No need to draw the line between a career or marriage.

Contrary to yesterday’s post with its kooky quiz asking girls to choose  “What Are You Best Fitted For Love or a Career?” one mid-century miss proved the test wrong. Yes indeedy, you could have both.

“Why not,” she asked, “have it all?”

So taken with her tale, Crosley Refrigerator shared the successful career girl’s story with its readers in a full-page ad.

Patsy De Angelo, a talented illustrator didn’t draw the line when it came to love…she was engaged to be married in June and couldn’t be happier.

Many dreamed of being an artist but for Patsy it was no dream; the perky 23-year-old was now sharing in the glamorous world of commercial art.

Vintage advertisement Crosley Refrigerator

Confident in her career, she enjoyed the admiration of her friends. But she had a real case of the jitters when it came to meeting her fiance Fred’s mother. Her soon to be mother in law Sheila Shaw was suspicious of a working girls and didn’t believe that a career girl could also be a good housewife.

Moping at her drawing table littered with T squares, triangles and paint brushes, Patsy chewed her pencil nervously unable to concentrate on the drawing of the frolicking Christmas kittens that lay in front of her.

Vintage ad for Art Instruction Inc. “If you like to draw or sketch you may have talent worth training. Enter this contest and win 2 years of free training for a fascinating career in art. Best part is, youngster or oldster, men or women all have equal opportunity to make it.”

Lighting a cigarette, she smiled gently glancing at the matches that lay in front of her. Thanks to an earlier matchbook cover’s challenge to draw a pretty girl, and the Art Instruction Home Study Course, she now had a fascinating and profitable art career as an illustrator.

Drawing on considerable talents, she knew she could create a lovely home for Fred and she, and she vowed to prove her future mother in law wrong.

In the end it was her kitchen that won over Sheila Shaw.

Vintage advertisement Crosley Refrigerator

With her trained artists eye Patsy had designed the modern kitchen herself, choosing just the right wallpaper and smart linoleum. She knew how to make her kitchen say quality… start with a beautiful ultra modern Nairn inlaid linoleum floor… it’s the first step towards out of the ordinary smartness in any kitchen!

But it was the smart choice of appliances that bowled her mother in law over. Her wonderful Westinghouse electric range that let your meal planning dreams run riot that produced feather light cakes, superb roasts and foods broiled to a turn, certainly impressed Mrs. Shaw.

Vintage advertisement Crosley Refrigerator

But she really lit up with envy when she saw the smart beauty of the  Crosley Shelvadore refrigerator. Designed to give you everything you could want in a modern refrigerator, the designing woman won over her mother in law. , Whether career gals or happy homemakers, everyone knew that housewives in every home everywhere unanimously agreed “such conveniences cannot be imagined – you must try it to believe it!”

Sort of like having marriage and a career.

note: decades later this married illustrator proved Patsy was right.

(©) 20015 Sally Edelstein All Rights Reserved

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Bacon lovers are bemoaning the horrifying news that their favorite breakfast food has now been added to the ever-growing list of things that cause cancer. Vintage ad Swifts bacon 1961

Who says “you’re right in liking meat?”

Certainly not the World Health Organization who caused mass hysteria recently by adding much beloved processed foods like bacon, sausage, cold cuts and hot dogs to the list of cancer causing items.

Mighty red meat was not far behind, joining that ever-expanding carcinogenic list of other once prized mid century classics like tobacco, asbestos and DDT.

Now demonized, these same food items were once the darlings of nutritionists.

Processed meat was not only cherished, it was revered, prized for its high nutritional value.

Once upon a time folks  were not concerned if their consumption of red meat was too high, but worried that they were not consuming enough of the healthy stuff!

Who Put the Meat in America

Vintage ad American Meat Institute 1947

To make certain mid-century Americans included plenty of essential red meat in their diet, The American Meat Institute created a long running ad campaign touting the benefits and magic of meat, assuring the public that yes, you’re right in liking meat!

The ads that ran from WWII through the 1950’s drew no distinction in food value or health benefits whether from  the lowly hot dog or  the king of meat, the sirloin steak.

Meat was the yard stick of protein, the gold standard of nutrition or as the American Meat Institute called it “the nutritional cornerstone of life.”

Some bacon lovers today would firmly agree.

You Know It Was Good

All their ads came with the certification of the American Medical Association,confirming meats nutritional value. Vintage Ad American Meat Institute.

Bacon aficionados, a group hit hard by this recent cancer confirmation, can now take heart in this vintage ad that asks the reader: “You Know it was good- but did you know it was this good?”

“Those  ribbons of rosy lean and crispy fat are more than food- with flavor,” the copy explain about nutritious bacon.  “Each streak of fat is energy food. Each streak of lean has complete protein – with all ten of the body building amino acids that must be provided at the same time to do their work right!”

Nourishing Bacon – Fill er up!

Vintage ad American Meat Institute

Here’s the break at breakfast the snap in sandwiches a flavor lift for all other foods a mighty good main dish too! And look what bacon brings to the meal. Protein the kind supplied by all meat- is the greatest builder of muscles and bodies – essential for maintaining healthy tissues and nerves.

So bring home the bacon. You’re Right in liking meat!

A Sizzling Sausage Says All’s Right With The World

Vintage ad American Meat Institute 1947

Behind Good eating sure…but behind that flavor and sausage sizzle are high digestibility and good sound nourishment the kind of nourishment that contributes to that feeling that “all’s right with the world.”

Cold Cuts -Yardstick of Protein Foods

Vintage ad American meat Institute 1948

Cold Cuts as a nourishing meal…. that’s no baloney

Something nice to come home to the cold cut dinner- Ingenious wives are finding ways to build glamorous and well-balanced meals around the all meat economy of cold cuts. And appreciative husbands are giving them a hand.

A Square Meal Feeling

Vintage ad American Meat Institute 1946

Cooked to a carcinogenic turn, burgers and hot dogs grilled over the coals is quintessentially American.

Sure, high temperatures cooking such as cooking meat in direct contact with flames produce more carcinogenic compounds but  as this ad says: “meat from the outdoor grill is more than just eating fun. Meat has the right kind of protein containing all of the amino acids essential to life and health. Meat provides satisfaction in the eating that good “square meal feeling.”

“Yes, outdoors or indoors you’re right in liking meat.”

Vintage ad American Meat Institute 1948

Hot diggety dog, those red hots are a complete nourishing protein meal!

As American as the Lincoln Highway  friendly franks these tender juicy ruddy packages of fine meat food- handy and nutritious. Americans like ’em for their convenience. Our choice has been a wise one. The fine chopped, tender meats of this popular food contain high quality proteins and balanced nutrition

Meat…You’re right in liking it because it contains so many things that are good for you…and maybe some things that aren’t.

Continuing this week … an homage to meat and a time when Americans were encouraged to not only bring home the bacon, but the rump roast, pork chop and swiss steak too!

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© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2015. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Holiday themed advertising has long been popular, and mid-century advertising served up a heap big helping of ads that today we would consider questionable. No Puritans these Pilgrims, they are bravely under-dressed for their first Thanksgiving. Vintage ad Carters Trigs’s for Men

In mid-century America when it seemed the only risk of offending others was to suffer the unforgivable shame of halitosis, Madison Avenue gleefully ran ads that would not only raise a politically correct eyebrow today, but by their offensive nature could very well spark angry protestations.

Today I add some Thanksgiving additions to the collection.

Thankfully, there has been some Pilgrims Progress when it comes to the accurate portrayal of the Thanksgiving story and sensitivity towards Native Americans. We no longer are blase about depictions of racial stereotypes, historical inaccuracies, and insensitivities towards gender and that’s something to be thankful for.

Sugar Coated History

Racial stereotypes and historical inaccuracies have long been as traditional a Thanksgiving fixture as cranberries and stuffing, though nowadays not quite as easy to swallow. Vintage ad Dextrose Sugar

Guess there’s good reason for bingeing on all those festive pies and candied yams festooned with marshmallows. The poor Pilgrims needed that extra pep fueled by sugar to outrun the angry Injuns on the warpath.

In the 1940’s a great deal of money in advertising was spent by the Corn Products Refining Company promoting the virtues of corn syrup, an inexpensive form of dextrose much favored by manufacturers.

“When you think of Mayflower you think of Pilgrims,” the ad explains and “when you think of energy you think of Dextrose Sugar.”

Just as today the Corn Refiners are trying to re-brand High Fructose Corn Syrup as “corn sugar,” so decades ago the Corn Products Refining Company was fighting a similar battle to have sugar derived from corn accepted as a wholesome, nutritious ingredient, superior to old-fashioned cane or beet sugar.

Through their successful ad campaigns Dextrose became the new wonder nutrient touted for its energy giving properties. It was not just an ingredient or sweetener, it enriched food with the energy of the sun.

Vintage illustration ad for Dextrose Sugar

Without a hint o’ shame, the ad proudly explains the Pilgrims progress thanks to sugar.

“Through the centuries human energy has conquered continents, harnessed the elements, built empires.” A sugar-coated way of saying – taken land away from its indigenous people, destroyed ecology and killed off the natives.

Although the Wampanoag Indians joined for a meal of Thanksgiving in 1621 the Indians didn’t fare so well at other Thanksgiving observances.

The image of the running Pilgrim trying to outrun the darting arrows implies all was not quiet after the first thanksgiving and the poor Pilgrim has been running from the savages who had been on the warpath since 1624.

The fact is, the second generation of Pilgrims got greedy for land and Indians had to fight for survival.

Without any sugar-coating the truth is  within 50 years the Wampanoag would no longer be a tribe. Indians living near settlers would be killed or die of disease.

 Pale Face Feet

Esquire socks referred to their new line of socks as being in 17 full-blooded Indian Warrior colors that could be purchases at your local mens wear tepee.

The blood-thirsty Indian always on the warpath was a long time favorites trope for selling products. What better way for paleface feet to outrun the savages than with full-blooded Indian  Warrior colored socks from Esquire’s  line of socks that could be conveniently purchased at your local mens wear tepee.

“Beware of coward colors that run!

Esquires “brave” shades won’t run, heap big Indian color for paleface feet! Socks make big fashion pow-wow bring back 17 Indian warrior colors for all members of tribe. Only pee wee wampum needed.

I Dreamed I Was a Pilgim in My Carter Briefs

Braving the cold of Massachusetts,  the Pilgrim and young brave prepare for their first Thanksgiving. Vintage ad Carter’s Trigs for Men

With equal portions of sheer silliness and questionable taste this ad serves up a heaping helping of Thanksgiving cheer. Nothing comes between them and their turkey but a pair of Carters.

In a nod to Maidenform’s famous “I Dreamed I Was A ..” campaign depicting a woman in an improbable situation wearing only a bra, Carter’s Trig’s underwear  for men put the men folk in their skivvies off to their first Thanksgiving.

No Puritans these Pilgrims,  this gun totin’ paleface hunter and his young Indian sidekick, wear only Carters Trigs as they hunt together for their day of thanksgiving.  Despite the obvious camaraderie shared by the Pilgrim and the young brave  on their hunt, we are reminded of the constant danger and savagery of the Redman, by the ever present  arrows in the Pilgrims hat.

Joining them in their hunt is a  turkey too.

Note to the Pilgrim housewife- careful to remove the long johns on the Turkey before you cook it.

On the Warpath

In a less enlightened time, ads featuring racial and ethnic portrayals in questionable taste raised nary an eyebrow. Vintage ad Rand McNally Road Atlas

“To the early America who read directions in trees and stars a road atlas was perhaps unnecessary,” explains this ad from Rand McNally Road Atlas. “But today’s travelers rely in accurate legible road maps.”

Once the Europeans stole all their land, the poor Indian found himself thrown off land that his ancestors had been living on for centuries. Maybe a road map would be helpful.

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2015. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

 It’s the height of cold and flu season again which means it’s all out war on sniffles and red running noses.

For those battle fatigued sufferers, endless reinforcements of Kleenex are constantly being supplied to the front lines.

Today we take for granted those ubiquitous boxes of soothing tissues, but for an earlier generation who battled the 1918 flu epidemic, the existence of Kleenex would have been nothing short of a miracle.

Kleenex Cleans Up

Kleenex wouldn’t make its debut until the mid 1920’s and a grateful nation suffering from hay fever and winter colds sat up and took note.

Kleenex Guards Against Germs

No one was more grateful than my grandmother Sadie.

Tucked into her sleeve, or balled up in her pocket, Nana Sadie never went anywhere without a tissue at the ready, her first line of defense against deadly germs. Nana was certain the air was filled with dust and germs which could then be inhaled resulting in a nasty cold…or worse.

To her, the invention of Kleenex was a modern marvel of science, rivaling sulpha drugs and penicillin in saving mankind. With the simple toss of a disposable Kleenex into a waste basket, you were wiping out thousands of dangerous germs, and saving countless lives.

 1918 Flu Epidemic

As a veteran of the first and worst flu epidemic every, old fears and suspicion borne of that war, had scarred Nana Sadie for life.

In 1918 America was at war, not only over there but here at home  as  well. The Influenza epidemic of 1918 meant it was all out war on the home front too.

The public in 1918 and 1919 was petrified of the Flu.

It was a panicky time, when everyone and everything became suspect as the cause of contamination mirroring the Red Scare which reached near hysteria that year.

Provoked by a fear that a Bolshevik revolution in America was imminent – a revolution that would destroy the American Way of Life, ordinary people became suspect of being Anarchists and Communists.

So it was with the Influenza, when even everyday items such as books, candy wrappers came under scrutiny and attack as transmitters of the dreaded disease.

Vintage posters Warning of the 1918 Flu Epidemic

Everything came under suspicion – paper money, ice cream, even wet laundry. No one was safe from that villainous brute Influenza.

 “Everyday someone else you knew got sick,” my grandmother would explain sadly.

“It killed the young, the strong, the healthy, the rich, the poor, people who had so much to live for…my own brother and sister, so young, God- rest -their -souls. People avoided one another, they didn’t speak, if they did they turned their faces away to avoid the other persons breathing…”

Dangerous germs, scowling and sneering could be lurking right around the corner- yesterday a suspiciously shared sarsaparilla in a soda fountain, today, a sneeze on a shared seat in a sullied streetcar, tomorrow-who knows- the blunder of a borrowed book from the public library.

