Editor's Choice
This Editors' Choice provides selections from AM's editorial team, offering useful insights on how to find out more on each subject.
Editor's Choice
This Editors' Choice provides selections from AM's editorial team, offering useful insights on how to find out more on each subject.
With a title like Man: The Australian Magazine for Men, it would perhaps be logical to assume that the artists and creators of the magazine were all men. Indeed, Hardtmuth Lahm, Jack Gibson, Maurice Cork, and Max Dupain all contributed to the magazine. However, some of the most prolific and well-known artists were women (though the use of pseudonyms veiled their gender). Mollie Horseman, Adrienne Parkes, and Victoria Cowdroy all illustrated for the magazine, with Parkes and Cowdroy frequently creating the cover images. The profiles below feature their artwork with more information about each woman and their work.
Mollie Horseman:
Horseman is described as perhaps the most prolific female cartoon artist becoming well known in the 1950s for her comic strips ‘Pam’ and ‘The Clothes Horse’. She briefly worked for Norman Lindsay (one of the most famous artists of his generation, often infusing his works with eroticism which contemporary critics labelled anti-Christian) and attended East Sydney Technical College, part of the wave of female students who were influenced by British sculptor Rayner Hoff’s ideas of creating art filled with life force and unrepressed sexuality. Hoff created works of explicit and radical sexuality as well as commissioned pieces like the ANZAC memorial in Sydney. He caused a significant shift in the number of female students allowed to be taught at the College, opening the way for the female artists in the male dominated art landscape. Horseman created many of the salacious and provocative cartoons for which Man became famous, calling Hoff and Rayner two of three great influences on her life.
"Is that him?" illustrated by Mollie Horseman.
Content provided by the State Library of New South Wales. All rights reserved.
Adrienne Parkes:
Parkes used a flower symbol as her signature, earning her nicknames like ‘Mr Flower’ and ‘The Pansy Artist’. Parkes created a huge number of drawings for Man, often illustrating the cover of the magazine. She was the granddaughter of former New South Wales premier Henry Parkes and a founding member of the Workers’ Art Club in Sydney. Parkes’ career was cut short in 1943 when she committed suicide.
"The order says you're to be shot at dawn... but I have a better idea." illustrated by Adrienne Parkes, note the flower signature in the top right corner.
Content provided by the State Library of New South Wales. All rights reserved.
Victoria Cowdroy:
Victoria Cowdroy, better known as Vic Cowdroy, illustrated for numerous Australian magazines including Man. Her drawings for Man were all published under the pseudonym ‘Royston’ rather than ‘Cowdroy’, possibly to disguise she was a woman on the publicly ‘all-male’ staff. She admired Norman Lindsay’s work, but despite a shared interest in creating provocative seminude drawings, Cowdroy developed a more stylised approach to her drawings. Like Mollie Horseman she studied under Rayner Hoff, standing out as a sculpture student in his class.
"How dare you make such a suggestion! Besides it's daylight!" illustrated by Victoria Cowdroy
Content provided by the State Library of New South Wales. All rights reserved.
Man was the most popular magazine in Australia during the War, attracting a high calibre of artist to its creative team. These three women were no small part of that success but were not granted the same level of credit as their male counterparts.
To see more of their artwork, explore Man: The Australian Magazine for Men
The women behind the "Man"
With a title like Man: The Australian Magazine for Men, it would perhaps be logical to assume that the artists and creators of the magazine were all men. Indeed, Hardtmuth Lahm, Jack Gibson, Maurice Cork, and Max Dupain all contributed to the magazine. However, some of the most prolific and well-known artists were women (though the use of pseudonyms veiled their gender). Mollie Horseman, Adrienne Parkes, and Victoria Cowdroy all illustrated for the magazine, with Parkes and Cowdroy frequently creating the cover images. The profiles below feature their artwork with more information about each woman and their work.
