Above: Adolf Hitler at a groundbreaking ceremony for a new section of the Reichsautobahn highway system, 1933. (Bundesarchiv)
Mildred Gilman was one of the highest paid female reporters in the 1920s, interviewing everyone from murderers to heads of state. But when she arranged to interview Adolf Hitler in 1933, the Gestapo got nervous and threw her out of the country.
Feb. 10, 1934 cover by Harry Brown.
Gilman (1896-1994) doubtless sought a modicum of satisfaction when she penned “Made in Germany” for the Feb. 10, 1934 issue. I am including generous excerpts below, which describe the day in the life of an average Berliner named Emil Pfalz, a man who doesn’t question the omnipresent Nazi propaganda and often worries about his ability to keep in step with the new regime (Note: these first two clips should be read as one continuous piece).
THERE’S SOMETHING HAPPENING HERE…Berliners (left) and residents of Worms (top) inspect Nazi propaganda that instructed Germans not to do business with Jewish people (on Jan. 24, 1934, the German government banned Jews from membership in the German Labor Front, effectively depriving them of the opportunity to find employment); below, in early 1934 a simulated uprising was staged in Berlin (with people posing as casualties) as part of Nazi maneuvers. Later that summer SS and Gestapo forces would conduct a purge known as “Night of the Long Knives,” eliminating any known or suspected dissenters of the Nazi regime. Hundreds were murdered and many more arrested. (digitallibrary.usc/Wikipedia)GRIM FAIRY TALE…As a loyal citizen, Emil Pfalz was sure to teach his children the Nazi salute. Image from a Nazi propaganda booklet. (British Library Board)
Emil’s story continues as he contemplates his duties as a father and husband in the Third Reich…
…and heeds the call to produce more Aryan babies.
What the Nazis did not want more of was chronically ill or disabled persons. The sick minds of Nazi propagandists produced this image below, which argues that for the same daily amount of reichsmarks you could either support an entire Aryan family or a single mentally disabled person…in 1933 the Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring was passed, allowing for the forced sterilization of those regarded as ‘unfit’. In 1939 the regime began killing the disabled (up to 250,000 people).
A final note about the writer, Mildred Gilman. In addition to being a journalist of both daring and flair, she wrote eight novels including the bestseller Sob Sister. In her younger days she was employed as a secretary for New York World columnist Heywood Broun and partied with Dorothy Parker, Alexander Woollcott, and Robert Benchley. She wrote a profile of Paul Robeson for the Sept. 21, 1928 issue of the New Yorker.
Mildred Gilman in 1938.
* * *
Up In Smoke
George Cecil Cowing, known for his whimsical “Boulevardier” column for the Pasadena Star-News, commented on the changing themes adopted by cigarette manufacturers, namely the folks at R.J. Reynolds who abandoned their magician-themed ads for their Camel brand (“It’s Fun to Be Fooled”) for spots featuring endorsements from second-tier society women…
POSH PUFFERS…”Mrs. Thomas M. Carnegie Jr.” (Virginia Beggs) and “Mrs. J. Gardner Coolidge II” (Mary Louise Coolidge) shared their favorite dishes and their love for smoking Camels in these ads, which appeared in the New Yorker in early 1934.
* * *
From Our Advertisers
Appropriately we turn to our advertisers, where we find the Camel brand trying out a new theme that demonstrated their product’s appeal to plainer folks…
…Brown & Williamson’s first national brand, Raleigh, was launched as a premium cigarette in 1928, here marketed with a plain or cork tip (“to please her and save her lips”)…
…in his parody of Camel ads, George Cecil Cowing wrote that he preferred Chesterfields, a big-time brand of mid-century America…
…the makers of White Rock reveled in the newly found freedoms of legalized alcohol…
…the folks at Fisher were sticking with their lavish two-page color ads and what has always been a tiresome double entendre…
…Lord & Taylor took to the skies to promote their “country clothes” to the smart set…
…and cartoonist Herbert Roese, who apparently never published a cartoon in the New Yorker, turned in this very New Yorker-looking illustration for Piel’s…
…on to our cartoonists, we begin with Clarence Day, better known for his Life With Father stories…
…the Valentine’s issue featured several themed cartoons, including these by Richard Decker…
…and John Reehill…
…love was also in the air for Gilbert Bundy…
…while William Crawford Galbraith continued to ply the waters of the creepily lustful…
…and we test different waters with Richard Yardley, a popular editorial cartoonist for The Baltimore Sun…this is the only cartoon he published in the New Yorker…
…the Westminster Kennel Club dog show was in town, here tapped by Helen Hokinson to also explore the theme of fatherhood…
…Perry Barlow was the latest New Yorker contributor to mock the futuristic, aerodynamic style of Chrysler’s Airflow…
…and James Thurber’s “War Between Men and Women” paused as the two sides made preparations for the next battle…
New Yorkers bid farewell to Prohibition, repealed by the 21st Amendment on Dec. 5, 1933.
Proposed by the 72nd Congress on February 20, 1933, the 21st Amendment to end national prohibition needed ratification from at least thirty-six states—by the end of October twenty-nine had ratified the amendment, and with passage seeming imminent…
Oct. 21, 1933 cover by Harry Brown.
…Manhattan’s venerable grocer turned national wine and spirits distributor Park & Tilford began shipping tens of thousands of cases of “potables” to New York, according to “The Talk of the Town.” Excerpt:
ON THE OFF WAGON…Parched, jubilant Americans ride on carts loaded with liquor prepared for distribution at the end of Prohibition. (Still from Universal News)
Edward Angly, who at the time was a journalist at the Herald-Tribune, tempered the celebratory mood in “A Reporter at Large” by considering the supply and demand issues (and higher prices) consumers would likely face upon ratification.
In early 1934 the Washington Post reported cocktail prices ranged from twenty-five cents (roughly $5.50 today) to forty cents. Whisky by the drink was selling from fifteen cents for blends to twenty-five cents for bonded varieties. One of the “higher priced” stores quoted a price of $3.80 for a quart of Four Roses (roughly eighty bucks today) while you could grab a quart of Crab Orchard straight Bourbon whisky for $1.40.
Until supplies could satisfy demand, distillers were encouraged to perform a “modern loaves-and-fishes miracle” and rectify their small stocks by cutting them with colored and flavored straight alcohol.
YOU CAN COME OUT NOW…With the end of Prohibition, bootleggers considered other career options. (floridamemory.com)
Who else would feel the pinch? In addition to the thousands of speakeasies that would close shop, legions of bootleggers would have to go legit or find another line of vice to keep themselves fed and occupied.
