Rea Irvin's street sweeper is not pleased to find that a pair of white butterflies are drawn to him. Irvin's working class cartoon figure is in many ways the opposite of his upscale dandy who deigns to regard a single butterfly through his monocle on the cover of the first issue. The street sweepers were called the White Wings because of their regulation white uniforms, but Irvin suggests another, even better reason for the appellation.
Rea Irvin The New Yorker, May 9, 1925
With Ralph Barton off the list of advisory editors, the first in the alphabetical listing is playwright Marc Connelly of the Algonquin Round Table. He is the subject of this issue's first "Talk" piece. Editor Harold Ross's friends from the Algonquin get a lot of press in his magazine. Meanwhile Eldon Kelley illustrates the Roman myth of Proserpine being abducted to the underworld by Pluto, although some classical scholars may dispute the historical details shown here. For added fun, try reading that license plate upside down.
"The Talk of the Town" Eldon Kelley,Proserpine
Reginald Marsh returns to the "Talk" section with a new spread on the subject of golf, "the other great Scotch invention." In the New Yorker of the Prohibition era, it's pretty certain the writer isn't referring to bagpipes.
Reginald Marsh,Elegant America Does Its Duty By the Other Great Scotch Invention.
This "Talk" piece on illustrator Charles Dana Gibson, creator of the Gibson girl, gives some idea of the type of astronomical earnings top illustrators commanded back in the Golden Age.
Couple about town:
In Herb Roth's cartoon, the padlocking of the City's speakeasies has an all-too-familiar domestic analogy.
Herb Roth,An Early Padlocking--Showing That This Woe Has Long Been Known to Gas Consumers
Island girl:
Fiction, or a reasonable facsimile, by Tip Bliss...
"That's New York"
"Their most acute problem was Mayor Hylan. Hylan didn't want to be Mayor. He wanted to be Music Master. He was devoted to his art and gave concerts in his own parks all over the city." Herb Roth illustrates Mayor Hylan conducting. Note the radio microphone, the very latest communication technology embraced even by Silent Cal in the White House.
Herb Roth "Story of Manhattankind."
Alfred Frueh demonstrates an ingenious contraption for circumventing the padlocking of speakeasies. Who needs Heath Robinson?
Alfred Frueh,A Crafty and Timely Device--The Turn-Table Club
"The small figure in the centre of the page is Miss Hayes, showing that even in those days there were flappers." In place of Ralph Barton, W. E. Hill has been providing many of the weekly theatre page illustrations, this one featuring the talented Helen Hayes.
"Great Moments front the Drama" W. E. Hill, "Caesar and Cleopatra" at the New Home of the Theatre Guild
"The Theatre" reviewer who last week became carried away with the cumbersome phrase this department, formally announces the welcome return of the editorial we.
Gardner Rea's cartoon about a vacationing White Wing--a New York City street sweeper--appears in this issue perhaps as a companion piece to Rea Irvin's cover. Note that the White Wing dresses in black on his vacation and does his littering from a hired cab.
Gardner Rea,The White Wing's Vacation
Who Were the "White Wings?"
The New-York Historical Society
"We have known George Luks intimately and we have made the discovery that his most sincere attachment is to orange juice in the morning and raw oysters all the rest of the day." Artist George Luks illustrates his own "Profile"--a first--and signs it with the name of boxer Gene Tunney.
"Profiles: The Illustrious George" Illustration by George Luks
Robert L. Gambone elucidates:
From Life on the Press: The Popular Art and Illustrations of George Benjamin Luks by Robert L. Gambone, Univ. Press of Mississippi, 2009.
"People heard of the Bronx River for the first time about ten years ago when somebody named a highway commission after it." This still rings true in 2015, with the Bronx River Parkway far better known than the Bronx River itself. E. B. White returns to the magazine, thank heaven, with "Defense of the Bronx River."
"Defense of the Bronx River"
An illustration on the "Music" page is one of the first to add elements of personality.
"Music"
Rockewell Kent on the "Arts" page:
Rockwell Kent
Mayor Hylan deals with a growing murder rate. Prohibitionists react with alarm to a news item about using champagne to christen an airplane. Will Rogers reports on Calvin Coolidge's sense of humor. Motorcycles are banned at Yale. Surgeons are urged to sign their patients. (In 2015, they finally do.) Howard Brubaker's "Of All Things" is truly all over the place, but the punch lines, well, they really aren't so very amusing.