Mollie Horseman:
Horseman is described as perhaps the most prolific female cartoon artist becoming well known in the 1950s for her comic strips ‘Pam’ and ‘The Clothes Horse’. She briefly worked for Norman Lindsay (one of the most famous artists of his generation, often infusing his works with eroticism which contemporary critics labelled anti-Christian) and attended East Sydney Technical College, part of the wave of female students who were influenced by British sculptor Rayner Hoff’s ideas of creating art filled with life force and unrepressed sexuality. Hoff created works of explicit and radical sexuality as well as commissioned pieces like the ANZAC memorial in Sydney. He caused a significant shift in the number of female students allowed to be taught at the College, opening the way for the female artists in the male dominated art landscape. Horseman created many of the salacious and provocative cartoons for which Man became famous, calling Hoff and Rayner two of three great influences on her life.
"Is that him?" illustrated by Mollie Horseman.
Content provided by the State Library of New South Wales. All rights reserved.
Adrienne Parkes:
Parkes used a flower symbol as her signature, earning her nicknames like ‘Mr Flower’ and ‘The Pansy Artist’. Parkes created a huge number of drawings for Man, often illustrating the cover of the magazine. She was the granddaughter of former New South Wales premier Henry Parkes and a founding member of the Workers’ Art Club in Sydney. Parkes’ career was cut short in 1943 when she committed suicide.
"The order says you're to be shot at dawn... but I have a better idea." illustrated by Adrienne Parkes, note the flower signature in the top right corner.
Content provided by the State Library of New South Wales. All rights reserved.
Victoria Cowdroy:
Victoria Cowdroy, better known as Vic Cowdroy, illustrated for numerous Australian magazines including Man. Her drawings for Man were all published under the pseudonym ‘Royston’ rather than ‘Cowdroy’, possibly to disguise she was a woman on the publicly ‘all-male’ staff. She admired Norman Lindsay’s work, but despite a shared interest in creating provocative seminude drawings, Cowdroy developed a more stylised approach to her drawings. Like Mollie Horseman she studied under Rayner Hoff, standing out as a sculpture student in his class.
"How dare you make such a suggestion! Besides it's daylight!" illustrated by Victoria Cowdroy
Content provided by the State Library of New South Wales. All rights reserved.
Man was the most popular magazine in Australia during the War, attracting a high calibre of artist to its creative team. These three women were no small part of that success but were not granted the same level of credit as their male counterparts.
To see more of their artwork, explore Man: The Australian Magazine for Men
For decades, "hobby" crafts such as knitting, crochet and needlework have been dismissed as feminine frivolities, marginal practices that inhabit a space at the lower end of the handicraft hierarchy. But while amateur textile crafts have long resided far below artisanal skills such as woodworking or pottery in both public and academic opinion, their widespread domestic presence – particularly in the interwar years – cannot be denied, and speaks volumes for the self-expression and agency they have historically provided women.
The culture of the twenties and thirties saw a strong focus on homemaking and domesticity, which was an unquestionably gendered sphere at this time. It was an abrupt departure from the war years, which had seen women in vital and often highly skilled employment; relegated once more to the home, many women sought skilled work to replace what they had lost. The world of home crafting provided such an outlet. The ‘active, autonomous modern female home-maker’,[1] as Dr Fiona Hackney phrases it, was in a position of power to determine both how her home was decorated and how she presented herself through her clothing. Even at an amateur level, the ability to crochet her own decorative table runners or embroider a scarf added a relatively inexpensive personal touch to her home or wardrobe, while offering a highly effective way of displaying her skill as a craftswoman. Craft allowed the feminine touch to be made tangible through skilled work.
Advertisement for a crochet serial. Woman's Weekly, 22 February 1919.
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Crafting was not just a leisure activity through which to demonstrate skill, however; to have the ability to sew, knit or crochet opened up a vast number of practical possibilities in an era of deep economic uncertainty. Domestic crafting allowed women of more moderate means to keep up with the ever-changing modern fashions of the interwar years, promoting self-expression at a relatively low cost. Women of the working and lower-middle classes who could not necessarily afford high-quality, handcrafted items from professionals could use patterns and tutorials offered in periodicals to create their own, bridging the economic gap between desire and reality.
Front cover of Woman's Weekly, 2 January 1926.
Content provided by Future PLC. All Rights Reserved.
