Ginger Rogers – A New Yorker State of Mind

Since I am posting this on the night before All Hallow’s Eve, let’s take a quick look back 89 years at Halloween 1930 through the pages of the Oct. 25, 1930 issue of the New Yorker…

…which featured a short story (excerpted below) by Sally Benson, who would write a series of shorts for the New Yorker in 1941-42 that were later published in her book, Meet Me in St. Louis. Note how Prohibition laws seemed to pose no obstacle to the Bixbys’ party plans:

Benson’s Meet Me in St. Louis would be adapted into a popular 1944 film starring Judy Garland. One of the film’s highlights featured the Halloween hijinks of Tootie and Agnes Smith (Margaret O’Brien and Joan Carroll).

**Margaret O’Brien** and Joan Carroll go trick-or-treating in 1944’s *Meet Me in St. Louis.*

As for the Bixbys in Benson’s short story, their party probably looked something like this…

…among the college crowd, Halloween revels were a bit less formal…

…Hollywood also got in on the act, each studio issuing pinup-style images of major female stars to newspapers and magazines …

Clockwise, from top left, **Bessie Love** (ca. 1920s), a still from a 1933 **Betty Boop** cartoon, **Anita Page, Joan Crawford, Clara Bow**, and **Myrna Loy**.

…the pages of the Oct. 25 issue contained other references to the holiday, including these spot drawings…

…and there were also ads offering both parties and party treats to those seeking some Halloween fun…

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Not Exactly Whale Watching

On to our issues, the Oct. 15, 1930 edition featured a strange account (in “The Talk of the Town”) of a man who travelled the country with an embalmed whale carcass, which apparently drew large crowds wherever it was displayed.

Oct. 15, 1930 cover by **Peter Arno.** As I noted in my previous post, it seemed everyone was lighting up in the 1930s.

The account is disgusting on a number of levels (the last line: “People simply love whales”). During my research I learned that these “whale tours” continued into the 1970s.

SAVE THE WHALES…in this case, by pumping the animal with gallons of formaldehyde.

For further reading, author Lydia Pyne offers some history on this strange phenomenon at Not Even Past.

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The owners of the new Barbizon-Plaza Hotel at 106 Central Park South tried their best to lure the smart set (especially artists and musicians) to this “habitat” designed especially for them. Unfortunately, artists and musicians were as broke as everyone else, and the property was foreclosed on in 1933…

…and we have another appeal to the smart set, this one from the publishers of Vogue magazine (now a sister publication to the New Yorker, as both are now owned by Condé Nast)…

…and one more appeal to fashionable sorts, this time perfume in a bottle shaped like an art deco skyscraper…

…here is what one version of the bottle looked like in 1928, similar to ad above. According to the blog Cleopatra’s Boudoir, the We Moderns perfume was sold from 1928 to 1936 in bottles made in Czechoslovakia. The bottle below was made from glass, enamel (label), and the early plastic Bakelite (cover and base)…

…on to our color ads, I like this one because RCA induced the inventor of wireless radio, Guglielmo Marconi, to endorse their “Radiola”…

…and we have a beautiful illustration by Ellis Wilson for Dodge Boats…

…on to our cartoons, we begin with Denys Wortman…

…here’s the art of Rea Irvin in a full pager…

…Helen Hokinson kept up the tradition of New Yorkers looking down on those backward Bostonians…

…Alan Dunn, illustrating the sunlamp fad of the 20s and 30s…

…and Jack Markow, checking on the progress of the Empire State Building…

On to the Oct. 25 issue, and the Broadway opening of the comedy Girl Crazy…

…which featured Ginger Rogers and Ethel Merman introducing the many hits from George Gershwin’s score including “I Got Rhythm” and ‘Embraceable You.” The plot was simple: a young New York playboy is banished by his family to a dude ranch in Arizona to keep him out of trouble…where of course he finds trouble. The orchestra for the Broadway performance included such talents as Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, Jimmy Dorsey, Jack Teagarden, and Gene Krupa.

THEY SEEM SANE ENOUGH…Above, poster for the Broadway musical *Girl Crazy.* Below, **Ginger Rogers** poses with fellow stage actors. (gershwin.com)

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More from Our Advertisers

Ads from the Oct. 25 issue included this recurring one from the promoters of the Empire State Building, marking progress through various historical vignettes…

…the ad accurately depicted the building’s progress, measured against these images below…

…and we have more radio ads…no endorsement from Marconi here, but the makers of Fada claimed their receiver was far less annoying than their rivals…

…while Atwater Kent touted the convenience of its new “Quick-Vision Dial”…

…as I’ve previously noted, backgammon was all the rage in 1930, so much so that this clothier even advertised a special frock for the game…

…and what would the 1930s be without smoking tied to athletic prowess…

…and remembering friends and family in California in 2019 as they battle wildfires across that great state…

…on to our cartoons, Garrett Price introduced us to a man with a peculiar taste in pet canaries…

…Barbara Shermund illustrated the startling views afforded by rail travel…

…and Peter Arno leaves us in a moment of religious ecstasy…

Next Time: Risky Business…

Comedian Ed Wynn began his long acting career on a vaudeville stage in 1903, and beginning in 1914 his giggly voice would delight Broadway crowds flocking to the Ziegfeld Follies. So when he stepped in front of a movie camera for a talking picture, it was something of a sensation.