But the favorite source of blame continued to be handkerchiefs.

Vintage illustrations from children’s book on the proper use and care of handkerchiefs

Those lovely embroidered, heirloom hankies that every proper lady, gentleman and well brought up child always carried- might well be aiding and abetting unseen armies of influenza germs, rendering your dainty, lace trimmed hanky as dangerous as any incendiary device.

Carelessness on your part, and suddenly your monogrammed handkerchief, harboring germs, could be turned into a weapon of bio-terrorism, threatening you and your terror-stricken neighbors with the dread menace of infection.

The conventional wisdom at the time was that the menacing influenza virus when scattered by an infected sneeze, or a soiled hanky, could continue to live in household dust and infect the whole family with the flu even six weeks later.

(L) Vintage Poster 1918 Flu Epidemic- Warning to make sure to use a Handkerchief

As Nana explained it, “spittle contains many little disease germs and when the spittle dries these little germs are set free, caught by the wind and begin to fly about.”

Fear ran so deep that soiled handkerchiefs were stigmatized as dangerous transmitters of the flu, and people frantically resorted to using pieces of linen in their stead, which were then subsequently burned.

So when the miracle that was Kleenex appeared as an alternative to messy unsanitary hankies it was truly considered life saving.

Germs Can’t Escape

Vintage Kleenex Ad 1933
“As long as that cold hangs on use sanitary disposable Kleenex only! Kleenex, far closer in texture than any handkerchief stops germs holds them fast; keeps fingers dry clean and non infectious.”

“Keep that cold to yourself,” Kleenex pronounced in this 1933 ad.

Because hands catch germs as they seep through handkerchiefs, they could be considered weapons of mass destruction in re-infection

“Germs slip through the tightest weave of linen or cotton handkerchief as though through a sieve, contaminating everything you touch,” warned Kleenex ominously. “And its damp rough handkerchiefs that add so much to the misery of a cold by constant irritation.”

“Kleenex is so much more sanitary,” the ad emphasized. “You use it just once then discard it. Cold germs are discarded too instead of being carried about in an unsanitary handkerchief to reinfect the user and infect others.”

A Beauty Discovery

Vintage Kleenex Ad 1930
This modern discovery offered a new way to remove cold cream that was cheaper than spoiling and laundering towels.

But Kleenex’s great contribution to health, my grandmother recalled,  was nearly missed.

When Kleenex was first created in 1924 by The Kimberly Clark Corp. it was originally marketed as a way for m’ lady to remove cold cream.

In 1925 the first Kleenex tissue ad appeared in a magazine showing “the new secret of a pretty skin as used by famous movie stars.”

Young women like my grandmother wanted to emulate beautiful actresses like Helen Hayes who was featured in ads removing make up “the scientific way” using this “modern disposable substitute for a face towel” called Kleenex Kerchiefs.

Vintage Kleenex Ad 1930
“The Kleenex patented pull out carton assures economy. Hands cannot mess up other sheets in the package or take out more than required from the patented serv-a- tissue box.

It was so new a product they needed to explain and instruct  a curious public just what it was.

“Here’s what a Kleenex tissue is like: it’s the size of a handkerchief.  It’s very soft. Every tissue comes from the box immaculately clean and fresh,” they explained.

Even the box itself was proclaimed a marvel of ingenuity and modern design.

“One of the things you will like about Kleenex tissues is the unique patented box they come in. Kleenex tissues are fed out one double sheet at a time! You do not have to hold the box  with one hand while taking tissues with the other.”

The patented  serv-a-tissue pop up box invented by Andrew Olsen was “… cleverly made to hand out automatically through a narrow slit, two tissues at a time ( the correct number for a treatment).”

It was a hit with the public!

Don’t Carry A Cold in Your Pocket

A few years later, the company’s head researcher persuaded the head of advertising to market tissues for colds and hay fever

In 1930 Kleenex re-positioned themselves as the handkerchief you can throw away. “You know what Kleenex tissues are – those dainty tissues that smart and beautiful women are using to remove cold cream.could also be used for hay fever and colds ?”

“Did you know that Kleenex is rapidly replacing handkerchiefs among progressive people? Doctors are recommending it. Nose and throat specialists are using Kleenex in their office.”

Now Kleenex was marketed with the slogan “Don’t Put a Cold in Your Pocket” and its use as a disposable handkerchief replacement was solidified.

The Cold Rush is On

Vintage Kleenex Ad 1941

Vintage Kleenex ad 1940

Vintage Kleenex ad 1940

Soon the company was swamped by letters from consumers offering  ideas for all sorts of uses for Kleenex.

Kleenex began running  the suggestions in their ads under the title “Kleenex True Confessions” offering $5 for every story of how they used Kleenex.

Vintage Kleenex ad 1940

Kleenex was handy ammunition wherever germs lurked

When Kleenex was first introduced they pointed out that they were economical too. Not only it was more hygienic they costs less than laundering handkerchiefs! “Kleenex is a great saving if you have your wash done

Vintage Kleenex Ad 1940

Encouraged to adopt the Kleenex Habit we were encouraged to keep a box of tissues in every room in the house as well as in the car where you could install a special chromium holder to fit under the  glove compartment.

Vintage Kleenex Ad 1940

And if health wasn’t an incentive, vanity was. Kleenex promised m’ lady it would  keep her girlish figure.

“Now I’m streamlined,” boasted one young modern. “Carrying four or five hankies in my pocket during colds made my figure bumpy in the wrong places! Now I carry Kleenex and I’m in good shape again!”

Three Hanky Movie

Vintage Kleenex Ad 1940

Although hankies eventually came back into favor (and Nana, like my mother always carried an ironed and neatly folded hanky in her pocketbook) she would never dream of actually blowing her nose in one.

Dabbing an eye at a three hanky movie maybe, but generally handkerchiefs were rendered inoperable by that king of tissues Kleenex.

Copyright (©) 2016 Sally Edelstein All Rights Reserved

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Decked out in their luxurious Russian Lynx or Persian lamb fur coats, harsh winter was no problem at all for Depression era well-to-do; figuring out how to pay for the winter fuel was a problem for many.

Depressing news- income inequality in America isn’t new.

Frigid winters during the Great Depression could be particularly cruel as the chasm between the toasty haves and the chilly have not’s grew wider.

Decked out in their luxurious Russian Lynx or Persian lamb fur coats, harsh winter was no problem at all for the well-to-do; struggling to pay for the winter coal delivery was a problem for many.

The 99% try to dig out from under

As income inequality becomes the defining issue in this country today, the stark division seen in Depression era advertising seems oddly familiar.

While hardship, hunger and human despair was haunting much of the country in 1930,  the fortunate  1% were apparently  living life large.

As banks were failing, home evictions rising, and breadlines at soup kitchens lengthening, winter meant only one thing to those with deep pockets- a winter vacation.

How the Wealthy Weathered Winter

Vintage advertisement Studebaker Cars 1930 Lake Placid
“How significant, then, that so many of these play-bound motor cars should be Studebaker’s smart straight Eights.

Although it was the height of the Depression it was also, we learn in a December 1930 ad,  “the height of the winter sports season” where  Lake Placid attracted an elite selection of ski bunny swells.

Arriving at the plush resort in the Adirondack Mountains of NY in their snazzy Studebaker Eights announced to the world they had arrived.

Clearly these play-bound fat cats schussing down the slopes as the economy spiraled downward, were part of the elite. That this ad ran in Good Housekeeping Magazine along side articles suggesting “budget saving meal tips” seems mind-boggling.

The Height of Winter Season at Lake Placid, NY 1930

While everything was falling- industrial output, unemployment, wages, prices and human spirits, the rich need only worry about accidentally falling during a ski run.

“Flashing down the snow buttressed highways from Au Sable Forks toward Lake Placid, ride mainly those of means and discernment,” the ad explains as if it needed explaining, to those counting their every penny.

At a time when men re-sharpened and reused old razor blades and used 25 watt lite bulbs to save electricity, few but those of means could afford a new car. When a Ford costing  $495 was a pipe dream,  a basic Studebaker starting at $1,395 was unthinkable.

Vintage Chrysler Imperial advertisement 1930
For sheer luxury, the Chrysler Imperial Eights costing $ 3595 were ” everything the word “‘Imperial’ signifies…as the dictionary says ‘fit for an emperor; magnificent; imposing; superior in size or quality.'”

“Even if you have your own chauffeur, this ad for Chrysler Imperial informs us “you will want to do the driving>”

As rampant unemployment and poverty became more and more common, the wealthy lived in a world that remained insular, arrogant and out of touch. Sound familiar?

Perfect for the country club set was their own personal Pitcairn Autogiro, a precursor to the helicopter. This 1930 ad entices the reader : “Open areas surrounding almost any country club offer room for the owner of a Pitcairn Autogiro to fly directly to his golf game. The practicality of such use has long ago been demonstrated by those owners of the Pitcairn Autogiro who have flown to football games, race tracks, hunt meets and other social gatherings.”

Disconnect

The folks in these ads, these owners of fine country homes, town houses and yachts,  seem oblivious to the crumbling economy around them. But then again so did their President.

In his December 2, 1930 message to Congress an overly optimistic  President Herbert Hoover  delusionally said “…that the fundamental strength of the economy is unimpaired.”

That December as the International apple shippers Association faced with a surplus of apples decided to sell them on credit to jobless men for resale at 5 cents each, the wealthy began packing their Louis Vuitton steamer trunks for their winter cruises.

Goodbye to All That

Vintage Ad French Line Cruise Ships 1930
Naturally every need would be taken care of: “Bronzed and mustachioed tars whose Breton forefathers saw America before Columbus..well trained English-speaking servants within call..all is well-ordered for these fortunate travelers.”

For those less sports inclined, a winter cruise was a  brilliant escape from harsh winter.

“Say Goodbye to All That,”  cheers on the headline in this 1930 as for French Line Cruises

A sumptuous liner with its spacious salons and charming staterooms where nothing is lacking, would take you far away from  wretchedness and misery and all that!

“Rackets and riveters cross town traffic and subways brownstone fronts with basement entrances conferences and conventions aren’t you fed up with them all?” the reader of the ad is asked.

Brother Can You Spare a Dime?

Who needed to be reminded of desperate men  in threadbare suits  selling apples on the street corner, hoboes and Hoovervilles?

“Now is the time when executives come back from lunch wondering why nothing tastes good anymore. Now is the time also when smart people give themselves a taste of good salt air and  few weeks abroad.”

Assuming the reader of this ad which appeared in Fortune magazine has a chauffeur the ad goes on to say:

“Seymour they say, ‘get out the trunks. We’re off on the vast deep’.. And presto! The moment they set foot on deck they’re in  France!”

“Ask your travel agent about voyaging on France afloat..and as the skyline vanishes from view wave your hand sniff in the salt breeze and say Goodbye to all that!”

Little White Lies

President Hoovers first reaction to the slump which followed the crash in October 1929 had been to treat it as a psychological disorder. he had chosen the word “Depression” because it sounded less frightening than “panic or “crisis”.
The fact that more than 1,300 banks would close a great deal of people were indeed depressed.by the end of 1930 and unemployment rose sharply passing 4 million, meant a great deal of people were indeed “depressed.”

A secure job. a warm home, and food on the table; many during the depression had already said goodbye to all that!

For members of the well-heeled class everything was aces!

Especially if you listened to one of their own , Secretary of the Treasury Andrew W. Mellon the banker, businessman industrialist and member of the prestigious and wealthy  Mellon family.

In the same year these ads ran, Mellon responded to the dire economic times commenting: ” I see nothing in the present situation that is either menacing or warrants pessimism. During the winter months there may be some slackness or unemployment, but hardly more than at this season each year.”

That dynamic duo of Wall Street and Washington  was personified by Andrew Mellon.

Regarded in the   roaring 20s  as the greatest Secretary of the Treasury since Alexander Hamilton, only one year after the crash,  he was mocked by middle class children chanting:

“Mellon pulled the whistle”

“Hoover rang the bell”

“Wall Street gave the signal”

“And the country went to hell”

Copyright (©) 2016 Sally Edelstein All Rights Reserved

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The Middle Class Fades Away

America’s middle class is vanishing before our eyes, fading away like a once cherished Kodacolor snapshot.
Today the possibility of obtaining the American Dream feels as outmoded as these vintage advertisements from Kodak.

Kodak and its long running ad campaigns celebrated the middle class life and the possibility of attaining it. Today that possibility is vanishing. From millennials saddled with staggering school debts and grim employment prospects, to Baby Boomers unable to save for retirement, the fundamental elements of the American Dream – a living wage, retirement security, opportunity for one’s children to get ahead in life are now unreachable for all but the wealthiest. Vintage Kodak camera ads 1946

The sad fall from grace for American icon Eastman Kodak, the very recorder and reinforcer of middle class America, seems to sadly coincide with the decline of that very ethos of upward mobility it once helped encourage.

American Dreams in Kodacolor.

In mid-century America Kodak was there to record every milestone of middle class life. An ever-growing economy and the idea of upward mobility in America had always been a powerful and deeply ingrained part of the American Dream. Vintage Kodak ad 1952

Once upon a time the promise of middle class upward mobility was fundamental to the American Dream, and for over half a century those dreams were expertly captured in Kodak moments.

Vintage Kodak advertisement 1940

If the seed of the American Dream was planted during the dark days of the Depression, it was nurtured and cultivated during the solidarity, sacrifices and deprivations of WWII. By wars end it was ripe, ready to be harvested and it would blossom into full bloom in the post war years and beyond.

Vintage Kodak advertisement 1956. Today the middle class is withering on the vine

This high yielding seed would turn out a bumper crop of dreams. And with a press of a button, Kodak was there to record it all.

Kodak’s long running ad campaign painted the perfect portrait of that American Dream, celebrating the middle class and the possibility of attaining it. Vintage Kodak ad 1951

Now something is fundamentally wrong. The core elements of the American dream are increasingly unaffordable for the majority.

Vintage Kodak Ad 1948

Vintage Kodak Camera ad 1957

Vintage Kodak Ad 1953

Kodak and the American Dream were made for one another.

Painting the perfect portrait of that vision, the wholesome images of All-American family fun portrayed in their long running advertisements would saturate our Kodacolor dreams for decades creating a model for the middle class and the good life.

