Global radio, phonograph, and movie technology by the 1920s meant Broadway’s reach was no longer local to NYC or even national, but worldwide. A 1926 New York Times Magazine article wrote: “Broadway is America’s symbol on foreign shores.”

As the journalist Hollister Noble wrote:

The latest Broadway song hit will circle the earth in sixty days. A few years ago song hits were two seasons late in arriving in continental night life centres. When Broadway danced to Ain’t We Got Fun and The March of the Wooden Soldiers, Berlin lingered over Smiles and Bubbles, while Avalon was just entering Constantinople, and Bagdad [sic] was only recovering from After the Ball is Over.

Broadway’s global popularity continues. Here’s a fascinating NYT article from 96 years later, in 2022, about the difficulties of translating the linguistically complex lyrics of Broadway’s Hamilton into German. (Although, despite its massive American popularity, the Hamburg show closed only a year later.)

I was also struck by the spelling of Iraq’s capital in that above excerpt as “Bagdad.” According to Google Books Ngram Viewer, 1926 – the year that article was published – marked the last year ever when the use of Bagdad in books exceeded Baghdad. Starting in 1927 and for the rest of time, the version with the letter ‘h’ reigned.

As for another old-fashioned city name, what about “Yeddo” in the sub-headline? That was the former name for Tokyo, Japan. Its use by 1926 is more curious, though, since it was renamed “Tokyo” all the way back in 1868.

Now the Sun Never Sets on Broadway: Yeddo, Shanghai, Singapore, and Bagdad Reflect the Lights and Echo the Jazz of Our Famous Street

Published: Sunday, April 4, 1926

A 1926 New York Times Magazine headline used the word “clansmen” to mean people from Scotland. That’s almost impossible to imagine occurring in an American publication today, even if it was spelled with a “c" instead of a “k.”

Yes, the history of Scottish clans goes back about 800 years. Wikipedia has a list of hundreds of them.

But to a U.S. audience, the word primarily means something else. I’m actually surprised that NYT Mag would use it in a 1926 headline, when the KKK was far more prominent in American life?

According to Google Books Ngram Viewer, the 1920s was exactly when klansman or klansmen spelled with a ‘k’ first overtook clansman or clansmen spelled with a ‘c’ in books:

Then the ‘k’ version fell below the ‘c’ version from the 1930s through early 1960s, but has largely ranked above it almost every year since the mid-’60s. (A trend that’s more noticeable in the first graph which charts the singular words, rather than the second graph which charts the plural versions.)

As for the 1926 article itself, journalist M.B. Levick described how and why the bagpipes continued in Scotland, even as some other “national instruments” had faded.

The German bass, no longer played, was nothing to patriotic hearts but a six-stringed bull fiddle.

…

[But] what is there that will more quickly stir deep emotion than those heraldic instruments that stand as symbols of the motherland, [such as] the bagpipes? Even though origin be lost in the primordial mists of legend… the symbolic instruments themselves are more potent in swaying the hearts of men than are forests of fiddles and mountains of pianos.

Clansmen Defend the Bagpipe: Glasgow Tempest Finds Echoes in the Land of Banjos and Harmonicas

Published: Sunday, March 28, 1926

In the 1920s, facial hair saw a sharp decline in popularity – a development that a 1926 New York Times Magazine article called “civilization’s menace.”

The amazingly-named journalist Hollister Noble wrote at the time that this trend reflected something of a feminization of society, occurring alongside the likes of women’s suffrage:

One of the sighs in a vast sea of regrets that reside in the heart of modern man goes up for the passing of the beard. Beyond the shadow of a hair, the beard is doomed. The razor blade of a doubtful progress is stripping the last vestige of facial adornment from the human countenance.

Barring a few bold iconoclasts, the beard has become a badge of senility and decrepit old age. From a stalwart protector of manly chests, this fine growth of hair has degenerated into a sparse and wistful concealer of weak chins.

The trend could also be seen among U.S. presidents. The last one to sport facial hair while in office: William Howard Taft, from 1909-13.

This graph shows men’s facial hair trends from 1842 to 1972. I’ve slightly modified it to add a yellow line at the 1926 mark, when this NYT Mag article was published.

As you can see, while the percentage goes up or down by the year, the 1920s marked the first decade in that dataset where facial hair ever comprised 50% or less of the male population. In 1926, it was hovering right around the halfway mark.

By the end of that dataset, in the 1960s and 1970s, the percentage of men with facial hair only stood around 20%.

Looking up what percent of American men have facial hair today, I’m finding wildly varying results. But it seems reasonable to guess that it’s probably higher than 20% today?

Beards are certainly big in culture right now – from athletes like LeBron James and Steph Curry and James Harden, music acts (particularly rappers) like Drake and Eminem, and politicians on both sides of the aisle like potential 2028 presidential candidates J.D. Vance, Pete Buttigieg, Ruben Gallego, and Chris Murphy.

