Vintage ad “Delineator Magazine” 1937 “To Be Killed in Action” placed by World Peaceways in NYC

Mothers Day once had more to do with guns than roses.

After the carnage of the Civil War, Mothers Day was started as a protest by women who had lost their sons

Calling for a day for women to promote peace and disarmament, Mothers Day grew out of anti-war activist Julia Ward Howe’s “Mothers Day Proclamation.”

Best remembered as the author of the “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” Howe drafted the pacifist manifesto also known as her “Appeal to Womanhood Throughout the World” in 1870 asking women worldwide to protest war and demand universal disarmament.

Three years later Howe organized the first Mothers Day Peace Festival which was celebrated on June 2 1873 in 18 cities throughout the country. Sadly there was little enthusiasm to mount a celebration the following year and the notion faded away.

Mothers For Peace

Mothers Day may have morphed into a sentimental Hallmark moment but mothers have a long tradition of anti-war involvement.

Appealing directly to mothers, the anti-war advertisement pictured above ran in Delineator Magazine, a mainstream American women’s magazine.

In  the spring of 1937 with war brewing in Europe, this daring protest  ad appeared  alongside recipes for husband pleasing meals, advice on hanging dainty curtains and ads for the perfect Mothers Day presents , invited women to join together and protest for peace, and disarmament.

Julia Ward Howe would have been pleased.

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2014.

“Women of the Future will make the Moon a cleaner place to live” Vintage Lestoil Household Cleaner Advertisement 1960s

The dawning of the Space Age may have caused some business men to ponder their obsolescence but homemakers needn’t worry- their jobs were secure.

With Stanley Kubrick’s 2001 Space Odyssey looming over Mad Men, it would be no surprise if Betty Francis got in the Space Age swing of it too. Looking for a way out of her humdrum housewife existence, the former Betty Draper might have set her sights on the moon.

Betty Francis’s Space Odyssey

Like many housewives in the late 1960’s her own suburban odyssey seems to have stalled for poor Betty.

Increasingly bored and  frustrated, she is  stifled by overbearing men like Don and Henry  and at odds with her children. That is until one day when she accidentally stumbled upon a solution that seemed out of this world. Absent-mindedly eyeing a new shade of Revlon’s Moon Drops dewy lipstick while flipping through McCall’s Magazine,  she took noticed of an unusual sweepstake.

This was no ordinary soap suds- jingle-25 word or less-win-a-new -Frigidaire kind of contest.

An alternative grand prize was offered in McCall’s 2001 Sweepstakes if the moon wasn’t available. “Win your tomorrows dream holiday today- visit the namesakes of the planets here on earth. 3  week all expense fabulous discovery holiday for 2 visiting…”Venus”- Paris, France, “Mars”- London, England, “Jupiter” – Rome, Italy, “Mercury”- Florence, Italy and “Neptune”- Venice, Italy. Other prizes included luxurious mink stoles, an RCA portable color TV and record album featuring the original soundtrack from “2001 A Space Odyssey”

In her own nod to Kubrick’s 2001 Space Odyssey , Betty decided to enter McCall’s fabulous “2001 Sweepstakes” that promised to take her straight from the suburbs to the solar system.

In an issue devoted to the futuristic year 2001, the woman’s magazine offered the opportunity of a lifetime…a trip to the moon.

Girls, leave your grime, girdles and the generation gap behind and hop on a rocket.

“Offering 2001 fabulous prizes the grand prize was…..

“Everybody’s exciting dream…an all expense paid fantastic voyage to the Moon ( if available by commercial transportation and tourist hotel accommodations at the time of the winner selection)

Over the Moon

Of course who ever won the contest would be in for a rude awakening.

Not counting the fact that we would have to wait for Neil Armstrong to actually take the first step on the moon, it turns out the moon was not all to was cracked up to be.

According to a Lestoil advertisement  that ran in the same issue of the magazine,” if we did make it to the moon, it would be women who cleaned it.”

Clearly the space age wouldn’t make the housewife obsolete.

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2014.

Dubious diets are as American as…well…. all-you-can-eat apple pie.

Relying on fad diets to shed a few pounds has been handed down from gullible generation to gullible generation willing to swallow anything promising a trim figure.

In 1938 The American Institute of Baking served up white bread as a “proper part of modern reducing diets” in its authoritative booklet “The Right Way to Right Weight.”

Let’s take a look at how one 1930’s gal went from gloomy to giddy and found her slender self with the help of a loaf of bread.

A Glutton for Gluten

Vintage Sunbeam Bread advertisement

Like most Americans, Gertie Gottlieb was a glutton for gluten. Whether bread, biscuits or Parker House rolls, Gertie gobbled ‘em up with gusto.

But like most gals, Gertie longed for a slender silhouette.

All the romance she got was out of magazines. And she had plenty of time to read them too.

A wee bit stout, she craved the right contours, eyeing with envy all the smart spring fashions pictured in the women’s magazines.

Flirtatious fashions, tailored for trimness. Fashions that called for a slim, youthful figure…”the lovely silhouette every woman so eagerly desires.”

Vintage Women’s Fashion Illustration 1934 “McCall’s Magazine” “Flirtation Fashions- Tailored into Trimness. The waistline is dreamily defined; Molded along modern lines for debutantes who crave the right contours.”

A Weigh We Go

Heaven knows, Gertie tried her hand at reducing.

“Being the modern common sense way to diet,” she knew enough to “reach for a Lucky instead of a sweet.” “Light a Lucky Strike,” the cigarette ads advised “when fattening sweets tempt you…it satisfies the appetite without harming digestion.”

The slim silhouette so in demand (L) Vintage ad Lucky Strike Cigarettes – “Smoke a Lucky instead of sweets” (R) Vintage Women’s Fashion Illustration 1934

But instead of a slim figure she ended up with smokers hack.

Gertie gobbled fat-reducing gum drops, chewed Slends Fat-Reducing Gum, and devoured so many grapefruits on the Hollywood Diet that she darn near felt she deserved a star of her own in front of Graumanns Chinese Theater.

The famous fat-busting banana and milk diet went bust, as did the bathtub filled with reducing bath salts with names like Lesser Slim Figure Bath and Everywoman’s Flesh Reducer which may have worked for every woman, but not for poor Gertie.

And speaking of bathtubs, she even tried her hand at washing away the fat with Fat-O-No soap hoping to lather up to slim down. And don’t get her started on all those thyroid pills, even if all the screen stars swore by them.

All she ended up with was a bad case of the jitters. But nothing a hot buttered bun wouldn’t fix!

A Diet Fit for Loafers

Down in the dumps, Gertie  worried if she was doomed to go through life feeling awkward and uncomfortable.

She had just about given up when her pal Mitzi told her about an amazing diet that was sweeping the nation. All Gertie needed was the proper guidance.

Gertie’s eyes glazed over at the thought of yet another diet till she heard the magic words: Bread.

For this gluten-loving gal it was a godsend.

The Bread Diet gives you delicious, satisfying meals- takes off weight without fatigue or nervous strain. (L) 1939 Ad Bread Diet, American Institute of Baking (R) 1934s Fashion Illustration McCall’s Magazine

The Bread Diet promised m’lady that in a few short weeks the pounds would just melt away all while enjoying your fill of the staff of life.

Authorized by the American Institute of Baking, their ads promised “To gain alluring slimness don’t think you have to starve yourself. Take the safe way to slenderness. Go on the Bread Diet.”

A registered nurse, Mitzi confirmed to Gertie that this diet was no gimmick. but  based on the most up to date, verifiable nutritional knowledge. “The bread diet is a scientific well-balanced diet based on years of research in leading universities and laboratories,” Mitzi informed her friend, handing her the advertisement.

Mitzi explained: “ Important in this diet is the amount of bread- 2 slices with each meal. Far reaching scientific tests have proved bread can be an important aid in reducing. It is a valuable combination of carbohydrates and proteins. In this reducing diet, bread helps you burn up more completely the fat you are losing. Excess weight is converted into energy.”

Vintage Bread Diet Ad 1939

Who could be more trustworthy than a doctor who by the way endorsed this program.

Reading further she pointed out a fact progressive doctors and nutritionists have long known: “Bread gives your body more than energy. It is a valuable source of muscle-building protein. Actually we get more proteins from bread and other wheat products than from any other class of food. Bread in this reducing diet helps keep muscles firm and strong!”

Try this safe easy way to reduce excess weight. Follow the bread diet (L) Vintage Bread Diet ad-American Institute of Baking 1939 (R) Vintage Womens Fashion Illustration 1934

The reason it was so successful was simple:

“Unlike so many reducing diets that cut down too much on needed food and often exhaust the system, the diet explained, the Bread Diet supplies the food elements the body needs. “

Vintage Bread Diet Ad 1939

The diet came with a warning to avoid the most dangerous pitfalls of most fad diets: “If you are reducing, take care not to rob your body of the food fuel it need. Then the fat that you lose is not burned up properly…a harmful residue is left in the system often causing fatigue irritability and lowered resistance.”

You could avoid these dangers by following the bread diet.

So if you’re dieting don’t think you have to give up bread. By following the safe easy Bread diet you can enjoy 6 slices of bread every day and lose weight!

Gertie was in good-for-you gluten heaven. Ain’t life grand!

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2014.

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Detail of Collage by Sally Edelstein “And They Lived Happily Ever After” Appropriated vintage images. The end of Camelot saw our own fantasy’s begin to crack

The nuclear family was once as American as the nuclear bomb. But by the end of the 1960′s the nuclear family detonated along with our notion of marriage and motherhood.

Parenting and partnering were not a priority for the newly liberated lady…..just ask Mad Men’s Peggy Olson.

And They Lived Happily Ever After…

As the decade drew to a close, the New Frontier years of Camelot came to a crashing halt and turned out to be just one more fairy tale.

It wasn’t long before the spell was broken and we realized not everyone would live happily ever after like Cinderella.

The only shining white knight coming to the housewives rescue would be the Ajax White Knight galloping into her suburban neighborhood destroying dirt in his path with his magic lance.

Love and Marriage

Only 10 years earlier, the family’s outlook had never been brighter.

McCall’s Magazine even created a term for this Togetherness.

Along with the rest of the media, the real mad men of Madison Avenue painted the same glowing picture of the American family emphatic in their belief that the family was the center of your living and if it wasn’t you’ve gone astray… or you’re a communist!

Some magazine articles even went so far as to imply that a woman’s failure to bear children was a quasi perversion and just plain unnatural. Nothing was more patriotic than having children and like the steel industry, mothering was running at close to 100% capacity.

