Above: Illustration and article on "Typhoid Mary" that appeared in 1909 in The New York American. At right, Mary Mallon with other quarantined inmates on North Brother Island. (Wikipedia)
The Irish-born Mary Mallon (1869–1938) lived a simple life as a maid and a cook, and it would have been a life of anonymity save for a sad twist of fate on the day she was born.
Jan. 26, 1935 cover by Perry Barlow.
History knows Mary Mallon as Typhoid Mary. From 1901 to 1907 she would cook for seven wealthy New York families that would later contract typhoid. Mallon was born to a mother who was infected with typhoid, which offers a possible explanation as to why she became an asymptomatic carrier of the disease. Forcibly quarantined on North Brother Island (near Long Island) from 1907 to 1910, Mallon agreed upon her release to take hygienic precautions, including ending her occupation as a cook.
When other jobs failed to pan out, Mallon returned to cooking—this time in restaurants and hotels—infecting many more while evading investigators who were desperately trying to track her down (it is estimated she infected up to 122 people, resulting in as many as four-dozen deaths). When she was finally arrested in 1915, she was returned to North Brother Island, where she would live out her days. Stanley Walker (1898–1962), a native Texan, longtime editor of the New York Herald Tribune, and a New Yorker contributor from 1925 to 1956, featured Mallon in a profile for the Jan. 26, 1935 issue. Some brief excerpts:
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The Latest Sensation
Mary Mallon was the source of sensational headlines in the early 1900s, but even she couldn’t top the media frenzy prompted by the Lindbergh baby kidnapping and the trial of accused murderer Bruno Hauptmann.The New Yorker’s Morris Markey went to the courthouse in Flemington, New Jersey, to file this report for “A Reporter at Large.” Excerpts:
TRIAL OF THE CENTURY…Clockwise, from top left: Bruno Hauptmann (center) at his murder trial, which ran from Jan. 2 to Feb. 13, 1935, in Flemington, New Jersey; Charles Lindbergh takes the witness stand; novelist Fanny Hurst and gossip columnist Walter Winchell at the trial on Jan. 30, 1935—the “Trial of the Century” was followed by more than 700 reporters; police ropes contained the large crowds gathered at the courthouse. (Library of Congress/umass.edu/Courier Post)
Hauptmann would be convicted of the crime and immediately sentenced to death. On April 3, 1936, he would meet his end in an electric chair at the New Jersey State Prison, maintaining his innocence to the very end.
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From Our Advertisers
On to our ads, we begin with another colorful spot from Penn Maryland, and jolly times on Miami Beach…
…here is the first in a series of ads that the makers of Old Gold cigarettes (Lorillard) began running in 1935, featuring a sugar daddy and his leggy mistress…they were drawn by George Petty (1884–1975), famed for his “pin-up girls” featured on many magazine covers as well as in ads for Old Gold, Jantzen swimsuits, and TWA, among others…
…here is Petty at work in 1939…
…Buffalo-based Pierce-Arrow was known for its expensive luxury cars, which were not exactly hot sellers during the Great Depression; moreover, Pierce was the only luxury brand that did not offer a lower-priced car to provide cash flow to the company, and contrary to the claims in this ad, Pierce-Arrow would close its doors by 1938…
…one thing alive and well in the 1930s was sexism, and here is a good example from the makers of a popular line of soups…
…The Theatre Guild called upon the talents of James Thurber to promote their latest production…
…and we continue with Thurber as move into the cartoons…
…where Robert Day found some miscasting in a Civil War epic…
…George Price’s floating man seemed to be coming back to earth…
…Day again, with a sure-fire way to defend one’s goal…
…Alan Dunn offered words of wisdom from the pulpit…
…and we close with Barbara Shermund, and a familiar face…
Darryl F. Zanuck (1902–1979) was an unlikely Hollywood mogul. Born in a small Nebraska town with an unusual name (both his and the town), Zanuck dropped out of school in the eighth grade, apparently bitten by the acting bug during a brief childhood sojourn in Los Angeles.
Nov. 10, 1934 cover by Constantin Alajalov.
In the first part of a two-part profile, Alva Johnston began to probe the mystery of the boy from Wahoo who would rise to become one of Hollywood’s most powerful studio executives.
MAKING OF A MOGUL…Clockwise, from top left: Darryl F. Zanuck relaxing with trophies from his hunting excursions, circa 1940 (detail from a Margaret Bourke-White photo); Zanuck’s home town, Wahoo, Nebraska, 1920s; screenshot from a trailer for The Grapes of Wrath, 1940; Zanuck with child star Shirley Temple (left) and his first-born daughter Darrylin (mother was silent-screen actress Virginia Fox) in the 1930s. (Robin Pineda Zanuck via The Hollywood Reporter/Saunders County Historical Society/Wikipedia)
Johnston took a quick look at Zanuck’s humble origins, including his first encounter with the film industry at age eight. There must have been something in the water at Wahoo, a town of just 2,100 residents when Zanuck was born. Other Wahoo notables contemporary to Zanuck included Nobel Prize laureate and geneticist George Beadle, Pulitzer Prize–winning composer Howard Hanson, and Hall of Fame baseball player Sam Crawford, among others.
