YMCA Locker Room painted by Paul Cadmus 1931. The Locker room is the 63rd Street Y in NYC where artist Cadmus went for exercise. He painted it from memory in far away Majorca which was where my Uncle Harry encountered his former classmate

In the 1930’s. my bachelor  Uncle Harry was a social realist painter who learned the bitter social realities that surrounded a gay man in early 20^th century America.

Trained under artist John Sloan, the well known Social Realist  at N.Y.C’s Arts Students League, Harry had been a successful commercial artist in the 1920s, working as an illustrator at a NY ad agency.

However in 1929 when everything came crashing down on Black Friday, he found himself among the legion of unemployed, wistfully watching their savings dwindle.

Because there were no jobs for young artists during the Depression, Harry decided to travel to Europe where he could live inexpensively and paint.

Anchors Aweigh

Hopping an oil freighter bound for France, the former sailor, who having served stateside in the Navy during WWI had never actually been afloat, finally got to test his sea legs.

Eventually settling in a Majorca  fishing village,  Harry serendipitously encountered two  old pals from the Arts Students League, gay artist Paul Camus and Jared French.

A New Deal For Artists

By 1933, Harry’s  younger brother wrote him with exciting news about a newly formed government sponsored Public Works of Art Project, the first Federal government program  by the FDR Administration to support the arts. The project was a precursor to the WPA .

That fall with their passports about to expire and money dwindling, Camus convinced Harry to join the Public Works of Art Project with him and return to the states.

Begun in the depths of the Depression in December 1933, the PWAP did more than supply jobs to unemployed artists.

Like the other accepted artists in the project, Harry developed a sense of pride in serving his country.

Painting murals for Federal buildings, he was encouraged to depict everyday American scenes that would reinforce quintessential American values of hard work, freedom and optimism reminding a struggling public of the American Dream.

The Fleets In

“The Fleets In” by Paul Cadmus

Meanwhile his pal, Paul Cadmus had his first major piece commissioned by the Public Works of Art Project “The Fleets In” which was to become his most infamous work. Depicting a group of carousing, randy sailors on shore leave in N.Y.’s Riverside Drive it was filled  with ogling scantily clad tootsies and equally ogling rouged men with marcelled hair.

Painted in 1934 it was to be shown in  at an exhibition of government sponsored paintings at the Corcoran Gallery in Washington.

Heave a Ho There! Sailor

Before it could be hung, Admiral Hugh Rodman saw a photo of it and exploded in his best quarterdeck style.

Suddenly Uncle Sam was an art critic.

In retelling the story in 1937, Life magazine reported that the Admiral wrote  wrathfully to the Secretary of the Navy  Claude Swanson that the painting “was an unwarranted insult” to the navy which had “Originated in the depraved imagination of someone who had no conception of actual conditions in our service.”

Art And Politics

Ironically history repeated itself.

The Corcoran  was the same gallery where 50 years later the controversy fueled by an outraged Jessie Helm over the sexually explicit photographs of Robert Mapplethorpe resulted in the same fate censorship on the grounds of obscenity.

As 1934 newspapers front-paged the rowdy painting, Secretary Swanson  ordered Assistant Secretary of the Navy Henry L. Roosevelt to remove the painting from the show. Swanson decided it was “right artistic but not true to the navy” and had it hidden away.

Clearly the country seemed to be more at ease with Popeye the Sailors portrayal of a Navy man given the warm reception his true to the navy cartoon received when it appeared for the first time  the year before.

Anchors Away My Boys, Anchors Aweigh

US Navy Recruiting Poster by artist Howard Chandler Christy 1917
Collection Library of Congress -US Naval History and h
Heritage Command Photograph

The brouhaha surrounding “The Fleets In” only confirmed what my confirmed bachelor uncle already knew- don’t show and don’t tell.

As a former sailor Uncle Harry had already witnessed the actions of a homophobic Navy.

During WWI, Uncle Harry had been stationed at the Naval Training Academy  in Newport Rhode Island affording him a front row seat to a notorious 1919 scandal when the Navy launched an investigation in Newport to root out homosexuals in the Navy.

Several enlisted men were persuaded to entrap gays largely at the local YMCA.

The sting resulted in numerous arrests as sailors were court marshaled for sodomy and sentenced to prison for 5 or 6 years.

When a well respected Reverend got caught in the web, public outcry ensued.

The following year the Senate formed a subcommittee to investigate the sanctioned operation eventually  condemning the whole sordid affair.

As author Randy Shilts reports in Conduct Unbecoming, the committee called upon the navy to offer better treatment of those accused of “perverted acts”.

“Perversion is not a crime in one sense but a disease that should be properly treated in a hospital” the senators concluded. As Shilts states: “The report marked the last time that the government would condemn a purge of homosexuals in the military for the next 70 years.”

Show and Tell

By the time the fuss over “The Fleets In” had subsided, it had made the 29 year old  Cadmus famous overnight, prompting invitations to exhibit his works.

In 1937 the first one man show of the paintings of Paul Cadmus opened in the Midtown Galleries Manhattan. Notably missing was “The Fleets In.”

The PWAP cranked out more than 15,000 works of art in just 6 months, during one of the bleakest seasons of Great Depression.

Most of the works are long gone, destroyed or lost but the one homoerotic piece “The Fleets In” is now in the Navy Art Gallery at  the Washington Navy Yard and is one of the most popular exhibits.

As one very famous sailor might say: “I yam what I yam and that’s all that I yam!”

You Might Also Enjoy

Vintage Chevrolet Advertisement 1934

Step on the Gas

Nervous Dot the Democrat  is sure glad that Bette’s husband  Dick drives a Chevrolet. Men can be real speed demons on the road but with Republican Dick every ride is big and steady!

It was Thanksgiving weekend of 1960.

Just like the mythical Dick, Jane and Sally would visit Grandmother and Grandfather on their farm, I was off for an overnight visit with mine in their apartment in Queens, NY.

Back To The Future

Because my grandparents still lived in the same brick, Art-Deco-Moderne apartment house that my father grew up in, by the simple act of walking through the graceful arched entrance way of the once fashionable Buckingham Arms Apartments, I was entering the world of my father’s youth.

Early the next morning, it wasn’t the crowing of a rooster that woke me , but the hiss of the steam heat coming up from the radiator, its old rickety pipes rattling and knocking like some arthritic ghost of Christmas past,  drowning out the roar of the Electrolux, sucking up nonexistent dust.

In the end it was the pungent scent of Parsons Ammonia assaulting my nose that was my final wake up call. It didn’t matter that it was a Sunday, or that it was November, with feather duster firmly in one hand, a mop in the other, it was always spring cleaning for Nana Rose whose motto  was- “the only way to keep a house clean was to make sure it never got dirty.”

Shaking the sleep from my eyes, I peeked out the window but the dismal view of an air shaft had a funereal gloom about it, as far from a pastoral view of meadows as you could imagine. The close proximity of a neighboring building blocked the bedroom window of whatever sunlight there may have been, giving little clue whether it was morning or still night.

As the unfamiliar light washed over me, my eyes became adjusted to the familiar surroundings. The same room where only just last night my family had nibbled on mounds of chopped liver and drank sparkling cut crystal glasses of Canadian Club and Cott’s Cream Soda, had, before being re-commissioned as a den, been the bedroom where my father and uncle slept as boys, and where now once again it was transformed into a bedroom where I had spent the night.

That my father had spent so much of his time cloistered in this cheerless, view-less room, building his balsa airplanes, reading The Hardy Boys, and listening to The Shadow on his red Bakelite radio, made me a little sad.

(L) Vintage Hardy Boys Book “The Missing Chums”1928 by Franklin Dixon illustrator Franklin Booth (R) “The Hardy Boys Footprints Under the Window” by Franklin Dixon 1933 illustrator J Clemens Gretter

(L) Vintage Book “Tom Swift and His Air Ship” by Victor Appleton 1910 illustrator Rudolf Menel (R) Vintage “Tom Swift Among the Fire Fighters” by Franklin Dixon 1921 illustrator Walter Rogers

Vintage Tom Swift and His Photo Telephone by Victor Appleton illustrator Walter Rogers 1914

Vintage children’s school book illustration On the Train “At Play”1935

Please watch for Little Sally’s Big Visit With her Grandparents Pt III and Pt IV

Copyright (©) 20012 Sally Edelstein All Rights Reserved -Excerpt From Defrosting The Cold War:Fallout From My Nuclear family

Related articles

• Little Sally’s Big Visit With Her Grandparents (envisioningtheamericandream.wordpress.com)
• Little Sally’s Big Visit With Her Grandpartents Pt III (envisioningtheamericandream.wordpress.com)
• Little Sally’s Big Visit With Her Grandparents Pt IV- Radio Daze (envisioningtheamericandream.wordpress.com)

Vintage ad Heinz Ketchup 1934

Mad Men’s Don Draper was not the first man to be tempted by the beckoning allure of Heinz Ketchup.

During the dark days of the Depression, Babs Johnson learned how to keep her hubby happy and add some spice to her sagging marriage.

Ketchup.

No mystery here.  “Masculine hearts skip a beat when a lucky lady serves Heinz ketchup, the racy and rosy condiment!”

Life might not have been a bowl of cherries in Depression era America, but with a bottle of ketchup everything would seem like they were coming up roses. At least according to the ads Heinz ran in the 1930s.

“Heinz ketchup beckons a man!” one ad copy proclaimed.” It cultivates the habit of coming home to eat.” What man could possibly stray when that pert and perky condiment, that come hither Heinz ketchup bottle beckoned?

You’ll understand why if you listen to this mouth-watering story:

Marriage Woes

Poor Babs learned the hard way.

Like the country’s economy her marriage to Dan was in the slumps. Romance had taken a holiday in her year old marriage. The honeymoon was barely over when Dan started burying his nose in the newspapers, barely touching his dinner, taking his meals at the local lunch counter.

It was a particularly nasty row over dinner one evening that sent this newlywed into tears.

Babs: “It’s the same hash you raved about at Ann’s Sunday night supper. You were so keen on it I made her give me the recipe,”

Dan: “Then one of us is crazy. Why I wouldn’t eat this for love or money”

 “I’ll get a bite downtown,” Dan fumed storming out leaving Babs bothered and bewildered.

