In 1933 the U.S. economy began a slow recovery from the 1929 market crash, but the recovery stalled in 1934 and 1935, and folks including E.B. White were looking for any indication of brighter days ahead.
June 29, 1935 cover by Barbara Shermund. A prolific contributor of cartoons to The New Yorker (600 in all), Shermund also illustrated eight covers, including this charmer.
White suggested that Americans look for smaller signs of normalcy, such as the new slogan, “Happy Motoring,” that was being rolled out by Standard Oil’s Esso.
IT’S A GAS…At left, Gasoline Station, Tenth Avenue, photo by Berenice Abbott, 1935; at right, newspaper ad, May 1935. (metmuseum.org/wataugademocrat.com)
Like many of us, White was a study in contradictions, enthusiastically embracing the age of air travel while rejecting the style and comforts of modern automobiles (he famously loved his Model T). It is no surprise that he also preferred Fifth Avenue’s spartan green and yellow omnibuses over the new streamlined buses that would soon be plying the streets of Manhattan.
NO THANKS…E.B. White preferred the spartan accommodations of the old Fifth Avenue buses to the comforts of their replacements. (coachbuilt.com)
White elaborated on the advantages of the older buses:
STYLE OVER COMFORT…Of the old Fifth Avenue buses, E.B. White wrote that he preferred the “hard wooden benches on the sun deck, conducive to an erect posture, sparkling clean after a rain.” (Ephemeral New York)
* * *
Cinderella Story
Challenger James J. Braddock achieved one of boxing’s greatest upsets by defeating the heavily favored (and reigning champ) Max Baer. For this feat he was given the nickname “Cinderella Man” by journalist Damon Runyon. The writer of the “Wayward Press” (byline “S.M.”) seemed less impressed, and mocked the national media for their sudden pivot on the bout’s unlikely outcome.
BRINGING THE FIGHT…Challenger James J. Braddock lays into defending champ Max Baer during a heavyweight boxing title match on June 13, 1935, at the Madison Square Garden Bowl in Long Island City. Although the national media dismissed Braddock’s chances of winning, Braddock trained hard for the fight while Baer spent more time clowning around than training. Braddock won by unanimous decision, eight rounds to six. (thefightcity.com)
* * *
Seemed Like a Nice Guy
Henry Pringle penned the first part of a three-part profile of Supreme Court Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes (1862–1948), who was also a former New York governor and U.S. secretary of state. William Cotton rendered a rather severe-looking Hughes in this caricature for the profile…
…although in reality he tended to look more like this…
PROGRESSIVE THINKER…Supreme Court Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes in 1931. Known as a reformer who fought corruption, Hughes was a popular public figure in New York. (Wikipedia)
* * *
From Our Advertisers
We begin with an advertisement that goes down easy, with its minimal style…
…by contrast, a busy Camel advertisement…R.J. Reynolds alternated full-page ads featuring society women with these health-themed spots that linked smoking with athletic prowess…
…this advertisement by Fisher claimed the 1935 Pontiac was “The most beautiful thing on wheels,” however here it looks perfectly ancient…
…as does this Nash on the inside back cover…
…the back cover was claimed by Highland Queen, a blend of some very fine distilleries…
…Theodore Seuss Geisel continued his ongoing saga against the mighty mosquito…
…and we have this back of the book ad for Webster cigars, who enlisted the talents of Peter Wells…
…Wells (1912–1995) was also a children’s book writer, most famous for contributing drawings to the Katzenjammer Kids comic strip …
Peter Wells, detail from the opening page from “The Katzenjammer Kids,” #16, Spring 1951, King Features Syndicate, Inc.
…and of course we are all familiar with Otto Soglow, who sold his beloved Little King to Hearst (and made a pile) but was still able to feature his diminutive potentate in the The New Yorker in a series of ads for Bloomingdales…
…which brings us to our cartoonists, and a familiar torment for our beloved James Thurber…
…Independence Day offered a marketing challenge to these shopkeepers, per Garrett Price…
…Peter Arno was at his best, in his element…
…Charles Addams explored the unnatural, which would become his calling card…
…Robert Day offered a new twist to the tonsorial arts…
…William Steig gave examples of some budding “tough guys”…
…a rare baseball-themed cartoon from Richard Decker (editor Harold Ross was not a baseball fan)…
…from George Price, what appears to be the end of his “floating man” series, which began in September 1934…
…and we close with one my favorite cartoonists, Barbara Shermund, here at the bookstore…
Above: Seated in front of a massive Technicolor camera, Rouben Mamoulian directs Miriam Hopkins (also inset) in Becky Sharp, the first feature shot entirely in three-color Technicolor. The film was based on character from William Makepeace Thackeray's 1848 novel Vanity Fair. (UCLA Film & Television Archive)
Rouben Mamoulian’s 1935 production of Becky Sharp wasn’t the first color film, but it was the first feature film to use the newly developed three-strip Technicolor process throughout, setting a standard for color films to come.
June 22, 1935 cover by Constantin Alajalov. A New Yorker contributor for thirty-four years, Alajalov (1900–1987) illustrated 170 covers for the magazine. Check out the treasure trove at Ink Spillfor more on Alajalov and all things New Yorker.
Earlier color processes included films that were hand-tinted. Others used various dyes and techniques that included photographing a black-and-white film behind alternating red/orange and blue/green filters, and then projecting them through red and green filters. The inability to reproduce the full color spectrum, among other issues, had many critics dismissing the idea of color films altogether.
Mamoulian was fascinated by the possibilities of color film; by producing (and later directing) the film, he showcased the advancements in Technicolor. Film critic John Mosher had these observations:
THIS IS A TEST…Considered a landmark in cinema as the first feature film to use the newly developed three-strip Technicolor production throughout, in many ways the film validated this advanced color technology. Top photo, Miriam Hopkins portrayed Becky Sharp, a socially ambitious woman (seen here with Cedric Hardwicke) who climbs the British social ladder with the help of her best friend, Amelia Sedley (Frances Dee, bottom photo). (Wikipedia/Amazon)IT WAS FUN ANYWAY…Critic John Mosher was thrilled by the swirl of colors in the ballroom scene, even if flying red cloaks weren’t an aspect of William Makepeace Thackeray’s 1848 novel Vanity Fair. The film, however, was actually based on an 1899 play by Langdon Mitchell, who named his play after one of the characters in Thackeray’s novel. (blu-ray.com)WHOLE NEW WORLD…Rouben Mamoulian, Miriam Hopkins, visitor Michael Balcon, and Kenneth Macgowan on the set of Becky Sharp. According to film historian Marc Spergel, “Mamoulian was fascinated by color…He saw in the color process another opportunity for innovations that would set a standard for the new technology…His interest lay in choosing color for psychological effect rather than mere realistic reproduction or decorative dividends. With the advent of color processing, particularly Technicolor processing—with its non-realistic, supersaturated color—Mamoulian could approach the film medium like a painter with a palette.” (Wikipedia)
Mosher also checked out the latest from Robert Montgomery and Joan Crawford, who exchanged marital banter in No More Ladies, while George Raft went all gangster in Dashiell Hammett’sThe Glass Key.
