below) in the Aug. 8, 1931 issue of the New Yorker, where we learned she was wife No. 2 of Potter d’Orsay Palmer, son of the wealthy family of Chicago Palmer House fame…they would divorce in 1937, and the playboy Potter would marry two more times before dying of a cerebral hemorrhage in May 1939—following a drunken brawl in Sarasota, Florida with a meat cutter called Kenneth Nosworthy. Maria Eugenia would remarry and return to her homeland of Argentina to raise a family…

…this ad from Nash looks like a scene from Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, if she had a car to match, that is…

…the Cadillac V-16 was a truly massive automobile, but in contrast to the Nash ad, you can barely see the car as it approaches from the vanishing distance…

…E. Simms Campbell got in on the advertising game with this spot that features contrasting images of storm and calm…

…James Thurber offered this cartoon on behalf of Heinz soups…

…and Thurber again, as we kick off the cartoons with the ongoing battle…

…Adolph Schus made a rare appearance in the New Yorker…according to Ink Spill, he also contributed a cartoon on March 19, 1938, and was editor of Pageant Magazine in 1945…

…Gluyas Williams looked in on the sorrows of moneyed classes…

…Helen Hokinson’s “girls” were in search of lunch, and propriety…

…and Leonard Dove gave us a renter surprised by something not included in his lease…

…on to April 14, 1934…

April 14, 1934 cover by **Harry Brown.**

…and book reviewer Clifton Fadiman, who found F. Scott Fitzgerald’s literary gifts “bewilderingly varied”…

A NOT-SO-TENDER RECEPTION…**F. Scott Fitzgerald’s** status as a symbol of Jazz Age excess hurt his career during the Depression years. *Tender Is the Night* received mixed reviews, which didn’t help his alcoholism and deteriorating health. When **Carl Van Vechten** took this photo of Fitzgerald in June 1937, the author had a little over three years to live. (Wikipedia)

…speaking of F. Scott Fitzgerald, fellow author Ernest Hemingway defended Fitzgerald’s writing, arguing that criticism of his Jazz Age settings stemmed from superficial readings. One then wonders what Hemingway thought of E.B. White’s poetic “tribute” to his big game hunting excursions…

I ONLY SHOOT STRANGERS…Author Ernest Hemingway poses with a lion shot during a safari in Africa in 1934. (MPR News)

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From History’s Ash Heap

Various reference sources cite “freak shows” as a normal part of American culture in the late 19th to the early 20th centuries, but I have to admit I saw exhibits at state fairs of half-ton humans and conjoined twins when I was a kid in the 1970s (not to mention things in jars at a carnival in St. Louis that should have been given a decent burial).

When Alva Johnston penned the first installment of a three-part profile series titled “Sideshow People,” such attractions could be found across the U.S. and Europe—Coney Island featured “Zip the Pinhead,” who was actually William Henry Johnson (1842–1926), one of six children born to former slaves living in New Jersey. His desperately poor parents agreed to allow P.T. Barnum to display him at a museum and at circus performances billed as a missing link, a “What-Is-It” supposedly caught in Africa.

FOR THE SUCKERS…**P.T. Barnum** exhibited **William Henry Johnson** as a “wild man”, a “What-Is-It” that subsisted on raw meat, nuts, and fruit, but was learning to eat more civilized fare such as bread and cake. Note the difference between the poster depiction at left and the actual man. Civil War-era photo at right by **Mathew Brady’s** photography studio in New York City. (National Portrait Gallery)

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Floating and Sinking

As much as New Yorker cartoonists (and E.B. White) liked to take pokes at Chrysler’s futuristic Airflow, there was much to be admired by the innovations the car represented. Unfortunately, the car’s design was too advanced for the buying public, and despite a big manufacturing and sales push by Chrysler the car was shelved by late 1936.

Writing for Time, Dan Neil noted the Airflow’s spectacularly bad timing. “Twenty years later, the car’s many design and engineering innovations — the aerodynamic singlet-style fuselage, steel-spaceframe construction, near 50-50 front-rear weight distribution and light weight—would have been celebrated. As it was, in 1934, the car’s dramatic streamliner styling antagonized Americans on some deep level, almost as if it were designed by Bolsheviks.”

SEEMED LIKE A GOOD IDEA. A restored 1934 Airflow. (Hagerty Media)

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More From Our Advertisers

Maybe the buying public wasn’t ready for a car with a sloping hood and embedded headlights, but the folks at Cadillac were eager to unveil concepts for the new streamlined La Salle, which retained the familiar bullet headlights so as not to alarm consumers too much…

…and here’s a lovely image from Goodyear…I assume this woman is merely resting in a rumble seat, since this pose would not be possible above 25 mph…

…full-bleed color ads were coming into their own, as demonstrated by this stylish entry from the purveyors of silk garments…

…on the other hand, our well-heeled friends at Ponds stuck with the tried and true copy-heavy approach…here they offer the flawless features of Anne Gould (1913–1962), granddaughter of Gilded Age robber baron Jay Gould…

…R.J. Reynolds continued their campaign to convince us that Camels bring success to the average Joe and the champion athlete…

…the makers of Old Gold opted for the super creepy approach, asking entertainer Jimmy Durante to shove a pack of smokes into the face of what appears to be a teenager…

…here’s another ad from World Peaceways, reminding us of the futility of war…

…speaking of futility, you could visit the USSR, which doubtless took great pains to steer tourists away from mass starvation in Ukraine and mass executions of Stalin’s many “enemies”…

…while folks in the USSR were worshiping Lenin and Stalin, Americans were rightly transfixed by the miracle of Kellogg’s Corn Flakes…a producer of industrial and advertising films, Castle Films would become a subsidiary of Universal and would go on to make a line of science-fiction and horror films including The Wolf Man, The Mummy, and Creature from the Black Lagoon.

…on to our cartoons, Alain took on the recent MoMA exhibition of “Machine Art”…

…and speaking of machine art, George Price was to latest cartoonist to take a crack at the Airflow…

…James Thurber offered this bit of spot art for the opening pages…

…and returned to a somber scene on the battlefield of the sexes…

Next Time: Model Citizens…

Art of the Machine

Above, at left, self-aligning ball bearing from SKF Industries, featured in MoMA's 1934 Exhibition of Machine Art; at right, judges for the exhibit were aviator Amelia Earhart and professors John Dewey and Charles R. Richards, holding first, second and third prizes, respectively. (MoMA)

The notion that machine-made objects have aesthetic value has been with us for some time, dating back to avant-garde movements of the early 20th century such as Futurism, which influenced other schools, including the Bauhaus and De Stijl. However, the idea that a museum would display a propeller or a vacuum cleaner as a work of art was startling to many in 1934.

It had been a little over twenty years since New York art patrons experienced their first shock of the new at the 1913 Armory Show. By 1929 the city had established the Museum of Modern Art, which opened the exhibition Machine Art on March 5, 1934, at MoMA’s second location—the old Barbour mansion at 11 West 53rd Street (razed in the late 1930s and replaced by today’s museum).

