Vintage Ad Cunard Cruise Lines 1953

Once upon a time, a  cruise was a world of gaiety, comfort and relaxation such as no other form of travel provided. It was a rarefied world of glamour, hospitality and elegance.

As the headline for this 1953 Cunard Lines boldly proclaims: “Getting there is half the fun.” Tell that to the trapped 4,200 passengers and crew of the ill-fated Carnival Cruise Ship Triumph.

For those passengers on the calamitous cruise ship Triumph, their fairy tale dream vacation turned into a Grimm Brothers nightmare. Instead of overflowing with hospitality, it was overflowing toilets.

Getting There is Half the Fun

But once upon a time a cruse ship truly was a fairy tale, a brilliant holiday in itself to be enjoyed to the utmost and the mid-century ads reflected that:

“You may step a merry mile…or inhale  the clean salt air from the comfort of your deck chair….you may linger over sumptuous meals prepared by internationally trained chefs….you may relax in peace or dance the evening through.”

 “You live awhile in a festive world apart…. A world which, in both senses of the word, transport you. “

Stranded at sea, awash in raw sewage, fighting for dwindling food, a veritable floating Petri dish of disease, the passengers of the stricken Carnival Cruise Ship Triumph would concur,  it indeed was “A once in a lifetime adventure.”

Copyright (©) 2013 Sally Edelstein All Rights Reserved

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• Crippled cruise ship Carnival Triumph arrives in Alabama after five-day ordeal (telegraph.co.uk)

Morning Lift Off

 Intruding upon on our leisurely Sunday morning breakfast in the winter of 1958, the rude roar of the airplane passing overhead totally obliterated the happy snap, crackle and pop sound effects of my Rice Krispies.

Distracted by the loud disturbance, Mom lost count of how many heaping teaspoons of Tang she had already added to the pitcher of cold water, while Dad took his nose out from the Sports Section long enough to look up  in the direction of the noise.

Stabbing a forkful of burnt salami and runny eggs, Dad wondered what gourmet treat the glamorous Pan Am-coffee-tea-or me- stewardess might be serving her passengers as the jet whisked those lucky travel-now-pay-later tourists  away for their La Dolce Vita Roman Holiday Tours.

Between bites, Dad wondered aloud whether the plane might be one of Pan Am’s new Jet Clippers that was getting so much press lately. Suddenly it seemed, we were catapulted into the jet age, the age of shrinking distances and expanding horizons.

“Imagine,” he mused in wonderment, “only 6 1/2 magic hours to Europe!”

1958 was indeed a year defined by speed and motion. We successfully launched Americas first satellites into outer space, supersonic aircraft were setting world speed records, and now Pan Am Jet clippers with a cruising speed of 600 mph were  criss crossing the ocean.

Before jet planes, transatlantic flights were longer and noisier.
(L)Vintage ad Pan Am 1949 (R) Vintage ad Pan Am 1958 first commercial jet across the Atlantic

New Horizons

Suddenly the whole world was within easy reach.

Jet travel was a new concept of air transportation. Transatlantic air travel in the immediate post-war years was still a novelty, but offered significant advantages over sea travel. A typical trip by sea across the Atlantic took about 5 days while air travel in a turbo prop plane cut that down to less than half a day, with intermediate stops usually in gander Newfoundland and/or Shannon, Ireland.

Now with the Boeing 707, Pan Am ushered in the jet age. It was a magic world of travel. Pan Am’s jet clippers were the first transatlantic jet airliner- they were pure jets, the airline boasted, a major advance over turbo props. It was a world of vibration-free, quiet comfort.

Take Off

Another loud roar was heard this one much closer to home. From the living room we could hear my 6-year-old older brother Andy howling because TV host Chuck McCann’s goofy moon face on “Lets Have Fun” went all fuzzy on our television screen just as he was about to air a Popeye cartoon.

Suddenly  Popeye, Olive Oyl and Wimpy dissolved into  a collection of  wiggles, jiggles and flutters and the mealy-mouthed mumblings of Popeye  was all that could be made out on the TV.“I is disgustipated!”

“Those darn jet planes,” Dad murmured grappling with the TV controls to try to smooth out the flutter on the television reception caused by the airplanes.

No such luck.

Now that we were in the flight path from Idlewild Airport the TV reception on the old Philco would erupt into streaks, flop over’s and a flurry of snow.

Hoping to distract him, Mom poured Andy a cup of the freshly made Tang into his melmac Popeye mug. Between great gulps of the fluorescent orange elixir, my brother and I enthusiastically sang our own version of the Tang commercial:

He’s Popeye the sailor man he’s strong to the finich cause he eats his spinach  but if you want to do what the astronauts do

Join the space gang

 And drink your energy Tang

 Tang is for breakfast, lunch and after school-tang 

 Tang is energy zing like rocket fuel…” causing us to dissolve into gales of laughter.

 Wild Blue Yonder

“Hoo, Ha, those jets are a menace” Mom complained, fixing another cup of instant Nescafe for herself and Dad.

Jets were now constantly screeching over our homes, supermarkets and schools. The wild blue yonder was getting wilder every day as military planes got out of control, collided and exploded on a regular basis.

“Right here in East Meadow no less,” a distraught Mom exclaimed, “ only, three- blocks- god-forbid- from where the Pearlman’s live, an Air Force bomber disintegrated right on the front lawn of a family’s home. Who ever heard of such a thing?”

“Here’s one for you.” Dad read grimly from an article in the Long Island Press “Tragic landing on Highway. Forced into an emergency night landing when his air force C-123 transport ran short of gas over a thickly settled LI suburb, the pilot set down on a highway. The plane plunged through an overpass, smashed 3 cars, and came to a rest after killing…..”

Mom cut him off quickly. “The “kinder” have big ears,” she said nodding in my direction. Sitting at the kitchen table drinking my cup of milk, I sipped in thoughtful silence. As Dad read the story, I gulped it down.

It was both frightening and riveting.

Globetrotting

 With the faulty Philco on the fritz, the prospect of my brother missing his Sunday morning  shows loomed large. Mom wisely anticipated the possibility of our own localized, 38 pound explosion, and quickly handed Andy a favorite book to distract him from the fact he would be missing Sonny Fox on Wonderama.

Captivated, Andy opened the large book on the floor and was going over the pages very carefully.

It was a World Atlas with colored maps and pictures of the strange things to be found in foreign countries. In one page was a picture of the earth, a round ball and a paragraph that said if one were to travel always in a straight line in one direction he would go clear around the world and come back to his starting point.

“Do you know, said Dad buttering his toast, “you could learn a great deal more about geography if you were really in those countries instead of just reading about them.”

“Yeah, Andy answered skeptically, “but how would we get to those places”.

“You could fly for one,” returned Mom, pouring each of us a cup of freshly made Tang. “You could even fly to Paris right now if you wanted to.”

Since October, it was a much smaller world especially with the new commercial jets that could fly you from NY to Europe in a magical 6 ½ hours.

“Forget about the same old places …same old faces…same old things,” the commercial for Pan Am crowed. “This year why not give the globe a spin and pick out the places you’d really like to go.”

“Yes now’s the time to listen to your heart and let yourself go! “

Copyright (©) 2013 Sally Edelstein All Rights Reserved

Starting in the fall of 1958 the roar of jets could be heard streaking through the blue skies of my Long Island suburban neighborhood, screeching over split levels, supermarkets and elementary schools on a daily basis.

In a flash,  it seemed we were catapulted into the jet age.

Interrupting our once leisurely Sunday breakfast one December morning, the rude roar of a plane passing overhead totally obliterated the happy snap, crackle, pop, sound effects of my Rice Krispies.

Staring up in the direction of the noise, Dad wondered aloud whether the plane might be one of Pan Am’s new Jet Clippers that were getting so much press lately.

Proudly, Pan Am had taken America’s airlines into the jet age. Since October, it was a much smaller world especially with the new commercial jets that could fly you from NY to Europe in a magical 6 ½ hours.

Stabbing a forkful of burnt salami and runny eggs, Dad wondered what gourmet treat the glamorous Pan Am-coffee-tea-or me- stewardess might be serving her passengers as the jet whisked those lucky travel-now-pay-later tourists  away for their La Dolce Vita Roman Holiday Tours.

New Horizons

Post-war prop planes were both noisier and slower than jet planes

The prospect of transatlantic jet service was the talk of the town. Suddenly the whole world was within easy reach, the future of air travel had arrived.

Jet travel was a new concept of air transportation. A major advance over turbo props, it was a world of vibration-free, quiet comfort.

Transatlantic air travel in the immediate post war years was still a novelty. At a time when a typical trip by sea across the Atlantic took about 5 days, air travel in a turbo prop plane offered the advantage of cutting that down to less than half a day, with stops usually in Gander Newfoundland and/or Shannon, Ireland.

Vintage Ad 1957 for Boeing 707 featuring a prototype

Dad explained that now with the new Boeing 707, Pan American had ushered in the jet age.

Although Pan American boasted that their jet clippers were the first transatlantic jet airliner, the U.S. was not the first nation to enter the jet age in commercial aviation. In the early 1950′s while Americans were busy building hot jets for the Air Force, the British already had them in commercial operation with its De Havilland Comet. In May of 1952 Britain’s Comet entered service and astonished the world.

Boeing 707

But when American airlines did convert to turbojet-powered aircraft in 1958 they did so with the most successful jetliner yet constructed- the Boeing 707.

Boeing teased the public a full year ahead of actual availability, boasting of its great feat in an advertisement that ran in 1957 :

“The worlds most experienced builder of long-range jet aircraft brings you the jet airliner of tomorrow-Boeing 707” And they boasted “Boeing was the only American jetliner flying today!”

“In this superb ship you will cruise indigo blue skies 6 miles above the earth-with such serene smoothness you’ll seem poised motionless in space. Yet be traveling an incredible 600 miles an hour. “

“Already 11 famous airlines have ordered 707 jet transports. They chose Boeing jets for many reasons including this: when delivery begins in less than 2 years the 707 will be the most tested airliner ever to take to the skies”

Leaving on a Jet Plane?

 His curiosity peaked, my brother Andy wanted to know if our parents had ever flown in a jet. Mom explained that the very first time she had ever flown on a plane was when she and Dad had gone to Cuba on their Honeymoon, but that it had been a regular airplane which was both slower and noisier than a jet.

“First time nothing!” Dad boomed. “You were a seasoned pro by the time we went to Cuba.”

“What about all those flights you took at the 1939 Worlds Fair?” Dad joked.

Mom threw her head back and laughed.

She scooted off to her bedroom and started rummaging through one of her many junk drawers. Among the many marbles, old skate keys, mints, receipts, matchbooks, and other assorted flotsam and jetsam she found what she was hunting for.

She came back proudly displaying a shiny button that said “I Have Seen the Future” on it. Gently pinning the blue and white button on my coveralls, I clapped my hands and smiled in delight.

New York Worlds Fair 1939

Excitedly, Mom told us that she had saved this button since she was a little girl. It was from an exhibit at the 1939 New York Worlds Fair, which, she explained, was like a huge amusement Park, but for adults too.

At the General Motors Pavilion, which was the most popular exhibit of the Fair, there was something called the Futurama ride that took you on an imaginary flight across America from coast to coast.

“Remember, in 1939 very few people had every flown in an airplane,” Mom began, “so it was quite exciting.”

“You really felt somehow like you were flying,” Mom recalled.” I don’t know how they did it, but you had the sensation of flying over a huge detailed diorama of life in the distant future of 1960; like you were catching a glimpse of the world of the future from the window of an airplane.”

That sounded like the best part -it was supposed to be a look into a glittering future that was going to be so wonderful, so full of promise

“Your future, she said smiling, softly kissing my head, “the future I would dream about for you.”

All Eyes to the Future

 “It was a 15 minute ride, and you sat partially enclosed in a high-backed blue velour seat. A narrator spoke to you saying ‘A new world, a greater world a better world, come travel into the future!…The America of 1960!’

