Cadillac Standard of the World (L) Vintage Cadillac Ad 1953 (R) Vintage Cadillac Ad 1958

With the conviction of a car salesmen selling a wouldn’t you rather have a Cadillac, Mid-Century Americans were convinced that America was the standard by which the world’s other countries were to be judged.

Indeed when you compared we were beyond comparison. No other country ever inspired such widespread admiration as the USA, the Cadillac of country’s.

And when it came to cars, well, there was only one – the Cadillac the “car of cars” that reigned supreme.

A Sumptuous Mid-Century Summer

Cadillac Coup de Ville 1960

In the years before I would go to camp, summer days were more often than not spent as guests at my grandmother’s beach club.

For Nana Sadie, summer marked the beginning of her big social season as a member of the ritzy El Patio Beach Club in Lido beach.

Besides rhumba lessons refreshed, her white mink stole was taken out of cold storage and a new bouffant dress would be purchased at Bonwits for the big July 4^th dance.

Early every summer morning in the late 1950s and 60s’s, my Manhattan grandmother  and her Big Apple cronies would pack up their belongings in  her  majestic  wouldn’t-you-rather-have-a-Cadillac Coup de Ville and be off, leaving their spacious classic 6 pre-war apartments and the blistering heat of NYC for the breezy beach club on Long Island where they all shared a one room cabana.

Unrivaled

They would arrive to pick Mom and me up just as the neighborhood men in their light tropical suits, were leaving for work.

Vintage ads for compact cars 1960 (L) Corvair (R) Comet

Normally rushed commuters idled in their sawed-off cut-down compacts; necks craned out of Plymouth Valiant’s, Dads gawked in Dodge Darts and my father lingered just a bit longer in his Ford Falcon.

Wilting in his wash n’ war suit, he ogled with envy  as the long, clean, graceful, sweep of a car would confidently glide up our humble driveway.

Even self satisfied-so-proud-of- his -choice Jack Shapiro who boasted that his world was brighter …his heart lighter …because he was driving an Oldsmobile Super 88 Holiday Scenicoupe, now had lust in that same heart.

The Beauty Queen on the Runway

While Dad looked on with amazement as if it were a Douglas DC-8 Jet pulling up on a runway, to me the Cadillac was nothing short of a Beauty Queen strutting another sort of runway.

”There she is Miss America- there she is your ideal/ with so many beauties she’ll take the town by storm with her All American face and form…”

At the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra -Vintage ad Cadillac 1956

The gleaming, all-American toothy grill up front, a glittering cliff of eye blinding chrome was as dazzling as a Pepsodent smile.

But it was the garish sun reflecting off the metallic Kensington Green magic-mirror-acrylic finish that blinded me; it’s beautiful to behold no -end -in-sight tail fins with pendulous bomb like tail lights that bedazzled.

Even at rest, it seemed in motion a rich deep sense of power in reserve.

Suddenly our stylish 1957 Plymouth  the car with the Forward Look, the one everyone recognized as the new shape of motion, the car that looked straight into tomorrow, was suddenly…so yesterday.

Motoring at its Most Glamorous

The glamour of a Cadillac (L) Vintage Cadillac ad 1957 (R) Vintage Cadillac ad 1958

This Cadillac was majestic and elegant without precedent-no other car so heralded the future- no other cart so admired or envied, this was what tomorrows travel would be like.

Air Cooled Cadillac

A surprising blast of arctic air would greet me as soon as I opened the large doors to the car transporting me into a world of luxury.

I had never ridden in a car with air conditioning which to me was something reserved for air-cooled movie theaters and department stores.

The air was so jet cold, as frost-free freezing as any Frigidaire, keeping passengers , like a head of iceberg lettuce crisp and fresh longer.

With a cigarette lighter conveniently located in the back seat, Mom wasted no time in lighting up a springtime fresh Newport. The frigid blast of Freon skillfully swirled that refreshing hint o’ mint smoke all through the hermetically sealed car- as refreshing as an ocean breeze!

Vintage ads 1960 Cadillac

The Gold Standard of Cars

Settling into the car, I could tell Dad was right. Just as the new glamorous jets were designed for the utmost in graciousness aloft, their décor unusual and exciting, I felt like a sophisticated globetrotter in an elegant United Airlines jetliner.

The ride was startling jet smooth and sumptuously quiet like traveling in a sound proof cloud so luxurious you felt airborne. And like the welcome sense of privacy that the deep, wide seats gave jetsetters with room to s-t-r-e-t-c-h out, the made- for- comfort, decorator styled interiors of the Cadillac had room to spare, to relax in the opulent appointments beyond anything you could imagine.

Sinking deeply in the cool green metallic top grade Florentine leather, I could tickle my toes in the deep pile rug, mesmerized by the fully electrified power windows.

This was motoring at its most glamorous.

L) Vintage Ray Ban Sunglasses Ad 1960 (R) Vintage Jantzen Swimsuit Ad 1950s, illustration by Pete Hawley

Preening

In the summer of 1960 the glitter and glamor of my Grandmothers beach club often rivaled the showboating and schmoozing of the presidential campaign that summer.

A glittering spectacle, out dazzling the sun and each other with their gleaming potpourri of garish gold and sparkly diamonds, the club was filled with middle-aged sea nymphs in sun-frost green, icy turquoise and luminous gold, Riviera radiant from head to toe in their sun blazing Cote Azur colors

Like the other Beach clubs that dotted the narrow spit of Long Island, the club was always overrun with sun worshiping, jewelry glittering, deeply tanned women, their middle-aged-matronly bodies newly trim from a week at the milk farm pummeled and pounded by a host of masseurs,  squeezed into this seasons-must-have figure flattering swimsuit.

Splashing around happily in the shallow end of the turquoise tiled pool, my mother and I  watched the endless parade of equally shallow strutting ladies preening for lots of second glances.

Each gals  curve hugging suit equipped with molded bras to showcase bountiful bosoms,competed for attention-  a flurry of rhumba stripes, pleats, cotton shirred, piped ruffles, saucy anchor buttons, and bows placed just so.

It was a peculiar female universe at least during the week when women far outnumbered the men, but for the solicitous cabana boys, and the occasional group of stogie smoking, pot-bellied retirees dressed in eye-catching terry lined cabana sets in exotic patterns evoking the faraway South Pacific.

Whether playing pinochle or gin rummy, their lido straw hats dipped strategically below one eye, they always listened to the ball game.

Even with the southern drawl of Red Barber blaring loudly from their large Sylvania  transistor radio with the oversize dial and the CONELRAD markings, the folksy red head’s colorful play by-play of the Bronx Bombers reverberating  throughout the club  was not enough to dim the  high volume chattering of these strident ladies.

Ladies Only

Since the men were in such short supply during the week  they hoped to at least elicit envy from the other scrutinizing gals.

They teetered and tottered about on perilously high raffia straw wedgies slides, sun-loving fun-loving play shoes studded with colorful sea shells or a gay spray of red plastic posies to brighten their footsteps, a cold Pepsi in one well manicured hand and a glowing Kool in the other, my grandmother called them the girls from Iponema by way of East Flatbush.

Beneath huge showy straw hats, some as large as pizza pies, their winter dull hair, had been miraculously enlivened by Miss Clairol in mouth-watering shades that ran the gamut from apricot soufflé, strawberry parfait, and lemon meringue.

Unlike Mom, their teased hair never seemed to melt or wilt, thanks to liberal use of Helene Curtis Spray Net, nor were their lips like Mom’s, covered in chapstick, but improbably colored by Hazel Bishop’s no smear lipstick, staying so perfectly you could swim with it-but-god forbid you got wet swimming and risk ruining your hair-do.

Vintage Ads (L) champion Papers 1957 (R) 7-Up 1958

Life’s a Beach

My grandmother was in possession of prime beach club real estate, a much coveted corner cabana, so we were treated to unobstructed vistas of the clean white sandy beach

The powerful ocean waves were restrained by algae stone jetties that also served the purpose of dividing the white sandy beach into socially stratified enclaves.

These unofficial boundaries protected each beach club from the huddled masses lest it be turned into, my grandmothers worst fear,  a Coney island where the crush of crowds concealed the sand, the beach  filled with who knows what kinds of people who had been who knows where.

Living proof that the American dream was alive and well in mid-century america

But the beaches themselves were often deserted.

The ladies of the club much preferred to loll around the pool on chaise lounges as the cabana boys lavishly rubbed Bain de Soeillee Orange Gelee onto their mahogany burnished, Lady Norelco’d bodies.

Lest they lose their dollar tip at the end of the day the crew cut cabana boys were careful to avoid shmeering the goopy orange gel on m’ ladies new-this-season Rose Marie Reed swimsuit, the one featured at Saks but scooped up for a song at Loehmans.

They would make a splash without once getting wet.

No, the beach was not for them- it was too messy with its gritty sand that got into all the inconvenient  nooks and crannies, its salty mist terrible for their elaborate do’s.

For the afternoon, while their balding overworked, overweight husbands labored in the steaming heat of the Garment Center, and their kids safely tucked away at camp these suburban satyrs were temporarily transported to a Riviera of their own making.

Copyright (©) 20012 Sally Edelstein All Rights Reserved -Excerpt From  Defrosting The Cold War: Fallout From My Nuclear family

© 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.

Vintage Cabana Set ads (L) Mc Greggor Sun Wear 1948 (R) Catalina Sport Sets 1954 as worn by Norm van Brocklin and Elroy “Crazy Legs” Hirsch who formed one of footballs greatest passing teams

Beach Club Paradise Pt. II

My grandmothers mid-century beach club was an oddly  female universe at least during the week  when women far outnumbered the men .

Up and down the rows of attached cabanas, the daily routines were as identical as their pink flamingo color.

As ladies shed their flowered splashed shifts, wriggling with great effort to zip up their lastex swim suits, the ever smiling cabana boys effortlessly opened their folding bridge tables in anticipation of the days Mah Jonng marathons.

With their big straw hats adorned with plastic daisy’s covering their faces, swimsuit straps untied so they wouldn’t get a tan line, the girls spent the day playing canasta and dishing about last night’s Million Dollar movie.

(L) Vintage Motorola Portable Radio (R) Life Magazine Cover August 1961 Yankees Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris

The Beach Club Boys of Summer

But come the weekends the ladies were joined by their overworked and overweight husbands. El Patio was overrun with groups of stogie smoking, pot-bellied men dressed in eye-catching terry lined cabana sets in exotic patterns evoking the  faraway South Pacific.

Whether playing pinochle or gin rummy, their lido straw hats dipped strategically below one eye, they always listened to the ball game.

Anxiously chewing the flexible white plastic tip of their white owl cigars, heated discussions flared up over which Yankee slugger would smash The Babes home run record. The American League Pennant race was all but forgotten that summer of ’61 as fans tormented themselves and each other with the burning question -would Mickey Mantle or Roger Maris break babe Ruth’s record of 60 homers in one season?

Among the men was my Uncle Harry. Sitting stylishly at ease in his gleaming white leather Italian styled slip on shoes, was my nattily dressed uncle who despite being at a beach never once  wore a bathing suit.

Sporting a natty Lido telescope straw hat with a fancy  woven braided band my Uncle Harry would be glowering behind his no glare Ray bans, giving opinions freely from the side lines like a battle-scarred retired officer from the comfort of their glider aluminum chairs.

Even with his vision clouded by cataracts he read the tiny print of the Daily Racing Forum religiously.

But he suddenly looked up from the crumpled copy he was currently squinting at long enough to put in his two cents about the baseball game. An inveterate gambler with a gruff voice like a boxing promoter he dismissed the plays with a wave of his liver spotted hand. Handicapping the 2 players like they were horses at Belmont he was betting on  Maris .

