(L) This 1955 ad by New Departures Ball Bearings looked into the future predicting a home laundry for the happy homemaker of 1965 that would wash, dry, iron and fold your laundry. We’re still holding our breath for that one.(R) Post war promises- Naturally there would always be a Ford in our future

Past Perfect- New Years Predictions

The New Year has always been the traditional time for crystal ball gazing offering tantalizing predictions for our imagined future.

Who can resist pondering what great scientific discoveries and technological wonders the future will hold.

For forward thinking post war Americans, peering into the future was a favorite pastime.

So it was with great interest that on my very first New Years day 1956 my mid-century mom gazed ahead 20 years for a glimpse of life in 1975.

My future; the one my parents would dream about for me.

New Years Day 1956

On the first day of January in 1956  New Yorker’s were hit with an icy, blustery snowstorm and it showed no signs of stopping.  Cars were at a standstill as Ford Fairlaines were replaced by flexible flyers. The eerie suburban silence was broken only by the occasional sound of kids building forts in the snow drifts.

As the snow continued to fall silently, the weathermen advised everyone to stay put in their igloos. Fortunately for us, we were as well stocked with frozen food as any Eskimo.

Snow bound in our suburban ranch house, Dad raised the temperature on the thermostat to a balmy 80 degrees and why not; oil was still the biggest bargain in the American budget.

By late afternoon, with the dishes washed, laundry folded, and my baby bottles sterilizing in the electric sterilizer patiently awaiting refill of baby formula, Mom could take  a rare moment off for herself.

My 3-year-old brother was busily engaged with the TV. Displaying  the skill of a safe cracker,  he delicately adjusted the large knobs on the mammoth mahogany encased set- one for the snowy picture,  another for the sound.

Mom could sit back, relax and give me my afternoon feeding while flipping through the latest issue of  Everywomans Magazine.

 All The News Thats Fit to Print

Dad  as usual had his nose buried in the newspaper. It was a slow news day. Other than the story of Sudan declaring its independence from Egypt and the UK, and Egypt’s Nasser  declaring his New years resolution  “to conquer Palestine,” the paper was filled with the usual new year predictions.

Dad read one optimistic article aloud:

“Man is being thrust into the future even as he lives in the present,” the article buoyantly noted. “Mankind has already had a mouth-watering taste of the meal that technology is cooking up. Such modern wizardry’s as plastics, miracle yarns, TV, air conditioning and frozen foods, once the dream children of imaginative inventors has become commonplace…”

High Hopes

Despite the cold weather and the Cold War, everyone was filled with high hopes  not only for the new year but for the future.

Never before had a country so heralded the future never before had a country so surpassed ones highest hopes.

Back to the Future 

Predictions of Family Life 20 Years From Now. Vintage illustration from article “Everywoman’s Magazine” Jan. 1956 illustration by H.B.Vestal
Based on the film “People, Products and Progress-1975″ produced by Chamber of Congress of the United States with the cooperation of industries and trade associations.

As Mom read through the woman’s magazine, she skimmed over the feature  story on family weight planning  chock full of helpful hints on “how to slim husbands painlessly” and “add pounds to thin kiddies.”

Suddenly one article caught Moms eye. The colorful  feature promised to transport the reader 20 years ahead with a preview picture of life in America in 1975. Envisioning future technology, it ventured a guess at what we might find in a 1975 home.

It was hard to imagine life getting any better.

 Tomorrows Living Today

One end of the year ad in 1945 offered a glimpse into that promised post war world “Madam lets look to your future” announced the headline.
“What will it be like-your bright new world of tomorrow? New styles…new comforts new conveniences…new joy of living All kinds of marvelous things to brighten your days to lighten your burdens to make life more enjoyable than ever before. “

 In 1956, Mom felt we were already living tomorrow’s life today.

Only 10 years earlier many of the post war dreams envisioned by manufacturers busy with war production , had come true.

Now, it was a world of no waiting- no wondering- no defrosting- no fuss- no muss. Everything was long wearing, fast drying, king sized, the last word, the most convenient, working twice as fast.

(L) Vintage ad Monsanto Plastic through the House 1948 (R) Vintage Westinghouse ad

From morning to night the colors of the rainbow were all around me thanks to all the gay and festive plastic toys and household items that surrounded me. From my pink polyethylene teething ring and vinylite pacifier right down to my cheerful Playtex waterproof Happy Baby pants in five happy lollipop colors, these laboratory-born wonder materials would make life easier and more convenient.

Yes, mine would be a sugar-frosted world of colorfast, frost-free fun.

Predictions of Family Life 20 years from Now

Predictions of Family Life 20 Years From Now. Vintage illustration from article “Everywoman’s Magazine” Jan. 1956 illustration by H.B.Vestal
Based on the film “People, Products and Progress-1975″ produced by Chamber of Congress of the United States with the cooperation of industries and trade associations.

Intrigued by what the crystal ballgazers would foresee for 1975, Mom read the futuristic article aloud to me in the hopes of offering a guided tour of what we might find 20 years from now  – my own world of tomorrow.

With a dramatic flourish they announced spectacular changes for the American family – “homes, food shopping and transportation of all kinds will undergo tremendous transformations. Some of the great advances to be expected in the realm of family life by 1975″ were lavishly illustrated .

Predictions of Family Life 20 Years From Now. Vintage illustration from article “Everywoman’s Magazine” Jan. 1956 illustration by H.B.Vestal
Based on the film “People, Products and Progress-1975″ produced by Chamber of Congress of the United States with the cooperation of industries and trade associations.

“Tomorrow’s kitchen will be a triumph of controlled gadgetry,” Mom read with wonder and  the same enthusiasm as though reading me a bed time  fairy tale which in a sense it was.

The article explained:

“You’ll probably have a dishwasher and clothes washer in which ultra sonic rays do the cleaning without mechanical agtation.” Mom gushed with obvious delight, visualizing her future homemaker daughter in this most modern of homes. “When you telephone your image will be flashed on a screen.for the party at the other end, and vice  versa. TV sets will be wafer thin and hung lie pictures. You’ll wear a two-way wrist radio. And your electronically guided automobile will have an  automatic parking brain.”

Predictions of Family Life 20 Years From Now. Vintage illustration from article “Everywoman’s Magazine” Jan. 1956 illustration by H.B.Vestal
Based on the film “People, Products and Progress-1975″ produced by Chamber of Congress of the United States with the cooperation of industries and trade associations.

Predictions of Family Life 20 Years From Now. Vintage illustration from article “Everywoman’s Magazine” Jan. 1956 illustration by H.B.Vestal
Based on the film “People, Products and Progress-1975″ produced by Chamber of Congress of the United States with the cooperation of industries and trade associations.

Some of the great advances to be expected in the realm of family life by 1975 are shown in the pictures.

Predictions of Family Life 20 Years From Now. Vintage illustration from article “Everywoman’s Magazine” Jan. 1956 illustration by H.B.Vestal
Based on the film “People, Products and Progress-1975″ produced by Chamber of Congress of the United States with the cooperation of industries and trade associations.

Profit with Progress

The upbeat article was based on a 28 minute film that was put out in 1955 entitled  “People, Products and Progress-1975″ produced by Chamber of Congress of the United States with the cooperation of industries and trade associations.

Interested readers were advised  they could get a more detailed insight into life in 1975 from the  film that was made  available for showing at local PTA meetings, Rotary and other clubs, and church groups.

Predictions of Family Life 20 Years From Now. Vintage illustration from article “Everywoman’s Magazine” Jan. 1956 illustration by H.B.Vestal
Based on the film “People, Products and Progress-1975″ produced by Chamber of Congress of the United States with the cooperation of industries and trade associations.

“Does tomorrows world intrigue you?” the article asked the reader at the end.

“All these wonderful things will be possible” they assured us, “so long as we maintain our free market economy, our American way of life.”

Of course by 1975  the future had turned from promise to pessimism. A post Watergate America saddled by an oil embargo, inflation, recession and dangerous pollution,  had seen the future and nothing had turned out as advertised.

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

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Back to the Future

Back to the Future PtII Retro Tech

Back to the Future PtIII Tech for the Suburbs

While thousands of new products and technologies will be shown off at the annual Consumer Electronics Show 2013 getting under way this week, I take a look back at the future technological wonders we dreamed about for the post war years.

As a forward-looking people Americans have fervently welcomed technology and invention into every aspect of our lives.

Especially during the deprivations and sacrifices of WWII , the glittering promises of a post-war world filled with unheard of conveniences and an abundance of tantalizing technological advances as presented by Madison Avenue, gave hope to a war-weary public.

To learn about the future of the past, I take a look at a series of ads run by Seagram’s Canadian Whiskey entitled Men Who Plan Beyond Tomorrow. that ran during the early post-war years.

Tomorrows Automatic Sleep Comfort

Vintage ad 1945 Seagram’s Whiskey – Men Who Plan Beyond Tomorrow

Long before Apple’s smart thermostat The Nest, the  futuristic home  heating and cooling device that anticipates your temperature needs, the  men of tomorrow envisioned automatic sleep comfort in your own home.

“Twist the dials, and one control Panel will do all this: (1) Regulate window to admit filtered cool air at night…automatically close when you awake.(2) turn on your pin-point bed light and direct its rays to wherever you want them. (3) Slide closet door out of wall and swing out clothes, for your selection. (4) Raise mattress for ease in making bed. (5) Turn on your favorite radio program. This built-in, automatic comfort is already planned for tomorrow’s homes!”

The American in the post-war, was going to live in a house built of glass, plastic and maybe a slab or two of steel or aluminum which was bought in  a department store, delivered in a van and erected in a few hours.

It was radiant heated, this house; it stayed warm in subzero winter with the windows wide open, and in the summer, by a switch of a button it would be cooled with equal effectiveness. It was a fluorescent lighted domicile that was sound proof, dust-proof, termite proof. And germ proofed ( by ultraviolet lamps).

And if it grew a little smudgy with use, its plastic coated interior could be thoroughly cleaned with a damp cloth. It had a bathroom with a built-in sunlamp, a kitchen with automatic dishwasher, automatic laundry and ultra short wave diathermic cooking controls that did the dinner to a perfect turn while the little lady of the house took in a movie at the local theatre. ( assuming movie houses were able to exist in competition with home television.)

Commuting of Tomorrow

Vintage ad 1945 Seagrams

“This 120 passenger car, lighted by cold cathode, will be air-conditioned and cleansed of dust, smoke and odors by static electricity.

The load-bearing inside walls will be plastic impregnated wood with an outside skin of aluminum. Announcer system tells passenger names of stations, brings news and music.”

The Office of Tomorrow

Vintage Ad 1945 Seagram’s Whiskey- Men Who Plan Beyond Tomorrow

In a world before Skype and computers, the work world envisioned by the copywriters in this 1945 advertisement   came pretty close.

“Electronic controls will let the executive of tomorrow revolve the center section of his office to take full advantage of sunlight streaming though the glass walls. Face to face conferences through television will be held cost-to-coast, and intricate calculations of quotas or sales by territories will be turned out at the touch of an assistant’s finger. Records will appear as if by magic from files automatically operated in the electronic age ahead.”

The man of the house was to commute to his office in  a modest helicopter that any fool could fly and that cost him no more than what he paid for his pre-war medium priced car. But if he had to drive his car into town, it really wasn’t such a bad deal. It was a featherweight job made of plastic and light metals, with a transparent plastic nose and a plastic sky view top that admitted the health giving ultraviolet rays, shut out the bothersome infrared rays and thus permitted passengers to take on a rich coat of tan without the discomfort of sunburn.

Communications of Tomorrow

Vintage Ad 1946 Seagram’s Whisky -Men Who Plan Beyond Tomorrow

In 1946 who would have imagined a world of bluetooths, smart phones, fax’s, and e-mail?  The Men of Tomorrow did…sort of.

“New wonders of speech and writing devices”

“A personal radio-telephone to connect you with almost anyone as you walk or drive. A dictating machine to type your letters as you talk into it. Coin-drop, change making facsimile machines on street corners to “accept” your handwritten telegram, and send it as is. All these by men who plan beyond tomorrow. “

Tomorrows Private Walkie Talkie

Vintage Ad 1944 Seagram’s Whiskey Men Who Plan Beyond Tomorrow

“When you’ve caught your creeful of trout in a stream miles from anywhere, you can reach your wife by your personal, portable radio-telephone…ask her to invite the neighbors for dinner….”

“Then driving home in your car, you can tell her just what time to expect you!…Fantastic? The portable radio telephone is already in use by our Armed Forces. Today’s weapon, tomorrows convenience!”

Motorola had provided the army with Walkie Talkies so it was a natural assumption that they would catch on with the post war civilian. It would be several decades before the ubiquitous cell phone entered our daily lives.

Now texting, tweets await the men who planned beyond  tomorrow.

 Enjoy Top News and Sports Events as You Dine

Vintage Ad 1946 Seagram’s Whisky- Men Who Plan Beyond Tomorrow

“Tomorrows box seats for the things you don’t want to miss can be your favorite restaurant, where, on full screens, the game is covered in sight  and modulated sound, play by play. Full color television will bring you highlight news…the pageantry of parades…the performances of great stars. All on screens so placed that you can enjoy every scene without shifting your position.”

And now in the comfort of our faux leather booth while dining at  Applebees we never have to miss an episode of Duck Dynasty!

 Fresh Food Anywhere…Anytime

Vintage Ad 1946 Seagram’s Whisky- Men Who Plan Beyond Tomorrow

“Aerial freight trains of Tomorrow, a string of gliders towed by an air cargo plane, will fly fresh fruits, vegetables and regional delicacies from the south and far West, direct to winter-bound states. Each glider carries 2 tons, the mother ship 6, and safe landings will be assured through ground radio control.”

The Men who planned beyond tomorrow obviously weren’t locavores nor concerned about their carbon footprint.

Copyright (©) 2014 Sally Edelstein All Rights Reserved

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Predictions for 1975

WWII Vintage Illustration 1945 Pruett Carter Illustrator

The winter of 1944 was a blustery one. ..but it would soon turn torrid.

Christmas break, my 18-year-old college freshman mother Betty hopped on a Pullman, joining her family for a well needed vacation in balmy Miami Beach. The glow of health that would come with a trip to sunny Florida would work wonders for chilly, war-weary souls, restoring pep and vitality.

On top of which, to my coed mother’s delight, Miami was swarming with soldiers. Betty would be stationed in seventh heaven..

Miami had become a mecca for the military. Because of the good weather, the Army and Navy had located bases, training schools, and rehab centers there, and the Army still operated most of Miami’s snazziest hotels.

When she met Stanley, a marine who it just so happened was stationed at the hotel next to hers, she knew this was it!  He was a khaki Casanova who swept her off her feet; the dream guy she was always talking about had really come to life.

He just popped up suddenly out of thin air…in of all places… on a Pullman!

Train Travel

Train traveling had changed during WWII. Wisely, her family had purchased train tickets far in advance.  Due to the war, trains were at a premium, with priorities going to the armed forces. Besides troop movement, there were those who had to travel on essential war business. There were service men on furlough; there was the shortage of tires and the rationing of gas- all added to the demand for space on the train.

All Aboard

Vintage Ad Pullman Standard Railroad 1940s

Once on board, Betty chose to relax in the trains observation car. With its glass enclosed loggia, solarium sized windows, radio, soft lighting, it was the perfect place to settle in with a stack of current periodicals that they provided.

Romance

(L) Vintage Illustration Alex Ross (R) Vintage Camay Soap Ad 1940s

All the women’s magazines seemed to be loaded with stories of  war-time romance, setting  her pulse racing. But due to the shortage of available men on the home front, she often wondered whether they weren’t rationing love too. Now with the prospect of all those soldiers milling about Miami, she had her heart set on landing a marine.

After all Valentines day was just around the corner!

