Sunday, August 2, 1925. A Date

The great Ethel Hays depicted a sad event. 

Dating was actually a fairly new thing.  Up until just after World War One, men had called upon the household of girls they were interested in. They did not "take them out", save in quite controlled circumstances.  The increated entry of women into the workplace and higher education, however, began to change that.

Perhaps oddly, the term "date" or "dating" came from the underclass, and it came from prostitution.  This shows that at first the practice of dating wasn't completely accepted as respectable, but by the mid 1920s it had really entered its own.  As a cultural institution, it really picked up about that time and remained very strong through the 1950s, when it began to change, although it still was a mainstay of relationships in its traditional sense well into the 1990s.  One big change during that time is that it actually became more conservative as an institution for quite awhile, as early on, in the period depicted in this cartoon, there was no expectation of exclusivity in a dating relationship.

Last edition:

Saturday, August 1, 1925. Wet

Labels: 1920s, 1925, Art, Swimming

Saturday, July 28, 1945. Taking no notice.

Japanese Prime Minister Kantarō Suzuki gave a response to the Potsdam Declaration stating that Japan would "take no notice" of the Potsdam Declaration. 

A B-25 flying in heavy fog struck the Empire State Building.

B-29s bombed Aomori.

Japanese battleships Haruna and Ise and,the aircraft carrier Amagi, the old cruiser Izumo, the light cruiser Oyodo and a destroyer were sunk by aircraft.

The USS Callaghan was sunk by a Yokosuka K5Y kamikaze attack off Okinawa.

The Japanese 28th Army attempted to withdraw across the Sittang River in Burma, suffering over 13,000 killed and drowned in the attempt.

The Potsdam Conference resulmeds with the appearance of Prime Minister Attlee.

The Senate ratified the Charter of the United Nations.

Jim Davis, the creator of the Garfield comic strip,was born in Marion, Indiana.

Last edition:

Friday, July 27, 1945. Preparing the bomb.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, Chinese Army, Imperial Japanese Army, Japan, Tinian, U.S. Air Force, United Kingdom, Weapons, Winston Churchill, World War Two

Monday, July 13, 1925. Pregnant lady.

Archbishop Vasileios Georgiadis was elected by his peers as the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople.

A figurine of a pregnant woman was unearthed in Czechoslovakia that is believed to be 31,000 years old, one of the oldest examples of the same.

Walt Disney married Lillian Bounds in Idaho.

Last edition:

Saturday, July 11, 1925. Spain and Morocco agree to cooperate.

Labels: 1920s, 1925, Art, Norman Rockwell, Rif War, Sports, Teenagers, Women

Wednesday, June 17, 1925. The Geneva Protocol.

The Geneva Protocol, officially the "Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare", was signed in Switzerland by representatives of Austria, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Hungary, Japan, the Netherlands, Russia, Turkey, the United Kingdom United States Brazil, Bulgaria, Chile, Denmark, Egypt, El Salvador, Estonia, Ethiopia, Greece, British India, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Nicaragua, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Siam, Uruguay and Venezuela.

Arguably US use of CS gas in Vietnam violated the treaty.  The USSR violated it with lethal gas in Afghanistan.

The first National Spelling Bee was held in Washington, D.C. 

The competition was won by 11-year-old Frank Neuhauser of Kentucky, who became a patent lawyer in his adulthood.

A sad Flapper Fanny went to print.

Last edition:

Monday, June 15, 1925. Flying out.

Labels: 1910s, 1911, 1920s, 1925, Aircraft, baseball, Exploration, Sports

Monday, May 11, 1925. The Tables are turned. (The Palm Beach Post, May 11, 1925).

Last edition:

Saturday, May 9, 1945.

Labels: 1920s, 1925, Art

 

American Divide

Wednesday, May 7, 1975. End of the Vietnam War Era.

The US government declared the Vietnam War era at an end for purposes of veterans benefits.

9,087,000 military personnel served on active duty during the official Vietnam Era, but of course not all of them went to Vietnam.   3.4 million U.S. servicemen were deployed to Southeast Asia.  Approximately 2.7 million served in the Republic of Vietnam.  Most US servicemen in Vietnam were not combat troops, although because of the nature of the war, any of them could be exposed to combat.

There has never been a U.S. President who served in Vietnam, although one Vice President, Al Gore, did.  George W. Bush was in the Texas Air National Guard as a fighter pilot during the war.  Bill Clinton had a student deferment.  Joe Biden had a deferment for asthma.  Trump had one for shin splints.