Beardless Man is Facing a Dreary Existence: Loss of Virile Hirsuteness Called Civilization’s Menace – Glories of Bushy Adornments Are Recalled

Published: Sunday, March 21, 1926

A grand piano “is now an important piece of home furnishing,” a 1926 New York Times Magazine article wrote. That was not to last: piano sales peaked about three years prior, in 1923, and never reached those heights again.

Radio – and, later, television – came to supplant the piano as the preeminent object in the American living room. This sales chart puts some data on the steep decline, as the grand piano transitioned from middle-class to staple to (mostly) upper-class luxury.

But back in 1926, the journalist Walter Rendell Storey wrote:

The piano in the shape known as the “grand” is now an important piece of home furnishing…

The heavy elephantine legs of the piano of the last century have disappeared and today, even among popular-priced instruments, one may find a piano to suit any scheme of period furnishings or satisfy almost any desire for originality.

…

This all goes to show how important, from the point of view of artistic form, is the piano. In its designing and decorating, it is today being given the serious attention that was lavished on the furniture of the “periods” which we now so much revere.

Any writer who penned the phrase “the piano in the shape known as the ‘grand’” instead of just “grand piano” was clearly getting paid by the word.

The Piano Acquires Grace and Beauty: Its Elephantine Legs Have Gone and It Now Fits Into the Scheme of Home Decoration

Published: Sunday, March 14, 1926

Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes turned 85 in 1926, while still serving on the bench. A New York Times Magazine profile article marked the occasion.

For comparison, the oldest of the nine current justices, Clarence Thomas, is “only” 77.

The journalist Carson C. Hathaway wrote in 1926:

The president who nominated him was 44. Yet Roosevelt has been dead these seven years, while Mr. Justice Holmes continues to be a member of the highest court in the land. He has lived in the administration of every president from that of William Henry Harrison on to the present.

Hathaway also noted that Holmes was a Civil War veteran for the Union Army:

The memories of Antietam remain. It is said that even today he would rather be called plain “Colonel” Holmes than to be called an Associate Justice.

At the time of the 1926 article’s publication, Holmes had just become only the second justice in history to still serve on the bench at age 85. The only other, at the time: Roger Taney, who served from 1836-64, dying on the Court at 87.

In the century since Holmes accomplished the feat, five other justices have also reached age 85 while still on the bench: Hugo Black, Harry Blackmun, Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and John Paul Stevens.

How much longer would Holmes last on the bench? In 1926, the journalist Hathaway wrote, it was anybody’s guess:

Reports have been circulated from time to time that Justice Holmes was about to retire. Such statements have not come from Justice Holmes himself. Many of those who know him best believe that so long as it is possible for him to render valuable service, he will continue in his work.

The answer: Holmes eventually retired in 1932, about six years after that article’s publication, at 90 years 10 months – remaining the oldest justice to this day.

He died in 1935, at age 93, only two days shy of his 94th birthday.

Interestingly, although Holmes remains the oldest justice in American history, he’s nowhere near the longest-tenured justice. Indeed, he only ranks #18 on that metric.

Why? Because he was sworn in at the relatively old age of 61, making him the #15 oldest justice as ranked by age when first sworn in.

For comparison, none of the nine current justices were that old when first sworn in. The oldest of the current nine was Samuel Alito, at age 55 – a solid six years younger than Holmes was.

All data comes from this source: https://threestory.com/scotus/scotus_all.html

Mr. Justice Holmes Reaches 85: Brilliant and Learned Member of the Supreme Court Bears Three Wounds Received in the Civil War – His Judicial Opinions Sound a Human Note – A Striking Figure on the Bench

Published: Sunday, March 7, 1926

In 1926, New York Times Magazine published an article about congressional stenographers on Capitol Hill. In 2026, perhaps surprisingly, the profession still exists.

The journalist Carson C. Hathaway wrote a century ago:

There are twelve reporters: six for the Senate, six for the House. In the House, the reporters are appointed by the Speaker. They may be removed by him for cause, a contingency that has never occurred.

Well, it has since then. In 2013, the stenographer Dianne Reidy seized the House floor’s microphone before anyone realized what was happening or could stop her. She unleashed an unhinged rant about God before security escorted her away, around 30 seconds later. She was later fired for the incident.

Hold on. Even in this increasingly-technological world, Congress still employed stenographers in 2013? Do they still now in 2026?

Apparently, yes. Indeed, here’s a current job posting for a congressional stenographer.

A few years ago, Justin Furst at eCourt Reporters News answered the question in an article with the headline “Why are Stenographers Still on the Senate Floor?” He provided this example:

Voice-to-text translation can be misrepresented from the spoken word to the printed word. Imagine the spoken words “below-knee pain” and having voice-to-text translate those words to “baloney pain.”

Somebody posted in 2020 on the subreddit r/Ask_Politics to inquire why the Senate still has stenographers. A user, who claimed to have served as a Senate page back in high school, answered while providing this behind-the-scenes gossip:

The senator that was their favorite to type for was Susan Collins, because of her incredibly slow speaking voice. They hated doing Sherrod Brown, because of his complete lack of sentence construction while speaking or mastery of the English language generally.

