Tag: ephemera

Excuse Me, May I Show A Movie On Your Antique Purse?

/ Deanna / 9 Comments

antique-metal-mandalian-mesh-bagOn Saturday I got my first real antique purses — and, as usual, I’m obsessing over researching what I can about them. Today I’m going to inform you about the fascinating things I learned about antique metal mesh bags by Mandalian Manufacturing Company.

First a bit of history.

Armor mesh bags by Mandalian are as sought after as those by Whiting & Davis. Though, admittedly, metal mesh and chain had been used for quite some time, Whiting is often credited for having developed the technique for the first mesh bags in 1892. He then partnered with Davis in 1896 and when the mesh machine was invented in 1909, Whiting & Davis acquired the patent. This not only affected the cottage industry of women who hand soldered the up to 100,000 links per bag, but limited big business. However, companies keep trying because the metal mesh bags were only becoming more popular.

One of these was Sahatiel Gabrabed Mandalian, an Indian immigrant * who was focused on quality more than quantity. This is noted in A) the remaining purses themselves; B) the quantity of advertising (Whiting & Davis papered the world promoting their larger production runs, while Mandalians’ ads and inventory were much fewer in number)’ and C) the number of patents Mandalian held — with quite a few in metal mesh and enamel application, as well as jewelry and other accessories.

One of the ways Mandalian separated his mesh bags was with the invention of applying crushed fish scale to the mesh, creating a ‘pearlized mesh’ the company promoted early on, as this vintage tag shows, Color-Vision-Bag, Trade Mark, Process patent Pending

mandalian-color-vision-bag-tag

However, the name most of these vintage bags sold under was Lustro-Pearl, exhibited here by this Mandalian mesh purse with original box and tag.

mandalian-lustro-pearl-mesh-purse-with-box-and-tag

But fashion accessories weren’t the only things Mandalian envisioned — for his Lustro-Pearl, or his mesh metal. In the May 19, 1931, issue of Exhibitors Forum (page 6), this news:

“Lustro-Pearl” New Metal Type Screen

A new type metal mesh projection screen, known as “Lustro-Pearl,” has been placed on the market by Mandalian Manufacturing Co., of North Attleboro, Mass.

The advanced features claimed for this new screen includes: A surface treated with the purest of known chemicals, entirely free from gloss, eliminating all distortion to ordinary types.

Highest reflection factor known to reputable light testing laboratories, effecting a considerable saving of electric current.

Constructed so as to distribute sound very clearly and uniformly throughout the entire theatre.

Can be washed with hot water and soft brush without injury to its surface.

Affords clear view of any picture from any angle of observation, eliminating eye strain or discomfort to patrons.

Surface may be sprayed periodically for many years, and for this purpose, the company plans to loan for a period of ten years a complete up-to-date spraying outfit with each screen purchased, and furnish chemical solutions from time to time for resurfacing this type of screen.

Its high reflective qualities bring out objects in a manner which might be termed the nearest approach to three dimensional pictures, the company claims.

RKO Proctor’s 58th Street, New York, is among the first houses to install this new type of screen.

(This patent, #1,890,819, was issued December 13, 1932.)

But eventually even the better made and more stylized mesh bags by Mandalian couldn’t compete with Whiting & Davis who, by 1944, added Mandalian Mfg. Co. to their list of competitors they’d bought out. Sahatiel G. Mandalian would pass away just five years later.

I could find no record of whether or not that included the film projection screens — or if that business had folded long before 1944. Any info is appreciated!

*
UPDTATE: Per comments, Sahatiel was not Indian but an Armenian immigrant born in Constantinople, Turkey.

Cheap Thrills Thursday: Discarded Stockings Go To War & End Up At The Hingham Shipyard

/ Deanna / 5 Comments

stockings-go-to-warAwhile ago, folks working on The Launch at the historic Hingham Shipyard, contacted me about one of my pieces of ephemera, a page from Modern Woman Magazine (Volume 12, Number 2, 1943) with the article “How Your Discarded Stockings Go To War.”

They wondered about using the image in the series of panels which would be placed along pedestrian walkways, creating a walking tour educating people about and commemorating the history of the shipyard’s role in World War II. In case you don’t know, the Hingham Shipyard was one of the largest shipbuilding centers in the entire country, where over 2500 women worked, putting out over six ships each month.

Long story short, I’ve finally got photos of my contribution to the Hingham Shipyard Historical Exhibit, included on the ‘Home Front Sacrifices’ panel (the one with the children & Victory Garden veggies).

hingham-shipyard-historical-exhibit

panels-at-hingham-shipyard-launch

closeup-of-home-front-sacrifices-panel

I Was With 95% Of Americans In 1950

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From the June 26, 1950, issue of Newsweek, results of Gallup Poll regarding “how well informed the average American is on terms and phrases appearing regularly in the news.”

The result: 94 percent understood the term “flying saucers”; 68 per cent, the term “bookie.” But only 26 per cent knew “bipartisan foreign policy,” and 5 per cent, “Point Four.”

1950-newsweek-how-well-informed-poll

So, the titular meaning of the 95% of Americans in 1950 means that I didn’t know what ‘Point Four’ was. (I did, however, know the rest of the terms, thank-you-very-much.)

While I was not alive in 1950, one would think I could be excused for my ignorance; but it turns out I shouldn’t be — ignorant, I mean. I might still have an excuse…

‘Point Four’ refers to President Truman’s fourth point in the foreign policy objectives he stated in his inaugural address, January 20, 1949. Seeing as this fourth proposal, announced as the Bold New Program, was not only the foreign policy equivalent of the New Deal but based on similar conservation, rural rehabilitation, public works, and economic development strategies, it seems I should have been taught this in school. Especially as Point Four is what inspired president John F. Kennedy to lay the foundations for the Peace Corps in his inaugural address, January 20, 1961.

Why did my public school education insist upon making me an Ugly American, omitting foreign policy and our connected world history instead of including it in discussion of domestic policy and affairs?

Cheap Thrills Thursday: 1907 Englishwoman’s Snark On Fashionistas

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The piece, a little beauty titled “Woman’s Dress and Women’s Homes,” in which an Englishwoman ever-so-politely snarks about the mode of American dress, was written by Anna A. Rogers (originally in the Atlantic and then published in the November 4, 1907 edition of The Fargo Forum and Daily Republican). In the article, Ms. Rogers quotes an unidentified Englishwoman who had apparently spoken to an unidentified “writer in one of our western cities especially given over to the national passion for dress.”

The authenticity, sincerity, and/or seriousness of this piece is up to you to decide; as is Ms. Roger’s intent. But comments like “a slovenly ‘slavey’ attends the door,” sure are telling enough on their own.

nov-4-1907-womens-dress-and-homes-snark

This little bit of joy was discovered via the many hours I spend nerdily reading antique newspapers on microfilm at the Fargo public library (because, as they say, “Library, library, more than a book!”), and so my cost was free — unless you count my taxes, which I am most happy to see go to the preservation and presentation of such things.

Understanding Female Relationships With Greeting Cards

/ Deanna / 5 Comments

Greeting cards are primarily a female thing; I don’t think any sane person would argue this. But I feel the need to elaborate anyway.

First by boasting mentioning my past professional work in the greeting card biz with the fabulous Kat Caverly of NoEvil Productions (makers of Greetums), and so asserting my insider knowledge.

Second, by sharing the anecdotal evidence of how this past summer my 13 year old daughter, who spent an hour or more with her grandparents looking at and selecting greeting cards for our annual family birthday party (which combines all five of our May 30 – June 29 birthdays), was brought to tears upon the discovery that the nine year old boy had casually tossed his birthday cards into the waste can in his bedroom just a few days later. (Hey, he’s nine; I’m just happy they made it into the proper receptacle rather than being strewn about the floor.)