It wasn’t very difficult to find out what appealed to a man and how to snare one. All she had to do was thumb through the plethora of  articles and advertisements in her favorite magazines, each  dangling the key to finding romance, often with little difference between the two.

They all had one thing in common. They convinced their female readers that they were waiting for something, always in a state of readiness, of expectancy, of waiting for their real lives to begin.

Betty soaked them up like a sponge

“Sometimes one little improvement in personality, looks or grooming can alter a girl’s entire life…and make it a thing of joy and beauty,” Betty read with keen interest.

(L) Vintage Illustration Pruett Carter (R) Vintage Listerine Ad 1943

Take the story of  Mary for example.

“Mary was a successful career girl…attractive and well dressed. But somehow she simply didn’t click with men. More than all else she wanted marriage. But here she was without a single prospect.

Then quite by chance she overheard a conversation that revealed the truth about her. She lost no time in doing something about it!

Today her good-looking husband thinks ashes ‘the sweetest girl in the world…and she is …now! Don’t take a chance with bad breath. Don’t offend needlessly. Use Listerine ” .

Another ad caught her eye:

Vintage Ad Mumm Deodorant 1944

“Thousands of popular girls prefer Mum.

Mum takes half a minute more or that heavy date may be a dud. That’s the smart girl !

Wouldn’t he be disillusioned hero if you let underarm odor spoil your evening- and shatter his dreams of dainty you. And you might never know w hat happened.

Now you’re at the end of a perfect date and the beginning of a beautiful romance! Keep those stars in your eyes, young lady, they’re very becoming and so is your flower fresh charm”

Soap Operas

Betty knew that if a girl isn’t dainty no other charm counts and there were no shortage of soap ads to drive home that point,

When it came to romance Woodbury Soap offered it in spades

“TNT For Two- one part boy, one part girl-one flash of beauty to light the fuse.

“One blinding moment and your heart rockets skyward. One swift embrace and you know you’ve found love. In his eyes you can see you are strictly from heaven. The night reels, as he whispers “It’s a date…forever!” forever you’ll watch over your loveliness with Woodbury.”

Moonlight Becomes You

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

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

Sparks on the Train

Absorbed in her magazines, she suddenly glanced up.

There he was – 2 chairs away- the most bee-u-ti-ful, deep bronzed male a gal ever yenned for…looking right into her eyes with a sort of I-haven’t-eaten-in-three-days- look. “He’s the dream guy all right,” she confided in her sister …. “with spangles!”

They moseyed into the bar lounge with its luxurious lounges and comfortable chairs the very symbol of the sophistication, taste and fun of railroad travel. Betty couldn’t remember very much what they talked about …except when he asked her to go dancing the very evening they arrived in Miami.

She was right on schedule for her trip to romance.

“Fate,” she thought, “you’ve got a finger in this…and who am I to fight you!”

Miami

Vintage ad Pullman Standard Train 1940s

Arriving in Miami, she lolled around with the other brown backs alongside the pool at the swank Roney Plaza Hotel, recently returned back from the army. Totally redecorated, the Hotel  had the nerve to charge -gasp- $35 a day for a room!

Relaxing by the pool, guests could get a quick “parboil” under its spreading “sun-tan-tree.” Clever tin foil leaves reflected the sun and sped up tanning. Wise gals knew that when m’ lady’s skin is softy and fresh, romance was at your beck and call;  believe it young lady, nothing caught a mans eye like a good coat of tan.

“Be the thrill in his furlough,” Betty hummed to herself as she dozed  off under the blazing sun.

‘So long pale face”, she mused, dreaming of the big evening, “time for a healthy burn. “

Copyright (©) 2014 Sally Edelstein All Rights Reserved

Stay Tuned for Part II A Winter Time Romance

Vintage ad WWII Woodbury Soap 1944

Moonlight Becomes You

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

All Wrapped Up In A Bow

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

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

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

Mirror Mirror On The Wall

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

No one had ever given her camellias before.

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

Love is in the Air

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

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

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

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

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

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

This was indeed love!

Copyright (©) 2014 Sally Edelstein All Rights Reserved

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(L) Vintage ad WWII Nash Kelvinator 1944

The cheesepocalypse is upon us and we are approaching ground zero!

Shell shocked Americans are going through a meltdown over the shortage of velveeta endangering the very lifeblood of their Superbowl nachos.

Jonesing for their liquid gold, it’s all out war as a deprived public frantically fumble in search of alternative recipes in time for the big game.

Time out!

We might want to hit the pause button and rewind to a time when food shortages, sacrifices and disruptions were a part of everyday life and not just an inconvenience for the Superbowl.

“If you’re packing daily lunch for one of Americas defense workers be sure to note that Velveeta was rich in muscle building protein and milk calcium.”
(L) Vintage Photo Sealtest Booklet 1943 (R) Vintage ad Velveeta cheese 1944

During WWII Velveeta along with meat, sugar, dairy  and coffee had gone off to war.

And when it was available Velveeta was not a mere snack, food but a vital source of sound nutrition.

The depression had introduced Velveeta as a thrifty convenient food source, but it was during the shortages and rationing of WWII  that helped catapult this gooey cheese into the  hearts of Americans.

Food Fights For Freedom

Two 1943 Vintage ads from Armour and Company offering suggestions to how to share precious food and conserve the vital food supply. “All of us must do all we can to protect the food supply and keep our home front healthy and strong. You have a responsibility in your own home. By careful buying, by efficient, thrifty use of your ration points, you can help make sure there will be enough meat and other necessary foods for everyone.”

Each of us on the home-front, was a vital part of the war effort. It was everyone’s job to conserve, avoid waste, play square and starve the black markets.

“Food fights for freedom” was the motto and American food  would be a big factor in winning the war

“Today food is one of Americas most important weapons. It’s the fuel of our fighting men and our fighting allies. It helps keep our home front healthy and strong. So all of us must do all we can to protect the food supply.”

“Twice as much food is going to the fighting fronts this year….because there are twice as many men to feed.”
“Even at that, we civilians here at home are still getting 3 out of every 4 plates of food we produce. And the men in our Armed forces are the best fed fighters in the world.”
vintage ad Crosley Corp. 1944

Uncle Sam had a big job to do to feeding our boys in the armed forces and supplying our Allies too.

Rationing was the only way the government could see to it that civilians got a fair share of food. Every man, woman and child got a ration book containing coupons with point values for different types of food. The one thing there wasn’t a shortage of was advertising explaining the importance of sacrifice.

“We folks on the home-front are still getting 75% of all the food in America,” explained one war worker in an ad promoting health for victory  “I know it takes a lot of chow for the boys in the service…but who rates it more!” Another thing, I’m all for shipping food to our allies and liberated countries because it saves a lot of lives. Shortages? They’re tough…but my wife’s learned to do with the foods she can get is okay by me.

“That’s the stout-hearted spirit that makes Food Fight For Freedom. There’s enough food in this country for everyone, if we learn to use it properly.”

Shortages and Rationing

In this 1943 ad, Elsie the Borden’s cow tries to explain to her husband Elmo the reason for shortages and rationing. Much of the milk Bordens produced went to our armed forces and our allies. And the milk must be used to make other concentrated dairy products like cheese.
Exhibiting good old American optimism, Elsie goes on to say: “Think of the things we have to cheer about. This year may not have been a picnic but it hasn’t been so bad. We’ve had enough to wear and we’ve had enough to eat.”

Cheese was one of the first to be drafted into service because of the government’s huge requirements of cheddar cheese.

Thousands of farmers and dairy hands had gone off to war making it hard to increase production and so there was a shortage. Men in the service drank more milk and ate more cheese than they did in civilian life.

“Great quantities of it were needed for our boys,”  cheese manufacturers like Kraft and Bordens  told us,  “ because cheese was such a grand and  easy way to feed milk nourishment to fighting men.”

In May 1942 sugar was rationed, followed by coffee , processed food, meat and dairy products making it a wartime challenge keeping a home-front family well nourished.

Women’s Double Duty

Home front Housewives deserved a heap of credit .In addition to devoting millions of extra hours to vital new work in factories and volunteer organizations they were doing a grand job in the kitchen…saving food points and not scrimping on nutrition

It was much harder to feed a family during wartime but housewives like Blanche Channing knew it could be done with careful planning and thoughtful shopping.

Before the war, budget conscious Blanche had counted on Velveeta for nutritious economical meals on a budget. Now besides her money, she had to count her ration points and budget her time.

Like most other home front housewives Blanche was doing double duty.

In addition to devoting extra hours to the Red Cross, Civilian Defense  and the USO  she had become a soldier of the kitchen. Her first order from Uncle sam  was to provide her family with foods that build strong bodies, steady nerves, and high morals

Uncle Sam needed us strong so it wasn’t long before Health-For-Victory clubs sprang up across the country. Monthly meetings conducted by able home economists of local power companies distributing meal planning guides for point thrifty meals and giving women practical help on health building meals in spite of rationing.
To help folks eat the kind of food that keeps them healthy, Uncle Sam set up 7 basic food groups that everybody needed every day And milk and milk products was one of them.

It was our duty to stay healthy.

Taking on those extra shifts at the war plant and visiting the blood bank regularly was no problem for her husky husband Jim.

“That man of mine hasn’t lost a days work in 7 months,  she boasted. “Eating right and staying healthy pays off in our house even stepped up pace of war work can’t keep my husband down!”

A home front soldier like Jim deserved something special when he got home! And Blanche saw that he got it!

The Channings may finally have been able to afford a juicy steak but there were no steaks to be had. Alternatives to those mouth-watering roasts that Jim hankered for had to be found.

It was the home front housewives  duty to be flexible and clever, to plan balanced menus that spread rationed foods thin. The trick was to make ration shrunk meals seem bountiful and appetizing and magazine articles were abuzz with ways to gussy up those plain meals.

Kraft along with nearly every major food company pitched in printing wartime pamphlets suggesting how their product could help the homemaker skimp on precious food like meat, sugar and fat and coffee

Ladies listen, A food shortage is no excuse for dull meals- not while Kraft cheeses are around

Despite there being a cheese shortage, eagle-eyed  Blanche could still find Velveeta on her grocers shelves from time to time. She was certain the processed cheese food would brighten up rationed meals!

 Victory Velveeta

Mrs Housewife has learned about food alternatives, how to stretch ration points and pack a lunch with plenty of pick up.
Time must be rationed by Americas Double duty woman
(L) Vintage ad 1942 (R) Vintage Velveeta ad 1944

V for victory Velveeta suggested plenty of ways to keep the mealtime eye and taste appeal and satisfy cravings and appetites while holding down the costs. T

Their colorful  ads all offered “plenty of luscious nourishing dishes to surprise the folks on days when meat is off the list. Put the joy of eating into rationed meals with cheese soufflés, omlettes rarebits sauces with cheese”

Because it was important to prepare balanced meals and keep America’s stamina up, Blanche could count on protein rich Velveeta to offer up wholesome hurry up snacks for kids and He-Man sandwiches for Jim’s  lunch box.

“If you’re packing a daily lunch for one of America’s defense workers, one Velveeta advised,” be sure to note that Velveeta was rich in muscle-building protein, in milk calcium and vitamin A and G. “

“School lunches should have these protective food elements. So slice Velveeta or spread its golden goodness thick for those important away from home meals”

Waste Not Want Not -Velveeta to the Rescue

If you will save as little as a spoonful of food a day you will help shorten this war. Unless we stop the needless, careless waste in our homes, American won’t have enough food to go around!

In these vital times when food was so precious Blanche would never dream of wasting a spoonful of food or letting leftovers spoil in her refrigerator or her  pantry shelf. Every bit of food that came into her home was carefully used.

Admonished to not waste food, Velveeta promised to give new life to leftovers -any dish could be turned from plain to fancy with a gloppy cheese sauce

“Here’s way to squeeze extra nutrition out of your food points, make leftovers new and important and give your family better eating. Dress up your second day foods with Velveeta”

“Of course Kraft cheeses are rationed!” explained one ad.”The government wants everyone to get their fair share of these fine nourishing foods. So step up and insist on your share…put the joy of eating into rationed meals with Velveeta souffles, omlettes, rarebits and sauces with cheese”

Velveeta a “wonderful “buys” for your points and pennies” became the perfect dish for war-time nutrition, providing fine protein and concentrated nourishment.

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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Is The Cold war being Defrosted?
(L) Vintage illustration from Time Magazine 4/12/48 General Lucius Clay and the Berlin Airlift Crisis

Cold war concerns of  Russian aggression are coming out of the deep freeze.

Russia’s recent  actions in the Ukraine feel straight out of the old Soviet playbook evoking a time when an expansionist Russia was viewed as a “hungry bear” whose insatiable appetite needed to be controlled.

Convinced that the Communist “imperialists” in Moscow were busy spinning a web of control hell-bent on forcibly enslaving free people everywhere, it would be up to the US to contain the cunning Russian bear.

Bear Hug

Soviet Soldier WWII

The big chill almost made us forget that only a few years earlier  this big brutal Russian bear had been our warm and fuzzy teddy bear of a wartime ally

During  WWII,  no one could hold a candle to those brave Stalingrad sacrificing red white and blue Russians.

Led by twinkly eyed pipe smoking “Uncle Joe Stalin they were our comrades in fighting the Nazis.

Songwriters cheered and praised our Soviet comrades as we whistled “You Can’t Brush Off a Russian” and “Stalin Wasn’t Stall’in.” Selling the Soviets to us like a bottle of Pepsi, one ditty went:

“The soviet Union hits the spot

12 million soldiers that’s a lot

Timashen and Stalin too

Soviet Union is Red white and blue.”

Frenemies

Like so many war born marriages it turned out our grand alliance with the Soviets was more a marriage of convenience.

Uncle Joe our warm and fuzzy teddy bear quickly turned into a cold-blooded grizzly bear ready to gobble up crippled Europe turning its starving shivering population into godless Communists.

As Soviet tanks angrily roamed eastern European streets our war born good will faded as quickly  as Elizabeth Arden’s vanishing cream.

Choosing Sides

As if shifting gears between enemy and ally was as effortless as the automatic transmission in your Chevrolet the considerable fury and fear that had fueled our hatred of those bloodless Nazis had been seamlessly and swiftly rerouted to those Godless Russian commies.

As long as the aggression existed in the form of the Evil Empire and “their unrelenting drive to enslave humanity” the threat of an unwanted nuclear war would cast a long shadow.

 The Hungry Russian Bear

Everywhere you turned were maps depicting the Soviet Unions aggressive tendencies appearing ominously splotched in red, depicting the global pattern of the spread of the Red offensive.(R) Map of Soviet Union Life Magazine 6/3/46

The long  shadow reached suburbia too.

What the danger of Russia and Communism posed to my ordinary suburban childhood was very unclear to me.

To help me understand the dangers of this big brutal Russian bear,  my father dad would read me a bedtime story,  a cold war classic which I  begged to have read to me again and again.

While other children adored Goldilocks and her antics with the Three Bears, my favorite was a story called “The Hungry Russian Bear.”

“Once upon a time, there was a Big Red Bear who was very, very hungry.

 ”He lumbered through the forest eating everything in sight. His eyes were like saucers. No matter how much he ate, he always wanted more. Tramping through his neighbors forests, he gobbled up his neighbor’s portion.

 Looking around, he licked his lips. Lo and behold he spied a quiet little mouse.

 The Hungry Bear pounced and ate the mouse and all his food. Still hungry, he looked longingly across the big ocean to the other side, where there lay other lands full of all sorts of tempting goodies and treats.

The Big Red Bear would not be happy until he ate everything in sight. The bear just grew and grew.

Communist Russia, Dad explained to me  was like the hungry bear in the story. It was a large and ravenous nation with an insatiable appetite.

Their portion of porridge was never going to be enough for them. Nothing not even Metrical could curb their appetite

To avoid ending up in the tummy of a Communist Bear, I, just like America  was to be in a constant state of preparedness.