Woman’s Weekly is a dazzling example of how this domestic craft culture existed within interwar periodicals. Its weekly craft features were a vital and affordable tool in the dissemination of crafting techniques, clothing patterns and fashionable decorative motifs to the working and lower-middle-class woman, and they provide a fascinating window onto the fashions and desires of the period. The title became famed for its knitting patterns, provided at no extra cost on a regular basis, and always in keeping with the latest styles. In addition, it perfectly demonstrates the commercialisation of craft culture with cheap coupon dress patterns and exclusive offers for embroidery threads - crafting was becoming a business in its own right. Ultimately, Woman’s Weekly helped to foster a burgeoning popular craft culture in the interwar period, contributing to the nascent make-do-and-mend society that would see Britain through World War Two and beyond.
For more information and similar articles please see Woman’s Weekly, Weldon's Ladies' Journal of Dress, Fashion, Needlework, Literature and Art and Woman's Home Companion.
[1] Hackney, Fiona. “Quiet Activism and the New Amateur: The Power of Home and Hobby Crafts.” Design and Culture, vol. 5, no. 2, 2013, pp. 169–193.
Domestic Craft in Woman's Weekly
For decades, "hobby" crafts such as knitting, crochet and needlework have been dismissed as feminine frivolities, marginal practices that inhabit a space at the lower end of the handicraft hierarchy. But while amateur textile crafts have long resided far below artisanal skills such as woodworking or pottery in both public and academic opinion, their widespread domestic presence – particularly in the interwar years – cannot be denied, and speaks volumes for the self-expression and agency they have historically provided women.
The culture of the twenties and thirties saw a strong focus on homemaking and domesticity, which was an unquestionably gendered sphere at this time. It was an abrupt departure from the war years, which had seen women in vital and often highly skilled employment; relegated once more to the home, many women sought skilled work to replace what they had lost. The world of home crafting provided such an outlet. The ‘active, autonomous modern female home-maker’,[1] as Dr Fiona Hackney phrases it, was in a position of power to determine both how her home was decorated and how she presented herself through her clothing. Even at an amateur level, the ability to crochet her own decorative table runners or embroider a scarf added a relatively inexpensive personal touch to her home or wardrobe, while offering a highly effective way of displaying her skill as a craftswoman. Craft allowed the feminine touch to be made tangible through skilled work.
Advertisement for a crochet serial. Woman's Weekly, 22 February 1919.
Content provided by Future PLC. All Rights Reserved.
Crafting was not just a leisure activity through which to demonstrate skill, however; to have the ability to sew, knit or crochet opened up a vast number of practical possibilities in an era of deep economic uncertainty. Domestic crafting allowed women of more moderate means to keep up with the ever-changing modern fashions of the interwar years, promoting self-expression at a relatively low cost. Women of the working and lower-middle classes who could not necessarily afford high-quality, handcrafted items from professionals could use patterns and tutorials offered in periodicals to create their own, bridging the economic gap between desire and reality.
Front cover of Woman's Weekly, 2 January 1926.
Content provided by Future PLC. All Rights Reserved.
Woman’s Weekly is a dazzling example of how this domestic craft culture existed within interwar periodicals. Its weekly craft features were a vital and affordable tool in the dissemination of crafting techniques, clothing patterns and fashionable decorative motifs to the working and lower-middle-class woman, and they provide a fascinating window onto the fashions and desires of the period. The title became famed for its knitting patterns, provided at no extra cost on a regular basis, and always in keeping with the latest styles. In addition, it perfectly demonstrates the commercialisation of craft culture with cheap coupon dress patterns and exclusive offers for embroidery threads - crafting was becoming a business in its own right. Ultimately, Woman’s Weekly helped to foster a burgeoning popular craft culture in the interwar period, contributing to the nascent make-do-and-mend society that would see Britain through World War Two and beyond.
For more information and similar articles please see Woman’s Weekly, Weldon's Ladies' Journal of Dress, Fashion, Needlework, Literature and Art and Woman's Home Companion.
[1] Hackney, Fiona. “Quiet Activism and the New Amateur: The Power of Home and Hobby Crafts.” Design and Culture, vol. 5, no. 2, 2013, pp. 169–193.
Many of the leisure and entertainment titles within Interwar Culture contain short or serialised stories. Unlike today, in which we may only expect to find this in literature focused magazines, this was a fairly common feature of early periodicals, serving to keep customers buying and reading on a regular basis. In an era before television sets were as ubiquitous as they are today, and in which many middle class women were obligated to be within the house, printed serialised fiction became a much loved and popular feature of many publications, such as Home Magazine, Woman's Home Companion, and Woman's Weekly.