"Of All Things" by Howard Brubaker
Straphangers by Eldon Kelley:
Eldon Kelley
"Broadway has had and still has its negro cabarets, patronized by white people, but the place to see the real colored shows unhampered by white management or tastes is in the center of the negro district of Harlem." Lest one mistake a minstrel show for the real deal...
"When Nights Are Bold" Illustrations at Smalls, left, and of dancer Bobbie, right, by Charles Baskerville
British cartoonist Lawson Wood stops by the New Yorker for his one and only appearance in the magazine.
Lawson Wood, "Look here, I'm going to give you a fiver, and you fellersh musht fight it out among yourselves."
A Parisian bouquiniste:
Eldon Kelley
The New Yorker engages in some lowbrow play on the word colored. One Hundred and Thirty-Fifth Street would describe the neighborhood known as Harlem.
"The Optimist" shows up for its twelfth consecutive issue. Bring it on! Plus, some clear thinking from the military:
The New Yorker's subscription ads continue to provide some of the most humorous copy in the magazine.
Humorist Corey Ford writes about the art of the blotter:
"Blotters: An Absorbing Medium" by Corey Ford
Last week the magazine reviewed Shaw's "Caesar and Cleopatra" and stated, "One--this department, to be exact--is conscious of being in the presence neither of a great play nor of a particularly high-grade production." This week, in the capsule review on the "Goings On" page, it is a "masterpiece." This shows a lack of editorial consistency; the New Yorker is speaking with too many voices. The review of "They Knew What They Wanted," on the other hand, delivers the kind of quick-witted punch that works so well on this page.
I think most Savoyards would state that it is "The Grand Duke" and not "Princess Ida" that is the most obscure of Gilbert and Sullivan's surviving works. Just last week, the New Yorker's capsule review of the "Ziegfeld Follies" called both W. C. Fields and Will Rogers "the funniest man in New York." This week Will Rogers plays second fiddle.
A familiar rite of spring, or so we've been told:
A new header for the "Sports" section featuring William Tell by Rea Irvin:
"Sports"
Some light verse to read on your next cab ride:
"Indifference" by Arthur Guiterman
"'..."Once a P. A. man, always a P. A. man."'" A humorous piece by Charles Street reimagines dime novel hero Frank Merriwell at the Police Academy. A misfire, to be sure.
"Frank Merriwell's Triumph"
Note: Did you happen to catch the May 2nd issue? If you missed it in 1925, you can still read my full report.
Margaret Schloeman would create only two covers for the New Yorker, both of them outstanding. The first appears right here in the spring of 1925 but the second won't be published until 1931. Nevertheless Schloeman qualifies as the magazine's second female cover artist—the first is Ilonka Karasz, of course.
With this cover printed in only two colors for the sake of economy, the white of the paper becomes a crucial component of the design. There are a number of interesting things going on here. New York City's impossible traffic is indicated simply by showing two cars diverging at unlikely angles, perhaps to pass on either side of the slow-moving bus. The double-decker bus is tilted, which creates interest and tension while introducing diagonals in the composition. That tilt to the right also increases the upward sweep of the handrails to the staircase and it creates a cozy corner below the magazine logo in which there is a scene of starlit bliss. The magazine logo is mostly in white; only the initials N and Y are in green, which is a very unusual arrangement and serves to balance the subtle splash of green in the woman's scarf. In the midst of all this stands the conductor in his uniform, a solitary figure on duty in the doorway. He may or may not be aware of how brightly the star is shining this night on the couple above.
Margaret Schloeman The New Yorker, May 2, 1925
Ralph Barton's name hasn't been among the editorial advisors since the issue of April 11, and he hasn't had a theatre drawing in the magazine since the issue of April 4. Has there been some sort of problem?
"The Talk of the Town"
Puppy love:
Reginald Marsh's elaborate spreads have been a fixture of "The Talk of the Town" section, but change is in the air and this week it's Eldon Kelley who shows us around the clubs.
Club Lido Eldon Kelley
Deems Taylor is, like New Yorker editor Harold Ross, a member of the esteemed Algonquin Round Table. He has been commissioned by the Met to write an as yet unnamed new opera. Today we know it is to be entitled "The King's Henchman," it will have a libretto by Edna St. Vincent Millay, and it will receive its first performance in 1927. It will later pass into obscurity.
"O Caesar, great wert thou!"
