Tag Archives: Advertising

The Best and Worst Magazine Ads of January 1921

The thing I miss most about reading ONLY as if I were living 100 years ago is the Best and Worst posts. I just don’t do enough hundred-year-old reading anymore to determine what’s the best magazine or short story or woman swimming with a red scarf on her head of the month. (Well, I could probably do that last one.) But then it dawned on me that I can judge to my heart’s content if I just narrow the field. To, say, advertising, which I vowed to write about more often anyway after my only 2020 post on the topic ended up being the most popular post of the year. (UPDATE 2/6/2021: Oh, wait, there was also third-place post My Dream 1920 Summer Vacation.)

So, having looked through the Ladies’ Home Journal and Good Housekeeping, I present you with the best, worst, and various other superlatives of January 2021 advertising.

Cutest Old-Timey Product

Having this in the kitchen would ALMOST be worth the incredible hassle of cooking with it.

Florence oil stove ad, Ladies' Home Journal, January 1921.

Ladies’ Home Journal

Least Cute Old-Timey Product

We can all be thankful that we don’t live in a world where linoleum rugs are a thing.

Armstrong linoleum rug ad, Ladies' Home Journal, January 1921.

Ladies’ Home Journal

Congoleum linoleum rug ad, Ladies' Home Journal, January 1921.

Ladies’ Home Journal

Worst Product Name

Merely dumb-sounding

Tweedie boots ad, Ladies' Home Journal, January 1921, woman's boot.

Ladies’ Home Journal

and incomprehensible

Fels-Naphtha soap ad, Ladies' Home Journal, January 1921.

Ladies’ Home Journal

lose out to pure evil.*

Vollrathware ad, Good Housekeeping, January 1921, white crockery.

Good Housekeeping

Least Convincing Advertising Claim

There are plenty of dubious claims, like this

Sun-Maid raisins ad, Ladies' Home Journal, January 1921, raisins are a beauty food.

Ladies’ Home Journal

and this

Pillsbury's ad, Good Housekeeping, January 1921, gee I like bran muffins.

Good Housekeeping

and this,

White and Whyckkoff's stationeary ad, Good Housekeeping, January 1921.

Good Housekeeping

which, if you can’t read the small print, is about a woman who decides to go to a party based solely on the quality of the inviter’s stationery. Strong contestants all, but I’m taking an Italian class at the moment, and one of my classmates recently sent us pictures of his Italian grandma’s gnocci preparations,

Gnocci on tray.

Tomato sauce preparation.

Gnocci with meat sauce.

Karl Robert Schaberg

so I know whereof I speak when I award top honors in this category to

Good Housekeeping Quaker macaroni ad, January 1921.

Good Housekeeping

Most Absorbing Narrative

Helen and her friend muse about men, gas mileage,** and socialism on their way to pick up Helen’s husband Harry at the station.

Overland Ad, Ladies' Home Journal, January 1921.

Ladies’ Home Journal

Most Distinctive Advertising Trend

Trompe-l’oeil curling pages were apparently all the rage.

Mazola oil ad, Ladies' Home Journal, January 1921, curling page.

Ladies’ Home Journal

Faust instant coffee and tea ad, Good Housekeeping, January 1921, curling page.

Good Housekeeping

Most Retro Ad Design

As I’ve mentioned, the perfume industry hasn’t gotten the memo that Art Nouveau*** is over.

All-the-Petals perfume ad, Ladies' Home Journal, January 1921, dancing fairy.

Ladies’ Home Journal

Least Cute Kid

In this always-competitive category, here are the runners-up

Beech Nut peanut butter ad, Ladies' Home Journal, January 1920.

Ladies’ Home Journal

Baker's cocoa ad, Good Housekeeping, January 1921, children making cocoa.

Good Housekeeping

and the winner.

Burnett's vanilla ad, Good Housekeeping, January 1921, girl holding vanilla.

Good Housekeeping

Least Appropriate Literary Reference

Because what says “let’s go whitewash some fences!” like a necktie?

Tom Sawyer ad, Ladies Home Journal, January 1921, boys wearing neckties.

Ladies’ Home Journal

Most Diet-Busting Ad

If I hadn’t been so hungry when I was judging this category, the prize probably would have gone to this,****

Royal Baking Powder ad, Ladies' Home Journal, January 1921, cake and pastries.

Ladies’ Home Journal

but after seeing this

Welch Grapelade ad, Ladies' Home Journal, January 1921, grape jam on white bread.

Ladies’ Home Journal

I yelled out desperately to my husband, who had just returned from the grocery store, asking him if he had bought any bread. Which, given that we had vowed to abstain from it, he hadn’t. All I could think about was a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and my Swedish-inspired smoked salmon salad,

Smoked salmon salad with avocado and egg.

which I normally love, just wasn’t doing it for me. This didn’t help.

Yeast foam ad, Ladies' Home Journal, January 1921.

Ladies’ Home Journal

If you needed proof that advertising, even 100-year-old advertising, works, there it is.

Least Diet-Busting Ad

Morris canned meat ad, Good Housekeeping, January 1921.

Good Housekeeping

Creepiest Ad

Creepiness was a surprisingly popular advertising trend a hundred years ago. I first took note of it in my least popular post of 2018. It’s still with us in the form of these corn medicine drop people

Corn remover ad, Ladies' Home Journal, January 1921, faces in drops.

Ladies’ Home Journal

and, the winner, this giant wall baby.*****

Nujol ad, Good Housekeeping, January 1921.

