Vintage Ad Soft Lite Lenses

Your vision is priceless. So is mine.

I will be gone briefly while I have another eye surgery and will be seeing you soon.

Like a snowy screen on a vintage TV set, my crystal clear, true to life sight has suddenly  disappeared. Unlike a Philco, no amount of fiddling with dials or adjustment of rabbits ears will change the situation.

As a result of complications from a recent eye surgery, my wonderful world of color has grown dim, displaced by a blank field of snowy gray in my left eye

My vision has vanished.

Vintage Westinghouse TV ad

Therefore, due to technical difficulties, regularly scheduled programming on my blog will be interrupted and regular new postings will be resumed shortly.

In the meantime, please stay tuned for favorite re-runs, that may be new to my more recent viewers.

I am confident this is a temporary glitch, and eye will be seeing you all soon, in bright living color.

Brought To You in Living Color- Vintage RCA Color Television Ad

Burning Fall leaves 1958

The blaze of fall color took on a different meaning, the autumn of 1959.

Many neighbors did not only burn autumn leaves but their trash as well, giving new meaning to fall cleanup.

Burn Baby Burn

There was something satisfying about setting fire to your trash, creating dense smoke and reducing it to a pile of ashes in a burn barrel. But gosh darn it, fire in a barrel just doesn’t burn hot enough to destroy poisonous substances released by the burning material, so that dense smoke was chock full of toxic substances.

Vintage ads (L) Celanese Fine Family of Chemicals (R) Johns-Manville Asbestos tiles in gay new colors 1957

Over the summer, our next door neighbors, the ever-expanding Moscowitzs, had added  an extension to their home and now a forlorn pile of building debris lay in their yard.

On top of that they  were cleaning out their garage of all manner of detritus, tossing used cans of paints and solvents right into the burn barrel, along with the carpet padding, old vinyl flooring, their old asbestos tiles, piles of plywood, and discarded plastic polyvinyl toys.

Hokey Smokey

Suburban Fall -football and fallen leaves

My family and I were all outside playing, raking the fall leaves on a November afternoon.  Neighbors were busy fanning smoldering barrels of leaves and trash.

Inhaling deeply of the rich sweet aroma of falls burning leaves and acrid  polyvinyl chlorides,  I would watch with curiosity as the sacrificial smoke wended its way heavenward filling the Autumn sky. I wondered if the dense smoke would interfere in the flight pattern of the flocks of birds migrating south, or clogging the airways for Superman and Mighty Mouse in their missions to save the weak and helpless.

It already seemed pretty crowded up in the friendly skies what with the fluffy white clouds, the twinkling stars, the roaring jets. Of course there was the expected seasonal traffic of goblins, ghosts and witches, soon to be followed by Santa Claus and his reindeer. Now there were dogs in space, and monkeys in space. And lets not forget Rocky the flying squirrel

Snap, Crackle Pop

Vintage illustration Andrew Loomis illustrator 1948

Over the swooshing sound of the flames and the snap-crackle-pop of sparks, individual voices disappeared as a new sound arose and heads turned.

The sound was loud, penetrating.  There were 2 of them that went KERBOOM like the sound of thunder.

Then a pyramid-shaped cloud began to form. How high it went nobody knew  because none could see its top as it billowed up into the sky. Some neighbors swore it went through bursts and flashes that included every color in the spectrum-red, orange, violet, greenish blue.

The whole sky seemed to light up almost instantly by an enormous sheet of fire glowing fiery red and yellow. It receded into a lingering glow followed by a deafening thunderclap, a violent ear-splitting, bone jarring bang which seemed to shake the earth itself.

There was a moment of utter silence.

The colors gradually faded and the sky was clear again. When it died away, we felt a gentle rain.

We were standing in a  drizzle of  dioxin drenched soot and ash.

A Hair Raising Explosion

(L) Vintage ad Clairol Hair Color 1958

Natalie Moscowitz, sporting Clairol’s blazing new look for hair- deep, smouldering red – stood transfixed at the sight of the sparks flying and the burning debris floating in the air.

A terrifying mishap had brought a shower of ashes down upon us.

Mr. Moscowitz, a bouncy, chubby man with a ready chuckle, looked up in awe  and wonder at what he had done. Clenched in his teeth was one of the dozens of cigars he puffed daily, some of them bummed from Dad. The angle of Victor Moscowitz’s cigars often reflected his inner mood- up for gay, drooping for sad.

His cigar dropped perceptively.

Looking in the direction of the Moscowitz’s house it seemed enveloped in dark clouds.

I felt warmer than usual, almost as if I were glowing.

Others remarked they felt the same way. Maybe it was autumn sunburn. But Dad was getting more and more uneasy. Our faces felt hot and we knew something was happening.

With  the constant dropping of acorns on my head, I felt like Chicken Little as the sky was  falling.

As we continued raking, squirrels continued burying the dioxin-drenched acorns as if stockpiling for a nuclear winter.

Ever whiff anything so good as burning leaves, sizzling away as you play in your yard?

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

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Vintage Fall Follies

Vintage school book illustration “Fun With Dick & Jane” 1951 Visiting Grandparents on the farm

It was Thanksgiving weekend of 1960.

Just like the mythical Dick, Jane and Sally would visit Grandmother and Grandfather on their farm, I was off for an overnight visit with mine, not on a farm like in the classic children’s primer, but in their apartment in Queens, NY.

The pastoral green meadows of Dick Jane and Sallys grandparents farm were a far cry from dingy Queen, NY

But there was nothing bucolic about this NYC borough.

Having just spent Thanksgiving with my maternal grandmother in Manhattan, a place where every single thing seemed infused with energy and glittering with promise, Queens seemed, to my suburban sensibility,  a borough in  which everyone and everything looked as if it had long since passed its inspiration date.

Because my grandparents still lived in the same brick, Art-Deco-Moderne apartment house that my father grew up in the 1930’s, I had entered the world of my father’s youth.

My Fathers Boyhood Home

(L) Vintage children’s book illustration “The World Around Us” (R) Vintage illustration Welches Grape Jely Ad

Early the next morning, it wasn’t the crowing of a rooster that woke me, but the hiss of the steam heat coming up from the radiator, its old rickety pipes rattling and knocking like some arthritic ghost of Christmas past,  drowning out the roar of the Electrolux, sucking up nonexistent dust.

In the end it was the pungent scent of Parsons Ammonia assaulting my nose that was my final wake up call.

It didn’t matter that it was a Sunday, or that it was November, with feather duster firmly in one hand, a mop in the other, it was always spring cleaning for my grandmother Nana Rose whose motto  was- “the only way to keep a house clean was to make sure it never got dirty.”

Shaking the sleep from my eyes, I peeked out the window but the dismal view of an air shaft had a funereal gloom about it, as far from a pastoral view of meadows as you could imagine. The close proximity of a neighboring building blocked the bedroom window of whatever sunlight there may have been, giving little clue whether it was morning or still night.

A Boys World

(L) The Edelstein Boys- Sandy and my father (r) Marvin (R) The Hardy Boys “The Missing Chums”

As the unfamiliar light washed over me, my eyes became adjusted to the familiar surroundings.

The same room where only just last night my family had nibbled on mounds of chopped liver and drank Canadian Club and Cott’s Cream Soda from sparkling cut crystal glasses, had, before being re-commissioned as a den, been the bedroom where my father and uncle slept as boys, and where now once again it was transformed into a bedroom where I had spent the night.

That my father had spent so much of his time cloistered in this cheerless, view-less room, building his balsa airplanes, reading The Hardy Boys, and listening to The Shadow on his red Bakelite radio, made me a little sad.

Kitchen Kapers

The smell of morning coffee percolating on the old gas stove drew me out of the bedroom of my grandparents apartment.

Whats wrong with this picture

Padding into the Nile gray-green kitchen unnoticed, my footsteps were wiped out by the hum of the old Frigidaire which my grandparents still referred to as an icebox. The sliding-leaf kitchen table, its bent tubular chrome legs shined to a gleaming perfection, was always uncharacteristically cluttered, so unlike the rest of the tidy apartment.

It was the only hint of disorder in an otherwise well-ordered world.

An oilcloth covering the table’s antiseptic porcelain top was littered with dozens of little tins of Phillips Milk of Magnesia tablets, that my grandfather chewed like candy mints, which were scattered among the repository of the day’s flotsam and jetsam.

Only the maroon, Bakelite table top radio with its large round dial and concentric speaker grill bars, stood constant watch over the ever-changing tableaux of detritus on the table.

Grandfatherly Greetings

Vintage schoolbook illustration “Fun with Dick and Jane” 1951

Acknowledging my presence, my grandfather greeted me, his gravely Noo Yawk voice in its best Jimmy Durante delivery: “Ev-rybody wants ta get intah da act”.

Unlike Little Sally’s farmer grandfather with whom she politely shook hands, my grandfather proceeded to kiss me with his unshaven face that was as abrasive as his voice.

Whatever time of day, Papa’s breath was always minty-fresh, whether from peppermint Chicklets, those candy coated little nuggets of gum in the little yellow box, or from minty Feen-a Mint laxative gum. He always carried both of the similar looking gum in his pocket, often confusing one for the other, which was why I always refused his offer of gum.

The Road To Regularity

Vintage Booklet Cover “Kellogs The Road to Regularity” 1930s

Not even Josephine the TV plumber lady could unclog poor Papa’s plugged up sluggish pipes. When it  came to plumbing the most important pipes to keep clean were in your body was the notion. When intestines are lazy my grandmother warned, a cauldron of poisons collected and health fades. Lackadaisical intestines required industrial strength laxatives to flush away sludge.

Every day like clockwork a cornucopia of correctives cathartics  laxatives ad purgatives were flushed down poor Papas pipes due to the fact that he suffered from what doctors called the commonest trouble of modern life intestinal fatigue.

While Little Sally’s grandfather planted the fields and milked the cows, papa’s agenda for the day consisted of unloading his burdensome self by plotzing into his gig overstuffed chair to peruse the daily news.

With a stack of the days newspapers at the ready Papa began his daily vigil waiting in vain for either the viscous Mineral oil, the Carters Little Pills or the chocolaty candy Ex Lax to stat percolating as they slowly wound their way down his aged pipe system and take effect. If h knew JFK would make good on his campaign promise to get  us moving again he would joke he would have voted for him.

Sunday Breakfast

Vintage illustration from “We Read Pictures” 1956. On the farm with Dick, Jane and Sally’s grandparents

Cooking over the blue flame of the gas stove was a large pot of bubbling gray stick-to-your-ribs hot cereal, which Nana said would brace up my nerves and help with my digestion.

Turning my nose up at the bubbling gruel, she quickly reached for a box of cold cereal as an alternative. “The Big chief says he’ll throw in the whole village for a box of Shredded Wheat,” she recited reading from the unfamiliar box with a picture of a factory and Niagara Falls on it.

“Shredded Wheat was your fathers favorite!” she crowed pouring milk into my bowl till the whole mass was submerged in a pool of liquid, wiping the glass milk bottle with an absorbent dishcloth to catch any rogue drop lest it splash on the clover patterned oilcloth.

Now staring up at me at the breakfast table was a hefty, stoneware ceramic cereal bowl filled with a very forlorn looking object that resembled a bale of hay.

I began feeling homesickness coming over me.

I was used to jolly bowls of make-you-happy cereals- little puffs of corn in gay fruit colors, or wholesome, colorful, candy-coated flakes of wheat, served in light-as-air-it-never-breaks-melamine bowls.

Except for the promise of relief offered by the color Sunday comics, my morning had started out as dull and dreary as the view of the dark back alley, as a steady drizzle of cold November rain sifted down out of the wan sky.

 Sunday Funnies

Vintage Comics NY Daily News- (L) Dick Tracy (R) Little Iodine and Henry

The thick morning tabloids gushed with hot-off-the press news about the birth of John F. Kennedy Jr., and were chock full of pulse stirring stories of our new President-Elect, this most modern of leaders- this, the president in our future.

On the cusp of a new decade Americans were ready to blast off into the New Frontier of the 1960s leaving old-father-time Eisenhower in the dust.

Since the summer the promise of young men vying for grandfatherly Ike’s job was on everyone’s mind. And no more so than the Senator from Massachusetts John Kennedy. JFK exuded youthful optimism , he was pure motion like the feel of a Thunderbird smooth, easy with a special flare, urging us to move forward.

Vintage comics (L) Blondie (R) Mickey Finn

In contrast to the topical editorials extolling how JFK would “get us moving,” the comic strips seemed, well… stagnant and a bit dusty.

Sadly frozen in time, Poor Little Orphan Annie, and The Katzenjammer Kids had faced the same un-resolved dilemmas for the past forty years, when a little boy in knickers sat at this same table hungrily enjoying his Shredded Wheat.

(L) Vintage comic Little Orpahn Annie in The NY Daily News and (R) TV host Chuck McCann dressed as Little Orphan Annie

I on the other hand was used to having Little Orphan Annie served up to me in the lively form of TV Host Chuck McCann dressed in drag, who in his curly top auburn wig would read the comics from The Daily News to his TV audience.

© 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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Revisiting Thanksgiving 1960

As discredited vaccine studies continue to impact public health, President Obama urges “Get your kids vaccinated”

Voluntary vaccinations …really?

The reality of vaccines is clear. They are safe. They are lifesaving.

Those who are  venomously opposed to vaccines are clearly relying on Mickey Mouse science. How else to explain the current outbreak of measles – that scourge all but vanquished from this country – that began in Disneyland, the ultimate safe haven for children.

Fueled by a virulent strain of misinformation, pseudo scientists and pseudo celebrities, the anti vaccine rhetoric is running rampant.

They are living in their own “Magic Kingdom.”

Measles, Mumps and Rubella (MMR) Vaccine protects against 3 potentially serious illnesses. An effective vaccination campaign virtually eliminated measles in this country by 2000

By flouting the medical consensus they are compromising the safety of the community. The point of vaccines isn’t to just stop the vaccinated person from getting the disease it is to prevent the disease from spreading to others.

When it comes to saving lives, there is no choice.

As the vaccine issue is vigorously debated among politicians, its good to remember a time when vaccinations were not only vigorously embraced but each new vaccine was viewed as a victory for mankind.

The Miracle of the Polio Vaccine

Vaccinations would keep me safe from the dreaded diseases like whooping-cough, diphtheria and polio that had ravaged other childhoods. Vintage illustrations of childhood diseases Polio, Diphtheria and Smallpox from “New Medical and Health Encyclopedia” 1956

Grateful to have been a fully inoculated American kid, I would take for granted one of the most remarkable developments in modern history.

The polio vaccine approved in April 1955, a mere two weeks after I was born was nothing short of a modern miracle.

As a child I was constantly reminded that mine was a charmed existence, protected from deadly contagious diseases that had previously wiped out families and communities forever. And not just in the Dark Ages but in my own mothers lifetime.

Receiving my first set of vaccinations as a baby in 1955, I felt invincible.

The injections may not have rendered me faster than a speeding bullet or more powerful than a locomotive but with my newly acquired powers that went far beyond those of third world tots, I could now stand down whooping-cough, diphtheria and laugh polio in the face.

Ravages of Polio

Polio Precautions Poster

For the first half of the century polio was the most notorious disease until AIDS appeared. And for good reason- polio hit without warning. There was no way of telling who would get it and who would be spared.

Summer was open season for polio. Before 1955, there would be no youngsters swimming in public pools since most municipal pools were closed for fear of polio.