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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Cold War Defrosted PtII

Nuclear Jitters

Elsie and Elmer in their WWII Victory Garden 1943

In urban areas across the country vacant lots are filled with sights of neighbors pulling weeds, planting seeds and tending heirloom tomatoes.

Overnight city rooftops have sprouted lush gardens. “Tarbeachs” once reserved for city sunning, now produces organic vegetables for hipsters at high-end restaurants.

But, long before the locavore movement heated up this growth in urban gardening, there were “victory gardens,” the granddaddy of community gardening.

 WWII Home Front Gardens

 By 1942 at the urging of Uncle Sam, my mother’s family, like 20 million others Americans during WWII, had planted a Victory garden.

As in WWI, the federal government encouraged citizens to plant victory gardens to provide themselves and their neighbors with vegetables so that commercially produced crops could be available for military use.

With millions of farming acres abroad war-torn and barren, the world’s food supply was dangerously low and that included Americans. Farmers were working overtime to produce enough food

We were asked to pitch in.

Now out of duty and not pleasure, we were required to reacquaint ourselves with cooking and eating fresh, locally grown produce.

Besides which, we were told, working in a garden  “is a wonderful sedative for war nerves.”

Gardening along with a glass of whiskey was bound to help those wartime jitters. Vintage ad Paul Jones Whiskey 1944

Food Fights for Freedom

Thousands of government sponsored advertisements convinced the public that food was a weapon of strategic importance. If  folks on the home front used food wisely it would “fight for freedom,” as one ad explained :

“It won’t just happen that there will be enough food. America has go to work at it. Food is fighting today for freedom on many fronts here at home too. If you enlist in the fight you’ll help speed the day of victory.

“We know you will do anything you can to help.”

American Grown

Front lawns turned into victory gardens

During the war my teen age mother Betty and her family lived in a  house on Montgomery Street in Brooklyn, NY  and despite their postage stamp size yard, they were delighted to find that more than a tree could grow in Brooklyn.

They were not alone

All over the city vacant lots were commandeered for the war effort and made into vegetable patches joining the  millions of small town backyards and city rooftop gardens sprouting up across the country.

Some neighborhoods groups selected a vacant lot for growing, taking turns working the garden and forming food cooperatives.

WWII Victory Garden decal to affix on your home window

With no experience in gardening, other than the petunia stocked window boxes, my grandmother perused  the local library for advice.

Countless books on wartime gardening were suddenly available with titles like Gardening for Victory, Food Garden for Defense, and  Grow Your own Food to Feed Your Family.

Like most Americans more familiar with canned corn and peas,  Betty  became accustomed to new strange vegetables like Swiss chard and kohlrabi introduced because of the seed shortages.

“Win the War with Spade and Hoe Make a Victory Garden Grow!”

 Uncle Sam exchanged his top hat for a farmers and was busy churning out gardening information.

Government victory garden instruction booklets explained everything from equipment  fertilizers, to how to work the soil. A healthy Victory garden according to the pamphlets  should be on the constant lookout for that most deadly enemy-  the Japanese beetle to be sprayed with a particular vengeance.

The Jolly Green Giant Lends a Hand

The Green Giant offered gardening tips to patriotic Americans starting their own Victory garden in this 1944 advertisement. “”Come on everybody. Lets do it again. Last year we asked all you home gardeners to compete with us growing peas and corn because- because your country needed that extra food. Your letters warmed our hearts.”

In the great American spirit of competition, the Jolly Green Giant volunteered his formidable green thumb, instructing novice gardeners how to grow their own peas and corn.

Ever the patriot, he shared his secrets to one and all through ads and free booklets chock full of information of when to plant, types of seed and how to prepare the soil for your victory garden. Bursting with pride at the success, the Green Giant wished us all the best of luck” to the finest competition any company ever had!”

Ho-Ho Ho Tojo!

Hollywood Goes Gardening

Despite her mother’s nudging, my preoccupied teenage mother was a less than enthused farmer

While my grandmother was busy reading Better Homes and Garden, bobby-soxer Betty kept her nose buried in the glossy movie magazines  which constantly chronicled Hollywood’s war efforts.

Photoplay magazine  reported  that Miss Joan Crawford worked in her own backyard garden and  favored hearty vegetables like beets and cauliflower carrots and squash and had a special section devoted to a variety of red, yellow, and white tomatoes.

Betty read with delight “that special guests invited to Miss Crawford’s home served what she called her Mildred Pierce Victory Salad with all ingredients grown in her own garden.”

If Betty’s s favorite movie star, glamourpuss Joan Crawford could work hard in her own victory garden getting her well manicured nails grubby, by gosh there was no reason for Betty to be a slacker.

Madison Avenue Gets Their Hands Dirty

 Advertisers jumped on the bandwagon promoting and encouraging patriotic Americans to plant victory gardens  spurring people to harvest and share in the bounty.

Advertisers’ anxious to prove that they were contributing to the war effort shamelessly tied in their product to gardening in whatever way they could regardless of the product they were hawking.

Carnation Milk Ad 1943

Schenley Royal Reserve Whiskey 1943 Ad -Greens Committee

“There’s more  gardening  these days and less golf”

Schenley Royal Reserve Whiskey 1943 Ad -Harvest Time

“Americans make the best of everything. Americans are making the best use of their weekends and vacations by helping to bring in the crops. All Schenley distilleries are producing vital alcohol for war purposes so we were reminded to save it for special occasions.”

Coke  Hospitality in a Victory Garden 1943 Ad

“There is a Victory garden in almost every backyard this summer. Friends in work clothes come over to admire and compare crops. Then when a few moments of relaxation are in order they drink Ice Cold Coke and enjoy perfect refreshment while contemplating the results of their work.”

Jayson Sportswear Advertisement  1944

National Dairy Ad Products 1944 “The earth and I are friends now“

 © Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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Vintage ad Elizabeth Arden Velva Leg Film

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Poor Doris

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

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

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

 Goof Proof Fool Proof

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

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

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

A Leg Up on the Sun

Released in 1941, the product created a huge market

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

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

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

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

Copyright (©) 2014 Sally Edelstein All Rights Reserved

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

It was 1944. It was wartime.

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

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

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

To Have and Have Not

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

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

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

But there were shortage of another kind too.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Movie Poster “To Have and Have Not” 1944

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

New Movie Find

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cover Girl Discovered

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

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

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

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

Mad About Bacall

Lauren Bacall “To Have and Have Not” 1944

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

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

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

Life would blow it on this one.

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

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

Lasting Impression

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

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

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

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

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

For some parents the scariest part of Halloween is the prospect of all the candy their children will consume once they’ve brought home their haul.

Chill.

It may be hard to swallow but once upon a time candy was not the unhealthy villain it is viewed as today. By the 1930’s nutritionists called it a miracle food as important to the body as coal or oil is to the furnace, and conscientious moms made sure Americas youngsters had adequate supplies of this energy producing treat.

By WWII candy’s place in the diet had been firmly entrenched.

Home Economists – especially those in the employ of candy manufacturers – were quick to point out the nutritional value of candy aiming to show candy as good wholesome food.

And good ol American corn syrup helped make it extra special healthy and wholesome.

Good and Good For You

Vintage WWII advertisement 1943 Budweiser

No one fanned the healthy corn syrup flame more than Corn Products Refining Co. producers of dextrose sugar. So it was no surprise that their ads encouraged parents: “By all means, let ‘em eat cake…and candy, too”

The only surprise was this particular ad from 1943 touting the same sweet sentiments was from less than wholesome beer brewery Anheuser Busch.

Let ‘em Eat Cake…and Candy Too

“Nature has her own way of telling us there is energy in sweets,” the cloying copy begins .

“Today corn syrup, rich in dextrose is playing a more important role than ever before in supplying active America with the sugar that gives power to the body and keeps wits sharp.”

“Candy is part of field rations and sweets are served generously to our armed forced everywhere,” Budweiser boasts patriotically. “Sweets served in war plants have greatly stepped up human energy and production.”

Candy Corn

“Tremendous quantities of corn syrup are used to make icings, cookies, cakes, candies and pies so temptingly good- and good for you,” explains Anheuser Busch a major supplier of corn syrup during the war.

The Beer company began producing corn syrup as a result of Prohibition which made it illegal to manufacture and sell alcohol.

Using its grain supply it began selling barley malt syrup, soft drinks and then started producing corn syrup, a key ingredient in candy manufacturing.

“Immense amounts of corn syrup for the army as well as for civilian consumption are produced by the Home of Budweiser. Our corn Products Division grew out of the experience that developed from years of laboratory research,” the copy claims.

And once the kiddies got old enough, they could get their fill of corn syrup in an ice-cold Bud too!

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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December 7, 1941

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

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

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

When, was the big question.

Business as Usual

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

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

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

A Night on The Town

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

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

Warnings

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

Pearl Harbor in the News

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

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

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

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

Enchanted Isles

Another factor was plain and simple geography.

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

1938 Vintage ads Dole Pineapple Juice

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

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

A Day That Will Live In Infamy

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

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

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

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

WWII American POW in Japanese camp. Vintage Advertisement Nash Kelvinator 1943 Illustration Fred Ludkens

The torture was brutal- beatings, water boarding, deprivation and death.

When the truth was revealed we were shocked.

During WWII the Japanese treatment of POW was barbaric.

When the truth was revealed, a rightly so public was outraged  at the horrible mistreatment. Torture was a crime.

After all, this is not what Americans do.

Except it is.

Tortured Excuses

Thanks to the blistering “torture report” recently revealed, we now learn  the extent of abuse and torture the CIA has inflicted on detainees post 9/11.

In the name of democracy, CIA detainees were subjected to rectal hydration, doused in cold water, slapped, and brutally beaten; they were subjected to stress positions, humiliation, severe sleep deprivation and water boarding along with threats to harm children of detainees.

Accountability

Once upon a time torture was a crime and those responsible for it were held accountable and brought to justice.

The U.S. has a history of not only condemning the use of torture but punishing those who did.

After WWII the U.S. organized and participated in the International Military Tribunal for the Far East called The Tokyo War Crimes Trials. Among other war crimes, we convicted several Japanese soldiers for water boarding American and Allied POWS.

Torture was evil. It was not how we fought wars. It was not American the way.

The American Way

Vintage Advertisement WWI Nash Kelvinator 1943 Illustration Fred Ludkens

During WWII Nash Kelvinator ran a series of full-page color ads which graphically showed the pain, blood and fear of our fighting men. These patriotic ads served not only as a testament to the bravery of our servicemen and women it was a tribute to the American Exceptionalism and the American Dream for which they were fighting for.

What Makes us Proud to be Americans?

Vintage Advertisement WWI Nash Kelvinator 1943 Illustration Fred Ludkens

One advertisement from the series that ran in 1943, illustrated an American  prisoner of war in a Japanese camp.

The POW suffered terribly at the hands of the Japanese.

Brutalized and used for slave labor they were savagely tortured, starved, beaten and used for medical experimentation including vivisection without anesthesia. At the top of the list of torture techniques was water based interrogation known as the water-cure, water torture and water boarding.

The Japanese did not sign the Geneva Convention in 1929. We did.

Holding out Hope

Despite the suffering the POW held on to  hope, like the one in these Nash Kelvinator ads. This proud and courageous soldier dreams of the America he wanted to come home to and voices his dreams:

“I know that once again the sirens will howl over Tokyo and bombers will fly so low we’ll see the stars on their wings. Silently I pray for the day they’ll come-to deliver us from evil- to bring me home to you again..” begins the sometimes cloying copy.

“Home-where I want unchanged just as I remember them now, all the things that I hold dear.”

“The right of a man to think and speak his thoughts, the right of a man to live and worship as he wants, the right of a man to work and earn a just reward!”

“Don’t ever let those be lost.”

Vintage Advertisements Kelvinator 1945

“Keep everything just as it is until I come back…back to an America where no armed guard bars the door to liberty…where there will never be a barbed wire fence between a man and his opportunity to work and build and grow and make his life worth living – this war worth winning,” the copy continues.

“…where together we can do the things we’ve always dreamed of doing…where we and our children are free to make our lives what we want them to be…where there are no limits on any mans or any woman’s or any child’s opportunity.”

“You’ve said ‘That’s the America I want when I come back don’t change that ever…don’t let anyone tamper with a way of living that works so well.”

Now that same American dream itself is drowning.

America has changed. Something has been lost.

It turns out when it come to torture maybe Americans are not so exceptional after all.

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Advertisers sang Rosies praise, proudly applauding the “resourcefulness and ingenuity of American Women.”

Once upon a time, women workers were not only highly sought after they were lavished with praise in the media.

During WWII when Uncle Sam came calling, American women didn’t just “lean in,” they manned up!

Uncle Sam had enlisted the real Mad Men of Madison Avenue to conduct a massive campaign to recruit women into the work force.

The advertising campaign – as fierce as any battle on the front lines-was set in motion immediately after Pearl Harbor to not only mobilize women on the home front and get them into the work force  but to help shape cultural attitudes.

Operation: Rosie the Riveter

Homemaker to Parachute Maker (R) Vintage ad Wheat Sparkies Cereal 1942 “Eat Breakfast the Victory Way like thousands of new production champions, like Mary Purdue valued worker at one of our largest parachute plants.”

Seemingly overnight, a plethora of ads appeared in all the major magazines glorifying the working woman.

A public more accustomed to seeing their women depicted in dainty dresses while luxing the family dishes, were now being bombarded with images of g0-getter gals dressed in cunning coveralls and bright bandanas lending their visage to hawk everything from soda pop to cigarettes.

Vintage 7-Up ad 1944

Rosie writes her beau in the service on her lunch break at the defense plant Vintage WWII ad Quink Ink 1943

Vintage WWII ad Camels Cigarettes 1943 ” Betty Boeing and Hal Ecker have several things in common. The both work on M-4 tanks at the Army Ordinance proving ground in Md. Both know a chap named Joe who drives an M-4 and both smoke Camels”

Patriotic Rosie carpools to the plant. Vintage WWII ad Kelly Tires 1945

Whether working the swing swift or regular shift, war work requires extra energy. Get a lift from coffee or sugary drink. (L) Vintage ad 1944 Coffee Institute (R) Vintage WWII ad Orange Crush Soda 1943

With the speed of a blitzkrieg old notions about women’s proper place were swiftly decimated as women took to manning jobs in record numbers.

You’re a Good Soldier Mrs America

Rosie the Riveter rides the Bus. “Trips by Greyhound this summer?” this vintage Greyhound Bus ad begins. “The majority of Greyhound passengers today are war workers in uniform.”

During the war hundreds of men were leaving civilian jobs everyday to join the armed forces.

In their place marched in women, who were “carrying on,” performing work that had to be done to keep America’s war program going at top speed.

Replacing men in hundreds of jobs never previously open to them, these “gals were soldiers too,” helping us win the war and maintaining the American Way of Life.

Who Says This is a Mans War?

Vintage ad General Electric 1942

With great gumption these women took on tasks once considered unladylike, such as tending blast furnaces in steel mills, welding hulls in shipyards, running forklifts and working overtime on the riveting machine.

In the 1942 ad above, General Electric proudly exclaims: “There is no ‘Male Help Only ‘ sign in this war! Never before in American history have so many women been called upon to give so much of their time  and energy to war effort.”

Uncle Sam Wants You

Vintage ad 1943

No effort was spared to get those ladies out of their flowered aprons and onto the assembly line.

In a 1943 ad prepared in cooperation with the War Advertising Council housewives were scolded: leave your afternoon bridge games and get out and get a job to help the war effort:

Must bullets whine and sirens shriek before all American women realize that the time is here. The time for them to get out and drive a truck, load a freight car, carry a waitress tray, work in a day nursery, operate an elevator?

It goes on to explain

It isn’t pleasant, no! But neither is war. And the war won’t be won unless our men abroad fighting are backed up by our women at home, working.

Sister Can You Spare an Hour?

