It’s hard to fathom that a woman wearing trousers used to cause such a stir, but for international film star Marlene Dietrich it was an opportunity for the publicity that invariably came with defying the norms of fashion and sexuality in 1930s.
July 22, 1933 cover by Constantin Alajalov.
In May 1933 Dietrich was headed to Paris on a steamer, relaxing on the deck in a white pantsuit. Prior to her arrival, the Paris chief of police announced she would be arrested if she showed up in pants. However when Dietrich arrived at the Gare Saint Lazare wearing a man’s suit and overcoat, she stepped off the train, grabbed the chief of police by his arm, and walked him off the platform.
The New Yorker’sJanet Flanner reported on Dietrich’s comings and goings in her regular column “Letter From Paris”…
TAKING PARIS BY STORM…Clockwise, from top left: Marlene Dietrich in Paris, 1933, accompanied by her husband, Rudolf Sieber; Dietrich on the SS Europa, Cherbourg, France, May 1933; Dietrich arriving at the Gare Saint Lazare station, May 20, 1933 (this photo is often paired with an erroneous caption claiming that Dietrich is being arrested by French authorities. On the contrary, she owned them the moment she stepped onto the platform); Dietrich signing autographs in Paris, 1933. (bygonely.com/Smithsonian/Twitter/Pinterest)
* * *
Bullish On Office Space
Despite the Depression, millions of square feet of office space were being added to the massive Rockefeller Center complex, including the Palazzo d’Italia at 626 Fifth Avenue. “The Talk of the Town” reported:
THE BIG SHORT…Attached to the International Building at its northwest corner, the Palazzo d’Italia was originally planned as a nine-story building, a fact that impressed the fascist Italian leader Benito Mussolini because it beat the six-story height of the French and British Buildings. In the end Benito only got six as well. (Wikipedia/Pinterest)
* * *
Urban Jungle
Astoria Studios in Queens was built in 1920 for Famous Players-Lasky and is still home to New York City’s only studio backlot. In 1933 it served as a tropical setting for The Emperor Jones, featuring Paul Robeson in the title role. “The Talk of the Town” looked in on the movie’s faux jungle:
35TH STREET JUNGLE…Paul Robeson in a scene from The Emperor Jones. (flickr.com)
Loosely based on a Eugene O’Neill play and financed with private money, the film was made outside of the Hollywood studio system and distributed by United Artists.
EMPEROR’S NEW CLOTHES…Brutus Jones (Robeson) schemes with colonial trader Smithers (Dudley Digges) on his plan to become emperor in The Emperor Jones. (moma.org)
* * *
From Our Advertisers
Yes, it’s advertising so we don’t expect it to be realistic, but I can guarantee no one is going to look like that after a ride to the beach in a rumble seat…
…Hupmobile enlisted humorist Irvin S. Cobb to help boost its sagging sales…
Irvin S. Cobb (1876–1944) wrote for Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World, and was once the highest paid staff reporter in the United States. (carnegiecenterlex.org)
…with the return of legal beer the makers of Budweiser struck a patriotic note in promoting their “King of Bottled Beer” to thirsty New Yorkers…
…the makers of Pabst Blue Ribbon claimed the title of “Best of the Better Beers” with this ad featuring a woman who appeared on the verge of going overboard…
…if beer wasn’t your thing, you could try your hand at mixing a “30-Second Highball” per this Prohibition-themed ad…
…delving into the back pages one finds all sorts of curiosities, including this mail-order “charm school” operated by Margery Wilson…
…Wilson (1896–1986) acted in numerous silent pictures (including the 1916 D. W. Griffith epic Intolerance) and in the early 1920s was a writer, director and producer…
Margery Wilson in Eye of the Night (1916). She was among pioneering women filmmakers of the 1920s. (columbia.edu))
…it must have been a hot summer in New York with the abundance of air-conditioner ads…here’s one from Frigidaire for a unit that despite its size (and enormous cost) could cool only one room…
…this next air-conditioner ad from G-E seems poorly conceived…you would think an air-conditioned office would make the boss and his secretary a bit happier than they appear here…maybe they just got the bill from General Electric…
…we begin our cartoons with another pair of sourpusses, courtesy Mary Petty…
…George Price offered up this bit of art for the opening pages…
…William Steig headed to the country to escape summer in the city…
…William Crawford Galbraith’s bathers kept cool by examining the flotsam from distant shores…
…Charles Addams explored various themes before he launched his “Addams Family” in 1938…
…and we move on to July 29 with a terrific cover by Barbara Shermund…
July 29, 1933 cover by Barbara Shermund.
…in this issue Geoffrey T. Hellman penned a profile of Egyptologist Herbert E. Winlock, who made key discoveries about the Middle Kingdom of Egypt and served as director of the Metropolitan Museum from 1932 to 1939, where he was employed his entire career. Excerpt:
CAN YOU DIG IT…Early 1920s photo of the Metropolitan Museum’s Theban expedition team. Herbert E. Winlock is in the back row, second from left. His wife, Helen Chandler Winlock, is in the front row, far right. (Metropolitan Museum of Art)
* * *
Chilling With U.S. Grant
In those days before air-conditioning was widely available or used, “The Talk of the Town” dispatched an investigator to sample indoor temperatures at various public places, finding the coolest spot at Grant’s Tomb:
WHERE THE COOL PEOPLE HANG OUT…Clockwise, from top left: The tomb of Per-neb at the Metropolitan Museum registered a cozy 80 degrees, while in the same museum it was a balmy 84 by Emanuel Leutze’s famed painting Washington Crossing the Delaware; the New York Aquarium in Battery Park was a bit cooler at 79 (pictured is the Sea Lion Pool); while Grant’s Tomb was downright chilly at 70. (Met Museum/Wildlife Conservation Society/grantstomb.org)
* * *
Node of Gold
Apparently the famed crooner Bing Crosby had a minor node on one of his vocal cords, and when he consulted a specialist he was advised against removing it, lest he alter his voice in a way that would affect his career. Indeed, the node seemed to add an “appealing timbre” to his signature sound, so Crosby had his voice insured by Lloyd’s of London for $100,000 with a proviso that the node could not be removed. Howard Brubaker made this observation in “Of All Things”…
LUMP IN HIS THROAT…Bing Crosby with Marion Davies in the 1933 film Going Hollywood. (IMDB)
…Brubaker also shared this prescient observation from American astronomer Vesto Slipher…
…Slipher (1875–1969) would live long enough to confirm his statement…the first full-disk “true color” picture of the Earth was captured by a U.S. Department of Defense satellite in September 1967:
(USAF/Johns Hopkins University)
* * *
More From Our Advertisers
This ad was on the inside front cover of the July 29 issue, a rather jarring image following that lovely Barbara Shermund cover…
…the hugely popular P.G. Wodehouse was back with more silly antics from the British upper classes…
…while some New Yorkers could take a break from their reading and hit the dance floor atop the Waldorf-Astoria…
…and tango to the stylings of bandleader Xavier Cugat…
Xavier Cugat and band atop the Waldorf-Astoria. (cntraveler.com)
…this ad for the French Line, illustrated by Ruth Sigrid Grafstrom, offered a precious scene of a page-boy lighting a woman’s cigarette, a sight unimaginable today for a number of reasons…
…and we close with a cartoon by Gardner Rea, doggone it…
In 1922, a young Cornell graduate named E.B. White set off across America in a Model T with a typewriter and a sense of adventure.
