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" In those dark ages before the war women's fashions changed from year to year, but generally speaking at the dress-makers word of command...The first short skirt sounded the knell of his dictatorship, and since then womanhood has never looked back...I say again that [today's fashion] is a phenomenon which the social historian appears to be passing over."

Click here to read about the fashion coup of 1922.


''The Incarnation of the Word of God'' (Jesus People Magazine, 1973)

The Christian concept of death is contained in this article by the ancient Greek author Athanasius (296 - 373).

"All those who believe in Christ tread death underfoot as nothing and prefer to die rather than to deny their faith in Christ, knowing full well that when they die, they do not perish, but live indeed, and become incorruptible through the the resurrection. Death has become like a tyrant who has become completely conquered by the legitimate monarch and bound hand and foot so that the passers-by jeer at him."

Looking Back (Literary Digest, 1937)

When FDR saw fit to nominate a Klansman to the Supreme Court, Hugo Black, it prompted the editors at Literary Digest to recall the history of those terrorists and how they came into existence, their customs and practices, etc.


The Old Southern View of Integration (Pageant Magazine, 1959)

In this 1959 article Alabama wordsmith Wyatt Blasingame did his level-headed best to explain the sluggish reasoning that made up the opinions of his friends and neighbors as to why racial integration of the nation's schools was a poor idea. He observed that even the proudest Southerner could freely recognize that African-Americans were ill-served by the existing school system and that they were due for some sort of an upgrade - they simply wished it wouldn't happen quite so quickly. The journalist spent a good deal of column space explaining that there existed among the Whites of Dixie a deep and abiding paranoia over interracial marriage.

Their line of thinking seems terribly alien to us, but, be assured, Southern white reasoning has come a long way since 1923...

George Orwell (Pathfinder Magazine, 1950)

"No one perhaps has done as much as the British writer who calls himself George Orwell to persuade former fellow-travelers that their ways lie in some direction other than the Stalinist party line."

So begin the first two paragraphs of this book review that are devoted to the anti-totalitarian elements that animated the creative side of the writer George Orwell (born Eric Arthur Blair: 1903 – 1950). The novel that is reviewed herein, Coming Up for Air, was originally published in 1939 and was reviewed by Pathfinder Magazine to mark the occasion of the book's first American printing in 1950.


Modern Political Advertising (Pageant Magazine, 1970)

The Selling of the President is about the role of television in the Republican efforts to elect Richard Nixon president in the 1968 election. Written over forty years ago by Joe McGinnis, the book was an instant classic as it addressed the matter of "packaging a candidate" for a political contest in the same manner products are promoted for the marketplace:

"McGinnis concludes that 'On television, it matters less that [the candidate] does not have ideas. His personality is what the viewers want to share...'"


''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."


W.W. I and American Women (Pageant Magazine, 1951)

Here is a segment from a longer article published in 1951 by an anonymous American woman who wished to be known to her readers only as a women who had "grown up with the Century" (born in 1900). In this column she insisted that it was the First World War that served as the proving ground where American women showed that they were just as capable as their brothers - and thus deserving of a voice in government.


''I Backed Hitler'' (American Magazine, 1940)

German millionaire industrialist Fritz Thyssen (1873 – 1951) paid the way for the Nazi party from its earliest days all the way up to Hitler's place in the sun. When Hitler attacked Poland, Thyssen bailed. In this column he confesses all:

"I met Hitler for the first time in 1923... Ludendorf arranged my first meeting with Hitler at the home of a mutual friend. What a different character Hitler was then! He was deferential and anxious to learn. You may not believe me, but he had a sense of humor, actually telling many jokes... Hitler as a speaker was amazing. I asked him how he achieved such success addressing people. He said, 'I don't know, but after ten minutes, like a band leader, I usually make contact with the crowd, and then everything is all right.'"


The Prophet of the Beats (Nugget Magazine, 1960)

"Howl is written," says Ginsberg, peering as he does through his glasses with a friendly intermingling of smile and solemnity, "in some of the rhythm of Hebraic liturgy - chants as they were set down by the Old Testament prophets. That's what it's supposed to represent - prophets howling in the Wilderness. That, in fact, is what the whole Beat Generation is, if it's anything, - howling in the Wilderness against a crazy civilization."