Monthly Archives: August 2006

The First All-Metal Airplanes 1927

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This 1927 discussion on the use of metal in airplanes is extremely interesting in that it also predicts with uncanny accurracy how air travel would progress, and how modern aircraft would be constructed.

LONG-DISTANCE records will be held in future by high-flyers in all-metal airplanes. So at least predicts Albert Lapoule, in an article contributed to La Revue des Vivants (Paris). In it he sets forth his reasons for this belief and explains in detail what it all may mean, and what modifications will be necessary in present practises. Recent attempts of French and American aviators, Mr. Lapoule reminds us, have made the question of long-distance flight one of present interest.

In 1920 Rateau established a formula for calculating the possible distance of flight as a function of the weight of the plane at its start and finish, the power of the screw, the fuel consumption of the motor and the shape of the wings. The results given by this formula have already been exceeded, we are told, because each of the elements that entered into it has been improved; and Breguet, who took up the problem again recently looked forward to the possibility of a maximum flight of 12,000 miles. We read further:

This depends only on the distance that can be traversed before the gasoline gives out, to which must be added the gliding distance after the motor stops running. The plane, in fact, finds itself, at the end of its course, at a height of five or six miles, and the gliding distance amounts to over eight times this height. This question of height takes on greater importance as the length of the flights increase. It is not improbable that very long flights will in future take place in the upper regions of the atmosphere. It is in this way that the Germans succeeded in the long-distance gun-fire that surprized us during the war. When we exceed six miles in height, the great obstacle to speed, which is air-resistance, considerably lessens. Three hundred miles an hour can be reached, and the trip from Paris to New York will require only twelve hours. Perhaps also aviators will then be less exposed to the atmospheric disturbances that have cost so many lives. We are unfortunately very far from this at present; and the Paris-Djask flight of Coste and Rignot was made between 5,000 and 9,000 feet. A height of 12,000 feet has been quite exceptional.

The problem is much more complex than for a projectile, for it involves a self-propelling machine carrying living beings. The fuel-supply of the motor in a rarefied atmosphere has received two solutions in France. The first is to adapt the air to the motor, by compressing it before admission, as in Rateau’s turbo-compressor. The second fits the motor to the atmosphere by varying the course of the pistons in the cylinders. This has been practically realized by Louis Damblanc.

The transportation of human beings under such circumstances is a more delicate matter. Nothing prevents us from imagining an interior compartment, since Lindbergh traveled in one; it will be completely air-tight and will contain air at normal pressure. But for a long trip the air will have to be renewed with a compressor automatically regulated so as to keep the pressure in the cabin constant. Thus there will be no danger from leakage, through doorways, for instance.

Article on Metal Planes continued here

Timber plank road through desert paved 1926

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THROUGH THE HEART of the great American desert, the sand-dune country between Arizona and Southern California which forms a barrier on one of the chief transcontinental highway routes, a paved road has just been completed.

This is characterized by N. M. Harkins, of Los Angeles, writing in Good Roads (Chicago), as “one of the most unusual feats ever accomplished in highway construction work in the United States,” making easily accessible to the motor traveler a picturesque and curious section of the desert land. Mr. Harkins writes:

“Aside from representing a spectacular project in road-building, this link of paving closes the last gap in the surfaced road between Yuma, Arizona, and El Centro, California, where it connects with paved highways that lead through the Imperial Valley to other points throughout the State.

“The feat of bridging the sand-hills was attempted and brought to a successful close after months of study and investigation by engineers familiar with the ‘Sahara’ of America. Stretching over a territory sixty miles long and seven miles wide, the sand-dune country is one of the most treacherous spots in the great Colorado desert. Unlike the remainder of the desert country, which is largely composed of miles of arid land covered with sage-brush, greasewood and mesquite, the dunes are formed of shifting sand that moves about daily with the motion of the wind, and are entirely free from plant life.
See a photo of the old timber plank road here

Supermarine sets seaplane Speed Record in 1927

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SUPERMARINE SEAPLANE 1927HURTLING THROUGH THE AIR at the rate of almost five miles a minute, a twenty-seven-year-old British flight lieutenant won the coveted Schneider trophy for seaplanes at Venice on September 26. Only two planes of the six competing were able to finish the 217-mile triangular course, and both were English entries. All three Italian competitors, including Major de Bernardi, winner of the event last year, were forced by engine trouble to abandon the race.