Nov. 12, 1932 cover by Constantin Alajalov.
Years later, 1936 exactly, White would recall the America he had discovered as a 22-year old in his book From Sea to Shining Sea, which would include an essay “Farewell to Model T” that first appeared in the New Yorker as “Farewell My Lovely.” For this Nov. 12, 1932 “Notes and Comment” column, it appears White is already pondering his paen to the Model T, contrasting its freedom with the glassed-in claustrophobia of modern cars:
OUT WITH THE NEW, IN WITH THE OLD…Despite their many shortcomings, E.B. White seemed to prefer the cars of yesteryear, including (above) the 1904 Pope Tribune and 1917 Ford Model T Roadster; White likened modern cars, such as the 1932 Ford and Chevrolet sedans (bottom, left and right) to riding in a “diving bell.”(Wikimedia/vintagecarcollector.com/Pinterest)
Here’s the cover of From Sea to Shining Sea, which features a photo of White and his wife, Katharine, in a Model T Roadster…
* * *
An Appreciation
Mary Cassatt (1844-1926) was an American painter who for most of her adult life lived in France among fellow Impressionists. Like her friend Edgar Degas, Cassatt excelled in pastels, works that were admired by critic Lewis Mumford in an exhibition at New York’s Durand-Ruel Galleries:
TRY A LITTLE TENDERNESS…Mothers and children were Mary Cassatt’s favorite subjects. Among the examples shown in 1932 at the Durand-Ruel Galleries’ Exhibition of Pastels were Cassatt’s A Goodnight Hug (1880) and Françoise, Holding a Little Dog, Looking Far to the Right (1909). (Sotheby’s/Christie’s)
* * *
Hollywood Slump
We go from treasure to trash with John Mosher’s latest cinema dispatch, in which he recounts his experience watching the “strenuous melodrama” Red Dust, starring Clark Gable and Jean Harlow. Mosher assured readers that the film is trash, but better trash than Scarlet Dawn with Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and Nancy Carroll.
DUMB AND DUMBER…Jean Harlow attempts to distract Clark Gable from his work in Red Dust; at right, Douglas Fairbanks Jr. is tempted by a servant girl’s affection (Nancy Carroll) in Scarlet Dawn. (IMDB)
* * *
From Our Advertisers
The folks at W.J. Sloane decided that the best way to sell their housewares would be to build an actual house in their Fifth Avenue store…
…do you really want to buy Kraft cheese after looking at this ad? From the look on the woman’s face, that tiresome old wheeze-bag probably smells like aged cheese, and not in a good way…
…The makers of Log Cabin syrup continued to parody the popular taglines of tobacco companies with ads featuring a several New Yorker cartoonists, here Peter Arno…
…yep, when I’m relaxing on the beach I like to talk about ink pens, especially those Eversharp ones…
…nor do I mind some weirdo in a dark coat seeking my opinion of said pen while I frolic near my fashionable Palm Beach hotel…
…yes, we all know that Chesterfields are milder, but will someone help that poor man on the left who appears to be blowing out his aorta…
…the New Yorker’s former architecture critic George S. Chappell (who wrote under the pen-name T-Square) had moved on to other things, namely parodies of societal mores, including this new book written under his other pen-name, Walter E. Traprock, with illustrations by Otto Soglow…
…on to our cartoons, we begin with James Thurber and the travails of menfolk…
…Richard Decker gave us the prelude to one man’s nightmare…
…Carl Rose found a titan of industry puzzling over his vote for a socialist candidate…
…and we move on to Nov. 19, 1932…
Nov. 19, 1932 cover by William Steig.
…and this compendium of election highlights by E.B. White…
…and Howard Brubaker’s wry observation of the same…
BUSY DAYS AHEAD…Franklin D. Roosevelt celebrates his landslide victory over Herbert Hoover in the 1932 presidential elections. (AP)
…and on an even lighter side, poet David McCord’s take on a Robert Louis Stevenson classic…
…speaking of children, the New Yorker was looking ahead to Christmas, and what the little ones might be hoping for under the tree…
ALL HUNG UP ON MICKEY…Mickey Mouse puppet was popular with the kiddies in 1932. (Ebay)
…if Mickey Mouse wasn’t your thing, you could spring for The Fifth New Yorker Album…
…on to our other Nov. 19 advertisements, Mildred Oppenheim (aka Melisse) illustrated another whimsical Lord & Taylor ad…
…while B. Altman maintained its staid approach to fashion to tout these duty-free, “practically Parisian” nighties created by “clever Porto Ricans”…
…Walter Chrysler continued to spend big advertising bucks to promote his company’s “floating power”…
…in my last entry I noted E.B. White’s musings regarding Lucky Strike’s new “raw” campaign…this appeared on the Nov. 19th issue’s back cover…
…on to our cartoons, we have Helen Hokinson’s girls pondering the social implications of a cabbie’s identity…
…James Thurber explored the dynamic tension provided by passion dropped into mixed company…
…Carl Rose offered a bird’s eye view of the 1932 election…
…William Crawford Galbraith showed us one woman’s idea of sage advice…
…and George Price continued to introduce his strange cast of characters to the New Yorker in a career that would span six decades…
…on to our Nov. 26 issue, and a cover by William Crawford Galbraith that recalled the post-impressionist poster designs of Toulouse-Lautrec…
Nov. 26, 1932 cover by William Crawford Galbraith.
…and in this issue we have Lewis Mumford back on the streets assessing New York’s ever-changing landscape, including an unexpectedly “monumental” design for a Laundry company:
ALL WASHED UP?…Irving M. Fenichel’s Knickerbocker Laundry Building seemed a bit too monumental for Lewis Mumford. (ribapix.com)
…the building still stands, but is substantially altered (now used as a church)…
* * *
Wie Bitte?