Like clockwork every summer, newspapers, with headlines screaming “Polio panic,” would appear with frightening photos of jammed packed polio wards and deserted beaches. News stories about containment competed for space, whether it was iron lungs or the iron curtain.

No disease struck the same terror as polio.

Fueled by feelings of helplessness, Mom like other nervous mothers, zealously checked and rechecked my brother’s every symptom; a sore throat, a fever, the chills, or even an aching limb, could all point to something ominous.

The rules were written in stone: Keep kids away from new groups of people. Don’t drink from the drinking fountain in the playground if you’re thirsty. Don’t put any foreign object in your mouth; Don’t run around in the heat with a sore throat; and make sure house screens were tight against flies and mosquitoes.

Losing Battle

This particular disease targeted defenseless children

This particular disease targeted defenseless children. It didn’t matter how good you were, how clean, how rich or poor, polio was the great American equalizer.

It seemed impossible that in this antibacterial, spic n’ span country where confident Americans were not just clean but Clorox clean, where physicians worked twice as fast for faster relief and creative chemistry worked wonders killing germs on contact, that polio could still ravage our nation.

For nearly a decade into the buoyant postwar era, polio still remained a scary disease to haunt our lives. No device is more associated with Polio than an iron lung, a tank respirator. Unable to breathe due to the virus paralyzing muscle groups in the chest, the iron lung maintained respiration and was a life saver.

Flush with triumphant victory of winning a war on two sides of the globe, we were still fighting a major battle right here in our own country, and in a way unfamiliar to Americans.

We were losing.

At a time when our confidence in American know how and scientific expertise was at an all time high, polio seemed to mock our can-do optimism.

The triumph over any enemy was an American birthright, so with that same can-do spirit, the troops were rallied with their resonating war cry “Polio can be conquered.”

March of Dimes

March of Dimes Collection cans with the heartbreaking pictures of little girls with steel braces were ubiquitous in post war America

On the Warpath Against Polio

Mom was a veteran of that war, and would play her part against polio by supporting The March of Dimes.

By 1951 Mom would soon be a mother herself and so for good reason she got involved.

As the front line defender of her family’s health, she  joined the National Foundation March of Dimes as a foot soldier, joining the millions of marching mothers on their one hour mission going house to house for solicitations as part of the Mothers march on Polio.

For an hour each year on a January evening these women, once an indelible image of postwar America, formed the largest charitable army the country had ever known, which served as models for much later marches by mothers against nuclear testing and environment.

Salk Vaccine Trials

Jonas Salk using March of Dime donations had successfully developed a vaccine to prevent polio

By 1954 the Salk vaccine trials rivaled the other big stories that spring – Brown versus Board of Education and The Army McCarthy hearings.

In fact more people knew about the field trials than knew the full name of the president. The kids in the trial were called Polio pioneers and a polio pioneer card was given out to each child along with a piece of candy when they participated in the first national trial tests of a trial vaccine.

In April 1955, my parents, along with millions of others had cause for celebration – the polio vaccine was approved! Jonas Salk using March of Dime donations had successfully developed a vaccine to prevent polio

Victory for a Vaccine

Host of NBC’s today Show Dave Garroway announces the polio vaccine works.

A very relieved Mom, along with most Americans of that age who were frantic to protect their children, would remember exactly where she was when she heard the groundbreaking news.

Early in the morning on April 12 1955, with the dishes washed, laundry folded, baby bottles being sterilized in the electric bottle sterilizer awaiting refill of formula, Mom could sit back, relax and give me my mid morning feeding.

As she warmed up the bottle, she warmed up the TV. With the skill of a safe cracker she delicately adjusted the large knobs on the mammoth mahogany encased set. Shaking the baby bottle, the milk felt pleasantly warm on Moms wrist and I drank it in satisfaction.

She settled in with a soothing cigarette in one hand my bottle in the other just as the easy-going voice of Dave Garroway host of NBC’s Today Show could be heard.

“And how are you about the world today? he would begin, the relaxing conversational tone making Mom feel as if she were sitting in the studio with him.

“Lets see what kind of shape it’s in; there is a glimmer of hope”.

Of course that was the understatement of the day when with his chimp side kick Fred Muggs at his side, the scholarly looking Garroway jubilantly announced: “The Vaccine Works. It is safe, effective and potent.”

Mom would recall that the once in a lifetime excitement felt as if it were like another V-J Day, the end of a war. That it was announced on the ten-year anniversary of FDR’s death added to the poignancy.

The bespectacled Garroway’s trademark sign off of an upraised palm, uttering simply: “Peace” had never seemed more prescient.

It would, gratefully,  be a terror I would never know.

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

There was a time when measles was all but wiped out

I remember a time, not so long ago, when measles were just a memory.

Now the political debate over measles and vaccines has exploded creating a stand-off between those supporting vaccines and the anti vaxxers.

The last time politics and measles were merged together for me was in the fall of 1962, those harrowing 13 days in October that nearly brought us to the brink of thermonuclear war.

I didn’t know until years later that they called it the Cuban Missile Crisis.
In my mind it would always be remembered as the “German Measles Crisis.”

It was late October, Halloween was just a few short weeks away and as luck would have it, I came down with a nasty case of the measles.

The itchy red spots were spreading from my face to my body as quickly as Communist aggression was visualized on maps and films at school.

Those scary red splotches of Communism shown slithering around the globe, oozing over continents, a ready reminder that the Russians were hell-bent on world conquest, were a familiar feature in My Weekly Reader.

Now the measles red rash was on its own expansionist path with me.

German Measles

German Measles were goose-stepping across my ravaged body. (R) Vintage German Nazi Stamp “Victory at Any Price”

To make matters worse, I learned it wasn’t just plain old measles.

They were German Measles; Nazi measles goose-stepping across my ravaged body.

Despite having been born a full decade after the end of WWII, which in a child’s mind is an eternity, I was tormented by the very thought of Nazis.

I used to have nightmares that men in brown shirts, black jack boots, and wide Sam Browne belts, rank and file members of the Nazi Party would storm into my suburban ranch house, lustily humming the Nazi anthem Hort Wessel Song, brutally taking me away.

Now the Germans and their horrors fused with the Russians and their nuclear bombs, and there was nothing to stop the fiery red rash that was charging across my 7-year-old body.

Monday

House Calls

Monday, October 22 began as sunny clear day. A burnish of autumn on the sycamore trees that lined my suburban block made everything look peaceful and predictable.

But all was not quite on the Western Park Drive front.

Inside my house things were anything but peaceful; I awoke with a fever, sore throat, blotchy skin and the streaming morning light burned my watery, red-rimmed eyes.

My body was clearly sending out distress signals. With a sinking feeling about the telltale rash, Mom called the doctor.

Within the hour my pediatrician came to the house and confirmed the diagnosis.

The spots had Deutschland written all over them – German Measles – Rubella.

Solemnly my pediatrician Dr. King informed me that to prevent the spread of the very contagious disease, I would have to be quarantined.

Like a heat seeking missile, a careless sneeze, or an explosive cough could shoot troublesome germs in your direction at a mile a minute speed. In case they invaded the tissues of your throat, you could be in for a cold, or…worse.

I was to get back to bed mach schnell. And stay there.

Think Pink

Besides bed-rest, baby aspirin and fluids there was no cure. A big brown bottle of soothing Calamine lotion along with a suggestion to clip my fingernails to stop me from the inevitable scratching were the doctors best suggestions.

Not even the venerable Ben Casey could come to my rescue.

There was no debate about the merits of a vaccine because there were none. A vaccine would become available for measles in 1963, a rubella vaccine wouldn’t exist until the end of the decade.

The Longest Day

Mom had already had her longest day dealing with the measles crisis when the Cuban Missile Crisis was announced. (R) Headline of NY Daily News announcing the Cuban blockade

October 22 was also my parent’s 12th wedding anniversary.

They had planned on going to the movies that evening to see “The Longest Day”, that star-studded spectacle about D Day the Normandy invasion.

But now that our normally germ-proof home had itself been invaded with a contagious disease, plans were promptly cancelled.

John Wayne would have to wait.

Besides which my parents were anxious to watch President Kennedy’s live broadcast on television that evening.

Panic Goes Viral

President John Kennedy addressed the nation of the Cuban Missile Crisis on television

At noon, while Mom was preparing lunch , JFK’s press secretary Pierre Salinger had made a dramatic announcement that the president would speak that night “on a matter of the highest national urgency.”

The crisis that was brewing in Cuba that had begun a week earlier had been kept top-secret. Now with rumors circulating, there was a nearly unbearable sense of foreboding and tension.

Across the country while American’s eyes would be fixed on their TV sets gripped in the most intense moment of recent history, I was confined to my bedroom without a TV. At a loss, I trained my ears to tune in to the console playing in the living room.

We Interrupt This Program…

At 7:00, I could hear the TV announcer from the popular game show based on the game charades saying: “Stump the Stars will not be seen tonight so that we can bring you this special broadcast….”

Along with 50 million other Americans my parents listened in pin-drop silence as President Kennedy spoke about Cuba.

Sitting behind his desk, a solemn President Kennedy got right to the point. This was no time to play charades.

He grimly announced to a shocked nation that Russia had sneaked missiles into Cuba just 90 miles from Florida. Along with the Offensive Missiles, Khrushchev had deployed bombs and 40,000 Soviet troops.

The alarming evidence from photographs showed that nearly every city from Lima, Peru to Hudson Bay, Canada would lie within push button range of thermonuclear bombs in Cuba.

Panic was about to go Viral

Every major US city would lie within push button range of thermonuclear bombs in Cuba.

“To halt this offensive build up,” a determined Kennedy said, “a strict quarantine on all offensive military equipment to Cuba is being initiated.” The Navy’s mission was to block the flow of Russian weapons to Cuba.

Like me, the Russians would have a quarantine imposed on them but Dad wasn’t convinced this was the best tactic. It might work for preventing the spread of the measles but not for the missiles. If Russians didn’t withdraw the missiles as demanded, a U.S. pre-emptive strike against the launch site was inevitable.

The United States would not shrink from the threat of nuclear war to preserve the peace and freedom of Western Hemisphere, Kennedy said firmly.

The Presiden’ts voice faded away as my parents grimly turned to another channel to watch “I’ve got a Secret.”

Struggling with the ramifications of what they just heard, the longest day was about to get a lot longer

A Rash Decision

Temperatures were rising as the Cold War heated up. (R) JFK clashed with some military advisers about invading Cuba. After criticizing Kennedy’s call to blockade Cuba as too weak a response, General Curtis LeMay Air Force Chief of Staff (seated closest to JFK in photo) told the President that his refusal to invade Cuba was a mistake and would encourage the Soviets to move on Berlin. Photo by Abbie Rowe National Archives

As the cold war heated up so did my fever, and I was wracked with chills.

Despite being doused with great blotches of pink calamine lotion I was struggling not to scratch the angry rash that was invading my body.

Hot and bothered, the US military were having the same problem.

Just itching to go to war, the Joint Chiefs of Staff had to restrain themselves from scratching that very dangerous itch.

The Soviets had crossed the line. They had come into our Hemisphere, their nuclear warheads aimed directly at us and we had to make sure they didn’t strike first. The time had come for a direct military showdown with the Soviet Union.

Luckily cooler heads prevailed.

We Can Work it Out?

On Wednesday, when Soviet ships changed course rather than make contact with the naval blockade, there was some relief.

No new weapons were being shipped to Cuba. But Hi-ho-hi-ho it was off to work they go as industrious red dwarfs continued to work day and night on the existing missiles which would soon be operational.

The pressure on the President to order an air strike or an invasion was mounting.

As the tension grew, many atomic armchair strategists felt strongly that the best defense was offense – get ‘em before they hit us. “If the Russian offensive build up continued, Kennedy would have no choice but to unleash the mighty US force,” Dad remarked  gravely.

Russian nuclear retaliation would be inevitable

Going on the Defensive

Short of building a fallout shelter, there was little anyone could do about the missile crisis, but it was all out war on the measles at my home. (L) Vintage booklet “Fallout Protection Kit” for your shelter

An air of crisis hung over the country.

Short of building a fallout shelter, there was little anyone could do about the missile crisis, but it was all out war on the measles at my home.

Prepared to do battle, Mom took the offensive with the pre-emptive striking power of Lysol, Lestoil and Listerine, to immobilize and incapacitate any rogue germs. There was a full frontal attack on dirt – every counter every surface in the house was scoured and sanitized, hands were washed and rewashed until skin wrinkled and puckered.

School Daze

A Page out of history (L) Vintage illustration from “Our Country Historical Color Book” 1958 depicting the Atomic Blast at Hiroshima

With the containment policy strictly enforced, the days passed slowly for me but I busied myself with Colorforms, Crayolas and coloring books.What better way to pass the crisis than coloring in a picture of the Atomic Blast at Hiroshima in my American History Coloring Book.

Barricaded in my bedroom, I could still hear the ominous sound of the air raid drill alarm ringing every few hours at West Hempstead High School a few blocks away. I could picture all the frightened school kids jumping out of their desks as I had done countless times, kneeling underneath desks, hands clasped behind necks, eyes closed waiting for that imminent flash.

I had little sense how school officials were currently scurrying to make all sorts of contingency plans for what seemed like the possibility of a real attack.

Several years earlier, my school district had developed a plan for evacuating elementary school kids in the event of a threatened enemy air raid upon NYC. We had been issued plastic dog tags with our picture and address on it that we were to wear in case of an attack.

School Day drills (R) In a photograph published in Colliers Magazine June 1952, schoolchildren in Nevada practice what they have been told to do in case of an Atomic attack:lie flat on the ground, shield their eyes with one arm and protect their head with the other arm

On Thursday my fifth grade brother brought home a printed permission slip for my parents to sign, allowing students to participate in a practice walk-home air raid drill.

In case of emergency it was thought better to be incinerated at home rather than at school.

Irritable and impatient as only a sick 7-year-old could be, I was deeply disappointed that I would miss out on the fun of the walk home drill. Pleading with Mom to let me out of my sick room long enough to view the march, I wistfully watched from the living room window as my classmates, lined up in size order, earnestly paraded down my deserted block.

The loud roar of an overhead jet temporarily distracted me.

Anxiously I scanned the blue skies from our picture window for an enemy attack, as though it were WWII and I were a spotter standing on a rooftop scanning the skies for the sight of a Japanese flag painted on the belly of the aircraft.

I was too young to comprehend the total annihilation of nuclear war. All I knew was, we were to be prepared. I knew a nuclear attack could occur any time anyplace any day. Would this be the day?

My parents would shake their heads, as they watched me but neither of them had the heart to tell me what they already knew – that now, by the time you eyed the enemy…it was already too late

Tossin’ and Turnin’

By Saturday I had taken all the orange flavored St. Joseph aspirin that I could, yet my fever had still not broken. Along with the shivering and shaking, there was a whole lot of tossin and turnin’ as the red splotches of German Measles continued their assault goose-stepping across my body.

A vaporizer had been brought in to help with the breathing and between the fog and my feverish delirium, disparate sounds and thoughts merged in my mind, as I drifted between states of fractured foggy wakefulness and fitful sleep.

Have Gun Will Travel

Blending with the hushed anxious tones of my parents, the shrill, ear-piercing, buzzing signals on the radio during the CONELRAD broadcasting system tests and the ominous news bulletins, were the incessant commercials constantly blaring on TV…

“…..And now a word from our sponsor… This is only a test…In a world threatened by thermonuclear holocaust…. it’s new…. its different….it….gives the surest protection-the new Missiles with Gardol, wonderful new Anti-Russian fighter forms an invisible shield of radioactivity around them….They can’t feel it – taste it – see it – but its protection won’t rinse off or wear off all day, just like New Pepsodent…..

