George Price – Page 5 – A New Yorker State of Mind

The Age of Giants

Otto Klemperer rehearsing at the Hollywood Bowl in September 1937. (Los Angeles Philharmonic)

The 20th century was an age of big personalities in classical music, among them Otto Klemperer (1885-1973), a German-born protégé of the composer and conductor Gustav Mahler. Klemperer was already an established conductor in opera houses around Germany when the rise of the Nazis prompted the maestro to emigrate with his family in 1933. He was soon appointed chief conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

Klemperer also guest conducted a number of orchestras in the U.S., including the New York Philharmonic, where his larger than life presence caught the attention of “The Talk of the Town.” Excerpts:

MAESTRO…Top left, **Otto Klemperer** with Czech composer **Leoš Janáček** in 1927; at right, with Austrian-American classical pianist and composer Artur Schnabel in 1933; bottom photo, with wife **Johanna Geisler,** son **Werner** and daughter Lotte in Los Angeles, 1936. (operaplus.cz/Otto Klemperer Film Foundation/ottoklemperer.nl)

Lauded internationally as a great orchestral commander, in 1939 Klemperer would begin experiencing balance issues. After a tumor the size of a small orange was removed from his brain, he would be left partially paralyzed on his right side; bouts of depression and a manic phase would later land him in a mental hospital. However, by 1946 he would recover his health enough to return to conducting in a career that would last until 1971.

The conductor’s daughter, Lotte Klemperer (1923–2003), would serve as her father’s secretary, negotiator and administrator until his death in 1973. Otto’s son, Werner Klemperer (1920–2000), would become a stage, screen and television actor, most notably portraying Colonel Klink in the 1960s comedy Hogan’s Heroes. Although the role would garner Werner two Emmys, his father never fully understood the series or even the concept of a sitcom. Reluctant to pursue a musical career while his father was alive, Werner would later join the Metropolitan Opera Company in the 1970s, appear in Broadway musicals, and serve as a narrator with a number of American symphony orchestras.

TO THEM HE WAS DAD…At left, daughter **Lotte Klemperer** with her famous father in 1954. She would serve as his caretaker and business partner after her mother’s death in 1956. At right, son **Werner Klemperer** acted on Broadway and in films before taking on the role of the bumbling Colonel Klink in the 1960s comedy *Hogan’s Heroes,* which garnered the actor two Emmys. Although Werner Klemperer was musically inclined, he avoided work in music until the death of his father in 1973. (Otto Klemperer Film Foundation/CBS)

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Vanished in the Haze

In his “Notes and Comment,” E.B. White lamented what appeared to be the transformation of the familiar night club; high above Manhattan in the Rockefeller Center’s Rainbow Room, the comforting haze of “cigarette smoke, talc, waiter’s venom” had been displaced by air conditioning, and to add to the horror, an organ had been installed that tinged the fox trot “with an odd piety.”

NOWHERE TO HIDE…**E.B. White** found the lack of haze in the new Rainbow Room disconcerting, not to mention the addition of a Wurlitzer organ, its wonders demonstrated here by organist **Ray Bohr** in 1934. (Library of Congress/nycago.org)

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There Oughta Be a Law

While E.B. White was mourning the demise of the smoky nightclub, art and design critic Lewis Mumford continued his tirade against the pretentious and mediocre buildings that were popping up all over the city, including the new Federal Court Building on Centre Street that was, in Mumford’s words, a supreme example of bad design and fake grandeur.

Cass Gilbert's The Federal Courthouse building (United States courthouse) in 1936 (the year of its completion). Located at 40 Centre Street (Foley Square), Manhattan, New York City. In 2001, it was designated as the Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse.Source: Wurts Brothers Photography Collection at the National Building Museum. — A CRIMINAL CASE…**Cass Gilbert’s** Federal Courthouse building (United States courthouse) was completed in 1936, two years after Gilbert’s death. In 2001 it was designated as the Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse. Critic **Lewis Mumford** called the design, which combined “two unlovely and unrelated forms”…”nothing short of a major crime.” (Wurts Brothers Photography Collection, National Building Museum)

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Crime of the Century

That is what the press called the kidnap and murder of the infant son of Charles Lindbergh and Anne Morrow. In September 1934 a German immigrant carpenter named Bruno Hauptmann was arrested for the crime, and a trial date was set for the following January. In his “A Reporter at Large” column, Morris Markey examined the ransom money trail that led to Hauptmann’s ultimate arrest. Excerpts:

DON’T SAY “CHEESE”…**Bruno Hauptmann** sits for a mug shot following his arrest for the abduction and murder of the 20-month-old son of **Charles Lindbergh** and Anne Morrow Lindbergh. (Leslie Jones, Boston Public Library)

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Should Have Stayed Lost

A film version of Willa Cather’s 1923 novel A Lost Lady was first made as a silent by Warner Brothers in 1924 (the film itself is lost) but in 1934 Warner had another go at the novel with a sound version starring starring Barbara Stanwyck, who was emerging as a major star. But Stanwyck’s talents could not overcome a script that critic John Mosher described as bleak, blank nonsense. Cather was so dismayed by the film that she refused to permit another adaptation of any of her novels during her lifetime.

LOST IN TRANSLATION…**Barbara Stanwyck** and **Ricardo Cortez** in *A Lost Lady* (1934). (IMDB)

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From Our Advertisers

We kick off our sponsors with this two-page center spread from Hiram Walker & Sons, who introduced their new line of playing card-inspired whiskies…

…the New Yorker’s Janet Flanner wrote in 1938 that Elsie de Wolfe invented interior design as a profession, so who was to argue with de Wolfe’s suggestion that the leisure class should linger in bed with the aid of a Wamsutta bed-rest…the small print beneath the logo indicated that the bed-rest was “hair-filled,” which I assume was horse hair, still used today in some luxury brands…

…if de Wolfe was queen of interior designers, then Hattie Carnegie was the “First Lady of Fashion,” or so this ad claimed…

…here are images of the two titans of fashion and good taste…

TASTEMAKERS…At left, **Hattie Carnegie** aka Henrietta Kanengeiser (1880-1956), and **Elsie de Wolfe**, aka Lady Mendl (1859–1950). (americacomesalive.com/bureauofinteriors.com)

…and speaking of fashion, here is a llama cloth coat from B. Altman, trimmed in silver raccoon, suitable for Yale football games…based on inflation, that coat today would set you back at least $2,000…

…this condescending ad offered merchants a way to reach the “hitherto strange and aloof women of New York” through daytime advertising…

…Plymouth enlisted the talents of Alan Dunn to tout their car’s ride and durability…

…and on to our cartoonists, another from Dunn, a bit of spot art featuring a not so subtle commentary on Lawrence Lee Bazley Angas’s book The Coming American Boom…

…and some spot art from Isadore Klein…

…Miguel Covarrubias contributed to the theater review section…

…James Thurber entertained a house guest…

…George Price was still up in the air…

…Helen Hokinson took a spin with a celebrity look-alike…

…and Barbara Shermund offered another glimpse into the life of a modern woman…

…on to Oct. 20, 1934…

Oct. 20, 1934 cover by **Helen Hokinson.**

…in which E.B. White offered up a new lament, namely the pervasiveness of nostalgia and sentiment in contemporary literature…

HARKING BACK TO THOSE DAYS OF YORE…**E.B. White** simply had no stomach for the nostalgic stylings of Mary Ellen Chase (left) or **Henry Seidel Canby**, seen here on the cover of the May 19, 1924 issue of *Time.* (U of Maine/Time Inc)

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Fifty Years Young

“The Talk of the Town” marked the Dakota’s 50th year at Central Park West, and made note of its loyal and prominent clientele…back in the day it served as a residence for actors such as Lillian Gish, Boris Karloff, and Teresa Wright, and in later years such luminaries as Lauren Bacall, Judy Garland, Rudolf Nureyev, and, of course, John Lennon and Yoko Ono.

