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32-632: Junior Miss is a collection of semi-autobiographical stories by Sally Benson first published in The New Yorker . Between 1939 and the end of 1941, the prolific Benson published 99 stories in The New Yorker , some under her pseudonym of Esther Evarts. She had a bestseller when Random House published her Junior Miss collection in 1941. Benson's stories were adapted for theatre by writers Jerome Chodorov and Joseph Fields , by producer Max Gordon , and by director Moss Hart . The play had

64-564: A book compilation with each chapter representing a month of a year (from 1903 to 1904). When the book was published by Random House as Meet Me in St. Louis in 1942, it was titled after the MGM film, then in the very early stages of scripting. At MGM, Benson wrote an early draft of the screenplay, but it was not used. Benson co-wrote the book for the musical Memphis Bound (1945), which was based on Gilbert and Sullivan's H.M.S. Pinafore . She also wrote

96-434: A conservative magazine. William F. Buckley Jr. , whose God and Man at Yale was a best seller, worked for Huie's Mercury , as a young staffer. In 1955, Buckley founded the longer-living conservative National Review . Buckley would succeed at what Huie was unable to realize: a periodical that brought together the nascent but differing strands of this new conservative movement. Huie faced financial difficulties sustaining

128-559: A daughter, Barbara Benson, and later divorced. She began her career writing weekly interview articles and film reviews for the New York Morning Telegraph . Between 1929 and 1941, she published 99 stories in The New Yorker , including nine signed with her pseudonym Esther Evarts . Her stories "The Overcoat" and "Suite 2049" were selected as O. Henry prize stories for 1935 and 1936. Her collection, People are Fascinating (Covici Friede, 1936) includes almost all

160-502: A much-imitated feature. Mencken spiced the package with aphorisms printed in the magazine's margins whenever space allowed. Mencken retired as editor of the magazine at the end of 1933. His chosen successor was economist and literary critic Henry Hazlitt . Differences with the publisher, Alfred A. Knopf Sr. , however, led Hazlitt to resign after four months. The American Mercury was next edited by Mencken's former assistant Charles Angoff . In January 1935, The American Mercury

192-494: A shortened version of the film on CBS's Hollywood Star Time as well as The Lady Esther Screen Guild Theater . Chodorov and Fields’ version of Junior Miss was adapted as a television musical and broadcast on December 20, 1957, as part of CBS Television 's DuPont Show of the Month . Carol Lynley had the lead role of Judy Graves with Don Ameche and Joan Bennett as her parents and Susanne Sidney as Fuffy Adams. Others in

224-470: A successful run of 710 performances on Broadway from November 18, 1941, to July 24, 1943. Patricia Peardon had the title role of Judy Graves, a teenager who meddles in people's love lives. The sets for the production were designed by Frederick Fox . In 1945, 20th Century-Fox released a film adaptation of the play by Jerome Chodorov and Joseph Fields which starred Peggy Ann Garner as Judy Graves. George Seaton directed. Produced by William Perlberg ,

256-413: A young teen named Judy Graves and originally appearing in The New Yorker , was published by Random House in 1941. Benson's collection was adapted by Jerome Chodorov and Joseph Fields into a successful play that same year. Directed by Moss Hart , Junior Miss ran on Broadway from 1941 to 1943. In 1945, the play was adapted as the film Junior Miss with George Seaton directing Peggy Ann Garner in

288-469: The Hearst Corporation . The sale to Maguire spelled the end of The American Mercury as a mainstream magazine. It survived, steadily declining, for nearly 30 more years. Maguire's anti-semitism led to controversy and the resignation of the magazine's top editors after he took control of the editorial process in 1955. In 1956, George Lincoln Rockwell was hired as a writer, and later became

320-777: The Mercury in this new direction. In August 1952, he sold it to an occasional financial contributor, Russell Maguire, owner of the Auto-Ordnance Corporation (original producers of the Thompson submachine gun ). Rather than turn over editorial control to Maguire, Huie stepped down as editor after the January 1953 issue. He was replaced by John A. Clements, a former reporter for the New York Journal and Daily Mirror , then director of public relations for

352-511: The Pioneer Fund . A 1978 article praised Adolf Hitler as the "greatest Spenglerian " and lamented his death. Another new ownership for the troubled magazine was announced in the autumn of 1979, and the spring 1980 issue celebrated Mencken's centennial, and lamented the passage of his era, "before the virus of social, racial, and sexual equality" grew in "fertile soil in the minds of most Americans". A website called The American Mercury