Even with the southern drawl of Red Barber blaring loudly from their large Motorola portable radio with the oversize dial and the CONELRAD markings, ...”Here’s the pitch swung on, belted….its a long one…back back back heee makes a one-handed catch against the bullpen! Oh Doctor!”  the folksy red head’s colorful play by-play of the Bronx Bombers reverberating  throughout the club  was not enough to dim the  high volume chattering of these strident ladies.

Copyright (©) 20012 Sally Edelstein All Rights Reserved -Excerpt From Defrosting The Cold War:Fallout From My Nuclear Family

© 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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Life Guards

During the 1950′s and 60′s my grandmother was in possession of prime beach club real estate on a narrow spit of land on suburban Long Island.

A much coveted corner cabana at the El Patio,  we were treated to unobstructed vistas of the clean white sandy beach and could breath deeply of the refreshing salty breezes coming off the ocean.

Protecting El Patio’s sandy shores was the whistle blowing-pith Helmet wearing-Bobby Rydell -look-a-like lifeguard.

With his deep, dark Sea and Ski tan, his nose and lips thick with white zinc oxide he looked like he had just come from performing at a minstrel show belting out a rendition of Swannee.

Perched high on his wooden white lifeguard stand, his 6 foot frame towered over everyone, his trained eye sweeping the beach for any infraction to the rules posted on large print for all to see.

The omnipresent lanyard braided in a box stitch with the whistle clipped on it that he wore around his neck, ensured all that he was  at the ready, poised to jump heroically into depths of the ocean in a moments notice.

That is , once he put out his ever-present cigarette.

Cold War Beach Control

Another fixture monitoring the nearly deserted beach was Sol Rubin, a solitary figure with a perpetual Roi Tan cigar jutting from his mouth who spent the day ensconced on his folding webbed aluminum chair scanning the ocean in hopes of spotting a Soviet submarine operating off the coast.

Craning his neck to stare through the massive waves with his high-powered Bausch and Laumb binoculars with the Touch-O-Matic focusing bar, rotund Mr Rubin was our first line of coastal defense in case an enemy sub might sneak close enough to our shore.

Even as I innocently built a sandcastle with my metal shovel and pail, enemy submarines might be taking radar fixes on our shores and possibly interfering with our missile testing.

Was that battery propeller noises a school of fish or a Russian submarine?

Club members were used to his false alarm sightings which more often than not turned out to be the bobbing petal bathing capped head of a swimmer who had drifted too far out.  Since there were no defenses against incoming missiles, the only way to stop a submerged sub was by detecting them.

So while his cronies were busy dealing cards, rolly polly Mr Rubin made certain that our shores were secure against any Cold War surprise attacks.

The club motto was “…You know you’re safe with Sol.”

© 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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Summer beach traffic during the Cold War had its own special flare.

The huge-wrap around picture window in the rear of my Grandmothers Cadillac  offered unexcelled visibility to see and be seen, allowing uninterrupted lavish vistas of Long Beach Road, as we drove to her beach club El Patio to spend the day.

Along with the flashy Ford Fairlaine convertibles filled with wind-swept teenagers blasting their radios..“Mr Sandman, build me a dream (bung bung bung bung)” a common sight on those mid-century  roads was the military convoy of trucks loaded with soldiers followed by long trailers carting not-so-secret-missiles clumsily covered with olive drab-colored tarps on their way to the Missile base in sunny Lido Beach.

Along with the construction of the snazzy beach clubs up and down the narrow strip of land, the government  had built for M’Lady’s and Gents protection, a Nike installation.

Kept in cold storage were 60 Nike Ajax guided surface to air Missiles deep in concrete bunkers buried in the sand…”Mr Sandman Please turn on  your magic beams, Mr. Sandman bring me a dream!”

Building Sandcastle Missiles in the Sand

Sometimes, while driving past the chain linked enclosed Missile base, standing in the shadow of  the Grand Lido Beach Hotel, that Jazz age bubblegum colored sand castle in the sky, I might catch a glimpse of  those Mighty Birds  from the road as the soldiers put them up on their launches.

One week out of every month the base was placed on alert so some very lucky guests at the hotel, Long Islands answer to The Riviera, were treated, at no extra cost, to an extra thrill.

Whether you were dining at the elegant restaurant with its retractable roof for feasting under the stars or being entertained by flashy stars like Connie Francis, Edyie Gorme and Sammy Davis Junior, at the ritzy circular nightclub, you might get an extra floor show feasting your eyes at the sight of 40 foot long beckoning to behold Nike Aircraft Missiles aimed at the sky ready to shoot down any enemy bombers.

It was a real showstopper!

Gazing out the back of the Caddies large panoramic rear window the lingering image of the powerful Missiles thrusting into the deep blue summer sky would slowly diminish, resembling the tiny dioramas of model missiles preparing for launch displayed in the store window of Moe’s Hobby World.

Just as the image faded, we would arrive at the Beach Club.

© 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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Cover Illustration from Colliers Magazine 10/27/51 This Cold War era magazine imagines a “Preview of a War We Don’t Want” a cold war what-if, featuring Russia’s defeat and US occupation 1952-1960. Articles by notables-Robert E Sherwood, Lowell Thomas, Walter Winchell, Bill Mauldin and Philip Wylie among others.

The increasingly frosty relations between President Obama and Russian President Vladamir Putin sends a big chill down my spine, as childhood memories of the Cold War are quickly defrosted. The cold war world of black and white, us vs them feels like deja vu all over again;  the deepening mistrust and accusations of lying being lobbed by both the US and Russia is familiar.

Is the Cold War being taken out of deep freeze?

Truth, Justice, and the American Way

Vintage Illustration from Community Silver advertisement 1943

It was 1956. The cold war was frozen solid.

Never were American dreams more potent or more seductive than in Cold War America when the USA stood united and confident in our role as leader of the Free World.

It would soon be my first Independence Day and my parents believed it was time for its littlest citizen to be introduced to her Uncle Sam and  “My America.”

What better place to be inculcated with truth, justice and the American way than at an honest to goodness Fourth of July parade.

Like most American  children I would be  inoculated with a strong dose of Americanism which if administered at an early age would build up your immunity to any opposing belief system.

That year, the theme of our local parade was the celebration of The Four Freedoms.

All across Long Island, residents were a buzz over the fact that our towns parade was being co-sponsored  by those Cold War crusaders of truth from “The Crusade For Freedom”.

Cold War Crusaders of Truth

Vintage Ad Radio Free Europe Truth Dollar Campaign 1955

The Crusade, was a privately funded donation drive that raised “truth dollars” to support Radio Free Europe, the radio station that broadcast news and current affairs to the enslaved people behind the Iron Curtain.

In the black and white cold war world of us vs them, we were convinced that the Russians were hell-bent on destroying  freedom and the American way of life and it would be up to us to contain them.

Who Can You Trust

WWII Soviet Allies (L) Life Magazine cover 3/29/43 featuring warm and fuzzy Joseph “Uncle Joe” Stalin (R) Life magazine cover 2/12/45 featuring our brave ally a Soviet Soldier courageously driving on to Berlin

Like so many war born marriages it turned out our grand alliance during WWII  with the Soviets was more a marriage of convenience and our relations had turned frosty.

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 Russians Commies, uniting our country once again.

Uncle Sam was certain that the Communists were not only concealing the truth but were waging a campaign of hatred against us and our peaceful, decent motives.

They were weaving fantastic stories and twisted facts about America unlike in our country where the government told us the truth.

Truth as clear and undistorted as the perfect picture you were promised on your new Philco television set.

True picture, no blur, no distortion, that was the American Way.

Cold Facts

(L) Vintage Book The Soviet Image of the United States A Study in Distortion by Frederick C. Barghoorn Co. 1950 Harcourt, Brace & Company
The book claims that “Soviet propaganda against the United States is one of the main instruments of the Kremlin’s aggressive foreign policy Moscow, building the worlds greatest war machine, is seeking to turn world opinion against the US by accusing America of crimes against humanity of which itself is guilty>”

By exposing the calculated lies that Communists were spreading, and promoting the American way of Life, Radio Free Europe became a vital strategy in winning the Cold War.

The Crusade For Freedom had aired public service announcements on the radio all week leading up to the parade, as well as advertisements in all the papers.

“Every hour, every day, millions hear no other version but hating America”  Dad read aloud from a full-page ad in the NY Times, paid for by the Crusade and their Truth dollars. “The unfortunate people behind the iron curtain are fed a steady diet of lies and misstatements and the poor people are made to swallow that poison”.

Sugar Coated Goodness

Dad wanted us to realize how vital Radio Free Europe was.

As my brother mindlessly popped fistfuls of sugar crisps into his mouth -for breakfast its dandy, for snacks it’s so handy or eat like candy:  Dad tried to explain :“Just as mom feeds us wholesome good food, we needed to feed the poor people behind the iron curtain the good nourishing truth”.

America was not only the greatest nation in the world it was the very embodiment of freedom, democracy and progress.

With my made- in- the- USA regulation rattle in one hand and my National Dairy Council issued bottle of milk in the other I was ready to to be inducted into Uncle Sam’s service and pledge my allegiance to the land of the Free.

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The Man Who Feels Right About the World! Vintage image from Airfoam Ad 1946

Fact or Fiction

It may sound like a fairy tale but once upon a time the GOP really were…well, pretty Grand!

Today when the phrase “moderate Republican is fast becoming an oxymoron , it seems like fiction  to imagine a  time when there really were progressive, liberal Republicans who roamed the political landscape and were actually in the vanguard of the civil rights movement.Such as  liberal Republicans from the northeast like Jacob Javits who should have been a democrat

Having watched his father work N.Y.s Tammany Hall and saw the corruption and graft associated wit that NY Machine, Javits joined the Republicans in the 1930s supporting the Progressive Republican for Mayor Fiorella La Guardia. After a stint in the House of Representatives, and then as NY Attorney General, he ran for seanter in 1956.

The longtime senator from New York was a leader of Progressive Republicanism for more than 3 decades, and was one of the most liberal voices in the senate.

His was also  my second  kiss from a politician.

The politician and the bald-headed baby were made for one another.

A baby’s first kiss from a politician is always remembered….and mine in 1955 was no exception .

A Campaign Kiss

Declaration of Independence (L) Illustration from Vintage ad Franfort Distilleries (R) Vintage Baby Book 1937

On my first Independence Day  my parents believed it was time for its littlest citizen to be introduced to her Uncle Sam and “My America.” And what better place to be inculcated with truth, justice and the American way than at an honest to goodness fourth of July campaign rally.

July fourth was the official campaign kickoff , which seemed natural enough since the right to vote was as American as the hot dog.

The hot weather seemed to have little effect on the swarm of soggy seersucker suited town-clerk-district-court-judge-town-supervisor-hopefuls  buzzing and circulating around the rally. Displaying high beam campaign poster smiles with their  Arthur Murray toned wives in tow, they glad handled handing out emery boards and plastic rain bonnets with their names printed on them, as they scanned the crowd for a baby to kiss.

Nothing said the America way of life more than that age-old kiss from a politicians and it didn’t take long before some county comptroller-wannabee’s radar had me in his sights.

Mopping his brow, and peeling off his jacket,  a well upholstered Sicilian-American with a melting pot belly and unruly eyebrows  waddled over towards us, clumsily clutching a hot dog in one hand.

He savored fully the juices that trickled down his chin, licked a spot of mustard off his cheek, and bent over to kiss me on the top of my head while with a greasy hand, presented Mom with a wink and a green plastic comb with his name emblazoned on it, hoping to win her vote.

The tangy residue of French’s yellow mustard and the sandpaper sensation of the heavy stubble on his chin lingered on my forehead longer than his name lingered with my parents.