She had yet to learn that no gal can trust a plain meal to satisfy a man. This new bride was in need of a menu check up.

What That Man Of Yours Really Wants

Man pleasin’ meals (L) Vintage Ad Heinz 1940 (R) Vintage ad Heinz Ketchup 1940

It took the wise counsel of her more experienced gal-pals to set this young bride on the path to matrimonial happiness.

Pointing to a Heinz ketchup advertisement in the latest issue of Woman’s Home Companion, Babs eyes lit up: “Looking for something to make a husband sit up and take notice at the table?” she read with great interest. “Something he’ll give you a kiss and a compliment for? Then make sure you serve a bottle of ketchup with every meal.”

“The man isn’t born who doesn’t love ketchup”said her pal Madge getting right to the point. “Still the shortest route to your man’s heart! That extra little dash makes the meal. A juicy steak and Heinz rich tomato ketchup are a winning combination all men go for!”

Between sips of her Chase and Sanborn coffee, her neighbor Doris offered this tip “He loves corned beef hash doesn’t he? Well, here’s a quick simple table trick, straight from Heinz themselves, that gives this favorite dish an extra appeal. Put Heinz Ketchup on the table- handily where he can reach it and pour it readily….And that goes for his omelette, his steaks- all his pet dishes! “

Goes Over Big

“Keep a bottle of the worlds largest selling ketchup on the table-the way good restaurants do- another in the kitchen, and one near the stove, suggested Heinz in their ad “ See how easily and economically you can give your meals those intriguing little touches your family loves! give – your cooking the worlds favorite flavor. Remember Heinz ketchup is no bugbear to budgeteers for its so rich a little goes a long way.”

“And every cook knows it transforms leftovers into snappy culinary triumphs! chirped in Helen. “Men have a yen for this sauce. He’ll be smacking his lips!”

Happy Days Are Here Again

Babs couldn’t wait to try it out.

 “Come on home for supper, Darling! Corned Beef Hash, poached eggs and a new bottle of Heinz ketchup” Babs cooed provocatively into the phone.

 Dan could barely contain his excitement “Coming soon, angel! That bright fresh ketchup flavor has my mouth-watering already?”

No more wandering eye at lunch counters

No more whispers that Bab’s marriage was on the rocks. No more lonesome unhappy hours. For now, her husbands rushing home after work, Lucky Babs learned the secret to keeping a man satisfied.

“This dumb bunny’s never fooled again,” Babs said firmly.

She’d learned the first principle of culinary witchery- keep a bottle of that lusty condiment Heinz Tomato Ketchup handy in the kitchen!

Something Megan Draper might want to keep in mind, to keep her hubby Don from straying.

Copyright (©) 2013 Sally Edelstein All Rights Reserved

Want a more youthful vibrant expression?

Chew on this!

Forget expensive cosmetic wrinkle fillers and injectables like Botox. For a true non surgical age reversing technique-good ol’ American chewing gum not only doubles your pleasure, but makes you doubly delightful to look at too!

And this advise comes straight from one of retro Hollywood’s loveliest stars Miss Claudette Colbert!

That is according to Wrigleys, in this 1938 advertisement for Double Mint Gum

“Masculine hearts skip a beat when a lovely woman flashes an enchanting smile,” exclaims Wrigleys in their ad. “And refreshing Double Mint gum does wonders for your smile. Women of discrimination choose this popular double-lasting, delicious-tasting gum.”

Beauty On A Budget

Now here’s the science behind the beauty enhancing wonders of Wrigleys

“The daily chewing helps beautify by waking up sleepy face muscles, stimulating beneficial circulation in your gums and brightening your teeth natures way. So your face and smile gain a lovely new radiance everyone admires.”

Looking renewed and refreshed, admiring friends will wonder whether it was a new hair-do or a relaxing cruise that contributed to your radiant countenance. Who would ever guess it was a mere stick of gum.

Double Your Pleasure, Double Your Fun

The ad doubles the sales pitch as well by hawking Claudette Colbert’s next big movie and a Hollywood fashion designer.

“What you wear and how you wear it also enters the picture as exemplified by Hollywood’s beautiful and fascinating star Claudette Colbert and proven again in her next big Paramount screen success “Midnight.”

“The becoming suit dress Miss Colbert models so smartly for you,” the reader is informed, “ is by Hollywood’s great fashion creator Travis Banton- designed by Double Mint gum’s request since smart clothes as well as an attractive face means charm. Mr Banton’s fashions are noted for curves concealed just enough and for that expensive slim hipped look always associated with Claudette Colbert.” And since healthful delicious double mint gum is a satisfying non fattening sweet, it keeps you slim hipped too

“You yourself can make this flattering suit dress in any color or material most becoming to you by purchasing Simplicity pattern 2902 at nearly all good department, dry goods or variety stores.”

“All women want smart clothes and know they set off smile and loveliness of face. Millions already know delicious Double Mint gum helps bring extra attractiveness to your smile, making your whole face doubly lovely. Begin today.”

Vintage Chevrolet Advertisement 1934

Step on the Gas

Nervous Dot the Democrat  is sure glad that Bette’s husband  Dick drives a Chevrolet. Men can be real speed demons on the road but with Republican Dick every ride is big and steady!

Though some might wish for Velveeta to be vanquished permanently from the culinary landscape, to others venerable Velveeta has earned a place of honor in the America kitchen.

Like Faith Channing. For over 80 years Velveeta has been a vital part of her life.

It was during the dark days of the depression followed by the food shortages of WWII  that helped catapult this gooey cheese into the  hearts of Americans.

Bargain in Nutrition

During the Depression, Velveeta was a treat for the budget as well as the family
(L) Vintage as 1934 (R) Vintage illustration Velveeta Recipe

In the thrifty thirties, Velveeta was a boon to budget conscious mothers concerned about giving their growing children adequate nutrition.

Five year old Faith was often frail and underweight.

In 1934 Faith’s mother Blanche was always fretting about the food bills.

Vintage ad 1934

On her husbands Tom’s salary saving money on food really meant something. “When you do all your own housework and cook for a family of 5 you soon learn the meaning of true economy,” she would often sigh. And Blanche Ralston had to learn- because her food budget was only one-third of what it used to be.

“Of course I want to save money on food bills!”  Blanche bemoaned. But safeguarding the health of her children was vital.

Every housewife understood how difficult it was  to be economical and still give your little ones only the best.

But making sure Faith and her 2 brothers grew up strong and husky could break the bank.

“Are your children fully protected?” advertisements shouted out at mothers. “Danger threatens constantly in the years 1 to 6. A touch of over-strain and the door is thrown open to whole group of serious troubles.”
Vintage ad 1936

In a depressed economy, children were viewed as little spendthrifts of vital energy.

Like thousands of thrifty housewives, Blanche brooded, especially when it came to fragile little  Faith:

“Can my child live on her income…the income of nourishment she gets from the meals I serve?”

One thing Blanche knew for sure “Dairy would keep your youngsters thriving and making weight gains.”

Did her diet include an abundant source of milk?

Dairy Dream

Vintage Ad Duraglas Milk Bottles 1936

By the 1930’s milk had taken on an almost magical mystique.

So pure, so white, so wholesome, a bottle of milk was a bottle of health, and children needed to drink at least a quart a day.

The gospel of milk as proselytized by devout domestic scientists, that milk was nature’s perfect food, was established in the dark days of WWI.

Milk they said would be the key to greater health of this generation and future generations. Because scientists had recently found that milk contained Vitamin A which caused growth, mothers regarded it as a magic potion.

But milk could be expensive to a family like Faiths who were carefully watching their pennies.

Well Lady, you’re in luck! Velveeta came to the rescue.

especially for the kiddies….Velveeta was like drinking a glass of wholesome milk.
Vintage ad 1936

“Velveeta is wholesome and solves this problem for you,” Kraft reassured the smart modern mother. “It’s economical and is a fine quality food.”

“With the children in mind Kraft experts created the cheese food Velveeta.” Kraft proclaimed proudly, explaining that “ It was extra rich in valuable precious  milk minerals, calcium and in muscle-building protein and a good source of vitamin A…and as digestible as milk.”

“It takes more than a gallon of whole milk to make a single pound of cheese,” they boasted “a fact to remember for planning thrifty meals.”

Just What the Doctor Ordered

“Seldom has a food product been so honored as Velveeta,” Kraft humbly explained upon receiving the coveted Seal of Acceptance by the Committee on Foods of the American Medical Association.
“Money cannot buy it.! Influence cannot obtain it! Only foods which pass the most searching investigation receive it”
Vintage ad 1934

And if mother still wasn’t convinced of the value of their product, Kraft suggested “Your own doctor will gladly tell you more about the benefits of Velveeta.”

And no one was more trustworthy than your family doctor.

In 1931 Velveeta was awarded the coveted seal of approval from the American Medical Association.

“To build healthy children, doctors approve this famous food,” Blanche read in an  article in Women’s Home Companion.

“What a joy to learn that today child specialists advise this dairy food to give children a splendid start to lasting health. Velveeta is rich in complete high quality protein, body building material for growing children and body repair material for adults.”

Sumptuous Dishes and They’re Thrifty

Vintage ad 1937

Velveeta was a treat for the budget as well as the family.

During those budget conscious times, Kraft encouraged the eating of other dairy products for the whole family  as economical alternatives to more expensive main dishes like meat.

“Need Budget help?”  Kraft inquired. “Velveeta gives thrifty grand eating main dishes. Reserve at least one dinner a week,” they recommended, “for a cheese main dish.”

Vintage Velveeta advertisements featuring tempting recipes

To help m’lady with her budget  meal planning  Velveeta supplied an endless assortment of recipes that always involved serving a cheese sauce over an assortment of food. Any and all food would benefit  from smothering it with  creamy sauce “as smooth as satin, golden as a buttercup rich tasting , cheese flavor and fine food value.”

So Blanche put her faith in that golden rich cheese flavor food   and found a gold mine of thrift and nutrition.

Faith was full of vitality thanks to Velveeta.