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384-408: The "Editorial Notes" and "The Library", the last being book reviews and social critique, placed at the back of each volume. The magazine published other writers, from newspapermen and academics to convicts and taxi drivers, but its primary emphasis soon became non-fiction and usually satirical essays . Its "Americana" section—containing items clipped from newspapers and other magazines nationwide—became

416-492: The (original) Washington Observer , finally merging with Western Destiny , a Liberty Lobby publication owned by Willis Carto and Roger Pearson , a major recipient of Pioneer Fund grants in history. Pearson was a well-known neo-Nazi and pro-Fascist who headed the World Anti-Communist League during its most blatantly pro-Fascist periods. He was a close associate of Wickliffe Draper , founder of

448-427: The 1945 film as Fuffy Adams. That series ran from April 3, 1948, to December 30, 1950, sponsored by Lever Brothers. The music was composed and conducted by Walter Schumann . The 1948-50 cast returned for another season in various formats and timeslots from October 2, 1952, to July 1, 1954. The film version of Junior Miss was promoted on radio twice in 1946, with Peggy Ann Garner performing her role as Judy Graves in

480-462: The 94-minute feature was released by 20th Century Fox on June 16, 1945. Junior Miss was featured several times in different formats on U.S. radio. Sponsored by Procter & Gamble , the first series was broadcast from March 4 to August 26, 1942, with Shirley Temple playing the lead character Judy Graves. Priscilla Lyon played her friend, Fuffy Adams, "the odd child from the apartment downstairs." Benson and Doris Gilbert collaborated on writing

512-701: The Christian Faith , Inc. (DCF), owned by Reverend Gerald Burton Winrod and located in Wichita, Kansas , in 1961. Reverend Winrod had been charged for violations of the Sedition Act of 1918 ; the charges were later dropped. He had been known as "The Jayhawk Nazi" during World War II. The DCF sold it in 1963 to the "Legion for the Survival of Freedom" of Jason Matthews. The LSF cut a deal in June 1966 with

544-538: The Press . In 1946, the Mercury merged with the democratic-socialist magazine Common Sense . By 1950, the Mercury was owned by Clendenin J. Ryan . He changed the magazine's name to The New American Mercury . Ryan was the financial angel for Ulius Amoss , a former Office of Strategic Services agent who specialized in operating spy networks behind the Iron Curtain to destabilize Communist governments and

576-504: The book for the musical adaptation of Booth Tarkington's Seventeen (1951). Her final theatre writing was for The Young and the Beautiful (1955), a comedy based on stories by F. Scott Fitzgerald. American Mercury The American Mercury was an American magazine published from 1924 to 1981. It was founded as the brainchild of H. L. Mencken and drama critic George Jean Nathan . The magazine featured writing by some of

608-629: The cast were Diana Lynn , Paul Ford , Jill St. John and David Wayne . Sally Benson Benson was born in St. Louis , the youngest of five children of Alonzo Redway and Anna Prophater Smith. She attended the Mary Institute until she moved with her family to New York. She attended the Horace Mann School , studied dance and then started working when she was 17 years old. At age 19, she married Reynolds "Babe" Benson. The couple had

640-741: The end of the first year the circulation was over 42,000. In early 1928, the circulation reached a height of over 84,000, but declined steadily after the stock market crash of 1929 . The magazine published writing by Conrad Aiken , Sherwood Anderson , James Branch Cabell , W. J. Cash , Lincoln Ross Colcord , Thomas Craven , Clarence Darrow , W. E. B. Du Bois , John Fante , William Faulkner , F. Scott Fitzgerald , Albert Halper , Langston Hughes , James Weldon Johnson , Zora Neale Hurston , Sinclair Lewis , Meridel LeSueur , Edgar Lee Masters , Victor Folke Nelson , Albert Jay Nock , Eugene O'Neill , Carl Sandburg , William Saroyan , and George Schuyler . Nathan provided theater criticism, and Mencken wrote

672-533: The founder of the American Nazi Party . Between 1957 and 1958, William LaVarre served as editor. In January 1959, Maguire published an American Mercury editorial supporting a theory that there was a Jewish conspiracy for world domination. Maguire did not remain long as the magazine's owner/publisher, but other owners continued in that direction. Maguire sold the Mercury to the Defenders of