A Javits Republican Puckers Up

The politician and the bald-headed baby were made for one another.
L) Vintage photo from 1950s ad (R) Senator Jacob K. Javits

 But when a balding gentleman, the charismatic N.Y.State Attorney General, who despite the heat was crisp and cheerful in a brown suit and purple hued tie, chose my own bald little head to kiss, Mom was ecstatic.

“That should be good for a few dozen votes when he runs for the senate next year,” Dad chuckled.

There was talk of the Attorney General running for senate next year, which explained why Jacob Javits was out in full force helping local campaigns in our small suburban town.

The Jews claimed Jack Javits as one of their own which was why he was the first and only  Republican my Roosevelt-nik-New Deal Democrat mother every voted for.  The fact that Javits had run against FDR Jr  made the choice  more even more agonizing for Mom , but being Jewish trumped everything.

As Javits bent down to kiss me, his breath fruity from a constant consumption of cough suppressing cherry flavored cough drops, a skinny young photographer  from The Long Island Press  fortuitously  captured the moment forever. The yellowing photo from the newspaper would lay pressed in my baby book pages for the next 50 years, right next to my inoculations records.

© 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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July 4th Celebration Cold War Style

The sizzling summer of 1960 was dominated by the equally hot Presidential race between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon.

Earlier in the summer Kennedy had boldly beckoned us to hitch our wagon to his train and be pioneers in a New Frontier. After the seemingly stillness of the Eisenhower years, Americans were anxious to get moving again.

The  Presidential race-  a spectacle of pure showmanship filled with hoopla and chutzpah, showboating and glad handling – paled in comparison to my grandmother’s beach club, itself crawling with glitter and glamor.

Beach Club Ballyhoo

In the years before I went to day camp, my days were spent at The El Flamingo Beach Club on Long Island NY.

The entire day was a step up and in to the good life, living proof that the American Dream was alive and well in mid-century America.

It was a world where your every need seemed to be anticipated and taken care of.

Immediately upon arrival at the club, handsome valets with exotic name like Silvio and Lorenzo sporting  hi-rise pompadours lovingly lavished with Vitalis,  would briskly park your car.

Not far behind, eager-to-please cabana boys with Big Man on Campus crew cuts and smiles, would rush to set up your chairs and umbrellas, later to appear at your beck and call to fetch you another ice tea or diet cottage cheese plate.

It was a rarefied world where the open skies at the beach always seemed Kodacolor perfect, not a mushroom cloud or the nose of a submarine on the horizon.

Like the other Beach Clubs that dotted the narrow spit of Long island, the club was always overrun with sun worshiping, jewelry glittering, deeply tanned women, their middle-aged matronly bodies newly trim from a week at the milk farm pummeled and pounded by a host of masseurs,  squeezed into this seasons-must-have figure flattering swimsuit.

They teetered and tottered about on perilously high raffia straw wedgies slides, sun-loving fun-loving play shoes studded with colorful sea shells or a gay spray of red plastic posies to brighten their footsteps, a cold Pepsi in one well manicured hand and a glowing Kool in the other.

High Hopes

The scents and sounds of that summer would sizzle together creating the perfect summer cocktail.

Offsetting  the slightly musty earthy dampness of the cabanas, was the tropical smell of Sea and Ski blending seamlessly with the bracing briny sea air already choked  with the roasted woodsy leathery smell of cigar smoke, pungent chlorine, and the greasy snack bar burgers and fries, making  my eyes tear and my mouth water .

While mindlessly singing along to a Rheingold commercial playing on a Zenith portable radio “my beer is Rheingold the dry beer” a new upbeat commercial came over the radio as high-apple-pie-in-the-sky-high-hopeful as any beer ad jingle.

It even caught my Mothers ear when she recognized that unmistakable voice of  Swoonatra, Ol’ Blue Eyes himself belting out a swingin’ campaign jingle for JFK.

With unadulterated optimism dripping from every note, a swaggering Sinatra plugged his pal with special lyrics sung to the hit song “High Hopes:”

“Everyone wants to back….Jack/ Jack is on the right track/”Cause he’s got high hopes/he’s got high hopes/Nineteen Sixty’s the year for his high hopes./Come on and vote for Kennedy/Keep America strong!”

Come Alive You’re in the Pepsi Generation

The grinning cabana boys had an extra glow of enthusiasm about them that summer-their beaming faces echoing JFK’s own confidently smiling countenance blazoned on the flashy campaign buttons they proudly sported on their white polo shirts.

K–E–Double N–D–Y with his jet propelled as-fine-tuned-as-a sporty-Corvette campaign machine, had just snared the democratic presidential nomination despite his being dismissed as more poseur than performer, and despite the “Catholic Issue”.

For these college boys, stylish JFK had the fresh air of progress.

His energy as effervescent as a bottle of Pepsi, his  sleek, fresh, follow me flare had  the mark of tomorrow stamped all over him.

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TV and John Kennedy were made for each other.

The Kennedy years stand out as a time bracketed by TV milestones. In the years between the Great Debates and the network coverage of the assassination and funeral of the president, television became truly central in Americans lives.

The images of those 4 days in November 1963 are  burned into our minds but a more colorful memory is his inauguration.

January 20, 1961-The Day a Black and White World Changed to Color

I was proud as a peacock.

The year was 1961. John F. Kennedy was the first president I ever saw sworn in on television and I got to see it in rich tonal color!

Despite the heavy snowstorm, my family  had trudged over  to my Aunt Judy’s house to watch on her RCA  Color TV, the first ever color broadcast of a president being sworn in. It was an auspicious and memorable day in the life of the nation and in mine

The young president, the old poet, the splendid speech, the triumphant parade, the brilliant sky and the shining snow were all brought to you in living color.

The Wonderful World of Color

Color TV was still a novelty; a thrilling, wholly new standard of viewing enjoyment.

The first color TV sets retailed at $1,000 in 1954. That was a lot of money for the few hours of broadcasting that would be on NBC during that year. Four years later color telecasting still averaged only 1 1/2hours a day nearly all of it on NBC alone. And the quality left much to be desired.

It would take another 10 years until sales of color television sets would really take off.

Because my Aunt and Uncle were one of the fortunate few who owned a genuine color TV we would be eyewitness to history. The color viewing experience, RCA promised, would be so real, so sensationally life-like, that you would swear you almost could feel the frosty wind that whipped through Washington DC that day.

Ring-a ding ding!

A Telegenic President

(L) Vintage Life Magazine 11/21/60 The Victorious Kennedy’s ( and the vary pregnant Jackie) (R) Life Magazine Cover 1/27/61 The Kennedy Inauguration

Television and John Kennedy were made for one another and he gasped the nuances of television like a pro. Stylish JFK had the fresh air of progress; his energy as effervescent as a bottle of Pepsi.

JFK’s overriding campaign them in 1960 was the need to “get America moving again” and TV was the perfect medium to chronicle movement.

On the morning of November 9, 1960, the day after election day,  an unprecedented sense of familiarity on the part of the public toward a US president and his family began to develop because of TV.

At a televised press conference at the National Guard Armory in Hyannis Port, our new President-Elect Kennedy with pregnant wife Jackie at his side, dedicated himself to freedom around the world and then added before leaving, “So now my wife and i prepare for a new administration and a new baby.” It was a heartwarming and exciting story that television was only too happy to convey.

The transition from the Eisenhower administration to the New Frontier unfolded on television screens before our eyes  as JFKs every move was followed.

The Following Program is Brought to You in Living Color.

The Kennedy presidency began with incomparable dash and color.

It was a cold day for a cold war warrior to take office.

It had been cold all week on the East coast, the nations’ capital included. The second of 3 major Noreasters that occurred during the winter of 1960-61 was moving up the East Coast. The snow came on Thursday with winds howling, stinging gusts and whipping the snow down the streets.

Washington  DC was choked with a blanket of snow, bringing the Capital to  halt.

By dawn of Friday, inauguration day the snow had stopped. The skies were blue and cloudless and the Capital glistened in the sun, but it was frigid as the temperature was barely 20 degrees above zero.

The crowds, curious, expectant hopeful, huddled and shivering in the cold.

They watched restlessly as the bundled up dignitaries slowly took their place on the platform.

At twenty minutes after twelve, the 43-year-old  president-elect strode in and the spectators broke into wild applause. There stood their newly elected president young, handsome, tough and communicating confidence.

I proudly listened as Marian Anderson sang The Star Spangled Banner, restlessly observed the craggily cardinal as he boomed out a long invocation, and  anxiously watched the breath of elderly poet Robert Frost visible in the freezing air, the glare from the sun blinding him.

At nine minutes to one the Chief Justice Earl Warren came forward to administer the oath to the 35^th president. Braving the elements, the vibrant president-elect without hat or coat, the family bible open before him answered in a firm tone. At last he began his inaugural address, his voice ringing out into the frosty air.

It was a day on which, as President Kennedy himself observed, the country passed into the hands of a new generation. In a great inaugural address President Kennedy, outlined his idea of the nation of the future, asking  Americans to consider not what your country can do for you but what we can do for our country.

I was to be part of a new thrilling generation.

After the seemingly stillness of the B&W Eisenhower years, suddenly the promise of a new young colorful vibrant president who promised to get America moving again seemed exhilarating, urging us to come alive …we’re in the wonderful world of color.

The New Frontier was off and running!

Who could ever have imagined that in just a thousand days, the world would be very black and white again.

Copyright (©) 2013 Sally Edelstein All Rights Reserved

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The coincidence of Hanukkah and Thanksgiving this year has set things off balance, and finally given the Jews an edge in the Festival of Lights.

Normally, while Jews across the country begin celebrating Hanukkah, the festival of lights, Christians have had a good 2 week start on them with their own festival of lights- the installation of Xmas lights.

Along with Black Friday the official kick off for the display of Xmas lights seems to happen as soon as the last piece of pumpkin pie is eaten on Thanksgiving.

Like clockwork, hundreds of tiny electric lights of all colors magically appear on storefronts and homes, trees and shrubs across the land. One can hardly find a street in America during the month of December where the majority of houses are not lit up in a dazzling display of lights.

Eight skinny, little Hanukkah candles can’t even begin to compete with vibrating LED lights pulsating in sequence to the tune of  gangnamstyle.

Ghosts of Christmas Past

When I was growing up, a favorite family activity -a true example of 1950’s  togetherness- was driving around my suburban neighborhood admiring the dazzling display of Xmas lights.

Looking at Christmas decorations was as much a holiday ritual for me as playing spin the dreidel.

No sooner would we finish lighting our Hanukkah candles on our silver-plated menorah than we’d load up in the car to drive around the neighborhood in pursuit of this most American display of merriment – a  twinkling winter embodiment of the American dream. Suddenly plain, lack luster split levels were dressed up in their holiday best, each competing with the other for the most dramatic and colorful display of electric Christmas lights.

By the time we returned home, our own little holiday candles dripping and drooping in a pool of wax,  had forlornly reached the end of their illumination. The flickering reflection of a distant neighbors colorful Xmas lights reflected in our darkened home.

We may have had 8 days of Hanukkah but they had nearly 6 weeks of illuminated glory. That glittering part of the American dream winking at us seductively from neighbors homes was always just outside my grasp.

Let There Be Light

In the winter of 1961, I was actually invited into the inner sanctum of one of those illuminated homes by my first grade classmate Linda Harris. As my Mom dropped me off at her house I stood outside in my Snowster Gaytee rubber boots in the snow and stared at the glittering house.

An illuminated, translucent plastic Santa mask beamed at me merrily from their large picture window. His glowing, jolly face intending to radiate good cheer was in fact a bit frightening. The door was gaily decorated with bright red vinyl plastic streamers with 8 tinkling bells in graduated sizes, the jingling of bells announcing my arrival.

Once inside the exotic smell of balsam and baking holiday ham filled my virgin nostrils.

