Winnie the Pooh – A New Yorker State of Mind

Above: Cover of Sinclair Lewis's 1935 novel about a fascist takeover of America, It Can't Happen Here. At right, 22,000 people attended a Nazi rally at Madison Square Garden on February 20, 1939. (Wikipedia/Reddit)

Ninety years ago Sinclair Lewis published It Can’t Happen Here, a dystopian novel that responded to the rise of fascism in Europe as well as to American demagogues like Louisiana Senator Huey Long.

October 26, 1935 cover by Roger Duvoisin. Duvoisin (1900–1980) was a Swiss-born American writer and illustrator best known for children’s picture books. He illustrated 32 covers for *The New Yorker,* along with five cartoons. Duvoisin won the Caldecott Medal in 1948 (along with author **Alvin Tresselt**) for *White Snow, Bright Snow.*

In his 2016 New Yorker article, “Getting Close to Fascism with Sinclair Lewis’s ‘It Can’t Happen Here,'” journalist Alexander Nazaryan notes how Lewis was arguing for journalism and civic education as essential pillars of democracy. The title of Lewis’s book, Nazaryan observes, suggests that ‘It’ was something more subtle: “a collective apathy, born of ignorance, and a populace that can no longer make the kind of judgments that participatory democracy requires.”

Lewis’s novel also made book critic Clifton Fadiman sit up and take notice. Here are excerpts from the first part of his review:

HOME-GROWN…American fascism was represented by organizations such as the German American Bund, the Silver Legion of America, and radio host Charles Coughlin, who opposed the New Deal and promoted conspiracy theories and antisemitic views. Clockwise, from top left: Nearly a thousand uniformed men wearing swastika arm bands and carrying Nazi banners parade past a reviewing stand in New Jersey on July 18, 1937. The New Jersey division of the German-American Bund had opened the 100-acre Camp Nordland at Sussex Hills; **Huey Long** in 1935, the same year he was assassinated; Nazi rally at Madison Square Garden in 1939. (AP/Wikipedia)

If you zoom in on the photo at bottom right, you can’t help but notice the woman in the black hat, who seems a little unsure about what she is doing, especially in front of a camera…the woman to her right appears to be hiding her face.

Here is more of Fadiman’s review (click to enlarge). It’s worth a read.

WE’VE BEEN WARNED…Published nearly seventy years apart, **Sinclair Lewis’s** *It Can’t Happen Here* (1935) and **Philip Roth’s** *The Plot Against America* (2004) both explored the dangers of fascism in the United States. (pulitzer.org/Wikipedia/Nancy Crampton via stanford.edu)

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It Was Happening There

In her “Letter from Paris,” Janet Flanner was noting “increasing Fascist sentiment and sympathy” in her adopted city:

OVER THERE…The French Popular Party (*Parti populaire français,* PPF) was a French fascist and anti-semitic political party led by **Jacques Doriot** before and during World War II. Formed in June 1936, with an estimated 120,000 members by 1937, it is generally regarded as the most collaborationist party of France. (thefrenchhistorypodcast.com)

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All Talk

Marion Sayle Taylor (1889–1942) was the popular host of a radio advice show, The Voice of Experience. Margaret Case Harriman (1901–1966) penned a two-part profile of Taylor titled “The Voice.” I’ve included the opening lines to Part One here:

IF ONLY SHE KNEW…**Margaret Case Harriman,** left, circa 1936, profiled **Marion Sayle Taylor** before his misdeeds were revealed. (Vogue Archive/eleanorbritton.blogspot.com/Oregon Encyclopedia)

After reading both parts of Harriman’s profile piece, it appears she wasn’t yet aware that Taylor was more than a radio personality; he was also dishonest, manipulative, and opportunistic, according to a biography by Dick and Judy Wagner featured in the Oregon Encyclopedia. For example, Harriman reported (likely from Taylor’s official bio) that Taylor’s first wife, Pauline, had died in childbirth, when in fact she was quite alive and suing him for divorce that same year. Taylor also divorced his second wife, Jessie, who sued him in 1936 after he deceived her about another woman. Not surprisingly, his radio image as a reliable marriage counselor was damaged irretrievably.