Almost every girl is a working girl now

“Read the want ads in your home paper to see what war jobs there are for women in your area, then register at your local U.S. Employment Service. There are paying jobs in many areas with training for the inexperienced. Get out and work, 4 hours, 8 hours, 10 hours if you can…but work…and stick to it till the war is won.”

It ends on a somber note:

The idle woman will be a very lonely soul this year!

The More Women at Work – the More We’ll Win

We know the score we women….Vintage ad Eureka

Some advertisements were designed specifically to attract women to war work. Many companies that advertised no longer produced consumer goods due to war production demands so ads also served as a way to keep their name in public eye.

1944 Vintage ad Kleenex The More Women at Work- the More We’ll Win

Due to the paper shortage for example, Kleenex found itself with little wares to sell to the public, freeing them up to play a major part in the “Women at War Campaign.

Their series of ads went a long way towards convincing the public that a woman’s contribution was vital and nothing to sneeze at!

 Girl Power

Initially the question was not “should women work?” but rather a series of questions: What sort of work should women do? Would they require special pampering and frills, should they get paid as much as men; would they become “mannish or or worse…create  a distraction for men in the factories?

When Man Power Goes to War

Before our sailor ships off he offers some advise about the mimeograph machine : “Treat her right little girl- can’t get new ones as easy as we used to.” Vintage ad Mimeograph Duplicators 1942

Most thought women could do anything, that is as long as it didn’t require too much physical effort or too heavy or highly skilled operations.

Imagine that! Girls were now operating mimeograph machines! a surprised public learns in this ad.

In offices women left their typewriters and tackled the less feminine mimeograph machine, apparently something above her normal skill set.

“Were telling a lot of the boys goodby these days,” begins this ad from 1942. “Women and girls are taking over in offices with a march song on their lips courage in their heats ability in their hands.”

You Go Girl

The surprise was not that women could do such jobs, but the fact that anyone was surprised they could perform so well. By the fall of 1943, 17 million women workers made up 1/3 of the total US workforce

But in fact, there was little women didn’t or couldn’t do.

Rosie the Riveter was joined by Winnie the Welder, Sheila the shell loader, Carol the Crane operator, Bessie the Bus driver and Flossie the filling station jockey, to name just a few.

Women Keep em’ Rolling

A Mans Calling. Vintage ad Pennsylvania Railroad 1944

The ads all made drove home the point that women they were essential in keeping the American way of life.

By joining the ranks of fighting men, working shoulder to shoulder with men, these ads cast women in the long tradition of heroines who helped men in wartime and “helped build the kind of America we are fighting for today.”

In this 1944 vintage ad from Pennsylvania Railroad, women are applauded for serving a varied and  vital role on the rails.

Railroading has always been regarded as a mans calling. But when war reached deeply into railroad ranks – taking from the Pennsylvania Railroad alone more than 41,000 skilled and experienced workers for the Armed Forces- women were employed to keep trains rolling.

Today approximately 22,000 women are serving in a wide variety of occupations- four of which are shown in the ad.

Young women proved they could  fill those roles most capably.

Positions such as trainmen, ticket sellers, train passengers representatives, ushers, information and reservation personnel call for intelligence, courtesy and a high degree of efficiency.

So we’re glad to have their help in the greatest job railroads have ever been called to do, moving men and material to victory!

Rosie the Pioneer

This modern girl with millions of her sisters is meeting this wars emergencies with the same pluck as the pioneer gals. “Although she may not put it into words she knows what she’s fighting for. The right to see a movie or read a newspaper that isn’t propaganda. The right to vote as she pleases. The freedom to choose. Vintage ad ARMCO 1944

An ARMCO  ad channeled the pioneer spirit referring to a female truck driver as a “covered wagon girl:”

“I’ve got a job driving a truck when Paul went across. I’m hauling the stuff they fight with’…Her’s is the spirit of the women who reloaded the long rifles as their men fought off the Indians…the courage that helped build the kind of America we have today.”

Of course this progressive idea that women could perform all kinds of work had less to do with feminism and everything to do with patriotism.

Femininity on the Front Line 

From grimy to gorgeous. Vintage ad Cannon Towels 1943

Of course some worrywarts were concerned  that femininity would be a casualty of war.

Even as Rosie manned up she didn’t want to lose her feminine appeal. Keeping herself attractive was her patriotic duty. As Uncle Sam put it “Beauty is Miss Americas Badge of Courage.”

Rosie needed to remain pretty and feminine for the boys to boost their morale and give em’  something to fight for, preserving herself exactly as he remembered it.

For hands he loves to touch. “Sure I’m a factory worker- jeep suit and all. But with Hinds my hands are as pretty as you please.” Vintage ad Hinds Hand Cream 1942

I Enjoy Being a Girl

No woman wanted to risk losing her femininity by taking on manly jobs so reassuring ads appeared to alleviate that fear.

These ads not only promoted confidence in woman’s ability to do a man-sized job but emphasized that femininity was not incompatible with hard, high pressure work a theme that also assured the public that inhabiting masculine roles did not destroy her womanliness.

Vintage Ad North American Aviation 1942

In a 1943 ad, North America Aviation  introduced us to lovely Jackie Maul a former model whose job reading blueprints clearly didn’t destroy her sex appeal or womanliness. The reader is reassured: “She still loves flowers hats veils, smooth orchestras and being kissed by a boy who’s now in North Africa.”

“What ! An artist’s model building a bomber,” the headline for this ad asks  incredulously.

“Sounds unlikely doesn’t it? But if you walked through the big North American plants you’d be thrilled at the way hundreds of women like those pictured here are handling big important parts of the job of making airplanes.”

“The lovely girl at the drawing board is Jackie Maul onetime model for John Powers. She is one of many career women- former secretaries singers milliners and others- whose new careers at North American. Other women are housewives-and good ones too.”

Working shoulder to shoulder. North American Aviation vintage ad 1943

“Here you will find wives, sisters, sweethearts ( and a few widows) of men fighting for freedom.

“Today every woman can be proud of her own contribution to the winning of the war”

Rosie the Riveter Dresses For Success

The copy for this vintage 1942 Realsilk ad reads: “To have confidence, courage high personal morale to inspire morale in others, you need to have confidence in yourself the assurance that you look your best that your clothes are right. Created by famous NY designers in ‘accordance with governments new regulations for women’s apparel.”

A frilly frock or peek a boo hairdo had no place in the factory floor, natch. Sweater set wearing sisters were promptly sent home from the plant because curve hugging sweaters were forbidden on “moral grounds” i.e. too distracting.

Even more  of a work hazard was the long peekaboo hairstyle popularized by Veronica Lake. The long tresses could easily be ensnared in machines so as a result hair was ordered tied up in turbans or bandanas. As a patriotic gesture and in solidarity to her working sisters, Miss Lake switched to an upswept due for the duration.

So Angora sweaters and silk undies were put in mothballs for the war in exchange for more utilitarian work uniform as practical and hard-working as they were.

Real Silk, a shop at home service made famous for their luxurious pre war silk stockings switched gears and offered work clothes designed for action…just not the sexual kind!. These were clothes designed to inspire morale in others.”

Underneath it All, You’re all Woman

“There’s a new woman today,” Munsingwear Underwear proudly announced in a series of ads, doing a mans job so that he may fight and help finish the war sooner. With that in mind they created a new Line of Action undies called “Fighting Trims”just for working women

“Designed for every woman working towards victory by women who work so men may fight. Meeting all the requirements of strenuous jobs with still enough heart warming glamor.” Part time or full-time women will do it better with functional clothes. But still soft and feminine.” Vintage ad Munsingwear 1943

Equal Pay For Equal Work

Vintage WWII ad Black &Decker 1942

If the work demanded women do men’s work it only made sense that women should receive equal pay for equal work. It was as simple as black and white

Despite the fact that this became national policy in November  1942 when the War Labor Board issued an order allowing employees to voluntarily raise women’s wages as much as necessary to bring them in line with mens, the order never trickled down to many smaller companies and the average female production worker still made about 40% less per week than did her male counterparts.

Rosie the Riveter 1943

Of course there were some things a clever girl could do to get extra dough.

According to career advice offered in ads by Sal Hepatica manufacturer of Laxatives a gal would be wise to keep regular if she wanted to stay on the ball and get a raise.

In one 1943 ad we are introduced to 2 assembly line workers – Out of Luck Lucy whose constipation woes caused our sluggish missy to miss out on a raise, and smart Polly who takes a laxative and  takes home a trophy and a juicy bonus.

Vintage Sal Hepatica ad 1943

Vintage Sal Hepatica ad 1943

Double Duty

These ads encouraged women to stick to their jobs despite the demands of a 2 job life style. Vintage ad Heinz 1942

Like today, a working woman had to do double duty…building a plane and running a home.

The age-old question of whether a woman could truly balance a job and home was answered during the war with a resounding yes!

You betcha she could, the media crowed.

Even if she was lucky to have a husband at home women ended up carrying nearly all the care-giving responsibility. When Rosie returned each day from the great army of women soldiers of production she became a soldier of the kitchen. Vintage ad Spam 1943

Ads regularly reassured a doubting public that pulling women out of the home to join the work force would not damage family life, congratulating the homemaker for fulfilling obligations at home and on the job. Children and hubby would still be well take care of.

“Practically every woman in America is working 2 shifts,” explains the 1943 ad for Swifts. “Lots of us in addition to our war work still have our old job at home and what a job that is! ‘Last years problems in homemaking and meal planning seem like child’s play,’ says Mary Hoffman Miss Victory. Swifts franfurts come to her rescue save many a minute in trying job of wartime meal planning”

These ads helped to sweep aside old prejudices gently stowing them away for the duration, only to be taken back out of mothballs at war’s end.

Next: Operation June Cleaver
With victory in sight Rosie The Riveter would be unceremoniously handed her pink slip pushed out of the work force

Copyright (©) 2015 Sally Edelstein All Rights Reserved

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Occupation: 1960 Housewife

On a recent chilly Sunday women started disappearing from ads, magazine covers, billboards and posters directing readers to Not-There.org. Part of a powerful ad campaign to raise awareness of gender inequality, it was a graphic reminder to women “we’re not there yet.”

It’s a déjà vu for the real housewives of the cold war.

70 years ago images of working women suddenly disappeared from the media and it took them over 30 years to return.

During WWII women might have thought that they were finally there…until they weren’t.

Women went from serving the country to serving hubby a beer. L) Vintage ad Canada Drive 1944 (R) Vintage Schlitz Ad 1953

One day, dedicated working women were glorified, proudly featured in articles and advertisements; the next they vanished, replaced by dewy-eyed brides, and happy homemakers with nothing more taxing on their minds then getting rid of ring around the collar.

In a blink of an eye women went from serving the country to serving hubby a beer.

But this wasn’t a campaign to raise awareness. It was a tactical decision.

Most of these women didn’t opt out of working; it was more like they were pushed out by Uncle Sam: “Here’s your pill box hat. What’s your hurry!”

As fierce as Uncle Sam’s Rosie the Riveter campaign was  (deployed in WWII to recruit women into the depleted work force) once  victory was in view a decidedly different, equally aggressive, operation was launched aimed at these same women.

Women transitioned from working woman to homemaker with push buttons ease. (L) Woman war worker -Vintage ad General Electric 1943 (R) Housewife vintage ad

Not unlike like the post war US defense policy, the media went on a permanent war footing against positive portrayals of women in the workplace.

It was now all out war to get the ladies back into their soon to be fully-loaded Kelvinator kitchens and into high heels.

It would be more than a decade until this secret campaign would reveal itself: “Operation: June Cleaver” would be a huge success!

My mother Betty along with millions of other women of the greatest generation would be one of it’s casualties.

All Out War

Vintage WWII Recruitment Poster

It was wartime.

The patriotism was so thick you could cut it with a knife. Everywhere you looked, posters, ads and articles appeared applauding the resourcefulness and ingenuity of Americas working woman, that patriotic lass who had stepped up to fill the shoes of the boys who had gone off to war.

Rosie the Riveter rides the greyhound bus to her job

No effort was spared to get these ladies out of their homes and into the defense plants.

The campaign orchestrated by  Uncle Sam’s Office of War Information in collaboration with Madison Avenue,  women’s magazines, radio producers and Hollywood, tried overnight to make wearing overalls and operating a lathe glamorous.

When Uncle Sam came calling, these ladies “leaned in” and took over the man power.

Working girls were the new glamor girls and for impressionable teens like my mother Betty it was empowering.

What a difference a year makes. McCalls Magazine went from table setting tips pictured on the left 1941, to a war worker plotting her blueprint for a bomber on the right, 1942. Women were no longer pictured as weak, non mechanical incapable of leadership or unsuited for the challenges of the world.“The day of the lady loafer is almost over.” boasted Margaret Hickey chairperson of the Women’s Advisory Committee to the War Manpower Commission

With the bombing of Pearl Harbor, our very notion of woman’s place was  decimated.

A public more accustomed to seeing their women depicted in dainty dresses while luxing the family dishes, were now being bombarded with images of hardy gals dressed in coveralls and bright bandanas doing a mans job

There was nothing a woman couldn’t do and the media couldn’t stop gushing about her.

You’re No Sissy Now!

Typical of these positive ads was one from Kotex.  Geared to high school girls like my mother, it typified the wartime emphasis on female strength: “Remember when the boys used to say that girls were made of sugar and spice and all things nice? Those days are gone forever…you’re no sissy now!…”

Talk about girl power!

For a 16-year-old girl it was all thrilling . All around Betty were wives mothers and older women actively engaged in non traditional work; women who had a feeling of accomplishment proud to be part of the war effort. These jobs gave them confidence and a new sense of their capabilities.

Betty Co-ed

(L) Vintage Illustration 1948 by Harry Fredman “Women’s Home Companion” (R) Vintage Brenda Starr Comic Book 1940s

By the fall of 1945 Betty was a college freshman who took her studies seriously.

As editor of Erasmus  High School newspaper she had dreams of being a star reporter for a big city daily. But no sob sister stories for her- she didn’t want to get stuck covering the usual girl beat of weddings and social clubs.

No sir, she fancied herself more as a glamorous foreign correspondent type like Martha Gellhorn one of the greatest war correspondents of the twentieth century and the only woman to land at Normandy on D Day. Married to Ernest Hemingway they traveled the front lines together.

Perhaps, Betty pondered, one day she might even report from the front lines standing by her beau Stanley a Marine serving overseas.

A Fellah Needs a Girl

“Hats off to the Woman of the Year” begins this 1942 ad from Mutual Life Insurance, lavishing praise on Americas working woman.

Our fighting boys were proud of these women.

Throughout the war, the armed forces newspaper, The Stars and Stripes had been bursting with pride with uplifting, home-front stories of the swell of patriotic cuties in blue overalls and hair bandanas, standing shoulder to shoulder with their men, taking up the load for Uncle Sam.

But as the war drew to a close, Uncle Sam started whistling a different tune, as in a widely circulated War Dept. brochure proclaiming that : “A woman is merely a substitute, like using plastic instead of metal.”

Fueled by fears there wouldn’t be enough jobs for returning servicemen and that Depression conditions might return, the campaign to get women out of the workforce began in earnest. That, coupled with pent-up desires of both women and men to start a family were unleashed, producing an unprecedented idealization of the nuclear family.

The ideal of the family served as a national unifier becoming a symbol of what the American system was all about. It’s what they were fighting for.

Motherhood and the proliferation of baby images were churned out from 1944-1946. Women were about to be enshrined as wives and mothers .

With the same secrecy of the Potsdam conference, a final meeting between Uncle Sam and his media allies commenced  to clarify “the post war administration of women” and the rebuilding of the American family.

Those same glowing home front stories, now took a more scolding tone accusing these same patriotic girls of doing “unwomanly” jobs and taking jobs away from the returning men.

The Way We Were

GI Joe gets his job back ((L) Vintage Texaco ad praising the working woman 1943 . R) Texaco ad 1945 “I’ll be a Texaco service man again when I get home.”

