October 1957
In This Issue
Explore the October 1957 print edition below. Or to discover more writing from the pages of The Atlantic, browse the full archive.
Articles
Science: Careers for Women
The growing need for research workers and scientists has opened new doors for women. Helen Hill Miller, who for many years was Washington correspondent for the London Economist, describes some of the work being done in science both by single women and by those who successfully combine marriage and a career.
Mutations and Evolution
Darwin's theory of natural selection, which was published practically simultaneously with the establisment of the ATLANTIC, opened new worlds to science. Dr. Evelyn Witkin, a brilliant young biologist at State University of New York College of Medicine in New York City, tells how genetics, a branch of science not yet born in Darwin's day, has carried forward our understanding of evolution.
Ladder to Nirvana
A review of Jack Kerouac's On the Road
The Drive to Create
What Is Race?
CARLETON S. COON,distinguished physical anthropologisl and author of the highly successful STORY OF MAN, gives a fresh and penetrating analysis of what we know about the origins and significance of race and the human species. Dr. Coon, curator of ethnology at the Museum of the University of Pennsylvania since 1948, has written a new book, THE SEVEN CAVES, published early this year by Knopf.
The Clocks of Life
How do geese know when to go South in the fall? What signals a seed to sprout when it is brought to the surface after lying for centuries underground? DR. STERLING B. HENDRICKSof the U.S. Department of Agriculture describes his research into the timing mechanism of plants and animals.
Traffic Control in Crowded Skies
In February of this year President Eisenhower called EDWARD P. CURTIS,vice president of Eastman Kodak Company, to be his special assistant for aviation facilities planning. “Modern aircraft,” wrote the President to Mr. Curtis, “can be operated in the numbers required by the national defense and the civilian economy only if airports, navigation aids, air traffic control devices and communications systems are suitable for their needs. . . . To delay the formulation of a comprehensive plan is to invite further congestion of the airspace, needless hazard, economic loss, inconvenience to users, and possible impairment of the national security.”
Malaya
As the Nation Grows Younger
The acceleration of our birth rate has had the experts guessing since the end of the Second World War. FRANK NOTESTEIN, director of the Office of Population Research at Princeton University, reports on this phenomenon and discusses what it will mean to oar country in terms of jobs, opportunities, and standards of living.
Man-Made Satellites
Research Builds America's Future
Arthur D. Little is one of the oldest and most distinguished industrial consultant firms in the country. Its president, RAYMOND STEVENS, who has been studying research problems of American industry since 1920, points to the new directions in which industry will develop in the decades ahead.
Time and the Space Traveler
Keeping House in Outer Space
The Posthumous Life of Dylan Thomas
Author, critic, and currently Berg Professor of Literature at New York University, ALFRED KAZIN here writes with telling insight about Dylan Thomas, the Welsh poet, and his wife Caitlin, as reflected in the opinions of those who surrounded them and in those two revealing books, DYLAN THOMAS IN AMERICA by John Malcolm Brinnin and the forthcoming LEFTOVER LIFE TO KILL by Caitlin Thomas.
The Glory That Was Grote
BENTZ PLAGEMANN worked as a book clerk in various bookstores around the country for eight years before volunteering for the Navy hospital corps in World War II. He was stricken with polio in Norlh Africa, and from his experience came his book, MY PLACE TO STAND. He is also the author of three novels, and one of his stories, “The Best Bread,” was included in the O. Henry PRIZE STORIES OF 1949.
Brown Study
The Peripatetic Reviewer
Books: The Editors Like
Reader's Choice
Accent on Living
Table Talk
R. G. G. PRICElives in Sussex and has contributed much light writing and literary criticism to PUNCH.He writes for the ATLANTIC on a variety of subjects.
Committees
The Cougair X3
A Southerner who was educated at Clemson College to be an engineer, LESLIE MELLICHAMP now teaches English at Virginia Polytechnic Institute.
Japan
Rough Deal
A writer and former teacher of English, WILLIAM L. COPITHORNE is now a businessman in New York.
Notation in Haste
Mal De Vers
FREDERICK PACKARD has traveled widely and written several articles on the peculiarities of various languages. He is a member of the NEW YORKER’S staff.
Who?
How to Read
H. F. ELLISis a Londoner whose light prose has frequently appeared in the ATLANTIC. He is the author, also, of an extraordinarily funny book, THE VEXATIONS OF A. J. WENTWORTH.
Progress in Hi-Fi
London
Each One Teach One
Though he would never admit it, DR. FRNK LAUBACH is today the most efficacious American missionary on foreign soil. A graduate of Princeton, class of 1909, who took his doctorate at Columbia, he made his first visit to the East in 1949. Since then he has perfected a swift method of teaching illiterates how to read, a method which he has adapted to more than two hundred languages in ninety-one countries.At a conference at Washington University, St. Louis, he gave this graphic account of his mission and his method to Professor Houston Smith over Station KETC.
Refugee Train
The Atlantic Report on the World Today: Washington
An Open Letter to Dr. Clarence Cook Little
Is there tangible evidence, of a relationship between cigarette smoking and lung cancer? Eighteen studies conducted in five countries have shown that there is, but Dr. Clarence Cook Little, chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board to the Tobacco Industry Research Committee, asserts that three years of research by his group have “produced no evidence that cigarette smoking or other tobacco use contributes to the origin of lung cancer.” DR. DAVID D. RUTSTEIN is head of the Preventive Medicine Department at the Harvard Medical School.
The Hellenic World
A Grand Day for Mr. Garvey
A New Englander who was educated at the University of Notre Dame, EDWIN O’CONNOR does his writing in the winter on Beacon Hill and in the summer at Wellfleet. His novel, THE LAST HURRAH, one of the most widely read books of 1956, is now being filmed, and his new book, BENJY, a Ferocious Fairy Tale, will be off press this month.
Song for a Vigil
The Biggest Liars of All
A New Hampshire resident, NEWTON F. TOLM w is a tree farmer and licensed guide who spends most of his time training grouse dogs while waiting for trees to grow.
The Enchantment of Risk
“Because it is the most demanding of all games, motor racing is spiritually the most rewarding, too.” That is the point of view which keeps the great drivers on the Grand Prix circuits despite lethal accidents, on occasion, to the spectators arid the drivers alike. KEN W. PURDYis among the foremost commentators on sports and racing cars, and his book, KINGS OF THE ROAD, has become a standard work in its field.