If it were true that GE brings good things to life it was certainly true in my friend’s home where every corner of her living room was magically a glow, thanks to the wizards at General Electric, Westinghouse and Sylvania.

There in front of me stood their tree majestically filling the room. The big gleaming globes of glass ornaments that had been taken down from their  attic now hung on the branches of the Douglas Fir.  The ornament’s lustrous colors with silk screened designs of Santa and reindeer, holly and jingle bells shimmered, reflecting the twinkling string of electric lights.

The tiny tree lights twinkled independently and the effect was mesmerizing.

The twinkling lamps called fairy lights made merry little pinging sounds as each flashed on and off. However to the family’s great consternation, their Philco TV  was constantly on the fritz with the twinkling of lights. The winking lights caused severe electrical interference on both television and radio, causing snow to appear on the TV screen as often as it did outside.

Bubble-Liscious

But nothing was more magical than the electric bubble lights nestled on the tree.  Bubble Lights were all the rage and the Harris family were not short of supply

Bubble lights were tiny glass tubes styled like miniature candles and their holders, filled with a colored liquid that bubbled rhythmically as the bulb inside heated up the liquid creating merry little bubbles The sparkle of tiny bubbles in motion added to their cheery glow as they  flickered like the candle it was supposed to replace.

When all was said and done,  it all came back to  candles even if their electric candles were  filled with  the chemical methelyne chloride to create that intoxicating holiday glow.

The Candles Are Burning Low

Once upon a time the only way to light a tree before electricity was with candles.

Though a tree lit with candles was a charming sight, it was to say the least  quite dangerous. Originally the candles were just attached to the tree by dripping hot wax on the branch and pressing the base of the candle on it. Eventually candle holders were designed just for this purpose came on the market.

The open flames coming in contact with pine needles especially on dried out trees could generate a fire. Cautiously, most homeowners kept a bucket of water or sand near the tree for such emergencies.

Despite their danger, the use of small candles remained the popular method of illuminating Xmas trees well into the 20^th century.

GE Comes to the Rescue

General Electric was the first to market a Xmas light set in 1903.

Referred to as “Festoons” the 24 bulb set was priced at a hefty $12. While this may not seem too expensive today, the cost was out of the reach of most people The average wage for the time was 22 cents per hour which equaled a weekly paycheck of about $13.20. Electric Xmas lights were for basically for the wealthy 1%

These early sets did not plug into a wall socket like today. Houses in those days were wired only for lighting so the end of the string had to be in the shape of a screw in light bulb base so that it could connect into an existing wall lamp or ceiling socket.

By the 1920s demand went up and prices went down. As household electricity became more available  and “electric servants” became more a part of daily life, strings of electric bulbs became increasingly common on Xmas trees. By the 1930s electric Xmas lights had become a standard of holiday decorating

WWII

“Twas the night before Xmas when all through the house, you could hear poor papa yelling “Our Xmas tree lamps won’t light again” So begins this 1940 ad for GE Mazda lamps for Christmas. Nothing was more frustrating than a burned out bulb and with GE’s new multiple light strings you could avoid the frustrating holiday hunting of burned out bulbs. When one lamp goes out, others continued to sparkle.  “There would be,” they promised no “blackout of holiday joy.”

1940 would turn out to be the last good Xmas season for a while.

With the bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941, war was declared. Needless to say Americans holiday spirits were severely dampened. The Xmas 1941 selling season was a dismal one for the lighting manufacturers and that would only be the beginning.

The manufacture of Xmas lights virtually stopped during WWII as the materials were needed for war effort instead. Old string lights that were in warehouses before the war were sold as long as the stock lasted, and then Americans had to make do with their old sets.

A Bright Post War

A t the end of  WWII,  pent-up post war enthusiasm for Xmas lighting returned with a vengeance.

War-weary folks were eager to light up their new sub division homes and marketers were happy to oblige. Lighting companies took a full year to recover but by 1946 were able to offer an amazing number of innovative lighting outfits.

Some new types of lamps appeared including the bubble light introduced by NOMA which soon became the worlds best-selling Christmas light set. Bubble Lights were actually invented in the 1930s but NOMA the purchaser of the patents on the lights had to wait till the war was over before they could be manufactured.

Consisting of a colorful candle shaped glass tube filled with a chemical called methylene chloride and a plastic base that holds a light bulb in close contact with the bulb, the units bubble whenever heated. The chemical had such a low boiling point that it would even bubble from the heat of your hand or the sunlight entering the room through a window. The liquid came tinted in several colors

Heavily advertised in 1946 NOMA’s Bubble Lights were the thing to have for a properly decorated Post-War tree.

Let It Snow Let it Snow

The next great step forward was the introduction of Permacote finish for Christmas bulbs, which let you use the same bulb indoors or outdoors. An exclusive Westinghouse development the color was provided by colored glass, fused to the bulb itself.

“Yes,” explains this 1951 ad by Westinghouse “Let it rain snow, blow or blizzard…these new Westinghouse Permacote Christmas bulbs will burn steadily with sparkling jewel like brilliance throughout the holiday seasons Their colors can’t chip or peel! It’s not paint! You’ll be smart to insist on Permacote when you buy new tree lights”

As the winter chill begins to set in and we reluctantly turn up the costly heat, its hard to imagine that in mid century America oil was still the biggest bargain in American’s budget.

The second Sunday in October 1957 an unexpected chilly nip of fall was in the air.

Some blamed the unseasonably cold blast on the Cold War. Sputnik, that Russian satellite that was currently circling the globe was sending chills down Uncle Sam’s spine, toying with Mother Nature.

At home, Mom turned on Ed Sullivan and turned up the heat, raising the temperature on our new modern Honeywell EZ-read thermostat to a toasty 78 degrees.

Admiring the new thermostat’s snap-off cover cleverly painted to match our Ken- Mor painted walls, it was a decorators dream. Designed by none other than industrial giant designer Henry Dreyfuss, it made all other thermostats obsolete.

The humming sound of the oil burner churning was a satisfying one. Turn that heat up as high as you like lady! No need to break the bank keeping toasty!

In fact in honor of the upcoming American celebration of Oil Progress Week, Dad proudly nudged the needle up to a balmy 85.

Oil’s Right with the World

Oil was still the biggest bargain in the American budget. Oil would fuel the American Dream.

American oil men were always finding new and better sources. Mother nature applied the cookie jar technique to oil, Dad would  explain to us. Most of it, she hid away out of our reach.

The Petroleum Institute crowed that:  “The beat ‘em to it urge that kept oil men hunting new oil sources is what drove America and made us great.”

Vintage ad 1948 Oil Industry Information Committee

Gushing Oil with Pride

Every day the oil industry was breaking every record with oil men meeting the greatest demand. One ad produced by the Oil Industry Information Committee gushed with obvious pride that there were “more oil products than ever before! “

Laying it on thick, they continued to rhapsodize about how much oil we consumed.

Vintage Ad 1950″Oil Progress Week” Oil Industry Information Committee

“Look about your community- and you’ll see why America is now using more oil products than ever! Your service stations-supplying gasoline and lubricants to more motor vehicles than ever before” it boasted.

“Your local fuel oil suppliers- delivering heating oils on a round the clock basis to home, schools, hospitals,” it bragged.

And your industries…farms…planes and trains- all using more oil than they’ve ever used before,” they crowed.

“Yes, demand for oil is great. Meeting it, 34,000 individual oil companies, competing with rivals have shattered every record. Every day, they’re supplying nearly 250 million gallons of petroleum products for hundreds of different uses including medicines, paints, cosmetics, insecticides.”

All of these things- and more- are being done so that you will get the oil products you want…when and where you want them!

Vintage Ad Oil Industry Information Committee 1948

Fossil Fuel Fantasies

“And this greatest supply of oil products…more oil,” they say with a swagger, “than America needed in a global war- will be increased still further.”

“Oil means more comfort, better living greater convenience- for you,” and bigger profits  for firms determined to supply even larger amounts of petroleum in the future.

“Oil is energy for America. Yes, gasoline and oil are 2 of the most conveniently available commodities you buy- and low in price.”

“The outlook for the future? As bright as can be! The industry is gearing up to meet the even greater needs anticipated for tomorrow. For the all out job is to supply you today has resulted in the largest stock of underground oil reserves in the history of the nation!”

Your future in Fossil Fuels is ensured!

Oil Progress Week Vintage Ad 1950

.© 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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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, 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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New Years Eve Party

The countdown to my parents  1959 New Years Eve party had begun. On the cusp of the space age my parents prepared for a new years Eve Party that would send them soaring into the world of tomorrow.

1960 was just hours away.

Blast Off

My parents, like most suburban couples, enjoyed entertaining. But this was company unlike my standard family get-together’s, which had more to do with genealogy than congeniality. Neither relative nor neighbor, they were my parent’s friends, not mine.

Here was a constellation of adults mysteriously visible only at night, making appearances at certain times of the year and certain days of the week. Not withstanding the funny hats and loud noisemakers, this gathering was for mature audiences only.

This was no pin-the-tail-on-the donkey- ring –around- the –rosy- Simon –Says- kind of affair.

Strictly Adults, it was a party strictly off-limits to me.

Last Minute Rehearsals

As my father raced about giving last-minute checks of the Ronson silver plated lighters making sure the wicks were high enough, and Mom unloaded the last clean glasses from the GE dishwasher, my brother Andy and I kept a look out for the arrival of our guests.

Our faces pressed against the frosty picture window, we waited in watch for the convoy of cars carrying the party company that would soon appear at the top of our snowy suburban block. The clanking sound of chains and studs on snow tires would be heard before we spied a single car.

Along with my brother, I was excluded from the main festivities. After a brief walk-on, long enough for cheeks to be pinched and hair tousled, we were vanquished to our bedrooms. The show would go on without us; we were to wait in the wings until we got our cue, to reappear for the third act, the big countdown to the New Year.

Party Time Rules

Earlier that evening Andy and I had a run through of the company bathroom rules.

Once Mom brought out the fancy perfumed soaps and beautifully embroidered monogrammed terry towels, it was our cue- they were strictly were off-limits to us.

If we had to use the bathroom while the party was in progress we were to carry out towels from our rooms to the bath and back again. We were forbidden to touch the 12 delicate pink guests soaps. I would stare longingly those plump little heart-shaped bars each with a rose design molded in the middle, nestled on a Limoge dish.

In all the years of trotting out those eternally pristine soaps, I don’t think they were ever touched by guests either.

The Party Begins

The future seemed frosty as a blast of cold air greeted us as each guest arrived.

At the first sound of a doorbell ringing, like some Pavlovian response, Andy and I scurried into hiding like some frightened mice. Despite our protestations on being excluded from the party, the truth was we were both painfully shy and really didn’t need much coaxing to stay out of their hair. After our perfunctory meet and greet once the company arrived, we were vanquished until midnight.

But the lure of the forbidden world, the tantalizing smell of new and exotic foods, seemed irresistible and drew us out of our bedrooms. We stealthily slithered down the hall way to get a worm’s eye glimpse of the festivities.

My eyes like my brothers were focused on the drama being played out direct from the intimate living room of my house on fashionable Western Park Drive, a spectacle that could easily compete with TV or the movies.

Watching the spectacle from the sidelines, listening to the sounds and laughter, was like a guided tour through an exhibition of what adulthood might look like for me in twenty years, my own world of tomorrow..

The universe was changing for the night. This was a world in which I played a tertiary role. As a four-year old used to being in a starring role I was stuck backstage,  a mere walk on player, summarily called for to appear, just as summarily dismissed.

I who felt chosen, whose life revolved around Moms just as in equal measure I was sure hers revolved around mine, suddenly found Mom spun out of orbit into her own world, a different galaxy, one that didn’t include me.

Even dressed in my kids glamorous mink stole, puffing on kiddie puff puff cigarettes, I was way out of my league.