“…Don’t settle for wishy -washy conventional weapons….New deep penetrating Thermonuclear Bombs bring speedy relief from Reds…. Goes in-goes in fast….help restore restful democracy, relieves pesky Russian interference…

“Yes, fast acting Ajax the white tornado…. Ajax missiles kill millions of people associated with Communism, ..Reaches all infected areas in minutes….shrinks populations, restores free way of life. An exclusive anti communist Ingredient….That’s all there is to it…

“…This is not a test…we now return to Have Gun Will Travel…If this had been an actual emergency ….. take 2 aspirin and call me in the morning…”

As hot as I was with fever I knew things were only going to get a lot hotter once this thermonuclear war began.

On Sunday morning my fever broke and Moscow announced their decision to dismantle the missiles and return to sender. I wouldn’t understand until years later that the Russians backed off or as Dean Rusk was to famously say “We were eyeball to eyeball and they blinked first.”

Though my fever and measles eventually healed, the cold war chill I caught that week would never leave me.

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

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And the Oscar for the most celebrity endorsements goes to…Chesterfield Cigarettes. Tobacco companies paid Hollywood Oscar contenders of the 1940’s and 50’s millions of dollars in today’s money to endorse their brand of cigarette. Just a sampling of top box office stars who appeared in Chesterfield ads alone were (Top L-R) Rita Hayworth starring in “Down to Earth” 1947, Ann Baxter in “Follow the Sun” 1951, Kirk Douglas starring in “Young Man With a Horn” 1950, (Bottom L-R) Bing Crosby, “Riding High” 1949, Tyrone Power in “Luck of the Irish” 1948, and Claudette Colbert starring in “Sleep My Love” 1948

Hollywood and Madison Avenue were a marriage made in commerce heaven.

Nothing sells like celebrity, so in honor of “Oscar” a sampling of some former Academy Award  winners and their winning endorsements.

The Oscar for the Best Celebrity Endorsement goes to…

Claudette Colbert

Vintage Royal Crown Cola ad 1942
RC Cola featured Miss Colbert in this 1942 ad, one of dozens of Hollywood actresses the cola used in its long running ad campaign.
“One Cola Does Taste Best” says Claudette Colbert now starring in “Palm Beach Story”

With her impeccable make up, trademark bangs and “show-girl gams,” the French-born American actress Claudette Colbert was one of the brightest film stars, voted  the 12^th greatest Female American Screen Legend in cinema by the The American Film Institute in 1999.

Scoring an Oscar for  best actress in 1934’s It Happened One Night. This classic screwball comedy with Clark Gable swept the Oscars. The film was nominated for 5 Academy Awards and won in all categories for best picture, best actor, actress, director, and best writing adaptation, a feat not repeated until 1975’s One Flew Over the Cukoo’s Nest.

After that blockbuster, Colbert received an Academy Award nominations for 1935’s Private World and another nomination the following year for 1944’s Since You Went Away.

Vintage Ad Double Mint Gum Featuring Claudette Colbert 1938
Promoting her next big Paramount picture a romantic comedy called “Midnight,” would do wonders for her career too!

By 1938 the much in demand  Colbert was highly marketable appearing in numerous advertisements.

Hawking “Healthful Double Mint Gum,” we learn “Hollywood’s beautiful and fascinating star Claudette Colbert’s knows Double Mint does wonders for her smile.”

Being America’s highest paid movie star probably helped her smile as well.

Vintage ad for Lucky Strike cigarettes featuring Claudette Colbert 1938

When she wasn’t chewing gum, Miss Colbert enjoyed a cigarette or two. That same year the accomplished actress vouched for Lucky Strike cigarette’s  gentleness to her delicate throat.

In this 1938 ad Academy Award winner Claudette Colbert (now co-starring with Gary Cooper in Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife) explains to the reader how the strain of emotional acting led her to Luckies.

“Emoting to order is certainly  a real strain on the throat,” Claudette explains “That’s why an actress thinks twice about choosing a cigarette. After experimenting I’m convinced that my throat is safest with Luckies.”

Vintage ad for Chesterfield Cigarettes featuring Hollywood legend Claudette Colbert now starring in Sleep My Love 1948

Ten years late in 1948 the Oscar-winning actress switched her allegiance to Chesterfield: “I’ve tried them all, ” she claims, “Chesterfield is my favorite.”

1947 Vintage ad for Max Factor Pan Cake Make-Up featuring Claudette Colbert

Max Factor  famously featured a bevy of Hollywood beauties for their Pan Cake Make-Up ad campaign, claiming every girl could look like a movie star using his makeup.  In 1947 “The make-up for the stars and you” featured the impeccably made up Claudette Colbert.

Starring  in the romantic comedy The Egg and I the very glamorous Colbert plays a reluctant chicken farmer’s wife  in the same vein as TVs Green Acres.

“Max factor was the make-up that creates that smooth young look for glamorous beauty,” proved it would make even a chicken farmers wife look downright gorgeous.

Humphrey Bogart

1951 Vintage ad for Eversharp Pen featuring Hollywood Icon Humphrey Bogart who in 1999 The American Film Institute ranked the epitome of class, tough, cool and sophisticated, as the greatest male star in the history of American cinema.

It’s hard to believe that this cultural icon often called the number one movie legend of all time won only one Oscar in his illustrious career.

Humphrey Bogart  was  nominated for Best Actor in 1943 for Casablanca (which picked up 3 academy awards) and in 1954 for The Caine Mutiny, but it would be his role as Charlie the  rough and ready boat captain in 1951’s African Queen that would be his only Oscar win.

While starring in 1948’s film noir classic Key Largo, the film in which Bogie and Bacall appear on the screen for the final time together, the star took time out to appear in an Eversharp advertisement for their “Kimberly Pockette.”  A conveniently small pen “not much larger than a cigarette” it miraculously opened up to a full size model.

“A new writing wonder,” Bogart says with amazement. “I carry my Kimberly with me at all times. You can’t beat it for instant smooth writing!”

One wonders if the screen legend  used it to pen any postcards from the Hotel Largo.

Joan Crawford

Vintage ad 1946 Joan Crawford for Maybelline Cosmetics
“The eye makeup I would never be without!”

A true movie star, this glamorous Oscar winner was melodrama incarnate.

Joan Crawford won an academy award for best actress in 1945 for her over the top performance in the title role of   Mildred Pierce a critical and commercial success. A second Oscar nomination  followed in  1947  for  Best Actress for her portrayal of  an unstable woman possessed with her ex- lover in Possessed.

In the early 1930’s Crawford’s  sex appeal made her  among Hollywood’s top grossing performers appearing opposite some of the industry’s top male stars.

But by 1937 her popularity with the public was beginning to wane, and her luck was running out.

It’s no wonder Joan began smoking Lucky Strikes.

1937 Christmas ad for Lucky Strikes featuring Joan Crawford

”Joan takes time out from her part in MGM’s Mannequin  to play the part of Mrs Santa Claus.” the copy reads in this 1937 Lucky Strike ad. “Joan has smoked Luckies for 8 years, has been kind enough to tell us: ‘They always stay on good terms with my throat.”

She apparently did not stay on good terms with the movie going public.

After the failure of films like 1938’s Mannequin, Crawford’s  name appeared in an infamous full-page Hollywood Reporter advertisement which listed actors deemed “glamorous stars detested by the public.”

However portraying the spiteful Crystal in George Cukor’s 1939 smash The Women restored some of her luster and marketability

Vintage Max Factor ad from 1941 featuring Joan Crawford

Cukor directed her again in 1941’s A Woman’s Face helping her in her comeback. In the film the legendary “glamor puss”  plays a disfigured woman and was universally praised for her radical departure away from the usual screen glamor girl.

Is it any wonder  she rushed to do this glamor ad for Max Factor Pan Cake Make-Up?

Max Factor always featured the most alluring stars to do their ads. Pan Cake Make-Up was the fastest selling makeup in history. Originally created for movie stars, its famous ads featured a who’s who of Hollywood beauties including Joan Crawford in 1941.

The Comeback Kid

Vintage ad for RC Cola with Joan Crawford 1944

Despite the successes,  Joan Crawford  was box office poison.

Leaving MGM she signed with Warners for a third of her salary,  appearing in 1944’s Hollywood Canteen as herself.  Like Claudette Colbert, Crawford preferred  RC Cola which apparently was all they served at the Hollywood Canteen.

Just as her career seemed in decline, and against rumors that she was to be dropped by Warners, the tenacious actress  fought hard for the lead role in 1945’s Mildred Pierce where she triumphantly took home the Oscar for Best Actress.

Vintage 1951 Camels Cigarette ad featuring movie star Joan Crawford

By 1951 with an Academy Award under her belt the Oscar winner switched to Camels.

“Be Lux Lovely” says Joan Crawford in a 1951 ad for Lux Soap

Portraying a Congresswoman in Goodbye My Fancy a more mature Crawford was still a Lux Girl joining the 9 out of 10 screen stars who claimed to use Lux Soap. Lux launched a print campaign using  older stars  the “I am over 31″  series that had stars talking about preserving youthful skin.

Gary Cooper

Vintage ad for De Soto featuring screen legend Gary Cooper 1936

The stoic, understated actor received 5 academy award nominations for best actor winning twice.

Starring in Mr Deeds Goes to Town in 1936 he received his first Academy Award nomination for this classic Capra film.

Capitalizing on his success he was picked  along with other Hollywood screen stars to help sell De Soto Automobiles.

“Yes its actually Gary Cooper stepping out of a smart new De Soto!”  announced this 1936 ad. “Hollywood ! Paramount Studios! Stage 3…swarming with extras prop men, camera men, stars. Suddenly a gong. Silence! The blinding flash of batteries of Klieg lights. Call-boys singing out “Mr Cooper-ready for you Mr Cooper.”

“Out of a new De Soto steps the unforgettable star of Mr Deeds Goes to Town…and another great picture “Souls at Sea” is on its way.”

In 1940 he appeared in an ad Emerson radio while starring in The Westerner. years later Gary Cooper received an Honorary Award in 1961 from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

The following year Cooper  began a series of roles tackling real life dramas.  In  1941’s Sargent York  he played WWI hero and sharpshooter Alvin York and won his first Oscar for the role. The next year in 1942  he played baseball great Lou Gehrig in Pride of the Yankees where he received his third Academy Award  nomination.

It would be Gary Cooper’s signature role as Will Kane in High Noon that would earn him his second Oscar for Best  Actor, and garner four academy awards for the film.

Ginger Rogers

The actress, dancer and singer the epitome of the Sophisticated Lady, appeared in this 1936 ad for Dodge, a lower priced automobile.

During her long career this delightful Oscar winner danced into our Depression weary hearts. Best remembered  as collaborating with Fred Astaire as a romantic lead,  “she  could,” as the saying went, “do everything that Fred Astaire her famous dancing partner did but did it backwards and in heels.”

Her determination to take on serious roles payed off big time winning  the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance of a headstrong girl determined to find happiness in  1940’s Kitty Foyle.

The following year Time Magazine pronounced Ginger Rogers  “the fresh and blood symbol of the United States  working girl.” This “working girl” went on to  star in several other films becoming the highest paid woman in America.

Showing her practical side, the popular screen star added her prestige to Dodge a lower priced automobile,

“Why should I buy an expensive car?” asks Ginger Rogers in the ad.

Appealing to a Depression era audience the ad explains:“Like many another who could afford a more expensive car the combination of beauty and economy won Miss Rogers to the new big Dodge.”

Why should she do this ad…a brand new movie to plug  of course. “Ginger Rogers who skyrocketed to new popularity in such films as Gay Divorcee and Top Hat is appearing with Fred Astaire in “Follow the Fleet” the new RKO film now being shown at your neighborhood theater” the ad informs us.

Barbara Stanwyck

Vintage Ad Lucky Strike 1937 Barbara Stanwyck

A hard-working, much sought after  pro who played strong tough women, Barbara Stanwyck  got an Oscar nod  four times. In 1938 she was nominated for Best Actress in Stella Dallas, in 1942 for Ball of Fire, in 1945 for Double Indemnity and again in 1949 for Sorry Wrong Number.

Acknowledging her long illustrious career, she was the recipient of an Honorary Lifetime Achievement Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 1981.

While starring in Stella Dallas for which she received her first Academy Award nomination, she posed for a Lucky Strikes ad. in 1937

The future Academy Award Nominee tells the reader how she found Luckies gentlest on her throat:

“When the talkies came to Hollywood,” says Barbara Stanwyck, “my previous stage experience on Broadway gave me my chance in pictures.” Taking care of my throat became serious business with me. I decided I had to treat my throat well, so I changed to Luckies, a light smoke. They made a big hit with me.”

Elizabeth Taylor

When appearing in the 1956 classic Giant with James Dean they featured her breathtaking beauty in an ad for Lux You’re just as lovely as a movie star.

Some consider  2 time Academy Award winning actress  Elizabeth Taylor the queen of American movie stardom from the golden age of Hollywood.

Dazzling a generation of movie goers with her stunning beauty her very name synonymous with Hollywood glamor.

Glamorous and beautiful this 2 time Oscar winner for Best Actress was nominated 3 times in a row before her Oscar drought ended in 1960 for her role in Butterfield 8.

The legendary actress famed for her breathtaking beauty was a natural for beauty product ads.

I’m a Lux Girl

Lux was Hollywood’s beauty soap claiming 9 out of 10 screen stars use Lux Toilet Soap
Vintage ad 1950 Elizabeth Taylor Lux Soap

With her fair, glowing skin,  Taylor  joined the legion of legendary lovely Lux girls.

Lux concentrated on building its brand with movie stars early on in 1929 which created a huge impact among movie loving audiences. Billing itself as Hollywood’s one beauty soap, they claimed “9 out of 10 screen stars use Lux Soap.”

Miss Taylor  first appeared as a Lux girl while starring in Father of the Bride. “A bride of dreamlike loveliness that’s Elizabeth Taylor in her latest picture.  Notice the radiant beauty of her complexion – its Lux complexion.”

You’re as Lovely as a Movie Star

“I’d love to look like Elizabeth Taylor,” says the girl longingly  in the 1956  Lux ad. Tactfully, her beau responds: “Well you look wonderful to me just as you are.”

“To him you’re as lovely as a movie star,” the copy reads.” There’s no doubt in his mind you’re very lovely. And there’s no doubt that your complexion deserves the same good care as Elizabeth Taylor gives her. Like 9 out of 10 Hollywood Stars she keeps her skin lovely with Lux.”

The Most Beautiful Hair in the World

“Lustre Crème presents Elizabeth Taylor -one of the top 12 voted by Model Hair and a jury of famed hair stylists as having the worlds loveliest hair.

As famous for her raven hair as her violet eyes she soon she joined  the legion of Hollywood’s most bewitching stars who claimed  they washed their famous locks in Lustre Crème shampoo.

Naturally, the shampoo emphasizes how “hair is vital to her on-screen presence.”

Yes, Elizabeth Taylor uses Lustre Crème shampoo to keep her hair always alluring. The care of her beautiful hair is vital to her glamor appeal. You too like Elizabeth Taylor will notice  a glorious difference in your hair once you know the magic of Lustre Crème shampoo.”