None of my immediate family (parents, aunts, uncles, cousins) served in Vietnam or would qualify as a Vietnam Era veteran, even though a lot of them had been in the service.  The husband of one of my cousins had served in Vietnam as an officer in the Navy, and a Canadian cousin of my mother's who was living in Florida was drafted and served in Vietnam, so there is some family connection.  In the neighborhood, the son of the man who lived across the street was a paratrooper in the war.

In junior high, one of the more colorful social studies teachers had been in the Marine Recon, a unit much like the Rangers, during the war, and occasionally wore a green beret, which was never officially adopted by the Marines, to school.   In high school, a legendary swimming teacher from the South Pacific had been a Navy SEAL and bore the scars of having been shot in the war and also from having been straffed as a child by a Japanese airplane. The ROTC teacher also had been, but I didn't take ROTC.

In university, a geology professor who also held a job with the State of Wyoming had served in Vietnam, and according to those who knew him well, suffered pretty markedly from PTSD.  I never noticed that myself, and he was a good professor.

When I joined the National Guard right after high school I found it packed with Vietnam Veterans.  One of my good friends in the Guard was the mechanics section chief but had the Combat Infantryman's Badge awarded for two tours in the country.  Another friend of mine also had the CIB from the 1st Cavalry Division, with his uniquely being stitched in dark blue for the subdued  patch.  A fellow I was friendly with had been a Ranger in Vietnam and when he first joined and was still relying on service period uniforms he'd wear a black beret, another unofficial item. A good friend of mine who was his brother in law was in the Wyoming Air National Guard and had flown medical missions to the country, a deployment you rarely hear about.  One of our members had been a Navy pilot.  What with the CIBs, combat patches, pilot's wings, etc., we must have been an odd looking bunch to the young soldiers in the Regular Army.

There were a lot of them.

Cartoonist George Baker, the creator of the World War Two era Sad Sack cartoon, died at age 59.

Last edition:

Tuesday, May 6, 1975. Authoritarian victims.

Labels: 1970s, 1975, Cambodia, Catholic, Communism, Domino Theory, Fascism, Gerald Ford, Hungary, Malaysia, Operation Babylift, South Vietnam, Thailand, Vietnam, Vietnam War

Escape From Saigon.

 Escape from Saigon.

Monday, March 30, 1925. Cougars win the Stanley Cup.

Newly ordained St. Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer y Albás celebrated his first Mass in the Chapel of Our Lady of Pilar in the Saragossa Cathedral.

He would found Opus Dei in 1928.

The Victoria Cougars of the WCHL beat the Montreal Canadiens 6-1 to become the last non-NHL team to win the Stanley Cup.

Bringing Up Father On Broadway premiered.

Last edition.

Saturday, March 28, 1925. Society Number.

Labels: 1920s, 1925, Art

Monday, March 9, 1925. Try this in your happy home.

Hitler was banned from speaking to crowds in Bavaria.

Last edition:

Sunday, March 8, 1925. Fédération Nationale Catholique

Labels: 1920s, 1925, Catholic, Catholic Lay Organizations, France, Politics, religion

Tuesday, February 24, 1925. Lake of the Woods Convention and Protocol

The United States and Canada signed the Lake of the Woods Convention and Protocol, defining the lake's boundary line more accurately, regulating its water level, and arranging for the settlement of port damages caused by overflowing that arose from work done on the Canadian side. 

This, obviously, before our currently demented occupant of the Oval Office decided that throwing rocks at Canada was fun.

Last edition:

Monday, February 23, 1925. Puyi moves.

Labels: 1920s, 1925, China, Chinese Warlord Era, Japan

Saturday, February 21, 1925. A Republican President declares American Forest Week.

Fapper Fanny for this day in 1925.

There used to be an era when Republicans cared about conservation.

Declaring American Forest Week

Date: February 21, 1925 

In proclaiming American Forest Week, I desire to bring to the attention of all our people the danger that comes from the neglect of our forests.

For several years the Nation has observed Forest Protection Week. It is fitting that this observance be enlarged. We have too freely spent the rich and magnificent gift that nature bestowed on us. In our eagerness to use that gift we have stripped our forests; we have permitted fires to lay waste and devour them; we have all too often destroyed the young growth and the seed from which new forests might spring. And though we already feel the first grip of timber shortage, we have barely begun to save and restore.

We have passed the pioneer stage and are no longer excusable for continuing this unwise dissipation of a great resource. To the Nation it means the lack of an elemental necessity and the waste of keeping idle or only partly productive nearly one-fourth of our soil. To our forest-using industries it means unstable investments, the depletion of forest capital, the disbanding of established enterprises, and the decline of one of our most important industrial groups.

