Ervine Metzl – A New Yorker State of Mind

Bottoms Up!

Above: E.B. White had a bone to pick with whiskey distillers who tried to establish "quick antiquity" by naming their products "Old Something-or-Other." That was not true for these two brands—Old Grand-Dad was introduced in Kentucky in 1840, while Old Overholt debuted in Pennsylvania in 1810, making it America's oldest continually maintained whiskey brand. Both are now subsidiaries of Japan's Suntory Global Spirits. (alcohol professor.com/pinterest)

With the official end of Prohibition on December 5, 1933, brewers and distillers raced to ramp up production and revive brands that had lain dormant for more than a decade. Distillers of aged spirits like rye and whiskey were especially keen to invoke history and tradition when marketing their tipple.

August 15, 1936 cover by **Paul C. Robertson.**

In some cases newer distilleries made generous use of the word “Old” in their branding, according to E.B. White in his “Notes and Comment.” White also called out the folks at Seagram’s, who compared the character of Thomas Jefferson to that of their “V.O.” whisky (no “e” in spirits tied to British distilling traditions—Scotland, Canada, Japan, Wales, India). Most egregious, however, was the ad’s claim that Jefferson helped to draft the Constitution. White explained:

HE DID WHAT?…**E.B. White** called out the Seagram’s ad (left, from the July 25 issue of The New Yorker) for its historic inaccuracy (the distiller erroneously credited **Thomas Jefferson** for the Constitution; at right, the character and leadership of the Founding Fathers (and other early American leaders) were oft-employed metaphors for a number of whiskey brands, including James E. Pepper. (facebook.com)

GOLDEN OLDIES…Here are more examples of historic figures being associated with fine spirits…at left, in 1960 the makers of Old Crow (founded 1835) depicted the genocidal **Andrew Jackson** pouring a glass of the stuff for Martin Van Buren; at right, in 1937 the makers of Old Taylor (1887) used quotes and themes from **Thomas Paine’s** revolutionary writings to promote their Kentucky Straight Bourbon. *(bourbonbanter.com/etsy.com)*

While we are on the subject of ardent spirits, let’s take a look at these excerpts from “The Talk of the Town” (attributed to Eugene Kinkead and Russell Maloney), which told the story of a private detective who had a nose for liquor— disguised as hair tonic.

A SIP WITH YOUR SHAVE…During Prohibition (1920–1933), high-alcohol hair tonics like Rexall 93 (containing up to 24% alcohol) were legally sold as cosmetics but were frequently bought and consumed by people seeking a cheap, accessible substitute for bootleg liquor. The photo at right is of a 1930s barbershop—it is not implied that these fine gentlemen were involved in such illicit activities. *(ebay.com/pinterest.com)*

A closer look at the Rexall label—the makers made sure “24% Alcohol” was clearly visible. Folks known as “strainers” would run hair tonics like these through bread, cloth, or charcoal to filter out poisonous additives, obviously a dangerous practice.

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Doggy Downer

The legendary Kress “five-and-dime” stores, with more than 250 locations across twenty-nine states, served the needs of regular folks, but the designs of its stores were anything but pedestrian. This was especially true of its Fifth Avenue location, a 1935 Art Deco masterpiece. Given its lofty address, it was no place for one to order a lowly hot dog. E.B. White explained:

DECO EDIFICE…**Samuel Henry Kress** believed his department stores should function as works of public art that elevate the shopping experience for ordinary people. The company maintained an in-house architectural division, under the leadership of architect **Edward F. Sibbert**, that designed iconic, custom buildings, including the 1935 flagship S. H. Kress & Co. store on Fifth Avenue and 39th Street, an Art Deco masterpiece rendered in granite, bronze, and stainless steel; at right, a view of the store’s Ladies Lounge. Sadly, the building was razed in 1983. (*Museum of the City of New York/New York Public Library)*

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Merely Mortal

Janet Flanner filed her second report from the Berlin Olympics, where America’s Black athletes dominated the track and field events (ESPN’s Larry Schwartz credits Jesse Owens for “single-handedly crushing Hitler’s myth of Aryan supremacy”). Flanner noted attempts by propagandists to make sense of the beating they received, including likening the American athletes to wild animals “living in a state of innocence.” Excerpts:

CONQUERING HEROES…Eighteen Black athletes went to Berlin as part of the U.S. team in 1936. Clockwise, from top left: Standing are high jumpers Dave Albritton and **Cornelius Johnson,** hurdler **Tidye Pickett,** sprinter **Ralph Metcalfe,** boxer Jim Clark, and sprinter **Mack Robinson**…in front, weightlifter **John Terry** (left) and long jumper John Brooks; **Jesse Owens** captured four gold medals and became the hero of the Olympics—his long jump (26 feet 5-1/2 inches) was an Olympic record; the American press reported widely on the friendship between Owens and his German long jump competitor **Carl Ludwig (“Luz”) Long**…Long was killed in action during World War II; the faithful offer their ugly salutes at the opening of the games. (webs.org/Bundesarchiv Koblenz/ushmm.org/history.com)

Flanner also reported on the great fanfare at the opening of the games, including “seventeen searchlights, from far outside the arena…a lofty birdcage of streaming light beams.” One wonders if those same searchlights were deployed during the war four years later, when RAF Lancaster bombers began their night bombing campaign of Berlin.

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At the Movies

Last week we saw Lionel Barrymore in drag (as an old woman) in The Devil Doll. This week he resurfaces as a senile old warhorse in The Road to Glory, a Howard Hawks war film with a screenplay co-written by William Faulkner (the film also featured Frederic March, who had star billing in three major films in 1936). John Mosher found the film “presentable,” but nothing special. The same went for Down Under the Sea, a film concerning sponge divers who battle over the affections of a woman (Ann Rutherford).

WERE THEY SPONGE WORTHY?…Clockwise, from top left: **Ann Rutherford** finds herself torn between two sponge divers vying for her affections in *Down Under the Sea* (aka *Down to the Sea*); divers Ben Lyon and Russell Hardie surprise Rutherford with a “native necklace” in the film; **Frederic March, Lionel Barrymore,** and Warner Baxter in *The Road to Glory*; **June Lang** with March in *The Road to Glory. (eBay/silverscenesblog)*

Mosher also took in Jailbreak, a minor noir picture about racketeers, cops and newspaper reporters.

SERIOUS BUSINESS…**Barton MacLane**, **June Travis** and Joseph Crehan in *Jailbreak. (IMDb.com)*

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From Our Advertisers

The inside front cover featured a wholesome image of a roadside stand on behalf of leaded gasoline…the makers of Ethyl, which boosted octane ratings and stopped engine knocking, deliberately hid or omitted the word “lead” in their advertising…I don’t miss the Ethyl, but I do miss those roadside stands…

…Warner Brothers took out a full-page ad to trumpet the East Coast release of their epic drama Anthony Adverse, which would go on to win four Academy Awards…

…the original torch singer Helen Morgan lent her endorsement to a budget cigarette brand in this back of the book ad…at this point her career would be headed on a downward spiral, ending with her death in 1941…

…the makers of the Dominican rum Siboney competed with Cuban rival Barcardi with this colorful full-page ad illustrated by American graphic artist Ervine Metzl…

…Barcardi placed this front cover advertisement in Aug. 1, 1936 New Yorker (illustrated by George de Zayas)…

…James Thurber kicks off the cartoons with two terrific spot drawings…

…this spot drawing by Victor de Pauw recalls my favorite childhood book, Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel (1939), by Virginia Lee Burton…

…I’m not sure if one would call this a spot drawing or a caption-less cartoon, at any rate, Garrett Price aptly illustrated the dangers of swimming beyond the bouys…

…Rea Irvin demonstrated the perils of dognapping in this multi-panel entry…

…William Steig celebrated summer in the city…

…Helen Hokinson drew up an urgent social connection…

…Denys Wortman looked in on the trappings of motherhood…

…Alan Dunn showed us one effect of long-distance travel…

…and Dunn again, with a man who’d rather not ask questions…

…and leave it to Charles Addams to draw up The New Yorker’s first Medusa-themed cartoon…