Ironically it would be her role as the loudmouthed, shrewish, unkempt Martha  in 1966’s Whose Afraid of Virginia Wolf? that won the gorgeous Elizabeth Taylor  her second Oscar.

Copyright (©) 2015 Sally Edelstein All Rights Reserved

Limiting and less than flattering portrayal of older women once populated the pop culture landscape. Cougars circa 1974. Playboys “horny granny” cartoon by Robert Brown was a parody of the sexy youthful Playboy bunny

Growing up, being an “older” woman was not a pretty picture – literally.

Predictably, post-menopausal women were pictured pleasingly plump their sagging jowls and sagging breasts as slumping as their sedentary, asexual lives that were defined by grandchildren, gossip and reminiscing about the good old days.

Little Golden Books often showed our golden years as grumpy old men and lumpy old women. Vintage Little Golden Book Illustrations by Eloise Wilkin

Remembrance of Romances Past. Vintage illustration from Pacific Textiles Advertisement 1947

Articles on aging didn’t depict older people still active in their communities; all dealt with the problems of aging, picturing “doddering old folks” reminiscing about the good old days. Most over 65 were not physically active or sexually active.

Swathed in a quilted hand crocheted shawl her chilly body temperature was matched only by her chilly non-existent libido.

And if “the old biddie” had a libido, it was ridiculed.

The dried up, toothless, ‘horny granny” created by Robert “Buck” Brown was a permanent fixture in Playboy Magazine in the 1970’s.

Take My Old Lady…Please

Next to ditzy female drivers and meddling battle-axe mothers in law, the older women was a favorite target of cartoonists and comics.

“Is this where old bags get renovated?” Vintage cartoon by McKay Esquire Magazine 1956

“Yes, indeed, dear- it is a surprise!” Vintage cartoon Esquire Magazine 1956

 The  Age Old Problem

For all our current advances, one fact stubbornly remains: avoid any visible sign of aging or you become invisible.

Competition. The Evil Queen was no match for the dewy young skin of Snow White. (L) Vintage illustration “Snow White A Golden Book” (R) Ivory Snow Ad 1968

Reinforced by Madison Avenue’s potpourri of promises to stave off signs of aging and restore youth, the Grimm brothers story of Snow White was quite instructive to young girls when it came to aging and faded youth

“Mirror Mirror on the wall who’s the fairest of them all?” The Queen famously asks her magic mirror. The queen has grown accustomed to a reassuring answer. “You,” the mirror always replied. “You are the fairest of them all,” until that terrible day when the mirror spoke another truth; Snow White is fairer than you.

Vanished

No amount of Elizabeth’s Arden Vanishing Cream could change the ugly fact: Women of a certain age get used to fading compliments, as slowly the attention of men fade away.

No wonder women are haunted by the horror of growing old.

Washed Up

What are women to presume?

Obviously that beauty lasts only slightly longer than puberty and it is our business and obligation to keep those visible signs of aging at bay. Or else you’re all washed up.

Especially if you want to keep a man.

Hair Today, gone tomorrow (L) Vintage ad Breck Shampoo 1955 (R) Loving Care by Clairol ad 1962 Wash Away Gray

In the 1960’s a middle-aged woman whose marriage was in trouble could reignite her love life by simply washing away her gray hair.

“Hate That  Gray?  Wash it away! “

“How do husbands react when wives suddenly look years younger,” asks a 1962 ad from Loving Care by Clairol.

 Seems most men don’t know anything about the art involved, but every man knows what he likes. And that is a wife who stays young and attractive. Not only is it a pleasure to look at but it reflects nicely on him too.

Loving care looks so fresh and natural makes your husband feel younger just to look at you!

Stay Young and Beautiful

The current portrayal of busy and botoxed boomers – diligently popping Boniva and those little blue pills – may be redefining aging, yet remnants of out-dated images linger like fossilized remains.

Age based stereotypes are often internalized in childhood long before the information is relevant; calcified for decades these disparaging stereotypes are often difficult to dissolve.

These dated images may have reached their expiration date, the prejudices against getting, old has not.

Expiration Date

But how old is old?

For most of my life the media seemed incapable of portraying an attractive woman over 30.

When it comes to attractiveness it seems like there is always an expiration date. Best used by…

Middle age was once indicator of the end of your beauty shelf life …. A warning your desirability was about to expire.

Middle Age Madness

Vintage ad Palmolive Soap 1940

Palmolive Soap ran an ad campaign in the late 1930s to warn of the scourge of ladies everywhere- middle-aged skin. Once afflicted, dates were broken along with hearts all because a careless lady allowed herself to develop middle-aged skin.

Vintage ad Palmolive Soap 1938

Even a young women could be mistaken for middle age long before her time, if precautions weren’t taken.

How Young is Old?

Young, at 51? Impossible you say?

Vintage Ad 1951 Jergens All Purpose Cream with Gloria Swanson

By 1951 fifty was apparently the old 60 when Jergens  Cream  marveled that a 51-year-old woman could still be considered attractive. Even if that woman was aging movie star Gloria Swanson.  No Norma Desmond she, Miss Swanson was no fading beauty, thanks to her daily ritual of cleansing with Jergens All Purpose Cream.

The ad asked the middle-aged reader to  be truthful: could they possibly look as young when they were over the hill.

Of course today if 40 is the new 30, and 60 is the new 50, middle age itself gets murkier.

Doesn’t she know she can look younger? Cosmetic companies eye your sagging face with greed.

The expiration date may be pushed back, but in our youth obsessed culture it is inevitable.

As long as we there is an obsession with the “problem” of age and how best to avoid it through diet, exercise, chemical formulas, moisturizing creams and good old-fashioned denial, old stereotypes  can exist.

Like processed food, the more chemicals additives and fillers added to a woman, the longer the shelf life of her attractiveness.

In a culture that worships of the altar of all natural no additives the same can’t be said of our aging women.

If positive portrayals of aging promote the idea that defying aging is the only way to age successfully, negative stereotypes can remain strong

Copyright (©) 2015 Sally Edelstein All Rights Reserved

While Alcoholics Anonymous tells us “we are only as sick as our secrets” it’s no secret that Mad Men’s Don Draper enjoys a drink every now and again… and again… and again.

While actor Jon Hamm has just successfully completed a stint in rehab for alcohol abuse, it hard to imagine the same fate for Don Draper who has long been waging a battle with booze.

One line of dialogue we are doubtful to hear this final season of Mad Men is the handsome ad executive standing up in 12 step meeting at Hazelden soberly stating: “My name is Don Draper and I’m an Alcoholic.”

During the 3 martini lunch era that defined Mad Men , not only were rehabs less available to those suffering alcoholism, the cultural denial about the disease allowed old stereotypes about “problem drinkers” to linger.

It wasn’t hard for Don to be in denial about his excess drinking.

An Alcoholic…Who Me?

Because he is a functioning alcoholic, he contradicted the conventional wisdom of who an alcoholic was.

Impeccably groomed in his smartly tailored suits, dapper Don certainly didn’t fit the stereotypical skid row model, the down on their luck deviant, chronically unemployed, living in squalor on the edges of society that defined a real alcoholic.

In his swanky Park Avenue digs far removed from the bowels of the  Bowery, Draper wasn’t downing his Johnny Walker Black from a brown paper bag. No sir, it was Baccarat cut crystal for him.

The problem drinker stigmatized as a “loser, one step away from a life of crime,” sure wasn’t successful ad man Don Draper.

Although by the 1950’s the AMA recognized alcoholism as disease, these hackneyed notions persisted.

Problem Drinkers

Vintage poster for “Problem Drinkers” 1946. The March of Time was a newsreel and radio program that dramatized and reported on news of the week. The newsreels were shown in movie theaters from 1935 to 1951

Several years earlier in 1946,  a year before a young Dick Whitman would become of legal drinking age, a groundbreaking March of Time newsreel was shown in movie theaters that explored the growing problem of alcoholism in America.

More importantly, the newsreel entitled “The Problem Drinker” attempted to show that alcoholics were just like everyone else. They were parents, friends workers, brothers; they held down jobs have friends.

A portrait of an American family man coming to terms with his alcoholism by seeking help from Alcoholics Anonymous, the film emphasized that alcoholics are not bad people but have an addiction beyond their control.

Despite its attempts to get people to reconsider old stereotypes of alcoholics, the predictable  stereotypes lingered for decades.

The newsreel Problem Drinkers “turned to a relatively new organization that seems to have great success in helping alcoholics beat the habit -Alcoholic Anonymous” which had a starring turn in the newsreel. Vintage ad for Problem Drinkers 1946

With great fanfare, a full-page ad ran in Life Magazine announcing the June premiere of an important March of Time feature, “The Problem Drinker.”

The ad copy came complete with “retro emojis,”  little drawings of  alcoholic drinks place strategically among the text for emphasis.

Maybe he’s someone you know. Maybe he’s a neighbor or a chap from the office or a fellow you knew from the service. A good guy – except! How do you feel about him? Is his problem his business, his family’s, the government’s?

Should he be punished or coddled?…Can he be cured”?

In this forceful new film March of Time shows you in action the many ways in which Americas fourth largest public health menace is being tackled. For example, you’ve often heard of “Alcoholics Anonymous:” here you’ll see how AA works – in the dramatic story of one mans battle against alcoholism.

This picture pulls no punches, speaks straight to everyone who has ever worried about someone who “can’t leave it alone.

Perhaps if Dick Whitmam had watched the newsreel and taken the advise to seek help instead of turning to the bottle to deal with his dark past, Don Draper’s life might have turned out quite differently.

Copyright (©) 2015 Sally Edelstein All Rights Reserved

Having just turned 60 I have now entered DEFCON 2 in the war against aging.

That is, if we are to believe the media who have been waging  their own war against women and aging for years.

After decades of daily reconnaissance scrutinizing my face and body for any and all flaws, I am now on high alert as a full on assault on wrinkles, creases, puckers, furrows, and lines escalates.

My defense budget has skyrocketed, as I boost my already bloated arsenal of creams, lotions, serums, and potions.

I have been waging war against any visible signs of aging for over 30 years, and like the war on poverty and the war on drugs it is ultimately a losing battle.

Thinking the Unthinkable

It’s all out war on visible signs of aging

The threat of wrinkles, creases, folds, and furrows seems to illicit the same level of panic and fear as nuclear war once did. And like a nuclear attack, according to the conventional wisdom,  if you prepared… you could survive.

Having caught a cold war chill as a child in the 60’s I learned to live with the constant threat of Nuclear war; the fear of an inevitable, imminent attack would chase me through my childhood.

Living in a state of constant preparedness, building a protective bunker to shield you from harm was the only way to survive a nuclear attack we were warned, and these lessons would serve me well in my war against aging.

I learned early on that all around me there were aggressors ready to attack, conspiring to wreak havoc on your skin and you needed to prepare for this unrelenting battle.

Basic Training DEFCON5

Vintage ads 1970

Basic training for this long fight against any facial flaws began early for most girls. Life long survival skills like vigilant scouting for imperfections were honed early in our teens.

The objective: winning the admiration and approval of others. Honestly.

Because honesty is so important. Bonnie Bell says the biggest reason for a girl to clear up her skin is boys. And Bonne Bells ten o six Lotion is best way to give you clean clear honest skin. Vintage Ad 1970

Boot Camp- Teenagers Attention!

From the time of puberty, a national policy of deterrence against small skin flaws began. Teenage girls immediately enlisted in the Clear Complexion Corps. Occasional skirmishes were easily controlled with conventional weapons like Noxema and Bonnie Bell .

Teenagers Attention! Neutrogena declared war on complexion troubles, even offering a wonderful battle ribbon – free! Vintage ad 1970

Anti acne activists were deployed ; Battling blemishes could easily be obliterated with a dash of Clearasil.

Eternal Youth

Like a good fairy Godmother, estrogen enriched hormone creams from the 1960’s were the answer for younger looking skin for the mature woman over 35.

As a teen in the early 1970s, aging seemed far off in the future.

It was a subject relegated to the back pages of the women’s magazines where ads for hormone creams that promised to make m’ menopausal lady look younger, years younger, shared space with stop-gap measures like Hollywood Wings, those adhesive strips that aging movie stars swore by to keep their skin taut.

Also called “smoothies”( though no greek yogurt is involved) they were made of flesh textured fabric treated to adhere to the skin. Moisten and press over furrows. At 50 wings for $2, it was a bargain.

The biggest worry after dry skin were “the heartbreak of psoriasis,” and the appearance of those horrid brown age spots that “told the world you’re getting old.” (Fade them away with Esoterica)

For the time being, it was limited war fare.

Vintage ad Noxema “Tomorrow is the best reason to wash with Noxema today!”

Deploying the usual ammunition of drug store products I diligently followed directives to stay attractive. Neutrogena soap and a splash of Jean Nate were all it took to keep me Cover Girl Fresh. Love Cosmetics “created for every young woman between 20 and thirty were sexy dramatic but free as a bra-less body and a new washed face.”

As ordered, I volumized my hair while I fattened my lashes but always made sure to never, ever be anything but slender.

Combat Ready

Even Wonder Woman Lynda Carter wasn’t safe from wrinkles. Vintage ad Maybelline Moisture Whip 1980

By the end of the decade, conventional weapons like Lubiderm were no longer sufficient to ward off the inevitable. The obliteration of oily skin was a cakewalk compared to defeating marionette lines.

Wrinkles, we quickly learned were sneaky plotters. One day disguised as innocent laugh lines, they would morph overnight into deep creases ominously called nasolabial folds.

It was nothing to laugh at.

If measures weren’t taken long before the first warning – the appearance of your AARP membership card – it was already too late. Preparedness was crucial.

You Can Survive- DEFCON4

Because our culture is unforgiving about every single body change that a woman goes through over the course of her life from puberty to menopause it has been one unrelenting battle.

By the time Ronald Reagan took office urgency was felt across the nation.

As crows feet crept across the face of baby boomer women from coast to coast, warlike rattles could be heard as the youthquake generation woke up to the fact that they ought to be doing something to protect themselves.

All the Fear That’s Fit to Print

The number of magazine articles and ads warning of the ravages of aging accelerated. An onslaught of youth ensuring products appeared promising to stave off the enemy.

To believe the media nothing it seemed, could match the fear of visible signs of aging.

Now the appearance of wrinkles was something to be feared akin to a nuclear attack. A national doctrine of media strategy MAD ( Media Assured Deceit) was instituted.

A battle cry went out and it was call to arms.

We must prepare for all eventualities…of aging.

Aging – Just Say No

The never ending fight against furrows or any facial flaws

It was during the Reagan years that my defense policy was firmly formed: When it came to wrinkles it was “just say No!”

As the cold war took on a new chill under Ronald Reagan and our defense system became more high-tech so my own defenses accelerated becoming more high-tech too.

A New Urgency

By 1983 it was all out war.

My own battle began in earnest during the Reagan years when along with the presidents Star Wars Defense System, my very own Strategic Defense Initiative was put into motion.

As I turned my Sony Trinitron on one March evening a few days before my 28th birthday, I found my regularly scheduled programs preempted. Instead of my weekly dose of Dynasty I got “The Facts of Life”- served up straight from our President.

In a televised speech from the oval office, a somber Reagan warned of the increasing threat of a Soviet Nuclear attack urging the development of new technology to intercept enemy missiles, a program dubbed “Star Wars” by the media.

It was time for a major modernization of our defense system.

When 30 Really Was Something

R) Vintage Harpers Bazaar July 1983 devoted to being beautiful at 30.

With the tension of turning 30 looming in the very near future, I decided it was time to develop my own Strategic Defense Initiative response to aging.