Waxy Yellow Build Up

Detail of Collage by Sally Edelstein “White Wash” Appropriated vintage illustrations of American Housewives from the 1950s and 1960s

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

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

Like underground nuclear testing anger was to be buried 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.

But by the late 1960’s happy housewives with their smiling faces  dressed in harmonized shades  to match their carefree kitchen appliances, were, like those same retro appliances replaced for a newer model.

Nuclear Family Meltdown

Detail of collage by Sally Edelstein “Always Ask a Man” An amalgam of mass media stereotypes of women from the 1950′s and 60′s . A reshuffling of clichés about popular cultures representation of female choices.

With the bewitching speed and ease of Samantha Stevens twitching her nose the job a generation of women had trained for was suddenly obsolete by 1970. Along with their bras, women libbers threw out the American housewife and June Cleaver got kicked to the curb.

The single gal exploded on the scene knocking the married lady off her pedestal. Ads proclaimed: “It’s your time to shine baby and we don’t mean pots and pans!”

As if hit by a strong dose of radiation, the familiar 1950’s nuclear family in the media had mutated into monstrous families as June and Ward Cleaver were replaced by Lilli and Herman Munster.

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2014. 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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Sally Edelstein Collage

Detail of Collage “How Old is Old” by Sally Edelstein part of Identity Exhibit at the gallery nine5 . The Collage is composed of hundreds of appropriated images of medias representation of women and aging

In a world dominated by pop culture, society and the media – how is identity defined?

I am pleased to be a part of an  important international exhibition of 25 works from 21 female artists   entitled Identity and I invite you all to visit if you are in the NY area.

 Identity

Identity seeks to expose the extremism of a consumer culture dominated by Western notions of beauty and the pursuit of idealized feminine perfection by exploring themes of power, representation and objectification. Female artists, in particular, face the challenge of identifying themselves amidst a society determined to do it for them.

The artists featured in Identity attempt to manipulate the boundaries of authority and dominance and explore deeper themes of control. The viewer is challenged to confront his or her own gaze on the body and reflect on the psychological aspects of the female persona. Drawing from a feminist perspective, the selected works aim to define gender and identity through the artist’s terms, whether through accepting or rejecting society’s view, and voicing their individual definitions of the powerful feminine.

Please join us for the opening reception on Saturday, May 31st from 6:00 – 8:00 p.m.

Performance Art by Megan Mantia and Leone Anne Reeves: GIRL WORLD OUR WORLD OUR BRAINS WE LIVE HERE AND WE LOVE IT: An Erotic Memoir on May 31 at 4:30 p.m.

gallery nine5
24 Spring Street
New York, NY
212-965-9995

www.gallerynine5.com

Exhibition runs from May 31 to June 22, 2014

The artists in the exhibition at gallery nine5 are Shonagh Adelman, Chan & Mann, Sally Edelstein, Claire Joyce, Lauren Kalman, Beth Lakamp, Jessica Lichtenstein, Jessica Maria Manley, Meghan Mantia and Leone Reeves, Sarah Maple, Ellen Deitell Newman, Samantha Persons, Mei Xian QIu, Jennifer Reeder, Phyllis Rosser, Sonal Shah, Erin Sparler, Joanne Ungar, Cristina Velazquez, and Meghan Willis.

Trading her ladylike gloves for a pair of Everlast a short evolution of women’s progress as seen through boxing.

Housewife’s Hook

 Working Girl-No Contender

Executive Sparring

And Still the Champ…. Instagram photo of Jill Abramson as posted by her daughter

Did the NY Times  below the belt when they unceremoniously fired Executive Editor Jill Abramson for her”aggressive behavior?”

When it comes to misogyny in advertising,  1947′s Pitney Bowes Postage Meter ad easily ranks in the top ten.

And that’s saying a lot in a culture that was prolific in sexist advertising.

In the ad we learn Pete Jones, has spent 6 months convincing the home office to finally purchase a Pitney Bowes Postage Meter for the office. But he hits a wall when the only stenographer he has, a redhead named Miss Morissey balks at using it. Pete tells his story:

“‘I’ve no mechanical aptitude. Machines mix me up, kind of,” she says. “As if we asked her to fly a P-80. I almost blow my top,” he recalls, clearly in need of anger management training.

He attempts to explain this modern efficient machine to the ditzy dame, explaining that  “it’s practically heaven’s gift to the working girl…and so on. But with the Morissey, no soap.”

Mr. Jones continues his story:

“I try diplomacy. ‘Miss Morissey, I want you to personally try it for two weeks. If you don’t like it then-back it goes to the factory! Okay?’…She acts like an early Christian about to be lunch for a lion, but gives in.”

“So help me- two weeks later she has a big pink bow on the handle of the postage meter-like it was an orchid or something. I give it the gape.”

“‘Kinda cute, ain’t it,” says Miss Morissey. ‘But a very efficient machine, Mr Jones. Now the mail is out early enough so I get to the girl’s room in time to hear all of the dirt’.”

Exasperated Pete wonders finally :”Is it always illegal to kill a woman!”

Audacity

Vintage 1949 Ad Van Heusen Shirts

These ads may cause a snicker but they are powerful enforcers of suffocating stereotypes and underlying assumptions of a culture that continues to reinforce traditional alpha masculinity and submissive femininity.

Truth or Consequences

What do these ads tell us about the culture that produced them and the people that consumed them. Vintage ad 1946

The vile misogynist manifesto written by the madmen who killed 6 innocent people in California has inspired the #YesAllWomen twitter movement to draw attention against violence to women at the hands of men.

Elliot Rodger’s rants may seem as antiquated as these sexist vintage ads but his attitudes continue to permeate our culture in subtle ways with devastating consequences.

Copyright (©) 20014 Sally Edelstein All Rights Reserved

In a world dominated by Pop Culture, society and the media how is identity defined?

Please join me at gallerynine5 for the opening of this international exhibit of 21 female artists.

Vintage Girdles from Spiegels Catalog 1958

Long before spanx became a wardrobe staple, a good girdle was a must have for every mid-century gal.

The cold war containment policy was strictly enforced by the wives of Cold War Warriors, that is, at least when it came to being constrained by their Playtex living girdles.

Perfect for the cold war! “Playtex pink ice gives you the slim young lines the slender silhouette for spring. Hollywood designers say no other girdle slims so naturally stays so cool and comfortable fits so invisibly under clothes from spring suit to revealing summer wear.” Vintage ad Playtex Pink Ice Girdle

Any hint of expanding flesh was as deeply discouraged as the expansionist designs of the Soviets.

Undercover Strategy

Vintage image from Spiegal’s Summer Catalog 1959

Every cold war wife had her own special undercover strategy.

Yet no matter the costume, these latex-bound women were linked, connected by their day to day constraints and circumstances.Whether a smart new shirtwaist dress, or fetching capri pants, underneath it all was a galaxy of girdles firming with femininity, molding, holding assuring full feminine social security.

Vintage image Aldens Catalog 1955

While bosoms were lavishly displayed poised like missiles for take off in their Maidenform bras, hips were subdued, waists whittled and tummies tightly kept in check.

Housewives New Freedom…Jump For Joy (L) Vintage ad Maytag Washer (R) Vintage Jantzen Girdle and Bra ad 1953

Modern girdles were part of the new carefree living housewives were used to.

Whether it was the freedom of an automatic dishwasher or the ease of Arnel, the American girls life was filled with comfort and carefree living …including her waist-whittling, calorie cutting Warner girdle which promised new freedom .

In the great American tradition the housewife’s world would be one of easy does it never you mind freedom.

Whether shopping for the family , going to PTA meetings or housework the busy housewife would be at ease in her comfy girdle. Vintage Electrolux Booklet (R) Vintage ad Permalift Girdles

No Bones About It

The Modern Miss could say goodbye to old fashioned corset bones and stays.-miracle latex used in all the latest girdles was as easy as putting on a pair of gloves (that is if you were OJ Simpson donning a pair of ill fitting gloves at his murder trial.)

Latex was the wonder material for years even before the war.

Girdles made of tree grown liquid latex were designed without a pesky seam stitch or bone yet these new girdles would mold you smoothly allowing complete freedom of action controls your figure for your busy active life.

How incredibly young and comfy you’ll feel in these nylon weigh nothing do everything girdles. Sheer magic too!

The post war gal was was the beneficiary of wartime research and know how.

The concept of support was aided and abetted by new materials such as nylon netting and 2 way stretch fabrics- developed during the war but quickly applied to women’s under garments once victory was done. By the early 1950s a re-energized corset and brassier industry was poised for take off for extraordinary profits

Despite the constraints, and the tight security when it came to any unsightly bulge, these girdle bound women had more spring in their step .

Vintage Lingerie Aldens Catalog 1955

And why not?

Their curve curbing girdles controlled pounds and extolled their curves and they made good on their promise to “Giving your hips you’ll hooray and a waist worth buying a belt for!”

 Stay Tuned A Girl and Her Girdle Pt II

 © Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2014. 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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“The Story Begins in the Middle” Vintage 1955 ad Warner’s

I figured out very early on that every female had a figure flaw.

But luckily when it came to figure problems a slew of manufacturers had it all figured out.

A good girdle was a must have for every mid-century gal no matter the season.

So despite the fact that the spring of 1959 was a real scorcher, I learned –at the tender age of 4- that sweltering weather was no excuse for a lady to let her figure flaws show.

For everyday wear, Mom’s summer time favorite girdles. “Enjoy a cool cool summer in Coolaire – Flexess new “air conditioned” fabrics- fashioned into figure flattering girdles” (R) Vintage ad Coolaire Girdles by Flexees 1952 (R) Vintage ad Gossard girdles for Summer 1955

Summer Silhouettes

Memorial Day had come and gone and along with the seasons first appearance of white shoes and wicker bags, revealing swimsuits and little summer dresses made their debuts.

Meaning, m’lady’s silhouette came under severe scrutiny.

Did the fear of midriff bulge cause panic in my mid-century Mother?

No sireee!

While some women panicked, nibbling on celery sticks and cottage cheese, subjecting themselves to the pummeling paws of a Russian masseuse at a fancy milk farm in order to shed winter weight and attain a svelte figure, Mom knew there were more effective ways to whittle your waist.

A well made girdle was all a gal needed to fit in.

Mom had recently purchased a new dress at Orbachs-a Molly Parnis knock off that was as easy on they eye as it was on the purse.