…before I close out this lead story, I came across this obituary for Edward Angly in the Dec. 8, 1951 edition of The New York Times. Note that this clip also features the funeral notice for New Yorker founding editor Harold Ross.
* * *
Name Your Fears
Irish writer and critic Ernest Boyd was for a time connected to the consular service and probably had a pretty good sense of what was to come in Europe. Turning to verse he pondered the origin of the Hitler curse.
* * *
Fat and Happy
Premiered to record-breaking crowds at New York’s Radio City Music Hall, The Private Life of Henry VIII was a smash hit in both the UK and the US and established Charles Laughton as a box office star. Although the film played fast and loose with the historical record, it was a critical success for director/producer Alexander Korda. The New Yorker’s John Mosher was among those praising the British film.
SINKING HIS TEETH INTO A ROLE…Charles Laughton’s portrayal of Henry VIII in The Private Life of Henry VIII is credited with creating the popular image of the king as a fat, lecherous glutton. Top photo features Wendy Barrie as Jane Seymour (wife #3); below, Binnie Barnes as Katherine Howard (wife #5). (moma.org/tcm.com)HAIL TO THE KING…Opening night in London for The Private Life of Henry VIII, Oct. 24, 1933. From left are Elsa Lanchester, who portrayed wife #4 Anne of Cleves; Merle Oberon (who portrayed wife #2 Anne Boleyn), producer/director Alexander Korda, and Charles Laughton. ( Science & Society Picture Library / National Portrait Gallery, London)
* * *
Kid’s Stuff
In her latest “Tables for Two” column, Lois Long bemoaned the state of ballroom dancing, which seemed to be appealing more to juvenile tastes.
SUITABLE FOR ADULT AUDIENCES…Lois Long recalled the cool allure of dancers Leonora Hughes (at left, with dance partner Maurice Mouvet in 1924) and Irene Castle (in a 1929 photo). Both photographs by Edward Steichen for Vanity Fair. (Conde Nast)
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From Our Advertisers
Let it pour indeed, as advertisers anticipated the end of Prohibition…
…Brooklyn-based Piel’s joined other brewers in targeting women as a new growth market, and as in previous New Yorker ads also appealed to those who fancied themselves among the smart set…
…looking for signs of optimism after four years of economic depression? Look no further than luxury shoemaker Nettleton…
…while Nettleton held steady on its prices, the makers of Steinway pianos posted this gentle reminder about rising material costs, but what can you expect if you are purchasing “The Instrument of the Immortals”…
…the Architect’s Emergency Committee continued its campaign to promote the hiring of unemployed architects…in this ad the committee went back to the profession’s ancient origins, Marcus Vitruvius’Virtues of an Architect…
…on to our cartoonists, we begin with more adventures of The Little King, courtesy Otto Soglow…
…William Crawford Galbraith was still stuck on his theme of seductive women either paired with sugar daddies or clueless suitors…
…speaking of clueless, James Thurber gave us this party pooper…
…Gardner Rea checked the economic temperature of the upper crust…
…and we close with William Steig, and an enterprising paperboy…
Above: Maurice Passworthy (Kenneth Villiers) and Catherine Cabel (Pearl Argyle) prepare for a trip to the moon in Things to Come.
In his 1933 science fiction novel The Shape of Things to Come,H.G. Wells foresaw how an international economic depression could eventually lead to world war.
Sept. 2, 1933 cover by William Steig.
The book also predicted that such a war would feature whole cities destroyed by aerial bombing and the eventual development of weapons of mass destruction. However, New Yorker book critic Clifton Fadiman found Wells’ other predictions to be fanciful, “scientific-romantic” notions, such as a post-war Utopia (headquartered in Basra, Iraq, of all places) ruled by super-talents that would advance scientific learning in a world without nation-states or religion. And naturally everyone would speak English.
YOU MAY SAY I’M A DREAMER…H.G. Wells envisioned a world of war, pestilence and economic collapse that would eventually give way to an English-speaking Utopia free of nation-states and religion. (Wikipedia)
Three years later Wells would adapt his book to the screen in 1936’s Things to Come, produced by Alexander Korda and starring Raymond Massey as a heroic RAF pilot John Cabal and Ralph Richardson as “The Boss,” a man who stands in the way of Cabal’s utopian dreams.
FUTURE TENSE…Clockwise, from top left, H.G. Wells visits with actors Pearl Argyle and Raymond Massey on the set of Things to Come—Swiss designer René Hubert created the futuristic costumes; in the year 1970 RAF pilot John Cabal (Massey) lands his sleek monoplane in Everytown, England, proclaiming a new civilization run by a band of enlightened mechanics and engineers; city of the future as depicted in Things to Come; poster for the film’s release. (IMDB)
An afternote: A 1979 Canadian science fiction film titled The Shape of Things to Come was supposedly based on Wells’ novel but bore little resemblance to the book. The film is a considered a turkey, lovingly mocked by the same audiences that gave Plan 9 from Outer Space a second life.
WE MEAN YOU NO HARM…Actor Jack Palance—wearing what appears to be a jug from a water cooler— headed a cast that included Barry Morse and Carol Lynley in 1979’s The Shape of Things to Come.
* * *
Fine Dining
Director George Cukor turned a hit Ferber-Kaufman Broadway play into a hit movie by the same title when Dinner at Eight premiered in September 1933. While the film received high marks from leading critics, New Yorker film reviewer John Mosher found it a bit routine, if well-crafted:
BLONDE ON BLONDE…Judith Wood (left) portrayed the character Kitty Packard in the 1932 stage production of Dinner at Eight; Jean Harlow took on the role for the 1933 film version. (IMDB)
Mosher, however, continued to admire the acting chops of veteran Marie Dressler…
FUNNY LADIES…Clockwise, from top left: Jean Harlow and Marie Dressler square off in Dinner at Eight; movie poster highlights the “Blonde Bombshell” Harlow along with a star-studded cast; a scene with Harlow, Wallace Beery and Edmund Lowe; to avoid wrinkling her gown between takes, Harlow reviewed her lines in a special stand-up chair. (IMDB/pre-code.com)
* * *
Madame Secretary
Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins was the first woman in the U.S. to serve as a cabinet secretary, but she was a lot more that—she was the driving force behind FDR’s New Deal. Here are excerpts from a two-part profile written by Russell Lord, with illustration by Hugo Gellert.