After writing dozens of scripts for Warner Brothers (including many for their popular canine star, Rin Tin Tin), in 1933 Zanuck would leave Warner and form 20th Century Pictures with Joseph Schenck. By the time Johnston penned the New Yorker profile, 20th Century had risen to be the most successful independent movie studio of its time.
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One-Way Street
It goes without saying that the interwar years of the 20th century were a time of extreme foment; Bolsheviks, communists, anarchists, fascists and other political agitators seemed to be constantly at each other’s throats as Europe prepared for its second act of self-annihilation. In the middle of it all was the Balkans, its many feuds always simmering near the boiling point.
After the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914 (which, along with other factors, triggered World War I), you would have thought Europeans would have abandoned the practice of parading dignitaries through crowded streets. In 1934 they were reminded of its risks.
That year was King Alexander I of Yugoslavia’s thirteenth on the throne, but his time was running short in a country constantly beset by civil war. Fearing that the German Nazis and Italian Fascists would take advantage of the instability, on Oct. 9, 1934 French Foreign Minister Louis Barthou invited Alexander I to Marseille to sign a Franco-Yugoslav solidarity agreement. While Alexander and Barthou were being slowly driven in an open car through the city’s streets, a Bulgarian gunman, Vlado Chernozemski, stepped from the crowd, hopped onto the car’s running board, and shot Alexander along with his chauffeur. Barthou also died in the melee, killed by a stray bullet fired by French police (three women and a boy in the crowd were also fatally wounded by stray police bullets). Struck down by a policeman’s sword, Chernozemski was subsequently beaten to death by the enraged crowd. It was one of the first assassinations to be captured on film.
Paris correspondent Janet Flanner offered some thoughts about the incident in her “Paris Letter.” Excerpt:
WHAT A DIFFERENCE A DAY MAKES…King Alexander I of Yugoslavia (left) and French Foreign Minister Louis Barthou just moments before an assassin fired two fatal shots into the king. Barthou would die an hour later from a stray police bullet that would enter his arm and sever an artery. (Still image from YouTube video)
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The Traffic Machine
In his “A Reporter at Large” column, Morris Markey sang praises for the Triborough Bridge project, which was making visible progress on the massive public work that commenced in 1930. City officials had dreamed for years about a project that would at once connect Manhattan, Queens and the Bronx, but it wasn’t until the power broker Robert Moses got involved as the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority chairman that things really started to move. Moses biographer Robert Caro wrote that “Triborough was not a bridge so much as a traffic machine, the largest ever built.” A brief excerpt:
As noted by Markey, the “people in charge” were forthright about the bridge’s completion date of July 1, 1936. And they kept their word. The bridge was substantially complete by June 1936, and would be dedicated on July 11, with Moses serving as master of ceremonies.
MAKE WAY FOR THE GIANTS…City engineers had been kicking around plans since 1916 to build bridges to connect Manhattan, Queens and the Bronx, but the massive Triborough Bridge project finally got off the ground in 1930. By 1934 the bridge’s Queens tower (left) would loom over Ward’s Island, visible in the background; at right, views of buildings in Astoria (Hoyt Ave.) that were slated for demolition to make way for the bridge, photographed by Eugene de Salignac in early 1931. (MTA Bridges and Tunnels Special Archives/NYC Municipal Archives)
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From Our Advertisers
The common zipper was a relatively new invention in 1934. It had been more or less perfected by 1920, and in 1923 the B. F. Goodrich Company would coin the onomatopoetic word to describe the newfangled fastener on its galoshes, but it would take a while for the fashion industry to adopt the zipper as a replacement for buttons on garments, including men’s trousers. And so we get this staid-looking ad from Wetzel that signaled its entry into the brave new world of zippers (Talon was the dominant U.S. producer of zippers for many years)…
…this next ad is kind of amazing, a 1935 Auburn for only $695, which roughly translates to $15,000 or so today—still a bargain…known for cars that were fast, good-looking and expensive (and favored by Hollywood elite), Auburn struggled mightily during the Depression…along with its sister marques Duesenberg and Cord, the company would fold in 1937…
…during Prohibition distillers were allowed to keep stocks of whiskies produced before the 18th Amendment went into force…some of these were distributed through pharmacies during Prohibition for “medicinal purposes”…what was left over was sold after repeal, a stock of “pre-prohibition casks” that would be exhausted before Christmas, or so the ad rather alarmingly suggested…
…we first met tennis star Ellsworth Vines Jr a few issues ago when he was touting the health and energy benefits of Camel cigarettes…here he promotes an unlikely “stimulant”—Pabst Blue Ribbon ale…Vines testified that “the demand for more and more speed in sports calls for a finer and finer ‘edge’ of physical condition” and observed that PBR was “a great preventive of overtraining and staleness”…yep, after a few brewskies who feels like doing anything, let alone play tennis?…
…on to our cartoonists we open with a couple of spots by George Shellhase…
…and Gregory d’Alessio…
…William Crawford Galbraith gave us a fish out of water (the caption reads: You New Yorkers didn’t know we were so sophisticated in Detroit, did you?)…
…George Price still hadn’t come back to earth in his latest installment…
…Gardner Rea illustrated the results of charitable acts by the Junior League…
…and we close with James Thurber, and kindness from a stranger…
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.
