Lighting strikes twice. With little free time the past weekend for our usual jaunts to flea markets or garage sales, we still managed a quick stop at one of our favorite little antique stores. I’m not naming names, this place already has lots of traffic, and good turnover on stock. Always filled with the unusual, we find antique hardware, books, architectural gems, and advertising pieces.

This trip I grabbed a Perlick brass beer tap faucet, some door and furniture hardware, an advertising bottle opener shaped like a lady’s leg, and some decorative caps from hot water radiators originally from an old school house, and this fascinating book titled “The American Magazine” by Amy Janello and Brennon Jones published in 1991 by John Abrams Inc. of New York, and still available from Amazon.com

To refresh my readers, my fascination with old magazines started when we purchased a 1930s cottage style home about ten years ago. It was in dire need of redecorating. While browsing in an antique shop, I found several magazines from the period 1927 to 1939 and bought them to examine the backgrounds on ads, illustrations in articles and feature stories to determine the fashion and coloration of furnishings from the same period our house was built. But it was the ads and art work that proved to be the hook that led to my continuing to explore for more. Until the end of the 1930s, graphic artists and illustrators provided incredible cover art, with delightful subjects and vibrant colors.

The book, “The American Magazine”, provides an insight into the greatest of these illustrations, and photographs that have shaped our impressions of the world, and moved us toward political and social change. Over 575 illustrations and a time line that covers 250 years of magazine publishing from 1741 includes the date of first publishing. Well written and filled with tidbits of knowledge, it is a great addition to your coffee table collection. This book’s magnificent cross indexing allows for a quick reference to selected subjects. Photos and illustrations are as stunning as the originals and the narrative provides smooth reading with loads of information(1893 the first full color ad)( 1890 the first Ladies Home Journal). It is not a price guide.

The subjects covered in American magazines range from the hilarious “Mad” to the controversial “Ken” of the late 1930s with many addressing social, and political agendas. Your own interest in old issues may be as practical as mine when I started to collect or it might dovetail another collection such as a Coke collector framing the famous Christmas Santa ads, or looking back at the wonders of inventions in “Popular Science.” Possibly your interest in history leads to the articles defining the pressing social and political problems in “Ken” or “Delineator”. Do you collect vintage clothing, with the fashions of the Twenties Flapper styles as your specialty? Others may enjoy reading the works of famous writers such as Hemingway, Whitman, or collect the illustrations of Winslow Homer, Fredrick Remington, Joseph Pennell, or Norman Rockwell.

And now the second lighting bolt out of the blue…. when we were about to leave the shop owner mentioned some old magazines and was I interested? Three more “Ken” for my growing collection.

One never knows when luck will be on your side, or is it diligence and determination and not luck, that drives the collector to continue the search for the “holy grail” of his or her obsession?

Among my favorite vintage magazines to collect are the gossip rags. While I don’t buy today’s celebrity gossip mags, I find these vintage issues to be very interesting. For one thing, I tend to at least have heard of, or recognize, the celebrities on the covers and headlines — the faces & names on those in the supermarket check-out lanes are virtually meaningless & unrecognizable to me.

But the old magazines, they are familiar…

While I’m not, as mentioned, a big fan or today’s celebrities, I do have a thing for the icons of yesterday. And these publications are full of them. While you can’t trust these old publications to have published the truth any more than you can the mags of today, you can find some photos you’ve never seen before, and read dramas that never were mentioned in celebrity biographies and autobiographies.

For me, it’s much more fun to live vicariously through those icons from the past.

But these old magazines aren’t only about the past.

Just look at the headlines on this October, 1959 issue of Top Secret:

Hypnosis — Secret Weapon Against Overweight

Why Brigitte Bardot Will Never Again Drop That Towel

Does Harry Belafonte Really Want To Be White?

For Sale: 20,000 Babies. Price: $35,000,000.

Now It Can Be Told: How Ike Saved The Life Of Maurice Chevalier!

The Real Inside Story: How Ava Gardner Sneaked 400 Gs Out Of The U.S.A…

The names may have changed over the years but some things never change… Sex, medical claims, race issues, celebrity & government scandals, fear-based “news”, legal issues… Gossip, gossip, gossip.

People haven’t changed much in nearly half a century, so the same issues and inflammatory headlines still work; just change a name or two, maybe update the street price of babies ($35,000,000? That’s a lot of money back now!), change who is suing who, and what’s really changed?

What has changed is the advertising.

With a cover price of just 25 cents, Top Secret and it’s ilk made money in volume — cranking out weekly or bi-monthly issues. Sure, the paper was cheap, more like newsprint than the slick pages of People or even Star, but then they were trying to quickly grind out more gossip for the mongers and rumor for the mills. Cheaper, both in terms of quality and cover price, than issues of Life, Good Housekeeping, Post, Ken, etc. the old gossip rags apparently didn’t need as much advertising to produce the magazines because they had far less of it.

Flipping through today’s celebrity publications, you find many ads; so many, they rival more “traditional” or “respectable” magazines. You might think that this is because the gossip business has grown over the years, become much more expensive with the slick paper etc. It could be those things.