London’s The Strand magazine was first issued in January 1891 and soon became prolific in its publication of short stories, discussion of other authors' work, interest articles, debates and installations of loved serials. It boasted thousands of subscribers, eagerly awaiting their monthly circulated stories, many of which were written by prominent authors such as H.G. Wells, H. De Vere Stacpoole, George Bernard Shaw and Rudyard Kipling.
Perhaps the most well-known of all however, might have been the man behind Sherlock Holmes; Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Aside from many short stories describing the genius exploits of his publicity-hating detective Sherlock Holmes, he occasionally submitted other short stories too, some perhaps inspired through his experiences as a volunteer doctor in the Second Boer War. However, around 1918 a new flavour of subject matter began to appear in the author’s work.
Article from The Strand Magazine, March 1919.
Content provided by Liverpool John Moores University. All rights reserved.
Sir Arthur’s new devotion became the study of the after-life and moreover, finding proof of its existence. This pursuit is widely believed to have resulted after the tragic losses of not only his beloved son Kingsley from his first marriage, but also of his brother, two nephews, and two brothers-in-law, all of whom lost their lives in the First World War.
In March 1919 an interview was published through The Strand, during which Sir Arthur expounded upon his conviction that the dead could indeed be reached by way of a medium. The aftermath of the First World War had left countless families torn apart, and many bereaved people sought to fill the void left by their loved one’s by seeking proofs of an afterlife, with Sir Arthur at the forefront.
Despite having a religious upbringing, Sir Arthur decided at the age of 18 that he identified as an agnostic. During this interview, Sir Arthur analytically observes that he “regards Spiritualism not as a religion itself, but as a living proof of that life to come which is the foundation of all religion”. He recommends that the grieving should seek help in contacting their loved ones, an endeavor which could be done through the interpretation of automatic writing. He warns readers however not to be fooled by charlatans, and to attempt to search for the real thing.
It would perhaps be no great leap then, that when in December 1920 five photographs of otherworldly beings were printed, they caught the attention of Sir Arthur, who utterly believed in their legitimacy. They were taken by two young cousins, Alice and Iris who lived in Cottingley, Yorkshire, and thus the photographs became known as the ‘Cottingley fairies’. In December 1920, Sir Arthur wrote a piece on them, published by The Strand.
Photograph of the Cottingley Fairies from The Strand Magazine, December 1920.
Content provided by Liverpool John Moores University. All rights reserved.
'Fairies Photographed' article in from The Strand Magazine, December 1920.
Content provided by Liverpool John Moores University. All rights reserved.
Here, he cites these photographs as being part of a mounting armoury of proof supporting his unerring beliefs in Spiritualism and a world beyond ours, saying that “[t]he recognition of their existence will jolt the material twentieth century mind out of its heavy ruts in the mud, and will make it admit that there is a glamour and a mystery to life. Having discovered this, the world will not find it so difficult to accept that spiritual message supported by physical facts which has already been so convincingly put before it”.
Around this time, Sir Arthur had also begun to write a paranormal series for The Strand called ‘The Unchartered Coast’, which was a six part succession of articles discussing chilling case studies of ghostly sightings and unexplained mysteries. These cases contained facts and witness accounts, as well as photographs and reconstruction images. There were six parts to this in total, all published in The Strand between 1919 and 1921.
Illustration from an article in from The Strand Magazine, December 1919.
Content provided by Liverpool John Moores University. All rights reserved.
For the rest of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s life, he remained a firm and dedicated believer in a world beyond ours. It reinforced his conviction that he truly had seen his young son again after his death - it confirmed to him that what he had seen was real. Many years later in 1983, Alice and Iris admitted that the photographs had been faked, with paper drawings supported upright by hat pins. Despite this, they always maintained that they truly had seen fairies.
For similar resources and material, explore The Strand.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and the Case of the Cottingley Fairies
Many of the leisure and entertainment titles within Interwar Culture contain short or serialised stories. Unlike today, in which we may only expect to find this in literature focused magazines, this was a fairly common feature of early periodicals, serving to keep customers buying and reading on a regular basis. In an era before television sets were as ubiquitous as they are today, and in which many middle class women were obligated to be within the house, printed serialised fiction became a much loved and popular feature of many publications, such as Home Magazine, Woman's Home Companion, and Woman's Weekly.