Oct. 13, 1934 cover by Rea Irvin.
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.
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.
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:
* * *
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…
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.
June 23, 1934 cover by Rea Irvin.
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 Baer 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:
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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 TheNew 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…
Above: Surgery being performed at the Hospital of Saint Raphael (Conn.) in the late 1930s. Operating rooms were often located near large windows and under skylights to offer greater illumination. (Yale New Haven Hospital)
For all the challenges of 21st century, I always remind myself that advances in medicine during the past ninety years have made our lives better, and substantially longer, even if our current health care system is far from ideal.
Feb. 3, 1934 cover by E. Simms Campbell.
People could live to a ripe old age in the 1930s, however the average life expectancy at birth in 1930 was only 58 for men and 62 for women. The Depression didn’t help matters, and neither did the Dust Bowl, unregulated urban smog, the dramatic rise in smoking, and the lingering effects of more than a decade of bootleg alcohol consumption.
Polio was a serious problem in the 1930s, as was syphilis, which affected as many as ten percent of Americans. Blood groups would not be identified until 1930 (by Nobel Prize-winner Karl Landsteiner), and human nutrition remained something of a puzzle—Vitamin C wasn’t identified until 1932. There was exciting chatter about penicillin (discovered in late 1920s) and the antibacterial effects of sulfonamides (first observed in 1932), but it would be years before antibiotics would come into common use. So yes, infection was also a big killer.
Nevertheless, progress had been made, as told by Morris Markey in the column, “A Reporter at Large.” An excerpt:
FORTRESS ON THE HEIGHTS…Top, Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center loomed large when it opened in Washington Heights in 1928; below, New York Hospital, most likely the building described in Morris Markey’s column; at left, Dr. George Crile, Sr., completing his landmark 25,000th thyroid operation in 1936. (CUIMC/Wikipedia/Cleveland Clinic)
This next excerpt describes the work of the anesthetist after the patient receives a spinal injection of novocaine, which had replaced cocaine as a pain blocker. At the start of the 1930s, the most-used anesthetic was ether, used in this account to calm the patient. Ether carried its own risks—in was unstable, and sparks from X-ray machines and other equipment could cause an explosion.
NO SMOKING, PLEASE…Anesthetist in the 1920s carefully administers ether while surgeon swabs a patient with iodine (inset). Ether was unstable, and sparks from equipment could cause an explosion. (Internet Archive/Flickr)
* * *
And Then There’s Maude
American actress and stage designer Maude Ewing Adams (1872–1953) defined the role of “the boy who wouldn’t grow up” in her Broadway adaptations of Peter Pan in the early 1900s (1905, 1906, 1912 and 1915). She would appear in 26 Broadway productions between 1888 and 1916, but after a severe bout of the Spanish flu in 1918 she retired from the stage and focused on developing better stage lights with General Electric; her electric lights ultimately set the industry standard with the advent of sound movies. As this excerpt from “The Talk of the Town” revealed, Adams was also quite shy and highly valued her privacy.