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

You Might Also Enjoy

Viva Velveeta

Decked out in their luxurious Russian Lynx or Persian lamb fur coats, harsh winter was no problem at all for Depression era well-to-do; figuring out how to pay for the winter fuel was a problem for many.

Depressing news- income inequality in America isn’t new.

Frigid winters during the Great Depression could be particularly cruel as the chasm between the toasty haves and the chilly have not’s grew wider.

Decked out in their luxurious Russian Lynx or Persian lamb fur coats, harsh winter was no problem at all for the well-to-do; struggling to pay for the winter coal delivery was a problem for many.

As income inequality becomes the defining issue in this country today, the stark division seen in Depression era advertising seems oddly familiar.

While hardship, hunger and human despair was haunting much of the country in 1930,  the fortunate  1% were apparently  living life large.

As banks were failing, home evictions rising, and breadlines at soup kitchens lengthening, winter meant only one thing to those with deep pockets- a winter vacation.

How the Wealthy Weathered Winter

Vintage advertisement Studebaker Cars 1930 Lake Placid
“How significant, then, that so many of these play-bound motor cars should be Studebaker’s smart straight Eights.

Although it was the height of the Depression it was also, we learn in a December 1930 ad,  “the height of the winter sports season” where  Lake Placid attracted an elite selection of ski bunny swells.

Arriving at the plush resort in the Adirondack Mountains of NY in their snazzy Studebaker Eights announced to the world they had arrived.

Clearly these play-bound fat cats schussing down the slopes as the economy spiraled downward, were part of the elite. That this ad ran in Good Housekeeping Magazine along side articles suggesting “budget saving meal tips” seems mind-boggling.

The Height of Winter Season at Lake Placid, NY 1930

While everything was falling- industrial output, unemployment, wages, prices and human spirits, the rich need only worry about accidentally falling during a ski run.

“Flashing down the snow buttressed highways from Au Sable Forks toward Lake Placid, ride mainly those of means and discernment,” the ad explains as if it needed explaining, to those counting their every penny.

At a time when men re-sharpened and reused old razor blades and used 25 watt lite bulbs to save electricity, few but those of means could afford a new car. When a Ford costing  $495 was a pipe dream,  a basic Studebaker starting at $1,395 was unthinkable.

Vintage Chrysler Imperial advertisement 1930
For sheer luxury, the Chrysler Imperial Eights costing $ 3595 were ” everything the word “‘Imperial’ signifies…as the dictionary says ‘fit for an emperor; magnificent; imposing; superior in size or quality.’”

“Even if you have your own chauffeur, this ad for Chrysler Imperial informs us “you will want to do the driving>”

As rampant unemployment and poverty became more and more common, the wealthy lived in a world that remained insular, arrogant and out of touch. Sound familiar?

Perfect for the country club set was their own personal Pitcairn Autogiro, a precursor to the helicopter. This 1930 ad entices the reader : “Open areas surrounding almost any country club offer room for the owner of a Pitcairn Autogiro to fly directly to his golf game. The practicality of such use has long ago been demonstrated by those owners of the Pitcairn Autogiro who have flown to football games, race tracks, hunt meets and other social gatherings.”

Disconnect

The folks in these ads, these owners of fine country homes, town houses and yachts,  seem oblivious to the crumbling economy around them. But then again so did their President.

In his December 2, 1930 message to Congress an overly optimistic  President Herbert Hoover  delusionally said “…that the fundamental strength of the economy is unimpaired.”

That December as the International apple shippers Association faced with a surplus of apples decided to sell them on credit to jobless men for resale at 5 cents each, the wealthy began packing their Louis Vuitton steamer trunks for their winter cruises.

Goodbye to All That

Vintage Ad French Line Cruise Ships 1930
Naturally every need would be taken care of: “Bronzed and mustachioed tars whose Breton forefathers saw America before Columbus..well trained English-speaking servants within call..all is well-ordered for these fortunate travelers.”

For those less sports inclined, a winter cruise was a  brilliant escape from harsh winter.

“Say Goodbye to All That,”  cheers on the headline in this 1930 as for French Line Cruises

A sumptuous liner with its spacious salons and charming staterooms where nothing is lacking, would take you far away from  wretchedness and misery and all that!

“Rackets and riveters cross town traffic and subways brownstone fronts with basement entrances conferences and conventions aren’t you fed up with them all?” the reader of the ad is asked.

Brother Can You Spare a Dime?

Who needed to be reminded of desperate men  in threadbare suits  selling apples on the street corner, hoboes and Hoovervilles?

“Now is the time when executives come back from lunch wondering why nothing tastes good anymore. Now is the time also when smart people give themselves a taste of good salt air and  few weeks abroad.”

Assuming the reader of this ad which appeared in Fortune magazine has a chauffeur the ad goes on to say:

“Seymour they say, ‘get out the trunks. We’re off on the vast deep’.. And presto! The moment they set foot on deck they’re in  France!”

“Ask your travel agent about voyaging on France afloat..and as the skyline vanishes from view wave your hand sniff in the salt breeze and say Goodbye to all that!”

Little White Lies

President Hoovers first reaction to the slump which followed the crash in October 1929 had been to treat it as a psychological disorder. he had chosen the word “Depression” because it sounded less frightening than “panic or “crisis”.
The fact that more than 1,300 banks would close a great deal of people were indeed depressed.by the end of 1930 and unemployment rose sharply passing 4 million, meant a great deal of people were indeed “depressed.”

A secure job. a warm home, and food on the table; many during the depression had already said goodbye to all that!

For members of the well-heeled class everything was aces!

Especially if you listened to one of their own , Secretary of the Treasury Andrew W. Mellon the banker, businessman industrialist and member of the prestigious and wealthy  Mellon family.

In the same year these ads ran, Mellon responded to the dire economic times commenting: ” I see nothing in the present situation that is either menacing or warrants pessimism. During the winter months there may be some slackness or unemployment, but hardly more than at this season each year.”

That dynamic duo of Wall Street and Washington  was personified by Andrew Mellon.

Regarded in the   roaring 20s  as the greatest Secretary of the Treasury since Alexander Hamilton, only one year after the crash,  he was mocked by middle class children chanting:

“Mellon pulled the whistle”

“Hoover rang the bell”

“Wall Street gave the signal”

“And the country went to hell”

Copyright (©) 2014 Sally Edelstein All Rights Reserved

You Might Also Enjoy

American Dream Doesn’t Add Up

Time Tested  Tips For Landing a Job

(R) Vintage travel poster tours in Soviet Union Crimea

A Soviet Spring Vacation

Sadly spring break in Siberia is now off-limits to Senator John McCain and other US Representatives thanks to Vladimir Putin’s retaliatory sanctions.

Oh, for the good old days of the Soviet Union when American capitalists were once welcomed with open arms.

Vintage Travel Poster Soviet Union 1930s Intourist

It’s hard to imagine but back in 1930’s, the USSR was a destination vacation

Tourism to Soviet in the interwar years is usually thought of as a smattering of intellectuals, and fellow travelers. But it wasn’t just the idealist leftists who wanted to take a vacation in the USSR.

It was red-blooded American businessmen.

Before the cold war froze out tourism, Soviet Russia actively wooed American tourists.

Picturing the Soviet Dream Vacation

The Soviets tapped into travel dreams of Americans and the flow of American tourists to the Soviet Union in the 1930s helped turn tourism into a mass market industry. (R) Vintage Travel Poster Intourist for Soviet Union Tours 1930s (L) Vintage ad vacation in Chevrolet 1930s

To help sell the Soviet Union as a travel destination to Americans during the interwar years, Joseph Stalin created Intourist in 1929 as the official state travel agency of Soviet Union. Not only was it a full service travel agency offering tours, it peddled an idealized vision of the Soviet State to foreigners.

Through a barrage of advertisements, posters and brochures, the USSR was sold as a utopian state, a country of the future “a Land of Color and Progress.”

Intourist ads enticed tourists painting a picture of a land in transition. ‘See the immense activity, new building, social work of the worlds most discussed country and at reduced rates.”

This was “a country of the future, consisting of millions of peoples from various backgrounds working together to build a future brighter than the backwards past.”

What could be more appealing to red white and blue Americans.

Capitalist Comrades

March 1932 cover Fortune magazine The ” Great Soviet Experiment” even rated a cover story, painted by Diego Rivera. The accompanying article fairly rhapsodized on the marvels of Soviet system.

What better place to raise the profile of the USSR than in the pages of that most Capitalist of magazines Fortune. At a hefty 10 dollars yearly subscription ( nearly a hundred dollars today), this magazine was not geared to your average “fellow traveler.”

It may seem incongruous to find an ad for the Soviet Union in the glossy pages of Henry Luce’s homage to American business. But nestled between ads for luxury cars, boats and brokerage houses, Intourist placed advertisements in nearly every issue of the mammoth monthly magazine.

This ad appeared in Fortune April 1932,

,

“Visit the new and the old in highly individual cities of Soviet Russia where gigantic new planning is altering social forms and yet preserving the notable art treasures of older times,” entices the copy in this ad from April 1932.

” Leningrad with its palaces and “Hermitage art gallery…Moscow with its famous Kremlin and intense activity…Rostov with its enormous collective farming and communal life with theaters clubs and sports fields…Kiev with its byzantine art and Ukrainian music and theater.”

“Intourist provides everything hotels meals all transportation Soviet visa and an English-speaking guide. The price of $192 is for second class 2 together $240 for one alone. Greatly reduced fares for 3 or 4 together.”

New Horizons

(R) Vintage travel poster to Soviet Union from Intourist 1939

The seductive copy from an Intourist brochure from 1939 beckons:

“Today you need no magic carpet, no store of riches to travel. If you but choose your journey carefully thoughtfully, new horizons open up before you…And where are horizons wider and more promising than in the Soviet Union? Here in a land of vastness and infinite variety, is the fulfillment of your brightest travel dreams.”

Travel dreams would open up other horizons as well.

Fellow Travelers

Besides the art treasures and diverse beauty of the Soviet Union, some red-blooded American were also interested in lining their pockets.