THE STORIES IT COULD TELL…At left, the facade and main entrance of the Dakota in the 1960s; at right, inside the main entrance. (Pinterest/Wikipedia)

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More From Our Advertisers

The Matson-Oceanic Line offered a “millionaire’s idea of a vacation” at an affordable price, and offered this sumptuous image as proof…

…E.B. White wasn’t crazy about the smokeless dazzle of the Rainbow Room, but it proved to be popular among the city’s elite…

…in case one was concerned about the provenance of one’s mink coat, Saks posted this helpful ad. Their high-end, natural-skin minks were priced at $8,000 (roughly $180,000 today); there was, however, a caveat regarding the cheaper models…

…Bergdorf Goodman offered up another ad featuring an impossibly attenuated model posed with a cigarette, her defiant gaze suggesting her modernity and individualism…

…Plymouth went back to the stable of New Yorker cartoonists, this time featuring the adventures of Helen Hokinson’s “girls”…

…and we segue to the rest of our cartoonists, including this spot by Constantin Alajalov…

…and this by George Price…

…who also gave us another update on the trials and tribulations of his floating man…

… James Thurber occasionally ignored scale in rendering his characters, which didn’t really matter in his strange world…

…Jack Markow had some bad news for two sign painters (the caption size is increased for readability)…

…and we close with Peter Arno, and the winner of most original Halloween costume…

…and before I go…this is being posted on Halloween, 2023, so here are a few images from 1934 to get you in the spirit, including a Saturday Evening Post cover, a 1934 party ideas magazine, and a page from Popular Mechanics featuring a smoking robot costume you could make yourself…in the 1930s, Popular Mechanics often featured Halloween party ideas that were downright lethal, usually involving electric shocks, pistols loaded with blanks, that sort of thing.

Happy Halloween!

Next Time: House & Home…

Bojangles

Above: Bill "Bojangles" Robinson demonstrating his famous stair dance, which involved a different rhythm and pitch for each step. At left, Robinson in Broadway's Blackbirds of 1928; at right, publicity photo circa 1920s. (Vandamm collection, New York Public Library/bet.com)

Bill “Bojangles” Robinson (1878–1949) is considered one of the greatest tap dancers of all time, introducing a style of remarkable lightness and complexity that was perhaps best represented by his famous stair dance.

Oct. 6, 1934 cover by **Charles Alston.** This was Alston’s only *New Yorker* cover. Active in the Harlem Renaissance, Alston was also a painter, sculptor and muralist (see more on Alston at the conclusion of this post).

St. Clair McElway wrote about the 57-year-old Robinson in a two-part profile that examined his personal life and habits, including his propensity for getting shot. Two brief excerpts:

The New Yorker profile coincided with Robinson’s rising career in films, including four he made with Shirley Temple. For the 1935 film The Little Colonel, Robinson taught the stair dance to the child star, modifying his routine to mimic her movements. Robinson and Temple became the first interracial dance partners in Hollywood history (however, the step dance scene was cut from the film shown to Southern audiences). Temple and Robinson, who became lifelong friends, also appeared together in 1935’s The Littlest Rebel, 1938’s Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm and 1938’s Just Around the Corner.

DANCING WITH THE STAIRS…**Bill Robinson** was also known as Bojangles, a nickname from his childhood in Richmond, Virginia. Clockwise, from top left, with his second wife **Fannie Clay** in 1933; performing the stair dance with **Shirley Temple** in *The Little Colonel* (1935); profile illustration by **Peggy Bacon**; Robinson with Temple in 1938’s Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. (blackpast.org/Wikipedia)

Robinson is remembered for his generous support of fellow dancers including Fred Astaire, Eleanor Powell, Lena Horne, Sammy Davis Jr and Ann Miller, as well as his support for the career of 1936 Olympics star Jesse Owens.

FAST IN BOTH DIRECTIONS…Robinson befriended Jesse Owens (left) after the track & field great returned from the 1936 Olympics (where Owens won four golds). Known for his generosity to his friends, Robinson helped Owens establish a successful post-Olympics career. Robinson himself was also something of a runner, having set the world record for running backward in 1922 (100 yards in 13.5 seconds). (Public domain image)

Although Robinson was the highest paid black performer of his time, his generosity with friends as well as his gambling habits left him penniless at his death from heart failure in 1949. Longtime friend Ed Sullivan paid for Robinson’s funeral, and more than 30,000 filed past his casket to pay their respects.

I’VE STILL GOT IT…**Bill Robinson** with Lena Horne in 1943’s *Stormy Weather*, a film loosely based on Robinson’s own life. (MoMA)

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In a Romantic Mood

That is how St. Clair McKelway found Hollywood in two of its latest offerings, The Barretts of Wimple Street and Caravan. To his relief, he found the Hollywood version of Barretts quite “sensible”…

LET’S BE SENSIBLE…*The Barretts of Wimpole Street* (1934) starred Fredric March and Norma Shearer in the lead roles. (TCM)

…as for Caravan, McKelway wrote that he’d “never seen a picture with so much grinning in it.” He found the “peculiar, unreal gleam” of the actors’ teeth a real distraction in closeup shots.

THAT PEPSODENT SMILE…**Charles Boyer** and Loretta Young showed off their pearly whites in 1934’s *Caravan.* (IMDB/TCM)

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From Our Advertisers

The Oct. 6 issue opened with a study in contrasts: an image of two Civil War veterans swapping stories over whiskey on the inside front cover, paired with an illustration of a lithe model sheathed in the latest fashion from Bergdorf…

…the folks at Campbell’s continued to suggest that their canned soup was a delight of the elite…

…Heinz took a similar tack, showing the smart set having fun with their sandwich spreads…

…Lord & Taylor touted its “tomorrow look” in furniture…

…R.J. Reynolds continued its series of “distinguished women who preferred Camel’s “costlier tobaccos,” adding to their growing list a the “charming debutante” Evelyn Cameron Watts, who later became Evelyn Watts Fiske (1915–1976)…

…in contrast to Camel’s fashionable ads, the upstart menthol brand Kool offered a series of cheap, back-page ads featuring a smoking penguin, here in the Halloween spirit (detail)…

…another recurring back page ad was this weird spot from Satinmesh, a product that apparently helped close a woman’s “gaping pores”…those pores apparently prompted one man to ponder the eternal why…

…on to our cartoonists, we begin with a two-page spot by Carl Rose…

…James Thurber spiced up a game of ping-pong…

…Mary Petty explored the miracle of birth…

…Peter Arno discovered you’re never too old to play with toys…

…Garrett Price offered a young man’s perspective on a father’s avocation…

…Alain (Daniel Brustlein) gave us a disappointed plutocrat on vacation in Mexico…

…George Price continued to mine the humor of his “floating man” series…

…and contributed a second cartoon that featured some office hijinks…

…and Otto Soglow returned without The Little King, offering in its stead the closest thing to royalty in America…

Before we sign off, a note on the Oct. 6 cover artist, Charles Henry Alston (1907–1977). A Harlem-based painter, sculptor, illustrator, muralist and teacher, Alston was active in the Harlem Renaissance and was the first Black supervisor for the Works Progress Administration’s Federal Art Project. In 1990, Alston’s bust of Martin Luther King Jr. became the first image of an African American displayed at the White House.

Clockwise, from top left, **Charles Henry Alston’s** 1970 bust of **Martin Luther King Jr**; *Walking* 1958; Andrew Herman photo of Alston, 1939; *Midnight Vigil*, 1936. (Smithsonian/Wikipedia/Columbia.edu)

For more on Charles Alston, read “The Painter Who Wouldn’t Be Pigeonholed” in Columbia College Today.

Next Time: The Age of Giants…

Reel News

Above: Newsreel cameramen perch on boards resting on a windowsill to get a birds-eye view of a passing parade, circa 1930. (Public Domain Image)

We marvel at, and sometimes decry, today’s instantaneous news coverage of wars, disasters and the like, but ninety years ago newsreel crews did a remarkable job of filming and delivering the latest news to thousands of theaters across the U.S. and around the world.

Sept. 22, 1934 cover by **Harry Brown.**

In his “A Reporter at Large” column, Morris Markey penned a lengthy account of Fox Movietone’s coverage of the SS Morro Castle disaster. En route from Havana to New York City on Sept. 8, 1934, the luxury liner caught fire near the New Jersey coast. Due to the ship’s design and the ineptitude of the crew, the blaze claimed 137 lives. Markey described how newsreel crews—with their bulky cameras and sound equipment—went into action, including a cameraman who “goaded” a pilot into taking him aloft through vicious weather conditions.