Articles and advertisements began to appear, that seemed to speak directly to the battle fatigued boys overseas. One ad for instance featured a soldier in combat wistfully daydreaming about the peaceful world he has left behind, yearning for the familiarity of home: “I want my girl back just as she is.”

The media assured the boys  the American Dream would be there when they returned, that “life would be just as you left it.”

Including your job…and your best girl.

Blue Print For The American Dream

“… Yes these were the things I was fighting for, waiting for…the soldier asserts.” Vintage ad Kelvinator 1945

No series of advertisements  served up a bigger helping of the post war  American Dream than the brashly sentimental ads of Nash-Kelvinator.

The ads took on the tone of a letter often written by the hometown gal he left behind who had plenty to dream about too.

In this ad from 1945 the soldier pleads that once he comes home:

“…don’t let anyone tamper with a way of living that works so well.”

“Never fear darling,” – his sweetheart writes him back, that’s the way we all want it. Everything will be here, just as you left it, just as you want it…when you come back to me!

And when you come back from the war you will find, just as you left them, everything your letters tell me you hold dear.

….inside in the living room you’ll find your easy chair, your footstool and your slippers, just as they always were each night before you went away to war.

When you come back you will find nothing changed. Those at home promised that. Here in your town your children are still free to sleep and laugh and play…still free to look at the sky, clear-eyed and unafraid…our house still stands lovely as it always was…

“…Yes, back home to the same town to the same job , you liked so much…to the same America we have always known and loved…where you can work and plan and build…where together we can do things we’ve always dreamed of…where we and our children are free to make our lives what we want them to be…where there is no limits…

…where nothing has changed.

And We’ll Live Happily Every After

”You’ve said, That’s the America I want when I come home again. Ads promised GI Joe that His wife and son will make life what it ought to be once more.

“That’s the America I fought for…that’s the America I’ll be looking for when I come home.”

The way things were.

But the fairy tale American Dream didn’t include working woman.

I Want My Girl Back Just As She Is

Overseas, Betty’s beau Stanley worried.

With Victory in Europe nearing, Seargent First Class Stanley began to echo his GI buddies concerns: “Exactly what was getting into these dames anyway?”

Looking longingly at the pin-up of Betty Grable on his Barracks locker, he began to question what the heck they were fightin’ for if all the girls back home had their heads filled with a lot of hot air and plain baloney.

Would the women be willing to return to the home after the war, they worried in unison.

Even Hemingway was resentful of his glamorous wife Martha Gellhorn’s long absences during her reporting assignments. He famously wrote her “Are you a war correspondent or a wife in my bed? Needless to say They divorced in 1945

Stanley thought about Betty away from home, at college susceptible to all kinds of ideas and nonsense.

He knew she had her heart set on being an ace reporter, solving mysteries and having fabulous adventures. But he didn’t really want her globetrotting around the world in search of sensational stories, not to mention the steamy romances.

And even if Betty did stay at home in N.Y. and get that job as a reporter for a daily paper, he still worried.

Newsrooms were he-man territory. They were smoked filled, grubby joints with spittoons on the floor and racy pin ups on the wall.

He imagined her going out after work with the boys, downing whiskey at some smoky watering hole, staying out late betting on some palooka. This Sergeant First Class  didn’t want his wife  shouting at boxing matches when she should be home darning his socks and cooking a casserole for him. …and taking care of the children.

Back Home For Keeps

The big push back

Stanley was right. Back at school Betty’s head was being filled with all kinds of ideas and nonsense. But not what he feared.

Operation June Cleaver had begun on the homefromt .

Suddenly it seemed, wherever you turned a fierce campaign was being launched with ominous warnings aimed at the modern women.

It was now important to keep your man in the drivers seat. It was soon feared that the masculinization of career women would drive him away.

The women’s magazines once filled with glowing stories of courageous women  were now filled with  threatening articles implying that careers and higher education were leading to the masculinization of women with dangerous consequences to the country, the home, the children.

If a woman held an important professional position, they implied, she would lose her womanly qualities affecting the ability of the women as well as her husband to obtain sexual gratification!

And if a career woman had children, watch out.

She turned them into “juvenile delinquents,” “criminals” and “confirmed alcoholics.”

Or worse…she could end up an old maid.

The Tide had Turned

(L) Vintage Magazine cover Colliers 1944 (R) Vintage Tide ad

With victory the tide had turned against working women.

Gone were the ads telling women they could do anything a man could do. Gone were the ads congratulating women for performing double duty on the homefront so brilliantly.

Instead ads began appeared affirming  the new conventional wisdom – there was no more important job than wife and mother.

7-UP ads ceased claiming it would produce a good disposition in women in order to win a better job as the ad on the left proclaims, to boasting the beverage would help them be happy homemakers and bring good family cheer.

Up In smoke

Womens aspiration would soon go up in smoke. During the war Chesterfield had frequent ad supporting military recruitment and factory work. By 1946 they featured a bride.

Nuclear Family

The ideal of the family served as a national unifier becoming a symbol of what the American system was all about.

It’s what they were fighting for.

After Rosie the Riveter finished her stint on the assembly line, Uncle Sam wanted her to keep up the same wartime production…only this time, in bed.

Family was about to go nuclear.

Here Come the baby boomers Vintage ad Swan Soap 1945

Ashamed at even thinking of being a career girl, Betty worried not only had she lost  femininity, but whether Stanley would  leave her when he returned?

Betty felt so dull and droopy.  Now all she could dream about was marriage and a warm and cozy home together, just like she and Stanley talked about.

With Victory here all thoughts turned to the future.

Post War Promises: Occupation:Wife

There was no more important job than being a wife and mother. So important in fact that in 1946 The Penn Mutual Life Insurance Company offered “wife insurance” in case the poor widowed hubby was left having to cook, clean, shop, do laundry, …etc for himself!

Like many war born romances Betty’s relationship with Stanley soon fizzled out.

But in the fall of 1945 with a post war bounce in her step, Betty returned to school more determined than ever to excel, clear in the things that were really important.

She came to the realization that the highest value and only real worthwhile commitment for a woman was the fulfillment of themselves as wives and mothers.

A barrage of books and an onslaught of articles  bombarded the media convincing women to stay home. Working women became the target of vehement attacks by academia, industry and politicians. In fact now the  conventional wisdom was that women who wanted to continue working outside the home were neurotic.

Women’s magazines soon replaced the WWII working girl with a loving Mother who became the reigning cover girl for years, solidifying the only real worthwhile commitment for a woman was the fulfillment of themselves as wives and mothers. L) McCalls Cover 1942, (R) Ladies Home Journal cover 1946 illustration Al Parker

In her Junior year in college a crippling cloud of pessimism had drifted over the fate of the modern American Woman and the American family.

According to a 1947 bestselling book both were in dire danger.

In sociology classes all across the country earnest student like my mother cast aside Margaret Mead and devoted college papers to a dense cerebral book co authored by Marynia Farnham and Ferdinand Lundberg, a shrink and sociologist, called Modern Woman:The Lost Sex.

If there was unhappiness and uncertainty in modern life they wrote, it had a sexual reason: modern woman had denied her femininity and her womanly role.

Only by accepting her place as wife, mother homemaker and by erasing her “masculine aggressive” outside interests would woman be content. Women who avoided this natural state were “neurotically disturbed women”.

Feminism was, “at it’s core, a deep illness.”

Mission Accomplished

Operation: June Cleaver – Mission Accomplished. (L) Vintage 1944 Saturday Evening Post Cover of Rosie the Riveter illustration by Robert Riggs (R) Vintage 1955 Saturday Evening Cover – illustration by Steve Dohanos

Operation June Cleaver was a success! Mission Accomplished!

During the post war years, the Culture of Containment was not just a foreign policy but applied to women and their identities as much as it did to the Soviets. Women were to contain their aspirations

It would be a long fifteen years before another, young Jewish woman named Betty, would step forward and write about “the problem that has no name.” So for now my mother Betty would follow in the footsteps of yet another Betty, ol’ reliable Betty Crocker, and become the perfect homemaker.

A tale of 2 Betty’s (L) Betty Crocker Vintage Ad 1950s (R) Betty Friedan

Copyright (©) 2015 Sally Edelstein All Rights Reserved

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Matriculating into Matrimony

The debate about Mad Men’s ending may continue for years, but no one can debate the fact that Coca Cola has succeeded in getting the world to buy a Coke.

With the final image of Don Draper meditating on a hillside in an Esalen-like retreat, Mad Men ended its amazing 7 year run with the playing of the 1971 “Hillside” Coca Cola commercial.

As the sun rises behind them, the harmonizing group of smiling, multicultural teenagers dripping with saccharine sincerity and inner peace, “hope to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony” by drinking a bottle of Coke.

The imaginary home filled with good vibrations that these peace-niks sang about, the apple tree-shaded one they wished to “buy the world and furnish with love,” would also (if Coke had their way) be furnished with an avocado green fridge filled with icy bottles of Coca Cola.

It’s the Real Thing

Unabashedly and unironically appropriating the hippie culture ethos, this chorus of pure capitalism selling “The Real Thing” represents the ultimate merchandising of the 1960’s.

Buy The World

Changes (L) Vintage Coke ad 1962

Gone were the wholesome all American teens  we came to expect from Coke fun-filled ads.

Now dressed in culturally appropriate color-blocked dashikis, peasant blouses, and silky kimonos, each wholesome multicultural teen holds the iconic green glass bottle of this magic brown elixir ( each branded in its native tongue) that they hope will help bring peace and harmony to the troubled world…. it is after all “What the world wants today!”

The wildly successful commercial (the ad campaign code name was aptly named “Buy The World”) was in perfect harmony with Coke’s marketing strategy and the way Coca Cola had been extending itself globally for decades.

What the World Wants Today

Vintage ad Coca Cola Admirality Isles, Bikini 1945

Whether hawking peace, love and human connection or freedom, democracy and camaraderie, that corporate colossus has accomplished the coca-colonization of the world which began long before the “Hillside” ad ran in the summer of 1971.

Coke had long advertised itself as offering a bit of commonality across the globe.

Nearly thirty years earlier during WWII Coke presented itself as an international sign of friendliness.

“Coke has become the high sign between kindly minded strangers the symbol of a friendly way of being,” they explained in one 1944 ad. “Have a Coke’ says he to a stranger and in one simple gesture he has made a friend. In 3 words he has said “You and I understand each other. ”

WWII Advertising: A Global Blitzkrieg

Vintage Coke ad 1942

With the precision used to plan a bombing mission in the South Pacific, Coca Cola calculated their advertising campaign during the War to make sure Coke was seen as vital to wartime morale and essential to Americans and their fighting men.

While the Coca Cola Company was busy boosting the morale of G.I. Joe, they were simultaneously laying the groundwork for becoming an international symbol of refreshment and solidarity.

The Global High Sign… I’d like to Buy the World a Coke

“How Americans Make Friends in Ireland” Vintage Coke ad 1944

Coke was our secret weapon for world peace

Rather than show war-weary soldiers enjoying their product, Coca Cola focused on Cokes ability to bring people and nations together. The ads carried the catchphrases “The global high sign” and introduced American readers to a few foreign phrases.

Set in exotic locals such as Russia, Newfoundland, and New Zealand the ads portrayed grinning GIs mixing it up and laughing over Cokes with British, Polish, Soviet and other Allies always with a caption along the lines “Have a Coke- a way of saying we’re with you.”

The ad men continually touted the drinks status as an American icon. “Yes around the globe, Coca Cola stands for the pause that refreshes- it has become a symbol of our way of living.”

But it wasn’t just G.I.’s for whom Coke was a symbol of the American way. It was a symbol for the native population as well.

The presence of Coke did more than lift the morale of the troops .

It gave the local people in the different countries their first taste of Coca Cola and paved the way for unprecedented worldwide growth after the war.

Have a Coke – Sealing Friendship in New Zealand

Vintage WWII ad Coke in New Zealand 1944

Kia Ora, says the New Zealander when he wants to give you his best wishes. It’s a down under way of telling you that you’re a pal and that your welfare is a matter of mutual interest. The American soldier says it another way.

Have a Coke, says he, and in three words he has made a friend.

It’s a custom that has followed the flag from the tropics to the polar regions. It’s a phrase that says Welcome, neighbor from Auckland to Albuquerque from New Zealand to New Mexico.

Round the globe, Coca Cola stands for the pause that refreshes – has become the high sign between friendly minded people.

Have a Coca Cola…How to Break the Ice in Iceland

Vintage ad Coke in Iceland 1943

Come be blessed and be happy says the hospitable Icelander when he meets a stranger. That’s a warm way of putting it but no more friendly than the way American soldiers say it. ‘Have a Coke,’ says the dough-boy and it works in Reykjavik as it does in Rochester. The pause that refreshes is the friendly way to say Hi Pal in any language.

Coca Cola has become the gracious ice breaker between kindly minded strangers.

Have a Coke –  How Friends Are Made in the RAF

Vintage Coke ad 1944

Have a Coke is a friendly greeting among RAF flyers back at early dawn from a night mission. It’s a salute among comrades in arms that seals the bonds of friendship in Plymouth England or Plymouth Mass. It’s an offer as welcome on an English airfield as it is in your own living room.

Our fighting men meet up with Coca Cola many places overseas where its bottled on the spot. Coca Cola has been a globe-trotter “since way back when.”

Making Pals in Panama

Vintage Coca Cola ad 1944 “Making Pals in Panama”

Being Friendly in Newfoundland

Vintage ad Coca Cola in Newfoundland 1944

There is an American way to make new friends in Newfoundland. It’s the cheery invitation Have a Coke an old U.S. custom that is reaching ‘round the world. It says let’s be friends, reminds Yanks of home.

In many lands around the globe, Coke has become the symbol of our friendly home ways.

Have a Coke – You’re My Kind

Vintage WWII ad 1944 Coca Cola

There’s a friendly phrase that speaks the allied language. It’s “Have a Coke.”

Friendliness enters the picture when ice-cold Coke appears. Over tinkling glasses of ice-cold Coke minds meet and hearts are closer together.

Coke has become an everyday high sign of friendliness among people of good will.

Liberators

G.I.’s liberating towns throughout Europe or working side by side with locals in the Philippines felt pride in sharing their favorite drink with their new-found friends.

Vintage Coke ad 1945

One of the interesting things that impresses people overseas about the American fighting man is his friendliness among his fellows. Everywhere they see Americans bringing with them their customs and home-ways-their own brand of open heartedness.

Have a Coke, foreigners hear the G.I.’s say when he wants to be friendly, and they begin to understand what America means. For in this simple gesture is some of the essence of Main Street and the family fireside.

Yes, the custom of the pause that refreshes with ice-cold Coca Cola helps show the world the friendliness of American Ways.

 

 Yank Friendliness Comes back to Leyte Phillipines

Vintage WWII ad Coke 1945 Philippines

Naturally Filipinos thrilled when their Yankee comrades-in-arms came back to the Philippines. Freedom came back with them. Fair play took the place of fear. But also they brought back the old sense of friendliness that America stands for. You find it quickly expressed in the simple phrase Have a Coke.

There’s no easier or warmer way to say Relax and be yourself. Everywhere the pause that refreshes with ice-cold Coca Cola has become a symbol of good will – an everyday example of how Yankee friendliness follows the flag around the globe

Winning Minds in Nazi Germany

Despite all American coca cola’s claim that it was the high sign between like-minded strangers the very symbol of patriotism, democracy and freedom, no mention was ever made to the fact that Coca Cola was doing business in Nazi Germany.

In the midst of their global advertising blitzkrieg, patriotic Coca Cola appeared at Hitler youth rallies as Coca Cola trucks accompanied the marchers hoping to capture the next generation.

“Mach Doch mal Pauss (Come on Take A Break) …Have a Coke – or winning minds in Nazi Germany” was one ad that we would never see.

