1951 – Rice Krispies and Tide Detergent

Rice Krispies, 1951

Pop, Crackle and Snap have been around a long time, since 1933 as it turns out. Notable bits about this particular advert include the fixed-width font that today would make us think of a primitive computer printout. Given that it’s 1951 though, they’re doubtless going for a typewriter but I fail to see how that businesslike formality will help them sell cereal.

As in all breakfast ads the milk is stone white but in 1951 it might well have been whole milk (or cream) which really is fairly white. Lastly note that the inner bag design seems to be of wax paper. I wish the bags of my cereal boxes opened up so tidily.

From Classic Ads – Food And Drink

Tide Detergent, 1951

She wears the cleanest clothes in town … her “Mom” swears by tide.

Who is this “Mom” person and why is she in quotes like that? The text is straightforward and forceful and the reaction of the gents at the water cooler seems proof that the horrid yellow dress she’s wearing really is attention-grabbing. Note how the guy in the brown coat is just letting the whole jug splash into the drain. This stuff must be good.

Further, the detergent is so magical that you don’t even have to rinse anything. Just wash, wring out and hang up! How easy is that? I’d hate to see the rash you get from wearing soapy clothes all day.

From Classic Ads – Household Misc

Advertisement

1967 Dash Detergent and One-A-Day Vitamins

It’s a two-fer Saturday here on Golden Oldie Ads…

1967 Dash Laundry Detergent

There are several things about this advert that get ones attention.

Firstly, the hairstyle is to die for. Geometry all the way. The photo just screams 1960s. I’m also stunned at the text which indicates that most laundry detergents require over a cup of detergent per load. Even a large box wouldn’t last more than a couple of weeks. Perhaps people just didn’t wash their clothes as frequently 50 years ago?

It’s also noted that unlike other detergents, Dash is for laundry only. This was apparently a novel idea in the day. Oh, and keep in mind that you can’t use Dash with your tub and wringer. It’s only for automatic washers. Yeesh.

From Classic Ads – Household Misc

1967 One-A-Day Vitamins

This ad makes me want to get on a soapbox in about 10 different ways. Firstly, I’m vastly unimpressed at the picture this paints of women. Apparently they’re vain and shallow creatures who go to ridiculous lengths for something as vaguely defined as ‘beauty’. It’s always been my long-held belief that the cosmetic industry is self-perpetuating. Just leave your faces alone and they’ll be just fine.

Apparently too the average woman in 1967 was dieting and found nothing more exciting than trying on a new shade of lipstick. *grumble* At least the advertisers are trying to emphasize health in some vaguely selfish way.

From Classic Ads – Misc Personal Items

1967 Campbell’s Soup – Mighty Mousse!

The year is 1967. Food is in short supply so humans have turned to making Jell-o from human vomit. And I used to think there was NO way to mess up a green olive. *pout*

From Classic Ads – Food And Drink

1951 Stereo Realist Cameras – w/ Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy

From Classic Ads – Photography

It seems somewhat apropos that such a strange little duo would be found selling such a strange-looking device. The camera was simple in that it simply took two pictures at the same time from two viewpoints. When you looked at the photos through the viewer, which just made sure that your left eye got one picture and your right eye the other, then you saw the result as three-dimensional. This concept was almost as old as photography itself but during the 50s entered wider use with cameras like this one costing only(!) $182. Adjusting for inflation this is a $1,500 camera, folks.

Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy are hawking this little device and as I’m sure you ALL remember from the 30s through the mid 50s they were a hilariously popular radio ventriloquist duo. Let me just allow that to sink in a bit. They were ventriloquists… and they were primarily known for “appearing” on the… radio… yes, yes indeed, that ancient device in which you can hear the people doing the show but can’t actually see them so you would never be able to TELL that one half of the conversation was held up by a wooden dummy. It never ceases to amaze me how creepy they both look in print advertising and how redundantly they use jokes of the form “Charlie’s no dummy he uses product X!” But if it worked then so be it.