Novelist and art critic Robert M. Coates (1897–1973) paid a visit to the Machine Art exhibition and wrote of the experience in “The Talk of the Town.” Coates was no stranger to the avant garde, having himself embraced literary innovation and experimentation as a novelist. James Thurber is credited with bringing Coates to The New Yorker in 1927—the two became close friends—and Coates would stay forty years with the magazine. Excerpts:

EXTRAORDINARY ORDINARY…Clockwise, from top left: According to MoMA director **Alfred H. Barr,** Jr, the 1934 *Machine Art* exhibition celebrated the machine’s abstract and geometric beauty; MoMA found its second home—the Barbour mansion at 11 West 53rd Street—in 1932; sign on West 53rd advertising the exhibition; outboard propeller by Aluminum Company of America (Alcoa); collection of scientific beakers and flasks from Corning Glass Works. (MoMA)

KA-CHING!…*Machine Art* featured Model 1934 from National Cash Register; at right, Electrochef range, model B-2, designed by **Emil Piron** for Electromaster Inc. Objects featured in the exhibition were selected by noted architect **Phillip Johnson**, who was the founding chairman (1932-34) of the museum’s Department of Architecture. (MoMA)

IN A NEW LIGHT…Springs and wires took on new perspectives at the *Machine Art* exhibition. From left, the apparent first-prize winner (based on the photo of Earhart at the top of this entry)—a section of a large spring; cross-section of wire rope; and typewriter carriage and motor springs, all produced by American Steel & Wire Company, a subsidiary of US Steel. (MoMA)

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Salad Days

Swiss-American restaurateur Oscar Tschirky (1866-1943), who was known throughout the world as Oscar of the Waldorf, worked as maître d’hôtel of the Waldorf Astoria in New York City from 1893 to 1943. He is credited with having created the Waldorf salad, along with any number of cocktail recipes. “The Talk of the Town” noted his latest concoction:

WINNING OSCAR…From 1893 to 1943 **Oscar Tschirky** was the Waldorf-Astoria’s public face and a gracious host who made both the great and the not-so-great feel welcome. At left, in 1923; at right, Tschirky samples the first shipment of beer to arrive at the Waldorf-Astoria when the brew became legal again in April 1933. (Library of Congress/Karl Schriftgiesser)

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Unburdened

In the March 17 issue, writer and poet Langston Hughes (1901–1967) published the first of three fiction pieces that would appear in The New Yorker (one posthumously in 2016). In the short story “Why, You Reckon,” Hughes tells the tale of two hungry Black men who rob a rich white man by pushing him into a basement coal bin—one of the Black men takes the white man’s money, jewelry, shoes and overcoat, then rushes off, leaving his companion without any of the loot. To the companion’s surprise and befuddlement, the white man is left excited by the incident, because it is the first real thing that has happened to him. Here are the final lines of the story:

HARLEM RENAISSANCE LEADER **Langston Hughes** in a 1936 photo by **Carl Van Vechten.** A prolific writer and poet, Hughes published three short stories and three poems in *The New Yorker.* (Wikipedia)

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From Our Advertisers

New Yorker ad sales were booming, and blooming with color…we kick it off with this ad from Coty touting “3 New Boxes for Face Powder!”…so why are there four boxes in the ad?…

…the obvious answer to the question posed below would be “wealth and privilege…and youth”…the “Eleanor Roosevelt” featured in this Pond’s ad is obviously not the wife of FDR, but rather Eleanor Katherine Roosevelt, the teenaged daughter of Assistant Secretary of the Navy Henry Latrobe Roosevelt…

…speaking of the high seas, I have to admit I sigh a little when I see ads like this, obviously staged, but suggest a style of travel that is as extinct as the T. Rex…

…perhaps those folks on the boat were enjoying a splash of Perrier in their evening cocktails…

…or maybe the domestic White Rock was on ice…why is the rich old coot so much shorter than his wife?…I guess it emphasizes her relative youthfulness and her maternal obligations to a child-like older man…

…their proportions are similar to Jiggs and Maggie, but that’s another story…

…R.J. Reynolds was back with their “jangled nerves” theme on behalf of Camel cigarettes…

…maybe your tires will hold, but have you checked your brakes lately?…

…in the 1930s the anti-war organization World Peaceways ran a series of provoking ads on the artificial glories of war…some magazines, including The New Yorker, ran these ads free of charge or at reduced rates…

…a closer view of the explanatory copy at the bottom of the ad…

…speaking of war, James Thurber opens our cartoons on a Connecticut battlefield…

…Al Frueh contributed this illustration for a two-part profile of entertainer and theatrical producer George M. Cohan…

…Alain (Daniel Brustlein) offered this spot art for the opening calendar section…

…Peter Arno gave us two fellows on thin ice…

…cartoonist Gregory d’Alessio made his first appearance in The New Yorker…

…Barbara Shermund was back with some tax advice…

…which this gentleman (by Alain) might have found useful…

…and we close with Mary Petty, and a little brown-noser with a taste for greens…

Next Time: Through the Looking Glass…

The Power Broker

Above: Robert Moses in 1939 with a model of his proposed Battery Bridge Park Reconstruction; at right, 1934 Bryant Park renovation, view to the south on 6th Avenue from 42nd Street. (Wikipedia/NYC Parks Department)

The title for this entry comes from Robert Caro’s landmark 1974 biography of Robert Moses, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York, which questioned the benefit of Moses’s monumental projects.

Like him or not, few unelected officials have wielded more power than Moses, who through various appointed positions, including New York City Parks Commissioner, he was able to impose his will on mayors, legislators, congressmen, wealthy burghers, and even, on occasion, The White House. In turn he imposed his will on the city itself, clearing whole neighborhoods to lay down new roads that extended from Manhattan to the tip of Long Island, where neither farmer nor landed gentry could stand in his way. A profile written by Milton MacKaye examined what made Moses tick. An excerpt:

DON’T YOU DARE PUT ME ON HOLD…Relentless doesn’t begin to describe **Robert Moses’s** pursuit of power. Clockwise, from top left, Moses circa 1930; one of the swimming pools at the west bathhouse at Long Island’s Jones Beach, a project that helped launch Moses’s road to power; Long Island Expressway, which transformed Long Island from farm country (and a retreat for the rich) into a land of bedroom communities and public parks; the east parking field at Jones Beach. (Britannica/Library of Congress/U.S. National Archives)

In another excerpt, MacKaye noted that Moses had been named a member of the Triborough Bridge Authority; Moses would ultimately become chairman, and through this position would possess enormous, unchecked power and influence. Moses was skilled at creating legal structures that would favor his ambitions, burying language into legislative bills and other documents that would make him impervious to influence from mayors, legislators, governors and other elected officials.

A DIFFERENT KIND OF PLAYGROUND…Moses intensely disliked former New York Mayor Jimmy Walker, who used the Central Park Casino (top left) as his personal playground. Moses exacted his vengeance by having the historic casino razed in 1935 and replaced with the Rumsey Playground; at right, the 1936 Triborough Bridge (**Berenice Abbot** photo), a cluster of three separate spans connecting the Bronx, Manhattan, and Queens. It was developed through Moses’s Triborough Bridge Authority, which was impervious to influence from mayors, legislators and governors. While the city and state were strapped for funds, Moses reaped millions from tolls, which financed his other ambitions; bottom left, Moses in 1938. (Wikipedia/transalt.org/Library of Congress)

Final note, I highly recommend Caro’s The Power Broker—it’s a doorstop of a book, but also one of the best biographies of the 20th century and a must-read for anyone who wishes to understand how present-day New York came to be, and how it really works.

