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Vintage neon signs

2jakes

I'll Lock Up
Messages
9,680
Location
Alamo Heights ☀️ Texas
628915BD-19C5-425C-AC74-B672FE3039E1.jpeg

Crazy as this may sound but I like what time has done to this fixture.
Reminds me
of my original bikes from the 20s which I try to preserve as they were found with all the patina created over the years.
 
Messages
17,199
Location
New York City
I wasn't aware that tamales were known
outside of Texas until Lizzie pointed it out.
I was aware that California has them but
I didn't know they went that far back in
history especially for up North.
Which makes me wonder :(

View attachment 130589

In my house growing up, Italian food was about as adventurous and "ethnic" foodie as we got - tamales (I'm a big fan today) might have well been served on Mars for as much as they hit our very narrow menu options in the '70s in NJ. I'm sure they were out there in NJ, just wasn't what my family or those in our "Wonder Years" (TV show) type of neighborhood were eating.

It is amazing how much more food adventurous seemingly so much of America is today.
 

LizzieMaine

Bartender
Messages
33,735
Location
Where The Tourists Meet The Sea
In my house growing up, Italian food was about as adventurous and "ethnic" foodie as we got - tamales (I'm a big fan today) might have well been served on Mars for as much as they hit our very narrow menu options in the '70s in NJ. I'm sure they were out there in NJ, just wasn't what my family or those in our "Wonder Years" (TV show) type of neighborhood were eating.

It is amazing how much more food adventurous seemingly so much of America is today.

I used to eat those Hormel canned tamales, the kind that come wrapped in paper, when I was a kid, and my mother was horrified by them. "Looks like a giant cigarette made of dog food." But then, she was the type who thought egg foo yung was the height of Chinese cuisine.

Homogenization of "ethnic" food started to catch on in the US in the 1920s, when you started to see canned "Italian" and "Chinese" products in the average corner grocery store, and they really played up the ethnic aspects of it to make it seem exotic. Franco-American canned spaghetti, the most un-Italian Italian food ever hatched from the mind of man, had a picture of a European-looking boy in a Pagliacci-like costume on the label, and the contents of the can were described as "SPAGHETTI A LA MILANAISE." Which was 1920s Boys-speak for soggy noodles in Campbell's tomato soup with a dash of powdered Parmesan mixed in.

When Chef Boy-Ar-Dee appeared on the scene in the 1930s, his products were seen as quite a step up from the pasty, gooey canned Italian fare available up till then.

0e52e9c498dc525769e7c475784cc599.jpg
 

2jakes

I'll Lock Up
Messages
9,680
Location
Alamo Heights ☀️ Texas
One of the first Neon signs in America
Packard-sign.jpg

The technology of Claude's neon glow lamp is still widely used today, especially as a component of plasma displays and televisions. As a chemist, Claude made a series of notable discoveries. In his studies of inert gases, he found that by passing electrical current through them, they would produce light. Subsequently, he produced the neon lamp and his display in Paris was in the form of two long tubes. The adaption to signage was obvious and the first sign was reportedly sold to a Parisian barber in 1912. Claude would go on to become a man of considerable wealth. In 1923, Claude's company sold two neon signs to a Los Angeles-based car dealer and business pioneer, Earle C. Anthony. Neon and America were seemingly made for one another. Within less than twenty years, there were nearly 2000 businesses in the United States producing neon signs. By the 1950s urban centers were literally lit with commercial signage and advertisements–some of which still exist today.
 

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