HIGH FIDELITY…Top photo, socialite Marcia (Joan Crawford) is determined to keep her husband (Robert Montgomery) faithful in No More Ladies; below, George Raft does what he does best (playing a gangster) in The Glass Key. (jacksonupperco.com/notesoncinematograph.blogspot.com)
* * *
Astor’s Risk
“The Talk of the Town” paid a visit to the Real Estate Exchange, where Vincent Astor re-acquired the St. Regis Hotel for five million and change. He then sunk another $500,000 (roughly $12 million today) into the hotel to further its luxurious status (including adding air-conditioning). The hotel’s famed King Cole Room and the Maisonette Russe restaurant opened in October 1935. Excerpts:
GOOD INVESTMENT…At left, Fifth Avenue facade of the St. Regis as seen in 2022. Right, entrance to the King Cole bar in the 55th Street annex. Thanks in part to the repeal of Prohibition, the hotel’s restaurant business increased by 300 percent between 1935 and 1937. (Wikipedia)
* * *
School Days
James Thurber recalled his “tough” years at Sullivant School in Columbus, Ohio, in the essay, “I Went to Sullivant.” Brief excerpts:
ALMA MATER…The Sullivant School James Thurber attended was completed in 1871 and was a school until 1923 when it became the offices for Columbus City Schools. This photo was taken shortly before it was demolished in 1961. (columbuslibrary.org)
* * *
Avril en juin
Paris correspondent Janet Flanner gave a rundown on the latest happenings, including the Toulouse-Lautrec costume ball that attracted none other than Jane Avril, the famed French can-can dancer of the 1890s who could still kick up her heels. Flanner gave Avril’s age at 80, but records indicate she was closer to 70.
STILL KICKING…Jane Avril (1868–1943) was a French can-can dancer at the Moulin Rouge in Paris and a frequent subject of painter Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. The wispy Avril, known for her jerky movements and sudden contortions, was nicknamed La Mélinite, after an explosive. At top left, Avril in her heyday circa 1890s; at right, Avril at the 1935 Toulouse-Lautrec costume ball. Read more about Avril’s strange life at one of my favorite “rabbit hole” sites, Messy Nessy. (messynessychic.com/Pinterest)An 1893 Toulouse-Lautrec lithograph featuring Jane Avril, a lifelong friend of the artist. Avril commissioned this print to advertise her cabaret show at the Jardin de Paris. (met museum.org)
* * *
From Our Advertisers
We begin with the inside front cover, Johnnie Walker strutting along at the horse races…
…the inside back cover belonged to Arrow Shirts…
…and no surprise that the back cover featured a stylish woman enjoying a cigarette, in this case a Lucky…
…Packard continued to run these colorful, wordy ads that made the case for owning a lower-priced Packard, which I’m sure was a fine automobile…
…John Hanrahan, who early on served as The New Yorker’s policy council and guided it through its lean first years, became the publisher of Stage magazine (formerly The Theatre Guild Magazine) in 1932. In 1933 Stage became part of the Ultra-Class Magazine Group’s line-up that included Arts & Decoration and The Sportsman. Stage published its last issue in 1939, and I don’t believe the other two survived the 1930s either…this Mark Simonson site looks at the striking design elements of an issue from 1938…
…a couple from back of the book…calling Europe by telephone in 1935 was an impressive feat, however it could cost you roughly $700 in today’s dollars to make a three-minute call to London…the one-column ad at right offered an Anglophilic appeal to those visiting Cleveland…
…this simple spot for Dole pineapple juice caught my eye because it was illustrated by Norman Z. McLeod (1898–1964), who drew Christie Comedy title cards during the Silent Era…
McLeod was also an acclaimed director of Marx Brothers comedies Monkey Business (1931) and Horse Feathers (1932), W.C. Fields’It’s a Gift (1934), Danny Kaye’sThe Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947) and two of the Topper films.
HE GOT AROUND…Clockwise, from top left, director Norman Z. McLeod on the set of 1941’s Lady Be Good with actress Ann Sothern; Young’s familiar stick figure drawings on title cards for the 1928 silent short Loose Change; Cary Grant and Constance Bennett with Roland Young in 1937’s Topper. (TCM.com/silentology.wordpress.com/charlesmatthews.blogspot.com)
…Dr. Seuss was back with his Flit advertisements…
…Richard Decker illustrated this ad for Borden’s “Golden Crest” Farm Products…
…which segues into our cartoonists, and this curious spot drawing by James Thurber…
…Perry Barlow gave us the early days of the “Bed and Breakfast”…
…Peter Arno, and no rest for the titans of industry…
…Gluyas Williams continued to take a sideways glance at Club Life in America”…
…from George Price…back in the day, tattoos were usually confined to sailors and longshoreman…this particular fellow found himself with some outdated ink…
…Kemp Starrett took us ringside…
…Mary Petty reflected on a bit of narcissism…
…and we close with William Steig, and mixed feelings about the summer season…
The 1930s saw steady improvements in the fledging airline industry, which catered mostly to major businesses or well-heeled (and somewhat brave) folks who were interested in getting to places relatively quickly. Margaret Case Harriman reported on the many ways one could criss-cross the country by heading to the Newark Airport, the first major airport to serve the New York metro.
August 11, 1934 cover by Constantin Alajalov.
Writing for the “Out of Town” column, Harriman described how someone in 1934 could make their way to Los Angeles by boarding a 9 a.m. American Airlines flight in Newark and then changing over to a “sleeper plane” in Fort Worth around 10 p.m. that same day (top speed of the fastest plane was about 190 mph or 306 kph. The trip also required stops for refueling). The night flight from Fort Worth would deliver the traveler to Los Angeles the following day, at 7:55 a.m.—the trip totaled about 23 hours.
NIGHTY NIGHT…In 1934 American Airlines was the only airline offering “sleeper planes,” as the ad at left claimed. The head of American Airlines, C.R. Smith, was obsessed with customer service and the amenities offered on his Curtiss Condors—roomy airplanes with sleeping berths that Margaret Case Harriman likened to beds in a Pullman railroad car. Passengers loved the Curtiss Condor, although the planes tended to catch fire and pilots found them difficult to fly. (archbridgeinstitute.org/American Airlines)SKYTRAIN…Top, the passenger section of an American Airlines Curtiss Condor, circa 1930s; below, interior of a Boeing 247—note the steps in the aisle used to cross over the support beams that reinforced the 247’s wings. Also note the female attendant—the profession was dominated by male stewards in the first years of passenger service, but in the 1930s women took over the profession. (American Airlines/bethelgrapevine.com)TWENTY-TWO HOURS and change on a United Airlines Boeing 247 would get you from Newark to San Francisco in 1934. Top, Passengers are shown boarding a United Airlines Boeing 247 at the Newark Airport circa 1934; United boasted the fastest multi-motored plane service with the 247, but TWA apparently offered the fastest service between coasts with its sleek new DC-2, seen in photo below. (bethelgrapevine.com)HARD TO BEAT…A TWA Douglas DC-2 could get you to California faster than either United or American—fifteen hours from Newark to Los Angeles. (wahsonline.com)
When we think of flying in the 1930s many of us recall the great travel posters featuring Pan American’s Clipper Ships—flying boats that took passengers to exotic locations in the Caribbean and in Central and South America. Harriman wrote:
FLYING BOAT…Boasting nautical appointments including porthole windows, Pan Am’s Sikorsky S-42 offered roomy seats to its 32 passengers. Top, a postcard image of a Sikorsky S-42 in Miami in the 1930s; below, passenger cabin of the Sikorsky S-42. (clipperflyingboats.com/seawings.com.uk)
Harriman closed with some advice to readers unfamiliar with flying, including putting drops of Argyrol (a silver-protein antiseptic) into ones eyes to “prevent that ticking sensation in the temples.”
