Vintage Magazines?

[Foofoogal]

I looked to see if I could find this but cannot. I love vintage magazines and picked up 2 today.
A Nov. 1957 McCalls and a Good Housekeeping Nov. 1951. The Good Housekeeping one for tons of cookie recipes and the McCalls for Betsy meets Captain Kangaroo (no kidding paper dolls.)
Anyway, my ? is do any of you use the old magazines for research and find new stuff about vintage?
I just learned the DeVilbiss Pocket Atomizer was not only for perfume but especially engineered to meet the needs for all solutions including penicillin and other new antibiotics. lol
Then I about fell over with a spread of how to take vintage sweaters and decorate with beading , braiding, appliques and such. This done with a manual from Good Housekeeping. Neat ideas if I could get the manual. I wonder how many vintage sweaters were actually decorated at home?
foofoogal

http://www.sandysfancypants.blogspot.com

 

[kpreed]

I use and have a bunch of older issues of life, Better Homes, etc.and lots and lots of Popular Science types from around 1910 till mid 1960's. Plus all the Sears and Ward's catalogs I have from the 1930's and 40's are very helpful too. I use them lots in my historical consulting business.

 

[Coopsgirl]

I'm absolutely addicted to old magazines but I mostly get movie mags. I do like using some of the beauty tips like soaking your nails in warm olive oil to moisturize them and keep them looking nice.

In 1929, Photoplay ran a series of four issues featuring a cover model for each one with different hair colors (red, blond, brunette, and another one they called inbetween which was blonde/brunette-ish). The covers also showed a color chart for each hair shade and then a corresponding article explained how to play up your coloring and which colors looked best on you going back to the cover color chart. I have all but the brunette and hopefully I'll get it one of these days. I know it's out there b/c one came up on ebay but I didn't have the money to get it then. My favorite is the one for redheads in the series and it's on the bottom of my rack with my fave actress Clara bow on the cover. The suggestions were helpful and I have put my wardrobe together with my coloring (red for a while and now back to my natural blonde) in mind.

It doesn't look like it in the pic but I do keep them in archival quality mylar bags.

The ads in these mags are hilarious and I have learned that if you don't keep up with feminie hygeine (i.e. using Lysol to clean your business) your husband won't love you anymore. :eusa_doh:

 

[saraicat]

I've recently begun collecting copies of Charm magazine. It's a ladies magazine that began its life as Photo Play, and eventually was swallowed by Glamour. I collect issues from the 40s (so far). I hope to do some proper scans of my issues at some point, though I posted a few photos on my blog. It marketed itself as being for the "BG," or "Business Girl."

 

[ricki]

I collect old hairdresser magazines (American Hairdresser, Modern Beauty Shop, etc) and post them up on my blog. I also have around 40 or so Home Craftsman magazines. I have a few pieces of furniture earmarked to make one day. .

 

[Miss Neecerie]

I collect and use Modern Priscilla magazine.

It ran from the late 1800's all the way into the 1930's when it was a victim of the Depression.

It is the Martha Stewart magazine of its time, incorporating crafts, fashion, housekeeping, cooking and every other feminine life skill you can cram into a magazine.

Now that I have told you all that...I shall have to hunt you down and kill you if you bid against me!

 

[Lauren]

I have been collecting magazines for about as long as I've been collecting clothing! At first they were mostly Ladies Home Journal and The Delineator from the Edwardian era, but now I collect mostly McCall's from the 1930s and Ladies Home Journal from the 1901-1920. When I can get them inexpensively I pick up Glamour, Harpers Bazaar, and Vogue, but I don't have nearly as many of those. Like Neecerie, I have collected quite a few Modern Priscillas over the years, and now I have bound Ladies magazines, with my oldest being from 1800! I also collect German fashion magazines with the paper patterns in them. And I have maybe ten or so Photoplay magazines from the late 30s. I think between my patterns, vintage sewing books, and magazines I'm well taken care of! They are the BEST way to research trends and line and detail and color. Before I started collecting magazines, when I was in my early teens, I would go to the library at the community college and look at the Sunday editions of the New York Times on microfilm- every Sunday from the 1890s on there's been a fashion spread, and you can print out copies at the library if they have them for you to look at. I still have several file folders full of my research from back then.

 

[December]

I saw some gorgeous 1940s magazines in an antique shop the other day. They were in fairly good condition, and I really wanted some but I didn't buy any as I'm not sure how I would keep them in that condition.

Clocks, radios and so forth are fairly difficult to break. It wouldn't be hard to tear or crease a page of a magazine.

 

[Amy Jeanne]

I have over 200 movie magazines from 1912 to 1962 (heavy concentration from the late 20s to the early 40s!) I also collect "girlie" magazines from this era. I'm pretty obsessed with old magazines. I recently scanned and catalogued every single cover on my Facebook.

 

[scotrace]

This doesn't seem ladies only

Old magazines are a weakness. I have several Esquire from the 1930's, Ladies Home Journal (great advertising), House Beautiful, Ken, Hat Life, Life, and some old movie magazines.

 

[Foofoogal]

As I was thumbing thru my newest find The 1957 McCalls I found a Madame Alexander Yardley ad with the Ginny Doll. I love to find the surprises in the old magazines. One time I found a full placemat like a thick paper towel. I like to see some of the companies still around from then.
An ad for Arrow shirts in the 1951 said the company had been around for over 100 years. That is surprising to me.
http://www.sandysfancypants.blogspot.com

Oh and a side note. I adored Captain Kangaroo as a child and my mom said I would sit in front of the TV till it came on waiting. Until this magazine and the Betsy McCall page I never knew he was called that because of his big pockets like a Kangaroo had. Who knew?