“You really got goose bumps. It seemed, at the time, like so far off into the future,” she said wistfully.

So we see things to come, the narrator spoke optimistically. A new world with a future –that is where we are going to spend the rest of our lives.

“And now, can you believe it,” Mom continued, “that’s only two years from now- Andy you’ll be a big boy of eight and Sally you’ll be five years old and just starting kindergarten.”.

My eyes lit up at the idea of the future. All Eyes to the Future!

Flights of Fancy

“Boy, what I remember most, were those god awful lines,” Dad said transported back to 1939.

“That swooping, simulated airplane ride was really all the talk of the fair, so sometimes you had to wait on line for as much as four  hours. But once you got there, you forgot all about the wait- you were swept along, together with 600 other visitors, on a fifteen minute ride and the narrator, a man with a really d-e-e-p  v-o-i-c-e, spoke about New Horizons and Highways.”

“What was amazing,” Dad tried to explain, as he cut into a piece of cinnamony coffee cake, “was that they synchronized the narrator’s voice with the movement of the seats, so you felt  like he was speaking just to you, at just the right spot in the journey.”

“It was”, lowering his voice to sound like the recorded narrator, ‘a magic Aladdin like flight through time and space. Old Horizons’, Dad continued speaking even deeper and slower ‘op- e-n- in-g  to  n- e- w- Ho-ri-z-ons’.

“You looked down below at teeny tiny models of hundreds of thousands of buildings, and thousands of little teardrop shaped cars and a million trees and you know, you really had the sensation of swooping down getting closer.”

“As you crossed America,” he explained in obvious delight, “the dusk of the diorama turned into night and then the plane moved across the country and the sun rose again.”

My parent’s enthusiasm for the future was infectious-the images gripped me and I took it all in.

All Eyes to the Future.

Copyright (©) 2013 Sally Edelstein All Rights Reserved

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Like most women growing up in the 1950s and 1960s I was fed a generous serving of sugar-coated media stereotypes of happy homemakers who were as frozen and neatly packaged as the processed foods they served their cold war families.

The Feminine Mistake 1960

In the years before I went to Kindergarten, I shadowed my mother Betty  everywhere she went.

Within her suburban sphere of influence I was a contented little satellite, spinning in her orbit.

Whether shopping or schlepping, picking up or dropping off, I would follow in her footsteps…literally. The task I enjoyed tagging along with the most was her weekly appointment at the Glam-A-Rama Beauty Parlor.

Glam-A- Rama Beauty Parlor

The beauty parlor was a unique universe unlike any place else, where unfamiliar, strange-looking equipment was being used by familiar neighborhood women looking strange.

All dressed alike, their ordinary clothes replaced by identical leopard print smocks, it was a universe with its own uniform.

A universe where gossip was as hot and swift as the air blowing through the missile shaped hairdryers, a world where I was privy to carefully guarded grown up secrets.

Strange intimacies grew between women who organized carpools and now found themselves sitting, captive under pink hair dryers.

These conversations were unlike the hurried confidences exchanged as Friday’s schedule was switched with Tuesdays, pick-ups and deliveries reversed, or when a tired mother deposits the last child and stayed for a quick cup of instant coffee.

It was over the roar of the dryers in the afternoons while casseroles simmered in automatic ovens back home that these women gave full voice to secret whispering fears. Somehow dread words could be spoken and reassurances offered.

In the shadow of the hairdryers, as nails were polished, calluses scraped and hair teased, dread words could be safely spoken.

Post War Periodicals

(R) Ladies Home Journal 5/52 illustration Al Parker

Sinking into a padded turquoise swivel styling chair, I sat next to Mom, carefully watching as Miss Blanche the hairdresser, combed and teased, bombarding Mom with hairspray.

This was truly a space age hair-do with its propulsion accomplished by strenuous backcombing.

Mom would sit in the hydraulic  chair reading 2 month old, dog-eared copies of McCalls and Good Housekeeping, while  Miss Blanche maintaining a steady flow of mindless chatter as she worked.

Magazine Madness

Tucked within those pages, the periodicals promised the modern mid-century housewife would find exactly the right information and products that would give her the knowledge to excel in her role as wife and mother.

Glancing at her favorite magazines at the Glama-Rama only seemed to confirm what Mom knew in her heart to be true- that love, marriage, and children is The career for women.

“Yes,” she would read, nodding in agreement “for today’s homemaker her home is her castle.”

“Snug within it she basks in the warmth of a good mans love…glories in the laughter of healthy children…glows with pride in every new acquisition that adds color or comfort pleasure or leisure to her family’s life.”

“And, she’s always there! She’s an up to date modern American homemaker.”

Breathing in deeply of the beauty parlor air heavy with the cloying sweetness of perfume diluted by the acrid smell of singed hair, Mom sighed contently.

Home Work

Of course, the gals all agreed, some poor mothers had to work to provide for their families.

The big talk that day that set tongues wagging concerned Shirley Birnbaum who was pregnant and planned to go back to work as a teacher after she had a baby!

“But the ones I’d like to talk about,” our neighbor Estelle Wolfson said between puffs of her Parliament  pointing to an article in one magazine, “are those who feel that household and community activities are for “squares.”

The curler clad ladies nodded in unison.

Can This Marriage Be Saved

By the fall of 1960 there had began to appear some quiet rumblings among some unhappy housewives across the country.

Now and again Mom would read an article, usually in the Can This Marriage be Saved column, about those few unfortunate women who felt stifled and lonely in their marriage.

“Feminists” or anyone who couldn’t find fulfillment in the Lady Clairol colorful cold war world of carpools, cookouts, cream of mushroom soup casseroles, and catering to contented children and happy-go-lucky husbands, were disturbed.

Flipping through one magazine, she noticed that September’s Redbook offered a $500 prize for the best essay on “Why Young Mothers Feel Trapped.”

It triggered an unexpectedly large response 24,000 entries.

Another magazine, Good Housekeeping   also tapped into this vein of unhappiness with a September article of its own. “I Say: Women Are People Too.”

The article caught Moms eye.

It noted “a strange stirring, a dissatisfied groping, a yearning” by American women, a sense that there must be more to life than raising children and maintaining a clean comfortable home.

The magazine urged its readers to overcome their malaise by taking charge of their lives. “She can’t live through her husband and children.” It said of the typical housewife. “They are separate selves. She has to find her own fulfillment first.”

The author of the Good Housekeeping article was by another Betty, Betty Friedan, a 39-year-old freelance writer from NY suburbs

Friedan was asked to assemble a booklet for her Smith college class 15^th reunion in 1957. She sent out questionnaires expecting to be inundated with cheerful stories about successful careers and young families. Many classmates responded with tales of depression and frustration. It was Friedans first clue than many thousands of women shared her own dissatisfaction.

The Smith questionnaire inspired her to undertake a detailed examination of what she called “the problem that has no name” interviewing hundreds of women in NY Chicago and Boston.

The Good Housekeeping piece sprang from this research. She had started a book manuscript by Oct 1960.

The book entitled The Feminine Mystique wouldn’t be published until 1963.

Duz She or Duzn’t  She

Mom dismissed these grumblings and put down the magazine.

She never felt constrained.

She saw her life as full of choices after all she as free to choose- automobiles, clothes appliances and supermarkets.

Freedom was all around her.

Suddenly she was carefree with her automatic dishwasher, there was freedom from brushing between meals with Gleem toothpaste, you could relax if its Arnel with new ease of care, sofas covered with Velon plastic, meant she was no longer a slave to delicate upholstery, even her waist whittling calorie curve cuttin’ Playtex girdle promised her new freedom.

And best of all there was freedom to choose from a dazzling assortment at the supermarkets.

Thinking the Unthinkable

Patting her lush brown bouffant coif floating like a gentle cloud above her head, Mom left the beauty parlor happy. With a new recipe for cheese Fondue clutched in her hands and a sure-fire solution for removing ring around the collar, Mom was content. For now my mother Betty would follow in the footprints of another Betty, Betty Crocker, satisfied in her role as housewife and mother. 

The problem that had no name was so unfathomable no one even thought they had a problem. It was buried as deeply as our missiles underground, and would cause the same explosion when they were released.

Copyright (©) 2013 Sally Edelstein All Rights Reserved

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One day while flipping through a 3-year-old, dog-eared magazine while waiting for her hair to dry at the Glam-A- Rama Beauty Parlor, my mid-century Mom happened upon an article in the May 1955 issue of Better Living Magazine that caught her eye.

Squirming uneasily in turquoise, hydraulic chair, she did a double take when she recognized the name of the author of the piece as a former college classmate of hers. For just a fleeting moment, a glimpse of envy and regret flashed across my self-described, self-fulfilled, self–effacing  Mom’s face.

The article entitled The Lady is Queen of the Supermarket, was a gushing ode to the dazzling world of mid-century supermarkets and the fortunate housewives who frequented them.

 “The Self service supermarket is more than just a slick way of selling groceries to the woman customer it makes marketing day an adventure.”

Mom laughed out loud.

Supermarket shopping a big adventure?  Somehow that seemed far removed from the adventures Mom had once considered for herself as a girl when she had wanted to be a reporter for a big city daily. She couldn’t wait to get into the newspaper game unearthing scoops covering a hot breaking story, real investigating  reporting.

No sob sister stories for her.

Now she was applying this same determination, and keen eye in the bold undertaking of food shopping.Food shopping was an adventure. Mom was a first-rate sleuth at uncovering bargains wherever they were and she was willing to travel to the ends of the earth to get them.

 Leaning back in the padded soft chair, she closed her eyes  against the glare  of the fluorescent lights and began day dreaming. Breathing deeply of the nose burning acetone, ammonia and sulfur that filled the beauty parlor air, Mom’s mind drifted off.

The Case of the Suburban Supermarket Sleuth

She was no longer Betty Edelstein, suburban housewife of Long Island.

She was Edelstein of the Herald- by-line Betty F.

Maybe she’d never climb to where Pegler or Winchell, or Dorothy Thompson was, and never would. She was just Edelstein of the Herald and she was in the city room, shaping a feature story around the suicide attempt of some fading Hollywood star when word came of the trickery at the local Food Fair Supermarket

She crossed the room and checked the local ticker for details…Sale Swansons TV Dinner…buy 2 get one free …long record of  fraud….Green Giant Corn on sale…stock question…. Her story forgotten, Mom left the building.

Force of habit she picked me up.

I was Moms faithful sidekick. I was her Baba Looey to her Quick Draw McGraw, Dr. Watson to her Sherlock Holmes. Wearing mother-daughter Pith Helmets, along with  our Mother daughter suburban car coats, we headed out on this adventure together.

Securing her circulars and satchels of clipped coupons, a compass in hand, she was prepared to fight her way through the jungle of the unforeseen labyrinth that was the realm of the suburban supermarket.

Betty was ready to move out of the small confinement of the old small grocer, with its dark and narrow dusty aisles lit only by incandescent light. She was ready to say goodbye to the high prices and singular frozen food chest, and venture into the dangers of the local Food Fair, with its endless frozen food aisle.

Pulling in to the large, spacious parking lot of the Shopping Center, Mom quickly noted we weren’t alone…the lot was filled with suspicious looking station wagons.

Stepping inside the supermarket, we waited a minute to let our eyes get accustomed to the brightness of the light. She immediately took note of her surroundings- the glass, the chrome, the pastel colored walls, the soothing piped in music, and the ceilings lined with noise absorbing tiles giving a cathedral-like atmosphere to the store, making the shopping seem less frantic.

She wasn’t fooled. Not even by the scientifically placed fluorescent lighting.

It was all a set up to lull you into a false sense of security.

But Mom was on an exploratory expedition.

Turn on a Dime

She pulled a clipping from the previous day’s newspaper out of her purse and we looked at it together. Besides the advertised sale on Green Giant Canned corn, she was seeking certain information as to the authenticity of a treasure trove- a huge Swanson TV dinner cache on sale-buy two get one free.