Though diplomatic relations between the 2 nations would not be established before 1933 when FDR chose to formally recognize Stalin’s Communist government (ending almost 16 years of American non-recognition of the Soviet Union), American business were already busy tapping into this large market.

Red Light Green Light

The US had refused to recognize the government in Moscow after the Bolsheviks took control in 1917.
Despite the Red Scare here at home throughout  the 1920s, Washington gradually lifted overseas trade and investment opportunities for American business in Russia.

Soviet Russia soon became a major America market.

By 1930 American exports to Russia exceeded in value those of every other country and naturally Americana business relied on this export market. Not surprisingly most experts agree that this commercial and economic relationship strongly influenced formal recognition.

We may have been scared of Red but we loved green.

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

You Might Also Enjoy

Cold War Defrosted Pt II

Russia the Hungry bear

Illustration from an article entitled The Machine and the Depression” February 1933 issue of “Everyday Science and Mechanics”

Are machines after your job?

A struggling middle class grappling with unemployment, frets over headlines warning “How Technology is Destroying Jobs!”

Sounds familiar, but the warning is from 1933.

Looking to place the blame of the economic woes of the Great Depression on something, many well-informed people in the 1930’s pointed to the proliferation of machines usurping jobs from needy men.

Promising to debunk technocracy, an article entitled “The Machine and the Depression” ran in February 1933 issue of Everyday Science and Mechanics.

Would “Machine Man” make the working man an endangered species?

“Horsefeathers!” the article claimed.

Vintage illustration from an article entitled The Machine and the Depression February 1933 issue of “Everyday Science and Mechanics”

“Lets not forget,” writes Hugo Gernsback the editor of the magazine and author of this piece, “ that the machine itself creates employment which would otherwise not be there.”

“Take such a recent addition as the radio industry, for instance, which was created out of the blue sky”.

It goes on to explain:

“It was not existent before 1920 because there was no broadcasting. Immediately it gave employment to literally millions of workers who would not have been employed otherwise. The same is true of electricity and the automobile.”

Automation 1963

Little solace to future generations of workers who continued to worry they would soon be an endangered species with each new technology.

Whether it’s Mad Men’s Don Draper contemplating his own impending obsolescence as a behemoth computer is installed in his 1969 office, or today’s middle class worrying whether we have mechanized and computerized ourselves into obsolescence, in the age-old race against the machine, man is always in fear of losing.

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

You Might Also Enjoy

Robot Romance

Vintage ad “Delineator Magazine” 1937 “To Be Killed in Action” placed by World Peaceways in NYC

Mothers Day once had more to do with guns than roses.

After the carnage of the Civil War, Mothers Day was started as a protest by women who had lost their sons

Calling for a day for women to promote peace and disarmament, Mothers Day grew out of anti-war activist Julia Ward Howe’s “Mothers Day Proclamation.”

Best remembered as the author of the “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” Howe drafted the pacifist manifesto also known as her “Appeal to Womanhood Throughout the World” in 1870 asking women worldwide to protest war and demand universal disarmament.

Three years later Howe organized the first Mothers Day Peace Festival which was celebrated on June 2 1873 in 18 cities throughout the country. Sadly there was little enthusiasm to mount a celebration the following year and the notion faded away.

Mothers For Peace

Mothers Day may have morphed into a sentimental Hallmark moment but mothers have a long tradition of anti-war involvement.

Appealing directly to mothers, the anti-war advertisement pictured above ran in Delineator Magazine, a mainstream American women’s magazine.

In  the spring of 1937 with war brewing in Europe, this daring protest  ad appeared  alongside recipes for husband pleasing meals, advice on hanging dainty curtains and ads for the perfect Mothers Day presents , invited women to join together and protest for peace, and disarmament.

Julia Ward Howe would have been pleased.

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2014.

Dubious diets are as American as…well…. all-you-can-eat apple pie.

Relying on fad diets to shed a few pounds has been handed down from gullible generation to gullible generation willing to swallow anything promising a trim figure.

In 1938 The American Institute of Baking served up white bread as a “proper part of modern reducing diets” in its authoritative booklet “The Right Way to Right Weight.”

Let’s take a look at how one 1930’s gal went from gloomy to giddy and found her slender self with the help of a loaf of bread.

A Glutton for Gluten

Vintage Sunbeam Bread advertisement

Like most Americans, Gertie Gottlieb was a glutton for gluten. Whether bread, biscuits or Parker House rolls, Gertie gobbled ‘em up with gusto.

But like most gals, Gertie longed for a slender silhouette.

All the romance she got was out of magazines. And she had plenty of time to read them too.

A wee bit stout, she craved the right contours, eyeing with envy all the smart spring fashions pictured in the women’s magazines.

Flirtatious fashions, tailored for trimness. Fashions that called for a slim, youthful figure…”the lovely silhouette every woman so eagerly desires.”

Vintage Women’s Fashion Illustration 1934 “McCall’s Magazine” “Flirtation Fashions- Tailored into Trimness. The waistline is dreamily defined; Molded along modern lines for debutantes who crave the right contours.”

A Weigh We Go

Heaven knows, Gertie tried her hand at reducing.

“Being the modern common sense way to diet,” she knew enough to “reach for a Lucky instead of a sweet.”

“Light a Lucky Strike,” the cigarette ads advised. “When fattening sweets tempt and you dread extra weight, light a Lucky instead. The sensible and sane way of reducing, just a common sense method of retaining a slender figure.”

At the end of the 1920′s a new slogan for Lucky Strikes appeared everywhere, advising to “Reach for a Lucky instead of a sweet,” suggesting smoking as common sense way of reducing. Celebrity endorsements, both male and female offered their personal testimony, such as the 1929 ad (L) featuring Grace Hay Drummond-Hay who was the first woman to travel around the world by air. The slim silhouette so in demand (L) Vintage ad Lucky Strike Cigarettes – “Smoke a Lucky instead of sweets” (R) Vintage Women’s Fashion Illustration 1934

But instead of a slim figure she ended up with smokers hack.

Gertie gobbled fat-reducing gum drops, chewed Slends Fat-Reducing Gum, and devoured so many grapefruits on the Hollywood Diet that she darn near felt she deserved a star of her own in front of Graumanns Chinese Theater.

The famous fat-busting banana and skim milk diet went bust, as did the bathtub filled with reducing bath salts with names like Lesser Slim Figure Bath and Everywoman’s Flesh Reducer which may have worked for every woman, but not for poor Gertie.

And speaking of bathtubs, she even tried her hand at washing away the fat with Fat-O-No soap hoping to lather up to slim down. And don’t get her started on all those thyroid pills, even if all the screen stars swore by them.

All she ended up with was a bad case of the jitters. But nothing a hot buttered bun wouldn’t fix!

A Diet Fit for Loafers

Down in the dumps, Gertie  worried if she was doomed to go through life feeling awkward and uncomfortable.

She had just about given up when her pal Mitzi told her about an amazing diet that was sweeping the nation. All Gertie needed was the proper guidance.

Gertie’s eyes glazed over at the thought of yet another diet till she heard the magic words: Bread.

For this gluten-loving gal it was a godsend.

The Bread Diet gives you delicious, satisfying meals- takes off weight without fatigue or nervous strain. (L) 1939 Ad Bread Diet, American Institute of Baking (R) 1934s Fashion Illustration McCall’s Magazine

The Bread Diet promised m’lady that in a few short weeks the pounds would just melt away all while enjoying your fill of the staff of life.

Authorized by the American Institute of Baking, their ads promised “To gain alluring slimness don’t think you have to starve yourself. Take the safe way to slenderness. Go on the Bread Diet.”

A registered nurse, Mitzi confirmed to Gertie that this diet was no gimmick. but  based on the most up to date, verifiable nutritional knowledge. “The bread diet is a scientific well-balanced diet based on years of research in leading universities and laboratories,” Mitzi informed her friend, handing her the advertisement.

Mitzi explained: “ Important in this diet is the amount of bread- 2 slices with each meal. Far reaching scientific tests have proved bread can be an important aid in reducing. It is a valuable combination of carbohydrates and proteins. In this reducing diet, bread helps you burn up more completely the fat you are losing. Excess weight is converted into energy.”

Vintage Bread Diet Ad 1939

Who could be more trustworthy than a doctor who by the way endorsed this program.

Reading further she pointed out a fact progressive doctors and nutritionists have long known: “Bread gives your body more than energy. It is a valuable source of muscle-building protein. Actually we get more proteins from bread and other wheat products than from any other class of food. Bread in this reducing diet helps keep muscles firm and strong!”

Vintage ad The Bread Diet 1939

The reason it was so successful was simple:

“Unlike so many reducing diets that cut down too much on needed food and often exhaust the system, the diet explained, the Bread Diet supplies the food elements the body needs. “

Vintage Bread Diet Ad 1939

The diet came with a warning to avoid the most dangerous pitfalls of most fad diets: “If you are reducing, take care not to rob your body of the food fuel it need. Then the fat that you lose is not burned up properly…a harmful residue is left in the system often causing fatigue irritability and lowered resistance.”

You could avoid these dangers by following the bread diet.

So if you’re dieting don’t think you have to give up bread. By following the safe easy Bread diet you can enjoy 6 slices of bread every day and lose weight!

Gertie was in good-for-you gluten heaven. Ain’t life grand!

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2014.

You Might Also Enjoy

How to Gain More Weight

Betty Drapers Diet Tips

YMCA Locker Room painted by Paul Cadmus 1931. The Locker room is the 63rd Street Y in NYC where artist Cadmus went for exercise. He painted it from memory in far away Majorca which was where my Uncle Harry encountered his former classmate

In the 1930’s. my bachelor  Uncle Harry was a social realist painter who learned the bitter social realities that surrounded a gay man in early 20^th century America.

Trained under artist John Sloan, the well known Social Realist  at N.Y.C’s Arts Students League, Harry had been a successful commercial artist in the 1920s, working as an illustrator at a NY ad agency.

However in 1929 when everything came crashing down on Black Friday, he found himself among the legion of unemployed, wistfully watching their savings dwindle.

Because there were no jobs for young artists during the Depression, Harry decided to travel to Europe where he could live inexpensively and paint.

