James Montgomery Flag for Quaker State Motor Oil

An advertisement for Quaker State motor oil appeared in the October 13, 1941 issue of Life magazine. It looked back on the unhappy road travelers of a quarter century earlier, reminding us how "crude" some early cars—and their engine lubricants—were. The splendid illustration of the miserable motorists of yesteryear was by James Montgomery Flagg. 

It shook us up . . . in more ways than one!
James Montgomery Flagg
Life, October 13, 1941, p. 13

https://books.google.com/books?id=uk4EAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA8&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=2#v=onepage&q&f=false

Note:  Please contact me with any other illustrations that James Montgomery Flagg may have created for Quaker State.

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Speaking of Pictures: Life Magazine on Peter Arno, 1941

In its October 13, 1941 issue, Life magazine gave its readers a generous sampling of ten Peter Arno cartoons from The New Yorker collected in his seventh book, Cartoon Revue. The looming wartime themes are evident, but there's also the 1939 World's Fair, a wedding night scenario, and a gag about aging—or is it about publicity?

Peter Arno
Life, October 13, 1941, pp. 8-9

I think Life made an obvious mistake here: placing the captions on the lower half of the page at the top of the cartoons could only have been dreamed up by an art director too concerned about "balance." The idea, I suppose, was to keep the captions from being trimmed off the lower edge of the page.

Peter Arno
eBay listing accessed April 27, 2024

https://www.ebay.com/itm/135035220279?mkpid=0&emsid=e11021.m43.l1120&ch=osgood&euid=1dbda975180346dda416fb7e6a54111d&bu=43186000575&ut=RU&osub=-1%7E1&crd=20240427013620&segname=11021

Peter Arno
eBay item description

EBay paper sellers often don't disclose specific issue dates—I mean, why buy the two pages on offer when you could get a copy of the full magazine for probably not too much more?—but that withheld information is increasingly searchable. My own formidable Google skills gave me not only the issue date, but an additional page, numbered 11, with the final two Arno cartoons. Here, I'm pleased to report, both captions are placed underneath the drawing, where they belong.

https://books.google.com/books?id=uk4EAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA8&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=2#v=onepage&q&f=false

Note:  I've been at this game long enough to have written a few comprehensive posts on some of these classic Peter Arno cartoons, including:

"You're making a grave mistake, Miss Loesch . . . "

"Well, what's the excuse this time?"

"Why, George Carter! . . . "

As for "Well, back to the old drawing board," Paul Karasik explains why this is his candidate for the perfect cartoon here.

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Life Magazine: The 1912 Doctors' Number

Those who wish to understand the extraordinary achievement of The New Yorker, which came on the scene in 1925, need to understand what the state of American magazine humor had been in the years prior to its publication. Furthermore, with National Doctors' Day coming up on March 30, it seems to be the right time to go back one hundred ten years and take a look at the Doctors' Number of the old Life magazine. Orson Lowell's cover is skillfully painted, but to what end? Just what is the point of the fanciful board game being played by doctor and nurse? Are they competing, metaphorically, for the same patients? For all the craftsmanship that went into it, the 1912 cover illustration seems to be little more than a play on the words patience and patients. And, whatever the rules, shouldn't the white squares be on the players' right?

A Game of Patients
Orson Lowell
Life, November 1912

Watson Barrett's cartoon is a good example of the over-rendered and overwritten gag that was common at the time. The elaborately detailed doctor's office looks like a soft-focus photograph. The closest thing here to whimsy is an overflowing wastebasket. The awkward gag requires three lines of dialogue, and in the end it's just a tasteless joke about corpulence.

"Where do you say you feel the pain?"
"In my stomach, Doctor."
"Yes, but—er—couldn't you locate it a little more definitely?"
Watson Barrett

The Pure Food and Drug Act was passed in 1906, but bogus and even harmful patent medicines were still plentiful in 1912.

Advertising Pays
Harrison Cady

Might Orson Lowell be drawing the same nurse and doctor that appeared on his magazine cover?

                                              $5,000.00?
                                                  "But why do you operate now, doctor?"
                                                     "He is recovering so rapidly we can't afford to wait."
                                                Orson Lowell

Here's a bit of somewhat morbid populist theology, courtesy of Herbert Merrill Wilder: 

A Noted Vivisector is Greeted at the Pearly Gates by Some of His Victims
Herbert Merrill Wilder

Life's cover price is 10 cents. But for $2 one can get a postpaid copy of Sexology, illustrated.