THE RETIRING SORT…Maud Adams in a Broadway publicity photo, circa 1900. (Vintage Everyday)
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In The Trenches
Just before the Nazis decided to turn their country back into a warlike state, Victor Trivas and George Shdanoff wrote and directed an allegorical anti-war film. Niemandsland (released in the U.S. as Hell on Earth) featured five soldiers, from different backgrounds, who find themselves together in a dugout in no man’s land and together come to terms with the absurdity of war. The film premiered in Berlin in December 1931 and was greeted by thunderous applause. A little over a year later it was banned by the Nazis. Critic John Mosher made these observations:
WAR, WHAT’S IT GOOD FOR?…Niemandsland (released in the U.S. as Hell on Earth) featured five soldiers from different backgrounds on a front lines during WWI: a carpenter from Berlin, a mechanic from Paris, an English officer, a Jewish tailor and a Black dancer (the only one who understands everyone’s languages). Actor and dancer Louis W. Douglas (top right) was a Philadelphia native who moved to Paris in 1925 with his dancing partner, Josephine Baker, in the popular La Revue Nègre. He went on to establish a successful musical and film career in Germany until his death in 1939. (silverinahaystack.wordpress.com/IMDB)
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From Our Advertisers
We begin with this jolly color image from Lucky Strike representing the joys of cigarette smoking…
…a trio of ads culled from the back pages, everything from “Tiara Trouble” (apparently a common problem) to a smoking penguin introducing a new line of menthol cigarettes, KOOL, challenging the dominance of the Spud menthol brand (we know who won that battle)…in the final ad, Atlantic City resort hotel Haddon Hall attempted to drum up business using a slavery/emancipation theme—Abraham Lincoln’s birthday is at hand…why not slip the shackles of work and run away to sunshine and freedom?…
…These Paul Whiteman ads were ubiquitous in the 1930s…the distinctive caricature of his pudgy, mustachioed face—Whiteman’s “Potato Head” emblem—was featured in ads and on 78 rpm record labels and various promotional items…on the more classical side, violinist David Rubinoff sawed away on his famed $100,000 Stradivarius for audiences at the Roosevelt Hotel…
…automobile ads continued to grace the pages of The New Yorker, including this one suggesting that young blue bloods would look quite smart in a ’34 Chevy…
…in the 1930s Studebaker marketed car lines including the high-end President, the mid-priced Commander, and the low-priced Dictator…the Dictator was introduced in 1927, so named because it “dictated the standard” other automobile makes would be obliged to follow…the rise of Mussolini and Hitler attached unsavory connotations to the car’s moniker…it was renamed “Director” for European markets and was finally abandoned in 1937…
…Chrysler continued to push its radical new Airflow, here demonstrating how it blows the doors off of an old-timer…
…as we jump into our cartoons, Kemp Starrett referenced the Airflow in his latest contribution to The New Yorker…
…the issue included two from George Price…a playful pairing in the events section…
…and a somewhat unkind nod to new Hollywood star Katharine Hepburn…apparently David O. Selznick had misgivings about casting a “horse face” like her…well, she obviously proved him wrong…
…the magazine pulled out this old illustration by H.O. Hofman to break up the copy in Howard Brubaker’s “Of All Things” column…
…more antics from the precocious set, courtesy Perry Barlow…
…Mary Petty offered this observation on the state of medicine in 1934…
…a sobering and topical contribution from Alan Dunn…
…Carl Rose made preparations for the annual Charity Ball…
…and James Thurber gave us Part III of his “War Between Men and Women”…
The NBC Studios at 30 Rockefeller Plaza have wowed visitors and performers alike for nearly 90 years. Today we look back at the remarkable foresight of the studios’ designers, who created spaces that would one day accommodate a new medium called television, which was still in its experimental stages.
Nov. 4, 1933 cover by Robert Day, who contributed a total of eight covers to The New Yorker.
However, before we jump in, let’s look at Robert Day’s cover for the Nov. 4 issue, which featured a familiar character who made his first appearance on the cover of issue #12 (May 9, 1925), and returned four years later looking much older in the dog days of August…
Cover of issue #12 (May 9, 1925) by Rea Irvin introduced our street sweeper, who returned Aug. 3, 1929 by the hand of Gardner Rea.
Day’s cover, however, was also a nod to the annual gathering of autumn leaves—an occasional cover theme that began with Peter Arno’s contribution to the Nov. 27, 1926 issue (below, left) and most recently expressed in Adrian Tomine’s cover for the Nov. 7, 2022 issue (with timely pandemic reference)…
Back to Radio City, Morris Markey recounted the technological wonders of the new NBC studios in his “A Reporter at Large” column, “Marconi Started It.” Markey noted the “fabulous quality” of the facilities, wired for the day when television would arrive. Excerpts:
GEE WHIZ…Morris Markey could be assured that some folks would be “goggled-eyed” by NBC studios, including the technophiles at Popular Mechanics. (westmb.org)WHERE HISTORY WAS MADE…Studio 8H was the world’s largest radio studio when it opened in 1933. It would be converted for television in 1950. (westmb.org)
Markey marveled at NBC Studios’ various design innovations, including a revolving control room dubbed the “Clover Leaf”…
(Modern Mechanics, Jan. 1931)
Almost 90 years later, the studios continue to serve the broadcast needs of the 21st century, including Studio 8H…
LIVE FROM NEW YORK…Studio 8H was the world’s largest radio studio when it opened in 1933. Converted to television in 1950, it has been home to Saturday Night Live since 1975. Above, SNL stage manager Gena Rositano, in 2015. Below, longtime SNL director Don Roy King at the controls for Studio 8H, also in 2015. (Dana Edelson/NBC via Directors Guild of America)
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Leopold!