* * *
No Offense Taken
Critic John Mosher was no fan of Jean Harlow’s, but he did acknowledge her box office appeal, and that fans eagerly awaited the Blonde Bombshell’s next picture, The Girl from Missouri…with its “usual plot of a gold-digger and millionaries.” Mosher also noted that Harlow, along with Mae West, was a prime target of reformers (see Hays Code) who wanted to ban “immorality” from the pictures, and he was eager to see how the Puritans had wielded their new censoring shears on the film.
GOING FOR THE GOLD…At right, Lionel Barrymore, Jean Harlow, and Patsy Kelly in The Girl from Missouri. (IMDB)
* * *
From Our Advertisers
We begin with another ad from the makers of Spud menthol cigarettes, who deployed what seemed like every known visual metaphor to suggest that smoking their cigarettes “all day” would leave one feeling cool, clean and fresh, in this case as a blanket of newly fallen snow (an appealing sight in that hot summer of 1934)…
…R.J. Reynolds deployed any number of tricks to sell their Camels, from ads promoting their health benefits to endorsements by wealthy socialites, in this case Sarah Lippincott (“Mrs. Nicholas Biddle”) of Philadelphia…
…snob appeal was not limited to cigarette ads, as this full page from the folks at Chevrolet attests…
…zooming in on the copy that accompanied the above ad, we find that this fictive Chevy owner was a “marked woman” sought out by paparazzi and admired by couturiers…
…Dr. Seuss continued his series of weird ads for Flit insecticide…
…Helen Hokinson illustrated this patrician picnic scene to promote Heinz’s line of sandwich spreads…
…and we kick off our cartoons with Helen again, observing a proud moment…
…Robert Day offered this observation on modern architecture…
…Rea Irvin skewered the puritan set with his latest bird illustration…
Above: Final Design of Grand Central Terminal, ca. 1910. (New York Transit Museum)
The heat wave of 1934 spread misery from the Midwest to the East Coast. The temperature in New York City hit 101 degrees F (38.3 C) on June 29, and July recorded at least ten days of temps in the mid- to upper 90s. It must have been miserable in the days before air-conditioning, and since no adult would dare be seen in public wearing shorts and a t-shirt, an outing on a crowded tour boat, as illustrated below by William Cotton, must have been hellish.
July 21, 1934 cover by William Cotton.
…putting a fine point on it, recall this wryly captioned cartoon from the June 30 issue by Garrett Price…
…but let us move ahead to the July 28 issue, where E.B. White was hopefully keeping his cool in the men’s waiting room at Grand Central Station, where he plunked down a nickel to cool his heels in the “middle class” section, where he observed side attractions including a vending machine that dispensed handkerchiefs and a coin-operated peep show featuring burlesque star Sally Rand.
NO MASHERS ALLOWED…Separate men’s and ladies’ rooms were available in three classes at Grand Central Station—free, five cents and ten cents. Top, the Ladies’ room, Grand Central Terminal (Central Lines), and below, a men’s room at the station. A nickel back then was worth about a dollar today. (Library of Congress)NICKEL AND DIMED…Machines similar to these could be found in some men’s waiting rooms at train stations in the 1930s. (pinballhistory.com/comics.ha.com)
…White referred to a peep show that featured famed fan dancer Sally Rand…
DOING HER DEEP KNEE BENDS…Sally Rand in the 1930s. (www.vintag.es)
White also commented on the growing number of travelers, still pinched by the Depression, opting for the free section:
We settle in with the June 21 issue (which leads this post) with White once again, this time enjoying a drive to Stamford, Conn., where he admired the “splendor” of the Condé Nast printing plant (apparently the plant also printed The New Yorker, although the magazine itself would not be acquired by Condé Nast’s parent company, Advance Publications, until 1985).
ONLY A MEMORY…Postcard image of the Condé Nast printing plant; at left, a relic of the long-gone plant, one of two pillars that flanked the road to the plant. (Greenwich Historical Society/greenwichtime.com)
* * *
Disney’s Other Mouse
Film critic John Mosher was a fan of Disney’s “Silly Symphony” cartoon shorts, which were produced between 1929 and 1939. Animation, and especially color animation, was in its infancy, so these doubtless had an uplifting effect on many moviegoers.
DON’T CALL ME TINKERBELL…The Butterfly Fairy brought some Disney magic to 1934’s The Flying Mouse. (disney.fandom.com)
* * *
The Great McGonigle
W.C. Fields appeared in more than a dozen silent films before making his first talkie, 1930’s The Golf Specialist, and it was in sound films that Fields was able to truly express his vaudevillian wit. It was also in the sound era that Fields teamed up with Baby LeRoy for three films (in 1933 and 1934), including The Old Fashioned Way, in which Fields portrayed “The Great McGonigle,” leader of a traveling (and perpetually underfunded) theater troupe who was always a step ahead of police and creditors. Critic John Mosher found the film’s riff on an old morality play, The Drunkard, to be a bit dated, but overall thought it a cheerful diversion.
HONK…Baby LeRoy, aka Ronald Le Roy Overacker (1932–2001), was just 16 months old when he became the youngest person ever put under term contract by a major studio. He is best known for his appearances in three W. C. Fields films: Tillie and Gus (1933), The Old Fashioned Way (1934) and It’s a Gift (1934). (Rotten Tomatoes/IMDB)
* * *
From Our Advertisers
We begin with scientific proof (from a “famous research laboratory in New York”) that Camel cigarettes increased one’s flow of energy…
…if that crackpot claim doesn’t get you, here’s one that recommended downing a PBR before a big meeting, a sure remedy for that “listless, tired-out feeling”…
…of course we all know that a few sugary Cokes will get you going…back then they were taking it in six- and ten-ounce bottles, not 30- to 50-ounce Big Gulps…
…it’s not every day you see a dog food ad in The New Yorker…in the 1930s there was no secret to where ol’ Sparky ended up…
…popular were these Rockwellian ads that equated various products with happy and wholesome (and safe) living, in this case a massive “Dual-Balloon” tire that dominated this tableau featuring a stylish mommy and her little boy slumming with an old sea salt…
…the folks at Essex House hired an illustrator who did his or her best to channel Helen Hokinson and William Steig for this New Yorker ad…as we have seen before, Essex House ads walked a fine line between thrift and snob appeal…
…on to our cartoons, beginning with Ned Hilton, whose work appeared in The New Yorker from 1934 to 1957…
…Mary Petty recorded some sweet nothings by the seaside…
…George Price drifted along with two men and tuba…
…Carl Rose revealed a modest side to life at a nudist colony…
…we know Clarence Day for his Life With Father series, but on occasion he also contributed illustrated poems such as this one from the July 21 issue…
…on to July 28…
July 28, 1934 cover by Adolph K. Kronengold.