Baker Electrics

Doctors' Number
eBay listing ended March 11, 2022

https://www.ebay.com/itm/384768465056?hash=item5995fcd8a0%3Ag%3AFVcAAOSw1CJiJTpS&nma=true&si=WEtIFz5%252FkfY9UxP8WWeB%252FCaqeVQ%253D&orig_cvip=true&nordt=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

Doctors' Number
eBay item description

 

Note:  I'm not so familiar with these 1912 artists. Please inform me if you can identify the Life cartoonists here I've given up on.

Of course, there's more. You can see the whole issue here.

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Barbara Shermund for Wings Sportswear

There's no telling what good fortune might befall a man with the good taste to wear Wings Sport Shirts. Barbara Shermund's World War II-era advertisement depicts a well-dressed gentleman at a resort confidently smoking a cigarette while other guests, including matrons on the veranda, secretly plot his future. Selling circa 1944 at $1.65 to $7.50 ($26.44 to $120.17 today), the pricey shirts appear to promise the well-heeled man who wears them the attention of a variety of attractive, fashionable, and fit women, including some who may have to be sent for expressly by their mothers.

"...and I hear he wears Wings Sports Shirts."

"That settles it. I'm wiring my daughter today to come right up."

Barbara Shermund
Wings Sportswear
Life magazine, 1944 [or 1945?], page 86

https://www.ebay.com/itm/254199191143

Back in 2017, Michael Maslin's Ink Spill posted a quartet of vintage Shermund advertisements from the Warren Bernard collection, including another 1944 ad for Wings Sportswear. In this one, a hunter in his office asks his secretary to hold his calls so that he may savor the "perfect fit" in perfect solitude.

"Miss Smith. Can't see anyone, I'm in conference!"

Barbara Shermund
Wings Sportswear
1944

Scan by Warren Bernard

Note:  Well, that makes two. If there should be any other ads from Barbara Shermund's Wings Sportswear campaign, by all means let me know of them. I hate to be anything less than comprehensive.

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Otto Soglow for Penn Maryland Whiskey

After Peter Arno's advertisement for Penn Maryland Whiskey's "Gentlemen Prefer Blends" campaign, cartoonist Otto Soglow had his own variation on the theme. Soglow's six-panel cartoon appeared as a full page ad in The New Yorker issue of April 20, 1935. It also was published in the old Life magazine for June 1935.

Penn Maryland Blended Whiskey
Otto Soglow
The New Yorker, April 20, 1935, page 67

The cartoon is blatantly racist, and sexist to boot. Today we are sensitive to the offensiveness and downright wrongness of such racial caricatures, but clearly this wasn't always the case. The subservient black man depicted here, whether slave or servant, is an example of the the sort of overtly racist cartoon that can be found at least through the 1950s in mainstream American media. Demeaning racial imagery was published apparently without objection from advertisers, editorial staff, and the reading public, but that doesn't excuse it. Rather, it demonstrates just how widespread the acceptance of such images was at the time, at least among white Americans.

Humorous verse by Gustave Lobrano and an advertisement by Otto Soglow

https://archives.newyorker.com/newyorker/1935-04-20/flipbook/066/

Note:  Other than Peter Arno and Otto Soglow, I know of no other cartoonists contributing to the "Gentlemen Prefer Blends" ad campaign for Penn Maryland Whiskey, but I am eager to learn of any other artists I possibly may have missed. Also, if Soglow's ad was published anywhere in addition to The New Yorker and Life, I'd like to know about it.

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A Happy New Year from Rea Irvin

Top-hatted and diapered, a smiling and chubby New Year's baby enjoys a glass of champagne and a cigar. This is the subject of an undated New Year's card from illustrator Rea Irvin. The seldom-seen image appears here courtesy of Stephen Kroninger.

Over the years, Irvin created any number of images to celebrate the New Year. These were reproduced in magazines and newspapers and seen all over the country. A two-panel cartoon for the old Life magazine, for example, contrasted the supposed restraint of an 1867 New Year's celebration with the corresponding madcap revels of 1917, fifty years later. Irvin's signature from this era is very similar to what is printed on his New Year's card.

A happy New Year 1867 — A happy New Year 1917
Life, January 4, 1917

https://www.loc.gov/resource/ppmsca.04666/

On its cover, Life rang in 1921 with an Irvin New Year's baby casting out the old year. The textures here are rich and vibrant. The elderly courtiers seated in the background seem superfluous here.

Life, December 30, 1920

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/31/d6/5e/31d65e3fcb1399a15be2d3714d1cf68f.jpg

Irvin's Life cover for the 1922 New Year is somewhat unconventional as well. Titled The Balloon Man, it proves that Irvin could render adorable babies when he wished to. In fact, the entire image is a pleasure to look at, but the gag, if it can be called that, seems a bit muddled.