The 1926 NYT Mag article also noted that a congressional stenographer’s salary back then was $6,000 per year. Adjusted for inflation, that would be around $109,000 today.

But that aforementioned congressional stenographer job posting I linked to earlier lists the salary as $157,291 per year. So over time, the salary has gone up relative to inflation.

Interesting – if anything, given how good the technology has gotten, I would have guessed the salary would have either remained about level or otherwise gone down.

‘Taking’ Congress is an Exacting Task: Speed, Resourcefulness, and a High Spirit of Service Characterize the Twelve Men Who Report Debates for the Official Record – Some Lively Stenographic Experiences Are Told

Published: Sunday, February 21, 1926

A 1926 New York Times Magazine article seemed to foretell the rise of the trench coat as a fashion trend – even as the author called it a “smock” instead.

The journalist Miriam Beard wrote:

The ideal twentieth century “period costume” has yet to be created. We need a new garment to typify the spirit of our Machine Age as the ruff and farthingale represented the romance of the Elizabethan, or the toga the leisure of the Augustan.

Some kind of universal uniform must be found if the world is to adapt itself successfully to modern mechanical civilization.

She then goes on to describe what such a “universal uniform” might look like, nicknaming it a “smock,” and the accompanying illustration looked more or less like a trench coat.

So I looked up the history of the trench coat. Linda Rodriguez McRobbie wrote a fascinating article for Smithsonian Magazine, noting that the garment was first popularized in World War I when soldiers wore it in the trenches.

Sure, it seems so obvious once you see it… but I’d never really thought about the term’s linguistic origin before. McRobbie makes the same point in her article: “As the trench coat has become a fashion staple, on every fashion blogger’s must-have list, its World War I origins are almost forgotten.”

The clothing item moved from military to civilian popularity in the 1920s, but truly took off more in the 1930s and 1940s with appearances in Hollywood classics like 1941’s The Maltese Falcon and 1942’s Casablanca.

The article quotes Jane Tynan, lecturer in design history at University of the Arts London and author of British Army Uniform and the First World War: Men in Khaki, about why it became popular in the 1920s after World War I ended.

“The war-worn look was most attractive, not the fresh faced recruit with his spanking new uniform, but the guy who comes back. He’s got his hat at a jaunty angle... the idea was that he had been transformed, he looked like the picture of experience. I think that would certainly have given [the trench coat] a caché, an officer returning with that sort of war-worn look and the trench coat is certainly part of that image.”

Unlike much of 1920s fashion, such as the bobbed haircut or flapper dresses, the trench coat actually seems to have survived to today. Though it hardly seems as popular as it did closer to a century ago, at least it still exists. You see people wearing them more than zero.

Meanwhile, a short biography of the original 1926 article’s author Miriam Beard can be found in a guest post by her granddaughter Karen Vagts on Craig Thompson’s travel blog Clearing Customs, here.

Smock Heralds Ideal Garb for the Machine Age: Its Arrival in Business Presages the Evolution of a ‘Suitable Garment’ for Both Man and Woman

Published: Sunday, February 14, 1926

61 years after Abraham Lincoln’s death, he was still universally known, reported a 1926 New York Times Magazine article – unlike 12 of Lincoln’s contemporaneous world leaders. Who were these other dozen men mentioned, and why did their name recognition plummet?

The journalist Allanson Shaw wrote:

If one travels back in thought sixty years to the bitter tragedy of Ford’s Theatre in Washington, and compares Lincoln, in the esteem of mankind, with many of the world’s most notable figures of that period, one sees that with few exceptions fame has tarnished, work has been nullified and cast upon the scrap heap, presently to be taken up again, melted down and remade.

If one runs over the names of men who were contemporaries of Lincoln, one realizes how seldom the opinions of little more than half a century ago have been sustained; in how few cases reputations have held – Palmerston, Lord John Russell, Gladstone, Disraeli, Bright, Salisbury, Cavour, Bismarck, Napoleon III, Andrássy, Gorchakov, Shuvalov.

Who?

Here’s a quick rundown of who each of those 12 men were, and what they were doing during Lincoln’s presidency:

1. Lord Palmerston: British Prime Minister from 1859-65 during the U.S. Civil War. Officially neutral in the conflict.

2. Lord John Russell: British Foreign Secretary, their equivalent of the U.S. Secretary of State, from 1859-65. Served as Prime Minister both before and after, from 1846-52 and again from 1865-66.

3. William Gladstone: British Chancellor of the Exchequer, their equivalent of the U.S. Treasury Secretary, from 1859-66. Later served as Prime Minister for four different stints, starting in 1868 and ending in 1894.

4. Benjamin Disraeli: A Conservative Party member and key figure in the British opposition. Later served as Prime Minister for two different stints, starting in 1868 and ending in 1880.