Coca-Colonization Post War

Vintage ad Coca Cola in Alaska

WWII did more than perpetuate an image – it also led to Coke’s dominance abroad.

They created an enormous consumer base throughout the world that would not have been possible without General Eisenhower and the Coca Cola Company’s cooperation working towards bettering the morale of the American fighting man.

After gulping down more than a billion servings of Coke, 11 million veterans returned with a lifelong attachment to the soft drink. But it wasn’t only Americans who got hooked on the sweet elixir.

Many of the bottling plants established overseas during the war continued to operate as non military factories after the war. When the war ended, the coca cola company had 63 overseas bottling plants in operation in venues as far-flung as Egypt, Iceland, Iran, West Africa and New Guinea.

The idyllic post war world of Coca Cola fit in perfectly with the “Hilltop” commercial images “Grow apple trees and honeybees and snow white turtle doves.” Vintage Coca Cola ad 1946

During the war drinking Coke became  synonymous with fighting the enemies of freedom and democracy .

Now post war Americans would help underdeveloped countries improve their lives and know the real joy of good living by exporting American consumer goods helping them to better resist Communist pressures.

With our sparkling pepsodent smiles, Americans would meet our obligation to the free world-spreading democracy and offering a helping hand to people all around the globe-a coke in every Frigidaire and a Chevy in every garage. The path to the future would be bright and profitable

Globe Trotting With Coke

“In exotic Acapulco- Here too you find the pause that refreshes with ice cold coca cola. Because good taste itself is universal enjoyment of Coca Cola has become a welcomed social custom in over 100 countries. The best loved drink in all the world. Artist Robert Fawcett captures a moment of companionship in Mexico’s famous Acapulco. Vintage Coke ad 1957

Thanks to the dawning of the jet age, mid-century Americans were traveling out into the cold war world as never before and they knew coke would help them find new friends in this new global community linked by Coca Cola-“A recognized symbol recognition of friendliness and good taste.”

In 1956 Coke took their advertising business to McCann Erikson who produced these series of ads ads directed at this new international set, many illustrated by Jack Potter.

India …Coca Cola -Favorite of the World

“From a Maharajas Palace in far off India comes another interpretation from the brush of young Jack Potter.” Vintage Coke ad 1957. I was fortunate to have taken a class “Drawing and Thinking” with Jack Potter, the innovative illustrator who taught drawing and conceptual thinking at School of Visual Arts, after a highly successful career as an illustrator.

In ever widening circles. the uniquely pleasant taste of Coca Cola wins fresh appreciation and new friends.

Through more than 100 countries more than 58 million times a day someone enjoys the special flavor the welcome little lift of Coke. This remarkable endorsement has won for Coca Cola a gracious badge of good taste that’s all its own…recognized everywhere.

The best loved drink in the world.

Spring Time Paris…Goes Better With a Coke

“Enjoyment of the world famous pause is captured for you in Paris by artist Jack Potter.” Vintage Coke ad 1957

 Come to Paris in the spring…and here too Coca Cola waits for you….so good in taste in such good taste that the invitation Have a Coke has become a gracious custom in more than 100 countries of the world today.

Hawaii Holidays

Hawaii was still a territory when this 1957 ad ran. Illustrated by Jack Potter

 When you come to Hawaii…here too you’ll find the enjoyment of Coca cola is a welcomed social custom just as it is in over 100 different countries.

Venice…Ciao Coca Cola

Vintage Coke ad 1957 “Venice” Illustration by Jack Potter

In Venice too…sign of good taste…the art of living cheerfully speaks many lamnguages. And almost every language today knows the invitation Have a Coke.

Romance in Rio

 In Romantic Rio, too…sign of good taste…the taste of Coca Cola is so distinctive and so popular that the serving and enjoyment of Coke is a cheerful symbol of good taste in living everywhere.

Through more than 100 countries…More than 58 million times each day …the invitation Have a Coke has a welcoming meaning and acceptance all its own.

Canada and Coke

A famous Canadian resort inspires another interpretation from the talented brush of jack Potter

At Lake Louise, too…Sign of Good Taste…the instinct for pleasant living goes wherever pleasant people go…and take the custom of enjoying Coca Cola with it. So good in taste in such good taste …in more than 100 countries today, the invitation Have a Coke is the recognized signal for one of life’s unique pleasures

Better in Belgium

1958 vintage Coke ad Brussels World Fair

 Visit the Brussell’s Worlds Fair where you’ll find a ready welcome at coca cola pavilion

Why have people in more than 100 countries made coke cola the best loved sparkling drink on earth?

If Coca Colas mission was to offer Coke to “whoever you are, whatever you do, wherever you may be, when you think of refreshment think of an ice cold Coca Cola”, then “mission accomplished.”

Postscript: How Blue Jeans Could Spread World Peace

Vintage Wrangler Jean ad 1970. Contest to go to Europe as a Young Ambassador to spread peace and harmony

Note:Coke wasn’t the only company to use an utilize a multicultural  approach in 1971. A year earlier all American Wrangler Jeans offered a trip to teens to be “Wrangler Young Ambassadors”. Any boy or girl between the ages of 16 and 22 could enter their contest to win a prize “traveling throughout Europe meeting people exchanging views,” in the hopes of spreading peace and harmony.

Copyright (©) 2015 Sally Edelstein All Rights Reserved

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The Mad Men Of Madison Avenue Get Real

Rosie the Riveter enjoys a rare day off to enjoy the beach in her Jantzen swim suit. Vintage ad 1943

1944 was a different kind of summer.

It was a sweltering July and along with most war-weary Americans, Rosie the Riveter needed a day off.

In the heat and stickiness of summer everybody was tired, dog tired, completely fed up with neckties, girdles, time clocks, cook stoves, typewriters, telephones, ration coupons, endless shortages and war work.

Americans were working overtime as never before.

Americans United

There was only one way to win the war and get the job done – each of us had to give everything whether it was on the home front or in a war plant making the ammunition and tools our men needed to win

Vintage Illustration Robert Riggse Saturday Evening Post 1944

WWII Man Shortage

As men left civilian jobs to join the armed forces, in their place marched in women, who were “carrying on” work that had to be done to keep America’s war program going at top speed. Doing tasks men considered unladylike such as tending furnaces in steel mills, working overtime on the riveting machines and welding hulls in shipyards.

Vintage Coca Cola ad 1944 “From sunny Calif. to the coast of Maine, faster and faster the ships go down the ways in the wartime shipbuilding program.

My family’s own Rosie the Riveter, my mothers cousin Rochelle – who would forever be known as Rosie  was in the thick of things working at the Brooklyn Naval Yards.

At the height of WWII, the Brooklyn Naval Yard was employing close to 71,000 workers on three shifts. Blue flashes from the arc welders torches were visible day and night. Shipbuilders were busy with the keels of battleships that would be outfitted there.

Rosie was always proud that she could claim she worked on the USS Missouri which was launched on January 1944. She got an extra thrill knowing that the Japanese signed the WWII surrender documents on the deck of the ship she helped build.

But that victorious moment was a full year away.

Like all Americans, Rosie’s frayed nerves had yet to recover from the nerve-racking anticipation of D Day, only a month earlier when everyone was in a constant state of jitters.

Now working day and night, there could be no letting down, no slacking until the peace was signed, until our men returned.

War weary Rosie was ready to ditch her grimy coveralls for a curve hugging new swimsuit.

At Ease

vintage illustration

For overworked Rosie the Riveter, the romance of the beach beckoned.

“But,” she would sigh to her gal pals, “what good was the beach without a beau to rub suntan oil on her or admire the curves of her swim suit?”

Rosie had learned to live with less butter, eggs, and meat, but it was the darn man shortage that drove her batty.

The absence of an entire generation of men between the ages of 17 and 30 left a lonely void.

Rosie couldn’t help wondering if they were not rationing love too.

Last Word in Swim Suits

Vintage Jantzen Swimsuit ad 1942 Photo by Hurrell

Rosie  knew she needed some ammunition to attract whatever available men were still around. Squirreling away a few extra dollars each week she decided to splurge on a new swimsuit.

In her summertime campaign to land romance she was glad she could still enlist the help of Jantzen.

The swim suit ads not only prompted you to be patriotic and “buy war  bonds today to be free to enjoy tomorrow” they reminded you “to make each moment something to remember because this was a different kind of summer”

Like most industries Jantzen had retooled to manufacture military items to support the war effort manufacturing sleeping bags, and gas mask carriers but   thankfully  some swimwear still rolled off their assembly lines.

Vintage Jantzen Swim Suit ad 1943

Luckily Macy’s  still stocked the new curve-allure Jantzen swimsuit advertised in Life Magazine that promised not only to give you “lines that were thrilling” but “make you the most radiant star of summers bright stage.”

Gazing in the three-way mirror her reflection made good on the promise. Rosie the Riveter dazzled.

Empowered by  the uplifting capability  of her new Jantzen bra, along with the heavenly slimming magic of Lastex fabric  , she was ready to catch the eye of any beach bound man!

Beach Bliss

This 1944 Jantzen ad clearly directed at war- weary worker. The copy reads: “Make something of your day off, your vacation or your leave, get a Jantzen and get out where there’s sea, and water and joy.”

With a sense of adventure she and her pals hopped into her pre-war De Soto and headed to the beach, having carefully saved her dearly rationed  gas allotment  so she could make the excursion to Jones Beach, a NY State Park on Long Island close by the hot pavement of Manhattan.

The crowded beach was a picture of muscular grace and bulging waistlines, of smooth tans and freckles, of sunburn oil,  and bathing suits which had obviously been in mothballs since the early 1920s

Vintage Jantzen ad 1942 Photograph by Hurrell

After 3 straight summers of crisis, war-weary Americans needed a little relief. So they undid their stays, let their hair down and dug their toes happily in the sand- without dignity, without care.

Stodgy newspapers filled with sobering war stories got put to good use. Folks folded the papers into triangles, fastened them at the corners and wore them as hats to keep off the summer sun. They spread them on beaches and covered them with frankfurters, potato salad, pickles and thermos bottles.

To a beach goer who could sit down and cool off and maybe have somebody bury him up to his chin in the sand, things weren’t nearly so bad as they seemed in the hot city and the war seemed far away.

Establishing her beachhead among the other brown backs on the  pristine white sand,  Rosie settled in  for a healthy burn.

So long pale face.

Hello Soldier

Vintage Jantzen swimsuit ad 1943

As the sun beat down hot and clear from overhead, the queerest of prickly feelings nipped at the back of her neck. It was as if someone were staring at her hard! She twisted and there suddenly like a mirage in a desert devoid of men, a dreamboat, trim in tailored trunks, seemed to appear out of thin air.

A soldier stationed at Manhattan beach, Rusty was a khaki Casanova who swept her off her feet.

The hot day sizzled with romance.

At the end of the day as the flag was lowered to the strains of the national anthem, Rosie joined many of the bathers picnickers and onlookers within hearing and stood at attention proudly  facing towards where the flag was being lowered.

As the last strain of the Star Spangled Banner played in the distance, Rusty bent his head and kissed her. She felt filled to the brim with little bubbles of happiness

This was indeed love!  It all added up…the starry eyes…the fireworks in the bloodstream…this was what the songs sing about…this is what little girls are made for…

…this was why she scrimped and saved to  buy a Jantzen suit !

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2015. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Conceived as I was in the warm afterglow of the Hydrogen bomb it was also in the dark shadow cast by Godzilla that radioactive mutated monster of mass destruction. Together they would send a collective shiver down my cold war spine.

On a hot summer morning on August 6, 70 years ago, the first Atomic Bomb blasted over Hiroshima ushering us into the Atomic Age.

In that great American tradition of forgive and forget, only ten years later in May of 1955, television audiences from coast to coast watching a popular TV program “This is Your Life,” witnessed first hand as a surprised survivor of Hiroshima nervously shook hands with the co pilot of the very plane that dropped the bomb.

Talk about a bombshell.

 May 11, 1955

Some things never change.

As the mother of a newborn, my harried Mom had very little free time.

Wednesday nights were the one hour of relaxation for her all week, so along with 40 million other TV viewers my exhausted Mother looked forward to watching “This is your Life.”

The catchy gimmick of this long running show which began its life on radio  was that the amiable host Ralph Edwards would surprise Mr. or Mrs. Average American by informing them they were on national television. Guests were surprised with a presentation of their past life in the form of a narrative read by Edwards and reminisces by relatives and friends. For that extra zip the same stunt could be pulled on celebrities too.

A perpetually smiling Edwards would reveal the subject’s life story with the assistance of a huge leather-bound This is Your Life scrapbook.

The absolute highlight of the show was the appearance of the “mystery guest” and the water works would begin giving credence to the shows nickname as the “weepiest show on TV.”

 Hiroshima Hits Home

Hiroshima Hits the Suburbs

Now with the dishes washed, laundry folded, and baby bottles sterilizing in the electric sterilizer patiently awaiting refill of tomorrow’s formula, Mom could sit back, relax and give me my evening feeding.

Mom warmed up the bottle and warmed up the TV.

With the skill of a safe cracker, Mom delicately adjusted the large knobs on the mammoth mahogany encased set- one for the snowy picture and the flip-flopping rollover, another for the sound.

She settled in with a soothing cigarette in one hand, my bottle in the other, and a box of tissues at the ready, just as the music for “This is Your Life” began.

According to the TV Guide tonight’s episode featured Reverend Kiyoshi Tanimoto, a survivor of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.

We May have a little Surprise for You

Tick Tock (L) Doomsday Clock (R) Reverand Tanimoto

A strange ticking noise was heard, as the familiar theme music faded way… TICK… TICK…

Clutching a leather book, the congenial host, Ralph Edwards, beamed as he turned to the camera looking straight out at us, and said:

“Good Evening ladies and gentleman and welcome to This is Your Life. The ticking you hear in the background is a clock counting off the seconds to eight fifteen in the morning, August 6 1945”… TICK… TICK…  TICK …

My attention shifted from the bottle to the loud, regular, heart- beat- like sound, so familiar, so personal a sound …TICK… TICK… TICK… Mom tried to get me to resume drinking but I was fixated by the reassuring sound…. TICK… TICK …TICK ….

“And seated here with me”, Edwards continued “is a gentleman whose life was changed by the last tick of the clock as it reached 8:15. Good evening sir”, Edwards said turning to the gentleman, smiling as graciously as a maitre de, “Would you tell us your name?”.. TICK… TICK… TICK… TICK… TICK……

 “Kiyoshi Tanimoto:  answered the somewhat confused looking Asian gentleman, unsure of why he was there…. TICK… TICK… TICK… TICK… TICK…

 “And where is your home” Edwards asked, as  kindly as Santa Claus might ask a boy what he wants for Xmas.

…TICK… TICK… TICK… TICK…TICK

 “Hiroshima Japan”, the Japanese fellow answered, looking extremely uncomfortable, as small beads of perspiration appeared on his perplexed countenance.

 “And where,” our hospitable  host innocently inquired, “were you on August 6, 1945 at 8:15 in the morning?”

Poor Reverend Tanimoto had no chance to answer.

The    ticking   grew    LOUDER    and   LOUDER, and I began to cry, scared by the sound, now less familiar and more frightening …

TICK… TICK… TICK….

The cover of the August 5. 1950 issue of Colliers with the headline “Hiroshima USA:Can Anything Be Done About It?” featured an illustration by Chesley Bonestell imagining Manhattan following an atomic attack

As my  screams became louder Mom picked me up and walked me around when suddenly there was an uproar coming from the TV set with the sound of kettle drums… BOOM… BOOM… BOOM…….KABOOMMM……..  and I let out a piercing cry!

 “This is Hiroshima” Ralph Edwards said.

Mom’s gentle rocking presence was dwarfed by a phallic-looking-mushroom shaped cloud that grew on our TV screen and I was as fixated by that image as I was by the sounds.

“…and in that fateful second on August 6, 1945 a new concept of life and death was given its baptism,” Edwards concluded solemnly.

