Encyclopedia Britannica - 1920s Edition

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Grognardsw · #1 Post by **Grognardsw** » Sat Nov 29, 2014 2:42 am

A resource thread for 1920's culture and history.

Grognardsw · #2 Post by **Grognardsw** » Sat Nov 29, 2014 3:03 am

Grognardsw · #3 Post by **Grognardsw** » Sat Nov 29, 2014 3:07 am

FBI: The "Lawless Years" (1921-1933)

The years from 1921 to 1933 were sometimes called the "lawless years" because of gangsterism and the public disregard for Prohibition, which made it illegal to sell or import intoxicating beverages. Prohibition created a new federal medium for fighting crime, but the Department of the Treasury, not the Department of Justice, had jurisdiction for these violations.

Attacking crimes that were federal in scope but local in jurisdiction called for creative solutions. The Bureau of Investigation had limited success using its narrow jurisdiction to investigate some of the criminals of "the gangster era." For example, it investigated Al Capone as a "fugitive federal witness." Federal investigation of a resurgent white supremacy movement also required creativity. The Ku Klux Klan (KKK), dormant since the late 1800s, was revived in part to counteract the economic gains made by African Americans during World War I. The Bureau of Investigation used the Mann Act to bring Louisiana's philandering KKK "Imperial Kleagle" to justice.

Through these investigations and through more traditional investigations of neutrality violations and antitrust violations, the Bureau of Investigation gained stature. Although the Harding Administration suffered from unqualified and sometimes corrupt officials, the Progressive Era reform tradition continued among the professional Department of Justice special agents. The new Bureau of Investigation Director, William J. Burns, who had previously run his own detective agency, appointed 26-year-old J. Edgar Hoover as assistant director. Hoover, a graduate of George Washington University Law School, had worked for the Department of Justice since 1917, where he headed the enemy alien operations during World War I and assisted in the General Intelligence Division under Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer, investigating suspected anarchists and communists.

After Harding died in 1923, his successor, Calvin Coolidge, appointed replacements for Harding's cronies in the Cabinet. For the new attorney general, Coolidge appointed attorney Harlan Fiske Stone. On May 10, 1924, Stone then selected Hoover to head the Bureau of Investigation. By inclination and training, Hoover embodied the Progressive tradition. His appointment ensured that the Bureau of Investigation would keep that tradition alive.

When Hoover took over, the Bureau of Investigation had approximately 650 employees, including 441 special agents who worked in field offices in nine cities. By the end of the decade, there were approximately 30 field offices, with divisional headquarters in New York, Baltimore, Atlanta, Cincinnati, Chicago, Kansas City, San Antonio, San Francisco, and Portland. He immediately fired those agents he considered unqualified and proceeded to professionalize the organization. For example, Hoover abolished the seniority rule of promotion and introduced uniform performance appraisals. At the beginning of the decade, the Bureau of Investigation established field offices in nine cities. He also scheduled regular inspections of the operations in all field offices. Then, in January 1928, Hoover established a formal training course for new agents, including the requirement that new agents had to be in the 25-35 year range to apply. He also returned to the earlier preference for special agents with law or accounting experience.

The new Director was also keenly aware that the Bureau of Investigation could not fight crime without public support. In remarks prepared for the attorney general in 1925, he wrote, "The agents of the Bureau of Investigation have been impressed with the fact that the real problem of law enforcement is in trying to obtain the cooperation and sympathy of the public and that they cannot hope to get such cooperation until they themselves merit the respect of the public." Also in 1925, Agent Edwin C. Shanahan became the first agent to be killed in the line of duty when he was murdered by a car thief.

In the early days of Hoover's directorship, a long held goal of American law enforcement was achieved: the establishment of an Identification Division. Tracking criminals by means of identification records had been considered a crucial tool of law enforcement since the 19th century, and matching fingerprints was considered the most accurate method. By 1922, many large cities had started their own fingerprint collections.