London’s The Strand magazine was first issued in January 1891 and soon became prolific in its publication of short stories, discussion of other authors' work, interest articles, debates and installations of loved serials. It boasted thousands of subscribers, eagerly awaiting their monthly circulated stories, many of which were written by prominent authors such as H.G. Wells, H. De Vere Stacpoole, George Bernard Shaw and Rudyard Kipling.
Perhaps the most well-known of all however, might have been the man behind Sherlock Holmes; Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Aside from many short stories describing the genius exploits of his publicity-hating detective Sherlock Holmes, he occasionally submitted other short stories too, some perhaps inspired through his experiences as a volunteer doctor in the Second Boer War. However, around 1918 a new flavour of subject matter began to appear in the author’s work.
Article from The Strand Magazine, March 1919.
Content provided by Liverpool John Moores University. All rights reserved.
Sir Arthur’s new devotion became the study of the after-life and moreover, finding proof of its existence. This pursuit is widely believed to have resulted after the tragic losses of not only his beloved son Kingsley from his first marriage, but also of his brother, two nephews, and two brothers-in-law, all of whom lost their lives in the First World War.
In March 1919 an interview was published through The Strand, during which Sir Arthur expounded upon his conviction that the dead could indeed be reached by way of a medium. The aftermath of the First World War had left countless families torn apart, and many bereaved people sought to fill the void left by their loved one’s by seeking proofs of an afterlife, with Sir Arthur at the forefront.
Despite having a religious upbringing, Sir Arthur decided at the age of 18 that he identified as an agnostic. During this interview, Sir Arthur analytically observes that he “regards Spiritualism not as a religion itself, but as a living proof of that life to come which is the foundation of all religion”. He recommends that the grieving should seek help in contacting their loved ones, an endeavor which could be done through the interpretation of automatic writing. He warns readers however not to be fooled by charlatans, and to attempt to search for the real thing.
It would perhaps be no great leap then, that when in December 1920 five photographs of otherworldly beings were printed, they caught the attention of Sir Arthur, who utterly believed in their legitimacy. They were taken by two young cousins, Alice and Iris who lived in Cottingley, Yorkshire, and thus the photographs became known as the ‘Cottingley fairies’. In December 1920, Sir Arthur wrote a piece on them, published by The Strand.
Photograph of the Cottingley Fairies from The Strand Magazine, December 1920.
Content provided by Liverpool John Moores University. All rights reserved.
'Fairies Photographed' article in from The Strand Magazine, December 1920.
Content provided by Liverpool John Moores University. All rights reserved.
Here, he cites these photographs as being part of a mounting armoury of proof supporting his unerring beliefs in Spiritualism and a world beyond ours, saying that “[t]he recognition of their existence will jolt the material twentieth century mind out of its heavy ruts in the mud, and will make it admit that there is a glamour and a mystery to life. Having discovered this, the world will not find it so difficult to accept that spiritual message supported by physical facts which has already been so convincingly put before it”.
Around this time, Sir Arthur had also begun to write a paranormal series for The Strand called ‘The Unchartered Coast’, which was a six part succession of articles discussing chilling case studies of ghostly sightings and unexplained mysteries. These cases contained facts and witness accounts, as well as photographs and reconstruction images. There were six parts to this in total, all published in The Strand between 1919 and 1921.
Illustration from an article in from The Strand Magazine, December 1919.
Content provided by Liverpool John Moores University. All rights reserved.
For the rest of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s life, he remained a firm and dedicated believer in a world beyond ours. It reinforced his conviction that he truly had seen his young son again after his death - it confirmed to him that what he had seen was real. Many years later in 1983, Alice and Iris admitted that the photographs had been faked, with paper drawings supported upright by hat pins. Despite this, they always maintained that they truly had seen fairies.
For similar resources and material, explore The Strand.