Good Housekeeping

Best Good Riddance

I’ve been meaning to do a post on Aunt Jemima for months, and have done a huge amount of research, which is a sign I’ll probably never get to it. So I’ll just say that after years of ads where she’s constantly ordered to make pancakes as an enslaved person

Aunt Jemima ad, Women's Home Companion, Last Christmas on the Old Plantation

Good Housekeeping, December 1919

and hassled for free pancakes even after emancipation,

Aunt Jemima ad, Ladies' Home Journal

Ladies’ Home Journal, January 1920

I’m pleased to see her heading up north to finally earn some money.******

Aunt Jemima ad, Ladies' Home Journal, January 1921, good-bye to the old plantation.

Best Multiculturalism

This isn’t a highly competitive category, with only one contestant featuring people of color in non-servant roles. Here it is:

Columbia records ad, January 1921, Ladies' Home Journal.

Ladies’ Home Journal

Most Revolutionary Ad

There I was, flipping idly through the Ladies’ Home Journal, when I saw this.

First Kotex ad, Ladies' Home Journal, January 1921.

Ladies’ Home Journal

“Wait, what?” I said. I had never seen an ad for a sanitary product in a 100-year-old magazine before. Deodorant was about as personal as advertising got.

Mum deodorant ad, Ladies' Home Journal, January 1921.

Ladies’ Home Journal

I did some research and found that, while disposable sanitary napkins had been around in various forms since the 1880s, this was indeed the first advertisement for them in a major magazine and, therefore, their debut as a large-scale commercial product. The ad, which never explains exactly what these newfangled things are for, says that they’re made of a material that was first used for soldiers’ bandages during the war. This struck me as probably bogus but turned out to be true.

Best Ad Artistry

I read an interview with Lionel Messi once where someone asked him who the best player in soccer was. He said that there were himself and Ronaldo and then there was everyone else, and he went on to rank-order everyone else. In 1920s advertising terms, that would be Old Dutch Cleanser and Indian Head cloth. Old Dutch Cleanser is absent from LHJ and GH this month, so the winner by forfeit is

Indian Head cloth ad, woman with child, Ladies' Home Journal, January 1921.

Ladies’ Home Journal

On to February!

squiggle

*Actually there was a worse product name, which was (unintentionally) an ethnic slur, but it was disqualified from inclusion for that reason.

**Twenty-five miles per gallon!

***Which I love, don’t get me wrong. Missing the heyday of Art Nouveau is one of my greatest regrets about the timing of this project, up there with coming along after Jessie Willcox Smith replaced Coles Phillips as Good Housekeeping’s regular cover artist.

****Unless I DQ’d it out of annoyance over its sexism.

*****In fairness, Nujol also has one of the best ads ever:

Nujol constipation ad, 1918, woman with baby.

Woman’s Home Companion, January 1918

******Of course I realize that the whole thing is still highly problematic.

Crop of Good Housekeeping cover, January 1921.

The Top 10 Posts of 1920

Happy new year, everyone! I’m sure you’re as glad to say good-bye to 2020 as I am.

It is, incredibly, my fourth New Year’s here at My Life 100 Years Ago. That’s four Saturday Evening Post covers by J.C. Leyendecker. In 1918 we had a baby soldier,

J.C. Leyendecker New Year's cover 1918, baby soldier.

in 1919 a baby celebrating peace,

J.C. Leyendecker New Years 1919 cover, baby letting doves out of cage.

and in 1920 a shushing baby,

J.C. Leyendecker January 2020 Saturday Evening Post cover, baby with camel toy.

which didn’t make much sense until I realized that it was a censored version of this original:

J.C. Leyendecker painting of baby with whiskey bottle and camel toy.

sotheby.com

This year we have a baby coal miner.

J.C. Leyendecker 1921 New Year's cover, baby coal miner.

This puzzled me, because the violent conflicts in the mining industry seem more up The Liberator’s or The Crisis’s* alley than the business-friendly Post’s. The magazine’s website explains that “the 1921 cherub anticipates an end to the bitter coal miners’ strike in Alabama.” If Leyendecker were still at it (his streak ran from 1907 to 1943), this year’s baby would be getting a vaccine.

Meanwhile, Good Housekeeping and Sunset have New Year’s babies of their own, going for cute and creepy respectively.

Good Housekeeping Jessie Willcox Smith cover, January 1921, child on moon.

Jessie Willcox Smith

Robert Kearfott Sunset cover, New Years 1921, baby.

Robert Kearfott

The Top 10 Posts

I only published 15 posts total this year, and the top ten were the first ten. This struck me at as strange and a little alarming at first, but when I looked more closely at the numbers it made sense. Four out of the top five were from March, April, and May—i.e. peak COVID lockdown time, when everyone was desperate for entertainment.

#10. The Top 10 Posts of 1919…and a new name for a new decade

Vanity Fair cover, January 1920, cartoon of people driving cars.

John Held Jr.

This is kind of meta.

#9. 5 Old Posts That Might Come in Handy Around Now

Coles Phillips Luxite hosiery ad.

Coles Phillips

I thought you all might want some diversions during those grim first weeks, so I compiled some quizzes I’d published over the years. Except, oops, I forgot What’s Your 1918 Girl Job?

#8. Are You H.L. Mencken and George Jean Nathan’s Ideal Woman? A Quiz

H.L. Mencken and George Jean Nathan

Smart Set co-editors H.L. Mencken and George Jean Nathan may have been the greatest critics of their era, but their attitude toward woman left a lot to be desired. I had a wonderful time writing this post on July 4 and managed to finish it just in time to watch the fireworks from the roof of my building. This is probably my favorite post ever as far as the pictures go.

#7. Magazine Covers Ring in the 1920s

La Vie Parisienne cover, January 1920, woman in fur behind snowy branch.

