Sports columnist Arthur Daley, who later would become the first sportswriter to win a Pulitzer, celebrated the start that week of the much anticipated first postwar baseball season, when the players and most fans were home from war. He excitedly looked forward to seeing the greats of his day like Hank Greenberg of the Detroit Tigers, Johnny Mize of the New York Giants, Pete Reiser of the Brooklyn Dodgers, Stan Musial of the St. Louis Cardinals, Bobby Feller of the Cleveland Indians, Dick Wakefield of the Detroit Tigers, Joe DiMaggio of the New York Yankees, Pee Wee Reese of the Brooklyn Dodgers and Ted Williams of the Boston Red Sox take to the field again.
Fashion editor Virginia Pope advised that hats “are bedecked with fruits, butterflies and ribbons this year. Elegance is their message.” The illustrated spread included pricey ($25-$65) for the time, broad-brimmed extravaganzas from Bergdorf Goodman’s, Franklin Simon’s, Best’s, Lord & Taylor’s, Milgrim’s, Stern’s, Bonwit Teller, Florence Reichman, Laddie Northridge, Hattie Carnegie and Sally Victor.
The pending arrival of London’s Old Vic in New York for a six week stint was the subject of a photo spread. The accompanying text noted that the productions would include Shakespeare’s “Henry IV,” Chekhov’s “Uncle Vanya,” “Sophocles’ “Oedipus” and Sheridan’s “The Critic.”
Murray Schumach reported that the juke box industry was back in full swing after a wartime manufacturing moratorium, noting that Bing Crosby outsold Frank Sinatra in upscale establishments and that there were even more juke boxes per capita outside of the city, about one per 500, than inside its boundaries.
Kathleen F. McDowell contributed a short, charming piece on jump-rope rhymes heard on New York playgrounds of the day.
A two-page illustrated spread marked the opening to the public of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s former home at Hyde Park as a shrine on the first anniversary of his death.
Eva Beard wrote on the architectural legacy of Thomas Jefferson.
Catherine Mackenzie reported on a growing trend in the US of sentencing the parents of juvenile delinquents to “Parental Schools” where they are lectured on proper parenting.
Edward Castens wrote about the plethora of surplus wartime planes gathering rust in scrap yards.
Food editor Jane Nickerson diligently did her part to help ease the worldwide famine by advocating the substitution of nutritious potatoes for grains where possible. To help the cause she provided recipes for “emergency” mashed potatoes that cut back on the amount of butter and fats, which were also on the conservation list; a stuffing that replaced some of the traditional bread crumbs with mashed potatoes; a meat pie with mashed potato topping; eggs baked in potato cups; potato griddle cakes (latkes anyone?) and a potato salad with French dressing and mayonnaise.
A recent study by the College of Home Economics of Cornell University was the basis of a home section article on updating rural homes
Clifton Daniel, who later married Truman’s daughter and became managing editor of The New York Times, lauded the achievements of the Zionist settlers in what was still Palestine.
“Letters from an Army Nurse in Japan” presented vignettes of postwar Japan from Lieutenant Doris Schwartz.
Warner Ogden of the Knoxville News-Sentinel reported on civic life in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, a town created by the atom bomb and kept secret from the public until 1945, eight months after Hiroshima.
A front- of-the- book feature of the Times Sunday Magazine called "About—" was a miscellany of short items, anecdotes and observations about various topics. Among the interesting items on April 14:
Daylight savings time had fallen in disfavor among state and municipal legislators across the country now that the war was over. Farmers never liked the idea and now early shift factory workers complained that it was hard to get to sleep when the sun was still shining.
The optimistic writer disagreed with observers who felt that America was slipping so fast out of its altruistic mood “that a person could be denounced as un-American if he so much as stood up in public and recited the Beatitudes.” He said things still could be vigorously debated even if the arguments grew bitter.
Forsythias, a native of China, were bringing an early touch of spring to the still chilly Northeast that week.
At the urging of Harold Stassen, former governor of Minnesota, now back from a wartime stint in the Navy, the Young Republicans were conducting open forums across the country to debate issues of concern. The goal was to form a strong, united liberal wing within the Republican Party. Hard to imagine turning to the Young Republicans to fortify the liberal wing of the GOP. In fact it is hard to remember that there ever was a liberal wing to the Republican Party. And it is hard to remember that in 1946 Stassen, who lived into the 21st century, was at one time considered a serious presidential contender and not the joke that he became after his too frequent attempts to win the nomination decades past his political viability. Stassen had been the governor of Minnesota before going off to war. In 1948 he had strong showings in the early primaries before eventually losing to Thomas Dewey, the governor of New York.
The war might be over but its cost was visible in the sad faces peering from the hospital trains still running eight months after VJ day.
The back of the book included a crossword puzzle from Charles Cross, a weekly magazine feature since 1942. There was also a double-crostic.