Anchors Aweigh

Hopping an oil freighter bound for France, the former sailor, who having served stateside in the Navy during WWI had never actually been afloat, finally got to test his sea legs.

Eventually settling in a Majorca  fishing village,  Harry serendipitously encountered two  old pals from the Arts Students League, gay artist Paul Camus and Jared French.

A New Deal For Artists

By 1933, Harry’s  younger brother wrote him with exciting news about a newly formed government sponsored Public Works of Art Project, the first Federal government program  by the FDR Administration to support the arts. The project was a precursor to the WPA .

That fall with their passports about to expire and money dwindling, Camus convinced Harry to join the Public Works of Art Project with him and return to the states.

Begun in the depths of the Depression in December 1933, the PWAP did more than supply jobs to unemployed artists.

Like the other accepted artists in the project, Harry developed a sense of pride in serving his country.

Painting murals for Federal buildings, he was encouraged to depict everyday American scenes that would reinforce quintessential American values of hard work, freedom and optimism reminding a struggling public of the American Dream.

The Fleets In

“The Fleets In” by Paul Cadmus

Meanwhile his pal, Paul Cadmus had his first major piece commissioned by the Public Works of Art Project “The Fleets In” which was to become his most infamous work. Depicting a group of carousing, randy sailors on shore leave in N.Y.’s Riverside Drive it was filled  with ogling scantily clad tootsies and equally ogling rouged men with marcelled hair.

Painted in 1934 it was to be shown in  at an exhibition of government sponsored paintings at the Corcoran Gallery in Washington.

Heave a Ho There! Sailor

Before it could be hung, Admiral Hugh Rodman saw a photo of it and exploded in his best quarterdeck style.

Suddenly Uncle Sam was an art critic.

In retelling the story in 1937, Life magazine reported that the Admiral wrote  wrathfully to the Secretary of the Navy  Claude Swanson that the painting “was an unwarranted insult” to the navy which had “Originated in the depraved imagination of someone who had no conception of actual conditions in our service.”

Art And Politics

Ironically history repeated itself.

The Corcoran  was the same gallery where 50 years later the controversy fueled by an outraged Jessie Helm over the sexually explicit photographs of Robert Mapplethorpe resulted in the same fate censorship on the grounds of obscenity.

As 1934 newspapers front-paged the rowdy painting, Secretary Swanson  ordered Assistant Secretary of the Navy Henry L. Roosevelt to remove the painting from the show. Swanson decided it was “right artistic but not true to the navy” and had it hidden away.

Clearly the country seemed to be more at ease with Popeye the Sailors portrayal of a Navy man given the warm reception his true to the navy cartoon received when it appeared for the first time  the year before.

Anchors Away My Boys, Anchors Aweigh

US Navy Recruiting Poster by artist Howard Chandler Christy 1917
Collection Library of Congress -US Naval History and h
Heritage Command Photograph

The brouhaha surrounding “The Fleets In” only confirmed what my confirmed bachelor uncle already knew- don’t show and don’t tell.

As a former sailor Uncle Harry had already witnessed the actions of a homophobic Navy.

During WWI, Uncle Harry had been stationed at the Naval Training Academy  in Newport Rhode Island affording him a front row seat to a notorious 1919 scandal when the Navy launched an investigation in Newport to root out homosexuals in the Navy.

Several enlisted men were persuaded to entrap gays largely at the local YMCA.

The sting resulted in numerous arrests as sailors were court marshaled for sodomy and sentenced to prison for 5 or 6 years.

When a well respected Reverend got caught in the web, public outcry ensued.

The following year the Senate formed a subcommittee to investigate the sanctioned operation eventually  condemning the whole sordid affair.

As author Randy Shilts reports in Conduct Unbecoming, the committee called upon the navy to offer better treatment of those accused of “perverted acts”.

“Perversion is not a crime in one sense but a disease that should be properly treated in a hospital” the senators concluded. As Shilts states: “The report marked the last time that the government would condemn a purge of homosexuals in the military for the next 70 years.”

Show and Tell

By the time the fuss over “The Fleets In” had subsided, it had made the 29 year old  Cadmus famous overnight, prompting invitations to exhibit his works.

In 1937 the first one man show of the paintings of Paul Cadmus opened in the Midtown Galleries Manhattan. Notably missing was “The Fleets In.”

The PWAP cranked out more than 15,000 works of art in just 6 months, during one of the bleakest seasons of Great Depression.

Most of the works are long gone, destroyed or lost but the one homoerotic piece “The Fleets In” is now in the Navy Art Gallery at  the Washington Navy Yard and is one of the most popular exhibits.

As one very famous sailor might say: “I yam what I yam and that’s all that I yam!”

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

You Might Also Enjoy

Screen Envy

Happy days are here again… the new iPhone is out!

An uncharacteristic hush descended on my local Starbucks today as a wave of envy swept through the coffee-house.

As if in unison, covetous coffee drinkers looked up from their Pumpkin Spice Lattes to cast a green eye in the direction of scruffy looking dude as he sauntered into Starbucks sporting a new iPhone 6 plus.

Fresh from the front lines of the Apple store he was no ordinary dude-he was a seasoned veteran of the grueling wait. Eight solid hours surrounded by Task Rabbiters and hi fiving homeless men paid to stand in line at the chance a new iPhone.

Mission accomplished, he now waited on line at Starbucks, smiling like a cat who had swallowed a canary as he proudly took a selfie with his bigger, better, newer 5.5 inch screen.

Suddenly glancing down at my measly, now oh-so-obsolete 4 inch iPhone 5, I felt that wave of all-American envy wash over me.

Keeping Up With the Jones

Despite job reductions, massive layoffs and the fact that unemployment lines rival the long lines snaking outside Apple stores across the nation, millions are lining up to be the first of their friends to get that newest iPhone and be the envy of others.

The American dream promise of upward mobility may now seem unattainable, but a quick fix of envy is not in short supply.

Envy has long fueled the economy and is one of the oldest tricks in advertising.

Vintage Packard Automobile Ads (L) 1940 (R) 1937

Used to great effect in the 1930s ( another period of marked income inequality) Packard Automobiles ran a series of ads that played on these desires.

We love being envied and having the trappings, appearances and prestige of wealth without being actually being so.

Long associated with wealth and prestige, Packard had established itself as the countries leading luxury car manufacturer.

However by  the 1930s, Cadillac surpassed Packard as the premium luxury car in America, and Packard decided to diversify by producing a more affordable model- the One Twenty which increased their sales. Thus they could attract “value seekers” who wanted the prestige of driving a luxury car.

Here We Are Envying

In this  1937  ad for Packard, we meet the Dillers. Down in the dumps, Mr. Diller explains to the reader : “Did we envy the Dexters in their new Packard? The honest answer is …yes! Emphatically, yes!”

We had always wanted a Packard. We felt we’d almost give our good right arms to be sitting there like the Dexters, heads in the clouds with people saying ‘Hmm. They sure must be making good.’

“Then we got to thinking,” Mr Diller explains. “I made as much as Ed Dexter. If he could afford a Packard, why couldn’t I? Well, why couldn’t I? …So we marched down to the Packard showroom to look at the new Packard 120.”

Here we are Being Envied

“And as a result, we ‘re no longer on the outside envying. We’re on the inside being envied,” Mr Diller announces proudly.

“We found out the new Packard was ours for only $35 a month. You can’t imagine the kick we’re getting out of owning and driving a Packard.”

“We’re as thrilled as a couple of kids. And we’re telling our friends to get wise…to learn how easy it is now the be the man who owns one.”

A Second-Best Life

Vintage Packard Car Ad 1937

Another Packard ad in this series introduces us to Tom and Jane Lambston who laments her lost dreams and their second best life.

“The whole thing started when we were celebrating. our wedding anniversary,” Jane explains to the reader.  ‘By the way, young man,’ she says to her husband, ‘what ever happened to all our dreams, and hopes and ambitions? Where are all the fine things we were going to have? Can it be true that we’ve become content with second bests’? ” Jane lets out a deep sigh.

“Shortly, our little party at an end, we went out to our car to drive home.”

“Looking at our car,” Jane continues wistfully, “we were reminded of what we had said when we were married; ‘And some day…we’ll own a Packard !’ “Our car was a take-you-there-and-bring-you-back kind of car,” Jane shrugs.”But it was no Packard!”

Vintage Packard Car Ad 1937

“Yes, we remembered our wedding day hopes,” Jane explains to the reader.  “We decided it was not good for young couple to become content with the second best things in life. And we made up our minds right then that by golly, we would have our Packard! “

“Next day we marched down to Packard showroom!”

Vintage Packard Car Ad 1937

“So today- we own our Packard!”she exclaims proudly.

“And life is fuller and richer because of that Packard.”

“Imagination? she asks. “Perhaps. Psychological? Maybe.”

“But our pride in our Packard is deeper than the usual new-car pride.”

“We like to be seen in it!” she says honestly.” And because driving is a thrill again we’re out more, enlarging our world and our horizons, having fun again.”

“Yes we have our Packard –our dreams has come true.”

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

A typewriter and Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer- the choice of retro secretaries and ironic bearded Brooklyn hipsters. Vintage ad 1945 Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer

Who would have guessed Pabst Blue Ribbon that iconic working class beer ironically embraced by hipsters has a pedigree more blue blood than blue-collar.

75 years ago Pabst positioned itself to appeal to the “gay, smart modern set” hoping members of Café Society would pass on that glass of champagne favoring a bottle of the Milwaukee brew instead.

“On the Normandie Pabst gets the call. Luxury flagship for the French lie the worlds most sumptuous “hotel-a float.” Where genius in décor and cuisine meet genius in brewing- Pabst Blue Ribbon world favorite of world travelers.” Vintage ad Pabst Blue Ribbon 1939

In an ad campaign from 1939 featuring swells more Wall Street than Williamsburg, the ads pictured sophisticated men-about-town in elegant tuxedos and glamor girls decked out in Elsa Schiaparelli gowns living the high life frequenting exclusive haunts from The Stork Club to The Coconut Grove.