And third, the strong female demographic is well documented in The Very Best from Hallmark: Greeting Cards Through the Years, by Ellen Stern.

Since greeting cards are the commerce of females, you can learn a lot about women from the history of greeting cards; perhaps doubly so:

“What we make is bought to be given away,” says Bill Johnson, the member of Joyce Hall’s ingenious and loyal band who was head of public relations from 1966 to 1985. “And that’s a lot different than women’s shoes. When you buy shoes, you only have to please one person. When you buy a card, you have to please the sender and the recipient.”

Seen in that light, it’s difficult not to take a dim view of The Very Best from Hallmark: Greeting Cards Through the Years author Ellen Stern’s comment, on page 82, regarding the “poor working girl” cards.

As early as 1910, Marie Dressler was singing “Heaven will protect the working girl.” A lot she knew. The working girl has always been the very model of self-reliance… and self-pity.

“Self-pity?” Why is it that such woman-to-woman commiseration is so poorly understood, yet the author admits such commiseration in the Hard Times chapter devoted to greeting cards of The Great Depression, saying, on page 129, “During the depression, it was a plight to be shared. Not even greeting cards could escape the reality of rumbling stomachs and tattered clothes.” Certainly working women would like to acknowledge to one another their own workplace plight.

Also the demeaning use of “working girl” rather than “working woman” shows something of Stern’s stance; even if the old cards referred to adult employed females as “working girls,” Stern could have expressed her regard for the phrase with quotes surrounding the derogatory phrase.

Stern’s sentiments about self-pitying working women may be accurate based on what’s observable in the book, but wasn’t she herself in 1988 a working woman willing to commiserate and understand the cards presented? Was she getting paid 100% of her authorship dollar that a man who wrote this book would have? Or maybe Stern agreed with the sipping coffee, legs up on desk, images of “girls” at work. Wartime cards were of a battle understood; but I guess the battle of the sexes, of equal respect in the workplace, of equal work for equal pay, was a battle Stern wasn’t into.

But perhaps most intriguing of all are the plethora of lingerie themed cards.

vintage-risque-hallmark-greeting-cards-for-women

You might be tempted to pass them off as simply risque — sexist use of the female form for men; but remember, greeting cards are a woman’s thing, bought by & given to other women. And so maybe it seems a women’s lingerie thing you wouldn’t understand…

While Hallmark was run by a man — or men with a few “poor working girls,” and can be seen as The Man, you can’t deny the serious dedication the company had to targeted marketing. They spent oodles of dollars and gobs of time focused on what sold and who bought it — including focus groups of women. If women weren’t buying the charming illustrations of women in their dainties and picture-laden puns of underthings, Hallmark wouldn’t have made them. Let alone so many of them.

And heck, I’ll admit I’m charmed by such illustrations & puns.

So one has to at least include the probability that women’s adoration of the female form, our so-called bisexuality or ability to be more fluid in our sexuality, has been around for a long time and perhaps has as much to do with “sex sells,” sexist ads, and our culture’s consumption of pornography as the patriarchy does.

The Very Best From Hallmark: Greeting Cards Through The Years

/ Deanna / 7 Comments

the-very-best-from-hallmark-book-coverThe Very Best from Hallmark: Greeting Cards Through the Years, by Ellen Stern, is not a collector’s guide, really; there are no prices or discussion of the secondary market at all. However, savvy collectors and historians who view the world through pop culture vision glasses can learn much from this out of print book published in 1988, which is approaching collectibility itself.

Collectors who are lucky enough to find their cards represented here may ascertain their card’s publication date. Or identify potentially rare cards, such as those which were pulled as failures — like the time Hallmark inadvertently used an X-ray of human bowels rather than the intended heart X-ray for its “heart’s in the right place” card. (Pulled cards would mean fewer in circulation and even rarer finds for collectors — worthy of higher prices, certainly.) But mainly, collectors will gain more insight into greeting cards — in general, and, especially, the Hallmark variety.

(Clearly The Very Best from Hallmark is a corporate sanctioned publication, but I don’t think anyone can challenge Hallmark’s market share superiority or the company’s longevity — both of which speak to the book’s genuine insight into a culture that buys so many greeting cards.)

Ellen Stern’s introduction to the book gives a very brief history of the greeting card along with a rather erratic telling of the story of Joyce C. Hall, Hallmark’s founder. I realize Stern’s job of taking centuries of greeting card history and stuffing it — along with greater detail of the Hallmark company specifically — into a mere 12 pages (including space for images) is no small task; but something’s wrong when I have to re-read paragraphs over again to understand what she’s saying. However, when Stern gets into the aspects about the workings of Hallmark, from art department design to product marketing, she shines.

Here are a few gems:

On a trip to New York in the 1940s, accompanied by Hallmark’s head of corporate design and a couple of artists, [J.C. Hall] would visit Lord & Taylor, Bloomingdale’s, and Bonwit Teller — and there be ushered out because the group was taking too many notes on colors, styles, and windows displays. Everywhere he roamed he analyzed, assessed, and appreciated the wares and wonders…

I do this myself; but as I do my note-taking without entourage, I’ve never been escorted out.

In the 1940s and fifties, in department stores and card shops, Hallmark clerks adhered to a dress code — wearing only black, brown, navy, or charcoal gray — so as not to compete with the merchandise.

As a person who’s served a long retail sentence, I find that fascinating — and wonder why they changed the policy.

Dean Walley was a journalism major at the University of Missouri before joining Hallmark. Now one of the senior writers, he’s also the man who offers a marvelous course in American manners — and manners of speaking — to the artists and writers. Projecting slides of old cards from Hallmark’s archives on a small screen, he will rhapsodize on a colloquialism here, chuckle at an antiquated idea there, applaud an adjective, blast a dialect. He loves the high-falutin’ use of the word “grand,” the bravado of “staunch,” the evasiveness of “To a certain cheerful someone.” His sentimental olio embraces cards of every era, every province: a bluebird of the twenties chirping “Please Hurry Back,” a Dutch girl saying “To mine friend,” a tippler saying “Happy Birschday to You,” greetings to the dentist, a quack from Donald Duck. The point is that Hallmark writers must keep up with the language as it changes.

If you collect or read any vintage printed matter &/or antique publications, you know how true — and puzzling — this is; language is often as ephemeral as old paper itself. (Oh, how I’d love to dish with Dean Walley!)

And that’s all before we get to the over 750 images of vintage Hallmark cards.

Looking at the images, I reaffirm my love of vintage illustration. But it’s not all charming — or at least not all simply charming. There are things to note about our culture here.

vintage-hallmark-birthday-cardsSome of these things are noted by the author, like on page 45 where among the images of vintage greeting cards (birthday cards from the 1930s, shown at left) the author observes, “You couldn’t get a drink, but you could still say ‘Hell’ on a greeting card. By the fifties, it would be just the opposite.”

There have been many changes in deed; and our general history has been documented in this specific form of ephemera. In the forward, Stern has this to say:

The ups and downs of our economy, our hemlines, and our mood: such is the grist for the Hallmark mill. The days of our lives, as you will see on the following pages, are reflected in the cards of our days. Prohibition, fitness, the income tax, Vietnam, the G-man, the G.O.P., women’s suffrage, women’s lib, the radio, the jukebox, the computer, talkies, hula hoops, the Atom bomb, the gray flannel suit, the mini skirt, My Fair Lady, Huey Long, Mickey Mouse, the TV quiz show, the fireside chat, the Duchess of Windsor, Miss Piggy, Sputnik, the beatnik, Charlie Brown, Charles Lindbergh, canasta, Mussolini, rationing, cowboys, hippies, hillbillies, bobby soxers, flappers, the Dionne Quints, Valley Girls, the airplane, the blackout, the Crash. The seasons come, the seasons go, and Hallmark is up to the minute.

