Recently Added Articles

"Some of today's teenagers ---pleasantly not many --- talk the strange new language of "sling swing." In this bright lexicon of the good citizens of tomorrow, a girl with sex appeal is an "able Grable" or a "ready Hedy." A pretty girl is "whistle bait." A boy whose mug and muscles appeal to the girls is a "mellow man," a "hunk of heart break" or a "glad lad."

To read about one of the fashion legacies of W.W. II, click here...


Red Goals For American Society (Congressional Record, 1963)

When we read this transcript from The Congressional Record we were flabbergasted! You will find that it is a compilation that was pieced together in the late Fifties listing all the changes America's Communist enemies wished to see take place in the United States in order to make their mission of conquest that much easier - yet as you read the list you will quickly recognize that at least 85% of this tally fell into place as recently as 2020.


Marathon Dancing in the Thirties (Collier's Magazine, 1932)

When marathon dancing first became popular in the Twenties there was an amusing, lighthearted aspect to it. However, when the Great Depression came, and the jobs evaporated, marathon dances took a darker turn. As desperation fell across the land, enrolling in a marathon dance contest became, in many cases, the only way to put bread on the table.


Adultery on the Home Front (Newsweek Magazine, 1945)

The overlords of the Illinois justice system became so fed-up with the growing divorce rate in their state as a result of wives who stepped-out while their husbands were fighting overseas, and they decided to do something about it. The Illinois Attorney General proposed a plan:

"Penalties for conviction range from $500 fine or a year in jail or both for the first offense to $3,000 fine or three years in jail or both for a third conviction."


Listening-In On The Enemy (Collier's Magazine, 1943)

The FBIS - short for Foreign Broadcast Intelligence Service - is the organization that listens to the world's radios for Uncle Sam. It's monitoring station in Washington has, besides editors and annalists, some sixty fantastic linguists on its staff - people who are fluent at anywhere from three or four - up to a couple of dozen, languages apiece. Their job is to intercept and translate the shortwave broadcasts of Rome, Berlin, Vichy and a score of lesser stations, which daily pour out Axis propaganda in more languages than were ever spoken in the Tower of babel."


Tommy's Alphabet (The B.E.F. Times, 1917)

The front-line Tommy of the First World War, like Fritz, Jock, Sammy and Les Poilu, had a good deal of time on his hands between terrors. Some wrote letters, some made trench art, some slept - and the ones we're concentrating on were the ones who made this handy alphabetic guide that explained their world:

"Z is for ZERO, the time we go over,
Most of us wish we were way back
in Dover
Making munitions and living in clover
And far, far away from the trenches"


Nudity And Smut Becomes the Norm In American Pop-Culture (Coronet Magazine, 1968)

The Sexual Revolution began slowly building with the release of the Kinsey Report in 1948 (read about that here) and from that point on the whole ball of thread began to unravel. More and more mainstream magazines, that previously would never have done so, began publishing articles about sexual concerns: adultery, frigidity and homosexuality. Hollywood went right along for the ride; TV was slow to follow, but following nonetheless. By the time 1967 came around the social war on the old taboos was in full flower. This article concerns the new standards that came into place all across America in 1968. When this article went to press, the two most infamous assassinations of 1968 had not yet taken place - after that, the flood gates would open - but change was in the air.

More about the lowering of moral standards in American popular culture can be read here...


FDR and his Learning Disabilities (Liberty Magazine, 1938)

Liberty publisher Bernarr MacFadden (1868 – 1955) was a reliable critic of FDR and his economic policies. In this column MacFadden lambasts the President for making error after error and learning from none of them. He points out that the open market economy of the United States has traditionally provided Americans with the world's highest standard of living, and yet:

"They would like to ignore precedent... entirely cast aside and forget the extraordinary results of our experiences in following the American system. They hate business and everything connected with it."


Sabbath Challenges (Christian Herald, 1963)

In the early Sixties, American church attendance was dropping as a new spirit of secularism was sweeping across the fruited plains. More and more merchants and restaurateurs were opening their businesses on Sundays and challenging the age-old Blue Laws as a result. This article examines what the Bible said about "keeping the sabbath holy", and why Blue Laws were enacted in so many states.


''The New Deal Was Not Fascist'' (The Atlantic Monthly, 1933)

"In certain quarters it is asserted that Mr. Roosevelt's 'New Deal' is nothing other than the first stage of an American movement toward Fascism. It is said that, although the United States has not yet adopted the political structure of Italy and Germany, the economic structure of the country is rapidly being molded upon the Fascist pattern."

FDR's D-Day prayer can be read here