These uplifting, homogeneous tableau’s created by Kodak, along with the familiar yellow and red logo, insinuated themselves into the very fabric of American family life.

Kodak and the Pursuit of Happiness

Vintage Kodak Ad 1920

The turn of the last century marked the arrival of the groundbreaking Brownie dollar camera.

Snapshots were the great equalizer, the perfect tool for a democratic society available to one and all. For a buck (with film costing 15 cents for 6 shots) everyone could now archive their lives.

Vintage Kodak Advertisement 1909

Suddenly this camera – so easy they advertised a child could do it – could be seen everywhere.

We The People

Vintage Kodak Camera Ad 1953

Snapshot Night with the gang! Vintage Kodak Camera ad 1950

Vintage Kodak Camera ad 1951

Easter Memories. Vintage Kodak camera ad 1950

Vintage Kodak Camera ad 1954

Bristling with their box Brownies, Americans were suddenly hard at work recording the spectacle of the their middle class moments, cameras clicking away at birthday parties, picnics, communions and vacations.

War Time Memories

WWII Vintage Kodak ad 1943

WWII Vintage Kodak ad 1943 “For a man far from home, snapshots are the most precious gift of all.”

When America entered WWII folks on the home front were encouraged to send snapshots to the boys overseas to remind them of what they were fighting for – mom, apple pie and the American Dream that awaited them when they returned.

Unlike today’s troubled vets who are returning to an American Dream itself suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, the greatest generation of WWII soldiers came back to a robust America, the American Dream gift wrapped just for them in red, white, and blue.

Vintage Kodak ad 1949

The post war future it promised would be filled with homes, harmony and upward mobility. It heralded a time when the American dream was indeed within reach of most middle class families and the achievement of the better life was fundamental to the American Way.

Kodak Developed Family Memories

The ads which ran from the late 1940’s to the late 1950’s served up a romanticized mid-century America enjoying their post-war promises of prosperity. Vintage ad Kodak 1962

After WWII Kodak ramped up their already heavily sentimental ads to fit in with the ethos of domestic post-war America, the middle class family idealized as never before.

For over 65 years, home ownership was the defining definition the American Dream and Kodak families are often seen having family fun in their suburban homes.

Vintage ad 1947

Baby Boomer’s lives would be captured in Kodak moments. Today sandwiched between the millenials and the greatest generation, baby boomers may soon go  bust. As more boomerang kids live at home due to the bleak job market, and the elderly life expectancy is ever increasing, feathering the boomers nest egg becomes an impossibility as much  an outmoded pipe dream as that high paying job is for their kid. Vintage Kodak ad 1955

Family fun together – what a time for pictures! Vintage Kodak ad 1952

For over 65 years, home ownership was the defining definition the American Dream and Kodak families are often seen having family fun in their suburban homes. Vintage Kodak Camera ad 1960

Vintage Kodak color slides ad 1959

Dreaming of a White Christmas. Pictures radiated with suburban domestic bliss, abundance, good neighborly cheer and good Christian values. Vintage Kodak ad 1949

The idyllic snapshots of the American dream family that Kodak used in the ads all portrayed an eerily homogeneous landscape of spacious suburban homes and smiling, prosperous, cheerful, Anglo-Saxon families enjoying fun times together in their rumpus rooms and backyards.

This “Happy Family Living” was the image that most advertising and entertainment seemed determined to project and Kodak excelled at the iconography.

Band leader Ozzie Nelson, his wife Harriet and their 2 sons playing a fictional family, were the perfect spokesperson for Kodak. The adventures of Ozzie and Harriet airing from 1952-1966 starring real life Nelson Family, America’s ideal family, lived in a 2 story colonial. Before the Kardashians this TV staple blurred the lines between fiction and reality. Vintage Kodak Camera ad 1958

TV’s June and Ward Cleaver or Jim and Margaret Anderson – no slouches when it came to the nuclear family – would have fit right at home in any of these dozens of tableau’s of the American Dream. Is it any wonder that Ozzie and Harriet the quintessential American TV family were Kodak’s spokesman.

You Press The Button-It Does The Rest

Long before selfies displaced the family snapshot, Kodak captured moments in our lives. Vintage Kodak ad 1946

“Nobody gets more fun out of making a good snapshot,” Kodak assured us,” than a rank beginner – a kid or maybe a woman who was always afraid of a camera!”

Knowledge of technology was unimportant for a Kodak picture.

The film was made for all who wanted to get a good picture of their good times…without any bother. No fuss, no muss. With its automatic push-button ease Kodak was the epitome to the easy living push-button world that would characterize mid-century America.

It made picture-taking so easy, so sure, the ads promised even a child ( or a woman) with film in her brownie could take a good picture. Why wait for dad to be around? Even an ordinary homemaker could be a first class shutterbug; taking pictures was as easy to operate as a pop up toaster they assured us.

Drop the film off at the local drug store where it would be sent off and developed in secrecy by Eastman Kodak in their Rochester labs and a week later you were reward with colorful memories. Vintage Kodak Camera ad 1957

Every man could be his own Norman Rockwell recording and replicating those saccharine filled moments captured so brilliantly in those light drenched ads.

In this bliss no one knew what went on in the darkroom nor did they need too. Like the telephone the camera was this simple magical black box that could be used without being understood.

Ghosts of America Past

That sunny outlook that fit in so well with our sense of self.

Happy to bask in the sunny Kodacolor optimism the ads projected , we were blissfully ignorant of those that lived shadows of society.

This is the America some retro Republicans pine for.

The widespread sentiment that America’s best days have passed, the mythic America they want us to return too was exclusionary, racist and sexist. Along with the middle class, these cherished myths are slowly vanishing too. Vintage Kodak camera ad 1953

Like an aging and fading photograph in need of restoration, the Republicans want to restore the American Dream and the middle class back to this mythical place – a conflict free, whiter-than-white America.

But that cherished myth has been exposed.

The red white and blue ads presented middle class utopias that were essentially interchangeable, lily-white, color and ethnic free zone. Vintage Kodak camera ad 1953

Dark Room Secrets

The red, white, and blue America that once sparkled in Kodacolor… did not sparkle for all.

The sweet sentiments these photos evoke belie the fact that these years were far from fair to Blacks, women, Latinos or Gays.

(R) Charles Moore photo. Birmingham Alabama 1963 Fire Department aims high pressure water hoses at civil rights demonstrators (L) Summer suburban kids cooling off with back yard hose. Vintage Kodak Camera ad 1957

For those who lived in the shadow of the American Dream, it would take decades for the light of tolerance and inclusion to shine on them.

Though for many the vivid Kodak world of possibilities shimmered in glorious Kodacolor, but for people of color it was still pretty black and white.

These ghosts of America’s past still haunt us.

Today some Kodak moments are best not remembered.

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2016. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Is housework the final feminist frontier? This collage about the Happy Homemaker and Housework  is part of a collection called Media Made Women which chronicles popular culture’s vision of women from the repressed but optimistic post war years of the cold war, through the disillusioned but liberating years of Vietnam, Watergate, and the turmoil of the Women’s Movement, when debates about women’s proper place was the prevailing subtext of American mass media. The art work is a smorgasbord of mid-century gender stereotypes. “White Wash” collage by Sally Edelstein

Happy Homemaker

To believe all the colorful mid-century advertisements no one was the beneficiary of the cold war culture of casual, carefree living more so than the housewife of the 1950’s and ‘60s.

All manner of unparalleled ease from cleaning products to appliances promised the happy homemaker a life transformed, a life so carefree you could do as you please. So undemanding it was a world of child’s play; so easy it turned routine into fun.

There was a fashionable young buoyant air about the mid-century housewife. Beguilingly feminine and Riviera radiant in her cascading stay fresh bouffant dress of Havana-vivid hues nipped to a tiny waist, she went about her household tasks smiling as if she hadn’t a care in this trouble-free world.

And why not?

It was to be a life of self polishing ease, of no rubbing, no scrubbing, no waxing, no buffing, with twice the shine in half the time; a wash and wear world of no stretching, no stooping, no bending, and absolutely…no complaining.

Dirt A Rama

Detail “White Wash” collage by Sally Edelstein

Despite the promises of effortless ease, it was simultaneously a constant state of war, a contest of nerve and will between the lady of the house versus dirt and disorder.

With the same zeal that cold warriors chased communists, housewives were convinced that there were hidden microbes and germs lurking in every corner. Glasses could no longer just be clean they had to be close up clean, everything had to shine like new, more sanitized and spotless than ever thought possible.

Grime Chasers

A universe populated with white tornadoes and white knights galloping into your kitchen with the promise that Ajax was stronger than dirt and as powerful as a Nike Ajax missile to detonate dirt forever. Detail “White Wash” by Sally Edelstein

All across the country while peace-loving American husbands lay awake at night, their nerves taught worrying about attacks from ICBM’s and UFO’s, the American  housewife lost sleep fretting over an invasion already in progress, one that threatened every man woman and child.

The millions of dangerous invisible impurities that lurked undetected in every American town, threatening to turn all that lay behind the white picket fence of the suburban home a terrifying tattle tale gray.

All Out War

Just as the fighting in Vietnam escalated so did the never-ending battle over dirt and disorder, both with no end in sight.

You could never let up, not for an hour, nor a day, or a moment.

Not if you wanted a home you could be proud of, a home where the air seemed sunshine fresh and the sinks were sun shine bright; a house so fresh, so clean you’ll wonder how you could have ever been satisfied before.

Detail “White Wash” collage by Sally Edelstein

So even in this easy-does-it, fully automatic long-lasting beauty at the touch of a finger world filled with magical detergents and miracle fibers, mid-century women were still slaves to their homes, their days filled with never-ending repetitive tasks.

A New Frontier Fantasy

Detail “White Wash” collage by Sally Edelstein

A breath of fresh air swept in with the new frontier when President Kennedy challenged all Americans, “to excel to stand up and stand out.”

Though the atmosphere of the 1960’s was one of infinite challenges, women were still chained to their Electrolux vacuum cleaner chasing dirt, debating the well-worn topic of ring around the collar and exchanging the latest busy day Jello recipes while men joined the Peace Corps and saved the world.

White Wash

Detail “White Wash” collage by Sally Edelstein

While others were out marching for civil rights in the 1960s fighting to break the color barriers, hermetically sealed housewives were cheerfully living in a colorfast world obsessed with getting their wash and wear laundry not just white, but whiter than white, a white to unequal others. We shall overcome dirt.

A Spotless Space Age

Detail “White Wash” collage by Sally Edelstein

The Space age was in full swing but housewives were left back on earth to clean it.
And if we did make it to the moon Lestoil assured us it would be women who would clean it up.

Waxy Yellow Build Up

Using collage as a means of examining social fictions,  “White Wash” is composed of hundreds of images appropriated from vintage advertising, periodicals, newspapers, vintage school books, old illustrations, comic books, pulp fiction and all sorts of ephemera, dissociating them from their original use to better evaluate its original meaning. Detail “White Wash” collage by Sally Edelstein

With their gleaming new formula Ipana smiles, happy homemakers asked nothing more of others than to refrain from scuffing up the shine on her freshly mopped Glo coated floor.

In a world rampant with wars rioting and male entitlement these happy homemakers may have been smiling but more likely they were numb from Miltown or Valium.

Like underground nuclear testing,women’s anger was to be buried underground beneath the surface, but the fall out would soon appear. Before the decade was out, women would become as agitated as their miracle 2 agitator washers.

The Feminine Mistake

Detail “White Wash” collage by Sally Edelstein

As discrepancies began to appear the New Frontier would pave the way for feminism as housewives were questioning just how happy and carefree they really were.

In beauty parlors across the nation while captive under their pink missile shaped hairdryers these women of containment shared their secrets, quietly discussing the problem that had no name.

Fifty years later, women still do the lion share of household cleaning despite working outside the home. When it comes to housework, even modern, egalitarian marriages bear a striking similarity to these vintage images.

Housework is the final feminist frontier!

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2016. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Vintage WWI Food Conservation Poster

Food shaming is nothing new

Nearly 100 years ago dietary transgressions were darn near treasonable.

Not unlike today there was a moralization of food choices but it was based less on nutrition and health than patriotism.

A century before the current war on gluten was declared in the borough of Brooklyn by wheat shunning, vegan loving, white sugar snubbing hipsters, the same strict food edicts were enforced by patriotic Brooklyn housewives from Bushwick to Bay Ridge including my own great-grandmother Rebekah

In 1917 we were at war Over There, but back here on the home front it was all out war on wheat, meat, sugar and animal fats. “Food will win the war,” Uncle Sam proclaimed, exhorting women to win the war in the kitchen by restricting those precious commodities so that the dough boys would be well fed.

We Cheerfully Deny Ourselves

Vintage WWI Food Conservation Poster

Unlike food rationing which was obligatory during WWII, during the Great War, the restrictions were wholly voluntary.

In an age when Americans were gluttons for gluten and massive meat eaters, getting the public to change their food habits was no easy feat.

Remarking on the difficult task of altering folks eating habits, Ladies Home Journal commented in a 1917 editorial: “Perhaps it was not to be expected that a peace-loving people more prosperous than any other people on the face of the earth should overnight readjust themselves.”

Guilt and shame those twin handmaidens of social pressure worked like a charm

Just as the government had whipped a very reluctant country to go to war in order to “make the world safe for democracy,” so Uncle Sam became skilled at food shaming the American public.

Vintage WWI poster by Edward Penfield 1918

When America entered the war in April of 1917, the U.S. Food Administration was formed to help feed the American armies  and her allies. Herbert Hoover, the hero who saved Belgium from starving was the logical choice to head it.

Along with the FA, President Woodrow Wilson had created another agency The Committee on Public Information to turn the tide of public opinion on the war. They now actively sold the American people on the very war the president sought to avoid the year before when he ran for president under the slogan “He kept us out of war” Rhetoric was shifted completely and effortlessly to win the war to end all wars.

The committee on Public Information monopolized every medium and every avenue of communication available at that time with the goal of mobilizing and creating a nation of enthusiastic soldiers and home front warriors for democracy and convince them they were needed to help make the world safe for democracy.

Vintage WWI Food Conservation Poster United States Food Administration

Hoover’s agency used the same patriotic propaganda to reduce food consumption in the US drawing on the themes of shared sacrifice and responsibility of citizenship encouraging every American, adult and child, to “do your bit.”

