| Vintage Pulp | Apr 4 2016 |
What do they expect? It's called the City of Brotherly Love.
Above is a cover of the early tabloid Philadelphia Briefs published today in 1934, which caught our eye because it has a nice drawing of actress Anita Page, along with an Easter Bunny that seems to looking up her skirt. Bad, bad bunny. But it was added to the original shot, as you see below. Briefs was one of the purest early examples of the American tabloid form, with its reporting focused mainly on big city dangers faced by upstanding young white women, among those perils the predations of darker races—often referred to in the parlance of the Depression years as “sepias” or “ebonys.” To quote: “White, sepia, and ebony wrapped in erotic embrace. White girls in their teens abandoning their ivory bodies to ebony clutches as boy and girl friends cheer drunkenly.” Interesting, no?
This style of reporting served a specific purpose. As James H. Adams put it in his book Urban Reform and Sexual Vice in Progressive Era Philadelphia, the goal was to, “demystify the city through the use of cultural archetypes and narratives that defined why the city was evil, the threat that the city posed to orderly society, and the measures that reformers needed to take to clean up the urban space.” In other words, Briefs created negative, often transparently ridiculous stories that had the effect of convincing readers that barriers maintaining the structure of contemporary society were under siege. These tales of white girls and brotherly love would distress many people even today, so you can imagine the outrage in 1934. See more Briefs here.
| Vintage Pulp | Dec 6 2010 |
Going willy nilly in Philly.
Philadelphia Briefs from December 6, 1933, with a story about lawbreaking and vice taking place at a brokerage called D. Leary Investments. How times have changed. Today bankers don’t bother screwing prostitutes anymore—the general public is a much cheaper lay.
| Intl. Notebook | Dec 20 2008 |
Hard times, desperate measures.
Front cover of the depression-era tabloid Philadelphia Briefs published today in 1933, with a story about cut-rate prostitution, which was exposed by an investigative reporter who of course provides all the lurid details of the transaction. The cover model is actress Jill Dennett, who appeared in about a dozen films as an extra or uncredited minor cast member. We'll have more on Philadelphia Briefs later.