It was perfect for the big June Jamboree Dinner Dance at the El Patio Beach Cub. Despite the endless buffet and Viennese table served at the dinner, fitting into her new figure flattering number would be no problem.

Smart Cookies

American abundance- More of Everything you want (L) Vintage ad Admiral Refrigerator 1954 “Holds more than 120 pounds of frozen food.” (R) Vintage Warners Le Gant  Girdle ad 1955

In mid-century America you could have your cake and eat it too…literally. Why deprive yourself of that groaning board of American goodies.

Clever ladies knew that with the right girdle you could take command of your beauty and enjoy a wonderful new kind of figure that never existed before.

Ever wish there were two  of you? Warner’s asked provocatively in the  1955 ad for their le gant girdle shown in the ad above.

”One to splurge on shortcake- one to be a fashion plate! Seems like such a shame to choose- but here’s good news: with the Warner’s Le Gant no girl really has to. We’ve styled it in new persuasive elastic for the girl who munches and bunches in just that order.”

Go Figure circa 1959

Vintage illustrations from Formfit Life girdle ads (L) 1951 (R) 1950

Saturday night of the big dance I watched eagerly as Mom got herself ready.

Wandering into my parents bedroom, I sprawled out on the fancy quilted satin bedspread, the sounds of “Make Believe Ballroom” on WNEW playing on the GE clock radio, mesmerized as my Mother went through her metamorphosis .

The noisy oscillating fan in the bedroom only seemed to move the muggy air around the bedroom offering little relief as Mom prepared for the evening. Putting her face on would be no easy task as beads of perspiration kept a perpetual shine that no amount of Angel Face powder would subdue.

Mom emerged out of the bathroom shower in a great gust of steam, her fresh from the beauty parlor coif carefully encased in a polka dot plastic shower cap, a light dusting of Cashmere Bouquet on her damp body brought a veil of fragrance scenting the room.

“Curbs your Curves from waist to hip! Made of flexible airy nylon, this is a girdle to control your pounds, extoll your curves. Giving your hips a hooray! All at a purse easy price with money over for the matching bra.” Vintage 1952 ad Bestform

I watched in sheer wonderment as she wiggled into her latex girdle.

With the skill of contortionist or an enterologist at the circus, the fact that she could deftly squeeze her body into such a small rubberized container never ceased to amaze me.

Of course in the hot weather girdle wrestling could make her a raving beauty but she would end that eternal tug of war with a generous dusting of  talcum powder, that promised to allow your girdle to slide on smooth as silk.

Girdles from Spiegel Catalog 1959

Savvy Mom knew figure flattery, glamor and comfort began with the perfect fit in a girdle and like most gals had quite a selection to choose from.

Hip Hip Hooray!

“How Incredibly young and comfy you’ll feel in these weigh- nothing, do everything girdles! Sheer magic!” Vintage girdle ad 1950

For tonight, Mom’s new Perfect-O girdle, a high performance job that put an end to tummy bulges, was so lightweight that it made her just adore being “taken in.”  The ads were true-“The wonderful supple design, a neat play of satiny panels to snip off inches where every girl needs it most. Yes, inches. You can tell by the tape-and you’d better because you’ll never feel it.”

Looking in the mirror she thought this was the most flattering girdle she’d ever owned. How heavenly to discover-suddenly that you have the figure you’ve always dreamed about! Such flattering, flattening social security in something so delectably pretty to wear.

Mom could happily indulge in all the duck a la orange and Baked Alaska she wanted, confident of the containment provided by the girdle.

Vintage ad 1954 Life Girdles by Formfit

“What you put on first makes all the difference,” she instructed me. “Full skirt or slim skirt, shirtwaist or strapless gown…what you put on first adds the finishing touch. That’s why it’s so important to wear a girdle keyed to every outfit. The girdle that’s so wonderful with your tweeds wont have the same talent for silks!”

As usual she would quote from my great Uncle Bernie: “A girdle frees your step while it sleeks your figure.”

His considerable girth notwithstanding, when it came to girdles Great Uncle Bernie was an expert.

My corpulent Uncle Bernie Posner was the president of Perfect-O-Figure Foundations founded by his father my Great, Great Uncle Max.

Even with his drooping eyes clouded over with cataracts, Bernie had an eye for the ladies and their figures and never hesitated to pass his wisdom gleaned from over 40 years in the ladies undergarment business.

Smoke and Mirrors

Vintage Formfit girdle ad 1954

Whatever the occasion, Uncle Bernie couldn’t resist the opportunity to proselytize the gospel of the girdle.

Even at family backyard barbecues, while other uncles busily debated baseball , Uncle Bernie, now in his dotage, could rhapsodize poetic about ladies foundations. regalinged whoever was willing to listen.

I was always an eager ear.

His pink fleshy face flushed with enthusiasm, Uncle Bernie would impress me with the importance of a good foundation in life…at least as far as a girdle was concerned.

Sitting on his lap, he would explain to me  – always while nibbling on a fistful of Veri-Thin pretzels that -“Every woman needs to be Fit!”

Of course he wasn’t talking about fitness regimes, but instead the importance of the proper fit of a foundation garment. “Figure glamor begins with a perfect fit in a girdle” was his mantra.

Nodding in the direction of my perpetually slim Aunt Lois who was known to hoist a can or 2 of Metrecal from time to time, he continued.

“You need not diet or deny yourself the good things in life,” he said authoritatively, a stinky pre-Castro cigar clenched between his yellowing chicklet teeth. “You need take no dangerous drugs or tiring exercise. You are absolutely safe when you wear a good rubber girdle. You appear smaller the minute you step into a perfect-o-girdle.”

Wide eyed even as a 4-year-old I was tantalized.

Wagging his swollen sausage like fingers at me he warned: “If you are over twenty, you are in danger of ptosis (sagging) of the abdominal muscles. This causes a bulging abdomen and the hips appear too large. You need a good girdle to give you uplift and support!”

He paused long enough for the point to stick, jabbing his wet cigar butt into than ashtray.

Taking It All In

Vintage Illustration Formfit Girdles Ad 1949

I absorbed this information, storing it away for a future destined to be filled with girdles and garters, just as a previous generations of women in my family had done.

Our family was intrinsically bound up in the world of girdles, a business built on the bulging bellies and swelled hips of women and the ever-expanding cultural expectations and changing fashions.

Bernie’s retelling of his father business was legend in our family and he had a captive audience in me. His watery eye lit up in delight at the telling and I never tired of listening to him, greeting his familiar stories with the same enthusiasm as hearing a favorite fairy tale.

Foundations

My mothers Great Uncle, Max Posner had been a tailor back in Russia so when he came to NY by way of London in 1883 where he had established a reputation as a skilled corsetier , he quickly found work in the ladies flourishing corset business.

“When Pop first started working here, everyone wanted to look like statuesque Lillian Russell.” Bernie explained describing the popular, amply bosomed, massive-hipped woman.

Plumping Up not Pumping Up

Vintage Corsets Illustration

By 1900 plumpness was still fashionable. The Ziegfeld Girls and the Floridora girls, the chorus girls of the smash musical were held up as beauty’s ideal with their full breasts and rears, plump thighs and arms and soft bellies.

“Women may have wanted smaller waists,” he remarked, happily tapping his toes in his gleaming white leather Italian slip-ons, “but you can bet your sweet life they wanted lush curves, 40 inch busts and thighs that could measure 53 inches all around .”

It All Adds Up

“No one wanted to be a Toothpick Tessie,” Uncle Bernie would exclaim. “Underweight girls would cry themselves to sleep, hopeless that they were doomed to a lifetime of skinniness.”

What was a gal to do if she didn’t have the luscious eye-catching curves required to fill out a turn of the century dress?

A clever tailor, Uncle Max knew he could help women transform their appearance .

“Posner’s Scientific Perfect Physique Foundations,” Uncle Bernie explained referring to the companies original name, “promised healthfully and scientifically to help round out the entire form until a woman was fully developed.”

“Skinny Minnies,”  Bernie continued impaling a deviled egg on a toothpick as he spoke,“could fill out their scrawny bony figures with a number of devises that Pop supplied.” False breasts, thighs and calves were available in addition to rubber backs and hips that had “natural” dimples designed into them.

Vintage Fashion Catalog Corsets Sears Roebuck 1903

“And individually constructed corsets took care of a lot, yes indeedy,” he’d say with a satisfied smile.

My great Uncle Max was in great demand.

The New Woman

By about 1908 the voluptuous hourglass figure started to slowly fall out of favor, as the Gibson Girl with her comparatively  more slender, youthful figure burst on the scene, becoming the new standard of beauty.

The New Woman was still bent in an exaggerated S Curve and still possessed the voluptuous bust and rear that the times favored requiring heavy corsets. Vintage corset Sears Roebuck 1908

A true gal on the go, this New Woman was as comfortable with a tennis racket as she was setting the table.A well fitting corset was more important than ever.

Vintage Corsets 1915 Sears Roebuck Catalog

Stout Women needed slimming Vintage corset ad

With Max’s trained hands any bothersome bulges were slimmed down by his stylish garments. His patented armor-lastic stretch corsets were flying off the shelves.

“With the end of WWI,” Bernie continued, “things were changing with the speed of lightning!”

Vintage Corset and Corselettes

The flapper was just around the corner.

Ain’t we Got fun

The Flapper with her stylish boyish figure required, garments to securely bind her flesh, flatten her bosom, slim her hips and flatten buttocks

Vintage Fashion Catalog Corsets, Brassiers 1927 Eatons

As flaming youth roared, Uncle Max began to slow down. Eager beaver Bernie took over the business, quickly changing the name to a snappy Perfect-o-Foundations, more fitting with the roaring twenties.

1926 Corsetlette Girdle -Sears Roebuck Catalog

When the flapper burst on the scene with her new boyish silhouette of slim hips and flattened buttocks , Perfect O-Foundations and other lingerie manufacturers were forced to change tactics to modernize for women who might forgo the old-fashioned corset altogether.

No nudnik, Bernie knew this was no passing trend and jumped on the bandwagon expanding the corset business to include girdles.

What with the popularity of the flapper and her streamlined look, the girdle business boomed. After all you couldn’t Charleston without one!

The die was cast.

Girdles For Betty Co-ed 1929 Co-ed Corsetry Sears Roebuck Catalog

Girdlelicious

The 1930s signaled the return to a more womanly shape and his girdles promised slimming flattering figure loveliness thanks to the miracle of latex.