TRIAL BY FIRE…Frances Perkins watched in horror as young women leapt to their deaths in the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire—146 perished on that day Perkins recalled as the moment the New Deal was born her mind. In the wake of the fire Perkins, an established expert on worker health and safety, was named executive secretary of the NYC Committee on Safety. (trianglememorial.org/francesperkinscenter.org)
Even if some men couldn’t come around to a woman moving through the circles of power, Perkins had many admirers including prominent Tammany Hall leader “Big Tim” Sullivan.
Perkins’ appointment to FDR’s cabinet made the Aug. 14, 1933 cover of TIME magazine. (TIME/thoughtco.com)
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From Our Advertisers
Even the staid executives at Packard were getting into the modern advertising game, where sometimes the product itself was not even pictured…
…our cartoonists include Robert Day…
…George Price…
…and baring it all, Peter Arno…
…on to Sept. 9, and what I believe is Alice Harvey’s first New Yorker cover…
Sept. 9, 1933 cover by Alice Harvey.
…and where “The Talk of the Town” paid a visit to the Half Moon Hotel on Coney Island, a favorite haunt of those magnificent men and women and their flying machines:
SHIFTING SANDS…Opened in 1927 to attract upscale crowds to Coney Island away from the rabble of the Midway, the elegant Half Moon Hotel started strong but teetered on the doorstep of bankruptcy during the Depression; it gained notoriety in 1941 when mob turncoat Abe Reles fell to his death from a sixth floor window while under police protection. The hotel was demolished in 1996. (Pinterest)
* * *
Huey In The News
In his column “Of All Things,” Howard Brubaker offered this brief take on Huey Long’s visit to a Long Island party, where one guest apparently socked the controversial “Kingfish,” giving the former Louisiana governor (and then senator) a shiner.
A CHIP ON HIS SHOULDER?…Controversy followed Huey Long wherever he went. At left is a New York Times account of Long’s alleged black eye incident on Long Island. He would be assassinated two years later at the Louisiana State Capitol; Long circa 1933. (NYT/Wikipedia)
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More From Our Advertisers
As a follow-up from the previous issue’s Packard ad, this two-page spread showed us what those 1200 men were gawking at…check out that 12-cylinder model on the left, which appears to be better than 20 feet long…
…according to this ad, you could thank Camel cigarettes for getting the mail through the gloom of night…
…if you needed a cigarette to steady your nerves, you also needed fresh coffee to avoid being ostracized by your friends…
…summer-stock barn theatres were popular across America in the 1930s…this ad (illustrated by Wallace Morgan) hailed the end of the summer season and the return of “Winter Broadway”…
…on to our cartoons, out in the countryside we also find William Crawford Galbraith, here continuing to ply one of his favorite themes, namely pairing shapely seductresses and showgirls with clueless suitors…
…Helen Hokinson gave us one woman who believed “what happens in the Riviera, stays in the Riviera”…
…and we close with Gardner Rea, and a scout troop on a mission…
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)
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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)
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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…
As we enter the summer months we find the recurring themes of June brides…and German Nazis…
May 27, 1933 cover by Constantin Alajalov.
Those Nazis were on the mind of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt when he wrote to the sixty participating nations at the Geneva Disarmament Conference, imploring them to eliminate all weapons of offensive warfare. As we now know, it was a plea that mostly fell on deaf ears, notably those of the leaders of Japan and Germany. E.B. White offered this observation:
GIVE PEACE A CHANCE?…Sixty countries sent delegates to the Geneva Disarmament Conference in 1932–33. Germany was represented by Nazi Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda Joseph Goebbels (front row, center), that is until his country pulled out of the conference and continued its massive arms buildup. (Library of Congress)
Howard Brubaker was also keeping an eye on FDR’s efforts to hold off the rising powers in Europe and Asia…
WAR AND PEACE…On May 16, 1933, Franklin D. Roosevelt pleaded with the world’s nations to consider total disarmament of all offensive weapons. In the meantime, Adolf Hitler led the rapid rearmament of Germany (right) while Chinese soldiers (below) did what they could to counter the latest Japanese offensive—the invasion of Jehol Province. (Wikimedia/Pinterest)
* * *
Writer of Lost Causes
The short story “Pop” would be Sherwood Anderson’s first contribution to The New Yorker. Anderson was known for his stories about loners and losers in American life, including Pop Porter, whose sad, drunken death is described in the closing lines:
NO EXIT…Best known for his 1919 novel Winesburg, Ohio,Sherwood Anderson (1876–1941) took an unsentimental view of American life. He would contribute six short stories to The New Yorker from 1933 to 1936. Photo above by Edward Steichen, circa 1926. (NYT)
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From Our Advertisers
The German Tourist Information Office welcomed visitors to “witness the rebirth of a nation,” promising a land of “new ideas and broader visions” that would bestow on travelers “undying memories endlessly renewed”…
…Those “undying memories” might have included massive, country-wide book burnings that took place on May 10, 1933, when students in 34 university towns across Germany burned more than 25,000 “un-German” books…
FANNING FLAMES OF HATE…On May 10, 1933, student supporters of the Nazi Party burned thousands of volumes of “un-German” books in the square in front of the Berlin State Opera. (Bundesarchiv)
…knowing where all of this would lead, it is hard to look at this next ad and not think of the Luftwaffe raining death from the skies later in that decade…
…so for the time being we’ll turn to something less menacing, like checkered stockings, here resembling one of John Held Jr’s woodcuts…
…and this crudely illustrated ad (which originally appeared in one column)…call your buddy a fatso and the next thing you know he’s moving to Tudor City…
…and from the makers of Lucky Strikes, a back cover ad that provided a thematic bookend to Constantin Alajalov’s cover art…
…James Thurber kicks off the cartoons with this sad clown…
…atop the Empire State Building, Daniel ‘Alain’ Brustlein found more than just a view of the city (it’s former governor Al Smith!)…
…Otto Soglow’s Little King got his vision checked, in his own way…
…a loose button threatened to bring down a nation…per Gardner Rea…
…and we take a leisurely Sunday drive, Peter Arno style…
…on to the June 3, 1933 issue…
June 3, 1933 cover by Adolph K. Kronengold.
…where we appropriately look to the skyline, which was giving Lewis Mumford a crick in the neck…
THAT’LL DO…Lewis Mumford was not a fan of giant skyscrapers, but when the architects of the Empire State Building turned their attention to the Insurance Company of North America building at 99 John Street, Mumford found a design that could serve as a model for future business buildings. (Museum of the City of New York)CONVERSION THERAPY…the Insurance Company of North America building now houses modern loft condominiums known as 99 John Deco Lofts. (nest seekers.com).