“Forget the words, I just want pictures!” readers often tell me, although somewhat more politely than that. This year, I listened.

#6. You Be the Judge: The 1915/1920 Magazine Cover Smackdown

Vanity Fair cover, September 1915, Rita Senger, woman with sleeping Pierrot.

Rita Senger

It was fun comparing magazine covers from 1915 and 1920, and I enjoyed hearing about your favorites. Rita Senger’s winning 1915 Vanity Fair cover took me in a fascinating direction that you’ll be hearing about soon. (UPDATE 4/6/2021: You can read more about Rita Senger here.)

#5. The doctor and the chorus girl: A heartbreaking tale of interracial love

Eugene Nelson and Helen Lee Worthing, 1929.

This Valentine’s Day post started out with idle curiosity—what happened to four aspiring actresses after they won a movie magazine contest? It turned into a bit of an obsession as I delved into the lives of popular Follies girl Helen Lee Worthing and her husband Eugene Nelson, a prominent African-American physician. Of all the posts I’ve done, I may be proudest of this one, and I’m glad it found so many readers.

#4. 1920 magazine covers bring late winter cheer

Anne Harriet Fish Vanity Fair cover, March 1920, couples dancing.

Anne Harriet Fish

I celebrated my return to the northern hemisphere with some wintry cover art, not suspecting that another winter would be on the way by the time I returned to South Africa.

#3. My Dream 1920 Summer Vacation

If we couldn’t go on vacation this year, at least we could dream of beaches…and white shoes…and gramophones.

#2. Bernice Bobs Her Hair…and I Bob Mine!

Crop of illustration from Bernice Bobs Her Hair, F. Scott Fitzgerald.

With the salons closed, I got into the F. Scott Fitzgerald spirit and gave myself a homemade bob.

#1. Magazine Ads Take Baby Steps Into the 1920s

Indian Head Cloths ad, women at beach, Ladies' Home Journal, April 1920.

Okay, I get the hint! I’ll do another ad roundup soon.

Honorable Mention

Vintage photo, young male couple.

 A Pioneering Gay Novel of 1919. Not that being #11 out of 15 is such a spectacular achievement, but I can’t resist giving this post a plug. Finding a novel about a loving gay couple who just wanted to live like normal people was my biggest surprise of the year.

Dishonorable Mention

Helen Dryden Vogue cover, December 1920, woman looking out at snow.

Helen Dryden

December 1920 Magazine Covers Bring Holiday Cheer. As I mentioned, the last five posts were the least popular, and the last post of all is on trend with the fewest views. Also: I see I’m in a bit of a blog title rut.**

Best-Performing Post from a Past Year

Girl Scout troop, 1916.

How Girls Can Help Their Country

My Quest to Earn a 1919 Girl Scout Badge. This was my most fun post ever, and it lives on, with more than twice as many views in 2020 as the #1 post published during the year. In the meantime, a new edition of the Girl Scout handbook has been published—I should get on it.

Best Readership News

You know how when you’re just starting out in your profession you work like crazy, and then when you get more senior you can just coast? Yeah, me neither, but blogging works like that. In 2018, when I was reading full-time as if I were living in 1918, I published 94 posts. In 2019, I had 21. This year, 15. But here’s what happened to the numbers.

Blog stats, 2018-2020.

There are technical and highly boring reasons for this having to do with the impact of longevity on how search engines assess websites, but whatever! I’ll take it!

Happy 2021! May it be better than your 2020.

squiggle

*The January 1921 Liberator and Crisis covers:

Liberator January 1921 cover, Cornelia Barnes, people walking down street.

Cornelia Barnes

Crisis cover January 1921, statue of man with Sphinx.

**Although not as bad of a rut as the time back in 2019 when four out of five posts in a row started with “Celebrating.”

Magazine ads take baby steps into the 1920s

When a new decade begins, there’s usually a period when people have a sense that it will be different from the last one, but they don’t yet know how. (Okay, this decade is a bad example.) Having spent my Easter morning looking through ads from the Ladies’ Home Journal from January to April 1920, I’ve caught glimpses of the 1910s dying and the 1920s being born.

I imagine that this woman’s flowing locks will disappear soon,

Shampoo ad showing woman with long red hair, Ladies' Home Journal, April 1920.

to be replaced by something along these lines:*

Snowdrift shortening ad, woman eating shortening, Ladies' Home Journal, 1920.

Dance parties like this are so 1916;

Soap advertisement, woman and man dancing, Ladies' Home Journal, 1920.

this proto-Charleston is more like it.

Colombia gramophone ad, Ladies' Home Journal, 1920, man and woman dancing.

Will a corset stand it?

Corset ad, woman playing tennis, Ladies' Home Journal, 1920.

No is the answer. More relaxing underwear is on the way.**

Dove undergarments ad, women flying through the sky in underwear, Ladies' Home Journal, April 1920.

Ad styles are changing too. The fragrance industry hasn’t gotten the memo that Art Nouveau is over,***

Djer-Kiss perfume ad, fairies in fantastical setting, Ladies' Home Journal, 1920.

Pompeian fragrance ad, women bowing to huge perfume bottle, Ladies' Home Journal, 1920.

while these companies are ahead of the pack with bold colors and clear lines:

Indian Head Cloths ad, women at beach, Ladies' Home Journal, April 1920.

Old Dutch Cleanser ad, sink on red background, Ladies' Home Journal, 1920.

Nashua Woolnap Blankets ad, children in bed, Ladies' Home Journal, 1920.