September 27, 1930 cover by **Sue Williams.**

It was not an easy transition for the stage veteran. As you can see from Morris Markey’s account below in “A Reporter at Large,” the early talkies presented all manner of challenges and restrictions for stage actors accustomed to a bit more freedom of movement and expression.

SCANDALOUS BUNCH…**Ed Wynn** (in hat) portrayed a character he developed on Broadway — “Crickets” — in his film debut *Follow the Leader.* At left is actor **Stanley Smith**, and at center, holding Wynn’s hand, is a brunette **Ginger Rogers**, with chorus girls from *George White’s Scandals*. (IMDB)

PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE MAN BEHIND THE WINDOW…Noisy cameras were enclosed in soundproof boxes in the early days of the talkies. Above, **Woody Van Dyke** directs **Raquel Torres** and **Nils Asther** in 1930’s *The Sea Bat*. (Pinterest)

TINSELTOWN IN QUEENS…For his article, **Morris Markey** visited the set of *Follow the Leader* at Astoria Studios in Queens. The original studio building, at 35th Avenue, is on the National Register of Historic Places. Although Paramount moved its movie operations to Hollywood in the early 1930s, the studio continued to be used for both film and television productions. At right, a bit of Paris was erected in the midst of Queens for the filming of 1929’s *The Gay Lady.* (Wikipedia/Kaufman Astoria Studios)

FILM DEBUT…A December 1930 magazine advertisement touting **Ed Wynn’s** first motion picture. (IMBD)

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False Modesty?

In Morris Markey’s second installment of his profile on Charles Lindbergh, Markey suggested that Lindbergh’s aversion to publicity might be a pose…

NO WI-FI, BUT YOU CAN SMOKE…Top, the posh set take wing circa 1930; below, passengers prepare to board an American Airlines flight in 1930. (Pinterest/Daily Mail)

…and also wondered how much credit Lindbergh could take for sparking the aviation industry, given that flying was still an activity reserved for a very few…

…Markey also noted a “lively rumor” that Lindbergh wanted to be President…

…fortunately Lindbergh did not give truth to the rumor, or fulfill the alternate history created by Philip Roth in his 2004 novel The Plot Against America…

HANGIN’ WITH A BAD CROWD…Top, **Charles Lindbergh** accepts a ceremonial sword from Hermann Göring during a 1936 visit to Nazi Germany; below, right, Lindbergh in Germany, 1937. **Philip Roth’s** novel imagined Lindbergh’s election to the Presidency in 1940 and its chilling results. (Reddit/New Yorker/Goodreads)

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Bad Moon Rising

In 1930 few, if anyone, were aware of Lindbergh’s proclivities toward nationalism and antisemitism. And lacking a crystal ball, Markey’s New Yorker colleague, Howard Brubaker, had little reason to be alarmed by the federal elections in Germany, which gave the Nazis the second largest number of seats in the Reichstag. In his “Of All Things” column, Brubaker quipped:

INCOMPATIBLE…As Howard Brubaker noted in “Of All Things,” the fascists led by **Adolf Hitler,** left, and the communists led by **Ernst Thälmann** (right) made big gains in the 1930 German elections. After gaining power in 1933, Hitler would arrest Thälmann and later have him shot. (Wikipedia)

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Gummed to Death

The New Yorker’s John Mosher took in the latest travelogue to exploit and misrepresent life on the African savannah. Africa Speaks included a scene depicting a fatal attack on a “native boy” by a lion — an attack that was actually staged at a Los Angeles zoo and involved a toothless lion…

STRANGE INDEED…At left, movie poster for *Africa Speaks*; top right, Pygmy drummers in the film; bottom right, explorer **Paul Hoefler** getting closer to nature. (IMDB/Wikimedia)

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From Our Advertisers

When Paris unveiled is spring and fall fashions, large department stores were always quick to respond with “copies”…

…while the higher end boutiques offered originals to “poor little rich girls”…

…perhaps some of these “poor little rich girls” socialized at the Panhellenic, a “club-hotel for college women”…

…and here are some views of the Panhellenic House, circa 1929…

Center, The Panhellenic House, at First Avenue and 49th Street; at left, the solarium; at right, a ballroom. (Avery Library/Museum of The City of New York via the *New York Times*)

…the makers of Old Gold cigarettes had some of the weirdest ads to push their smokes, including this one…

…and one wonders what the world would be like (and especially the U.S.) if car buyers would have favored a more compact version of the motorcar going forward…