Later in the column Mumford called skyscrapers “insupportable” luxuries, arguing instead for long, shallow buildings rising no more than ten stories.
* * *
The Stars Align
Film critic John Mosher was delightfully surprised by International House, a film loaded with some of the era’s top comedic stars along with other entertainers.
CLUTCH THOSE PEARLS…The risqué subject matter of International House had the Legion of Decency up in arms, but it left critic John Mosher in stitches thanks to the antics of Edmund Breese, Peggy Hopkins and W.C. Fields (top photo). Below, a publicity photo for International House with George Burns, Gracie Allen, Franklin Pangborn and W.C. Fields. (IMDB)
The film featured an array of entertainers including Peggy Hopkins (more famous as a real-life golddigger than an actress), the comedy duo Burns and Allen, W.C. Fields, Bela Lugosi, Cab Calloway, Rudy Valley and Baby Rose Marie.
ALL THE WORLD’S A STAGE…Ten-year-old Rose Marie Mazzetta, known in 1933 as the child performer Baby Rose Marie, sings a number atop a piano in a scene from International House. Thirty years later Rose Marie would appear on The Dick Van Dyke Show as television comedy writer Sally Rogers (pictured here with co-stars Dick Van Dyke and Morey Amsterdam. (WSJ/LA Times)
* * *
The New Germany, Part II
The June 3 “Out of Town” column took a look at life in Berlin as well as the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair. The piece is signed “A.L.”, leading me to believe it might be A.J. Liebling (author of one of my faves, Between Meals), but he didn’t start at The New Yorker until 1935. At any rate the article seems to dismiss the crackdown on Berlin’s cultural life as a mere inconvenience.
NEW THEME, NEW OWNERSHIP…The article mentions the closing of the Eldorado night club in Berlin, famed for its drag shows and other naughty diversions. Images above show the before and after the Nazis redecorated. (lonesomereader.com)
* * *
From Our Advertisers
More propaganda from Germany, where everything is sweet and bright away from the din of the city and the sound of marching jackboots and the crash of broken glass…
…an unusual ad from Cadillac, which barely mentions the automobile but goes full bore on the June bride theme…
…the folks at Camel went full color in their latest installment of “It’s Fun to be Fooled”…in this strip Jack gets his friend Ellie hooked on his cigarette brand…
…looking for fresher air, well you could get a window air conditioner from the folks at Campbell Metal Window Corporation…however, these units were only available to the very wealthy, roughly costing more than $25,000 apiece (more than half a million today)…
…better to take a drive a catch the breeze with this smart pair…
…and fight off those pesky bugs with a blast of Flit, as illustrated by Dr. Seuss before he became a children’s author…
…Richard Decker picked up some extra cash illustrating this ad for Arrow shirts…
…which segues to our other New Yorker cartoonists, such as H.O. Hoffman…
…and yet another bride, with sugar daddy, courtesy of Whitney Darrow Jr…
…William Crawford Galbraith continued his exploration into the lives of showgirls…
…Gardner Rea gave us this helpful switchboard operator…
…Carl Rose showed us how the posh set got into the spirit of the Depression-era farm program…
…George Price was getting into familiar domestic territory…
…and on this Father’s Day, we close with some fatherly advice from James Thurber…
Above, Donald Deskey's Design for a Sportshack, 1940 (Cooper Hewitt)
If you’ve never heard of Donald Deskey, you’ve most likely seen his work.
Feb. 25, 1933 cover by Rea Irvin.
Cultural critic Gilbert Seldes featured Deskey in the Feb. 25 profile (“The Long Road to Roxy” — with illustration by Al Frueh), noting that his subject had come to his profession as an industrial designer in a rather roundabout fashion. Here is a brief excerpt:
Deskey (1894 – 1989) was locally known in the late 1920s for his window displays at New York’s Franklin Simon Department Store, but it was his work at Roxy Rothafel’s new Radio City Music Hall that made him a marquee name in the design world. Although known for popularizing the Art Deco style, his interior designs for RCMH were noted for their restraint, signaling a break from the lavish, ornate designs of the city’s earlier performance spaces.
FEAST FOR THE EYES…Donald Deskey designed more than thirty spaces in Radio City Music Hall, including the Grand Foyer (left) and several lounges, each featuring a distinct visual motif. At bottom right, auditorium’s “Singing Woman” carpeting. (archdaily.com/drivingfordeco.com)
Original Deskey creations are highly prized today by collectors and museums…
DESIGN IN MOTION…Clockwise, from top left, Deskey’s “Guest Bedroom for Mrs. John D. Rockefeller, Jr.” (Abby Aldrich Rockefeller), on display at the 1931 American Union of Decorative Artists exhibition; Deskey table lamp, circa 1927; linen panel, circa 1930s; Deskey desk, circa 1930. (brooklynmuseum.org/artic.edu/Pinterest)
…and if that wasn’t enough, Deskey also designed logos for many consumer products in the late 1940s and 1950s…
THE TOTAL PACKAGE…Deskey designed some of the most iconic logos of midcentury America, including, clockwise from top left, Tide laundry detergent (1947); Gleem (1956) and Crest (1955) toothpastes; Cheer laundry detergent (1952); JIF peanut butter (1956) and Joy dishwashing liquid (1950).
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From Our Advertisers
It seems appropriate to follow Mr. Deskey with some words and images from our sponsors, including the folks at Cadillac who continued to hammer home the snob appeal of their motorcar while also giving a nod to those hard times by emphasizing the car’s economy…
…meanwhile, Studebaker was back with another full page ad — again featuring the admiring giant woman — in a vain attempt to push their fledgling, and unpopular line of Rockne automobiles…
…and Helena Rubenstein continued her series of ads disguised as advice columns…the advice here was to shame women into buying her products…
…after Helena removed your wrinkles you could restore them with GE’s Mazda sunlight lamp…
…Otto Soglow, on the brink of becoming a very wealthy man thanks to his Little King cartoons, continued to lay down some ink on behalf of the makers of Sanka decaf…
…and we move along to Soglow’s fellow cartoonists, beginning with Gardner Rea and a cartoon sequence spread across pages 24-25…
…here it is again, rearranged for closer inspection…
…and we have another terrific “Fellow Citizens” drawing by Gluyas Williams, which originally ran sideways on a full page…
…I like this James Thurber drawing for its utter disregard of scale — but of course (and thankfully) it wouldn’t be a Thurber if he cared about such things…
…William Crawford Galbraith was still hung up on showgirls and sirens…
…while Peter Arno explored his spiritual side, as only Arno could…
…and we move along to March 4, 1933…
March 4, 1933 cover by Rea Irvin.
