Above: Margaret Mitchell poses with her award-winning novel, c. 1938. Mitchell won the National Book Award for Fiction for Most Distinguished Novel of 1936 and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1937. Gone With the Wind was the only novel she published in her lifetime. (britannica.com)
Margaret Mitchell’s 1936 novel Gone With the Wind and the 1939 film it inspired have both served as controversial reference points for cultural critics and scholars, particularly for the stereotypical and derogatory portrayals of African Americans in the 19th century South.
July 4, 1936 cover by Peter Arno.
Ninety years later the novel still proves divisive; it also remains one of America’s most-loved books. Worldwide, more than 30 million copies have been printed in the U.S. and abroad.
In 1936 the novel quickly rose to the top of fiction bestseller lists, and was generally well received by critics. Novelist and literary critic Louis Kronenberger (1904–1980), who sat in for Clifton Fadiman in The New Yorker’s book section, praised the novel for its “highfalutin absurdities,” calling it a “masterpiece of pure escapism.” Kronenberger wrote that Gone with the Wind provided “a kind of catharsis…of all the false sentiment and heady goo that even the austerest mind somehow accumulates and periodically needs to get rid of.” He correctly predicted that the novel would be “very feverishly discussed” once people found the time to read its thousand-plus pages. Excerpts:
GOO GONE…Clockwise, from top left: Reading Gone With the Wind will clear one’s “heady goo,” according to critic Louis Kronenberger; Margaret Mitchell (1900–1949) seated before a selection of Gone With the Wind translations; an example of a German version of the novel—Gone With the Wind was translated into at least forty different languages with eight hundred unique international printings. (azquotes.com/Atlanta Journal-Constitution/georgiaencyclopedia.org)IT HAS HOW MANY PAGES?!…Clark Gable, who portrayed Rhett Butler in the 1939 film adaptation of Gone with the Wind, has a look at Margaret Mitchell’s doorstop of a book. Mitchell was not involved in the screenplay or film production. (yahoo.com)
* * *
Tweet From Tinseltown
Apparently actress Mary Astor was a New Yorker reader, having read an E.B. White “Notes” column that mentioned his stained-glass hummingbird feeders.
FOR THE BIRDS…A New Yorker column by E.B. White inspired actress Mary Astor to feed Hollywood’s hummingbirds. (Wikipedia)
* * *
Going, Going, Gone
A “Talk of the Town” piece co-written by A. J. Liebling and Russell Maloney tracked down what remained of the Central Park Casino, which had been demolished under the orders of Parks Commissioner Robert Moses.
Moses hated former Mayor Jimmy Walker, and by association he hated Walker’s favorite haunt, the Central Park Casino. Despite pleas from preservationists to save the famous Art Deco supper club, which had been beautifully rebuilt by the late designerJoseph Urban, Moses moved as quickly as possible to demolish the building. Following a public auction, the iconic horseshoe-shaped bar and some interior fixtures were acquired by the Palisades Amusement Park in New Jersey and subsequently installed beside the park’s wave pool.
FROM GLITTER TO RUIN…Clockwise, from top left, the Central Park Casino on the evening of Sept.10, 1935; interior images of Joseph Urban’s elegant Art Deco designs; workers remove windows and interior fixtures as demolition commences in May 1936. (nycgovparks.com/centralpark.org/mcny.org)
* * *
Maddy Returns
It’s a shame that writer Maddy Vegtel is largely forgotten today. She wrote with great wit and verve, and was well known in the 1920s and 30s for her Vanity Fair profiles and for her articles about Holland, her native land. A contributor to The New Yorker from 1926 to 1956, she published this casual in July 4 issue.
* * *
Bad Men and Mad Men
The poet Ogden Nash shared his thoughts on the summer political convention season:
THE LORD’S ANOINTED…Ogden Nash (center) observed this belief in the political animal; at left and right, the Democratic and Republican nominees for president in 1936, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Alf Landon. (Wikimedia/poetryverse.com/Wikipedia)
* * *
At the Movies
Critic John Mosher was on board for MGM’s musical-drama disaster film San Francisco, which told the story of a saloon keeper, a singer, and a priest caught up in 1906 San Francisco earthquake.
SHAKING IN THEIR BOOTS…Clockwise, from top left: MGM poster for San Francisco touts the first-time pairing of Clark Gable and Jeanette MacDonald in a film; scene from the film featuring, from left, Gable, Jack Holt, Spencer Tracy and MacDonald; the film included stunning effects, including an earthquake montage sequence that interspersed scenes of wreckage with the faces of terrified victims; Gable assesses the carnage in a scene from the film. (imdb.com/kittypackard.wordpress.com)
Mosher offered a tongue-cheek assessment of Shirley Temple’s appearance in her latest film, The Poor Little Rich Girl, noting that “There’s not the slightest indication of aging in Miss Temple.” The child star was just shy of eight years old when she filmed the picture. As for the The White Angel, Mosher found the Florence Nightingale biopic—with Kay Francis in the title role—”a little schoolbookish [and] quite on the dull side.”
THAT YOUTHFUL GLOW…Top photo: Critic John Mosher found Shirley Temple still able to “delight her tremendous public” in The Poor Little Rich Girl—she is seen here with co-stars Jack Haley and Alice Faye; Below: Kay Francis and Ian Hunter in The White Angel, a film about Florence Nightingale’s pioneering work as a nurse during the Crimean War. (tcm.com)
* * *
From Our Advertisers
Sunscreen as we understand it today wasn’t available to New Yorkers in 1936, so they relied on zinc oxide and other mineral applications to avoid sunburns…however, Eugene Schueler, founder of L’Oréal, developed the first tanning oil with UV radiation-filtering properties in Europe in 1935 (active ingredient was benzyl salicylate), and later marketed it to the U.S. as Ambre Solaire…the brand is still sold today…
…Stage magazine continued to promote their 1911 throwback issue…
…the back cover belonged to Liggett & Myers, offering another romantic couple enjoying their Chesterfields…
…we open the cartoons with Richard Taylor, who felt the heat as summer took hold in the city…on July 4, 1936, the official high temperature in Central Park reached an unseasonably warm 93 degrees F (34 c), hitting 106 F (41C) five days later on July 9…that mark remains the city’s all-time absolute highest temperature…
…Otto Soglow’s spot art showed us how one well-heeled family escaped the hot city…
…while Susan Willard Flint offered a woodcut if a quiet cobbled street…
…Tom Holloway showed us how one posh kid delivered the Saturday Evening Post (Holloway was a cartoonist for the Post, contributing just two drawings to The New Yorker, both in 1936)…
…the woman’s expression says it all in this Helen Hokinson cartoon…
…George Price gave us a saleswoman who saw one two many pool floats…
…Gardner Rea drew up a vast estate for a man who (almost) had it all…
…Fritz Wilkinson did some deep sea swan diving…
…Gilbert Bundy found a clue at the gentleman’s club…
…Mary Petty went all out for the Fourth of July…
…and we close with Peter Arno, and the miracle of birth…
Above: Rochelle Hudson and W.C. Fields in scene from Poppy. Fields reprised his vaudeville character Professor McGargle (from the hit 1923 stage revue of the same name), who learns about a million-dollar inheritance meant for a long-lost local heiress and concocts a plan to pass off his daughter, Poppy, as the true heiress. (Facebook.com)
Eighty years after his death W.C. Fields is still recognized as one of the America’s great comic geniuses. When he made a sound film version of his hit Broadway play, Poppy, in 1936, many thought it would be his last, since he suffered from a variety of ailments including a bad back and chronic lung congestion. Doubtless two quarts of liquor a day also had a few people wondering.
June 27, 1936 cover by Rea Irvin.
It would have been an appropriate, if premature ending to Field’s career, since it was the Poppy stage play that launched him into national stardom (along with the play’s first adaptation into film, the 1925 silent Sally of the Sawdust). The play and the silent film introduced audiences to the lovable snake oil salesman “Professor” Eustace McGargle, who returned in the 1936 film, “a slightly blurred affair” according to critic John Mosher.