Not only were all existing aviation speed records for seaplanes smashed during the race, but the record for land machines was exceeded by three miles an hour. The average speed of Lieutenant Webster’s Supermarine monoplane, equipped with a Napier engine—281.488 miles an hour—is all the more remarkable, say Venice correspondents of American newspapers, when it is considered that the British machine was equipped with pontoons, which hindered its progress through the air. It was also necessary for the pilot to make fourteen hairpin-turns during the race.

Lieutenant Webster’s official time was 46 minutes, 20 28-100 seconds. In other words, he could have flown from Detroit to Chicago, or from St. Louis to Kansas City, on a straightaway course, in about three-quarters of an hour. As a result of the Schneider Cup race, the New York Times is convinced that “in future, the United States will have to reckon with British airmen and airplane designers, rather than with French or Italian.”

Seaplane speed record continued here

Social Dancing in Boston in 1924

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2 COUPLES DANCINGTHE modern social dance is of distinctly recent growth. It is as yet in an embryonic state. Eventually it will yield to one or the other of the two forces that have molded and controlled all dancing from Adam’s time, first the effect on the dancer and second the effect on the audience.

As a general thing the more civilized the nation the more important in its dancing becomes the second of these factors and the less important the first. Among primitive nations the dance served mainly to arouse and work upon the feelings and passions of those dancing, while among the more civilized nations the opinion of the onlooker became more influential and the emotions of the dancer more controlled. For example, contrast the war dance of our American Indian with the Court Minuet of the 16th and 17th century and you have well exemplified the two extremes. Take also the nature dance, the folk dance, the aesthetic dance. All these are designedly picturesque — appeal to the taste and respond to the criticism of the audience.

When the modern round dance came into being, it at first partook largely of that quality of picturesqueness, poise, and dignity that had existed in such marked degree in the square dances that immediately preceded it — the quadrille, the minuet, and the lancers. But there was even then cropping up a desire on the part of the dancer to express his or her individual exuberance of feeling, which while it had not developed into anything grotesque or eccentric, was seeking outlet. In other words, the two schools of dancing were coming together; the primitive school of individual expression and the polished cadencies of the school of artistic dancing — and each was exerting an Influence upon the modern dance. For a time the artistic held sway, and the emotional was kept strictly subordinated.

All beautiful dancing is based on a three-four rhythm, in which rhythm the dancers of necessity complete a poem of steps first with one foot leading, then the other. The best example of this is the waltz step, which in some form or other is the basis of all artistic dancing.

But this type of dance takes time and training to acquire. Our modern civilization was much too hurried and hectic in its pleasures — as well as in its work — to afford the money and time necessary to learn such dancing. What people wanted, without really knowing it, was something they could take up at a moment’s notice and, after an hour or two of instruction, dance without the uncomfortable feeling that they were appearing clumsy or ill trained.

Social Dancing continued here

The state of World Prohibition in 1923

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PROHIBITION of alcohol is as far advanced today for the entire world as it was a quarter of a century ago in the United States. Stating the matter in terms of millions of square miles and millions of human beings, there is a dramatic exactness in the comparison between the conditions then and now. It is this:

Twenty-five years ago only one-seventeenth of the area and one-sixteenth of the population of the United States were under laws demanding complete prohibition. In this year, 1923, one-seventeenth of the area of the world and one-sixteenth of all the people of the earth are living under such absolute laws, which they have imposed upon themselves.

Again, twenty-five years ago only a very few enthusiasts, then called fanatics, dared to believe that such a thing as the Eighteenth Amendment of the American Constitution would ever become an actuality. But the enthusiasts of twenty-five years ago were right, and their breed has so increased throughout the world, because of the American example and because of new, inexorable demands for sobriety in other countries, that the enthusiasm and prediction of 1923 are for an entire globe free of alcohol.

It has become a question of “When?” just as it was really nothing but a question of “When?” all through the nineteenth century in the United States. To answer this world-wide question of “When?” with a “Never!” is to make the most foolish guess of all the guesses that may be made.