…in which The New Yorker’s Paris correspondent Janet Flanner (“Genêt”) wrote about a new book of “extreme interest to both sides of the Atlantic”…
BOOK OF REVELATION…Alice B. Toklas and Gertrude Stein were well known in the ex-pat community of 1920s Paris, but the publication of the American edition of The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas (written by Stein) brought them fame in the wider world. Stein claimed she wrote the book — now considered a 20th century classic — in six weeks to amuse herself and to make money. At right, Toklas and Stein at 27 Rue de Fleurus in a portrait by Man Ray, 1922. (Library of Congress)
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Hope Springs Eternal
Even in the deepest depths of the Depression signs of hope abounded in works of public art, including a mosaic of one million hand-cut and hand-set glass tiles being prepared for the Sixth Avenue entrance to Rockefeller Center. Intelligence Awakening Mankind, by Barry Faulkner, celebrated the triumph of knowledge over the evil of ignorance. “The Talk of the Town” explained:
GOOD VIBES…Details of Intelligence Awakening Mankind include the central figure of Intelligence (top) sending knowledge into the far corners of the world. (Pinterest)
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From Our Advertisers
The folks at luxury brand Packard continued to counter their stodgy image with ads that emphasized other qualities including speed, durability, and here, serenity…despite the lengthy text, the ad also suggested modernity, with the sliced-off image and the single word “Hush!” to entice prospective buyers…
…if you couldn’t afford $3,720 for a 12-cylinder Packard, then you might have considered a Buick, “livable as a fine home” this ad claimed. And look at that back seat — you could comfortably fit three adults and a baby elephant in there…
…and then there’s Hupmobile — for the price of a Packard 12 you could have purchased three Hupmobile Victorias (pictured below) with a good chunk of change left over…here the company celebrates its silver anniversary…a couple of odd facts: in 1914 a Minnesota Hupmobile salesman used an unsold vehicle to found Greyhound bus lines…the National Football League also traces its origins to Hupmobile — the league was created in 1920 at a Hupmobile dealership in Canton, Ohio…both Greyhound and the NFL survive Hupmobile, which went belly up in 1939…
…and now we move to the world of fashion, and some cultural appropriation by Lord & Taylor…
…in 1929 J. Walter Thompson President Stanley Resor observed how people instinctively wanted to be told what to do by authorities they respected. Applying this thinking to the marketing of Pond’s cold cream, Resor’s firm hired famed photographers to create idealized portraits of society women…
…Writing for Indy Week (July 7, 2010) Amy White observes that a 1933 portrait (above) of Mrs. Reginald Vanderbilt, aka Gloria Mercedes Morgan, reveals patrician eyes as “languid jet pools, her lips full and dark, her finely coiffed hair oiled to ebony perfection. However, a bit of backstory might explain the painful and hollow look Mrs. Vanderbilt can barely suppress. In that same year, she was declared by the courts to be unfit as a parent, and her young daughter was placed under the guardianship of her sister, Gertrude.” That young daughter, Gloria Vanderbilt, would later find fame for her designer jeans, her glittering lifestyle, and as mother of newscaster Anderson Cooper. White concludes, “I wonder if somehow, subconsciously, those consumers saw the pain in the eyes of some of those upper-crust spokeswomen, and it was basic humanness and empathy, as well as desire for wealth and beauty, that won them over”…
Mrs. Reginald Vanderbilt, aka Gloria Mercedes Morgan, and her daughter, “Little Gloria,” in 1928. (Wikipedia)
…and we move along to the toasted pleasures of Luckies, and Howard Chandler Christy’s “Christy Girl” looking the picture of health and vitality in this back cover ad…
…we make an abrupt switch to the cheaper ads in the magazine’s nether pages…here “Miss Eleanor, formerly with Mme. Binner,” announced her selection of modern corsets for the “debutante and young matron”…and below, in a sign of the times, repossessed homes for sale…
…looks like Fifi had a bit too much of the Green Ribbon-flavored bootleg…
…and if you thought taking probiotics was a new thing…
…the French Line once again featured the art of James Thurber to promote its Mediterranean cruises…
…and Thurber kicks off our cartoons with spot art that headed the “Goings On About Town” section…
…and this gem with one of Thurber’s beloved dogs…
…below is the second New Yorker cartoon by Gruff with the “Buy American” slogan juxtaposed with an ethnic stereotype…I have no idea who this artist is, or if “Gruff” is a pen name — the style looks familiar but I haven’t had any luck chasing this artist down…
…here is the first one from the Feb. 18 issue…
…but we all know Al Frueh, who contributed this delightful bit of art to the theater review section…
…Daniel ‘Alain’ Brustlein gave us an enterprising Frenchman offering peeks at exiled New York Mayor Jimmy Walker sunning on a beach at Cannes…
…and we close with Peter Arno, and the first signs of spring…
Lois Long welcomed 1933 by venturing out into the New Year’s nightclub scene…
Jan. 28, 1933 cover by William Steig.
…where she encountered the new Paradise Cabaret Restaurant at Broadway and 49th, where there was no cover charge and not much covering the showgirls, either…
THE GANG’S ALL HERE…Everyone from gangsters to sugar daddies (and a number of New Yorker staffers) took in the sights and sounds of the Paradise Cabaret Restaurant (shown here in 1937). (Pinterest)THE SPIRIT OF NEKKIDNESS, as Lois Long put it in her “Tables for Two” column, could be found at the Paradise Cabaret Restaurant: clockwise, from top left, marquee on the corner of the Brill Building advertises a 1936 appearance of the comedy team of Dewey Barto and George Mann (photo by George Mann via Flickr); menu cover made it clear that food was not the main attraction at the Paradise; a 1933 poster advertising “a Galaxy of Stars”; a 1943 “Paradise Girls” poster; circa 1930s matchbook; circa 1930s noisemaker. (Flickr/picclick/Pinterest)THE LONG AND SHORT OF IT…known as the “laugh kings” of vaudeville, the comedy team of Barto and Mann rehearse at the Paradise in 1936. Their humor played on their disparities in height — Barto was under 5′ and Mann was 6’6″. If Mann (top right) looks familiar, later in life he portrayed “King Vitaman” in commercials for the breakfast cereal of the same name. As I recall it tasted like Cap’n Crunch. (Wikipedia)
While Mann went on to become King Vitaman, another Paradise performer, 16-year-old Hope Chandler, found the love of her life while performing in next-to-nothing at the Paradise…
SHE WAS ONLY SIXTEEN…Hope Chandler’s photo (right) was featured on the Dec. 20, 1937 cover of LIFE Magazine, which proclaimed the 16-year-old as the “Prettiest Girl in Paradise”. Photo at left was included in the magazine article. (Twitter)
…namely the 22-year-old son of William Randolph Hearst, who spotted Chandler during one of his visits to the Paradise. David Whitmire Hearst married Chandler in 1938 and they lived happily ever until his death in 1986.