In keeping with the Progressive Era tradition of federal assistance to localities, the Department of Justice created a Bureau of Criminal Identification in 1905 in order to provide a centralized reference collection of fingerprint cards. In 1907, the collection was moved, as a money-saving measure, to Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary, where it was staffed by convicts. Understandably suspicious of this arrangement, police departments formed their own centralized identification bureau maintained by the International Association of Chiefs of Police. It refused to share its data with the Bureau of Criminal Investigation. In 1924, Congress was persuaded to merge the two collections in Washington, D.C., under Bureau of Investigation administration. As a result, law enforcement agencies across the country began contributing fingerprint cards to the Bureau of Investigation by 1926.

By the end of the decade, special agent training was institutionalized, the field office inspection system was solidly in place, and the National Division of Identification and Information was collecting and compiling uniform crime statistics for the entire United States. In addition, studies were underway that would lead to the creation of the Technical Laboratory and Uniform Crime Reports. The Bureau was equipped to end the "lawless years."

Grognardsw · #4 Post by **Grognardsw** » Sat Nov 29, 2014 4:33 am

1920s Period Slang

Grognardsw · #5 Post by **Grognardsw** » Sun Dec 07, 2014 4:06 pm

Some History of Irish Street Gangs

Grognardsw · #6 Post by **Grognardsw** » Wed Dec 10, 2014 4:41 pm

The Art and Science of Investigation

Grognardsw · #7 Post by **Grognardsw** » Fri Dec 12, 2014 3:38 pm

Forensic Arts in the 1920s

Grognardsw · #8 Post by **Grognardsw** » Thu Dec 18, 2014 7:00 pm

Grognardsw · #9 Post by **Grognardsw** » Wed Feb 04, 2015 11:22 pm

Ocean Liners and Sea Travel in the 1920s

Grognardsw · #10 Post by **Grognardsw** » Mon Feb 16, 2015 7:03 pm

Cameras in the 1920s

Grognardsw · #11 Post by **Grognardsw** » Sat Feb 28, 2015 10:20 pm

History of Police Suspect Sketching

Well over a hundred years ago, law enforcement agencies began using composite drawings to aid in an investigation where evidence was scant and the perpetrator unknown. No doubt there were many isolated instances earlier that aided criminal investigations. Major cases such as: "Jack the Ripper," "Lindbergh Kidnapping," "D.B. Cooper," the first airline hijacker, "Assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King," "Richard Speck Case," "Hillside Strangler," and the "Kidnapping of Patricia Hearst" are but a few of the national and international cases where composite drawings were used.

Man has been drawing the human face as long as history has been recorded. The face presents a set of intriguing characteristics that create a pattern of identifiable features. From this physiognomy, a person is able to recognize thousands of faces, often linking names, personality, background, etc. to them. In fact, a person is able to mentally encode a huge gallery of faces and store them for later retrieval. Since no two faces are exactly alike, the facial features (along with head shapes) lend themselves to a classification system.

In the 1880’s, Alphonse Bertillon, sometimes called the father of scientific detection, developed an identification system referred to as "Portrait Parle" or "speaking likeness." This system was a compilation of facial features taken from photographs with descriptive detail provided. Originally, Bertillon meant for the catalog to be an identification aid for the recognition of local prisoners but it later was found to be useful in obtaining descriptions of unknown suspects. Bertillon’s classification provided a basis for modern recall systems that would aid the artist in producing sketches as well as the development of composite kits, catalogs and computer systems.

A research of the FBI archives revealed an early use of the composite sketch. The sketch was done in 1920 for a bombing incident that took place at an office on Wall Street. The investigation developed a witness from a nearby blacksmith shop who had shod the horse of a stranger observed carrying a covered object in back of his wagon. An interview with the blacksmith indicated he felt capable of providing enough facial detail to have an artist prepare a drawing of the stranger. A commercial artist was hired to make a sketch that provided a sufficient likeness to develop leads with subsequent identification and arrest of the perpetrator.