She had been tipped off by a store circular that it existed, and she was in possession of not one, but three coupons for tens cents off any Swanson TV Dinner.

The aforementioned item had vast potential prospects; that should her investigations turn out favorable, she would return home with fully prepared meals ready to pop in the oven, available for further operations.

And with the help of her Amanna Food Freezer with the famous Stor-Mor–Door, (116 packages in the door alone, including twenty cans of frozen oj concentrate.) she could empty one shopping bag after another- there was always room for more in this big beauty!

But so far it only was a rumor.

Advertised items were often out of stock, if they ever existed in the first place. Worse, they were merely a ploy to entrap her.

She had heard that sinister warning repeated time and again from superstitious, skeptic suburban natives whenever Mom happened to run into them as she traveled up the aisles.

(L) Vintage Pulp Men’s Magazine “Outdoor Adventure” 1959 illustration Mel Philips

Once inside she began laying out her route, when she was approached by a stock boy overhearing our plans.

“You go to your death senorita, when you go up the frozen food aisle!” uttered the half-breed Columbian stock boy, in clipped lisping English. The fellows face was a dreadful yellowish hue and his discolored teeth chattered with malarial fever as he walked feebly down the fluorescent aisle to see Mom off.

Mom was leaving comparative civilization behind.

She had bid farewell to the familiarity of the small grocery store, run by familiar families, and where either Mom or Pop helped with your selection.

Her plan was to head straight towards the massive canned goods department, to the territory near packaged mixes, then to cross overland a short distance through the Northwest passage to the frozen food cabinets.

The canned goods were overwhelming, the floor jammed with open cartons blocking the aisles. The racy red and white Campbell’s soup cans with their come hither look, were merely a distraction. But the free-standing display of Green Giant corn, three for forty-five cents was empty.

Mom hastily made a note.

Our two compasses were compared. North of 65 degrees, there was nothing; that is, unless you liked the look of snow and ice and Boxes of Better-Buy-Birdseye peas lost in a mass of tangled pot pies.  TV Dinners and frozen fish sticks competed for customer attention in the frozen tundra of the open top refrigerated cases, and they could only count on their tantalizing close-ups of food to spur sales and survive in the mess.

Mom had heard stories about the frozen food cases-there were fantastic ridges of ice looming like miniature mountain ranges. Luckily we had packed our Arctic gear.

The poor stock boys were gaunt and frostbitten- even an Eskimo wouldn’t take too happily to this section- especially once winter set in.  It was not for the faint of heart.

But Mom, she was different. She would like it fine. “A gal could set a while up there”, she mused to herself, “by the Snow Crop frozen orange Juice concentrate and ponder, without damn fools coming around interfering”.

After what seemed many hours of travel through the dense Breakfast Cereal aisle where we were temporarily blinded by the bright glare of the candy colored boxes filled with make-you happy-cereals of sugar sparkled puffs and flakes, we found ourselves surrounded by shiny boxes of cake mix, the  forbidding images of Betty Crocker and Aunt Jemima glaring ominously down at us.

A wrong turn and we found ourselves on the upper stretches of the dreaded fresh produce. It was tough and strenuous passage for both Mom and me, A vast green hell, fruits and vegetables were scattered all over the floor, sprung loose from their carefully packaged Styrofoam containers,  bruised  and damaged, not fit for man nor beast, making travel quite dangerous.

Only the iceberg lettuce, wrapped in glittering transparent film, true to its name, was indestructible and survived the carnage. It would take a posse of stock boys to cut a trail through this sinister treacherous hell of fetid and putrid scraps.

The whole populous in the store was in a nervous, panic- stricken state of tension and dread.

Mom and I went down the aisles. It was difficult to force our passage through the crowded aisles dense with an undergrowth of boxes and cartons.

Passing the bloodied, display of raw cuts of meat, repose in translucent envelopes ready for the broiler, was an omen of the slaughter that might await us. Suddenly the sound was loud penetrating. The only traces of tragedy we could see was the strange red substance pooling around our feet, till we spied the shattered fragments of the bottles of ketchup.

There I found her peering down a wide swath of broken down bottles, spilled boxes,

“Mama”, I whispered. “Me, I no like this place.

In the distance we could see the fantastic ridges of ice looming like miniature mountain ranges.

Then suddenly it appeared, gleaming in their Fidel-I-Tone color cellophane laminated boxes, a  freshly unloaded carton of the treasured TV Dinners. Lip smackin’ giddy boxes with the familiar wood grained TV set, complete with two turning dials, the appetite whetting close up of golden fried chicken, the pat of butter on the whipped potatoes just so, sizzling real enough to melt the ice.

For a brief moment it seemed as if the dreaded frozen food aisle meant to live up to its sinister reputation after all! It wasn’t long before the homemakers suddenly stampeded up and down the aisles, rushing, pushing overrunning everything.

Obviously something was wrong.

By the time we clawed our way to the food cabinet the frozen dinners were all gone-like a mirage. The stock boys merely shrugged. Mom had no choice but to secure a coveted rain check, no easy feat, and she would accept no substitutions for the Swansons.

She would confront the manager himself.

Mischief and the  Manager

Vintage Illustration Esquire magazine 1951 “Full Confession” George Biggs

Meanwhile, only minutes earlier while the ladies fought over the frozen food, Wally the store manager let himself into his office making his way to the back room in the dark.

Inside the door he switched on the light and hurried to his desk. He seated himself in his chair and opened the bottom drawer, withdrew a bottle of whiskey and raised it to his lips. As he threw back his head, he saw the strangers standing in the doorway.

Mom and I quickly slipped into the room and swung the door behind us. Leaning back against the door, nonchalantly Mom watched Wally with amused eyes.

”Don’t let me stop you”, she said.

Wally, with the bottle poised at his lips gulped quickly and recapped the bottle. He offered the bottle to Mom. She smiled. Under the raw light of the unshaded bulb, Wally skin was leathery and old.

Mom said “Never use the stuff. I don’t have any bad habits” she added and grinned again.

The manager of the supermarket frowned at Mom who faced him across the vast expanse of a desk. Approaching the manager, Mom uttered “I can take care of myself.”

(L) Vintage Men’s Pulp Magazine “Adventure Life” 1959 illustrator: Raphael DeSoto

Her occupation: investigative reporter, but the manager didn’t know that,

She posed as a housewife wise enough to keep beyond the reach of the law.

“Just want what’s mine” she stated, she walked over to the desk and stood looking down at Wally. “Gimme the rain check.”

“You have more canned corn in the stockroom” Mom said bluntly, “I want some”.

The clerk laughed, staring at her through narrowed lids.

“When did you turn detective!”

He studied her. Her face was expressionless.

“You’ve never crossed my path before. Perhaps you’re not aware that I have a reputation for getting what I want,” Mom said matter of factly.

“First, the three cans of niblets corn, Green Giant, goes with me when I leave. And don’t try any fast ones with the old creamed corn switcheroo. And while we’re at it,” she added nonchalantly, before she let it drop, “I expect a rain check for the TV dinners, buy two get one free”

He sneered palpably and a steely glitter entered his eyes.

Mom pulled a hand from her car coat pocket allowing him a glimpse of a sinister looking piece of paper- this weeks circular, and her coupons for ten cents off any Swansons TV dinner. She let him draw his own inferences and then slipped the items into her pocketbook, being careful to notice that he observed the action.

Perhaps if he had known that she habitually carried a slew of them, things would have been different.

Wally placed two slips of paper on the desk top to hand to the stock boy and they disappeared into her jacket. Her hunch was right- the stockroom was loaded with the advertised Green Giant corn.

“You are a clever woman”, he said surprisingly. “Had I known a woman like you beside me, who knows, I might have owned the chain instead of just managing it.”

“It’s a deal,” said Mom and stuck out her slim long-fingered hand.

The gesture surprised Wally. For an instant he didn’t seem to understand.

Then his small white teeth flashed and he grasped her fingers ceremoniously.

“It’s a deal”, he parroted her words., as he handed her a rain check for the Swansons TV dinner, good for any time…. no expiration date.

Copyright (©) 2013 Sally Edelstein All Rights Reserved

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Illustration Saturday Evening Post Feb 16 1957 Steve Dohanos illustrator

Before Domestic Diva Martha Stewart instructed American women in how to be the perfect homemaker, high school girls were required to take Home Economic classes.

Since every girl had dreams off being the perfect homemaker, it was perfectly natural to prepare these girls for the duties of married life. And High schools across the nation willingly obliged with essential life training classes as folding laundry, making hospital corners, setting a gracious table and mastering the perfect flaky biscuit.

Two back to back Saturday Evening Post covers from February 1957 perfectly illustrate that ideal of the life that lay ahead for a well brought up mid-century girl.

Cover illustration Steve Dohanos Saturday Evening Post Feb 16 1957

Cover illustration Saturday Evening Post Feb 16 1957

The text that accompanies the illustration by Steve Dohanos in this Feb 16, 1957 cover explains :

“Every girl should study the art of gracious homemaking, but as there is little time for this at home on account of take home schoolwork, time is set aside for it in school.”

“There, a girl learns how to bake an upside down cake that doesn’t turn out right side up, how to create a dress which doesn’t resemble a gunny sack, and how to make a table setting fit for a king or a husband. Illustrator Steve Dohanos has a theory that girls should not only be pretty but also pretty good cooks.”

Saturday Evening Post Illustration George Hughes Feb. 9,1957

The description for the previous weeks cover illustration  by George Hughes speaks volumes:

“It is the duty of every girl to talk to boys on the telephone, kindle romantic sentiments, round-up potential husbands and thus help perpetuate the race by assuring that by and by she will become a homemaker.

Therefore it is comforting to see Sister applying herself earnestly to homework. Of course she should get in some bookwork, too; math for instance, is useful in budgeting, so that two can live as cheaply as-er-possible.

Well, she’ll do alright, for American girls are pretty wonderful at getting good grades in both education and romance”

Not that any matrimonial minded girl had to be talked into taking Home Ec, but in 1955  an educational film was produced entitled “Why Study Home Economics” Made in Lawrence Kansas, it was intended for distribution to High School students.

It tells the story of an adolescent girl Janice who decides whether or not to take home economics. When Janice is asked why she is interested in Home Economics she responds; “If I’m going to be a housewife for the rest of my life, I want to know what I’m doing!”

Copyright (©) 2013 Sally Edelstein All Rights Reserved

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(L) A public service newspaper ad produced by the Advertising Council, advising mothers to be prepared with an assortment of first aid materials should a nuclear bomb attack occur. (R) A government illustration superimposing an Atomic Bomb Test over the NYC skyline to indicate the scale of the blast.

As the tensions mount in the Korean Peninsula, with the nuclear sabre rattling mounting in North Korea, old fears are renewed. For those of us who grew up during the 1950′s and 1960′s the fear of nuclear attack was the subtext of our lives. Nothing matched the profound fears that gripped our country’s fear of a cold war turning hot.

It was a time when most Americans assumed the U.S. and the Soviets stood continuously on the brink of nuclear war.

Memories of growing up duck and covering didn’t just flood back- they are always lurking in the recesses of my mind.

Jet Age Jitters

In the post-war world of push-button ease and no more guess work, it was anyone’s guess when the ultimate button would be pushed and nuclear war begin. “How much time do we have, minutes, days, months, years? We don’t know.” a somber male voice asked on a public service announcement. “But this we do know- Civil Defense is everybody’s business.”

Fueling our prodigious  fears was the emphasis on Civil Defense and the governments zeal in educating the public about the risk of an atomic attack- how you could survive one, and how to plan and pack for the few days you and your family would have to spend in your fall out shelter.

Civil Defense is the  Best Defense

(L) A 1956 comic book entitled “Mr Civil Defense Tells About Natural Disaster” (R) 1951 Civil Defense Manual

Lucky for me my own Dad was well versed in the art of preparedness , a lesson I would learn at the tender age of 14 months

If it was a Wednesday night  in 1956, it meant Dad would be out for the evening at his weekly Civil Defense meeting. My father was Marshall of Civil Defense for all of western Nassau County- and part of his job was conveying helpful information straight from the Department of Defense to groups of concerned citizens with a good case of atomic jitters.

