Welcome to the second half of the WWII-era magazine review! Last week was a working-class general interest magazine from 1941, when America was on the brink of war and desperately itching for a reason to go. This week we’re looking at a year later in Harper’s Bazaar, July 1942. And what’s gone down in the meantime? Pearl Harbor has been attacked. Hitler is the Supreme Chancellor of Germany. Jews and other victims of hatred are being moved into concentration camps. Food, metal, gasoline, rubber, nylon, and almost everything else is being rationed for the troops. Shit’s bad. Real bad.
Harper’s Bazaar has been keeping wealthy women up to date on fashion and culture since 1867. I wanted to feature this magazine in particular because it’s striking to see how The War affected the upper class. North American and British women who were used to luxury were now expected to run charity drives, give up their stockings, buy food with ration coupons, and keep vigils for their husbands and sons fighting overseas – all the while putting on a big smile, throwing parties, and looking for all the world like this was all perfectly normal and everything was going to be okay. You may want to take up a pitchfork and scream about burning down Madison Avenue in the name of the proletariat after looking through this, wondering WHY it was so important to keep talking about fabulous little hats when the Holocaust was happening overseas, but it’s helpful to understand why these magazines continue to thrive today: sometimes people just need to look at something beautiful. But in these times, even the most frivolous things carried the war effort with them.
Isn’t that lovely? Our cover model this month is Old Glory herself. The plea to buy war bonds and stamps is not a feature – it’s a mandatory statement. Note also that the bottom right corner also lists prices for sale in the Canada and the UK, which we will get to later.
Part of your duty is to look beautiful and confident when seeing your man off at the train station to go to war. Don’t let him forget what he’ll be coming home to!
Now this is interesting. At first she looks like a nurse – the white cotton dress and especially the shape of the hat suggests so – but actually it’s an illustration of a beautiful woman selling tickets to a fundraiser. The wealthy women that Harper’sadvertised to was expected to use her social connections to raise money and awareness for the war effort. Is it equal to depict them on the same level as nurses? I doubt a nurse with her fresh cotton dress covered in bits of soldier would think so.
I hear that teenage coke parties are still all the rage.
A regular feature in Harper’s Bazaar was the listing of fancy prep schools and finishing schools to consider sending your offspring to. Not surprisingly, the top boys schools are military academies. Girls have the option of art school, secretary school, and a few retail training schools. I kind of wish that we still had dedicated customer service training programs, honestly.
If you’re as much a sucker for mid century graphic design and layout as I am, take in this elegant table of contents. The magazine wasn’t a hub of literary significance like Playboy or The Atlantic, but it published a few heavy-hitters every month.
No consumer good was spared from wartime scrutiny. Helpful reminder that today you can wear as much or as little makeup as you like – back then, going out without a face full of makeup was unheard of and downright unpatriotic.
Bob Hope is the guest editor this month! If you can get past the eye-rolling amounts of horndogging on the secretary and female editors, his article is pretty funny. Remember that in this 1942 world, a man like Bob Hope would be completely out of his element in a hoity-toity women’s fashion magazine, so that’s why it’s funny and not hugely offensive to 1942 sensibilities that he’s being as callous as he is. Cut Bob some slack, the people need to laugh. The “empty rims” comment refers to the war effort to collect tire rubber. Of all the things that were rationed, more than sugar and coffee, people hated giving up their cars most of all. There’s an episode of the Fibber McGee and Molly radio show from around this time where Fibber throws a huge tantrum because he doesn’t want to give his tires up for the rubber drive. This was clearly a sore spot for Americans.
Keep up with the hot slang of the day so that you too can talk like Edward G. Robinson after a whiskey or twelve. Sometimes the vernacular is so weird that it’s hard to tell what the slang is and what the word is. A “wet smack” is “a slow beat guy”…that’s very helpful?
“She can eat a tomato through a tennis racket.” — YOWZA.
Lucky trinkets from enlisted celebrities. Danny Kaye’s is really sweet.
From a piece on the theater that wasn’t all that interesting, but it is a wonderful picture of Ray Bolger, also known as the Scarecrow from The Wizard of Oz.
Fashion editorial with actress Jennifer Jones.
Fabulous as fvck.
The glamorous Lord and Lady Mountbatten, looking sharp as ever with their incredibly British-looking dogs. Royals have always been popular in American magazines, and as the readership of Harper’s Bazaar reached sovereign countries it was always in their best interest to suck up to The Crown.
As much as I want to point out that we have better things to teach little girls than how to organize a linen closet…A) look at that gorgeous linen closet and B) I wish that someone had taught me how to organize my blankets and sheets like this.
“Sterling silver zippers, that’s what we’ve come to.”
The bottom right corner advertises varieties in “beauty tips (red)”. Cigarettes with a red filter, I presume, to match your lipstick. A thing like that!
Don’t hate on the future Mrs. Walter Wooster Richard, she works so hard with the other debutantes to ostensibly do…something…for the Navy! She’s a rare orchid! Nice rock – say, look at all the engagement rings you could be collecting with Pond’s cold cream! Gag.
Fabulous hats, war bonds, handkerchiefs, glamour school, leg paint. The legacy of painted-on stockings is now a trivia factoid that history teachers use as an icebreaker, but look at how many ads there are for alternatives to pantyhose. This was taken very seriously.
And look at these darling little charms! They’re in the shape of…oh. Oh my. Can you imagine your grandmother as a young woman proudly wearing a shovel shaped pin that says “Bury a Jap”? Fierce and appropriate indeed. Let’s turn the page and let Claudette Colbert show us out.
Was anyone else under the impression that “pancake” makeup was just a figure of speech? Now all I can say is that I hope it was in war-sustainable packaging at the time. And look at that little story on the side – woman looks foxy, woman gets some lacy pajama time with her man, man puts on uniform and they smooch goodbye! Max Factor – the makeup of movie stars and quickies with servicemen!
This wraps up our look at the World War II magazines and the peek into the lives of people on the home front. Next week we’ll honor the legacy of Hugh Hefner with another look at Playboy.