FALSE ADVERTISING…A streetcar, possibly in Newark, N.J., advertising a lecture by Taylor, circa 1931. In addition to hiding a previous prison record, Taylor also falsely reported that he had studied at several universities (he did not earn a Ph.D, as the redundant title claims in the above photo). It appears Taylor also kept much of the money he solicited for charitable causes. (Oregon Encyclopedia)

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Selling Pooh

Commercial cross-marketing of children’s books with toys and other products had its origins in the late nineteenth century with Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, and in the first years of the 20th century Beatrix Potter’s Peter Rabbit series inspired everything from dishes and wallpaper to board games and dolls—in 1903 Peter Rabbit was the first fictional character to be made into a patented stuffed toy.

Then came another character from British children’s literature, A.A. Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh. In January 1930, Stephen Slesinger (1901–1953) purchased U.S. and Canadian merchandising, television, recording, and other trade rights to the Winnie-the-Pooh works from Milne (for $1,000, plus royalties), marketing a wide range of products. For the column “Onward & Upward With the Arts,” St. Clair McKelway paid a visit to Slesinger at the Park Avenue offices of Winnie-the-Pooh Association, Inc. Excerpts:

KEEP YER SHIRT ON…The Parker Brothers were the first to feature Winnie-the-Pooh in color for a 1932 board game. Stephan Slesinger added the iconic red t-shirt to Pooh for the game and a children’s record, a look that was later adopted by the Disney Corporation when it acquired the rights from Slesinger’s widow and daughter in 1961. (thedisneyclassics.com)

FUNNIES MAN…At left, **Stephan Slesinger** in an undated photo. Slesinger was a radio, television and film producer, and a curator of comic strip characters including *Alley Cop, Captain Easy, Buck Rogers* and Blondie, among others; at center, a record of “Winnie-the-Pooh Songs,” 1932; an ad for the *Red Ryder* BB gun—in 1938 Slesinger created the comic strip *Red Ryder along* with artist **Fred Harmon**. (alchetron/yesterdaysgallery.com/Port Isabel Press)

In another excerpt, McKelway gave us an idea of the scope of Slesinger’s Pooh empire:

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At the Movies

Critic John Mosher found few thrills in the latest fare from Hollywood, offering his views of Admiral Richard Byrd’s Into Little America and the musical Metropolitan, featuring famed baritone Lawrence Tibbett.

FOR THE BYRDS…At left, lobby card for *Into Little America;* at right, **Alice Brad**y and Lawrence Tibbett in Metropolitan. (eBay.uk/rottentomatoes.com)

With a screenplay by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur and direction by Howard Hawks, one would hope for some rough and tumble in a film about Gold Rush San Francisco. Instead, Mosher found the trappings of Barbary Coast rather mild. This was doubtless due in part to the Hays Code that curtailed the sex and violence portrayed in films of the 1920s and early 1930s.

TAKING A SPIN…**Miriam Hopkins** runs the roulette wheel as **Edward G. Robinson** looks on in *Barbary Coast.* A brief 2019 review in the *Harvard Film Archive* praised the film’s Gothic feel created by the “evocative portrayal of early San Francisco as a foggy labyrinth of rickety boardwalks and ominous, sky-high ship masts…” (harvardfimarchive.org)

One might think that a film featuring the destruction of Pompeii would have some thrills, however RKO’s The Last Days of Pompeii proved to be a “temperate affair” in Mosher’s eyes, “one of the great bores of the moment.” The Dick Powell/U.S. Navy vehicle Shipmates Forever didn’t prove to be any better.

