I loved the old ads on display. Let's concentrate on the soap:
ADDED: One more:
April 4, 2008
When straps were straps and soap was profound.
A subway car from the early 20th century (at the NY Transit Museum):
I loved the old ads on display. Let's concentrate on the soap:
ADDED: One more:
I loved the old ads on display. Let's concentrate on the soap:
ADDED: One more:
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19 comments:
The important point is that the lightbulbs have left hand threads.
Did you go down the manhole? Cool.
And no, that's not what you think it is Titus.
There is a tour where you go down a manhole to see old trains in an abandoned tunnel. Very cool stuff.
Then there were the days when the $.25 DC bus tokens fit the $.15 NYC subway turnstiles, in case you had any left over.
As anyone who has lived amount subsistence farmers in the Third World knows, soap is a luxury not to be taken for granted. (So are many other things, like a decent, sturdy cardboard box.)
That our current ads focus on other things is just Yet Another Measure of how wealthy we've become in the West.
My grandmother made our soap until the mid 1960's. Lard from pork, and I can't remember if she used wood ashes/water or lye. I used to marvel at the fact that my friends had soap that smelt so good.
Note the ad pointing out that the soap floats. Back before showers were commonplace I would imagine.
Oh, back before public transportation seemed so public.
The ads for soap were there because the trains were so dirty. I remember the trains in the sixties were actually left over from the 1940's with wicker seats that would tear your clothes.
Now the ads are all about immigration lawyers and hemorrhoids
When my big sis lived in NYC (Astoria--Hell's Kitchen) and we visited, I always HAD to wash after riding the N train back to her house. Rich, warm colors in the photos.
I have a collection of Lux Radio Theater programs going back to 1936. Most of the ads for Lux soap from 1936-1939 tried to convince women to bathe every day
Subway To THE CITY
Yellow seats and yellow lights and red clay colored floors
And the long grind through the dark
From one sour station to the next and the next and the next
And then our station where we take the stairs two at a time
And emerge into the cool light of day
And the always excitement of the everywhichway to and fro
And are surprised again for the hundredth time --
Damn, What A Town!
There is no greater feeling in the world of transportation, than to be in a jam packed 4 train as it rocks back and forth and suddenly it comes out into the sun and you see Yankee Stadium. Ohhhh baby.
For crepe de chine or
Georgette Crepe waists, and
All the other crepe that soils your clothes
try Lux and
Lukewarm water.
Lux
I remember Fels Naphtha laundry soap. The red, green, and white label. I also remember the taste of it; ma would shove a bar down the throat for perceived poor language.
I also remember Ivory Snow. It made cool foam for making snowman art.
Ronald Reagan did those ads on his show for twenty mule team Borax.
God I'm old.
Trooper York said...
There is no greater feeling in the world of transportation, than to be in a jam packed 4 train as it rocks back and forth and suddenly it comes out into the sun and you see Yankee Stadium. Ohhhh baby.
I feel the same way when I take the el in Chicago and it pulls into the Addison street stop. There is Wrigley Field. I used to work there as an usher when I was a kid. The Bears played there too sometimes. Life was so good.
Trooper York said...
The ads for soap were there because the trains were so dirty. I remember the trains in the sixties were actually left over from the 1940's with wicker seats that would tear your clothes.
That's why my mom would always make me wear little white cotton gloves - the Purell of the 50's. The gloves would be black by the end of the day but my hands would be clean! And I think my earliest memories of all are the marks those wicker seats left on my skin. Thanks for the reminders.
The Woodbury's Complexionville ad was a ripoff of Sapolio's Spotless Town series of a previous generation:
http://imagehost.vendio.com/preview/vi/vintageads4u/Sapolio1901BW1.jpg
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