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Let’s Talk About the Weather

Robert Benchley, writing under the pseudonym Guy Fawkes, took a turn at “The Wayward Press” column, commenting on the sensationalistic coverage of the weather by the local press. In all fairness to the press, New York City had endured a blizzard as well as the coldest temperature ever recorded for the city: 15 below zero (Fahrenheit) on Feb. 9, 1934. (According to newspaper accounts, it was 14.3 below).

Benchley also commented on journalist Ernest Gruening (1887–1974), who was the editor of the New York Post for only four months in 1934, but during those four months he really shook things up.

EASY BOSS…**Ernest Gruening** was editor of the *New York Post* for only four months in 1934, but during that time he made life better for his newsroom employees by implementing an unheard of 40-hour work week. Gruening went on to serve as the governor of the Alaska Territory from 1939 until 1953, and as a U.S. Senator from Alaska from 1959 until 1969. (Photo from 1935 via Wikipedia)

Robert Benchley thought the press made too much of the city’s snowy weather, but these newsreels tell a different story:

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Punch Drunk

Critic John Mosher found slim pickings at the local movie houses, opting for Jimmy Durante’s Palooka as the best of crop:

RIBALDRY AT RINGSIDE…Clockwise from top left, Knobby Walsh (**Jimmy Durante**) tries to press his advantage during the weigh-in of boxer Al McSwatt (portrayed by **William Cagney,** the look-alike younger brother of **James Cagney**) in 1934’s Palooka; Durante thinks he’s found a winning fighter in Joe Palooka (**Stuart Erwin**); Joe’s father, Pete Palooka (**Robert Armstrong**) demonstrates why he’s nicknamed “Goodtime” with the help of Trixie (**Thelma Todd**); Durante with **Lupe Vélez**, who portrayed glamorous cabaret singer and fortune hunter Nina Madero. (IMDB)

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From Our Advertisers

We start with a couple ads from the back pages…the promoters of Chicago’s famed Stevens Hotel offered a unique perspective as they appealed to New Yorkers to come check out the “Century of Progress” World’s Fair, which proved so popular that it planned to reopen in May for a second year…at right, The Gotham catered to the ladies with a special cocktail bar that only allowed men in the company of a woman…

NICE DIGS…At left, The Stevens Hotel (now Hilton Chicago) and, at right, The Gotham (now The Peninsula) are happily still with us today. (Wikipedia)

…cigarette manufacturers continued to work on their biggest growth market with ads like this one from the Lorillard Tobacco Company…here a perceptive woman chooses to ignore the “brazen claims” of other tobacco companies and makes an informed decision to inhale an Old Gold…

…Liggett & Myers, on the other hand, stuck with this subservient pose, suggesting both are happy with their cigarette, and their station in life…

…another colorful ad from the makers of Schlitz beer…following the end of Prohibition Schlitz quickly became the world’s top-selling brewery, a position it would hold into the 1960s until it switched to cheaper brewing methods…

…the makers of Fisher car bodies (owned by General Motors) continued their lavish two-page spreads touting the homey comforts of their interiors…

…and no more staid ads from luxury carmaker Packard, who ran this full-color, full-bleed spot…

…it’s almost springtime for Hitler, and Germany welcomed American tourists with promises of “Dreaming Villages” (whatever those are), charming health spas and places of romance and beauty…hmmm, no mention of swastika flags hanging from every building, or parades of goose-stepping thugs…

…this public service ad promoted the effectiveness of the National Recovery Act, offering the uptick in underwear sales as a sure sign of economic growth…

…on to our cartoonists, we begin with Helen Hokinson experiencing the results of the recent blizzard…

…as did Henry Anton, with a befuddled meteorologist…

…Alain (Daniel Brustlein) gave us this wordless gem…

…while Garrett Price presented a sculptor’s greatest challenge…

…Alan Dunn gave us two women who expected more pizzazz from a recent funeral…

…Peter Arno contended with some Peeping Toms…

…and James Thurber looked in on recent maneuvers in his war between the sexes…

Next Time: Art of the Machine…

A Joycean Odyssey

Above, James Joyce and his longtime partner Nora Barnacle, in Zurich, 1930. They would marry the following year when Joyce established residency in the UK. (SUNY Buffalo)

It began 103 years ago when the American literary magazine The Little Review published its latest installment of James Joyce’s landmark novel Ulysses—a chapter that featured an account of a wanker on a beach.

Jan. 20, 1934 cover by **Adolph K. Kronengold.**

More specifically, the passage described the novel’s main character, Leopold Bloom, pleasuring himself while gazing at a teenage girl. It didn’t take long for the pearl-clutchers at the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice to go after the editors of The Little Review, who were ultimately fined for obscenity and banned from publishing the remainder of the novel, which, by the way, Joyce had structured along the lines of Homer’s epic poem, the Odyssey.

Scenes in the novel that frankly described sexual acts and mocked rituals of the Catholic Church kept the book off American shelves until 1934, when District Judge John M. Woolsey ruled that the book was neither pornographic nor obscene. One wonders if Judge Woolsey took a cue from the end of Prohibition.

Lovers of literature, including New Yorker book reviewer Clifton Fadiman, rejoiced at the judge’s decision. We skip ahead to the Jan. 27 issue for Fadiman’s thoughts on the matter:

DUBLINER…**James Joyce** in 1928, as photographed by **Berenice Abbott**; announcement by Shakespeare & Company (Paris) of the first publication of *Ulysses,* 1921; cover of the American first edition, 1934, with **Ernst Reichl’s** “calmly audacious” jacket design. (Wikipedia/Abe Books)

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Pleasurable Diversion

We now turn to the Jan. 20 issue, in which Robert Benchley concluded his stage reviews with a generous nod to his dear friend and colleague, Dorothy Parker, whose short stories were being performed as sketches at the Barbizon-Plaza Hotel, the first fully-equipped music and arts residential center in the U.S.

INCIDENTAL ATTRACTION…Stories from **Dorothy Parker’s** 1933 collection *After Such Pleasures* were performed as sketches at the Barbizon-Plaza Hotel; at left, Parker with her husband, actor/author **Alan Campbell.** (Pinterest/Biblio)

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Une Séduction Américaine

Janet Flanner began writing her weekly New Yorker column “Letter from Paris” in September 1925, keeping readers informed on a variety of subjects ranging from arts and culture to politics and crime. In the Jan. 20 issue she introduced readers to French actor Charles Boyer (1899–1978), who was preparing to try his luck in Hollywood. Actually, Boyer made his first trip to Tinseltown in 1930, but his return would mark the beginning of a successful run in American cinema, including the 1944 mystery-thriller Gaslight and the 1967 romantic-comedy Barefoot in the Park.

MAKING BEAUTIFUL MUSIC…**Charles Boyer** as the ” gypsy” vagabond Latzi, with **Jean Parker** (center) and **Loretta Young** in 1934’s *Caravan*. (MoMA)

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The Way Of All Flesh

Lois Long continued to chronicle New York nightlife in her “Tables for Two” column, exuding “rapture” over the new theatre/restaurant Casino de Paree, which featured ample nudity as well as top performers dancer Bill “Bojangles” Robinson and comedienne Sheila Barrett.

The Casino de Paree featured revues, dancing, and side shows such as fire-eaters and animal acts. It closed in 1937, and the building later became home to the trendy 80s–90’s hot spot Studio 54.

CLOTHES OPTIONAL…A 1934 brochure offered glimpses of the entertainment to be had at the new theatre/restaurant Casino de Paree.