…where we encounter more “scientific research” that encouraged folks to smoke…This ad was placed on the very last page of the July 28 issue by the Cigarette Research Institute, based in Louisville, Kentucky…
…the booklet was filled with “amazing facts” uncovered in a “scientific investigation,” facts did not address the health effects of smoking, but rather such important topics as how to hold a cigarette the right way and how to reduce staining on your teeth…it also helpfully debunked the notion that nicotine was a “dread demon”…
…take for example this woman smoking a Lucky…now she knew how to hold a cigarette!…
…the folks at Essex House were back, aggressively playing the class/caste card…apparently if you lived there you were entitled to kick your old friends to the curb…
…the antacid and pain reliever Bromo-Seltzer was ubiquitous in 1930s medicine cabinets, but after the recipe was changed in the 1970s (all Bromides were withdrawn from the U.S. market in 1975) the brand slowly fizzled away…
…Mildred Oppenheim Melisse was a popular illustrator of ads for department stores and various household goods, including Cannon towels, here guaranteed to absorb even this man’s sweaty “flood”…
…Dr. Seuss back again for Flit, once again having no issues mixing insecticide with food preparation…
…Rea Irvin kicks off the cartoons with his Double Breasted Dowager…
…Helen Hokinson found some misplaced pity at a garden party…
…Garrett Price offered some unsolicited advice…
…Reginald Marsh filled two pages with a scene from Central Park…
…Robert Day looked for a unique experience at an auto camp…
…and we close with Barbara Shermund, and some alarming news on the domestic front…
Above, Stewart's Cafeteria in Greenwich Village, May 1933. (New York Public Library)
Although Sherwood Anderson is mostly known for his short story collections and novels, in the 1930s he also worked as a journalist, and for the June 9, 1934 issue of the New Yorker he explored the “centre of proletarian high life,” Stewart’s Cafeteria in Greenwich Village.
June 9, 1934 cover by Helen Hokinson.
What is particularly interesting about Anderson’s page 77 article for the “A Reporter at Large” column is what it doesn’t report, namely, that Stewart’s Cafeteria (later the Life Cafeteria) was known as a popular gay and lesbian hangout in addition to being a place for gawkers, assorted bohemians, and bohemian wannabes.
Anderson was a man of the world, so he knew exactly what Stewart’s was all about. But even the New Yorker wasn’t in the business of outing anyone, and editor Harold Ross, whose eccentricities included a puritanical strain, would not have allowed anything associated with “sexual deviance” to be printed in his magazine. Here is an excerpt from Anderson’s article, “Stewart’s, On the Square,” in which he subtly hints at the cafeteria’s “third life.”
NIGHT LIFE…Paul Cadmus depicted Stewart’s in this sexually charged painting, Greenwich Village Cafeteria, 1934, oil on canvas,Museum of Modern Art. (All archival images for this entry were obtained via nyclgbtsites.org/site/stewarts-cafeteria)
While Anderson tiptoed around the topic of homosexuality, gossip rags such as Stephen Clow’sBroadway Brevities put it front and center. Described as one of the most vicious show business gossip magazines ever published, Brevities also provided Clow with some side income: Clow and his collaborators often threatened to blackmail wealthy businesspeople and show business figures who frequented places like Stewart’s—outing them in his tabloid unless payment was made.
(McGill Institute via HuffPost.com)
Naturally such reporting helped attract gawkers to Stewart’s and its successor, Life Cafeteria. According to the NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project, “Stewart’s closed in the mid-1930s and was subsequently reopened as the equally popular Life Cafeteria. Regulars included a young Tennessee Williams and Marlon Brando (though they didn’t meet each other until years later on a beach in Provincetown). Of the space, Brando later recalled, ‘The rednecks [on the street] were pointing at the diners like animals in a zoo. I was immediately intrigued and ventured in. Before I left that afternoon, I discovered that many of the homosexual men were actually putting on a show for the jam .'”
ON DISPLAY...According to the NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project, the large plate glass windows at Stewart's (later renamed Life Cafeteria) put gay life on full display to the late-night crowds who frequented the busy intersection. Artist Vincent La Gambina depicted one scene that gawkers might have taken in: Life Cafeteria, Greenwich Village, 1936. (Museum of the City of New York)TODAY, the building still stands, although it is a bit less lively as a home for a CVS store and a Bank of America branch. Just around the corner is the famed Stonewall Inn. (Google Maps Image)
According to the NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project:
...in 1935 the manager of Stewart’s was convicted of operating a “public nuisance” and “disorderly house” and “openly outraging public decency” by allowing objectionable behavior in the interior and large crowds to gather outside. Specifically, the district attorney’s complaint cited “certain persons of the homosexual type and certain persons of the Lesbian type, to remain therein and engage in acts of sapphism and divers [sic] other lewd, obscene, indecent and disgusting acts” and that the cafeteria was “used as a rendezvous for perverts, degenerates, homosexuals and other evil-disposed persons.” Much of the testimony centered on the gender non-conforming dress and behavior of the patrons.
Here is another excerpt from Anderson's article, where he delves into the nighttime scene at Stewart's:
* * *
Nightlife, Part II
In my previous post E.B. White pondered the fate of the Central Park Casino, a favorite haunt of deposed Mayor Jimmy Walker and other members of the smart set who openly flouted Prohibition laws. In "Tables for Two," Lois Long made this observation (below) at the conclusion of her nightlife column, believing that Parks Commissioner Robert Moses would give the management a chance to lower food prices and allow common folks to enjoy its sumptuous atmosphere. Little did she know that Moses was feasting on a diet of revenge rather than food, and had plans to tear the place down, regardless of its lower prices.
* * *
From Our Advertisers
We kick off the ads with another Ponds celebrity endorsement from dancer and actress Francesca Braggiotti (1902-1998), who was married to actor, politician, and diplomat John Davis Lodge...
POWER COUPLE...John Davis Lodge and Francesca Braggiotti in 1932. They were married for 56 years. (Pinterest)
...Dr. Seuss was back with more ads for Flit insecticide...he was still two years away from his first children's book: And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street...
...and with a splash of color, Bermuda beckoned New Yorkers to a "Real Vacation"...
...however, before you headed to Bermuda, you'd needed to do something with the kids...
...on to our cartoonists, we start with spot art from Abe Birnbaum...
...Birnbaum again with an illustration of boxer Max Baer for the profile section...
...more spot art from James Thurber in the "Goings On About Town" section...
...and Thurber again with some alarming news for a potential suitor...
...Rea Irvin kicked off his series, "Our Native Birds"...
...a famed advertising agency launched a new door-to-door survey, per Perry Barlow...
...Helen Hokinson gave us a hopeful gardener...
...Barbara Shermund looked in on the "modern girl" scene...
...and Peter Arno examined a sad medical case...
...and we close the June 9 issue with this item from E.B. White, who commented on a recent rally of American Nazis and some fighting Irish...
...the Nazi rally was also alluded to in the June 2 issue (I have the issues reversed this time to support the narrative)...
