[…] This story generally covers the biography of Russian poet and author, Boris Pasternak, and particularly his struggles with his famous novel, “Doctor Zhivago,” a decades-long project showcasing epic Russian history that casts the individual vs. the state – a book that helped him win a Nobel Prize, which he was prevented from collecting, since the novel’s views on Soviet ways were less than flattering … Laudatory press & literary reaction in the West are also covered here, using headlines, photos & critic commentary… Along the way there are real-life Pasternak love stories apart from his novel, confrontations with Soviet authorities, CIA involvement, and more, plus new biographies, memoirs, films & research that continue to probe the Pasternak/Zhivago sagas to this day […]

[…] In 1927, two New York Yankee baseball sluggers – established star Babe Ruth and upstart Lou Gehrig – became engaged in a “home run race,” culminating in Ruth setting, at that time, the single-season home run record at 60 (later surpassed in 1961). This story tracks the contest between Gehrig and Ruth during the 1927 season, using newspaper and magazine headlines from that era to chronicle their battle from April through September 1927, while also listing contemporary books, photos, and selected baseball statistics that document their careers beyond 1927 – including Lou Gehrig’s battle with ALS disease that later took him out of baseball […]

[…] This “topics page” provides thumbnail sketches and links to 18 stories at this website that feature or include magazine-related content from the last 100 years – including selected cover art, illustrator profiles, advertising art, political stories, civil rights stories, business stories, sports stories, and more… Cover samples are typically included throughout the stories from a range of magazines – Time, Life, Vanity Fair, Esquire, Fortune, The New Yorker, Sports Illustrated, The Saturday Evening Post, New York Magazine, Wired, and others […]

[…] This “topics page” provides thumbnail sketches and links to 36 stories at this website on female careers in music, film, sport, politics, publishing and other endeavors… Some offer in-depth biographical profiles with extensive photos, and in the case of recording artists, mp3 song files… Among those featured, are: Ali MacGraw, Anna Q Nilsson, Ava Gardner, Babe Didrikson, Barbara Lewis, Barbra Streisand, Bette Davis, Billie Holiday, Carly Simon, Cyd Charisse, Dinah Shore, Gisele Bündchen, Grizabella from “Cats,” Janis Joplin, Lady Gaga, Keira Knightley, Linda Ronstadt, Madonna, Marilyn Monroe, Martha & the Vandellas, Meryl Streep, Mia Farrow, Pearl White, Petula Clark, Princess Diana, Rachel Carson, Rosie The Riveter, Sarah Palin, Skeeter Davis, Taylor Swift, the Ronettes, The Shirelles, and Tina Turner […]

[…] This “topics page” provides thumbnail sketches and links to 14 baseball stories at this website, including in-depth profiles and photos of Mickey Mantle, Babe Ruth, Sandy Koufax, Pee Wee Reese, Jackie Robinson, Honus Wagner, Christie Mathewson, Lou Gehrig, and others […]

[…] In the 1940s and 1950s, magazine ads from the John Hancock Life Insurance Co. used history and famous people from sports, business, politics & the arts to help burnish its reputation – such as this 1958 ad on baseball legend, Christy Mathewson… Story covers Mathewson’s career, accomplishments, product endorsements & “good guy” celebrity as well as some John Hancock history […]

[…] Hollywood’s silent screen stars faced a new peril with the coming of “talking motion pictures” – their recorded voices… Norma Talmadge, featured in Photoplay’s December 1929 cover story, “The Microphone–The Terror of The Studios,” was one of the casualties… The Pop History Dig story here features famous actors and directors who recount the difficulties of the silent-to-sound era, the carnage it created, and which Hollywood studios became the big players in its aftermath […]

Statue of a young Babe Ruth just outside the gates of Oriole Park at Camden Yards, Baltimore. Statue by Susan Luery; photo by Leo Cloutier, pbase.com. See other statue perspective, below.     In Baltimore, Maryland, at the Camden Yards baseball park, home of the Baltimore Orioles professional baseball team, there is a statue of Babe Ruth, … Continue reading “Ruth at Oriole Park”
1930s-2009 →

…The movie industry of the early 1900s, during the silent film era, was not the star-centered commercial enterprise it is today. Most actors, in fact, labored in obscurity. And film makers liked it that way. The film studios then were out to produce a cheap, standardized product and part of the strategy was to keep actors anonymous and low paid. But that was about to change…

In early September 2007, a rare sports trading card depicting the famous Pittsburgh baseball player Honus Wagner was sold at auction to an anonymous private collector for a $2.8 million — a record sales price.

…Shown here on the April 1920 cover of “Photoplay” is Pearl White, a popular silent film star. …At least part of White’s notoriety in “The Perils of Pauline” series was due to a business battle in the newspaper industry. The premier of “The Perils…” film arrived in Chicago in the midst of local turf war between William Randolph Hearst and Rufus McCormick of the Chicago Tribune…

Anna Quirentia Nilsson, shown here on Photoplay’s November 1920 cover, became a star of the silent screen and was the first Swedish-born actress to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Nilsson’s story, however, is quite American in many ways […]