If left unchecked, frowns and creases would soon be goose-stepping across the planes of my face unstoppable, ravishing my face as quickly as the Soviets ravaged Eastern Europe.

Mere emollients were not sufficient for these clever perpetrators. Now an array of forces was necessary to deter the inevitable attack. It would be a new world of defense weapons.

The Victory of Science over Time

Advanced, ever changing American engineering, technology and laboratory science were put to use in the all out war against aging .

The scientific, advanced anti-aging delivery systems developed by the cosmetic companies deploying “micro-carriers” of collagen, liposomes and patented peptides were as sophisticated and complicated as the anti ballistic missile system Reagan wanted put in place.

And the claims were just as far-fetched as some of the “Star War” notions.

Operating with the precision of a guided missiles these bio-genetic, micro cellular moisturizing systems targeted layers of skin unheard of 5 years ago. Our skin was put behind “protective barriers” and invisible shields” in order to deflect “external aggressors.”

Anti-aging agents who worked under cover in the stealth of night as though trained by the CIA plotted covert operations, operating at a cellular level to wipe out and eradicate any trace of aging.

As time went on my build up of anti aging products became as inflated as our cold war arsenal and just as ineffective and costly.

Back to the Future

Because today’s technology would bring you to your future better self how old you really were was on a “need to know” basis. Vintage illustration 1955

With each passing year each new anti aging system came into question. Only the latest technology would bring you to your future better self.

Because protection took effort, money and time, I worried.

Were my defense system woefully out of date, was my defense budget adequate ? No wonder worry lines began to appear.

Beat the Clock-DEFCON3

As the doomsday clock ticks…Before you’re a moment older …after extensive clinical tests… It was back to the future of a youthful, dewy, more glowing complexion – the holy grail of beauty… younger looking skin.

By age 55 the Doomsday Clock was ticking.

Forget the fact that the actual doomsday clock was now 2 minutes closer to midnight, thanks to climate change and unchecked nuclear proliferation.

More urgently, the specter of crepey skin, droopy lips, puffy eyes all posed an immediate threat to national security.

Facial lines heretofore unheard –  Atrophic Crinkling Rhytids, Permanent Elastic creases, oral commisures and gravitational folds, menaced.

Watching the Clock

Promising to be clock stoppers, there was an expanding arsenal of skin renovation systems, including fillers that like Spackle promised to freshen up This Old House. Now if you were derelict in you  moisturizer duties there were other methods to combat aging.

Was biological warfare the next step?

Before I reach for the botox… here’s the wrinkle in our youth obsessed culture: All adult women whether they like it or not are aging women.

Battle fatigued, I soldier on.

Copyright (©) 2015 Sally Edelstein All Rights Reserved

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An Age Old Problem: Women and Aging

1954 advertisement

Post War Pesticides on Parade

Mid century America was the golden age of pesticides and it was love at first sight. Any thoughts about Earth Day and the environment lay far in the future.

Thousands of new chemicals were put to use in new and amazing products, quickly tested and just as quickly rushed to market.

Now you could get relief for your garden the modern, speedy way. Pesticides. They’re easy! They’re quick! They’re automatic!

Why wait for old-fashioned organic nature to deal with pests, when there were new, fast working chemical compounds that went to work instantly.  

 “Today’s pesticides,” so the thinking went, “go right along with the sensible modern trend. Today’s relaxed people at ease with so many things.”

Pesticides belong- to the fun of living!

A Trip to the Suburban Garden Center

As spring exploded with a whoop and a holler, mid-century Americans cut loose in the great outdoors. Like clockwork, my father and I joined the swarm of suburban gardeners who would flock to their local garden center on Mothers Day.

In garden centers all over Long Island, you would find row upon row of pretty, terra-cotta potted geraniums and fetching baskets overflowing with petunias, prominently displayed as offerings for Mothers Day. At the eleventh hour, they were lifesavers for those last-minute husbands and sons who in their consternation of what to get Mom, perfume or another cotton house coat, had thus far bought nothing.

Time For a Breather

Vintage ad Monsanto Chemicals 1947

As soon as you entered the nursery, nostrils were bombarded with a blast of the earthy, musky, smell of peat moss, humus, and top soil, overpowered by the caustic odor of chemicals.

Ah, breathe deeply of the invigorating scent of power –chlorynated hydrocarbons.

 My father was like a kid in a candy shop, his eyes bigger than our small suburban backyard.

Dad dashed quickly down the nursery aisles, pushing past the plants, speeding by the spades, and totally ignoring the calibrated spreaders and wobbly wheelbarrows in his single-minded pursuit. What Dad looked forward to the most was the appearance of this springs new line of pesticides and petrochemicals.

Chemicals as bright and fresh as spring itself.

Aisle after aisle, choice after choice, shelves groaning under the weight of giant jugs of herbicides, boxes of insecticides, cans of fungicides and bottles of pesticides, all shapes and sizes, some dusts and pellets, others emulsions and granules.

Miracle products all,  with names such as Chlorodust, Toxiclor, Cook-Kill.

The miraculous herbicide 2,4-D (dichlorophenoxyacetic acid) was hailed as a breakthrough garden product when it was released in the late 1940s. Like most suburbanites, dad knew there was no longer any excuse for a weedy lawn.

WMD’s

He agonized over choice of weapons – should he go for the Martin Weed-Gun that came locked and loaded with a healthy supply of 2,4-D sufficient enough to kill ten thousands weeds or the nifty Killer Kane that squirted the same 2, 4-D herbicide killing  weeds “as fast as you can walk.” To compound the decision there was the ever popular suburban favorite  Weed-a Bomb, courtesy of the Thompson Chemical Corporation.

Speaking of weapons, 2,4,D would later come in handy fighting the Vietnam War as the principal ingredient of the defoliant Agent Orange.

It’s Not Nice to Fool Mother Nature

Vintage Illustration  Pruett Carter

Dad may have claimed he had great respect for Mothers in general, and Mom in particular, but the same couldn’t be said for Mother Nature. Mother Nature needed to be controlled. She was like a woman, fickle, stubborn but looking for a strong man to take control.

Though loath to admit it, my father had Mother issues.

Not unlike his own mother, he regarded Mother Nature sometimes as a friend, and sometimes as an enemy. He loved her, and resented her. Mother Nature was what he’d try to get away from, and yet he depended on her badly.

With Mother Nature he could act out his impulses and decisions freely, unchecked.

Formerly, Mother Nature, like his own mother, was more powerful than he. But now the balance had shifted. Man could control forces which at best rivaled and now seemed on the point of surpassing her.

 “It was heartening to recognize some of the things our science is continuing to create and store up for the better world of tomorrow,” Dad would read. “American laboratories can now promise us virtual independence from many ‘natural’ sources of necessities. Food, fodder and fiber can now be grown without soil, without rain, without sunlight, virtually, without Mother Nature herself!”

The forward thinking was intoxicating!

Intoxicating

Vintage illustration Ortho Ad 1950 “How to be a Carefree Gardner”

A clerk, dressed as a farmer in coveralls and a straw hat, was strolling around the nursery, spritzing samples of new herbicide 2,4,D for men to test.

Softly spraying some of the oily mist onto Dads wrist in order for him to sample, the Mr. Green Jeans-look-alike, tried to conjure up a bucolic image: “Experience the new aroma! Like the freshness of tingling bracing mountain air, it has a noticeable effect to all who partake. Hearts beat faster when you use it. It’s clean crispness stimulates. A unique scent prolonger M-10, makes the aroma really last.”

Apparently 1500 men tested other leading pesticides- and new, saucy, man-tailored formula 2,4,D Dichlorophenoxyacetic won hand down. “And,” the clerk winked to Dad, “their girls loved it! “

“Its’ total harmony with nature assures you of being tastefully right.”

Dad splurged and bought 3 containers.

Only years later would we would we learn it was associated with cancer, birth defects, kidney and liver damage.

It truly was intoxicating!

This once enviably svelte housewife now found herself among the masses of women who realized they needed to whittle their waists.

For decades, Memorial Day has long been a solemn occasion.

Besides reflecting on those brave souls whose lives were lost in service to their country, the holiday has also signaled the beginning of swimsuit season and with it the sobering reflection of the state of ones body as winter weary thighs and middle-aged spreads come out of hibernation.

In 1965 Winnie Roberts had one such sobering experience, bravely confronting herself in the harshly lit confines of a department store dressing room.

One glance in the triple view mirror and poor Winnie did a double take. The new slim fashions were not for her. Crestfallen, she knew in her heart that “her size” just wasn’t “her size” any more. Suddenly for the formerly winsome Winnie, dressing up wasn’t as exciting as it used to be.

Hangers filled with this seasons must-have figure flattering swimsuits in stripes , ruffles and pleats beckoned forlornly.

As she struggled unsuccessfully to wiggle into a new Rose Marie Reid swimsuit in unforgiving Banlon, her reflection in the dressing room mirror confirmed what she already suspected.

It was time for Winnie to whittle her waist.

Vintage illustration by Dick Sargent for Post Grape Nuts Cereal Ad 1958

There came a time in every cold war housewife’s life when the safety of the containment policy offered by a good girdle simply wasn’t enough to keep those pesky curves in line.

That time had come for Winnie.

Now that she was nearly 38 and officially middle-aged, the pounds didn’t come off so easily. If she wanted to compete with the Pepsi Generation, she had to do more than get with the now taste of Tab !

Is This the Day You finally Do Something About Your Weight?

Vintage Weight Loss Ads (L) Sego 1964 (R) Metrecal 1963

Back home as she carefully dusted the Kimball upright piano, dousing the pecan wood with aerosol Pledge, Winnie’s eyes fell on the array of framed family photos that adorned the top of the piano.

Glancing at a photo from a trip to a ski weekend at Hunter Mountain with her husband Jack from several winters ago, she marveled at how slender she was in the glow of the fire. Her face darkened musing “Would he think so now?…..”

That settled it. It was  time to do something about her weight. She pledged to go on a diet.

Hunger Pangs

But true dieting takes will power. Those temptation hours between meals when hunger sets in, are the undoing of so many wishful weight watchers.

And all those calories to count could make a gal dizzy.

Like millions, Winnie had read Dr.Herman Taller’s hugely successful  1961 bestseller Calories Don’t Count.

But even if she didn’t have a head for figures ( as her hubby always pointed out), she figured the good doctor was dead wrong. Calories did count.

Lucky for her there was no shortage of new diet products to help m’ lady in her battle of the bulge.

Best of all, she could leave the counting to someone else.

By 1965 over 5 million had been helped with that mid-century miracle – Metrecal.

Metrecal came in a variety of delicious flavors including eggnog and tantalizing raspberry. They also offered wafers and soups as alternatives. Vintage Metrecal ads

It was while flipping through her latest issue of Ladies Home Journal that help came to Winnie. There nestled between tempting recipes for gay, festive cakes and hot day casseroles was a double page ad for Metrecal.

“Is this the day You do something about your weight?” the ad’s headline asked the reader.

“If you are overweight, if your clothes don’t fit right, if you don’t even feel as attractive as you should, isn’t it time you considered Metrecal? ” The copy seemed to speak directly to her.

Like most savvy gals, Winnie had heard about Metrecal. Since it was introduced in 1959, Metrecal had changed the dieting habits of the nation. The 225 calorie meal replacement drink taken 3 times a day melted the pounds in a jiff.

As the ad explained: ” Of all the ways people have tried to lose weight nothing approaches the record success of Metrecal dietary. Gave Americans a new solution to the dilemma of having to choose between embarrassment and danger of overweight on the one hand, and the hunger monotony and uncertainties of dieting on another.”

Winnie was ready to turn her  back on Lobster Newburgh for her figures sake and join the Metrecal for Lunch Bunch,  sipping her way back to her former slenderella self.

 Sip Yourself to Slenderness

Mead Johnson & Co. makers of Pablum, eventually morphed into the diet business with Metrecal. (L) vintage ad for Pablum 1958 (R) Ad for Metrecal 1961

By the early 1960’s several liquid diet meal replacements appeared to help sip your way to slenderness.

But the granddaddy of them all was Metrecal, a product of pharmaceutical company Mead Johnson & Co.

Along with a generation of busy mothers, housewives like Winnie Roberts had long counted on Mead Johnson & Co, makers of Pablum and Dextri Maltose, to feed her babies.

Purchased at the recommendation of their family doctor these ready mixes were quite useful in plumping up baby. offering “an adventure for baby’s first solid food.”

By the fall of 1960, these same mothers were buying a new Mead Johnson product, a powder called Metrecal, which promised just the opposite-to take those unwanted pounds off mama!

Now women could confidently begin their own adventure with the same peace of mind inspired in millions by the name Mead Johnson & Company.

Metrecal- A Marketing Miracle

For Mead Johnson & Company founded in 1900, Metrecal was just a new trick coaxed out of an old product.

In the great American marketing tradition, Metrecal was really an old product re-marketed to the newly diet conscious population.

Mead Johnson & Company was best known for inventing Pablum in 1931, a nutritional powder that could be mixed with water or milk and spoon fed to young babies. For decades the cereal had long been prescribed for millions of babies by thousands of doctors

But nearly 25 years later, concerned that the company was almost exclusively identified with baby products, they set up a research department to develop a diverse  line of products.

Savvy researchers at Mead Johnson stumbled across an invalid’s food called Sustagen. A mix of skim milk powder, soybean  flour, corn oil, minerals and vitamins, Sustagen- a precursor to today’s Boost- was designed for hospital patients unable to eat solid foods.

It worked so well at giving patients the feeling of having eaten a solid meal and diminishing between meal hunger pangs, that Mead Johnson decided to rename it  Metrecal and market it as a weight-reducing food. The only change was to recommend a limit of 900 calories of Metrecal a day.

Naturally as a drug company, Mead Johnson wanted to keep the good will of doctors who prescribed most of their other products, so they wisely started advertising Metrecal in the American Medical Association Journal, eventually branching out into general markets. Wisely ending  each advertisement with a plug to “see your physician” about weight problems,  gave Metrecal that all important AMA stamp of respectability that most other diet concoctions lacked.

Sales soared.

Your Doctor Knows Best

Like most homemakers, Winnie would never dream of starting any slimming regime without the advise of her trusted family doctor.

Once she could eliminate any glandular problem as the cause for her excess weight she was free to enjoy imbibing on the 900 calorie, full-bodied goodness of Metrecal with her doctors blessing.

Like most physicians, her doctor was very boosterish on the canned beverage as an aid to slimming down. Smiling paternally, he patted Winnie’s hand advising her to “take a can, and take it easy!”

Sternly he also instructed her to avoid undue exercise  as part of her slenderizing program as it was counterproductive.

Like many doctors, he felt it was of very little value since it was believed that exercise spurred ones appetite. So Winnie would leave Jack La Lanne and his jumping jacks and the good vibrations of a slimming belt at Vic Tannys to others.

As Metrecal confirmed “Your physician is the best source of counsel and guidance in problems of weight loss and control.”

 Metrecal or Martinis

Adverting began targeting men and weight loss too. (R) In a vintage Borden’s Skimmed milk ad from 1955, Elsie the Cow’s husband Elmo goes on a diet. “But dear you don’t have to starve while dieting,” Elsie suggests sweetly to her husband. To which Elmo replies in a blustery tone” “And what’s wrong with my shape?” (L) The Metrecal ad from 1961 is targetting the businessman.

Women weren’t the only ones watching their waistlines.