THE PROFESSOR RETURNS…Clockwise, from top left: W.C. Fields and Carole Dempster in 1925’s Sally of the Sawdust, which was based on the stage play Poppy and was directed by D.W. Griffith; Fields as Professor Eustace McGargle and Rochelle Hudson as Poppy in 1936’s Poppy; Fields and Catherine Doucet, who portrayed Countess Maggi Tubbs DePuizzi.(filmforum.org/doctormacro.com/facebook.com)
The “blurred” performance by Fields (1880–1946), the result of his various ills, didn’t seem to affect most critics—the New York Times, for example, called the film “a glorious victory.” Remarkably, Fields would live another ten years and go on to star in such classics as 1940’s My Little Chickadee, (with Mae West), 1940’s The Bank Dick, and 1941’s Never Give a Sucker an Even Break.
HELLO FRIENDS…W.C. Fields chats with his close friend and Poppy director Eddie Sutherland, who was accompanied by writer Dorothy Parker during a visit to the set of Poppy. (Facebook.com)
Mosher also reviewed a “sad” picture about the tragic life of a Tyrolean sexton, Sins of Man, and the musical comedy Dancing Pirate, which he deemed even sadder because it was so terrible (Mosher walked out during the middle of the picture).
FROM BELLS TO THE BOWERY…Jean Hersholt played a Tyrolian sexton with an American dream that goes awry in Sins of Man. (eBay.com)SEEING RED…Not even Technicolor could spare Dancing Pirate from John Mosher’s wrath. At left, Steffi Duna and Charles Collins in a dance scene; eighteen-year-old Rita Hayworth (right) appeared as an uncredited dancer in the film—here she poses in a publicity photo for 1936’s Human Cargos.(mediaplaynews.com/facebook.com)
* * *
All Aboard
In his “Notes and Comment,” E.B. White described a trip on a Boston & Main streamliner that traveled along a branch line. Lacking a turning loop, the train had to run in reverse for half of the round trip.
TWO-WAY TICKET…The Boston & Main streamlined Flying Yankee (seen here in 1938) would run both forward and backward when traveling along a branch line that lacked a turning loop. (Wikipedia)
* * *
Furies Al Fresco
On June 17, 1936 Rockefeller Center opened the Promenade Café in the plaza surrounding the Prometheus Fountain (later that year a temporary ice skating rink took the spot, now a permanent, iconic feature of the plaza). Writing for “The Talk of the Town,” E.B. White commented on the breezy dining experience he shared with wife, Katharine Sergeant White. Excerpt:
FIRE AND ICE…Patrons enjoy dining with the god of fire in the plaza beneath 30 Rock, circa 1970. The plaza is converted to an ice skating rink in the winter. (eBay.com)
The magazine’s next issue (July 4) advertised dinner, dancing and thirty-five cent cocktails at the Promenade Café…
* * *
From Our Advertisers
We open with a June Bride and hubby tanking up on some leaded gas before heading to Niagara Falls…
…opposite the Ethyl ad was this Simeon Braguin-illustrated spot for Bergdorf…
…the pacifists behind the World Peaceways ads pulled no punches when delivering their anti-war message…
…Budweiser continued its laborious series of ads that employed analogies and metaphors to promote its best-selling suds…
…recall the ad from the April 18 issue of The New Yorker, when the brewer used this disagreeable analogy to tout its “vacuum-cleansing” process…
…the Revere Copper and Brass company responded to the recent invention of canned beer with an invention of its own…the Tapster, an elegant nickel and brass pitcher with a built-in punch on the underside of the lid…just insert a can, push down on the lid, and pour…great for the yacht, or as a gift to some newlyweds…
The nickel-silver and brass “Tapster” is highly sought by collectors today. (americanhistory.si.edu)
…in contrast to Budweiser’s wordy ads (or to White Rock’s colorful ones), the folks at Hoffman advertised their products with just a few lines of black ink…
…Don Dickerman continued to promote his latest “Pirates Den” near Port Chester…note that among many other talents, Dickerman was also an artist…he illustrated the ads for all of his enterprises, including this one…
…John Hanrahan, publisher and editor of Stage theater magazine (and who also helped put The New Yorker on solid financial footing), set aside the August 1936 issue as a special edition, the “1911 Number,” a nostalgic, tongue-in-cheek look back to the founding of Stage’s predecessor, The Theatre Guild Magazine. The magazine marked its 25th anniversary by examining the striking differences between 1911 and 1936 in the world of theater as well as in fashion and cultural mores.
…here is the cover of that issue, featuring Billie Burke, a leading Broadway actress who would marry producer and impresario Florenz Ziegfeld Jr in 1914…she is still known today for her portrayal of Glinda the Good Witch of the North in 1939’s The Wizard of Oz…
(eBay.com)
…and Dr. Seuss was still at it, finding new and clever ways to deploy the insecticide Flit…
…the New York radio station WOR employed Otto Soglow to drum up some business for their ad department…WOR began broadcasting in early 1922, and is one of the oldest continuously operating radio stations in the U.S. (the three–letter call sign is characteristic of stations dating from the 1920s)…
…Soglow gives us a nice segue to our cartoonists and illustrators, beginning with a Susan Willard Flint woodcut…
…Alan Dunn contributed this spot drawing…
…as did Richard Taylor…
…Perry Barlow offered some sketches from the summer convention scene…
…Helen Hokinson considered the value of fortune-teller…
…Alain illustrated what dreams are made of, at least for one man…
…and what are friends for? Gardner Rea had an idea…
…Barbara Shermund offered a challenge at a dress shop…
…and Shermund again, with an enterprising commuter…
…just the facts ma’am, with Peter Arno in the court of law…
…Robert Day presented a construction conundrum…
…Rea Irvin took a child’s perspective of the wild world…
Above: Posters advertising The Country Doctor, a film featuring the Dionne Quintuplets as "The Wyatt Quintuplets." (Wikipedia/imdb.com)
The Dionne Quintuplets, famed as the first quintuplets known to have survived infancy, appeared in a motion picture before their second birthday—The Country Doctor—just one example of the many ways the girls were exploited by the province of Ontario, their doctor, their father, and the companies who used their images to sell everything from toys to toothpaste.
March 21, 1936 cover by Constantin Alajalov.
The Country Doctor was the first of three 20th Century Fox films featuring the toddlers as the “The Wyatt Quintuplets.” Actor Jean Hersholt played the country doctor (“Dr. John Luke”) in all three films, his character based on Allan Roy Dafoe, the Ontario obstetrician who successfully delivered the identical quints in 1934. It was a sign of the times that no one seemed too concerned about the children’s welfare—TheNew Yorker’s John Mosher was joined by his fellow critics in generally praising the film.
MARKETING MATERNITY…The Country Doctor was the first of three 20th Century Fox films featuring the Dionne Quintuplets. Clockwise, from top left: Slim Summerville, Jean Hersholt, and John Qualen in The Country Doctor; Ontario Premier Mitchell Hepburn with the quintuplets in 1934; a 1936 book based on the film; a 1937 ad for Karo Syrup, a major sponsor of the girls and Dr. Dafoe; an array of quintuplet-related toys included paper dolls and the much sought after Madame Alexander dolls. (Wikipedia/ebay.com/facebook.com/pbs.org)
The Dionne Quintuplets were used to endorse an array of products including Quaker Oats, Colgate toothpaste, Palmolive soap, and Lysol disinfectant. Dr. Dafoe became a wealthy man due to his association with the quintuplets, while the government of Ontario saw enormous tourism potential (the girls were made wards of the province ostensibly to protect them from exploitation). At the age of four months the quintuplets were moved from the farmhouse where they were born to a compound (“Quintland”) that featured an outdoor playground designed as a public observation area.
SURROUNDED BY RICHES…at left, Allen Roy DaFoe on a postcard with the Dionne Quintuplets; tourists consult sign for the next public showing of the “Quints.”(roadtripusa.com/facebook.com)CHA-CHING…Oliva Dionne, the quintuplets’ father, ran this souvenir and refreshment stand at Quintland, where the public flocked to view the girls playing. (montrealgazette.com)
The last surviving quintuplet, Annette, died on December 24, 2025, at the age of 91. Her sister Cécile died a few months earlier, also at age of 91.
John Mosher also reviewed Mae West’s latest film, Klondike Annie. Some critics regarded it as her finest film, despite heavy censorship and the outrage of “Decency people.”