Life, December 29, 1921

https://www.ebay.com/itm/273062626905?hash=item3f93cd0659:g:~DcAAOSw8A1afddb

Irvin drew The New Yorker's very first New Year cover for 1926. His creation Eustace Tilley is seen uncharacteristically head-on in the midst of a cover that can be said to work like clockwork.

The New Yorker, January 2, 1926

https://archives.newyorker.com/newyorker/1926-01-02/flipbook/CV1/

Father Time appears on the cover of The New Yorker to herald 1928. He's blowing bubbles.

The New Yorker, December 31, 1927

https://archives.newyorker.com/newyorker/1927-12-31/flipbook/CV1/

Then it's all aboard for 1929:

The New Yorker, December 29, 1928

https://archives.newyorker.com/newyorker/1928-12-29/flipbook

Irvin had the New Year's baby for 1931 carry the burden of Atlas.

The New Yorker, December 27, 1930

Image added January 8, 2022

https://archives.newyorker.com/newyorker/1930-12-27/flipbook/0/

A glass of bubbly is raised high by a prancing faun on the New Yorker cover welcoming in 1934. It bears a close resemblance to the glass held by the baby with a cigar.

The New Yorker, December 30, 1933

https://archives.newyorker.com/newyorker/1933-12-30/flipbook/CV1/

For the New Year of 1937, Irvin returns to the idea of his 1917 cartoon for Life, showing us again a sedate celebration from fifty years earlier. A girl dutifully serving her father can be seen in the 1917 gag as well. This New Yorker cover may originally have been intended for an earlier New Year; the last digit of the retro year 1887 has been altered.

The New Yorker, January 2, 1937

https://archives.newyorker.com/newyorker/1937-01-02/flipbook/0/

Another Irvin baby raises a glass and appears overjoyed to welcome in 1939. This is a truly delightful cover, even if it is celebrating the ill effects of inebriation.

The New Yorker, December 31,1938

https://archives.newyorker.com/newyorker/1938-12-31/flipbook/CV1/

As an aside, we've seen two examples here of Irvin's penchant for mocking the staid manners of the 19th century.

A happy New Year 1867 — A happy New Year 1917
Life, January 4, 1917

https://www.loc.gov/resource/ppmsca.04666/

The New Yorker, January 2, 1937

https://archives.newyorker.com/newyorker/1937-01-02/flipbook/0/

This has some bearing on his most famous image, which appeared on the cover of The New Yorker's first issue in 1925. It shows, of course, the figure we now know as Eustace Tilley, an anachronistic dandy in Regency dress coolly observing a butterfly through his monocle. If the 1917 and 1937 images above can serve as an example of Irvin's intent, Tilley may have been conceived ironically as a pretentious throwback from a full century earlier, a sleepy figure who represented the very opposite of the smart, irreverent magazine poised to take Jazz Age New York by storm.

Note:  My thanks to illustrator Stephen Kroninger for sending me the scan of the New Year's card that begins this post. This is Stephen's forty-fifth contribution to the blog. What a great way to start off the year!

Rea Irvin could well have drawn and published any number of additional cartoons and illustrations on the occasion of many a New Year. I'd love to be able to post more of these, and of course I'd also like to know what year the card is from. Please help me out if you can.

03842

Gluyas Williams: Crisis in Washington

What if the sitting president refuses to leave the White House when his term is up? This surprisingly topical question has already been asked and answered by cartoonist Gluyas Williams—in 1929! 

President Coolidge refuses point-blank to vacate the White

House until his other rubber is found

Gluyas Williams

The Gluyas Williams Book, Doubleday Doran, 1929, p. 31

First published in Life, Vol. 93, No. 2415, February 15, 1929, page 10

Scan by Tom Bloom

Obviously, the political situation at the time of the 1928 election was not analogous to today's. President Calvin Coolidge did not seek a second term in office. He was succeeded by fellow Republican Herbert Hoover, who defeated Democrat Al Smith. Prosperity seemed assured.

The Williams cartoon appeared in the February 15, 1929 issue of the old Life magazine with the heading Crisis in Washington. The Life caption refers to the president as Mr. Coolidge rather than President Coolidge. This was a timely cartoon because in 1929 the inauguration was still held on March 4. Eight years later, it would be moved up to January 20, where it remains.

https://mcns.wordpress.com/2010/02/11/

So the caption was reworked slightly for the 1929 publication of The Gluyas Williams Book, presumably because Mr. Coolidge was deemed too informal. The Crisis in Washington heading was dropped.

