Modern Woman Mondays: Arm Yourself Against Those Pesky Little Moths!

Article by Louise Price Bell, from a vintage issue of Modern Woman (circa 1945; I didn't put the scan in a proper folder, so I don't remember which issue).

We Always Knew Joan Crawford Had A Big Head

If you think Joan Crawford looks like a bobble head on this vintage trading card, check out the rest of the movie stars on the 1949 set of Turf Cigarette cards.


Vintage Mildred Pierce card found via The Golden Age Of Hollywood Ning Group.

Thanks For The Reindeer Sweater

This sweater is proof that the dreaded holiday reindeer sweater has been with us for at least 70 or 80 years. (Long live retaliation via fruit cake!)

Girls Have Always Read Comic Books

Photograph by Ruth Orkin, New York, 1947.

Early Product Placement

An ad for ice in the official magazine of the ice industry, Modern Woman Magazine (1941, V10 n5), with very recognizable beverage bottles.

Craft-Scan Friday: Make Amusing Table Favors From Fruits & Vegetables

Mrs. George C. Wagoner of Glendale, California, must have never been told by her momma not to play with her food; here she show how to make a tiny orchestra from hairpins, paper clips, modeling clay, and a basket of common fruits and vegetables. Talk about your anthropomorphic fruits and veggies!



Found inside this vintage issue of Modern Woman Magazine.

Kilgallen's Boo-Boo

Inside Quick magazine (November 12, 1949), in the fashion pages (page 45), this lovely bit about one of my favorite personalities of yesteryear, Dorothy Kilgallen:

In New York: Dorothy Kilgallen (columnist-radio star) complained on the air that she had to wear a white Band-Aid on her cut finger to a party... said it looked awful. Next day Johnson & Johnson send an assortment of Band-Aids in shocking pink, cassia, leaf green, lavender. Will she start a trend?

Answer: Apparently not. Unless Quick failed to report Band-Aids with SpongeBob SquarePants -- or I guess at that time it would have been The Shadow? (Only he knows.)

This issue of the vintage magazine has Esther Williams on the cover, and featured on pages 48 - 51. I sent scans of the article to Here's Looking Like You, Kid. 'Cuz I'm nice like that.

Dauntless Dale Isn't Sheep-ish

From Quick magazine, October 31, 1949: "Karen Hutchinson, 2, of Ontario, Cal., simultaneously enjoys a free ride and shows off the prize-winning form of 'Dauntless Dale,' a 1 1/2-year-old Hampshire ram which took Junior Division honors at last year's Los Angeles County Fair. Rams, especially prize winners, don't usual pose so willingly."

Dames & Dogs #2

John Rawlings photograph from the April 15, 1945, Vogue; via A Tad Too Much Tan For Taupe.

WWII Home Front Greeting Card

It's hard sometimes to believe we are at war; we not only don't make the sacrifices former generations have had to make, but we don't note the war in typical everyday ways. Exhibit A), this WWII home front greeting card. (The racism also marks the time period.)

You'd Have To Be Drunk To Wear 'Em

This is what I'd call a Holy Grail Kitsch Find: a vintage pair of "happy sloshed pipe cleaner men earrings". Dude, I know what we're making next Girl's Night... Because it probably helps to be tipsy to make 'em too.

How To Talk To The Soda Jerk

From Calling All Girls, December, 1945.

Modern Woman Monday: A Margaret Sanger Rhyme

Found in the February 22, 1941 issue of Liberty, a bemusing note sent in from a reader regarding Margaret Sanger:

7 Maids A-Milking -- To Music

Ad for Bag Balm found in the February 1943 issue of Farm Journal and Farmer's Wife magazine.

Women's Magazine History

Ladies, women's magazines say you are incomplete. Well, are you?



(Yup, that's another one of my blogs -- Pink Populace Paparazzi Parade Exposé is group blog.)

Warning: Your Male Bosom Is Bunchy

That's news from The American Shirt Front -- at the informal dance, anyway. You can avoid this and other shirt mishaps this holiday season by wearing Arrow Shirts. At least the 1941 variety, as this ad was found in that year's Liberty magazine.

Don't Mess With The Gene Autry Fans

They know how to pen a scathing letter to the editor.



I wonder how they felt about Autry being being misspelled.

Liberty magazine, February 22, 1941.

Yeast, The New Way -- And You'll Like It

You'll like yeast this new way -- um, why is she lifting her leg like that? What kind of yeast are we talking about here?



From Liberty, February 22, 1941.

Once, I Could've Learned To Care For Him

But that was ten years ago.


