Happy 2024, everyone!
I don’t know if there’s some symbolism behind this year’s J.C. Leyendecker New Year’s baby that I’m missing, or if it’s just a baby knight riding a mechanical horse and using a feather as a lance. Any insights would be welcomed.
Elsewhere, Life waxes whimsical,
a skating duo rings in the new year at St. Nicholas,*
Fruit, Garden and Home (soon to be retitled, much more sensibly, Better Homes and Gardens) has a snowy scene,
and Motor magazine features the most scantily dressed Coles Phillips woman I’ve ever seen.
The Top Posts
As was the case last year, I didn’t have enough posts to fill out a top 10 list, but I did slightly better (8) than last year (7). Something must be going on with the Google algorithm, because 1) despite my lackadaisical posting schedule, my total views have shot up to unprecedented levels in recent months, and 2) almost all of the most popular posts, other than the home page (which makes up the vast majority of views), are from previous years. Pre-2023 posts don’t qualify for the Top 10, but I’ll mention the most popular ones after the countdown.
8. 1923 Magazine Covers Celebrate Thanksgiving.
For Thanksgiving, I always write about something I’m thankful for. In the past, I’ve chosen people I admire from 1918, illustrators of 1919, women illustrators of 1920, and, for 2021, the friends I’ve made along the way.** This year I chose the magazine covers themselves.
7. Children’s Books: Your 1923 Holiday Shopping Guide.
In researching my fifth annual children’s book shopping guide, I found a moral panic among magazine writers about children reading inappropriate books (Dare-Devil Dick! Seven Buckets of Blood!) and a couple of treasures: a beautifully illustrated alphabet book and an excellent poetry anthology.
In May, I announced that my friend Deborah Kalb and I were starting a podcast, Rereading Our Childhood, where, just like it sounds, we reread books we enjoyed as children. Six months in, we’ve published sixteen episodes, had a great time with our rereads, and, as I wrote this week in the top 10 countdown on the podcast blog, learned that producing a podcast is way harder than writing a blog. If you’re interested in following along, you can find us at rereadingourchildhood.buzzsprout.com.
5. Summer 1923 Magazine Covers, in All Their Glory.
Having left a cold, wet Cape Town winter, I reveled in the D.C. summer, and in the summer magazine covers of 1923.
4. The Top, Um, Seven Posts of 1922.
Last year’s countdown.
3. My Visit to 1920s–and 2020s–San Francisco.
I haplessly wandered around 2020s San Francisco in search of 1920s San Francisco.
2. The Top 10 Magazine Covers of Winter 1923.
I had a lot of fun doing this countdown of the best magazine covers of winter 1923, and discovering some not-so-artistic but still fascinating ones.***
1. Claude McKay’s Harlem Shadows, “If We Must Die,” and Congressional Confusion.
This post was by far the most popular new one of the year. I wrote about the critical reception to McKay’s poetry and about the confusion over whether “If We Must Die” was entered into the Congressional Record, and if so, by whom. This was the second year in a row, after last year’s post on Langston Hughes, Teenaged Poet, that a post about an African American poet rose to the top.
The Top Posts from Past Years
The most popular pre-1923 post of the year (and also the most popular post of the year, period) is The Surprisingly Ubiquitous Lesbians of 1918: A Pride Month Salute, in which I wrote about the lesbian relationships that were hiding in plain sight all over the place, apparently because people didn’t take women’s sexuality seriously. Perennial favorite My Quest to Earn a 1919 Girl Scout Badge is in second place, followed by Magazine Covers Ring in the 1920s and The Doctor and the Chorus Girl: A Heartbreaking Tale of Interracial Love.
The Journey Continues
On January 1, 2018, the day that I started this project and stopped reading anything from less than 100 years ago, I only expected it to last a year.**** (When I looked at my e-mail inbox this morning and found blog posts from Frank Hudson (talking about how Robert Frost is misunderstood) and witness2fashion (sharing some 1898 Delineator illustrations of women riding bicycles in very cumbersome clothing), I was reminded on the seventh New Year’s Day of this project of the wonderful community I’ve found along the way. I look forward to what 1924 will bring.*****
*Speaking of which, I went ice skating in Cape Town a few days ago. If you’re a skater of average ability and want to feel like Michelle Kwan, go to a skating rink in South Africa.
**I skipped 2022, apparently.
***I still love the giant pencil.
****For any new readers who may be concerned about my sanity and my status as a well-informed citizen, the part of the project where I ONLY (with a few exceptions) read from 100 years ago did only last a year.
*****A housekeeping issue: For those of you who follow me on Twitter, I’ve stopped posting there. You can find me on BlueSky at @marygracemcgeehan.bsky.social.
My Life 100 Years Ago 
Blog post visits have taken off in the second half of 2023 for me too. I’ve read that it may well be Google changing its algorithm, as Googe Search has always been the biggest driver. December 2023 had the most page views ever for the Parlando Project. Glad you noticed the Robert Frost post that finished off 2023 for me.
Podcast listens for my short-form audio pieces with music have dropped at the same time though. I have a feeling that may be Google related too, as I think it’s now harder for folks not on Apple podcasts to easily find or follow the audio pieces in 2023 as many of the non-Apple alternatives have left the playing field.
I’ve considered bare-bones YouTube video posting more of the audio pieces to find ears.
Looking closely at the Saturday Evening Post cover, the baby 1924’s feather is quite likely a quill pen, as the nib is sharpened like one and appears to be ink-stained. My guess is it meant to represent new writing in the upcoming year.
So, wishing you well with your writing (and podcasting) in the New Year, though I’m a bit more wizened than the S E Post child.
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I figured there must be something going on with the Google algorithm in terms of the number of views and also the popularity of older posts. I’m glad you’ve seen an increase as well, and I hope you find a way to attract new listeners.
Thanks for the insights on the Saturday Evening Post cover…it does look like a quill pen now that I look more closely.
Best wishes to you in the new year as well!
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