Attributed to E.B. White, this “Talk of the Town” item, “Besichtigung” (sightseeing) told readers — in pidgen German — about a visit to the German Cruiser Karlsruhe docked in the New York harbor.
…I try my best to avoid contemporary political commentary (this blog should be a respite from all that!), so I will let Howard Brubaker (in “Of All Things”) speak for himself regarding the outcome of the 1932 presidential election:
…in researching the life and work of Lois Long, there seems to be a consensus out there in the interwebs that her “Tables for Two” column ended in June 1930, however she continued the write the column from time to time, including this entry for Nov. 26 with a bonus illustration by James Thurber…
MARLENE DIETRICHING…was how Lois Long described the star’s appearance at the Bohemia club. Above is a photo of Marlene Dietrich and Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney dancing at the New York club El Morocco in the 1930s. (New York Daily News)
* * *
From Our Advertisers
More Christmas ideas from the folks at Rogers Peet…hey, I could use a new opera hat!…and look at all those swell ash trays…
…yes, Prohibition is still around for another year, but the wets are ascendent, FDR is in office, so let’s get the party started…
…on to our cartoonists, we begin with this illustration by James Thurber for the magazine’s events section…note the familiar theme of the sculpture, pondered by the young man…
…we are off to the races with William Steig, and some news that should kick this fella into high gear…
…and we close, with all due modesty, via the great James Thurber…
James Thurber made a rare appearance in the “Reporter at Large” column — usually the purview of the departing Morris Markey — to offer a glimpse into the life of Albert Davis and his extensive collection of theatrical and sports photographs.
Sept. 24, 1932 cover by Rea Irvin.
A publicist by trade, Davis (1865-1942) collected thousands of photographs, clippings, programs, scripts and playbills from hundreds of productions mainly from the 1890s to the 1920s. In this excerpt, Thurber took a look into Davis’s rarefied world:
PLAYING MAKE-BELIEVE…Among the photographers collected by Davis was Joseph Byron, who captured this scene from the 1912 play The High Road by American playwright Edward Sheldon. Pictured are actors Frederick Perry and Minnie Maddern Fiske. (monovisions.com)OSCAR THE FIRST…Theatre impresario Oscar Hammerstein (left) at Manhattan Opera House, which opened December 3, 1906. Hammerstein was the first person with whom Davis traded photographs. He was also the father of famed lyricist and musical comedy author Oscar Hammerstein II. (monovisions.com)WHEN ALL PERFORMANCES WERE LIVE…Images of performers from the Davis collection included actor Bert Williams (ca. 1895); sharpshooter Annie Oakley (ca.1886); and actor Theodore Drury as Escamillo in Carmen (ca. 1905). (Harry Ransom Center)
Thurber pointed out that the collection was quite valuable, and its sale could reap a considerable sum for Davis. It seems Davis intended to present the collection to his university’s library, a wish more or less fulfilled.
Davis’s collection also contained hundreds of sports figures, mostly from the world of boxing.
TOUGH GUYS…Omaha-born Max Baer (left) defeated German champion Max Schmeling at Yankee Stadium in 1933 and took the heavyweight title in 1934; Paul Berlenbach (right) was a light-heavyweight champ from 1923 to 1926. An interesting footnote: Baer acted in 20 films, and one of his three children, Max Baer Jr., portrayed Jethro Bodine on The Beverly Hillbillies. (Stark Center for Physical Culture and Sports)PEDDLERS…Bicycle racers at the Hartford Wheel Club’s bicycle tournament pose for an 1889 photograph in Stamford, Connecticut. (Stark Center)
Endnote: Davis wanted his collection to go to a university library, and so it finally did: it resides at the University of Texas at Austin — the theatrical photos and memorabilia are at the Harry Ransom Center, and the sports-related items are housed at the Stark Center for Physical Culture and Sports.
* * *
Is It Beer-Thirty Yet?
Brewer, politician and owner of the New York Yankees baseball franchise Jacob Ruppert Jr. (1867–1939) inherited the Jacob Ruppert Brewing Company and the Yankees upon his father’s death in 1915. It was Ruppert who purchased the contract of Babe Ruth (from the Red Sox in 1919) and built famed Yankee Stadium (1923), moves that helped propel a middling franchise to the top of the major leagues. Alva Johnston profiled Ruppert in the Sept. 24 issue; here is the opening paragraph:
LOOK WHAT I JUST BOUGHT…Jacob Ruppert purchased the contract of Babe Ruth from the Red Sox in 1919; Ruppert also inherited the Knickerbocker brewery at 92nd Street and 3rd Avenue (demolished in 1969). (historywithkev.com/brookstonbeerbulletin.com)
* * *
Pol Mole
With the 1932 presidential election just weeks away, E.B. White’s focus was on an apparently elusive mole that decorated the left side of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s face, or possibly the right, or perhaps not at all…
REPRESENTING THE LEFT AND THE RIGHT…E.B. White mused on FDR’s apparently shifting mole, which appeared on the right cheek on the cover of Vanity Fair, on the left on the cover of Life, and not at all on the campaign button. (picclick.com/Britannica/2Neat.com)
This wouldn’t be the last time someone discussed FDR’s dermatology. Health experts today still debate whether a pigmented lesion above FDR’s left eyebrow was a melanoma—some even speculate that it led to his death at age 63, although the official cause of FDR’s death on April 12, 1945 was cerebral hemorrhage associated with high blood pressure. Incidentally, most photographs show the cheek mole on the right side.
* * *
Words Were Their Bond
What a treat it must have been for a New Yorker reader to turn to pages 15-16 and find Dorothy Parker’s “A Young Woman in Green Lace,” followed by Parker’s dear friend and confidant Robert Benchley’s “Filling That Hiatus” on pages 17-18.
GETTING TO KNOW YOU…Dorothy Parker and Robert Benchley (far right) with their employers in 1919: Vanity Fair editor Frank Crowninshield, Vogue editor Edna Chase, and publisher Condé Nast. (publicdomainreview.org)
Benchley and Parker’s friendship began when he was hired as Vanity Fair’s managing editor in the winter of 1919 (and would become Parker’s office mate the following May). That same year they were among the founders of the famed Algonquin Round Table.