June 2, 1934 cover by Harry Brown.
...where Howard Brubaker was keeping things light in his column "Of All Things." I was surprised how little was mentioned in either issue about the meeting of 20,000 Nazi sympathizers on May 17, 1934, at Madison Square Garden.
Let's explore further: According to the Jewish Virtual Library, America's first established anti-Nazi boycott group was the Jewish War Veterans (March 19, 1933), followed by the American League for the Defense of Jewish Rights (ALDJR), which was founded by the Yiddish journalist Abraham Coralnik in May 1933. By 1934 the ALDJR was led by Samuel Untermyer, who changed the organization's name to the "Non-Sectarian Anti-Nazi League to Champion Human Rights." Nazi sympathizers targeted Untermyer as the face of boycott efforts, and at the May 17 rally the mere mention of his name prompted shouts of "Hang him!"
AMERIKA...The site for hockey games and dog shows became a site for ugliness on May 17, 1934, when 20,000 Nazi sympathizers gathered in Madison Square Garden to denounce boycotts against Adolf Hitler's regime. (The Archive Project)
This excerpt from the May 18, 1934 edition of The New York Times gives some idea of what transpired at the rally:
REALLY? Americans gathered at Madison Square Garden on May 17, 1934 to show their support for Nazi Germany and denounce American boycotts. (The Archive Project)
* * *
Dueling Muses
Film critic John Mosher always seemed upbeat about anything involving Disney, but given that animation was still in its infancy (its plastic trickery still rather novel), it didn't take much to outshine the otherwise drab fare (the "Grim") being coughed up by Tinseltown.
MAN OR MOUSE? The star-studded cast of Hollywood Party included Jimmy Durante, seen here duking it out with Mickey Mouse. (IMDB)
The grim included the Pre-Code drama, Upper World, about a rich, married man who falls to his ruin via a romance with a stripper (don't they always?), and Now I'll Tell, another Pre-Code drama, this one loosely based on the doings of racketeer and crime boss Arnold Rothstein.
SHAKE IT WHILE YOU CAN...Ginger Rogers performs “Shake Your Powder Puff” in a burlesque show in the film Upper World, one of the last of the Pre-Code dramas. It featured Warren William as a wealthy married railroad tycoon whose friendship with a showgirl (Rogers) leads to blackmail and murder; at right, five-year-old future child star Shirley Temple with Spencer Tracy in Now I'll Tell, which was loosely based on the autobiography of Carolyn Green Rothstein, wife of New York gambler Arnold Rothstein. Temple's role was a minor one, however her appearance in the musical Stand Up and Cheer!, which was released a month earlier, would make her a star. (IMDB)
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We cool off by a taking a dip in the pool...er, rather by enjoying the "No Draft Ventilation" of a car body by Fisher...the model might want to stay in the pool, since air-conditioning in cars was still a good twenty years away...
...and yes, this is also a car-related ad, if you can believe it, the bride looking forward not to years of wedded bliss but rather her new La Salle (a Cadillac product)...
...another bride, and a car...is that a car body by Fisher? Who cares, the wedding is over and its time to fire one up...
...this woman seems to have it all thanks to Daggett & Ramsdell of Park Avenue, who are prepared to coat her in a "complete range of all the essential creams, lotions, face powder...cold cream soap, dusting powder" etc. etc....
...Dr. Seuss again for Flit, with baby in tow...
...on to our cartoons, we have Robert Day checking on the progress at Mt. Rushmore...
...Alan Dunn reveals pandemic worries of a different nature...
...and we close with Helen Hokinson, and a sudden change of mood...
New Yorkers were enduring the dog days of August, and those who couldn’t escape the heat by fleeing to the country or the beach could find cool respite at the movies.
August 19, 1933 cover by Gardner Rea.
It was doubtless in an air-conditioned theatre where critic John Mosher enjoyed the craft of older actors, in this case Wallace Beery and Marie Dressler in Tugboat Annie. Although the film didn’t quite live up to Beery and Dressler’s 1930 smash hit, Min and Bill, Mosher found Beery to be a “beautiful foil” to Dressler, who thankfully wasn’t just another “fluffy little pink young thing.”
ON GOLDEN POND…Wallace Beery and Marie Dressler portrayed a comically quarrelsome older couple who operate a tugboat in MGM’s Tugboat Annie. It would be one Dressler’s last film roles—she would die the following year; at right, a young Robert Young with Dressler in a scene from the film—Young would go on to television fame playing two beloved characters: the dad in Father Knows Best (1954-60) with fellow film star Jane Wyatt, and the kindly, avuncular doctor on Marcus Welby M.D. (1969–76). (IMDB)
Another seasoned performer Mosher admired was Mary Boland, although her latest film, Three Cornered Moon, was crowded with “too many young people”…
BRAT PACK…Mary Boland (left) with Wallace Ford, Claudette Colbert, and Hardie Albright in Three Cornered Moon (IMDB)
…and then there was Buster Crabbe’s lackluster Tarzan the Fearless to consider—it was Crabbe’s only screen appearance as the Ape-Man…
MONKEYING AROUND…A self-described “King of the Serials,” Buster Crabbe’s career included nine sound serials, including Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers (1936-40). In Tarzan the Fearless Crabbe’s sole appearance as Tarzan was played opposite Jacqueline Wells (aka Julie Bishop). The media at the time made hay of a so-called rivalry between Crabbe and Johnny Weissmuller, who defined the Tarzan role in twelve films from 1932 to 1948. Both men were Olympic athletes: Crabbe won the 1932 Olympic 400-meter freestyle swimming championship, while Weissmuller was the undefeated winner of five Olympic gold medals. (IMDB)
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The folks at Hoffman Beverages continued to offer up ways to enjoy an adult refreshment, including a tongue-in-cheek “code” to be used until the repeal of Prohbition…
…with the return of legal (3.2) beer, brewers were aggressively targeting women as a new growth market…
…a selection of one-column ads from the back pages touted imported beers and an old “Pennsylvania Dutch” quaff, intermixed with apartment ads and a women’s deodorant called SHUN…
…Otto Soglow, who would become rich and famous with his The Little King strip, also did well as an illustrator for various products, including Rheingold beer…
…another way to stay cool was to dine at Longchamps, thanks to their “scientific air-conditioning system”…
…on the subject of keeping cool, back in the day you had to regularly top off the radiator on hot days, and if you added lead to your gasoline you could also get rid of those annoying hot engine knocks…
…It would be four years before Dr. Seuss would publish his first children’s book, so he continued to pay the bills with illustrated ads for Flit insecticide…ah the good days when spraying poison above a child’s head seemed perfectly reasonable…
…another one-column ad from the back pages says a lot about how advertisers perceived a New Yorker reader—even dog food demanded snob appeal…
…on to our cartoons we return to Otto Soglow and his take on the old William Tell trope…
…Peter Arno delivered some surprising news to dear old mom…
…Henry Anton gave us a sign man unconvinced that sex sells…
…Gluyas Williams gave us his latest take on “Fellow Citizens” (this originally appeared sideways on p. 17)…
…and Garrett Price shared this observation, from the mouth of babes…
…on to Aug. 26…
Aug. 26, 1933 cover by Perry Barlow.