Preparedness

Standing in for folksy, Uncle “Aw shucks” Sam, the talks were composed of neighborly suggestions on how to protect yourself and plan now for possible emergency action if the moment of Atomic attack came.

These evenings were exciting for Dad and it was flattering to be summoned to speak before groups and large public gatherings, not to mention being courted by The Long Island Press reporters. He gave his speeches in churches, club-rooms, school auditoriums, similar to the hundreds of public meetings that gathered all over the country for the same purpose.

The audience listened intently, a dense cloud of fear enveloping them as they drifted off into the seemingly safety of the quiet suburban night. In reality these talks did nothing to dampen fears, and only underscored how very unprepared we were.

An early 1950s Civil Defense booklet asked the question “Can we survive a grand slam attack on our country? And the answer- “Certainly! If we are prepared on the home front!”

One unusually warm night in May, Dad was off to a local Kiwanis Club in Rockville Center. He was handsomely dressed in his medium gray, sharkskin suit with the harmonizing over-plaid. It was authoritative- style wise… “planned,” the salesman at Moe Ginsberg who sold him the suit had said, “for men whose clothes must reflect their sound judgment.”

It was, the perfect suit in which to deliver his talk.

Despite the fact that he had gone over his speech all weekend with Mom till her poor eyes glazed over, he still seemed in need of an audience to practice just once more. With Mom indisposed preparing dinner,  mine were the only willing set of ears in the house.

Captive in my crib, Dad delivered his speech to me with the intensity of a campaign stumper.

Learn and Live

(L) The Cover of a 1956 book which emphasizes the immediate necessity of learning survival techniques (R) Vintage children’s book illustration “The Happy Family” Golden Books 1955

Rustling his papers, he began his lectures as he always did, stating the obvious-. Civil Defense was Common sense.

“A few days ago I was talking with the Director of Civil Defense,” he’d begin all sunny and cheerful, “and he told me things that I feel everyone should know.”

Dad was as folksy and breezy as if he were leaning over his neighbors picket fence discussing the best fertilizer for your lawn. “That’s why I’m speaking to you right now.”

With a confident lilt to his voice he would inform his audience “Did you know, for example, that your chances of surviving an atom bomb are excellent? It’s true, but there’s a big if . You must do everything possible now, to help yourself and your family. Nobody else will help you! Learn and Live through civil defense.”

The government provided him with lots of snappy phrases like, “Alert Today, Alive Tomorrow” that peppered his talks with the persistence of a Pepsi jingle.

In case of an H bomb blast the Atomic Energy Commission offered some easy advise:

“People in fall out areas can protect themselves by following some simple rules they suggested reassuringly”The news of an H Bomb attack will be announced over the radio and most people will know about it before the veil of stinging dust comes settling down out of a clouded sky over farm, forest and village.”

“So until then, enjoy the freedom to live as you please.”

Civil Defense is Common Sense

At Home with the Nuclear Family (L) A series of images that ran in Life Magazine are from a government film as part of an Atomic Bomb test taken of a house closest to the detonation of the 3/53 Operation Doorstep (R) Vintage childrens schoolbook illustration 1950s “Stories About Linda and Lee”

“Listen, because this is important!” he scolded.  “Keep a closed container of drinking water in your refrigerator, enough for three days. Be sure you have a good fire extinguisher.

“Take a look around your house right now and pick out the safest spot, away from windows and doors. Make sure every member of your family understands he is to rush to that safe spot when there’s danger. I’m convinced that these precautions are necessary right now and I hope I can convince you”. Civil Defense is common sense.”

Slapping the side of the crib  to emphasize his point, startled me and I began to cry.

Spying my brother Andy’s Tuggy Turtle pull toy laying on the floor, Dad scooped it up and wiggled it playfully, trying to distract me from crying. Inching the toy turtle around the perimeter of the crib- Tuggy’s little legs lazily shuffled as his tail wagged to a xylophone tune- Dad sang to me in a playful squeaky voice:

“There was a turtle by the name of Bert

And Bert the Turtle was very alert

When danger threatened him he never got hurt

He knew just what to do”

Dad quickly moved the turtle in and out of my sight range and I giggled as he continued:

He’d duck and cover, duck and cover

He’d hide his head and tail and four little feet

He’d duck and cover.”

Bert The Turtle Cartoon Booklet that was part of the Duck n Cover campaign aimed at children 1951

Kissing me gently as he left, he tickled me and whispered “Civil Defense is Common  Sense.” Snug as a bug in my crib, my own private fall out shelter, I clutched Tuggy the Turtle with his unbreakable shell and giggled in delight.

Silly Daddy.

Copyright (©) 2013 Sally Edelstein All Rights Reserved

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A Runners World (L) Illustration by Ignacio Gomez for Cosmopolitan Magazine 1977 (R) Runner’s World Magazine June 1979 Boston Marathon

The tragedy at the recent Boston Marathon jogged my memory back to another Marathon nearly 36 years ago, where the only heartbreak spoken about concerned the challenge of running Boston’s Heartbreak Hill.

It was a cold drizzly day in Boston that April of 1979 and the crowds jammed into the Hopkinton High School gym waiting for the 83^rd edition of the Boston Marathon to begin. Everyone seemed to arrive early to avoid traffic jams and once there, no one wanted to be outside in the cold.

My former college roommate Barbara Baxter bent down to tie her Marathon 80 Adidas running shoes. Looking admiringly at the new running shoes she was glad she had bought them despite the steep price of $27. On an administrative assistant’s salary and the soaring inflation, it was a real splurge. But she reckoned, the shoes were the same ones worn by the runner in the 1978 NYC Marathon who set the sensational new world record for women.

She saw that as a good omen for the race that awaited her.

Ah, sneakers, she thought bemusedly to herself. Now sneakers had become jogging shoes with politically correct names like the “Ms Hornet.” Not so long ago you wore white for tennis and gym and red or blue for casual chic on a Saturday afternoon. That was the choice; there were no more. Suddenly Pf Flyers and Keds had been replaced by odd-looking shoes with odd-sounding names like Pony, Osaga, Saucony and Kaepas.

Glancing at her Casio unisex chronograph, she noted it was nearly time for the Marathon to begin. Caught up in the jogging crazes he had been training for months. Thanks to her boogey nights at the disco, she was in fine shape.

To be one of 517 women who qualified for Americas premier marathon in Boston was an honor indeed.

Off to The Races

During the late 1970s jogging was transformed from an activity for a small group of enthusiasts to an almost inescapable phenomenon.

Jim Fixx author of “The Complete Book of Running (1977) emerged as the first fitness superstar and his 60 miles a week regimen became the aspirations of weekend runners, including my friend Barbara. One of Fixx’s most compelling arguments was that prolonged intense exercise would release chemicals within the body that would produce what he called “runners high”.

Before long, the long distance runner gave way to running en mass in Marathons and Americans were off to the races.

Running on Empty

Crossing the finish line triumphant was always a  part of the American Dream.

But by 1979 the American Dream had begun to sour.

American dreams had been severely shaken. After the angst of the early 70s-Vietnam, Watergate, the Arab oil embargo, economic stagflation, a rise in crime and civil unrest, there was a crisis in confidence.

Many more Americans were feeling like losers as the economy entered unfamiliar territory.

Ever since WWII Americans had come to expect ever higher standards and of greater economic opportunities.  The post-war vision for a better life for all citizens crumbled into dust. Inflation was making owning a family house impossible for most Americans and the recent energy crisis had dashed our hopes for limitless amounts of fuel and electricity to run our big cars, array of appliances and heated swimming pools.

A 1975 survey commissioned by the NY Times revealed a significant decline in optimism about the future among Americans. They said their standard of living had fallen, the assumed national birthright of rising expectations-the American Dream had been replaced by a sense of falling expectations.

The loss of faith in the American Dream spread like a virus and people turned inward to raise their consciousness,

If you couldn’t control the outside world that seemed to be spinning out of control we could take charge of our bodies. Just as  sneakers were replaced by running shoes climbing up the ladder was replaced by self fulfillment

With the crisis of confidence nipping at our heels,  completing a marathon was tangible proof of accomplishment.

Ready Set Go For It……

Thirty minutes before high noon, I watched as the Marathon  runners were called to the Hopkinton starting area which was arranged by qualifying times. The lineup was orderly and at  the crack of the gun, the mass exodus towards Boston had begun.But Barbara, along with most of the 10,000 entrants wasn’t  going anywhere- at least not for a while. 7 minutes had elapsed by the time everybody made it across the starting line.

Barbara wished she had worn gloves, like master runner Bill Rodgers always did. She needed it. The temperature at the start hovered in the mid 40s and an intermittent mist added to the chill. In front of the starting line the road glistened with an icy sheen.

Fortunately there was almost no wind, although the flag at the Prudential Center fluttered in a westerly direction which meant there was a slight breeze off the harbor and in the runners face.

Barbara didn’t care. She kept her focus on the finish. Running a marathon was a test of strength, determination and endurance. There were 4 hills to surmount and the most difficult was the fabled Heartbreak hill, but then shed be home free.

Beginning at the 20^th mile of the Boston Marathon, Barbara knew Heartbreak Hill was where your legs might finally run out and there would be you and the wall and the pain. Cresting Heartbreak Hill, she poured it on and surged the sound of Gloria Gaynor’s “I will Survive” roaring in her head.

Reaching the top, she was greeted by a crowd of spectators. In the distance she could see the Prudential tower and with it the hard-won knowledge she was  almost at the end.Struggling a bit on the downhill her hamstrings were starting to get tight, but she knew she had to power on.

It didn’t matter that Bill Rodgers had already won the race hours earlier or that 14 minutes after he  won, the first woman- Joan Benoil, completed the race, finishing  477^th out of a field of 10,000 and first among the 517 women who qualified for Boston. In only her second marathon, the 21-year-old history major from Bowdoin College made history establishing a new American record.

In the last legs of the race, race Barbara was sporting a Boston Red Sox baseball hat that I had handed her. As she ran through Cleland Circle and along Beacon Street the applause was deafening. Barbara Baxter would always remember how she felt like she was hitting a home run for the Red Sox in Fenway Park as she proudly crossed the finish line.

36 years later Heartbreak Hill still remains a tough part of the Boston Marathon but after the tragedy in this years Marathon  it gives it new poignancy. Many didn’t finish the marathon this year. They were stopped by law officials a mile from the finish line when a pair of bombs went off.

This year thousands who survived Heartbreak Hill didn’t reach the finish line.

Copyright (©) 2013 Sally Edelstein All Rights Reserved

Vintage Illustration from Boys Life Magazine 1963 – History of Scouting Firsts

2013-Another Boy Scout first- ending their long-standing ban on Gay Scouts!

Copyright (©) 2013 Sally Edelstein All Rights Reserved

Boy Scouts Morally Straight and Gay

Vintage men’s fashion Ad Hart Shaffner & Marx 1948

Next to the waiter passing the champagne, my confirmed bachelor Great Uncle Harry was the most sought after man at a mid-century wedding.

Vivacious and gay with wavy hair the color of honey, lush black eyelashes shading come hither eyes, those of the female persuasion were drawn to him like bees to honey.

With his manly physique achieved through vigorous exercise taken at NYC’s Westside YMCA, he cut a fine figure of a man.

From the 1920s through the late 1960s, it seemed as if Harry was more prized than the tossed bridal bouquet, as bachelor girls elbowed their way through the guests to feed Harry a piece of the wedding cake,

The single gals wistfully eyed the tiny plaster figurines of the bride and groom atop the cake with envy and hope imagining the day when their own likeness would adorn the top of their own butter cream cake.

After all a wedding cake was as American as apple pie; marriage the first step in achieving the American dream.