Enlisting the help of housewives by making them soldiers of the kitchen women were on the front lines on the home front including my great-grandmother Rebekah and her daughter my then 17-year-old grandmother Sadie

Domestic Science

Young girls were eagerly sought after to be part of Wilson’s infamous Call to the Women of the Nation” and my then teenage grandmother eagerly stepped up.

A true American girl of tomorrow, 17-year-old Sadie was among the first girls in her school to take a class in the new field of Home Economics.

No subject was as cutting edge as Domestic Science and more important in the distribution of war-time food preparation information.

By WWI , food itself had entered a modern scientific age

By the time of the Great War, food itself had entered a modern scientific age with the establishment of what was called the New Nutrition. Hoover’s war time programs would rely heavily on these new principles.

At the beginning of the last century most folks at the time believed certain foods were good and others dangerous but there was no scientific basis to it. There was no concern about high protein, low carb foods because food itself hadn’t even been classified as such.

Sadie learned that although it was a German Scientist who had come up with the new idea of classifying foods into proteins, carbohydrates, fats, minerals and water, the “new nutrients,” the German origins was now downplayed . Besides which, it  was American know-how and industry that was putting this new knowledge to good use. And would use that new knowledge to lick the Kaiser!

WWI Food conservation recipes for meatless meals

Home economists from the Food Administration had prepared a hefty textbook for High School students explaining not only the theories of new nutrition, but devising recipes and menus which would use substitutes for precious wheat, beef, butter and sugar.

WWI Recipes for using corn as a substitute for precious wheat

The no-nonsense class was run with the efficiency expected of a future household engineer. Donning her crisp, sanitary white apron and starched white cap, Sadie quickly absorbed the most current information explaining the new and efficient ways to think about diet, and be patriotic to boot.

Her Home Economics teacher, Miss Hattie Smith ( who only 2 years earlier had been known as Miss Schmidt, but changed her name so as to sound less German ) was a stern looking woman, with salt and pepper hair pulled tightly in a bun with features as sharp and angular as the wooden ruler she wielded.

WWI Wheat less recipes- ” Try these 12 Summer Dainties and be a Patriot”

She meticulously followed the course outline prepared by Uncle Sam, emphasizing the sacrifices needed in the home kitchen. It wasn’t enough to merely change the names of food from Sauerkraut which was now to be called liberty cabbage, or referring to hamburgers as liberty sandwiches.

First and foremost, Miss Smith appealed to the students conscious.

“In every home,” she emphasized echoing Mr.Hoover, the conscious must reign. If not, what then? Picture America –on compulsory rations – God Forbid! Every man woman and child in the US can help win the war by doing their duty by using recipes for wholesome menus that serve your country”

“Lick the Plate and Lick the Kaiser.”

Vintage WWI Poster

Wearing pince nez and an immaculate white smock, the domestic dominatrix, would explain to the class
“Every time you eat 3 times a day think of the starving people in Europe and the soldiers who are fighting out battles and keep those rules in mind!”

To waste a single morsel of food that can be used is a crime,” she admonished her class.

“Almost everything we have been asked to do has been directly for our good; to eat less meat where we are eating too much; to eat less wheat where we were overlooking the other more nourishing cereals and grains.”

To help with meatless meals, “The US Food Administration urges you to serve fish oftener,” suggests this 1917 ad from Borden’s Evaporated Milk, “and to use more milk – for patriotic reason.”

Royal Baking Powder stepped up to help the housewife wondering how to bake without wheat. “Knowing that women would be perplexed about the best recipes adapted to the changed conditions arising out of the war, ” the copy reads in this 1917 advertisement, ” we prepared booklets which have helped thousands of women, such as The Best War Time Recipes.” Vintage Royal Baking Powder ad 1917

Instead of animal fats we were urged to use vegetable oils like olive oil and coconut oil. To save on butter, margarine made from coconuts. Vintage Troco Oleomargarine ad 1917

Instead of sugar which Italy and France needed desperately for their soldiers, we were urged to use syrup, honey, molasses.

We were encouraged to use oats and corn and other cereals besides wheat. Vintage ad for Quaker Corn Meal 1917

Following the ideas of the new nutritionists patriotic Americans would learn for the first time that they could actually interchange proteins, fats, and carbs; that they could be persuaded to get their proteins from say beans rather than meat, their carbs from corn meal, oats and grains other than wheat and their fats from vegetable oils. A truly revolutionary idea,

Fruits and Vegetables

Uncle Sam and the Campbell Soup kids encouraged you to eat vegetables – especially in soup. “You are in line with the urgent food requirements of our government and at the same time you meet an essential health requirement of your family in a most practical way.” Vintage Campbell’s Soup ad WWI

Uncle Sam wanted us to eat our vegetables and the textbook reflected the recent growing awareness of the nutritional values of vegetables and fruits.

Straight from Mr. Hoover -“The US Food Administration Home Card advises – use soup more to get your fill of vegetables. “Vintage Campbell’s Vegetable Soup ad

Only a few years earlier before the discovery of vitamins, most of the early scientists dismissed fruits and vegetables because under the microscope they were just boring old water and carbohydrates. The tomato for instance was as good as useless. It could, if you wished be used in small amounts to flavor food, like salt and pepper, but it had no nutritional value of its own.

Now they were to be an important part of the diet seen as  cheap, filling foods, and Uncle Sam encouraged planting victory gardens using  slogans such as “We Can Can Vegetables and the Kaiser Too!”

Pledge Drive

Vintage WWI poster

Finally Miss Smith emphasized the key element of Uncle Sam’s program. The pledge drive

One way that Hoover was able to coerce people into volunteer conservation efforts was to sign a pledge card. The pledge card was used to make people feel a moral obligation to stay true to the ideals of the FA and conserve food.

These patriotic pledges were directed specifically too rally the middle class housewife and played an integral role in producing social pressure to promise to have one wheat-less day a week, one wheatless meal a day, one meatless day a week and one meatless meal each day and then to hang cards attesting to their oath ( “the service tag of American women”)

“Women,” she exclaimed, “must set the tone for the household conservation.” It was time for women to mobilize

When the first pledge drive began in late October, Sadie answered Uncle Sam’s call to canvass her Brooklyn neighborhood and collect pledge cards. Since no one wanted to be accused of having lax dietary choices which became synonymous with being unpatriotic, Americans unanimously agreed: “We shall cheerfully deny ourselves.”

Next Pt II: I Pledge Allegiance

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2016. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

On Memorial Day we pay homage to all the soldiers who didn’t come home. To all those we lost in WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Desert Storm, Iraqi, and Afghanistan, this Buds for you!

Memorial Day has the word “memorial” for a reason

More than a Monday spent at beaches, backyard barbecues and blockbuster movies, Memorial Day is the day we remember and honor those who died serving our country.

Unlike Veterans Day it is not a celebration; it was intended to be a day of solemn contemplation over the high cost of freedom.

Come together

In this time of divisiveness and polarization, of spectacle and mud-slinging, it is more than ever important to stop, come together, and remember those who have given their all.

Today we pay homage to all the soldiers who didn’t come home.

We Must Remember This

Vintage ad 1944 Illustration Fred Luderkens

During WWII the grimness of war wasn’t hidden from the public.

No series of ads brought the realities of war closer to home than  a memorable series that ran during WWII  by Nash/ Kelvinator.

During the war when Nash/ Kelvinator was busy with war work building Pratt Whitney Engines and sidelined from manufacturing home appliances and automobiles it still wanted to keep its name before the American public. Like many other companies occupied with war work and nothing to sell the consumer, they ran patriotic advertisements.

While most adverting reflected the red, white, and blue fervor of our nation, glorifying and supporting the war effort and our boys overseas, the Nash/ Kelvinator ads  dealt with the harsh gritty realities of war. The full color ads graphically showed the pain, blood and  fear of our military men and women.

The ads served not only a tribute to the harshness, fortitude  and bravery endured by our servicemen and women  it was a tribute to  the American Way and the American dream for which we were fighting for and for many, ultimately dying for.

“I’m fighting for freedom! I’m fighting for the things that made America the greatest place in the world to live in. . . . I want to come back to the same America I left behind me . . . where our way of living has always brought us new and better things . . . That’s what I’m fighting for.”

Told through the first person, the ads put the viewer in the mind of a courageous  infantry soldier, sailor, army nurse, or  medic in the midst of battle.

Vintage WWII ad 1944 Illustration Fred Luderkens

We took the beach head at dawn.

Our destroyers stood out to sea and threw the shells and our planes pounded hell out of their pill boxes, and then we came in…

But the wind and the tide tricked us.

The landing boats grounded off shore and we jumped over the sides and stood in the warm, shallow water and stared at the faraway beach and then at each other…and our eyes and our mouths were wide with fear as we waded in…

And we fell under their guns like wheat to the blade of the reaper. And though they said we could never take it…at dawn on the third day we took it.

I’m not fighting for myself alone….

I’m fighting for the buddies who fell beside me…for Joe and Pete and Jack and Harry.  For the flag they loved, and their kids back home, and the faith they held in their right to be free…for the future and the life that they gave up…for the things that make America the one country in all the world where a man can be somebody…where a man can go somewhere.

I know why I’m still out here.

I know whats got to be done

And I’m not coming back until I’m through with my knife and my gun…until I know that terrorism and the lust to kill and enslave are forever dead…until all men and women and children can live without fear…as free individuals in a land and a world, where there will always be liberty, equality and freedom of opportunity.

That’s what they fought and died for.

That’s what I’m fighting for.

That’s America.

Keep it that way until I come home.

Vintage WWII ad 1944 Illustration Fred Luderkens

He was a thorn in their side…

All morning long his accurate mortar fire kept them from forming up, broke the spearhead of their attacks…

So they went out to get him…

And finally a sniper shot him.

Then they laid down a cross fire that was death to defy. I know…because one of our men tried. But it was damned hard to lie there and hear him call “Mom”.. and cry and call “Mom” again like a kid who’d been hurt,he didn’t know just how or why

And all we could do was just lie there…and grind our teeth together and tighten our guts because each time he cried Mom…it tore out our insides.

I put a syrette  into his arm and he relaxed and his head fell back and his eyes were still wide  but I could tell he thought his mother was there bu his side as he left…

Listen America.

Pen your hearts, wives and daughters!

Open your pocketbooks fathers! Give your blood brothers and sisters!

So the freedom you want…

So the country you want…

So the future you want

Will be there when we come back.

I looked Into My Brothers Face

Vintage WWII ad 1943

Even now I can’t sleep.

All night long I heard again the words I said bending over the litters as the wounded came in…

“Where are you hurt soldier?”

Now, not even the blessed numbness we pray for in this place can keep me from living over and over again the moment when sponging away the dark red mud, I looked into my brothers face.

He said, “Don’t cry Sis.” And suddenly we were children again playing nurse and wounded soldier on the battlefield of our yard back home.

I grew up last night.

Out here, I’ve seen my share of war. Women strafed in the streets…hospitals bombed…ripped sheets, splintered beds, the living and the dead tumbled together. And I’ve stood it because I’m an Army Nurse and that’s my job.

But a nurse is a woman first and when someone is wounded something breaks inside and the war hits home.

Hits home to you and to the heart of America.

And then you know why were out here. Not for glory. Not for  new worlds to conquer. Not for great high sounding words…

But to make sure we keep on having the kind of America my brother and I grew up in…to make sure well always have a hand and a voice in helping to make it an even better land to live in. To make sure we’ll come home to the America we’ve always known…were we can make our lives what we want them to be…where well be free to live them in peace and kindness and security.

That’s what my brother and I are fighting for.

Vintage WWII ad 1944 Illustration Fred Luderkens

We’ll come through.

Your heart cracks and the weight on your back seems to push you under and you think you’ll drown but you don’t.

You carry on not for yourself but for the rest of the folks…for the family… the kids…for guys like these swimming around, circling around with night coming on and no ship to come home to and around and below only the empty sea.

For every drop of blood they spill…for every heart they break… for every tear that’s shed… for every ship that’s sunk… for every plane it costs…for every man of ours who’s lost…they’ll pay with ten of their own!

So the freedom we want…

So the future we want…

Will be there when we get back!

Vintage ad 1944 Illustration Fred Luderkens

I’ll come through again

I know I’ll come through because I’ve got to.

Because in the  Marines a man is trained to stand alone…trained to work, to dare, to take a chance, to go ahead on his own..not just for himself but his buddy, his platoon his regiment …his wife…his kids…the country he’s willing to fight and die for.

That’s the spirit that made America strong

That’s the spirit that’s going to win this war.

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2016. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Why was the Happy Homemaker so happy? Beer of Course! Vintage Budweiser ad

Ever wonder what made the mid-century Happy Housewife so happy? It turns out hubby wasn’t the only one knocking back a few brewsky’s at the end of  a long day.

Beer ads traditionally  targeting men  have long featured buxom babes, but there was a time the beer industry pitched a frosty brew directly to the wholesome homemaker.

Long before Budweiser jumped on the femvertising bandwagon using Amy Schumer and feminism to sell beer while discussing the gender wage gap, enlightened beer companies marketed their product to help make the American housewife life a lot happier. And increase their coffers.

Not For Men Only

Vintage ad 1961 United States Brewers association

In 1961, as JFK beckoned us all into a New frontier, American Brewers opened their own non sexist frontier welcoming women to enjoy the pleasures of beer.

If  brewers had their way, a cool brew among suburban housewives would become as common as the proverbial kaffee klatch.

The United States Brewers Association  ran this ad  posing the controversial question:

“Who says beer is a mans beverage?”

“Men do, ourselves included,” the copy begins.” . On the other hand, we’ve always said that beer is the kind of light sparkling drink- not hard, not soft, a perfect “in between” that would appeal to women too. In recent years its been happening: women are discovering the good taste of beer and ale.”

But don’t be alarmed , gentlemen, the ad says soothing any ruffled feathers that might have caused the big brute to fret, “There will always be plenty to go around. We ll see to that.”

Kinda like their  salaries and jobs

Just as men might worry that a woman might take their job, they could rest assured the woman would be paid less.

