Skip to main content

1917 Seventy-five Years Ago

March 2023
1min read

Razors for the Front

If the magazines were to be believed, the big going-away gift for November was a safety razor. The Autostrop (“the only razor that sharpens its own blades”) was now offered in a “New Military Kit” of black leather, pigskin, or khaki and complete with a trench mirror. Twelve blades should guarantee “500 clean, comfortable shaves” to the average soldier. The Autostrop’s competitors also made sure to picture grinning doughboys in their advertisements; the Gem Damaskeene razor showed a soldier by a campfire remembering his genie-girl as he held his blade.

Statutes now outlawed so-called glare lights on automobiles in twenty-two states, and headlight beams no longer were to “reach the eye” or shine higher than forty-two inches above the ground. The makers of the Warner-Lenz held out hope to the driver: “When only city laws forbade glare, dimmers could comply.… But on dark roads these quelled lights will not do.… The Warner-Lenz sheds no direct beams,” and “its appeal is resistless. One ride behind the Warner-Lenz and you will never drive without them.” Your car could be fitted out with a pair of Lenzes for $3.50 to $5 and soon spread a “soft and mellow” light.

We hope you enjoy our work.

Please support this 72-year tradition of trusted historical writing and the volunteers that sustain it with a donation to American Heritage.

Donate

Stories published from "November 1992"

Authored by: James S. Brust, M.d.

Starting with a single, haunting battlefield image, an amateur photo detective managed to reconstruct a forgotten photographer’s life and uncover a treasure of Indian portraits.

Authored by: Charles Guggenheim

Long-lost views of sunny, easy days at a wealthy lake resort foreshadow a terrible tragedy

Authored by: Nathan Ward

Razors for the Front

Authored by: Nathan Ward

The Fire

Authored by: Nathan Ward

Superman Goes to War

Authored by: Nathan Ward

Cool It for Carl

Authored by: Nathan Ward

What We Have Here…

Authored by: Thomas Fleming

They’ve all had things to say about their fellow Executives. Once in a great while one was even flattering.

Authored by: Ira Meistrich

Through boom times and grim times, New Yorkers get on with their lives in a town whose high, iron temper confers something of the heroic on the least of its residents

Featured Articles

Rarely has the full story been told about how a famed botanist, a pioneering female journalist, and First Lady Helen Taft battled reluctant bureaucrats to bring Japanese cherry trees to Washington. 

Often thought to have been a weak president, Carter was strong-willed in doing what he thought was right, regardless of expediency or the political fallout.

Why have thousands of U.S. banks failed over the years? The answers are in our history and politics.

In his Second Inaugural Address, Abraham Lincoln embodied leading in a time of polarization, political disagreement, and differing understandings of reality.

Native American peoples and the lands they possessed loomed large for Washington, from his first trips westward as a surveyor to his years as President.