YOUNG LOVE…David Whitmire Hearst and his new wife, Hope Chandler, after their wedding ceremony in New York, 1938. They would be married 48 years until David’s death in 1986. Hope would remain active in the Hearst organization until her death at age 90 in 2012. (Tumblr)
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Tragic Opera
Yes, the lovers die at the end of Tristan und Isolde, but for New York opera buffs the real tragedy belonged to Samuel Insull (1859–1938), a Chicago utilities magnate responsible for building a new Chicago Civic Opera House in 1929. When Insull’s opera house went bust in 1932, the Met landed two of its principal stars. Robert Simon reported for the New Yorker:
CHICAGO’S FINEST…Soprano Frida Leider (left) and mezzo-contralto Maria Olszewska were stars of the Chicago Opera from 1928 to 1932. When the company went belly-up, the singers headed for New York to appear in a much-acclaimed performance of Tristan und Isolde. (metoperafamily.org)
Insull was a famed innovator and investor who was a driving force behind creating an integrated electrical infrastructure in the U.S. In 1925 he addressed the financial difficulties of the Chicago opera community with a proposal to build a skyscraper with an opera house on the ground floor — he thought the rental of office space would cover the opera company’s expenses. The building was completed in 1929 — the same year as the market crash — and suddenly his grand plan didn’t look so grand.
Then Insull’s companies went under, and he was charged with fraud and embezzlement. He fled to Europe, but in 1934 he was arrested in Istanbul and brought back to Chicago to stand trial. Although he was acquitted, he was left a broken (and broke) man, his $3 billion utilities empire in shambles.
DUELING ARIAS…New York’s rival in the opera scene, the Chicago Civic Opera erected this skyscraper in 1929 with the help of Samuel Insull; a door at the Cook County jail in Chicago is opened for Insull in May 1934, his $3 billion utilities empire in shambles. He was unable to raise the $200,000 bail in fraud charges, which were eventually dismissed; New York’s Metropolitan Opera House in 1909. (classicchicagomagazine.com/Wikipedia)FAME TO INFAMY…Insull’s appearances on the cover of Time said it all: left to right: issues from November 29, 1926; November 4, 1929; and May 14, 1934. (classicchicagomagazine.com)
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From Land to Sea
The National Auto Show left town to be followed by the annual Boat Show at the Grand Central Palace, featuring boats that were priced to meet the needs of some Depression-era buyers:
CRUISIN’ CRUISETTE…You could buy an Elco Cruisette for just under $3,000 in 1933, but that was roughly equivalent to $64,000 today, so it was still out of reach for most Americans in the 1930s. (Pinterest)
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From Our Advertisers
Yes, the boat show was in town, but automobile manufacturers were still making their points to potential customers including Chrysler, one of the New Yorker’s biggest advertisers in the early 1930s…here’s a two-page spread for the Dodge 8…
…Chrysler’s DeSoto line claimed a luxurious interior that would inspire even regular folks to put on the “haughty air” of a French Duchess…
…on the other hand, the folks at Cadillac went for understatement with this announcement of a limited edition V-16…
…with 16 cylinders under the hood, this thing could really tear down the road, but it was the Depression, and even though this edition was limited to just 400 cars, only 125 were sold…
(supercars.net)
…it really bothers me that the Savoy Plaza Hotel (1927) was knocked down in 1965 and replaced by the monolithic GM Building…and look, in 1933 you could get a single room for five bucks a night…
…maybe you’d rather take to the seas on the Hamburg-American Line…
The SS Reliance in 1937. Gutted by fire in 1938, she was scrapped in 1941. (Wikipedia)
…or you could chase away the winter blues in a steaming bath that the folks at Cannon Towels called “almost the ultimate in mortal content”…
…and no doubt a few lit up a Camel or two during their soak…note the tagline “I’d walk a mile for a Camel!”…it was a slogan the brand used for decades…
…I still remember these from when I was a kid…
…on to our cartoons, and we begin with William Crawford Galbraith, still up to his old tricks…
…Gilbert Bundy gave this exchange between old mates…
…Alan Dunn showed us what happens when you hire a chatty governess…
…in the spirit of the 2022 Winter Olympics, one from George Shellhase…
…and we close with James Thurber, and the trials of married life…
Above: “The Fountain of Youth” mural by Ezra Winter in the Main Foyer of Radio City Music Hall. (Architectural Digest)
The opening of two new theaters at Rockefeller Center no doubt brightened a few souls at the start of 1933, but art and architecture critic Lewis Mumford wasn’t particularly dazzled by the “watered-down” modernism of the buildings’ much-ballyhooed decor.
Jan. 7, 1933 cover by Rea Irvin, in a nod to the annual automobile show in New York City.
Oddly, it was a philosophy professor from Nebraska, Hartley Burr Alexander, who was tasked with creating an artistic vision for Rockefeller Center, developed along the theme of “Frontiers of Time.” According to Mumford, Alexander’s “classic-banal” vision, executed under the “virtuous glare” of theatrical impresario Samuel L. “Roxy” Rothafel, resulted in the first “large-scale vulgar tryout of modern art.” Excerpts from Mumford’s column:
Several aluminum sculptures in Radio City Music Hall no doubt pleased Mumford — Gwen Lux’sEve sculpture, William Zorach’s Spirit of the Dance, and Robert Laurent’sGoose Girl. However, thanks to Roxy Rothafel’s “virtuous glare” and worries that the nudes might hurt ticket sales, all three sculptures were temporarily banned from RCMH.
