Category: Humor
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The Prohibition of Laughter
Despite the Roaring Twenties nickname, journalist James C. Young diagnosed a phenomenon sweeping the country in 1921, in his article “The Prohibition of Laughter”: people intentionally seeking out sad forms of entertainment. Returning players gather in little knots on the Rialto and repeat the same theme — people decline to laugh any more. Victor Herbert…
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The Gentle Art of Newspaper Humor
A 1920 book by humor columnist C.L. Edson provided advice for the aspiring humor columnist. His biggest advice dealt with when — and when not — to make puns. Mr. Edson has here laid down a code for the columnist, the first law in which reads: “Do not write Paragraphs with Puns on Names.” He…
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Nonagenarian Suffragist
Despite the stereotype that the elderly are the age group most opposed to societal progress, a 97-year-old male named Stephen Smith was a strong supporter of women’s voting rights in 1920. He traced his evolution on the issue to his time at Geneva Medical College in 1847, when Elizabeth Blackwell enrolled as the first women…
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Must We De-Alcoholize Literature?
Two months after the 18th Amendment established prohibition, this satire wondered how far the movement would go. Would Dickens and Shakespeare’s references to alcohol be expunged? The losses would be appalling; Chaucer would be a walking casualty, Shakespeare a stretcher case, and the forces of Dickens would be decimated. Think of Mr. Pickwick bereft of…
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Nicotine Next! Then Abolish Coffee and Tea!
A month after the 18th Amendment banned alcohol, Gerald Van Casteel satirized the push for banning anything which seemed wasteful or excessive, in the name of morals or productivity: namely, banning sleep. I now suggest a reform by prohibition far more fundamental. While we are in the mood to prohibit let there be no half…
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Vagaries of the German “Michel”
“In Germany, a ‘Michel’ is, freely translated, a fool, a clown, a weak-wit of great physical power when aroused, but wholly dominated by his masters of higher intellect or greater power. You hear it every day and everywhere in Germany.” So reported A. Curtis Roth, the former American Consul General in Plauen, Saxony, Germany in 1918.…
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Echoes in Lighter Tone from Washington
Should we be referring to WWI as the stenographers’ war? That’s what one article in 1918 predicted that “future historians” might call it: And, hurrah, here come the stenographers! They are here from multi-storied city skyscrapers and from country lawyers’ offices; from business colleges and from just-learned-it-by-myself; calm, self-possessed, clear-eyed; helpers of detail — helpless…
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Foods People Won’t Eat Because of the Names
Muskrat. Field mouse. Dogfish. All are examples of foods that Robert T. Morris, M.D. cited in 1918 as foods many people refused to consume due to their names. This article leads off by describing how many people wouldn’t eat dogfish, because it brought to mind a dog as much as a fish. According to Wikipedia,…
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“Are You Uhmuricun or American?”
Why is there so much slang, mispronunciation, and similar linguistic issues among native-born Americans? The writer Clarence Stratton suggests here that the fault lies in democracy itself: “Our speech suffers because our wrongly interpreted democratic idea makes common people intolerant of anything like authority in everyday matters. The German acknowledges a standard of usage and…
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Russia and democracy – nervous bridegroom
This cartoon from NYT Sunday Magazine 100 years ago this week holds up eerily well. From Sunday, May 13, 1917
SundayMagazine.org 