If Winnie’s husband jack wanted to cut a fine figure in his cabana set, he might have to do a bit of dieting himself and Metrecal was there to help him too.

Tapping into the manly world of 3 martini lunches, it wasn’t long before Mead Johnson started targeting men too, expanding their market as quickly as American waistlines grew.

Metrecal was originally introduced as a powder, mixed by hopeful dieters with water or skim milk. Soon it was available as canned Metrecal which was marketed for the bloated businessman. A 1965 print ad stated “Not one of the top 50 US Corporations has a fat president!”

Who needs a BBQ? For the beef lovin’ American man, Metrecal promised their tasty can of Metrecal had all the nutrition of a steak and potatoes dinner.

If  Jack started to develop a bit of a paunch, Mead Johnson suggested he keep those canned Metrecals refrigerated in a desk drawer for his noonday  meal joining the Metrecal for lunch bunch.

And if he took clients to lunch, he could rest assured, Metrecal was served up the finest establishments. While clients could imbibe on a Blue Hawaii at Trader Vics, the tiki themed restaurant also offered a 325 calorie lunch which was 1.5 ounces of rum mixed with nutmeg and Metrecal.

A Deluge of Diet Drinks

Vintage ads Borden’s Ready Diet

Metrecal was so successful it spawned nearly 40 imitators from other large companies: Sears Roebuck brought out  Bal-Cal, Quaker Oat’s  pitched Quota, Jewel Tea Company had Diet-Cal; even deep discounter Korvette’s hawked Kor-Val. to name just a few.

Winnie’s head was swimming from the choices.

If reliable Elsie the Cow who was apparently watching her waistline too,  claimed her product “Ready Diet” was “the happiest tasting drink,” maybe  she should try Borden’s rich and creamy elixir. Their scientific blend of 900 full-bodied calories was ready to drink from the gold carton with no measuring, mixing, dissolving or diluting.

Focusing on the women’s market, Pet Milk’s popular Sego stuffed more protein and 2 more ounces into the same 900 calories featured by Metrecal.

Vintage Diet Ads (L) Sego Liquid Diet Food (R) Sego Liquid Diet Food 1965

“Those temptation hours between meals when hunger sets in are the undoing of many a wishful weight watcher. Now new Sego diet food promised it had built-in help for nibblers. Its secret came from added protein: “10%  more than other 900 calorie diet foods.   Because protein is consumed at a slower rate,” they claimed, “ it stays with you longer, helping to delay hunger.”

Sego promised you would forget you were dieting with their 9 delicious flavors. “This is hardship?” they asked the reader. “These rich flavored drinks tasted right out of a soda fountain.”

Copyright (©) 2015 Sally Edelstein All Rights Reserved

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 defunding Planned Parenthood

If some right-wing fanatics have their way, every day will be Throwback Thursday if they stop government funding of Planned Parenthood.

Other than in the retro world of Republicans who seem nostalgic for those pre Roe V Wade days, there is nothing warm or fuzzy about a time when abortion was criminalized.

Do we really want our daughters to return to a time when access to safe and effective birth control – which reduces the number of unplanned pregnancies – was difficult?

To take us back to  the good old days when abortion was both risky business and a crime, defunding Planned Parenthood today would be criminal.

Since Republicans enjoy peddling falsehoods as facts, it only makes sense to present the facts through fiction.

Life Before Roe V Wade – The Good Old Days?

“There was a great nothingness…and then the flash of a terrible word….Abortion!” Vintage photo from “True Romance Magazine”

Once upon a time, women paid a steep price for illegal procedures.

The story of Jinx Malone is a cautionary tale.

It was 1953. The pill that would revolutionize birth control was 7 years in the future, and it would be a long 20 years before Roe v Wade would make abortion legal.

Poor Jinx was in a jam.

She faced a problem that many women faced. This wide-eyed single gal found herself pregnant with a heap o’ worries.

What could she do? With an unwanted pregnancy and few resources, the perky 20-year-old was left high and dry when her beau wouldn’t marry her. Dreamy Dick so suave and handsome was also a first-rate heel.

Jinx couldn’t bear to tell her family so terrified and ashamed, she turned to her trusted family physician.

The doctor did not smile. Instead he looked sharply at Jinx. She was young and pretty but  looked defeated.

Doc Roberts wisely suggested she find a man to marry, if not the father then any man would do.

Without the possibility of a ring on her finger, the doc directed her to a discreet out-of-state home for the unwed mother where Jinx  could have her baby and put it up for adoption. It was a wrenching decision.

Termination was out of the question –  it was illegal.

Besides which, abortions were scary things.

When Abortion was a Crime

The criminal racket of illegal abortionists kept the cops busy. Vintage true crime photos from “Headquarters Detective” Magazine

There were no shortage of cautionary tales and lurid exposes regularly published in magazines and newspapers condemning the flourishing criminal racket of abortionists. Stuff straight out of the police blotters with enough lurid grisly details to place fear in the hearts of any misguided women.

Just the Facts Mam’

Doc Roberts emphasized  the dangers of a criminal abortion something “no nice girl should ever consider.” With his medical expertise he explained “that it is simpler and less risky to deliver a baby by Caesarian operation than to perform a therapeutic abortion (which was the medical name for an abortion which is medically necessary to save a woman’s life and was legally permissible.) And in a criminal abortion, the risk is infinitely graver!”

“The criminal abortionist,” he continued, “does not have the time or interest in his patients welfare to study her records. He simply enters with his curelle and scrapes around till he finds the embryo. This might lead to a perforation through the uterine wall or the intestines might be damaged, accidents which leave the unlucky victim with a 50/50 chance.”

Vintage photo illustration “True Love and Romance ” Magazine

She agonized over the alternatives.

Helpful friends suggested knitting needles, rubber tubes and caustic drinks like potassium permanganatea that could end a pregnancy but more than likely cause bleeding and burns.

Desperate and demoralized, she drank paregoric, threw herself against her walls but stopped short of the coat hanger trick, all to no avail.

She ran out of options.

Finally in her despair she turned to her gal pal Madge. Worldly and wise in the way of men,  Madge discreetly gave her the address of a criminalist abortionist. Tucking it into her purse Jinx blushed deeply, hopefully no one would uncover this secret that could ruin her.

“It’s easy, hon!” reassured the other girl. “There’s nothing to it. Why I’ve had it done three times!” she boasted.

Jinx gulped at the cost. $200 was this file clerks entire months salary. But there was no other choice.

Dial A For Abortion

Back in her apartment Jinx sat a card table and carefully added up the row of figures on the yellow sheet of paper in front of her.

Rent, food, clothes, car fare, magazines and cigarettes. No matter how she juggled ’em the figures always added up to more than her weekly paycheck from the agency where she was a file clerk. Caring for a baby was impossible.  She frowned and tapped the pencil against her teeth.

Dial A for Abortion. Image from Western Electric Ad 1949

Nervously she unfolded the crumpled paper with the number scribbled on it , picked up her phone and made the call.

Risky Business

Now Jinks was waiting in a shabby darkened office. Two or three other women also waited, their eyes cast downward looking through tattered old magazines, or  staring at the grimy floor in silence, nervously smoking

The fee had been paid up front – five $50 dollar bills, more than she earned in a month.

The receptionist dressed in a nurses uniform found out by skillful questioning how much money Jinx had in her purse charging a higher sum than Jinx had expected.

Abortion rings were often organized as a business. The abortionist splits his proceeds with a contact man or business manager who got a fee for every woman he sends in. Druggists also received a fee for recommending women keeping a stream of patients moving quickly.

Jinx thought she was lucky to find a real doctor willing to perform the procedure.

Or so he claimed he was.

Tales of back alley abortions gave her the shivers. Unlike so many poor girls at least she wasn’t blindfolded and taken to a dingy apartment where a kitchen table lay in wait.

When Jinx was finally called into the operating room, she had not been especially frightened despite the sordid condition of the room. After all, hadn’t she been assured by Madge how safe it was, how easy? She wriggled out of her girdle and lay on the table.

If only she had read just one more of the articles warning a nice girl of the dangers that lay ahead, Jinx might have known that the surgeon’s mask worn by the abortionist served a double purpose. It gave him a professional appearance and it concealed his face so that she could not identify him if he were ever called to trial.

Jinx winced in pain.

The discomfort of the operation was unexpected. Little did she know the criminal abortionist uses only a light whiff of chloroform or often nothing.

Here’s Your Hat, What’s Your Hurry

The operation was soon over. The nurse helped Jinx off the table. She was permitted to lie down on a narrow cot. After 20 minutes the nurse brought in her hat and coat.

“Can’t I rest a little longer?” Jinx asked pleadingly.

The nurse would not permit it. The lone cot was needed by another women. And Jinx who should have rested with good nursing care for several days had to get up and find a taxi home.

Getting the woman out of his office as soon as possible was the “doctors”  priority. He is constantly afraid that she may die. If this happens he will deny that he performed the operation and won’t have to worry about being betrayed by any evidence of anesthetics.

How Lucky Can You Get?

In spite of these circumstances, Jinx’s abortion was successful.

Our Jinx was one lucky lady, luckier than most for she did not bleed to death.

All that happened to our gal Jinx was that she developed septicemia or blood poisoning caused by the good doctors  unclean instruments. Along with her monthly salary, she paid for her abortion with weeks of serious illness and months of semi invalidism.

Nobody knows how many girls like Jinx there were. According to one 1950’s article that exposed the abortion industry: “Some experts think half a million criminal abortions are perfumed each year. Others think it’s a million…A John Hopkins gynecologist believes that 1 out of every 50 women pays for a criminal abortion with her life.”

But Wait There’s More

But the story told is still not completely told for the tragic effects of illegal abortion may not develop until a long time later.

Girls like Jinx’s friend Madge who boasted of her 3 successful abortions would not find out for years the price they have to pay.

Sterility was not uncommon. According to reports presented at a conference at the N.Y. Academy of Medicine in the 1950s, over 50,000 women become sterile every year as a result of criminal abortions.

Dangerous  Alternatives

And there were other dangerous forms other than abortion to rid yourself of pregnancy.

Drugs taken by mouth were sometimes recommended by dishonest druggists. Some of these drugs contained phosphorous which could be fatal. Others contained lead.

If they were strong enough to cause an abortion then they were  nearly always poisonous. If they did not actually cause death they will would wreck the health of any woman rash enough to take it.

Pastes and fluids injected into the uterus also took a grim death toll.

Trust Your Friendly Neighborhood Druggist

One girl Jinx knew asked her neighborhood druggist for the address of a criminal abortionist.

He told her that for $10 he could sell her something “just as good and twice as safe.” The tube of paste he sold her was labeled with an impressive medical name and with it came directions for injecting it into the uterus.

The girl used the paste according to directions and waited for the results. Next day she was admitted into a major N.Y. hospital coughing a blood stained fluid and suffering from severe shock.

Vintage photo ” Daring Detective” Magazine

High Cost

The toll the nations abortion laws took on women’s health before Roe v Wade were substantial.

Although that has changed, the removal of Planned Parenthood and or stricter abortion laws could herald the return to a system in which safe abortion was available to some Americans but out of reach of many in need. Poorer women and their families are always  disproportionately impacted.

In 2015, women are having abortions. Don’t we want to make sure they have a safe place to have one?

Good health care and control over ones body is a woman’s birthright.

And that’s no fiction.

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

Bacon lovers are bemoaning the horrifying news that their favorite breakfast food has now been added to the ever-growing list of things that cause cancer. Vintage ad Swifts bacon 1961

Who says “you’re right in liking meat?”

Certainly not the World Health Organization who caused mass hysteria recently by adding much beloved processed foods like bacon, sausage, cold cuts and hot dogs to the list of cancer causing items.

Mighty red meat was not far behind, joining that ever-expanding carcinogenic list of other once prized mid century classics like tobacco, asbestos and DDT.

Now demonized, these same food items were once the darlings of nutritionists.

Processed meat was not only cherished, it was revered, prized for its high nutritional value.

Once upon a time folks  were not concerned if their consumption of red meat was too high, but worried that they were not consuming enough of the healthy stuff!

Who Put the Meat in America

Vintage ad American Meat Institute 1947

To make certain mid-century Americans included plenty of essential red meat in their diet, The American Meat Institute created a long running ad campaign touting the benefits and magic of meat, assuring the public that yes, you’re right in liking meat!

The ads that ran from WWII through the 1950’s drew no distinction in food value or health benefits whether from  the lowly hot dog or  the king of meat, the sirloin steak.

Meat was the yard stick of protein, the gold standard of nutrition or as the American Meat Institute called it “the nutritional cornerstone of life.”

Some bacon lovers today would firmly agree.

You Know It Was Good

All their ads came with the certification of the American Medical Association,confirming meats nutritional value. Vintage Ad American Meat Institute.

Bacon aficionados, a group hit hard by this recent cancer confirmation, can now take heart in this vintage ad that asks the reader: “You Know it was good- but did you know it was this good?”

“Those  ribbons of rosy lean and crispy fat are more than food- with flavor,” the copy explain about nutritious bacon.  “Each streak of fat is energy food. Each streak of lean has complete protein – with all ten of the body building amino acids that must be provided at the same time to do their work right!”

Nourishing Bacon – Fill er up!

Vintage ad American Meat Institute

Here’s the break at breakfast the snap in sandwiches a flavor lift for all other foods a mighty good main dish too! And look what bacon brings to the meal. Protein the kind supplied by all meat- is the greatest builder of muscles and bodies – essential for maintaining healthy tissues and nerves.

So bring home the bacon. You’re Right in liking meat!

A Sizzling Sausage Says All’s Right With The World

Vintage ad American Meat Institute 1947

Behind Good eating sure…but behind that flavor and sausage sizzle are high digestibility and good sound nourishment the kind of nourishment that contributes to that feeling that “all’s right with the world.”

Cold Cuts -Yardstick of Protein Foods

Vintage ad American meat Institute 1948

Cold Cuts as a nourishing meal…. that’s no baloney

Something nice to come home to the cold cut dinner- Ingenious wives are finding ways to build glamorous and well-balanced meals around the all meat economy of cold cuts. And appreciative husbands are giving them a hand.

A Square Meal Feeling

Vintage ad American Meat Institute 1946

Cooked to a carcinogenic turn, burgers and hot dogs grilled over the coals is quintessentially American.

Sure, high temperatures cooking such as cooking meat in direct contact with flames produce more carcinogenic compounds but  as this ad says: “meat from the outdoor grill is more than just eating fun. Meat has the right kind of protein containing all of the amino acids essential to life and health. Meat provides satisfaction in the eating that good “square meal feeling.”

“Yes, outdoors or indoors you’re right in liking meat.”

Vintage ad American Meat Institute 1948

Hot diggety dog, those red hots are a complete nourishing protein meal!

As American as the Lincoln Highway  friendly franks these tender juicy ruddy packages of fine meat food- handy and nutritious. Americans like ’em for their convenience. Our choice has been a wise one. The fine chopped, tender meats of this popular food contain high quality proteins and balanced nutrition

Meat…You’re right in liking it because it contains so many things that are good for you…and maybe some things that aren’t.

Continuing this week … an homage to meat and a time when Americans were encouraged to not only bring home the bacon, but the rump roast, pork chop and swiss steak too!

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Where’s the Beef?

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

When it comes to American exceptionalism, we Americans have long had an exceptionally voracious appetite for red meat, making us the proud leader of the free, meat-eatin’ world.

In this land of democracy, meat has reigned as king.

But recently after much maligning in the media, red meat is being dethroned as a nutritional superfood. Is this meats denouement?

