I spend a lot of time in these old papers reading about women being measured, assessed, graded, and awarded “perfection” titles. Which corset produces the healthiest figure. Which actress has the most scientifically perfect face. Which workout regimen will keep a wife attractive enough to retain her husband's interest. Here’s proof of that:
So I'll admit I felt a small, petty satisfaction when I opened today’s May 21st, 1926 papers and found them doing it to men.
They were not good at it.
The Two Men Named Ash
Here is the situation as multiple papers presented it, with complete journalistic seriousness, in the summer of 1926.
There are two men in Chicago. Same last name. No stated connection beyond that. One is beautiful. One is homely. The papers found this worth investigating.
The beautiful one, Sam Ash, had been selected by Henri Matisse (yes THAT Henri Matisse) as the most handsome American man. Chosen to represent America in the bronze war memorial "Allies." His form, the Battle Creek Enquirer noted approvingly, "is divine, if that can be said of the male figure."
They printed his measurements.
Waist: 33½ inches. Chest: 40 inches. Calf: 15 inches. Height: 5 feet, 9 inches. Weight: 170 pounds.
He earned a fraction of a million dollars singing sweet tenor songs. But only on the condition that he retain his manly figure. Sam, for his part, was unmoved by the whole beautiful American business.
"If any one calls me pretty, I'll knock 'em for a row of Chinese ash cans," he told the paper, tucking away a load of powerful tobacco in his trusty pipe.
The homely one, Paul Ash, led a jazz orchestra for Balaban and Katz, one of Chicago's biggest theater chains. His contract, the paper reported, was worth a million dollars. His also had one very specific condition: that he do nothing to improve his looks within the next five years. The uglier he stayed, the better. By 1927, he logged 6,500 continuous performances in Chicago. A run that exceeded even the legendary Broadway hit Abie's Irish Rose.
Both Ashes received love letters from women.
"You big baby doll," they wrote to Paul. "I'm just nutty about you. Please play them Walla Walla blues next Sunday."
The paper concluded, with magnificent understatement: "The homely Ash gets more than the pretty Ash."
More on Men (or is it moron men?)
Across the Atlantic on the same day, thirty-eight bachelor members of the British House of Commons held a dinner. Exclusively for themselves. To discuss, apparently, why none of them had gotten married.
The Gazette printed their reasons. I'll just let them speak for themselves.
"Because mother needed father, but no woman ever needed me."
"Because marriage is a prison to a man but an escape for a woman."
"Because I keep a motor car. That never lets me down."
"Because Winston won't economize and reduce income tax."
"Because a wife's chief duty is to supply hairpins for the pipe, and girls don't use them now."
"Because no man is worthy of a woman's love."
The paper noted, with magnificent British dryness, that these reasons "will hardly suffice to appease or convince their married friends held captive."
What These Two Stories Have In Common
I kept thinking about why these stories so quickly and easily stood out to me.
The papers of 1926 spent enormous energy telling women exactly what they should look like, how much they should weigh, what a husband wanted, what beauty required. Women were assessed constantly. Their figures, their faces, their domestic usefulness. There were entire columns devoted to measuring actresses and rating their physical perfection.
When turned on men? It’s similarly absurd. And as Sam noted, even effeminate. Like he couldn’t even take being called “pretty”. But more importantly, how they then switch immediately to the fact that the ‘homely’ man is making infinitely amount more than the handsome one? Tell me that’s ever happened to women. This dynamic is as old as time: the sitcom with a schlubby funny husband and beautiful wife. Still waiting for the one with the hilarious woman and trophy husband.
They basically printed a man's calf measurement and concluded that being beautiful was financially disadvantageous for men. A contract clause rewarded a man specifically for staying ugly.
The machinery of assessment simply didn't translate. Not because men were above it. Clearly they weren't, given the carefully retained waist and the contractual homeliness. But rather because the whole system had been built for women only.
When they tried to apply the same logic to men it came out sideways. Beautiful meant less money. Ugly meant a million dollar contract. And marriage was a prison you escaped if you were lucky enough to own a reliable automobile.
The measuring tape got turned around for one day in 1926 and immediately produced nonsense. Either way, fun to look back on.
Subscribers get today's cutting room floor below — it includes the full articles, and two more stories. One involving Earl Carroll, a bathtub full of champagne, a Broadway model, and a courtroom crowd so large it tried to crush the doors in. We've covered the party before. Today's story is what happened when he lied about it under oath. The other story did not age well…
See you tomorrow.
— Chris