Our forests ought to be put to work and kept at work. I do not minimize the obstacles that have to be met, nor the difficulty of changing old ideas and practices. We must all put our hands to this common task. It is not enough that the Federal, State, and local governments take the lead. There must be a change in our national attitude. Our industries, our landowners, our farmers, all our citizens must learn to treat our forests as crops, to be used but also to be renewed. We must learn to tend our woodlands as carefully as we tend our farms.

Let us apply to this creative task the boundless energy and skill we have so long spent in harvesting the free gifts of nature. The forests of the future must be started to-day. Our children are dependent on our course. We are bound by a solemn obligation from which no evasion and no subterfuge will relieve us. Unless we fulfill our sacred responsibility to unborn generations, unless we use with gratitude and with restraint the generous and kindly gifts of Divine Providence, we shall prove ourselves unworthy guardians of a heritage we hold in trust.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, Calvin Coolidge, President of the United States of America, do recommend to the Governors of the various States to designate and set apart the week of April 27 – May 3, inclusive, 1925, as American Forest Week, and, wherever practicable and not in conflict with State law or accepted customs, to celebrate Arbor Day within that week. And I urge public officials, public and business associations, industrial leaders, forest owners, editors, educators, and all patriotic citizens to unite in the common task of forest conservation and renewal.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

DONE at the city of Washington this twenty-first day of February in the year of our Lord, one thousand nine hundred and twenty-five, and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred and forty-ninth.

The New Yorker premiered.

Bulgarian Prime Minister Aleksandar Tsankov declared that an internal state of war existed in the country.

David Samuel "Sam" Peckinpah was born in Fresno, California.  Growing up in a family that had strong rural Californian roots, he was haunted in some ways by passing eras, which shows itself in his films.  He was a film making genius whose works were nonetheless flawed by his wreckless demeanor and drug and alcohol abuse.

It was, of course, a Saturday.

Last edition:

Wednesday, February 18, 1925. Mayflower Hotel opens.

Labels: 1920s, 1925, actors and actresses, Lodging, Washington DC

Saturday, February 14, 1925. The Berries.

Kurdish rebels declared Diyarbekir as the capital of Kurdistan.

From the Reading Times, February 14, 1925.

Last edition:

Friday, February 13, 1925. The Sheikh Said Rebellion

 1920s, 1925, Court, Kurds, law, Turkey

Friday, January 30, 1925. Antitoxin runs out in Nome.

Diphtheria antitoxin ran out in Nome. The serum run had reached Kaltag.

Turkey exiled Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople Constantine VI to Greece

The Khost Rebellion in Afghanistan ended with the reign of King Amanullah Khan intact.

A national news media frenzy started when Cave explorer Floyd Collins became trapped in Sand Cave, Kentucky.  The story went on for days, but did not conclude happily.

High winds blew a train off of a viaduct in County Donegal, Ireland, killing four people.

Last edition:

Thursday, January 29, 1925. 裁軍 and Flapper Fanny.

Labels: 1920s, 1925, 1930s, 1940s, Cartoons, China, Chinese Warlord Era, Shanghai, The Roaring Twenties, Women

Thursday, January 29, 1925. 裁軍 and Flapper Fanny.

About 20 people were killed when  representatives of the Fengtian Clique met resistance attempting to disarm about 1,000 defeated Jiangsu troops, who apparently weren't quite as defeated as thought.

Flapper Fanny Says was on day three of its new syndicated run.  The cartoon would run until 1940, during which time Fanny ceased being a flapper.  It had two different cartoonist illustrate it, both of them women.

Last edition:

Wednesday, January 28, 1925. Russian Mercenaries

Labels: 1920s, 1925, China, Chinese Warlord Era, It was because of the Russian Revolution, Mercenaries, Shanghais in Shanghai.

Tuesday, January 28, 1975. Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown.

Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown, premiered.

Japan and the Soviet Union signed an agreement for a joint venture of drilling for oil on Sakhalin Island in which Japan was to receive "a significant discount on half of the pumped oil" for ten years in exchange for funding the project.

Last edition:

Thursday, January 23, 1975. Failed tariff.

Labels: 1970s, 1975, Economics, Gerald Ford, Petroleum, Taxes, television

Sunday, January 4, 1925. Death of Red Shirt. Ignoring the warning signs.

Red Shirt (Ógle Ša) Oglala Lakota leader and supporter of Crazy Horse during the Great Sioux War of 1876-1877 and the Ghost Dance Movement of 1890, died at age 77 at Pine Ridge, South Dakota.

Italian prefects were ordered to control "suspect", i.e., non fascist, political organizations.  Mass searches resulted.

Adolf Hitler pledged his loyalty to Bavarian Minister President Heinrich Held. 

Hitler's pledge, of course, would turn out to be a lie.  Held maintained Bavarian state sovereignty until the end, but ultimately the Bavarian government was removed in 1933 by Hitler.  Held's pension would be revoked by the Nazis.  He died in 1938.