GO WEST, WEST…Mae West portrayed a kept woman who murders her keeper in self-defense and escapes to Nome, Alaska in Klondike Annie. At left, West in a scene with Son Yong; at right, with Phillip Reed. (Pinterest)
* * *
St. Katharine
Robert Benchley found Katharine Cornell’s theatrical performance in Saint Joan to be “as fine as was expected.” An excerpt:
KNOWN QUANTITIES was how Robert Benchley described the talents of stage actress Katharine Cornell. At left, Cornell as Saint Joan; at right, Cornell (1893–1974) is perhaps best known in her role as Elizabeth Barrett in the 1931 Broadway production of The Barretts of Wimpole Street. (Wikipedia)
* * *
It Begins…
On March 7, 1936, 22,000 German army troops crossed a bridge over the Rhine River and entered the Rhineland, breaking the 1919 Treaty of Versailles, which mandated a demilitarized Rhineland to ensure French safety. Despite the violation, and the fact that the German army was still weak, France and Britain took no military action. E.B. White reported:
REOCCUPATION…On March 7, 1936, German Army troops crossed a bridge over the Rhine River and entered the Rhineland for the first time since the end of World War I. The lack of response from France and Great Britain no doubt emboldened Hitler to annex Austria and occupy Czechoslovakia in 1938. (iwm.org.uk)
Howard Brubaker, in his column “Of All Things,” also noted:
* * *
Some Pretty Things
“The Talk of the Town” paid a visit to the Museum for the Arts of Decoration at the Cooper Union and found many treasures within, including a unique circular elevator.
BRIDGE TO THE PAST…The Cooper Union’s Museum for the Arts of Decoration held many treasures, including (at bottom) an Italian birdcage fashioned to resemble the Rialto Bridge; at top, rooms filled with examples from the decorative arts. (cooperhewitt.org)
The “Talk” visit included a ride up a circa 1850s elevator shaft designed by inventor Peter Cooper four years before safety elevators even existed. The design was based on Cooper’s belief that the circular shape was the most efficient.
ROUND AND SOUND…At left, entrance to Peter Cooper’s circa 1850s round elevator and the elevator’s shaft at the Cooper Union Foundation Building. The round shaft remains a central feature of the building today, now housing a modern round elevator designed in 1972. (Cooper Union Library)
* * *
Commie Cutlery
American non-fiction writer Carl Carmer published the first part of a two-part essay on the revolutionary Oneida Community, which Carmer dubbed “a materially successful communist experiment…”
This polyamorous Christian utopia disbanded before the end of the 19th century and reemerged as a joint-stock company, Oneida Community Limited, which focused on making silverware. This brief excerpt is from the first paragraph.
COHABITING COMRADES…Oneida commune members gather on the lawn in front of the Community Mansion House in in Madison County, New York, circa 1860s. Members of the community practiced free love, women and men had equal freedom in sexual expression and commitment, and children were raised communally. (collectorsweekly.com)
* * *
From Our Advertisers
Yes, take a doctor’s advice, and put some leaded gas in your car, and into the air you breathe…
…R.J. Reynolds presented three women who exemplified the “society model” trend of the 1930s…well-known debs and socialites who provided an air of prestige to a brand…especially cigarettes…
…Lorillard Tobacco Company, on the other hand, stuck with pin-up artist George Petty to push their Old Golds…
…General Motors took out the middle spread to tout their low-priced luxury automobile, the La Salle…
…the convertible La Salle looked handsome, if not a bit brisk with the top down…
…American luxury carmaker Packard proudly displayed their twelve-cylinder luxury model, but reminded readers they could have a lesser model, the 120, for a price “in the $1,000 field”…
…a couple of one-column ads…Don Herold helped Hale’s move mattresses, while fashion columnist Alma Archer employed class anxiety to promote her new book, The Secrets of Smartness and the Art of Allure…
SMARTNESS AUTHORITY Alma Archer in 1937. Archer (1898–1988) wrote a widely read column for the New York Mirror that was syndicated in more than a thousand newspapers.
…if you have been following this blog, you’ll recall the ads with angry duchesses fuming over tomato juice and rich old men fondly recalling their countrified youth via canned corn niblets…well here is one robber baron who needed some niblets pronto to quiet his rage…maybe a snifter or two of brandy would have also helped…
…on to our cartoonists, James Thurber kicked things off on page two…
…the “Goings On” section concluded on page four with this drawing by Charles Addams…
…a couple more spot drawings from the issue by Christina Malman (left) and Richard Taylor…
…Al Frueh offered this interpretation of the players in End of Summer…
…and we have Thurber again, with a hard-to-miss distraction…
…William Steig continued to explore the varieties of “Holy Wedlock”…
…Leonard Dove gave us a golddigger stranded at sea…
…Gardner Rea put a captain of industry in a tight spot…
…Ned Hilton encountered a hairy challenge…
…Eli Garson demonstrated some remarkable foot dexterity…
…while Robert Day showed a lack of dexterity a construction site…
…Charles Addams revealed a materialist in the brotherhood…
…Peter Arno’s charwomen let a sleeping dog lie…
…and we close Garrett Price, and one perceptive lad…
Above: Photo of the Hoboken Four as they appeared on the "Amateur Hour with Major Bowes" in 1935. At center is "Major" Edward Bowes, and at right is Frank Sinatra. The other three members of the Hoboken Four were Frank Tamburro, Patty Prince and Jimmy Petro. (knkx.org)
Nearly seventy years before American Idol appeared on our TV screens, a hugely successful and influential talent show filled the airwaves from NBC’s radio studios at Rockefeller Center.
January 4, 1936 cover by Constantin Alajalov.
Millions tuned in each week to the Major Bowes Amateur Hour, which got its start in 1934 at radio station WHN before moving to NBC the following year. Created and hosted by “Major” Edward Bowes (1874–1946), Bowes would chat with contestants before listening to their performances, which could be cut short by the Major’s gong (see below). For his “A Reporter at Large” column, Morris Markey paid a visit to Bowes during evening auditions at the NBC studios. Excerpts:
THE GONG SHOW…At bottom right, Edward Bowes with the gong he used to abruptly end acts he deemed poor or inept—he abandoned the prop in 1936 after receiving thousands of letters from listeners who objected to the premature termination of acts (apparently the concept was a direct inspiration for Chuck Barris’s 1970s TV program, The Gong Show). At left, a July 1936 Women’s Home Companion advertisement from the show’s sponsor, Chase & Sanborn. The ads highlighted the rags-to-riches stories of the more successful contestants. (eBay.com/Wikipedia)
Markey ended his piece noting the reality of the many contestants who, unlike Frank Sinatra, would not go on to successful entertainment careers.
STARMAKER…Clockwise, from left: Major Edward Bowes and returning Amateur Hour performer Frank Sinatra in 1943; in 1935 eleven-year-old Maria Callas performed the Madama Butterfly aria “Un bel dì vedremo,” on the Amateur Hour; actor/baritone Robert Merrill performed on the show in 1936. (winnetoba.com/mariacallasestate.com/Wikipedia)
* * *
Fleeing the Limelight
In December 1935 Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh secretly boarded a ship in New York and headed to England, seeking to escape the media frenzy that followed their son’s kidnapping and the subsequent trial. Thanks to connections through Anne’s family, they were able to move into a secluded estate in the Kent countryside. In his “Notes and Comment,” E.B. White explained:
HIDEOUT…From 1936 to 1938 Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh lived in a secluded English estate called “Long Barn.” The estate in County Kent was owned by a friend of Anne’s family. (waverlyhs.weebly.com)NOT HIS FINEST HOUR…In July 1936 Luftwaffe commander Hermann Goering (right) presented the Sword of Honor of the German Air Force to Charles Lindbergh during a visit to Berlin. Anne Morrow Lindbergh is to the far left. Goering would also present Lindbergh with a high-ranking Nazi-era civilian medal, the Service Cross of the German Eagle, during a 1938 visit. Anne presciently referred to the medal as “the albatross.” (Library of Congress)
According to White, Mayor Fiorello La Guardia cited lax police control of the media in the case of the fleeing Lindberghs. In turn, White attempted to explain the unique temperaments of Irish police officers.