Conductor Leopold Stokowski was no stranger to Studio 8H. From 1941 to 1944 he led the NBC Symphony Orchestra in that venue. One of the leading conductors of the early and mid-20th century, Stokowski (1882–1977) began his musical career in New York City in 1905 as the organist and choir director at St. Bartholomew’s Church, but by 1915 he was conducting the famed Philadelphia Orchestra. Robert Simon reported on Stokowski’s return to New York for a performance at Carnegie Hall. A brief excerpt:
I GET AROUND…Portrait Of Leopold Stokowski by Edward Steichen, Dec. 1, 1933. Married three times and once romantically linked to Greta Garbo, he was married to wife #3, Gloria Vanderbilt, for ten years. (Condé Nast)
Stokowski had the distinct honor of being satirized in a 1949 Looney Tunes cartoon, “Long-Haired Hare,” in which Bugs Bunny disguised himself as the conductor and entered the stage to the astonished whispers of the orchestra…Leopold! Leopold!…
MAESTRO…Bugs Bunny as Stokowski in “Long-Haired Hare.”
Stokowski was no stranger to animation. The conductor appeared in silhouette in Disney’s Fantasia (1940), leading the Philadelphia Orchestra in the film’s score. He even shook hands with Mickey Mouse.
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Bigga Badda Wolfa
The New Yorker took a look at the popular records of the day, and in addition to tunes by Bing Crosby and Rudy Vallée there was yet another release of “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?”…Ethel Shutta was the latest of seemingly dozens of artists to cash in on the Disney hit…
I’LL HUFF AND I’LL PUFF…Those who couldn’t get enough of “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf” could turn to Ethel Shutta’s rendition of the hit song on Columbia records. (discogs.com)
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Page-Turner
Writer Kay Boyle wasn’t afraid of wolves or any other subject for that matter, according to book reviewer Clifton Fadiman…
TOSSING A SALACIOUS SALAD…Kay Boyle, photographed by George Platt Lynes, 1941. (The Kay Boyle Papers, Morris Library, Southern Illinois University)
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A Grapeful Nation
As New Yorkers counted the days until the end of Prohibition, The New Yorker did its part to get readers back up to speed by enlisting the talents of one of the world’s great wine experts, Frank Schoonmaker, who had the enviable job of filing a series of wine reports for the magazine. His first installment of “News From the Wine Country” featured the Champagne region. Excerpts:
THAT FIZZY FEELING…Bottling the good stuff in the Champagne region, circa 1930. (wineterroirs.com)
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From Our Advertisers
Christmas was just around the corner, and F.A.O. Schwarz was READY with its 64-page catalog…
…White Rock anticipated the end of Prohibition with an ad featuring a miniature colonel who apparently needed a stiff drink to prepare for his wife’s return from abroad…
…Mrs. Hamilton Fish Jr, aka Grace Chapin, was married to the New York congressman from 1920 until her death in 1960, apparently enjoying many Camels along the way…her husband would go on living another 31 years and take three more brides before expiring at age 102…
…another cautionary tale from Chase & Sanborne about the perils of undated coffee…
…and with the holidays approaching, a jolly ditty from Jones Dairy Farm, home to little piggies who merrily dash toward their inevitable slaughter…
…and we jump to another back-page ad, this from the stately Plaza, where you could get a single room for five bucks a night…
…turning to the cartoons, we find George Price hitting his stride with multiple cartoons in consecutive issues…
…and taking a look at the recent elections…
…on to James Thurber, and continuing struggles on the domestic front…
…and that brings us to our next issue…
Nov. 11, 1933 cover by Constantin Alajalov.
…in which E.B. White had a thing or two to say about the latest edition of the National Horse Show at Madison Square Garden.
HORSE SENSE AND SENSIBILITY…The National Horse Show at Madison Square Garden was a major event on New York’s social calendar; top and bottom right, scenes from the 1936 show; bottom left, undated scene circa 1960. (Stills from YouTube)
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Versatile Verse
Phyllis McGinley (1905–1978) was the author of children’s books and poetry, the latter genre most notably for The New Yorker. However, she attracted a wide audience for her light verse in other publications ranging from Ladies Home Journal to The Saturday Review.
LIGHT TOUCH…Phyllis McGinley in an undated photo. She received the Pulitzer Prize in 1961 for her book Times Three—the first writer of light verse to receive the prize. (wnyc.org)
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Oil and Water
Art and architecture critic Lewis Mumford found two very different visions of America in the works of contemporaries John Marin and Edward Hopper. Marin’s watercolors were featured at An American Place, while Hopper’s oil paintings and etchings were shown down the street at the Museum of Modern Art.