For many, the 1920s conjure images of affluence and glamour, as rapid economic growth in the United States meant more families had more disposable income to spend on luxury goods including fashion (see Art, Goût, Beauté and Femina), home technologies (Ideal Home), and money to spend on entertainment (Theatre Magazine). One luxury some Americans were now able to afford was international travel. The Mentor – World Traveler was part of this trend, enticing readers with the prospect of international travel, even if only from the comfort of their own homes for many. The magazine introduced international cultural figures to American readers, most of these issues are on distinctive themes and written by guest authors, cultivating education on multiculturism and worldviews.
Front cover of The Mentor, May 1921.
Content provided by the New York Public Library. All rights reserved.
The May 1921 issue of The Mentor – World Traveler features the great Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore. Tagore, one of many well-known literary figures in Interwar Culture, is most known for his poems about love, religion, women and his “unnatural contemplation”. His philosophy is portrayed in the poem ‘Woman’, written for this issue, which interposes his aesthetic and spiritual heritage to the West. He delves into the roles and duties of men and women in society and recognises the burden women face as they adhere to the imbalance of social differences and inequalities of circumstance. He strongly believed in fighting for women’s upliftment, using bold subjects of women in the forefront of his stories.
'Woman' by Rabindranath Tagore, The Mentor, 1 May 1921.
Copyright New York Public Library. All rights reserved.
'Tagore was the Family Failure' article from The Mentor, 1 May 1921.
Content provided by the New York Public Library. All rights reserved.
As stated in this issue, his stories and poetry are recognised by women because their invisible efforts and aspirations are reflected in his words: “In western countries, Tagore’s poetry is most popular with women. His dramatic personality, his so-called mysticism, in which most women glimpse reflections of their own spiritual cravings, are mainly responsible for this vogue.” Tagore was the first non-European to win the Noble Prize for Literature in 1913. He played a leading role in Indian cultural renaissance and came to be recognised, along with Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, as one of the architects of modern India.
'Picturesque India' article from The Mentor, 1 May 1921.
Content provided by the New York Public Library. All rights reserved.
‘Picturesque India’ showcases a glimpse of the remarkable landscapes of India with religious and cultural significance. It provides a visual escape to a place indescribable with words alone and completely different from one’s American lifestyle in the 1920s. It is a perfect example of how The Mentor – World Traveler brings two worlds closer together with its imagery and representation.
This issue is just one example of the rich content The Mentor – World Traveler has to offer. Its culturally vibrant perspective and the awareness it gave its reader of the beauty of the world is beyond its time. The simple message the periodical provides is “learn to live and live to learn”.
Other highlights from The Mentor – World Traveler include visits to Greece, "The South Seas" and the Philippines. The periodical also explores different themes such as science, astronomy and literature.
Rabindranath Tagore
For many, the 1920s conjure images of affluence and glamour, as rapid economic growth in the United States meant more families had more disposable income to spend on luxury goods including fashion (see Art, Goût, Beauté and Femina), home technologies (Ideal Home), and money to spend on entertainment (Theatre Magazine). One luxury some Americans were now able to afford was international travel. The Mentor – World Traveler was part of this trend, enticing readers with the prospect of international travel, even if only from the comfort of their own homes for many. The magazine introduced international cultural figures to American readers, most of these issues are on distinctive themes and written by guest authors, cultivating education on multiculturism and worldviews.
Front cover of The Mentor, May 1921.
Content provided by the New York Public Library. All rights reserved.
The May 1921 issue of The Mentor – World Traveler features the great Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore. Tagore, one of many well-known literary figures in Interwar Culture, is most known for his poems about love, religion, women and his “unnatural contemplation”. His philosophy is portrayed in the poem ‘Woman’, written for this issue, which interposes his aesthetic and spiritual heritage to the West. He delves into the roles and duties of men and women in society and recognises the burden women face as they adhere to the imbalance of social differences and inequalities of circumstance. He strongly believed in fighting for women’s upliftment, using bold subjects of women in the forefront of his stories.
'Woman' by Rabindranath Tagore, The Mentor, 1 May 1921.
Copyright New York Public Library. All rights reserved.
'Tagore was the Family Failure' article from The Mentor, 1 May 1921.
Content provided by the New York Public Library. All rights reserved.