GIVE US A BREAK…E.B. White noted the courage and wisdom of Irish cops, but also found their lassitude “almost theatrical.” Pictured above is Irish immigrant Patrick Leddy, who joined the NYPD in 1910 and remained on the force for more than thirty-five years. (Courtesy of Margaret Fitzpatrick Leddy via nyirishhistory.us)
A final note on the Lindberghs from Howard Brubaker, a snippet from his “Of All Things” column.
* * *
Italian Swashbuckler
The Italian fencer Aldo Naldi (1899-1965) won three gold medals and one silver at the 1920 Olympics before turning professional. According to West Coast Fencing, Aldo traveled Europe like a prizefighter, “competing in well-attended matches for cash purses…in a world of travel, glamour, drinking, womanizing, gambling and fencing, Aldo Nadi reigned supreme, going nearly eight years without a defeat.” “The Talk of the Town” was on hand for his American debut. Excerpts:
EN GARDE!…During the interwar years Aldo Nadi reigned supreme, going nearly eight years without a defeat. (dennishollingsworth.us)
“Talk” also examined the fuss being made over the Great Chalice of Antioch, which was on display at the Brooklyn Museum. Excerpts:
COULD IT BE?…Claimed to have been found in Antioch around 1900, this chalice’s plain silver bowl was ambitiously identified by some as the Holy Grail, the cup used by Christ at the Last Supper. It is displayed with the Metropolitan Museum’s Byzantium collection. (metmuseum.org)
* * *
Year, Schmear
To mark the New Year, Arthur Guiterman offered up one his humorous poems…
…Guiterman (1871–1943) was an early contributor to The New Yorker—the magazine’s very first issue, Feb. 21, 1925, featured the first installment of Guiterman’s recurring “Lyrics from the Pekinese,” which ran through the first eleven issues.
MEOW…Arthur Guiterman’s “Lyrics from the Pekinese,” featured in the first issue of The New Yorker. At right, Guiterman in an undated photo. (Library of Congress)
* * *
Before He Was Spooky
Robert Benchley’s review of the stage began on a bright note with Victoria Regina, which starred Vincent Price as Prince Albert and Helen Hayes as Queen Victoria. Benchley praised the realism Price and Hayes lent to the production. Excerpts:
A MATCH MADE ON BROADWAY…The 24-year-old Vincent Price and the 35-year-old Helen Hayes portrayed Prince Albert and Queen Victoria in Victoria Regina, which ran for 203 performances at the Broadhurst Theatre. Robert Benchley thought their casting was ideal. (Pinterest)
Benchley also sat through George White’s latest Scandals revue, finding it similar to White’s older shows—beautiful showgirls, various singers and dancers, and assorted comedians—with Bert Lahr shining above it all.
IT SEEMED LIKE OLD TIMES to Robert Benchley as he took in the latest edition of George White’sScandals. Bert Lahr (left) was among the headliners for the 1936 revue, which ran for 110 performances at the New Amsterdam Theatre before taking to the road. (Wikipedia/Playbill.com)
* * *
At the Movies
John Mosher had a busy week at the movies, finding “considerable pleasure” in the screen adaptation of Eugene O’Neill’sAh Wilderness!…
MILLER TIME…The Miller family attends a commencement ceremony that helps kick off the action in Ah Wilderness! From left, Aline MacMahon, Mickey Rooney, Spring Byington, and Bonita Granville. (IMDB)
Mosher also looked at films featuring leading actresses of the day—Barbara Stanwyck in Annie Oakley, Bette Davis in Dangerous, and Claudette Colbert in The Bride Comes Home.
A TRIO OF TALENTS…Clockwise, from top left, Claudette Colbert had her hands full with Robert Young and Fred MacMurray in The Bride Comes Home; Barbara Stanwyck took aim in Annie Oakley; and Bette Davis portrayed a down-and-out actress with trouble on her mind in Dangerous. For her performance, Davis won the Academy Award for Best Actress. (laurasmiscmusings.blogspot.com/girlswithguns.org/vanguardofhollywood.com )
* * *
Gaming the Games
In her “Paris Letter,” Janet Flanner noted the preparations for the Fourth Olympic Winter games to be held in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany.
WINTER HAS ARRIVED…Adolf Hitler and his fellow Nazi thugs brought a certain chill to the 1936 Winter Games in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. Garmisch and Partenkirchen were separate communities until Hitlerforced them to merge in anticipation of the games. (arolsen-archives.org)
* * *
From Our Advertisers
From 1933 to 1939, Macy’s hosted a series of unique design exhibitions under the title “Forward House” that showcased contemporary furniture, decor, and architectural ideas…
…for reference, here is another “Forward House” advertisement from the February 1936 House & Garden magazine…
…the folks at Robbins Island Oysters employed the legend of Giacomo Casanova to market their tasty little rocks…apparently Casanova claimed that he consumed more than fifty oysters each morning to sustain his amorous adventures…
…with the holidays over, the number of ads decreased significantly, leaving readers with a mere sixty pages—less than the half the length of the fat pre-Christmas editions…the theme in the Jan. 4 issue was travel to warmer climes, these examples culled from several back of the book pages…
…the end of the holiday season did not stop tobacco companies from taking out lavish full-page advertisements targeting women smokers, this one gracing the back cover…note the implied medical endorsement at the bottom…
…we clear the air and move on to our cartoonists, beginning with spot drawings by D. Krán…
…and Christina Malman…
…one of Helen Hokinson’s girls sought an impromptu parking lesson…
…while another welcomed winter with her furry charges…
…Whitney Darrow Jr gave us a full-service information booth…
…Mary Petty illustrated a dowager with simple tastes…
…Gardner Rea was confounded at the hat check…
…Carl Rose offered up another example of rugged individualism…
…Alan Dunn served up a unique language challenge…
…Robert Day stood tall at a basketball game…
…William Crawford Galbraith was horsing around…
…Alain looked crosseyed at a store closing…
…and we close with Barbara Shermund, who sized up things at a hat shop…
We mark the July 4 weekend with a lighter edition of A New Yorker State of Mind…
July 6, 1935 cover by William Steig, a contributor to The New Yorker from 1930 to 2003, including more than 2,600 drawings and 117 covers.
…and see what many New Yorkers were doing on that holiday ninety years ago…
TOGETHERNESS…New Yorkers celebrate the Fourth of July on a Coney Island beach, circa 1935. (coneyislandhistory.org)
Let’s look at some of the advertisements from the July 6 issue, beginning with this alarming image that greeted readers on the inside front cover…
…Goodyear continued its series of safety-minded advertisements (this one on the inside back cover) that played on the fears of parents with driving-age children…strange how no one then considered other hazards such as the hard steel dash, or worse, the steering column that often impaled drivers…also, is that how they taught folks to hold a steering wheel in the 1930s?…
…no stylish models, debutantes or famous athletes for the makers of Chesterfields, at least not in this back page ad which equated their cigarette papers (and by association, the cigarettes themselves) with wholesome milk and pure mountain water…
…we kick off the cartoons with Robert Day, who took to the roads with a touch of modernism…
…Gardner Rea topped off the calendar section with a nod to fireworks safety…
…known more for his New Yorker covers, Constantin Alajalov reflected on a visit to the Met…
…Ned Hilton was tied up on the phone…
…Fritz Wilkinson had one musician ready to play a different tune…
…James Thurber was up in arms…
…George Price found something fishy with two fishermen…
…and Price again, with the latest advances in personal hygiene…
…Rea Irvin gave us an early taste of Halloween…
…Barbara Shermund found some frank advice at the beauty counter…
Above: W.C. Fields was a well-known juggler and vaudeville performer decades before he became even more famous in the movies of the 1930s.
William Claude Dukenfield was a vaudeville juggler who distinguished himself from other “tramp acts” by adding sarcastic asides to his routines. Internationally known for his juggling skills, by the turn of the century the man who billed himself as “The Eccentric Juggler” would become much better known by another name: W.C. Fields.
Feb. 2, 1935 cover by Roger Duvoisin.