Smart Set, Stories from Life – December 1927

Yesterday we looked at The Literary Digest from 1911 in all its affluent glory. Today we look at Smart Set Magazine from the 20s. The two audiences couldn’t possibly more different. Smart Set is just the sort of magazine that one of our 20s Flappers would sit down to read between flaps. Most of the content is vacuous romance drivel and the ads seem to focus fairly firm on makeup.

Usually I don’t bother with the covers since they’re not really advertising but this one struck me very firmly about the eyeballs. She makes quite a fitting icon for the times.

From Classic Ads – Misc

The majority of ads were for makeup and various accessories related to it. On the back of the front cover we find Norida powder cases. Who would have thought such a thing existed and deserved such a prominent spot in the zine?

From Classic Ads – Misc

There are a few familiar names. Irene Rich (yes, THAT Irene Rich) uses Maybelline. Never heard of that Maybelline stuff but Irene Rich… WOW!

From Classic Ads – Misc

Tangee Beauty Aids offered a wide range of women’s make-up goop stuff. You can tell how attuned I am to this particular line of marketing.

From Classic Ads – Misc

And Kissproof seems fairly suggestive of potential not-really-related-to-makeup activities though the woman in the picture looks like she might just be wielding a knife.

From Classic Ads – Misc

When our flapper friends weren’t making themselves up for a night out, they were having a smoke behind the barn. They’re better because they’re toasted! We haven’t yet gotten to the Lucky Strike Means Fine Tobacco era.

From Classic Ads – Misc

I do notice too that retailers are practically jumping out of their skins to hand out credit to customers. Send only $1! Take a year to pay whether you want fine jewelry…

From Classic Ads – Misc

…or a Buxkin Velour Mandell Fur coat!

From Classic Ads – Clothing

Lastly, we know that any Flapper worth her salt can dance up a small storm. Since you can’t dance without music, we bring you the Mello-Phonic Console Phonograph. You’ll have to draw lots though to see who gets stuck with the job of winding it up.

From Classic Ads – Music Equipment

If you prefer your grinding without the winding, check out the All-Electric Radio. This beasty would cost you the equivalent of $700 back in the day.

From Classic Ads – Music Equipment

Oh, but wait. I found this last little advert just hanging tenaciously on by a thread. Even flappers, it seems, suffered at times from irregularity. Luckily though there’s Feen-a-Mint.

From Classic Ads – Food And Drink

The Literary Digest – December 30, 1911

Yesterday when we visited Popular Science in the 1970s, we found our magazine’s audience to be handy and practical people. Today we visit the Literary Digest over a century ago and the readers of this little publication have a lot of money to spread around. So let’s see what the richest or the rich were doing with their money in 1911. Cover price for this mag: 10 cents. That’s a modest $2.30 adjusted for inflation.

The cruise industry was alive and well. You could take a 78-day cruise for $325.

From Classic Ads – Travel

Not feeling like cruising? How about the train or perhaps a trip to Cube, “A winter paradise”

From Classic Ads – Travel

For those days when you’re not feeling up to traveling, there are plenty of miracle medicines to save the day including Sanatogen. 15,000 physicians approve, after all.

From Classic Ads – Misc

How did our affluent readers make all their money? Manhattan real estate and 5% Municipal bonds, of course!

From Classic Ads – Misc

From Classic Ads – Misc

This was a time much different than today. When’s the last time you bought a book that advertised its weight let alone one that was 13 pounds?

From Classic Ads – Books

When they weren’t investing or reading their really heavy books there was much luxurious food! This Cream of Wheat ad today would get someone firebut I post it here as a relic of an archaic value system that made this sort of thing not only acceptable but a good advertising tool.

From Classic Ads – Food And Drink

Prefer your cereal cold rather than warm? Post Toasties…

From Classic Ads – Food And Drink

…go well with a bit of sugar.

From Classic Ads – Food And Drink

And the immortal Chiclet has been around literally forever.  For sale at the “better sort of stores” the ad croons.