Long before it was vilified, the conventional wisdom of my childhood assured us that “ meat was what made America great” and mid-century Americans were on a cholesterol high.

What’s So Great About America?  Meat!

Meat Serves Everybody, the people, the soil, the nation! Vintage ad American Meat Institute

Meat, ads proudly proclaimed, was the American way. It serves everybody!

Nothing was more American than a back yard barbecue when slapping a hunk of meat on a Weber grill proclaimed to the world “I’m proud to be an American.” In the suburban summers of my childhood, the sizzling smell of prime democracy perpetually hung in the air

Sniffing the steaming steak fragrance, an American tradition!

“No other nation in the world,” my barbecue bound-father often boasted, while carving a first off-the- grill sirloin into juicy slices (another ready to go, is ‘waitin behind the first) “is blessed with the amount of good, rich, nourishing meat!”

In this land of plenty one thing we had plenty of was rich, red meat.

With WWII meat shortages and rationing still a fresh memory, mid-century Americans were more than ready to play catch up.

Meat was as American as apple pie. and everyone was entitled to a slice or 2 or 3 of this tasty American dream.

The pulse-quickening excitement of a sizzling steak brought out the patriot in a man.

Way before the current war on meat, meat itself had gone to war.

“Meat helped win the war by keeping us healthy and vigorous. American meat,” my Army veteran Dad would say nearly choked up, “had done its job!”

Meat was our secret weapon – our arsenal of democracy.

Meat Will Win the War

More and more meat was going to our armed forces and our fighting allies with less meat for the home tables . Vintage ad Swift and Company 1943

Food we were told during WWII, will win the war and no food was more vital to victory than meat, which became a materiel of war as soon as the hostilities began. Morale boosting meat was needed most to fight on and to win on.

War made a staggering demand on American livestock and meat industry.

In a never-ending barrage of ads and articles the  American meat industry reminded us, “that supplying plenty of meat for the fighting men and gallant allies was their first and foremost job.”

“There’s never a shortage of meat when Uncle Sam goes shopping for his armed forces.” WWII Vintage ad Swifts & Company

Uncle Sam went on a shopping spree, buying up all the top quality meat supplies for our 10 million hungry boys overseas so that meant for those on the home front there would be fewer of the familiar choicest cuts.

Along with sugar, and coffee, gone were the all American Sunday roasts deliciously browned and larded with fat.

When Meat Doesn’t Make the Meal

WWII Vintage Ad 1943

For Americans who abided by the notion that “meat makes the meal” thriftiness and ingenuity had to be learned when it came to mealtime.

“Waste not the meat” stated one headline. “Lest not forget the ounce of meat we save is an ounce of insurance that meat is being used more effectively as a weapon of war.”

Where’s the Beef?

Vintage ad American Meat Institute 1943 “The New Pioneer Woman in Meat” Todays homefront housewife “has learned it is fun to go adventuring in new meats.”

Making a little look like a lot particularly when it came to meat was the homemakers rallying cry as they were encouraged to make the most of meat.

Home front housewives like my grandmother, were bombarded with information on how to keep precious meat from spoiling, learning to rely on meat extenders  and tips on cooking meat in ways that reduced shrinkage.

The American Meat Institute tried to convince housewives that less expensive cuts that were available had the same fine nutrition as that Sunday roast, providing the same energy, stamina and vitality.

Vintage ad American Meat Institute 1942

As much as her mother tried to dress them up, my teen age mother Betty wasn’t too thrilled trying the less familiar, often tougher, thriftier cuts of beef.

Though today you pay a premium price for it, free range, grass-fed beef was called utility beef in the 1940’s because it was cheap, plentiful, point free, and oh yes, tough.

Articles coaxed us to try utility beef, untried by most housewives, but long used in economical households. Utility or grade C beef, it seems, was cut from cadaverous-looking cattle that have forlornly roamed the range, feeding only on grass, the poor chemically deprived souls.

Vintage WWII ad Swifts 1944

Choice beef comes from contented cattle that spend 2-7 months in a spa like feeder lots where they dine extravagantly on corn or silage.

Grass feeding produces lean, less choice meat. Corn feeding produces fat, well-marbled cattle – and fat, well marbled people.

Blue Print For a Post War Product

An American Masterpiece! “In the not too distant future,” The American Meat Industry tempted us, “the kind of living that has made our country famous all over the world will return to our land.” Yes, the kind of living that hardened our arteries and clogged our colons.

As the war began winding down, The American Meat Industry whetted our appetites waxing poetically about meat painting a rosy post war vision of juicy steaks and standing rib roasts.

“Here,” they teased a carnivorous craving public “is a wartime arsenal with a peace time future.”

“In the not too distant future, the kind of living that has made our country famous all over the world will return to our land.”

With  high cholesterol levels and heart attacks  far from our minds, they promised…“Final victory will hasten the day when there will be plenty of meat for everybody.”

Post War Promises

For four long years, Americans had rolled up their sleeves and had wholeheartedly cooperated.

They had done with less. They conserved and extended their share of meat in every possible way so that our fighting boys and fighting allies could be assured supplies.

Vintage illustration for A&P 1951

But with victory achieved, it was payback time and Americans were ready to cash in on those post war promises of picture-perfect prime rib.

Meat All American Hero

When red meat returned to the home front it was lionized as a hero – it had done its part for victory. Along with other war heroes, it took its rightful place marching in the victory parade, ribbons and medals festooned on its rump roast.

Vintage Ad American Meat Institute. Painting a post war dream with a broad brush the copy reads: “This is not just a piece of meat…this is something a man wants to come home to…something that makes his wife proud of their meals…”

“Meat is life,” proclaimed one advertisement reverentially. “When the war is over is it any wonder that as meat moves back to the home plate we look on meat with new regard not just for its enjoyment, but as a nutritional cornerstone of life.”

Meats esteemed place in the red white and blue American diet was assured.

Leaders of the Free Meat Eating World

Vintage illustration 1958 Saturday Evening Post

When the boys came marching home from the war,  it wasn’t for some sissy cheesy carrot ring casserole, but for a he-man steak. Our new post war wealth allowed us to buy large chunks of steaks and chops. And binge buying we did, filling up our new deep freezers with all  manner of meat.

The rest of the world still reeling from the horrors of war, its industrial base shattered,  its farmlands untended or blown to bits, could only sit back in amazement and watch.

USDA Approved. Vintage ad for Swifts Meats

While the allies were busy carving up the post war world, Americans were living high on the hog, carving up their fat larded roasts.

And what well marbled, tender meat it was.

DES – It’s No Wonder

Are You Sure You’re Right In Liking Meat? In this land of the free, home of the brave, you might have to be brave to eat some of this meat L) Vintage Eli Lilly ad for Stilbosol ( diethylstilbestrol) (R) Vintage ad American Meat Institute

When hormones were introduced into livestock production after the war, the meat industry was fairly salivating .

The manufacturers of diethylstilbestrol, known as DES, hailed the event as the most important moment in the history of food production, right up there with frozen food.

And my father couldn’t agree more.

His cousin a Junior  executive with Eli Lilly, knew the benefits and importance of this breakthrough and explained it to my mother:

“Because it produced more fat and more weight on the animals,” Cousin Albert marveled,”and thus more profits for the meat industry, DES, rightfully so, was being used on more than 90 % of American cattle. It was short of a miracle.”

This new wonder drug he promised, “would give meat juicy tenderness that cannot fail-the best eatingest…melt in your mouth goodness cut with a fork tenderness ever served!”

Are You Sure You’re Right in  Liking Meat?

Just in time for the baby boomers diet! ( L) Vintage Ad for DES (R) Vintage ad Gerbers baby Food Meat

Baby boomers born into this golden age of meat consumption would grow up consuming this sizzling DES deliciousness folks don’t forget.

Decades later those unfortunate people who would develop cancer wouldn’t forget either.

Although the carcinogenicity of the synthetic DES in test animals was known by 1938 it was approved in 1947 by the USDA. With profits sky-high , it’s no wonder.

By the time I was born, meats place in Americas life was as firmly attached to their dinner plates as the plaque lining their arteries would become.

Next: When baby Sally says mmm she means meat. It’s never too early to start ’em on a life time of eating.

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

A perennial favorite for many New Year resolution makers is to lose weight and get in shape.

For men a flat belly has always been a manly badge of honor.

But why work a sweat to sculpt your abs?

For the mid-century man, washboard abs  were a snap. Hundreds  of boring crunches? Fuhgettaboutit!

Busting a beer belly was as  easy as slipping on a something called the Bracer or any of the other dozens of men’s under garments guaranteed to get rid of mid section sag.

And talk about strengthening your core. These babies  promised to prevent back pain and increase flexibility all without breaking a sweat or going to a gym.

Gals you see, weren’t the only ones wriggling into a lastex rubber girdle to tame their tummies.

You can bet Ward Cleaver the godfather of the Dad Bod wasn’t packing a six-pack under that boxy Robert Hall suit and tie, but he might very well have been secretly wearing a MASCULINER garment  to keep his manly physique pleasing to his wasp-waisted wife June.

A Guy and His Girdle

Vintage advertisement The Bracer

At the stroke of midnight as the final chorus of Auld Lang Syne was being played by Guy Lombard at the Roosevelt Hotel, Gus Harris indulged in his final forkful of Baked Alaska for 1948.

Washing it down with some Taylor pink champagne he resolved that this was the year to do something about his ever-growing waistline, which he joked was expanding as rapidly as the Russians were over Eastern Europe!

New Year New You

January 1 was the perfect time to take stock of such things.

Gus knew he was suffering from mid section sag; it was, he knew spoiling his appearance and making him look old.

On top of which even at 39 Gus seemed to have had lost his drive and his pep. How many New Years Eve dances had he had to sit out with Babs because  his back ached and he was always so tired.

“Don’t let a pre-mature spare tire make you look old!” the  articles explained.  “Many a hard working man develops a pot and looks old before his time. Not because he’s truly fat or because of middle age. The reason is his back and stomach muscles are constantly strained and tired and no longer support him properly.”

For the New Year Gus was resolved to do something about it.

There came a time in every mid century mans life life when taking a steam at the club or a vigorous rubdown was no longer suffice to keep his once trim, athletic figure.

It was time to take action

Vintage advertisement The Bracer

That’s when he sat up and took notice of the  ads in his men’s magazine that seemed to speak right to him.

The Bracer brings you 4 exclusive features for comfort and convenience” Vintage ad The Bracer 1940

“If you’re starting to age before your time – if your stomach sags and an aching back steals your pep – then you’re a victim of “mid section sag!” but don’t let it bother you! It’s easy to keep that youthful athletic look- easy to regain your old-time energy and drive. Just Brace up with the Bracer!

 

“An exclusive Bauer & Black product this amazing supporter belt is scientifically designed to support sagging stomach muscles helps improve faulty posture.” Vintage ad The Bracer

It’s easy to regain your youthful energy and drive- easy to get that trim athletic appearances. Just Brace up with the Bracer and see what a difference it makes! You’ll be amazed how much better you look – how much younger you feel.

“This summer have more pep- more drive more fun! Avoid Mid Section Sag that spoils your looks and steals your energy.” Vintage ad Bracer

Now braced up with a Bracer, Gus regained his youthful trim appearance… and he and Babs could dance the night away.

Winning the Battle of the Bulge

Once GI Joe returned from the war, he got soft.

Flush from success on the battlefield, he confronted his own battle of the bulge at home. But coming to his aid was  the scientific Masculiner  to help with their own stomach flattener with the military sounding names like The Cadet and the Sargent to train his stomach muscles into shape.

“Almost like magic the Masculiner gives you a youthful manly appearance.” Vintage ad 1951 The Masculiner

“Men, don’t look old before your time! Do as thousands do to improve your appearance; get the amazing new stronger MASCULINER. It slims and slicks sagging stomach muscles flat.

YOUR APPEARANCE, YOUR HEALTH and YOUR MORALE are improved immediately! Breathe with ease – no torturous binding. No straining. Walk, sit, stoop, jump, or stretch with AMAZING Comfort.

The MASCULINER is the all new AMAZING scientifically engineered stomach flattener that gives you the slender, YOUNGER  APPEARANCE men prize. Without annoying buckles, straps, or laces you appear INCHES TALLER ..POUNDS SLIMMER!

No other men’s belt at any price can give you better support can make you look feel better or appear slimmer and younger.

Bye Bye Bay Windows

By the 1950s with the spread of suburbia men’s growing middle age spread, the battle of the bulge took on more domestic homey analogy  referring to that spare tire as a Bay Window.

1956 Magic Mold “Good-by to tummy bulge Reduce your appearance instantly! Vintage ad

In seconds get rid of your ugly “Bay Window” appearance that makes people call you “old timer” and gives you that tired dragged down feeling. Now, when you wear the amazing Cadet you’ll appear more youthful your clothes will fit again.

Slim For Health

Light up and improve your health while you improve your looks. 1960 Slim for Health Piper Brace Co.

Improve your health while you improve your looks.  New SLIM-R Belt with modern scientific “lift and ease” design carries the extra load of your “bay window” slims your waist by inches actually makes you look taller.

A Gay New Year

 

“Gives you the Masculine lines that women admire and men dream about!”

 © Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2016. 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.

Getting sick is nothing to sneeze at!

Dear Readers,

I am calling in sick.

Despite the copious capsules of vitamin C and the endless drops of echinechea I regularly consume, I have caught a nasty winter cold that has knocked me for a loop.

Until the cotton and dense fog that seemingly surround my brain subsides and I am back at work, please enjoy some new re-purposed posts.

Getting sick is nothing to sneeze at. Stay well!

 It’s the height of cold and flu season again which means it’s all out war on sniffles and red running noses.

For those battle fatigued sufferers, endless reinforcements of Kleenex are constantly being supplied to the front lines.

Today we take for granted those ubiquitous boxes of soothing tissues, but for an earlier generation who battled the 1918 flu epidemic, the existence of Kleenex would have been nothing short of a miracle.

Kleenex Cleans Up

Kleenex wouldn’t make its debut until the mid 1920’s and a grateful nation suffering from hay fever and winter colds sat up and took note.

Kleenex Guards Against Germs

No one was more grateful than my grandmother Sadie.

Tucked into her sleeve, or balled up in her pocket, Nana Sadie never went anywhere without a tissue at the ready, her first line of defense against deadly germs. Nana was certain the air was filled with dust and germs which could then be inhaled resulting in a nasty cold…or worse.

To her, the invention of Kleenex was a modern marvel of science, rivaling sulpha drugs and penicillin in saving mankind. With the simple toss of a disposable Kleenex into a waste basket, you were wiping out thousands of dangerous germs, and saving countless lives.

 1918 Flu Epidemic

As a veteran of the first and worst flu epidemic every, old fears and suspicion borne of that war, had scarred Nana Sadie for life.

In 1918 America was at war, not only over there but here at home  as  well. The Influenza epidemic of 1918 meant it was all out war on the home front too.

The public in 1918 and 1919 was petrified of the Flu.

It was a panicky time, when everyone and everything became suspect as the cause of contamination mirroring the Red Scare which reached near hysteria that year.

Provoked by a fear that a Bolshevik revolution in America was imminent – a revolution that would destroy the American Way of Life, ordinary people became suspect of being Anarchists and Communists.

So it was with the Influenza, when even everyday items such as books, candy wrappers came under scrutiny and attack as transmitters of the dreaded disease.