It could also be that gossip magazines have grown to become more respectable than they once were. In vintage celebrity gossip magazines, you certainly do find much more risque advertising, sex fulfillment in marriage & Frederick’s ads, mixed in with the business opportunities, Bible fellowship out-reach, weight loss, body building, secrets to winning poker, and other ads for the easily susceptible.

There are a few other ads, toys for example; but they are not filled with the usual ads for food, cars, etc. Mainly these old gossip magazines are filled with the ads & offers reserved for the the back pages of other publications.

I’m not in any position to know the complete answer to the differences in advertising. But flipping through, it’s near impossible not to notice how different these magazines are from the more typical magazines.

Vintage gossip magazines are more difficult to find than other magazines. Their rarity is due in part to the cheaper paper, but other things shorten their lifespan.

Certainly then, as now, people quickly devoured their issues, passing them along to friends &/or cutting out photos of their favorite stars, then discarded them for the next issue with the latest celebrity news and gossip.

And I bet more than a few buyers & subscribers threw their issues away due to embarrassment; just like today, few want to keep their guilty pleasures laying around for others to see.

What issues do survive are fun to explore.

It’s fun to look at the past. Not just the celebrities, but to look at “the other side” of life from decades gone by. And to see how our culture still — perhaps even more so — idolizes celebrities.

Here are the answers to last week’s questions taken from a vintage “Radio Guide” column. How many did you know? Would you have won the giant $88 jackpot?

From “True or False” (NBC)

#1 A person traveling on a railroad pass is known as a “deadhead.” True. (Take that, Grateful Dead!)

#2 A hoofer is a backstage errand-boy. False.  (A hoofer is a dancer.)

#3 When you buy a section in a Pullman car, you are entitled to a private room. False.

From “Dr. I.Q.” (NBC)

#4 Under what conditions may a man purchase his discharge from the U.S. Army? After serving one year, he may buy himself out by paying $120.00.

From “Information, Please” (NBC)

#5 Name the last three Presidents who wore mustaches in office. Theodore Roosevelt, Grover Cleveland, William Howard Taft.

From “Battle of the Sexes” (NBC)

#6 What is the difference between an octogenarian and a centurion? An octogenarian is one who is eighty years old, while a centurion was an old Roman captain of a company of one hundred men.

#7 When you eat the following, are you eating flower, bud or leaf?

a) Cabbage (Leaf)
b) Brussels sprouts (Bud)
c) Cauliflower. (Flower)

From “Name Three” (MBS)

#8 Name three works which have become famous but are defective or incomplete. (Unfinished Symphony, Venus de Milo, Leaning Tower of Pisa.)

#9 Name three things you should keep. (Keep your temper, keep your word, keep a secret.)

From “Kay Kyser’s College” (NBC)

#10 Who was lost in Spencer Tracy’s latest picture, “Stanley and Livingstone?” (Livingstone.)

#11 What was lost in the song, “A Tisket A Tasket?” (A letter.)

From “Ask-It-Basket” (CBS)

#12 Which of these men was the author of the following quotation: “These are the times that try men’s souls.”

a) Abraham Lincoln
b) Thomas Paine
c) Thomas Jefferson.

#13 What furnishes the motive power for ships passing through the Panama Canal? (Small electronic locomotives.)

How did you do?

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This weekend, hubby and I grabbed a stack of vintage radio guides, issues of the “Radio Guide”, and paging through them we discovered the joys of ye old radio. Which means today, you get to enjoy ye old radio. Specifically, gems from a bit in the Vol. 8 No. 49, September 22, 1939 “Radio Guide” titled “How Are You On Radio Quiz Games?”

The column features Bob Hawk, “Gayest quizmaster on the air,” who was the host of Mutual’s (MBS) “Name Three.” Hawk was called the “funniest ad-lib man in radio” by Stoopnagle and Bud (”Bud” as spelled in this article) — but Hawk went on to become “one of Chicago’s top announcers” anyway. (Ba-dum-chh!)

“Name Three” was a big dealio, I guess. In 1939, “Time” said this about the radio quiz show:

Name Three, a quiz show based on bank night, is a Monday night MBS half-hour sponsored by Dunhill Cigarettes. Candidates picked from the studio audience, asked to name, for example, three vegetables beginning with S, win $2 for each right answer. If a mike-scared quizee can think of spinach, cannot remember squash or salsify, he wins only $2, and the remaining $4 goes into a jackpot. Near the program’s end the candidates get a chance to share the jackpot by writing answers to a Toughie (e.g., Name three State capitals named after Presidents). If there is still no winner, the money goes into next week’s pot. Biggest jackpot thus far, a three-weeker: $88.

Now, you might think, as I move onto the guts of this Thursday Thirteen, that I’m done with facts — but, nay; we’ve only just begun!

Here are thirteen questions from this vintage “Radio Guide” column. How many do you know? Would you have won the giant $88 jackpot?

From “True or False” (NBC)

#1 A person traveling on a railroad pass is known as a “deadhead.”