“A Young Woman in Green Lace” reveals how Parker regarded some of the modern women of those times, this next-generation flapper, a bit childish and snobbish, wishing she were back in “Paree.” In the story a man presses his charms as the woman descends into drunkenness and drops her Continental facade:
Where disillusion creates a darkly comic mood in Parker’s piece, in Benchley’s world disillusion provided a nice opening for some silliness. In ”Filling That Hiatus” Benchley addressed a seldom-discussed dinner-party etiquette situation in which both your right- and left-hand partners become engaged in conversation with someone else. He concluded:
* * *
His Country, Too
It is always with a tinge of sadness that I write about Morris Markey, who from the start wrote for virtually every department at the New Yorker and was best known for his “A Reporter at Large” feature. According to his obituary in The New York Times, Markey won his greatest recognition for the book This Country of Yours, published after he left the New Yorker. That magazine’s review was brief, and read thusly:
The book is mostly forgotten today, as is Markey, who was found shot to death on July 12, 1950 at his home in Halifax, Virginia. He was just 51 years old. There was insufficient evidence as to whether the wound behind his right ear was the result of accident, homicide, or suicide.
As a farewell, here is what the Times (Sept. 10, 1932) had to say about Markey’s book:
* * *
From Our Advertisers
With cold weather arriving during the Depression’s worst year, fashions continued to borrow from the past for a more conservative look (these are two ads from Jay-Thorpe and B. Altman)…
…as for the gentleman, fashion continued to emphasize a genteel look (although there is a bit of the Little Tramp about this fellow)…
…then as now, folks turned toward the rustic to find a bit of comfort in uncertain times…
…and if they could afford it, the comforts of the stolid, solid Lincoln motorcar…
…the folks at Lucky Strike continued to ask this question…
…and with the help of Syd Hoff, the makers of Log Cabin syrup ran this parody ad (in the Oct. 1 issue) of the Lucky Strike campaign…Hoff was among the newest members of the New Yorker cartooning cast…
…as was William Steig, who featured one of his “Small Fry” to tout the benefits of decaf coffee…
…our cartoon from the Sept. 24 issue is by Richard Decker…
…on to Oct. 1, 1932…
Oct. 1, 1932 cover by Peter Arno.
…where film critic John Mosher took in the latest from Marlene Dietrich and came away less than dazzled by Blonde Venus…
Now something of a cult film, reviews were mixed when Blonde Venus was released in 1932. The New York Times’ critic Mordaunt Hall went even further than Mosher, calling the film a “muddled, unimaginative and generally hapless piece of work, relieved somewhat by the talent and charm of the German actress…”
WELL HELLO THERE…Cary Grant made his film debut in 1932 in This Is the Night—he went on to appear in eight films that year, including Blonde Venus with Marlene Dietrich. (MoMA)
* * *
Unlucky in Luck
In its early years the New Yorker paid little attention to baseball, but “The Talk of the Town” did appreciate a human interest story from the field every now and then, and Yankee batboy Eddie Bennett filled that bill — this was the second time Bennett was featured in the column…
LUCKY EDDIE…Top, Eddie Bennett in 1921, the year he became the Yankees’ batboy; below, with slugger Babe Ruth in 1927; at right, newspaper profile the year after the 1927 World Series. As an infant Bennett twisted his spine in a carriage accident that stunted his growth and gave him a misshapen back.(Library of Congress/New York Times/Brooklyn Citizen)
Throughout the 1920s Bennett was a famed good luck charm for the Yankees, but when a taxicab struck him in 1932 his batboy career ended. According to the New York Times (April 2, 2021) “Three years later, Mr. Bennett was found dead in a furnished room on West 84th Street. Autographed photos from Herb Pennock and Waite Hoyt, both pitchers for the Yankees, hung on the walls…Balls and bats signed by Ruth and Lou Gehrig decorated the room. An autopsy found that Mr. Bennett had died of alcoholism. He was 31.”
For 85 years, Bennett rested in an unmarked grave at St. John’s Cemetery in Queens, but last November he was remembered with a new marker and a simple ceremony. You can read more about it in this Times article.
* * *
Original Verse
Ogden Nash was working as an editor at Doubleday when he submitted some rhymes to the New Yorker. Harold Ross (New Yorker founder/editor) saw the submissions and asked for more, apparently stating “they are about the most original stuff we have had lately.” Here is one of the later submissions:
* * *
From Our Advertisers
If you were of the male persuasion and a member of the smart set you probably dressed down in something like this for a day with your dressage buddies…
…the modern woman of the 1930s could also be a successful business woman in this “successful” frock (how that translated into reality was another thing)…what is also interesting about this ad is how it features both an illustration and a photograph of the same outfit—it’s as though they’ve acknowledged that the attenuated figure in the illustration, although eye-catching, does not resemble an actual body type…
…here was see an early use of the word balloon in an advertisement featuring real people—I wonder if this was inspired by the comics, or by Bernarr Mcfadden’s“composographs” featured in his New York Evening Graphic?…
…on to our cartoonists, we begin with a strange bit of bedside manner courtesy Gardner Rea…
…Robert Day introduced us to a modest suspect…
…Barbara Shermund continued to explore the travails of modern women…
…while this woman (via Perry Barlow) seems quite content with her lot…
…Mayor Jimmy Walker was out, but not down, like these fellows presented by Alan Dunn…
…and we close with Peter Arno, announcing some upcoming nuptials…
If you love modern architecture, then Feb. 10, 1932 should be an important date on your calendar, for on that date the Museum of Modern Art opened Modern Architecture: International Exhibition.
Feb. 27, 1932 cover by Leonard Dove.
Curated by Philip Johnson and Henry-Russell Hitchcock, the exhibition introduced 33,000 visitors (during the exhibition’s six-week run) to the “International Style,” an emerging architectural style that would utterly transform New York and thousands of cities around the world after the Second World War. In a catalogue prepared for the exhibition, Johnson and Hitchcock defined what this style was all about:
Architecture critic Lewis Mumford welcomed the exhibition, wryly noting that the “best buildings in New York” at the time were the models and photographs “arranged with such clarity and intelligence” by Philip Johnson on MoMA’s walls. An excerpt:
FORM FOLLOWED FUNCTION…MoMA’s Modern Architecture: International Exhibition, opened on Feb. 10, 1932 in the museum’s first home, New York’s Heckscher building on Fifth Avenue. There was nothing fancy about these gallery spaces, but the exhibits wowed the New Yorkers’sLewis Mumford, including a model of Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye at top right. (MoMA)HANDSOME OBJECTS…was how Lewis Mumford described works in the exhibition he singled out for praise, including, from top, Mies van der Rohe’s 1930 Villa Tugendhat, Frank Lloyd Wright’s 1929 Jones residence in Tulsa, and Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye. At left, the cover of the exhibition catalogue. (MoMA/Wikipedia/dezeen.com)
Mumford concluded his review with this bold observation:
ALL ORGANIC…View of Hook of Holland housing complex in Rotterdam, designed by J.J.P. Oud, 1926-1927. (umass.edu)
* * *
Out of the Trenches
Floyd Gibbons (1887 – 1939) was a colorful, fast-talking war correspondent known for his derring-do as a reporter for the Chicago Tribune during World War I (losing an eye in an attempt to rescue an American marine) and later as a radio commentator and narrator of newsreels. His celebrity would even earn him a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. For all his death-defying exploits, Gibbons would die at home, of a heart attack, at the tender age of 52.