There are some constants. Ads for dried and canned fruit

Del Monte canned peaches ad, Ladies' Home Journal, 1920. 

and, God help us, cannned meat

Council Meats ad, cans of meat flying through the sky, Ladies' Home Journal, 1920.

are as popular as ever. Maids are at the ready to help their mistresses get dressed,

Wolfhead underwear ad, maid helping woman dress, Ladies' Home Journal, 1920.

Hosiery ad, maid helping woman put on stocking, Ladies' Home Journal, 1920.

and fix breakfast for the little master,

Karo syrup ad, maid pouring syrup with boy, Ladies' Home Journal, 1920.

and change the baby,

Johnson's Baby Powder ad, maid sprinkling powder on baby, Ladies' Home Journal, 1920.

and hold up cans of wax.

Johnson's Prepared Wax ad, maid holding up can of wax, Ladies' Home Journal, 1920.

Husbands, though? Not so helpful.****

Vacuum cleaner ad, husband dropping things on floor as wife vacuums, Ladies' Home Journal, 1920.

African-Americans are almost always shown as hardworking servants,*****

Aunt Jemima ad, Aunt Jemima and man making food, Ladies' Home Journal, 1920.

although this guy looks like he’s had it up to here and is about to heave the family’s breakfast at them.

Log Cabin syrup advertisement, African-American servant with platter of food, Ladies' Home Journal, 1920. 

I’ve done an excellent job of not mentioning you-know-what, but I can’t stop myself from ending with an ad that would never have caught my eye at any other time. A thousand old linen handkerchiefs indeed!

Scott toilet paper ad, Ladies' Home Journal, 1920

squiggle

*Yes, I do realize she may have her hair tied up in back. Besides, she’s eating shortening, so I don’t want to hold her up as too much of a role model.

**Although you could wear a corset with this underwear, of course. For a fascinating and hilarious look at what goes under what, read this witness2fashion post.

***I just read Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk, a wonderful novel about a woman who worked in advertising in the early to mid-20th century, based loosely on the life of Margaret Fishback. In it, I learned that the advertising style where the product is portrayed as being enormous was known as “hellzapoppin’.”

****In case the print is too small for you to read, the ad says, “‘Now see what you’ve done!’ But careless hubby lacks concern, for he knows that offending cigar ashes are quickly and easily whisked off the rug by the ever handy Royal.” I hate hate hate this guy.

*****The exception: the man in the Cream of Wheat ads, real-life chef Frank L. White, whom I’ve written about before.

Cream of Wheat ad, chef pointing at box of cream of wheat, Ladies' Home Journal, 1920.

Cream of Wheat ad, chef with children, Ladies' Home Journal, 1920.

More beautiful images from 1918

As I mentioned last week, I’ve been posting some of my favorite images from 1918 on Twitter while I regroup after spending 2018 reading as if I were living in 1918. Here’s this week’s batch.

On Martin Luther King Day, I posted the April 1918 cover of The Crisis, featuring a painting by William Edouard Scott of a couple making their way to a new life in the north. The painting is now in the Huntington Museum of Art in West Virginia (although not currently on display).

April 1918 Crisis cover, William Edouard Scott painting Lead Kindly Light. Man and woman riding ox cart with lamp.

Poet George Sterling posed for this illustration in an edition of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam featuring photographs by Adelaide Hanscom (later Leeson). The original 1905 edition was in black and white; the photographs were tinted in a 1914 reissue. I wrote about Sterling, who founded Carmel, California as an artists’ colony and was known as the “Uncrowned King of Bohemia,” here.

Tinted photograph of poet George Sterling, Rubaiyat illustration. Photograph of poet George Sterling, Rubaiyat illustration, 1905.

I’m intrigued by the short-haired, drop-waisted woman on the cover of the July 1918 issue of Vanity Fair. She looks like a time-traveling flapper from 1923. The artist is Georges Lepape.

George Lepape July 1918 Vanity Fair Cover. Startled flapper looking at caterpiller on wall.

“Haunting” isn’t a word we typically associate with cleaning products, but I was haunted by the tiny cleaners in the Old Dutch Cleanser ads. Here are two of my favorites, from the February and May 1918 issues of the Ladies’ Home Journal.

1918 Old Dutch Cleanser ad. Tiny hooded woman washing floor. 1918 Old Dutch Cleanser ad. Hooded women leaving employment bureau.

Women in 1918 were apparently easily startled by insects. This one’s from George Wolf Plank’s cover for the August 1 issue of Vogue.

George Wolfe Plank August 1, 1918 Vogue cover. Startled woman with flowered hat looking at butterfly.

I’m not a car person, but I love 1918 cars (and car advertisements). The Marmon 34 set a coast-to-coast speed record in 1916: 5 days, 18 hours, 30 minutes. This ad is from the February 1918 issue of Harper’s Bazar.

1918 Marmon 34 ad. Green automobile on black background.

I found the word “farmerette” hilarious when I started my reading-in-1918 project, but now I see a picture of a woman in overalls and think, “Oh, a farmerette.” Italian-American painter Matteo Sandonà drew the farmerette on the Sunset cover; I couldn’t find the artist for the Life cover.

1918 Life magazine cover, farmerette kissing soldier in field.

October 1918 Sunset magazine cover, farmerette in overalls wiping brow.

Maybe I’ll be ready to move on to 1919 soon. If not, there are lots more great pictures from 1918.

The best and worst of December 1918: Book talk, strewn violets, a sad loss, and a magazine of the future

2018 is over!