And at that moment I was baptized in a pool of fear that would be my constant companion for the rest of my life.

A mushroom cloud would hang over my dreams haunting my future.

More surprises would be in store for Reverend Tanimoto…

Displaced child of 1947 or 2015 , the call for action is as urgent. According to UN figures the current global levels of displacement have not been matched since WWII. The vintage UJA ad on the left pleads for the displaced persons of WWII. ” These homeless Jews of Europe face another crisis in their bitter struggle to survive,” reads the copy.”Whether they live or die is squarely up to you…and your conscience.” The moral imperative must be there for the Syrian refugees today.

As the late great Yogi Berra might say, it’s Déjà vu all over again.

The heartbreaking stories and pictures of horror and loss experienced by the Syrian refugees, those 4 million men women and children fleeing a homeland riven by more than 4 years of violent civil war, desperate to seek a safe haven, has brought to mind an earlier generations suffering and our own similarly slow response to offer asylum.

The story of WWII’s displaced persons is well worth remembering.

Closed Borders or Open Hearts

Many Americans are uneasy with the idea of taking in Syrian Refugees and the mounting crisis has become yet another polarizing question in our country. One side says we are doing too little, issuing a call to action to accept more refugees and increase financial aid, while another side fearful of the risk to national security have issued their own call to action – pull up the welcome mat.

American history loves to celebrates our role as a land of asylum, humanity and opportunity for people across the globe. It’s a pillar of our cherished self-image as exceptional among nations.

It’s the American Way.

Vintage anti immigration political cartoon 1891 Where the Blame Lies

Whenever tragedy has struck, Americans put out their hands in compassion and help. This is indeed true of America but it is often not achieved without great resistance.

History books often overlook or minimize the contrasting truth – that along with setting out a friendly welcome mat there has always been opposition, reluctance and setbacks to that warm hospitality.

That too is the American Way.

But that America does eventually triumph over these obstacles is all the more powerful because it has been achieved.

It leaves me hopeful about the grave humanitarian crisis we face now, and reflective of what once was.

Displaced Persons

Liberated Jews suffering from illness and exhaustion emerged from concentration camps and hiding places to discover a world which had no place for them. Photo: Displaced Persons 1946

Well into the Post War years , thousands of European Jews remained locked in Displaced persons camps in Germany and Austria. For these ¼ million stateless, homeless Jewish survivors, prospects for resettlement in free democratic lands appeared uncertain.

The conventional wisdom that we immediately opened our shores with outstretched arms to these displaced persons has become a more romanticized version of the truth; the harsh edges of their struggle to enter the land of the free have softened over the past 70 years.

Not unlike today, many Americans were resistant to the idea of welcoming these refugees to our shores.

1945 No Where to Go

Strong national prejudices, procrastination in Congress and some less than dynamic leadership in White House combined to prolong the miseries of Jews who survived the Holocaust.

After World War II ended in May 1945, many of the people who were liberated had nowhere to go.

All over Europe like a great backwash to the tidal wave of war, almost 10,000,000 confused depleted and hungry human beings were wandering from place to place amidst the rubble of war. Some were newly liberated labor slaves, some civilians, some prisoners of war.

Trudging on foot, hitching rides on bicycles,  looted German cars, trucks, and hay wagons this stumbling mass of humanity moved steadily on urged on the idea to get home.

For many there was no longer a home.

Many survivors who went home faced hostility from their neighbors and found their homes, possessions and jobs gone.

Displaced persons camp Germany 1946. My future mother in law and her son, my future husband who would spend the first 4 years of his life in a DP camp. Photo: family collection

Braving the incertitude among history’s most jumbled mass of migration was a courageous young Jewish woman grown older than her 23 years through the unspeakable horrors that no one should ever bear witness to.

Her entire family lost at the hands of the Nazis, separated from her husband, she trudged on with her meager belongings tightly clutching her most valued possession, her precious newborn baby.

Lost Family 1937 Photo: family collection

This tiny baby boy, born without a home, who would never know what it was to grow up with grandparents, uncles or aunts would one day grow up to be my future all-American husband.

Bereft of home and family, tattered photos were the few remaining mementos many had. Polish Jews 1930s. Vintage photo from family collection

Unable to return to her now vanished hometown in Poland, reunited with her husband, they found their way to a displaced persons camp in Germany.

DP camps were made from abandoned German army barracks, factories and even concentration camps. Most of these camps were crowded and unsanitary with shortages of food and clothing

Before the end of 1945, more than 6 million of those uprooted by the war found a home leaving 1.5 to 2 million displaced persons. Most Jewish survivors were unable or unwilling to return home because of persistent anti-Semitism and the destruction of their communities during the Holocaust. Many of those who did return feared for their lives. In postwar Poland, for example, there were a number of violent riots that claimed scores of Jewish lives.

The big question was where to put the people who could not be repatriated?

Give Us Your Tired, Your Poor

“You’re a Cheap Bunch of Soreheads and You Can’t Land Here,” says a bloated Uncle Sam in cartoonist Art Young’s protest against discriminatory immigration laws. This editorial cartoon appeared in “The Masses” the radical, socialist magazine that attacked the status quo.

Restrictive immigration policies were still in effects in the U.S. and legislation to expedite the admission of Jewish DPs was slow. These constricting immigration policies had at least a partial basis in anti-Semitism and racist theories, thanks to immigration laws passed between 1882 and 1929 that were among the most discriminatory in the world, regulating immigration by race.

Despite loosening of some quota restrictions, by the end of the year opportunities for legal immigration to the United States remained extremely limited.

While the arguing went on, so did the suffering. Children in a DP camp in Germany 1947. Photo: family collection

Congressional action was needed before existing immigration quotas could be increased, so while Congress procrastinated and bickered, my husband would spend the first four of his life in a DP camp looking for a country that would accept him.

A Tarnished Golden Door

These Jews did not receive the welcome promised in the poem by Emma Lazarus inscribed on the Statue of Liberty “I lift my lamp beside the Golden door.” In the years following the end of the war, the lamp was dimmed, the door too often closed.

But like today there were pockets of outrage.

Even conservative Henry Luce publisher of Life Magazine took Uncle Sam to task a full year after the ending of the war in an editorial with the headline “Send Them Here.”

“The most shocking fact about the plight of these displaced persons is not that they are interned. It is the fact that the US Government and people have the means to open the door for many of them but have not done so.”….

“Europe’s refugees need a place to go And America needs to set a world example.

More than a year after the crushing of the Nazis there are still some 850,000 people in concentration camps in Germany Austria and Italy. The crime of the inmates is a lack of passport or another place to go

“We have a deep moral obligation not to be too exclusive. The constitution of the UN proclaims the universality of human rights and freedom a clause the US has often invoked. How can we be so complacent in our immigration policy?

“Above all, in Gods name can we go on doing nothing about those DP’s?”

The Jewish Question

“The shadow of war and oppression is deep and hard to erase. The wounds are far greater than anticipated and much slower to heal. These homeless Jews of Europe face another crisis in their bitter struggle to survive,” reads the copy in this Vintage 1947 ad UJA. ” Stretch out your hand in brotherhood, open your heart in compassion.”

While Congress cooled their heels, charitable organizations stepped up, none more so than the United Jewish Appeal.

In the late 1940’s anti-semitism was a prevalent attitude in the US.

In Congress antisemitism was an explaining factor in the common hostility towards refugee immigration and anti-semitism explains Congress action that blocked all likely havens of refugee for the Jews before the War.

Part of that hostility was fueled – as some grievances are now- by stereotypes of the refugees as harbingers of a dangerous ideology, in this case communism.

United Jewish Appeal – Call to Action

The UJA appeal was unprecedented.

The United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration that had started helping DPs in 1945 was saddled with limited resources and inadequate to cope with the tremendous need.

A major campaign by the United Jewish Appeal organized in 1946 to help the Jewish Displaced Persons set in motion the most massive reconstruction and immigration program in Jewish history.

It was a challenge to American Jews to help survivors.

Words spoken at a UJA meeting nearly 70 years ago by Bernard Baruch could just as easily be applied to the Syrian refugees today.

“Added to their physical suffering is their mental anguish for they have become the unwanted – driven from place to place- welcome nowhere.”

Along with thousands of others who answered the humanitarian call, my own family opened their hearts in compassion to help, never knowing that in decades to come this saga would touch their own family.

A Moral Obligation – It’s a Family Affair

Winter 1946. (L) While my mothers Manhattan family vacationed in Miami Beach , (R) my husband and his family spent the winter in a DP Camp in Germany.

On a snowy February afternoon in 1946 while my future in-laws scrounged for food in a Displaced Persons camp in Germany, bartering cigarettes and chocolate for fresh meat and milk my own beloved grandmother Sadie sat in the warm comfort of the grand ballroom of the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, one of a several hundred women attending the opening rally of The Woman’s Division of the UJA of Greater NY.

Seated at snowy white linen covered tables festooned with silver plated urns filled with Herbert Tareyton cigarettes, they waited silently, somberly sipping tea and nibbling lighter than air angel food cake in anticipation of the featured speaker Mrs Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

We…You…Are  Their Only Hope

These ladies had gathered together to embark on the greatest drive to raise money for the Jewish Refugees , part of The UJA’s recently launched $100,000,000 nation wide drive.

Eleanor Roosevelt the guest speaker had just recently come from visiting 4 DP camps and movingly shared her experience of the indescribable pain and suffering she witnessed.

Looking out at the packed ballroom of that grand hotel filled with well-heeled and well-intentioned ladies, a veritable sea of bobbing Lilly Dache chapeau, a profusion of ranch mink and Persian Lamb coats redolent of Shalimar and Joy, the former First lady firmly implored : We cannot live in an island of prosperity in a sea of human misery,

These smartly dressed ladies in their Hattie Carnegie dresses who now lived in large limestone apartments that lined the grand Avenues  of the Upper West Side of N.Y. gave her a standing ovation.

“These are Your Brothers and Sister Who Speak…”

Nearly all these women were once Eastern Europeans themselves, or had come from those who had made the odyssey, suffered from dislocation, confusion, fear, loss of what they knew.

All looking for a better life.

Many of these same women knew first hand the Cossack’s on horseback that had driven their people from their homes, the laws that had prevented them from owning land, living where they wanted, getting an education.

They knew that even here, in this new land where they had prospered because prosperity was what America had to offer, they were still despised for being themselves, for being Jews. So they knew the only way to survive was with your people and to care for them.

That it was the obligation of American Jews to contribute generously to relieve the suffering of the surviving Jews of Europe was never in question.

The UJA ran a series of emotion laden ads asking for help, such as the one above.

“Give them Life and Make it Worth Living”

These are your sister and brothers who speak.
Praying that their liberation from Nazi tyranny shall not be turned into a mockery by the worlds indifference. Praying that now, after years of torture and death and a miserable existence in displaced persons camps they be helped to rebuild their lives.

By 1947 the need was greater.

The Jewish population of the DP camps has tripled in one year. From 85,000 at the beginning of 1946 to 250,00 in 1947.

Resources were depleted.

Not only were US Quotas  still in place against the Jews there was an organized campaign against permitting the entrance of displaced persons into the U.S. with President Truman’s mail 7 to 1 against admission.

Many nations shared the shame of the US in having refused sanctuary to stateless Jewish survivors following WWII.

Efforts to get them into Palestine faced great odds. Great Britain continued to strictly limit the number of Jews allowed in Palestine. Jews already living in British-controlled Palestine organized “illegal” immigration by ship. In 1947 the British forced the ship Exodus 47 which was carrying 4,500 Holocaust survivors headed for Palestine, to return to Germany where the passengers were again imprisoned in camps.

The United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration set to expire that June placed greater burdens on the agencies of the UJA.

The  massive campaign continued running ad campaigns in the popular magazines.

Could You Refuse Them If They Stood Before You?

The plaintive question asked in  this 1947 UJA ad went straight to the heart:

“Could you look into the sad proud eyes of this girl and say, No child I will not help you?

Could you bear to hear the sobs of this frightened boy without wanting to draw him into the warm shelter of your s arms?
There are thousands more like these 2…children who have survived Hitlers plan for their extermination. Sad, hungry terrified children who need your help.

They have seen sights no child should ever see. They have known terror we in America cannot even imagine. Before they had a chance to be young, their hearts grew old. Their souls are wounded in a way that only understanding people like you can heal.

They need everything. Food clothes and medicine just to keep them alive. The need homes and guidance. They need education and training for useful lives in Palestine the US or some other hospitable land.

But most of all they need what all people need…faith in their fellow beings, hope for the future.

We in America…you in your comfortable living room..it is us they look for help. We…you…are their only hope.

It was a moral obligation then, it is a moral obligation now.

Next:  Syrian Refugee Crisis:Deja Vu All Over Again PT II: The Fear Factor

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2015. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Steeped in fear, some Americans have a nasty habit of marking an entire people as pre-disposed to disloyalty. After WWII, as my future husband and his family of Holocaust survivors lingered in an overcrowded Displaced Persons Camp in Germany  waiting for a country that would accept them, politicians and a fear mongering media debated the loyalty of Eastern Europeans and the fear of Communist infiltration. Many were convinced that Communists had infiltrated DP camps posing as refugees in order to enter the country where they would soon overthrow the government. All were suspect including this homeless little boy on the left who would one day grow up to be my husband. Did I  marry a communist ? Not in the least. (L) My 3-year-old husband in a DP Camp 1948 photo family collection (R) 1949 movie poster “I Married a Communist”

A Threat to America

Fear mongering media and xenophobic politicians cry out in protest at the possible influx of refugees seeking a safe haven.

Squawking like Chicken Little, they ominously warn of the dire consequences and threat to America if we allow “these tired, these poor, these huddled masses” of refugees ‘yearning to breathe free” into our homeland.

The Other

These particular refugees they assert “are supporters of terrorism, violence and the abrogation of American laws and ideals…they will take over the country and subvert our constitution.”,

“Taking in these refugees would be suicide for the US because anti-American terrorists may be disguising themselves as refugees.”

A lawmaker opposing these immigrants claims they are “imbued with political ideologies wholly at variance with our constitutional system!”

Testimony before Congress offered grave warnings that these refugees were “important carriers of the kind of ideological germs with which it is their aim to infect the public opinion of the US.”

Now that certainly sounds like a diagnosis from the good doctor, Ben Carson.

Déjà Vu All Over Again

“Is this Tommorrow?” A panel from the 1947 anti communist comic book designed to teach people about the subversive nature of communism.

Only the speaker here was not directing his paranoia at the fear of a Muslim terrorist sneaking into the U.S. along with the Syrian refugees.

These remarks were uttered over 65 years ago about another group of refugees seeking asylum, East European refugees.

This fear mongering that sounds straight out of the right-wing playbook on Anti-Muslim refugees is actually a page from the cold war anti-communist rhetoric directed at the displaced persons of WWII.

The current resistance to the 4 million Syrian refugees fleeing a violent homeland desperate to seek a safe haven, mirrors the deep freeze experienced by displaced placed Eastern European Jews  during the cold war whose efforts to get to a safe haven were met by a cold shoulder.

The cold war cast a particularly chilly response to the desperate plight of the displaced person of Europe due to our heightened fear of Communist infiltration.

Thanks to the peddling of irrational fears to a panicked and paranoid public, many post war Americans were resistant to the idea of welcoming these poor souls to our shores.

Displaced Fears

Displaced Persons in a DP Camp, Germany 1947

Well into the post war years, thousands of European Jews remained locked in displaced persons camps in Germany and Austria. Without a home, many were afraid to be repatriated because their countries were now police states under Soviet occupation.

For these ¼ million stateless, homeless Jewish survivors, prospects for resettlement in free democratic lands appeared uncertain.

These huddled masses yearning to be free had nowhere to go.

It is a story that hits close to home.

My future in-laws were Holocaust survivors.