“Actually, says Bill Johnson [head of Hallmark’s public relations from 1966 to 1985], most cards reflect more everyday life than national events. And a national event does not in itself bring about a card. Most are ignored by the greeting card industry. It would be a folly to pretend that by looking at cards from 1920 to 1935, say, you’d get a full idea of what was going on in America.” But you get a pretty good one.

I think that’s true. Especially what Johnson says. But it’s here that we learn some things which are (rather miraculously) not noted by the author.

As you critical thinkers probably have noticed, there’s not a damn mention of civil rights. I didn’t not present them; they are not in the book (even though Beatniks garner two pages worth of attention).

vintage-hallmark-cards-with-kidsOK, I’ll admit a “civil rights” themed greeting card is probably not too likely to become a best seller, but where are the persons of color? In the over 750 images of “Hallmark’s best greeting cards, spanning seven crowded decades of American life,” I found exactly two cards of what I’ll call non-white people — that weren’t Mussolini or other rather racist depiction of foreign public political figures. I’m sure too that Hallmark made many more racist cards once upon a time — which they were too ashamed of to share in the book — but to not address the whole issue of race is odd… At least show more than two cards with black folks, right?

Whether or not Hallmark does or doesn’t make cards which are more reflective of our society is research I’ll leave for others; but we don’t see much represented here.

Then again, perhaps that’s a problem best explained by the context of the time at which this book was published.

This 1980s book makes clear choices to mention and display the G.O.P. several times (yet I found no clear representations of the Democratic Party) and the republicans of the 80’s certainly weren’t building their platform on civil rights; ultraconservative republicans disliked Affirmative Action and, in a backlash against it, President Ronald Reagan cut funding for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the civil rights division of the Justice Department. Of course, I could be connecting some dots based on those missing dots, creating an image that doesn’t really exist, but I don’t think so. I think the G.O.P. populist pride slant is part of the book’s construction.

But that doesn’t necessarily detract from the book either. At least not if you are a critical thinker. This book may have intended to document our American history through the social connection of greeting card commerce up to its then present day of 1988, but it also documents, through its selections and omissions, a view of that once present day of 1988 which is now a part of our history.

If this is the sort of stuff that fascinates you half as much as it does me, get a copy. (The book is not as common as you might think for a 1988 title; however, it’s not as rare as the Amazon listings might indicate, so check for it at eBay.) If you’re not sure yet, stick around; I’ll be discussing some more from this book during the next few weeks. (If I make the posts really long, I know you won’t read all of it!)

History Is Ephemeral, Issue #7

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Welcome to edition number seven of the History Is Ephemeral Carnival, where ephemera lovers share the history behind their obsessions.

If you’ve got posts about old paper and other ephemera, please submit them for next month’s carnival via the carnival’s submission form!

As Pop Tart I present “the meek do not inherit the earth — or at least that part of it presided over by the American political system” posted at Purple Pud Muddle. (Some scary facts about activism!)

Derek talks about his collection of Folk Art Postage Stamps (1977-1980) and WWII stamps at Collectors’ Quest. (You don’t have to beat ’em to lick ’em!)

At Here’s Looking Like You, Kid, Jaynie goes in search of Dorothy Gray’s Cherry Bounce. (She’s still looking for some help!)

Shawnee presents Living With Extended Family: The Ultimate Mother-In-Law Nightmare, Or A Gift? posted at Purple Pud Muddle. (Can we learn from the past — in this economy?)

At Collectors’ Quest, both and Collin and Derek dish about exonumia, with My Summer In Exonumia and Adventures In Exonumia, respectively. (First I didn’t know what exonumia was, then there’s multiple posts about it!)

Cliff shows us 1939 Rothmans Beauties of Cinema Tobacco Cards over at his movie collectibles blog at Things-And-Other-Stuff. (Pretty, pretty!)

Also at Here’s Looking Like You, Kid, Jaynie looks at a few past predictions: The Death of “New Look” Fashions & Other Fashion Predictions from 1950 and Film Options Are Like Predictions: Made, But Not Always Fruitful. (Hindsight sure helps with predictions!)

Here at Kitsch Slapped, I work hard to find out what this 1970 photo is about. (I could use some additional info, if you’ve got it.)

Honorable Mention:

My Collectors Quest post about managing a collection.

That’s the end of this month’s edition of the History Is Ephemeral blog carnival; please submit your posts for next month’s carnival via the carnival’s submission form!

Sign Of The Times: A Fishy Ephemera Hunt

/ Deanna / 2 Comments

I confess, I kill a lot of time just looking at the old snapshots and vintage photos at eBay. Sometimes I buy them, sometimes they inspire odd comments and random captions, and sometimes I become obsessive about them. This post is about a vintage photo I’ve become obsessed over:

ruth-lee-rally

All the seller (Darrins-Photoclique) says of the photo is, “Vintage Photo Ruth Lee Speaking at Rally Protest” and that the photo’s size is 3.5 x 5 inches; but I have no idea who the pretty blonde Ruth Lee is… And Google, searching for that name and with variations on “activist,” “rally,” “protest,” is of no help either. So I take a good look at the signs in the photo.

I can’t make them all out; only “Fish before people right???” is absolutely clear. But I try searches for “Ruth Lee” and “human rights” — with no success. I even try searching her name with the word “fish.” (Don’t laugh; if you ever become obsessed and desperate, I wouldn’t laugh at you — with you, sure. But not at you.)

So I try to make out that nearly-white sign above the sign with the argumentative fish question. Looks like “Bring Back Simas.” So I try that. Nothing shows up with her name, but I try “Simas” alone — too many results. So I try that name with “protest,” and low and behold I discover the story of Simas Kudirka, a Lithuanian sailor who tried to defect to the USA on November 23, 1970. (That date fits the fashions in the photo far better than the seller’s ‘Pre-1950’ categorization too.)

Being only 6 years old myself at the time, I knew nothing of this. Thankfully, Martha’s Vineyard Magazine (2005) has a fine retrospective the newsworthy events and CapeCodToday (2007) covers the interesting historical connections and political ramifications — each worthy of reading.

The short story is this: The 40-year-old persecuted Simas Kudirka, a radio operator on a Soviet fish processing vessel, leaps onto the deck of a Coast Guard cutter. The vessels were moored closely together, about one mile off Martha’s Vineyard, as folks were there for a day-long fishing conference attended by American and Soviet officials. Kudirka announces that he wishes to defect, but the Coast Guard, unsure what to do, goes up the chain of command until they are told by Ed Killham, the Soviet specialist, that they could fish a defector from the water — but he fails to add that they should keep him afterward. So when the Soviets forcibly come to get Kudirka, the Coast Guard lets him go. Bound and beaten, Kudirka is dragged back to his own ship, and the Americans are told Kudirka, if not already dead, will be so soon. The nation explodes in outrage, with plenty of press coverage and rallies — this is presumably where our photo comes in — and there are a number of international political issues as a result (Cold War and all).

You’ll have to read the links to find out whatever became of Simas Kudirka; but I will tell you that in 1978 there was a made for television movie made about the incident, The Defection of Simas Kudirka, though there’s currently no home release of the film. Something J.B. Spins laments — and while I may not agree with his views on Russia’s plans, I think it’s important to remember stories like this too:

These stories are important to study. They are not distant skirmishes from the War of 1812, but critical events of the defining conflict of most of our lifetimes.

I have my perusing of vintage photos to thank for the history lesson. However, I still have no friggin’ clue who Ruth Lee is, or even where this photo was taken. If you have any information, please share it!

History Is Ephemeral Carnival, 6th Edition (A Thursday Thirteen Edition)

/ Deanna / 9 Comments

Welcome to edition number six of the History Is Ephemeral Carnival, where ephemera lovers share the history behind their obsessions.