SIDE BY SIDE…Lewis Mumford found different visions of New York and the world at An American Place and MoMA galleries. At left, John Marin’s watercolor From the Bridge, N.Y.C. (1933); at right, Edward Hopper’sRoom in New York, also from 1933. (Artists Rights Society/Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery)
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More From Our Advertisers
Okay, so I’ll buy the part about PBR’s ability to soothe “jaded nerves,” but I doubt it gave this guy “fresh energy” and “a sound, healthy body”…
…After thirteen long years, winemakers emerged from their cellars to glimpse the light of a new day…
…and yes, after thirteen long years, some folks would be yearning for their DRY SACK Sherry…
…the name Elizabeth Hawes was synonymous with high fashion in the late 1920s and 1930s—she owned one of the most exclusive couture houses in New York…
…an outspoken advocate of dress reform, Hawes (1903–1971) was referred to by one historian as “the Dorothy Parker of fashion criticism.” After attacking the fashion industry with her 1938 book, Fashion Is Spinach (Hawes wrote: “I don’t know when the word fashion came into being, but it was an evil day…”), she closed her fashion house and in 1942 took a job as a machine operator at a wartime plant in New Jersey. She became a union organizer, a champion of gender equality, and a critic of American consumerism.
IN A LEAGUE OF HER OWN…Elizabeth Hawes — writer, fashion designer and political activist, poses for a photograph in 1941. (Mary Morris Lawrence)
…speaking of consumerism, ooooh look! A radio “you can slip in your pocket,” depending of course on the size of your pocket…
…transistors would not come along until the late 1950s, so the Kadette still depended on tubes, and you had to plug it in somewhere, so no running down the beach with headphones, at least for awhile…
The Kadette Junior. (radiolaguy.com)
…it must have been a rare treat to sail on a ship like the SS Santa Rosa—situated between the ship’s two funnels, the dining room had an atrium stretching up two-and-a-half decks and featured a retractable roof…
…on to more cartoons, and more George Price…
…moving along, we received some big news from one of Helen Hokinson’s “girls”…
…an aside I’ve been meaning to include…in 1952, just three years after Helen Hokinson’s untimely death, a cartoonist for The Cincinnati Enquirer, Franklin Folger, debuted a cartoon called “The Girls.” The cartoon was eventually syndicated and appeared in more than 150 newspapers worldwide before Folger retired it in 1977. Perhaps I am missing something, but I cannot find a single reference to Folger’s obvious appropriation of Hokinson’s “girls”…some examples of Folger’s work from the early 1960s and another from H.H. for comparison:
…and onward to Peter Arno, and the trials of portrait artists…
New Yorkers witnessed flying milestones and mishaps in the summer of 1933—after Wiley Post landed at Bennett Field, he became the first person to fly solo around the world, and famed Italian aviator Italo Balbo would bring a squadron of 24 Savoia-Marchetti S.55 flying boats across the Atlantic and triumphantly land them on the Hudson River. So before we get to the Aug. 5 issue…
Aug. 5, 1933 cover by Julian de Miskey.
…let’s look in on Morris Markey, who described all of the skyward thrills in his “A Reporter at Large” column in the August 12 issue. Markey also offered a “bold prophecy” that the ticker-tape parades and “hysterical cheers” could not go on forever.
ROUND AND ROUND HE GOES…Clockwise, from top left, Wiley Post under the wing of the famed Lockheed Vega monoplane Winnie Mae in 1933; Post next to the Winnie Mae in Bartlesville, Oklahoma in 1934, his achievements recorded on the fuselage; miners from Flat, Alaska, bring the Winnie Mae upright for repairs—the plane nosed over after hitting a patch of mining tailings; Post climbs out of the Winnie Mae at Floyd Bennett Field, Long Island, after completing the first solo flight around the world. Post set a new record of 15,596 miles (25,099 kilometers) in 7 days, 18 hours, 49 minutes. (NASM/Oklahoma Historical Society/U of Alaska-Fairbanks/Associated Press)
Markey wrote admiringly of the Italians and their oddly beautiful flying boats as they descended, 24 in all, on the Hudson River. Things did not go so well for Scottish aviator James Mollison and his wife, Amy Johnson, who had set many flying records in the 1930s.
DESCENDED LIKE FLIES…Twenty-four Savoia-Marchetti flying boats left Italy in 1933 to fly in formation to the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair and back, with stops along the way including New York. The squadron was led by Italo Balbo, who has featured on the cover of Time, 26 June 1933. (Wikipedia/Time Inc.))GOING IN STYLE, Clockwise, from top left, twenty-four Italian Savoia-Marchetti S.55X flying boats left the west coast of Italy to fly in formation to the Chicago World’s Fair, with a stop on the Hudson River (top right). The Italians were famed for sleek designs, including the Macchi-Castoldi 72, pictured here circa 1931. It was then the fastest plane in the world; James Mollison and his wife, Amy Johnson recover from their injuries after a nonstop flight from Wales to the U.S. Unable to locate the Bridgeport (Conn.) Municipal Airport—which he circled five times— he ultimately crash- landed into a field. Both were thrown from the aircraft but survived—they were later congratulated by New York society with a parade on Wall Street. (warbirdsnews.com/Wikimedia)
Markey’s “bold prophecy” would sadly come to pass; after all of the parades and hoopla, these wonderful airplanes would soon take on more sinister roles as machines of death. Italo Balbo, seen as a possible successor to Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, would die in 1940, shot down by Italian anti-aircraft batteries that mistook his plane for a British fighter. Amy Johnson would die months later in a crash near the mouth of the Thames (possibly by friendly fire). Two years after his record-breaking flight, Wiley Post and American humorist Will Rogers would perish in a 1935 crash near Point Barrow, Alaska.