More from Calling All Girls, December, 1945.

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants Of 1942

Tales of Manhattan: the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants of 1942. Only about a black formal tailcoat. And for grown-ups.

Recognize Me Without The Fruit On My Head?

I'm Carmen Miranda.

"Don't You Know There's A Peace On?"

More lingo from the "Jabberwocky and Jive" column in Calling All Girls, December, 1945.

The Corn Is Green -- And 1945's Knee-Deep In It

In Calling All Girls (December, 1945), Nancy Pepper, Fashion Editor, has a kitschy column called "Jabberwocky and Jive". This bit is teaches the not-so-cool kids on the cool lingo the kids were using that day based on Hollywood.

Here are some of my favorites (you can click the image to read the larger scan).

B 'n B -- That's what you call them if they're Co-Starring of Going Steady, on account of they're a Bogie 'n Bacall.

HI, VAN--HOW'S JOHNSON? -- Instead of plain "Hi." There are lots of them -- like "Hi, Garson -- how's Pidgeon?"

HEAVENLY HURD -- A smooth boy. Inspired by the Man of your Screams in "Dorian Gray."

CROON ANOTHER, CROSBY -- Means "Tell me more."

THE CORN IS GREEN -- You say that when anyone tells a corny story.

Loser's End

I love the vibrantly illustrated covers on these vintage 1940's books. If only I had more shelf space :sigh:

When Illustrations Collide

Jay Hyde Barnum's illustration of a sexy songbird with a lifted hem shares the page with an ad for Perfect Circle Triple-Action piston rings.



The incongruity of such juxtaposition of pinup with what I lovingly call 'racing troll babies' makes me stare long and hard at this vintage magazine page for clues... At first I thought sex appeal was being applied by Perfect Circle, but the three babies, a regular gimmick used by the company, are drawn by Pete Hawley. Why the editors decided to print the pinup facing the ad is unknown to me -- but I'm sure it helped Perfect Circle sell piston rings.

Sani-Flush Your Gunk Away

We've all heard how Lysol's been used to clean the err, "female engine"; but did you know that Sani-Flush was once peddled as the do-it-yourself car radiator flush?

No White Spots On Your Scottie Dog

We know it's after Labor Day so you may be adhering to the old "no white" rule, but FYI, if you need a product to whiten your shoes that won't rub off on your dog...



We don't think Carbona Shoe Whitener should have promoted kicking or "rubbing" dogs with shoes by making such product claims, but it was 1941. Things were different then.

The Unknown Comic - Artist

From The Saturday Evening Post, June 14, 1941, a full-page ad for Hotpoint electric refrigerators and ranges. The top portion features a comic, Just Around The Corner: Ed And Alice Open Up The Summer Cottage, which extols the virtues of having appliances in your summer cottage "just like in town." So much for getting away from it all & roughing it.

And no one ever shows up to help me move.


Having a title seems to signify a series -- be it a regular comic series or an ad campaign -- but it's unsigned. The style is so familiar... Capp? Marge? I honestly don't know; neither does Google. If you do, please share.

Here's the bottom portion of the ad, in case that helps.

Your Homework

From Making Words Work, 1942, a "Thinking about the picture" assignment:

HELLO, JACK!

Thinking about the picture
Is Jack having a good time? How can you tell? What is he doing?
What kind of boy do you think he is? What kind of day is it?

"Gee, Mom, Them's An Important Collection!"

An article published in The American Home, October, 1942, extolling the virtues of & importance in collecting as a child -- no matter how cluttered it makes their room.


Click the image to read the scan of this still wonderfully appropriate advice by Clifford Parcher.

Teen-Age Know-How From 1946

From my collection of etiquette books, a few pages from Your Manners Are Showing, by Betty Betz (1946).

First, how to be a proper street walker, for him and her.




Don't tell naughty jokes!



I'm not sure if this last one is to say that eating while walking in public is rude (who hasn't eaten an ice cream cone thus?) -- or is a warning to ladies to satisfy her man at home...


Charmed? I'm sure; but find your own copy on eBay.

Mrs. Alexander's Advice To Negro Youth

In 1948, this was a nicer way to say, "Don't be uppity!"



Sadie T. M. Alexander comic page via University of Pennsylvania Archives.

When Ephemera Leaves Bruises

No, I'm not speaking of the bruises along my arms from carrying all those heavy boxes of paper but of the foxing which can occur, leaving marks on the people on the pages. Like on this Arthur Crouch pinup from this 1941 cover of Collier's.


Looks like that tomato's got a bruised arm.