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704-728: The gaudiest and damnedest ever seen in the Republic", as Mencken explained the name (derived from a 19th-century publication) to his old friend and contributor Theodore Dreiser : What we need is something that looks highly respectable outwardly. The American Mercury is almost perfect for that purpose. What will go on inside the tent is another story. You will recall that the late P. T. Barnum got away with burlesque shows by calling them moral lectures. From 1924 through 1933, Mencken provided what he promised: elegantly irreverent observations of America, aimed at what he called "Americans realistically", those of sophisticated skepticism of enough that

736-476: The last 25 years of its existence in decline and controversy. H. L. Mencken and George Jean Nathan had previously edited The Smart Set literary magazine , when not producing their own books and, in Mencken's case, regular journalism for The Baltimore Sun . With their mutual book publisher Alfred A. Knopf Sr. serving as the publisher, Mencken and Nathan created The American Mercury as "a serious review,

768-615: The lead role. The Junior Miss radio series, which originally featured Shirley Temple but later starred Barbara Whiting , was broadcast on CBS in the 1940s and early ‘50s. MGM's Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) was one of the more popular movies made during World War II. The stories in Sally Benson's book Meet Me in St. Louis were first written as short vignettes in a series titled 5135 Kensington , which The New Yorker published from June 14, 1941 to May 23, 1942. Benson took her original eight vignettes and added four more stories for

800-432: The magazine again. Spivak created a company to publish the magazine, Mercury Publications . Soon, the company began publishing other magazines, including Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine (1941) and The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction in 1949. In 1945, as editor, Lawrence Spivak created a radio program called American Mercury Presents "Meet the Press" . It started on television on November 6, 1947, as Meet

832-552: The most important writers in the United States through the 1920s and 1930s. After a change in ownership in the 1940s, the magazine attracted conservative writers, including William F. Buckley . A second change in ownership in the 1950s turned the magazine into a far-right and virulently anti-Semitic publication. It was published monthly in New York City. The magazine went out of business in 1981, having spent

864-859: The publisher of International Services of Information in Baltimore; his son Clendenin Jr. was a sponsor of William F. Buckley Jr. and the Young Americans for Freedom . Ryan transformed The American Mercury in a conservative direction. William Bradford Huie —whose work had appeared in the magazine before—had gleaned the beginning of a new, post- World War II American conservative intellectual movement. He sensed that Ryan had begun to guide The American Mercury toward that direction. He also introduced more mass-appeal writing, by figures such as Reverend Billy Graham and Federal Bureau of Investigation director J. Edgar Hoover . Huie seemed en route to producing

896-673: The show in March, before quitting that April. Broadcast on Wednesday evenings, the program cost $ 12,000 a week to produce. From 1944 to 1946, a Junior Miss segment, based on Benson's short stories, was a regular feature in the Mary Small Show (later changed to the Mary Small-Junior Miss Show ). In the late 1940s and early 1950s, the Junior Miss radio program starred Barbara Whiting , who had appeared in

928-476: The stories Benson had then published in The New Yorker , plus four from American Mercury . She followed with another collection, Emily (Covici Friede, 1938). Stories of the Gods and Heroes (Dial Press, 1940) was juvenile fiction adapted from Thomas Bulfinch 's Age of Fable . Women and Children First was a collection published by Random House in 1943. Junior Miss , a collection of short stories focused on

960-773: Was created in 2010. It was criticized by the Southern Poverty Law Center in the Winter 2013 edition of their magazine Intelligence Report , which called it a " Leo Frank Propaganda Site" and described it as "a resurrected and deeply anti-Semitic online version of H. L. Mencken’s defunct magazine of the same name". The Anti-Defamation League calls it "an extreme right-wing site with anti-Semitic content", while The Forward referred to it as "H.L. Mencken’s historic magazine, resurrected online by neo-Nazis several years ago", which had "published several revisionist articles to coincide with this year’s anniversary" of

992-544: Was popular and much that threatened to be. (Nathan was forced to resign as his co-editor a year after the magazine started.) Simeon Strunsky in The New York Times observed that, "The dead hand of the yokelry on the instinct for beauty cannot be so heavy if the handsome green and black cover of The American Mercury exists." The quote was used on the subscription form for the magazine during its heyday. The January 1924 issue sold more than 15,000 copies, and by

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1024-504: Was purchased from Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., by Lawrence E. Spivak . The magazine's longtime business manager, Spivak announced that he would take an active role as publisher. Paul Palmer, former Sunday editor of the New York World , replaced Angoff as editor, and playwright Laurence Stallings was named literary editor . Spivak revived the Mercury for a brief but vigorous period — Mencken, Nathan, and Angoff contributed essays to

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