More at http://www.forensicartist.com/history/index.htm

Grognardsw · #12 Post by **Grognardsw** » Fri Apr 17, 2015 11:39 pm

The Orient Express

Locale Europe
Transit type Inter-city rail
Number of lines 5
Number of stations 18
Operation
Began operation 1883
Operator(s) Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits
Technical
System length 2,000 km (1,200 mi)
Track gauge 4 ft 8 1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) (standard gauge)
The Orient Express was the name of a long-distance passenger train service created in 1883 by Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits (CIWL).

The route and rolling stock of the Orient Express changed many times. Several routes in the past concurrently used the Orient Express name, or slight variants thereof. Although the original Orient Express was simply a normal international railway service, the name has become synonymous with intrigue and luxury travel. The two city names most prominently associated with the Orient Express are Paris and Istanbul, the original endpoints of the timetabled service.

The Orient Express was a showcase of luxury and comfort at a time when travelling was still rough and dangerous. CIWL soon developed a dense network of luxury trains all over Europe, whose names are still remembered today and associated with the art of luxury travel. Such as the Blue Train, the Golden Arrow, North Express and many more. CIWL became the first and most important modern multinational dedicated to transport, travel agency, hospitality with activities spreading from Europe to Asia and Africa.

On June 5, 1883, the first Express d'Orient left Paris for Vienna. Vienna remained the terminus until October 4, 1883. The train was officially renamed Orient Express in 1891.

The original route, which first ran on October 4, 1883, was from Paris, Gare de l'Est, to Giurgiu in Romania via Munich and Vienna. At Giurgiu, passengers were ferried across the Danube to Ruse, Bulgaria, to pick up another train to Varna. They then completed their journey to Istanbul by ferry. In 1885, another route began operations, this time reaching Istanbul via rail from Vienna to Belgrade and Niš, carriage to Plovdiv and rail again to Istanbul.

In 1889, the train's eastern terminus became Varna in Bulgaria, where passengers could take a ship to Istanbul. On June 1, 1889, the first non-stop train to Istanbul left Paris (Gare de l'Est). Istanbul remained its easternmost stop until May 19, 1977. The eastern terminus was the Sirkeci Terminal by the Golden Horn. Ferry service from piers next to the terminal would take passengers across the Bosphorus to Haydarpaşa Terminal, the terminus of the Asian lines of the Ottoman Railways.

The onset of World War I in 1914 saw Orient Express services suspended. They resumed at the end of hostilities in 1918, and in 1919 the opening of the Simplon Tunnel allowed the introduction of a more southerly route via Milan, Venice and Trieste. The service on this route was known as the Simplon Orient Express, and it ran in addition to continuing services on the old route. The Treaty of Saint-Germain contained a clause requiring Austria to accept this train: formerly, Austria allowed international services to pass through Austrian territory (which included Trieste at the time) only if they ran via Vienna. The Simplon Orient Express soon became the most important rail route between Paris and Istanbul.

Grognardsw · #13 Post by **Grognardsw** » Tue Apr 28, 2015 4:43 am

Weird Tales magazine

Weird Tales was an American fantasy and horror fiction pulp magazine first published in March 1923. The magazine was set up in Chicago by J. C. Henneberger, an ex-journalist with a taste for the macabre. Edwin Baird was the first editor of the monthly, assisted by Farnsworth Wright. The subgenre pioneered by Weird Tales writers has come to be called "weird fiction". The magazine's office were initially at 450 North Michigan Ave, Chicago, but later moved north to 840 North Michigan Ave.

Baird first published some of Weird Tales' most famous writers, including H. P. Lovecraft, C. M. Eddy, Jr., Clark Ashton Smith and Seabury Quinn, author of the hugely popular Jules de Grandin stories. The magazine lost a considerable amount of money under Baird's editorship, however—running through $11,000 in capital and amassing a $40,000 debt—and he was fired after 13 issues.

Henneberger offered the job to Lovecraft, who declined, citing his reluctance to relocate to Chicago; "think of the tragedy of such a move for an aged antiquarian," the 34-year-old writer declared.

The magazine also became the subject of controversy after a story by C. M. Eddy, Jr. was published in the May–July 1924 issue, "The Loved Dead", that briefly mentioned necrophilia. There was a public outcry and according to Eddy, Weird Tales was removed from several newsstands as a result, but also the publicity regarding the story resulted in increased sales and helped to save the imperiled magazine from bankruptcy.