5. John Bright: A notable British member of Parliament, serving in the Liberal Party during Lincoln’s presidency. (Though he would later change parties.)

6. Lord Salisbury: Member of British Parliament from the Conservative Party. Later served as Prime Minister for three different stints, starting in 1885 and ending in 1902.

7. Camillo Cavour: A key figure in the Italian unification movement, occurring during Lincoln’s presidency. He became the first Prime Minister of Italy in 1861.

8. Otto von Bismarck: Minister-president of Prussia from 1862 to 1890, later oversaw the unification of Germany and became Germany’s first chancellor from 1871-90.

9. Napoleon III: Emperor of France from 1852 to 1870. (Despite his name, he was actually the nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte, not his son or grandson.)

10. Gyula Andrássy: At the time a member of the Hungarian House of Representatives, he later became Hungary’s Prime Minister from 1867-71.

11. Alexander Gorchakov: Russian Foreign Minister from 1856-82, considered one of the most important and admired diplomats of the era.

12. Pyotr Shuvalov: An influential Russian statesman and advisor to Tsar Alexander II, emperor of Russia from 1855-81.

You never really know who will last in the public consciousness.

I’ve been running this blog for a few years now, during which time “the president from 100 years ago” included both Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge. They were plenty talked-about and written-about at the time. Probably not quite as much as Trump is right now, but still. Yet fast-forward to today, and a survey found both Harding and Coolidge rank among the least-remembered presidents.

Bringing it back to Lincoln again… of the four assassinated U.S. presidents, everybody can name two of them but almost nobody outside of historians can name the other two. Obviously, the two “iconic” ones are Lincoln and John F. Kennedy. The other two are James Garfield and William McKinley.

At the actual time, I’ll bet a lot of Americans were certain Garfield and McKinley would be remembered. “They were assassinated? How could anybody forget that?!” And yet, for the most part, they were.

Lincoln Measured by World Yardstick: Towers Above Most Powerful Contemporaries: Palmerston, Lord John Russell, Gladstone, Disraeli, Bismarck, and Napoleon III – Passing Time Increasingly Reveals His Greatness

Published: Sunday, February 7, 1926

During America’s prohibition on alcohol, some Germans advocating a similar national policy. A 1926 New York Times Magazine article detailed why the movement faced a much more uphill battle there.

Namely, World War I helped get Prohibition across the finish line in America… but was simultaneously the biggest reason it wouldn’t pass in Germany.

As an article from the Mob Museum (of all places) notes:

World War I provided the final solid push toward a constitutional amendment by making temperance synonymous with patriotism, thrift, and prudence.

…

By connecting alcohol production (and consumption) with German, Irish, Catholic, and Jewish Americans, temperance was framed as an ‘us vs. them’ problem… A large percentage of breweries were owned and operated by German Americans. They argued that every dollar put into the brewers’ pockets, and every bushel of grain diverted to a brewery, aided the German war effort.

This sentiment was expressed in a quote from a 1918 speech by former Wisconsin Lt. Gov. John Strange:

“We have German enemies across the water. We have German enemies in this country, too. And the worst of all our German enemies, the most treacherous, the most menacing, are Pabst, Schlitz, Blatz, and Miller.’”

In a January 1926 New York Times Magazine article, though, journalist Herman G. Scheffauer reported from Berlin that the after-effects of World War I would likely prevent Germany from enacting Prohibition there.

Germany was in dire straits after World War I – so dire that it created the conditions allowing Hitler to reach power. Indeed, as the Treaty of Versailles ending World War I was signed in 1919, its punishments for Germany were so harsh that France’s Ferdinand Foch supposedly remarked: “This is not a peace. It is an armistice for twenty years.”

After World War II, the Allies learned their lesson and implemented the Marshall Plan to help rebuild Germany, rather than punish it, in an effort to make sure the economic conditions which “created Hitler” couldn’t emerge once again.

Indeed, today Germany is one of the wealthiest economies in the world: #3 behind only the U.S. and China.

But in 1926, none of this was yet known. Scheffauer reported that Germany was in such bad shape after World War I, unlike America, that alcohol was one of its few remaining (or perhaps even only) pleasures afforded to its populace:

To paint an utterly beerless or wineless Fatherland to the German is like asking him to believe in the imminent end of the world. And to hold up the example of America, with its bootleggers and high prices, is to call up memories of his years of dearth, of “ersatz” foods and drinks and extortion by profiteers. He would regard prohibition as robbing him of his last liberty – the last, even if artificial, joy left him in a land upon which so many political and economic shadows rest.

Indeed, Germany would never ultimately enact alcohol prohibition after all.

Germany’s Drys War Against Alcohol: People Have Turned From Beer to Spirits and Prohibition Campaign Is Based on Economic Ground

Published: Sunday, January 31, 1926

“An age of dictators impends,” declared a 1926 New York Times Magazine headline… seven years before Hitler became Chancellor of Germany in 1933.

