Life Magazine circa 1937

On February 8^th I went to the TCU library and browsed a volume of Life magazines that spanned from January to March of 1937 in search of articles or features with a coming-of-age theme. Given the content of Life magazine at the time, (several short stories with lots of black-and-white photographs place throughout) I found many stories dealing with America's youth during 1937 as opposed to one full-length feature with a coming-of-age theme.

“Margaret Sanger Birth Control” from the January 11^th issue of Life dissected the life of the titular woman who fought her whole life for the availability of contraceptives from the time she was a young woman. According to the article, Sanger was propelled to fight for the cause of birth control after losing a friend (I believe) who died after a botched $5 abortion that resulted from the unavailability of contraception.

“Boy & Girl Nurses for Communist Soldiers” from the January 25^th issue discussed the growing problem of teenagers in China being trained, however poorly, to serve as medical professionals for communist rebels under extremely difficult conditions that often left them victim to disease and traumatization.

Other articles that were tangentially related to coming-of-age included “Vassar: A Bright Jewel in U.S. Educational Diadem” which dealt with the typical life of a student at an all girls college, “Grant Wood's Latest Landscape” which talked about the influence of German art of the famous American painter during his time in Germany in WWI, “Life on the American Newsfront: the case of the child bride” which brought to light the lack of marriage laws in the midwest which allowed for premature marriages that were effectively child abuse.

Grant Wood's most famous painting, "American Gothic"

Other articles that were tangentially related to coming-of-age included “Vassar: A Bright Jewel in U.S. Educational Diadem” which dealt with the typical life of a student at an all girls college, “Grant Wood's Latest Landscape” which talked about the influence of German art of the famous American painter during his time in Germany in WWI, “Life on the American Newsfront: the case of the child bride” which brought to light the lack of marriage laws in the midwest which allowed for premature marriages that were effectively child abuse.

Browsing the Life magazines from the 1920's and 1930's was fascinating for a variety of reasons. Usually when I read magazine I've learned to just filter out the advertisements by ignoring them. However, when reading the archived magazines, I found the advertisements to be the most entertaining part of the whole experience. It was simultaneously jarring and mesmerizing to see how these old advertisements depicted brands that are still quite popular today. I definitely got more than a couple stares in the quiet section for laughing at just how politically incorrect the advertisements would be if they had been published today.

"For Digestion's Sake - Smoke Camels"

I was shocked when I saw the first of many Camel ads. Not just because such ads are illegal today, but because of how blatantly false they were. The running slogan was “For Digestion's Sake – Smoke Camels”. The advertisements for Bayer Aspirin were similarly nonfactual, claiming that two pills were a suitable cure for the common cold. And don't even get me started on the ads for home cleaning products which exclusively targeted women. The sexism in the ads were far from latent and I got a good laugh imagining how my mother would react if they made such ads today.

Bayer Cures Colds

The subject matter of some of the stories were also quite surprising. For example, there was a surprisingly in depth and “not exactly damning” look at the life of the First Lady of the Third Reich, the wife of Hitler's second in command. The world that Life magazine depicted was quite different than what I expected. With forces like Nazi Germany still at large, America wasn't portrayed as the invincible superpower it is today. Additionally, I anticipated seeing several stories about poverty or the Great Depression since the volume of Life magazines I was browsing came from 1937 yet I don't think I saw a single feature on either subject.