GUTS AND INGENUITY took newsreel reporters to places high and low. Clockwise, from top left, title card from a 1935 Fox Movietone newsreel; **Jack Lieb** goes aloft to get capture newsreel footage in an undated photo—Lieb was a cameraman for Hearst’s *News of the Day;* a 1930s Fox Movietone camera; the SS *Morro Castle* ablaze off the New Jersey Coast on Sept. 8, 1934. (Wikipedia/Lieb photo Courtesy of Bette Marshall via unwritten-record.blogs.archives.gov)

Somehow the cameraman aboard the airplane (which was forced down by weather three times) was able to get his footage to the Movietone office by noon, less than seven hours after the office first received word of the disaster. By three o’clock, five thousand feet of film from all sources was being developed.

UP NORTH AND DOWN UNDER…Movietone news had crews stationed around the world, including field staff in Sydney (top, from 1938), and in Toronto, circa 1930. (Nat’l Library of Australia/City of Toronto Archives)

Markey concluded with this observation about the “rugged” and persistent newsreel cameramen:

In the aftermath of the Morro Castle disaster, a scene of enormous tragedy was turned into a tourist attraction…

GAWKERS AND HAWKERS…The charred hulk of the SS *Morro Castle* came to rest on the shore near the Asbury Park boardwalk, which became a popular spot for souvenir salesmen and photo-ops. Tourists flocked to the site from September 1934 to March 1935, when the ship was finally towed away. Note the postcard (bottom) advertising homemade candy over an image of the charred ship. (ripleys.com/side-o-lamb.com)

Fox Movietone News produced sound newsreels from 1928 to 1963, and in the UK as British Movietone News…here is Movietone footage of the Morro Castle disaster, as presented by British Movietone in 1934:

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Up In The Old Hotels

Last week “The Talk of the Town” looked in on one of Manhattan’s oldest saloons, McSorley’s. For the Sept. 22 “Talk” the subject was “Oldest Hotels,” two of which, The Cosmopolitan and The Grand, remarkably survive to this day.

HANGING IN THERE…The 1845 Brevoort House hotel at 15 Fifth Avenue (top left) was torn down in 1952, however the 1868 Grand Hotel (right) at 1232–1238 Broadway and the 1845 Cosmopolitan Hotel (below, left) at Chambers Street and West Broadway still stand today. (Museum of the City of New York / Chester Higgins Jr. for The New York Times)

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The Six-Million Dollar Road

The first roadway designed exclusively for automobile use was likely the Long Island Motor Parkway, privately built by William Kissam Vanderbilt II because he wanted a road suitable for auto racing. He established the Vanderbilt Cup races on local roads in 1904, but after two spectators were killed and many others injured, in 1908 he began building what would become a 45-mile (72 km) toll road from Queens to Lake Ronkonkoma. After two mechanics were killed in a 1910 race, the New York Legislature banned racing on the road, which the state took over in 1938.

ROAD WARRIOR…**William Kissam Vanderbilt II** (top right) staged his Vanderbilt Cup Races on his private road until a fatal accident put a stop to the fun in 1910; At bottom right, a surviving section of the road today. Most of the road in Queens is a bicycle trail, and other segments still serve as parts of a county road. (nyheritage.org/Wikipedia-Steve Nowotarski/ny1.com)

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From Our Advertisers

I have nothing against accordion music, despite years of exposure to Lawrence Welk during my youth, but I find it hard to believe that a Park Avenue socialite (identified here as Mrs. René Du Champ Bellinger) would contemplate tormenting her posh friends with a Hohner squeezebox…

…Esquire magazine was barely a year old when it posted this ad in The New Yorker…its appeal to men (and their anxieties) keeps it going today…

…it’s interesting how companies in the 19th century and on through the 1950s featured idealized, bird’s eye images of their factories in advertising, doubtless believing that consumers associated size (and smokestacks) with prosperity, and therefore a quality product…

…White Rock, however, has used the image of the Greek goddess Psyche for more than a century to promote the purity of its spring water…

…purity was also the main point of this ad from Daggett & Ramsdell, who hawked their wares to the Park Avenue set…after more than 130 years D&G is still in the beauty business…

…this next ad is almost unbelievable…single rooms starting at $5, double rooms $7, and a whole suite for $10…at the Plaza…okay, $10 is roughly equivalent to $225 today, but half of that could get you a single…

…and yet another unlikely claim from R.J. Reynolds regarding the energizing qualities of their Camel cigarettes…it seems the last thing you would need while climbing a mountain is smoke in your already over-taxed lungs…

…however, let’s give proper due to Georgia Engelhard (1906–1986), who scandalized the mountaineering world by ditching the Victorian climbing skirt in favor of a pair of climbing pants. Engelhard was the first female climber to ascend many of the peaks in the Rockies…

**Georgia Engelhard** in a 1922 photo attributed to her friend **Alfred Stieglitz.** (nga.gov)

…it seemed like nearly everyone smoked in the 1930s, even in ads that had nothing to do with tobacco companies (detail)…

…on to our cartoons, we begin with Richard Decker and some retail competition…

…George Price drew up a curiosity even Robert Ripley couldn’t believe…

…Robert Day examined advances in evolutionary science…

…E. Simms Campbell offered up this abbreviated love story…

…Peter Arno gave us a director with a god complex…

…and one from Ned Hilton, and a new perspective on flying…

…on to Sept. 29, 1934, with a cover by Arnold Hall, who produced at least twelve covers for The New Yorker between 1933 and 1939…

Sept. 29, 1934 cover by **Arnold Hall.**

…and we go straight to ads, beginning with this alarming image that greeted readers on the inside cover…why would this prompt anyone to purchase a can of onion soup?…

…the Rainbow Room on the 65th floor of Rockefeller Center opened in 1934, and it quickly became a focal point for the city’s elite…

Above, the dining room at the Rainbow Room, 1934, and below, in 2004. (Library of Congress/Wikipedia)

…Lucky Strike continued its series of ads featuring fashionable women looking smart with their product…

…our cartoons include this spot illustration by Otto Soglow, who did spots for The New Yorker for many years…although Soglow’s Little King moved to the Hearst newspapers, he continued to contribute cartoons to The New Yorker until 1974…

…George Price continued to explore life as a levitating man…

…the enforcement of the Hays Code had this teen in a “fix,” per James Thurber…

…Gluyas Williams continued his exploration of various crises, this time in the music world…

…Alan Dunn gave us a glimpse of civilization via the pharaonic sculptures that were emerging on the face of Mt. Rushmore…

…and we close with the wonderful wit of Barbara Shermund…

Next Time: Bojangles…

Some Pitiful Melodies

Sigmund Gottfried Spaeth (1885–1965) sought to popularize classical music and improve the musical tastes of the masses by meeting the public wherever he could find them, from vaudeville halls to national radio broadcasts.

September 1, 1934 cover by **William Steig**.

Born in a line of three generations of Lutheran clergymen, Spaeth chose a different path and became a musicologist who sought to de-mystify classical music, often demonstrating how popular melodies had origins in earlier music. He also had strong opinions about lyrics in popular music, demonstrating his distaste for “the lyric school of self-pity” in this “Onward and Upward” column. Excerpts:

BRINGING MUSIC AND LIGHT…**Sigmund Spaeth** found much to dislike in the world of popular music, but he was never stuffy in his approach to music appreciation. At right, Spaeth appeared in vaudeville-style shows (and for many years on the radio) as “The Tune Detective,” wearing a deerstalker cap, cape, and checked tweeds in imitation of Sherlock Holmes. He hoped to demonstrate to a wide audience that all music was essentially based on a set of simple principles. (sinfonia.org/wnyc.org)

HAVE NO FEAR…Spaeth wrote a popular syndicated newspaper column, “Music for Everybody,” and contributed articles to many periodicals during his career. With his first book in 1925, *The Common Sense of Music*, and others that followed, Spaeth sought to de-mystify music for a general audience. (Wikimedia Commons)

OH LIGHTEN UP…Spaeth detected a cynical note in **Bing Crosby’s** (left) sob song, “I Cried for You,” and noted **Irving Berlin’s** latest contribution to the “sob symposium,” “I Never Had a Chance.” (Wikipedia/digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/britannica.com)

Spaeth noted that not all sad songs were dripping in artificial self-pity, citing Helen Morgan’s “Why Was I Born?” as an example of a song modeled on “the legitimate blues,” marked by “a sincerity of expression in everyday language”…

RIGHT AND WRONG…Spaeth acknowledged the “sincerity of expression” in Helen Morgan’s (left) torch songs, while at the other extreme he suggested that the authors of “Was That the Human Thing to Do?” (**Sammy Fain** and **Joe Young**) be boiled alive in their own tears. The song was popularized by **The Boswell Sisters**, a beloved New Orleans trio in the early 1930s. (findagrave.com/amazon.com/genius.com)

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Off to the Races

In his column, “Of All Things,” Howard Brubaker commented on the apparent competition and contrast between Alexander Woollcott’s book, While Rome Burns, and another with a rosier title, The Coming of the American Boom. It appears Woollcott’s book won out, at least in the long run, as I can find no trace of the Boom book, or its author.*

* One of our kind readers has identified the author: “The Coming American Boom” was written by Lawrence Lee Bazley Angas and published by Simon and Schuster in 1934. In 1939, Time noted that “Major Lawrence Lee Bazley (‘Boom’) Angas is a pink & white Britisher with a reputation for making daring predictions which have sometimes come true…. He won his nickname with a much-publicized booklet, The Coming American Boom, which heralded his arrival in the U.S. in 1934.”