…where we find Ring Lardner, who since March had been injecting humor into the “Over the Waves” radio column.
In this installment, Lardner outlined his ideal radio program. An excerpt:
UP TO OLD GAGS?…Ring Lardner gave the comedy duo Jack Pearl (right) and Cliff Hall a generous four minutes in his fantasy radio show—if they did their old routines. (Wikimedia)
Lardner concluded his dream program:
Sadly, Ring Lardner would be gone in less than a month—he died of a heart attack on Sept. 25, 1933, at the tender age of 48.
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On Second Thought
Previously, film critic John Mosher had been lukewarm to the up-and-coming Katharine Hepburn. No more. Her appearance in Morning Glory drew praise from all over, including the Academy, which gave the young star her first Oscar.
A STAR IS BORN…Katharine Hepburn with Douglas Fairbanks Jr. (left) and Adolphe Menjou in Morning Glory (1933). Hepburn would win the Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role, the first of four she would receive in that category—a record for any performer. (IMDB)
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Life With Clarence
Following “The Talk of the Town” section was this illustrated contribution by Clarence Day…
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While folks were cooling down at the movies Barbara Stanwyck did her best to heat up the screen…
…the frank discussion of sex in Baby Face made it one of the most notorious films of the year and no doubt hastened the implementation of the Hays Code…
LIGHT MY FIRE…Barbara Stanwyck in Baby Face.
…in case anyone had forgotten during Prohibition, Budweiser reminded them who was the king of beers with this inside front cover ad…
…Irvin S. Cobb was back on behalf of Hupmobile, the struggling carmaker hoping that a bit of humor would boost sales…
…this ad from Reo not only lacked humor, it lacked the car itself…
…too bad, because the 1933 Reo Royale was a beauty…
…more color ads from our cigarette manufacturers Camel…
…and Chesterfield…
…why, it’s Barbara Stanwyck again, this time in color, thanks to the folks at Powers Reproduction…
…and Otto Soglow again for Rheingold beer…
…and on to the cartoons, with Soglow’s Little King…
…Carl Rose demonstrated the perils of attending theatre in a barn…
…Robert Day found a Hebrew lifeguard at Coney Island…
…and we end with another by Day, with a twist on America’s Pastime and a subtle plug for the National Recovery Administration…
The heat came early to New York in June 1933, so folks flocked to air-conditioned cinemas or sought the cooling breezes of rooftop cafes and dance floors. And thanks to FDR, there was legal beer to be quaffed at various beer gardens popping up all over town.
June 24, 1933 cover by Rea Irvin. Providing a bookend to Constantin Alajalov’s June bride cover (May 27), Irvin gave us the newlyweds now contemplating a fixer-upper.
Lois Long kept her cool on the beach or at home with a cold Planters’ Punch, but one gets restless, and Ethel Waters was at the Cotton Club, so Long headed out into the night; an excerpt from her column “Tables for Two”…
STORMY WEATHER AHEAD…Ethel Waters was “tops” during a June 1933 performance at the Cotton Club, according to nightlife correspondent Lois Long. Left, Waters circa 1930. At right, the Cotton Club in the early 1930s. (IMDB/Britannica)SHOWER THE PEOPLE…Children gather around a center stand sprinkler (connected to a fire hydrant) on a Harlem street in 1933. (stuffnobodycaresabout.com)POP-UP PLAYGROUND…Play street and street shower alongside the Queensboro Bridge, June 22, 1934. (NYC Municipal Archives)
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Legal beer and hot summer days combined to bring some much-needed advertising revenue to The New Yorker…
…here we have dear old dad telling the young ‘uns (all in formal wear, mind you) about the good old days before Prohibition took away his favorite tipple…
…notable about the magazine’s first beer ads was the target market…this is akin to the cigarette manufacturers, who were also targeting women as a new growth market for their products…curious how this PBR ad is illustrated…is she getting ready to drink the beer, or serve it?…
…also joining the party were the folks who made mixers like White Rock mineral water…note the reference at bottom right to the anticipated repeal of the 18th Amendment…
…the purveyors of Hoffman’s ginger ale were less subtle, encouraging drinkers to mix those highballs right now…
…you could enjoy that cool one while sitting in front of a Klenzair electric fan, which was probably nothing like riding a dolphin—a strange visual metaphor, but then again perhaps something else is being suggested here besides electric fans…
…no doubt Lois Long took in one of these breezy performances on the rooftop of the Hotel Pennsylvania…
…an evening with Rudy Vallée would have been a lot cheaper than one of these “compact” air conditioners, available to only the very wealthy…
…but you didn’t need to be J.P. Morgan to own a Lektrolite lighter, which was kind of clever…this flameless lighter contained a platinum filament that would glow hot after being lowered into reactive chemicals in the lighter’s base…
…another ad from the Architects’ Emergency Committee, which looked like something an architect would design…
…our final June 24 ad told readers about the miracle of Sanforizing, which was basically a pre-shrinking technique, like pre-washed jeans…
…we kick off our cartoons with George Price at the ball game…
…Alan Dunn was in William Steig’s “Small Fry” territory with this precocious pair…
…James Thurber brought us back to his delightfully strange world…
…and Whitney Darrow Jr gave us a trio at a nudist colony dressing a man with their eyes…
…we move along to July 1, 1933…
July 1, 1933 cover by Helen Hokinson.
Where in this issue we find the Nazis not keeping their cool. In an article titled “Unter Dem Hakenkreuz” (“Under the Swastika”) American journalist and activist Mary Heaton Vorse commented on the changes taking place in Berlin, where the vice, decadence and other freedoms of the Weimar years had been swept away, including women’s rights…an excerpt:
SIT UP STRAIGHT AND PROCREATE…Swastika flags hang from a Berlin building in the 1930s. In Hitler’s Germany, women of child-bearing age were expected to produce lots of babies and not much else. (collections.ushmm.org)
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Some Strings Attached
Back in the states, Alvin Johnston published the first installment of a two-part profile on John P. O’Brien (1873–1951) who served as mayor of New York from January to December 1933, the second of two short-term mayors to serve between the disgraced and deposed Jimmy Walker and the reformer Fiorello LaGuardia. Considered the last of the mayoral puppets of Tammany Hall, he was known for his brief, heartless, and clueless reign during one of the worst years of the Depression; while unemployment was at 25 percent, O’Brien was doling out relief funds to Tammany cronies. A brief excerpt (with Abe Birnbaum illustration):
A PIOUS, LABORIOUS DULLARD and “a hack given to malapropisms” is how writer George Lankevich describes John P. O’Brien. According to Lankevich, to a crowd in Harlem O’Brien proudly proclaimed, “I may be white but my heart is as black as yours.” (TIME)
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That Pepsodent Smile
The author James Norman Hall (1887–1951), known for the trilogy of novels that included Mutiny on the Bounty, offered these sobering thoughts about a famed actor he spotted on a South Pacific holiday:
IT ISN’T EASY BEING ME…Fifty-year-old Douglas Fairbanks Sr, teeth and all, was apparently looking worse for the wear when he was spotted by writer James Norman Hall in Tahiti. His glory days of the Silent Era behind him, Fairbanks would die in 1939 at age 56. (fineartamerica.com)
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More cool ones for those hot summer days courtesy of Schaefer…
…and Rheingold, here served by a sheepish-looking woman who doubtless wished that the tray supported champagne or cocktail glasses…and leave it to the Dutch to be one of the first countries to get their foot into the import market…when I was in college this was as good as it got, beer-wise…
…Dr. Seuss again for Flit, and even though this is a cartoon, it demonstrates how in those days no one really cared if you sprayed pesticides near your breakfast, or pets, or kids…
…here’s one of just four cartoons contributed to The New Yorker in the early 1930s by Walter Schmidt…
…Otto Soglow’s Little King found an opportunity to stop and smell the flowers…
…Mary Petty gave us two examples of fashion-conscious women…
…James Thurber explored the nuances of parenting…
…and we close with George Price, master of oddities…
The name Will Hays will always be linked to the Motion Picture Production Code, a set of guidelines for self-censorship that studios adopted to avoid government intervention.