As stated in this issue, his stories and poetry are recognised by women because their invisible efforts and aspirations are reflected in his words: “In western countries, Tagore’s poetry is most popular with women. His dramatic personality, his so-called mysticism, in which most women glimpse reflections of their own spiritual cravings, are mainly responsible for this vogue.” Tagore was the first non-European to win the Noble Prize for Literature in 1913. He played a leading role in Indian cultural renaissance and came to be recognised, along with Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, as one of the architects of modern India.
'Picturesque India' article from The Mentor, 1 May 1921.
Content provided by the New York Public Library. All rights reserved.
‘Picturesque India’ showcases a glimpse of the remarkable landscapes of India with religious and cultural significance. It provides a visual escape to a place indescribable with words alone and completely different from one’s American lifestyle in the 1920s. It is a perfect example of how The Mentor – World Traveler brings two worlds closer together with its imagery and representation.
This issue is just one example of the rich content The Mentor – World Traveler has to offer. Its culturally vibrant perspective and the awareness it gave its reader of the beauty of the world is beyond its time. The simple message the periodical provides is “learn to live and live to learn”.
Other highlights from The Mentor – World Traveler include visits to Greece, "The South Seas" and the Philippines. The periodical also explores different themes such as science, astronomy and literature.
The 1930s were ushered in with the new Motion Picture Production Code (also known as the Hays Code) acting to censor film for the first time in the US. This code ensured no sympathetic portrayal of the immoral or illegal on screen and through its very creation highlighted how powerful the medium could be – although it was not strictly enforced until 1934. Cinema-going became “the essential social habit of the age”[i] in these years, and in the US alone 60-90 million people went to the cinema every week across the decade.[ii] This appetite for film was bolstered by the celebrity culture that grew from film marketing, often featured in periodicals.
Melvyn Douglas and Lupe Velez promoting 'The Broken Wing' in Movie Mirror, May 1932.
Content provided by New York Public Library. All rights reserved.
Both through articles dedicated to this new art form, such as Theatre Magazine’s First Nights at the Cinema feature, and its appearance in fiction in magazines such as The Schoolgirls' Weekly, periodicals can paint a broader picture of the different ways cinema-going fit into the lives of different demographics and its ongoing moral evaluation; for example, E. Roffe Thompson at the beginning of this period equates cinema-going with the “idle woman”. Just two years later in 1932 in The Strand, Anthony Asquith puts forth a defence and education of film and affirms that “Today the intelligentsia flock to the cinema”.
A questionnaire survey on “Cinema Culture in 1930s Britain” conducted in 1995 found that 75.3% of participants chose films based on their favourite stars and 61% based on notices in newspapers/magazines.[iii] This demonstrates the success of the star personas carved by Hollywood as a marketing tool and the importance of magazines as a vehicle for their dissemination. Examples of this can be found in periodicals, such as Woman's Home Companion. Almost always advertising sweeping romances, the advertisements featured in Woman’s Home Companion champion great stars of the day such as Norma Shearer and Leslie Howard; Marion Davies and Clark Gable. Their names and faces dwarf the film titles and surrounding images of their fellow cast members. The advertisement for Cain and Mabel is a particularly telling example of how the star’s persona was inseparably conflated with the characters they played. The tag line reads “When Clark makes love to Marion the whole wide world’s in tune” rather than “Cain” and “Mabel”, a disconcerting assertion that conveys who it really is the audience are coming to see.
'Cain and Mabel' starring Marion Davies and Clark Gable. Woman's Home Companion, November 1936.
Content provided by New York Public Library. All rights reserved.
In French Cinema, however, the place of the star was configured much differently. As can be seen in a 1934 issue of Femina the article ‘le Cinéma le veut’ focuses on the artistry of Lucien Lelong’s contribution as a couturier for the film L’Épervier, over its actors. This typified the reverence for auteurs and production in European cinema over stars and the keen focus on mise-en-scène, of which Lelong’s ballgowns become a part. This also demonstrates the growing industry and opportunities created for occupations across the creative industries with the boom in this new medium. However, the financial rewards were mainly reaped by the “Big 5” Hollywood studios at this time, whilst British and European cinema fought for its place with the assistance of periodicals such as Cinema Quarterly and World Film News and Television Progress.
'Le Cinéma le veut'. Femina, January 1934.
Content provided by New York Public Library. All rights reserved.