The publisher then gave the job to Baird's assistant Farnsworth Wright, who became the magazine's best-known editor, being at the editorial helm for over fifteen years and 179 issues. Wright (who suffered from Parkinson's disease) continued to publish stories by Lovecraft, Smith, and Quinn, though he was more selective than Baird; he rejected Lovecraft's "At the Mountains of Madness", "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" and (initially) "The Call of Cthulhu", among other stories. Many of Smith's Hyperborean cycle stories were rejected as well.

Among the new writers Wright found for the magazine were Robert Bloch and Robert E. Howard, whose Conan the Barbarian stories, among many others, were hugely popular. Wright put playwright Tennessee Williams into print for the first time (with his story "The Vengeance of Nitocris"). Edmond Hamilton's earliest science fiction stories also first appeared in Wright's Weird Tales.

Notably, Wright hired the former fashion designer and illustrator Margaret Brundage to produce the magazine's cover illustrations, starting in 1933—making Brundage the only female cover artist of the pulp era. She created many striking images, especially of nude or semi-nude young women in provocative poses (her whipping scenes attracted the highest attention). Brundage's covers became a focus of extreme attention and controversy—which of course helped to sell the magazine. Wright also ignited the careers of two important fantasy artists, Virgil Finlay and Hannes Bok, by buying and publishing their work, first and frequently.

Weird Tales always struggled financially. In the 1920s and 1930s, the magazine's business manager, William (Bill) Sprenger, was crucial in keeping the enterprise afloat. It is estimated that the monthly circulation of Weird Tales never topped 50,000 copies per issue. (In the 1920s, circulation figures for the most successful pulps topped one million; even in the depths of the Great Depression, popular pulps like Doc Savage or The Shadow enjoyed circulations of 300,000 per issue, monthly or even semi-monthly.) After 1926, Farnsworth Wright paid his contributors at the rate of one cent per word, double the going pulp rate of a half-cent per word; but during the 1930s, the magazine was sometimes very late in making its payments to authors (which was not unusual in the pulp field as a whole, at the time).

Grognardsw · #14 Post by **Grognardsw** » Sun Oct 25, 2015 12:22 pm

The Total Solar Eclipse of January 24, 1925

A total solar eclipse occurred on January 24, 1925. A solar eclipseoccurs when the Moon passes between Earth and the Sun, thereby totally or partly obscuring the image of the Sun for a viewer on Earth. A total solar eclipse occurs when the Moon's apparent diameter is larger than the Sun's, blocking all direct sunlight, turning day into darkness. Totality occurs in a narrow path across Earth's surface, with the partial solar eclipse visible over a surrounding region thousands of kilometres wide.

On the morning of January 24, 1925, millions of New Yorkers were eagerly awaiting that magic moment when the Moon's umbra would descend upon their great city and briefly plunge them all into darkness. Newspapers had been publicizing the time for weeks, so that when the big day finally arrived virtually every man, woman and child knew when that eagerly awaited moment would come. It was 9:11 am. It was reported that those above 96th Street in Manhattan saw a total solar eclipse while those below 96th Street saw a partial eclipse.

The scientific media is abuzz...

makken123Tabs · #15 Post by **makken123Tabs** » Sun Oct 25, 2015 3:41 pm

Syzygy is here.

Encyclopedia Britannica - 1920s Edition

Encyclopedia Britannica - 1920s Edition

Re: Encyclopedia Britannica - 1920s Edition

Re: Encyclopedia Britannica - 1920s Edition

Re: Encyclopedia Britannica - 1920s Edition

Re: Encyclopedia Britannica - 1920s Edition

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Re: Encyclopedia Britannica - 1920s Edition

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Re: Encyclopedia Britannica - 1920s Edition

Re: Encyclopedia Britannica - 1920s Edition

Re: Encyclopedia Britannica - 1920s Edition

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Re: Encyclopedia Britannica - 1920s Edition