To go to the other extreme and predict with preciseness that the world will be dry in ten, twenty or thirty years from now would be as unjustifiable perhaps as were those cocksure declarations from all men in all countries, on Armistice Day of 1918, that this earth was on the very eve of peace and the orderly resuming of its affairs.

Read more on World Prohibition here

World Car Market 1927

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LINCOLN CAR 1928THOSE who are worrying about the automobile business ought to keep in mind the fact that this American industry occupies the commanding position in the world market and that, even so, our export trade in motor-cars is at the very beginning of its development.

 In a recent bulletin the Stock Exchange house of Dominick and Dominick calls attention to this point, adding that the foreign trade in American cars “has apparently developed a romance which, unlike most romances, is likely to be profitable and of very great economic significance.” At the recent international automobile exhibition at the Grand Palais in Paris, twenty-four makes of American cars were represented. Last year we exported almost as many cars as were produced in all of Europe, with a total value of $424,000,000. In order to show our predominant position, the writer for the New York brokerage house first tells us what. Europe has been doing recently:

In 1926 Europe produced a total of passenger-cars, trucks, and buses amount- ing to 560,213 as compared with 462,120 in 1925. Of this total 132,802 units were exported. Four countries were responsible for the great majority of these sales— France, Great Britain, Italy, and Germany. France has an export business second only to the United States, but recently the sales of the Fiat Company in Italy, which accounts for about 85 per cent. of all Italian production, have been rapidly gaining on the French figure. Citroen is responsible for over half the total French output.

Germany’s domestic market is seriously handicapped by internal taxation, and the industry is the least efficient of those enumerated. Great Britain has been making strenuous efforts to develop its sales to the Dominions, and despite the general strike of 1926 British production showed an increase over 1925. The figures of these four countries and of the United States are given in the following table:
You can see the Car Production Table here

Jazz – A Scourge, 1921

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Unspeakable Jazz Must Go! It is worse than Saloon and Scarlet Vice, Testify Professional Dance Experts – Only a Few Cities are Curbing Evil.

EXPERTS tell in this article the nation-wide aspects of our jazz scourge. They say legal prohibition of all dancing may come.
  A reform movement has been started by cities and volunteer groups. A committee of women is helping to regulate in Chicago.
  It looks as if the common people are in reaction against “common behavior. Decency is regaining popularity among those who work for a living.
  Meanwhile the idle rich are getting ranker. There are few signs of reform in high places. The “worst case” was observed on the dancing floor of an expensive New York hotel.
  The high-society flapper is still going the limit. She drinks, swears, smokes, toddles and chatters stories that once belonged to the men’s smoke room.
  You can’t reform a society flapper. Maybe not. She is a law unto herself. Perhaps. ” It’s none of your business and the boys like it, she says. Is that so?
  “The boys are sick and disgusted,” says an observer, “except the degenerate cubs, and they are greatly in the minority. Kissing and petting have been made so vulgarly common that there is no thrill left in it. The boys have to be dragged to dances, in spite of the fact that corsets are parked in the check room.”
  Consider that.
  Rub the bloom off American womanhood and what is left? The status of the Eastern European female of the species, a bare-footed working animal—something a little lower than man.
  High society would better sign on the dotted line of the popular reform pledge.
  This civilization will not permit itself to be ditched by any minority, high or low.

Unspeakable Jazz continued here

Coles Phillips – Illustrator

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FADEAWAY GIRL BY COLES PHILLIPSThe originator of the Fadeaway Girl is not of the long-haired, flowing bow-tie variety of artists, but prides himself on his practicality and enjoys having his friends call him “sane and business-like,” which he is. He lives in New Rochelle, the New York suburb which now has another claim to fame than the fact that it is “Forty-Five Minutes from Broadway,” and there in his studio overlooking Long Island Sound, with his slender, sweet-faced wife as a model, he does much of his best work. For the wife of C. Coles Phillips is the inspiration of the art that has made him famous. America has opened wide her arms to welcome this new creation. The Coles Phillips Girl typifies the subtle charm of American womanhood. In the drawing-room or in the kitchen, breaking hearts or baking pies, or sturdily joying in the mighty stillness of the great outdoors, always alluring, always at home, a real woman from the tip of her dainty boot to the soft glory of her hair, she stands out from her flat background and answers completely to a young man’s fancy at its highest and best.

