Terms Which Have Disappeared

[LizzieMaine]

These days Dick Tracy wears what's called a "wrist wizard," which gives him all manner of advanced functionality, despite the fact that it's built into a casing that looks very much like his original Two Way Wrist Radio of 1946. Diet Smith Industries goes in for retro chic, you see.

"Lifts and Separates" was the catchphrase for the Playtex Cross Your Heart Bra, which was a remedy for the shelf-like unibosoms created by certain other brands of support garments. It's still manufactured, and is actually still a pretty good product for the money if you consider underwires a crime against humanity and can find a store that carries it. It was advertised on TV for many years by Jane Russell, who evidentlly had given up on the Howard Hughes cantilever model by then.

 

[3fingers]

Is the expression "lifts and separates" still used to try to sell something? Don't remember what it referred to. Maybe something to do with shocks absorbers or something.

Call me crude and unrefined, but this made me snicker. Shock absorbers and Jane Russell in the same thought stream.

 

[tonyb]

These days Dick Tracy wears what's called a "wrist wizard," which gives him all manner of advanced functionality, despite the fact that it's built into a casing that looks very much like his original Two Way Wrist Radio of 1946. Diet Smith Industries goes in for retro chic, you see.

"Lifts and Separates" was the catchphrase for the Playtex Cross Your Heart Bra, which was a remedy for the shelf-like unibosoms created by certain other brands of support garments. It's still manufactured, and is actually still a pretty good product for the money if you consider underwires a crime against humanity and can find a store that carries it. It was advertised on TV for many years by Jane Russell, who evidentlly had given up on the Howard Hughes cantilever model by then.

It's been more than half a century now, but I have some recollection of TV ads for brassieres being thought inappropriate if not quite scandalous. At least that's the sense I got from some older folks.

It was much more recently that similar sentiments were expressed regarding a "personal massager" advertised on TV. "It'll blow your hair back" went back the slogan.

Good thing Grandma ain't around to see that! She'd switch off the TV and forbid the kids from watching it unsupervised. Then she'd get herself down to the drug store.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Jane Russell always displayed the merchandise hanging from her arm like a pocketbook, rather than wearing it. I just figured that was another dumb Hollywood affectation.

Bra ads were pretty common in the popular magazines of the Era -- "Life" was especially fertile soil for this type of advertising. There was even a bra called "Life" that was widely advertised in Life, even though there doesn't seem to have been any connection to the Luce empire. Maybe Claire Boothe wore one, but it didn't seem her type. For that matter, maybe Henry wore one. He was always firm, proud, and pronounced, and many considered him kind of a boob.

As for vibrators, they were sold in the Sears catalog in the 1930s, and those buying them knew exactly how to use them.

 

[BlueTrain]

There was a Maidenform factory in my hometown, long since closed. I did know, of course, what the "lifts and separates" expression was referring to, though not because of the factory. Dick Tracy doesn't appear in the local paper, nor does Gasoline Alley, two of my old favorites. Pogo is long gone, although most of it went over my head. I also no longer watch television. My wife keeps it tuned to British TV and I can't understand the language.

I do remember, however, magazine advertising. That's where the real money came from in publishing and television virtually sucked it dry, out of general interest magazines. There is still a huge variety of magazines but I have no idea what circulation numbers are. But the days when everyone on the block got Life and Look (and for the literary types, Reader's Digest). I always thought that both Life and Look had fairly racy photos from time to time. Reader's Digest had none, of course.

 

[scottyrocks]

A popular scare-mongering title from 1968 by Paul Erlich, The Population Bomb. A Thomas Malthus for the Flower Power Age.

I'll have to read that one.

 

[BlueTrain]

Jane Russell always displayed the merchandise hanging from her arm like a pocketbook, rather than wearing it. I just figured that was another dumb Hollywood affectation.

.

The idea of what a pretty girl looks like hasn't changed at all. Never has, really, or not much, as long as they're about 21.

 

[vitanola]

There was a Maidenform factory in my hometown, long since closed. I did know, of course, what the "lifts and separates" expression was referring to, though not because of the factory. Dick Tracy doesn't appear in the local paper, nor does Gasoline Alley, two of my old favorites. Pogo is long gone, although most of it went over my head. I also no longer watch television. My wife keeps it tuned to British TV and I can't understand the language.