…before we continue, here are other interpretations of the mythic Gorgon from The New Yorker…this one by Lars Kenseth is from Jan. 21, 2019…

…this is by Ali Solomon (Oct. 29, 2025)…

…and from May 3, 2025, this terrific caption contest cartoon by Jason Adam Katzenstein (and the winning caption by Peter Sergison, Durham, NC)…

…and here’s a timely cartoon by Daryl Seitchik that was rejected by the magazine…

…we go back to 1936 with George Price and a plucky salesman…

…Chon Day made an unappetizing find at the fish market…

…Gardner Rea looked in on a summer stock performance…

…Peter Arno drew up a Milquetoast unwittingly ordering a knuckle sandwich…

…and we close with some racy decor, courtesy Richard Taylor…

Next Time: Wherefore, Old Romeo?…

Keep Calm and Carry On

If you lived in Germany in 1935, or in Italy or Spain for that matter, the world would have looked very different from the one most Americans were experiencing, clawing their way out of the Great Depression and hoping to improve their domestic lives. War was not big on their worry list.

April 6, 1935 cover by **Leonard Dove.**

In his “Notes and Comment,” E.B. White satirized the talk about war that was filling more column inches in the nation’s newspapers. He was particularly scornful of journalists such as Arthur Brisbane—the influential editor of William Randolph Hearst’s media empire—who was fond of giant headlines warning of impending war.

TEND YOUR OWN GARDEN...E.B. White in 1946. (Britannica)

White wasn’t naive about the possibilities of war; however, he believed obsessing about things over which we have little control did little to help the human condition. Helping one’s neighbor, on the other hand, would do the world more good. In 1939, just six months before Germany invaded Poland, White wrote a piece titled “Education” for his Harper’s Magazine column, One Man’s Meat. This excerpt helps define his worldview:

“I find that keeping abreast of my neighbors’ affairs has increased, not diminished, my human sympathies…in New York I rise and scan Europe in the Times; in the country I get up and look at the thermometer—a thoroughly set-contained point of view which, if it could infect everybody everywhere, would I am sure be the most salutary thing that could happen to the world.”

With that, here is a selection from the April 6 “Notes and Comment”…

TANKS A LOT…Clockwise, from top left, German war production in the 1930s—by increasing the size of the army by 500,000 and establishing the *Luftwaffe* in early 1935, Germany broke international law and the Treaty of Versailles; the 1935 Anglo-German Naval Agreement was the first sign of British and European appeasement—photo shows the launch of the *Admiral Graf Spee*; a display of force at Nuremberg, mid 1930s; cartoon by **Bernard Partridge** from Punch (September 1932) foresaw the inevitable. (parisology.net/theholocaustexplained.org/Punch Limited)

In March 1973, a “Mr. Nadeau” wrote a letter to E. B. White expressing fears about humanity’s bleak future. Here are the first and last lines of White’s reply:

As long as there is one upright man, as long as there is one compassionate woman, the contagion may spread and the scene is not desolate. Hope is the thing that is left to us, in a bad time. I shall get up Sunday morning and wind the clock, as a contribution to order and steadfastness…Hang on to your hat. Hang on to your hope. And wind the clock, for tomorrow is another day.

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Another Viewpoint

Ever the observer of the passing scene, Howard Brubaker made these relevant observations in “Of All Things”…

…and back to White’s “Notes,” and the imminent passing of the beloved organ grinder…

THE OLD GRIND…Above, one of New York City’s last organ grinders in Washington Heights, ca. 1935. Organ grinders had been fixtures in Manhattan since the 1850s, and by 1880 roughly five percent of Italian men living in Five Points were organ grinders, often accompanied by monkeys who entertained and collected coins. Organ grinders were outlawed in 1936 by Mayor **Fiorello La Guardia.** It is thought the mayor disliked the Italian immigrant stereotype. (Library of Congress)

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Give Him More Mickey Mouse

John Mosher expressed his displeasure with movies that failed to deliver some escape from life’s mundane realities or offered little more than tepid storylines.