From "The King's Henchman," Act 1
Music by Deems Taylor
Libretto by Edna St. Vincent Millay
Lawrence Tibbett as Eadgar, King of England
The Philadelphia Orchestra
The Metropolitan Opera Chorus
Leopold Stokowski, Conductor
Lawrence Tibbett as Eadgar in Deems Taylor's "The King's Henchman"
Over the course of its first ten issues, the New Yorker published at least two corrections. Here is the first of two corrections to appear in this issue alone.
Correction
Keep this under your hat! Cartoonist Alfred Frueh reveals a new religious brand of teetotaling "speakeasy." Note the insensitive sign language gag.
The Liberal Modernists Open Their Own Speakeasy Alfred Frueh
Florida for sale...
Eldon Kelley[?],"The New Conquistadores"
Has the plight of the dieter changed much over the last ninety years?
"Metropolitan Monotypes" by Baird Leonard
The saga of U.S. mail delivery.
"The Mail Must Go Through" Alfred Frueh
Ralph Barton has been absent from the theatre page for a few weeks now. Fortunately there's no shortage of artists who can draw French maids.
"Great Moments from the Drama" W. E. Hill
The New Yorker pans Shaw.
"The Theatre"
The second correction to grace this issue concerns last week's review of "The Mikado."
"The Theatre" Correction
Curtain call:
This week's Profile is of Sam Drebbin, "The Fighting Jew." Because Drebbin has just died as the result of a medication error, this piece is illustrated with a (not very Jewish) angel rather than the usual portrait.
The unsigned illustration is in a style reminiscent of Rockwell Kent.
Sam Drebbin fought in several wars, but that's not what killed him.
A caricature from the "Music" page:
Ernest Newman Miguel Covarrubias
Today Deems Taylor is remembered more for his appearance in "Fantasia" than for his musical compositions, but in his day his music was well-received.
Play ball!
The capsule reviews in the "Goings On" section continue to be rewritten, with the result that this page remains fresh and timely. How many of these long-forgotten productions would you give anything to be able to see today?
"Goings On"
A fine artist passes away...
In memoriam John Singer Sargent Born 1856—Died 1925
"There is a great sameness about these negro shows and few individual performances stand out in your memory." It's all very ho-hum. The type of racial caricature shown here is commonplace in the 1920's and doesn't raise any red flags at the New Yorker. Neither does the ongoing proliferation of performers in blackface, which will still be very mainstream when "The Jazz Singer" is released in 1927.
Charles Baskerville Club Alabam "When Nights Are Bold"
In the center column, the New Yorker quips that a new statue of Balto to be placed in Central Park will paradoxically guarantee obscurity for the famed sled dog. Ninety years later, both the statue and the dog remain popular.
Party time, gentlemen! How can the ladies keep away?
The Annual Banquet Hans Stengel
Gather ye rosebuds and subscriptions...
After hours...
Ladies of the Evening Paul Reilly
Just take a look at this! The final cartoon of the May 2 issue is by Gardner Rea, whose New Yorker work to date has been in the old-fashioned style of magazines like Judge and Punch. It may not have been expected then that a Rea gag would be the one to question the very foundation of the 19th century dialogue cartoon. Yet here is an absolutely extraordinary gag cartoon, against all odds. This is one of those rare cartoons that knows it's a cartoon, that flouts the moribund conventions of the cartoon, and that proclaims some new era is on its way. It is set up conventionally to have two speakers, yet only one person speaks and really that's the whole point. The New Yorker has not quite laid the dialogue caption to rest, but it has laid the groundwork for it. The he/she gag cartoon will soon be gone. What on earth is going to replace it? Do the editors even know? Stay tuned...
Old Gentleman: Dear, dear, I
suppose the child has a wise crack to
spring and I should ask him what
he's crying about!
Gardner Rea
This bit has run in all eleven issues now:
"The Optimist"
Perhaps this column explains the absence of John Held, Jr. from the last couple of issues of the magazine.
Weston, Conn. By John Held, Jr.
For all you geography buffs, Syosset is a fine Long Island town whose name no doubt evokes the epitome of style.
Give my regards...
It is now some two weeks since F. Scoott Fitzgerald published the The Great Gatsby. It has yet to be reviewed in the magazine, old sport, but while waiting Conan Doyle fans might enjoy this:
From "Books"
Critic and Algonquin frequenter Alexander Woollcott writes some copy for an advertiser.
Cruger's
"Endorsed by leading professors of mouth hygiene..." Ah, the academic life!