HOT TIMES IN POMPEII?…**John Mosher** called *The Last Days of Pompeii* “one of the great bores of the moment,” including the “drearily enacted” eruption of Vesuvius in which “Paper temples fall and there is a bit of bustle, and that is all there is to that.” Mosher did single out **Basil Rathbone’s** performance as an urbane Pontius Pilate, “a Pontius Pilate with a Long Island manner.” (tcm.com)

GO GET ‘EM DICK…The U.S. Naval Academy provided the setting for the musical *Shipmates Forever,* featuring Dick Powell as a crooner who ultimately chooses the Navy over a singing career. (tcm.com)

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From Our Advertisers

We begin with the inside front cover, where the folks at Fisher touted their innovative “Turret Top” design…Body by Fisher began as a separate company in 1908, specializing as an automobile coach builder…although acquired by General Motors in 1926, the Fisher brand was promoted until the 1980s…

…there were many fall and winter fashion ads in this issue, including this continuing series by Russeks promoting Rayon fabrics…and women smoking, no doubt considered a sign of sophistication…

…Guerlain perfume ads featured the unmistakable style of illustrator Lyse Darcy…

…the Heyward/Gershwin production of Porgy and Bess made a splash in this ad for Stage magazine…

…World Peaceways often used terrifying imagery to promote their anti-war messages…this ad was on the inside back cover…

…and as you closed the magazine, the back cover greeted you with this stylish appeal to smoke Luckies…

…on to our cartoonists, starting with Al Frueh in the Theatre section…

…and Frueh again, in this interesting arrangement…

…George Price was featured twice…

…with scenes of domestic life as only Price could render…

…and speaking of distinctive, no one did it quite like the great James Thurber…

…Robert Day gave us two Republicans looking in on the progress of the New Deal…

…Carl Rose bid farewell to a writer sick of his peace and quiet…

…Whitney Darrow Jr illustrated a literary exchange on a park bench…

…and I close with today’s New Yorker cover artist, Roger Duvoisin—here is his cover for White Snow, Bright Snow, which won the Caldecott Medal in 1948.

Next Time: Planes, Trains and Automobiles…

(Photograph by Flickr user August Fischer)

It is often observed that when we look to the past we can see our the future. More than 90 years ago, Swiss architect Le Corbusier (Charles-Édouard Jeanneret) wrote an influential book on modern architecture, Vers une Architecture (1923) that helped to radically change how we looked at our built environment. Translated into English in 1927 under varying titles (Toward an Architecture, or Towards a New Architecture), the book caught the appreciative eye of New Yorker architecture critic George Chappell, who wrote under the pseudonym “T-Square.”

6a4881d9250d214bed267228a8881e08 — Nov. 12, 1927 cover by **Theodore G. Haupt.**

Given that most new architecture in Manhattan was adorned in architectural stylings from the past, or gussied up in Jazz Age art deco, Chappell was introducing his readers to something very different, to ideas that would transform their city within two generations.

slide31-720x540 — A SOBER-MINDED THINKER…**Le Corbusier** at work in his apartment at 20 Rue Jacob, Paris, in the late 1920s. (Brassai Paris)

In his embrace of technology and mass production, Corbusier maintained that houses should be built in standardized forms that allowed for continuous refinement, designed as “machines for living” with the same precision as automobiles and airplanes…

In case you doubt the architect’s fervor, here is Corbusier’s manifesto on mass production included in Towards a New Architecture:

0195a9893bd41cf67cb5cd7b0bacc4f9 — MACHINES FOR LIVING…This two-family structure on the outskirts of Stuttgart, Germany, was designed by **Le Corbusier** and his cousin, **Pierre Jeanneret** in 1927. It was one of the first built manifestations of Corbusier’s *Five Points of a New Architecture*, a manifesto written in 1926. The house set an important precedent for the emerging International Style associated with Germany’s Bauhaus movement. (noordinaryhomes.com)

