Other Times, Other Places
One of the primary attractions of ephemera is that we are given glimpses into the way we were. Here are a few examples.
A card distributed by agents of the circus, almost a half-century ago now, to alert potential customers of upcoming dates and places . . .
No app for this, in those days . . .
An interesting card that sheds a bit of light on early telephone etiquette. Evidently this card, with it’s a suggestion about how best to answer the telephone, was given with a new phone at installation . . .
Telephone rates in Lincoln, Nebraska in 1948 . . .
Before flying in commercial aircraft went from exciting to dreadful, travel by train was exciting (before it became dreadful) . . . trans-continental Domeliners, Speedliners, elegant dining car service . . .
Below is the center spread from an early 20th-century booklet promoting the healthful properties of processed sugar. Here it reads, “Give the whole family a treat and surprise them with a Candy Pulling party . . . The principal ingredient is just Cane Sugar with utmost food value and absolute purity. The young folks will all go home full of good things, and with no ill effects from their indulgence.”
World War II vintage Army humor . . .
An elaborate Eastertime advertising promotion by a printer, back when Easter was widely and publicly celebrated, the promo hidden in the egg. Copy on the back of the yellow disk urges the recipient to “Hatch out a good brood of profits” by using the company’s services.
Peacock feathers picked up not plucked, one would hope, as a souvenir of an 1894 European Grand Tour . . .
In 1945, mechanical time clocks kept track of time-in and time-out in all sorts of places . . .
A 1960’s anti-war decal . . .
Once upon a time, there was a centuries-old craft, that of the typesetter. In the late 1980s, virtually overnight and through no fault of their own, all those craftsmen lost their jobs, as their companies went out of business, inadvertent victims of the personal computer revolution . . .
Ah, the endless difficulties of dealing with the teenage brain. Notice at the bottom:
NO CHILDREN NO ADULTS”. Guess that leaves only teens. I’ll bet they didn’t discuss sexting . . .