Oh, Johnny, Oh!

The thing of it was, Harry’s come hither eyes were not directed at the bevy of beauties beating each other off for his attention….his baby blues batted more often than not at the best man, not the comely bridesmaids.

After a brief, disastrous attempt at marriage in the early 1930s to an older widow who kept him in style and all the Beatrice Lilly Theater tickets he could ever want, he hung up his top hat and vowed never to walk down that aisle again.

Ironically weddings and brides were to occupy a great deal of his time and energy.

He eventually lost track of how many carnations he would wear as an usher, or how many times he stood as best man, as one by one his pals wed, leaving him solo at the altar.

Friends thought him picky at best, an odd man out in a world geared to the married set.

It was chalked up to his artistic temperament.

Vintage Camay Soap Ads (L) 1947 (R) 1949

Always a Bridesmaid, Never A Bride

An accomplished artist, he worked at a large Madison Avenue Ad agency as an illustrator, specializing in painting fresh-faced brides, the kind that graced countless soap and shampoo ads in the 1940s and 1950s.

Financially comfortable, he nonetheless shared his small Central Park West apartment with a roommate for over 40 years, a gentleman he referred to as his “dear friend” to whom he was unusually devoted.

The family rarely saw the roommate, even at family weddings, kept in the shadows of our lives.

We didn’t know enough to ask; Harry knew enough not to tell.

Confused, our family thought the whole arrangement rather queer.

Last Dance

The last time I saw my Uncle Harry was when I danced with him at my own wedding over 20 years ago.

By then his bedroom eyes had gone more droopy, his well-honed physique, shrunken. He barely remembered the over half a century of weddings he had charmed his way through, nor  the hundreds of dances with girls whose hopes he  had dashed.

By now there was a sadness to him, his gay spirit spent, at peace in the dark shadows.

Harry was born too early to witness a wedding cake topped by two grooms or a time when his come hither eyes would be able to gaze more openly to the possibilities that were denied him.

Postscript:

In this last week in June, the chance to be a June Bride may be closing but the window to become a bride or groom just got a whole lot wider. Bringing a breeze of fresh air into the traditional notion of marriage the US Supreme Court finally removed some of the barriers to Gay and Lesbians full participation in the American Dream.

Copyright (©) 20013 Sally Edelstein All Rights Reserved

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Vintage Illustration “The Story of Man The Panorama of Human Life and Works” 1960 Illustration by Pierre Leroy

The Temperatures Rising… It Isn’t Surprising…

Poor mankind!

His triumphant march towards progress  is always being blamed for the actions of a hot-headed, fickle Mother Nature whose erratic behavior has recently played havoc with our weather systems.

Panicked cries of global warming by hand wringing I-told -you-so environmentalists fault the recent rash of oppressive  heat waves, ferocious wild fires, and devastating drought  on our decades long dependence on fossil fuels.

It’s hard not to connect the dots.

Wheels Across America 1954 by Terry Shannon, illustration by Charles Payzant

When it comes to weather , it’s certainly not the first time  man’s triumph over nature has been called into question by alarmists .

In the 1950s,  blaming finger-pointing also  turned towards mans  industrial might and scientific prowess.

We’re Having a Heat Wave

As spring turned to summer in 1954, a debate broke out about the unseasonably hot weather.

Summer  turned out to be a real scorcher that year.

A wilted public looking to point the finger of blame on something blamed the spell of unseasonably hot weather on everything from new fangled TV transmissions racing through the sky to the recent spate of atmospheric Atom Bomb tests in Nevada.

Global warming was the farthest thing from our gas-guzzling minds. What was a little greenhouse gas build up when we had radiation in the atmosphere to be worried about.

The government hotly contested the charges insisting that the bomb tests effect on the weather was at most only local  in character.

Vintage Illustration of Weather patterns from Vintage Book “The Wonderful World” 1954 by James Fisher

Mopping his perspiring brow with his handkerchief, my father  shrugged off the potential hazards of the bomb testing, especially the long term danger, laughing it off as pure fantasy. Folks were just hot under the collar and the bomb tests were an easy target.

As he pointed out, “It was the same nervous Nellies who thought we should be concerned about the safety of DDT.”

Radiation was like taxes, not pleasant perhaps but you could learn to live with it.

Fusion Culture collage by Sally Edelstein

He tried to allay any apprehensions my mother had, reassuring her that our own government had guaranteed us of the safety of these testings and, as he was so fond of pointing out, if you can’t trust the word of Uncle Sam, who can you trust?

Godzilla that pre-historic reptile that mutated into a radioactive monster as a result of bomb tests may have cast a foreboding shadow in the far East with his radioactive breath, but the fiery sun was still shining brightly here at home.

Super Sizing the  Bomb

Fusion-Culture collage by Sally Edelstein

The recently developed Super-Bomb was thousands more powerful than the Atom Bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

This, Uncle Sam believed was the new kind of power that today’s American wants. A new kind of power for a new kind of people: the growing, restless people of mid-century America.

A Thermonuclear device was still a novelty and was on everybody’s mind, sparked by patriotic fervor and fanned to fascination by the impressionable pictures of the glowing skies and mushroom-shaped clouds presented in Life Magazine.

America’s passion over Bomb tests also flared up.

We’re Having a Heat Wave ….a Tropical Heat Wave….

Some began referring to the current heat wave as a tropical heat wave, igniting the farfetched rumors that attributed the sizzling weather on the even more powerful Hydrogen Bomb tests in the far off South Pacific.

Your Show of Shows

Ever since April 1, 1954 when TV audiences coast to coast watched  an actual broadcast of a Hydrogen Bomb explosion, outlandish allegations from alarmists attributed everything from rising cost of living, to climate changes, birth defects, even throwing the very earth off its axis, to the tests.

The government debunked each of these fears, with Uncle Sam patiently and confidently dismissing every last one.

The recent television broadcast  of Operation Ivy, a once top-secret film that had been  shot in The Marshall Islands in 1952, offered viewers ring side seats in the comfort of their own living room of the first  full-scale test of a thermal nuclear device.

On the morning of April first, my bleary eyed mother got a real jolt with her morning coffee as she was treated to a bird’s-eye view of a nuclear explosion right there on the family Philco.  How about a rasher of radioactive bacon to go with those sunnyside up eggs?

By-The-Bomb’s-Early-Light collage Sally Edelstein

April Fools

Walter Cronkite, congenial host of The CBS Morning Show jumped the gun on the competition, teasing the early riser with sampling of clips from the Operation Ivy film scheduled to be broadcast on all 3 channels later in the day.

That evening, as TV sets warmed up all across the nation, an ominous soundtrack of music could be heard emanating from their sets. As the music built to a crescendo , my parents along with millions of other captivated  TV viewers  heard a metronomic voice counting down -5- 4 -3- 2 -1  and then  got an  eyeful when an awesome blast filled their TV screen with a gigantic billowing fireball.

The announcer triumphantly proclaimed “the Hydrogen Age is upon us”.

Afterwards a disbelieving audience witnessed as an entire atoll disappeared from the face of the earth.

Just to make sure the viewer understood the magnitude of the power wielded by this nuclear device they superimposed the explosion on the skyline of Manhattan, transmuting the devastation of the Marshal Islands into visions of American cities in smoldering ruins

The spectacle, as theatrical as anything on Playhouse 90 was no hoax, no Orson Welles War of the Worlds Halloween prank. My mother, anxiously hoping for Walter Cronkite to utter the words “April Fools”, was cruelly disappointed!

Weather it Does or Whether  it Doesn’t

The Atomic Energy Commission   uniformly denied there was danger from these tests; in fact the danger lay in not doing the tests. Most folks agreed that the ultimate benefit of peace and security that the H-bomb would bring us was more than enough for the potential slight risk.

Mans harnessing of nature for our purposes has been man’s great triumph! The march of progress continues.

“Mans March of Progress” illustration from vintage children’s book “The Story Of Man” 1960

Serving on a Jury

Was justice served in the murder acquittal of George Zimmerman? You be the judge.

It would seem that the only ones being served were the sequestered jurors who were treated by taxpayers to pedicures, bowling and most appropriately, admission to Ripley’s Believe it or Not! Museum.

Copyright (©) 2013 Sally Edelstein All Rights Reserved

A Royal Welcome (L) Vintage children’s book illustration “Bedtime Stories Omnibus” Brimax Books 1979 (R) Vintage ad- Carnation Evaporated Milk for babies 1947

By George, it’s a Boy!

Many in  the media are rhapsodizing over the fact that by delivering a baby boy, Kate Middleton delivered the goods, hitting a home run first time at bat.

Despite the fact that the sex of the first-born royal baby was supposed to be irrelevant in terms of succession and ignoring the fact that the internet often seemed royally disappointed that it was not a girl, an audible sigh of relief could be heard in the media when it was announced the royal couple had a bouncing baby boy.

It’s a Boy! Vintage photo from Swifts Meat for Babies Advertisement 1953

A CNN Royal  commentator  likened it to a major accomplishment, praising Kate’s “brilliance” on delivering a boy “the first time.” Meanwhile Tina Brown, the editor in chief of The Daily Beast and Newsweek tweeted  “#Kate can do no wrong! Now the royals can stop pretending they were fine with a girl 1st.”

Lurking not far beneath the politically correct surface would appear to be the age-old  cultural preference for the favored first-born male.

Royal or not, for centuries the first-born son was deemed a triumph, endowed with special privileges just because of gender.

Royal Treatment

The Homecoming. Vintage illustration by Douglass Crockwell for De Soto car advertisement 1945

In 1952, three years before I was born, when my tiny, premature older brother Andy finally came home from the hospital after his two-week captivity in an incubator, it was to a reception worthy of a prince…which in a sense he was.

This little blue blanketed bundle was the first grandchild and more importantly …it was a boy. It was a blessing, for blue meant there would be a bris, baseball, and a Bar Mitzvah.

Boy Oh Boy, It’s a Boy!

Perhaps as compensation  for forfeiting his foreskin, his birthright allowed him to be the beneficiary of over 5,000 years of  entitlement bestowed on the first-born Jewish male for whom nothing but the best was good enough.

Thoroughly besotted, my indulgent paternal grandmother and grandfather carried on the tradition of preferential treatment, and need only point to their own first-born son, my father as a model of exceptionalism.

Even if my brother’s endowment included circumcision, I would often be the one who felt incomplete.

Sibling Rivalry

Vintage Children’s Schoolbook illustration from “At Home: Living & Learning in First Grade” 1963 by Paul R Hanna, illustration by Beatrice Derwinski

Because my brother was not used to sharing the spotlight, my parents envisioned a bleak landscape of utter chaos with sibling rivalry run amuck, when 3 years later I was born.

The day I came home from the hospital, was an ordinary Sunday morning as far as my brother was concerned,  blissfully unaware of the upheaval that was about to occur on his turf.

There had been no previous mention of a new sister, so this surprise invasion by an unknown outsider would be a rude shock to Andy. It had been decided that Dad stay at home with him to await my arrival hoping to minimize the inevitable outbursts from my tantrum throwing brother.

Homecoming

My much-anticipated arrival was worthy of Marilyn Monroe with great bursts of blue light as Dad stood at the ready with his Argus camera.

As if walking through a minefield, Mom tip toed gingerly thru the piles of spent flashbulbs that now littered our living room floor, bracing herself for the live land mine that lay right ahead-  my small explosive brother who could easily be triggered and once detonated cause quite a disturbance.

The New Baby. Vintage Children’s Schoolbook illustration from “At Home: Living & Learning in First Grade” 1963 by Paul R Hanna, illustration by Beatrice Derwinski

Cradling me tensely in her arms, Mom sighed with great relief when my brother, sporting a new Davy Crockett raccoon hat, took one half-hearted look at this unwelcome intruder, and… ignored me.

I was nothing more than a fast asleep doll, wrapped in a cloud of soft Cela-cloud acetate jersey.