Speaking of rosy outlooks, E.B. White offered some parting thoughts on Chicago’s World’s Fair, called “A Century of Progress.” Rather than focus on the grandiose exhibits, White wryly noted other signs of progress at the fair, as recounted from a letter he received from his nephew.

The Chicago World’s Fair featured all sorts of modern wonders “dedicated to the ideal of scientific advance”…

…but as with any World’s Fair, it also catered to the baser interests of the masses, with attractions such as Robert Ripley’s Believe It Or Not “Odditorium,” which was essentially a P.T. Barnum-style freak show…

…Ripley’s syndicated newspaper feature included these Odditorium attractions…

…White made light of exhibitions displaying such signs of progress as how to brush your teeth, and more examples of human freakdom…

…White’s nephew wrote of a man who could pull a wagon (containing his wife) with his eyelids, an apparently arthritic fellow who was “turning to stone,” and a man who could support heavy weights with his pierced breasts…

(all images courtesy postcardy.blogspot.com)

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Letter From Paris

Paris correspondent Janet Flanner wrote that August 1934 was a “month of memories” as it marked the twentieth anniversary of the outbreak of the Great War, which we now call World War I. Flanner wrote about a new attitude that had arisen in those two decades, “a new attitude not only toward the last war but toward the next (which, ironically enough, seems increasingly inevitable to France since the death of the enemy warrior, von Hindenburg).” She continued with these observations made by French journalist and historian Emmanuel Berl (1892–1976), who wrote that as a result of the Great War, the youth in both France and Germany held few heroic illusions about war, seeing it not as a sacrifice but rather “as a means of being annihilated.”

SO MUCH FOR THE HEROICS…A refugee family returning to Amiens, France, looking at the ruins of a house on Sept. 17, 1918. Top right, **Janet Flanner** in 1940; below, **Emmanuel Berl.** (iwm.org.uk/Flanner photo copyright Estate of George Platt Lynes/Berl photo courtesy Joël Chirol)

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From Our Advertisers

Clothing company Rogers Peet used the threat of humiliation to encourage young men to stock up on “authentic university fashions” before returning to campus…

…the Wanamaker department store took a different approach, offering up new styles with a heavy English accent (I say, didn’t we play tennis once at the Hon. Toppy Crew’s?)…

…the makers of Goodyear tires offered up this disturbing image to boost sales…

…this ad told us that “Mrs. Henry Field” collected fine art, loved to go to parties, and “always smoked Camel cigarettes”…I am unaware of the fate of Mrs. Henry Field, married to the grandnephew of Marshall Field, but this unseemly image suggests she was replaced by a wax figure before the photo was taken…

…on to our cartoons, we begin with spot illustrations from (clockwise, from top) Victor De Pauw, Abe Birnbaum, and an unidentified illustrator who offered this suggestion for beating the late summer heat…

…we move along to Alan Dunn and a record-seeking pooch…

…Peter Arno with a very Arno-esque take on the stranded island trope…

…James Thurber gave us a man who was done making decisions…

…Richard Decker offered up this living history demonstration…

…George Price gave us two tropes for the price of one…

…Barbara Shermund gave us another glimpse into the lives of modern women…

…Rea Irvin continued his exploration of Manhattan’s fauna…

…our next cartoon is by Henry Steig, who used the pseudonym Henry Anton to avoid being confused with his brother, William Steig (featured on this issue’s cover)…unlike his brother, Henry was also a jazz musician, a sculptor and painter, a photographer, and a novelist…that is before he became a noted jeweler…

…Henry Steig’s jewelry shop at 590 Lexington Avenue can be glimpsed in the background of the famous subway vent scene from 1955’s The Seven Year Itch featuring Marilyn Monroe…

…and we close with Otto Soglow, and the last appearance his “Little King” in The New Yorker...William Randolph Hearst had lured Soglow away for his King Features Syndicate, debuting The Little King in his newspapers on September 9, 1934, where it would run until Soglow’s death in 1975…Soglow, however, would continue contributing cartoons of other themes to The New Yorker until 1974…

Next Time: Lunch at the Dog Wagon…

Dizzy Drinks

During the roughly thirteen years of Prohibition, many Americans had forgotten how to mix a decent cocktail; the concoctions they devised during those dry years were often created to mask the taste of bootleg liquor—sales of Coca-Cola steadily increased throughout the 1920s in part because it made ardent spirits such as rum and whisky a bit more palatable.

August 18, 1934 cover by **Ilonka Karasz.**

Donald Barr Chidsey examined the phenomenon in “The Talk of the Town,” visiting with traumatized bartenders around Manhattan:

LOST ART…**Donald Barr Chidsey** relayed the horror of a customer at Sherry’s (top left, photo of the 300 Park Avenue entrance, c. 1925) who asked for ice cream in his rum punch; directly across the street from Sherry’s was the Waldorf Astoria (top right), where a customer asked for a drink of half ice cream, half Coca-Cola; bottom images are from **Albert Crockett’s** *The Old Waldorf-Astoria Bar Book—*as to what one gathers from Chidsey’s account, more than a few people needed to check the “Glossarial” to get reacquainted with the spirit world. (Museum of the City of New York/kitchenartsandletters.com)

CUBA LIBRE…According to Chidsey, the go-to for women patrons at the Hotel Weylin was a Barcardi and Coke; at left, Hotel Weylin in 1935; at right, lobby card featuring entertainment at the Weylin Bar, circa 1930s. (Museum of the City of New York/ebay)

THE LAST STRAW…Chidsey wrote of an alarming trend among patrons at Schrafft’s who demanded straws in their Tom Collinses. The sleek, art moderne Schrafft’s at 61 Fifth Avenue was among more than two-dozen Schrafft’s locations in New York City in the 1930s. Known for cleanliness and home-style cooking, target clientele were middle-class women. (*Architectural Record* photos via daytoninmanhattan.blogspot.com)

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From Our Advertisers

Speaking of Schrafft’s, here is their advertisement from the Aug. 18 issue, offering breakfasts ranging from 35 to 75 cents that apparently were the stuff of O. Henry’s dreams…

…what is a woman to do with a restless husband?…drawing on the wisdom of the ages, she hands him a beer and coaxes him into his easy chair…this ad encouraged women to “always keep a few bottles in your refrigerator”…in other words, keep ’em coming until he settles into a manageable stupor…

…and see just how easily he slips away, leaving you with a few moments to yourself…

…if highballs were more to your taste, the folks at Poland Water stood ready to help…

…R.J. Reynolds claimed their Camels could solve all sorts of life challenges…we’ve seen ads claiming that Camels soothed “jangled nerves” and helped one relax, but apparently they also could give you energy and pep, at least that is what tennis star Ellsworth Vines, Jr claimed…

…lots of color in the ads for the Aug. 18 issue…here the folks at Buick featured a woman in a red dress serving as an exclamation point to their automobile, which was no ordinary motorcar, but rather a “congenial companion, alive with good-natured personality”…

…the folks at General Tire went one better, making their tires the star attraction…those tires look so attractive it seems almost a shame to dirty them on the road…

…on to our cartoons, we cool off with this spot in the opening pages by Alan Dunn…

…William Cotton contributed this caricature of New Deal Administrator Hugh Samuel Johnson that accompanied a three-part profile…

…Rea Irvin offered up a bird of a different feather…

…Robert Day gave us this master of understatement…

…Alan Dunn again, examining the trials and tribulations of the leisure classes…

…Peter Arno offered this take on the Hays Code (after politician Will Hays), which was going into effect after the brief “Pre-Code” period (roughly 1930 to 1934) during which filmmakers felt freer to explore themes featuring sex and violence…

…George Price gave us a man have trouble hitting his mark…

…Alain (Daniel Brustlein) contributed a cartoon with a talking animal, common today but rare in the early New Yorker…

…Raeburn Van Buren was also down on the farm…I think we know the answer to this woman’s query…

…and we close with James Thurber, where mixed doubles were naturally fraught with peril…

Next Time: Cleo’s Allure…

His Five Cent’s Worth

Above: Final Design of Grand Central Terminal, ca. 1910. (New York Transit Museum)

The heat wave of 1934 spread misery from the Midwest to the East Coast. The temperature in New York City hit 101 degrees F (38.3 C) on June 29, and July recorded at least ten days of temps in the mid- to upper 90s. It must have been miserable in the days before air-conditioning, and since no adult would dare be seen in public wearing shorts and a t-shirt, an outing on a crowded tour boat, as illustrated below by William Cotton, must have been hellish.