Before and After 1933

“The Modern Miss could say goodbye to old-fashioned corset bones and stays.-miracle latex used in all the latest girdles was as easy as putting on a pair of gloves,” he said fairly swooning.

Vintage Ads Life by Formfit Girdles (L) 1948 (R) 1951

Modern girdles, he explained, made of tree grown liquid latex were designed without a pesky seam stitch or bone yet these new girdles would mould you smoothly allowing complete freedom of action, and controls your figure for your busy active life.

“Slimming loveliness can  be all yours!” he promised me, hungrily ravaging his right-off-the-grill burger.  I watched in fascination as the rivulets of grease dribbled down the precipice of his double chins leaving an oil slick in its. wake.

“It doesn’t take a lot of money to get the figure you want,” he concluded with  big smile. “All it takes is a head on those pretty shoulders.”

Sheer Magic

The Miracle of Lycra Spandex- Fairy Godmother to Women Everywhere.  Invented in 1959 it wasn’t until  1962 until  the full scale manufacturer of Lycra went on the market , expanding possibilities for women everywhere.  Girdles were no longer only peach, ivory, and black instead bright pastels and patterns became the rage. (L) Vintage ad 1962 Hollywood Vassarette Girdle and Bra (R) Fairy Godmother Cinderella Walt Disney

“But the best was yet to come,” he whispered to me. A new miracle fabric had been created, one that was very hush hush.

Even as Bernie spoke, chemists at DuPont were hard at work developing  the century’s greatest miracle…one that would change the business forever.

Like all fairy tales, this story had a happy ending.

Just as  the beautiful princess rode off into the sunset saved by her prince, so helpless women world wide in need of figure control would be rescued with the arrival of that years greatest miracle- Lycra Spandex .

A match made in heaven, they would live happily ever after!

 © Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2014. 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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Yes! Keep your eyes peeled for a brand new post coming this Monday- The Model Bride and Illustrator Jon Whitcomb.

Then Sally Duz it again with a brief blogging break for eye surgery number 2.

In just a few short weeks, all the dingy grey will be washed away and  I’ll really have something to cheer about!

Something to cheer about!

I’ll be seeing you soon!

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2014.

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Better Vision For Better Living

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 w omens  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 girls 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 2 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 Bitsys 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, 2014. 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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Cool Shades

Break out your Wayfarers…today is National Sunglasses Day!

Accustomed to sporting cool shades I have of late been seen skulking about in those oversize, black, wraparound sunglasses so very chic amongst the senior set in Bocca Raton.

Though hardly ready for a retirement home, I have been required to wear these temporarily because of recent eye surgery.

Sunglasses worn solely to protect my vision…what a concept

I Wear My Sunglasses at Night

Sunglasses status as fashion accessories has become as great a consideration as the degree of protection they offer from the sun. Vintage Ray Ban ad 1960 “Try on a pair…you won’t settle for less”

Once upon a time, people wore sunglasses only when they were under the sun. Now they wear them from sun up to sun up. From New Years Day til New Years Eve.

In every kind of weather.

Everywhere.

So how did sunglasses evolve from frankly functional to fashions ultimate accessory?

Eye Care For the Sun

Vintage ad Willsonite Sun Glasses 1941 “Used by the Army Navy and leading airlines”

Before designers flaunted their logos on their overpriced frames, the only designer names attached to sunglasses were optical firms like Bauch & Lomb, American Optical and Willsonlite.

By the late 1930s advertisements for sunglasses began appearing emphasizing scientific protection from the damages of the sun…fashion was an afterthought.

Vintage ad Optiks Sunglasses 1941

In 1936 while army air corp pilots first began wearing polarized sunglasses developed by Bauch & Lomb to protect their eyes from the dangerous glare of the sun, earth-bound beach bunny’s were soon encouraged to protect their own precious peepers from harmful rays, with their own version of the Ray Ban aviator sunglasses.

“Don’t blame the hot dogs for the dizziness and nausea you feel after a day in the sun,” Optik sunglasses cautioned the beach goer in this 1941 ad. “Ten to one its due to unsuspected distortion in your sunglasses!”

A “Beach headache” they explained was a red flag that you were getting too much sun and its harmful ultra violet rays which could lead to permanent eye damage.

Capt.Only Superior products such as Optiks sunglasses with their scientifically ground and polished lenses, would protect you from distortion danger,

Vintage ad for Gaby Suntan Lotion 1944

Besides which, isn’t you eyesight worth 50 cents?

So while you were slathering on the baby oil to get a healthy sun tan, be sure to don a pair of good sun glasses for protection.

 Outdoor Eye Care

American Optical offered lenses in Cosmetan (brown) or Calobar ( green)

Advertising continued to be geared to sportsmen Whether shushing on the slopes or splashing in the surf, hunting down deer or driving a ball down the Fairway, sun glasses were for the active American lifestyle and fashion was still a second thought.

Long before Google glass there was Sportglas by American Optical to protect the active post war sportsman…and sports lady Vintage ad American Opticals Polaroid Sportsglas ad 1946

National Sun Glass Week

Ironically, despite the ubiquitous of sunglasses today, National Sun Glass Week has been whittled down to a mere day- June 27 National Sunglass Day! (L) Vintage ad 1946 American Opticals (R) National Sun Glasses Week ad 1950

By the postwar years, sun glasses were becoming so popular that they merited their own week June 26-July 2- “Wear Sun Glasses for Comfort and Safety.”

In one of their ads we are warned of the dangers of not wearing sun glasses to sporting events. “Who has made the smarter choice,” we are asked. Smart Sue or Dumb Don?

“Over exposure to sun will reduce the fellows eye sensitivity to light about one-third compared to Smart Sue who wore sun glasses to the baseball game. Dumb Don’s ability to see will be curtailed for hours, possibly days- real danger lurks when he drives after dark or works in his factory.”
Not wearing sunglasses can cost him his job! Every person is affected this way. Sun glasses protect your eyes.”

“Buy 2 or 3 pairs,” the reader is encouraged. “keep them on hand.”

Star Struck by Sunglasses

Hollywood star Barbara Stanwyck sports fashionable shades 1947

As sun glasses increasingly became associated with Hollywood glamor and the wealthy vacationers in St Moritz, celebrities now not only wore sun glasses but began lending their name to the products.

Post War Celebrities Tex McCrary and Jinx Falkenberg wear sporty American Opticals Polaroid Sportsglas to get rid of Reflected Glare 1948 ad

That popular post-war celebrity couple Tex McCrary and Jinx Falkenberg – stars of sports, radio and television – who lent heir endorsement to dozens of product proudly wore snappy Polaroid Sportsglas whenever they lobbed a few tennis balls.

“How the unique Polaroid principle blocks reflected glare” Vintage ad American Optical Polaroid Sportsglas ad

Polarized lenses technology had been created in the 1930s by Edwin H Land founder of Polaroid Corp. and American Optical used it in their Sportglas.

Fashion Eyes

As the melding of sunglasses and glamor grew so did the market for flattering glasses.

Vintage ad Flexfit Sunglasses 1951

Flexfit sun glasses posed the question?

“Why be a ho-hum girl…when you can be a humdinger!”
“This summer glamor eyes your face with Flexfit sun glasses! Wonderful styles to turn admiring eyes your way!”

Flexfits “Hidden Spring Action” is truly the most sensational invention in sun glass history! Only Flexfit Sun Glasses bring you this revolutionary feature that outdates all other sun glasses!”

Fashion for the masses, was Flexfit’s promise with their flexible sunglasses that they boasted were the most sensational invention in sun glass history!

Flexfit sun glasses promised the smartest styling ever seen with features and styling that, they claimed, up till now have only been seen at Europes most exclusive resorts….in glasses costing from $12.50 to $25 ! Yet you pay no more for Flexfit sun glasses than for ordinary, old-fashioned sun glasses- a very democratic $1.49.

In addition Flexfit offered their miracle “Hidden Spring Action” – “found only in their sun glasses – lets you bend, shape and flex your sun glasses to a custom fit.”

Cool Rays

Vintage ad American Optical’s Cool Ray Sun Glasses 1948

Vintage ad American Optica’ls Cool Ray Sun Glasses 1946

Bausch & Lomb offered 11 exciting frame styles and 12 fashionable colors! Vintage Ray Ban Sun Glasses ad

Frame Your Eyes in Flattery with Ray Ban Sunglasses !

Foster Grants

Vintage Fosta Grant Sunglasses ad 1955

No one did more to emphasizing the sex appeal of sunglasses than Foster Grant.
“Look alive! Look lively! People can’t help noticing you…admiring.” begins this 1955 ad . “Fosta Grantly sunglasses are the freshest liveliest styles under the sun for man woman and child.”

By the 1960′s purely practical sunglasses became purely funglasses.

The death knell for utilitarian sunglasses was finally dealt a blow with the sexy ad campaign by Foster Grant that helped escalate the popularity of sunglasses.

The Spell of the Shades

Vintage Foster Grant Sunglasses ad featuring Raquel Welch 1968 The first ad in the series featured Peter Sellers and ran in 1965. Subsequent ads used Anthony Quinn, Woody Allen, Jane Fonda, Julie Christie.

In the 1960s attempting to compete against the technological edge of Cool Ray Polaroid polarizing lenses, Foster Grant developed the clever marketing “Who’s That Behind the Foster Grants” ad campaign, that went on to huge success becoming part of popular culture.

The folks at Foster Grant were besides themselves with the new rage for sunglasses. “Since we are the undisputed king of the hill in sunglasses, this international boom really hits us where we live,” they boasted in one of their ads.

And bragging rights were justified.

They were the grandaddy of sunglasses. In 1929 Sam Foster of Foster Grant Co sold the first pair of Foster Grants sunglasses on the boardwalk of Atlantic City. They were also the first company to use abrasion resistant lens coatings to block the suns ultra violet rays.

Vintage Foster Grant Ad “Isn’t that Anita Ekberg behind those Foster Grants?” 1966 “Behind each and every pair Anita underwent a strange and awesome change. Now somehow cooler, more aloof. Now wittier. Now prettier”

America was under the Spell of the Shades, observed Foster Grant.

“If you don’t believe it, gentle reader, look around. We are in the midst of an intercontinental sunglass explosion and it has nothing to do with the glare of the sun.”

Of course Foster Grant sunglasses did offer eye protection with their ff77 lenses, but that was a mere afterthought to most folks.