In his “Notes and Comment” column, E.B. White suggested that Gibbon’s fame had a little help from some friends…
IN HIS ELEMENT…Floyd Gibbons photographed in 1925 while in Morocco covering the Riff War. Seated to the left is journalist and author Rosemary Drachman, who covered the war with Gibbons. (University of Arizona Libraries)
* * *
Love and War
The fourth of seven films Josef von Sternberg and Marlene Dietrich made together, Shanghai Express was a critical success (nominated for three Oscars, winning one for cinematography) for Sternberg as well as for Dietrich and Anna May Wong. This pre-code drama was about a notorious woman (Dietrich, who else) who rides a train through the perils of a Chinese civil war with a British captain (Clive Brook) whom she loves. Critic John Mosher takes it from there:
LOOMING EVER LARGER…Marlene Dietrich’s image dominated this poster for Shanghai Express, which starred Dietrich and Anna May Wong (top right) as well as Clive Brook and Warner Oland. Oland, pictured at bottom right with Dietrich, was a (non-Asian) Swedish-American actor most remembered for playing Chinese and Chinese-American characters, including his role as Charlie Chan in 16 films between 1931 and 1937. (IMDB)
Dietrich and Wong were well acquainted when they came together to make Shanghai Express. It was rumored the two had a romantic relationship when Wong visited Europe in 1928, a rumor that tarnished Wong’s public image (but seemed to have little effect on Dietrich’s).
OLD FRIENDS…Marlene Dietrich, Anna May Wong and German filmmaker/actress Leni Riefenstahl at a Berlin ball, 1928. Photo by Alfred Eisenstaedt. At the time Dietrich, Wong and Riefenstahl were close friends. (granary gallery.com)
* * *
From Our Advertisers
Looking at some advertisements from the Feb. 27 issue…here’s a clip from the back pages of some inexpensive sig ads promoting everything from Broadway to burlesque — Billy Minsky’s was by far the best known burlesque show in Manhattan. Note how the Minsky’s ad included the racy little drawing (hmmm, not for the kiddies) and the postscript at the bottom following “NEW SHOW EVERY MONDAY” — P.S. For New Yorkers and their Rural cousins…
…MoMA wasn’t the only place you could find modern design, as this carpet ad suggested…
…the folks at Alcoa Aluminum were sticking with a more traditional look, even though they were marketing a very modern aluminum chair…you don’t see these much anymore…I mostly remember them reposing in basement rumpus rooms…
…the makers of Nash automobiles were keeping with the times with new “Slip-Streamed” models “with lines and curves suggested by aeronautical design”…
…my father’s first car was a used Nash — something similar to this 1951 Nash Statesman…
…Nash would acquire rival Hudson in 1954 to create American Motors Corporation, run by a man named George Romney (Mitt’s dad), who would make AMC a successful company before turning to politics (AMC would go on to make some truly weird, if not lovable vehicles, most notably the Gremlin)…and we segue into our cartoons with this ad for Sanka decaf coffee, illustrated by the New Yorker’sWilliam Steig…
…Kemp Starrett gave us a little paddy wagon humor…
…Helen Hokinson illustrated a tender moment between father and son…
…and we close with James Thurber, and some wintertime fun…
The next time you complain about a boring Zoom meeting, think about Morris Markey’s visit to New York’s Bell Laboratories in the spring of 1931, when he marveled at what was, perhaps, the “apotheosis” of American industry: a two-way video telephone.
May 9, 1931 cover by Helen Hokinson.
Mass-market television in the U.S. was still two decades away, but what Markey saw demonstrated in 1931 was a glimpse of the future, seeing and conversing with another man three miles away via a long wire that transmitted images from a fantastic array of spinning discs and neon tubes:
TECHNOLOGY’S MATERNITY WARD…The original Bell Labs building at 463 West Street in New York. It was the birthplace of talking movies, television, radar and the vacuum tube. (att.com)
DEFINITELY NOT HI-DEF…At left, this is most likely where Morris Markey sat for the demonstration of early video phone technology. At right (click image to enlarge), a July 1930 article in Popular Science Monthly described how the transmitting apparatus worked. (earlytelevision.org/books.google.com)
BUT WILL IT SELL?…Herbert Hoover, then secretary of commerce, became the world’s first television personality in 1927 when his voice and face (inset) were transmitted to an audience at Bell Laboratories in New York City. At the time, AT&T, Bell’s parent company, was doubtful about television’s moneymaking potential. (edn.com)
SPINNING WHEELS…Whirling metal discs, pictured at left, perforated with tiny holes, cast a series of horizontal beams of light across a viewer’s face (right), which were then transmitted to a receiver. (earlytelevision.org)
Despite its gee-whiz factor, many, including the folks at Bell Labs, seemed doubtful that the technology would come into wider use or be profitable any time soon, if ever. Markey noted that his little demonstration required many millions of dollars in research and development, but he was prophetic in suggesting that such technology might come to be dreaded if it ever came into common use.
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Uplifting Sight
That a bra and girdle maker should become the topmost tenant at the new Empire State Building was not lost on E.B. White, who commented thusly…
…and while viewers wouldn’t actually see a giant bra atop the skyscraper, many were nevertheless interested in getting a closer look at some of the building’s details, as reported in “The Talk of the Town”…
OVER THE MOON?…The moon gained some keen competition from telescope viewers when the Empire State Building climbed its way into the sky. (Pinterest/tech-notes.tv)
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Channelling Marlene
Film critic John Mosher wasn’t over the moon when it came to the acting of Tallulah Bankhead in Tarnished Lady, however he surmised it was likely the director’s fault for trying to exploit Bankhead’s passing resemblance to Marlene Dietrich. Mosher noted that lighting and staging flattering to the German actress just didn’t work with the belle from Alabama.