Indeed, the two main examples that journalist Henry W. Bunn cited in his January 1926 article were Italy’s Benito Mussolini and Greece’s Theodoros Pangalos:

The tribe of dictators increases. Now Greece has taken one unto herself, and there is talk to the same effect in other troubled countries. Once more we are in a Dictatorial Age.

Mussolini became Prime Minister in 1922 and quickly expanded his powers over the next few years, but arguably became a “dictator” the month before this article was published, in December 1925. That month, a new law said he could only be removed by Italy’s king and no longer by its parliament.

Pangalos took charge of Greece following a so-called “bloodless coup” in June 1925, seven months before this article. He declared a state of emergency and assumed dictatorial powers in early January 1926, mere weeks before this article. His reign was short-lived, though: another coup later in the year, led by a military general in August 1926, deposed Pangalos and imprisoned him for two years.

That might explain why Pangalos is virtually unknown to the average person today –certainly compared to Mussolini, who remains an infamous figure to this day, largely due to his later role as one of the preeminent figures during World War II.

Bunn’s 1926 journalism article itself was actually mostly a history article, about Julius Caesar and how he set the prototype for more modern dictators. But in an interesting paragraph, Bunn also wrote that dictators were sometimes necessary, in his view:

All nations require a dictator now and then – a truth strikingly borne out by the present face of things. Never were seen social and economic changes so great or so rapid; never was the imperfection of constitutions so vividly shown up.

One wonders whether Bunn would make the same argument today: another time of “great social and economic changes,” and one increasingly marked by more autocratic leaders – including Vladimir Putin in Russia, Viktor Orbán in Hungary, Nayib Bukele in El Salvador, Narendra Modi in India, and Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela… at least up until a few weeks ago.

An Age of Dictators Impends: Julius Caesar Depicted as the Arch-type for All Time – Mussolini and Others of the Increasing Modern Breed Are Imitators of the Boldness and Capacity of the Ancient Roman

Published: Sunday, January 24, 1926

Cinemas were replacing that old mainstay of local entertainment: the theater and “opera house,” a 1925 New York Times Magazine article lamented.

To be clear, actual operas were rarely performed at so-called opera houses, as Susan B. Apel wrote in the Substack Artful:

Back in 1926, the journalist James C. Young wrote that Hollywood products were displacing this onetime mainstay of American entertainment:

Movies, movies everywhere, and not an opery house left in the land! The new generation in the small town soon will know by legend alone the brave race that once trod the boards and wore the buskin. Everywhere the temples of Thespis are rededicated to a new and strange Muse, or else give way to a shining 5 and 10 cent store.

Indeed, according to Google Books Ngram Viewer, use of the phrase “opera house” in books peaked in 1908, declining considerably in the 1910s and 1920s as movies took over.

Interestingly, the phrase rose slightly in the 1940s and 1950s – possibly tied to the Grand Ole Opry country music show’s first national broadcast on NBC radio in 1939?

The phrase seems to have increased again in the 21st century, though never again reaching its 1908-era peak. Any ideas why it might have increased in the 21st century? I’m stumped. If you have any ideas, leave them in the comments.

Villains Plot No Longer in the ‘Opery House’: It Has Vanished From the Small Town of America, or Has Been Dedicated to a Strange New Muse

Published: Sunday, January 17, 1926

Only seven years before FDR declared a national bank holiday to prevent a run during the Great Depression, a 1926 New York Times Magazine article declared banks are “now confident” and acting as a “guide” for America.

The journalist Horace W. Foster wrote:

The banks are becoming the cathedrals of today. In another generation, if present development continues, they will assume the position that Rheims, Notre Dame, and Westminster had in years gone by. To what single institution does the intelligent portion of the community turn for advice, financial aid, leadership, social service? To the banks – to the banker in the small town, to the great trust company in the city.

To put it mildly, “present development” did not “continue.” Less than two days after taking office, President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered a nationwide suspension of all banking activity and transactions for an entire week.

As of 2023, only 4.2% of Americans remained unbanked, a record low. That’s only about half the rate from as recently as 2011, when the unbanked rate was 8.2%.

That FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation) survey also found only 15.1% “banked” of Americans said the primary way they accessed their account was in-person, rather than mobile or online. In our increasingly digital era, that’s less than half the "primarily in-person” rate from as recently as 2013, when it was 33.3%.

Our Bank is Now Confident and Guide: Troubled Clients Bring Their Problems to Its Doorstep, And Many Services Are Performed for Them

Published: Sunday, January 10, 1926

Unmarried women in the 1920s were living fundamentally different lives than unmarried women of prior eras, wrote a 1926 New York Times Magazine article: going out, having fun, and rejecting earlier generations’ “spinster” status.

The journalist Miriam Beard wrote:

Who are all these women and what are they doing? … Aside from those who have won distinction, there are thousands doing the work, if not gaining the pay and credit, in offices, schools, and social centres [sic] all over the land.