(If you’ve got posts about old paper and other ephemera, please submit them for next month’s carnival via the carnival’s submission form!)

Because there are 13 links in this edition, this post is also a Thursday Thirteen!

#1 History Cellar shares a Boston Restaurant Dinner Menu from the 1860’s over at The History Cellar. Can you afford the Potted Pigeon?

#2 Derek talks Irish Republic Bonds (from the 1860s – 1880s) at Collectors’ Quest. Do you know what they have to do with one of the earliest attempts to build combat submarines and plans to take over Canada and hold it for ransom?

#3 Yours truly has one of her antique postcards displayed in a museum; the story is posted here at Kitsch Slapped. (It’s so thrilling!)

#4 Jianfeng presents images which remind him of his grandfather in China’s Civil War in The Big Retreat in 1949 and My Grandfather posted at Jianfeng’s Blog. I think it shows how the details of individual stories somehow make things universal.

#5 Collin talks about The Brush Project at Collectors’ Quest. I never thought about it before, but artist brushes certainly are ephemeral.

#6 Yours truly interviews Troy Pedersen, owner of a real world vintage magazine store — in my neighborhood! Aren’t you jealous!

#7 Cliff, with the help of John Gingles of JG Collectibles, gives us A Peek at a Rare Harry Houdini Signed Photograph at Vintage Meld. Included is a tip on how to preserve and display such unique items.

#8 Frank reflects on This is Ephemera: Collecting Printed Throwaways, by Maurice Rickard at his blog, Antiquarian Holographica. Find out why Frank recommends the book and appreciates it for what others might call its short-comings.

#9 Val Ubell dishes about Silent Star Lucille Ricksen from an article in a 1925 issue of Jim Jam Jems over at Collectors’ Quest. I collect Jim Jam Jems myself, but don’t yet have that issue — so now I’m even more hot on the issue’s trail.

#10 Yours truly will be a presenter at the first Bookmark Collectors Virtual Convention. More details to follow at the official convention’s website; subscribe for updates!

#11 History Cellar shows us the Record of football deaths and injuries in 1900 at The History Cellar. Are things better or worse in the sport now?

#12 Yours truly finds out that her laminated in-flight instruction card for TWA’s Convair 880 jet holds a place in aviation disaster history, at Collectors’ Quest. Maybe you have items to help with the memorial?

#13 And if you’re not too sick of me &/or ephemera already, I’ve been interviewed on The Ephemera Show! Check out the podcast here.

While you’re here, let me also remind you that today’s the final day to submit for this month’s New Vintage Reviews Carnival — and, I’m hosting the next Book Review Blog Carnival. Please submit your posts!

Grandma Was A Swinger: Estate Sales & The Ephemera Of Women’s Lives

/ Deanna / 3 Comments

I have a habit of making stories from nearly anything. I see a person on the street, I give him or her a name, an occupation, a mood, a spouse or other family member, and a mission. In line at the grocery story, I love to watch what people are buying. A lovely, or hysterical, little vignette emerges. (One time, it was a man at 12:30 at night purchasing a huge bottle of vodka, kitty litter, and a Cornish game hen. The vodka bottle was nearly the size of the kitty litter canister. I had to keep myself from advising him not to sit down with the bottle until after he fed the cat — even if the hen was for the cat, sooner or later, a hungry cat will eat a passed out human.) Anywhoooo…

Visiting estate sales allows me to see more than things to buy; I see a life. A few objects create a sketch, a few more inks it in, and then my mind paints in all the rest. I can’t help myself. And I believe it’s not just more exercises for my imagination; I learn a lot this way.

At a recent estate sale, I discovered the recently deceased woman had been a bookkeeper, extremely active at the nearby church, and an excellent bowler. But there was more. I was lucky enough to find (and purchase) a few raunchy old pulps and a paperback on open marriages — extra bonus material included a bookmark at the chapter on renewing the contract, and a few Polaroids of the woman in her 1950’s wearing office attire in pinup poses. In order to not let her sons (who were running this estate sale) learn things they may have lived this long without knowing, I bought a whole bunch of stuff so that they’d be too busy tallying my bill to really see my items and do the math on their mom’s life.

Working at another estate, where ‘Grannie’ was moving to an assisted care facility, there was a lot of clutter. For practical reasons, it seems. Hidden in plastic waste cans, desk drawers, floor cubby-holes, were half-full (or half-empty, for you pessimists) bottles of booze. Mostly cheap sherry & brandy. So cheap was this hooch, I’d imagine you couldn’t tell one ‘flavor’ from the other — or from rubbing alcohol for that matter. Now we knew more about where ‘Grannie’ was moving and why. We just disposed of the bottles as we found them, without a comment, so as not to embarrass the family. We also found an overwhelming number of unfinished sewing and needlework projects; idol hands really might be the devil’s workshop.

I have been to more estate sales than I can count where the now-deceased elderly woman had been to art class in her younger years. Yes, she studied figure drawing — nude figure drawing. If I am lucky, I get to buy the portfolio. Often, I am not so lucky; but I do get to at least leaf through them. I do think ladies today ought to be educated thus. It’s something we, as a culture, should not have stepped away from.

This all gets me to thinking… Upon my death, at my estate sale, people will draw conclusions about me. Folks may think I took a nude figure drawing class — at least until they read the various names and dates on the drawings. They might think I had an open marriage. Lots of folks will think, due to my huge collection of pinups and vintage erotica, that I was a lesbian; people do it now.  Perhaps I should leave notes.

But women do leave notes. In fact, they document their whole lives. Especially those women who were wives and mothers. There’s a certain pattern to a mom’s life, and in these homes of women who have passed on, you see the evidence of it.

There are the piles of scrapbooks, letters, photos, and correspondence of intimate connections. The trail begins with cards, notes, and photos with written clues to romance. Perhaps there are diaries. Soon there are stacks of ‘baby books’, family photo albums, depositories of greeting cards, postcards, letters and other clues of a new family and social attachments. (As the family grows, whatever personal diaries there were may now cease; she is too busy caring for her family to document and journal her own life in a diary.)

As the children get older, these scrapbooks turn into group things. Work newsletters, bowling league gazettes, church group & luncheon publications… She continues her habits of saving and, if lucky, pasting. As the children age, she becomes an empty-nester, and the social group activities are intermittently interrupted with family wedding invitations, announcements of new born babies, thank-you-for-the-gift cards, and a few obituaries here and there. Some of the wealthier women traveled, and you’ll find volumes full of travel itineraries, plane & boat tickets, postcards, photographs and other travel souvenirs. But just as the books became less and less about family, so the books eventually become less and less about the living.

Too soon the scrapbooks become filled with page after page of obituaries, memorial service bulletins, the occasional thank you card from the younger generation for the flowers… Even if the obits are punctuated with the occasional wedding and birth announcement clippings, there are no cards, or handwritten notes, just newspaper clippings. Proof that human interaction is limited, the only handwriting now is the feathery-script of the woman making the book; a single script places the dates below the clippings. The scrapbook is a one-woman — one-way — endeavor. She continues to chronicle the past rather than the now. To fill her day as well as the books, she includes newspaper articles on ‘Remember When’ and ’50 Years Ago Today’ stories. These clippings dot the obits with more socially-sterile tanned documents of death and loss…

There you stand, holding these books, this evidence of life which was cut, pasted and collected by this woman who has passed on. In some cases, all you find are the drawers and boxes of intentions — loose papers that had patiently out-lasted their acidic attacks to survive the great “some day” when they would be placed into books to tell their stories; their brittleness a testimony to the bitterness of time that ran out.

Yet, when you bring the stacks of lovingly made books &/or old saved ephemera to the living, they say “Go ahead and sell it. Or pitch it if it’s not worth anything; I don’t want it.”

I cringe when they say that.