A Cold war Chill

Displaced persons camp, Germany 1946. My future mother in law and her son, my future husband who would spend the first 4 years of his life in a DP camp. Photo: family collection. With a broad brush many have painted all Muslims as terrorists, so it was with the Eastern Europeans and the assumption of being communists sympathizers.

While my childhood was a sugar frosted world of frost-free fun living out the post war suburban dream, my husband would spend the first four years of his life in a displaced persons camp, while Congress bickered unwilling to change existing restrictive immigration laws that severely limited the number of Eastern European allowed.

Cast in a cold war light, these refugees became in even less desirable.

Part of that opposition was fueled, as it is now, by stereotypes of the refugees as harbingers of a dangerous ideology, in this case Communism.

By the beginning of 1947, the composition of the DP camps had changed.

The camps were very overcrowded due to the daily influx of Jews from Eastern Europe fleeing oppressive Soviet occupation. 250,000 Eastern European Jews including large numbers of families and children from Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Poland, and Soviet Union joined the other displaced persons of the Holocaust.

As my husband and his family lingered in an overcrowded DP camp waiting for a country that would accept them, politicians and a fear mongering media debated the loyalty of Eastern Europeans and the fear of communist infiltration.

Warning! Danger Ahead

An ant-communist comic book warning young readers of the dangers ahead should Uncle Sam steer clear of the Rd Iceberg

By 1947 relations between the Soviet Union and U.S. were in the deep freeze; the cold war was frozen solid.

In the black and white cold war world war of good vs evil, America was certain that the communists were waging an aggressive campaign of hatred against us embarking upon an aggressive campaign to destroy free government and American way of life.

from the 1947 anti communist comic book “Is This Tomorrow?” warning people of the subversive nature of Communist infiltration

Uncle Sam was convinced that Russia was hell-bent on destroying the traditional American way of Life and had their cunning communist eyes set on infiltrating America with whatever means they could.

Germ War Fare

American feared being infected with a good case of communism. (R) Is This Tomorrow a 1947 comic book designed to teach people about the subversive nature of communist infiltration.

The very health of democracy was at stake, unless these morally corrupting influences were wiped out and banned from our shores.

More frightening than polio was the spread of that ideological virus communism.

And the displaced persons camps were prime breeding grounds for this subversive cunning germ.

The president of the National Economic Council testified in Congress that the DPs were “important carriers of the kind of ideological germs with which it is their aim to infect the public opinion of the U.S. ”

It was a virulent strain of ideology that once exposed, there was no cure. We needed to quarantine the public from the spread of this dangerous virus.

Crafty subversive plotters training for their roles as peddlers of Soviet propaganda, skillfully disguise themselves as refugees in a DP camp 1947 . Photo family collection

Just as germs entered the bloodstream undetected so Communists could infiltrate and attack. “Skillfully disguising themselves as refugees,” one article warned, “carrying out their mission these communists spend years in training for their subversive roles, poised to slip in a neat hypodermic needle full of Moscow virus.”

In a DP camp in Germany a group of Junior revolutionaries plotting for seizure and power in the USA. Photo- family collection

Many were convinced Communists had infiltrated the DP camps, posing as refugees in order to enter the country where they would soon overthrow the government.

People testified in Congress that the Soviets had placed “trained terrorists’ ( trained at terrorists institutions in Moscow) in the DP camps .

Is that a concealed weapon in that snow ball? A 2 year old displaced child in DP camp Germany. Photo Family collection

It was  therefore likely that many DP camps admitted from Europe would include a number of these terrorists. Alarmists feared that DPs were Soviet “Trojan Horses bent on the nations destruction.”

Natural Tendencies

As a reflection of their “natural tendencies” the perceived politics of the DPs thus posed a threat to American nation.

Many Congressmen opposed DP immigration equating these “New Immigrants” with anarchism, communism and Bolshevism, recklessly claiming the DPs were “imbued with political ideologies wholly at variance with our constitutional system of government.”

Who Can You Trust

What it boiled down to was loyalty and trust calling in to question the loyalty of immigrants from Eastern Europe.

Marking an entire people as pre disposed to disloyalty is a familiar refrain.

Once here, the DPs ( from Central, Eastern and Southern Europe) would be “peculiarly susceptible to the absorption of socialistic propaganda” and naturally gravitate into “left wing unions” and the immigrant slums which were “mothers of revolution.”

Opponents of DP immigration often spoke of how the DPs and the “ideological germs” that they carried would weaken the nation from within, echoing fears of “race suicide” that had been so prevalent in debates about immigration earlier in the century.

1948 Displaced Persons Act

However as time went on President Harry Truman stood up against the public opinion and Congress in his battle to open the door of the U.S. to Jewish DPs. He urged Congress to enact legislation that would admit thousands of homeless and suffering refugees of all faiths to the U.S.

After pressure, Congress passed the less than magnanimous 1948 Displaced Person Act ( an act to authorize for a limited time the admission into the U.S. 200,00 of certain European displaced persons) which was highly selective using date restrictions designed to limit the number of Jewish refugees eligible for entry.

President Truman when he signed it, grudgingly admitted it was better than nothing, but called it “flagrantly discriminatory” against Jews and Catholics. 1

Change of Heart

Many began seeing the propaganda potential of DPs that could be exploited and that they be touted through the U.S. as “Victims of Communism.”

As more refuges were being admitted, a cold war re-branding of the DPs began to take hold. In the war against communism they could use their plight to our advantage.

One document  suggested a technique for fighting Communism in the USA strongly recommending “that the propaganda potential of DPs be exploited and that they be touted through the U.S. as Victims of Communism.”

The obvious fact that the DPs who might technically be able to return to their East European homelands refused to do so because of feared Communist rule, had somehow previously eluded them.

Many folks began to realize that far from destroying the nation from within, the politics of the DPs especially their anti-communist feelings could strengthen the nation in its conflict with the Soviet Union.

For many of the proponents of DP immigration, the DPs did not represent the communist contagion but rather the anti-communism inoculation.

They would be living proof of the terrors and horrors of Communist rule.

In its final report the USDPC urged the resettlement of refugees from communist tyranny should become part of Cold War U.S. Strategy.

These displaced persons served to remind us of the dangers of totalitarian communism!

Post Script

Coming to America 1949 Photo family collection

In the fall of 1949 a few months before a relatively unknown senator from Wisconsin began his 4 year witch hunt for Communists, my future husband and what remained of his family arrived in the states from their DP camp in Germany.

After a ten-day crossing from Bremerhaven, Germany, the ship steamed into NY Harbor. On board were other displaced persons some were survivors of concentration camps others refugees from Russian persecution.

Some were so old that they had little to look forward to except burial at last in American earth; others like my husband, so young that soon they would have no recollection at all of Europe. But all of them felt grateful to the country that had finally given them a safe haven.

Only 4 years old, Hersh who had spent almost all his life behind barbed wire was able to adjust quickly, learning phrases that would take his parents months to learn.

His first experience here was watching Hop Along Cassidy on TV. This little 4 year boy who could only speak Yiddish donned a cowboy hat and learned the language watching good old American westerns.

As his parents watched him change from a displaced person with a number into an American, they beamed with happiness.

Today this former unwanted refugee is an attorney defending those most in need of help, whose eloquence owed a lot to those 1950s cowboy and the generosity of America for welcoming him.

1. Note: So much criticism was heaped on the 1948 Act that Congress later passed amendments extending allotment of US immigration visas for DPs to approximately 500,000.
The 1950 revision succeeded including treating all European refugees “equally as members of the human race” as the NY Times said in an editorial at the time.

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2015. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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Syrian Refugee Crisis – Is It Deja Vi All Over Again

When it comes to American exceptionalism, we Americans have long had an exceptionally voracious appetite for red meat, making us the proud leader of the free, meat-eatin’ world.

In this land of democracy, meat has reigned as king.

But recently after much maligning in the media, red meat is being dethroned as a nutritional superfood. Is this meats denouement?

Long before it was vilified, the conventional wisdom of my childhood assured us that “ meat was what made America great” and mid-century Americans were on a cholesterol high.

What’s So Great About America?  Meat!

Meat Serves Everybody, the people, the soil, the nation! Vintage ad American Meat Institute

Meat, ads proudly proclaimed, was the American way. It serves everybody!

Nothing was more American than a back yard barbecue when slapping a hunk of meat on a Weber grill proclaimed to the world “I’m proud to be an American.” In the suburban summers of my childhood, the sizzling smell of prime democracy perpetually hung in the air

Sniffing the steaming steak fragrance, an American tradition!

“No other nation in the world,” my barbecue bound-father often boasted, while carving a first off-the- grill sirloin into juicy slices (another ready to go, is ‘waitin behind the first) “is blessed with the amount of good, rich, nourishing meat!”

In this land of plenty one thing we had plenty of was rich, red meat.

With WWII meat shortages and rationing still a fresh memory, mid-century Americans were more than ready to play catch up.

Meat was as American as apple pie. and everyone was entitled to a slice or 2 or 3 of this tasty American dream.

The pulse-quickening excitement of a sizzling steak brought out the patriot in a man.

Way before the current war on meat, meat itself had gone to war.

“Meat helped win the war by keeping us healthy and vigorous. American meat,” my Army veteran Dad would say nearly choked up, “had done its job!”

Meat was our secret weapon – our arsenal of democracy.

Meat Will Win the War

More and more meat was going to our armed forces and our fighting allies with less meat for the home tables . Vintage ad Swift and Company 1943

Food we were told during WWII, will win the war and no food was more vital to victory than meat, which became a materiel of war as soon as the hostilities began. Morale boosting meat was needed most to fight on and to win on.

War made a staggering demand on American livestock and meat industry.

In a never-ending barrage of ads and articles the  American meat industry reminded us, “that supplying plenty of meat for the fighting men and gallant allies was their first and foremost job.”

“There’s never a shortage of meat when Uncle Sam goes shopping for his armed forces.” WWII Vintage ad Swifts & Company

Uncle Sam went on a shopping spree, buying up all the top quality meat supplies for our 10 million hungry boys overseas so that meant for those on the home front there would be fewer of the familiar choicest cuts.

Along with sugar, and coffee, gone were the all American Sunday roasts deliciously browned and larded with fat.

When Meat Doesn’t Make the Meal

WWII Vintage Ad 1943

For Americans who abided by the notion that “meat makes the meal” thriftiness and ingenuity had to be learned when it came to mealtime.

“Waste not the meat” stated one headline. “Lest not forget the ounce of meat we save is an ounce of insurance that meat is being used more effectively as a weapon of war.”

Where’s the Beef?

Vintage ad American Meat Institute 1943 “The New Pioneer Woman in Meat” Todays homefront housewife “has learned it is fun to go adventuring in new meats.”

Making a little look like a lot particularly when it came to meat was the homemakers rallying cry as they were encouraged to make the most of meat.

Home front housewives like my grandmother, were bombarded with information on how to keep precious meat from spoiling, learning to rely on meat extenders  and tips on cooking meat in ways that reduced shrinkage.

The American Meat Institute tried to convince housewives that less expensive cuts that were available had the same fine nutrition as that Sunday roast, providing the same energy, stamina and vitality.

Vintage ad American Meat Institute 1942

As much as her mother tried to dress them up, my teen age mother Betty wasn’t too thrilled trying the less familiar, often tougher, thriftier cuts of beef.

Though today you pay a premium price for it, free range, grass-fed beef was called utility beef in the 1940’s because it was cheap, plentiful, point free, and oh yes, tough.

Articles coaxed us to try utility beef, untried by most housewives, but long used in economical households. Utility or grade C beef, it seems, was cut from cadaverous-looking cattle that have forlornly roamed the range, feeding only on grass, the poor chemically deprived souls.

Vintage WWII ad Swifts 1944

Choice beef comes from contented cattle that spend 2-7 months in a spa like feeder lots where they dine extravagantly on corn or silage.

Grass feeding produces lean, less choice meat. Corn feeding produces fat, well-marbled cattle – and fat, well marbled people.

Blue Print For a Post War Product

An American Masterpiece! “In the not too distant future,” The American Meat Industry tempted us, “the kind of living that has made our country famous all over the world will return to our land.” Yes, the kind of living that hardened our arteries and clogged our colons.

As the war began winding down, The American Meat Industry whetted our appetites waxing poetically about meat painting a rosy post war vision of juicy steaks and standing rib roasts.

“Here,” they teased a carnivorous craving public “is a wartime arsenal with a peace time future.”

“In the not too distant future, the kind of living that has made our country famous all over the world will return to our land.”

With  high cholesterol levels and heart attacks  far from our minds, they promised…“Final victory will hasten the day when there will be plenty of meat for everybody.”

Post War Promises

For four long years, Americans had rolled up their sleeves and had wholeheartedly cooperated.

They had done with less. They conserved and extended their share of meat in every possible way so that our fighting boys and fighting allies could be assured supplies.

Vintage illustration for A&P 1951

But with victory achieved, it was payback time and Americans were ready to cash in on those post war promises of picture-perfect prime rib.

Meat All American Hero

When red meat returned to the home front it was lionized as a hero – it had done its part for victory. Along with other war heroes, it took its rightful place marching in the victory parade, ribbons and medals festooned on its rump roast.

Vintage Ad American Meat Institute. Painting a post war dream with a broad brush the copy reads: “This is not just a piece of meat…this is something a man wants to come home to…something that makes his wife proud of their meals…”

“Meat is life,” proclaimed one advertisement reverentially. “When the war is over is it any wonder that as meat moves back to the home plate we look on meat with new regard not just for its enjoyment, but as a nutritional cornerstone of life.”

Meats esteemed place in the red white and blue American diet was assured.

Leaders of the Free Meat Eating World

Vintage illustration 1958 Saturday Evening Post

When the boys came marching home from the war,  it wasn’t for some sissy cheesy carrot ring casserole, but for a he-man steak. Our new post war wealth allowed us to buy large chunks of steaks and chops. And binge buying we did, filling up our new deep freezers with all  manner of meat.

The rest of the world still reeling from the horrors of war, its industrial base shattered,  its farmlands untended or blown to bits, could only sit back in amazement and watch.

USDA Approved. Vintage ad for Swifts Meats

While the allies were busy carving up the post war world, Americans were living high on the hog, carving up their fat larded roasts.

And what well marbled, tender meat it was.

DES – It’s No Wonder

Are You Sure You’re Right In Liking Meat? In this land of the free, home of the brave, you might have to be brave to eat some of this meat L) Vintage Eli Lilly ad for Stilbosol ( diethylstilbestrol) (R) Vintage ad American Meat Institute

When hormones were introduced into livestock production after the war, the meat industry was fairly salivating .

The manufacturers of diethylstilbestrol, known as DES, hailed the event as the most important moment in the history of food production, right up there with frozen food.

And my father couldn’t agree more.

His cousin a Junior  executive with Eli Lilly, knew the benefits and importance of this breakthrough and explained it to my mother:

“Because it produced more fat and more weight on the animals,” Cousin Albert marveled,”and thus more profits for the meat industry, DES, rightfully so, was being used on more than 90 % of American cattle. It was short of a miracle.”

This new wonder drug he promised, “would give meat juicy tenderness that cannot fail-the best eatingest…melt in your mouth goodness cut with a fork tenderness ever served!”

Are You Sure You’re Right in  Liking Meat?

Just in time for the baby boomers diet! ( L) Vintage Ad for DES (R) Vintage ad Gerbers baby Food Meat

Baby boomers born into this golden age of meat consumption would grow up consuming this sizzling DES deliciousness folks don’t forget.

Decades later those unfortunate people who would develop cancer wouldn’t forget either.

Although the carcinogenicity of the synthetic DES in test animals was known by 1938 it was approved in 1947 by the USDA. With profits sky-high , it’s no wonder.

By the time I was born, meats place in Americas life was as firmly attached to their dinner plates as the plaque lining their arteries would become.

Next: When baby Sally says mmm she means meat. It’s never too early to start ’em on a life time of eating.

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2015. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.