The Casino de Paree’s menu gave patrons some idea of what could be expected on the stage…

(The Culinary Institute of America Menu Collection)

…but if food and drink was the only thing on your mind, you could enjoy lobster thermidor for a buck seventy-five…

(The Culinary Institute of America Menu Collection; Craig Claiborne Menu Collection)

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From Our Advertisers

How reliable were Goodyear’s tires? Hopefully more reliable than this adage, which Abraham Lincoln apparently never uttered…

…major exhibitions at the Grand Central Palace changed like the seasons, the National Automobile Show ceding to the National Motor Boat & Engine Show…

…if you’d rather have someone else do the sailing, the Bermuda line could take you on a round-trip cruise for as little as $60…

…with the end of Prohibition, the folks at White Rock were doubtless pleased to overtly advertise their product as a cocktail mixer…

…on to our cartoonists, Al Frueh contributed this rendering for the theatre review section…

…Daniel ‘Alain’ Brustlein found this salon conversation a bit Mickey Mouse…

…Helen Hokinson explored the results of family planning…

…E. Simms Campbell gave us an unlikely den of thieves…

…Gilbert Bundy had us wondering what ensued at this gentlemen’s club…

…and James Thurber fired the first shot in The War Between Men And Women…

…on to Jan. 27, 1934…

…where writer W.E. Woodward profiled Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951), whose manner had changed noticeably after receiving the Nobel Prize. An excerpt (with caricature by Al Frueh):

I’M SOMEBODY NOW…**Sinclair Lewis** (far right) with his 1930 Nobel Prize for literature. Other 1930 prize winners were, from left, **Venkata Raman** (physics), **Hans Fischer** (chemistry), and **Karl Landsteiner** (medicine).

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We begin with this lovely color illustration by Helen Hokinson, which also graced the cover of the January 1934 issue of The Stage…

…the vintners at Moët & Chandon let New Yorkers know that their fine Champagne could be had from sole distributors Labourdette and Company…

…cultural critic Gilbert Seldes advised drinkers to abandon their degraded ways and return to the civilized consumption of an old favorite…

…while the folks at Guinness reminded us of their product’s deep history as well as its health benefits…

…and for the teetotalers the purveyors of Joyz Maté encouraged Yankees to take up this “strange” South American drink…the ad claimed it “fortifies the body against fatigue” (thanks to the generous amount of caffeine) and acts as a “corrective and a balancer” (it helped stimulate bowel movements)…

…on to our cartoons, we begin with Gardner Rea, borrowing from a running gag in the Marx Brothers’ 1930 film Animal Crackers, which featured Harpo chasing a sexy blonde around a mansion (apologies for the poor reproduction quality—the archival image was quite faint)…

…Gilbert Bundy gave us a couple confronting the subtleties of Times Square…

…Robert Day commented on the latest trend in taxicab conveniences: coin-operated radios for passengers…

…this two-page Little King cartoon by Otto Soglow revealed another side to our diminutive potentate…

…and the war between the sexes raged on, with James Thurber…

Next Time: Under the Knife…

The Bombshell

Much like Marilyn Monroe in the 1950s, Jean Harlow occupied a brief period in Hollywood history, but her star shone long after her untimely death.

Adam Victor’s The Marilyn Encyclopedia draws all sorts of weird parallels between the actresses: both raised by strict Christian Scientists, both married three times, both left school at sixteen to marry their first husbands, both acted opposite Clark Gable in the last film each ever made. Most importantly, Monroe idolized Harlow, so it was no coincidence that she sported her own version of “platinum blonde” hair.

ART IMITATES LIFE…In 1958 **Marilyn Monroe** posed as **Jean Harlow** for photographer **Richard Avedon** in a *Life* magazine feature. (Flickr)

The term “Bombshell” was affixed to the 22-year-old Harlow after the 1933 film’s release, and was later used to describe Monroe and other sex symbols of the 1950s and early 60s.

Harlow’s character in Bombshell, Lola Burns, satirized the stardom years of the silent era sex symbol Clara Bow, who was director Victor Fleming’s fiancée in 1926. Although critical reviews were mostly positive, New Yorker critic John Mosher found the film “mossy with verbiage.”

TAKE A BOW, CLARA…*Bombshell* satirized the stardom years of silent era sex symbol **Clara Bow**, who was director **Victor Fleming’s** fiancée in 1926 (photo at left is of the couple on the set of 1926’s *Mantrap*); in *Bombshell* **Jean Harlow** portrayed a sex symbol who, like Bow, wanted to live a normal life. In real life, Bow made her last film in 1933 and retired to a ranch at age 28. (IMDB)

A STAR IS BORED…In *Bombshell,* movie star Lola Burns (**Jean Harlow**) dislikes her sexy vamp image and wants to live a normal life, but her studio publicist E. J. “Space” Hanlon (**Lee Tracy**) insists on feeding the press endless provocative stories about her. Clockwise, from top left: **Lee Tracy** and Louise Beavers in a scene with Harlow; Harlow and **Una Merkel**, who portrayed Lola’s assistant, Mac; Harlow in a scene with **Mary Forbes, C. Aubrey Smith**, and **Franchot Tone**; Harlow in a scene with **Ruth Warren** and **Frank Morgan**—the latter portrayed Lola’s pretentious, drunken father. (IMDB)

Harlow would die at age 26 on June 7, 1937. Her heavy drinking didn’t help, but neither did the misdiagnosis she received as her kidneys were rapidly failing. While filming Saratoga with Clark Gable, Harlow was stricken with what she believed was the flu, and her persistent stomach pain was misdiagnosed as a swollen gallbladder. Just two days before her death another doctor finally diagnosed her kidney disease, but in 1937 nothing could be done—kidney dialysis would not be available for another decade, and transplants would not be an option until the mid-1950s.

* * *

Second City Sanctimony

The New Yorker rarely missed an opportunity to take a dig at the square-toed ways of the Second City and its flagship newspaper, the Tribune. In his “Notes and Comment,” E.B. White (who enjoyed gin martinis) found the newspaper’s sanctimonious stance tedious:

The 1933 Chicago World’s Fair, aka “A Century of Progress,” received scant attention from The New Yorker, unless it provided opportunities for parody. Musicologist Sigmund Spaeth (1885-1965), well-known in the 1930s and 40s for his NBC radio programs, offered this take on the Windy City’s exposition:

WONDERS NEVER CEASE…In addition to its more high-minded attractions, the Chicago World’s Fair also featured such sideshow attractions as Ripley’s Odditorium, which featured “The Fireproof Man” among other novelties. (pdxhistory.com)

* * *

Big, Bad Earworm

It seems quaint that nearly 90 years ago one of the most popular songs in America was “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?” To Frank Sullivan, there was no escaping “that lilting tune”…

SIMPLER TIMES…”Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?” was a huge hit during the second half of 1933. One of the most well-known Disney songs, it was covered by numerous artists and musical groups.

Sullivan concluded that a trip to Vladivostok might be the only way to escape the catchy melody…

Briefly jumping to the Nov. 4 issue, “The Talk of Town” took a closer look at the song and the 1933 Disney Silly Symphonies cartoon in which it was featured—Three Little Pigs. Written by Frank Churchill and Ann Ronell, the song launched a market for future Disney tunes, with Irving Berlin securing the sheet music rights over Mickey Mouse and the Silly Symphonies.

WE’RE IN THE MONEY…The 1933 Disney Silly Symphonies cartoon *Three Little Pigs* helped to launch the Disney juggernaut nearly 90 years ago.