MIRROR, MIRROR…Tallulah Bankhead (left) might have pondered who was the fairest in the land, but the New Yorker’sJohn Mosher found her to be no match for German actress Marlene Dietrich (right, in 1931’s Dishonored) when it came to screen presence. (IMDB)
Despite Mosher’s blah review, Paramount touted Bankhead’s successful portrayal of a “tarnished lady” in this ad from the same issue:
Mosher, however, found redemption in another film making the rounds, Warner Brothers’ Svengali starring John Barrymore:
YOU ARE GETTING VERRRY SLEEPY…in 1931’s Svengali, 17-year-old Marian Marsh played the artist’s model Trilby, who is transformed into a great opera star by the sinister hypnotist, Svengali, played by John Barrymore. Also pictured is Bramwell Fletcher, who portrayed Trilby’s love interest, Billee. (Wikipedia)
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From Our Advertisers
After a long absence Peter Arno’s Whoops Sisters returned to the pages of the New Yorker, not as a cartoon panel but as shills for the Cunard Line…
…whether traveling by boat or train, you might have considered bringing along “Salvo,” an early version of a popular game that today we call “Battleship”…
…Salvo and other Battleship-type games were originally played on pieces of paper like this…
…and here’s an ad for ice cube trays that exploited the popularity of the “Ripley’s Believe It or Not” syndicated newspaper feature…
…on to our cartoonists, Ralph Barton rendered Albert Einstein as his latest “Hero”…
…and interpreted the latest headlines in his “Graphic Section”…
…among the delicate set, we got a bit risqué with Gardner Rea…
…and nearly apoplectic with Gluyas Williams…
…Otto Soglow’s Little King, on the other hand, reigned with a steady hand…
…and we end with I. Klein, and a little bauble for the Missus…
Despite the deepening economic depression, work continued apace on a number of large building projects that were transforming the Manhattan skyline, including the Empire State Building, which was being readied for its May grand opening.
March 14, 1931 cover by Rea Irvin.
Developers also looked to the future, including the Rockefeller family, who commissioned a massive project in Midtown — 14 buildings on 22 acres — that would be one of the greatest building projects in the Depression era…
SAY ‘CHEESE’…A group of dour-looking developers unveil an early model for Rockefeller Center, March, 1931. (drivingfordeco.com)
…so great that even E.B. White found the proposed Rockefeller Center difficult to fathom:
DECO DREAM…Conceptual rendering of the Rockefeller Center complex by architectural illustrator John C. Wenrich. (beyondarchitecturalillustration.blogspot.com)
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Star Power
The Depression years also offered lesser diversions, and there’s nothing like celebrity culture to distract one’s mind from daily woes. For our amusement, E.B. White offered up the recent nuptials of Olympic swimmer (and future Tarzan movie star) Johnny Weissmuller and Ziegfeld singer/showgirl Bobbe Arnst…
MONKEY’S UNCLE…Newlyweds Johnny Weissmuller and Bobbe Arnst pose for photographers in 1931. The marriage would last two years. In 1932 Weissmuller would appear in his first “Tarzan” movie, Tarzan the Ape Man, and after divorcing Arnst would marry four more times. (Pinterest)
…of course there’s no better place to find celebrities than Hollywood, where Marlene Dietrich was collecting good reviews for her latest film, Dishonored. The New Yorker’s John Mosher was absolutely gah gah over the German actress…
COME HITHER IF YOU DARE…Marlene Dietrich portrayed Agent X-27 in Josef Von Sternberg’s 1931 spy film Dishonored. (IMDB)
…if you preferred the stage to the screen, you could check out a show on Broadway, but if you were Dorothy Parker (subbing as theater critic for her pal Robert Benchley), you’d have trouble finding anything worth watching. Her latest review was something of a double-whammy: not only was the play a stinker, but it was written by one of Parker’s least-favorite authors, A. A. Milne…
…AND MY MONEY BACK, TOO…
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Cinéma Vérité
However, Dorothy Parker could have found consolation in the fact that someone, somewhere, had it a lot worse. For example, the eight defendants in a Soviet show trial, filmed for the edification of the masses and as a warning to opponents of the Bolshevik Revolution. In this warm-up for the Great Terror to come, five of the eight were condemned to death after making what were obviously forced confessions. John Mosher had this to say about the real-life horror film:
PRELUDE TO MADNESS…Scenes from the Treason Trial of the Industrial Party of Moscow. Above, filming the proceedings; below, one of the accused scientists confessing his “crimes” against the state. (moderntimes.review/YouTube)
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End of the World, Part II
In my last post we saw how E. B. White mourned the end of the New York World newspaper in a lengthy “Notes and Comment” entry. By contrast, White’s colleague Morris Markey wasn’t shedding any tears for a newspaper he believed had seen its better days. Markey shared his observations in his March 14 “Reporter at Large” column…
AFRAID OF THE DENTIST? Murder suspect Arthur Warren Waite, a dentist from Grand Rapids, Michigan, appeared at Criminal Courts in New York City on May 22, 1916, to face double murder charges (he poisoned his in-laws). He was sent to the electric chair at Sing Sing on May 24, 1917. According to Morris Markey, the World’s coverage of the story was the newspaper’s swan song.(Criminal Encyclopedia)
…Markey described the newspaper’s final day with veteran rewrite man Martin Green quietly typing his last story amid the tears and wisecracks of reporters suddenly out of work…
LONG GONE…Veteran rewrite man Martin Green (inset) filed his last story for the New York World on Feb. 27, 1931. Above, the New York World building was located on Manhattan’s “Newspaper Row” near City Hall. Commissioned by the newspaper’s owner, Joseph Pulitzer, the 20-story building was the world’s tallest office building when in was completed in 1890. It was demolished in 1955 to make way for an expanded car ramp entrance to the Brooklyn Bridge. (New York Times/Library of Congress)
…the end of the World was also on the mind of Gardner Rea, who contributed this cartoon to the March 21 issue:
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The State of Modern Man
Lois Long continued her “Doldrums” series by looking at the condition of bachelor life in the city, and like everything else among the younger generation she found it wanting. Lois was a ripe old 29 when she wrote this, but given how radically life had changed since the Roaring Twenties, a wide gulf now separated those days from the more somber Thirties. Note how Long, who embodied flapper life in her defunct “Tables for Two” column, described herself as a “modest, retiring type” who knew nothing about men. Around this time Long was preparing to divorce husband (and New Yorker cartoonist) Peter Arno after a brief, tempestuous marriage…
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From Our Advertisers
In those depressed days the makers of Buick automobiles decided to look to a brighter future, imaging how the boys of the present would be drivers of Buicks in the future…this kid probably ended up driving a tank or a Jeep rather than a Buick when 1942 rolled around…
…Adele Morel also wanted you to think about the future, and how to hold off those inevitable wrinkles…note the message near the bottom: “Do you realize that a youthful appearance means happiness?”…
…I included this ad for River House because of its sumptuous detail…it rather resembles a 17th century European silk tapestry, and the people depicted look like they could be from that time as well…
…speaking of another age, we have this Murad ad by Rea Irvin, illustrating office behavior that was quite common in the 20th century…
…on a related note, in the cartoons E. McNerney illustrated a “Me Too” moment…
…when Otto Soglow published his first Little King strip in the June 7, 1930 issue, it caught the eye of Harold Ross (New Yorker founding editor), who asked Soglow to produce more. After building up an inventory over nearly 10 months, Ross finally published a second Little King strip, which you see below. The strip would become a hit, and would launch Soglow into cartoon stardom…
…William Dwyer offered a dim view of a man’s stages of life in the first of two cartoons he contributed to the New Yorker…
…James Thurber shared tears with some sad sacks…
…in a few years Leonard Dove’s housewife would see her fears realized as another world war would loom on the horizon…
…and we end with Garrett Price, and an appreciation for fine art…
Happy Holidays to readers of A New Yorker State of Mind! We open with an image of Christmas shoppers at 34th and Broadway, circa 1930, and peruse the Dec. 20, 1930 issue of the world’s greatest magazine.