In the first of a three-part profile, Alva Johnston pondered the secret behind Fields’ genius, an “inborn nonchalance” that he considered “the rarest of gifts.” Johnston surmised that some of that genius derived from the volatile relationship Fields had with his father, and the street-smarts he gained as a runaway at age eleven. It is no surprise, however, that these childhood stories of hardship were significantly embellished by the great wit himself.
A STAR IS FORMED…Clockwise, from top left, W.C. Fields in his youth; Fields was an internationally known juggler, seen here in his vaudeville days in the early 1900s; Fields made his screen debut in 1915, seen here in his second film, Pool Sharks (1915); Fields with Carol Dempster in Sally of the Sawdust, a 1925 silent comedy film directed by D. W. Griffith. (Pinterest/YouTube)
Johnston also described Fields’ acting style and demeanor, noting that the actor’s asides were likely inspired by his mother, Kate Spangler Felton, who was known for her doorstep witticisms.
NINETEEN THIRTY-FIVE WAS A GOOD YEAR for W.C. Fields, who starred in It’s a Gift (right), released the previous December, and in the 1935 screen adaptation of Charles Dickens’sDavid Copperfield, as the character Wilkins Micawber. (MGM/IMDB)
* * *
Macabre Diversions
In the days before television and the internet, folks got their dose of the sensational and macabre from the tabloids, or, on occasion, in real life. Before crime or accident scene investigations became more sophisticated, it was not uncommon for crowds to mob grisly death scenes, including the car containing the bullet-riddled bodies of notorious bank robbers Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow. Their Ford automobile, pocked with 112 bullet holes, became a popular traveling attraction at fairs, amusement parks, and, in February 1935, at a car dealer’s showroom in Missouri. E.B. White explained:
BEFORE THE INTERNET, folks got their ghoulish thrills by rubbernecking at famous crime scenes. At left, a crowd gathers around the bullet-riddled car belonging to Bonnie and Clyde. According to one account, at the scene of the police ambush on Louisiana State Highway 154, nearly everyone collected souvenirs including shell casings and bloody pieces of clothing from Bonnie and Clyde. One man even tried to collect Clyde’s left ear with a pocket knife; at right, unidentified man standing next to the “death car.” (KXAN/unt.edu)
* * *
Saar Kraut
Janet Flanner mused on the recent plebiscite in the Saarland, which following World War I was seized from Germany and placed under the governance of a League of Nations commission. Much to the dismay of the French, the majority German population voted to return the Saar region to Germany, and its Nazi leadership.
* * *
Over the Rainbow
In a previous column, Lois Long took aim at the Rockefeller Center’s new Rainbow Room, dismissing it as a tourist trap filled with interminable strains of organ music. In her latest column, Long retracted some of that vitriol, finding the entertainment (and, one supposes, the food) more to her liking.
THE ‘INCORRIGIBLE’ Beatrice Lillie (left) delighted Lois Long and audiences in the Rainbow Room on the 65th floor of Rockefeller Center; at right, ballroom dancers Lydia and Joresco take to the floor in the then newly opened Rainbow Room, 1934. (Pinterest/#rainbowroomnyc)
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From Our Advertisers
As Lois Long mentioned in “Tables for Two,” British actress and singer Beatrice Lillie was appearing at in the Rainbow Room on the 65th floor of Rockefeller Center; according to the ad below, also featured were ballroom dancers Lydia and Joresco and bandleader Jolly Corburn…
…at first I though this was Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne shilling for Luckies, but the resemblance isn’t quite there, plus I’m not aware of the Broadway legends ever endorsing any product, let alone cigarettes…
…the folks at Hormel continued to feature notable Frenchmen who were known to enjoy French onion soup, although this particular image doesn’t do much for one’s appetite…
…the Bermuda Trade Development Board continued to feature colorful ads that enticed New Yorkers away from the late winter blahs…
…this ad for Schaefer is a bit odd…I guess the artist wanted to suggest a handbill, and therefore tilted the image it at an angle, unsuccessfully, one might add…
…The Theatre Guild once again called upon the talents of James Thurber to advertise their latest production…
…which segues into our cartoons, with Thurber once more…
…Al Frueh did his part to promote the stage with this illustration for the theatre section…
…Otto Soglow offered his spin on pairs figure skating…
…Gardner Rea explored the world of art appreciation…
…Helen Hokinson aptly supplied this cartoon for Lois Long’s fashion column…
…Whitney Darrow Jr. showed us the consequences of classified advertising…
…Barbara Shermund clued us in on the latest gossip…
…and we close with Peter Arno, and one butcher’s cold greeting…
Above: Manhattan auto dealer's window display promoting the 1935 Auburn's appearance at the New York Automobile Show. (Detroit Public Library)
Manhattan’s first big event of 1935 was the annual automobile show at the Grand Central Palace, where New Yorkers chased away the winter blues (and the lingering Depression) in a dreamscape crammed with gleaming new cars.
January 5, 1935 cover by Rea Irvin.
The exhibition included mostly domestic models with wider bodies and, in the case of Chrysler, a dialing back of a radical, streamlined design that was too advanced for American tastes in the 1930s.
CROWD SOURCING…New Yorker correspondent “Speed” observed that the Grand Central Palace was so crowded with new cars that “you can’t get down on your hands and knees to inspect the latest springing systems.” (forums.aaca.org)SAFE ROOM…This Ford dealer postcard touted safety, durability and roominess rather than style to market a V-8 sedan to Depression-strapped car buyers. (Pinterest)BACK TO BASICS…The DeSoto display showcased more traditional designs (top) after the disappointing debut of the 1934 Airflow. Below, three foreign makes were on display, including Great Britain’s sporty MG Midget. (forums.aaca.org)
It is no surprise that E.B. White was once again disappointed with new line of cars, still preferring the boxy Model T to the lower-slung streamlined models. That distaste extended to the new taxi cabs hitting the streets of Manhattan, where White saw absolutely no need for wind resistance. An excerpt from his “Notes and Comment:”
IF IT AIN’T BROKE…E.B. White preferred to old Yellow Taxis (seen at top, circa 1932), to the new streamlined Model Y Checker Cabs that were introduced to the streets of Manhattan in 1935. (Metropolitan Museum of Art/Pinterest)
* * *
Elsewhere, The New Yorker added a new twist to its “Profile” section by featuring an illustration derived from a drawing by Pablo Picasso…
* * *
From Our Advertisers
The New Yorker’s advertising department padded its revenue from the Christmas season with a slew of ads from automobile companies touting the wonders of their latest models, which were on display at the New York Auto Show…former makers of horse-drawn carriage bodies, the Fisher brothers (Fred and Charles) began making bodies for automobiles in 1908, and the company was later incorporated as part of General Motors…as noted earlier, safety and durability (rather than style) were the calling cards of many automakers during the Depression…
…as is also evidenced here in this ad from Plymouth, part of a continuing series that touted the crash-worthiness of their sedan…
…Plymouth’s parent company Chrysler, still stinging from the lack of consumer interest in their boldly aerodynamic Airflow (introduced in 1934), made modifications to the Airflow’s body, replacing the bold “waterfall” grille with a more traditional peaked unit…the company also offered an even more traditional “Airstream” model that outsold the Airflow 4 to 1…
Consumers in 1934 found the Chrysler Airflow’s bold design (left) too advanced for the times, so Chrysler responded by making the grille on the 1935 model (right) a bit more traditional. That didn’t help sales, either.