NAKED AND AFRAID…A flare-up of puritanism led to the temporary removal of aluminum sculptures at Radio City Music Hall. At left, Eve by Gwen Lux; Robert Laurent (right) working on Goose Girl in his studio. Below, William Zorach’s Spirit of the Dance. (Smithsonian/viewingnyc.com)
Radio City Music Hall also featured an array of murals that should have brought some delight to Mumford…
SHOW BEFORE THE SHOW…Radio City Music Hall featured a number of murals including, clockwise from top left, a detail of Donald Deskey’sThe History of Nicotine (The Life of Saint Nicotine) in a second floor men’s lounge; a textile piece titled The History of Theatre by Ruth Reeves, which covers the back wall of Radio City Music Hall; Stuart Davis’s mural Men without Women in the men’s lounge; Yasuo Kuniyoshi’s mural in the women’s powder room. (melwithpals.medium.com/viewingnyc.com/evergreen.com)
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Mea Cuppa
“The Talk of the Town” shared this account of fifteen Harvard freshman who dared to pay a call on the home of visiting poet T.S. Eliot…
TEA-DIUM…Fifteen nervous Harvard freshman confronted this visage until one of them finally broke the ice. Photo above taken during one of T.S. Eliot’s visits to Monk’s House, the 16th century cottage of Virginia Woolf. (blogs.harvard.edu)
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Country Cousins
During his 1932 presidential campaign Franklin D. Roosevelt paid a Sept. 29 visit to the Waterloo, Nebraska farm of Gustav “Gus” and Mary (Kenneway) Sumnick. Mary served FDR a chicken dinner and pie before he addressed a crowd of 8,000 at a rally on the Sumnick farm. Gustav, a German immigrant, and Mary, a daughter of Irish immigrants, were successful farmers even during those tough years. The visit would turn the Sumnicks into national celebrities, and in later years FDR would return to visit the family and would also stay in touch by telephone. Howard Brubaker, in “Of All Things,” made this observation about the celebrated farm family:
TIME FOR SOME VIDDLES!…Mary Sumnick chats with presidential candidate Franklin D. Roosevelt during his Sept. 29, 1932 visit to the Sumnick farm. (douglascohistory.org)ENOUGH FOR A FOOTBALL TEAM…A lengthy article in the Dec. 4, 1932 New York Times described life on the Sumnick farm and their upcoming visit with President Roosevelt in the spring. Gus and Mary and their 11 children all planned to make the trip. (NYT)
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The Gang’s All Here
Siblings Ethel, John and Lionel Barrymore of the famed Barrymore theatrical family appeared together in just one film — Rasputin and the Empress — and you would think that would have been enough to guarantee multiple awards along with box office gold. However, the film actually lost money, and on top of that attracted a lawsuit that further dipped into the pockets of MGM producer Irving Thalberg. Critic John Mosher was wowed by Ethel’s performance, but wasn’t exactly charmed by the overall production:
ACTING ROYALTY ACTING ROYAL…John Barrymore, Ethel Barrymore, and Lionel Barrymore with child actor Tad Alexander in Rasputin and the Empress. It is only film in which all three siblings appeared together. (Pinterest)
About that lawsuit: The film used the real-life Princess Irina Yusupov as a model for Princess Natasha, portrayed by English actress Diana Wynyard. The film implied that Rasputin raped Princess Natasha (that is, Irina), which wasn’t true, so she sued MGM and won $127,373 from an English court; MGM reportedly settled out of court in New York for the sum of $250,000 (roughly equivalent to nearly $5 million today). The ubiquitous “all persons fictitious” disclaimer that appears in TV and film credits is the result of that lawsuit.
NO HARD FEELINGS?…English actress Diana Wynyard (left) portrayed Princess Natasha in the Barrymore family vehicle Rasputin and the Empress. Her portrayal, however, drew the ire of a real Russian royal, Princess Irina Yusupov, who successfully sued MGM in 1933 for invasion of privacy and libel. (Wikipedia)
A much-less controversial film was the “glib” No Man of Her Own, a pre-Code romantic comedy-drama starring Clark Gable and Carole Lombard in their only film together:
LET’S PLAY HOUSE…Clark Gable romances Carole Lombard in the pre-Code romantic comedy-drama No Man of Her Own. It was their only film together, and several years before they became a married couple in real life. (ha.com)
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Vroom-Vroom
The annual National Automobile Show opened at the Grand Central Palace and other locations in Midtown, promising an array of affordable models:
DECISIONS, DECISIONS… The 1933 National Automobile Show offered a number of affordable options to car buyers including these shiny new Pontiacs on display at the Grand Central Palace. (libwww.freelibrary.org)BUT LOOK OVER HERE…General Motors also displayed its models at the first “Motorama” held in the Waldorf-Astoria’s Grand Ballroom in 1933. (waldorfnewyorkcity.com)
Auto Show visitors also got a glimpse of their streamlined future in the form of a 1933 Pierce-Arrow Silver Arrow…
FAST & FURIOUS…Powered by a V12 engine, the aerodynamic 1933 Pierce-Arrow Silver Arrow could exceed 100 miles per hour. Unveiled at the 1933 National Automobile Show, the car grabbed the spotlight with its futuristic, streamlined design. Just five of these were built, and only three are known to exist today. The Silver Arrow was one of Pierce-Arrow’s final attempts to appeal to its wealthy clientele, but even they were feeling Depression’s pinch. The company folded in 1938. (Sotheby’s)
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From Our Advertisers
The New Yorker had unusually thin issues over the holidays, so the magazine’s bean-counters must have been thrilled by the dozens of ads that poured in ahead of the National Automobile Show. As usual Walter Chrysler took out several two-page ads to promote his Chryslers, Plymouths, Dodges and DeSotos…
…while GM one-upped Walter with its own series of two-pagers — in color — sprinkled throughout the magazine…everything from the affordable Oldsmobile…
…to the high-end Cadillac…
…General Motors also featured this Peter Arno-themed ad (with sugar-daddy walrus) to promote its posh new venue at the Waldorf-Astoria…
…the folks at struggling Hupmobile tried to wow not with shiny cars but rather with the announcement of their…drum roll, please…annual report…
…companies that supported the auto industry also got in on the act, including the makers of leaded fuel…this image says a lot about the lack of safety concerns in the 1930s…
…John Hanrahan, who early on served as the New Yorker’s policy council and guided it through its lean first years, became the publisher of Stage magazine (formerly The Theatre Guild Magazine) in 1932. In 1933 Stage became part of the Ultra-Class Magazine Group’s line-up that included Arts & Decoration and The Sportsman. Stage published its last issue in 1939, and I don’t believe the other two survived the 1930s either…
ULTRA-CLASS GROUP was the over-the-top name used to describe this line-up of magazines.