 

[LizzieMaine]

Been collecting magazines since I was 13 -- started out with the general-interest titles like the Saturday Evening Post, Ladies Home Journal, Better Homes and Gardens, Life, and Look, and then branched into specialty titles. I also like trade publications -- I've got everything from the Gregg Secretarial News to Radio and Television Retailing -- and twenties humor magazines like Judge and the original Life. A recent discovery is Stage Magazine, the Magazine of After Dark Entertainment, which featured high-quality coverage of the 1930's night life.

As far as chronicling everyday life is concerned, I think Ladies Home Journal's series on "How America Lives" from the early forties is a must for anyone interested in the Era -- it appeared monthly during 1940-42, and is a fascinating time capsule of everyday family life.

My biggest magazine interest, though, is magazines dealing with radio -- I use them as source material for my writing and research on broadcasting history, and I collect any titles I can find from the twenties until the war years. These range from fan magazines like Radio Mirror, Radio Stars, and Radioland, to trade magazines like Broadcasting and Broadcast Advertising. My favorite radio publicatons are the weekly Radio Guide, especially from the mid-thirties, and Radio Digest, which hit its peak around 1930.

Magazine dust is my favorite aroma. If someone could bottle it, I'd buy a lifetime supply.

 

[Amy Jeanne]

The ads in these mags are hilarious and I have learned that if you don't keep up with feminie hygeine (i.e. using Lysol to clean your business) your husband won't love you anymore. :eusa_doh:

I will never tire of the feminine hygeine ads. NEVER. And the BO ads. "ANOTHER DATE LOST to b.o.!"

 

[Miss Sis]

To answer your question, Foofoogal, yes! I use them quite alot along with contemporary photographs.

Vintage magazines are an insight into the time they were printed. There are the articles on what concerned people then, the ads, (I love the 'use this product or your life will not be worth living' approach), fashion spreads, patterns, how to furnish your home etc etc, all interesting.

For fashion you just can't beat the Vogue shoots in the 1930s and L'Official which was sort of the French version, very high class, but I like ladies' magazines for their take on the average woman's life. I have a lovely British one called My Home which has great knitting patterns that suggests colour schemes for the knitteds - and whole outfits you can create around them.

My most favourite though is Stitchcraft. I'm not actually sure when it started to be printed - I've seen some from 1932. It is a needlecraft magazine. Every issue had a free transfer for embroidery and lots of knitting/crochet patterns, as well as Fashion News on Knitteds from France, cookery, lots of ads etc. I love it and hope to get all issues from 1934 - 1937, perhaps up to 1939. I have quite alot of them already, so I'm well underway!

 

[Coopsgirl]

Amy Jeanne,
The B.O. ads are so funny! I love how they refer to it as being "not dainty" if you stink. You have to keep your "daintiness" or you'll never get a man lol . One of my faves was done like a comic strip with different panels and the girl was wondering what happened to the nice young man who used to come around a lot. It had now become summer and she stunk, so he was keeping his distance until she started using Mum's or Odorno or whatever other brand it was.

 

[The Wolf]

I collect assorted pulps and a variety of magazines from 1946 (my favorite year), mostly June/July.
My wife has an 1934 Harper's Bazaar with an ad for German tourism that shows a Nazi motor parade with a big Nazi flag and a crowd giving the "heil" salute.

Sincerely,
The Wolf

 

[Flivver]

Magazine dust is my favorite aroma. If someone could bottle it, I'd buy a lifetime supply.

I couldn't agree more! That aroma can be intoxicating!

I started out with old National Geographics as a kid. I bought them for the car and radio ads...twelve for a dollar at an old bookstore my Mom had gone to when she was a kid.

When I was 14, I discovered a shop in town that specialized in back number magazines. I was in heaven. My first two purchases werte a complete set of Motor Trend (which I talked my parents into getting me for my 15th birthday) and a stack of Radio Digest Illustrated from the mid 1920s. More radio and car magazines followed as well as a bunch of Saturday Evening Posts from the 1920s.

In the late 1970s, I discovered some businesses that serviced libraries as clearing houses for bound back number magazines. These yielded 19th century Scientific Americans, automotive and radio trade magazines and countless others too numerous to mention. These businesses are long gone now, but I have fond memories of my visits there. Their storage buildings were filled with that wonderful old magazine aroma that Lizzie mentions in her post.

Since then I've added Life (both the comic Life and the photo Life) and old movie magazines from the teens to the 1950s to my library and have worked to fill in missing issues of radio magazines and automotive magazines. To me, there's nothing like old magazines to learn about a past era. Along with old movies, they're the next best thing to a time machine!

 

[dhermann1]

My parents worked on the Leatherneck Magazine, the magazine of the Marines, during WW II. (That's where they met.) And I have bound volumes of 1944 and 1945. It was considered the best magazine in the country during that time. Over a 50 year plus period I still find wonderfully absorbing material in them.
My dad, who did the layout for the magazine (if he lived to day he would be a Mac expert, In his time it was all India ink and T squares and Exacto knives) collected advertising art annuals from the late 1920's and early 30's. SOMEWHERE, packed away, are some magnificent German art magazines from 1929 thru 34, just incredible stuff. And he had a copy of Vol number 1 of a French art magazine called Verve. Quite a collector's item now. I need to dig them out and share them!

 

[Foofoogal]

And he had a copy of Vol number 1 of a French art magazine called Verve. Quite a collector's item now. I need to dig them out and share them!

you think? Sound very exciting. I would love to see this.

http://sandysfancypants.blogspot.com/

 

[Jack Armstrong]

Since I collect (and use) antique cameras, photo magazines from the 1935-1955 period are my favorite. But I also have Life, Collier's and a few workshop-fantasy magazines of the Science & Mechanics variety from the same period.