I should have anticipated that this would happen eventually, leaving me with a blog title and tag line that make me look like I can’t do simple arithmetic. (UPDATE 9/8/2020: At the time I wrote this, this blog was called My Year in 1918 and the tag line was “A journey to the world of 100 years ago.”) When I started this project last January, though, the end of the year seemed so far off that it wasn’t worth thinking about. To the extent that I envisioned 2019 rolling around, I imagined myself luxuriating in all the reading I’d missed out on—diving into the new books that have been waiting on my bookshelf

Photograph of a pile of books

and reading frivolous lifestyle articles, which 1918 was woefully short of. Maybe taking a quiz to find out what Hogwarts house I belong in or what Jane Austen character I resemble.*

What actually happened: I got stuck, like someone in a science fiction story who invents a time machine that breaks down as the dinosaurs are descending. I couldn’t bring myself to read any of those new books, not even the biography of food safety pioneer Harvey Wiley, one of my favorite 1918 people. (That’s it at the top of the pile.) I did look at the New York Times headlines on my iPad on New Year’s Day, but they freaked me out. “What is all this news?” I asked myself. “And what does it have to do with me?” So I retreated to the January 1, 1919 news and My Antonia.

It looks like it will take a while. Maybe I’ll read The Waste Land and work my way gradually back to the present.

In the meantime, from my cozy perch in 1918, here are the December bests and worsts.

Best quiz contestants:  

The winners of the “Are You a Stagnuck?” quiz: fellow blogger Deborah Kalb of Books Q&A with Deborah Kalb** and Barbara Dinerman. For their prizes, Deborah has chosen a copy of The Melting of Molly and Barbara has chosen My Antonia. Congratulations to both of these loyal readers! You are not Stagnucks at all. The answers will be posted below the quiz soon. (UPDATE 1/11/2019: You can find them here.)

Best magazine:

Front page header for The Bookman magazine, December 1918

Up to now, four magazines have won the Best Magazine award: The Crisis (three times), The Little Review (twice), The Dial, and The American Journal of Insanity. But the magazine that I turned to most eagerly every month, the one that became my 1918 comfort read, never won the honor. In fact, I came close to naming it Worst Magazine one month, after an ownership change that seemed likely to send it down the tubes.

I’m happy to say that The Bookman’s wonderful December 1918 issue richly deserves the honor.

It began unpromisingly, with a profile of the editor of The Saturday Evening Post and a 15-page article called “The Amazing Story of the Government Printing Office.”*** But then things started looking up, with a Sara Teasdale poem and an interesting article by British war poet Robert Nichols called “To the Young Writers of America,” in which he discusses British taste in American books and vice versa, and notes that up-and-coming poets Robert Frost and T.S. Eliot**** were published in England before they were published in the United States. The highlight for me was when he said that

a certain American poet, come to live among us, antagonized the majority of those who were longing to hear what the real American poets were doing. I will not advertise his name. He does not need my help. He is an adept.

Well, I’ll advertise it: it must be Ezra Pound. I love feeling like a 1918 insider.

Then there was Margaret Ashmun’s Christmas round-up, including several gorgeously illustrated children’s books I mentioned in the 1918 Holiday Shopping Guide,

Harry Clarke illustration from Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Anderson, 1916. People in formal dress.

Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen (1916)

and a fascinating set of articles on children’s literature around the world by writers from England, France, Holland, Spain, and Scandinavia. I was so riveted by the history of children’s books in the Netherlands that I looked up the writer, Hendrik Willem van Loon, who turns out to be the author of The Story of Mankind, which won the first-ever Newbery Award in 1921.

Illustration from Twin Travellers in South America by Mary H. Wade. Boy and girl outside house with parrot.

Frontispiece, Twin Travellers in South America, by Mary H. Wade

In an article about children’s holiday books, Annie Carroll Moore test-drives them on an actual child, nine-year-old Edouard–an ingenious gimmick in an era when gimmicks were sorely lacking.

“Twin Travellers in South America” looked promising but failed to hold his interest for more than a hasty glance at the pictures. “I think my teacher would like that book because it seems like a geography trying to be a story.”*****

And there’s a review of Booth Tarkington’s The Magnificent Ambersons by H.W. Boynton, who feels exactly as I do about it:

I take pleasure in the book, I suspect, because it covers vividly the range of my own generation and yields the atmosphere of and color of that “middle distance” which, as one emerges from it, is wont to be as blurred and insignificant to the backward eye. And I close the book with the queer feeling that everything about it is true except the central figure.

He reviews My Antonia too, but I’m saving that until I finish the book.

Okay, enough Bookman love–on to rest of the best (and worst).

Worst loss to criticism

Portrait photograph of Randolph Bourne.

Randolph Bourne, date unknown

One of the highlights of my 1918 reading has been Randolph Bourne’s criticism in The Dial. He was modern without (like Ezra Pound) descending into incoherence, hard-headed without (like H.L. Mencken) crossing the line to nastiness. At 32, he had a bright future ahead of him. Or he would have, if he hadn’t fallen victim, after suffering from chronic health problems and disabilities throughout his life, to the influenza epidemic. He died on December 22, 1918.  His last essay for The Dial, published on December 28, was a rapturous review of Lytton Strachey’s Eminent Victorians. It ends as follows:

The book runs over with good things. One closes it with a new sense of the delicious violence of sheer thought. If there were more Gideons like this, at the sound of such trumpets all the walls of the Victorian Jerichos would certainly fall.

I wish he had lived to leave us his thoughts on the explosion of literary talent that would emerge after the war.

On a more cheerful note…

Best nostalgia-inducing headline:

President Wilson arrives in France, and the crowds go wild. Like, strewn violets wild. Sigh.

New York Times headline, December 15, 1918, Two Million Cheer Wilson. Includes subhead Flowers Strew His Path.

New York Times, December 15, 1918

Best Christmas present:

Because what says “Christmas” better than not executing someone for exercising their First Amendment rights?

December 17, 1918 New York Times story President Saves Soldier. Wilson commutes death sentence for disobeying orders.