As they explained in their ad: “People don’t buy them for their lensmanship. Anita Ekberg, for instance, doesn’t know ff77 from first base. But when we left, she ordered 15 pairs.”

Just like a woman!

Vintage 1966 ad Foster Grant “Isn’t That Elke Sommer Behind those Foster Grants?”

The provocative headline asking the reader: “Isn’t that Elke Sommer behind those Foster Grants?” lent an cool air of mystery to the shades.

“The suspense is killing, so we’ll fess up. It is Miss Sommer,” they reassure the reader.

“But you’ve got to admit that, despite her singular talents, there is a split second when you wondered. And that’s the power of sunglasses. Our 1966 Foster Grants have wondrously worked their magic upon her. Elke changes.”

“Looks and mood alike. Coy. Arch. Petulant, Commanding.”

“That dear friend, is the Spell of the Shades!”

“The day of strictly utilitarian protection from the dastardly glare of the sun is gone. Now sirens like Sommers are sporting a different pair with every vapor every ensemble ever time of day. Winter and summer.”

“Sunglasses are in.”

The rest is history….

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2014. 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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Sizzling in the Sixties Suburban Sun

Life was a colorful, carefree wash n’ wear world

Summertime and the living was easy especially in the post war world of wash n’ wear clothing.

Summer and synthetics was a match made in chemical lab heaven.

The easy care revolution in textiles was always in full display at my suburban summertime family barbecues.

The World is Yours….especially in these Arnel Triacetate separates just right for the perfect couple. What says down home gingham better then ahhhh…..Arnel!

It was always fun to see my usually serious relatives suddenly seasonally transformed, parading around in their color-fast, color-fun, wash n’ wear summertime attire.

It was nothing short of a tribute to post-war possibilities in polyester.

“Dress Right You Can’t Afford Not To. The good old summer is time for all kinds of weekend fun…including the fun of dressing right for whatever under the sun you’re doing,” begins this 1957 ad. “When you look good, you feel good- sure of yourself.” And in mid century America nothing gave you the smart self confidence like an outfit in smart, wash n’ wear polyester.

As the humidity mounted on the sticky city streets, my small contingency of hot-town-summer-in-the-city relatives was always delighted to be out in the country for their dose of fresh air.

It was the perfect tonic for the exhaust fumes, grit and grime of 1960’s NYC.

Breathing in the fresh suburban air, laced with the fumes from the chemically laden charcoal briquettes emanating from all the other grills of ex-urbanite- neighbors up and down the block, stimulated a suburban sized appetite

Go casual or dress up in carefree colorful wash n wear Dacron

Two’s Company in wrinkle-shy smart woven cotton Dacron

In the summer of 1961 despite the Berlin crisis looming in the air and the possible threat of thermonuclear war, folks demeanor at my big family barbecue were as trouble-free as their Dacron separates.

No longer weighed down with winter’s worries, uncles aunts and cousins appeared buoyant in a way I never saw all winter.

It was if by shucking their winter wools and gabardines for the, wrinkle free ease of 100% Acrilan, they were ridding themselves of a seasons worth of heavy burdens.

In fact the only wrinkles present at these gatherings were on the heavily lined faces of my sun worshiping relatives.

Cool Daddy-O-in Drip Dry Dacron

Bermuda shorts in racy Rayon -Dacron texture you’d swear was linen! Frosty Cool, they wont crush or muss!

First sightings of our Uncles hairy legs and knobby knees poking out from baggy Bermuda shorts, brought on uncontrollable giggles for my brother and me.

Drip dry dashing in their 100% Acrilan sports shirts, they were a kaleidoscope of colors and patterns in the easy care, luxury  acrylic fabric.

Men’s winter bellies that had been neatly contained by worsted wool suit jackets were now bursting free in their clingy Ban-Lon shirts

Figure flattering Ban-Lon was the wonder material favored by  folks everywhere. The figure revealing fabric was a type of NyLON developed and patented by the laboratories of Joseph BANcraft & Sons.

Acrilan was was an acrylic fibre developed by Chemstrand. “Luxury’s yours in wash n’ wear shirts of 100% Acrilan.The texture must be touched to believe. “They’re soft and warm as a harem girls kiss” exclaims the copy in the 1956 ad on the right. Wear ‘em, wash ‘em, they don’t stretch or shrink. “Best of all they completely frustrate moths and mildew- completely satisfy men.” Vintage Acrilan Ads 1956

Ban Lon- He’ll love you for it…give him one of these exciting Ban-Lon beauties. “Believe us he’ll be your baby in Ban-Lon, claims the copy in this 1960 (R) ad. “Despite its luxurious look, it can well stand up to his manhandling! It’s shrink-proof. mildew-proof, and moth proof!”

 Cool, Colorful  and Carefree

Live easy…look breezy in cool carefree uncrushable Dacron in these patio perfect 1961 dresses

Polyesters you’ll love to live in! Bared and beautiful, Bouffant beats the heat with little straps that expose you to enjoy balmy suburban breeze. Fashioned in lustrous wash n’ wear Dacron . Vintage women’s fashion 1961 Sears catalog

Women’s winter weary bosoms, revealed in sporty little perma-prest sundresses seemed to be coming out of hibernation in an exuberant display of deeply tanned decolletage.

Perfect for the patio- these Ship ‘n Shore separates are wild about color. “Cool as as a breeze. And they go to any lengths to please!” Kinda like most mid century women!

The gals were comfortably fun-loving casual in their Ship n Shore drip dry patio pants, peddle pushers and capris.

Their color-happy, easy-wear Celanese separates were vibrant in sun coral, refreshing in turquoise and electric in jubilee orange, colors that seemed to match their enticing fruit colors-for-warm-weather-wear lips.

Celanese Fortrel makes the scene (L) Vintage Catalina sportswear ad 1962 (R) Vintage Sears catalog 1961

Patios and polyester were made for one another in vibrant refreshing colors Vintage catalog ads Sears 1961

Whether Antron, Acrylon or Dacron it was a veritable sea of drip dry, and wrinkle free, a wash n’ wear tribute to post-war man’s progress over nature, a cornucopia of the space age convenience of miracle man-made fabrics.

The real miracle was that there wasn’t a natural fabric among them. What a tribute to the great outdoors.

Because these new miracle man-made fibers were totally synthesized from chemicals found in the oil industry, there was enough petroleum in the clothes to ignite barbeques up and down the block.

Poke up a fire and relax while supper grills to a turn. Just don’t stand too close to the fire; nothing acts as an accelerant better than polyester.

These Dacron shirts make a man feel debonair. They’re designed to lounge in whether your brand of relaxation is a soft EZ chair or a turn on the golf links. Casual when it comes to taking care of, Dacron takes care of itself. Mens Dacron Sportshirts 1961 Sears Catalog

While the men huddled ‘round the smoky Weber grill, hotly debating whether Roger Maris would break Babe Ruth’s Home runs this season, the wives held their own smoky gab fest.

Engulfed in a plume of hazy blue cigarette smoke the normally harried housewives were as relaxed as their free and easy care fabrics.

More time to Play in Polyester

You look your best…work much less in Dacron and cotton for automatic wash n’ wear. Before this revolution in textiles a homemaker might spend up to 20 hours a weeks ironing clothes, tablecloths and bed linens made of natural fibers.

Thanks to the magic of modern chemistry we were into the new wonderful world of synthetic fabrics and the American housewife was the happy recipient of these new discoveries

In the easy does it, no fuss no muss, new and improved push button post war world, the miracle that could only happen in the wonderful world of wash n wear was a godsend to the housewife. No more long hot summer hours spent ironing out wrinkled linens or creased cottons. Here were clothes that practically care for themselves.

Yes there was a new way to live…and it was easy.

Better Living Through Chemistry

Vintage advertisement Union Carbide 1949

For years the wizards of chemistry had been working tirelessly in their labs concocting chemically made fibers that challenged natures best in wear and appearance

Far from being scorned as they are now, chemically made fibers were considered a key to better living.

How Can You Resist

Vintage ad Vicara Fiber Division Virginia-Carolina Chemical Corp. 1954 “Perfect for springtime sweaters”

Contemporary fabrics like Celanese Acetate were perfect for the new busy mid-century American Housewife. “She needed a special kind of clothes for her busy, rewarding life,” readers were told in one ad touting the fabric. “Whether as den mother, eagle eye supermarket shopper or decorating wiz it was a fast paced life.”

Polyester made good on its promise to lighten Moms load.

A New Way To Live

“There’s a new way to look …a new way to live in Dacron! There’s a new way to live…and its easy! It begins with your discovery of Dacron for modern living clothes that practically care for themselves. You’ll find wrinkle-shedding Dacron alone or blended with other fibers) lets you forget your ironing board…saves you cleaning upkeep ,helps your clothes wear and wear, stay fresh no matter the weather. Look to your stores for a whole new way of fashion a whirl of exciting colors and textures Dacron polyester fiber for you to live in and love. Dacron one of Du Ponts modern living fabrics” Vintage ad 1953

It all began with DuPont’s discovery of Dacron. By 1961, Dacron, the granddaddy of polyester was already a decade old

Dacron was made for modern living. It was the biggest thing to hit the clothing industry since nylon.

It Started with Stockings

Vintage ad DuPonts Nylon

Dupont started the EZ care revolution with the introduction of nylon in 1939, the first fiber synthesized entirely by chemicals. A replacement for silk, it was wildly popular as nylon stocking and women gobbled them up.

But duty called and nylon was soon drafted by Uncle Sam. Off to war, it was essential for parachutes , tents and airplane tires .

With the war over, the test tube boys knuckled down and got back to work fulfilling their post war promises of a better tomorrow.

In the spring of 1951 DuPont debuted Dacron (polyethylene terephthalate).

 The Dawning of Dacron

Vintage ad Dacron Suits 1957

No one was more a devotee of DuPonts miracle man-made fabric than my Dad. He could say so long to seersucker, and summer-weight woolens. When it came to summer suits, Dacron blew them out of the water.

Not only were Dacron Suits cooler,  the pants would keep their creases unless you deliberately removed it with a hot iron.Washed by hand or machine and drip dried, these suits were ready to wear!

Derided as tacky today, polyesters like Dacron were miracle space age wonder.

Nothing announced to the world that you were a man of discerning taste the way a garment of 100% Dacron did.

Synthetics were far from the cheap inexpensive items we associate with them now. In fact the only wrinkle was that the very first Dacron suits were a whopping $95, out of reach for the average Joe.

