Time Magazine- May 3, 1926

            I decided to look at the May 3, 1926 issue of Time Magazine, published approximately 66 years before I was born. The first thing that struck me was the way the magazine read more like a newspaper than what we now consider a magazine to be. The articles were extensive and verbose where current articles would be sparse. There were also very few pictures and I noticed that most of the news was expressed exclusively with words. This is an extreme deviation from the norm of today, where pictures are thought to speak a thousand words and words tend to be severely undervalued. The magazine’s content seemed to be much less ruled by flashy, eye-catching designs and pictures and more focused on presenting the actual news in an organized and detailed fashion. Even the advertisements in the magazine described the seller’s product much more thoroughly than most regular magazine ads do today. In contrast with the way we read magazines in the present, the breakdown of literary merit from the past is evident when looking at what the people of the 1920s would sit down to read in their magazines.

            In the issue that I picked up, I was most interested in the article I found announcing the birth of a royal baby, the young girl who would turn out to be the present-day Queen Elizabeth II. The article describes the people who were present at her birth and there is even a short commentary on the unlikelihood that she should become the Queen, little did they know. Following this article on the royal news was an in-depth view of the foreign countries around the world individually. It seemed noteworthy to me that the magazine gave such a significant section of the paper to foreign affairs; the magazine covered as much, if not more, of foreign affairs as it did of national news. Although foreign affairs do remain present in Time today, I believe that American focus has shifted to spending most of its time as an individualist country and has shied away from the global community as a whole.

            National news, as a contrast to foreign news, seemed to be much like it is today. The first column of the magazine described the presidency and concerns of the economy with regard to how much taxes should be lowered and what war veterans should be given as pension. Even in the pre-Great Depression world, the economy seemed to be a big concern for the people of the 1920s. Some of the national affairs also included news on Prohibition and Lynching as main topics. The Governess of Texas in her campaign for re-election even went so far as to point out that “her administration [was] the first in Texas since 1882 to pass without a lynching in the state.” Party news was also a large part of the national news and a good section of the magazine’s national affairs was given to discuss the goings-on within the Democratic and Republican parties. The section ended with commentary from the governor of Maryland saying that he “sincerely believe[d] that our fundamental liberties [were] in jeopardy.”

            The advertisements in the magazine were quite different than those of magazines today, but they still employed the same techniques in appealing to their customers that we use currently. The ads were overwhelmingly still characterized mostly by words rather than pictures, spending time on selling the consumer the product through its qualities rather than its appearance. Though the major differences were clear, I was able to notice the subtle similarities. One ad bore the title “Optimistic, Successful People” and used success stories of average, every-day people to sell their health item, Fleischmann’s Yeast. The entire advertisement reminded me of an old-fashioned type of Proactiv or ITT Tech ad, selling their product based on “average” consumer reports. Another advertisement proclaimed the new all-steel body for a car by introducing the idea that wood is flimsy. The ad gets its point across by featuring a picture of a snapping match at the top and then emotionally appealing, at the end, to the readers by asking a rhetorical question on whether they would want their families protected in a crash by an all-steel or wood body frame on their car.

            The articles and advertisements in this issue of Time presented the 1926 world in a favorable, if possibly naïve, frame of mind. The journalists of the time seemed to be dedicated to sharing specific facts of the news rather than expressing any particular viewpoint on a topic or bias in their writing. They simply provided the facts on any given situation. The editors of Time gave their readers much more credit in literary advancement than is given in our society today. The articles contained long, in-depth presentations of information for the general public to read and it was clear that most of the readers were expected to have read through almost all the articles as a quiz at the end of the magazine tested their knowledge on what they had read. The editors of the magazine also provided a book list for “Alert Readers” that included Edgar Allan Poe as a brilliant writer who was worth taking the time to discover.

            Surprisingly, I found Texas in many parts of the magazine; in politics, entertainment and medicine, I noticed Fort Worth and Dallas were eagerly represented. I was genuinely intrigued by the magazine issue as a whole because of the stark differences in the language that was presented for readers to absorb in the 1920s. I was also a bit shocked by the casual way topics that were commonplace in the 1920s were expressed in the paper, such as lynching. Things that we would look on as a bit scandalous and appalling in today’s society were seen in a much different light at the time. Although the differences I pointed out were apparent throughout the issue, it was easy to see that the intense American pushes for capitalism and nationalism, as well as the continued fight for civil liberties, were strongly present in the articles and advertisements of Time magazine, even in 1926.

Meeting Ibrahim

 My first meeting with my conversation partner was eye-opening because I hadn’t done anything like it before. My partner’s name is Ibrahim and he is from Saudi Arabia. We met at Yo by campus for our first meeting because, as Ibrahim put it, “it too hot.” I was immediately surprised to find out that he was not yet a college student but was trying to learn English fluently before moving off in the spring of 2012 to go to college. Also to my surprise, although he would not agree with me I’m sure, he spoke English well for the little amount of time he had spent in the United States. With fairly little difficulty, though I admit I have practice with understanding accents, I was able to understand most of what he told me and only had to ask him to repeat himself a few times.

Ibrahim lives near campus with his sister who is attending graduate school part-time at University of North Texas’s Dallas campus. He moved to the U.S. last year to live with his sister in Tennessee and only recently moved to Texas over the summer. He said that it was much easier to understand Texans because they spoke much slower and he had learned more in the little time since he had moved to Texas than he ever had in Tennessee. After the initial introductions, one of the first things he said to me was, “My mom tried to teach me English when I was little, but I told her ‘what will I ever need to know it for’ and refused to learn. Now I wish I would have learned when I was young.”

Although we had talked a little about it in class, I was still slightly caught off guard that he spoke so little English outside of his English classes. He told me that he never spoke English at home or with his parents, but only as a way to communicate with his classmates who spoke other languages as well. He also described to me his frustration as he tried to learn English while speaking to people on the phone or to anyone with a heavy accent. 

Ibrahim talked to me a little about school and his career track to be an accountant. He told me that he would really love to get into TCU but didn’t think he could do it because his English was still not good enough to do well on our standardized tests. He also expressed to me that although his parents expected him to go to school for accounting, he really wished to be a pilot and wanted to pursue that career plan instead. As he told me of the different schools he had applied to in the U.S., the conversation turned to travel and he was amazed that I had not been to many places in America. I had never been to the east coast and the shock was plain on his face as he realized that he had traveled more in the U.S. than I had. We spoke of sports and although I don’t play any, he shared with me his love of soccer and his new passion of taking up tennis. 

Speaking with Ibrahim was like talking on a whole new level. I found myself using my hands much more often to explain myself than I would have in normal conversation and I could see him processing what I was saying before he chose his words to respond. It was interesting to see what was important in our culture versus what is more important in his even after the first meeting. Because he is unsure of his English, Ibrahim does speak very softly and I can see this as a possible predicament in future meetings but I am excited to meet with him and get to know him more. I thoroughly enjoyed talking to him and I think that it will be interesting to see what he brings up to discuss in the future.