Vintage posters Warning of the 1918 Flu Epidemic

Everything came under suspicion – paper money, ice cream, even wet laundry. No one was safe from that villainous brute Influenza.

 “Everyday someone else you knew got sick,” my grandmother would explain sadly.

“It killed the young, the strong, the healthy, the rich, the poor, people who had so much to live for…my own brother and sister, so young, God- rest -their -souls. People avoided one another, they didn’t speak, if they did they turned their faces away to avoid the other persons breathing…”

Dangerous germs, scowling and sneering could be lurking right around the corner- yesterday a suspiciously shared sarsaparilla in a soda fountain, today, a sneeze on a shared seat in a sullied streetcar, tomorrow-who knows- the blunder of a borrowed book from the public library.

But the favorite source of blame continued to be handkerchiefs.

Vintage illustrations from children’s book on the proper use and care of handkerchiefs

Those lovely embroidered, heirloom hankies that every proper lady, gentleman and well brought up child always carried- might well be aiding and abetting unseen armies of influenza germs, rendering your dainty, lace trimmed hanky as dangerous as any incendiary device.

Carelessness on your part, and suddenly your monogrammed handkerchief, harboring germs, could be turned into a weapon of bio-terrorism, threatening you and your terror-stricken neighbors with the dread menace of infection.

The conventional wisdom at the time was that the menacing influenza virus when scattered by an infected sneeze, or a soiled hanky, could continue to live in household dust and infect the whole family with the flu even six weeks later.

(L) Vintage Poster 1918 Flu Epidemic- Warning to make sure to use a Handkerchief

As Nana explained it, “spittle contains many little disease germs and when the spittle dries these little germs are set free, caught by the wind and begin to fly about.”

Fear ran so deep that soiled handkerchiefs were stigmatized as dangerous transmitters of the flu, and people frantically resorted to using pieces of linen in their stead, which were then subsequently burned.

So when the miracle that was Kleenex appeared as an alternative to messy unsanitary hankies it was truly considered life saving.

Germs Can’t Escape

Vintage Kleenex Ad 1933
“As long as that cold hangs on use sanitary disposable Kleenex only! Kleenex, far closer in texture than any handkerchief stops germs holds them fast; keeps fingers dry clean and non infectious.”

“Keep that cold to yourself,” Kleenex pronounced in this 1933 ad.

Because hands catch germs as they seep through handkerchiefs, they could be considered weapons of mass destruction in re-infection

“Germs slip through the tightest weave of linen or cotton handkerchief as though through a sieve, contaminating everything you touch,” warned Kleenex ominously. “And its damp rough handkerchiefs that add so much to the misery of a cold by constant irritation.”

“Kleenex is so much more sanitary,” the ad emphasized. “You use it just once then discard it. Cold germs are discarded too instead of being carried about in an unsanitary handkerchief to reinfect the user and infect others.”

A Beauty Discovery

Vintage Kleenex Ad 1930
This modern discovery offered a new way to remove cold cream that was cheaper than spoiling and laundering towels.

But Kleenex’s great contribution to health, my grandmother recalled,  was nearly missed.

When Kleenex was first created in 1924 by The Kimberly Clark Corp. it was originally marketed as a way for m’ lady to remove cold cream.

In 1925 the first Kleenex tissue ad appeared in a magazine showing “the new secret of a pretty skin as used by famous movie stars.”

Young women like my grandmother wanted to emulate beautiful actresses like Helen Hayes who was featured in ads removing make up “the scientific way” using this “modern disposable substitute for a face towel” called Kleenex Kerchiefs.

Vintage Kleenex Ad 1930
“The Kleenex patented pull out carton assures economy. Hands cannot mess up other sheets in the package or take out more than required from the patented serv-a- tissue box.

It was so new a product they needed to explain and instruct  a curious public just what it was.

“Here’s what a Kleenex tissue is like: it’s the size of a handkerchief.  It’s very soft. Every tissue comes from the box immaculately clean and fresh,” they explained.

Even the box itself was proclaimed a marvel of ingenuity and modern design.

“One of the things you will like about Kleenex tissues is the unique patented box they come in. Kleenex tissues are fed out one double sheet at a time! You do not have to hold the box  with one hand while taking tissues with the other.”

The patented  serv-a-tissue pop up box invented by Andrew Olsen was “… cleverly made to hand out automatically through a narrow slit, two tissues at a time ( the correct number for a treatment).”

It was a hit with the public!

Don’t Carry A Cold in Your Pocket

A few years later, the company’s head researcher persuaded the head of advertising to market tissues for colds and hay fever

In 1930 Kleenex re-positioned themselves as the handkerchief you can throw away. “You know what Kleenex tissues are – those dainty tissues that smart and beautiful women are using to remove cold cream.could also be used for hay fever and colds ?”

“Did you know that Kleenex is rapidly replacing handkerchiefs among progressive people? Doctors are recommending it. Nose and throat specialists are using Kleenex in their office.”

Now Kleenex was marketed with the slogan “Don’t Put a Cold in Your Pocket” and its use as a disposable handkerchief replacement was solidified.

The Cold Rush is On

Vintage Kleenex Ad 1941

Vintage Kleenex ad 1940

Vintage Kleenex ad 1940

Soon the company was swamped by letters from consumers offering  ideas for all sorts of uses for Kleenex.

Kleenex began running  the suggestions in their ads under the title “Kleenex True Confessions” offering $5 for every story of how they used Kleenex.

Vintage Kleenex ad 1940

Kleenex was handy ammunition wherever germs lurked

When Kleenex was first introduced they pointed out that they were economical too. Not only it was more hygienic they costs less than laundering handkerchiefs! “Kleenex is a great saving if you have your wash done

Vintage Kleenex Ad 1940

Encouraged to adopt the Kleenex Habit we were encouraged to keep a box of tissues in every room in the house as well as in the car where you could install a special chromium holder to fit under the  glove compartment.

Vintage Kleenex Ad 1940

And if health wasn’t an incentive, vanity was. Kleenex promised m’ lady it would  keep her girlish figure.

“Now I’m streamlined,” boasted one young modern. “Carrying four or five hankies in my pocket during colds made my figure bumpy in the wrong places! Now I carry Kleenex and I’m in good shape again!”

Three Hanky Movie

Vintage Kleenex Ad 1940

Although hankies eventually came back into favor (and Nana, like my mother always carried an ironed and neatly folded hanky in her pocketbook) she would never dream of actually blowing her nose in one.

Dabbing an eye at a three hanky movie maybe, but generally handkerchiefs were rendered inoperable by that king of tissues Kleenex.

Copyright (©) 2016 Sally Edelstein All Rights Reserved

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Today on the 43rd anniversary of Roe V Wade and with the Supreme Court set to revisit  women’s fundamental right to access abortion in the Whole Woman’s Health v Cole Case, the most serious threat to abortion rights since 1992- its time to look back again at the realities of illegal abortion pre Roe v Wade.

Anniversary edition from the Vault:

Controlling Women’s Bodies Risky Business

If some right-wing fanatics have their way, every day will be Throwback Thursday if they stop government funding of Planned Parenthood.

Other than in the retro world of Republicans who seem nostalgic for those pre Roe V Wade days, there is nothing warm or fuzzy about a time when abortion was criminalized.

Do we really want our daughters to return to a time when access to safe and effective birth control – which reduces the number of unplanned pregnancies – was difficult?

To take us back to  the good old days when abortion was both risky business and a crime, defunding Planned Parenthood today would be criminal.

Since Republicans enjoy peddling falsehoods as facts, it only makes sense to present the facts through fiction.

Life Before Roe V Wade – The Good Old Days?

“There was a great nothingness…and then the flash of a terrible word….Abortion!” Vintage photo from “True Romance Magazine”

Once upon a time, women paid a steep price for illegal procedures.

The story of Jinx Malone is a cautionary tale.

It was 1953. The pill that would revolutionize birth control was 7 years in the future, and it would be a long 20 years before Roe v Wade would make abortion legal.

Poor Jinx was in a jam.

She faced a problem that many women faced. This wide-eyed single gal found herself pregnant with a heap o’ worries.

What could she do? With an unwanted pregnancy and few resources, the perky 20-year-old was left high and dry when her beau wouldn’t marry her. Dreamy Dick so suave and handsome was also a first-rate heel.

Jinx couldn’t bear to tell her family so terrified and ashamed, she turned to her trusted family physician.

The doctor did not smile. Instead he looked sharply at Jinx. She was young and pretty but  looked defeated.

Doc Roberts wisely suggested she find a man to marry, if not the father then any man would do.

Without the possibility of a ring on her finger, the doc directed her to a discreet out-of-state home for the unwed mother where Jinx  could have her baby and put it up for adoption. It was a wrenching decision.

Termination was out of the question –  it was illegal.

Besides which, abortions were scary things.

When Abortion was a Crime

The criminal racket of illegal abortionists kept the cops busy. Vintage true crime photos from “Headquarters Detective” Magazine

There were no shortage of cautionary tales and lurid exposes regularly published in magazines and newspapers condemning the flourishing criminal racket of abortionists. Stuff straight out of the police blotters with enough lurid grisly details to place fear in the hearts of any misguided women.

Just the Facts Mam’

Doc Roberts emphasized  the dangers of a criminal abortion something “no nice girl should ever consider.” With his medical expertise he explained “that it is simpler and less risky to deliver a baby by Caesarian operation than to perform a therapeutic abortion (which was the medical name for an abortion which is medically necessary to save a woman’s life and was legally permissible.) And in a criminal abortion, the risk is infinitely graver!”

“The criminal abortionist,” he continued, “does not have the time or interest in his patients welfare to study her records. He simply enters with his curelle and scrapes around till he finds the embryo. This might lead to a perforation through the uterine wall or the intestines might be damaged, accidents which leave the unlucky victim with a 50/50 chance.”

Vintage photo illustration “True Love and Romance ” Magazine

She agonized over the alternatives.

Helpful friends suggested knitting needles, rubber tubes and caustic drinks like potassium permanganatea that could end a pregnancy but more than likely cause bleeding and burns.

Desperate and demoralized, she drank paregoric, threw herself against her walls but stopped short of the coat hanger trick, all to no avail.

She ran out of options.

Finally in her despair she turned to her gal pal Madge. Worldly and wise in the way of men,  Madge discreetly gave her the address of a criminalist abortionist. Tucking it into her purse Jinx blushed deeply, hopefully no one would uncover this secret that could ruin her.

“It’s easy, hon!” reassured the other girl. “There’s nothing to it. Why I’ve had it done three times!” she boasted.

Jinx gulped at the cost. $200 was this file clerks entire months salary. But there was no other choice.

Dial A For Abortion

Back in her apartment Jinx sat a card table and carefully added up the row of figures on the yellow sheet of paper in front of her.

Rent, food, clothes, car fare, magazines and cigarettes. No matter how she juggled ’em the figures always added up to more than her weekly paycheck from the agency where she was a file clerk. Caring for a baby was impossible.  She frowned and tapped the pencil against her teeth.

Dial A for Abortion. Image from Western Electric Ad 1949

Nervously she unfolded the crumpled paper with the number scribbled on it , picked up her phone and made the call.

Risky Business

Now Jinks was waiting in a shabby darkened office. Two or three other women also waited, their eyes cast downward looking through tattered old magazines, or  staring at the grimy floor in silence, nervously smoking

The fee had been paid up front – five $50 dollar bills, more than she earned in a month.

The receptionist dressed in a nurses uniform found out by skillful questioning how much money Jinx had in her purse charging a higher sum than Jinx had expected.

Abortion rings were often organized as a business. The abortionist splits his proceeds with a contact man or business manager who got a fee for every woman he sends in. Druggists also received a fee for recommending women keeping a stream of patients moving quickly.

Jinx thought she was lucky to find a real doctor willing to perform the procedure.

Or so he claimed he was.

Tales of back alley abortions gave her the shivers. Unlike so many poor girls at least she wasn’t blindfolded and taken to a dingy apartment where a kitchen table lay in wait.

When Jinx was finally called into the operating room, she had not been especially frightened despite the sordid condition of the room. After all, hadn’t she been assured by Madge how safe it was, how easy? She wriggled out of her girdle and lay on the table.

If only she had read just one more of the articles warning a nice girl of the dangers that lay ahead, Jinx might have known that the surgeon’s mask worn by the abortionist served a double purpose. It gave him a professional appearance and it concealed his face so that she could not identify him if he were ever called to trial.

Jinx winced in pain.

The discomfort of the operation was unexpected. Little did she know the criminal abortionist uses only a light whiff of chloroform or often nothing.

Here’s Your Hat, What’s Your Hurry

The operation was soon over. The nurse helped Jinx off the table. She was permitted to lie down on a narrow cot. After 20 minutes the nurse brought in her hat and coat.

“Can’t I rest a little longer?” Jinx asked pleadingly.

The nurse would not permit it. The lone cot was needed by another women. And Jinx who should have rested with good nursing care for several days had to get up and find a taxi home.

Getting the woman out of his office as soon as possible was the “doctors”  priority. He is constantly afraid that she may die. If this happens he will deny that he performed the operation and won’t have to worry about being betrayed by any evidence of anesthetics.

How Lucky Can You Get?

In spite of these circumstances, Jinx’s abortion was successful.

Our Jinx was one lucky lady, luckier than most for she did not bleed to death.

All that happened to our gal Jinx was that she developed septicemia or blood poisoning caused by the good doctors  unclean instruments. Along with her monthly salary, she paid for her abortion with weeks of serious illness and months of semi invalidism.

Nobody knows how many girls like Jinx there were. According to one 1950’s article that exposed the abortion industry: “Some experts think half a million criminal abortions are perfumed each year. Others think it’s a million…A John Hopkins gynecologist believes that 1 out of every 50 women pays for a criminal abortion with her life.”

But Wait There’s More

But the story told is still not completely told for the tragic effects of illegal abortion may not develop until a long time later.

Girls like Jinx’s friend Madge who boasted of her 3 successful abortions would not find out for years the price they have to pay.

Sterility was not uncommon. According to reports presented at a conference at the N.Y. Academy of Medicine in the 1950s, over 50,000 women become sterile every year as a result of criminal abortions.

Dangerous  Alternatives

And there were other dangerous forms other than abortion to rid yourself of pregnancy.

Drugs taken by mouth were sometimes recommended by dishonest druggists. Some of these drugs contained phosphorous which could be fatal. Others contained lead.

If they were strong enough to cause an abortion then they were  nearly always poisonous. If they did not actually cause death they will would wreck the health of any woman rash enough to take it.

Pastes and fluids injected into the uterus also took a grim death toll.

Trust Your Friendly Neighborhood Druggist

One girl Jinx knew asked her neighborhood druggist for the address of a criminal abortionist.

He told her that for $10 he could sell her something “just as good and twice as safe.” The tube of paste he sold her was labeled with an impressive medical name and with it came directions for injecting it into the uterus.

The girl used the paste according to directions and waited for the results. Next day she was admitted into a major N.Y. hospital coughing a blood stained fluid and suffering from severe shock.

Vintage photo ” Daring Detective” Magazine

High Cost

The toll the nations abortion laws took on women’s health before Roe v Wade were substantial.

Although that has changed, the removal of Planned Parenthood and or stricter abortion laws could herald the return to a system in which safe abortion was available to some Americans but out of reach of many in need. Poorer women and their families are always  disproportionately impacted.

In 2015, women are having abortions. Don’t we want to make sure they have a safe place to have one?

Good health care and control over ones body is a woman’s birthright.

And that’s no fiction.

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2016. 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.