The glowing house and the beaming guests all so shimmering, glittering out dazzled me.

A Hair Raising Good Time

The gals, fresh from the beauty salon were set to have a hair-raising good time.

Their collective teased hair a colossal cacophony  of  colors, spun like great puffs of cotton candy, an homage to Clairol, the first name in hair color who were the proud sponsors of the  Guy Lombardo show.

Coming or going it was an eye filling picture, flirty bows, back and front, dresses of  midnight magic in velveteen whimsy, merged with heavenly, billowing rayon chiffon, fancied bodices in shimmering acetate competed with figure hugging sheaths in crepe and Shantung.

Underneath it all, a galaxy of girdles, firming with femininity, girdles with magic controls, to mold, hold, and control, gently assuring social security.

While hips were subdued, waists whittled and tummies tightly kept in check, bosoms were lavishly displayed, generously arranged, poised like missiles for take off in their bras.

With glowing faces shiny with pink pancake makeup, eyebrows deftly penciled in, their eyes as if smudged with crayolas in iridescent jewel tones of turquoise and sea green, the girls hotly debated and exchanged sizzling party recipes; fondues were scrutinized, zippy dips and dunks dissected, and potato chips pondered-with or without ridges.

Heavy trading went on, swapping a cherished Kraft TV Theatre clam dip recipe, for a new twist on Lipton’s California dip,

New Frontier

 Men smelling of Vitalis and Lavoris were trim in tapered slimming Continental suits. Suddenly they weren’t someone’s Dad who drove a dowdy De Soto but a man about town behind the wheel of an Austen Healy or an Astor Martin.

 Puffing on their Cuban cigars, dressed in cone-shaped cardboard party hats embellished with glitter feathers and ruffled crepe paper fringe, the men discussed politics.

On the cusp of a new decade we were ready to blast off into the New Frontier of the ‘60s leaving grandfatherly Old-father-time Eisenhower in the dust. Suddenly the promise of young men vying for his job was on everyone’s mind. And no more so than the young Senator from Massachusetts John Kennedy, the hottest democratic card in the race.

The biggest day circled on the upcoming 1960 calendar would come in November when the US would go to the polls to choose the president who would lead the US into the future- the fabulous promise of the 1960s.

Retreat

Vintage Cover Saturday Evening Post 1958 Illustrator: Thorton Utz

The future looked very hazy to me as the room filled with blue smoke.

After a quick meet and greet, with stinging eyes I retreated from the haze into the quiet seclusion of my parents bedroom. Stifling a yawn, I stretched out in the darkened room on the cool satiny bedspread, nestling in the heavy pile of coats and fedora hats that had been tossed their earlier by the guests.

Glamorous Mink coats with labels from I J Fox, Stein and Blaine, fancy monograms in contrasting color stitched onto the lining, either first name or initials. Silky smooth, beautiful linings-vivid cerise or orange brocade or gold lame with matching scarf from the  lining to complete m’ ladys look.

Stretched out on the cool satiny bed in my parents bedroom, I marveled how even the beds got dolled up in their company finest, dressed up in fancy quilted satin bedspread   instead of their everyday chenille.

Hibernating under the pile of coats, a tangle of dark brown ranch minks, luxurious beaver, Persian lamb and camels hair, not a single respectable republican cloth coat among them, I dozed off engulfed by smells of loose face powder, and a mélange of cloying floral  perfume.

Stay Tuned for  Remembrance of New Years Eve Past  Pt. III

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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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Vintage advertisement Crisco 1915

 Once upon a time to a transfixed nation, trans fats were not the troublesome substance we now view them as but were the very symbol of scientific progress.

If the FDA has their way about it, bad-for-you- hydrogenated oils, i.e. trans fats, will soon be banned from the American diet.

Hard to Swallow

It may be hard to digest but there was a time when vegetable shortening made from hydrogenated oil  like Crisco was a smart, wholesome choice. Labor saving and economical this cooking fat was a wonder for the harried, health conscious  housewife.

Nowhere was the transformative power of trans fats felt more than in the Jewish household.

Miracle in the Kitchen

The introduction in 1911 of Crisco-the king of hydrogenated oils- was a  life altering  game changer for kosher housewives, for whom strict dietary laws forbade the mixture of dairy and meat at the same meal.

All vegetable shortening Crisco proudly promoted itself as a Kosher food, one that behaved like creamy butter but could be used freely with meat.

As if it were the appearance of the messiah, Crisco boldly announced “it was the miracle for which the Jews have waited 4,000 years for.”

Crisco’s entry into Kosher Kitchen culture would make kosher cooking easier for generations

For observant Jewish immigrants like my Great Grandmother, it was nothing short of a miracle.

She along with millions would be transfixed by trans fats.

 Food Beliefs

Vintage advertisements 1918

At the beginning of the last century, my Great Grandmother Rebekah like most folks at the time believed certain foods were good and others dangerous but there was no proven scientific basis to it.

There was no concern about high protein, low carb foods because food itself hadn’t even been classified as such.

You knew you had  a healthy child if she was chubby, pink and fleshy.

By the time of the Great War, food was entering a modern scientific age and with it developed new products new attitudes and new rules towards eating, and cooking.

But in an Orthodox Jewish household like my Great Grandmothers, the only important rule- one that was non negotiable was the time-honored rule of Kashruth,  keeping kosher.

We Answer to a Higher Authority

Returning home from school late one cold winter afternoon in 1917, my then teenage grandmother  Sadie found her mother standing at the coal cook stove in the spotless, onion scented kitchen, rendering chicken fat (schmaltz) in the “fleyshik” (meat) frying pan, and frying cheese blintzes in the milkhik (dairy) pan, never ever confusing one cast iron pan for the other.

The heat of the kitchen warmed Sadie’s chilled bones as she peeled off layer after woolen layer of winter clothing.

The rambling house in Williamsburg Brooklyn was alive with the odors of burning carrots, frying onions, cooking cabbage and fermenting sauerkraut. Without even looking up from the stove, Rebekah handed Sadie a piece of challah, schmeered with schmaltz, – a nosh before dinner.

Food is Love

“Love and bread make the cheeks red,” Rebekah would often say.

Her hand would touch her heart to indicate the source of the food- herself. Food really was love in Great Grandma’s home, a bestowal of the purest affection.

Hungrily biting into the fresh bread, Sadie was bursting at the seams to tell her mother what she had learned in her Home Economics class.

Domestic Science

A true American girl of tomorrow, 18-year-old Sadie was among the first girls in her school to take a class in the new field of Home Economics.

In 1918, it was the ambition of every Brooklyn girl after graduating from public school to attend the prestigious Girls High School, the very model of a 20^th century school building, where she could enjoy the advantages of advanced education.

And no subject was as cutting edge as Domestic Science.

The no-nonsense class was run with the efficiency expected of a future household engineer. Donning her crisp, sanitary white apron and starched white cap, Sadie quickly absorbed the most current information explaining the new and efficient ways to think about diet, digestion and hygiene.

Vintage advertisement Royal Baking Powder 1917

Her Home Economics teacher, Miss Hattie Patton was a stern looking woman, with salt and pepper  hair pulled tightly in a bun, her features as sharp and angular as the wooden ruler she wielded.

Wearing pince nez and an immaculate white smock, the domestic dominatrix, would explain to the class how men of  science had devised rules of nutrition which would not only prevent illness but encourage a long life.

“Girls today,” she emphasized, “are taking hold of the feeding job with intelligence.”

Cooking, like mothering, could no longer depend on instinct, but on scientifically determined exact formulas.

Sadie learned that although it was  a German Scientist who had come up with the new idea of classifying foods into proteins, carbohydrates, fats, minerals and water, the “new nutrients,” it was, naturally, American know-how and industry that was putting it to good use.

Science to the Rescue

(L) Vintage Ad Armour Lard 1915 (R) Vintage illustration food laboratories

“You don’t have to trust guesswork anymore. Science has selected for you,” her teacher informed  them proudly. And you didn’t have to take just anyone’s say so. The sanitary testing kitchens of both manufacturers and government were all working overtime to put their knowledge at m’lady’s disposal.

“Who could provide more authoritative judgment about a food product than the esteemed directors of Home economics in the many corporate manufacturers of fine food?”

Science was constantly coming up with new and better products for the American dinner table; new ways to lighten the load of the housewife.

Scientific Discovery

Preparing doughnuts for the doughboys using patriotic Crisco No wheat flour, no sugar, neither butter nor lard
Vintage ad for Crisco 1918

And so it was that one day Miss Patton explained  a recent scientific discovery the  miracle of Crisco.

Progressive housewives Miss Patton explained  were ridding their kitchens of old-fashioned lard and expensive butter for new wholesome factory fresh Crisco. Which would also be the only fat used in the schools cooking class. Many HS having Domestic Science departments use Crisco

“It seems strange to many that there can be anything better than butter or cooking or of greater use than lard,” she continued, and “the advent of Crisco  has been a shock to the older generation born in an age less progressive era than our own.”

Crisco was clean pure and wholesome. Nothing artificial about it, it was concocted in a lab by trained scientists.

“There is nothing more important to the American housewife than the preparation of wholesome delicate and dainty foods for her family,” Miss Patton  stated firmly.

“Indeed the purity and wholesomeness of foods have become subjects of national interest. More and more people now realize that by intelligent eating not only can they avoid such common ailments as headache and indigestion but can do much to make good health their normal condition ( A future of Type II diabetes and clogged arteries would come decades later )

Fully endorsed by doctors and renowned dietitians Crisco was a product that would make for more digestible food.

Crisco she further explained,  had taken the place of butter and lard in a number of hospitals where purity and digestibility are of vital importance.

Crisco is being used in an increasing number of better class hotels, clubs restaurants dining cars and ocean liners.

A Country at War

Food Will Win the War- Don’t Waste it !
Vintage WWI ad for Crisco 1918

Not only was it economical and  digestible it was patriotic.

Now that we were at war patriotic housewives were asked to conserve food. We were  admonished to save wheat, use less sugar, and  use no butter. Use of Crisco would contribute to the war effort.

All the girls marveled at this new product not only economical it was…Uncle Sam approved!

Crisco is Kosher

Miss Patton held on to the most tantalizing tidbit for last.

Crisco was kosher.

This rich wholesome cream of nutritious food oils was rabbinically certified!

Smiling, Miss Patton  read from The Story of Crisco a copy of which was given to each student.

“Rabbi Margolies of N.Y said that the Hebrew race has been waiting 4,000 years for Crisco. Crisco can be used with both milkhik and fleyshik milk and flesh foods. Special Kosher packages bearing the seals of Rabbi Margolies of N.Y. and Rabbi Lifsitz of Cincinnati are sold to the Jews.”

Whether baking challah or pastries Jewish housewives could avail themselves of Crisco

So the modern woman is glad to stop cooking with expensive butter and lard and step up and let science show them how.

Sadie couldn’t wait to share this with her mother.

Kosher Kitchen Kulture

Sitting at the oilcloth covered kitchen table nibbling on the rich, greasy, bread, Sadie excitedly explained to her mother how scientists had devised new rules of nutrition and  were now telling folks what was good for them to eat based on the foods recently discover chemical make up. Not only that, she emphasized,  it took special products, special equipment, and special knowledge to do the job of feeding a family right.

Gingerly, she pointed out to her mother, that many of her traditional kosher recipes, measured by these modern scientific cooking, fell short.

Sadie read aloud from her schoolbook: “To the modern wide awake twentieth century woman, efficiency in household matters is quite as much a problem as efficiency in business is to captains of industry.”

 “The progressive homemaker, my teacher says, walks right up to science and says :”You tell me how.”

Stirring the tzimis, on the stove Rebecca didn’t need this tsoris from her own daughter, no less.