…luxury car maker Packard addressed the challenges of the Depression by introducing a low-priced car (under $1,000) named the 102…it was teased here on the first page of a three-page ad…
…that provided some answers to a “flood” of questions the folks at Packard claimed they had received from across the country and around the world…
…but the ad kept readers in suspense about the car’s actual cost, which was to be announced during Lawrence Tibbett’s NBC radio program…
…Hupmobile was still hanging in there with the innovative, Raymond Loewy-designed Model J, but behind the scenes the company, already beset with sagging sales, was fighting a hostile takeover and would stop making cars altogether by 1938…
…Auburn was also on its last legs, its cars known more for being fast, good-looking and expensive rather for being than safe and economical…although the supercharged Speedster shows here would become a legend in automotive history, and although Auburn began selling more affordable models, the Depression had already taken its toll…
…other luxury brands, such as Cadillac, could survive because they were buoyed by the scale and largesse of a huge corporation, in this case General Motors…
…the folks at Hudson marketed their “Terraplane” with this cartoon ad that quite possibly was illustrated by Wesley Morse, who in 1953 would create the Bazooka Joe comic strip for Topps…
…only three foreign makes were displayed at the exhibition, including Bugatti, which promoted its type 57 in this modest ad placed by a local dealer…at prices ranging as high as $7,500 (nearly $170k today), it was a definitely not a car for the thrifty minded…
…some non-car ads included beachwear from Bonwit Teller…
…while Burdine’s offered men’s suits men that apparently could be worn comfortably while relaxing on the sand…
…besides the car companies, others who possessed the means to run full-page color ads included the makers of spirits…
…chewing gum…
…and, of course, cigarettes…
…on to our cartoons, we begin with a spot and a panel by James Thurber…
…Al Frueh, whom we haven’t seen in awhile, gave us an elaborate joke conjured up by some bored astronomers…
…Kemp Starrett looked in on an unlikely Packard customer…
…Perry Barlow predicted a hot time for these two young lads…
…and to close, Gardner Rea offered a cure for a New Year’s hangover…
Above: Ringing in the New Year at Times Square, 1934.
We bid adieu to 1934 with some odds and ends, beginning with E.B. White’s observations for the upcoming year, which if anyone had noticed the uptick in Ascot tie purchases, just might be a bit rosier than previous years of the decade.
Dec. 29, 1934 cover by S. Liam Dunn.
White was also hopeful for a new year with a less dreadful press, particularly the pandering type promulgated by William Randolph Hearst.
GOOD RIDDANCE…E.B. White wryly noted the positive signs heading into 1935. While actresses Billie Seward and Lucille Ball rang in the New Year, Erroll Flynn was sporting an ascot tie and Henry Ford was proclaiming that the Depression was over. (Pinterest)
* * *
Dr. Peeper
“The Talk of the Town” noted that Dr. Allan Dafoe, the country doctor who gained fame for delivering the Dionne Quintuplets, expressed a desire to see Sally Rand perform her bubble dance during his visit to Gotham. “Talk” also looked in on the some of the technical aspects of the burlesque dancer’s signature act:
DON’T BURST MY BUBBLE…Dr. Allan Dafoe of Dionne Quintuplet fame looked forward to taking in the sights of New York, including Sally Rand’s famed bubble dance. (Image from the 1936 book The Country Doctor/Sally Rand via stuffnobodycaresabout.com)
* * *
Leading Ladies
Film Critic John Mosher noted the continued rise of two leading female stars, twenty-seven-year-old Katharine Hepburn and six-year-old Shirley Temple. Mosher recalled Hepburn’s recent performance in Little Women, and proclaimed that she “succeeds again” in The Little Minister.
OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS...Katharine Hepburn and John Beal in The Little Minister. Hepburn portrayed Babbie, a member of the nobility who disguises herself as a gypsy to protect villagers from a tyrannical lord. In the process she falls in love with the good Rev. Gavin Dishart (Beal). (IMDB)
Although Mosher admitted he was a “disagreeable adult” who doesn’t enjoy seeing children on the screen “more than necessary,” he acknowledged Shirley Temple’s talents as well as those of child actor Jane Withers in Bright Eyes.
BRIGHT EYES, BRIGHT STARS…Jane Withers, Shirley Temple, and Terry in Bright Eyes. (IMDB)
* * *
That Youthful Feeling
Given that William Shakespeare’s star-crossed lovers Romeo and Juliet were mere teenagers (the ages 13 and 16 were given to Juliet and Romeo, respectively), many productions featured actors more than twice that age. That was the case in 1933 when the play was revived by actress Katharine Cornell and her director husband Guthrie McClintic, who took the play on a seven-month nationwide tour before it was revised and opened on Broadway in December 1934. Critics dubbed the 41-year-old Cornell “the greatest Juliet of her time,” and it seems Robert Benchley heartily agreed in this excerpt from his stage review:
AGE IS JUST A NUMBER…The 41-year-old Katharine Cornell and 42-year-old Basil Rathbone in a promotional photo for Romeo and Juliet. Cornell was the first performer to receive the Drama League’s Distinguished Performance Award, which became the oldest and most exclusive theatrical honor in North America. (Vandamm photo, Museum of the City of New York)
* * *
The New Yorkiest Place
In 1930 gossip columnist Walter Winchell called the new Stork Club “New York’s New Yorkiest place on W. 58th,” and when it relocated to 3 East 53rd Street in 1934 it further defined itself as the ultimate New York night club. In her “Tables for Two” column, Lois Long found the new location much to her liking. An excerpt:
THE STORK DELIVERS…The Stork Club truly became the New Yorkiest nightclub when it relocated to 3 East 53rd Street in 1934. Clockwise, from top left: the club entrance in the 1930s; Cary Grant was one of the many celebrities who favored the nightclub, circa 1935; a 1930’s club menu; Lita Grey, the former teen bride of actor Charlie Chaplin, was a featured singer at the club during Lois Long’s visit. (Gibbes Museum of Art/Pinterest/vintagemenuart.com/IMDB)
* * *
So Long?
Clarence Day, best known for his Life with Father stories, also contributed a number of cartoons to the magazine, accompanied by satirical poems and humorous shorts. Day would die at the tender age of 61—after a bout with pneumonia—in December 1935, about a year after this cartoon was published in The New Yorker. I assume he was signing off from the magazine in order to arrange publication of his Life with Father book, which was published shortly after his death.
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From Our Advertisers
Sunny California beckoned those who had the means and leisure to head to warmer climes during the New York winter…
…for those who stayed behind, they could wrap themselves in a chic winter coat such as this one sported by Camel endorser Mrs. Langdon Post (Janet Kirby)…
…another colorful ad with a not-so-colorful message from World Peaceways, a 1930s anti-war organization that characterized soldiers (and future soldiers, seen here) as pawns in the corrupt games of the rich and powerful…
…the distributors of French champagne rang in the New Year by suggesting that Doyen was worth your very last cent…
…we kick off our cartoons by welcoming the New Year with George Price…
…Robert Day contributed a spot drawing that offered a new twist to ice hockey…
…I should know this artist, but it escapes me for the moment…nevertheless, a great illustration to stretch across the bottom of an opening page…
…a closeup of the signature…
…another from George Price, still up in the air in the final issue of 1934…
…Garner Rea introduced us to the life of the party…
…”Miss Otis Regrets” is a 1934 Cole Porter song about the lynching of a society woman after she murders her unfaithful lover. Porter wrote the song as a parody of a sad cowboy song he heard on the radio. The song was further workshopped for fun at “smart set” cocktail parties…on to our next cartoon, and a moment of keen insight from James Thurber…
…Garrett Price went on the town with some students of anatomy…
…and we say Happy New Year with the help of Helen Hokinson…
Above, left, a 1935 portrait of Gertrude Stein by Carl Van Vechten; right, Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas arriving in New York aboard the French Line’s SS Champlain in 1934. (Library of Congress/AP)
Much of America’s literary world was abuzz about the arrival of Gertrude Stein in New York after her nearly three-decade absence from the States. Audiences were mostly receptive to Stein’s lectures, even if they were largely unintelligible, but The New Yorker would have none of it.
Nov. 17, 1934 cover by Rea Irvin.
Stein (1874–1946) visited the U.S. at the urging of friends who suggested that a lecture tour might help her gain an American audience for her work. She crisscrossed the country for 191 days, delivering seventy-four lectures in thirty-seven cities.
Writing for the Smithsonian Magazine (October 2011), Senior Editor Megan Gambino notes that publishing houses regarded Stein’s writing style as incomprehensible (Gambino writes that shortly after her arrival in the U.S., “psychiatrists speculated that Stein suffered from palilalia, a speech disorder that causes patients to stutter over words or phrases”), but in 1933 “she at last achieved the mass appeal she desired when she used a clearer, more direct voice” in The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas. However, Stein was still best known in the U.S. for her “insane” writings, as one New York Times reporter described Stein’s work upon the writer’s arrival in New York. Excerpts from the Oct. 25, 1934 edition of the Times:
Stein had also achieved success in America via her libretto to Virgil Thomson’s opera Four Saints in Three Acts. Prior to her visit, Stein was featured in a newsreel reading the “pigeon” passage from the libretto, which James Thurber satirized in this piece titled “There’s An Owl In My Room.” Excerpts.