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Depression Diversions
New Yorkers could escape Depression woes and the summer heat with a visit to the cinema. These listings in the Aug. 5 issue were headed by the Busby Berkeley musical extravaganza Gold Diggers of 1933…
DEPRESSION’S FEVER DREAM…Choreographer Busby Berkeley chased those Depression blues away with his lavish musicals, including Gold Diggers of 1933, featuring Ginger Rogers among a bevy of stars. (IMDB)
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From Our Advertisers
Fledgling airlines including Eastern Air Transport and American Airways (forerunners of Eastern Air Lines and American Airlines) were giving passenger trains a bit of competition with relatively quick flights to destinations including Washington D.C. and Atlantic City—the D.C. round trip cost $20, roughly equivalent to $455 today…
…introduced in 1933, the Curtiss YC-30, called the Condor in civilian use, could seat 15. It could also be fitted out as 12-passenger luxury night sleeper…
YOU COULD REST EASY on the Curtiss Condor in 1933. (U.S. Air Force)
…Packard and Cadillac both produced premium automobiles, but where Packard emphasized durability and longevity…
…the folks at Cadillac went for pure sob appeal…
…I wonder how many people still wore pince-nez in 1933, especially while drinking beer…
…the makers of Hoffman ginger ale weren’t waiting for the official end of Prohibition to tout their popular mixer…
…with the launch of FDR’s New Deal, advertisers were quick to jump on the bandwagon…
…as did one of our cartoonists, Otto Soglow…
…and now on to the Aug 12 issue…
Aug. 12, 1933 cover by Helen Hokinson.
…which featured another installment of James Thurber’sMy Life and Hard Times—”The Night the Ghost Got In”…
James Thurber’s illustration for “The Night the Ghost Got In” that appeared in his book My Life and Hard Times. The scene depicts his brother Herman, and his fear of ghosts. The caption read: “He always half suspected that something would get him.”
Meanwhile, Thurber’s colleague, film critic John Mosher, was finding joy through Walt Disney’sSilly Symphonies…
DELIGHTFUL DIVERSION…Critic John Mosher was “one exalted” over Walt Disney’s latest Silly Symphony, titled Old King Cole.
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This giant two-page spread from the makers of Dodge sought to prove you could have both durability and affordability in their six-cylinder model (the cheapest Packard listed at $2,150—you could almost buy four Dodges for that price)…
…another Chrysler corporation product, the family-friendly Plymouth, could be had for even less—$445—it was apparently just the kind of car a penny-pinching ingenue needed for getting to her casting calls…
…Ann Lee Doran (1911–2000) went on to a long career as a character actress, perhaps best known for portraying James Dean’s mother in Rebel Without a Cause…
Anne Lee Doran (at far right) in 1941’s Penny Serenade. Also pictured, from left, are Edmund Elton, Edgar Buchanan, Cary Grant and Irene Dunne. (IMDB)
…when you finished brushing your teeth, you could put this other Pepsodent product on your face…
…on to our cartoons, we begin with this two-page spread by Gardner Rea…
…Gluyas Williams referenced the Camel cigarette ads from 1933 that revealed the secrets of popular magic tricks…
…an example from the June 3, 1933 issue of The New Yorker…
…Eli Garson paid a visit to the optometrist…
…in the wake of the scandal-ridden mess left behind by deposed Mayor Jimmy Walker, the upcoming November election was bound up by three candidates, none of whom seemed poised to get a majority vote…Robert Day offered up this scenario…
…Carl Rose discovered that even in the boonies, everyone’s a critic…
…and we close with Peter Arno, and another classic…
There’s a good reason why Americans celebrate National Beer Day on April 7.
April 15, 1933 cover by William Steig.
It was on that day in 1933 that the Cullen-Harrison Act went into effect; after nearly 13 years of Prohibition, folks were allowed to buy and drink low-alcohol content beer. The act not only promised to wet their whistles on the hot summer days ahead, but it also signaled the eventual doom of 18th Amendment. E.B. White opened his column with musings on the Easter holiday, but soon turned his attention to the big news of the day.
THINK THIS WILL BE ENOUGH?…Workers at a New York brewery unload thousands of crates of beer, getting ready for the return of legal beer in April 1933. (allthatsinteresting.com)FRONT PAGE NEWS…The New York Times proclaimed the return of legal beer in this April 7, 1933 edition.BLONDE’S BOMBSHELL…While on the other side of the Lower 48, actress Jean Harlow christened the first legal bottle of beer at midnight in Los Angeles, April 6, 1933. (Los Angeles Public Library)
In his “A Reporter at Large column,” Morris Markey looked in on a former speakeasy owner who was more than happy to go legit, and who also predicted the demise of his fellows who still lingered in the underground liquor trade. An excerpt from “Now That There’s Beer”…
CHEERS!…The first truckload of beer to leave New York exits the Jacob Ruppert Brewery in New York in 1933. (allthatsinteresting.com)
The subject of Markey’s column explained why speakeasies would soon be a thing of the past. Markey also observed that theatre owners would soon feel the pinch as folks would forgo movies for summer evenings at a beer garden.