New York Times, December 17, 1918

Worst Christmas present:

Because what says “Red Cross” better than a basket of tobacco?

December 10, 1918 New York Times story about Red Cross workers giving baskets of ciagrettes to returning soldiers.

New York Times, December 10, 1918

Best judicial decision:

Most 1918 judicial decisions were pretty appalling, but I can get behind Johnson v. Johnson.

December 16, 1918 New York Times item about judge ruling that wife's refusal to cook meals does not justify assault.

New York Times, December 16, 1918

Worst praise for a leader during a political campaign:

Excerpt from December 15, 1918 New York Times story saying Lloyd George was called a real spark of radium at a meeting.

New York Times, December 15, 1918

Best sinister stratagem:

Cordiality! Those dastards!

December 15, 1918 New York Times headline reading in part Germans' Cordiality to Army Believed to be a Peace Strategem.

New York Times, December 15, 1918

Worst journalistic flat-footedness:

World War I, as you undoubtedly know, ended on November 11, 1918. Some monthly magazines were on it, like The Crisis

Editorial page of The Crisis, December 1918, with editorial titled Peace.

and Poetry.

First page of Poetry Magazine, December 1918, with poem titled Peace.

Others missed the boat. The Atlantic Monthly was full of war articles with titles like “Morale” and “Impressions of the Fifth Year.”  St. Nicholas published its monthly update on how the war was going, with one line at the top saying, oh, wait, we won.

Header in December 1918 St. Nicholas with sentence announcing the war is over.

St. Nicholas, December 1918

And if you look closely at these festive stamps in the Ladies’ Home Journal to paste onto your letter to your boy or girl in service

Page of stickers in December 1918 Ladies' Home Journal.

Ladies’ Home Journal, December 1918

you’ll find this

Sticker reading 1919 on the Kaiser's Chest with picture of happy sailors sitting on a chest.

and this.

Sticker reading It's war this Christmas, but wait till next year.

Best caption on an illustration:

Phillisy sidled up to her Aunt Marion, intent on a Red Cross sweater. “So,” she asked, “can people come alive when they’re dead?”

Illustration from December 1918 Sunset magazine. Woman knitting outdoros with girl standing next to her.

Sunset, December 1918

Best cartoons:

I love both of these Christmas-Eve-in-the-village scenes by Johnny Gruelle of Judge (the creator of Raggedy Ann and Andy) and Harrison Cady at rival humor magazine Life.

December 28, 1918 Johnny Gruelle Life cover titled Christmas Eve at Yapp's Crossing.

Judge, December 28, 1918

December 5, 1918 Harrison Cady Life illustration showing snowy village.

Life, December 5, 1918

Curious about who drew this charming Life cartoon, I blew it up to to 800% of its size and managed to read the signature: Rea Irvin, who later became a New Yorker cartoonist and created the magazine’s mascot, Eustace Tilley.

Rea Irvin cartoon in Life, December 5, 1918. Butler bringing lump of coal on tray into living room.

Life, December 5, 1918

Worst cartoon:

With the Huns out of the picture, the cartoonists need a new scary-looking villain. Sounds like a job for…the Bolsheviki!

Judge cartoon, December 7, 1918 showing monstrous man about to attack little boy with caption about Bolsheviki.

Judge, December 7, 1918

Best ad (magazine)

Murad generally owns this category******

1918 Murad cigarette ad showing Santa with giant box of Murads in his sack.

Life, December 19, 1918

but is edged out this month by rival Turkish cigarette Helmar.

1918 Helmar cigarette ad saying Helmar Turkish cigarettes with each letter colored with a country's flag.

Judge, December 28, 1918

Best ad (newspaper)

Newspaper ads are rarely interesting, but I did like this one. I’m unclear on the purpose of the electric vibrator that the woman on the right in the second row is using on her head.

1918 ad for New York Edison titled Give Something Electric with cartoons of people using electrical appliances.

New York Times, December 20, 1918

Worst ad:

In another month it might have been this,

1918 ad for Restgood mattress with headline Curled Hair: The Natural Mattress Filler.

Sunset, December 1918

or this,

1918 ad for Radioc with headline Radium and Hair Health.

New York Times, December 17, 1918

but this was the month of

1918 Nashua Woolnap ad showing child in bed aiming rifle at owl.

Ladies’ Home Journal, December 1918

so it was no contest.

Best magazine covers:

There was surprisingly little Yuletide festiveness on the December magazine covers, perhaps due to bet-hedging on the war.

Vogue upheld its usual high standard with two beautiful covers.

Helen Dryden Vogue cover, December 15, 1918. Woman reclining on bed with colorful cushions in front of open window.

Vogue, December 15, 1918

Vogue 1918 Christmas Gifts number cover. Woman on Juliet balcony waving garlands.

Vogue Christmas Gifts Number, 1918

Erté finally turned up again after several months of covers that are lost to history, or at least to the internet.*******

Erté December 1918 Harper's Bazar cover illustration, woman in pink coat in snow.

Harper’s Bazar cover illustration, December 1918, Erté

House & Garden featured this snowy scene.

House and Garden December 1918 cover illustration. Gray house with pink roof, footprints in snow.

Artist William Edouard Scott was back with another luminous painting on the cover of The Crisis.

The Crisis December 1918 cover. William Edouard Scott painting The Flight into Egypt. Black family next to river with lamp.

And I loved this Vanity Fair cover,

Vanity Fair December 1918 cover, colorful cartoon of crowd of happy soldiers.

which might have won, but then I remembered this Dada 3 cover, which was featured in the post on my sad 1918 love life. With the war over, it’s a new era, with a new, sometimes anarchic, aesthetic emerging. And nothing looks more like that future than

Cover of Dada 3, December 1918 with caption reading Je ne veux meme pas savoir s'il y a eu des hommes avant moi.