Unlike the baby dolls he saw advertised on Romper Room, silly dolls with names like Yummy and Purty that actually did things, boring old me just lay there like a lump of clay.

He sniffed uninterested, quickly grabbing a rugelach from my doting grandfathers hand before skipping away, his raccoon tail bobbing up and down, basking in a triumphant glow.

Cheerfully he began singing “…Davy… Davy Crockett king of the wild frontier…” secure in the knowledge of his own manifest destiny.

I would prove no threat to my brother’s mighty status.

There would be no relinquishing of his preferential treatment. Nonetheless an interloper had encroached on his family.

Off With her head! Vintage childrens book illustration “New Friends & New Places” by Gates, Huber & Salisbury The Macmillan Co. 1956

Furtively gazing back at his new baby sister out of the corner of his eye, he quietly resolved that in time he would vanquish me, satisfied in the knowledge that this intruder would be repaid in childhood fighting and revenge leading to his total victory.

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

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“Every citizen must read this as it tells what you and every American can do to save our constitutional freedom and competitive economic system from destruction.”
“The Road Ahead: America’s Creeping Revolution” by John T. Flynn 1949 A vintage propaganda booklet distributed by the Fighters of Freedom , a right-wing reactionary group in post war America

,

George Washington Small’s biggest bugaboo was big government.

It was, he felt, the duty of every American to build down Washington’s bloated bureaucratic government.

Alarmed that the expansion of the government to regulate almost every aspect of American life meant only one thing- Socialism- George was convinced that Moscow-directed Marxist’s dressed in Robert Hall suits were infiltrating our government!

America was traveling on a road to its own destruction.

A Rocky Road

Mr. Small feared the country was turning into something foreign and frankly un-American. He understood all too well that the “welfare state” was  politicians gobbledygook for socialism.

In 1949, he was certain the American way of life was under siege.

Was George W. Small a member of the Tea Party? Hardly, since that movement wouldn’t evolve for another 60 year. But this post-war patriot was a member in good standing of the Fighters For Freedom, a branch of a larger right-wing group called The Committee for Constitutional Government.

Everything Old is New Again

Taxes, taxes, taxes-What Our Government Takes From Us
(L) Illustration of Boston Tea Party -Taxation without representation is tyranny. 1773 The nation fought for a principle and won! Illustration from James Pepper Whiskey Ad 1940 (R) Illustration of US Taxpayer by Artzybasheff for Time magazine 3/10/52

Today’s conspiracy-loving, big federal government despising, environmentally-bashing, Glenn Beck-watching, true believers of the Tea Party may well be the progeny of George W. Small.

The unhinged right-wing ideas we hear today were generated generations ago. The Tea Party is merely the new kid on the block.

The Tea Party is clearly a descendent  not of the original first American fighters for freedom who created the American Republic, but of a right-wing reactionary group formed in the 1940’s called Fighters for Freedom. Exploiting people’s fears, its members were convinced that there was a conspiracy  in the highest places of government to get rid of American Constitutional rule and replace it with a Marxist dictatorship.

On The Fringes of Freedom

In 1949 the NYC group published The Road Ahead:  America’s Creeping Revolution written by  conservative American journalist John T. Flynn and distributed by The Committee for Constitutional Government.

The purpose in writing this book he explained. “is to describe the road along which this country is traveling to its destruction. The American government has in recent years changed its character. It has become an overwhelming  and omnipresent machine of controls and compulsions.”

The book had at least 3 printings totaling over 500,000 copies. The National Committee to Uphold Constitutional Government (also known as the Committee for the Constitutional Government) was founded in 1937 in opposition to many of FDR’s “socialist” New Deal Legislation. John T. Flynn wrote extensively opposing FDR and interventionist foreign policies, shifting his focus to fight  Communism. During his last years some of Flynn’s books were promoted by and reprinted by the right-wing reactionary group John Birch Society.

“The door opener to socialism is ‘FEDERAL AID’ for services which citizens can as well or better perform for themselves and for which, in the long run, they themselves must pay. Federal Aid aids mostly the politicians to extend, centralize and firmly fasten their controls on the lives of its citizens.” Quote from: The Road Ahead: Americas Creeping Revolution By John T. Flynn 1949
Vintage Illustration from Men’s Lee Work Clothes Ad 1953

The hope of the book was “ to dispel the mass delusions that have been fastened upon national consciousness by decades of propaganda portraying the welfare state as something desirable.”

“Fighters for Freedom realize that those who have lost their freedom have not the strength to regain it,” the book explained, “and those who have it seldom realize until too late how easily their freedom can be lost beyond recall.” They were there to heal a sick America.

What Ails America

“The American Government has in recent years changed it’s character. It has become an overwhelming and omnipresent machine of controls and compulsions”-
from “The Road Ahead America’s Creeping Revolution” by John T Flynn

Like today’s freedom worshiping Republicans who are desperate to rescue the mistreated public who are being enslaved by Obamacare, the Freedom Fighters wanted to protect the poor American citizen from the evils of socialized medicine.

Then as now both groups excelled in spreading misinformation.

Not limited to the fringes of political life , groups with these beliefs  had close ties to members of Congress.

A reprint of a speech given in the hallowed halls of Congress by the Honorable Ralph W. Gwinn of NY. was printed in The Road Ahead. After espousing on the perils of government control of minimum wages and hours, education, housing, etc. the  Republican Congressman tackled socialized medicine:

Socialized Medicine

Health Care as we know it will vanish under Socialized medicine. Under Socialized medicine“There will be no more need to excel in skill and devotion to patients; there will be no more competitive effort for public favor.”
“The Road Ahead :Americas Creeping Revolution” by John T. Flynn
Vintage illustration from Wyeth Drugs Advertisement 1944

“Our Socialists propose to continue the march down the road to Marxist serfdom by bribing our doctors to socialize health and medicine from Washington just as the British Marxist government  has done.”

“The procedures are almost identical. 750,000 doctors nurses and hospital personnel would enter our government employment and cease free practice of medicine.”

“Washington would guide and control it all, drying up the voluntary source of skill, mercy, health and hospitalization.”

“There will be no more need to excel in skill and devotion to patients; there will be no more competitive effort for public favor.”

“Payments by government will be for quantity, not quality of service.”

“Yet as a doctor in Nashville said recently, ‘Socialism is the syphilis of medicine. It is easy to take but rots the body to death.’”

“Government medicine is sterile. It never invents or discovers new cures.”

“It can but appropriate and try to take by force what the individual alone can give as a voluntary free servant of the people. He alone can have the heart of sacrifice and devotion and love of service. Without freedom in medicine, the art of healing itself disappears.”

Evangelist

“Politicians who ask you to turn over to them more of your paycheck and to let them be the guardian of your children in what they tell you will be a “social welfare state’ are only forging “new instruments of power’ which in the end will shackle the liberties of the people.” From “The Road Ahead: Americas Creeping Revolution” by John T. Flynn
Vintage illustration from Imperial Whiskey Ad 1949

A true believer, George Washington Small worked tirelessly spreading the word, distributing pamphlets, booklets wherever he went.

Fighters For Freedom believed “it was imperative that millions of copies of  The Road Ahead must be distributed quickly, every citizen must read this as it tells what you and every American can do to save our constitutional freedom and competitive economic system from destruction.”

In a final burst of self-importance, the book declared: “Timely informative books like this have swayed the destiny of nations- as did “Uncle Toms Cabin” before the Civil War. Use the Road Ahead to project and multiply many fold your citizens influence to save our form of government for yourself and your children.”

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

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December 7, 1941

Just as 9/11  is a marker for this current generation, and November 22 was for mine, Sunday  December 7, 1941 was a where-were-you-when-kind of day that was seared permanently in the memory of the greatest generation, including my parents.

The war was still over there, though the news was full of muffled but ominous portents. From the Far East came reports of Japanese troop movement in Indochina and that Saturday  night FDR would make a last-minute appeal to the Japanese Emperor Hirohito for direct talks but to no avail.

Like most Americans, my mother and her family did not expect to be at war the next day or the next week or even the next month, but they knew in their hearts it was inevitable.

When, was the big question.

Business as Usual

So like everyone else, my mother’s family went about their business.

The day before Pearl Harbor there were  only 15 shopping days to Xmas and the department stores were having one of the biggest shopping sprees in years.

Goods were plentiful but pricier than last year. Nylons were replacing silk stockings which had been scarce because of the darn embargo on Japanese silk thread. But Stern’s Department Store  in NY offered them at “one special buy all you want price” of $1.75 a pair.A fifth of scotch was 3 bucks, but in two Christmases these items as well as many others would be next to impossible to find.

A Night on The Town

Saturday night in NYC, where my mothers family lived, was a mass of Christmas shoppers and visitors streaming into restaurants, night clubs theaters and movies, ready to paint the town red.

That evening my grandparents were Broadway-bound with tickets to see the critically acclaimed Lillian Hellman production of Watch on the Rhine at the Martin Beck Theater.  It’s portrayal of a family who struggle to combat the menace of fascism in Europe during WWII responded directly to the political climate of the day, and the continuing debate on American neutrality in the War.

Warnings

While the audience absorbed the words of Lillian Hellman’s warning that “all who chose to ignore the international crisis were helping to perpetuate it and that no one could count himself or herself free of danger,” 6 carriers of the Pearl Harbor striking force under Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo sliced through the blue waves of the Pacific a few hundred miles north of Hawaii.

Pearl Harbor in the News

(L) 1939 Vintage advertisement- Matson Cruise Line to Hawaii “A Voyage as Colorful as Hawaii’s flowered isles”

 Picking up a copy of the Sunday Herald Tribune on their way back to Brooklyn after the show, my grandfather  read in the rotogravure section an article about the naval base at Pearl Harbor, “the point of Defense of our West Coast.”

The pictures of silvery sands mingled with war planes flying over Diamond Head. As the newspaper article pointed out, the lucky lei-draped  tourist vacationing there would be too busy eyeing the hula girls to  notice the Army pillboxes since they were cleverly concealed from prying eyes. The accompanying pictures showed an idyllic tropical setting, causing my grandmother to make a mental note to visit there sometime soon.

It was difficult for many Americans to understand what was happening in the Pacific. We were preoccupied with Hitler.

Enchanted Isles

Another factor was plain and simple geography.

Until the air age, islands like Midway and Iwo Jima were practically worthless. Like most Americans, most of what my parents did know about the Pacific had been invented by Hollywood. The south Seas were pictured as exotic isles where lazy winds whispered in the palm fronds and native girls wore sarongs like Dorothy Lamour.

1938 Vintage ads Dole Pineapple Juice

The closest most Americans would get to those enchanted Isles of Hawaii would be courtesy of Dole. Whether as canned juice or slices, exotic  pineapple from Honolulu Hawaii had become immensely popular over the past decade due to its unusual health values.

Pearl Harbor a once unfamiliar name for most Americans who weren’t quite sure where it was, would grow increasingly familiar all too soon.

A Day That Will Live In Infamy

The next day, Sunday, the eastern seaboard was quiet but jittery with the news of the surprise attack.

Along with millions of Americans, my mother first learned of the attack when her father turned on the big mahogany RCA Radio to hear his favorite CBS broadcast of the NY Philharmonic concert at 3pm. That Sunday most people gathered around their radios listening for whatever news they could get about Pearl Harbor.

On anything but a mundane Monday, 60,000,000 jittery American would remember exactly where they were when they turned  on their radios at noon to listen to President Roosevelt speak of that day that would live in infamy!

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

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With his overweight girth, penchant for candy, coffee and cigarettes, it’s a Christmas miracle that twinkly-eyed Santa is still around to make his Christmas deliveries. One only hopes there’s a Cardiac Care unit in the North Pole.

To believe the mid-century advertisements,  Santa’s prodigious sweet tooth was only surpassed by his capacity to chain smoke endless cigarettes and down copious cups of caffeine.

A Smokin’ Santa

With all those billions of presents to deliver on time across the globe, poor Santa’s nerves were sorely tested.