But I do as I am told, praying that someone will come along and adopt these books and boxes of ephemera, in some fashion adopting these women & their families — if they are willing to see the dead-paper forest for the trees of individual auction-priced items.

But sometimes, it’s what you don’t find which illuminates the most about lives.

Once I was working with my mom at an estate sale. We were clearing out the master bedroom when she opened the nightstand drawer and squealed so loud that I quickly turned from the closet to look. My mother stood clutching an item in her hand, her face was flushed and her eyes begged for help. “I shouldn’t have picked it up,” she said. I came over, removed the item from her hand, and discovering one of those small clothing shavers (the kind that you use to remove pills on your sweaters etc) I said “What’s the matter with a sweater shaver?” My mother sighed, her shoulders relaxed and she said “Oh, I thought it was a… well, you know…” My mother had thought it was a vibrator.

This, of all the finds over the years, has me thinking the most: Why haven’t I ever found vibrators at estate sales?

You might be quick to say that the families had already cleared the home of such things, out of a sense of propriety perhaps. But I’ve cleaned too many nightstands, bathrooms, closets, and under too many beds. I’ve found too many family skeletons, dark secrets, and old people diapers to believe this is the reason.

I’ve found all the ephemera documenting the most intimate parts of their lives, including their love lives. What’s more, I’ve found evidence of their sex lives — be it the old letters, pulp novels, erotic works, or ‘just’ their offspring. But never a sex toy.

I find it hard to believe that loneliness, drinking, sewing, bowling, church activities, and cut & pasting from the newspaper replaces the need for sexual gratification. It doesn’t work now, at the age of 45, so why would it be enough at 92?

Do families worry more about ridding mom or grandma’s home of her pocket rocket more than they do adult publications or evidence of other bodily functions? Could it be these women really have no sex drives? Or, even though vibes and sex toys have been around for ages, were these women unaware they existed — or without means to get themselves one? Or is there some other reason I do not find vibrators when preparing for estate sales?

Divorce: Is It Really Funny ‘Cuz It’s True?

/ Alessia / 2 Comments

At first glance, these “grounds for divorce” snippets from a 1949 issue of Quick magazine seem funny — but then you read them, and then…

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You realize that it’s not funny when a husband controls and limits his wife.  Sure, painting a car so that it’s too embarrassing to be seen in it sounds funny (and it sure isn’t flattering to Zona, making her look like a shallow materialistic person), but he has no right to limit her life like that.

And it sure, Tai-chien’s divorce story lends itself to a visual of his four wives disagreeing with his opinion that multiple marriages are OK — providing a punchline worthy of Leno. But Tai-chien broke the law — and probably four hearts too.  That’s not so funny, is it.

Whatjamacallit Wednesday: Myrtle The Turtle

/ Deanna / Leave a comment

My mother is the one who started it, this tradition of making up silly songs to sing to your kids. I’ve twisted it onto singing songs about my children, usually silly rhymes sung to melodies from television themes songs — like Hunter’s Boo-Bear, Meet The Boo-Bear based on The Flinstones.The kids used to love it, but then they grew older and not-so-much… I must now wait for them to grow old enough to appreciate them again.

One of Allie’s favorites was grandma’s Myrtle The Turtle who would “swim any hurdle — just to be near her Allie.” So when I found this Myrtle The Turtle, a story by Ernestine Cobern Beyer (illustrations by Mildred Gatlin Weber), inside the July 1964 issue of Wee Wisdom, I instantly thought of Allie and began singing the song. Thank goodness I was home alone flipping through the pages & singing, or… Well, let’s just say that if the kids who know the songs and presumably love me no longer can rise above my crazy singing to enjoy the special memories created by such silly songs, how can I expect the general public to?

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My mom bought me this vintage copy of Wee Wisdom when we were out antiquing together because she know how much I love Great Danes. Now that I’ve found Myrtle in here, I wonder if she’ll want it back? …I myself am tempted to remove the Myrtle pages (ack!) and frame them for Allie for Christmas. Better yet, just make really high quality scans, print two great copies and frame a set for each of them… (If either one of them pop in here, all bets — and gifts — are off.)

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Brown-Baggin’ It With An Anthology Based On Found Ephemera

/ Deanna / 4 Comments

requiem-for-a-paper-bag-found-anthologyRequiem for a Paper Bag: Celebrities and Civilians Tell Stories of the Best Lost, Tossed, and Found Items from Around the World is a Found Anthology put together by Davy Rothbart, creator of Found Magazine. In this collection, Rothbart gave his famous hipster (I say hipster, because when a book begins with multiple references to both ramen noodles and found porn, what else can you say?) friends an assignment: Share a personal story about something fascinating that you yourself have found, or write a piece of fiction sparked by a particular find.

The resulting works are a feast for anyone who has found something and pondered the meaning or occasion of it — and yes, I mean anyone. Because you don’t have to be an ephemera collector to have found a found scrap of paper, a photograph stuck in a book, some trinket and have either wondered or even made up a story about it yourself. (And if you say you haven’t done it, I’m calling you a dirty rotten liar!)

Like any well-done anthology, each of the of 67 pieces submitted by the celebri-hipsters is, ramen noodles and porn aside, a unique little gem.

Seth Rogen’s Wet & Wild may not have been shocking to me (I’ve got my own experiences with found porn; and who would be surprised Rogen would have a connection to porn?) but, like Steve Almond’s No Panties Allowed, the narrative adds to our collective illumination into the discomforts on the way to personal discoveries about sexuality.

Byron Case’s Trash Night reads so much like a memory of my own that even though I’ve never been lucky enough to make trash picking more than an annual event, I found myself nodding and laughing conspiratorially.

requiem-for-a-paper-bag-pageSarah Vowell’s What Else I Know About U.S. History (a written response to a scrap of note paper found by Rona Miller of South Bend, Indiana) is so very Vowell in voice, that I can hear the emo as if she’s speaking the piece — and yes, that’s a fabulous thing.

And while Bich Minh Nguyen’s quote probably remains the most poetic, it’s Heidi Julavits’ Woodstove Girl which is the most haunting for me… It lingers… I wish I knew if it was real or a fiction piece.

Overall Requiem is a tasty dish, suitable for deouring in one leisurely buffet-style meal or for savoring in snatched snack-sized portions ala carte.

Roofies In 1910

/ Deanna / 4 Comments

“Serious Charges Preferred Against Rich Furniture Dealer by Department Store Girl,” so reads a headline published in The Fargo Forum and Daily Republican, June 25, 1910; below the headline, a photograph of one Sadie Finklestein, “who has brought suit for $25,000 damages against a rich merchant. Declares that he drugged and mistreated her.”

What follows is a rather incomplete story, said to have taken place on January 15, 1910, in which Sadie S. Finkelstein “an 18-year-old-girl” (not an 18 year old woman) claims to have been drugged by one “Samuel Lyons, a wealthy west side furniture dealer.”

Finklestein and her friend, Sophia Mitchell, had just left a matinee and were eating ice cream in a store, when Lyons entered, accompanied by a “Louis” who is identified by his address and his status as a manager in one of Lyon’s stores. Finklestein was then introduced to Lyons by Mitchel, presumably their mutual acquaintance, upon which Lyons invited the women to Sullivan’s saloon for a lemonade. The women accepted.

“When I first placed the glass to my lips I noticed a peculiar taste to the lemonade, but thought nothing of it at the time. Soon, however, I began to feel dizzy and my head swam around and around until I almost lost consciousness. I immediately asked to be taken out into the air, where I thought I would feel better, and Mr. Lyons assisted me to the street. Taking me by the arm he led me to the rooming house at Thirtieth street and Wabash avenue, where I willingly went, not knowing the nature of the place and thinking he was endeavoring to assist me.”