July 21, 1934 cover by **William Cotton.**

…putting a fine point on it, recall this wryly captioned cartoon from the June 30 issue by Garrett Price…

…but let us move ahead to the July 28 issue, where E.B. White was hopefully keeping his cool in the men’s waiting room at Grand Central Station, where he plunked down a nickel to cool his heels in the “middle class” section, where he observed side attractions including a vending machine that dispensed handkerchiefs and a coin-operated peep show featuring burlesque star Sally Rand.

NO MASHERS ALLOWED…Separate men’s and ladies’ rooms were available in three classes at Grand Central Station—free, five cents and ten cents. Top, the Ladies’ room, Grand Central Terminal (Central Lines), and below, a men’s room at the station. A nickel back then was worth about a dollar today. (Library of Congress)

NICKEL AND DIMED…Machines similar to these could be found in some men’s waiting rooms at train stations in the 1930s. (pinballhistory.com/comics.ha.com)

…White referred to a peep show that featured famed fan dancer Sally Rand…

DOING HER DEEP KNEE BENDS…**Sally Rand** in the 1930s. (www.vintag.es)

White also commented on the growing number of travelers, still pinched by the Depression, opting for the free section:

We settle in with the June 21 issue (which leads this post) with White once again, this time enjoying a drive to Stamford, Conn., where he admired the “splendor” of the Condé Nast printing plant (apparently the plant also printed The New Yorker, although the magazine itself would not be acquired by Condé Nast’s parent company, Advance Publications, until 1985).

ONLY A MEMORY…Postcard image of the Condé Nast printing plant; at left, a relic of the long-gone plant, one of two pillars that flanked the road to the plant. (Greenwich Historical Society/greenwichtime.com)

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Disney’s Other Mouse

Film critic John Mosher was a fan of Disney’s “Silly Symphony” cartoon shorts, which were produced between 1929 and 1939. Animation, and especially color animation, was in its infancy, so these doubtless had an uplifting effect on many moviegoers.

DON’T CALL ME TINKERBELL…The Butterfly Fairy brought some Disney magic to 1934’s *The Flying Mouse.* (disney.fandom.com)

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The Great McGonigle

W.C. Fields appeared in more than a dozen silent films before making his first talkie, 1930’s The Golf Specialist, and it was in sound films that Fields was able to truly express his vaudevillian wit. It was also in the sound era that Fields teamed up with Baby LeRoy for three films (in 1933 and 1934), including The Old Fashioned Way, in which Fields portrayed “The Great McGonigle,” leader of a traveling (and perpetually underfunded) theater troupe who was always a step ahead of police and creditors. Critic John Mosher found the film’s riff on an old morality play, The Drunkard, to be a bit dated, but overall thought it a cheerful diversion.

HONK…**Baby LeRoy**, aka **Ronald Le Roy Overacker** (1932–2001), was just 16 months old when he became the youngest person ever put under term contract by a major studio. He is best known for his appearances in three W. C. Fields films: *Tillie and Gus* (1933), *The Old Fashioned Way* (1934) and It’s a Gift (1934). (Rotten Tomatoes/IMDB)

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From Our Advertisers

We begin with scientific proof (from a “famous research laboratory in New York”) that Camel cigarettes increased one’s flow of energy…

…if that crackpot claim doesn’t get you, here’s one that recommended downing a PBR before a big meeting, a sure remedy for that “listless, tired-out feeling”…

…of course we all know that a few sugary Cokes will get you going…back then they were taking it in six- and ten-ounce bottles, not 30- to 50-ounce Big Gulps…

…it’s not every day you see a dog food ad in The New Yorker…in the 1930s there was no secret to where ol’ Sparky ended up…

…popular were these Rockwellian ads that equated various products with happy and wholesome (and safe) living, in this case a massive “Dual-Balloon” tire that dominated this tableau featuring a stylish mommy and her little boy slumming with an old sea salt…

…the folks at Essex House hired an illustrator who did his or her best to channel Helen Hokinson and William Steig for this New Yorker ad…as we have seen before, Essex House ads walked a fine line between thrift and snob appeal…

…on to our cartoons, beginning with Ned Hilton, whose work appeared in The New Yorker from 1934 to 1957…

…Mary Petty recorded some sweet nothings by the seaside…

…George Price drifted along with two men and tuba…

…Carl Rose revealed a modest side to life at a nudist colony…

…we know Clarence Day for his Life With Father series, but on occasion he also contributed illustrated poems such as this one from the July 21 issue…

…on to July 28…

July 28, 1934 cover by **Adolph K. Kronengold.**

…where we encounter more “scientific research” that encouraged folks to smoke…This ad was placed on the very last page of the July 28 issue by the Cigarette Research Institute, based in Louisville, Kentucky…

…the booklet was filled with “amazing facts” uncovered in a “scientific investigation,” facts did not address the health effects of smoking, but rather such important topics as how to hold a cigarette the right way and how to reduce staining on your teeth…it also helpfully debunked the notion that nicotine was a “dread demon”…

…take for example this woman smoking a Lucky…now she knew how to hold a cigarette!…

…the folks at Essex House were back, aggressively playing the class/caste card…apparently if you lived there you were entitled to kick your old friends to the curb…

…the antacid and pain reliever Bromo-Seltzer was ubiquitous in 1930s medicine cabinets, but after the recipe was changed in the 1970s (all Bromides were withdrawn from the U.S. market in 1975) the brand slowly fizzled away…

…Mildred Oppenheim Melisse was a popular illustrator of ads for department stores and various household goods, including Cannon towels, here guaranteed to absorb even this man’s sweaty “flood”…

…Dr. Seuss back again for Flit, once again having no issues mixing insecticide with food preparation…

…Rea Irvin kicks off the cartoons with his Double Breasted Dowager…

…Helen Hokinson found some misplaced pity at a garden party…

…Garrett Price offered some unsolicited advice…

…Reginald Marsh filled two pages with a scene from Central Park…

…Robert Day looked for a unique experience at an auto camp…

…and we close with Barbara Shermund, and some alarming news on the domestic front…

Next Time: Men of Mystery…

London Calling

Above: Illustration of the Dorchester Hotel’s ballroom in the 1930s. (dorchestercollection.com)

Lois Long took her nightlife column, “Tables for Two,” to London and its famed nightclub scene, where everyone from British royalty to gangsters reveled in a boozy, bohemian scene.

July 7, 1934 cover by **Ilonka Karasz.**

Prince Edward, a well-known party animal (who would serve as king for less than a year and abdicate in 1936) was known to get up on the stage of the Embassy Club and perform drum solos, while at the Savoy his fellow toffs would sip Champagne and glide in elegant dress across the dance floor. London nightlife included a lively jazz scene in edgy Soho basement clubs, featuring such greats as Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong and Dizzy Gillespie.

Long hoped that the visit to London, her first in eight years, would give her some much-needed rest and a change of scene. What she found instead was a red-hot, all-night party, where the smart set took dinner near midnight and danced until dawn.