Hostess with the Mostess

Ads featured women as consummate wife and hostess carrying out wifely duties fetching a tray of frosty beer  to host a perfect party were the popular them in the series of ads run by the United States Brewers Foundation. This one entitled “St Louis Barbecue on the Terrace” by Douglas Crockwell was #55 in their series Home Life in America

But mid-century women didn’t worry their pretty heads about a gender pay gap because hubby was the sole breadwinner. But serving the right beer could help hubby get that raise

Mr America understood that serving the proper beer to the boss when he came to dinner would mean the difference between a partnership or being stuck in a managerial position for another few years.

By the mid 1950’s , brewers had begun directing their ads squarely at women but not as consumers but more as a service ad, as a way to help them in their important task as gracious hostess and helpful wives.

And really girls, what gal didn’t dream of being the perfect hostess?

She Never Suspected

Appealing directly to the homemaker this 1955 ad from Budweiser ran in McCall’s Magazine

Poor Pam. Everything seemed  set for the perfect dinner party, the rib roast was in the oven, the California dip snappily made, but when her husband Tom looked askance at the beer she was serving her heart sunk. With eyes downcast, she realized she had let Tom down.

She had stayed way too long at the bridge game with the girls and in her haste at the market she had purchased the wrong beer for her dinner party. The beer was on sale, and honestly, what did she know? Beer was her hubby’s domain.

Budweiser would set her straight.

“One thing about Men she never suspected” this ad from 1955 begins.

“It was how highly most of them regarded Budweiser. She had thought that beers were pretty much alike. When she served her husbands guests a less distinguished beer, he was pretty much upset about it. No ‘scene’ or anything like that. He just said: ‘Look darling: when you buy anything less than Budweiser, that’s exactly what you get-less.’ To serve beer to guest is hospitality – to serve them Budweiser, is a gracious compliment.

On the Ball With Budweiser

Vintage Budweiser ad

Unlike poor Pam, on-the-ball Babs always served the right beer for her lucky guests. Everything was always in the best of taste with Babs; her buffets were the talk of the neighborhood, her recipes festive, and most importantly, she never made a mistake in which beer to serve. That adoring glance of her husband Hank -the envy of all the gals-  proved it.

“Everything They Say About Her is True” ran the headline  from this Budweiser ad.

“Men think she’s perfectly wonderful – especially the husband she adores. Her flawless hospitality has expanded both their friendships and his business opportunities. It seems that she just can’t make a mistake.
When it comes to serving her guests,she never makes a mistake. That’s for sure. She serves Budweiser the beer whose taste and character have made it the symbols of gracious living with particular people everywhere.

The Real Housewives of the Cold War

Helen’s eyes were green with envy. “That woman is real competition,” she cattily hissed to her pal Joanne about their gracious host Caro Lee.  Seething with jealousy, Joanna had to agree.  Not only did Carol Lee whip up the best rumaki in town, her cheese balls were to die for.  And she always served the proper beer.

Budweiser’s 1956 advertisement  entitled “That Woman is Real Competition” pits housewife against housewife, like an episode of the Real  Housewives of the Cold War.

As a hostess I mean,” begins the ad copy.”She has more original ides for table settings than you can shake a stick at. And the dishes she dreams up are out of this world- but there’s one thing that never changes. The beer has to be Budweiser. She says that when you’re proud of a meal why not pay it the complement it deserves- the beer has graced more tables than any other beer ever known.

Marriage Advice – Budweiser to the Rescue

Vintage Budweiser beer Ad 1956

Newlywed Marci McKowskie knew her first job as a wife was to make her husband happy preparing meals to make him contented. And if she didn’t learn these husband pleasing tricks  it was her own darn fault. She had only Marci to blame for an unhappy hubby.

She found She Married Two Men, Budweiser reveals in this 1956 ad.

In fact, all women do…there’s always that inner man, you know. And think of all the planning that goes into meals to make him contented!

When you plan, are you fair to yourself? Do you complement your delicious dishes by serving the best beer ever brewed?

ps It’s a fact: Budweiser has delighted more husbands than any brew ever known.

Be a Happier Homemaker

Vintage Ballantine Beer ad 1954

It soon became clear the little lady of the house could benefit from beer too. A whole untapped market awaited the Mad men of Madison avenue and tap it they did.

Naturally like most American girls,  the happy housewife wanted to keep her girlish figure so in this 1954 Ballantine ad they spoke directly  to m lady  emphasizing how many fewer calories their beer had than any other. Beer they explained was a naturally low calories drink to begin with. beer thy said was starch free and hardly a touch of sugar. In the mid-century world of dieting where starches and sugars were the real bugaboo of dieters, Ballantine made sure to  emphasize that beer was starch free and hardly a touch of sugar.

So go ahead Mrs. Dieter, imbibe with gusto.

Ballantine Beer watched m’ladies belt line in this 1954 ad.

“Nearly all beers are lower in calories than they used to be. They’re all starch-free- and none has more than a negligible trace of sugar.

But…if you’re counting up your calorie quota your beer is definitely Ballantine Beer. Independent laboratory tests have shown that it has fewer calories than any other leading beer.

Is it Any Wonder Mrs. Norris Needs Malt?

Like a knight in white armor, beer was ready to come to the frazzled housewife’s rescue.

Between an overbearing husband, ungrateful kids, endless housework and spending her days pleasing other, is it any wonder Mrs America needed something to help her be happy.

Apparently the makers of Malt agreed.

Vintage ad Fro Malt 1958

In this 1958 ad from Fro Malt, proud makers of barley malt they understood the difficulties of the modern woman.

“Wife and mother, homemaker and hostess- this taxing pace makes malt in some form so vital to her daily diet. For malt is a source of sparkling energy no matter where its found.”

Thus the happy housewife.

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2016. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Americans are worried…First they came for our tobacco, now are they coming for our sugary drinks?

This election has caused  panic among our citizens.

While many alarmed Americans are agitated, losing sleep over possible deportation, distressed over the state of their healthcare , control of their own bodies and basic civil rights, others are going into sugar shock at the very thought that soda, their beloved syrupy elixir, is being unfairly taxed.

Now that a soda tax  is in place in more than a 6 pack of American cities, some folks are alarmed.

be very afraid…soda taxes are coming for your 64 ounce liter of Dr Pepper.

While we grappled over the presidential election, a penny per ounce soda tax was passed in three different California cities this year (Oakland, San Francisco and Albany). Boulder Colorado  and Cook County, Illinois encompassing Chicago  passed similar measures joining Berkley in 2014 and Philadelphia this summer.

Super-Sized Americans

Sugar sweetened beverages are one of the major culprits in the obesity epidemic particularly among children.

The “good cheer” of Coke has come under blistering attack over the past several years  for its empty calories contributing to the obesity epidemic, high rates of diabetes and other health issues, especially among children,

The American Dream may have been downsized, but American’s ever expanding waistlines have clearly not been. Blame in no small part can go to our love affair with soda and penchant  for the super-sizing of our soft drinks.

Will Soda Fizzle Out?

“This young man is 11 months old – and he isn’t even our youngest customers by any means,” 7-Up crows in this 1955 advertisement. “For 7-Up is so pure, so wholesome you can give it to babies and feel good about it.”

The tax measure aimed at discouraging people from drinking soda naturally caused an outpouring of action from the beverage industry, worried that soda may be fizzled out of the American diet

Hardly.

Started on a slow drip at an early age, the soda industry has created and encouraged  a nation of addicts.

It was never too early to get your toddler hooked on the sweet stuff.

The trade organization American Beverage Association spent multi-millions of dollars to beat the soda tax, saturating the public with TV ads, full-page advertisements and flyers arguing it will be costly to consumers, calling the soda tax “discriminatory and highly unpopular.”

The powerful group got beaten back.

Big Soda, Big Lies

“Soft drinks are youngsters top favorite when it comes to cool refreshment, whether they’re little leaguers or teenagers. No matter what kind of container this billion dollar market likes best, remember Continental has the right soft drink package for you.” Continental Cans ad 1958

For almost 100 years the  American Beverage Association has been carefully coaxing us to drink their carbonated beverages.

It’s no accident that soda pop, as American as apple pie and equally as loaded with sugar,  has been a ubiquitous part of our diet for nearly as long

The American Beverage Association (ABA) the trade association that represents America’s non-alcoholic beverage industry was founded in 1919 as the American Bottlers of Carbonated Beverages.

In 1919 there were about 600 bottlers who formed the association to provide a more unified voice before Congress and government.

Carbonated drinks have a number of “pet names” but only one high standard, we were told by the organization. “Up New England way some call for tonics and ginger ales. Park Avenue N.Y. might ask for “charged water,” and Parkville Tenn for “soda pop”…But just so the drink is carbonated and bottled you know it’s good and good for you.”

Within a few years they began an aggressive advertising campaign to promote the consumption of carbonated beverages  touting the healthful wholesomeness of their product…especially for America’s small fry.

 It’s Good and Good For  You

7-up was the family drink so wholesome you could share it with the kiddies, no matter the age..One 7-up ad proclaimed “so pure so good so wholesome for everyone including the tiniest of tots.” Vintage ad 1953

Unlike today when most nutritionists are saying soda poses risks to children’s health, once upon a time soda was marketed as a wholesome, refreshment for kids of all ages…the younger the better

The ads  run by the American Bottlers of Carbonated Beverages relied on the esteemed  medical and academic communities to vouch for its healthfulness.

If fussy children were not getting enough liquids in their diet, not to worry Mama,  let them drink soda- pure water and nourishing sugar!  Mothers could rest assured,  soda was high in calories, at a time when calories had a positive connotation. In fact one ad  boasted of the beneficial high calorie content of soda that had more calories than fish, milk or vegetables. And what fun to drink.

“None is more palatable nor invigorating for you and your children. These health beckoning beverages are food as well as drink.”

“Good and good for you” was their motto for decades.  And good for their bottom line too.

No Fuss No Muss- A Simple Modern Approach

Vintage ad 1927 American Bottlers of Carbonated Beverages

“Youngsters do not get sufficient liquids in their regular diet, ” begin this ad from 1927 . “Your family doctor will tell you there’s a simple modern remedy.”

Tempt the family’s thirst with the irresistibly delicious tang of Bottled carbonated beverages. Serve these taste tempting drinks right with the meal…”between times”…and for ever social occasion. Refreshing bottled beverages are made with pure water, nourishing sugar and wholesome flavors.

They’re good and good for you.

Children Enjoy the Tang of These Delicious Drinks

American Bottlers of Carbonated Beverages Vintage ad 1927

A feast for the few year olds! And the best of it is that these bottled carbonated beverages are not only good but good for them.

The food basis of these drinks-invert sugar –  is simply high-grade sugar made highly nourishing and pre digested by natural action in the drink itself.

In fact, Prof J.H. Buchanan, Iowa State College recently proved by test that bottled carbonated beverages contain more calories per pound than fish, fresh asparagus buttermilk, cabbage or carrots. Moreover, the pre-digested food in these soft drinks is instantly assimilated by the blood.

Besides the finest sugar, these good drinks contain pure water and wholesome taste tempting flavors. Perfect carbonation- possible only when the drink is bottled- adds the delightful tangy taste.

No other food product is handled with greater care for sanity and purity.

Keep a case of your favorite carbonated beverage always on hand, ready to serve for any occasion.

Wholesome

Vintage ad 1937 Canada Dry Ginger Ale

“Let the children have all they want,” advised this 1937  ad from Canada Dry Ginger Ale. “It’s wholesome and crystal pure.”

“Its gingervating,” the copy continued. “A sparkling glass of ginger ale cools you off to help pep you up…it’s a drink with a reason.”

Morning, noon or night was the right time for a carbonated beverage.

Of course it failed to mention that a 12 ounce serving of wholesome ginger ale has 31.84 grams of sugar which is equal to 8 teaspoons.

Sugar Rush

Vintage ad 1946 Corn products refining Company

Yes, it was never too early to  include sparkling soda in your diet.

And why not… sugary soda was considered energizing goodness.

“You burn up  lot of energy in today’s fast pace…make sure you get it back…with sugar. A drink of sugar is like recharging your batteries.”

Yup, there was no better way to get going than with good old dextrose.

Vintage illustration from Dextrose Sugar ad 1941

Like other food products, beverages were made better enriched with Dextrose sugar according to a series of ads run by the Corn Products Refining Company.

In the 1940’s a great deal of money in advertising was spent by the Corn Products Refining Company promoting the virtues of corn syrup, an inexpensive form of dextrose much favored by manufacturers.

Just as today the Corn Refiners are trying to re-brand High Fructose Corn Syrup as “corn sugar,” so 70 years ago the Corn Products Refining Company was fighting a similar battle to have sugar derived from corn accepted as a wholesome, nutritious ingredient, superior to old fashioned cane or beet sugar.

And they succeeded.

Dextrose became the new wonder nutrient touted for its energy giving properties. It was not just an ingredient or sweetener, it enriched food with the energy of the sun.

“The fizzing flavor and fragrance of pure soft drinks have captured America’s thirst to the tune of 40 million bottles a day-13 billion bottles a year,” the  copy to the 1946 Dextrose ad explained.

The key to its success?

Gratify

Vintage ad 1948

Smart for a teenage or grown up party is this attractive grouping of ice cold soft drinks. Perfect pairings salami cornucopias filled with creame cheese and chives.

Such popularity must be explained. Water merely satisfies-soft drinks gratify the thirst; provide refreshment, natural stimulation positive nutrition.”

Progressive bottlers use a blend of mildly sweet dextrose and sucrose ( both fine sugars) to achieve proper “body” without masking the true flavors o their popular beverages.

Dextrose adds real quick acting food energy the kind that makes “refreshment” a fact-not a catch phrase. Many fine beverages are today enriched with Dextrose enjoy their true energizing goodness!

Another  Dextrose ad from 1948 boasts:

The key to energy! There’s nothing soft about soft drinks! Vigor abounds in every bottle! Deep down energy that sparkles with tempting wholesome goodness.

Americans of all ages enjoy soft drinks bountifully… to the tune of 50 million bottles a day!

67  years later the average Americans now drinks 45 gallons of sugary drinks a year.

That’s progress!

Sweet Thought

For now, folks can relax as the rest of America still remains submerged in a syrupy sea of over sized soft drinks. It’s when that sugar shock wears off though, that they may be worry  and realize who they really voted for in this presidential election.