The ads would have you believe these scions of hi society eschewed their jack Rose Cocktails while supping at the Waldorf Astoria in favor of a bottle of Pabst Blue Ribbon.

A far cry from the 70’s themed dive bars that currently dot hipster meccas from Portland to Bushwick where skinny jeaned hipsters with thick framed glasses sport Pink Floyd T-shirts, carry Freitag courier bags filled with vinyl LP, and ironically hoist cans of red white and blue PBR.

Where the Smart World Sets the Pace- Pabst Gets the Call

Embraced today because of its low-key, non marketing marketing, in 1939 Pabst aggressively sought out the cream of society attempting to raise the profile on their beer. Vintage ad 1939

“From the dazzling sands of the beach at Waikiki to the swank Miami shoreline- From the gay social whirl of Westchester to the brightly shining stars of Hollywood- Pabst gets the smart worlds call.

“Because –its brisk bodied for keener refreshment…streamlined for a quicker more sparkling lift in every delicious drop. Nothing heavy or syrupy to slow its invigorating action.

“Just pale golden goodness you never tire of. Pabst is thoroughly aged…to precisely that peak point of soul satisfying, thirst –quenching tang you find in rare old champagne. No wonder Pabst Blue Ribbon is the Smart Worlds password to keener zestier living…the class of all beers in a class by itself!”

“Pass the word..you want Pabst Blue Ribbon”

Waldorf Astoria

Vintage ad Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer 1939

“At the Waldorf-Astoria Past gets the call…as seen in the famous Tony Sarg Pasis, one of N.Y.’s smartest meeting places. Here as in the other swank restaurants of the Waldorf, the fashionable world relaxes refreshes with delicious Pabst Blue Ribbon.”

While urban hipsters might arrive in their fixed gear bicycles no doubt these swells drove in their Packard’s to imbibe in Pabst in the  Waldorf splendor.

Coconut Grove

Vintage ad Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer 1939

“At the Cocoanut Grove Pabst gets the call. Acknowledged center of Hollywood smartness, Hotel Ambassador plays host to the brightest stars from every walk of life. Here keen living reigns supreme- and Pabst Blue Ribbon is the password to keener enjoyment of every golden moment.”

Today the password among Hipsters is derived from another Hollywood legend- David Lynche’s movie Blue Velvet: “Heineken! Fuck that shit! Pabst Blue Ribbon!”

 Santa Anita

Vintage ad Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer 1939

“At Santa Anita Pabst gets the call. Never has the sports of Kings enjoyed a more glorious setting. Its southern California’s paradise of thoroughbreds and fashion. And everywhere-for relaxing refreshment at the Club House and thirst quenching goodness in the Grandstand- the winner is Pabst Blue Ribbon”

Royal Hawaiian Hotel

Vintage ad Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer 1939

At the Royal Hawaiian Blue Ribbon is the smart worlds choice at this Pacific Paradise. Once the playground of Hawaiian kings..a hotel of indescribable beauty, fronting the world-famous surf and sand of Waikiki Beach

Pabst was down on its heels, before Portland another west coast Paradise co-opted PBR as their own.

The Stork Club

Vintage ad Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer 1939

“At The Stork Club Here N.Y. society mingles with the worlds celebrities of stage radio, screen and press. Gay, sophisticated, elegant. And their choice for keener refreshment is Pabst Blue Ribbon.”

Today, Tattooed bearded Brooklynites in fitted hoodies mingle with alt band musicians in a sea of gingham, plaid and checks.

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Man Pleasin’ Meals – The Shortest Route to Your Man’s Heart-Heinz Ketchup 1940 ad

With Valentines day fast approaching, the media is running  rampant with  romance tips.   Forget everything else you’ve read – think Heinz. Who knew a simple condiment in your kitchen could come to your romance rescue?

During the dark days of the Depression, Babs Johnson learned how to keep her hubby happy and add some spice to her sagging marriage.

Ketchup.

For a Valentines treat that’s out of this world look no further than your Kitchen shelf. Heinz’s Tom Tomato Circles the World

No mystery here.  “Masculine hearts skip a beat when a lucky lady serves Heinz ketchup, the racy and rosy condiment!”

Life might not have been a bowl of cherries in Depression era America, but with a bottle of ketchup everything would seem like they were coming up roses. At least according to the ads Heinz ran in the 1930s.

“Heinz ketchup beckons a man!” one ad copy proclaimed. “It cultivates the habit of coming home to eat.” What man could possibly stray when that pert and perky condiment, that come hither Heinz ketchup bottle, beckoned?

You’ll understand why if you listen to this mouth-watering story:

Marriage Woes

Poor Babs learned the hard way.

Like the country’s economy her marriage to Dan was in the slumps. Romance had taken a holiday in her year old marriage. The honeymoon was barely over when Dan started burying his nose in the newspapers, barely touching his dinner, taking his meals at the local lunch counter.

It was a particularly nasty row over dinner one evening that sent this newlywed into tears.

Babs: “It’s the same hash you raved about at Ann’s Sunday night supper. You were so keen on it, I made her give me the recipe.”

Dan: “Then one of us is crazy. Why, I wouldn’t eat this for love or money”

“I’ll get a bite downtown,” Dan fumed storming out leaving Babs bothered and bewildered.

She had yet to learn that no gal can trust a plain meal to satisfy a man. This new bride was in need of a menu check up.

What That Man Of Yours Really Wants

Don’t take your man for granted! Keep a bottle of Heinz Ketchup always handy. You’ll find it an investment in happiness!

It took the wise counsel of her more experienced gal-pals to set this young bride on the path to matrimonial happiness.

Pointing to a Heinz ketchup advertisement in the latest issue of Woman’s Home Companion, Babs eyes lit up: “Looking for something to make a husband sit up and take notice at the table?” she read with great interest. “Something he’ll give you a kiss and a compliment for? Then make sure you serve a bottle of ketchup with every meal.”

“The man isn’t born who doesn’t love ketchup”said her pal Madge getting right to the point. “Still the shortest route to your man’s heart! That extra little dash makes the meal. A juicy steak and Heinz rich tomato ketchup are a winning combination all men go for!”

Between sips of her Chase and Sanborn coffee, her neighbor Doris offered this tip, “He loves corned beef hash doesn’t he? Well, here’s a quick simple table trick, straight from Heinz themselves, that gives this favorite dish an extra appeal. Put Heinz Ketchup on the table - handily where he can reach it and pour it readily…And that goes for his omelet, his steaks – all his pet dishes!”

Goes Over Big

Vintage Heinz Ketchup Ad 1939

“Keep a bottle of the worlds largest selling ketchup on the table-the way good restaurants do- another in the kitchen, and one near the stove,” suggested Heinz in their ad. “ See how easily and economically you can give your meals those intriguing little touches your family loves! Give your cooking the worlds favorite flavor. Remember Heinz ketchup is no bugbear to budgeteers for it’s so rich a little goes a long way.”

“And every cook knows it transforms leftovers into snappy culinary triumphs! chirped in Helen. “Men have a yen for this sauce. He’ll be smacking his lips!”

Happy Days Are Here Again

Vintage Heinz Ketchup Ad 1930s

Babs couldn’t wait to try it out.

“Come on home for supper, Darling! Corned Beef Hash, poached eggs and a new bottle of Heinz ketchup,” Babs cooed provocatively into the phone.

Dan could barely contain his excitement, “Coming soon, angel! That bright fresh ketchup flavor has my mouth-watering already!”

No more wandering eye at lunch counters.

No more whispers that Bab’s marriage was on the rocks. No more lonesome unhappy hours. For now, her hubby’s rushing home after work. Lucky Babs learned the secret to keeping a man satisfied.

“This dumb bunny’s never fooled again,” Babs said firmly.

She’d learned the first principle of culinary witchery  – keep a bottle of that lusty condiment Heinz Tomato Ketchup handy in the kitchen!

Something any gal today might want to keep in mind to keep her hubby from straying.

Copyright (©) 2015 Sally Edelstein All Rights Reserved

Decked out in their luxurious Russian Lynx or Persian lamb fur coats, harsh winter was no problem at all for Depression era well-to-do; figuring out how to pay for the winter fuel was a problem for many.

Depressing news- income inequality in America isn’t new.

Frigid winters during the Great Depression could be particularly cruel as the chasm between the toasty haves and the chilly have not’s grew wider.

Decked out in their luxurious Russian Lynx or Persian lamb fur coats, harsh winter was no problem at all for the well-to-do; struggling to pay for the winter coal delivery was a problem for many.

The 99% try to dig out from under

As income inequality becomes the defining issue in this country today, the stark division seen in Depression era advertising seems oddly familiar.

While hardship, hunger and human despair was haunting much of the country in 1930,  the fortunate  1% were apparently  living life large.

As banks were failing, home evictions rising, and breadlines at soup kitchens lengthening, winter meant only one thing to those with deep pockets- a winter vacation.

How the Wealthy Weathered Winter

Vintage advertisement Studebaker Cars 1930 Lake Placid
“How significant, then, that so many of these play-bound motor cars should be Studebaker’s smart straight Eights.

Although it was the height of the Depression it was also, we learn in a December 1930 ad,  “the height of the winter sports season” where  Lake Placid attracted an elite selection of ski bunny swells.

Arriving at the plush resort in the Adirondack Mountains of NY in their snazzy Studebaker Eights announced to the world they had arrived.

Clearly these play-bound fat cats schussing down the slopes as the economy spiraled downward, were part of the elite. That this ad ran in Good Housekeeping Magazine along side articles suggesting “budget saving meal tips” seems mind-boggling.

The Height of Winter Season at Lake Placid, NY 1930

While everything was falling- industrial output, unemployment, wages, prices and human spirits, the rich need only worry about accidentally falling during a ski run.

“Flashing down the snow buttressed highways from Au Sable Forks toward Lake Placid, ride mainly those of means and discernment,” the ad explains as if it needed explaining, to those counting their every penny.

At a time when men re-sharpened and reused old razor blades and used 25 watt lite bulbs to save electricity, few but those of means could afford a new car. When a Ford costing  $495 was a pipe dream,  a basic Studebaker starting at $1,395 was unthinkable.

