Look, kids! Paper doll servants to order around!
Ladies’ Home Journal, March 1918
Can someone help me out with this Illustrated Zigzag? STICT RICK SUES can’t possibly be right.
St. Nicholas magazine, March 1918
I wonder how many people had to sign off on this before it was green-lighted.
Harper’s Bazar, March 1918
Garish New York hotels are apparently not just a contemporary phenomenon.
Smart Set, March 1918
And finally, an Erté serenade.
Harper’s Bazar, March 1918
I’ve been neglecting the New York Times lately. Here are some recent snippets.
With four special elections in New York, control of the House of Representatives, held by the Democrats in coalition with some small parties, was on a knife-edge. The result? A Democratic sweep, and courtesy all around.
New York Times, March 6, 1918
A defeated Republican candidate’s gracious response:
New York Times, March 6, 1918
Sigh…
This was the first time women in New York were able to vote. They did so in large numbers and–good news!–did not get up to all kinds of silly nonsense.
New York Times, March 7, 1918
Now for some fact checking. John Francis Hylan, the Tammany mayor of New York, has told a story about a kind man on the shore at Palm Beach rescuing a toad that was being eaten by a jellyfish. Dubitation ensues.
New York Times, March 6, 1918
On to the classified ads. Hey, I want one of those too!
New York Times, March 6, 1918
Now that you’re caught up on the news, it’s time to party! Make a momentous decision on what to wear,
New York Times, March 3, 1918
put on your favorite hat,
New York Times, March 3, 1918
and head on out to the the hottest joint in town!
New York Times, March 3, 1918
(These articles were accessed at https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/browser. I make fun of the Times a lot, but I’m very grateful for this valuable resource.)
There wasn’t a lot of room for color in magazines in 1918–often just the cover and a few pages of ads. The advertisers made the most of their limited opportunities. Here are a few ads that caught my eye.
These two make me want to spend my next vacation in 1918 magazine ad California.
Woman’s Home Companion, March 1918
Woman’s Home Companion, March 1918
This one almost makes me want to go scrub the kitchen.
Cosmopolitan, January 1918
And this one makes war seem like an absolute pleasure, as long as you have your Murads.
Scribner’s, March 1918
An ad for The Egoist in The Little Review: “Obviously a journal of interest to virile readers only.” In that case, I want my $1.60 back.
Also: “It is not written for tired and depressed people.” Sorry, Egoist, but in our day only tired and depressed people read T.S. Eliot.
“Transforming the whole conception of poetic form.” Okay, I’ll give you that one.
Little Review, February 1918
An ad for next month’s Little Review: “We are about to publish a prose masterpiece.” Okay, if you’re publishing Ulysses, and your other contributors are Wyndham Lewis, Ezra Pound, and Ford Madox Hueffer (aka Ford), then you’re entitled to a little attitude.
(In case you’re wondering what they had in store for February that made them reduce Ulysses to a footnote, it was a full issue devoted to French poets, in French. Cool, but no Ulysses.)
Little Review, February 1918
One last Little Review ad, showing us that “overuse” of “quotation marks” is not a strictly “contemporary” phenomenon. I do like “Solve Your Food Problem” as a restaurant slogan, though. Sometimes, it’s just that simple.
Little Review, February 1918
Strange as it sounds, government administrators were huge celebrities in 1918. And none was more famous than Herbert Hoover, head of the U.S. Food Administration. (Yes, that Herbert Hoover.) To reduce consumption so that food could be sent to Europe, he led campaigns for “Meatless Mondays” and “Wheatless Wednesdays.” Ads for food and cooking equipment touted their effectiveness in helping housewives “Hooverize.” Good Housekeeping magazine called him–with a wink, presumably–“the man who made food famous.”
In that spirit, here’s a 1918 valentine to all of you:
Magazines in 1918 were pretty conservative about portraying any kind of romantic activity, but judging from the cover of the February 1918 Cosmopolitan, soldiers got a free pass.
Harrison Fisher, Cosmopolitan, February 1918
Finally, the February 1918 cover of Vanity Fair…not Valentine’s-themed, but definitely romantic.
Warren Davis, Vanity Fair, February 1918
Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone!
Erté, the artist and designer whose name is synonymous with Art Deco, was only twenty-five in 1918, but he was already making a name for himself. (A fake name: his real one was Romain de Tirtoff. Erté comes from the French pronunciation of his initials.) He got his start designing covers for Harper’s Bazar. I’m not sure what this one means, but an online slideshow of classic covers at the magazine’s website says that it “suggests a dadaist influence.”
Erté, February 1918
I had the impression that everyone drove around in Model T’s in 1918, but the magazines were full of ads for all different kinds of cars. This one, the Marmon 34, set a new coast-to-coast speed record in 1916: 5 days. 18 hours. 30 minutes.
Harper’s Bazar, February 1918
Clothes for the well-dressed boy. The Palm Beach suit costs $7.49–a week’s pay for an office boy at a New York law firm.
Harper’s Bazar, February 1918
Apparently no one knows whether British Corporal Jack Turner, who supposedly wrote this poem, was real or not. If he was a figment of an ad writer’s imagination, it makes me mad. If he was real, it makes me want to cry.
…Then you think about a little grave, with R. I. P. on top,
And you know you’ve got to go across–altho’ you’d like to stop;
When your backbone’s limp as water, and you’re bathed in icy sweat,
Why, you’ll feel a lot more cheerful if you puff your cigarette.
Judge magazine, February 2, 1918
What was it with St. Nicholas magazine and the vermin?
St. Nicholas magazine, February 1918
I haven’t read any 1918 comics yet, but this gets me pretty much up to speed.
Judge magazine, February 2, 1918
I can’t wait to find out what surprise the Little Review has in store for February 1918 that’s so huge that they can casually toss off “oh, and we’re publishing the first installment of Ulysses in March.”
The Little Review, January 1918
The best art of 1918 is found in some surprising places. For example, ads for constipation medicine.
Woman’s Home Companion, January 1918
Support the troops! Send them cigarettes from the enemy!*
*Actually just pretend-Turkish: really Liggett & Myers tobacco.
She: What do you think, Kate–shall I take off another stitch or two?
He (sotto voce)–Take off another stitch! Dear, dear! I had better absent myself without delay!
This is about as racy as 1918 gets.
Judge, January 12, 1918
Note to advertisers: if you want to get a half-naked woman into the New York Times, make her an Egyptian goddess.
From the New York TImes rotogravure: the “new wartime evening gown” with a knitting pocket. Waltzing…sharp needles…what could go wrong?
New York Times, January 13, 1918 (All the photos in the rotogravure were this bad.)
An ad in The Egoist, the British literary journal where T.S. Eliot was assistant editor. I love how proudly they quote the criticism. Dissatisfying! Very unequal! Missing the effort by too much cleverness!
The Egoist, January 1918
Judge was a humor magazine that managed almost never to be funny–more on that later–but they had some great illustrators. My favorites from the January 3, 1918, issue:
Johnny Gruelle
My Life 100 Years Ago 