Read more on Coles Phillips here

American Premiere of Ravel’s Bolero in 1929

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HISSES HAVE FOLLOWED THE RENDITION of much modern music, but joy would have warmed the heart of the Frenchman, Ravel, to hear the shouts and plaudits following Toscanini’s conducting of his “Bolero.” The composition is a year old, and was presented, two weeks ago, for the first time in New York. Carnegie Hall rocked; and music critics were rapt out of their megrims in describing the effect of this electric composition. The music depicts a Spanish dance, and in the analysis by Olin Downs of the New York Times, shows that “this master of modern musical speech builds his tonal structure over the simplest possible harmonic bass, and makes exactly one modulation from key, at the final climax.” Further:

The piece is in itself a school of orchestration. It is not great music, but the craft, the virtuosity, the racial understanding in it—Ravel was born, remember, in Ciboure—are really thrilling. It is no more nor less than a ‘jeu d’esprit’ by two masters— the one of the means of composition, the other of the interpreting orchestra. They held carnival together, and it was not astonishing that the audience shouted.”

Read the full review of “Bolero” here

Thomas Mann – Nobel Prize Winner for Literature 1929

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THOMAS MANN - AUTHORThomas Mann’s achievements stretch over a quarter of a century. The Macon Telegraph prints a succinct account of Mann’s life, with a few words of comment:

“Mann was born in Lubeck, June 6, 1875, and during his school days in a North German gymnasium he did not distinguish himself particularly in scholarship. He was interested, however, in publishing a magazine called Journal of Art, Literature and Philosophy.   His school days over, Mann was sent to Munich, where he was destined for a life of business in a fire-insurance office. During his leisure time he wrote a novel, ‘Gefallen,’ which attracted attention to his talent.

“In 1903 appeared Mann’s ‘Buddenbrooks,’ a novel which has been a steady favorite in Germany. It went through fifty editions in ten years. It was a family novel, showing the disintegration of a German noble family. A large part of the book, observers claimed, was autobiographical.

“Thomas Mann’s greatest work is ‘The Magic Mountain,’ published in this country two years ago. The theater of the Magic Mountain is a tuberculosis sanitarium in the Swiss mountains—a community organized with exclusive reference to ill health. In his symbol the author embodies the diseased capitalistic society of prewar Europe—the world which made war inevitable.

“Mann’s philosophy is said to revolve around the idea that intellectual type is not the ideal toward which evolution moves, but, instead, the man of action. All of his writing constitutes a rejection in literature of the intellectual as an unhealthy growth upon the main body of humanity.”

The New York Herald Tribune gives some additional light upon the man, perhaps better known here by his books than through them:

“Thomas Mann writes in another mood than that prevailing in the current crop of American novelists. ‘The most responsible of living artists,’ he was called at his fiftieth birthday. It is difficult to reconcile his serious work with the fact that he began his literary career as an editor of Simplicissimus, the Munich Punch. Literature is to him, as he himself puts it, ‘a heroic activity, a consecrated life’; and if he is never the crusader, the music of humanity rings in his every page. “‘The Magic Mountain,”‘ Ludwig Lewisohn wrote, ‘is such a novel as H. G. Wells might have written had he added philosophic to scientific culture, and were by temper a great artist rather than an eager propagandist and a telling journalist.’ It is a prose epic, a philosophic symphony which in novel form seeks to affirm, picture, and pass judgment upon an era, and does so without the sense of putrefaction which marks so many lesser efforts to epitomize the age.

“To the solid bourgeois qualities of his Lubeck ancestors—his father was a merchant and a Senator in the little Hanseatic free city—Mann adds a Latin quality which he may have inherited from his Brazilian mother. ‘Death in Venice’ includes, even in inadequate translation, some of the most exquisite prose poetry of our day.

“In honoring Thomas Mann the Swedish Academy gave new luster to the Nobel prizes, for it gave its laurels to a man already recognized as a great world citizen.”

This article on Thomas Mann is continued on our website