Vintage Chrysler Imperial advertisement 1930
For sheer luxury, the Chrysler Imperial Eights costing $ 3595 were ” everything the word “‘Imperial’ signifies…as the dictionary says ‘fit for an emperor; magnificent; imposing; superior in size or quality.'”

“Even if you have your own chauffeur, this ad for Chrysler Imperial informs us “you will want to do the driving>”

As rampant unemployment and poverty became more and more common, the wealthy lived in a world that remained insular, arrogant and out of touch. Sound familiar?

Perfect for the country club set was their own personal Pitcairn Autogiro, a precursor to the helicopter. This 1930 ad entices the reader : “Open areas surrounding almost any country club offer room for the owner of a Pitcairn Autogiro to fly directly to his golf game. The practicality of such use has long ago been demonstrated by those owners of the Pitcairn Autogiro who have flown to football games, race tracks, hunt meets and other social gatherings.”

Disconnect

The folks in these ads, these owners of fine country homes, town houses and yachts,  seem oblivious to the crumbling economy around them. But then again so did their President.

In his December 2, 1930 message to Congress an overly optimistic  President Herbert Hoover  delusionally said “…that the fundamental strength of the economy is unimpaired.”

That December as the International apple shippers Association faced with a surplus of apples decided to sell them on credit to jobless men for resale at 5 cents each, the wealthy began packing their Louis Vuitton steamer trunks for their winter cruises.

Goodbye to All That

Vintage Ad French Line Cruise Ships 1930
Naturally every need would be taken care of: “Bronzed and mustachioed tars whose Breton forefathers saw America before Columbus..well trained English-speaking servants within call..all is well-ordered for these fortunate travelers.”

For those less sports inclined, a winter cruise was a  brilliant escape from harsh winter.

“Say Goodbye to All That,”  cheers on the headline in this 1930 as for French Line Cruises

A sumptuous liner with its spacious salons and charming staterooms where nothing is lacking, would take you far away from  wretchedness and misery and all that!

“Rackets and riveters cross town traffic and subways brownstone fronts with basement entrances conferences and conventions aren’t you fed up with them all?” the reader of the ad is asked.

Brother Can You Spare a Dime?

Who needed to be reminded of desperate men  in threadbare suits  selling apples on the street corner, hoboes and Hoovervilles?

“Now is the time when executives come back from lunch wondering why nothing tastes good anymore. Now is the time also when smart people give themselves a taste of good salt air and  few weeks abroad.”

Assuming the reader of this ad which appeared in Fortune magazine has a chauffeur the ad goes on to say:

“Seymour they say, ‘get out the trunks. We’re off on the vast deep’.. And presto! The moment they set foot on deck they’re in  France!”

“Ask your travel agent about voyaging on France afloat..and as the skyline vanishes from view wave your hand sniff in the salt breeze and say Goodbye to all that!”

Little White Lies

President Hoovers first reaction to the slump which followed the crash in October 1929 had been to treat it as a psychological disorder. he had chosen the word “Depression” because it sounded less frightening than “panic or “crisis”.
The fact that more than 1,300 banks would close a great deal of people were indeed depressed.by the end of 1930 and unemployment rose sharply passing 4 million, meant a great deal of people were indeed “depressed.”

A secure job. a warm home, and food on the table; many during the depression had already said goodbye to all that!

For members of the well-heeled class everything was aces!

Especially if you listened to one of their own , Secretary of the Treasury Andrew W. Mellon the banker, businessman industrialist and member of the prestigious and wealthy  Mellon family.

In the same year these ads ran, Mellon responded to the dire economic times commenting: ” I see nothing in the present situation that is either menacing or warrants pessimism. During the winter months there may be some slackness or unemployment, but hardly more than at this season each year.”

That dynamic duo of Wall Street and Washington  was personified by Andrew Mellon.

Regarded in the   roaring 20s  as the greatest Secretary of the Treasury since Alexander Hamilton, only one year after the crash,  he was mocked by middle class children chanting:

“Mellon pulled the whistle”

“Hoover rang the bell”

“Wall Street gave the signal”

“And the country went to hell”

Copyright (©) 2016 Sally Edelstein All Rights Reserved

You Might Also Enjoy

American Dream Doesn’t Add Up

Time Tested  Tips Fo

Man Pleasin’ Meals – The Shortest Route to Your Man’s Heart-Heinz Ketchup 1940 ad

With Valentines day fast approaching, the media is running  rampant with  romance tips.   Forget everything else you’ve read – think Heinz. Who knew a simple condiment in your kitchen could come to your romance rescue?

During the dark days of the Depression, Babs Johnson learned how to keep her hubby happy and add some spice to her sagging marriage.

Ketchup.

For a Valentines treat that’s out of this world look no further than your Kitchen shelf. Heinz’s Tom Tomato Circles the World

No mystery here.  “Masculine hearts skip a beat when a lucky lady serves Heinz ketchup, the racy and rosy condiment!”

Life might not have been a bowl of cherries in Depression era America, but with a bottle of ketchup everything would seem like they were coming up roses. At least according to the ads Heinz ran in the 1930s.

“Heinz ketchup beckons a man!” one ad copy proclaimed. “It cultivates the habit of coming home to eat.” What man could possibly stray when that pert and perky condiment, that come hither Heinz ketchup bottle, beckoned?

You’ll understand why if you listen to this mouth-watering story:

Marriage Woes

Poor Babs learned the hard way.

Like the country’s economy her marriage to Dan was in the slumps. Romance had taken a holiday in her year old marriage. The honeymoon was barely over when Dan started burying his nose in the newspapers, barely touching his dinner, taking his meals at the local lunch counter.

It was a particularly nasty row over dinner one evening that sent this newlywed into tears.

Babs: “It’s the same hash you raved about at Ann’s Sunday night supper. You were so keen on it, I made her give me the recipe.”

Dan: “Then one of us is crazy. Why, I wouldn’t eat this for love or money”

“I’ll get a bite downtown,” Dan fumed storming out leaving Babs bothered and bewildered.

She had yet to learn that no gal can trust a plain meal to satisfy a man. This new bride was in need of a menu check up.

What That Man Of Yours Really Wants

Don’t take your man for granted! Keep a bottle of Heinz Ketchup always handy. You’ll find it an investment in happiness!

It took the wise counsel of her more experienced gal-pals to set this young bride on the path to matrimonial happiness.

Pointing to a Heinz ketchup advertisement in the latest issue of Woman’s Home Companion, Babs eyes lit up: “Looking for something to make a husband sit up and take notice at the table?” she read with great interest. “Something he’ll give you a kiss and a compliment for? Then make sure you serve a bottle of ketchup with every meal.”

“The man isn’t born who doesn’t love ketchup”said her pal Madge getting right to the point. “Still the shortest route to your man’s heart! That extra little dash makes the meal. A juicy steak and Heinz rich tomato ketchup are a winning combination all men go for!”

Between sips of her Chase and Sanborn coffee, her neighbor Doris offered this tip, “He loves corned beef hash doesn’t he? Well, here’s a quick simple table trick, straight from Heinz themselves, that gives this favorite dish an extra appeal. Put Heinz Ketchup on the table – handily where he can reach it and pour it readily…And that goes for his omelet, his steaks – all his pet dishes!”

Goes Over Big

Vintage Heinz Ketchup Ad 1939

“Keep a bottle of the worlds largest selling ketchup on the table-the way good restaurants do- another in the kitchen, and one near the stove,” suggested Heinz in their ad. “ See how easily and economically you can give your meals those intriguing little touches your family loves! Give your cooking the worlds favorite flavor. Remember Heinz ketchup is no bugbear to budgeteers for it’s so rich a little goes a long way.”

“And every cook knows it transforms leftovers into snappy culinary triumphs! chirped in Helen. “Men have a yen for this sauce. He’ll be smacking his lips!”

Happy Days Are Here Again

Vintage Heinz Ketchup Ad 1930s

Babs couldn’t wait to try it out.

“Come on home for supper, Darling! Corned Beef Hash, poached eggs and a new bottle of Heinz ketchup,” Babs cooed provocatively into the phone.

Dan could barely contain his excitement, “Coming soon, angel! That bright fresh ketchup flavor has my mouth-watering already!”

No more wandering eye at lunch counters.

No more whispers that Bab’s marriage was on the rocks. No more lonesome unhappy hours. For now, her hubby’s rushing home after work. Lucky Babs learned the secret to keeping a man satisfied.

“This dumb bunny’s never fooled again,” Babs said firmly.

She’d learned the first principle of culinary witchery  – keep a bottle of that lusty condiment Heinz Tomato Ketchup handy in the kitchen!

Something any gal today might want to keep in mind to keep her hubby from straying.

Copyright (©) 2015 Sally Edelstein

We need to take a hard look at history. A Vanity Fair cover from July 1933 showing a despondent Uncle Sam seated on the Western hemisphere with storm clouds above can serve as a somber harbinger for our own times. Illustration by Paolo Garretto

History has never seemed more relevant.

After a week of unspeakable tragedies both here and abroad, the weight of history hangs heavy as the Republicans nominate Donald J Trump as their candidate for president.

Historians are speaking out as never before.

A dozen distinguished  historians from David McCullough to  Ken Burns have bonded together to create a Facebook page called Historians on Donald Trump, dedicated to educating the voters on the disturbing threat trump poses to American democracy.

Historian Robert Caro called Trump a “demagogue” who appeals to the ugliest parts of human nature.

“History tells us we shouldn’t underestimate him,” Caro said. “History is full of demagogues and sometimes rise to the very heights of power by appealing to things that are unfortunately a part of human nature: racism, which I think is a part of human nature no matter how hard we try, and excessive virulent patriotism that goes by the name xenophobia.”

Joining them are Historians Against Trump, a group of  history professors, museum professionals, public historians  and scholars who are concerned about the ominous precedents for Trump’s candidacy. In a published open letter they wrote: “The lessons of history compel us to speak out against a movement rooted in fear and authoritarianism.”

They are all  urging us to take a hard look at history.

I didn’t need the urging

History surrounds me on a daily basis. Literally and figuratively.