Here is a YouTube clip of the newsreel satirized by Thurber. Stein begins her “pigeon” reading at the 30-second mark:
If Thurber found the libretto ridiculous, it was an opinion not necessarily shared by audiences who attended Four Saints in Three Acts, which premiered in Hartford, Connecticut, before making a six-week run on Broadway.
SAINTS AND PIGEONS…The original cast of Four Saints in Three Acts, onstage at the Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, 1934; at right, Gertrude Stein reviews the libretto for Four Saints with American composer Virgil Thomson, 1934. (Harold Swahn/Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley)
Since Stein had never seen the opera performed, writer and photographer Carl Van Vechten convinced Stein and Toklas to fly on an airplane for the first time in order to be able to see the play in Chicago.
FLIGHT INSURANCE…Stein and Toklas were anxious about flying, so Van Vechten gave each a small Zuni fetish—a good luck charm as they prepared to board their plane at Newark. (Boatwright Memorial Library, The University of Richmond)
Thurber wasn’t the only New Yorker writer to throw shade on Stein’s visit. In his “Books” column, Clifton Fadiman described Stein as a “mamma of dada” and a “Keyserling in divided skirts” (Hermann Keyserling was a non-academic German philosopher known for his platitudinous, obscure writings). Excerpt:
Fadiman continued by excoriating Stein’s latest book, Portraits and Prayers, likening its “shrill, incantatory” quality to “the rituals of a small child at solitary play.”
* * *
Over the Rainbow
We leave Gertrude Stein for the time being and check in with Lois Long, who was sampling the fall attractions of the New York nightclub scene in “Tables for Two.” In these excerpts, the 32-year-old Long continued her pose as a much older woman (“about to settle down with a gray shawl”) as she bemoaned the bourgeoisie excess of places like the Colony, once known for its boho, speakeasy atmosphere. And then there was the Rainbow Room, with its organ blaring full blast to the delight of gawking tourists.
LOST IN NEW YORK…Lois Long lamented the demise of cafe life in Manhattan; from left, the Colony, circa 1940, which went from boho to upscale; the 21 Club, a favorite Prohibition-era haunt of Long’s where she was suddenly a nobody; and high above the city, the Rockefeller Center’s Rainbow Room, and its interminable organ music. (Pinterest/Alice Lum via Daytonian in Manhattan/nycago.org)
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From Our Advertisers
Just one ad from the Nov. 17 issue (more to come below)…the latest athlete to attest to the energizing effects of Camel cigarettes…Cliff Montgomery (1910–2005) was famed for a hidden ball trick play that led one of the greatest athletic upsets—Columbia’s 7-0 win over Stanford in the 1934 Rose Bowl. Montgomery would play one year with the NFL Brooklyn Dodgers, and would later earn a Silver Star for his heroism during World War II…
…on to our cartoonists, we begin with Robert Day’s jolly illustration for the “Goings On About Town” section…
…Rea Irvin looked into fair play among the fox hunting set…
…Garrett Price gave us a tender moment among the bones at the American Museum of Natural History…
…and Peter Arno introduced two wrestlers to an unwelcoming hostess…
…on to Nov. 24, 1934 issue, and the perils of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade as illustrated on the cover by William Cotton…
Nov. 24, 1934 cover by William Cotton.
…where we find still more scorn being heaped upon Gertrude Stein. “The Talk of the Town” offered this observation (excerpt):
…and E.B. White had the last word on Stein in his Dec. 1, 1934 “Notes and Comment” column:
* * *
There Goes the Neighborhood
Returning to the Nov. 24 issue, Alberta Williams penned a lengthy “A Reporter at Large” column, titled “White-Collar Neighbors,” about the new Knickerbocker Village development in the Lower East Side. Real estate developer Fred French razed roughly one hundred buildings to build what has since been criticized as an example of early gentrification in Manhattan. Williams assessed the development after more than a year of construction, finding that despite federal funding, the leasing company had yet to rent any apartments “to Negroes or Orientals.” Although the development was meant to serve some of the families it displaced, the vast majority were forced to move back into slums due to escalating rents.
BREATHING ROOMS…Knickerbocker Village in 2019. To make way for the development, one hundred buildings were razed in the “Lung Block,” so named because of its high tuberculosis mortality rate. The development continues to be designated as affordable housing. (Wikipedia)
* * *
Dollmaker
Raised in rural Nebraska, at an early age Rose O’Neill (1874–1944) demonstrated an artistic bent, and was already a published illustrator and writer when she drew her first images of “Kewpie” around the year 1908. A German doll manufacturer began producing a doll version of Kewpie in 1913, and they became an immediate hit, making O’Neill a millionaire and for a time the highest-paid female illustrator in the world. When Alexander King penned a profile of O’Neill, Kewpies were no longer the rage, but O’Neill was nevertheless determined to find success in a new doll line. Excerpts:
QP QUEEN…Clockwise from top left, Rose O’Neill circa 1910, just before her Kewpie dolls made it big; Kewpie doll in original box, undated; as the Kewpie craze faded in the 1930s, O’Neill tried to launch a new line called Little Ho Ho, a laughing baby Buddha, but before production plans were finalized the doll factory burned to the ground; a 1935 ad for a Rose O’Neill-branded “Scootles” doll, another attempt at a comeback. (Wikipedia/Pinterest/museumobscura.com)
* * *
Last Call
Lois Long was back with another installment of “Tables for Two” and in these excerpts she found the Central Park Casino a welcome place to hang out, apparently unaware that Parks Commissioner Robert Moses had already served an eviction notice to the Casino’s owners (Moses would tear down the Casino in 1936, mostly to settle a personal vendetta). Long also found respite at the Place Piquale, which featured the musical stylings of Eve Symington.
BYE BYE…The Central Park Casino was not long for the world when Lois Long paid an enjoyable visit in November 1934. Long also found a good time at the Place Piquale, which featured the “startling,” deep voice of cabaret singer Eve Symington. (centralpark.org/Pinterest)
At the Place Piquale, Long was “grateful” to see that silent film star Louise Brooks was also a good dancer. An icon of Jazz Age flapper culture, Brooks loathed the Hollywood scene and the mediocre roles it offered, and after a stint making films in Europe she returned to the States, appearing in three more films before declaring bankruptcy in 1932. A former dancer for the Ziegfeld Follies, Brooks had turned back to dancing in nightclubs to make a living.
IT’S A LIVING…Promotional photo for the Place Piquale featuring Louise Brooks (sans her familiar flapper bob) and Dario in “Spectacular Interpretive Dances,” April 17, 1934. (books0977.tumblr.com)
…and dance remains a theme with John Mosher’s film review of the Fred Astaire and Ginger Roger musical The Gay Divorcee, which was based on the 1932 Broadway musical Gay Divorce starring Astaire and Claire Luce.