Wash and Wear to Go Go

This remarkable suit made with Dacron” polyester fiber can be machine washed machine dried and worn immediately. It was the worlds first Automatic Wash n Wear.This modern living innovation, DuPont explained, is made possible by new tailoring techniques, properly made fabrics, and modern home driers.

But in that fast paced, rat race world of mid-century America what business man on the go-go had time to wait for a suit to drip dry?

It wasn’t long before the world’s first Automatic Wash n’ Wear suit debuted.

The benefit of this new wonder was it wasn’t just wash n wear. This suit could be dried and “pressed” ( wrinkles out, crease still in) in your automatic dryer too! The automatic dryer which had only a few years earlier been a luxury was by the mid 1950s a necessity in the suburban home.

In the future, DuPont promised the consumer , you will be able to buy “Automatic Wash n Wear convenience in many other type of clothing.”

The Power of Polyester Unleashed

In another decade the possibilities of polyester would know no bounds. By the 1970s the postwar promises of polyester would be fully realized.

The Evolution of Polyester 1956-1971

Polyester was in full swing by the 1970s. Sears catalog 1971

Copyright (©) 2014 Sally Edelstein All Rights Reserved

Vintage ad Elizabeth Arden Velva Leg Film

Long before self tanners, and micro mist airbrush tanning sprays flooded the market, a retro a gal need only apply a good film of bronzer to give herself show girl legs.

Learn how tan-in-a-bottle might have helped a pale-face gal face the summer.

In the summer of 1944, Doris had a big date with a dreamy Staff Sergeant and she was desperate.

Gentlemen may prefer blondes, but when it comes to legs, gentlemen prefer bronze.

Of all times to get a run in her last pair of precious pre-war nylons.  Stockings have always been important to any girl who knows the first thing about grooming. Always so cautious when Luxing her dainties, one little moment of carelessness and she had snagged her stockings.

Stockings were precious during WWII when nylon and rayon went to war. (L) 1945 Vintage ad Ivory Snow advising care of your precious stockings (R) Vintage ad Shell 1943 the rayon for one parachute they explain would make 444 stockings

Doris knew a  good pair of stockings would add some colorful life to her winter-white legs that were as pale as a ghost but because of the war there was not a pair of nylon stockings to be found.

A gal couldn’t very well go out to the a home-front dance without hose.

In an era when Betty Grable’s shapely gams were the gold standard, any assistance in the leg department was welcomed.

Poor Doris

If only she had only been hep to what thousands of war wise women had  already discovered- a miracle in a bottle.

No, not bottled stockings but the next best thing- Elizabeth Arden’s Velva Leg Film, leg makeup to  give the appearance of stockings

Shake a leg sister, and head to your local department store.

 Goof Proof Fool Proof

“So easy to apply and quick to dry Elizabeth Arden’s leg make up stays on the legs and off the clothes,” the ads promised. “Water resistant clings until washed away, with a blemish-concealing sheer textured beauty that trims the ankle- slims the leg.”

And Velva Film was perfect for a day at the beach.

“Be sure to wear Velva Film with bathing suits or shorts, it makes your legs look sun burnished…far more lovely.” The fact that your arms were pale didn’t seem to matter.

A Leg Up on the Sun

Released in 1941, the product created a huge market

Department stores opened leg make up bars and ran promotions where you could have your legs painted to see the effect or get advise as to how to apply for the best effect.

Helena Rubenstein was an early advocate of the leg bar. In 1942 she opened a Bare-Leg Bar in her NYC 5th Ave. Salon. The bar featured leg make up creams and cosmetics for the leg. On opening day different types of cosmetic stockings were demonstrated stick form out of a bottle and sprayed on the legs

Other companies joined the band wagon for cosmetic stockings in the 1940′s:  Gentlemen Prefer Bronze ( Charbert) Leg Make Up (Charles of the Ritz) Jiff-On ( Beauty Counselor) Leg Show (Dorothy Gray).

Shake a leg sister, and head to your local department store.

Copyright (©) 2014 Sally Edelstein All Rights Reserved

A Tale of two Betty’s (L) My co-ed Mother Betty 1944 (R) Betty Bacall studio shots 1944

It was 1944. It was wartime.

The patriotism was so thick you could cut it with a knife. A rotund-and darn proud of it- Kate Smith was belting out “God Bless America” causing a lump to form in all our throats while a skinny kid from Jersey named Frank Sinatra was causing mass hysteria with millions from the bobby sox set including a teenager from Brooklyn named Betty, my future mother.

1944 was also the year that another Betty, this one from the Bronx, made her sizzling screen debut with Humphrey Bogart in To Have and Have Not.

Along with millions of other movie goers who watched the dazzling new comer set the screen on fire with her sultry looks and voice, my 18-year-old mother Betty was star struck with a 19-year-old Lauren Bacall.

To Have and Have Not

In 1944 To Have and Have Not was more than the title of a movie- it was a way of life.

Due to wartime shortages and rationing, Americans learned to make do or do without. We had said so long to new cars, T bone steaks and shiny toasters, that along with nylon stockings and bobby pins, had marched off to war.

Betty and her college chum wondered :”Were they Rationing love too?”

But there were shortage of another kind too.

Sometimes my mother Betty couldn’t help wondering if they weren’t rationing love as well.

In the fall of 1944 Betty was a college freshman who had more on her mind than musty old history dates; it was dates of another sort that troubled her.

Due to the war she and the other co-eds found themselves in the midst of a genuine man shortage, lamenting that “they’re either too young or too old.” The absence of an entire generation of men between the ages of 17 and 30 left a lonely void.

To fill those lonely weekends she and her gang of girls played bridge, held hen parties and most of all went to the movies.

Luckily, movies were one of the few pleasures that hadn’t been rationed.

Betty, the gang and Bacall (R) Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall in “To Have and Have Not” 1944

The year offered a treasure trove of movies from a self-absorbed Bette Davis in Mr Skeffington to Claudette Colbert as a war widow in Since You Went Away.

But it was Lauren Bacall’s sultry style in To Have and Have Not that left a lasting impression on my romance deprived mother.

Movie Poster “To Have and Have Not” 1944

Sitting in the darkened movie theater these lovelorn young ladies could live vicariously through the lush, celluloid fantasies. And kiss for kiss, no one offered more sizzle than  Bogey and Bacall.

Sure, Hoagy Carmichael’s music was swell, and Bogie’s prose as spare as Hemingway’s, but it was Betty Bacall who blew everyone away.

With her wry, sexual innuendos this newcomer, a nice Jewish girl from the Bronx, could look as if she might be mentally undressing each man with her glance.

Taking a long drag on a cigarette while locking Bogie in her gaze would immortalize Lauren Bacall in “To Have and Have Not .”

Readers familiar with Ernest Hemingway’s 1937 novel had to look hard to find much resemblance between the novel and the Warner Brothers movie of it.

A lot of the plot was scrapped to allow their romance to take center stage and my Mom sure wasn’t complaining.

As Bacall falls into Bogie’s lap and plants a kiss on his unsuspecting lips, she pulls away. “What did you do that for?” he asks. “Been wondering whether I’d like it.” she replies.

The audience liked it…and how! Who was this incendiary new star who lit up the black and white screen?

New Movie Find

(L) Life Magazine Oct 16 1944 Cover “New Movie Find” Lauren Bacall R) Back cover Coca Cola ad

A few weeks later when this former model made the cover of Life Magazine, Betty dug into the issue. Flipping furiously through the wartime ads, she all but ignored the articles on Dewey, the war and the Negro vote, till she got to the 4 page spread on this new movie find.

“Lauren (born Betty) Bacall plays her first role opposite Humphrey Bogart in To Have and have Not. This new movie find,” Life explained,  “is 5’ 61/2” tall, weighs 119 pounds, has blue-green eyes. Her naturally blonde hair is streaked from hours of sitting in the sun. Off the screen she is gangly and awkward. Lauren is unmarried.”

Article Life Magazine October 1944 New Movie “To Have and Have Not”

“Midway through the first reel of To Have and Have Not a new movie, the sulky looking girl shown above and on the cover saunters with catlike grace into camera range and in an insolent sultry voice says ‘Anybody got a match?’ that moment marks the impressive screen debut of 19-year-old Lauren (Betty) Bacall.”

“After a year at the Academy of Dramatic Arts, NY born Betty Bacall adopted a unique approach to the problem of landing a stage job. She would walk up to a producer on the street and say ‘I’m Betty Bacall. I’d really be an asset to your production.’ This candor brought her a few minor roles, no fame.

Cover Girl Discovered

Betty Bacall on the cover “Harpers Bazaar” Magazine March 1943

“Then she began to do fashion modeling for Harper’s Bazaar,” my mother read with great interest.  “In March 1943 Mrs. Howard Hawks wife of Warner Brothers producer director saw Lauren on a Bazaar cover and had her husband write the girl for information. Instead of writing, Lauren went out to Hollywood.”

“For 8 months Hawk worked with her, developed her husky voice by having her go out in the hills 5 hours a day and shout lines at the top of her lungs. Last January he cast her opposite Humphrey Bogart in To Have and Have Not.”

“Refusing to let Hollywood remake her appearance Lauren Bacall says ‘Mouth stays big, hair stays streaked and ugly teeth stay jagged- but that’s me.’”

Mad About Bacall

Lauren Bacall “To Have and Have Not” 1944

“In Beverly Hills,” she  continued reading, “Miss Bacall shares an apartment with her mother. Her favorite expression is ‘mad’. She does ‘mad’ scenes. Smokes like ‘mad’ and will go ‘mad’ if the cigarette shortage doesn’t soon let up.”

“The biggest surprise of the movie,” Life proclaimed “ is Lauren Bacall.”

“Her best line comes when she sees Bogart carrying a pretty girl who has fainted. Her comment, ‘What are you trying to do, guess her weight?‘ will stay with the viewer.”

Life would blow it on this one.

Even 70 years later the movie’s best remembered line is one that is still often quoted. As she leaves the room, she delivers an exit speech for the ages.

“You know how to whistle, don’t you Steve? You just put your lips together and …blow.”

Lasting Impression

(L) Vintage ad Louis Philippe lipstick Oct. 1944 (R) Lauren Bacall -“To Have and Have Not.”

Immediately following the Life article, Betty noticed   a curious  ad for  Louis Philippe lipstick. The ad posed a beauty challenge asking the reader if their lips were worthy of being immortalized in the famous Kiss Room in Hollywood.