SAVVY SAVOY….Clockwise from top left, the famed Savoy bartender **Harry Craddock**, credited with inventing the White Lady and the Corpse Reviver, at the Savoy’s American Bar in the 1930s; a Savoy elevator operator in 1926; diners at the Savoy circa 1930s; Savoy entrance. (madamgenevaandgent.co.uk/The Savoy/YouTube)

LONDON SWINGS…More **Lois Long** haunts in London included, clockwise from top left, the Dorchester Hotel; the crowded dance floor at the Monseigneur with **Roy Fox and his Orchestra** (photo from 1932); patrons kicking up their heels at the Embassy Club on Old Bond Street; the Café de Paris, where American actress **Louise Brooks** demonstrated a new dance craze, The Charleston, in 1924. (dorchestercollection.com/albowlly.club/lucyjanesantos.com/Wikipedia)

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Misery Loves Company

In his “Notes and Comment,” E.B. White observed that almost everyone was “made miserable” by the Depression, but if one looked around there were signs that things weren’t so bad after all.

REASON FOR CHEER…For those still feeling blue about the Depression, **E.B. White** suggested watching kids cool off at a pier, such as these lads seen diving into the East River on the Lower East Side on July 3, 1935. (Jack Gordon/New York Daily News)

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He Came Up a Bit Short

Howard Brubaker, in his column “Of All Things,” made this observation about Adolf Hitler’s prediction that Nazism would endure a thousand years.

And now a retreat into the cool darkness of the cinema, where John Mosher singled out Bette Davis’s performance in Of Human Bondage…Mosher’s instincts were correct—the film proved to be Davis’s breakout role on her road to major stardom.

ROAD TO RUIN…**Bette Davis** wowed the critics with her portrayal of a tearoom waitress who seduces a young medical student (**Leslie Howard**) and leads him down a path of self-destruction. The film was based on the 1915 novel by **W. Somerset Maugham.** (IMDB)

Mosher also took in the “bright” performances of William Powell and Myrna Loy in The Thin Man, a pre-Code comedy-mystery based on the Dashiell Hammett novel by the same name. Powell and Loy portrayed Nick and Nora Charles, who added spice to their leisurely lives through numerous cocktails, flirtatious banter, and crime-solving. Critics loved the film, as did audiences, spawning five sequels from 1936 to 1947.

CHEERS…Top photo: Nick and Nora Charles (**William Powell** and Myrna Loy) enjoy a drink with their client’s fiancee (**Henry Wadsworth**) in *The Thin Man* (1934); Bottom photo: Charles takes aim at a Christmas ornament (with a BB gun) while Nora enjoys the comforts of her new fur coat in a scene from *The Thin Man*. (Daily Beast/Austin Chronicle)

Another star of the show was Asta, the Charles’s wire fox terrier. Asta was portrayed by Skippy, a dog actor who not only appeared in The Thin Man films but also acted alongside Cary Grant in 1937’s The Awful Truth and in 1938’s Bringing Up Baby. Skippy appeared in three Thin Man movies and in more than twenty films altogether between 1932 and 1941. Being an actor in the film must have been good for one’s health: Powell lived 91 years, Loy 88 years, and Skippy, 20 years—a good long life for any pooch.

ROUGH NIGHT…Nick (**William Powell**) and Asta (**Skippy**) tend to Nora (**Myrna Loy**), who nurses a hangover in *The Thin Man.* (Wikipedia)

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From Our Advertisers

While Chrysler’s styling of their streamlined Airflow proved to be too far advanced for the buying public (the Depression didn’t help), Studebaker’s own foray into the streamlined future caused a sensation…

…thanks to Studebaker’s brief merger with Pierce-Arrow (1928–33), Studebaker’s designers took cues from Pierce’s streamlined 1933 Silver Arrow and created more than 800 cars with “Year-Ahead” design features—the positive reception convinced the company to continue the style in 1935…here is a top-of-the-line 1934 President Land Cruiser…

1934 Studebaker President Land Cruiser with “Year-Ahead” design features, yet not as radical as Chrysler’s Airflow. (hemmings.com)

and the car that inspired it…

1933 Pierce-Arrow Silver Arrow. Photo copyright Darin Schnabel, courtesy RM Sotheby’s, via hemming.com.

…we continue with those round rubber things that held the cars up…a lot of tire ads in the 1930s emphasized safety—blowouts were common back then…funny how it took nearly four decades to add seat belts to cars…those tires wouldn’t help much in a head-on collision, especially with your kid standing on the from seat…

…now let’s cool off with crisp Canadian Ale, thanks to Carling’s entry into the American market…

…Carling’s Black Label beer was popular in the states…my parents had a set of these coasters with the Black Label tagline…

…Budweiser continued its artful series of ads featuring the well-heeled enjoying its product…here it appears old dad (wearing some kind of medal) is getting to know his daughter-in-law over some cold chicken…”hey boy, she’s one of us!”…

…and we move on to three very different approaches to selling cigarettes, beginning with Spud, continuing its message that menthol cigarettes are as refreshing as a shower on a July afternoon…

…a close up of the message…

…Camel, on the other hand, continued its campaign against irritability…it apparently did wonders for this woman, who seems to be on something more than nicotine…

…and from the people who brought us the tagline “blow some my way” in 1928 (as a way to encourage women to take up the habit), by 1934 she is owning that cigarette, and apparently setting some ground rules with the gentleman…

…contrast with the more submissive pose in the Chesterfield ad from the late 1920s…

…on to our cartoons, we begin with spot art by Alan Dunn, which appears to have originated as a captioned cartoon…

…William Steig offered up this bit of art for a profile of an “insurance man” by St. Clair McKelway…

…Helen Hokinson drew up a full page of cartoons along the theme of outdoor dining…

…we continue Rea Irvin’s series on native birds…

…George Price found a way to save on the cost of light bulbs…

…and we close with James Thurber, and a welcome to the family…

Next Time: The Happy Warrior…

A Light in Darkness

Above: For this Hollywood-heavy post we feature stars of the 1930s—the two Joans, Joan Blondell (left) and Joan Crawford, marking the Fourth of July holiday.

The New Yorker marked the Fourth of July with this William Steig cover featuring a patriotic “strap” along the binding and one of his precocious “Small Fry”…

June 30, 1934 cover by **William Steig.**

We’ve been looking at ways New Yorkers kept their cool in the hot summer of 1934, and one way to beat the heat was to escape into the air-conditioned darkness of a movie theater. It was not uncommon for folks to remain seated after the credits rolled and watch the feature all over again, just enjoy some cold comfort.

Film critic John Mosher no doubt enjoyed this particular perk, and perhaps this made him a bit more agreeable to whatever was playing on the big screen, including three rather dull pictures featuring actresses Marion Davies, Kay Francis and Elissa Landi.

Marion Davies (1897–1961) was the veteran of the group, beginning her film career in 1917 and appearing in thirty silent films before breaking into sound movies. Sadly, her talents as an actress and comedian were overshadowed by her reputation as William Randolph Hearst’s mistress. Known for her aristocratic bearing, Austrian-American actress Elissa Landi (1904–1948) appeared in several British silents and on Broadway before signing with Fox Films in 1931. Kay Francis (1905–1968) began her film career with the advent of sound movies in 1929. A major box-office draw for Warner Brothers, by 1935 Francis was one of Hollywood’s highest-paid actors (she was also a former roommate and longtime friend of The New Yorker’s Lois Long).

BEFORE SCARLETT AND RHETT…**Gary Cooper** and **Marion Davies** as star-crossed lovers in the 1934 Civil War drama *Operator 13.* Davies portrayed actress Gail Loveless, recruited by the Union to infiltrate a Confederate camp, where she falls for Capt. Jack Gailliard, a Confederate officer played by Cooper. (IMDB)

Perhaps one of the more notorious examples of a white actor in blackface, Operator 13 featured Davies as a Union spy who poses as a Black maid to infiltrate a Confederate camp…

FOOLING NO ONE…**Marion Davies**, in blackface, with **Sam McDaniel** in *Operator 13.* (IMDB)

PLAYING DOCTOR…**Kay Francis** and Warren William in the 1934 Pre-Code drama *Dr. Monica.* (IMDB)

JUST KEEP PRETENDING UNTIL THE CREDITS…From left, **Adolphe Menjou, Elissa Landi,** and **David Manners** in the 1934 romantic comedy *The Great Flirtation*. (IMDB)

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Sentimental Journey

Another critic enjoying the cool of the theater was Robert Benchley, who used this break in the Broadway season to reveal his passions regarding a number of stage actresses. An excerpt:

BENCHLEY’S BROADWAY…**Robert Benchley’s** all-time favorite Broadway actresses included, from top row, left to right, **Maud Adams, Florence Reed, Gladys Hanson,** and Charlotte Walker; second row, from left, **Laura Hope Crews, Julia Marlowe, Maxine Elliott**, and **Ethel Barrymore;** third row, **Janet Beecher, Ina Claire, Marguerite Clark,** and **Jane Cowl**; fourth row, **Elsie Ferguson, Martha Hedman, Marjorie Rambeau,** and Pauline Frederick. (NYPL/Wikipedia/IMDB)

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A Poke at Palooka

In his column “Of All Things,” Howard Brubaker took a shot below the belt at the new heavyweight boxing champ, Max Baer.

