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LGBT Workplace Woes
We’re Not Safe in Kansas Anymore Yes, in Kansas it is now legal to discriminate against LGBT employees. State employees in Kansas can now legally be fired, harassed or denied a job for being gay or...
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The Real Housewives of The Cold war
Like most women growing up in the 1950s and 1960s I was fed a generous serving of sugar-coated media stereotypes of happy homemakers who were as frozen and neatly packaged as the processed foods they...
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Passover Tears Again
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...
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Who Said a Woman Can Be President?
Questioning whether a woman can be President is as dated and ludicrous a notion today, as this vintage 1956 Maidenform ad of a woman on the campaign trail with the tag line “I Dreamed I Went Whistle...
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A Sweet Mothers Day
My sweet Grandmother had a sweet tooth. Whether Bartons, Barricini, or Lofts, chocolate was the common currency of celebration. But Mothers Day meant only one thing- a Whitman’s Sampler. Through the...
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Love Wins – Too Late For Some
A melancholy toast to the generations of gays and lesbians who were denied basic civil rights and remained locked in the American Dream closet After the landmark Supreme Court ruling making gay...
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I Love a July Fourth Parade
July 4th was a candy coated Kodachrome explosion of Kool Aid colored patriotism With the acrid smell of firecrackers lingering in the hot summer air, mid-century memories of July 4th parades past...
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This Is Your Life- The Atomic Age
Conceived as I was in the warm afterglow of the Hydrogen bomb it was also in the dark shadow cast by Godzilla that radioactive mutated monster of mass destruction. Together they would send a collective...
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This is Your Life- The Atomic Age PtII
In that great American tradition of forgive and forget, in May of 1955, only 10 years after we dropped the Atom Bomb on Japan, television audiences watching the popular TV program “This is Your Life”...
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Summer Vacation With a Vintage View
Vintage Ad 1951 TWA The summer vacation has long been an American tradition, but not all destinations are created equal. While the 1% are off on their luxurious destination vacations, for many...
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Beach Club Preening
L) Vintage Ray Ban Sunglasses Ad 1960 (R) Vintage Jantzen Swimsuit Ad 1950s, illustration by Pete Hawley How To Enjoy The Sun In Style In the summer of 1960 the glitter and glamor of my Grandmothers...
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The Scents, Sounds and Flies of Summer
The scents and sounds of my 1960s childhood summers at my grandmothers beach club would sizzle together creating the perfect summer cocktail. Along with the rhythmic sounds of the ocean waves...
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Say it Ain’t So….So Long Summer
Vintage ad Kodak Brownie Movie Camera 1957 Bidding the Beach Club Goodbye Labor Day signaled the last call at my Grandmothers Long Island beach club. Just as white shoes would make their final...
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Remembering The World Trade Center
The NY Spectacle Began at the World Trade Center (R) Vintage ad 1988 World Trade Center highlighting the 107 floor viewing platform News of the 9/11 tragedy found its way to me through the antiquated...
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Controlling Women’s Bodies – Risky Business
Do we really want our daughters to return to a time when access to safe and effective birth control was difficult, those good old days when abortion was risky and unavailable? Those are the facts of...
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Can a Woman Finally Become President?
Questioning whether a woman can be President is as dated and ludicrous a notion today, as this vintage 1956 Maidenform ad of a woman on the campaign trail with the tag line “I Dreamed I Went Whistle...
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Cold War Halloween
On most mid-century days, the suburban streets of my childhood were filled by a legion of door to door salesmen trafficking in fantasy. The pavement belonged to this endless parade of post war...
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Drawn to Paris
#JeSuisEnTerrasse One of Paris iconic outdoor cafe – Le Dome in Montparnasse 1950s Photo by Ervin Martin I was a Francophile by the time I was five. Even as a toddler I was drawn to Paris. Literally....
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December 7, 1941- Pearl Harbor
From the Archives: 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...
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North Korea Nuclear Jitters
The mushroom cloud of the Ivy Mike Hydrogen Bomb Test by US, November 1952 Say It Ain’t So Did North Korea really just conduct a hydrogen bomb test? Despite Kim Jong Un’s boastful declaration that it...
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