The article then continues with the testimony of the next person to take the stand — a person identified only as “Hirschfeld” — who “denied that Miss Finkelstein had been drugged and stated that they remained in the hotel but 20 minutes.”

I don’t know how this Hirschfeld is connected to events or persons in this story. Is Hirschfeld the manager of one of Lyon’s stores — the afore mentioned Louis? Maybe he (if it is a he) is the owner of the non-respectable rooming house?

But if that drives one crazy with curiosity, the article simply ends with detailed description of Lyons’ businesses (presumed wealth) and even more detailed description of Lyons himself: “He sat through the session with a passive expression on his face, from which he constantly wiped the perspiration with a handkerchief.”

And so I am left wondering about the oldest (quasi) detailed account of a date rape drug related crime I’ve ever read. I shall have to return to the public library’s microfilm to search for any possible additional information, for the internet is of very little help…

The only Sadie Finkelstein I could find turns out to be a roaring 20’s Coe College hoax — most amusing in its own right, but certainly of no help to this story of a young woman who was quite possibly slipped a Mickey. And yes, the slipping of Mickeys was nothing new in 1910.

None of the names we are given turn anything up; the only lead lies in this sentence from the first paragraph: “Her story greatly resembles that told by Evelyn Thaw about Stanford White.”

Evelyn Thaw, aka Evelyn Nesbit, was involved in what was dubbed the “trial of the century” — the trial of her millionaire husband, Harry Thaw, for the 1906 murder of architect Stanford White. Apparently defending her husband, Evelyn Nesbit Thaw testified at the 1907 trial that she had been drugged and kept in a studio by White.

That Finklestein’s 1910 legal action would mention the Harry Thaw trials isn’t so surprising; after all, it wasn’t called “the trial of the century” for nothing. The Thaw trials were a sex scandal sensation, as Irvin S. Cobb, a reporter in 1907, explained:

You see, it had in it wealth, degeneracy, rich old wasters, delectable young chorus girls and adolescent artists’ models; the behind-the-scenes of Theatredom and the Underworld, and the Great White Way…. the abnormal pastimes and weird orgies of overly aesthetic artists and jaded debauchees. In the cast of the motley show were Bowery toughs, Harlem gangsters, Tenderloin panderers, Broadway leading men, Fifth Avenue clubmen, Wall Street manipulators, uptown voluptuaries and downtown thugs.

Did Sadie S. Finklestein’s saga suffer from a second-rate cast, relegating both she and her story to murky micorfilm and obsessive amateur historians while Nesbit continues to have books published about her? I continue to look for more on Sadie and her story; if you know anything, let me know.

Romancing The Van: Ephemera Proves There’s Someone For Everyone

/ Deanna / Leave a comment

Two years ago, hubby and went to the junk yard to get replacement doors for our van, Ookla. I was utterly fascinated with the junk yard itself and was almost disappointed when we found the right doors — but the adventure wasn’t quite over yet…

I sat down inside the van, to get out of the hot sun, while Derek went about the business of removing the doors from the junked van; I looked about. Clearly the last owner’s belongings had not been cleared out of the vehicle. Paper and trash were strewn about, but then there it was — a Playboy magazine. Water-damaged and smelling of mildew, but there it was, right next to a bottle of Axe body spray. Does it get any more kitsch than that?!

(Now, before I go any further, you should know a bit more about when we went to purchase Ookla, our old conversion van. When the salesman unlocked the vehicle and showed us the spiffy airline lights which ran along the floor and the ceiling, the first thing I said was, “Hey, was porn made in this van?” Both the salesman and Derek blushed. So I’m neither a prude nor surprised that the previous owner of this van was also marked with smut — it just seemed to be a sign that along with make, model and year, these doors were the right match for dear old Ookla.)

But before I could reach for that Playboy, my eye spotted something else…

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Yup, that there is a used tampon, folks.

I carefully reached for the Playboy. It was only the cover and badly damaged — but where there’s a cover… So I kept looking about, being very careful where I put any part of myself, least I find another tampon. Or worse.

Next, I spotted a notebook with a fancy silver foil cover. Only the first page was written on — a cheap attempt at fantasy fiction, with the main character discovering a magical notebook with a silver cover. (Yeah, I took that home for giggles later.)

I then found a bill for the van’s last oil change, paid for in 2005; been sitting here awhile, I guess.

I eventually found the insides of the Playboy and I put them with the magazine cover pages and the silver notebook just as Derek called for my help to hold the doors while he took out the last bolts.

I got out of the van, headed to the back. Standing there, just holding the doors, I scanned the insides of the van from this new angle. Immediately I note Star Wars light saber boxes — not one, but two of them. If the amateur sci-fi-slash-fantasy-fiction and Axe wasn’t proof enough of an under-sexed goober, the Star Wars weaponry was. This van was owned by a nerd. A nerd who, according to the oil change bill, had the first name of Jim.

Then I spy something else…

“Hey, Derek, what’s that by your foot?”

“Huh?”

“What’s that black thing by your foot?”

“I dunno. Let’s get this door off…”

We set the door down and I go to get a closer look at the black thing which was by his foot. It’s a bit of fabric… After the tampon, you’d think I’d be leery, but I had to know what it was, so I cautiously picked it up.

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In my hand I then held one very small pair of black nylon panties, bikini style — with lots of lace. I should’ve dropped them like they were on fire, but they were very, very clean looking. I started laughing.

Oh my God, it looks like Jimmy had himself a woman. At least once. A light-saber-playing, small-black-panty-wearing, menstruating, Playboy-accepting woman who could tolerate the smell of Axe.

There’s someone for everyone.

Cheap Thrills Thursday: Of Storks In My Collection & Contraception

/ Deanna / 1 Comment

shoo-vintage-stork-postcardA few months ago, a gentleman contacted me about one of the items in my “vintage stork” collection. The antique postcard, postmarked 1908, depicts a couple shoo-ing away a baby-delivering stork; the gentleman was James M. Edmonson, Ph.D., Chief Curator of the Dittrick Medical History Center and Museum at the Case Western Reserve University; and he was asking if I could get him a larger high resolution scan of the postcard for inclusion in a new gallery the museum was working on.

Could I? Would I? Um, this is exactly the sort of stuff that floats my boat! Not only is my object connecting me with others, with history, but the gallery is for Virtue, Vice, and Contraband: A History of Contraception in America — a new exhibit at the Dittrick Medical History Center and Museum that examines 200 years of the history of contraception in the United States.

So, naturally I did whatever I could to get the chief curator the graphic. And here it is, on the left-hand side of the display designed by guest curator Jimmy Wilkinson Meyer from The College of Wooster:

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The exhibit (launched September 17, with Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz, author of Rereading Sex: Battles over Sexual Knowledge and Suppression in the 19th Century America, at the Zverina Lecture), depicts the social and cultural climate that influenced birth control decisions in this country, says James Edmonson, chief curator at the Dittrick:

The exhibit reveals a longstanding ignorance of essential facts of human conception. For example, that a woman’s ovulation time was not discovered until the 1930s by two doctors, Kyusaku Ogino in Japan and Hermann Knaus in Austria. Before and after this finding, desperate women went to great length to prevent pregnancies. The exhibit explores less well known (and dangerous) methods such as douching with Lysol or eating poisonous herbs like pennyroyal, as well as conventional means such as the IUD or the Pill.

“A remarkable body of literature was available to assist newly married couples and others,” says Edmonson. “These books were not displayed publicly, on the coffee table, but hidden in a private place.”

He cites examples such as Charles Knowlton’s Fruits of Philosophy, or the Private Companion of Young Married People (1832) and the popular 18th century book on anatomy, reproduction, and childbirth, Aristotle’s Masterpiece.