I do remember, however, magazine advertising. That's where the real money came from in publishing and television virtually sucked it dry, out of general interest magazines. There is still a huge variety of magazines but I have no idea what circulation numbers are. But the days when everyone on the block got Life and Look (and for the literary types, Reader's Digest). I always thought that both Life and Look had fairly racy photos from time to time. Reader's Digest had none, of course.

(and for the literary types, Reader's Digest)

Surely, you must have intended to write "Literary Digest" or "The Atlantic Monthly", "The Saturday Review of Literature" or at least "The Review of Reviews".

 

[tonyb]

Jane Russell always displayed the merchandise hanging from her arm like a pocketbook, rather than wearing it. I just figured that was another dumb Hollywood affectation.

Bra ads were pretty common in the popular magazines of the Era -- "Life" was especially fertile soil for this type of advertising. There was even a bra called "Life" that was widely advertised in Life, even though there doesn't seem to have been any connection to the Luce empire. Maybe Claire Boothe wore one, but it didn't seem her type. For that matter, maybe Henry wore one. He was always firm, proud, and pronounced, and many considered him kind of a boob.

As for vibrators, they were sold in the Sears catalog in the 1930s, and those buying them knew exactly how to use them.

Wasn't there something of a "gentlemen's agreement" not to advertise on radio and TV certain products that were commonly promoted in print media? Distilled spirits come to mind. But that was then. Ads for hooch are all over the small screen these days. Same with menstrual pads and tampons. The women's magazines carried 'em, but not TV and radio.

As I recall, legal restrictions on tobacco advertising started with outright bans on broadcast ads. But cigarette advertising was still a common sight in print and on billboards and stadium signage and the like. But that has all but gone away as well.

 

[BlueTrain]

(and for the literary types, Reader's Digest)

Surely, you must have intended to write "Literary Digest" or "The Atlantic Monthly", "The Saturday Review of Literature" or at least "The Review of Reviews".

No, I was only referring to the people who lived on my block. The more sophisticated sorts lived on the other side of town.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The networks in the mid-thirties banned deodorant, depilatory, "feminine hygiene" and laxative advertising, with the exception of laxative accounts that were already on the air when the ban took effect. That was a loophole you could drive an enema bag thru, and for many years thereafter laxative commercials remained very common.

Fred Allen had a fond memory of his first broadcast for Sal Hepatica, a popular "saline laxative" of the day. The announcer bellowed "Sal Hepatica is on the air!" The orchestra struck up "In your Easter Bonnet..."

 

[LizzieMaine]

I do remember, however, magazine advertising. That's where the real money came from in publishing and television virtually sucked it dry, out of general interest magazines. There is still a huge variety of magazines but I have no idea what circulation numbers are. But the days when everyone on the block got Life and Look (and for the literary types, Reader's Digest). I always thought that both Life and Look had fairly racy photos from time to time. Reader's Digest had none, of course.

Reader's Digest for many years didn't need to carry advertising because it was directly subsidized by the NAM. It was basically the house organ for the Corporate Right, and in between "How To Improve Your Word Power" and "I Am Joe's Pancreas," you got a very full measure of NAM-directed propaganda in favor of what the NAM wanted propagandized.

 

[ChiTownScion]

Reader's Digest for many years didn't need to carry advertising because it was directly subsidized by the NAM. It was basically the house organ for the Corporate Right, and in between "How To Improve Your Word Power" and "I Am Joe's Pancreas," you got a very full measure of NAM-directed propaganda in favor of what the NAM wanted propagandized.

Now that you mention it, I do remember reading the most inane and slanted tripe in that particular rag. I was about 14 when I figured out that they had their own philosophical ax to grind and that objectivity was not to be presumed..

 

[tonyb]

I find good prices on old paper hard to resist. As a consequence, I have boxes full of popular magazines and the like dating back to early in the last century.

There was some damned good writing in the mass-market weeklies. And some real tripe, too. But they all capture the spirit of their era in their own ways.

A few days ago I found a copy of the April 3, 1943 issue of The New Yorker. Much of its content, including its cover, makes reference to the war effort in one way or another. It brought to mind what relatives a generation and two older than me said about those times. They recalled events as occurring before "the war" or during "the war" or after "the war." I was left to conclude that "the war" was the central event in the national consciousness.