She needed a scientist to tell her about food, like she needed “a hole in the head”.

Rebecca had already walked up to her own higher authority, the laws of Kashruth, the ancient Jewish Dietary laws and asked them to show her how.

 Separate But Equal

Jewish Cookery (L) Vintage Cookbook (R) Vintage illustration Housewife

 Kashruth- keeping kosher, was an elaborate system of rules that dictated the kinds of foods  that were permissible to eat  and even the way the foods are prepared.

Only fish with fins and scales can be eaten and only animals that chew their cud and have cloven hooves are allowed. Animals have to be killed in a certain way, so the blood drains out. Dairy dishes must be kept a respectable distance from meat dishes and never the two can mix.

This was a divine commandment that was given to Jews on Mt Sinai, she reminded Sadie, from learned rabbis,  “not from some know-it-all domestic scientist.”

“You expect me to follow these rules!” Great Grandma said increduously. “Hoo- Ha! Proteins shmoteins- the only ‘food groups’ you should care about is whether a food is Milkhik ( dairy), Fleyshik,(meat) Pareve,( neutral) or treif (not permitted).”

“You want order, precision, efficiency, try keeping a kosher home,” she scolded Sadie, “then you’ll see what rules are all about. You cook your meat in a vegetable pot and you can forget about it, the meat becomes practically milkhik!’ … separate dishes, separate pots, utensils. So tell me, who is more efficient than a Jew?”

But Sadie knew one items would interest her mother and saved it for last.

Crisco and the Jewish Housewife

Vintage ad for Crisco 1915

Gently she slid a booklet across the table in her mothers direction. Entitled Crisco Recipes for the Jewish Housewife it was printed in both English and Yiddish.

Crisco was whole new food neither butter or lard it was pure vegetable oil Sadie explained tp her doubtful mother.

Crisco promised there was absolutely no animal matter in it as shown by the fact it is guaranteed under the National Pure Food Law. If it contained fat it would come under the Government Meat Inspection law.

Crisco is absolutely kosher, that is in keeping with the Mosaic Dietary laws.

“New preparations of old foods are continually coming before the public but Crisco is an absolutely new heretofore unknown food product,” Sadie read out loud.

“To illustrate its importance the American head of the Jewish religion, after a thorough examination of Crisco, certifies that Crisco is absolutely kosher, that is in keeping with the Mosaic Dietary laws. The most orthodox have adopted it and it is used by Jews who for years have paid forty cents a pound for chicken fat, rather than use products have been considered unclean.”

But a new product would alter that 4,000 year old practice. With Crisco kosher cooking would be made easier.

Game Changer

She continued reading from the Crisco Cookbook, “it conforms to the strict dietary laws of Jews and is what is known in the Hebrew language as a ‘parva’ or neutral food. Crisco could be used with both milk and meat.”

Great Grandma looked up from her cooking, and never looked back!

The  mason jar filled with schmatz -pure rendered chicken fat- so long a fixture in the icebox ready to mix into chopped liver or frying or spread hot on bread, would be nudged aside for a can of wholesome, white Crisco.

The familiar blue and white package would have a place of honor for generations.

© 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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Like Johnson & Johnson’s Baby Shampoo, Lipton’s Onion Soup Mix produced no tears.

That dehydrated marvel of mid-century cookery was a staple in my Mothers repertoire. Mom joined the legion of happy homemakers who were overjoyed at the development of dehydrated soup cooking.

Besides being the backbone of the classic California Onion Dip, that pride and joy of every self respectable suburban hostess, my mother prepared her Passover Brisket using that Onion Soup Mix from a recipe supplied by Lipton’s published in Ladies Home Journal and endorsed by the Nassau Community Temple Sisterhood Cookbook.

Why spend hours peeling, chopping, slicing and dicing and sauteing reducing the onions down to a turn, when Liptons had come to m’lady’s rescue. Add water and voila…. onion stock!

So it was with modern pride that my Mother prepared her holiday brisket in that E-Z fashion.

I on the other hand, being just as contemporary, sniff at the notion of using a packet of dried onions, insisting on peeling, chopping, slicing and dicing the real McCoy sauteing them down til they are reduced to a golden hue.

But the copious onions required for the meal, along with the copious tears it produces, now co-mingle with great tears of sadness at the loss of my Mother.

As I prepare the Seder for which she will never again attend, it is lit by the glow of a yartzeit candle, a shining light of tribute and memory to her passing on this day.

So it is a day of tears, that even Lipton’s Onion Soup could not help.

© 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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“The Story Begins in the Middle” Vintage 1955 ad Warner’s

I figured out very early on that every female had a figure flaw.

But luckily when it came to figure problems a slew of manufacturers had it all figured out.

A good girdle was a must have for every mid-century gal no matter the season.

So despite the fact that the spring of 1959 was a real scorcher, I learned –at the tender age of 4- that sweltering weather was no excuse for a lady to let her figure flaws show.

For everyday wear, Mom’s summer time favorite girdles. “Enjoy a cool cool summer in Coolaire – Flexess new “air conditioned” fabrics- fashioned into figure flattering girdles” (R) Vintage ad Coolaire Girdles by Flexees 1952 (R) Vintage ad Gossard girdles for Summer 1955

Summer Silhouettes

Memorial Day had come and gone and along with the seasons first appearance of white shoes and wicker bags, revealing swimsuits and little summer dresses made their debuts.

Meaning, m’lady’s silhouette came under severe scrutiny.

Did the fear of midriff bulge cause panic in my mid-century Mother?

No sireee!

While some women panicked, nibbling on celery sticks and cottage cheese, subjecting themselves to the pummeling paws of a Russian masseuse at a fancy milk farm in order to shed winter weight and attain a svelte figure, Mom knew there were more effective ways to whittle your waist.

A well made girdle was all a gal needed to fit in.

Mom had recently purchased a new dress at Orbachs-a Molly Parnis knock off that was as easy on they eye as it was on the purse.

It was perfect for the big June Jamboree Dinner Dance at the El Patio Beach Cub. Despite the endless buffet and Viennese table served at the dinner, fitting into her new figure flattering number would be no problem.

Smart Cookies

American abundance- More of Everything you want (L) Vintage ad Admiral Refrigerator 1954 “Holds more than 120 pounds of frozen food.” (R) Vintage Warners Le Gant  Girdle ad 1955

In mid-century America you could have your cake and eat it too…literally. Why deprive yourself of that groaning board of American goodies.

Clever ladies knew that with the right girdle you could take command of your beauty and enjoy a wonderful new kind of figure that never existed before.

Ever wish there were two  of you? Warner’s asked provocatively in the  1955 ad for their le gant girdle shown in the ad above.

”One to splurge on shortcake- one to be a fashion plate! Seems like such a shame to choose- but here’s good news: with the Warner’s Le Gant no girl really has to. We’ve styled it in new persuasive elastic for the girl who munches and bunches in just that order.”

Go Figure circa 1959

Vintage illustrations from Formfit Life girdle ads (L) 1951 (R) 1950

Saturday night of the big dance I watched eagerly as Mom got herself ready.

Wandering into my parents bedroom, I sprawled out on the fancy quilted satin bedspread, the sounds of “Make Believe Ballroom” on WNEW playing on the GE clock radio, mesmerized as my Mother went through her metamorphosis .

The noisy oscillating fan in the bedroom only seemed to move the muggy air around the bedroom offering little relief as Mom prepared for the evening. Putting her face on would be no easy task as beads of perspiration kept a perpetual shine that no amount of Angel Face powder would subdue.

Mom emerged out of the bathroom shower in a great gust of steam, her fresh from the beauty parlor coif carefully encased in a polka dot plastic shower cap, a light dusting of Cashmere Bouquet on her damp body brought a veil of fragrance scenting the room.

“Curbs your Curves from waist to hip! Made of flexible airy nylon, this is a girdle to control your pounds, extoll your curves. Giving your hips a hooray! All at a purse easy price with money over for the matching bra.” Vintage 1952 ad Bestform

I watched in sheer wonderment as she wiggled into her latex girdle.

With the skill of contortionist or an enterologist at the circus, the fact that she could deftly squeeze her body into such a small rubberized container never ceased to amaze me.

Of course in the hot weather girdle wrestling could make her a raving beauty but she would end that eternal tug of war with a generous dusting of  talcum powder, that promised to allow your girdle to slide on smooth as silk.

Girdles from Spiegel Catalog 1959

Savvy Mom knew figure flattery, glamor and comfort began with the perfect fit in a girdle and like most gals had quite a selection to choose from.

Hip Hip Hooray!

“How Incredibly young and comfy you’ll feel in these weigh- nothing, do everything girdles! Sheer magic!” Vintage girdle ad 1950

For tonight, Mom’s new Perfect-O girdle, a high performance job that put an end to tummy bulges, was so lightweight that it made her just adore being “taken in.”  The ads were true-“The wonderful supple design, a neat play of satiny panels to snip off inches where every girl needs it most. Yes, inches. You can tell by the tape-and you’d better because you’ll never feel it.”

Looking in the mirror she thought this was the most flattering girdle she’d ever owned. How heavenly to discover-suddenly that you have the figure you’ve always dreamed about! Such flattering, flattening social security in something so delectably pretty to wear.

Mom could happily indulge in all the duck a la orange and Baked Alaska she wanted, confident of the containment provided by the girdle.

Vintage ad 1954 Life Girdles by Formfit

“What you put on first makes all the difference,” she instructed me. “Full skirt or slim skirt, shirtwaist or strapless gown…what you put on first adds the finishing touch. That’s why it’s so important to wear a girdle keyed to every outfit. The girdle that’s so wonderful with your tweeds wont have the same talent for silks!”

As usual she would quote from my great Uncle Bernie: “A girdle frees your step while it sleeks your figure.”

His considerable girth notwithstanding, when it came to girdles Great Uncle Bernie was an expert.

My corpulent Uncle Bernie Posner was the president of Perfect-O-Figure Foundations founded by his father my Great, Great Uncle Max.

Even with his drooping eyes clouded over with cataracts, Bernie had an eye for the ladies and their figures and never hesitated to pass his wisdom gleaned from over 40 years in the ladies undergarment business.

Smoke and Mirrors

Vintage Formfit girdle ad 1954

Whatever the occasion, Uncle Bernie couldn’t resist the opportunity to proselytize the gospel of the girdle.

Even at family backyard barbecues, while other uncles busily debated baseball , Uncle Bernie, now in his dotage, could rhapsodize poetic about ladies foundations. regalinged whoever was willing to listen.

I was always an eager ear.

His pink fleshy face flushed with enthusiasm, Uncle Bernie would impress me with the importance of a good foundation in life…at least as far as a girdle was concerned.

Sitting on his lap, he would explain to me  – always while nibbling on a fistful of Veri-Thin pretzels that -“Every woman needs to be Fit!”

Of course he wasn’t talking about fitness regimes, but instead the importance of the proper fit of a foundation garment. “Figure glamor begins with a perfect fit in a girdle” was his mantra.

Nodding in the direction of my perpetually slim Aunt Lois who was known to hoist a can or 2 of Metrecal from time to time, he continued.

“You need not diet or deny yourself the good things in life,” he said authoritatively, a stinky pre-Castro cigar clenched between his yellowing chicklet teeth. “You need take no dangerous drugs or tiring exercise. You are absolutely safe when you wear a good rubber girdle. You appear smaller the minute you step into a perfect-o-girdle.”

Wide eyed even as a 4-year-old I was tantalized.

Wagging his swollen sausage like fingers at me he warned: “If you are over twenty, you are in danger of ptosis (sagging) of the abdominal muscles. This causes a bulging abdomen and the hips appear too large. You need a good girdle to give you uplift and support!”

He paused long enough for the point to stick, jabbing his wet cigar butt into than ashtray.