* * *

Polymath

Le Corbusier, aka Charles-Édouard Jeanneret (1887–1965), was known as a pioneer of modern architecture and design in the early and mid-20th century, but as this review by Lewis Mumford suggested, he was also a talented modernist painter.

WAYS OF SEEING…**Le Corbusier’s** early paintings followed the ideas of something he called “purism”—at left is an example from 1920, *Still Life*. Later on his work become more abstract, including *Menace*, at right, from 1938. The horse head in the painting seems to reference **Pablo Picasso’s** 1937 painting, *Guernica.* (Wikipedia/Art Basel)

* * *

Dear Papa

Following the high praise Ernest Hemingway received in 1926 for The Sun Also Rises, Dorothy Parker feared for the novelist’s next book: “You know how it is—as soon as they all start acclaiming a writer, that writer is just about to slip downward.” Seven years later Parker’s colleague Clifton Fadiman detected some slippage, finding Hemingway’s latest output a bit stale. Rather than pen a negative review, Fadiman shared his concerns by way of an open letter:

PHONING IT IN…**Clifton Fadiman** (right) found Ernest Hemingway’s *Winner Take Nothing* to be “stuck fast in yesterday.” (AP/Wikipedia/Pinterest)

* * *

From Our Advertisers

Until the 1920s all car bodies were framed in wood, preferably ash, but by the end of the 1930s all-steel car bodies became the standard…Packard made the switch beginning around 1938…

…ah, the good old days when you could smoke in the “rarefied atmosphere” of an airplane, the pilot so close by you could tap him on the shoulder…

…Brooklyn’s Hittleman-Goldenrod Brewery opened in late 1933 promising beer in the finest English tradition…sadly, it closed in 1937…

…the Waldorf-Astoria announced the re-opening of its Empire Room with entertainment by Xavier Cugat and his tango orchestra, featuring the dancer Margo…this was just the sort of “juvenile” entertainment Lois Long detested (see my previous post)…

…according to this ad, “His Lordship” drank a pot of decaf Sanka at midnight “and never winked an eye all night”…it doesn’t mention that he probably also wet the bed…

…on to our cartoons, we begin with Peter Arno and the woes of the monied classes…

…on to Helen Hokinson, and the charms of the precocious…

…Gardner Rea gave us a toff absorbed in historical fiction…

…Alain (aka Daniel Brustlein) offered up a flautist who found beauty in his routine life…

…and we close with Perry Barlow, and motherhood among the smart set…

Next Time: Radio City…

College Days

For its Sept. 23, 1933 issue The New Yorker continued its serialization of James Thurber’s autobiography, My Life and Hard Times…

Part Seven, titled “College Days,” included Thurber’s reminiscences of an economics class and the challenges one “Professor Bassum” faced in keeping a star football tackle academically eligible:

DEAR OLD ALMA MATER…**James Thurber** attended The Ohio State University from 1913 to 1918. Clockwise, from top left, the football team during Thurber’s time featured some smart players as well, including All-American quarterback/halfback **Gaylor “Pete” Stinchcomb** (left) and All-American halfback **Chic Harley** (right); Thurber’s drawing of the dim-witted tackle Bolenciecwez from *My Life and Hard Times;* OSU University Hall circa 1910; Thurber drawing of an OSU botany professor who “quivered with frustration” over Thurber’s inability to see through a microscope. (Ohio State/Wikipedia)

* * *

From Our Advertisers

We begin with the makers of White Rock, who touted the international appeal of their home-grown product, here enjoyed by an old warrior and his much-younger mistress who were busy keeping the colonies in line in Southeast Asia…

…speaking of colonial exploitation, here’s Frank Buck keeping his nerves steady smoking Camels as he lugs “tons of rhinos, tigers, and gorillas across the Pacific” to live out their lives in cramped, fetid cages…

…hey there New York sophisticates of 1933!…we have just the place for you, where only the BEST PEOPLE are apartment hunting, far from the din of immigrants, the unemployed, and other undesirables…

…if you wanted to hang out with the best people, you could get yourself exact copies of the latest Paris fashions from Saks Fifth Avenue…

…or if you were on a tighter budget, you could check out the wares at Wanamaker’s, who trumpeted their “fashion-firsts” on this ad on page 41 followed by a double-spread on the following pages…

…James Thurber lent his talents to the makers of Fisher car bodies…in the early days of automobile production Fisher made car bodies for a number of GM cars as well as for Packard, Studebaker, Hudson and other manufacturers…in 1926 it was absorbed by GM as an in-house coach-building division…

…on to our cartoons, we take a boat ride with Robert Day…

…discover the perils of historical research with Barbara Shermund…

…Daniel ‘Alain’ Brustlein offered a new perspective on portrait painting…

…Helen Hokinson found a Red among the blue bloods…

…and a wee conundrum in the hat department…

…Gardner Rea pulled out all stops in this patriotic tableau…

…on to the Sept. 30, 1933 issue…

Sept. 30, 1933 cover by **William Cotton.**

…in which journalist Robert Wohlforth contributed a profile on poet and writer James Weldon Johnson (1871–1938), a key figure of the Harlem Renaissance most widely known today for the lyrics of the Negro National Anthem, “Lift Every Voice and Sing.” A brief excerpt with illustration by Hugo Gellert:

LIFT EVERY VOICE...James Weldon Johnson, photographed by **Carl Van Vechten**, 1932. (Library of Congress)

* * *

Mexican Morass

E.B. White took on the movie review duties and landed himself a doozy—Sergei Eisenstein’s Thunder Over Mexico. The famed Soviet filmmaker had come to the U.S. in 1930 to make a film for Paramount, but when the deal fell through American socialist author Upton Sinclair and others invited Eisenstein to make an artistic travelogue exploring the themes of life and death in Mexico. More than thirty hours of film was shot before the project was abandoned and Eisenstein returned to the USSR. The footage was later cut into three films, including Thunder Over Mexico. White was less than pleased with the film’s “butchered” edits.

LIFE AND DEATH IN MEXICO…Avant-garde Soviet filmmaker **Sergei Eisenstein** shot more than 30 hours of film in Mexico without producing a final product. An independent Hollywood producer, **Sol Lesser**, later produced two short features and a short subject culled from the footage—*Thunder Over Mexico, Eisenstein in Mexico*, and *Death Day*; these were released in 1933-34. Clockwise, from top left, poster for the film, the film featured scenes of cinematic beauty as well as brutal violence; Eisenstein visiting Mexican artists **Diego Rivera** and **Frida Kahlo**; Eisenstein directing a scene from the film. (IMDB/www.otago.ac.nz)

* * *

Dreaming in Color

In this “Talk of the Town” entry, attributed to James Thurber, we learn of various wonders at the National Electrical Exposition at Madison Square Garden, including a “Clavilux Color Organ” designed for home use. Excerpts:

EINE KLEINE LICHT MUSIK…Danish musician **Thomas Wilfred** (top) constructed his first Clavilux in 1919. Sitting at a large console, Wilfred could control infinite color projections. His first public performance was in New York in 1922 (top right), featuring an abstract light show audiences compared to an aurora borealis. Bottom right, the Clavilux Junior was developed for home use, operated with special glass records, each hand-painted with a distinct composition that would create the projected image. (cdm.link/Yale University Art Gallery)

This YouTube video offers some idea of the effect:

* * *

More From Our Advertisers

Warm, idealized images of American life, in the vein of Norman Rockwell, were popular among advertisers seeking to reassure Depression-era consumers…here we have the avuncular scientist working to ensure that your Packard is not only reliable as transportation, but also a place of solace…

…this same idea was conveyed by the makers of Goodyear tires…

…this ad on page 55 for Guerlain’s Shalimar Powder somewhat recalls the art deco style of Tamara de Lempicka…

…but flip the page and you are brought back to reality with Shefford’s “Snappy Cheese”…

…you needed to lay off the cheese, however, if you wanted to take up a Ry-Krisp diet, endorsed here by Sylvia Ulback, better known at the time as “Sylvia of Hollywood” — in 1933 she was one of the most famous voices on radio…

STRETCH FOR SUCCESS…Norwegian-born **Sylvia Ulback** (1881–1975) was a Hollywood fitness guru from 1926 until 1932. Known as Sylvia of Hollywood, she abandoned the Tinseltown scene after publishing a “tell all” book about her clients titled *Hollywood Undressed* (1931). From 1933 to 1936 she appeared on the radio show, *Mme. Sylvia*, a 15-minute beauty and celebrity broadcast sponsored by Ry-Krisp, and she also published three health and fitness books, including 1939’s *Streamline Your Figure. (*youmustrememberthispodcast.com)

…on to our cartoons, Alan Dunn discovered a budding Picasso…

…another cryptic cartoon by James Thurber was featured in the “Talk of the Town” section…

…Whitney Darrow Jr gave this dowager an off-stage surprise…

…E. Simms Campbell put a snag in an old yarn…

…and we end with Peter Arno, and an old walrus feeling his oats…

Next Time: As Thousands Cheer…

Rebirth of a Nation?

As we enter the summer months we find the recurring themes of June brides…and German Nazis…

May 27, 1933 cover by Constantin Alajalov.

Those Nazis were on the mind of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt when he wrote to the sixty participating nations at the Geneva Disarmament Conference, imploring them to eliminate all weapons of offensive warfare. As we now know, it was a plea that mostly fell on deaf ears, notably those of the leaders of Japan and Germany. E.B. White offered this observation:

GIVE PEACE A CHANCE?…Sixty countries sent delegates to the Geneva Disarmament Conference in 1932–33. Germany was represented by Nazi Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda Joseph Goebbels (front row, center), that is until his country pulled out of the conference and continued its massive arms buildup. (Library of Congress)

Howard Brubaker was also keeping an eye on FDR’s efforts to hold off the rising powers in Europe and Asia…

WAR AND PEACE…On May 16, 1933, **Franklin D. Roosevelt** pleaded with the world’s nations to consider total disarmament of all offensive weapons. In the meantime, **Adolf Hitler** led the rapid rearmament of Germany (right) while Chinese soldiers (below) did what they could to counter the latest Japanese offensive—the invasion of Jehol Province. (Wikimedia/Pinterest)

* * *

Writer of Lost Causes

The short story “Pop” would be Sherwood Anderson’s first contribution to The New Yorker. Anderson was known for his stories about loners and losers in American life, including Pop Porter, whose sad, drunken death is described in the closing lines:

NO EXIT…Best known for his 1919 novel *Winesburg, Ohio,* **Sherwood Anderson** (1876–1941) took an unsentimental view of American life. He would contribute six short stories to *The New Yorker* from 1933 to 1936. Photo above by Edward Steichen, circa 1926. (*The New York Times*)

* * *

From Our Advertisers

The German Tourist Information Office welcomed visitors to “witness the rebirth of a nation,” promising a land of “new ideas and broader visions” that would bestow on travelers “undying memories endlessly renewed”…

…Those “undying memories” might have included massive, country-wide book burnings that took place on May 10, 1933, when students in 34 university towns across Germany burned more than 25,000 “un-German” books…

FANNING FLAMES OF HATE…On May 10, 1933, student supporters of the Nazi Party burned thousands of volumes of “un-German” books in the square in front of the Berlin State Opera. (Bundesarchiv)

…knowing where all of this would lead, it is hard to look at this next ad and not think of the Luftwaffe raining death from the skies later in that decade…

…so for the time being we’ll turn to something less menacing, like checkered stockings, here resembling one of John Held Jr’s woodcuts…

…and this crudely illustrated ad (which originally appeared in one column)…call your buddy a fatso and the next thing you know he’s moving to Tudor City…

…and from the makers of Lucky Strikes, a back cover ad that provided a thematic bookend to Constantin Alajalov’s cover art…

…James Thurber kicks off the cartoons with this sad clown…

…atop the Empire State Building, Daniel ‘Alain’ Brustlein found more than just a view of the city (it’s former governor Al Smith!)…

…Otto Soglow’s Little King got his vision checked, in his own way…

…a loose button threatened to bring down a nation…per Gardner Rea…

…and we take a leisurely Sunday drive, Peter Arno style…

…on to the June 3, 1933 issue…

June 3, 1933 cover by Adolph K. Kronengold.

…where we appropriately look to the skyline, which was giving Lewis Mumford a crick in the neck…

THAT’LL DO…**Lewis Mumford** was not a fan of giant skyscrapers, but when the architects of the Empire State Building turned their attention to the Insurance Company of North America building at 99 John Street, Mumford found a design that could serve as a model for future business buildings. (Museum of the City of New York)

CONVERSION THERAPY…the Insurance Company of North America building now houses modern loft condominiums known as 99 John Deco Lofts. (nest seekers.com).

Later in the column Mumford called skyscrapers “insupportable” luxuries, arguing instead for long, shallow buildings rising no more than ten stories.

* * *

The Stars Align

Film critic John Mosher was delightfully surprised by International House, a film loaded with some of the era’s top comedic stars along with other entertainers.

CLUTCH THOSE PEARLS…The risqué subject matter of *International House* had the Legion of Decency up in arms, but it left critic John Mosher in stitches thanks to the antics of **Edmund Breese, Peggy Hopkins** and **W.C. Fields** (top photo). Below, a publicity photo for *International House* with George Burns, Gracie Allen, Franklin Pangborn and **W.C. Fields.** (IMDB)

The film featured an array of entertainers including Peggy Hopkins (more famous as a real-life golddigger than an actress), the comedy duo Burns and Allen, W.C. Fields, Bela Lugosi, Cab Calloway, Rudy Valley and Baby Rose Marie.

ALL THE WORLD’S A STAGE…Ten-year-old **Rose Marie Mazzetta**, known in 1933 as the child performer **Baby Rose Marie**, sings a number atop a piano in a scene from *International House.* Thirty years later Rose Marie would appear on *The Dick Van Dyke Show* as television comedy writer Sally Rogers, pictured here with co-stars **Dick Van Dyke** and **Morey Amsterdam.** (WSJ/LA Times)

* * *

The New Germany, Part II

The June 3 “Out of Town” column took a look at life in Berlin as well as the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair. The piece is signed “A.L.”, leading me to believe it might be A.J. Liebling (author of the terrific Between Meals), but he didn’t start at The New Yorker until 1935. At any rate the article seems to dismiss the crackdown on Berlin’s cultural life as a mere inconvenience.

