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Best New Yorker Articles of 1940

Explore 52 featured picks from The New Yorker's 1940 issues.

52 picks · 52 issues · Top author: Geoffrey T. Hellman (7)

Most featured section: Profiles

Featured Picks

Dance Team
Margaret Case Harriman · Profiles · January 6

PROFILE of Renee and Tony De Marco. The first Mrs. De Marco was Mabel Scott, from whom Tony was divorced some 15 years ago.

PIONEER.
Janet Flanner · Profiles · January 13

PROFILE of Main Bocher, Paris dressmaker & designer. Main Bocher was born on the unfashionable West Side of Chicago forty-nine years ago. His original aim …

IT'S DE-LOVELY!
Russell Maloney · Profiles · January 20

PROFILE of Monty (Edgar Montillion) Woolley, now playing in "The Man Who Came To Dinner." Woolley was born in 1888, in the old Hotel Bristol, which stood …

Q'S AND A'S.
Meyer Berger · A Reporter at Large · January 27

REPORTER AT LARGE about the Public Library's information desk. The Librarians, who are prepared in this work by a special college course giving them …

THE HARP LADY
E. J. Kahn · Profiles · February 3

PROFILE of Mildred Dilling, the harpist. Harpo came into into her life in 1928, when the Marx Brothers were appearing locally in "Animal Crackers." She was…

THEY DEFEND THEMSELVES
A. J. Liebling · A Reporter at Large · February 10

REPORTER AT LARGE about Christmas celebrations in the officers quarters in the Maginot Line, an old fort, built by the Germans, about five kilometres from …

Army Man At Work-II
Dwight Macdonald · Profiles · February 17

PROFILE of Colonel Brehon B. Somerwell, W.P.A. Administrator. Mr. Ridder, philanthropist, and publisher of the New Yorker Staats-Zeitung went into office …

Thinker of Hollywood.
Geoffrey T. Hellman · Profiles · February 24

PROFILE of Frank Capra. At the Academy dinner in 1938, when various medals and honorific object d'art were awarded to those involved in Warner …

Black Beans and White Beans
Russell Maloney · Profiles · March 2

PROFILE of Dr. George H. Gallup. Everybody is for Dr. Gallup's purposes, three thousand people. This is best explained in terms of black beans & white …

COPS-TO-BE
Richard O. Boyer · A Reporter at Large · March 9

REPORTER AT LARGE about the Police Academy. Tells about a visit to the Vellevue morgue where Mr. Canali is on regular duty, working mostly on the …

Masterpieces and Mummies
Geoffrey T. Hellman · Profiles · March 16

PROFILE of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The new direct or will be Francis H. Taylor, now director of the Worcester Museum in Massachusetts, who will …

Masterpieces and Mummies--II
Geoffrey T. Hellman · Profiles · March 23

Profile of the Metropolitan Museum. General Louis Palma di Cesnola, served as director from 1879 until his death in 1904. In 1874 he had sold the Museum, …

SANTA CLAUS SMITH OF RIGA, LATVIA, EUROPE.
Joseph Mitchell · A Reporter at Large · March 30

REPORTER AT LARGE about John S. Smith, of Riga, etc., a ragged, white-bearded old man who has been roaming the highways of the U.S. since 1934. In return …

Glamour Boy
E. J. Kahn · Profiles · April 6

Profile of Randolph forrest Burke, who is, according to such authorities as Patricia Coffin, society columnist of the World Telegram, and Cholly …

The Old House at Home
Joseph Mitchell · Profiles · April 13

Joseph Mitchell’s classic 1940 story about McSorley’s Old Ale House, which opened in 1854 and remains one of the oldest bars in the city.

THE IT GIRL--I
Margaret Case Harriman · Profiles · April 20

Profile of Dorothy Thompson. In 1923, Miss Thompson married a man whom she could eventually neither dominate nor control. He was Josef Bard, a Hungarian …

Hawhaw and Heehaw.
E. J. Kahn · A Reporter at Large · April 27

REPORTER AT LARGE about the CBS short wave station. For nearly eight months four listeners have been working in shifts of 15 hours a day taking down …

The Master
Geoffrey T. Hellman · Profiles · May 4

Profile of Elmer G. Leterman, high-powered insurance salesman and exclusive agent of the Hawaiian Macadamia Nut Co. He went to Honolulu in 1937 as local …

Generalissimo--I
A. J. Liebling · Profiles · May 11
THE BOUTONNIERES OF MR. UNTERMEYER.
Geoffrey T. Hellman · A Reporter at Large · May 18

REPORTER AT LARGE about Greystone, the estate of the late Samuel Untermeyer. In recent years he made a number of efforts to give the estate away, none of …

"St. George and the Dragnet."
Wolcott Gibbs · Profiles · May 25
Old Monotonous--I
S. N. Behrman · Profiles · June 1
Milk-A.B. and Approved.
M.R. Wemer. M · A Reporter at Large · June 8

Reporter at Large about the milk controversy. Mr. Colven, the Borden Company's district manager for the New burgh territory, has been with Borden's…

A Reporter In France.
A. J. Liebling · A Reporter at Large · June 15

Visit to a pursuit planecache somewhere in France. There were no runways or hangars. In back of the house was an automobile trailer equipped as a radio …

THE ART OF JOHNNIE HELL.
Samuel Hopkins Adams · A Reporter at Large · June 22

REPORTER AT LARGE about religious signs and an interview with one of the mysterious men who paint signs. Johnnie Hell, whose real name is J. Barthelomew, …

