Copy-writing --- Literature's pop art

This has to be one of my favorite pieces of vintage advertising. If you are truly a lover of advertising, you can appreciate the copy here. "Coca-Cola... a grateful invigorant without reactionary lassitude." What a fancy way of saying it gives you energy without the crash. My how times have changed.

Now they tell us to be clear and concise, because people don't care to read. Maybe this is proof that TV does really make us more stupidder (stupider or stupidder?? Studpider would be stu-pEYE-der, right? so it has to be stupidder for the short "i"...hmmmm?).[EDIT: Nevermind, it is "stupider." I looked it up. But really, I would argue for the double "d."]



This ad is dated June 1906. I got it from www.vintage123.com, a nice source of vintage ads (although it seems like they haven't updated in a long time).

Manor House

Am I the only person in the world that researches Edwardian etiquette? Quite possibly. In my musings, I found this fantastic show from PBS (I love PBS) called Manor House. It's a reality show that takes 21st Century British people and makes them live as if they were living in a 1905 English estate. One [real life] family are the masters of the manor, while others act as their servants. The show reinforces my beliefs that I am damn lucky to be born when I was.

I love Edgar. All he wanted to do was be the best butler he could be and do his grandparents proud. Kenny comes in a close second. Mrs. Davies too. I love everyone below stairs to be honest. I wasn't too fond of the family though, except the sister-in-law. I felt bad for her . Sir Oliff-Cooper was a douche-bag though. He got a little too comfortable being the master. But I don't know them. They might be the best people in the world.

Check out it on Youtube and for more interesting Edwardian facts go to http://www.pbs.org/manorhouse/

Mo' Wheh Dis Comed Fum. Yas Sah!

1927

Ingredients: chocolate, eggs, milk, sugar, and racism.

I love (to the Nth degree) vintage ads. You can tell a lot about a society through its ads. And going by that logic, America was a racist bastard. I guess I'm so used to an American culture that is very PC (politically correct), that it is shocking to see ads like the one above. It makes me so glad I was born in this generation.

So these were the good ol'days grandma and grandpa?

1907

I got all these ads from a blog called Vintage Ads

Gangsters, Preemies, and Pygmies ...Oh my!

Here I thought that I would have to wait for next summer for True Blood season 4 to satiate my need to obsess over things, but HBO once again fulfills my needs with their new series 'Boardwalk Empire'. I already had an existing obsession with the 1920's, and although I'm not a huge gangster movie fan, with a show set during in Atlantic City during Prohibition, I am hooked by the opening credits.

I love the scenes on the Boardwalk with all the vintage ads and shops. In one scene, Nucky Thompson passes by a storefront that had preemies (prematurely born babies) on display, and for 25 cents admission one can go in and see them in incubators. This reminded me of an episode of 'History Detectives' (PBS) where a woman claims to be one of the babies displayed in incubators in the 1933 Chicago World's Fair. The baby incubator was invented around 1890, and before its use to help premature babies, these precious under-weight infants would usually die . As far as I can tell, babies have been displayed in incubators since the 1904 World's Fair (maybe even before that).

It is seems so strange (and maybe a little unethical) to have human beings on display, but at the turn of the last century their were many attractions that displayed human beings. There were the sideshow 'freaks' in the carnivals, and most famously Coney Island. In one of my favorite blogs 'Old Picture of the Day', one theme of the week was Coney Island. There the author put up old pictures taken from Coney Island's heyday. One of them was of a sideshow and another showed a display of native Filipinos. Boardwalk Empire actually touched upon this in a later episode. Apparently at this time, there were many exhibits like this around the world called 'human zoos'. In the same episode of the 'History Detectives' they mentioned a pygmie man named Ota Benga who lived at the Bronx Zoo in the monkey exhibit for a while before people were upset and sent him to live in an orphanage.

Crazy, crazy stuff