The Gluyas Williams Book, Doubeday Doran, 1929

Scan by Tom Bloom

Meanwhile, the Massachusetts Historical Society, founded in 1791, seems to have the original Williams art in its collection...and on its Twitter account. The caption on the matte is identical to the published caption in Life:

https://twitter.com/mhs1791/status/788389922797457408

Note:  My thanks to Tom Bloom for spotting this cartoon, recognizing its timeliness, and providing the book scans. This is Tom's fourteenth contribution to the blog, give or take a few ballots. 

03407

Edward Sorel: The English Language Tower of Babel

Mistress Quickly:  What, John Rugby! I pray thee, go to the casement and see if you can see my master, Master Doctor Caius, coming. If he do, i’ faith, and find anybody in the house, here will be an old abusing of God’s patience and the King’s English.

The Merry Wives of Windsor

Act I, scene iv

William Shakespeare

Illustrator Edward Sorel, who last week turned 90, has been producing outstanding work for some six decades. To demonstrate this, Tom Bloom has scanned a page from the March 2, 1962 issue of Life with a forgotten full-page illustration by the then thirty-two-year-old Sorel, already a creative force to be reckoned with. 



In "The English Language," author Lincoln Barnett points out the remarkable fact that English has become the most spoken language in the world. Sorel has illustrated the point with an English-speaking Tower of Babel. Shakespeare himself presides at the top of the tower, reciting his own words from The Merry Wives of Windsor. On the left, Nikita Krushchev just slightly mangles the language with his "Very OK" while Prime Minister Nehru and the Dalai Lama converse with each other not in their native languages but in English.

Edward Sorel
Life, March 2, 1962, page 72

Scan by Tom Bloom

Other illustrations from the article are available on Google Books:

https://books.google.com/books?id=kE0EAAAAMBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

https://books.google.com/books?id=kE0EAAAAMBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

https://books.google.com/books?id=kE0EAAAAMBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

Note:  Merci à Tom Bloom for submitting the color scan of the Tower of Babel. This is Tom's sixth contribution to Attempted Bloggery.


Quick Links to the Attempted Bloggery Archives:

Edward Sorel

Life

Shakespeare

Tom Bloom

Attempted Bloggery's Unspeakable Index

02882

Barbara Shermund: Diving for Greenbacks?

In decades past, it was a common practice for well-off cruise ship passengers to toss coins overboard at natives who would dive for them. This was a popular practice in the West Indies and elsewhere in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, particularly with silver coins. The passengers found it entertaining and the divers, mostly boys or young men, found it financially rewarding. Such diving for coins is depicted on the cover of the old Life magazine for April 1936. Barbara Shermund's society matron has neglected to carry the requisite small change.

Barbara Shermund
Life, April 1936

Scan by Dick Buchanan

With this cover, Ms. Shermund brings the sensibility of her New Yorker work to Life magazine. It therefore seems fair to ask why this work didn't appear instead on the cover of the New Yorker where perhaps it might have been a more natural fit. One reason could be its similarity to the work of Helen E. Hokinson, who painted a series of New Yorker covers depicting her own society matron on a world tour.

Helen E. Hokinson
The New Yorker, March 7, 1931

Life magazine was to cease publication in November of 1936 and be replaced by Henry Luce's new magazine of the same name. Interestingly, though, within a year of the appearance of Shermund's Life cover, the New Yorker did publish a cover depicting natives diving for coins. It is by Roger Duvoisin.

Roger Duvoisin
The New Yorker, February 6, 1937

Note:  Once again I give my sincere thanks to Dick Buchanan, who now makes his thirty-eighth contribution to this blog with his scan of Barbara Shermund's splendid Life magazine cover. Dick's archive is known throughout the land as the Dick Buchanan Cartoon Clip Files. He contributes regularly to Mike Lynch Cartoons, most recently a festive post entitled "From the Dick Buchanan Files: Winter and Holiday Gag Cartoons 1939 - 1955." I highly recommend it. Heck, it's enough to make me want to learn how to turn on my scanner.

Does this sort of coin diving still occur anywhere today? Was it done in by World War II? By inflation? By clad coinage? Elie Wiesel criticizes the practice in Night (1956) on moral grounds.

Quick Links to the Attempted Bloggery Archives:

Barbara Shermund

Helen E. Hokinson

Roger Duvoisin

Dick Buchanan

Life Magazine

Christmas

Attempted Bloggery's Non-Denominational Index

  
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