Here are some smashing dress designs from the June, 1926 issue of Pictorial Review. There’s an address to order the patterns from, but I doubt they’re still available, unfortunately.

Click and zoom for a detailed look.

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I really like the style of 1930s illustration. The June 1932 issue of American Magazine is full of great pictures.

Cover illustration by Hayden C. Hayden

Probak razor blades ad

illustration for Captain Grim by Donald Teague

color illustration for Captain Grim by Norman Wilkinson

color illustration for Fancy Dress by J. Gotlieb

illustration for Fancy Dress by J. Gotlieb

illustration for The Tall Ladder by Saul Tepper

second illustration for The Tall Ladder by Saul Tepper

illustration for Forlorn Island by Harold Von Schmidt

color illustration for The Last of His Line by James E. Allen

illustration for The Last of His Line by James E. Allen

More ephemera

I’ve posted before about the fascinating digital collections at the University of Washington Libraries. Tooling through the early advertising archive today I came across these old Rainier beer ads from turn of the century Seattle and surrounding areas. They seem to be trying to expand their customer base by marketing Rainier as a healthful tonic for women, children, and old people. Gesundheit, Grandpa!

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Here are some long, belted sweaters from that fountain of inspiration, the Good Housekeeping Needlecraft issue for Fall-Winter 1968-69. They’re particularly groovy on these 60s twiggy types, but I think a less stick-like person might pull it off, don’t you?

Here are the patterns:

More knitting patterns

The August, 1950 issue of the Boy Scout magazine Boys’ Life had the first in a four-part serial by Robert Heinlein, titled Satellite Scout. The cover illustration is by Chesley Bonestell, and the story illustrations are by Reynold Brown.

Click and zoom for a closer look.

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A three-piece suit with a knit jacket and skirt and crocheted top, from Good Housekeeping Needlecraft, Fall-Winter 1968-69.

And here’s the pattern:

More knitting patterns

I posted some ads from the March, 1940 Look magazine a few days ago. The magazine also included a picture-packed article about Father Coughlin, an American radio personality, anti-semite, and defender of fascism who reached millions through his weekly broadcasts in the 1930s.

This article was the first of a two-part series. It focuses on Coughlin’s leadership of the Christian Front, a militia network that was shut down by the FBI when they were discovered to be accumulating weapons and plans to overthrow the government.

Click and zoom for a close look at the article.

Video of Father Coughlin giving a speech can be seen at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum web site.

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Having just been reading about the second world war, I found this March, 1940 Look magazine that Rick brought home particularly fascinating. As usual, the ads are as interesting as the articles.

I didn’t know that Kraft dinners were already around in 1940.

Last year I posted an ad from a 1926 magazine recommending Lysol as a douche. Looks like they were still marketing themselves that way in 1940. This ad makes it a bit more clear that they’re talking about birth control as well as “daintiness” –

“Lysol” is a powerful germicide, active under practical conditions, effective in the presence of organic matter (such as dirt, mucus, serum, etc)… “Lysol” solutions spread because of a low surface tension, and thus virtually search out germs…

There are also plenty of ads for men’s personal products.

I thought these ads for car accessories were interesting. I think that turn signals were already standard equipment in cars in 1940, and that these were meant for retrofitting older cars.

And, lastly, greasy kid stuff. Don’t forget that slick, shiny hair will make you look like a glamor boy.

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James Thurber’s New Natural History was first published as a series in the New Yorker in 1945 and 1946. Here are a few of the drawings from the series.

Here’s a kinda fascinating abseentee psychoanalysis of Adolf Hitler, accomplished through interviews with his colleagues and family. I’ve included the accompanying ads and fluff pieces for your enjoyment. Just goes to show you that the media has been creating disturbing juxtapositions of horror and frivolity for a long time.