But even the youngest of the people with firsthand recollections of those times are getting on now. I don't know that we younger (hah!) people share such a national touchstone.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I dearly love the New Yorker of the '30s and '40s for its perception of New York itself as a gigantic quirky small town filled with clever witty people doing clever witty things. The current New Yorker has its good points, but that whole Dorothy Parker/Harold Ross/James Thurberish New Yorker is gone forever. Where you used to find archness, now there's just empty snark.

For that matter, to pull out a copy of The New Yorker from the Era and a copy of Bernarr Macfadden's "Liberty" from the same year, and to compare them, is to understand more about the real nature of the America of the Era than you will ever ever learn from any historian.

 

[tonyb]

I dearly love the New Yorker of the '30s and '40s for its perception of New York itself as a gigantic quirky small town filled with clever witty people doing clever witty things. The current New Yorker has its good points, but that whole Dorothy Parker/Harold Ross/James Thurberish New Yorker is gone forever. Where you used to find archness, now there's just empty snark.

For that matter, to pull out a copy of The New Yorker from the Era and a copy of Bernarr Macfadden's "Liberty" from the same year, and to compare them, is to understand more about the real nature of the America of the Era than you will ever ever learn from any historian.

Say this much for its current efforts: they ain't going down without a fight. I've subscribed for at least 30 years and while I can't say I'm taken with every "update," I admire that they've maintained something of its commitment to good writing and longform storytelling as they make their way in the digital age. These days I read much of its content off my iPhone screen. And their daily email blasts have content that never makes its way into print. Good content, too. Timely and thoughtful and, of course, well written.

I got 50 or more issues of Colliers dating from the '40s. Judging from what I've seen in it, I've concluded it was a folksier rag than Life, and "safer." Anodyne, almost.

 

[Fading Fast]

... Where you used to find archness, now there's just empty snark....

This could be said about a lot of our cultural institutions today.

 

[BlueTrain]

There used to be a newspaper published in Richwood, West Virginia, called the West Virginia Hillbilly. I think it ceased publication when it's founder, editor and chief contributor passed away. But he was proud to say that they send more copies of the West Virginia Hillbilly to New York than the New Yorker sent to Richwood, West Virginia. But he also characterized it as a newspaper for people who can't read, edited by an editor who can't write. It's refreshing sometimes to hear of something that doesn't take itself too seriously.

 

[LizzieMaine]

"Folksy rag" is a pretty good description of not just Colliers, but of the other Crowell publications as well: the Woman's Home Companion had none of the intellectual energy you found in the Ladies Home Journal under Beatrice and Bruce Gould's editorship, and The American Magazine was basically a more sensationalistic version of Hearst's Cosmopolitan with less-artistic covers and a bent for "America At The Brink!" style panic pieces. J. Edgar Hoover publised often in the American, which gives you a good idea of its usual tone.

The propaganda arm of the NAM had its hand in the Crowell magazines just as much as it did the Curtis publications (Saturday Evening Post, LHJ, Country Gentleman) but they seemed less shrill about it, perhaps because Crowell readers seemed less likely to ever think to challenge what they were being told by their masters. "Just read this Fu Manchu or Philo Vance story and relax. Daddy knows best."

 

[LizzieMaine]

There used to be a newspaper published in Richwood, West Virginia, called the West Virginia Hillbilly. I think it ceased publication when it's founder, editor and chief contributor passed away. But he was proud to say that they send more copies of the West Virginia Hillbilly to New York than the New Yorker sent to Richwood, West Virginia. But he also characterized it as a newspaper for people who can't read, edited by an editor who can't write. It's refreshing sometimes to hear of something that doesn't take itself too seriously.

This sounds a bit like "The Hobo News," a paper put out on behalf of America's "mobile workforce" in the 20s, 30s, and 40s -- along with articles promoting their specific interests, it carried humor and commentary that anyone could enjoy. It was common for hobos to make some extra coin selling "The Hobo News" at various stops along their routes, and at the peak of its popularity you could even find it on urban newsstands.

Its independent stand often paid off -- during a newsdealers' strike against distributors in 1941 the only papers you could buy from street vendors in New York were the Brooklyn Eagle, the Daily Worker, and the Hobo News.