NEW THEME, NEW OWNERSHIP…The article mentions the closing of the Eldorado night club in Berlin, famed for its drag shows and other naughty diversions. Images above show the before and after the Nazis redecorated. (lonesomereader.com)

* * *

From Our Advertisers

More propaganda from Germany, where everything is sweet and bright away from the din of the city and the sound of marching jackboots and the crash of broken glass…

…an unusual ad from Cadillac, which barely mentions the automobile but goes full bore on the June bride theme…

…the folks at Camel went full color in their latest installment of “It’s Fun to be Fooled”…in this strip Jack gets his friend Ellie hooked on his cigarette brand…

…looking for fresher air, well you could get a window air conditioner from the folks at Campbell Metal Window Corporation…however, these units were only available to the very wealthy, roughly costing more than $25,000 apiece (more than half a million today)…

…better to take a drive a catch the breeze with this smart pair…

…and fight off those pesky bugs with a blast of Flit, as illustrated by Dr. Seuss before he became a children’s author…

…Richard Decker picked up some extra cash illustrating this ad for Arrow shirts…

…which segues to our other New Yorker cartoonists, such as H.O. Hoffman…

…and yet another bride, with sugar daddy, courtesy of Whitney Darrow Jr…

…William Crawford Galbraith continued his exploration into the lives of showgirls…

…Gardner Rea gave us this helpful switchboard operator…

…Carl Rose showed us how the posh set got into the spirit of the Depression-era farm program…

…George Price was getting into familiar domestic territory…

…and on this Father’s Day, we close with some fatherly advice from James Thurber…

Next Time: Making Hays…

Stormy Bellwether

While legal beer dominated the headlines in the spring of 1933—a little something to cheer about in those depressed times—few seemed to notice the troubles brewing on the other side of the pond.

April 1, 1933 cover by Julian de Miskey.

Artist George Grosz (1893–1959) was not among them. A recent self-exile from his native Germany, Grosz had savagely caricatured the perversity of the bourgeois in 1920s Weimar Berlin; through his art he tried to warn fellow Germans of the horrors to come. Critic Lewis Mumford stopped in at the Raymond & Raymond galleries to check out the latest efforts of this Manhattan newcomer:

EARLY WARNING SIGNS… **George Grosz’s** *The Pillars of Society* (1926) satirized the bourgeois supporters of Fascism in post-war Germany; Grosz with friend, circa 1933. (history net.com)

Although Grosz intended to make a clean break with his past after emigrating to New York in January 1933, his work still reflected his distaste for bourgeois sensibilities…

GROSS GROSZ…*In a Restaurant* (circa 1933) was admired by Mumford for the tenderness of the watercolor wash that contrasted with the “grossness” of its subjects. (artnet.com)

ON THE SIDEWALKS OF NEW YORK…Grosz wanted to make a clean break with his past after emigrating to New York in January 1933, but he still couldn’t help but see the hypocrisy in the faces of bourgeois Manhattanites. At left, *Black & White* (1933) and at right, *Street Scene, Downtown Manhattan* (1933). (mutual art.com/artsy.net)

…and when war raged in his homeland, Grosz returned to chronicling the perversity of the Nazi regime…

HORRORS REALIZED…Grosz’s God of War (at left, from 1940) and his 1944 oil on canvas, *Cain or Hitler in Hell. (*David Nolan New York)

* * *

Bluenose Blues

Sadly, we are moving toward the end of the pre-Code era, and as E.B. White explained in “Notes and Comment,” the talkies were about to get a bit less talkative:

AW HECK…**Dorothy Mackaill** portrayed a secretary-turned-prostitute in the 1931 pre-Code Hollywood film *Safe in Hell*. The days were numbered for the brief period in Hollywood (roughly 1929–34) when films featured “adult” themes including sexual innuendo, mild profanity, and depictions of drug use, promiscuity and prostitution. (IMDB)

* * *

From Our Advertisers

We begin with the back pages, and the latest in entertainment on Broadway…

…the makers of Cadillacs continued to promote the snob appeal of their 12- and 16-cylinder automobiles…it appears these folks are leaving an Easter service (note the doves), but whatever went on in there, they don’t seem very moved by the spirit…

…and here’s a close-up of the ad’s opening lines that suggested Cadillacs are an ideal complement to the apparel of those strutting their stuff on the Easter Parade…

…and here’s a jolly rendering for Lucky Strike by advertising illustrator John LaGatta (1894–1977)…his work was seen in many ads and in magazines during the first half of the 20th century, including twenty-two Saturday Evening Post covers…LaGatta’s style was known for its cool elegance, but I have to say this image is a bit disturbing, given that the banjo player’s cigarette is just inches from the woman’s eyeball…

…on to our cartoonists, we have a rare appearance by Clara Skinner (1902–1976), showing us here in the “Goings On About Town” section that John Held Jr wasn’t the only one making woodcuts…

…William Steig was lost at sea…

…Perry Barlow gave us this split scene (across two pages) of the challenges of mixing domestic and non-domestic life…

…Otto Soglow continued to chronicle the adventures of his popular Little King…

…we haven’t seen Mary Petty in awhile, so here’s a bit of gossip…

…James Thurber used a rare two-page spread of Alexander Woollcott’s “Shouts and Murmurs,” to lay out this unusual illustration…

…and Thurber again, in a more familiar vein…

…we move on April 8, 1933…

April 8, 1933 cover by Adolph K. Kronengold.

…and go straight to advertisers who were responding to the March 22 signing of the Beer and Wine Revenue Act by Franklin D. Roosevelt…the Congressional action made it permissible to sell beer as long as it was less than 3.2% alcohol…

…the makers of Rheingold beer came out of the gates with this ad showing that even elegant women could enjoy this taste of freedom…

…not completely sure, but I believe this was the first ad for Coca-Cola to appear in The New Yorker…

…in those tough times the steamship lines were beginning to realize they needed to appeal to the thrifty as well as the posh…

…Illustrator Herbert Roese offered up this Arno-esque gag for Johnson & Joshnson…

…on to our cartoons, we begin with this Peter Arno spoof of a series of R.J. Reynold’s Camel ads that referenced various magic tricks…

…in the same issue, just 20 pages later (p. 48) appeared one of the actual Camel ads…proof that Harold Ross would never kowtow to the advertising department—with the exception of those yeast ads for his friend and benefactor Raoul Fleischmann, who kept the magazine afloat in the early, lean years…

…we have more James Thurber, who kicked off the April 8 issue…

…and offered more hijinks inside…

…William Steig gave us this strip captioned “The Spicy Story” which ran across the bottom of pages 26-27…

…Gluyas Williams continued to hang out with his fellow citizens, this time in the skies above Manhattan…

…Daniel ‘Alain’ Brustlein showed us one cabbie’s reaction to the cheap ways of the posh crowd…

…and we end by saying grace, with Peter Arno…

Next Time: Beer Thirty…

Deskey’s Deco

Above, Donald Deskey's Design for a Sportshack, 1940 (Cooper Hewitt)

If you’ve never heard of Donald Deskey, you’ve most likely seen his work.

Cultural critic Gilbert Seldes featured Deskey in the Feb. 25 profile (“The Long Road to Roxy” — with illustration by Al Frueh), noting that his subject had come to his profession as an industrial designer in a rather roundabout fashion. Here is a brief excerpt:

Deskey (1894–1989) was locally known in the late 1920s for his window displays at New York’s Franklin Simon Department Store, but it was his work at Roxy Rothafel’s new Radio City Music Hall that made him a marquee name in the design world. Although known for popularizing the Art Deco style, his interior designs for RCMH were noted for their restraint, signaling a break from the lavish, ornate designs of the city’s earlier performance spaces.