Reading all those billions of lists, checking then twice could fray on anyone’s nerves. Jolly Santa could get quite testy,

As any elf could tell you, nothing could calm those holiday jitters better than a cigarette. Medically approved to help your disposition, cigarettes were regularly suggested by doctors in all branches of medicine to ease tensions in our fast paced world.

Vintage Xmas cigarette ad Camels & Prince Albert Tobacco 1949

“It’s a psychological fact: pleasure helps your disposition.” Camels cigarettes claimed in their ads.”Ever yip like a terrier when things go wrong? That’s only natural. But it’s a psychological fact that pleasure helps your disposition! That’s why everyday pleasure-like smoking for instance- means so much. So if you’re a smoker its important to smoke the most pleasure-giving cigarette camel.”

And not just a hurry up puff, but smoke after smoke of soothing comfort.

If Santa stole a puff or two now and then, who could blame him?

Living under the constant cold war conditions of possible nuclear attack, mid-century Americans relied on the calming comfort of cigarettes.

A carton of cigarettes was number one on Americans wish list for Christmas. What better way to say Happy Holidays, Here’s to your Health! than as carton or two of smokes. Cigarettes, the gift you can give with confidence.

Vintage Xmas ad Old Gold Cigarettes 1952

Vintage Xmas Ad Camels & Prince Albert Tobacco 1943

Vintage Ad Ronson Lighter Santa Lights Up 1948

Vintage Xmas Ad Camels Cigarettes 1951

Candy is Dandy

Vintage Xmas Ad Whitman’s Chocolates 1949

It wouldn’t be Xmas with out candy.

Not only was it a Christmas tradition to give a hefty 3 pound box of chocolate pleasure to those at the top of our list, Santa made sure he kept plenty of brimming bowls of hard candies and chocolates around the home and  the workshop .

Vintage Xmas Candy Ad Brach’s 1952

North Pole Productions

The huge production operation at Santa’s North Pole workshop rivaled the defense plant at Willow Run during WWII in its stupendous output. Santa and his industrious elves were working 24/7. Engineers, designers, and production experts at the North Pole were hard at work secretly designing the newest and biggest toys.

There could be no let up till the job was done. And back of it all, Santa guided, coordinated, and applied pressure where needed.

Since overseeing the toy making in his workshop was  an all day- all night operation, fatigue could set in mighty early.

The secret to their success….sugar, natures healthy fuel.

That’s why Santa made sure he and all his elves had all the sugary sweets they needed while they worked.

Call it pick up or call it pep-up. Or call it plain energy. “The Crave for candy is a call for energy,”  the Council on Candy of the National Confectioners Association  explained to the public in a series of post-war advertising.

When you have that crave for candy whether you’re shopping or making toys your body is saying “I need fuel, I’m running short on power ”

Vintage Candy ads The Council on Candy of the National Confectioners Association 1940s

Smart Santa took the advice offered by the Council on Candy in this 1946 ad:

“Wholesome Candy is a great top off to the workers lunch because it’s a great energy provider.”

“And in between working hours is a good time to take on the energy for the job ahead. Yes- candy cheerful as it is in the eating, is a serious food. It provides fuel quick – quick energy…can do. You like candy for what it is; your body appreciates candy for what it offers.”

“We’ve learned a lot new about nutrition during the past few years. Candy’s  important place in feeding our men during the past war is one indication of that modern knowledge. And aren’t we glad that something so useful to our bodies is so pleasant to our tastes “

Of course the important nutrition in candy was healthful, wholesome sugar, packed full of goodness.

(L)Vintage Xmas Coca Cola Ad 1949 (R) Vintage Xmas 7 Up ad 1949

Santa also stocked up on plenty of sweet sugary drinks to give that sugar rush a boost.

As one ad for Coca Cola explained it: “Supposing you were old Santa Claus. What a job you’d have. Chimneys waiting everywhere…youngsters gifts to be checked. The job certainly calls for that extra something. You’d get tired and thirsty too. You’d want that extra something. You’d find refreshment going quickly into energy. You’d be ready to shout “Ho Prancer, Ho Vixen….”

A Cup of Christmas Joe

Hmmm! Nothing smells as good as coffee.  Happy interruption. Keeps your mind sharp, alert. The smell of fragrant fresh brewed coffee carried through Santa’s workshop. No wonder the elves come -a running. Who can resist coffee’s cheery aroma, so tempting so full of promise.

That’s why Mrs Claus always kept a pot brewing up at the North pole.

She knew Santa needed to be on his toes….there were an awful lot of people to remember who was naughty or nice. Coffee kept Santa on the ball.

Without the helping hand of Fed Ex, Santa needed some help making those all night global  deliveries. Just like a jet pilot needed to be alert, so Santa needed the jolt he could count on from caffeine to get him through the long night.

When you’re on the open road , whether car or sleigh, Santa was wise to remember the safety slogan “Give yourself a coffee stop, for cup after cup of energy.”

The Pan American Coffee Producers ran a series of ads extolling the virtues of coffee as a beverage to drink any time of day or night and Santa was a perfect spokesman.

“Santa was  right to break the fatigue and monotony of his long cold route with  a second and third cup of hot coffee”, they reassured us.” For science says coffee relieves fatigue, actually rests you when tired and makes your mind alert and clear.”

Vintage Xmas Coffee Ad 1940 Pan American Coffee Producers . Illustration by JC Leyendecker

Merry Xmas to All and to all a Good Night

In this 1940 advertisement   published by the Pan American Coffee Producers for the benefit of the American Public, Santa needn’t worry about falling asleep on the job.

“Most people know there is good cheer in a cup of coffee.”

“For sound scientific reasons, it brightens conversation, makes mind and muscles more alert-lifts up the spirits  when you’re tired.”

“Industry recognizes the fact in factories the country over, by having “time out for coffee” in mid-morning and afternoon-finding a definite improvement in efficiency through it.”

“But what many people do not know is that they can enjoy coffee in the evening, and also enjoy  a good nights sleep. The reason is, if you’re like 97 out of 100 other folks the lift you get from coffee lasts only 2 hours. You can drink a fragrant cup of coffee whenever you want it- morning, noon and night- without worry over sleeping.”

“So when you feel the urge for a cup of coffee it isn’t only to give rich satisfaction to your taste-“the gentle lift” you get is good for you.”

“That’s why cheering, heart warming coffee chimes in with Santa, and says-“to all a good night.”

Vintage Xmas Coffee Ad Pan American Coffee Producers 1952

“Think Better! At the North Pole Santa Claus and Mrs. Santa plan the biggest Xmas list in the world…and give themselves a coffee break!” So begins this 1953  Pan American  Coffee Bureau ad.

“Work better…Santa’s elves load up the sleigh…and take a coffee break.”

“Whenever you have a problem…have a cup of fragrant coffee! The pleasant lift helps keep your mind alert. When you want an aid to clear thinking better take a coffee break.”

“Coffee’s gentle stimulation helps you do a better job have more fun when you take a coffee break.”

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

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Vintage ad Mallory Electronics 1949

A Thing of the Past

Today when it is unthinkable to go anywhere without your smartphone in hand, it’s hard to imagine the excitement and wonderment  generated by this post war ad that hinted at  the future possibility of a mobile car phone that functioned merely as a…. phone.

Amazing how far we’ve come!

Traditionally, progress was what Americans could always count on…new and better ways of doing things.

Replacing one convenience for a new improved model that would irrevocably improve your life for the better has always been the American Way.

Calling All Doctors!

Vintage ads 1949 Mallory Electronics

 It may be two in the morning raining buckets  but in 1949 you could always count on Dr. Higgins.

Like the US mail neither rain nor snow nor dark of night could stop the beloved family doctor from making a house call.

When a call for help comes the doctor can’t say no!

But imagine the time when Doc Higgins can be reached even when he’s at the wheel of his old Buick just by picking up his mobile phone.

That was the near future offered up to the hopeful reader in this optimistic 1949 advertisement.

Thanks to Mallory, a manufacturer of parts for modern electronic equipment and their contribution to the future of the mobile phone, “the family doctor would always be within reach of his patients.  In emergencies he can give directions over the phone as he speed to the side of the stricken.”

“Modern miracles of communication were already happening,” the ad explains. “The spoken message is no longer chained to fixed routes defined by existing wire lines. With equipment now available, explained by Mallory “oral messages can now be sent from one moving vehicle to another and to central control points.”

 Call Waiting

The Doctor Makes his Rounds.
“Wherever he goes, he is welcome…his life is dedicated to serving others” the copy in the ad reads. ” Not all his calls are associated with illness. He is often friend and counselor. His satisfactions in life are reflected in the smiling faces of youngsters like this one and countless others whom he has long attended. Yes, the doctor represents an honored profession…his professional reputation and his record of service are his most cherished possessions.”
Of course this illustration appeared in a 1946 ad for Camels cigarettes, where our kindly family doctor heartily endorses smoking, so perhaps his professional reputation was less than sterling.

 Of course modern miracles of communications like the car phone did  come to pass, but the idea of a doctor making house calls has become as antiquated as the ad itself.

You may be able to speed dial your doctor on your mobile phone  but good luck in getting a timely appointment.

Now all you can count on in our ailing health care system is interminable office waits and astronomical costs.

Today, the smart phone has replaced the car phone but the house call by a family doctor…irreplaceable.

Amazing how far we’ve come.

© 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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Moonlight Becomes You

“The breathless night. The moon burning on its billion watt radiance. Multiplying mystery, quickening the pulse. Stirring up a suddenly sweet tumult. Heady stuff this.

To look into his eyes and know that you were never lovelier. To hear him say the words that match the music in your heart, The guardian of your beauty…a Woodbury facial cocktail clears your complexion for the moonglow look of romance.”

Just like all the sappy soap ads that ran in the magazines, Betty was convinced the evening would reek of romance.

“Be the Thrill in his Furlough”, she hummed to herself as she got ready for her big date with Stanley, the Marine she met on the train to Miami. “Your loveliness can make that furlough a –never-to- be forgotten thrill.”

Betty knew that when a gals skin is soft and fresh, romance is at its beck and call. Ask any man for his definition of physical beauty and he will most certainly mention a radiant satin-smooth complexion.

Now that perfume was scarce due to wartime alcohol shortage, Betty was glad she used her favorite Cashmere Bouquet, the soap with the fragrance men loved.

“Popular girls today and for 75 romantic years bathe with Cashmere Bouquet soap, the ads declared. “You’re the song in my heart” Want to hear him whisper those words in the “I Care” manner? Let your skin whisper the fragrance of Cashmere Bouquet soap. The bouquet of this beloved soap is irresistible to men-it’s the fragrance men love.

All Wrapped Up In A Bow

(L) Vintage Palmolive Soap ad illustration Jon Whitcomb (R) Vintage illustration Jon Whitcomb

Sizing herself up in the mirror  Betty was glad she had taken  Mitzi Maguire’s “Charm and Grooming” class offered to freshmen girls in college. Internationally known socialite, and one of the worlds loveliest women, she promised to share the secrets of the stars and famous beauties “which could be put to work to make you more beautiful and exciting to men.”

“Personality and charm can make for a great many physical flaws,” Betty had learned in the class, “but they are even more appealing if they come in a pretty package!”

Mirror Mirror On The Wall

Mitzi was firm in her belief that every man likes an all around girl. “One that is as attractive from the back as from the front., she would say. “To rate a backward glance from him, you’d better give yourself one first!

“A quick head-on collision with your compact mirror as you frantically dab a little powder on your nose and repair your lipstick is not enough,” Mitzi had firmly told the eager class.

“Neither is a last-minute glance in the hallway mirror to make sure your slip isn’t showing when the doorbell rings. You have to give yourself a good head to toe survey in a full length mirror.”

“Grab a pen and pencil and paper and list your assets as well as your liabilities-the pros and cons,” Mitzi instructed. “It’s better to recognize your defects before everyone else does.”

“If you don’t watch your figure men won’t either!”