#2 A hoofer is a backstage errand-boy.

#3 When you buy a section in a Pullman car, you are entitled to a private room.

From “Dr. I.Q.” (NBC)

#4 Under what conditions may a man purchase his discharge from the U.S. Army?

From “Information, Please” (NBC)

#5 Name the last three Presidents who wore mustaches in office.

From “Battle of the Sexes” (NBC)

#6 What is the difference between an octogenarian and a centurion?

#7 When you eat the following, are you eating flower, bud or leaf?

a) Cabbage
b) Brussels sprouts
c) Cauliflower.

From “Name Three” (MBS)

#8 Name three works which have become famous but are defective or incomplete.

#9 Name three things you should keep.

From “Kay Kyser’s College” (NBC)

#10 Who was lost in Spencer Tracy’s latest picture, “Stanley and Livingstone?”

#11 What was lost in the song, “A Tisket A Tasket?”

From “Ask-It-Basket” (CBS)

#12 Which of these men was the author of the following quotation: “These are the times that try men’s souls.”

a) Abraham Lincoln
b) Thomas Paine
c) Thomas Jefferson.

#13 What furnishes the motive power for ships passing through the Panama Canal?

Answers will be given next week. Feel free to post your guesses in the comments.

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I really do spend my weekends reading old magazines. It’s not just to rationalize yet another auction or thrift store purchase, or even to mock (though that’s certainly a plus!); but rather there’s all sorts of neat-o info in old magazines. Here are some examples.

 

Thirteen Things You Can Learn From Good Housekeeping, November 1957

(Typos and all.)

#1 In a feature called May We Present, we learn of the miracle of dog obedience via Blanche Saunders (featured with her poodles).

“Miss Saunders’s talents are now so much in demand that getting your dog into one of her classes is roughly comparable to getting your son into Harvard.”

Well, at least it was easier than getting your daughter in.

#2 Also in that feature, Samuel Davenport is presented.

Billed as the Answer Man of Capitol Hill, “Sam” was the go-to-guy for congressmen. His official title was Co-ordinator of Information. Sadly (ironically) there is no information on the web about Davenport. Or maybe I just need a new Answer Man to help me find it…

#3 Another person presented was J. Arthur Rank.

Rank also had rank; his title was Baron Rank of Sutton Scotney, member of the British House of Lords. He was a movie-mogul and the founder of the Rank Organization — and we were all to be surprised to learn that the ‘J’ in his name stood for Joseph.

#4 The last person presented in this feature was French-born Amanda Benik Smith, the first woman mayor of Olympia, Washington — and “the only woman mayor of a state capital”.

No one has, as of yet, dedicated an online shrine to her either. :sigh:

#5 What’s a woman’s magazine without the beauty advertisements?

A lot slimmer. *wink*

I selected this one for viewing for the fabulous Rita Hayworth, shown here promoting both Pal Joey and Lux soap with the tag line, “Color does something for you… and so does a lovely complexion!”

#6 Apparently color did nothing for Marlon Brando.

His full-page ad for Sayonara, with “an exquisite new Japanese star”, is in black & white. (At the very bottom the exquisite star is named with a small box which reads, “And Introducing Miiko Taka.”)

#7 One can safely assume that then, as now, a prominent front ad will garner you some free press too.

The one page “Assignment in Hollywood” by Ruth Harbert, Hollywood Editor, features Brando and Miiko — with a bit of spot-color. (Perhaps if the studio had sprung for a color ad…)

#8 What was the medical news in ‘57? Here’s a blurb about treatment for “Cancer of the Womb”, a phrase not heard oft today. Neither is the term “Lying-in Hospital”.

#9 Being a vintage magazine about domesticity, it’s only natural that we find ads for Betty Crocker. This is a two-page ad spread, in color, featuring “Crazy Mixed-up Cakes!”

I must point out that of all the visuals presented in full-Lux-soap-color-scope, number 5, the “Inside-Out” cake, is the most nauseating.

Two slices of white loaf-cake (1957 was a great year for the hyphen) with frosting smeared between it — like a sammich.

That’s. Just. Wrong.

#10 Here’s an article that might be interesting and even useful to typewriter collectors: The Latest Word on Buying Typewriters.

#11 & 12 On Our List was a “monthly report on what the intelligent American may want to read, see, hear and talk about” by Mary Ellin and Marvin Barrett.

I’ve selected the picks and pans on books for you today…

Francoise Sagan, poor dear, had two of her three books panned. Thus she is the “petty” in the Petty and Grand.

But Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged was “grand”.

She even had her photo included in the feature.

#13 While “9 out of 10 Hollywood stars depend on Lux”, what do stars use on their hair in 1957?

“For the most beautiful hair in the world 4 out of 5 Top Movie Stars use Lustre-Creme Shampo” coos Joan Collins.

Say what you will about the silly superficialness of this magazine, but what’s really telling is who & what we collectively remember…

There are shrines to Joan Collins, Brando & Hayworth; but nothing for Davenport and Smith. Even the dog trainer is more well remembered than they.

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Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

View More Thursday Thirteen Participants