WHO SEZ I CAN’T READ?…**Max Baer** in the 1930s. (boxing.fandom.com/wiki)

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From Our Advertisers

It was hot outside, folks were cooling off with their favorite beverages, and advertisers responded in kind…we begin with a familiar green bottle, and with apologies to Max Baer, you didn’t need to know how to read to know this was a bottle of Perrier…

…if your taste was more on the domestic side, there was White Rock…

…a series of Hoffman Club Soda ads sought to convince consumers about their superior carbonation…

…or how about a brandy, perhaps lightly chilled, especially if it’s late in the evening, and you happen to be sitting on a breezy hotel rooftop…

…or you could cool down with a Lion beer…considered a heritage brewery, Lion Brewery is one of only ten pre-Prohibition breweries that has independently and continuously operated since the repeal of Prohibition…

…a fairly new brand of cigarettes, Marlboro, was still taking out these bargain-sized ads to build brand recognition…Flit insecticide, on the other hand, was well-known thanks to these ubiquitous Dr. Seuss ads…

…the folks at General Tire & Rubber were the latest advertiser to tie their product to the glamour of aviation…

…and on to our cartoons, we begin with another installment of native birds via Rea Irvin…

…Al Frueh chimed in with this three-panel encounter at a nudist colony…

…Robert Day presented a case of indigestion…

…Garrett Price welcomed us aboard a dream cruise…

…George Price gave us this gem in the “Goings On About Town” section,,,

…Gardner Rea gave us his spare line to illustrate an enormous space…one of his specialties…

…Gilbert Bundy marked the Fourth with an entitled jaywalker…

…and we close with Mary Petty, and a banker’s contentment…

Next Time: London Calling…

Ring Ding

Back in the days before we had a zillion different entertainment options, almost anyone with a pair of ears would tune in to hear the radio broadcast of a heavyweight title fight.

Jack Dempsey and Gene Tunney dominated the late 1920s, while Joe Louis, Max Schmeling and Jack Sharkey were marquee names in the 1930s along with Max Baer and Primo Carnera, who met on June 14, 1934 at the outdoor Madison Square Garden Bowl in Long Island City. The reigning champ Carnera (1906–1967), who stood six-and-a-half feet tall and weighed in at 260 pounds, had won more fights by knockout than any other heavyweight champion. But Baer (1909–1959) was known as a knockout puncher who beat one opponent so savagely that he died the following day.

DEADLY DUEL…**Max Baer** (right) fought **Frankie Campbell** on Aug. 25, 1930, in San Francisco for the unofficial title of Pacific Coast champion. In the fifth round Baer got Campbell against the ropes and hammered him senseless. Campbell died the next day. An autopsy revealed that Campbell’s brain was “knocked completely loose from his skull.” Baer was profoundly affected by Campbell’s death, and donated purses from succeeding bouts to Campbell’s family. (thefightcity.com)

Baer was also something of a showboater, a quality Morris Markey found distasteful when he wrote about the Baer–Carnera bout in “A Reporter at Large.”

ALL SMILES…A year before their championship bout **Max Baer** (left) and Primo Carnera starred with **Myrna Loy** in *The Prizefighter and the Lady. (theusaboxingnews.com)*

GIANT SLAYER…The Italian prizefighter and wrestler **Primo Carnera**, nicknamed the “Ambling Alp,” was the reigning heavyweight champion when he faced **Max Baer** on June 14, 1934 at the Madison Square Garden Bowl. Baer felled the champion eleven times before the fight was stopped in the eleventh round. Baer would only hold the title for a year, losing to **James J. Braddock** on June 13, 1935, in what has been called one of the greatest upsets in boxing history. (theusaboxingnews.com)

Markey further explained why Baer’s behavior in the ring was so bothersome, and how it differed from the comic antics of other famous athletes:

RETIRING TYPES…Both **Primo Carnera** and **Max Baer** acted in films during their boxing careers, and continued acting after their retirements (Carnera in 1944, Baer in 1941). At left, Carnera with **Bob Hope** in the 1954 American comedy *Casanova’s Big Night* (Carnera appeared in eleven Italian films and in a half-dozen American films); at right, **Max Bae**r and brother **Buddy Baer** (also a boxer) with **Lou Costello** in the 1949 comedy *Africa Screams.* Baer would appear in more than 20 films.(theusaboxingnews.com/monstermoviemusic.blogspot.com)

Complications from diabetes would take Carnera down for good at age 60. Baer would die even younger, from a heart attack, at age 50. His last words reportedly were, “Oh God, here I go.” Baer’s son, actor and director Max Baer Jr. (best known as Jethro Bodine from TV’s The Beverly Hillbillies) is still with us, at age 85.

We aren’t quite finished with the Baer–Carnera fight…E.B. White led his “Notes and Comment” with this observation regarding the fight’s mass appeal and seeming universality:

* * *

Apologies to Ms. Winslow

I seem to have given short shrift to author Thyra Samter Winslow (1886–1961) who published more than 200 stories during her career in magazines such as The Smart Set and The American Mercury. She published more than thirty in The New Yorker, from 1927 to 1942, including the serialization of her short story collection, My Own, My Native Land. The story “Poodles” was featured in the June 23 issue.

According to the Encyclopedia of Arkansas, Winslow’s early life in Fort Smith (Ark.) “provided background for her view of small towns as prejudiced, hypocritical, and suffocating places…many stories expose the hypocrisy, prejudice, and carefully maintained social structures of both small town and urban life. She was particularly adept at portraying women of every social class, often in an unfavorable light. Money, especially the pursuit of it as a means to happiness or status, is an important theme throughout her work.”

THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS…**Thyra Samter Winslow** with friend, 1937. (findagrave.com)

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Hot Enough For Ya?

So what did New Yorkers do when the summer heat set in? The next few items offer some clues, beginning with this poem by E.B. White:

SUMMER STOCK…Theatergoers fled to shady villages in New York, New Jersey and New England in the 1920s and 30s when summer stock theater was at its height. The above photo shows theatergoers leaving a performance at the Lakewood Theatre near Skowhegan, Maine. The theater was claimed to be the oldest and finest summer stock company in America with a Broadway cast. Nearby Lakewood Inn provided recreation, camping, and tourist bungalows. (mainememory.net)

You could also take in some entertainment while enjoying the cooling breezes of the Hudson River. Robert Benchley hopped aboard the Alexander Hamilton to enjoy Bobby Sanford’s showboat revue:

SOME REAL SHOWBOATING…Clockwise, from top left, the steamboat *Alexander Hamilton* hosted **Bobby Sanford’s** showboat revue; comedian **Lester Allen** served as emcee for the show; the Meyer Davis Orchestra supplied the music; the revue featured the “exotic” **DuVal sisters** (image from program) among other diversions. (Hudson River Maritime Museum/IMDB/vintagebandstand.blogspot.com/Worthpoint)

“Tables for Two” took a look at summer dining options, from sidewalk cafes to hotel rooftops featuring dinner and dancing—this “Tables” was not written by Lois Long, but by Margaret Case Harriman, who knew a thing or two about nightlife (she was the daughter of the Hotel Algonquin’s owner, Frank Case)…

DANCING WITH THE STARS…The Waldorf-Astoria’s “Starlight Roof” was a popular summer restaurant for dining and dancing. Image from a 1935 publication *The Waldorf-Astoria* by Richard Averill Smith. (The Waldorf-Astoria)

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Doing Swimmingly

Historian Henry F. Pringle published part two of his series on President Franklin D. Roosevelt, here marveling at the president’s health despite his serious bout with polio (drawing by William Cotton).