On to…1919!!!!!!

*Although I don’t need to; I know I’m a Ravenclaw and, like everyone else, Lizzie.

**You should check out her website, which features interviews with a huge number of authors (although none from 1918).

***Which, it turns out, is so amazing that the story continues in the January 1919 issue.

****What The Bookman had to say about Eliot under the previous ownership: “There is such a display of cynical cleverness in the verse of T.S. Eliot that I think he might be able to write almost anything except poetry.”

*****Edouard was right. A sample of the twins’ childish prattle: “‘Why, that must be a mataco,’ he said. ‘It’s a kind of armadillo. See, it has rolled itself into a ball for safety. Matacos always do that when they think danger is near. With its head hidden and its jointed shell curled around, it now feels quite safe.'”

******Fun fact: cartoonist Rea Irvin was a Murad illustrator.

*******I couldn’t find an undamaged copy of the actual cover–this is a reproduction of the illustration.

 

New review on the Book List:

December 31: Renascence and Other Poems by Edna St. Vincent Millay (1917).

Your 1918 Holiday Shopping Guide

It’s Christmas 1918, and everyone’s in the mood to celebrate! But what to get for that special someone?

Everyone’s already gotten the gift they wanted most,

U.S. Food Administration poster, 1918. Santa with soldiers. A Merry Christmas. Peace, Your Gift to the Nation.

US Food Administration, Educational Division, 1918

but there’s lots of other cool stuff out there.

For the Kids

A good place to start your search is Happyland at Bloomingdale’s, where

There’s every old manner of plaything and banner
In BloomingdaleS Showing of Toys,
U-boats and airships, death-and-despair ships
In BloomingdaleS Showing of Toys.

Bloomingdales ad, 1918. Happyland. Toys of American make for young America's sake. Children looking at toys.

New York Times, December 15, 1918

If your kid’s more into reading than visiting death on the Allied forces, you’re still in luck. Recommendations from The Bookman include an edition of Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tales, with illustrations by Harry Clarke,

Harry Clarke illustration, Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen, 1916. Women in gowns at party.

Canadian Wonder Tales by Cyrus Macmillan, illustrated by George Sheringham,

George Sheringham illustration from Canadian Wonder Tales, 1918. Indians in headdresses.

English Fairy Tales by Flora Annie Steel, illustrated by Arthur Rackham,

Arthur Rackham illustration, English Fairy Tales, 1918. Man selling vegetables to woman in round hut.

Folk Tales of Flanders, written and illustrated by Jean de Bosschère,

Illustration from Folk Tales from Flanders by Jean de Bosschère, 1918. Young man fighting with monster.

and Dream Boats, Portraits and Histories of Fauns, Fairies, and Fishes, written and illustrated by Dugald Steward Walker, of which The Bookman says that “text and drawing tinkle with elfish laughter and scintillate with flitting wings.”

Illustration from Dream Boats..., Dugald Steward Walker, 1918. Man in boat on cresting ocean wave in front of giant star.

Or give the gift that keeps on giving, a subscription to St. Nicholas magazine. The kids will  spend many happy hours solving puzzles that leave me baffled, like this one:*

Illustrated numerical enigma from St. Nicholas magazine, December 1918.

St. Nicholas, December 1918

 For the Men

Vanity Fair’s holiday shopping guide is full of ideas for the “Male of the Species,” but once you weed out the smoking presents

Mahogany and glass ash tray, Vanity Fair, December 1918.

Vanity Fair, December 1918

and the war presents

Canadian war bag, Vanity Fair, December 1918.

Vanity Fair, December 1918

the selection’s a bit limited. There’s this extra speedometer for passenger’s seat viewing, but $50 ($834.56 in 2018 dollars) seems a bit pricey, plus, if given by a wife, isn’t this kind of passive-aggressive?

Clock and speedometer, Vanity Fair, December 1918.

Vanity Fair, December 1918

These wallets ($13 and $7.25) are perfectly nice and all, but a wallet always smacks of “I couldn’t think of anything else so I got you this” desperation.

Three wallets, Vanity Fair, December 1918.

Vanity Fair, December 1918

The Bookman assures us that the poetry anthology Songs of Men, compiled by Robert Frothingham, is a “a book such as nearly everybody has been looking for.”

It is a collection of verse for men, with a swinging range of the gamut of emotions; it sings of camping and seafaring, of mining and mountain-climbing, of cow-punching and horse-wrangling, of prospecting, pioneering, loving and fighting. From the woodsman to the college professor, every man will read this small volume with keen delight.

Cover of Songs of Men by Robert Frothingham, 1918.

If you’re still not convinced, here’s a random sample, from the poem “High-Chin Bob” by Badger Clark:

Text beginning, 'Way high up in the Mokiones that top-hoss done his best.

No? Well, then, a fourteen-year supply of alcohol might be appreciated. Get it while it lasts!

For the Ladies

Vanity Fair’s “Gifts for the Eternal Feminine” have stood the test of time better than the men’s gifts, with only the fur stoles (ranging in price from $75 (seal or nutria) to $150 (ermine)) likely to raise eyebrows today. Just as well, since I’d probably leave mine at the opera a week after I got it.**

Woman wearing white fur stole, Vanity Fair, December 1918.

Vanity Fair, December 1918

I’d probably do a better job of holding on to this gorgeous beaded bag,

Beaded handbag, Vanity Fair, December 1918.