In Towards a New Architecture, Corbusier wrote that while architecture was stifled by custom and lost in the past (“to send architectural students to Rome is to cripple them for life…”), engineers were embracing new technologies and building simple, effective and “honest” structures. Rather than rely on past forms or contemporary trends such as art deco, Corbusier said architecture should fundamentally change how humans interact with buildings.

monoskop-org — ALL DRESSED UP WITH NOWHERE TO GO…A photograph from Towards a New Architecture. Corbusier said contemporary architecture was stifled by custom and lost in the past. (monoskop.org)

fig_7_page_29_copy_0 — FORM FOLLOWS FUNCTION…Examples of “honest” and functional industrial buildings featured in Towards a New Architecture. (monoskop.org)

Corbusier concluded his book with a moral imperative and an ominous choice for the future: “Architecture or Revolution.” He asserted that the “great disagreement between the modern state of mind…and the stifling accumulation of age-long detritus” would force modern man to live in an “old and hostile environment” and deny him an “organized family life,” ultimately leading to the destruction of the family.

In less than ten years the Nazis would chase the “degenerate” Bauhaus out of Europe and into the embrace of American academe. In short order Corporate America would adopt Corbusier’s International Style, if imperfectly, but most Americans would prove resistant to making their homes into “machines for living.”

Corbusier would doubtless be shocked (and disappointed) to know that 100 years hence people still live in mock Tudors and “Tuscan Villas,” especially in the midst of so much advanced technology.

villa-savoye-near-paris-france_le-corbusier_unesco_flickr-august-fischer_dezeen_936_0-1 — HOME SWEET HOME…Villa Savoye near Paris, France. Designed by Le Corbusier in 1928, completed in 1931. Named a World Heritage Site in 2016. (Photograph by Flickr user August Fischer)

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AS HE WAS SAYING…

The new Sherry-Netherland apartment hotel near Central Park was exactly the sort of architecture Corbusier detested. “The Talk of the Town,” however, seemed impressed with its elegant appointments…

SUMPTUOUS…The foyer of the Sherry-Netherland, restored to its former glory in 2014. (Wikipedia)

screen-shot-2017-01-24-at-9-28-00-am — ROOM WITH A VIEW…The Sherry-Netherland penthouse, priced at $35,000 a year in 1927, is now worth more than $100 million. (TripAdvisor/Robert Caplin for The New York Times)

“Talk” noted that beneath the Sherry-Netherland’s spire the penthouse apartment could be had for $35,000 a year, roughly equivalent to $477,000 today. The building went co-op in the 1950s, and that would have been a good time to buy the penthouse. Today it is valued at more than $100 million.

Poo on Pooh

Dorothy Parker lamented the state of children’s literature in the “Books” section, and expressed her displeasure with A.A. Milne, a former humor writer for Punch who “went quaint” with his Winnie the Pooh stories.

by Howard Coster, half-plate film negative, 1926 — OLD SOFTIE…**A. A. Milne** with his son **Christopher Robin** and Pooh Bear, at Cotchford Farm, their home in Sussex, in 1926. Photo by Howard Coster. (npg.org.uk)

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New Game in Town

Niven Busch Jr. wrote about the growing popularity of professional hockey. Tex Rickard’s two-year-old franchise, the New York Rangers, were a major draw at the new Madison Square Garden (they would win the Stanley Cup in their second year), and even Texans were into the sport–Busch noted that a game between Dallas and Fort Worth teams drew 20,000 spectators.

192728_lg — ICE MEN…Stanley Cup winners, the 1927-28 New York Rangers. (rangers.ice.nhl.com)

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And finally, from the world of advertising, here is one in a series of classically themed ads for the McCreery department store…

…and this advertisement for the Marmon 8, an “ideal woman’s car”…

Next time: Mutt & Jeff…

Tag: Winnie the Pooh

It Can’t Happen Here

The Shape of Things to Come