TAKING THE WATERS…President **Franklin D. Roosevelt** took to swimming for therapy and exercise. (FDR Presidential Library and Museum)

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Get Yourself to Chi-Town

The Chicago World’s Fair (The Century of Progress) was in its second and final year, and The New Yorker found everything “terrific.” Excerpt:

MAKING A SPECTACLE OF ITSELF…The 11-acre Ford Motor Company exhibit at Chicago’s Century of Progress became the most talked-about exhibit of 1934, featuring a central rotunda designed to simulate graduated clusters of gears. At right, Proof of Safety Exhibit in the Ford Building. (chicagology.com)

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From Our Advertisers

Just a couple of entries this week…You could take a plane to the Chicago World’s Fair on a United Airlines Boeing 247…

…the lower section of the ad claimed you could fly to Chicago in about five hours in planes featuring “Two pilots…stewardess…two-way radio…directive radio beam”…

TSA? WHAT’S A TSA?…United Airlines Boeing 247-D at an airport terminal with passengers and crew. (digitalcollections.lib.washington.edu)

COZY CONFINES…Passengers enjoy a game of checkers aboard a Boeing 247 in 1933. (digitalcollections.lib.washington.edu)

…and what would our advertising section be without two fashionable people lighting up?…

…on to our cartoonists, we begin with Reginald Marsh’s illustration of a Rep Theatre production…

…Otto Soglow’s Little King found his artistic side…

…Rea Irvin continued his examination of native fauna…

…Gardner Rea correctly predicted the global domination of Mickey Mouse…

…Peter Arno showed the dizzying effects of a Coney Island ride…

…however at the altar the thrill was gone, per Garrett Price…

…another take on the ways of love, with Barbara Shermund...

…the newfangled diagonal bathtub continued to dazzle, with George Price…

…Gardner Rea offered up some subtle irony on the farm…

…and we close with James Thurber, in a poetic moment…

Next Time: A Light in Darkness…

Coney Summertime

Above: Wooden Horses(detail) by Reginald Marsh, 1936. Marsh was a frequent visitor to Coney Island, a place that inspired numerous sketches and paintings. (Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art)

We officially kick off the summer with a visit to Coney Island, where “The Talk of the Town” took in the latest sights and amusements.

June 16, 1934 cover by **Constantin Alajalov.**

This excerpted “Talk” piece, attributed either to an “H. Beckett” or Francis Steegmuller, describes a post-Prohibition Coney Island with liquor to be had (although at only three locations) and new attractions including several imported from the 1933-34 Chicago’s World’s Fair (aka “The Century of Progress”).

CLANKITY CLANK…The mechanical man referred to in the “Talk” piece was likely similar to the one pictured above in this October 1933 feature in *Popular Mechanics.* Like many “robots” of that era, they were often pictured smoking cigarettes. (Google books)

WET YOUR WHISTLE…Beer flowed up and down the boardwalk at Coney Island, but if you wanted something stronger you had to stop by the Half Moon Hotel or one of these establishments, Childs (left) or Feltmans’. (www.coneyislandhistory.org)

LEAVE SOME FOR ME…An estimated one million New Yorkers visited Coney Island on July 4, 1934 to get away from the heat of the city. (stuffnobodycaresabout.com)

DIFFERING INTERPRETATIONS…In his 1934 painting, *Coney Island* (left), artist **Paul Cadmus** portrayed beachgoers as ridiculous and uncouth rabble, while Cadmus’s friend and fellow artist **Reginald Marsh** took a somewhat kinder approach to the same subject in his 1936 *Coney Island* (right). (Jon F. Anderson, Estate of Paul Cadmus, licensed by VAGA, obtained via lacma.org / Syracuse University Art Collection)

Of course it wouldn’t be Coney Island without grisly wax museum scenes inspired by the latest sensational headlines…bank robber John Dillinger was still on the run, and “little June Robles” was finally free and apparently unharmed after being kidnapped and locked in a desert cage for 19 days…

THANKS WINDY CITY…At left, the Chicago World’s Fair inspired Coney Island to build a trackless, bobsled-style “flying turns” coaster in Steeplechase Park (the wooden ride was destroyed by fire after only five years of operation). At right, a postcard image of the Eden Musee wax museum. (riverviewparkchicago.com / New York Public Library)

ON THE BOARDWALK…Another Coney scene by **Reginald Marsh**, titled *Pip and Flip,* 1932. (Terra Foundation for American Art, Chicago Daniel J. Terra Collection via artblart.com)

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Luck of the Irish

The Irish Hospitals’ Sweepstake (more commonly known as the Irish Sweepstakes) was established in 1930 to raise funding for hospitals in Ireland. Although lotteries were generally illegal in the U.S., millions of tickets were sold in the States, many of them in New York and New England. In his “Notes and Comment,” E.B. White wondered what would become of the lottery’s newest American winners, including former Ziegfeld Follies showgirl Alma Mamay, who won $152,000 in the Irish sweepstakes. White might have been pleased to know that Mamay moved to California, married a millionaire oil tycoon, and lived to the age of ninety-one.

CALIFORNY IS THE PLACE YOU OUGHTA BE..Ziegfeld Follies showgirl **Alma Mamay** took her Sweepstakes winnings and fled to California, where she married a millionaire oil tycoon. (ziegfeldfolliesgirls.com)

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Rugged Individual

Matthew Alexander Henson (1866–1955) was an African American explorer who accompanied Polar explorer Robert Peary to the Arctic seven times, participating in a 1908–1909 expedition that arguably made Henson the first explorer to reach the geographic North Pole. “The Talk of the Town” caught up with Henson on the feat’s 25th anniversary.

GO NORTH YOUNG MAN…At left, **Matthew Henson** circa 1910. At right, photograph of Henson and four Inuit guides on the last stretch of their 1908–09 expedition, taken by Robert Peary at what they believed to be the North Pole. Henson (center) planted the flag. (Wikipedia)

* * *

POTUS Profiled

Pulitizer Prize-winning historian Henry F. Pringle published the first installment of a three-part profile of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. In this excerpt Pringle writes about FDR’s sense of humor (illustration by William Cotton):

* * *

Mattress Campers

The “About the House” column featured the latest in home-cooling devices. Couldn’t afford the zillions it would cost to install a home air-conditioner? Well the folks at Crosley—an electronics company known for its radios—offered a more affordable solution: an air-conditioned tent that could be erected over one’s bed for $150 (about $3,500 in today’s dollars):

Here is a 1934 ad for the contraption I found at worldradiohistory.com:

…and we continue with more from our advertisers, including the Broadway magazine The Stage, which offered up this idyllic scene showing what folks did in the days before air-conditioning…

…you could also escape the heat by taking to the high seas aboard the Italian liner SS Rex…

…seen below arriving in New York in this 1932 photo, the 911-foot SS Rex was the largest ship built in Italy before World War II…it was destroyed by the British RAF in 1944…

(adventures-of-the-blackgang.tumblr.com)

…you could also cool off like these two old gents, sharing a toast and some Budweisers…

…or you could get yourself a jug of applejack brandy and mix it 1:1 with pineapple juice…not sure who or what is being “saved” here…

…long before there were Nikes or Adidas, golfers could hit the links in a pair of Sportocasins…

…Hupmobile was still hanging in there, enlisting the talents of illustrator Herbert Roese to extol the comforts and the beauty of its “air-line design”… it isn’t clear why it required five middle-aged men to take her on that beautiful ride…

…the real-life bellboy Johnny Roventini made his debut in the New Yorker as the spokesman for Phillip Morris cigarettes…

…Roventini (1910–1998), who stood less than four feet tall as an adult, was working as a bellboy at the New Yorker Hotel when he was discovered by an advertising executive in 1933. Apparently the exec had Roventini shout the line “Call for Philip Morris!” and learned the bellboy could repeatedly, and on cue, vocalize a perfect B-flat tone. Representing the company for more than forty years, he helped Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz with the initial success of I Love Lucy (Philip Morris was the show’s sponsor)…

WHAT’S HIS LINE?…TV producers **Mark Goodson**, left, and **Bill Todman** greet **Johnny Roventini** during a 1952 radio broadcast of their quiz show, *What’s My Line?* The program’s sponsor was Phillip Morris. Note Goodson and Todman both hold cigarettes. (Wikipedia)

…by the looks of it, Anne Gould (heiress daughter of Jay Gould II and Anne Douglas Graham Gould) didn’t need anyone to tell her what to smoke…