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In 1938, with war looming in Europe, Irving Berlin offered popular singer Kate Smith a new patriotic song to debut on her radio show. It’s forgotten today that in the form she sang it, “God Bless America” wasn’t just a patriotic anthem, it was an isolationist one, about how glad Americans should be that they were far from the “storm clouds” gathering “across the sea.” Then, just one day before Smith’s broadcast, the Nazis made one of their most despicable moves yet, and everything changed.

#irving berlin #katesmith #godblessamerica #isolationism #nazis #worldwar2 #johnstrausbaugh #kristallnach #hitler #jews

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On the night of Wednesday, June 22, 1938, the whole world was focused on Yankee Stadium. Joe Louis, nicknamed the Brown Bomber, was fighting a rematch with Max Schmeling, called Hitler’s Superman. This was much more than a prizefight. Around the world, this was seen as a symbolic duel between democracy and fascism, freedom and slavery, white and black.

#joelouis #maxschmeling #boxing #hitler #nazis #prizefighting #yankeestadium #johnstrausbaugh

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No one captured New York City in its noir 1930s and 1940s better than the photographer Arthur Fellig, better known as Weegee. Ceaselessly roaming New York's streets, often at night while his competitors slept, Weegee took thousands and thousands of photos that visually defined what he called the Naked City. An exhibition of his work is on view at the International Center of Photography on the Lower East Side until May 2025.

#weegee #newyorkcity #nakedcity #internationalcenterof photography #worldwartwo #johnstrausbaugh

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When Moe Asch died in 1986, his extraordinarily eclectic Folkways Records had put out 2,186 long-playing records, from Woody Guthrie to Ho Chi Minh, Leadbelly to Langston Hughes, jazz, gospel, Yiddish music, calypso, and instructional records like "Speech After the Removal of the Larynx." Most did not sell well, but at least one of them, Harry Smith's "Anthology of American Folk Music," set off a seismic shift in American culture.

#johnstrausbaugh #bobdylan #moeasch #folkwaysrecords #peteseeger #woodyguthrie #folkmusic

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During World War II, Times Square was crowded with soldiers and sailors, and girls and women who wanted to be around them. The authorities labeled these females "victory girls," "khaki-wackies," and even "patriotutes."

Excerpted from my book "Victory City."

#timessquare #worldwarii #venerealdisease #syphilis #penicillin #prostitution #eliotness #johnstrausbaugh #jedgarhoover #curfew

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Oberleutnant Franz Baron von Werra, a German Luftwaffe ace, came to New York City in 1941, and was treated like a visiting celebrity. He had been shot down over England, made a few nearly successful escape attempts there, and was being shipped to a POW camp in Canada when he jumped out the window of a moving train and crossed the border into the still neutral US. He would escape from the US as well... An excerpt from my book "Victory City."

#victorycity #worldwarII #luftwaffe #vonwerra #canada #raf #johnstrausbaugh

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When Frank Sinatra performed his first live show at the Times Square Paramount Theatre in December 1942, the packed house, estimated at 5,000 girls (in a space with an official capacity of 3,500), exploded in deafening shrieks and screams. Sinatra and his bandleader Benny Goodman were shocked and petrified. The girls drowned out the entire concert. Many wept, and several fainted. The cacophony and pandemonium were as great as at any Elvis or Beatles concert in later years... An excerpt from my book "Victory City."

#franksinatra #bobbysox #worldwar2 #elvis #beatles

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Robert Downey, Jr., delivered his first spoken line in a feature-length motion picture at the age of five. He played a puppy in a film called Pound, written and directed by his dad, whose other prodigiously weird films include the scathing satire Putney Swope and the psychedelic Western Greaser’s Palace… Excerpted from my book, The Village.

#robertdowney #putneyswope #greaser’spalace #undergroundfilm #hollywood #johnstrausbaugh