Now Betty looked at herself quietly in the full length mirror.

It was unbelievable. She had never looked like this before, had never even hoped to look like this. The black dress, its boned bodice melted to the lines in her body, flared at the hips to a froth of net. Five years ago she wouldn’t have had a dress like this.

He’s A-1 in the Army and He’s A 1 in my heart!

“This is for you,” Stanley had said giving her the corsage box.

And now in the powder room of the Roney Plaza Hotel, she lifted the box, parted the white tissues gently and uncovered the flowers. Twin camellias, deep pink, cool, perfect.

No one had ever given her camellias before.

At college she had gotten gardenias, roses, an orchid now and again but never camellias. She lifted them carefully out of the box. They would go in her hair, natch, she couldn’t trust them on her dress. Not, certainly this strapless job.

Love is in the Air

As Betty stood waiting for Stanley to waltz back in to the room, she knew this was her night of nights. She was walking on cloud nine.

Never before had she felt so completely happy or looked so immaculately fresh and sweet and dainty. Indeed that springtime freshness was one of Betty’s charms, thanks to Listerine. It was something she strove for, recognizing it almost as a passport to the popularity she had known since her teens.

Could others, she thought, say so much for themselves?

He slid an arm around her waist and swung her onto the floor. The black net swirled around her ankles, the room fell away as his arm tightened around her waist.

While sharing a conga line together, the sizzling rhythms, the drums and maracas filling her mind, Betty remembered all the articles she had read, all the movies she had seen, all the songs she had heard, and it all help confirm what she knew in her heart to be true.

It all added up…the starry eyes…the fireworks in the bloodstream…this was what the songs sing about…this is what little girls are made for…this is what she washed religiously with Cashmere Bouquet for!

This was indeed love!

Copyright (©) 2014 Sally Edelstein All Rights Reserved

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“Hospitality-So Easy and Welcome with Coke” vintage Coca Cola Ad 1948
Recently, some very inhospitable reactions have bubbled up over Coca Colas multilingual rendition of America the Beautiful

Real America is causing a controversy for some real Americans.

Coca Cola’s multilingual Superbowl commercial celebrating American diversity has stirred up xenophobic rage across social media.

In the great cultural cauldron of 21st century America there still seems to be one basic ingredient to being a real American…. English-speaking, heterosexual, and Caucasian.

Vintage Coke ad 1946

Once upon a time no one reinforced this more than that all American beverage Coca Cola.

Their sentimental mid-century ads  portraying an America that  existed primarily  in our Norman Rockwell fueled fantasies, were as syrupy sweet as the elixir they sold. Like all advertising at the time, their heartwarming illustrations  of small town America were a color and ethnic free zone.

Well apparently that old-fashioned recipe for prejudice is still being used by some real Americans who are outraged at a Coca Cola commercial showing real America. The spot  features people from diverse backgrounds singing “America the Beautiful” in different languages.

Vintage Coca Cola ad 1950

#SpeakAmerican

The internet  was abuzz with angry comments after the ad appeared, creating a deluge of pseudo patriotic  hashtags  to break out on twitter. The outrage at “America the Beautiful” being sung in anything but English  resulted in some  calling  for a boycott of  Coke, that most American of products.

Coke is as American as apple pie and baseball
Vintage Coca Cola ad

Face the Facts

The fact is, some conservative pundits are uncomfortable with the look of America and its diversity.

The fact is, the America Coke displayed, is the Real Thing!

That a broadcast commercial might reflect this actual diversity of thought like the multicultural and sexually diverse fabric of modern America is as refreshing as a frosty bottle of Coke!

While All-American Coca Cola has now  beautifully embraced American diversity, the cranky critics of the Coke commercial crying “un American” seem  stuck in a time warp .

This isn’t “their” America – that is the Mad Men mid-century America where  the “other” was best kept in the shadows. Perhaps they long for a simpler time like the ones served up with extra sugar by Coke in their vintage advertisements.

Their notion of what constitutes an American is as dated as the portrayal of real America that Coca Cola once pictured in their ads

The Right to Happiness and a Bottle of Coke

“There’s always a welcome – at your favorite soda fountain.This congenial club is as warm and American as an old-fashioned barbecue or band concert right in the village square.” vintage Coca Cola ad 1946

Coke has long been associated with the American way.

“The soda fountain” that  dispensed Coca Cola  was, they explained in a 1946 ad,  “as American as Independence Day …the  very expression of Democracy!”

These slice of life images showing Americans enjoying a refreshing pause in their American dream life often took place in that  neighborhood soda fountain- “the friendliest place in town”- that is, as long as you weren’t Asian, Hispanic or African-American.

The “friendliest place in town” was also the whitest place in town.

 Americas Friendliest Neighborhood Club

Vintage Coca Cola ad 1946

“Not far from you right now is a neighborhood branch of Americas friendliest club-the soda fountain,” begins this folksy Coke ad from 1946.

“Here folks get to know each other better. There’s always something going on in the friendly exchange at the soda fountain.”

Now instead of a “friendly soda fountain the place where everybody can good-naturedly air their opinions, parade their pet peeves and add your 2 bits worth to world opinions,”  we have the internet where friendly folk can rage to their heart’s content

The Worlds Friendliest Club…Admission 5 cents

“Friendliness and Coca Cola,” the ad tells us, “go together, like bread and butter ” assuming it’s “white” bread
Vintage Coca Cola ad 1946

“At the soda fountain our young folks gather in the wholesome atmosphere of friendly refreshment., this 1946 ad begins,  “There every day new friendships are made and old friendships renewed.”

“Membership to this ‘congenial club’ cost only a nickel. ” Though Jews, Gays and Mexicans probably need not apply)

A Pause For The American Dream

When a person of color did make a rare appearance in advertising it was usually as a maid, butler or porter, such as this 1948 Coke ad portraying happy travelers being served by their Pullman Porter.

“Travel refreshed,” Coke urges the reader of the ad. “Many new services nowadays add to travelers contentment.”

Of course if you were Black in 1948 and traveling down south you’d still be sitting in the colored section of the train or in the back of the bus…services hadn’t changed for African-Americans.

Vintage Coca Cola ad 1936

Graduation- A Red-Letter Day

“Graduation day is a red-letter day in any family life,” the reader is assured in this Coca Cola ad from 1937. “Everybody’s happy and lets celebrate is the order of the day.”

Proud parents watch their recent college graduates receiving a diploma, that simple piece of paper insuring a great future- their ticket to the American Dream.

“That great day calls for the friendly pause.”

Now its the American Dream that’s on pause since that red-letter day takes on new meaning. Besides the dismal job market, the debt the graduate will struggle to pay off will keep him in the red for a lifetime.

Here’s to the Day- Gay Occasions

Vintage Coca Cola ad 1947

Coke was made for gay occasions, according to this  ad that ran in 1947.

“A surprise shower for the bride-to-be. A time just made for friends, for fun, laughter and the good feelings all around. It’s one of those gay occasions that wouldn’t be quite the same without the sparkling refreshment of Coke. Take time to pause.”

Gay Americans would have to pause 66 years before they could toast each other at a wedding shower!

Here’s to the Day- Marriage Equality!

Vintage Coca Cola ad 1937 Boy Scouts

 Scouting is For All Boys

“On to Washington, shouts the Boy Scouts of America for their first national Jamboree. A group of good fellowship for all boys. Naturally ice cold Coca Cola will be there”

Time for a pause

Now  scouts can be morally straight and gay, thanks to the lifting of their long time ban on gay members.

Coke is For Everybody

Vintage Coca Cola ad 1950

That a broadcast commercial might reflect this actual diversity of thought like the multicultural and sexually diverse fabric of modern America is as refreshing as a frosty bottle of Coke!

© 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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Vintage “True Detective” magazine April 1941

As HBO’s True Detective has proven, Americans love their Dicks.

The true crime and true detective genre is as American as apple pie.

Long before the much talked about, much tweeted about cable series lit up the internet with speculation worthy of a college course in forensics or metaphysics, armchair sleuths got their fill of  grisly crime scenes, hard-boiled detectives and loose dames through the pulpy pages of True Detective Magazine.

As True Detective true believers obsessively hash out the minutia of  the final outcome of the series, I pay homage to its pulpy whodunit predecessors.

Tomatoes, Palookas and Dicks

Vintage “True Detective” Magazine 1941
The magazine even spawned a radio show called “True Detective Mysteries” a radio series based on True Detective Magazine each week they reenacted the cases from the magazine

For the  first half of the 20^th century a boatload of American pulp magazines published real life stories of crime.It was a landscape littered with gin mills and gumshoes, flophouses and gun molls, Mickey Finns and fast talking floozies ready to drop a dime.

Most of all it was coppers and hoods packing heat.

In the midst of the roaring twenties a time of excess spawned by widespread disregard of national law, bootleggers and gangsters flourished along with fast cars and fast girls, and a  public hungry for sensationalism had an insatiable appetite for  crime stories  and scandal.

Cheez it the Cops!

Publisher Bernarr MacFadden took note, and in 1924 published True Detective Mysteries considered the first fact based crime magazine. ((The magazine was renamed True Detective in October 1939 )

The true  life crime stories- the more  lurid and ghastly the better- came  straight from the police blotters. Moonlighting police reporters along with magazine staff writers rewrote stories shared by local police detectives and sheriffs.

True Detective and other magazines that soon followed, gave the reader more than the newspapers or newsreels could give them. Inside they published gruesome murder scene photos that respectable newspapers did not have the stomach to run.

The public ate it up

The non fiction pulp magazines brought to life the real life  drama ripped from the headlines of the 1920s and 30s with sensational stories of notorious gangsters such as Al Capone, “Baby Face” Nelson, “Pretty Boy” Floyd, “Machine Gun” Kelly, and public enemy number one John Dillinger.

Crime Doesn’t Pay?

Vintage” True Detective” Magazine January 1943
The crime stories took on wartime themes during WWII

In 1931 True Detective Mysteries started a regular feature called “Line Up” where police departments all across the country sent in mug shots and descriptions of fugitives on the run. Crime might not pay but for depression era readers who could get small cash rewards for information leading to arrest, it paid off handsomely.

The same could be said for  Bernarr MacFadden who at his peak was selling 2 million magazines a month.

Crime Spree

Vintage Magazine Cover “Startling Detective” 1942
“The truth from police records” Fawcett Publications

By the 1930s and ‘40’s  a true crime buff could choose between a hundred magazines at the newsstand. As long as the title contained Detective, it would sell.  .

Vintage “Daring Detective” Magazine 1940

Vintage “Headquarters Detective” Magazine 1947
True cases from police blotters

Vintage magazine cover “Keyhole Detective” 1945
“Every Story True…Actual Photo’s”

Pulp Fiction

Street and Smiths publisher of dime novels and hard covered books began publishing pulps in October 1915 with Detective Story Magazine first detective pulp.fiction stories

Along with the real life detective stories were several pulp magazines specializing in crime fiction with stories written by Raymond Chandler wannabees. These pulp fiction magazines were small 7”x10” , their nicknames derived from the cheap pulp paper in which their black and white interiors were printed. ,

Vintage “Detective Story Magazine” April 1930

Vintage magazine “Private Detective” 1942
These early 7″x10″ magazines derived their nickname from the cheap pulp paper in which their black and white interiors were printed.

Vintage pulp magazine “Variety Detective” December 1939
Twelve Stories for 10 cents Published bi-monthly by Ace Magazines Inc.

Vintage pulp fiction magazine “Super Detective” August 1941

Vintage Pulp fiction magazine “Private Detective” June 1942
Covers were glossy, lushly painted in full color often featuring scenes of scantily clad dames in distress.

By the end of WWII the golden age of true detective magazines came to an end. True Detectives was sold in 1971 and ceased publication in 1995.

There was one thing all these magazines had in common, month after month year after year.It was that good prevails over evil,  True to form, 70 years later  True Detective showed us  that light always wins over darkness.

© 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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