…

One thing is evident: the spinster, as an individual, is coming into her kingdom today. Spinsters “en masse” we have had before. Nuns of medieval Christendom were often headed by abbesses of power and learning; thousands of them were dedicated to good works or meditation; a few, if the critics be trusted, found opportunities for “leading the larger life.” Only now has the solitary spinster been able to leave her chimney corner; she is free as the bachelor has always been, to become knight errant alone, hermit, merchant, or man-about-town.

Google Books Ngram Viewer allows you to chart the frequency of words or phrases in books over time. Indeed, it clearly shows the word “spinster” had plummeted from its all-time peak in 1911 to less than one-quarter of that by 1925.

But an interesting phenomenon has recently occurred: after staying relatively flat from approximately the 1940s through 2000s, the word “spinster” has started to pick up somewhat in the 2010s and 2020s. Only a bit, not surging, but still: the trend is clear. Indeed, 2022 – the most recent year for which Google Books has data – saw the highest usage of “spinster” since exactly 50 years prior: 1972.

Not coincidentally, this coincides with the considerable rise in unmarried people and unmarried women during the 2010s and 2020s: see here and here for two graphs depicting the change.

No Longer the Lonely Spinster: New Freedom Has Given Her Equal Rights With the Bachelor

Published: Sunday, January 3, 1926

The bridge planned to span the Grand Canyon, a 1925 New York Times Magazine article predicted, would end what was then called “the single greatest obstruction to travel in the United States.”

The journalist A.H. Ulm wrote:

Since man first discovered the wide reaches of the West, the Grand Canyon has represented an impasse, necessitating detours often hundreds of miles. The present project to bridge the bed of the Colorado River, whose walls of sheer rock rise dizzily toward the sky, will call for engineering skill of the first order.

Neither the exact spot nor the type of construction has yet been decided upon, but the new bridge, which has been officially authorized, will link the two severed halves of Arizona, bringing towns now practically as far apart in time as New York and San Francisco into close and neighborly touch with each other.

Indeed, construction began in June 1927, and the bridge officially opened in June 1929. Originally called the Grand Canyon Bridge, the Arizona legislature changed the name to the Navajo Bridge in 1934.

But while the 1925’s article claimed that the project’s estimated price would be “about $200,000,” the bridge actually cost $390,000. Ah, government.

Grand Canyon’s Bold Cliffs to be Bridged by Man: Engineers to Conquer the Great Chasm With a Span That Will Be the Highest of Its Kind in the World

Published: Sunday, December 27, 1925

In 1925, Christmas carols were becoming far more popular, reported New York Times Magazine. By my count, only two of this week’s Billboard top 50 Christmas songs were in existence by 1925.

First, let’s travel back a century. A December 1925 New York Times Magazine article, with no byline, wrote:

Within the last ten years the singing of carols has made wide gains in America.

…

After years of comparative disuse, outside of the churches, they are coming more and more to be a part of the great anniversary. They will be heard in greater number this year than last in city parks, in suburban streets, in village dooryards.

The article goes on to specifically cite three carols as “closely woven into the texture of our life”: Silent Night; Hark, the Herald Angels Sing; and Come, All Ye Faithful.

Nowadays, not so much.

Here’s this week’s Billboard Hot 100 chart, where precisely 40 of the top 50 songs are Christmas- or holiday-themed. By my count, only two of them were in existence by 1925. (And even then, the versions that chart today were recorded after 1925.)

• #20: Jingle Bells by Frank Sinatra, recorded in 1948 but written in 1857

• #23: Deck the Halls by Nat King Cole, recorded in 1960 but written in 1862

A bunch of others that we now considered holiday “classics” are actually from the 1930s and on, including Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town from 1934, White Christmas by Bing Crosby from 1942, and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer by Gene Autry from 1949.

Of course, the current #1 – a status it reaches literally every December – is All I Want for Christmas is You by Mariah Carey. A century from now in 2125, when nobody is still alive who remembers Carey’s 1990s-2000s heyday, will the song be inadvertently misremembered as a “timeless” tune like a Jingle Bells or Deck the Halls, rather than the ‘90s song we’re still close enough in time to remember it as now?

America Adopts the Christmas Carol: Quaint Yuletide Songs Link Medieval Life With Modern And Are Heard More and More in This Country

Published: Sunday, December 20, 1925

Chess was surging in 1925, said a New York Times Magazine article. According to Google Books, the word “chess” reached its lowest usage in 1918, rising from then through 1925… and pretty much ever since.

In 1925, journalist Steuart M. Emery wrote of the then-current phenomenon. (And no, that’s not a typo: his name was actually spelled “Steuart.”)

The ancient and honorable game of chess, according to current indications, is on the upgrade again after a temporary lapse in popularity. Not long ago the chess rooms in various cities were scantily filled, their playing boards lonely monuments to a pastime that was once the delight of kings and philosophers. But the situation has changed. The boards in New York’s half dozen chess clubs find eager combatants gathered around them; there are contests between teams of different leagues; the king and the rook have even invaded certain colorful restaurants where patrons pit their wits against each other.