June 10, 1933 cover by Harry Brown.
Hays, however, played both sides in the culture wars. A Republican politician, Hays (1879–1954) managed the 1920 election of Warren G. Harding before moving on to Postmaster General and then chairman of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America. During the so-called pre-Code era, roughly 1930 to 1934, the Production Code was barely enforced, giving filmmakers the freedom to explore themes ranging from prostitution to gangster violence. When Alva Johnston wrote a two-part profile on Hays for The New Yorker, pressure from Catholic Church and other morality groups was building for Hays to strictly enforce the Code, or else. An excerpt:
CLEAN IT UP, JOAN…Will Hays (top left) felt pressure in 1933 to start seriously enforcing the Production Code, and scenes such as the one at top right from Blonde Crazy (1931) with Joan Blondell would probably not pass muster after 1934; the Hays Code would also lengthen the animated Betty Boop’s skirts, and tone down gratuitous violence (James Cagney and Edward Woods in 1931’s Public Enemy). (Wikimedia/pre-code.com/Warner Brothers)
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The Trouble With Money
In their investigation of the probable causes of the 1929 market crash, the Senate Banking and Currency Committee summoned J.P. Morgan Jr (1867–1943) on June 1, 1933, to testify on questionable banking practices. Committee counsel Ferdinand Pecora (1882–1971) set out to prove, among other things, that Morgan sold stock below market price to some of his cronies. Pecora also learned that Morgan and many of his partners paid no income tax in 1931 and 1932, big news to Americans still suffering from the effects of the Great Depression. E.B. White made these observations:
Although not mentioned by White, the hearing began with an odd little sideshow. Writing for the U.S. Capitol Historical Society blog, Joanna Hallac notes that because the hearings were slow to get started, newspaper reporters grew desperate to get something for the evening papers. Then one enterprising reporter, Ray Tucker, spotted circus dwarf Lya Graf with her agent, Charles Leef, outside of the hearing room (the Barnum & Bailey Circus was in town) and suggested Graf meet the famed banker. Hallac writes: “Although he was initially startled, Morgan was genial and rose and shook her hand. Naturally, the photographers were stepping all over each other to get a picture of the exchange. Leef, seeing a perfect press opportunity for himself and the circus, waited for Morgan to sit down and then scooped up Graf and placed her in J.P. Morgan’s lap. Morgan apparently laughed and had a brief exchange with the demure lady, in which he told her he had a grandchild bigger than her.”
THE LIGHTER SIDE OF FINANCE…Before being grilled by Senate counsel Ferdinand Pecora at a June 1, 1933 banking hearing, J.P. Morgan Jr was paid a surprise visit by Lya Graf, a Barnum & Bailey circus dwarf. At right, Pecora, circa 1933. Sadly, Graf, who was German, perished in a concentration camp after she returned to her homeland in 1935. She was condemned to death in 1937 for being half Jewish and “abnormal.” (New York Magazine/Wikipedia)
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Single Member Plurality
Among other attributes, E.B. White was known for his use of the first person plural, the editorial or clinical “we.” White himself offered this insight:
I, ME, MINE…E.B. White at work in 1945. (Britannica.com)
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Uncle Tom, Revived
Plays based on Harriet Beecher Stowe’s 1852 novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin were wildly popular throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but by the 1930s the story seemed antiquated and no longer relevant. That didn’t stop the Players (a Gramercy park actors club) from mounting a 1933 Broadway revival that proved popular with audiences and a New Yorker stage critic, namely E.B. White, sitting in for Robert Benchley…an excerpt…
SAY UNCLE…Otis Skinner (1858–1942), a beloved broadway actor, portrayed Uncle Tom in the 1933 Broadway revival. The all-white cast performed in blackface.
…on the other hand, White found the Frank Faye/Barbara Stanwyck play Tattle Tales tedious, a thin veneer over the stars’ crumbling marriage off-stage…
THAT’S ALL, FOLKS…Publicity photo of Barbara Stanwyck and Frank Faye for the Broadway production of Tattle Tales at the Broadhurst Theatre. The co-stars’ real-life marriage supposedly inspired the 1937 film A Star is Born (as well as subsequent remakes). As Stanwyck’s star rose, Faye’s faded—his heavy drinking and abuse led to their 1935 divorce. The play itself closed after 28 performances. (IBDB)
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Frothy Air
E.B. White (via “The Talk of the Town”) took a stroll through Coney Island and found the place somewhat revived, perhaps thanks to the return of legal beer and Bavarian-style beer gardens…
RECALLING THE GOOD OLD DAYS…Feltman’s Restaurant on Coney Island operated this popular Bavarian Beer Garden in 1890s. (Westland.net)
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Peace, He Said
Adolf Hitler was talking peace, but the French weren’t buying it according to The New Yorker’s Paris correspondent Janet Flanner—in just seven years her beloved City of Light would fall to the Nazis…
IF YOU CAN’T SAY SOMETHING NICE…Adolf Hitler makes his first radio broadcast as German Chancellor, February 1933. Hitler spoke of peace in Europe while preparing his country for war. (Detail of image courtesy Bundesarchiv)
…speaking of Janet Flanner, apparently her “Paris Letter” implied that the author Edna Ferber had married. Ferber offered this correction, in good humor:
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Class anxieties were (and still are) gold to Madison Avenue—look at this poor woman, pondering her very existence, lacking as she did the horsepower to lay some rubber at a green light…
…or this woman, who thought ahead and made sure she had some hair lotion to ward off cackles from the beach harpies…
…on the other hand, this cyclist seems to care less about appearances as she races toward us with a crazed smile, half-human, half-illustration…
…and then there’s this fellow, playing it cool in a white linen suit, which for a sawbuck seems like a bargain, even in 1933…
…the last two pages of the magazine featured friends racing to some swell destination…the lads at left are being propelled to the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair thanks to the wonders of leaded gasoline, while the women at right seem to be doing at least eighty…note neither car has a windshield, so you wonder how many bugs they will pick out of their teeth…
…an apt segue to our cartoons, where Peter Arno showed us a couple going nowhere fast…
…Otto Soglow’s Little King had his own marital situation to ponder after a visit from a sultan…
…a very unusual cartoon from Helen Hokinson, who rarely delved into serious socio-political issues (although her captions were often provided by others at The New Yorker)…this cartoon referred to a cause célèbre of the 1930s, the case of the prejudicial sentences of the Scottsboro boys that recalled the Tom Mooney frame-up two decades earlier…
…on to lighter topics, Robert Day checked in on the progress at Mt. Rushmore…
…George Price also went aloft for a challenge…
…and Carl Rose found this dichotomy in the conquest of nature…
…on to June 17, 1933…
June 17, 1933 cover by Perry Barlow.