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2016. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Holiday themed advertising has long been popular, and mid-century advertising served up a heap big helping of ads that today we would consider questionable. No Puritans these Pilgrims, they are bravely under-dressed for their first Thanksgiving. Vintage ad Carters Trigs’s for Men

In mid-century America when it seemed the only risk of offending others was to suffer the unforgivable shame of halitosis, Madison Avenue gleefully ran ads that would not only raise a politically correct eyebrow today, but by their offensive nature could very well spark angry protestations.

Today I add some Thanksgiving additions to the collection.

Thankfully, there has been some Pilgrims Progress when it comes to the accurate portrayal of the Thanksgiving story and sensitivity towards Native Americans. We no longer are blase about depictions of racial stereotypes, historical inaccuracies, and insensitivities towards gender and that’s something to be thankful for.

Sugar Coated History

Racial stereotypes and historical inaccuracies have long been as traditional a Thanksgiving fixture as cranberries and stuffing, though nowadays not quite as easy to swallow. Vintage ad Dextrose Sugar

Guess there’s good reason for bingeing on all those festive pies and candied yams festooned with marshmallows. The poor Pilgrims needed that extra pep fueled by sugar to outrun the angry Injuns on the warpath.

In the 1940’s a great deal of money in advertising was spent by the Corn Products Refining Company promoting the virtues of corn syrup, an inexpensive form of dextrose much favored by manufacturers.

“When you think of Mayflower you think of Pilgrims,” the ad explains and “when you think of energy you think of Dextrose Sugar.”

Just as today the Corn Refiners are trying to re-brand High Fructose Corn Syrup as “corn sugar,” so decades ago the Corn Products Refining Company was fighting a similar battle to have sugar derived from corn accepted as a wholesome, nutritious ingredient, superior to old-fashioned cane or beet sugar.

Through their successful ad campaigns Dextrose became the new wonder nutrient touted for its energy giving properties. It was not just an ingredient or sweetener, it enriched food with the energy of the sun.

Vintage illustration ad for Dextrose Sugar

Without a hint o’ shame, the ad proudly explains the Pilgrims progress thanks to sugar.

“Through the centuries human energy has conquered continents, harnessed the elements, built empires.” A sugar-coated way of saying – taken land away from its indigenous people, destroyed ecology and killed off the natives.

Although the Wampanoag Indians joined for a meal of Thanksgiving in 1621 the Indians didn’t fare so well at other Thanksgiving observances.

The image of the running Pilgrim trying to outrun the darting arrows implies all was not quiet after the first thanksgiving and the poor Pilgrim has been running from the savages who had been on the warpath since 1624.

The fact is, the second generation of Pilgrims got greedy for land and Indians had to fight for survival.

Without any sugar-coating the truth is  within 50 years the Wampanoag would no longer be a tribe. Indians living near settlers would be killed or die of disease.

 Pale Face Feet

Esquire socks referred to their new line of socks as being in 17 full-blooded Indian Warrior colors that could be purchases at your local mens wear tepee.

The blood-thirsty Indian always on the warpath was a long time favorites trope for selling products. What better way for paleface feet to outrun the savages than with full-blooded Indian  Warrior colored socks from Esquire’s  line of socks that could be conveniently purchased at your local mens wear tepee.

“Beware of coward colors that run!

Esquires “brave” shades won’t run, heap big Indian color for paleface feet! Socks make big fashion pow-wow bring back 17 Indian warrior colors for all members of tribe. Only pee wee wampum needed.

I Dreamed I Was a Pilgim in My Carter Briefs

Braving the cold of Massachusetts,  the Pilgrim and young brave prepare for their first Thanksgiving. Vintage ad Carter’s Trigs for Men

With equal portions of sheer silliness and questionable taste this ad serves up a heaping helping of Thanksgiving cheer. Nothing comes between them and their turkey but a pair of Carters.

In a nod to Maidenform’s famous “I Dreamed I Was A ..” campaign depicting a woman in an improbable situation wearing only a bra, Carter’s Trig’s underwear  for men put the men folk in their skivvies off to their first Thanksgiving.

No Puritans these Pilgrims,  this gun totin’ paleface hunter and his young Indian sidekick, wear only Carters Trigs as they hunt together for their day of thanksgiving.  Despite the obvious camaraderie shared by the Pilgrim and the young brave  on their hunt, we are reminded of the constant danger and savagery of the Redman, by the ever present  arrows in the Pilgrims hat.

Joining them in their hunt is a  turkey too.

Note to the Pilgrim housewife- careful to remove the long johns on the Turkey before you cook it.

Paints For Palefaces

Vintage ad Lowe Brothers Paint 1958

On the Warpath

In a less enlightened time, ads featuring racial and ethnic portrayals in questionable taste raised nary an eyebrow. Vintage ad Rand McNally Road Atlas

“To the early America who read directions in trees and stars a road atlas was perhaps unnecessary,” explains this ad from Rand McNally Road Atlas. “But today’s travelers rely in accurate legible road maps.”

Once the Europeans stole all their land, the poor Indian found himself thrown off land that his ancestors had been living on for centuries. Maybe a road map would be helpful.

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2016. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

To Canoodle or Not to Canoodle

In Post-War America, love was in the air.

Along with Valentines Day’s hearts and flowers, came big dates, big dances, and king sized expectations in high schools and colleges all around the country. But even the smoothest post war gal could use a tip or two to make the evening real dream-diary stuff.

So for all you valentines with a special date marked down on your calendars, some vintage advice from 1946 for do’s and –especially- don’t’s on hooking up.

Tonight’s the Night

Peggy was all hepped up for her big Valentines date with Hank a tall, dark, crew-cut kind of fellow. This blushing bobby-soxer was sure this would be the night he asked her to go steady. But, her pal Paula warned, going steady came with consequences.

Terror and titillation went hand in hand.

Sure, like most Junior girls in her High School, Peggy liked some hubba hubba from time to time. But every good girl knew the dangers of heavy petting!

Figuring out how to say “good night but not goodbye” and maintain her reputation, caused her headaches to beat the band.  Luckily for Peg  there was no shortage  of advise and cautionary tales  for the love struck female. Every mid-century women’s magazine were chock full of them to help set this jittery Junior straight. Consulting her favorite sub deb column in her mothers Ladies Home Journal proved  invaluable.

Caution: Romance Ahead

“It happens to every girl- that mellow moonlight and roses feeling when the man of the moment begins to look like the biggest thing in her life. If you’re a wide awake bright-eyed kind of gal who gets a kick out good books, good football games and good brisk walks in the rain, it’s inevitable,”  began a column directed to sub debs  in a 1946 issue of Ladies Home Journal.

“You’re going to get a kick out of good dates too!” Peggy read  on anxiously.

Boy, Oh Boy!

“You may have liked boys since you were an out sized character back in the pigtails-and-pinafore department and the little chaps around the neighborhood made good company for playing hide and seek.”

“Now boys are still fun, only now they are more fun, and instead of just liking them as you once did you feel a new appreciation for them.”

“And how!” thought Peggy to herself.

“Suddenly you want to date boys who are smooth dancers, know all the do’s and don’ts of about dating and are smart enough to push the button for a woody Herman disk when they slip a nickel in the juke box.”

“And then suddenly you’re content to know just one. Because it’s happened.”

“You’ve suddenly met the one boy who has almost everything you can ask for in any man! There may be a few things missing ( he isn’t as tall as you’d like nor does he drive a red convertible coupe) but with this dream stuff so close at hand- who are you to quibble.”

“You’ve found someone whom you can like and who likes  you. Someone you can really appreciate and that affection just can’t put itself into words.”

“So you’ve got to find some other way of expressing yourself- it will take-well one goodnight kiss at least!”

Eagerly, Peggy read on.

Can This be Love?

“Of course this is the old feeling you’ve heard so much about.”

“It isn’t just a hubba hubba business; it’s something much more important than that.”

“You can’t wait to get to math class each morning because he sits almost behind you; you can’t begin your homework at night till after 7:30 because that’s the time he calls and if he doesn’t call that evening you,  you can’t do your homework at all for wondering about him; and you carried a slip of paper round in your pocket for weeks worn and tattered because he scrawled “See you at 8:30”on it the first night you two had a date together.”

“It’s a wonderful feeling all right; it’s exciting. It’s stimulating, it keeps you awake at night! But just a minute, honey-chile- haven’t you felt this way before?”

“How about that super sharp fellow you knew back in the days when you were still a freshman? The one who asked you to wear his class ring one Saturday night (but the mood was off and the ring returned before the week was out)?”

“And the fellow with whom you went on a blind date when you were visiting your cousin in St. Louis, and the soda jerker down at the drugstore who went to your high school and who asked you to wait for him every night after work so he could walk you home?”

“You liked them didn’t you- and more than just a little?”

A Dime a Dozen

Vintage illustration Jon Whitcomb 1948

“And a kiss is an important thing.”

“You show your interest first just by talking to him, smiling when he looks your way; you can give him a hint that he’s the kind of boy who’s No.1 on your hit parade by saving your Friday nights for him; and then after a number of dates, lots of deep conversations and some real fun together- you may realize this isn’t just any boy.”

“This is someone special.”

“And since your kiss is based on honest affection it means something important to both of you. “

“But if you change man interests and dates every other evening, what happens to that sincerity? You may feel at the moment that tonight’s the night, but who was that boy we saw you with last night ( that was no ‘boy’ that was the fellow you thought you loved, remember?)”

A Girl Who Gets Around

“Or are you by any slim chance, one of those female characters who have been fooling themselves with the old tale that ‘a girl has to neck to get around?’ You may think that’s the true story, that the object of any fellows affection will automatically be the gal from whom he gets the most….affection.”

“But you just haven’t got as far as the punch line!”

“Many a gal gets around so much for a while that the whole whirl leaves her dizzy; she loses her sense of what’s what completely. She may think that all any boy wants is a gal with whom to hold hands, pat cheeks and rub noses at the doorstep. She goes through the same routine  with 6 out of 10 fellows, and she’s suddenly surprised when boys don’t call her anymore! “

Peggy blushed with recognition.

“That gal just forgot that anything too easy to get, is considered “cheap” and that’s just what happened to her. It doesn’t take long for fellows to catch on to a girls dating reputation- and a word to the guys is sufficient!”

Peggy’s pal Paula didn’t want to be the sort of “I told you so” kind of friend, but the look she gave Peggy said it all.

What’s Your Story

“Let’s forget what this moonlight madness does to your dating rating and your reputation and figure out what it does to you.”

“You may not spend too much time on self-analysis taking yourself apart to see what ticks. But if you did you would realize that you are made up of hundreds of complex “reactions” all of which add up to make your total personality.”

“One kiss won’t put you out of the pink-angel department with any boy, but you know that one kiss leads to another; you may have wanted to kiss a fellow goodnight because he’s considered a good date and you want to see more of him, or simply because he’s your guy and that’s just the way you feel- and before you know it, you’re necking!!!

“You can suddenly find yourself with a lot of emotions just too hot to handle! And don’t even try to fool yourself with the smug assumption, ‘I’m not that kind of girl!”

Caution: No Parking Ahead!

“So take time out occasionally to think about your date life. And take it slow and easy for a smart gal will know to keep those extra starts out of her eyes. This is one time you have to see what you’re doing!”

The lesson was clear- Valentines Day was no license to lose your reputation.

Peggy was firm: Keep the Brakes on!

Copyright (©) 2017 Sally Edelstein All Rights Reserved

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Sex Advice Before Masters and Johnson

Like most mid-century girls, Bitsy Bendix longed to be a bride, convinced that the basic occupation of virtually every girl was choosing a man to marry.

But for bachelorette Bitsy the next best thing happened.

In the summer of 1950 she may not have been a model bride but became the ultimate model for a bride when she posed as one in a Community Silverplate advertisement.

Vintage Community Silverplate ads 1946 illustrations Jon Whitcomb “Happy is the bride the sun shines on…gloriously happy for keeps. And happy the bride who starts her household treasure with Community Silverplate.”

In an era run rampant with advertising and illustrations of happy brides and handsome grooms, no series of ads celebrated love and marriage more than the wildly popular Community Silver-plate series illustrated by that dream-weaver of mid-century American romance Jon Whitcomb.

Always a Bridesmaid…

Illustration by Pruett Carter- Ladies Home Journal 1948

It all began for Bitsy in April.

Springtime brought out the bride in all hopeful young women. April showers might bring May flowers but they also brought bridal showers blossoming into June Brides.

Along with the appearance of the first daffodils, each spring, would bring with it a new crop of bridal and wedding themed articles, advertising and illustrations. Every magazine you flipped through, every newspaper you read, painted the same glowing picture of the desirability and inevitability of marriage.

American companies were happy to align themselves with weddings and marriage. (R) This vintage 1950 A&P ad states: “Walking Down the Aisle Together. June the traditional month of brides is a happy time . For thanks to countless brides of many Junes A&P has become a tradition too. Seeing newlyweds in the aisles of A&P supermarket always makes us proud of our part in helping make Americans dreams come true.” (L) Vintage 1948 ad for Plymouth- the perfect car for weddings and beyond. “For a smooth getaway and a smooth path ahead” The car also boasted a huge trunk large enough for “a princesses trousseau!”

A Toast to Marriage. (L) Beer Belongs Ad Series “Preview of Wedding Presents” illustration by Haddon Sundblom (R) Pepsi Cola ad 1953

Long before the now defunct Doma (Defense of Marriage Act)  dictated what constituted a marriage, American mass media set the gold standard for the ideal of marriage.

Dream On

“Of all the wedding gifts, Presto cooker will contribute more to every brides homemaking happiness!” Vintage ad 1948 Presto Cooker

Like every girl she knew, Bitsy would close her eyes and imagine herself floating in a drift of white organdy with embroidered dots enveloped in a veil of tulle; her wedding shower filled with the latest Wear Ever pressure cooker, copper bottomed Revere Ware and perfectly wonderful Pyrex.

“A Presto cooker the most useful gift imaginable for the most wonderful woman in the world…a bride.” Vintage advertisements for Presto Cookers (L) 1950 (R) 1952

Planning for the Future-  One of the most popular gifts for brides was anything Pyrex as this 1946 Pyrex ad suggests: “If you want wedding and shower gifts that will thrill her now and help her later…” Bride Today…Hostess Tomorrow (L) Toastmaster ad 1950

But most of all she longed for her very own treasure chest of gleaming Community silver-plate, just like in the romantic ads.