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No Laughing Matter
Writers and editors at The New Yorker did their best to keep things as light and witty as possible, but sometimes the headlines could not be ignored, and tragedy was acknowledged, albeit briefly. “The Talk of the Town” had this to say about history’s deadliest airship disaster:
NATURE’S FURY…The U.S. Navy’s 785-foot dirigible, the USS Akron, plunged into the Atlantic Ocean during a violent storm shortly after midnight on April 4, 1933, claiming the lives of 73 crewmen. Clockwise, from top left, the Akron on a routine flight; men in a rear control car; servicemen in the dirigible’s engine room; April 23, 1933 photo of wreckage recovered off the coast of New Jersey. Because the ship had no life vests and one rubber raft, only three crew members survived the disaster, which heralded the end the Navy’s dirigible fleet. (howstuffworks.com/AP/Daily Mail)
In his “Of All Things” column, Howard Brubaker had this to add:
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Alex at the Movies
It wasn’t every day you got to read a movie review by Alexander Woollcott, but he did just that in the opening lines of his “Shouts and Murmurs” column, calling Cecil B. DeMille’sThe Sign of the Cross an “unpleasing mess drooled on to the brobdingnagian bib” of the director.
Woollcott, who doubtless related to Nero’s bacchanalian ways, singled out Charles Laughton’s campy performance as the Roman emperor.
ANIMAL HOUSE…Charles Laughton camped it up as the Emperor Nero in Cecil B. DeMille’sThe Sign of the Cross. (IMD
Besides Laughton’s performance, the pre-Code film is perhaps best known for Claudette Colbert’s revealing milk bath scene, which took several days to shoot—the powdered cow’s milk eventually turned sour, making it a very unpleasant experience for all involved.
IT STINKS…that was Alexander Woollcott’s assessment of The Sign of the Cross. Clockwise, from top left, studio poster for the film; Claudette Colbert’s famous bath scene; an actress portraying a Christian being thrown to the lions (as well as crocodiles and gorillas) was the famed burlesque dancer Sally Rand, who left little to the imagination in her uncredited appearance; an orgy scene. Although Paramount marketed the film to churches, it was attacked by the Catholic Legion of Decency: a re-release of the film was censored after the Hays Code went into effect in 1934—a “lesbian dance,” violent gladiator scenes and sequences with naked women being attacked by crocodiles were cut and wouldn’t be restored until a 1993 video release. (Wikipedia/IMDB)
As for film critic John Mosher, the remaining Hollywood fare was even worse—like The Sign of the Cross, these pictures used faith-based themes, a seemingly new trend in Hollywood scenarios, to poor effect.
Gabriel Over the White House starred Walter Huston as a politically corrupt president who, after a near-fatal car accident, comes under the divine power of the Archangel Gabriel and the spirit of Abraham Lincoln…
I SEE DEAD PEOPLE…Walter Huston and Karen Morley in Gabriel Over the White House. (TCM)
…the pre-Code drama Destination Unknown also summoned supernatural forces to tell the tale of a stranded ship saved by a stowaway who turns wine into water and heals a crippled man.
NEEDING A MIRACLE…Pat O’Brien and Betty Compson in Destination Unknown. (IMDB)
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From Our Advertisers
Considering that Adolf Hitler gave Nazi paramilitary units control of German streets in January 1933, the words “Appeasing refuge” don’t readily come to mind…
…if you liked all things German but wanted to avoid getting a jackboot to the groin, you could remain stateside, drink some 3.2 beer, and chew on some Liederkranz…
…actually this looks more preferable, especially as rendered by fashion illustrator Leslie Saalburg…
…before Zillow or Craigslist you could look for some digs in the New York American, which merged with the New York Journal in 1937…
…the makers of leaded gasoline urged on a stereotypical country doctor, even though the stork seemed to have things under control…
…on to our cartoonists, Garrett Price illustrated the limits of legal beer…
…while Chon Day explored the same problem at this tea room…
…here’s a trio of The New Yorker’s early women cartoonists…Barbara Shermund…
…Mary Petty…
…and Alice Harvey…
…and we close with Al Frueh, and some brave firefighters…
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, UT Austin)
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, UT Austin)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.
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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)
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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.
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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:
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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.
Here is what the Times (Sept. 10, 1932) had to say about Markey’s book:
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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)
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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/The 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.
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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:
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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…
A New Yorker State of Mind 