…where Frank Curtis reported on the military-style schedule that put young men to work for the Civilian Conservation Corps…excerpts:
MARCHING ORDERS…New members of the Civilian Conservation Corps waiting to be fitted for shoes at Camp Dix, New Jersey, 1935. (Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.)
…just one ad from this issue, another Flit entry from Dr. Seuss, who wouldn’t publish his first book until 1937…
…our cartoons are courtesy Otto Soglow, with some bedside manner…
…Kemp Starrett set up what should prove to be an interesting evening…
…Gluyas Williams considered the woes of J.P. Morgan Jr…
…and we close with another from George Price, doing some tidying up…
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)
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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)
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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.
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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)
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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)
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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…
The zoos of yesteryear were joyless places, that is, if you were one of the animals. Children squealed with fear and delight at the sight of a caged lion, and many an adult had fun tossing peanuts at elephants or teasing enraged gorillas locked behind bars; but if you were a zoo animal in 1931, life was endless hours of boredom, sprinkled with moments of terror and humiliation.
Aug. 15, 1931 cover by Theodore Haupt.
It is instructive to look back 89 years and see how far we’ve come, and how far we still have to go, to see our fellow creatures as more than curiosities and amusements to be captured and gawked at, and to see their environments as something to be preserved, not only for their survival but for ours as well.
LIFE BEHIND BARS…Left, a zookeeper with chimps at the Central Park Zoo, 1936. Right, a rhino paces in a barred enclosure, 1937. (nycgovparks.org)
E.B. White paid a visit to the Central Park Zoo, and found it wanting in a number of respects:
Many zoos back then were more collections of curiosities than places where you could learn about various habitats. So when David Sarnoff, president of RCA, bagged a live opossum in the South, the critter was given a new home in an antelope enclosure, per this item in the Dec. 20, 1931 New York Times:
The Central Park Zoo was established in the 1860s as a “menagerie” behind the Arsenal, and by the turn of the century attracted millions of visitors to its displays of exotic animals.
GETTING AWAY FROM IT ALL…Postcard image of the Menagerie in Central Park, New York, 1905. (Museum of the City of New York—MCNY)ANIMAL ATTRACTION…Postcard image of folks enjoying caged birds at the Menagerie, 1905. (MCNY)O GIVE ME A HOME…In the early days of zoos, animals were presented in cages and fenced enclosures with no hint as to what their natural habitat might look like. Clockwise, from top left, “Fatima” the hippo, image from an 1896 stereograph card; a 1911 photo of a trainer and a dog perched on top of a hapless elephant; a bull bison around the turn of the century; a group of people observe animals in cages at the Central Park Menagerie, 1895. (Library of Congress/nycgovparks.org/MCNY)
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He’s Your Future
The New Yorker featured two-part profile of the governor of New York, Franklin D. Roosevelt, who unbeknownst to writer Milton MacKaye would soon become the next president of the United States. Two excerpts (not continuous)…
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Ah yes, the first time I visited the Empire State Building’s observation deck (in the 1970s) a heavy smog enveloped the city (the air is much cleaner today). I like how the promoters spin disappointment into an opportunity — “The mysterious beauty of the city has a million constantly changing aspects”…
…if you were looking for bluer skies, Bermuda could have been an option if you had the means…
…or you could have stayed closer to home at a Long Island beach resort, as Helen Hokinson illustrated, and as we segue into our cartoons…
…Isadore Klein gave us a very unscientific, albeit humorous view of genetics…
…Richard Decker redefined the meaning of “volunteers”…
…and William Steig summoned the advice of Dorothy Dix, a forerunner of “Dear Abby” who was the most widely read female journalist of her time…
We move on to the Aug. 22, 1931 issue…
Aug. 22, 1931 cover by Helen Hokinson.
…in which James Thurber wrote about his experience with early television in “The Talk of the Town”…
NO CABLE BILL, YET…Charles Francis Jenkins demonstrates his “Radiovisor” console television in 1929. At right, the inner workings featured a rotating disc punctured with tiny holes, each projecting a line across the glass screen to compose an image. As Thurber noted, the pictures commonly were too dark for viewers to see anything more than silhouettes. Not to mention Thurber’s eyesight was also terrible. (earlytelevision.org)
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The Other Moving Pictures
The movies still had nothing to fear from television in 1931, and Hollywood continued to draw large audiences to “Pre-Code” films that featured doses of sex and violence. Novelist Viña Delmar gained famed in 1928 with her suggestively titled book Bad Girl, so when it was adapted into a film, audiences came running—even if the screen adaptation proved to be a bit tamer than the novel that inspired it. Critic John Mosher observed:
I’M JUST A LITTLE BAD…Sally Eilers played the title character in Bad Girl with co-star James Dunn. The film won two Oscars in 1932 for Best Director (Frank Borzage) and Best Writing, Adaptation (Edwin J. Burke). (IMDB)
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Chic Chapeau
The Empress Eugénie hat was named for 19th century French empress Eugénie de Montijo, who was known as a fashion trendsetter. The hat was revived in 1930 after Greta Garbo was seen wearing a version of one in the popular film Romance. E.B. White was not exaggerating when he noted (in his “Notes and Comment”) that the jaunty hat was seen on “every other head” in the city.
LOOK WHAT YOU STARTED…Greta Garbo sported an Empress Eugénie hat in the 1930 film Romance, setting off a fashion craze that persisted through much of the decade. At right, Kemp Starrett referenced the trend in this Aug. 8, 1931 cartoon in The New Yorker. (Pinterest)
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Speaking of trends, these “roughies” were all the rage among the young folks, in the dorms and on the beach…
…one trend I wasn’t aware still persisted in 1931 was a top hat and tails for an evening out among the smart set…
…according to this ad, if you were a “smart” and fashionable New Yorker, then you needed an “Inebriates” themed cocktail set…
…examples of the glassware for sale on Worthpoint…
…Dr. Seuss was still busy selling pesticide with this four-panel ad…
…on to the cartoons, we start with James Thurber…
…and Rea Irvin continued to experiment with various motifs, this time an Egyptian-themed cartoon referencing the “wine bricks” sold by enterprising vineyards during Prohibition…
…Peter Arno found a big surprise during a mansion tour…
…and we end with Otto Soglow…
…and Richard Decker…both cartoons reminded me of Al Jaffee’sSnappy Answers to Stupid Questions…
…I grew up reading Mad magazine, and always looked forward to Jaffee’s fold-ins…he just retired from Mad at the young age of 99, so we conclude with one of his Snappy Answers panels from Mad #98, Oct. 1965…
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A New Yorker State of Mind 