In addition to literature, the exhibit draws upon and incorporates the vast collection of contraception devices donated to the university in 2005 by Percy Skuy. The Canadian collector had amassed the world’s largest collections of such devices over the course of four decades.

The exhibit starts in the early 1800s, before Anthony Comstock, lobbied Congress to pass the Comstock Act of 1873, responding to what he viewed as a moral decline after the Civil War.

“It was a watershed year. The Comstock Act made it illegal to sell contraceptives or literature about contraception through the mail,” says Edmonson.

While Congress legally barred contraception, a black market for such products and literature flourished. Comstock went undercover to search out and turn in violators of his law in his crusade to stamp out what he defined as smut and obscenity.

In the early 20th century, women’s advocate Margaret Sanger opened a birth control clinic and research institute, flaunting the Comstock Law. Eventually her efforts evolved into the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

The exhibition highlights some ancient methods of birth control and presents information about the influence of religion on contraception.

“We wanted to have a multi-faceted look at the topic of contraception,” Edmonson says.

Future plans are to expand this exhibit with a companion book, a kiosk where additional information can be accessed on the birth control collection, and an extensive online site available worldwide.

I love that my old postcard is hanging out with Margaret Sanger — well, it does that here at home, but now it’s part of the larger public story. And that’s cool.

Now I must get myself to Cleveland, Ohio to see it!

Best Magazine Covers Of The Year

/ Deanna / Leave a comment

Over at Pink Populace Paparazzi Parade Exposé, Alessia (of Relationship Underarm Stick) posted a challenge for all of us to participate in & discuss Amazon’s Best Magazine Covers Contest; these are some of my votes & thoughts.

I might be a lesbian, or at least bi, because I bypassed the obvious beefcake of Matthew Mitcham & Rafael Nadal and voted Angelina’s Vanity Fair Cover as The Sexist Cover.

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Too bad I also couldn’t vote it Most Delicious Cover too.

But that honor had to go to Bon Appetit (August 2008) — mainly because something had to get the bad taste out of my mouth from the October 2008 cover of The New York Times Upfront featuring some kid biting into a (live?) raw fish head; and I can choke down ice cream in most any circumstances.

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Speaking of stuffing your pie-hole…

The Advocate‘s May 2009 issue illustrating the Porn Panic feature is awesome. I want that as a poster. So it got my vote for Best in News & Business.

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For Best in Fashion & Beauty, I simply couldn’t — wouldn’t — vote for the February 23, 2009 issue of New York. While I’d love to support a cover featuring a completely un-retouched photo of a model, I simply will not support Kate Moss. Won’t my future payments for her methadone treatments be enough?

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So it was the May 2009 Elle with the submerged Barrymore which got my vote for Best in Fashion & Beauty; because fashion & beauty are both about unrealistic fantasies, and I’m fine with that. (I am not fine, however, with people who contort, mutilate and harm themselves in pursuit of such fantasy — nor with those who wish to impose fantasy as a reality.)

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However, I must state that the Elle cover beat the October 2008 cover of W, featuring a delicious Anne Hathaway, by a (long-held) breath.

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Another close category was Best in Science, Technology & Nature. I was torn between the beauty of Andrew Zuckerman’s portrait of a blue-and-yellow macaw on the cover of the August 2008 issue of Audubon and the effective use of typography on the May 25, 2009 issue of New York.

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In the end I voted for the macaw; but I now feel bad, like I gave New York “the bird.” But then, once I saw the Audubon cover, I started thinking about Fred, the blue & gold I almost bought years ago, and was distracted… Which is contrary to the “why distraction may actually be good for you” story New York was illustrating, so things may have ended as they ought to have… But my distraction was not good for you, New York.

While I enjoyed Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart’s Entertainment Weekly cover, when it comes to Best Obama Cover, the clear choice — the only choice — is the May 3, 2009 cover of The New York Times Magazine. This incredible portrait of an intelligent, concerned & pensive man was neither posed nor done in a studio.

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It’s a good thing for Angie & Vanity Fair that this cover wasn’t an option for Sexist cover; bad thing for me though — this photo of Obama makes me hot.

The Colbert & Stewart cover got my vote for Best in Entertainment & Celebrity, though. (And with Colbert’s Nation behind him, there’s no doubt it will win at least one of the categories; let’s hope it’s this one, not Best Obama cover.)

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Real Simple (June 2008) got my vote for Best in House & Home.

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That, my friends, is the dream of all dreams. Forget your fancy artistic homes that you know are no more livable than the fashion fantasy cover of Drew Barrymore underwater, organization like that is something far more compelling… It’s functional beauty. I hope. It’s a nirvana I’ve long imagined… Especially when searching for that mauve pencil — one that’s not too pink, not to lavender, but mauve.

Andy Anderson’s photo is so incredible, that I quickly voted for it as Best in Lifestyle — it wasn’t until I was here, blogging, that I realized I voted for Garden & Gun (December 2008/January 2009). Garden & Gun?! That’s a magazine?! It sounds more like some word association game held by college dorm dwellers passing a joint… But, uh, OK. And pass the Cheetos, please.

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The last category was Best in Sports & Fitness. As a sedentary blogger, the most exercise I get is walking to the mailbox & carrying my magazines back to the house, so what do I know?

In the end, I voted for the Sports Illustrated cover, bypassing more beefcake — Justin Timberlake on the cover of Golf. I could argue that golfers get about as much exercise as I do, or that I the SI cover had two nearly-bare male bods; but honestly, I just wanted to start organizing my desk so that it would look like the cover of Real Simple.

Now it’s your turn; tell me who you voted for in Amazon’s Best Magazine Covers Contest. (Or at least just vote — you could win a $10,000 Amazon.com gift card!)

When You Accept Being A Woman…

/ Deanna / 1 Comment

accept-being-a-womanSaturday was odd. It started out a funny sort of awkward, had some slight awkwardness in the pursuit of kitschiness, and then by dinner time, went full-throttle into just plain awkward. But the real kicker of it all is that at about 10 PM, I went to the bathroom and made the discovery that I was starting my period — and you know what my first thought was? I thought to myself, “Oh, that explains it.” As if my freakin’ period & all the hormones it implies were somehow responsible for the stuff that happened that day.

Could hormones make my eyes more sensitive to my neighbor’s blinding shirt? Sure. And maybe you could argue that my psychic prediction of his request was female intuition inspired by my moon time. But the irony of his request, the still-drunk-the-morning-after oddness was not my doing. And there’s no way in heck that the stationary dry hump I received from a drooling disabled girl can be attributed to my soon-to-be-on-the-rag status. But still, that was my first thought.

Why?

Because we women are told that we are nutty when we’re on the rag. We’re told, directly or via insidious “jokes,” that strange things occur because we menstruate. Or because we are pregnant. We women are driven by our hormones, you know, to the extent that anything & everything outside of us is our hormones’ fault — or at the very least our hormones color our perceptions. Our bosses aren’t asshats, our husbands aren’t abusive, those guys aren’t too handsy; we’re too bitchy, too sensitive, too moody.

The message gets pounded into your brain, your psyche, to the point that you no longer have faith in your own response, your own experience — you see a bit of menstrual blood and there you are, questioning whether or not the days events actually occurred.

Accepting being a woman does not include accepting the notion that menstruation invalidates your experiences — or that you should shush yourself, counter your beliefs, or otherwise weaken your voice.

The “inner yous” the women need to clean, the emotional douching that needs to be done, is to get rid of the notion that our biology makes us crazy. Because the notion that as women our perceptions are all wrong because we have hormones is the crazy one.