FEAST FOR THE EYES…**Donald Deskey** designed more than thirty spaces in Radio City Music Hall, including the Grand Foyer (left) and several lounges, each featuring a distinct visual motif. At bottom right, auditorium’s “Singing Woman” carpeting. (archdaily.com/drivingfordeco.com)

Original Deskey creations are highly prized today by collectors and museums…

DESIGN IN MOTION…Clockwise, from top left, Deskey’s “Guest Bedroom for Mrs. John D. Rockefeller, Jr.” (**Abby Aldrich Rockefeller**), on display at the 1931 American Union of Decorative Artists exhibition; Deskey table lamp, circa 1927; linen panel, circa 1930s; Deskey desk, circa 1930. (brooklynmuseum.org/artic.edu/Pinterest)

…and if that wasn’t enough, Deskey also designed logos for many consumer products in the late 1940s and 1950s…

THE TOTAL PACKAGE…Deskey designed some of the most iconic logos of midcentury America, including, clockwise from top left, Tide laundry detergent (1947); Gleem (1956) and Crest (1955) toothpastes; Cheer laundry detergent (1952); JIF peanut butter (1956) and Joy dishwashing liquid (1950).

* * *

From Our Advertisers

It seems appropriate to follow Mr. Deskey with some words and images from our sponsors, including the folks at Cadillac who continued to hammer home the snob appeal of their motorcar while also giving a nod to those hard times by emphasizing the car’s economy…

…meanwhile, Studebaker was back with another full page ad—again featuring the admiring giant woman—in a vain attempt to push their fledgling, and unpopular line of Rockne automobiles…

…and Helena Rubenstein continued her series of ads disguised as advice columns…the advice here was to shame women into buying her products…

…after Helena removed your wrinkles you could restore them with GE’s Mazda sunlight lamp…

…Otto Soglow, on the brink of becoming a very wealthy man thanks to his Little King cartoons, continued to lay down some ink on behalf of the makers of Sanka decaf…

…and we move along to Soglow’s fellow cartoonists, beginning with Gardner Rea and a cartoon sequence spread across pages 24-25…

…here it is again, rearranged for closer inspection…

…and we have another terrific “Fellow Citizens” drawing by Gluyas Williams, which originally ran sideways on a full page…

…I like this James Thurber drawing for its utter disregard of scale—but of course (and thankfully) it wouldn’t be a Thurber if he cared about such things…

…William Crawford Galbraith was still hung up on showgirls and sirens…

…while Peter Arno explored his spiritual side, as only Arno could…

…and we move along to March 4, 1933…

…in which The New Yorker’s Paris correspondent Janet Flanner (“Genêt”) wrote about a new book of “extreme interest to both sides of the Atlantic”…

BOOK OF REVELATION…**Alice B. Toklas** and Gertrude Stein were well known in the ex-pat community of 1920s Paris, but the publication of the American edition of The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas (written by Stein) brought them fame in the wider world. Stein claimed she wrote the book — now considered a 20th century classic — in six weeks to amuse herself and to make money. At right, Toklas and Stein at 27 Rue de Fleurus in a portrait by **Man Ray**, 1922. (Library of Congress)

* * *

Hope Springs Eternal

Even in the deepest depths of the Depression signs of hope abounded in works of public art, including a mosaic of one million hand-cut and hand-set glass tiles being prepared for the Sixth Avenue entrance to Rockefeller Center. Intelligence Awakening Mankind, by Barry Faulkner, celebrated the triumph of knowledge over the evil of ignorance. “The Talk of the Town” explained:

GOOD VIBES…Details of *Intelligence Awakening Mankind* include the central figure of Intelligence (top) sending knowledge into the far corners of the world. (Pinterest)

* * *

From Our Advertisers

The folks at luxury brand Packard continued to counter their stodgy image with ads that emphasized other qualities including speed, durability, and here, serenity…despite the lengthy text, the ad also suggested modernity, with the sliced-off image and the single word “Hush!” to entice prospective buyers…

…if you couldn’t afford $3,720 for a 12-cylinder Packard, then you might have considered a Buick, “livable as a fine home” this ad claimed. And look at that back seat — you could comfortably fit three adults and a baby elephant in there…

…and then there’s Hupmobile—for the price of a Packard 12 you could have purchased three Hupmobile Victorias (pictured below) with a good chunk of change left over…here the company celebrates its silver anniversary…a couple of odd facts: in 1914 a Minnesota Hupmobile salesman used an unsold vehicle to found Greyhound bus lines…the National Football League also traces its origins to Hupmobile — the league was created in 1920 at a Hupmobile dealership in Canton, Ohio…both Greyhound and the NFL survive Hupmobile, which went belly up in 1939…

…and now we move to the world of fashion, and some cultural appropriation by Lord & Taylor…

…in 1929 J. Walter Thompson President Stanley Resor observed how people instinctively wanted to be told what to do by authorities they respected. Applying this thinking to the marketing of Pond’s cold cream, Resor’s firm hired famed photographers to create idealized portraits of society women…

…Writing for Indy Week (July 7, 2010) Amy White observes that a 1933 portrait (above) of Mrs. Reginald Vanderbilt, aka Gloria Mercedes Morgan, reveals patrician eyes as “languid jet pools, her lips full and dark, her finely coiffed hair oiled to ebony perfection. However, a bit of backstory might explain the painful and hollow look Mrs. Vanderbilt can barely suppress. In that same year, she was declared by the courts to be unfit as a parent, and her young daughter was placed under the guardianship of her sister, Gertrude.” That young daughter, Gloria Vanderbilt, would later find fame for her designer jeans, her glittering lifestyle, and as mother of newscaster Anderson Cooper. White concludes, “I wonder if somehow, subconsciously, those consumers saw the pain in the eyes of some of those upper-crust spokeswomen, and it was basic humanness and empathy, as well as desire for wealth and beauty, that won them over”…

Mrs. Reginald Vanderbilt, aka **Gloria Mercedes Morgan**, and her daughter, “Little Gloria,” in 1928. (Wikipedia)

…and we move along to the toasted pleasures of Luckies, and Howard Chandler Christy’s “Christy Girl” looking the picture of health and vitality in this back cover ad…

…we make an abrupt switch to the cheaper ads in the magazine’s nether pages…here “Miss Eleanor, formerly with Mme. Binner,” announced her selection of modern corsets for the “debutante and young matron”…and below, in a sign of the times, repossessed homes for sale…

…looks like Fifi had a bit too much of the Green Ribbon-flavored bootleg…

…and if you thought taking probiotics was a new thing…

…the French Line once again featured the art of James Thurber to promote its Mediterranean cruises…

…and Thurber kicks off our cartoons with spot art that headed the “Goings On About Town” section…

…and this gem with one of Thurber’s beloved dogs…

…below is the second New Yorker cartoon by Gruff with the “Buy American” slogan juxtaposed with an ethnic stereotype…I have no idea who this artist is, or if “Gruff” is a pen name — the style looks familiar but I haven’t had any luck chasing this artist down…

…here is the first one from the Feb. 18 issue…

…but we all know Al Frueh, who contributed this delightful bit of art to the theater review section…

…Daniel ‘Alain’ Brustlein gave us an enterprising Frenchman offering peeks at exiled New York Mayor Jimmy Walker sunning on a beach at Cannes…

…and we close with Peter Arno, and the first signs of spring…

Next Time: Beauty and the Beast…