Taking It All In

Vintage Illustration Formfit Girdles Ad 1949

I absorbed this information, storing it away for a future destined to be filled with girdles and garters, just as a previous generations of women in my family had done.

Our family was intrinsically bound up in the world of girdles, a business built on the bulging bellies and swelled hips of women and the ever-expanding cultural expectations and changing fashions.

Bernie’s retelling of his father business was legend in our family and he had a captive audience in me. His watery eye lit up in delight at the telling and I never tired of listening to him, greeting his familiar stories with the same enthusiasm as hearing a favorite fairy tale.

Foundations

My mothers Great Uncle, Max Posner had been a tailor back in Russia so when he came to NY by way of London in 1883 where he had established a reputation as a skilled corsetier , he quickly found work in the ladies flourishing corset business.

“When Pop first started working here, everyone wanted to look like statuesque Lillian Russell.” Bernie explained describing the popular, amply bosomed, massive-hipped woman.

Plumping Up not Pumping Up

Vintage Corsets Illustration

By 1900 plumpness was still fashionable. The Ziegfeld Girls and the Floridora girls, the chorus girls of the smash musical were held up as beauty’s ideal with their full breasts and rears, plump thighs and arms and soft bellies.

“Women may have wanted smaller waists,” he remarked, happily tapping his toes in his gleaming white leather Italian slip-ons, “but you can bet your sweet life they wanted lush curves, 40 inch busts and thighs that could measure 53 inches all around .”

It All Adds Up

“No one wanted to be a Toothpick Tessie,” Uncle Bernie would exclaim. “Underweight girls would cry themselves to sleep, hopeless that they were doomed to a lifetime of skinniness.”

What was a gal to do if she didn’t have the luscious eye-catching curves required to fill out a turn of the century dress?

A clever tailor, Uncle Max knew he could help women transform their appearance .

“Posner’s Scientific Perfect Physique Foundations,” Uncle Bernie explained referring to the companies original name, “promised healthfully and scientifically to help round out the entire form until a woman was fully developed.”

“Skinny Minnies,”  Bernie continued impaling a deviled egg on a toothpick as he spoke,“could fill out their scrawny bony figures with a number of devises that Pop supplied.” False breasts, thighs and calves were available in addition to rubber backs and hips that had “natural” dimples designed into them.

Vintage Fashion Catalog Corsets Sears Roebuck 1903

“And individually constructed corsets took care of a lot, yes indeedy,” he’d say with a satisfied smile.

My great Uncle Max was in great demand.

The New Woman

By about 1908 the voluptuous hourglass figure started to slowly fall out of favor, as the Gibson Girl with her comparatively  more slender, youthful figure burst on the scene, becoming the new standard of beauty.

The New Woman was still bent in an exaggerated S Curve and still possessed the voluptuous bust and rear that the times favored requiring heavy corsets. Vintage corset Sears Roebuck 1908

A true gal on the go, this New Woman was as comfortable with a tennis racket as she was setting the table.A well fitting corset was more important than ever.

Vintage Corsets 1915 Sears Roebuck Catalog

Stout Women needed slimming Vintage corset ad

With Max’s trained hands any bothersome bulges were slimmed down by his stylish garments. His patented armor-lastic stretch corsets were flying off the shelves.

“With the end of WWI,” Bernie continued, “things were changing with the speed of lightning!”

Vintage Corset and Corselettes

The flapper was just around the corner.

Ain’t we Got fun

The Flapper with her stylish boyish figure required, garments to securely bind her flesh, flatten her bosom, slim her hips and flatten buttocks

Vintage Fashion Catalog Corsets, Brassiers 1927 Eatons

As flaming youth roared, Uncle Max began to slow down. Eager beaver Bernie took over the business, quickly changing the name to a snappy Perfect-o-Foundations, more fitting with the roaring twenties.

1926 Corsetlette Girdle -Sears Roebuck Catalog

When the flapper burst on the scene with her new boyish silhouette of slim hips and flattened buttocks , Perfect O-Foundations and other lingerie manufacturers were forced to change tactics to modernize for women who might forgo the old-fashioned corset altogether.

No nudnik, Bernie knew this was no passing trend and jumped on the bandwagon expanding the corset business to include girdles.

What with the popularity of the flapper and her streamlined look, the girdle business boomed. After all you couldn’t Charleston without one!

The die was cast.

Girdles For Betty Co-ed 1929 Co-ed Corsetry Sears Roebuck Catalog

Girdlelicious

The 1930s signaled the return to a more womanly shape and his girdles promised slimming flattering figure loveliness thanks to the miracle of latex.

Before and After 1933

“The Modern Miss could say goodbye to old-fashioned corset bones and stays.-miracle latex used in all the latest girdles was as easy as putting on a pair of gloves,” he said fairly swooning.

Vintage Ads Life by Formfit Girdles (L) 1948 (R) 1951

Modern girdles, he explained, made of tree grown liquid latex were designed without a pesky seam stitch or bone yet these new girdles would mould you smoothly allowing complete freedom of action, and controls your figure for your busy active life.

“Slimming loveliness can  be all yours!” he promised me, hungrily ravaging his right-off-the-grill burger.  I watched in fascination as the rivulets of grease dribbled down the precipice of his double chins leaving an oil slick in its. wake.

“It doesn’t take a lot of money to get the figure you want,” he concluded with  big smile. “All it takes is a head on those pretty shoulders.”

Sheer Magic

The Miracle of Lycra Spandex- Fairy Godmother to Women Everywhere.  Invented in 1959 it wasn’t until  1962 until  the full scale manufacturer of Lycra went on the market , expanding possibilities for women everywhere.  Girdles were no longer only peach, ivory, and black instead bright pastels and patterns became the rage. (L) Vintage ad 1962 Hollywood Vassarette Girdle and Bra (R) Fairy Godmother Cinderella Walt Disney

“But the best was yet to come,” he whispered to me. A new miracle fabric had been created, one that was very hush hush.

Even as Bernie spoke, chemists at DuPont were hard at work developing  the century’s greatest miracle…one that would change the business forever.

Like all fairy tales, this story had a happy ending.

Just as  the beautiful princess rode off into the sunset saved by her prince, so helpless women world wide in need of figure control would be rescued with the arrival of that years greatest miracle- Lycra Spandex .

A match made in heaven, they would live happily ever after!

 © 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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Thanks to war-time research and  American know how, growing up in suburban mid-century America  I would be the happy recipient of a veritable bushel basket of sun-kissed, vitamin rich fruits and vegetables.

No other country we were told  “has the good fortune to enjoy such a varied, appealing and wholesome diet”.

And no, we did not have a plethora of farmer’s markets, green grocers or organic community food co-ops; in fact today’s locavore movement- the notion of eating what is produced locally local and shunning what isn’t – would have been laughed at.

Most of the farm fresh goodness I would experience came courtesy of Birds Eye Farms ( quick frozen for quick serving) and the verdant  Valley of The Green Giant

No matter the season, I could always enjoy cans and boxes of good tasting, fresh-from-the-pesticide-sprayed farm flavor of fruits and vegetables.

Old McDonald had A Suburban Farm

(L)Happy days on the farm vintage children’s book illustration from “On Cherry Street” Ginn Basic reader 1950s (R) Vintage ad- Snow Crop Frozen Vegetables Country Fair 1957

 Quick frozen or in cans, dried or powdered, when it came to fruits and vegetables it was like having a farm in your own back yard, which funny enough I did.

Like so many other housing developments of the time, my ranch house sprouted up on what had once been one of hundreds of potato farms that dotted Long Island.

The original farmer, Mr Gutztsky who looked remarkably like Mr. Green Jeans on Captain Kangaroo, held on to a small plot of his original farm so that in fact for many years instead of rows of split levels houses, there was an actual working farm behind us.

For a while there were the early morning rooster alarm clock, the stray clucking chickens in the backyard and even a horse poking his nose in an open bedroom window.

Whatever connection of being back to the earth my city-bred parents originally  felt, was in just a few short years, eventually  totally bulldozed away when farmer/businessman  Gutzsky sold the last of his acreage to developers.

Better n’ Fresh

Actually preparing fresh vegetables seemed as out of date as the horse-drawn plow used on the farm we usurped.

Why bother boiling and peeling and mashing those plentiful local Long Island  potatoes when Instant dehydrated flakes were so much easier.

But the abundance of all those local russet potatoes did not go to waste.

They came in darn handy in creating an extended family for Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head, with plenty o’ little tater tots to go around.

 A Ripe Idea

It’s Magic! L) Vintage Illustration Fairy Godmother Cinderella Walt Disney

Naturally from time to time, we did enjoyed the wholesome goodness of fresh fruits and vegetables straight from Mother Nature herself. The produce section had been set free of the tyranny of the seasons and become global in its choices.

Even with the proper refrigeration  the problem with these gold mines of health was that they were always so gosh darn perishable, but once again American scientists came to the rescue.

Why wait for lazy Mother Nature – when miracle sprays would force all the fruit to ripen and like magic, change color at once.

In this new, fast-paced jet-age, who had time to wait for vine ripened tomatoes?

Why wait till the end of summer, when with a healthy splash of ethylene gas those rock hard green tomatoes of yesterday suddenly would become today’s garish red ones, conveniently packed in styrephone trays encased in plastic, just ripe for tossin’ in the salad.

 Safeguarding Democracy

“Safeguarding the delicate natural flavor and goodness of many tree and vine ripened fruits and vegetables is made possible by Food Machinery Corp.’s Flavorseal process.” explains this (L) ad from 1948 “Protected by a thin wax like film these fresh grown products stay fresher and wholesome longer.” Just in time to be hermetically sealed in DuPont Cellophane wrapping. (R) Vintage ad DuPont 1957

 It was a Post War Promise kept – “You can have fresh fruits and vegetables tonight…..even if the calendar says no.

The reason- Flavorseal protection.

Developed by research scientists, Flavorseal was a solution which was sprayed in a thin waxy film over the surface of freshly harvested citrus fruit, tomatoes, cucumbers and other produce helping the products stay fresh and wholesome longer for your enjoyment.

Flavorseal, they boasted, slowed down the natural deterioration of the fruit or vegetable…preserves its original freshness flavor for many extra days or even weeks!

More food to eat- less to throw away.

Was My Face Red

“Wilt? I wilt- Not says this lettuce even after 30 days!” announced this 1944 ad for Goodyears Pliofilm. (R) Vintage ad 1944 Goodyear Pliofilm

Food could be kept fresh from the vine for months.

Believe it or not the ad claims this gorgeous red ripe tomato was picked ripe from the vine 30 long days ago!

Harvest wrapped in Goodyears miracle wrap Pliofilm- “a marvelous new transparent moistureproof, spoilageproof wrapping material that seals in natures goodness and seals out natures gremlins. “

To drive home the point  Goodyear boasted that tests made by the University of Florida Agricultural Experiment Station proved that “Pliofilm has a way with fruits and vegetables that lets them keep their natural goodness, flavor color and vitamins for weeks and even months after ripening.”

And toss those ripe tomatoes in wilt-proof lettuce. Imagine lettuce, we are enticed: “keeping its head- and its crispness, and color and flavor- for 30 days after leaving the garden” thanks to Pliofilm.

Yes, it was always harvest time in our household, no matter the season. And thanks to science, it was not just canned and frozen vegetables and fruits- but fresh, rot-resistant tomatoes, fresh frost resistant strawberries year ‘round!

The future of good nourishment was well protected!

Like most mid-century girls, Bitsy Bendix longed to be a bride, convinced that the basic occupation of virtually every girl was choosing a man to marry.

But for bachelorette Bitsy the next best thing happened.

In the summer of 1950 she may not have been a model bride but became the ultimate model for a bride when she posed as one in a Community Silverplate advertisement.