IN SEARCH OF A CREDIBLE PLOT…Critic John Mosher found Claudette Colbert (top left) both unbelievable and unqualified to be a psychiatrist in Private Worlds; at top right, **Joan Blondell** and Glenda Farrell offered some mindless distractions in *Traveling Saleslady* (from 1933 to 1936 Blondell and Farrell appeared together in seven films); bottom, Mosher called The Woman in Red an “anemic” tale. **Barbara Stanwyck** seems to be wondering why she took the part. (rottentomatoes.com/TCM)

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Odds and Ends

Also in the issue, John O’Hara kicked off the short fiction with “I Could Have Had A Yacht,” Margaret Case Harriman penned a profile of Elizabeth Arden (of cosmetics empire fame), and theatre critic Wolcott Gibbs enjoyed the “bitterly effective performances” in Clifford Odets’ Waiting For Lefty, which was being produced at the Longacre Theatre.

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH...Elia Kazan led the cast in the original production of **Clifford Odets’** iconic 1935 play *Waiting for Lefty.* Centered around a taxi drivers’ strike, *Lefty* was produced by The Group Theatre, which sought to perform plays that functioned as social commentaries on the inequality and poverty of 1930s America. Some referred to Kazan as the “Proletarian Thunderbolt.” (Creative Commons)

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From Our Advertisers

While Hitler ramped up weapons production and prepared to enact the Nuremberg Race Laws, the German Tourist Office touted their country as “The Land of Music” in this one-column advertisement on page 66 (left)…a couple of pages later we have an old chap looking forward to a German cruise and a quiet soak at Baden-Baden in the midst of madness…

…now this is more like it, fine dining under the stars aboard the Santa Paula, far from the maddening crowds…

…there were several colorful full-page ads in the issue, including this splashy display from the very un-splashy-sounding Bermuda Trade Development Board…

…cherry blossoms lined the path of Lincoln’s Le Baron Roadster…

…Camel played to a wide demographic, from ads featuring stylish young women to ads like this that roped in everyone from an “enthusiastic horsewoman” to an engineer working on the Boulder (now Hoover) Dam…

…I’m not sure what “Life begins at sixty” is supposed to mean, unless it’s about tempting young women with your bad habit…

…the New York American was hoping that some of the “Best People” who read The New Yorker would also want to read their apartment rental want ads…

…spring was in the air at Richard Hudnut’s Fifth Avenue salon…if you had dry skin, it was recommended you try a product with the unfortunate name “Du Barry Special Skin Food”…

…Taylor Instruments hoped readers would monitor the spring weather with one of their stylish thermometers…American graphic artist and illustrator Ervine Metzl provided the artwork…he was best known for his posters and postage stamp designs…

…which brings us to our illustrators and cartoonists, beginning with this small woodcut on page 6 signed “Martin”…

…empathy gained some traction in this Robert Day cartoon…

…Alan Dunn demonstrated the effect of the Depression on the building trades…

…Leonard Dove found one enlistee not ready for basic training…

…Syd Hoff showed us all the right moves…

…Alain was up in the garret with an artist in need of some peace…

…Gluyas Williams took a glimpse backstage…

…William Crawford Galbraith was still exploring the world of sugar daddies and golddiggers…

…Barbara Shermund introduced a few giggles…

…and we close with another James Thurber classic…

Next Time: The Cowboy Philosopher…

A Decade of Delights

With this post (No. 413), we mark the tenth anniversary of The New Yorker. Since I began A New Yorker State of Mind in March 2015, I’ve attempted to give you at least a sense of what the magazine was like in those first years, as well as the historical events that often informed its editorial content as well as its famed cartoons. Those times also informed the advertisements; indeed, in some cases the ads give us a better idea of who was reading the magazine, as well as their changing tastes and buying power as we moved from the Roaring Twenties to the Depression, and from Prohibition into Repeal.

I have also chosen this time to go on hiatus, and hopefully resume this blog when The New Yorker celebrates its centennial next February (this site will remain active and available, and I will continue to monitor comments and messages). Let us hope that the editors use the original Rea Irvin cover for that occasion, and restore his masthead above “The Talk of the Town” section. Perhaps some enterprising soul could start a petition.