Vintage Community Silverplate ad Illustration Jon Whitcomb 1951 “April showers are sunny when they sparkle with community”

A ring on her finger- Vintage Community Silverplate ad 1946 illustration Jon Whitcomb “Her ring-stardust circling a slender finger. Her Community…gleaming symbol of gracious living. This a bride treasures… for keeps.”

Bitsy would picture herself setting a table for 2, placing her cherished Community silver proudly on lace or linen, delighting in its tradition. With her husband beaming with pride, she could imagine herself a gracious hostess entertaining proudly, knowing her guests will whisper “Isn’t she lucky-“It’s Community!”

Marriage is For Keeps

Vintage Community Silverplate ad from WWII. The format was the same but because Whitcomb was off to war serving in the Navy, the illustration was taken over by an artist signed simply Michael. “Today he has a war on his hands, begins this,” 1943 ad.”But the day will come, please God, when your Tom or Dick or Jack come homes for keeps…when kisses will be real, not paper, when you may know a strong hand on yours in a dim lit room…when crystal will gleam and silver will sparkle.”

The famous series of ads that launched a thousand happy marriage trousseau’s had been running since  WWII where it featured long distance romance  between a soldier and his sweetie on the home-front, dreaming of a post-war world where they would be together for keeps.

The formulaic ads lushly painted by illustrator Jon Whitcomb always featured beautiful bride or bride to be gazing adoringly into the eyes of her beloved, a typical American love scene with a clean-cut boy and well scrubbed girl.

Vintage illustration by Jon Whitcomb 1955 Ladies Home Journal

Whitcomb has been called the master propagandist in the art of love and his highly romanticized vision of both men and women and their idealized lives filled the pages and fantasy of  post war America

 The Look of Love

“Lets Make it for Keeps” states this 1947 Community ad. “Two…in a world of music…2 in a world of their own…2 who have discovered each other…for keeps! For keeps too- the 2 will treasure the sparkling hospitality inviting beauty of their gracious Community.” Illustration Jon Whitcomb

Along with her best pal Guy Manning, Bitsy could spend hours poring over the latest women’s  magazines discussing flower arrangements, table settings, and a well planned trousseau.

But mostly for these 2 romantics it was the appearance of the seasons first community silver ad that set their hearts aflutter. It was something the 2 had shared since childhood.

“There’ll come a day when we’re the lucky ones,” a brooding Bitsy would sigh to Guy, staring longingly at the illustration of the handsome groom.

Sometimes it was hard to tell who was swooning more over the dreamy couple pictured in the ads, Bitsy or her old pal Guy.

Not the The Marrying Kind

Jon Whitcomb was one of the most recognizable mid century artists whose glamorous women with their wholesome American good looks appeared regularly in all the top women’s fashion magazines as well as ad campaigns. Illustration Ladies Home Journal 1948

Everyone always remarked that Guy was a real dreamboat, as handsome as any of the hunks in Whitcomb’s illustrations. But when it came to girls he was always batting zero.

Betsy just ignored him when he’d shrug and tell her “he wasn’t the marrying kind.”

“A man becomes the marrying kind,” Bitsy would lecture him, “when some girl makes him realize that marriage would be far more agreeable and worthwhile than bachelorhood!”

For years, Bitsy had tried setting Guy up with all kinds of gals from the office but they never amounted to anything. Sure he might flirt with a file clerk and share a soda and sob story with a girl from the steno pool but Guy seemed to prefer the quiet company of his equally handsome roommate Rod.

Exacerbated, Bitsy joked that the two confirmed bachelors were like an old married couple.

 A Man of Your own

“It’s magic, it’s moonlight, it’s mystery, it’s a miracle…when he finds that she cares for keeps! Vintage ad 1947 Illustration Jon Whitcomb

Bitsy just knew in her heart that some glad day the lump in her throat would melt and the man in her life would appear.

What Betsy didn’t know was that for Guy, he already had.

“Don’t you worry Guy,” Bitsy reassured her best pal. “They’ll come a day when your dreams will come true… And the hopes and plans for a marriage of your own will really happen topped off by a treasure chest of Community!”.

But for Guy there would be no wedding, and no presents for in 1950 for a closeted gay man in a small town there was no community.

Calling All Brides

Vintage Community Silverplate ad 1948

Who would ever guess that a shopping excursion to a department store in April would bring Bitsy closer to her hearts desire.

By early spring it always seemed someone in Bitsy’s set was about to take the big step. Shopping for wedding gifts at Swensons Department store in downtown Sweet Oaks  was a spring ritual.

One afternoon, while Guy and Bitsy were browsing through the silver department deep in deliberation mulling the merits of pickle forks for their pal Midge, a sign caught Guys eye.

“Manufacturers Sponsors Jon Whitcomb Contest for All American Girl” read the sign

Vintage Community Silver ad 1951

Picking up a flyer from the counter Guy read aloud:

“If you’ve ever dreamed of being a real life cover girl, this may be your opportunity,” an animated Guy read excitedly. “Jon Whitcomb famous illustrator and creator of the Whitcomb girl is looking 4 new undiscovered feminine faces to model for color page ads for Community Silverplate.

Who is the clear-eyed all American girl painted by Jon Whitcomb?

Vintage Community Silverplate Ads 1952 Illustration Jon Whitman

A model is desperately needed to model silverware for a Jon Whitcomb painting. A nationwide search is now being conducted to come up with 4 future Whitcomb lovelies and the lure is a fabulous summer vacation trip top NYC all expenses paid. and a week at Waldorf for girl and her chaperone or husband.

Four lucky girls will receive the original painting valued at thousands of dollars and $100 a day modeling fees while posing for 3 days plus $100 cash for incidentals.

“One girl will be chosen from towns of less than 25,000, one from towns of 25,000 to 100,000 one from towns of 100,000 to 500,000 and one from cities of more than 500,000.

Vintage Community Silverplate ad 1952 Illustrator Jon Whitcomb

The contest sponsored by Community Silverplate, one of the country’s foremost manufacturers is being conducted through jewelry stores and department stores silverware departments.

The contest ends May 1 1950. To enter a busy gal has only to visit a jeweler, fill out a very short application blank and mail it with a snap shot to the board of judges. Winners announced in June.

“Unless Hollywood is your first love, you can’t afford to lose this opportunity!

Opportunity Knocks

Vintage Community Silverplate ad 1951 Illustrator Jon Whitcomb

“Bitsy doll,  you’d be a shoo in,” Guy said eagerly.

Everyone in Sweet Oaks Iowa always said Bitsy was a jack-pot type of girl.

With her wholesome American good looks she fit a Whitcomb girl to a T. A honey strawberry blonde with a Pepsodent smile and plenty of pep, she had, as Guy would say “a cake baking disposition.”

“It oughn’t be so hard to have that ‘starry eyed look’ over a knife with which you can butter your bread, should it?” Guy asked joyfully.

“This could be your ticket to your dreams.”

“Lifetime lovely! Lifetime loved!” Vintage Community Silverplate ad 1952 Illustrator Jon Whitcomb

“Everyone knew,” he gushed  “ that many of Jon Whitcomb’s models had gone on to big time Hollywood careers, as well as leaving the business for matrimony, marrying big time railroad executives, and other successful tycoons.”

A thrill shot through Bitsy!

This just might help this bachelor girl to get a ring on her own finger.

Bride Make Over

Vintage Community Silverplate ad 1953 Illustrator Jon Whitcomb

With only 3 weeks left to mail in their application they got to work.

While Rod grabbed his Kodak Hawkeye Brownie and made like a shutterbug, Guy did Bitsy’s hair and her makeup applying just the right amount of rouge to give her that well scrubbed all American look.

Carefully he painted her lips in Revlon’s new color sunny side up red  for good luck. “A tempting red…teasing as a butterfly,” Guy cooed.
The ads said it all: “Revlon’s light hearted, sun sweetened crimson makes you kick up your heels…put a lift in your clothes…a laugh in your eye! Suddenly, all’s right with the world….”

The Waiting days are Over

“This is the moment, this is forever, this is the slice of enduring joy you have cut for yourself for keeps!” Vintage Community Ad 1946 Illustration Jon Whitcomb

Waiting to hear if she’d won the contest nearly drove poor Bitsy batty! The postman always rang twice, but for weeks Bitsy was at the door by the first ring anxiously waiting for the letter from Community.

When the congratulatory letter arrived in June, she was over the moon! Bitsy would be a bride at last if only in a painting.

On the train ride to NYC with her Mom,  Bitsy had to pinch herself! She was really going to be a Whitman girl!

And We’ll live happily ever after Shes In Love and She Loves Community

Vintage Community Silverplate Ad 1949 Illustration Jon Whitcomb

It wouldn’t be long before she could count on a set of cherished community silver for her very own.

By Christmas beautiful Bitsy Bendix was engaged!

It was the day she dreamed of and Community helped make her dream come true, turning a bride model into a genuine model Bride.

“You’ve dreamed forever…of this moment! You’ve lived forever…for this moment. You start forever…with this moment!” Vintage Community Silverplate ad 1946

Suddenly, just as Guy said, all was right with the world….

 © Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2017. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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Has the sun set on Americas great trains of tomorrow?

Americas great trains of tomorrow are a thing of the past; progress on our trains system seems to have been derailed. Once on the fast track, American trains can’t even compete.

The development of our rail transit has made little progress as we lag far behind the sophisticated passenger rail systems in Asia and Europe.

People complain about the trains in the U.S…. a lot. I should know, I travel by train up and down the North Eastern corridor frequently and whether in a Bostonian twang or a Noo Yawk accent the grousing is the same.

Furious, people justifiably gripe about trains – They’re not fast enough, they don’t go to convenient locations, they’re never on time, and many are just plain shoddy.

Red Carpet Treatment

Vintage Ad Twentieth Century Limited New York Central 1951. “Step aboard and rest assured, of temptingly freshly prepared meals, sociability in the lounge,assured of a perfectly appointed room, assured of an air conditioned climate, assured that you’ll keep those distant dates tomorrow …with a certainty no other travel can match. “

Once upon a time the Railroads  rolled out the red carpet for you… literally.

Passengers on the famous “Twentieth Century Limited” running from N.Y.C. to Chicago walked to the train on a crimson carpet which was rolled out in both N.Y and Chicago.

As one  ad rhapsodized  poetically: “It’s Twentieth Century Time! A minute ago you were in the heart of a big city, with hurrying crowds, blaring taxis and newsboys shouting the evening headlines. Now you’re in a different world as you follow the crimson carpet down the platform of Grand Central Terminal towards the softly lighted, streamlined cars that will be your club on wheels for tonight.”

Nowadays the 21st Century red carpet is more likely to tattered, stained, its  floors sticky with beer cans rolling down the aisles.

The Magic Carpet Ride

Vintage ad 20th Century Limited New York Central 1946

The 2oth Century Limited was considered the most glamorous train in America. Aimed at the upper class and business travelers its style was exclusive and sophisticated. This express train that ran from N.Y. to Chicago was in service from 1902-1967

This magic carpet ride took you away to a place of pure relaxation with no worries as the copy from this New York Central 1946 ad explains:

“Magically the days tensions vanishes when you step into the Century’s luxurious Observation car. Deep cushioned chairs invite you to relax… Superb cuisine and service await you in the dinning car and you awake refreshed after  good nights sleep in the privacy of your room in a spacious bed with a rubber foam mattress.”

Vintage illustration from 1949 ad Watchmakers of Switzerland

Even train stations themselves  were once glamorous places.

But as Thomas Freidman pointed out: “If all Americans could compare Berlins luxurious central train station today with the grimy decrepit Penn Station in NYC they would swear we were the ones who lost the war.”

Americas train system are now just plain second-rate.

On the Fast Track

In contrast to America, most of Europe have bullet trains, and Japan and China have made a huge investment in their rail system.

Several years ago, China officially opened the worlds longest high-speed rail route linking its capital Beijing with the southern commercial hub of Guangzhou. The previously 22 hour journey traveling 1430 miles in length will now take less than 10 hours.

Vintage ad 1959 Association American Railroads

Nearly sixty years ago, the Association of American Railroads remarked on the progress of Japans Railroads far surpassing ours.

In this 1959 ad they point out:

In Japan the government encourages railroads to modernize and expand

For the Japanese know that strong railroads are the sinews of an industrial nation – today essential to success in the fire economic rivalry for the worlds markets.  As Japan has aggressively promoted its railroads the nation has grown in economic strength since the war.

In the United States by contrast the government appears indifferent to the strength and stability of the railroads while it promotes and encourages the railroads competition.”

Railroads are burdened with discriminatory taxation while their competition uses highways, waterways and airways built and maintained by the government

When we handicap our railroads we promote inefficiency, high costs and high prices.

And all America is the loser.

Tomorrows Trains Today

Vintage ad New York Central 1947

There was a time however, when America was setting the pace for new railroads and there were no finer trains on the tracks.

When it came to trains, post-war America was on the fast track. There would be a vast new fleet of streamliners, fast and dependable as the day was long,  offering panoramic views in gracious and beautifully styled cars.

Vintage Ad 1945 Pennsylvania Railroad

Even before WWII ended, advertisements appeared laying it on thick about the grand future ahead for the American rail system. Already on the drawing boards were the shape of things to  come. New, modern trains, daring designs; exciting and novel innovations; more power , new speed; new riding qualities; new comforts and luxuries; new services and ideas in travel and shipping- “in a word ,transportation values beyond anything known or experienced before!”

That was part of the American Dream.

Americans expected great things of their railroads and they would deliver.

“Yes, it’s a great new day for railroading-with even greater days ahead,” crowed one ad from GM Diesels.

“One thing is certain -America will have an entirely new level of transportation post-war. The amazing achievements of the railroads under the stress of war have made this possible.”

“American railroads are in a favored position to lead in this fine new service.”

Railroads and the American Way

Vintage ad GM Diesel Train 1945

Railroads were the basic lifelines of this country. Nothing bespoke of the great American Way of capitalism and competition  than out great rail system.

General American Transportation patriotically pointed out to the reader in a 1945 advertisement:

“The American way of free enterprise, promotes a sound and vigorous growth in the railroad  industry- so that nearly 1,200,000 railroads have year-round employment keeping cars rolling- day and night, fine weather or foul.”

