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Predictions for 1975
(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...
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Retro Tech- Men Who Plan Beyond Tomorrow
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...
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A Winter War Time Romance
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...
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Winter War Time Romance PTII
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...
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Velveeta for Victory in WWII
(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...
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Russia The Hungry Bear
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...
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Victory Gardens in WWII
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....
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No Time to Tan
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...
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Remembering Lauren Bacall
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...
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Wholesome Candy-Treat or Trick?
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...
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Let’s Remember Pearl Harbor
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...
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Our Tortured Past
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...
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How the Mad Men of Madison Avenue Got Rosie the Riveter to Man Up
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...
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Operation June Cleaver
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...
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I’d Like to Buy the World a Coke
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...
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Rosie the Riveter Rocks a Swimsuit
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...
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This Is Your Life- The Atomic Age
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...
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Syrian Refugee Crisis- Is it Deja Vu All Over Again?
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...
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Refugee Crisis – The Fear Factor
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...
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Where’s the Beef?
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...
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