Direct Marketing Crank Response, 1917

/ Deanna / Leave a comment

An amazing entry I found in The Journal of American History, Volume XI, January-February-March, No. 1, (copyright, 1917, The National Historical Society) which speaks as much to direct marketing responses as it does to attitudes about media. The National Historical Society, seeking to increase membership and circulation of the journal, had been “prosecuting a very extensive postal card campaign.” One of the recipients of the direct marketing response cards sent in a reply:

Dear Sirs:

I respectfully decline to become a member of your society. I have absolutely no faith in American History. When the history of this great war will be written then you will have to take your information from the American newspapers, which have published more lies during the last 2 years than have been published since the beginning of the world. Yours truly,

C. SEITZ.

The journal also notes that the correspondence was sent to the New York Tribune, where a representative of the newspaper tried interview Mr. Seitz by telephone. All Mr. Seitz would say in reply was, “You are all liars. I would not speak to you.”

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History Is Ephemeral Carnival, 5th Edition

/ Deanna / Leave a comment

history-is-ephemeral_big Welcome to edition number five of the History Is Ephemeral Carnival, where ephemera & history lovers share & obsess. (If you’ve got posts about old paper, please submit them to this monthly carnival via the carnival’s submission form.)

Derek (my hubby) dishes on Hell Bank Notes at Collectors’ Quest.

Monda gives us a little accidental Southern history in Reading the Minutes posted at Fresh Ribbon.

I predict that the next hot ephemera trend will be in ERA collectibles posted at Collectors’ Quest.

The Dean talks about ephemera as local history at Collectors’ Quest.

Frank shows us groovy Grateful Dead holography over at Antiquarian Holographica.

Val Ubell shows us adorable cabinet photos featuring children and vintage photographs featuring ladies’ hats at Collectors’ Quest.

At Things and Other Stuff, Cliff shows off 1936 Godfrey Phillips Stars of the Screen Tobacco Cards — don’t miss the gallery!

At Ephemera, Marty shows us golden age of Hollywood autographs as well as a letter sent to Marilyn Monroe.

My husband also gets an Honorable Mention for his review of David Downie’s new novel Paris City of Night, a story that combines terrorism, auction house fraud, murder, photography (daguerreotypes), and Nazis into a mystery.

And I remind all you collectors and history fans to help museums! Puh-leeeze.

Sign Of The Times: 1943

/ Deanna / 2 Comments

safety-garb-for-women-workers-1943

You’ve heard of safety shoes, right? Well, here’s a safety bra straight out of the history books of home front WWII.

Via The U.S. National Archives at Flickr, the original caption reads: Safety garb for women workers. The uniform at the left, complete with the plastic “bra” on the right, will prevent future occupational accidents among feminine war workers. Los Angeles, California. Acme, ca. 1943.

Feminist Aims All Nonsense, Says Eugenist (1932)

/ Deanna / Leave a comment

Via Eugenics Archive, a clipping from the New York Herald dated August 23, 1932 — a review of Third Eugenics Congress:

feminist-aims-all-nonsense-says-eugenicist-new-york-herald-tribune-8-23-1932-review-of-third-eugenics-congress-including-immigration-policy

If you don’t have time to read the whole thing, here’s a snippet that might change your mind:

Feminist Aims All Nonsense, Says Eugenist
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Dr. Sanders Holds Sex Equality Nonexistent Physically and Socially
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Favors Large Families
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Deplores Motif of Slenderness in Fashion World
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The size of families was one of the dominating topics in the papers read yesterday at the Third International Congress of Eugenics held in the American Museum of Natural History, and Dr. J. Sanders, of Rotterdam, proved himself to be the leading advocate of the large family.

He deplored feminism, saying that the so-called equality of the sexes was nonsense physiologically, biologically, socially and politically. He urged women hasten back to the fireside, give up their outside aspirations and produce healthy babies in quantity.

Dr. Sanders, a genial Hollander with the clear, penetrating blue eyes of his race, and curly fair hair, gave the successful business and professional women short shrift in his spirited address, delivered in perfect English.

“Nowadays women prefer fashion to children,” said Dr. Sanders scathingly, but with a twinkle in his eye, “for large families are inimical to the slim figure. Fashion designers should cooperate by introducing models which do not emphasize slenderness.

“Woman is indeed man’s equivalent, but they each have their own particular task to perform in the world. The woman’s main duty always has been and always will be the family. The university woman must know, understand, feel that marriage and children represent, after all is said and done, the highest ideal. This can be so only if women accept the task which nature has imposed upon them — the care of their offspring.”

Remembering Retro Risque T-Shirt Iron-Ons

/ Deanna / 11 Comments

retro-lets-boogie-iron-on-t-shirt-transfer Back in the day, you couldn’t go to a mall and avoid a visit to (or the smell of) the t-shirt shop.

There you could select your t-shirt style (ringers were de rigueur, but then the baseball shirts with contrasting sleeves came in — oooh!), get your size, choose a color, pick out the funkiest iron-on, and even have it all personalized with letters (including glittery & puffy versions) spelling out your name.

Ah, those were the days, my friend…

Sure, now you can use your computer to design your own graphic and print it out at home on some iron-on paper and iron it on yourself (if you even own or can find your iron), but it’s not the same.

stolen-from-mabels-cat-house-customer-comes-firstDon’t argue with me; it’s not the same, I tell you!

The 70’s were the Golden Age of Iron-Ons.

There were rock iron-ons, iron-ons with drug references and slang (that you had to be cool to ‘get’) — all sorts of stuff.

But the best, the most memorable, were the risque & down-right lewd t-shirts which had designs running the polarized gambit of responses to women’s liberation. You had sexist men, trying to exert their dominance through sexual bravado, sometimes cloaked as jokes, one one end; and on the other end, women trying to make their point that they were equal & could be dirty too.

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I’m not sure that Typists Do It Sitting Down was exactly liberating or showing support of the ERA (more likey to feed the naughty secretary mythology), but, hell, they were worn by the libbers at PTA meetings — I mean literally worn at PTA meetings.

70s-male-chauvinist-pigSometimes a chauvinist pig & a demonstrating libber had on the same shirts. Was “Sex is Like a Bank Account, as soon as you make a Withdrawl, you lose Interest” supposed to be sex positive? Or was it ironic? You didn’t always know…

I’m pretty sure a lot of the adults wearing them didn’t know either.

It was confusing.

I’m sure part of the reason so many of these iron-ons and finished tees were seared into my brain as if the press-iron had melted the plastic goo-graphics into my brain had a lot to with my age.

retro-kitsch-pervert-of-the-yearBeing a teen-aged girl standing behind a guy who’d just made/bought a “mustache rides” tee — who smiled at you just a little too long — makes you understand the classless menace even if you don’t know what that sort of ride is… And then, when a friend’s older sibling tells you what it means, you die another special little death.

Ah, good times.

But what’s really surprising is to look at what’s left of these original retro iron-ons and realize just how many you don’t understand. It’s not just that I don’t recall seeing them before; I honestly don’t understand them.

retro-lab-iron-onLike “LAB Large American Breasts” — was that for men or for women? The nipples on the ‘B’ indicate, a large American no. And was “LAB” supposed to be a parody of another LAB? The League of American Bicyclists? The Liberation Army… Uh. I don’t know.

Maybe it’s just as simple as men boasting they wanted big breasted women & I’m over thinking it.

But what about this? If “The more I know MEN… The better I like my DOG” was an iron-on for woman to wear, does that mean “The More I Know Women… The Better I Like My PUSSY!” was for men? Um, that iron-on doesn’t really transfer — the concept, I mean (I’m sure the image went/goes on a shirt fine). …There aren’t any rainbows or triangles to signify any LGBT significance.

the-more-i-know-men-iron-onretro-the-more-i-know-women

Maybe I’m just too obtuse. Or too cerebral… This was the 70’s. I probably shouldn’t expect a lot.

But I want to add these iron-ons to my collection. That way, as usual, I’ll have some time to ponder the individual messages and their part in the collective message — and maybe that will help me make more sense of it all. Maybe.

hands-off-my-tuts