Vanity Fair, December 1918

or, if you weren’t planning on spending $45 on me, I wouldn’t turn up my nose at this collarless guimpe, a steal at $2.75.

Lace guimpe shirt, Vanity Fair, December 1918.

Vanity Fair, December 1918

If the lady in your life is as ladylike as the readers of Songs of Men are manly, how about the new novel You’re Only Young Once by Margaret Widdemer? It’s about five sisters who find love and is, according to the (male) Bookman reviewer,

the pinkest book it has ever been our fortune to read. It is as feminine as a powder-puff, as delicate as the frou-frou of silken skirts, and as appealing as the passing of a faint aroma of orris.***

Title page of You're Only Young Once by Margaret Widdemer, 1918.

Or, if she’s a debutante and is constantly being called on to be sprightly at teas, there’s always Vanity Fair itself:

1918 advertisement for Vanity Fair headlined Debutantes! Do You Have to Amuse Dinner Partners?

New York Times, December 15, 1918

For the Whole Family

Hint hint: I’ve always dreamed of having a player piano, and this one’s a steal at $495! (Installment plan available.)

Advertisement for player piano from The Aeolian Company, 1918.

New York Times, December 15, 1918

On Second Thought…

You know what? My lifestyle doesn’t really call for beaded evening bags. I don’t even know what a giumpe is, to be honest. And there’s no room in my house for a player piano.

Which, now that I do the math, costs two years worth of wages for Lower East Side textile worker Elizabeth Hasanovitz, whose autobiography I just finished reading. (It was excerpted in the Atlantic in early 1918, and I wrote about Elizabeth here and here.) One day, when Elizabeth had just lost yet another job (her unionized shop had closed–it later reopened with more compliant workers), she passed a bread line and saw a man being angrily turned away because he’d arrived late. No weak coffee and stale bread today! She gave him a dime.

If Elizabeth can spare a dime for the (even) less fortunate, I can do without more stuff. Better the money should go somewhere where it will really do good, like to one of

Banner for New York's One Hundred Neediest Cases, 1918, showing disables and poor people.

New York Times, December 15, 1918

The stories are harrowing–abusive fathers, parents dead of suicide, breadwinners locked up in insane asylums, and children living on the street. Thanks to social safety nets, the kind of abject poverty that existed in the United States in 1918 has, for the most part, been eradicated. But there are still plenty of people in need, and the Neediest Cases Fund, now in its 107th year, is still extending a helping hand. So you don’t even have to be a time traveler to contribute!

Happy holidays to all of you, wherever (and whenever) you are!

Williams Roger Snow lithorgraph for The Night Before Christmas, 1918, showing Santa's sleigh in yard of large home.

Lithograph for The Night Before Christmas by William Roger Snow, 1918

*On the other hand, there was a double acrostic on the same page with the hint “my primals and my finals name what every loyal American should own” and I instantly said, “Liberty Bond,” and completed the puzzle in about two minutes. “Thrift Stamp” was the rest of the answer.

**This actually happened a lot–the 1918 New York Times classifieds are full of expensive stuff that rich people lost at the theater or in taxis.

***I read the first chapter a few weeks ago, and I agree, it’s pretty damn pink.

Miscellany: Magic machines, embarrassing problems, and the Worst. Recipe. Ever.

An all-ad miscellany.

Not to brag, but I have a machine that can do all this and more.

Little Review, September 1918

We’ve all been there, right?

Harper’s Bazar, June 1918

This deviled tongue mousseline is “just as good to taste as it is to look at.” Sometimes these things just write themselves.*

Good Housekeeping, September 1918

And sometimes I just have to throw up my hands in bewilderment.

I don’t think he’s really thought the naked fence-jumping through.

St. Nicholas, October 1918

If I’d seen this before bestowing the prestigious “Best Ad Depicting the Advertised Item as Humongous” award last month, things might have played out differently.

Harper’s Bazar, September 1918

I’m not that into cars, but I look at this, look at my white Toyota Corrolla, and sigh.

Harper’s Bazar, June 1918

*Plus it’s patriotic, because for some strange reason tongue has not been declared “Essential” for our fighting men.

Thursday Miscellany: All-moms edition

Continuing our belated Mother’s Day festivities, here’s an all-mom miscellany.

With musical accompaniment!

Good Housekeeping, May 1918

…asked no daughter, ever.

I think I’m doing vacuuming wrong.*

Good Housekeeping, May 1918

For the aspiring mother.

The Independent, May 4, 1918

And for the aspiring non-mother.**

Finally, some modernists and their moms:

T.S. Eliot and Charlotte Champe Stearns Eliot, date unknown (tseliot.com)

Ezra Pound and Isabel Weston Pound, 1898

Julia Jackson Stephen and Virginia Stephen (Woolf), 1884myyearin1918.com/…/in-search-of-a-good-mother-poem

And this is a repeat from my last post but I love this picture.

William Carlos Williams with his sons, Paul and William, and his grandmother, Raquel Helene Rose Hoheb Williams, ca. 1918***

*To which I hear a chorus of voices of people who actually know me saying, “When was the last time you did vacuuming in any way whatsoever?”

**If she can get a copy–the Postmaster General banned it from the mails.

***CORRECTION 9/4/2019: If you’re wondering what a grandmother is doing in an all-moms edition, here’s the story: I originally identified the woman in this photograph as Williams’ mother after seeing her identified as such in several places, including a blog published by Yale’s Beinecke library, which owns the photograph. When I saw her identified as Emily Dickinson Wellcome in the Williams biography Something Urgent I Have to Say to You, I inquired with Beinecke Library and was told it is Williams’ grandmother. But, as I wrote in the previous post I mentioned, she was a fierce, amazing, mom, so she deserves a place here.