Dec. 20, 1930 cover by Constantin Alajalov.
“Notes and Comment” began with a Christmas message of sorts from E.B. White, his holiday cheer tempered by the Great Depression and the lingering effects of Prohibition…
…Howard Brubaker seconded White’s mood in his “Of All Things” column…
…keeping things on the lighter side was Margaret Fishback, who turned her talents as a poet into a successful career as an ad writer for Macy’s. By the 1930s she was one of the world’s highest-paid female advertising copywriters. For the Dec. 20 issue she offered this holiday ditty:
THANKS MARG...Margaret Fishback, circa 1930s.
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More Marlene
Last week we looked at Marlene Dietrich’s breakout performance in The Blue Angel (reviewed by John Mosher in the Dec. 13, 1930 issue) that launched her into international stardom. Although Mosher had some gripes about the film’s dialogue, Dietrich’s performance nevertheless created enough of an impression to warrant a lengthy note on the German star in the Dec. 20 “Talk of the Town”…
A RED, WHITE AND BLUE ANGEL…Marlene Dietrich was a new face for many New Yorker readers in 1930, but she would soon become one of Hollywood’s most recognizable stars in the decade and beyond. She would apply for American citizenship in 1937, and later become a staunch supporter of the U.S. war effort against her native country. She is pictured above at a war charity event in the 1940s with singer and comedian Eddie Cantor. (Pinterest)
Even though John Mosher gave a rather tepid review of The Blue Angel in the Dec. 13 issue, he obviously couldn’t shake it (or Dietrich) from his head, returning to the film and its star in the opening paragraphs of his Dec. 20 cinema column.:
Mosher also observed that new Hollywood version of Dietrich (in 1930’s Morocco) was “far prettier” than the German version. You decide:
The German Marlene Dietrich in Ufa’s The Blue Angel…
…and the Hollywood Dietrich in Paramount’s Morocco (with Gary Cooper)…
(both images IMDB)
…on to our advertising…Dietrich pops up again in this ad for Publix Theatres (which were owned by Paramount)…
…the same ad block also featured light fare, such as 1930’s Tom Sawyer…
AIN’T THEY CUTE?...Mitzi Green as Becky Thatcher and Jackie Coogan as Tom Sawyer in 1930’s Tom Sawyer. Jackie was a famous star by 1930, thanks to his co-starring performance with Charlie Chaplin in 1921’s The Kid. In adult life Coogan would play Uncle Fester in TV’s The Addams Family. Green would have less success, and retire from films in the 1950s. (IMDB)
…not all advertisers were thinking about Christmas, but rather were turning their sights to the southern climes and the fashions they would require…here’s an appeal from Burdine’s of Miami…
…and Fifth Avenue’s Bonwit Teller…
…travel agencies created enticing scenes such as this to lure snowbirds to places like Bermuda…
…of course in those depressed times you had to be a person of means to spend your winters in the Caribbean, or to surprise your family with a new Buick for the holidays…
…and for those stuck at home, they had to console themselves with bootleg liquor, perhaps jazzed up with one of these “flavors”…
…but if you were in the holiday spirit, you might head to the Roosevelt for New Years Eve with Guy Lombardo…
…once again, the issue was sprinkled with spot drawings on the holiday theme…
…and our cartoonists, Garrett Price at the doctor…
…E. McNerney in Atlantic City during off-season…
…Al Frueh, and the clash of modern aesthetics with Christmas traditions…
…and for those in that last, desperate holiday crush, we close with Alan Foster…
The German actor Emil Jannings was well-known to American audiences when The Blue Angel(Der blaue Engel) premiered at New York’s Rialto Theatre. Although the film was created as a vehicle for the Academy Award-winning Jannings (he won the Academy’s first-ever best actor award in 1929), it was the little-known Marlene Dietrich who stole the show and made it her ticket to international stardom.
Dec. 13, 1930 cover by Ralph Barton, surprisingly his only cover for the New Yorker. The illustration sadly belies Barton’s state of mind at the time; he would take his own life the following spring.
New Yorker film critics, including John Mosher, generally found foreign films, particularly those of German or Russian origin, to be superior to the treacle produced in Hollywood, and Jannings was a particular favorite, delivering often heart-wrenching performances in such silent dramas as The Last Laugh (1924) and The Way of All Flesh (1927). In those films he depicted once-proud men who fell on hard times, and such was the storyline for The Blue Angel, in which a respectable professor falls for a cabaret singer and descends into madness.
NO CONTEST…Emil Jannings had star billing for the English language version of Josef von Sternberg’sThe Blue Angel, but it was Marlene Dietrich’s portrayal of cabaret singer Lola Lola that stole the show. (IMDB)
I was surprised by Mosher’s somewhat tepid review of this landmark film, which was shot simultaneously in German and English (with different supporting casts in each version). He referenced “bum dialogue,” which was doubtless the result of German actors struggling with English pronunciations. Filmed in 1929, it is considered to be Germany’s first “talkie.”