Last edition:

Saturday, January 3, 1925. Mussolini becomes a dictator.

Labels: 1920s, 1925, Art, Donald Trump, Italy, J. C. Leyendecker, Mussolini

Monday, November 13, 1944. Air service returns to London.

Civil air service returned to London.  It had been stopped in September, 1939.

The Akebono, Akishimo, Hatsuharu, Kiso and Okinami was sunk in Filipino waters by the U.S. Navy.  The I-12 was sunk east of Hawaii.

The Bulgarian 1st Army captured Skopje.

SSgt Junior J. Spurrier performed the actions that resulted in his receiving a Medal of Honor.

For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty in action against the enemy at Achain, France, on 13 November 1944. At 2 p.m., Company G attacked the village of Achain from the east. S/Sgt. Spurrier armed with a BAR passed around the village and advanced alone. Attacking from the west, he immediately killed 3 Germans. From this time until dark, S/Sgt. Spurrier, using at different times his BAR and M1 rifle, American and German rocket launchers, a German automatic pistol, and hand grenades, continued his solitary attack against the enemy regardless of all types of small-arms and automatic-weapons fire. As a result of his heroic actions he killed an officer and 24 enlisted men and captured 2 officers and 2 enlisted men. His valor has shed fresh honor on the U.S. Armed Forces.

Spurrier had an extremely difficult time adjusting to post World War Two life and rejoined the Army during the Korean War, where he proved to be a difficult soldier.  He was by that time an alcoholic and after his second period of service had numerous run ins with the law.  He ultimately became a teetotaler and ran an electronics repair service, dying at age 61 in 1984.

Last edition:

Sunday, November 12, 1944. Carving off part of China, Tirpitz sunk, Hitler takes time to release a long Beer Hall message, Dog Faces in chow line.

Labels: 1920s, 1923, 1940s, 1944, Adolf Hitler, Army, Beer Hall Putsch, boats and ships, France, German Kriegsmarine, Nazi Germany, Nazi Party, Republic of China, Royal Air Force, The written word, USSR, World War Two

Sunday Morning Scene, part Pars Duo: Please, stop.

Next year with be a Jubilee Year in the Catholic Church. For some reason, the Church felt it needed a mascot for this.

This is what it came up with:

How does a 2,000 year old institution in possession of much of the Western World's great art, come up with something so juvenile, and indeed something that looks like its out of Pokemon?

In announcing this, Archbishop Rino Fisichella stated that the cartoon imagine, titled "Luce" (light in Italian) was inspired by the Church's "to live even within the pop culture so beloved by our youth."  This presents the classic problem of the elderly, now the Baby Boomers, recalling the desires of "youth" in terms of when they were fairly youthful themselves.  Indeed, in my mind it brings to mind attending the "Teen Life Mass", or whatever it was called, that used to be held on Sunday evenings.  I generally tried to avoid it, but when I did, you'd find a guitar band with bongos for the music, lead by a Boomer, and a bunch of aged Boomers who would sway and whatnot to the music.  

In contrast, if you hit some Masses with a lot of young people, you'd find young women, some down in their teens, wearing mantillas.

I'm pretty convinced that in 2024, with ready access to the Internet, and all the news that's on it, combined with all the sewage that's washed up with it, such as horrific political arguments, the revival of racism, far right and far left extremist, Hamas murder and rape of young people in Israel, an aged geezer in the Kremlin trying to revive the Soviet Union, and young women prostituting themselves on TikTok, a childish cartoon from the 1980s isn't really going to win hearts and minds.  Indeed, its even worse than the Comic Sans Serif font and 1970s vintage art that was officially used for the Synod on Synodality.  And it gives emotional support to the Orthodox who are looking for reasons not to come back into the Church, even if superficially. This sure doesn't look like something Saints Cyril and Methodius would have passed out.

I've long held, and have stated it here, that Western culture had experienced Post World War Two materialism and found it lacking, and that the generations that have come up in the wake of the Baby Boomers are struggling to through the cultural innovations of the 1960s and 1970s off.  We don't believe that "Greed is good" or that the Sexual Revolution was freeing. The problem is that so much was destroyed that recovering is hard, particularly when the aged hand remains on the tiller.  Often that aged hand reaches out with what it thinks the young want, not grasping what that is, and actually making things worse.

This cartoon is really bad.  Somebody should look around the Vatican and see if something serious might be available.  The young Catholics in blue jeans, the mantilla girls, and myself, will all be thankful.

Postscript

I'm hating this image slightly less after some Twitter person made some interesting riffs off of it, but I still don't like it.