Moving on to the tenth anniversary issue, we find E.B. White recalling the world of The New Yorker’s first days. Given the massive economic and societal shifts that occurred from 1925 to 1935, those first days seemed distant to White, who felt old, “not in years but events.”

DAYS OF YORE…**E.B. White** noted the many changes that had taken place during *The New Yorker’s* first ten years, including, clockwise from top left, the passing of 1920s notables such as **President Calvin Coolidge** and two very different theatre impresarios—**David Belasco** and Flo Ziegfeld; White also recalled the much-publicized 1925 wedding of **Abby Rockefeller** to **David Milton,** the throngs of women who took to smoking in public in the 1920s and the drinkers who took their activities behind closed doors; and one of the early magazine’s beloved contributors, **Ralph Barton,** who offered his whimsical take on the news in “The Graphic Section” as well as in other illustrated features. (Wikipedia/Wikitree/Ephemeral New York)

White also noted a new craze that had originated around the same time as the birth of The New Yorker…

TWO ACROSS…**Max Schuster** and Richard Simon of Simon & Schuster, with their first crossword book, 1924. (americanbusinesshistory.org)

White concluded with these parting words, tinged with world-weariness, writing “More seems likely to happen.” One wonders if he imagined The New Yorker at 100, which in our day is just around the corner. Like White, many us have grown weary of this angry world, where indeed more seems likely to happen. Let us hope it is for the best.

Now, some unfinished business. We need to look at the previous issue, Feb. 9, 1935, before we close out the decade.

Feb. 9, 1935 cover by **William Cotton.**

We stay on the lighter side, joining critic John Mosher at the local cinema to appreciate Leslie Howard’s dashing performance in The Scarlet Pimpernel…

WORKING OVERTIME…**Leslie Howard** and **Merle Oberon** in *The Scarlet Pimpernel.* Howard portrayed an aristocrat who leads a double life, publicly appearing as a dandy while secretly rescuing French nobles from Robespierre’s Reign of Terror. (PBS)

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From Our Advertisers

Cigarette manufacturers employed every angle from sex to health claims to move their product…not to be left out of any niche market, Chesterfield even went after the little old ladies…

…by contrast, the makers of Old Gold cigarettes featured a clueless sugar daddy and his leggy mistress in a series of ads drawn by famed pin-up artist George Petty…

…Otto Soglow would do well with advertisers during his career, promoting everything from whiskey to Pepsi and Shredded Wheat to department stores…in this case Bloomingdale’s…after William Randolph Hearst’s King Features Syndicate wrested The Little King away from The New Yorker in September 1934, this was the only way you would see the harmless potentate in the magazine…

…another New Yorker artist earning some ad dollars on the side was Constantin Alajalov, here adding a stylish flair for Coty…

…and then there’s James Thurber, who continued to contribute his talents on behalf of the Theatre Guild…

…and we move along to the Feb. 9 cartoons, with Thurber again…

…the issue also featured two by George Price…

…and Howard Baer supplied some life to this little party…

…now let’s return to the Feb. 15, 1935 issue…

…where John Mosher was back at the cinema, this time enjoying the story of a “beautiful stenographer”…

POPCORNY…**Fred MacMurray** and **Claudette Colbert** meet cute over popcorn in the romantic comedy *The Gilded Lily.* It was MacMurray’s second credited screen role, and it was the first of seven films in which Colbert and MacMurray would star together. (Wikipedia)

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More From Our Advertisers

In its bid for survival during the Depression, the luxury brand Packard introduced its first car under $1000, the 120. Sales more than tripled in 1935 and doubled again in 1936…

…meanwhile, Hudson was hanging in there with innovations such as the “Electric Hand”…it was not a true automatic transmission, but it did allow drivers to shift gears near the steering wheel…

…as demonstrated here…

…whatever you were driving, Goodyear claimed it would keep you the safest with their “Double Eagles”…

…I include this ad for Taylor Instruments because it features an illustration by Ervine Metzl, who would become known for his posters and postage stamp designs…