Google Books Ngram Viewer lets you chart the use of any word or phrase in books over time. From 1800 through 2019, the lowest year for the word “chess” was only seven years before that 1925 article: 1918. Then it slowly started picking up. And it never really stopped. By 2019, the word’s use reached its highest level since 1859.

Why was chess apparently so popular in 1859? Beats me. If anybody has an insight as to why, please post it in the comments.

Chessmen Shake Off Dust of Neglect: Ancient and Honorable Game of Combat, Which Has a History of Thirteen Centuries, Returns to Popularity

Published: Sunday, December 13, 1925

On this week 100 years ago, Nicholas Longworth became Speaker of the House. The journalist A.H. Ulm profiled the Ohio representative in New York Times Magazine.

A notable portion of the article was about how Longworth was not expected to be a particularly consequential occupant of the legislative branch’s top political office:

But he does not propose to change radically the House’s rules or procedure, which have been so modified that the Speaker cannot make himself supreme by use of power. He no longer can maintain discipline by maouevring [sic] committee assignments or by controlling the powerful Rules Committee.

Sure enough, Longworth didn’t change things “radically” at all. But he did make at least two minor changes which the House still abides by today.

According to the government publication A Chair Made Illustrious: A Concise History of the U.S. House Speakership, Longworth established the tradition of referring to female House members with the title “the gentlewoman.” He also began the tradition of swearing in all House members simultaneously on the opening day of a new Congress, rather than individually.

However, any members sworn in during the middle of a two-year Congress are still sworn in individually – for example, someone elected to fill a vacancy caused by a member’s promotion to a presidential administration or a death. This fact was very much in the headlines recently, when Speaker Mike Johnson refused to swear in Arizona Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva for more than seven weeks.

Longworth served as Speaker for more than five years, until dying in office in 1931. Today, if he’s remembered at all, it’s likely as the namesake for one of the main congressional buildings in Washington, D.C.

Speaker Longworth Takes the Gavel: When He Goes to His Seat Tomorrow He Will Begin the Task of Restoring the Prestige of the House of Representatives – A Hard Worker Who Has Taken His Career Lightly

Published: Sunday, December 6, 1925

Who were considered the “elder statesmen” of American politics and society in 1925? A New York Times Magazine article listed more than a dozen, ranging from as old as 91 to as young as… 52?!

An illustration atop the piece depicted five of them dressed in traditional Japanese clothing, referencing this section of the article:

In Japan, until recent years, there had been a compact group known as the Genro… The Elder Statesmen who surrounded the Mikado were the power behind the throne. They advised him in every crisis. They were credited with the industrialization of the Empire, and with having led it through its growing pains to its present eminence as a first-class power; and they had acquired, before time and death decimated their ranks, an enormous influence.

Here were the 13 Americans whom the journalist Silas Dent named in his article as having acquired such American-equivalent status by 1925, listed in the order he mentioned them:

1. Charles Evans Hughes, 63: At the time, he was a former Supreme Court justice, New York governor, and Secretary of State. Five years later in 1930, he would rejoin the Supreme Court for a second stint, this time as Chief Justice.

2. Elihu Root, 80: former Secretary of War, Secretary of State, and U.S. senator from New York; 1912 Nobel Peace Prize winner.

3. Oscar W. Underwood, 63: former U.S. representative and U.S. senator from Alabama.

4. Albert J. Beveridge, 63: former U.S. senator from Indiana.

5. George W. Wickersham, 67: former Attorney General.

6. Frank O. Lowden, 64: former Illinois governor, nominated as the 1924 Republican vice presidential candidate but actually turned it down.

7. John Sharp Williams, 71: former longtime U.S. representative and U.S. senator from Mississippi.

8. John Hessin Clarke, 68: former Supreme Court justice.

9. John W. Davis, 52: More than a decade younger than anyone else on this list, he was a former U.S. representative from West Virginia, Solicitor General, Ambassador to the United Kingdom, and 1924 Democratic presidential nominee.

10. Charles W. Eliot, 91: former Harvard president for 40 years.

11. Edward M. House, 67: former presidential chief adviser on European politics and diplomacy during World War I.

12. Eugene V. Debs, 70: labor leader and former Socialist Party candidate for president.

13. Elbert H. Gary, 79: cofounder and former president of U.S. Steel.

Who would make such a list of elder statesmen (or “states-women”) today?

Several of the biggest contenders, our “designated old people,” have died in recent years: Jimmy Carter in 2024, Henry Kissinger in 2023, Queen Elizabeth II and Barbara Walters and Mikhail Gorbachev in 2022. I’d argue even the likes of Jane Goodall in October should count.