YOU WILL HAVE TO DANCE BACKWARD, IN HEELS…Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire trip the light fantastic in The Gay Divorcee. (precode.com)
* * *
Using Her Heads
Clifton Fadiman praised Peggy Bacon’s collection of caricatures, Off With Their Heads!, which included drawings of fellow New Yorker contributors as well as various Algonquin Hotel acolytes. Excerpt:
HEAD HUNTER…Peggy Bacon offered up caricatures of forty celebrities in her new book, Off With Their Heads! Bacon (1895–1987) contributed cartoons as well as poetry and fiction to The New Yorker from 1927 to 1950. Clockwise, from top left, title page with Bacon’s self-portrait; undated photo of Bacon, likely circa 1930; caricatures of Dorothy Parker, Carl Sandburg and Heywood Broun. (villagepreservation.org/printmag.com/Wikipedia–Peter A. Juley & Son)
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More From Our Advertisers
“Beautiful Vanderbilts” Mrs. Reginald Vanderbilt and Miss Frederica Vanderbilt Webb wowed one unnamed dermatologist who discovered that both had 20-year-old skin even though they were seven years apart! “Mrs. Reginald” was Gloria Morgan Vanderbilt, who was thirty when this ad was produced (Miss Frederica was apparently twenty-three). We’ve met Gloria Morgan Vanderbilt before, shilling for Pond’s—she was the maternal grandmother of television journalist Anderson Cooper, and earned her “bad mom” rep from Vanderbilt vs. Whitney, one of America’s most sensational custody trials…
…we move from skin care to who cares…in this case how many Spud cigs you smoke…hell, smoke three packs a day if you like, the cooling menthol will always keep you feeling fresh even as your lungs gradually darken and shrivel up…
…and here’s a lesson from the makers of Inecto hair dye, no doubt a company solely run by men, who schooled wives with the advice that you’d better color that gray hair pronto or your hubby will kick you to the curb…
…the New York American was a Hearst broadsheet known for its sensationalism, however it did claim Damon Runyon, Alice Hughes, Robert Benchley and Frank Sullivan among its contributors…the morning American merged with the New York Evening Journal to form the American and Evening Journal in 1937. That paper folded in 1966…
…illustrator Stuart Hay drew up this full page ad for the makers of Beech-Nut candy and chewing gum…when I was a kid we used to call this “grandpa gum”…
…on to our cartoonists, we begin with a Thanksgiving spot by Alain (Daniel Brustlein)…
…Barbara Shermund delivered another life of the party…
…George Price was finally bringing his floating man back to earth…
…Otto Soglow gave us an unlikely detour…
…Gardner Rea signaled the end to the 1933-34 Chicago World’s Fair…with a boom…
…Leonard Dove dialed up a familiar trope…
…and we close on a more pious note, with Mary Petty…
Darryl F. Zanuck (1902–1979) was an unlikely Hollywood mogul. Born in a small Nebraska town with an unusual name (both his and the town), Zanuck dropped out of school in the eighth grade, apparently bitten by the acting bug during a brief childhood sojourn in Los Angeles.
Nov. 10, 1934 cover by Constantin Alajalov.
In the first part of a two-part profile, Alva Johnston began to probe the mystery of the boy from Wahoo who would rise to become one of Hollywood’s most powerful studio executives.
MAKING OF A MOGUL…Clockwise, from top left: Darryl F. Zanuck relaxing with trophies from his hunting excursions, circa 1940 (detail from a Margaret Bourke-White photo); Zanuck’s home town, Wahoo, Nebraska, 1920s; screenshot from a trailer for The Grapes of Wrath, 1940; Zanuck with child star Shirley Temple (left) and his first-born daughter Darrylin (mother was silent-screen actress Virginia Fox) in the 1930s. (Robin Pineda Zanuck via The Hollywood Reporter/Saunders County Historical Society/Wikipedia)
Johnston took a quick look at Zanuck’s humble origins, including his first encounter with the film industry at age eight. There must have been something in the water at Wahoo, a town of just 2,100 residents when Zanuck was born. Other Wahoo notables contemporary to Zanuck included Nobel Prize laureate and geneticist George Beadle, Pulitzer Prize–winning composer Howard Hanson, and Hall of Fame baseball player Sam Crawford, among others.
After writing dozens of scripts for Warner Brothers (including many for their popular canine star, Rin Tin Tin), in 1933 Zanuck would leave Warner and form 20th Century Pictures with Joseph Schenck. By the time Johnston penned the New Yorker profile, 20th Century had risen to be the most successful independent movie studio of its time.
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One-Way Street
It goes without saying that the interwar years of the 20th century were a time of extreme foment; Bolsheviks, communists, anarchists, fascists and other political agitators seemed to be constantly at each other’s throats as Europe prepared for its second act of self-annihilation. In the middle of it all was the Balkans, its many feuds always simmering near the boiling point.
After the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914 (which, along with other factors, triggered World War I), you would have thought Europeans would have abandoned the practice of parading dignitaries through crowded streets. In 1934 they were reminded of its risks.
That year was King Alexander I of Yugoslavia’s thirteenth on the throne, but his time was running short in a country constantly beset by civil war. Fearing that the German Nazis and Italian Fascists would take advantage of the instability, on Oct. 9, 1934 French Foreign Minister Louis Barthou invited Alexander I to Marseille to sign a Franco-Yugoslav solidarity agreement. While Alexander and Barthou were being slowly driven in an open car through the city’s streets, a Bulgarian gunman, Vlado Chernozemski, stepped from the crowd, hopped onto the car’s running board, and shot Alexander along with his chauffeur. Barthou also died in the melee, killed by a stray bullet fired by French police (three women and a boy in the crowd were also fatally wounded by stray police bullets). Struck down by a policeman’s sword, Chernozemski was subsequently beaten to death by the enraged crowd. It was one of the first assassinations to be captured on film.
Paris correspondent Janet Flanner offered some thoughts about the incident in her “Paris Letter.” Excerpt:
WHAT A DIFFERENCE A DAY MAKES…King Alexander I of Yugoslavia (left) and French Foreign Minister Louis Barthou just moments before an assassin fired two fatal shots into the king. Barthou would die an hour later from a stray police bullet that would enter his arm and sever an artery. (Still image from YouTube video)
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The Traffic Machine
In his “A Reporter at Large” column, Morris Markey sang praises for the Triborough Bridge project, which was making visible progress on the massive public work that commenced in 1930. City officials had dreamed for years about a project that would at once connect Manhattan, Queens and the Bronx, but it wasn’t until the power broker Robert Moses got involved as the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority chairman that things really started to move. Moses biographer Robert Caro wrote that “Triborough was not a bridge so much as a traffic machine, the largest ever built.” A brief excerpt:
As noted by Markey, the “people in charge” were forthright about the bridge’s completion date of July 1, 1936. And they kept their word. The bridge was substantially complete by June 1936, and would be dedicated on July 11, with Moses serving as master of ceremonies.
MAKE WAY FOR THE GIANTS…City engineers had been kicking around plans since 1916 to build bridges to connect Manhattan, Queens and the Bronx, but the massive Triborough Bridge project finally got off the ground in 1930. By 1934 the bridge’s Queens tower (left) would loom over Ward’s Island, visible in the background; at right, views of buildings in Astoria (Hoyt Ave.) that were slated for demolition to make way for the bridge, photographed by Eugene de Salignac in early 1931. (MTA Bridges and Tunnels Special Archives/NYC Municipal Archives)
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From Our Advertisers
The common zipper was a relatively new invention in 1934. It had been more or less perfected by 1920, and in 1923 the B. F. Goodrich Company would coin the onomatopoetic word to describe the newfangled fastener on its galoshes, but it would take a while for the fashion industry to adopt the zipper as a replacement for buttons on garments, including men’s trousers. And so we get this staid-looking ad from Wetzel that signaled its entry into the brave new world of zippers (Talon was the dominant U.S. producer of zippers for many years)…
…this next ad is kind of amazing, a 1935 Auburn for only $695, which roughly translates to $15,000 or so today—still a bargain…known for cars that were fast, good-looking and expensive (and favored by Hollywood elite), Auburn struggled mightily during the Depression…along with its sister marques Duesenberg and Cord, the company would fold in 1937…
…during Prohibition distillers were allowed to keep stocks of whiskies produced before the 18th Amendment went into force…some of these were distributed through pharmacies during Prohibition for “medicinal purposes”…what was left over was sold after repeal, a stock of “pre-prohibition casks” that would be exhausted before Christmas, or so the ad rather alarmingly suggested…
…we first met tennis star Ellsworth Vines Jr a few issues ago when he was touting the health and energy benefits of Camel cigarettes…here he promotes an unlikely “stimulant”—Pabst Blue Ribbon ale…Vines testified that “the demand for more and more speed in sports calls for a finer and finer ‘edge’ of physical condition” and observed that PBR was “a great preventive of overtraining and staleness”…yep, after a few brewskies who feels like doing anything, let alone play tennis?…
…on to our cartoonists we open with a couple of spots by George Shellhase…
…and Gregory d’Alessio…
…William Crawford Galbraith gave us a fish out of water (the caption reads: You New Yorkers didn’t know we were so sophisticated in Detroit, did you?)…
…George Price still hadn’t come back to earth in his latest installment…
…Gardner Rea illustrated the results of charitable acts by the Junior League…
…and we close with James Thurber, and kindness from a stranger…
A New Yorker State of Mind 