“Are your lips so appealing that you’d be invited to leave their impression on the ceiling or walls of the Kiss Room- that fashionable rendezvous which boasts of the lip imprints of many of the most fascinating Hollywood actresses and social celebrities.”

Betty had no doubt Betty  Bacall’s smoldering lips would leave quite the impression.

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2014. 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 ad “Live Better Electrically” 1965

In 1956 happy homemaker Helen Watson didn’t give a hoot about leaving carbon footprints; in fact if one were pointed out to her she’d most likely plug-in her powerful Electrolux vacuum and sweep it all away.

Was she concerned about climate change? Not in the least. An electric blanket kept her toasty in winter a Freon filled air conditioner kept her cool in summer

Like most mid-century Americans,  Mrs. Watson wasn’t worried about energy related greenhouse gas emissions or renewable energy…unlimited energy was an American birth-rite.

American Dreaming on the Grid

Glancing up at the electric Telechronic clock in her suburban kitchen Helen smiled contentedly as she poured herself another cup of Maxwell House from the Miro-Matic electric percolator.

All was right in the world.

As the family’s wash n’ wear laundry tumbled in the Whirlpool dryer, baby Betsy’s bottle warmed in the electric bottle warmer, and hubby’s eggs sizzled in the automatic skillet, she mindlessly hummed a familiar jingle:

“Make your families life much brighter”
“You will find your work much lighter”
“It’s as easy as can be”
“To live better electrically.”

Good Vibrations

The peppy little jingle was courtesy of General Electric the folks who promised that progress was their most important business.

Helen’s carefree days were delineated by the lulling sounds of progress.

The familiar purr of the frost-free Frigidaire, the hum of the coffee maker, the whirring sounds of a Sunbeam Mixmaster and the whining of the waste disposal were soothing sounds to Helen’s ears.

In the distance, the buzzing of Ed’s electric razor, the whirling of his electric roto-shoe shiner blended seamlessly with the symphony of synchronized electric hedge trimmers and power tools emanating from do it yourself neighbors yards.

High Voltage Living

In mid-century America,no one wanted to be considered underprivileged, electrically speaking. Vintage Ad- America’s Independent Electric Light and Power Company 1955

Like most Americans, Helen was tickled pink with her all-electric living ( not too pink please, no one would dare accuse her of being a Communist) “When you live better electrically,” Ronald Reagan told viewers as host to GE Theater, “ you lead a richer, fuller life.”

At the end of the day she could sleep securely under her electric blanket, satisfied that she was plugged into the American Dream.

That is until a series of advertisements appeared that cast some doubt.

From her waffle maker to her water heater, her radios to her rotisseries, Helen was quite sure she was living life large on the great American grid.

But now a questioned nagged at her…was she living large enough?

Apparently not.

How Do I Rate?

Vintage ad 1957-America’s Independent Electric Light and Power Companies

Along with the plethora of quizzes and tests that were so popular in all the women’s magazines asking the reader to rate their marriage, parenting skills and beauty quotient, there appeared a series of quizzes  posing as ads designed to rate your standard of living.

A standard of living as defined by Westinghouse, Frigidaire and 5 star General Electric.

“Just how efficient were you? the ads asked ?”  Naturally efficiency wasn’t referring to energy-efficient appliances it was about how many energy using appliances and devices you could fill your home with.

No one wanted to be considered underprivileged electrically speaking.

Live Better Electrically

Posing as quizzes, a series of ads appeared in the mid 1950s asking the reader to rate their standard of living. In 1957 to accompany the Live Better Electrically campaign,   GE organized the Medallion Home Program targeting home builders. To earn a status Gold Medallion the height of modern living a home had to have an electric washer and dryer, waste disposal, refrigerator and all-electric heating. (L) Vintage ad 1958  ” Medallion Homes -Live Better Electrically” (R) Vintage 1958 ad “Live Better Electrically” “How clever are you at gift shopping? Check the Give Better Electrically scale and see.” Not only were we living better electrically we were also encouraged to give better electrically.

Hoping to generate more electric power sales, a campaign was launched in 1956 called “Live Better Electrically” which was supported by 180 electrical manufactures and 300 electric utilities.

To keep electricity demands up, they aggressively ran ads, distributed booklets, produced a popular Sunday night TV show, all touting the benefits of electrical living.

Keeping Score

“Can you guess how many ways you put electricity to work?” one ad asked, inviting the reader to make it a fun family affair. One good measure of your standard of living is the number of ways electricity is working for you. The more things you let electricity do, the more likely you are to live comfortably and conveniently and get the most out of life.” Vintage ad 1957

A fun family activity was keeping score of all the electrical appliances in the home. It helped the kiddies with their arithmetic skills to boot!

“Just for fun,” they suggest in one ad from 1957 , “why not guess right now how many ways you put electricity to work?”

“Then on the lists below check how many appliances you have in your home. If your guess comes within 5 of your actual total, you’re far above the average in your power of observation.”

If you checked  30-40 items you rated very good,  while having less than 15 items -” You Are …Missing a Lot!”

Naturally if you checked 45 items or more your standard of electrical living was excellent. Your chances of contributing to greenhouse gas emissions even greater!

 How Do I Measure Up?

Some ads spoke directly to the lady of the house. How did she rate as a housekeeper ?

Its simply good sense to key your kitchen to modern living with an all-electric kitchen and start living better electrically. Check the Live Better Electrically scale and see o much of your life is spent in the kitchen. Vintage ad 1958 Live Better Electrically

“Are You spending too much time in the kitchen?” they asked. “Its simply good sense to key your kitchen to modern living with an all-electric kitchen and start living better electrically.”

All these “electrical servants” they boasted were true energy conservation appliances. Of course the energy they spoke of  was in reference to m’lady. These energy-saving, labor-saving items meant less tiresome chores and more energy and pep for the happy homemaker.

Vintage advertisements detail “Live Better Electrically” 1958

Like revealing personality tests, these simple yes or no quizzes had the reader rate themselves from 1-16 in a series of statement such  “Do you have at least 6 electric cooking appliances? Can you cook a perfect supper while you’re shopping?”

High scoring “Lots O Leisure Lottie” was the ideal to strive for,  who more than likely lived in a “Push button palace”  and was clearly living better electrically.  No one wanted to end up a low scorer like pathetic  “Drudging Dora” with her measly couple of electrical appliances  whose “Nightmare House” was positively primitive.

Are You Cooking the Hard way?

Just as advise writers regularly reinforced the ideal of beauty and womanhood so GE was reinforcing the ideal and status of an electric home with how many gadgets you owned proving how progressively plugged in were you.

High scorer “Dinner Duchess”   the winner in this quiz with a fully loaded kitchen of appliances fit for a Queen was described as “high and mighty happy are you! You’re ruling the kitchen the royal way- with electricity and the results are really regal!  The low scoring “Galley Slave” was to be pitied –”you’re not emancipated-just a notch above a drudge-unless of course you have a modern electric range.”

Remember, the ads reassured the reader, if you didn’t rank as high as you expected to on the Live Better Electrically scale, don’t be too unhappy. Just hop in your gas guzzling Buick and head on over to your local appliance store.

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2014. 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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Our Planet is Under the Weather

Vintage Advertisement Hoover Vacuum Cleaner 1953

Happy days are here again… sexism is not in jeopardy!

Once upon a time when patriarchy ruled, the American housewife was perceived as the most envied gal in the world and a new vacuum cleaner was enough to send her over the moon.

Apparently it still does

When a category on a recent episode of Jeopardy asked “What Women Want” the answers were disturbingly retro.

Instead of things women really want like, oh say equal pay or paid maternity leave, the correct responses were herbal tea, good fitting Levis and a vacuum cleaner!

These notions are as antiquated as these vintage ads.

Happy Homemakers

“You’ll Be Happier With a Hoover” Vintage ad 1948

Smart husbands have long known a vacuum cleaner that beats as it sweeps was sure to make their better half’s heart skip a beat with excitement. After all what red-blooded American man doesn’t want to get their wife in a Hoovering Mood.

Vintage ad Hoover Vacuum Cleaner 1946

Isn’t this about what a husband really says at Christmas time when he gives a Hoover Cleaner to a wife?  asks this Hoover ad from 1946.

“I want you to work less. I want you have more leisure. I want you to save your strength. I want to make it easier for you to keep the home we’- re so proud of. I want you to have a cleaner to help you- and I want you to have a cleaner the world says is the finest.

And she wants you to help!

Eureka

“Pete is my husband-but my new Eureka Roto-Matic is my honey. It’s the most wonderful thing that’s happened in homemaking in years!” Vintage ad Eureka Vacuum 1953

Nothing stars a new home and new romance like a vacuum cleaner .

But hubby be careful what you want. Your wife’s affections may soon be displaced by her love of her  vacuum cleaner.

Like a stubborn stain that won’t come out, sexism still lingers.

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2014. 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 suffering from a serious panic attack, as panic itself has gone viral.

Ebola hysteria is spreading faster than the virus itself, creating a climate of fear mongering, misinformation and intolerance.

Along with frantic calls for travel restrictions and border closures, the panicked reactions resemble another viral epidemic of nearly a century ago.

The 1916 Polio epidemic, all but forgotten now, was the worst polio epidemic ever, striking a baffled N.Y.C. out of the blue creating a pandemic of panic.

Like the Ebola virus, the sources were unknown, the hysteria unchecked, making it ripe for conspiracy theories and xenophobic blaming.

Sound familiar?

A public was paralyzed with fears, and panic and intolerance went viral.

The stories my Brooklyn born grandmother would tell me of this awful, unknown epidemic that hit an unprepared NYC in the summer of 1916 would haunt my childhood.

Vintage photo masks worn during Polio outbreak 1916

Scientists and doctors  were helpless in offering treatment as this new mysterious outbreak swept through neighborhoods.

Mothers were so afraid they would not even let the children enter the streets, locking them in their rooms, their clothes hidden, to prevent them from infected children and breathing infected air that carried the disease, as if polio were like the poisonous gas used by the Germans at Verdun.

Everything came under suspicion – paper money, ice cream candy, wet laundry.

Local street vendors came under suspicion as carriers of the disease as they were considered dirty and unclean, especially those of Italian extraction. (R) Vintage warning how germs are spread

But because it began in the crowded Italian immigrant section of Brooklyn, panicked fingers blamed foreigners.

The good ol’ American melting pot was seen more as a cauldron of germs of filthy foreigners mixing with “native” others in parks, streetcars and subways.