Six-Fifteen
Nancy Hale · Fiction · June 29

Tells about a little girl's unhappiness in her mother's absence, her distaste for her grandmother, her adoration of her father, and her sense that …

Gossip Writer--IV
St. Clair McKelway · Profiles · July 6
Ecomonics of Kum Inn
Morris Markey · A Reporter at Large · July 13

REPORTER AT LARGE about Kum Inn, a small roadside restaurant on L. I. Interview with the proprietor, Herman K. Miller who gives who gives a picture on the …

GOSSIP WRITER--VI
St. Clair McKelway · Profiles · July 20

PROFILE of Walter Winchell. In a prospectus for Life, circulated before the new magazine was put on the newsstands, it was stated that Life would "expose …

OUR OWN BUSINESS DIRECTORY
· Fiction · July 27
Lady Olga
Joseph Mitchell · Profiles · August 3

PROFILE of Jane Barnell, the Bearded Lady, billed in the sideshows as Lady Olga. Miss Barnell is 69 years old and was first put on exhibition shortly after…

Paris Postscript - II
A. J. Liebling · A Reporter at Large · August 10

Postscript from Paris. Week by week account of happenings during the anxious days between the German invasion of the Low Countries and the fall of Paris.

The Winged-S - II
Geoffrey T. Hellman · Profiles · August 17

Profile of Igor Sikorsky. During the first two and a half years of his business career in America, Sikorsky had been financed largely by the Russian colony…

The Kampf of Joe McWilliams
Robert Lewis Taylor · A Reporter at Large · August 24

REPORTER AT LARGE about a campaign meeting in Yorkville. Joseph E. McWilliams, candidate of the new American Destiny Party for Representative from the 18th…

Evening with a Gifted Child
Joseph Mitchell · A Reporter at Large · August 31

Joseph Mitchell on the nine-year-old pianist and composer Philippa Duke Schuyler—a prodigy who reads Plutarch on train trips, eats steaks raw, plays poker, and writes poems in honor of her dolls.

Odd Man - II
Geoffrey T. Hellman · Profiles · September 7

When Mr. Schuster of Simon & Schuster proposed to get out a "Believe It Or Not" book Ripley said that he was just a two-cent man. Schuster finally obtained…

I AM ALIVE AND WELL
Robert Lewis Taylor · A Reporter at Large · September 14

REPORTER AT LARGE about the American Red Cross, the Foreign Inquiry Service, at 315 Lexington Avenue. Each time Hitler makes another conquest a certain …

Living Through the Blitz
Mollie Panter-Downes · Letter from London · September 21

Writing in 1940, Mollie Panter-Downes reports on the fortitude of Londoners during German air raids.

All In Fun
G. F. T. Ryall · Profiles · September 28

PROFILE of Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt. His mother, the former Margaret Emerson of Baltimore, has a 35% interest in the nine million dollar trust fund …

CASSANDRA, INC.
George R. Leighton · Profiles · October 5

PROFILE of Leo Me Cherne, executive secretary and editor-in-ehief of the Research Inst. of America. Next to the Institute, Cherne's main interest in …

Rushville's Renowned Son-In-Law
Janet Flanner · Profiles · October 12

PROFILE of Wendel Willkie. Willkie owns five farms, & they are managed by Miss Mary Sleeth, the former Rushville librarian to whom Mrs. Willkie was …

Very Terrific, Very Divine
Margaret Case Harriman · Profiles · October 19

PROFILE of Nettie Rosenstein who designes the highest priced wholesale dresses in N.Y. which is the headquarters of America's $1,200,000,000 …

Chief of Staff
A. J. Liebling · Profiles · October 26

Profile of George Catlett Marshall, U.S. Army Chief of Staff.

BEST IN SHOW.
E. J. Kahn · Profiles · November 2

PROFILE of Nornay Saddler, a smooth-haired fox terrier, who has just won his 55th best-in-show award. Saddler's owner is James M. Austin. Mr. Austin …

ALIENS ALL
Robert Lewis Taylor · A Reporter at Large · November 9

REPORTER AT LARGE about the Alien Registration in N. Y.C. Visit to the Post Office, 31st Street and Eight Avenue, where an average of 1100 aliens register …

A Powerful Cue
Robert Lewis Taylor · Profiles · November 16

William Frederick Hoppe was a boy wonder at nine, playing exhibition games all over the country; he was referred to as "the grand old man of the cue" at …

Words and Music
Margaret Case Harriman · Profiles · November 23

PROFILE of Cole Porter. Miss Moore is Mr. Porter's secretary. Her telephone rings constantly with urgent messages from Else Maxwell, William …

Jurist - I
Matthew Josephson · Profiles · November 30

PROFILE of Supreme Court Justice Frankfurter. Harold J. Laski, the English Political Scientist was having dinner with the Frankfurters in Cambridge. The …

Jurist - II
Matthew Josephson · Profiles · December 7

PROFILE of Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter reviews the Sacco-Vancetti case and tells about Frankfurter's part in the defence of the two men.

Jurist - III
Matthew Josephson · Profiles · December 14

PROFILE of Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter. One night not long ago, Frankfurter called Archibald MacLeish on the telephone and offered to read him …

Mazie
Joseph Mitchell · Profiles · December 21

Joseph Mitchell’s 1940 Profile of the local celebrity with a “genuine fondness for bums.”

THE MOON'S BEST FRIEND
E. J. Kahn · Profiles · December 28

PROFILE of Dr. Clyde Fisher, Curator-in-Cheif of the Hayde Planetarium. The opening of the Planetarium was for him a gratifying climax to almost 10 years …

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