From Classic Ads – Food And Drink

Lastly, the rich wouldn’t be the rich without a car or four.  The Cadillac auto is a car for “discriminating motorists, those to whom price is only a minor consideration.”

From Classic Ads – Automotive

Sports Illustrated – September 27, 1954

Greetings! As a possibly permanent change of pace, I’ve decided to take a single issue of a periodical of the dim and misty past and have at it all in one go. Today’s lucky target of nostalgia is the September 27th 1954 edition of Sports Illustrated. That was the first year for this noble magazine veteran and this was lucky issue #7. Let’s dive in and look at the interesting part, the adverts, and ignore all that pesky content about sports!

It’s easy in today’s bare-headed culture to forget that 50 years ago hats were pretty damn important and a part of every smart-looking young man’s wardrobe. This smart green Black Forest hat has a band as wide as a weasel’s face. No doubt that was the height of fashion at the time. These suckers top out at $20 in 1954. Accounting for inflation that’s a $150 hat! That’s one salty weasel-band hat!

From Classic Ads – Clothing

This ad admonishes us to ask for genuine G.E. tubes the next time we have our televisions repaired. Do they even HAVE TV repairmen anymore? Regardless, if they do then I hope they use G.E. tubes. They really put a wallop in your tired TV picture. When’s the last time you walloped something?

From Classic Ads – Communications

These people are obviously of the monied class so of course they arrived at this fancy dinner in a Cadillac. You’d have to have a lot of money to drive a car the size of a commercial fishing vessel. Bubba-Gump’s shrimpin’ boat was smaller than this car. Her jewels by Van Cleef and Arpela. Wrap by Anthony Biotta. Car by Cadillac. All 22 feet of it.

From Classic Ads – Automotive

Old Spice – For Men. As if you had to make THAT clear. Any woman who would consider wearing Old Spice probably drives a shrimpin’ boat and gives not a whit of a care about how she smells.

From Classic Ads – Personal Grooming

Ending on a supremely manly note, Early Times is every ounce a Man’s Whisky. These people know about horses so they must know about good whisky, right? Though one must admit that with that rather pallid yellow color one can’t help but wonder if the whisky doesn’t start out as a byproduct of the horse…

From Classic Ads – Food And Drink

And that’s what advertising was like in 1954. Anybody wanting a 1954 copy of SI can have it at cost now that I’m done with it.

Early 70s Fashion Free-for-all

It’s almost too easy to take pot-shots at seventy’s fashions but I’ll do it anyway. Imagine, if you will, a world in which it’s cool to wear all-denim outfits. Is this what you imagined?

1973 Denim Live-Ins

One one hand, I regret that male fashions have become so drab and plastic. On the other hand, I can’t help but think that if THIS is what male self-expression in the area of fashion looks like then maybe we’re better off being drab?

1973 Sears Shirts

And who approved these color choices?

1972 Sears Slacks

And the shoes are to die for. Or… well, at least you’ll want to die.

1973 Johnston and Murphy

Studyboppers Delight – 1970s Smith-Corona Typewriters

It’s hard to believe that in some of our lifetimes a typewriter was considered a great college study aid. It’s to tiny it can fit easily on the lap of that girl in that little tiny skirt!

1970s Smith-Corona Typewriters

Truth be told though, I recall with great clarify getting a typewriter as a child. I was determined to retype the entire encyclopedia. To this day I know far too much about Aardvarks, Aardwolves and Acacia. That was 1970-something and when electrics came around it quite an improvement even for us young “studyboppers” as the ad so eloquently calls them.

1934 General Electric Refrigerators

The year is 1934 and based on the text of this ad, a refrigerator is a luxury that some people just haven’t quite gotten around to appreciating yet. “Luxurious convenience every day in the year” the ad promises and now you can safely save leftovers. It even has a foot-pedal door opener, automatic interior lighting and semi-automatic defrosting. You can’t beat that!

1934 General Electric Refrigerators

I have to say, those women look PRETTY happy. Maybe we should all buy our wives refrigerators!