Panic mixed with prejudice created a potent brew that quickly bubbled over into travel restrictions and border closures to children under 16 without proper health certificates.

Stories Pt III

Day after day during the epidemic an exodus of women and their children took trains leaving the scourge ridden city while others were stuck in quarantine with signs warning the healthy. Doctors, strangers to polo, could do little to help the victims. (L) A scene in Brooklyn’s hardest hit district during the 1916 polio epidemic

The stories my grandmother told me about this epidemic only got worse as the summer wore on.

“The disease spread,” she would continue in her story, “and a panicked public wanted to get away, anywhere where the air would be clean.”

With the ironic caption “Why don’t they go to the country for a vacation?” artist George Bellows captures the overcrowding of slum streets and tenement buildings in NYC along with the sensation registered by middle and upper middle class observers over the seemingly unbearable conditions . The cartoon appeared in the socialist magazine “The Masses” in 1913, where Bellows was a regular contributor.

In the stream of refugees that poured from the city that summer, the poor were in the minority.

They couldn’t afford to leave.

So thousands of New Yorker’s fled the heat if only for a day, for the cool ocean breeze of Coney Island.

Coney Island

Fatty Arbuckle enjoys the whip at “Coney Island” in his 1917 short silent film of the same name. The film also featuring Buster Keaton, follows his antics at Coney Island where he sneaks away from his wife to enjoy the attractions.

My grandmother often begged her mother, without any success to take the family to Coney Island for the amusements, but it seemed her father, “considered such pleasures as those, as inferior.”

Maybe strolls on the boardwalk or dinner at Feldmans, but Luna Park and the amusements were, he felt, beneath the dignity of his family.

And with the recent upgrading of the BMT line to a subway, now making the trip to Coney Island so much more accessible to the masses Coney Island was shunned by her mother more than ever.

The Other Half

Perhaps that legacy is why years later Nana Sadie never once set foot on a public beach like Jones Beach, where the crush of crowds concealed the sand, preferring the safety of a private club, whose members were in fact the very progeny of the people her mother tried to avoid. (L) Immigrants entering Ellis Island (R) Coney Island 1940 by Weegee

No Emma Lazarus she, it seems the poor, tired and huddled masses harbored too many contagious diseases for my Great Grandmothers taste.

Like many of her class, she believed unclean people not only harm themselves but are dangerous to clean people. One dirty man or woman in a street car, or in a crowd could poison all the air for others.

No one was safe from polio.

Safe Havens of Fresh Air

Traditionally every summer Nana and her family like many city dwellers of means, would pack up their belongings leaving the stifling, oppressive city for the health giving benefits of “cool, fresh country air and sunshine.”

Breathing deeply of either the salty sea air of Long Beach, or the piney mountain air of The Catskills, these safe havens of fresh air were a welcome relief.

Even under normal circumstances, the hot still air of the city during the summer was considered especially poisonous and dangerous, with opportunistic disease germs just waiting to pounce.

In the openness of the country with its abundance of fresh clean air, good health was just around the corner.

The Perils of the Posners

During the Polio panic the east coast became like a war zone, as residents formed strategy’s to protect their communities

However, that summer, hundreds of these so-called safe havens of fresh air responded nervously to the epidemic with severe restrictions of just who could inhale deeply of their pure clean oxygen, barring children from entering the area.

Gasp!

All was not quiet on the Eastern Front.

The east coast became like a war zone. To stop the virus from establishing a beachhead in their towns, medical inspectors, behaving more like paramilitary soldiers, guarded state borders, setting up roadblocks, ready to turn away any refugees from N.Y.C.

The same towns that had cheered and welcomed children in May were by July turning them away. Many families that fled the city to escape contagion did not find welcome elsewhere, as this sign at Brewster, N.Y. shows. (R)

All over Connecticut, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, residents mobilized, setting up barricades and taking drastic action to keep New Yorker’s out.

Entire train stations were guarded by regular citizens whose job it was to turn back children from the city. Towns posted large red signs on the roads that you couldn’t miss, warning travelers that certificate or not, no children would be allowed to even pass through their community.

On Long Island where in just 30 more years its suburbs would become the promised land of so many ex urbanites, was now anything but welcoming to city residents.

When polio patients from Oyster Bay were sent to the only available hospital at nearby Glen Cove, residents of that tony area reacted violently, threatening to kill the health officer and burn down the hospital.

In suburban Woodmere angry mobs gathered at an isolation hospital and threatened to wreck it until the institution was placed under heavily-armed guards.

Fellow Travelers

Towns took steps to combat the threat of polo by refusing entry to children. (L) 1916 photo- Great Neck, Long Island barred children under 16 and authorities checked each incoming car.

That July, as Nana remembered it, while traveling to their rented bungalow in Long Beach, Long Island, “suddenly, like some poor Russian peasants trying to escape to Vilna in the dark of night, instead of decent tax paying Americans, we were stopped by authorities who were checking every incoming car-like contraband for children under 16.”

The Health Department issued a law that no child under 16 could leave N.Y.C.without a health certificate that would absolutely positively certify that the child was not infected, nor had gone within two feet of an infected neighborhood.

“But,” she continued, “a certificate signed by your own family doctor, which-I-should-mention-we-had, wasn’t good enough for these shmegegees to prove we were free of infections. It had to be signed by a big shot city health inspector.”

Those cars with children without proper certificates were detained and sent back to the city, “and so like common criminals, back to the city we went.”

Manhattan Morphs into Minsk

“It felt to my parents,” explained Nana, “who-thank- God–had-narrowly-escaped-them, like the terrible May Laws in Russia which restricted where Jews could travel and live.”
“How is it”, my mother would ask, “that in such a free country, you can’t go as you please… and since when, may I ask, did our President Wilson turn into, I-should-bite-my–tongue- the-Tzar.”

Equal Opportunity

But my Great Grandmother missed the big picture which was that this was indeed America, the land of equality.

Uncle Sam didn’t restrict only Jewish children, but all children’s freedom as well. Moishe as well as Mathew.

Land of equal opportunity, indeed!

End in Sight

Vintage poster for the March of Dimes to Fight Infantile Paralysis

Then late in the summer when the two month isolation period had passed the hospitals began to discharge the polio stricken children.

Out they poured with crippled arms and legs with bodies stripped of any chance of normal development.

“There were infants who had not yet learned to walk and who never would,” Nana said mournfully. “Babies who never would hold a bottle” “Youngsters who would never carry a school bag,” she sighed  bleakly.

Nodding her head in sadness, Nana always ended the story with “You should only know how lucky you are!”

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2014. 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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When it came to imagining career goals for this generation of girls, Barbie was supposed to be breaking through the plastic ceiling, but a recent sexist Barbie career book “I Can be a Computer Engineer” is a throwback to an earlier time.

Apparently Barbie is in way over her pretty blonde head when it comes to computer science and needs the help of 2 tech savvy boys to navigate the world of computers.

“I’m only creating the design ideas,” Barbie says laughing. “I’ll need Steven’s and Brian’s help to turn it into a real game.” Due to the backlash against the negative stereotypes presented in the book Mattel and Random House have pulled it off the shelves. Game over.

Perhaps Barbie best stick to teaching, nursing, or being a stewardess.

This retro advise that women must rely on men to get a job done is one girls have heard for years.

To those of us who were the first generation of Barbie buddies, the story line it is eerily familiar harking back to a time when options presented to a real girl in the 1960’s were less than thrilling.

What Shall I Be?

By the time I was 11 years old, I  had bid my EZ bake oven goodbye   and tucked my Tiny Tears doll into her rock-bye crib for the last time. Like most other pre pubescent  girls in the mid 1960’s I was  ready to target more weighty matters- like what  I wanted to  be when I grew up.

We were, our Weekly Readers told us, a new generation of girls, fueled first by the New Frontier challenges of JFK, now primed and ready to join LBJ’s Great Society.

To assist us on our journey was a brand new board game  called “What Shall I Be? The Exciting Game of Career Girls.” Debuting in 1966 it was made by Selchow & Righter Company makers of the popular game of Parcheesi.

What Shall I Be? The Exciting Game of Career Girls 1966 Board Game. Players learn what it takes to become a teacher, ballerina, nurse, model, actress and airline stewardess. For girls 8 to 13

Along with “Miss Popularity” and “Mystery Date”, “What Shall I Be?”  formed the  holy grail   of board games designed to  prepare  a young girl with the essential skills needed for  the exciting game of life of which she apparently hadn’t a clue.

The object of the game was to be the first player to become a Career Girl, achieved by collecting school, subject and personality cards for specific careers. With the roll of the dice the thrilling world of career options awaited me.

But the cards were stacked against the girls of the 1960s.

Mad Men’s Peggy Olsen may have scored a corner office in a big Madison Avenue office , but the options presented to a real life girl in 1966 were less than thrilling.

The 6 exciting career options offered in this game just for girls included  nursing school to become a nurse, drama school to become an actress, college to become a teacher, ballet school to become a ballet dancer, airline training school to become an airline stewardess or everyone’s favorite, sashaying off to charm school to become a model.

Charm school would clearly serve you well in securing a job in all the other fields which also seemed to  require the oh-so important arts of visual poise, grace and charm, voice and diction, grooming essentials, figure control make up and hair styling and other social skills that would help you attain your goals more quickly and readily.

In the dog eat dog game world of high stake careers, girls competed by being the first to collect school, personality, and subject cards for specific careers.

Subject Cards For What Shall I Be? Board Game . Other cards included, You don’t speak clearly, you have poor posture, Hair styling is good, Good fashion

The games consisted of 30 School Cards, 16 round subject cards and 16 heart-shaped personality cards

Personality cards for the came What Shall I Be? Cards were collected when you landed on a spot “Take heart card” Other cards included “You are Pretty,” “You are Clumsy”, “You are not Considerate,” and “You Have Patience”

The game ended when one lucky player had collected 4 school cards of one profession and 2 subject cards and two personality cards that were good for that profession.  After that, the sky’s the limit!

There was a version of what Shall I be  for boys the exciting career game for boys. Options for boys included going to law school to become a statesman, graduate school to become a scientist,medical school to become a doctor, college to become an athlete, technical school to become an engineer or flight school to become an astronaut.

Exciting Careers

The board game merely reflected what we viewed in the media at large. Flipping through Seventeen Magazine were the real life ads for exciting careers.

In a few short years girls would rebel against the cards we were dealt. The woman’s movement would be the wild card in the future.

Copyright (©) 2014 Sally Edelstein All Rights Reserved