Cover Collection: March Winds

Whether it’s warm and balmy or frigid and sleeting, the March winds do blow! Here are a few covers showing that this month definitely comes in like a lion.

Post cover artists loved initiative, and who shows that better than the youngster in this 1958 cover? Lacking a green field to run in, the boy flies a kite from his hi-rise balcony. He might envy the kids with room to run, but those kids could envy a heck of a launching pad.

Having less luck kiting are the boys from this March 1956 cover. Now this is a pickle. How are those boys going to get the kite out of the tree? Does this remind anyone of Charlie Brown and his “kite-eating tree”?

This pretty lass may be having a bad hair day but a great Kite Day! This is one of the many beautiful Post covers by Sarah Stilwell-Weber that depicted charming children doing everyday things.

Holding on to your hat and umbrella at the same time is tricky in high winds. Everyone has had the “inside-out” umbrella experience at one time or another, and this gent from a 1911 cover shows us how frustrating it can be. Do you know what’s really frustrating? That the danged umbrellas still do this!

They don’t call it the “Windy City” for nothing. In this March 1946 cover, the wind is howling down the Chicago River and creating a wind tunnel in front of the Civic Opera House. Hats and skirts are in serious danger, not to mention the poor lady trying to hold on to a bag of groceries. Talk about a bad hair day.

The March winds blow! Artist John Falter went to a small town in the Midwest for this 1952 cover of big storm brewing. The trees are practically bending over, a woman and child are rushing to get the laundry off the line, and a man is putting up the top on his car (quickly!). The panic even seized the white dog in the foreground, who just rears his head back and howls.

Cover Collection: Tremendous Trains

Whether you’re a die-hard train buff, a transportation geek, or merely a weary commuter, trains have long played a major role in American life. These covers — from as early as 1901 — reflect our love affair with locomotives.

The top panel of this painting by Thornton Utz shows a well-dressed group of commuters waiting for the Empire Express. Notice the lady in red on the near left with her caged canary. Scene Two: Skirts and hats are flying as the Express roars by. The poor kid on in the letter sweater crashes into the birdcage. The third panel shows a disheveled lot, to say the least. Do you see what happened to the befuddled canary?

Train buffs love this turn-of-the-century railroad engineer. Standing by the mighty mechanical monster he conducts, he poses for artist J.J. Gould.

As far back as 1901, trains have graced our covers. Horseless carriages, ships and trains – what will they think of next? A cityscape in the background completes this bow to modernity. The quote below the cover art says: “Bowing respectfully to the past, and rendering justice to the present, we salute the future and true progress. – Montalembert”.

We love this cover by artist Stevan Dohanos from 1947. The editors noted that the artist had actually worked on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad for a few years. “He checked loads and tracks, beginning a ten-mile hike at 6:30 every morning. He came to think highly of the switchyard men, because in their shacks he could get warm.” Dohanos painted this in his hometown of Lorain, Ohio.

John Falter, when a child, used to listen to freight trains chugging up a nearby hill and worry about whether they’d make it. Our scene is Missouri, the Missouri River and Kansas beyond. This time we are in Missouri, looking at Kansas in the distance. This time the kids are waving clear across the river to the train. Or maybe they just know somebody in Kansas to wave to.

Artist John Falter did 129 Post covers, and this is a good example of why. Belching smoke along the mighty Missouri River, this steam engine doesn’t warrant a glance from the boys walking by. They also are probably unaware they are using a route once used by Lewis and Clark. You are in Kansas, looking over into Missouri in this one.

Descriptions by Diana Denny.

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See more videos from The Saturday Evening Post at www.saturdayeveningpost.com/video.