With that in mind, here are some possibilities in various fields:

Politics

• Joe Biden, 83

• George W. Bush, 79

• Bill Clinton, 79

• Barack Obama, 64

• Nancy Pelosi, 85

• Sen. Chuck Grassley, 92 (and the oldest current member of Congress by a full five years)

• Sen. Bernie Sanders, 84

• Sen. Mitch McConnell, 83

Religion

• The Dalai Lama, 90

• Pope Leo XIV, 70

Business

• Warren Buffett, 95

• Bill Gates, 69

Journalism

• Dan Rather, 94

• Bob Woodward, 82

• Carl Bernstein, 81

• Tom Brokaw, 85

• Anna Wintour, 76

• Tina Brown, 72

• Jann Wenner, 79

Entertainment

• Lorne Michaels, 81

• Steven Spielberg, 78

• Martin Scorsese, 83

• Dick van Dyke, 99

• Mel Brooks, 99

• Robert De Niro, 82

• Jane Fonda, 87

• Julie Andrews, 90

• George Lucas, 81

• Jay Leno, 75

• David Letterman, 78

• Steve Martin, 80

• Meryl Streep, 76

• Billy Crystal, 77

• Carol Burnett, 92

• Woody Allen, 89

Law

• Anthony Kennedy, 89

• Stephen Breyer, 87

Sports

• Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, 78

• Billie Jean King, 82

• Phil Jackson, 80

• Jim Calhoun, 83

• Mike “Coach K” Krzyzewski, 78

• Joe Namath, 82

• Terry Bradshaw, 77

Authors

• Joyce Carol Oates, 87

• Margaret Atwood, 86

• Robert Caro, 90

• Isabel Allende, 83

Activists

• Jesse Jackson, 84

• Gloria Steinem, 91

• Ruby Bridges, 71

Music

• Paul McCartney, 83

• Ringo Starr, 85

• Paul Simon, 84

• Mick Jagger, 82

• Diana Ross, 81

• Barbra Streisand, 83

• John Williams, 93

• Bob Dylan, 84

• Bruce Springsteen, 76

• Billy Joel, 76

Miscellaneous

• King Charles, 77

• Anthony Fauci, 84

• David Attenborough, 99

• Buzz Aldrin, 95

Who would you pick? Perhaps someone I neglected to include above? Feel free to comment below.

Leave a comment

Our Elder Statesmen Act as Brakes: Those Who Are Eligible to the Great Seniority and How Their Experience Can Serve the Nation

Published: November 19, 1925

Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover was the subject of a November 1925 New York Times Magazine profile, three years before he would be elected president.

The journalist R.V. Oulahan wrote in 1925 of Hoover’s responsibilities:

Does a strike such as the coal and railway switchmen’s walk-out confront the country? The White House sends for Mr. Hoover.

Must sharp differences be harmonized between seven States of the Union over the control and development of the Colorado River? That is a job for Mr. Hoover.

Is there prospect of immediate unemployment and remote industrial revival? Mr. Hoover takes charge of a commission to study these questions and to apply emergency measures.

Do the last two presidents have difficulty in filling the posts of Secretary of Interior and of Agriculture? Mr. Hoover is the first man asked and the first to decline.

From the perspective of 2025, it’s bonkers that somebody could go straight from being Secretary of Commerce to president. According my research, no Cabinet member (excluding the vice president) has ascended to the presidency since Hoover himself.

Several have come close. Hillary Clinton went from Secretary of State to the Democratic presidential nominee, Dick Cheney went from Secretary of State to vice president, and Marco Rubio might just go from Secretary of State to Republican presidential nominee (or even president) in 2028.

But even then, those are the “top” Cabinet positions like Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense. But Secretary of Commerce?!

Looking through the Commerce Department website official list of everybody to hold the position, you probably haven’t heard of a single other person besides Hoover. You probably can’t even name the current Secretary of Commerce. (If you’re wondering, it’s a guy named Howard Lutnick.)

Hoover, the Handy, Plays Many Parts: He Moves From One Task to Another in His Widely Varied Activities as Member of the Cabinet

Published: November 22, 1925

Yale Drama School opened in fall 1925, as a contemporary New York Times Magazine article reported, with an impressive “million-dollar endowment.”

In 2021, film and music producer David Geffen donated $150 million to eliminate the school’s tuition in perpetuity.

Other major changes since 1925 include the school’s selectivity and demographics. As the journalist H.I. Brock wrote in 1925:

Coming from all over the country, there have been some 150 applicants for the courses offered this year. Of these roughly one-half have been admitted, so that the enrollment of the department is about seventy.

If the original acceptance rate was around 50%, today it’s closer to 5%.

As Brock also wrote in 1925, about the school’s gender split:

The ideal had been that the number of men ought to be about twice as great as the number of women. The present enrollment is approximately 60% men and 40% women.

In the past decade, Yale Drama School enrollment has consistently hovered around 55% female.

Among the school’s notable alumni: Meryl Streep, Paul Newman, Jodie Foster, Angela Bassett, Paul Giamatti, Frances McDormand, Lupita Nyong’o, Sigourney Weaver, and Da’Vine Joy Randolph.

Yale Plans to Establish the Complete Theatre: With Elaborate Equipment at His Disposal, Professor Baker Hopes to Develop All Phases of Dramatic Art

Published: Sunday, November 15, 1925