PRIDE BEFORE THE FALL…A proud and stern schoolmaster named Immanuel Rath (Emil Jannings) falls for cabaret singer Lola Lola (Marlene Dietrich), and from there his life unravels; he loses the respect of his pupils, then resigns his post to marry Lola. To make ends meet, Rath tries to sell racy photos of his wife, and then becomes a clown in her troupe and is regularly humiliated on stage. Destitute, he dies at the end of the film. (IMDB)
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All Wet
Sergei Tretyakov’s avant-garde play Roar China made an impression on the New Yorker for the striking realism of its set, which featured an 18,000-gallon tank of water onstage at the Martin Beck Theatre. “The Talk of the Town” described some of the demands of the production:
STAYING AFLOAT…The elaborate set for Roar China featured a model battleship in 18,000 gallons of water.
ROAR CHINA! was an anti-imperialist play depicting the Wanhsien Incident during the Chinese Civil War. Many in the Chinese cast members were non-professional actors. (New York Public Library)
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By Any Other Name
Like many college football teams in first decades of the 20th century, Notre Dame was referred to by a number of nicknames, including the “Fighting Irish.” In this “Talk of the Town” item, however, the team was known as the “Ramblers.” According to the University of Notre Dame, this nickname (along with “The Rovers”) was considered something of an insult: “(Knute) Rockne’s teams were often called the Rovers or the Ramblers because they traveled far and wide, an uncommon practice before the advent of commercial airplanes. These names were also an insult to the school, meant to suggest it was more focused on football than academics.”
RAMBLERS NO MORE…The 1930 National Champion Notre Dame football team. (nd.edu)
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The Wright Stuff
Eric Hodgins penned a profile of aviation pioneer Orville Wright, who just 27 years earlier made a historic “first flight” with his brother, Wilbur, at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. An excerpt:
DRESSED FOR SUCCESS: Aviation pioneer Orville Wright (1871 – 1958) sits in one of his biplanes dressed in a three-piece suit and a cap, Dayton, Ohio, 1909. (ge.com)
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No Love Parade, This
French singer and actor Maurice Chevalier made his Hollywood debut in 1928 and quickly soared to stardom in America. French audiences, however, were not so easily swayed, especially the elite patrons Chevalier faced, alone on the stage, at the cavernous Théâtre du Châtelet. Janet Flanner explained in this dispatch from Paris:
THEY LIKE ME IN TINSELTOWN…Jeanette MacDonald and Maurice Chevalier in The Love Parade (1929). (IMDB)
GULP…Maurice Chevalier faced a tough crowd — his compatriots — at Paris’s Théâtre du Châtelet. (en.parisinfo.com)
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Man’s Best Friend
The New Yorker’s book section recommended the latest from Rudyard Kipling,Thy Servant a Dog…
WOOF…Illustrations for Rudyard Kipling’sThy Servant a Dog, by Marguerite Kirmse. (Etsy)
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Fun and Games
As an extension to her fashion column, Lois Long shared some recommendations for holiday cocktail-party games:
KEEPING THINGS MERRY…Pokerette and Gee-Wiz were popular cocktail party diversions during the Christmas season of 1930. (Worthpoint/Invaluable)
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From Our Advertisers
We start with this ad from Horace Liveright promoting Peter Arno’s third cartoon collection, Hullaballoo, featuring one of Arno’s leering old “Walruses”…
…Doubleday Doran offered a few selections for last-minute Christmas shoppers, led by the Third New Yorker Album…
…The UK’s Harold Searles Thorton invented the table top game we now call “foosball” in 1921 and had it patented in 1923. Below is possibly the game’s first appearance in the U.S. — an ad for a “new” game called “Kikit.” Foosball would be slow to catch on, but would rapidly gain popularity in Europe in the 1950s and in the U.S. in the 1970s…
Early foosball players circa 1930. (foosball.org)
…Horace Heidt and his Californians were doing their best to make the season bright at the Hotel New Yorker…
…Peck & Peck tried to make the most of Prohibition by stuffing scarves and other wares into empty Champagne bottles…
…and Franklin Simon reminded readers that it would be a “Pajama-Negligee Christmas,” whatever that meant…
…pajamas and negligees were doubtless preferable, and more romantic, than this array of kitchen appliances…
…whatever the holiday revelry, the makers of Milk of Magnesia had our backs…
…on to our cartoonists, Julian De Miskey and Constantin Alajalov contributed spot drawings to mark the season…
…A.S. Foster contributed two cartoons to the issue…
…Gardner Rea, a full-pager…
…Leonard Dove, possibly having some fun with playwright Marc Connelly…
…I. Klein demonstrated the fun to be had with a kiddie scooter, before they had motors…
…and we close with John Reynolds, and some bad table manners…
Eugene Gise threw a beach party on the July 3, 1926 cover of The New Yorker with an explosion of color that was a departure from the somewhat spare covers of previous issues. It had been an unseasonably cool June, so folks were ready to frolic in the sun.
It should be noted that the woman in the foreground basking in the sun is most likely wearing a wool bathing suit. Although Jantzen was making suits you could actually swim in, these wool numbers were still the norm. As the website Vintage Dancer notes, “functionality in swimwear was not as important as fashion, so the prevailing theory was that wool would help keep you warm.” Check out this newspaper advertisement from 1926:
(Vintage Dancer)
In the previous issue (June 26, 1926) theatre critic Charles Brackett looked at all the fuss over the opening of George White’s Scandals revue, so in this issue he gave the Ziegfeld Follies–the revue show that inspired the Scandals–its proper due.
Claire Luce was a star attraction at the Ziegfeld Follies. Here Clarence F. Busch paints her portrait in an ostrich costume she wore for the Follies (Historical Ziegfeld Group)
Needless to say, Brackett found the Ziegfeld Follies as pointless as its imitator:
Moving on to other things, I found this tidbit in “The Talk of Town” interesting. Even 90 years ago city dwellers were complaining about having to sort their garbage:
A state-of-the-art garbage truck in 1920s NYC looked like this…
(nyamcenterforhistory.org)
…and since the 1890s the city had employed street sweepers known as “White Wings” to keep things tidy, apparently even in the middle of traffic:
(The New York Times)
After decades of petticoats, the Roaring Twenties marked the beginning of androgynous fashion in America, with actress Marlene Dietrich leading the way in defying standards of femininity. Cartoonist Raymond Thayer took a humorous look at the trend in the July 3 issue:
Marlene Dietrich on Hollywood Street, Jan. 25, 1933. (New York Magazine)
A New Yorker State of Mind 