By the end of the period, cinema had become a firm staple in the diet of the British and American public, both through cinema-going and in their daily reading. Actors and actresses were regularly featured among the gentry of society in periodicals. Yvonne Arnaud with her dog alongside Mr Lloyd George and the Bishop of London feature in The Strand, whilst Danielle Darrieux is honoured alongside the Queen in Weldon's Ladies' Journal in an article celebrating the great women of the year 1938. Leading to the continuation of the golden age of Hollywood into the 1940s, and a culture of celebrity that is still prominent today.
[i] A. J. P. Taylor
[ii] Julie Human
[iii] Annette Kuhn
The advent of the “Golden Age of Hollywood”: The conception of the star across the US and Europe
The 1930s were ushered in with the new Motion Picture Production Code (also known as the Hays Code) acting to censor film for the first time in the US. This code ensured no sympathetic portrayal of the immoral or illegal on screen and through its very creation highlighted how powerful the medium could be – although it was not strictly enforced until 1934. Cinema-going became “the essential social habit of the age”[i] in these years, and in the US alone 60-90 million people went to the cinema every week across the decade.[ii] This appetite for film was bolstered by the celebrity culture that grew from film marketing, often featured in periodicals.
Melvyn Douglas and Lupe Velez promoting 'The Broken Wing' in Movie Mirror, May 1932.
Content provided by New York Public Library. All rights reserved.
Both through articles dedicated to this new art form, such as Theatre Magazine’s First Nights at the Cinema feature, and its appearance in fiction in magazines such as The Schoolgirls' Weekly, periodicals can paint a broader picture of the different ways cinema-going fit into the lives of different demographics and its ongoing moral evaluation; for example, E. Roffe Thompson at the beginning of this period equates cinema-going with the “idle woman”. Just two years later in 1932 in The Strand, Anthony Asquith puts forth a defence and education of film and affirms that “Today the intelligentsia flock to the cinema”.
A questionnaire survey on “Cinema Culture in 1930s Britain” conducted in 1995 found that 75.3% of participants chose films based on their favourite stars and 61% based on notices in newspapers/magazines.[iii] This demonstrates the success of the star personas carved by Hollywood as a marketing tool and the importance of magazines as a vehicle for their dissemination. Examples of this can be found in periodicals, such as Woman's Home Companion. Almost always advertising sweeping romances, the advertisements featured in Woman’s Home Companion champion great stars of the day such as Norma Shearer and Leslie Howard; Marion Davies and Clark Gable. Their names and faces dwarf the film titles and surrounding images of their fellow cast members. The advertisement for Cain and Mabel is a particularly telling example of how the star’s persona was inseparably conflated with the characters they played. The tag line reads “When Clark makes love to Marion the whole wide world’s in tune” rather than “Cain” and “Mabel”, a disconcerting assertion that conveys who it really is the audience are coming to see.
'Cain and Mabel' starring Marion Davies and Clark Gable. Woman's Home Companion, November 1936.
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In French Cinema, however, the place of the star was configured much differently. As can be seen in a 1934 issue of Femina the article ‘le Cinéma le veut’ focuses on the artistry of Lucien Lelong’s contribution as a couturier for the film L’Épervier, over its actors. This typified the reverence for auteurs and production in European cinema over stars and the keen focus on mise-en-scène, of which Lelong’s ballgowns become a part. This also demonstrates the growing industry and opportunities created for occupations across the creative industries with the boom in this new medium. However, the financial rewards were mainly reaped by the “Big 5” Hollywood studios at this time, whilst British and European cinema fought for its place with the assistance of periodicals such as Cinema Quarterly and World Film News and Television Progress.
'Le Cinéma le veut'. Femina, January 1934.
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By the end of the period, cinema had become a firm staple in the diet of the British and American public, both through cinema-going and in their daily reading. Actors and actresses were regularly featured among the gentry of society in periodicals. Yvonne Arnaud with her dog alongside Mr Lloyd George and the Bishop of London feature in The Strand, whilst Danielle Darrieux is honoured alongside the Queen in Weldon's Ladies' Journal in an article celebrating the great women of the year 1938. Leading to the continuation of the golden age of Hollywood into the 1940s, and a culture of celebrity that is still prominent today.
[i] A. J. P. Taylor
[ii] Julie Human
[iii] Annette Kuhn