Books of historic ads reflect life in bygone days

If you want to go back in recent history for a glimpse of daily life among typical Americans, don't bother searching for a time machine.

Check out the ads instead.

Historic and period print advertisements collected in some recent illustrated books go back to the 1920s to show what Americans of another day ate, drank, smoked and chewed; what was in their homes and offices, closets and medicine chests; what they looked at and listened to; and what they desired to own and aspired to be.

"All-American Ads: 20s" edited by Jim Heimann is the latest in the series of volumes for each decade from the 1920s to 1970s.

The index of this hefty, 638-page flexcover book begins with "A&P food store" and ends at "Zundel sanitary toilet chair," a device placed over the home commode to hide "the ugly duckling of the bathroom."

The book's colorful ads speak for themselves: There are no captions, but plenty of copy was common in ads of the day, as were mail-in offers for brochures and product samples.

In the 1920s, Americans used some of the same brands still in use: Lysol, Jell-O and Baby Ruth, Arrow shirts, Campbell's pork and beans and Palmolive soap. Other '20s brands have since faded -- Red Crown gasoline, Atwater Kent radios, Monarch coffee and Fatima cigarettes.

Several auto nameplates from 1920s showrooms now occupy only museums: Willys-Knight, Auburn, Saxon, Pierce-Arrow, Hupmobile, and Essex, priced from $698 with "choice of color at no extra cost."

A General Electric sun lamp cost $69.50 -- a significant sum, it seems, for a 1920s paycheck. But the price of seven such lamps -- $498 -- would get you a five-room prefab Aladdin house, delivered by rail.

Technology was making giant strides, and there was no shortage of modern, scientific-sounding brands: Oil-o-Matic heater, Creo-Dipt shingles, Tung-Sol Blu-Wite bulbs, Pro-phy-lac-tic brushes, Zerolene motor oil, and the Boyce MotoMeter, an engine temperature gauge that was the "most necessary instrument on the car."

A 1925 ad sought contributions to "help complete New York's great cathedral," that of St. John the Divine -- which, 80 years later, is still unfinished.

It was an era of economic prosperity and the decade of Prohibition, as reflected by the absence of ads for alcoholic beverages.

n

There's no such absence (or abstinence) in "What's Your Poison? Addictive Advertising of the '40s-'60s" by Kirven Blount.

This small softcover contains hundreds of ads that reflect an era not so long ago when tobacco and alcohol products were advertised as instruments for achieving social acceptance, self-esteem and downright pleasure.

Cigarettes were even touted as part of a healthful way of life, as evidenced by the many ads with medical endorsements.

Arthur Godfrey, Marlene Dietrich, Lucille Ball, Joe DiMaggio and other celebrities endorsed their favorite smokes, while alcoholic beverages got the nod from David Niven (ale), Dan Duryea and Pamela Britton (beer) and Claude Rains (whiskey).

Christmas shoppers stuck for ideas were prompted to consider giving Hit Parade cigarettes, or Old Golds or Regents. And what did men want most for Christmas 1951? A survey said the top-25 choices include a radio, socks, golf balls and a bottle of Hunter whiskey.

n

The addiction for some is TV.

In "TV Wonderland: The Enchantment of Early Television," Brad and Debra Schepp have compiled a compact paperback volume of ads for TV sets from the 1950s and 1960s.

Once upon a time, there were brands called Olympic and Admiral, Stewart-Warner and Truetone, Philco and Sparton's "Cosmic Eye."

In their infancy, TVs were pieces of furniture, small screens housed in huge and often elaborate wood cabinets designed to match the living room's decor.

The TV was frequently pictured as the home's entertainment center, as many ads show the '50s family -- Mom, Dad, Junior and Sis -- gathered around the set to enjoy a program together.

Some of those newfangled TVs didn't leave the old forms of family entertainment behind -- they had built-in radios and phonographs. And some resembled credenzas, with doors to hide the screen and dials.

The picture wasn't everything: A Motorola console had "only 2 simple controls"; Crosley sets featured the "Zoom-a-tenna," a retractable, built-in "rabbit ears" antenna; and a 1950 GE offered "automatic sound" in a table model that cost less than $200.

n

"Window to the Future: The Golden Age of Television Marketing and Advertising" by Steve Kosareff, is a large-format paperback with the same idea as "TV Wonderland," offering 150 ads and brochure images from the early days of TV advertising -- and strangely few of the same ones. But in "Window," the ads are reproduced closer to their original size.

Special sections focus on early TV prototypes, Christmas ads, TVs in magazine cover art, and the introduction of color TV.

n

In "Atomic Home: A Guided Tour of the American Dream," Whitney Matheson has compiled more than 350 images from ads and catalogs of the late 1940s and 1950s that illustrate the postwar suburban "Atomic Age" of home design, when dreams of a better postwar world abounded.

Just about every consumer product, from the clothes washer to the clock radio, and from the Oldsmobile Rocket V-8 to the spherical Hoover Constellation vacuum cleaner, gave the impression that it was ready to blast off for worlds unknown.

Each of the book's eight chapters takes readers into a part of the Atomic Home, from the living room to the back yard and lawn.

In an ad for a GE iron, the sleek and shiny little appliance appears as though it's ready to run away with itself. But for about $200, affluent homemakers could opt for Firestone's automatic ironer, which makes "washday a breeze for the lucky lady who owns" it.

Even more exciting than toast is the toaster itself -- at least to the 1950s Mom who is aglow because she just learned that her shiny new chrome Proctor toaster "is waiting at the store."

What said "space age" better than plastic? An ad showed the many forms colorful Styron takes to make homemaking easier -- measuring cups, bowls, jugs, tumblers, and covered refrigerator jars.

Dad had his place in the Atomic Home, too. He's comfy in his reclining chair -- the way to "keep your husband home ... and happy," says the ad.