Tag: Eslanda Goode Robeson

The Drys Are All Wet

The end of Prohibition was more than three years away, but New Yorkers could already sense that the tide was quickly turning against the “drys” who had succeeded a decade earlier in enacting a nationwide ban on most alcohol production and distribution.

Aug. 2, 1930 cover by Julian De Miskey.

In the Aug. 2 issue Alva Johnston seemed to relish the opportunity to aim some withering fire at the retreating “drys”…

NOT EXACTLY LYSISTRATA…The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (left) and the Anti-Saloon League were major forces behind a nationwide constitutional ban on the production, importation, transportation and sale of alcoholic beverages in the U.S. (Pinterest/PBS)

Johnston noted how the “wet” forces were even using the Bible to beat down the moral crusaders…

DIDN’T SEE THAT COMING…What began as moral crusade led to the rise of some of America’s most notorious gangsters. Top, left to right, early 20th century temperance supporters included attorney and politician William Jennings Bryan, Anti-Saloon League leaders William “Meat-Axe” Anderson and Wayne Wheeler, and Ella Boole, head of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union; bottom, left to right, mugshots of Jack “Legs’ Diamond and Al Capone. (Wikipedia/findagrave.com/Flickr)

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Clear as Mud

In another installment of “Answers-To-Hard-Questions Department,” James Thurber fielded a question regarding the New Yorker’s policy on drawings and sketches. Here is Thurber, posing as “Wayne Van R. Vermilye”…

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Double Standard

In its first years the New Yorker looked down on the subtle and not-so-subtle racism in American life; that is, when it applied to black intellectuals and artists (Dorothy Parker’s “Arrangement in Black and White” in the Sept. 30, 1927 is a prime example). However, in its comics and in “Talk of the Town” shorts, working class blacks were almost always depicted as minstrel characters, mammies, pickininnies and the like. In the Aug. 2 book review section, we have an example of the former, more or less…

WITHOUT LAUGHTER…Eslanda Goode Robeson, left, in the avant-garde film Borderline (1929); Langston Hughes photographed by Carl Van Vechten in the 1930s. (columbia.edu/beinecke.library.yale.edu)

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From Our Advertisers

The 38-story Barbizon-Plaza Hotel hotel was designed to appeal to artists and musicians and included soundproof practice rooms, art studios, and two performance halls. Apparently you could also enjoy a game of deck tennis on the rooftop, but one wonders how much damage one could inflict — on a car or person — with a solid rubber ring dropped from a height of nearly 400 feet…

The Barbizon-Plaza Hotel opened at 106 Central Park South in 1930 with 1,400 ensuite rooms. Designed to appeal to artists and musicians, the Depression put an end to that dream, and the property was foreclosed on in 1933. Donald Trump purchased the building in 1981 with the intent of tearing it down, but eventually converted it into 340 condo units and renamed it the “Trump Parc.” (MCNY)

…Lorillard Tobacco Company, the makers of Old Gold cigarettes, tapped into the popularity of crooner Rudy Vallée to move their product, boasting that like Vallée  their cigarette was something of an overnight sensation (residents of Chicago, the ad noted, smoked 3 million Old Golds every day)…

…on to our cartoons…a couple issues back, I noted how this Peter Arno drawing appeared in three consecutive issues with different captions…here it is again, and the story of the two lovers continues…

…also continuing were these full-page cartoons (originally displayed sideways) by Rea Irvin…his “Country Life in America,” scenes depicted common folks setting up camp and enjoying other other activities at the expense of country squires…

…and we end with Leonard Dove and a couple of city folk looking for some excitement in the country…

Note: the above cartoon refers to Texas Guinan’s move to country after reigning for a nearly a decade as Manhattan’s “Queen of the Nightclubs.” Facing declining fortunes, in 1929 she took her nightclub act to the quiet village of Valley Stream, New York, located just south of Queens in Nassau County. The venture quickly went bust.

Next Time: The Woes of Mr Monroe…