Vintage Community Silverplate ads 1946 illustrations Jon Whitcomb “Happy is the bride the sun shines on…gloriously happy for keeps. And happy the bride who starts her household treasure with Community Silverplate.”

In an era run rampant with advertising and illustrations of happy brides and handsome grooms, no series of ads celebrated love and marriage more than the wildly popular Community Silver-plate series illustrated by that dream-weaver of mid-century American romance Jon Whitcomb.

Always a Bridesmaid…

Illustration by Pruett Carter- Ladies Home Journal 1948

It all began for Bitsy in April.

Springtime brought out the bride in all hopeful young women. April showers might bring May flowers but they also brought bridal showers blossoming into June Brides.

Along with the appearance of the first daffodils, each spring, would bring with it a new crop of bridal and wedding themed articles, advertising and illustrations. Every magazine you flipped through, every newspaper you read, painted the same glowing picture of the desirability and inevitability of marriage.

American companies were happy to align themselves with weddings and marriage. (R) This vintage 1950 A&P ad states: “Walking Down the Aisle Together. June the traditional month of brides is a happy time . For thanks to countless brides of many Junes A&P has become a tradition too. Seeing newlyweds in the aisles of A&P supermarket always makes us proud of our part in helping make Americans dreams come true.” (L) Vintage 1948 ad for Plymouth- the perfect car for weddings and beyond. “For a smooth getaway and a smooth path ahead” The car also boasted a huge trunk large enough for “a princesses trousseau!”

A Toast to Marriage. (L) Beer Belongs Ad Series “Preview of Wedding Presents” illustration by Haddon Sundblom (R) Pepsi Cola ad 1953

Long before the now defunct Doma (Defense of Marriage Act)  dictated what constituted a marriage, American mass media set the gold standard for the ideal of marriage.

Dream On

“Of all the wedding gifts, presto cooker will contribute more to every brides homemaking happiness!” Vintage ad 1948 Presto Cooker

Like every girl she knew, Bitsy would close her eyes and imagine herself floating in a drift of white organdy with embroidered dots enveloped in a veil of tulle; her wedding shower filled with the latest Wear Ever pressure cooker, copper bottomed Revere Ware and perfectly wonderful Pyrex.

“A Presto cooker the most useful gift imaginable for the most wonderful woman in the world…a bride.” Vintage advertisements for Presto Cookers (L) 1950 (R) 1952

Planning for the Future-  One of the most popular gifts for brides was anything Pyrex as this 1946 Pyrex ad suggests: “If you want wedding and shower gifts that will thrill her now and help her later…” Bride Today…Hostess Tomorrow (L) Toastmaster ad 1950

But most of all she longed for her very own treasure chest of gleaming Community silver-plate, just like in the romantic ads.

Vintage Community Silverplate ad Illustration Jon Whitcomb 1951 “April showers are sunny when they sparkle with community”

A ring on her finger- Vintage Community Silverplate ad 1946 illustration Jon Whitcomb “Her ring-stardust circling a slender finger. Her Community…gleaming symbol of gracious living. This a bride treasures… for keeps.”

Bitsy would picture herself setting a table for 2, placing her cherished Community silver proudly on lace or linen, delighting in its tradition. With her husband beaming with pride, she could imagine herself a gracious hostess entertaining proudly, knowing her guests will whisper “isn’t she lucky-“It’s Community!”

Marriage is For Keeps

Vintage Community Silverplate ad from WWII. The format was the same but because Whitcomb was off to war serving in the Navy, the illustration was taken over by an artist signed simply Michael. “Today he has a war on his hands, begins this,” 1943 ad.”But the day will come, please God, when your Tom or Dick or Jack come homes for keeps…when kisses will be real, not paper, when you may know a strong hand on yours in a dim lit room…when crystal will gleam and silver will sparkle.”

The famous series of ads that launched a thousand happy marriage trousseau’s had been running since  WWII where it featured long distance romance  between a soldier and his sweetie on the home-front, dreaming of a post-war world where they would be together for keeps.

The formulaic ads lushly painted by illustrator Jon Whitcomb always featured beautiful bride or bride to be gazing adoringly into the eyes of her beloved, a typical American love scene with a clean-cut boy and well scrubbed girl.

Vintage illustration by Jon Whitcomb 1955 Ladies Home Journal

Whitcomb has been called the master propagandist in the art of love and his highly romanticized vision of both men and women and their idealized lives filled the pages and fantasy of  post war America

 The Look of Love

“Lets Make it for Keeps” states this 1947 Community ad. “Two…in a world of music…2 in a world of their own…2 who have discovered each other…for keeps! For keeps too- the 2 will treasure the sparkling hospitality inviting beauty of their gracious Community.” Illustration Jon Whitcomb

Along with her best pal Guy Manning, Bitsy could spend hours poring over the latest w omens  magazines discussing flower arrangements, table settings, and a well planned trousseau.

But mostly for these 2 romantics it was the appearance of the seasons first community silver ad that set their hearts aflutter. It was something the 2 had shared since childhood.

“There’ll come a day when we’re the lucky ones,” a brooding Bitsy would sigh to Guy, staring longingly at the illustration of the handsome groom.

Sometimes it was hard to tell who was swooning more over the dreamy couple pictured in the ads, Bitsy or her old pal Guy.

Not the The Marrying Kind

Jon Whitcomb was one of the most recognizable mid century artists whose glamorous women with their wholesome American good looks appeared regularly in all the top women’s fashion magazines as well as ad campaigns. Illustration Ladies Home Journal 1948

Everyone always remarked that Guy was a real dreamboat, as handsome as any of the hunks in Whitcomb’s illustrations. But when it came to girls he was always batting zero.

Betsy just ignored him when he’d shrug and tell her “he wasn’t the marrying kind.”

“A man becomes the marrying kind,” Bitsy would lecture him, “when some girl makes him realize that marriage would be far more agreeable and worthwhile than bachelorhood,”

For years, Bitsy had tried setting Guy up with all kinds of girls from the office but they never amounted to anything. Sure he might flirt with a file clerk and share a soda and sob story with a girl from the steno pool but Guy seemed to prefer the quiet company of his equally handsome roommate Rod.

Exacerbated, Bitsy joked that the 2 confirmed bachelors were like an old married couple.

 A Man of Your own

“It’s magic, it’s moonlight, it’s mystery, it’s a miracle…when he finds that she cares for keeps! Vintage ad 1947 Illustration Jon Whitcomb

Bitsy just knew in her heart that some glad day the lump in her throat would melt and the man in her life would appear.

What Betsy didn’t know was that for Guy, he already had.

“Don’t you worry Guy,” Bitsy reassured her best pal. “They’ll come a day when your dreams will come true… And the hopes and plans for a marriage of your own will really happen topped off by a treasure chest of Community!”.

But for Guy there would be no wedding, and no presents for in 1950 for a closeted gay man in a small town there was no community.

Calling All Brides

Vintage Community Silverplate ad 1948

Who would ever guess that a shopping excursion to a department store in April would bring Bitsy closer to her hearts desire.

By early spring it always seemed someone in Bitsys set was about to take the big step. Shopping for wedding gifts at Swensons Department store in downtown Sweet Oaks  was a spring ritual.

One afternoon, while Guy and Bitsy were browsing through the silver department deep in deliberation mulling the merits of pickle forks for their pal Midge, a sign caught Guys eye.

“Manufacturers Sponsors Jon Whitcomb Contest for All American Girl” read the sign

Vintage Community Silver ad 1951

Picking up a flyer from the counter Guy read aloud:

“If you’ve ever dreamed of being a real life cover girl, this may be your opportunity,” an animated Guy read excitedly. “Jon Whitcomb famous illustrator and creator of the Whitcomb girl is looking 4 new undiscovered feminine faces to model for color page ads for Community Silverplate.”

“Who is the clear-eyed all American girl painted by Jon Whitcomb?”

Vintage Community Silverplate Ads 1952 Illustration Jon Whitman

“A model is desperately needed to model silverware for a Jon Whitcomb painting. A nationwide search is now being conducted to come up with 4 future Whitcomb lovelies and the lure is a fabulous summer vacation trip top NYC all expenses paid. and a week at Waldorf for girl and her chaperone or husband.”

“Four lucky girls will receive the original painting valued at thousands of dollars and $100 a day modeling fees while posing for 3 days plus $100 cash for incidentals.”

“One girl will be chosen from towns of less than 25,000, one from towns of 25,000 to 100,000 one from towns of 100,000 to 500,000 and one from cities of more than 500,000.”

Vintage Community Silverplate ad 1952 Illustrator Jon Whitcomb

“The contest sponsored by Community Silverplate, one of the country’s foremost manufacturers is being conducted through jewelry stores and department stores silverware departments.”

“The contest ends May 1 1950. To enter a busy gal has only to visit a jeweler, fill out a very short application blank and mail it with a snap shot to the board of judges. Winners announced in June.”

“Unless Hollywood is your first love, you can’t afford to lose this opportunity!”

Opportunity Knocks

Vintage Community Silverplate ad 1951 Illustrator Jon Whitcomb

“Bitsy doll,  you’d be a shoo in,” Guy said eagerly.

Everyone in Sweet Oaks Iowa always said Bitsy was a jack-pot type of girl.

With her wholesome American good looks she fit a Whitcomb girl to a T. A honey strawberry blonde with a Pepsodent smile and plenty of pep, she had as Guy would say “a cake baking disposition.”

“It oughn’t be so hard to have that ‘starry eyed look’ over a knife with which you can butter your bread, should it?” Guy asked joyfully.
This could be your ticket to your dreams.

“Lifetime lovely! Lifetime loved!” Vintage Community Silverplate ad 1952 Illustrator Jon Whitcomb

“Everyone knew,” he gushed  “ that many of Jon Whitcomb’s models had gone on to big time Hollywood careers, as well as leaving the business for matrimony, marrying big time railroad executives, and other successful tycoons.”

A thrill shot through Bitsy!

This just might help this bachelor girl to get a ring on her own finger.

Bride Make Over

Vintage Community Silverplate ad 1953 Illustrator Jon Whitcomb

With only 3 weeks left to mail in their application they got to work.

While Rod grabbed his Kodak Hawkeye Brownie and made like a shutterbug, Guy did Bitsy’s hair and her makeup applying just the right amount of rouge to give her that well scrubbed all American look.

Carefully he painted her lips in Revlon’s new color sunny side up red  for good luck. “A tempting red…teasing as a butterfly.” Guy cooed.
The ads said it all: “Revlon’s light hearted, sun sweetened crimson makes you kick up your heels…put a lift in your clothes…a laugh in your eye! Suddenly, all’s right with the world….”

The Waiting days are Over

“This is the moment, this is forever, this is the slice of enduring joy you have cut for yourself for keeps!” Vintage Community Ad 1946 Illustration Jon Whitcomb

Waiting to hear if she’d won the contest nearly drove poor Bitsy batty! The postman always rang twice, but for weeks Bitsy was at the door by the first ring anxiously waiting for the letter from Community.

When the congratulatory letter arrived in June, she was over the moon! Bitsy would be a bride at last if only in a painting.

On the train ride to NYC with her Mom,  Bitsy had to pinch herself! She was really going to be a Whitman girl!

And We’ll live happily ever after Shes In Love and She Loves Community

Vintage Community Silverplate Ad 1949 Illustration Jon Whitcomb

It wouldn’t be long before she could count on a set of cherished community silver for her very own.

By Christmas beautiful Bitsy Bendix was engaged!

It was the day she dreamed of and Community helped make her dream come true, turning a bride model into a genuine model Bride.

“You’ve dreamed forever…of this moment! You’ve lived forever…for this moment. You start forever…with this moment!” Vintage Community Silverplate ad 1946

Suddenly, just as Guy said, all was right with the world….

 © 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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