A Glimpse into the Future

Vintage ad 1944

“Like to Ride on a train like this?” a 1944 ad asked temptingly.

The Association of American Railroads offered war-weary citizens a glimpse into that cushy post-war future they could look forward to.

It’s a day coach.

Looks pretty nice doesn’t it? And it is nice! Light, bright, roomy and comfortably air-conditioned.

“Smooth riding at high speeds with pillow soft seats that fairly invite you to sink down and relax- wide windows that provide a sweeping view of the scenic landscape – and dozens of important little travel conveniences.

Where will you find such coaches as this?

Many of them were built before the war began and are now in use. Hundreds more had been planned but never built- you know the reason why. We haven’t been able to use scarce materials and man power to build trains as we’d like to have them.

There’s a war to win and we’re doing our level best to meet the nation’s wartime transportation needs.

But once the war was won…watch out.

Tomorrows Trains Today

Billions of dollars were being spent on railroad service for post war Americans comfort. Vintage ad Pennsylvania Rail Roads

By 1946 ads began appearing offering glimpse of the post-war future.

Railroads were looking ahead, planning for better trains for tomorrow. Unheard of luxuries would abound. There would be trains with club cars that convert into theaters or night clubs, actual telephone service en route, coaches with lounge-car luxuries, childcare for children and sleeping quarters with the comforts of a good hotel.

America would set the pace for trains.

Look Whats Coming in Americas New Trains!

Vintage Ad 1946 American Locomotive Company

Among the new wonders promised the post-war rail traveler in the very near future was a club car that miraculously converted into a rolling movie theater- a theater that traveled  90 miles an hour!

“By day,” the copy reads in this 1946 ad from the American Locomotive Company, “you’ll relax in a luxurious lounge. In the evening, you’ll sit back and watch a latest Hollywood release as you speed on your journey.”

This is no dream, but one of the many new features of trains which are in production right now. Conveniences and comforts like special playrooms for children. Telephone service for passengers en route. Roomier, more comfortable sleeping quarters than you ever dreamed of.

These improvements were all part of a modernization program estimated at $1,600,000,000- the greatest in the history of the American railroads.

“And,” the ad promised, “you’ll enjoy them not on some distant tomorrow, but as soon as the modern post-war trains hit the rails.”

Locomotives as Revolutionary as the Trains They Pull.

Vintage ad 1946 American Locomotive Company

American trains were racing full speed ahead.

Many of Americas post-war trains will sweep down the tracks behind American Locomotive Diesel Electrics as advanced as the trains themselves, as revolutionary in design as the trains themselves.

The new line of Alco Diesel- Electrics take advantage of important wartime research. The turbo charged engines, mass-produced on a moving assembly line, pack more power in less weight than any other railway diesels.”

These super locomotives are years ahead in speed, power smoothness and economy of operation.

When you board the new wonder trains powered by American Locomotive you’ll be riding behind the finest locomotives ever built.

Trains For The Post War Family

Vintage ad 1946 American Locomotive Company

Another amenity to be offered by trains was childcare – just in time for the boatload of baby boomers coming our way.

“One day soon you’ll board a brand new train with the kids – and every hour of the trip will be ‘The Children’s Hour,” explained to their reader in this 1946 ad.

Mom and Dad could relax with their feet up in the comfort of their new Airfoam seats, since Kiddies were well supervised.

Skilled attendants will entertain your youngsters in a wonder room made especially for children. There’ll be building blocks, story books, slippery slides, movies, games galore to keep their trip-and yours- from being tiresome.

Children’s playroom are just one of the new features of crack postwar trains which are now going into production.

This is not a blue-sky promise.

The proliferation of automobiles, interstate highways and availability of air travel would eventually take the steam out of those modern  locomotives, and with it, that part of the American Dream.

Copyright (©) 2017 Sally Edelstein All Rights Reserved

Was the first Thanksgiving truly a pow-wow worthy feast? Most of us associate the holiday with happy pilgrims and Indians sitting down to a big feast. It did happen once. It would be good to say this friendship lasted a long time but this was not the case. Vintage illustration 1940 advertisement Ballantine Ale

Racial stereotypes and historical inaccuracies have been as traditional a Thanksgiving fixture as melt in you mouth. candied yams and marshmallow, though nowadays not quite as easy to swallow.

American mythology about that first Thanksgiving would have us believe that once that last slice of pumpkin pie was devoured, a peace pipe was smoked and the happy Pilgrims and contented Indians lived happily ever after.

There is a lot more to the story of Indian- Puritan relations in New England than in the Thanksgiving stories we heard as kids.

Although the Wampanoag Indians and Pilgrims joined for a meal of thanksgiving in 1621 the Indians didn’t fare so well at other Thanksgiving observances.

The second generations of Pilgrims got greedy for land and Indians had to fight for survival.

Within 50 years the Wampanoag would no longer be a tribe. Indians living near settlers would be killed or die of disease.

Time Travel For Thanksgiving

Vintage advertisement Statler Hotels 1947

Along with our school books, mid-century advertising served up a heap big helping of offensive stereotypes.

In this post war ad for Statler Hotels we are introduced to Pilgrim Pete and his tomahawk wielding pal.

Vintage ad Statler Hotel 1947

The politically incorrect Puritan travels into the future of 1947 where he checks into the hotel with his best bud affectionately called Redman. The Indian who is never identified by name, has obviously wandered off the reservation landing into a swanky room at the Statler.

The copy does imply that things were not all quiet after the first thanksgiving. Apparently poor Pete has been dodging the savage who has been on the warpath since 1624.

But they call a truce every year to celebrate Thanksgiving.

Really?

In the years that followed that first Thanksgiving in 1621, more English settlers came to Plymouth and they were not in need of help from the Indians as were the original Pilgrims.

Mistrust started to grow and the friendship weakened.

The relationship deteriorated and within a few years the children of the people who ate together at the first Thanksgiving were killing one another in what came to be called the King Phillips war.

At the end of this genocidal conflict most of the New England Indians were either exterminated, living as refugees among the French in Canada or sold into slavery in the Carolinas by the Puritans.

Vintage ad Statler Hotel 1947

A pious Pilgrim, Pete the Puritan says grace before the festive meal, with blessings all around.

Of course the real pilgrims showed little grace when it came to tolerating other religions, telling Indians that their religion and customs were wrong.

In 1641 a raid against the members of the Pequot tribe in Connecticut was successful and churches declared a day of “thanksgiving” to celebrate.

During this feast the decapitated heads of Natives were kicked through the streets of Manhattan. Many towns in New England held Thanksgiving days to celebrate victories over the natives.

Ugh!

Vintage ad Statler Hotels 1947

Statler Hotels prided itself on ensuring their guests had all the comforts of home, so naturally our Indian pal is pictured sleeping with a teepee.

Historical inadequacies in Thanksgiving stories, and images reflect a lack of knowledge about the native people. The Wampanoag people who lived near Plymouth at the time of the colony’s founding, did not use teepees and did not wear elaborate feathered headdresses yet these features often show up on the sets of Thanksgiving plays and children’s art projects.

Vintage ad Statler Hotels 1947

Statler Hotels, the first great chain of hotel-keeping offered affordable rooms for business class for not a lot of wampum.

E.M. Statler considered the Henry Ford of hotels, opened his first hotel in Buffalo NY in 1908 introducing many innovations in services and conveniences for a large and growing business travelers, bridging the gap between luxury and second-rate hotels. His innovations included a bath with every room, closets instead of hooks or standing wardrobes and electric lights in that closet.

Vintage ad Statler Hotels 1947

Racist? And How!

Something to be thankful for we don’t have to view these offensive ads anymore….there has been some Pilgrims progress.

Copyright (©) 2017 Sally Edelstein All Rights Reserved

A patriotic Santa comes to the aid of the Allies in this WWII Christmas advertisement for Interwoven Socks .

Just as both sides in a war claim God on their side, so WWII American’s enlisted Santa to help fight their battle.

This 1944 ad for Interwoven Socks should be filed under vintage advertising we are not likely to see ever again in our politically correct culture.

Claus For a Cause

In 1943 while FDR, and Churchill conferred in Casablanca, apparently Uncle Sam was having a hush-hush tete a tete with Santa Claus  in the North Pole, to strategize the war.

Appearing to wield powers far beyond those of mortal men- not unlike another super hero- Santa stomps out the Axis of Evil in one clean swoop of caricatures – Hitler, Mussolini and Tojo.

Clearly this ad should end the current Santa debate – Santa isn’t just white, he’s a red-blooded American!

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2017.

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A bubbly toast to all my readers- Friends Always!

Let’s hope 2018 is a vintage year!

Military Might garishly displayed seems so darn un-American, but in fact it’s rather retro.

While we might recoil at the idea of a Soviet style military hardware parade rolling down Pennsylvania Avenue, during the Cold War Americans were far from shy about boasting and flaunting our military might. And we did it in that most American of ways – in big, bold, colorful advertisements.

“American air power has become so important that its strength or weakness can mean the difference between winning, losing ,or preventing another World War.” United Aircraft Corporation Ad 1953

These easy on the eyes advertisements found in the pages of our most popular periodicals were a veritable post war pageant of our power and prosperity, showcasing the force of Americas war machine.

New and Improved

Nestled between ads for Instant Maxwell House Coffee and  Ford Fairlanes in the latest issue of Life were lavish full-page, four-color ads for the latest fighter jet or guided missile. A veritable parade of military might could be admired from the comfort of your own Naugahyde Barca Lounger while flipping through Time Magazine.

In a marriage made in Pentagon heaven, the mad men of Madison Avenue in conjunction with the Military Industrial Complex churned out dozens upon dozens of ads in military precision during the 1950’s. These ads  served as a visual reminder of our unparalleled strength, instilling pride in our Global leadership while helping to bolster a panicked public that America was were ready to fight, protect and attack if necessary.

Defense companies like Lockheed, Grumman, and United Aircraft Corporation bloated with government contracts had no problem spending some of that cash on lavishly illustrated ads to thrill us with their latest technological marvels.

And marvel we did

Vintage ad 1954 Convair. Nuclear capacity “Guardians of Peace”

Missiles with that 100 million dollar look… new kinds of fighter jets swifter smoother  more accurate in its destruction, jets in daring new styling to capture the heart of a nation… guided missiles light years ahead of our competitors with a new kind of destruction never thought possible.

Vintage ad Sperry 1954 Time magazine

Vintage ad 1958 Chance Vought Aircraft

Vintage ad 1956 Chance Vought Aircraft

To see and experience this newness was something every American owed to his pocketbook and his heart.

Not to mention his nerves.

Cold War Jitters

“In the event of a surprise attack with today’s weapons a single bomb could wipe out a whole area.” 1955 Ad Martin

Cold war Americans had a bad case of nuclear jitters.

The threat of attack loomed large. With the Ruskies breathing down our necks  e needed protection. Fast. Fighter Jets a fast acting as Alka Seltzer.

The very thought of Soviet technological supremacy, especially military supremacy sent off a chain reaction of panic, rising fear levels and soaring defense spending. “To succeed in preventing war our Air Force Power must be strong enough to discourage aggression before it starts. This meant aircraft that are ready for retaliation,” warned an 1954 ad from United Aircraft Corporation.

We would pay any price, bear any burden to fill any Missile gap.

The thrilling new jets and missiles filled with advances and exclusive features  expressed a confidence in the future and assured a shaky nation there would indeed be a future to look forward to.

Suitable For Framing

During the Korea war Grumman proudly announced its newest turbo jet the Cougar was combat ready for fleet operation. The Cougar was an even faster swept wing successor to the famous Panther. Vintage ad Grumman 1951

Seeing American military might in vivid living color, put our cold war minds at rest, as well as justifying the enormous costs to our defense department. What a lift to the spirits when during the Korean war a reproduction of this beautiful illustration from the 1951  Grumman ad was offered to readers text-free and free of charge.

Suitable for framing, this charming testament to the fight for freedom depicting fighting jets carrying destruction to the Reds very doorstep, would be right at home in any mid-century  den. It fit so perfectly with the early American décor so popular in the smartest of suburban homes, making you the envy of your friends.

And after all isn’t that the American way?.

Copyright (©) 2018 Sally Edelstein All Rights Reserved

It’s safe to say that this 1950 Lifesavers ad that ran in Life Magazine would never appear today.

Among the collection of vintage advertising we’re likely never to see today can be added this 1950 advertisement for Lifesaver’s Pep o Mint.

Thinking nothing wrong in using black face to advertise their candy one even half expects the tag line in the ad to read: “Dem pep-o-mints sho’ ams’ swell”

Offensive? Certainly.

Today’s reader rightfully so, recoils at the sight of this imagery long associated with retrograde ideas about race and class.

But in 1950, the Civil Rights Movement was in its infancy; family friendly Life Magazine happily ran this Lifesavers ad  even as Jim Crow laws were well and alive in the deep south.

Blackface comedy sketches and musical numbers grew out of the minstrel shows of the pre Civil War era in which African Americans were portrayed in degrading terms, childlike, superstitious and lazy.
Vintage Halftone Illustration from “Gentlemen Be Seated” by Dailey Paskman 1928

Though we think of the black face minstrel as part of a popular form of entertainment in 19^th century America, blackface comedians and singers were a popular form of entertainment well into the 20^th century.

It was not uncommon well into the 1950s for High Schools, fraternities and local theater groups to perform in blackface.

While the real mad men of Madison Avenue had no compunction utilizing blackface to sell their products, who can forget the shocking scene when Mad Men’s Roger Sterling wearing blackface, serenaded his young bride.

It was not until the civil rights movement really took off in the mid 1950s and 1960s that performing in blackface fell into disrepute.

Not disputing the fact blackface was and is an embodiment of racism, perpetuating hateful stereotypes, it is hard to condemn well intended entertainers of an earlier time for not meeting our contemporary standard of sensitivity.

Those who smeared bunt cork on their faces decades ago were not inherently evil.

In the early and mid 20^th century Al Jolson and Eddie Cantor famously wore blackface and Hollywood thought nothing of putting blackface on such white stars as Fred Astaire, Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland, to name just a few. These stars weren’t racist and they had no idea how hateful their blackface performances would seem to us decades later.

Today, however,  there is no excuse.

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.