…on to our cartoons, we join Peter Arno for some fine dining…
…based on the what we have seen lately from William Crawford Galbraith, he seems to be hung up on seductresses and showgirls…
…to my point, some of Galbraith’s recent entries…
…we move on to Richard Decker and a dangerous cold front…
…Garrett Price pondered the wisdom of children…
…Gluyas Williams was back with the latest industrial crisis…
…Perry Barlow found some ill-fitting words to go with an ill-fitting coat…
…and we close with James Thurber, and some very fitting words for those times, and ours…
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…
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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)
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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)
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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)…
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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)
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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…
He was variously a restaurateur, con man and actor, but one thing Prince Michael Alexandrovitch Dmitry Obolensky Romanoff was not was a prince.
Oct. 29, 1932 cover by Adolph K. Kronengold.
But apparently to many movers and shakers he was a lot of fun, and so much of a character that Alva Johnston penned a five-part profile of Romanoff. A brief excerpt of Part One:
Born Hershel Geguzin in Lithuania, Romanoff (1890–1971) immigrated to New York City in 1900 and changed his name to Harry F. Gerguson. An odd-jobber and sometime crook (passing bad checks, etc.), at some point Romanoff raised the ante to become a professional imposter, and among other guises began passing himself off as a member of Russia’s royal House of Romanov. Few believed him, but it didn’t matter because his antics (aided by an eager press) got him invited to all sorts of soirees. And what better place than America to re-invent yourself, and especially Hollywood, where in 1941 Romanoff cashed in on his fame to establish a popular Rodeo Drive restaurant.
ALL THAT GLITTERS…Although Romanoff’s attracted all matter of glitterati, from Sophia Loren and Jayne Mansfield (in a famous photo) to Marilyn Monroe and Clark Gable, Romanoff mostly ignored his clientele, preferring to dine with his dogs. (stuffymuffy.com)
Here’s the terrific cover of the Romanoff’s menu:
Romanoff appeared in various films — both credited and uncredited — from 1937 to 1967…
ON THE SCREEN…Michael Romanoff (right) with Louis Calhern in 1948’s Arch of Triumph. (IMDB)
…and apparently he didn’t ignore all celebrities…
…AND OFF…Romanoff in the 1950s and early 60s with some of his pals including, clockwise, from top left, Cary Grant, Humphrey Bogart, rat-packers Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra, and Bob Hope. (Pinterest)
…and if you are hungry for more, there is a recipe named for Romanoff, still available from the folks at Betty Crocker:
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Return to Sender
In his “Notes and Comment,” E.B. White exposed the corrupt ways of the Tammany-dominated Department of Taxes and Assessments thanks to the New Yorker’s fictional figurehead Eustace Tilley:
IN ARREARS…Neither death, nor taxes, bothered the inimitable Eustace Tilley.
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Chinese Checkered
White actors portraying Asian characters was all too common in the 20th century (and still persists to this day) but Alla Nazimova’s portrayal of O-Lan in the Guild Theatre’s stage adaptation of Pearl Buck’sThe Good Earth was just too much for critic Robert Benchley:
WHAT’S SO GOOD ABOUT IT?…Claude Rains as Wang Lung and Alla Nazimova as O-Lan in the Guild Theatre’s The Good Earth. At right, Nazimova as O-Lan. (allanazimova.com)
In all fairness to Rains and Nazimova, many of their white Hollywood compatriots portrayed Asian characters, including Katherine Hepburn in another adaptation of a Pearl Buck novel:
IN ON THE ACT…Luise Rainer as O-Lan and Paul Muni as Wang Lung in the 1937 film adaptation of Pearl Buck’sThe Good Earth; at right, Katherine Hepburn in the 1944 film adaptation of Buck’s Dragon Seed. For the record, the New Yorker’s John Mosher called the 1937 film “vast and rich.” (IMDB/history.com)
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From Our Advertisers
We begin with some good old-fashioned sexism from the makers of Packard automobiles…if this woman had a job outside of the home (uncommon before the war) she could have just gone and bought the damn car…right?…
…and don’t forget the ANTI-FREEZE, as this two-page ad from Union Carbide helpfully suggested (Prestone anti-freeze, that is, not the other crap on the market)…
…some back-page ads…the one on right featured a rather somber-looking Jack Denny, appearing at the Waldorf’s famed Empire Room…and then there is the Schick Dry Shaver…I owned a Schick in the 1980s and had a permanent 5 o’clock shadow until I switched to blades; I can’t imagine how these things would have performed 89 years ago…
…cartoonist Otto Soglow continued to extoll the virtues of decaf coffee…
…and on to our cartoons, William Crawford Galbraith eavesdropped on a backstage political discussion…
…Peter Arno found a lovelorn soul in a furniture department…
…Soglow again, this time hinting at the Little King’s naughty side…
…as a former newspaper editor, this entry from Garrett Price really hit home…I used to get calls about all sorts of interesting critters and misshapen vegetables…
…Rea Irvin gave us a former bank teller all washed up by the Depression…
…and James Thurber continued to explore the growing war between the sexes…
…we continue on to Nov. 5, 1932…
Nov. 5, 1932 cover by William Cotton.
…and this observation by E.B. White on the state of cigarette ads, namely the latest from Lucky Strike…
…one of the ads that caught White’s eye…
…the Nov. 5 issue featured another edition of the parody newspaper “The Blotz,” but what caught my eye was the upper right-hand corner…
…intended as a joke, of course, referring to political changes in Germany…but to our eyes quite ominous…
…and here we have a Lord & Taylor ad that begs the question, “What’s wrong with this picture?” Aside from the weirdly attenuated figures (admittedly standard in fashion illustration), the fellow in the lounger appears to be sitting at floor level, contemplating a photograph that seems to be of some interest to his companions, none of whom appear to be all that cheerful…
…the Nov. 5 issue also offered readers several options for stockings…
…on to our cartoonists, James Thurber provided these sketches for the magazine’s football column (except the one at bottom left, which appeared in the events section in the Oct. 29 issue)…
…Americans were turning out for the 1932 presidential elections, some in their own way per Helen Hokinson…
…twenty-year old Syd Hoff gave us some late night hijinks…
…William Crawford Galbraith continued to probe the entertainment world…
…and we close with Alan Dunn, who takes us out with a bang…
A New Yorker State of Mind 