The Depression era discrepancy between “the haves” and “have not’s” is illustrated in this Vanity Fair cover “Fat Cat and Hobo” from October 1933. The Vanity Fair of May 1933 (R) illustrates an unpredictable Washington DC , optimistic one minute, foreboding and disastrous the next. Illustration Vladimir Bobritsky

The flotsam and jetsam from over the past hundred years, the  vintage advertising, articles, newspapers, booklets and illustrations that permeated the American Twentieth century mass media play in an endless loop through my mind, cluttering it like so many teetering stacks of  vintage magazines and books that clutter my art studio.

In my constant field of vision, are a series of framed vintage Vanity Fair magazine covers from 1933 that powerfully illustrate that most tumultuous year, a year that would have far reaching global consequences. and offer a somber forewarning to our own troubled times.

Many are illustrated by Italian artist Paolo Garretto arguably one of the great European illustrators of his time, his graphic covers expose the unsettling climate of the 1930’s including Hitler’s rise to power.

These compelling images of that unsettling time  serve  as a cautionary tale.

The cover of Vanity Fair December 1933. Figures representing U.S. Italy, France and England “tangle’ over Hitler. Illustration Paolo Garreto

As I listened to  a speech in Cincinnati a few weeks ago, a rambling  Trump maniacally defending the use of the Star of David in his anti Clinton image,  it was clear he was  pandering to his racist anti-Semitic supporters. As  I looked up at the vintage Vanity Fair covers that hang directly in front of my computer, I felt a chill.

An expert demagogue whipping discontented  working class voters into a frenzy, stoking racial resentment and exaggerated threats, giving the disenfranchised a bogeyman to blame misrepresenting the facts and exploiting economic insecurities.

Sound familiar?

Back to Back Fascism. Vanity Fair Covers (L) Hitler November 1932 illustration Paolo Garretto (R) Mussolini October 1932 illustration Miguel Covarrubias. Images Courtesy Vanity Fair

The use of ethnic stereotypes,the exploitation of fear of foreigners, and the concerns about national decline  is an ugly stew of propaganda straight from  a fascist recipes book .

It’s a recipe for disaster.

But confused and angry voters can take the bait.

1933

In a recent interview with Rolling Stone, Rachel Maddow said  that she has been studying Adolph Hitler in the first few months of his tenure as German chancellor:

“Over the past year I’ve been reading a lot about what it was like when Hitler first became chancellor. I am gravitating toward moments in history for subliminal reference in terms of cultures that have unexpectedly veered into dark places, because I think that’s possibly where we are.”

Cover Vanity Fair November 1933. Artist Paolo Garretto envisioned the globe as a bomb with a fuse waiting go off as diplomats stand at the top of the world seemingly oblivious.

1933 opened with Adolph  Hitler becoming chancellor of Germany.  The great theme of his speeches throughout the previous year was that “politicians had ruined the Reich.”

Some thought a Hitler government would be a farcical affair. The right had the illusion that Hitler was a lightweight, a ridiculous Austrian demagogue whose oratorical gifts they could exploit while “managing” to contain him.

Over the course of the one year these magazine covers appeared,  Hitler was elected as chancellor of Germany, the Reichstag’s Enabling Act was passed after the burning of the Reichstag, enabling police to bypass courts giving Hitler everything he needed to set up a totalitarian state making him dictator of Germany

This was quickly followed by massive Nazi Book burnings, legalized eugenic sterilization, boycotting of Jewish businesses, prohibition of trade  unions and forbidding all non Nazi political parties in Germany.

The very month FDR was telling a frightened nation we had nothing to fear but fear itself, Dachau the first Nazi concentration camp  opened.

It was a frightening time.

Out of the Disturbing Darkness

There are compelling reasons to feel grave concern today.

Pulitzer prize winner Ron Chernow, one of the historians on Historians on Donald Trump page remarked in a video :  “I have been deeply disturbed by the Trump campaign — more deeply disturbed than by any other presidential campaign in our history.

“We’ve all been horrified by the many shocking statements this man has made, but no less frightening have been the omissions,” he continued.

“I’m disturbed by the words missing from the Trump campaign: liberty and justice, freedom and tolerance,” he added. “The only historical movement that Trump alludes to is a shameful one: America First,” he said, referring to Trump’s foreign policy slogan, which shares its name with an anti-Semitic group from the 1940s.”

“Please, please, please folks don’t let it happen here,” Chernow pleaded.”

We have the power to stop it.

We need to take a hard look at history. A Vanity Fair cover from July 1933 showing a despondent Uncle Sam seated on the Western hemisphere with storm clouds above can serve as a somber harbinger for our own times. Illustration by Paolo Garretto

History has never seemed more relevant.

That anti-Semite Steve Bannon who made white nationalism mainstream through Breitbart, is now to be President Elect Donald Trump’s Goebbels…er…Chief Strategist.

This past summer with  the weight of history hanging heavy as the Republicans nominated Donald J. Trump as their candidate for president, historians spoke out as never before.

We didn’t listen then.

We need to listen now.

It’s a post worth repeating, so we don’t repeat history.

It’s Worth Repeating

A dozen distinguished  historians from David McCullough to  Ken Burns have bonded together to create a Facebook page called Historians on Donald Trump, dedicated to educating the voters on the disturbing threat trump poses to American democracy.

Historian Robert Caro called Trump a “demagogue” who appeals to the ugliest parts of human nature.

“History tells us we shouldn’t underestimate him,” Caro said. “History is full of demagogues and sometimes rise to the very heights of power by appealing to things that are unfortunately a part of human nature: racism, which I think is a part of human nature no matter how hard we try, and excessive virulent patriotism that goes by the name xenophobia.”

Joining them are Historians Against Trump, a group of  history professors, museum professionals, public historians  and scholars who are concerned about the ominous precedents for Trump’s candidacy. In a published open letter they wrote: “The lessons of history compel us to speak out against a movement rooted in fear and authoritarianism.”

They are all  urging us to take a hard look at history.

I didn’t need the urging

History surrounds me on a daily basis. Literally and figuratively.

The Depression era discrepancy between “the haves” and “have not’s” is illustrated in this Vanity Fair cover “Fat Cat and Hobo” from October 1933. The Vanity Fair of May 1933 (R) illustrates an unpredictable Washington DC , optimistic one minute, foreboding and disastrous the next. Illustration Vladimir Bobritsky

The flotsam and jetsam from over the past hundred years, the  vintage advertising, articles, newspapers, booklets and illustrations that permeated the American Twentieth century mass media play in an endless loop through my mind, cluttering it like so many teetering stacks of  vintage magazines and books that clutter my art studio.

In my constant field of vision, are a series of framed vintage Vanity Fair magazine covers from 1933 that powerfully illustrate that most tumultuous year, a year that would have far reaching global consequences. and offer a somber forewarning to our own troubled times.

Many are illustrated by Italian artist Paolo Garretto arguably one of the great European illustrators of his time, his graphic covers expose the unsettling climate of the 1930’s including Hitler’s rise to power.

These compelling images of that unsettling time  serve  as a cautionary tale.

The cover of Vanity Fair December 1933. Figures representing U.S. Italy, France and England “tangle’ over Hitler. Illustration Paolo Garreto

As I listened to  a speech in Cincinnati a few weeks ago, a rambling  Trump maniacally defending the use of the Star of David in his anti Clinton image,  it was clear he was  pandering to his racist anti-Semitic supporters. As  I looked up at the vintage Vanity Fair covers that hang directly in front of my computer, I felt a chill.

An expert demagogue whipping discontented  working class voters into a frenzy, stoking racial resentment and exaggerated threats, giving the disenfranchised a bogeyman to blame misrepresenting the facts and exploiting economic insecurities.

Sound familiar?

Vanity Fair Covers 1932 Hitler and Mussolini

The use of ethnic stereotypes,the exploitation of fear of foreigners, and the concerns about national decline  is an ugly stew of propaganda straight from  a fascist recipes book .

It’s a recipe for disaster.

But confused and angry voters can take the bait.

1933

In a recent interview with Rolling Stone, Rachel Maddow said  that she has been studying Adolph Hitler in the first few months of his tenure as German chancellor:

“Over the past year I’ve been reading a lot about what it was like when Hitler first became chancellor. I am gravitating toward moments in history for subliminal reference in terms of cultures that have unexpectedly veered into dark places, because I think that’s possibly where we are.”

Cover Vanity Fair November 1933. Artist Paolo Garretto envisioned the globe as a bomb with a fuse waiting go off as diplomats stand at the top of the world seemingly oblivious.

1933 opened with Adolph  Hitler becoming chancellor of Germany.  The great theme of his speeches throughout the previous year was that “politicians had ruined the Reich.”

Some thought a Hitler government would be a farcical affair. The right had the illusion that Hitler was a lightweight, a ridiculous Austrian demagogue whose oratorical gifts they could exploit while “managing” to contain him.

Over the course of the one year these magazine covers appeared,  Hitler was elected as chancellor of Germany, the Reichstag’s Enabling Act was passed after the burning of the Reichstag, enabling police to bypass courts giving Hitler everything he needed to set up a totalitarian state making him dictator of Germany

This was quickly followed by massive Nazi Book burnings, legalized eugenic sterilization, boycotting of Jewish businesses, prohibition of trade  unions and forbidding all non Nazi political parties in Germany.

The very month FDR was telling a frightened nation we had nothing to fear but fear itself, Dachau the first Nazi concentration camp  opened.

It was a frightening time.

Out of the Disturbing Darkness

There are compelling reasons to feel grave concern today.

Pulitzer prize winner Ron Chernow, one of the historians on Historians on Donald Trump page remarked in a video :  “I have been deeply disturbed by the Trump campaign — more deeply disturbed than by any other presidential campaign in our history.

“We’ve all been horrified by the many shocking statements this man has made, but no less frightening have been the omissions,” he continued.

“I’m disturbed by the words missing from the Trump campaign: liberty and justice, freedom and tolerance,” he added. “The only historical movement that Trump alludes to is a shameful one: America First,” he said, referring to Trump’s foreign policy slogan, which shares its name with an anti-Semitic group from the 1940s.”

“Please, please, please folks don’t let it happen here,” Chernow pleaded.”

We have the power to stop it.