Vintage Sationery

[poetman]

I'd like to know what kind of stationery was popular in the 40's. What did students and writers use: legal pads, blank? What brands were most common, and what notebooks were most often used? I'd appreciate any feedback.

Thanks!

 

[Atterbury Dodd]

My brother has an old composition book (pre 1960's), let me see if I can get a few pictures up tomorrow...

 

[Mike in Seattle]

Those you mention would have been used as today - mostly casual notetaking and memos.Since most today use laser or inkjet printers, and email for much contact of the type that used to be on paper, papers are aimed to those purposes. Offices used better quality paper than today's laser / copy bond paper. Top of the line was, and arguably still is, Crane's and the like. And of course, better quality papers worked best with fountain pens, the pens used most upto WWII.

 

[Shangas]

From the 1870s until the 1950s, the most common writing instruments were the pencil, fountain pen, dip pen and the mechanical typewriter. Paper had to be of a good quality if you were going to write on it. It had to be smooth, absorbent, free from fiddly fibres and fairly strong. Most really thin, modern paper today wouldn't survive if it was put up to a dip-pen or a fountain pen (the main writing-tools of the 1940s), and the heavy, metal typebars of a typewriter would just smash it to pieces.

I think people would've used legal pads - Nice, heavy pads of good, thickish, strong paper which was smooth, cheap and plentiful. Manufacturers like Moleskine, Crane and Original Crown Mill were probably the most common back then. I think all three are still in production.

Another piece of stationery you might have needed was blotting-paper. There are still companies which make traditional writing-grade blotting-paper. But I find it more convenient to use a paper-towel folded over and then screwed into the base of my rocker-blotter. It does the job just as well and it's a million times cheaper.

 

[poetman]

It's hard to believe Moleskine, Crane, and Original Crown Mill were used for common note taking purposes, as Moleskine's paper is very thin and all three are rather pricey.

Would legal pads or blank writing paper have been more common?

 

[Shangas]

Yes, annoyingly, Moleskine is rather expensive. But it was used by several famous authors, so it had to have been good paper.

I think the general population would've used cheaper notebooks or legal-pads. Probably lined, instead of plain. Just for the convenience.

 

[poetman]

what brands would people have used?

 

[ThesFlishThngs]

For the budget-minded, I've seen some Moleskine ripoffs, er, I mean replicas, at Borders, I believe. They look the same, are made in China, and called Piccadilly. While I have all kinds of papers and journals, including several varieties of Moleskines, for every day jotting down of things, a cheaper version would serve me fine.

 

[Miss Neecerie]

Just because I was bored...


http://www.thefedoralounge.com/showthread.php?t=42280

http://www.thefedoralounge.com/showthread.php?t=37952

http://www.thefedoralounge.com/showthread.php?t=34973

http://www.thefedoralounge.com/showthread.php?t=31200

 

[Shangas]

Letter-writing paper is A5 paper these days. Not sure what it was back in the old days.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Cheap writing tablets were perhaps the most common thing for everyday writing -- shopping lists, casual letters, anything non-fancy. Schoolkids would have been expected to report to class with a Big Chief tablet -- a large rectangular pad of ruled newsprint with a picture of an Indian chief on the cover, available in sizes from 10 x 12 down to 5 x 9. These were still available up into the '90s.

Another popular brand was "Masterpiece" tablets, which featured smudgy reproductions of famous paintings on the cover. Anything like this would have been the usual writing paper for ordinary people of the time.

 

[Fletch]

For this kid the Big Chief experience was not complete without a fat carpenter's pencil, usually sold right next to the tablets at TG&Y or Rexall's.

 

[poetman]

Cheap writing tablets were perhaps the most common thing for everyday writing -- shopping lists, casual letters, anything non-fancy. Schoolkids would have been expected to report to class with a Big Chief tablet -- a large rectangular pad of ruled newsprint with a picture of an Indian chief on the cover, available in sizes from 10 x 12 down to 5 x 9. These were still available up into the '90s.

Another popular brand was "Masterpiece" tablets, which featured smudgy reproductions of famous paintings on the cover. Anything like this would have been the usual writing paper for ordinary people of the time.

Thanks! So, the ubiquitous legal pad wouldn't have been that popular, and most people were writing on blank paper? Interesting. Was this paper like typing paper or of a different quality?

 

[Shangas]

"Newsprint" brings up thoughts of cheap, soft paper of the kind used in newspapers...I doubt it would survive in a typewriter...but who knows?

 

[LizzieMaine]

You wouldn't use tablet paper in a typewriter -- you'd buy "Typing Paper" for that, which came in different grades and surface qualities from bond to onionskin. It had a toothier surface than modern multipurpose office paper, and took ribbon impressions much more cleanly. You could get it as individual sheets or bound into tablets.

Big Chief paper was pretty rough stuff -- think of yellow lined school paper as the closest equivalent, except the Chief's sheets were more off-white. You could use it with a pen, but it didn't give the cleanest possible line.

Legal pads weren't all that common for general public use -- but "ruled ink tablets" were sold, and that was probably the closest equivalent. Basically a Big Chief with a better grade of paper. "Scratch pads" also existed, which were the same type of ink-grade paper without ruling, bound into small tablets. And of course, the ordinary steno notebook was very common.

 

[Dexter'sDame]

Papers for every purpose, and 1945 Emily Post on stationery

As, Lizzie and others have covered so well, papers for offices, students, and homes had specific purposes and sizes.

As to letter paper, there's an entire chapter on letter stationery, its selection, and its usage in my 1945 Wartime edition of Emily Post's Ettiquette (Chapter 41). The rules for pre-War stationery are similar, if not identical to, my 1945 edition. As with many things, World War 2 was a contributor of social change.

Before WW2, unless someone was in dire circumstances, you'd never see someone write a letter on just any paper. Men and women and boys and girls of a certain age had stationery, the quality of the paper and printing/engraving depending upon your social status (although Emily Post phrased this more diplomatically). Alternately, members of the family living under one roof shared "family" stationery which simply had the family's address printed on it, or if a "large country house," the address, telegraph station or telephone number, and nearest railroad station with little pictures of a house, a train, etc. printed next to each.

Page 497 describes "Paper for a Man": "Writing paper for a man should always be conservative. Plain white, or cream, or gray or granite, or a deep blue (not turquoise) paper of medium or larger size, and stampd with his address or his initials, or, for social correspondence, with his crest is in good taste. The color of the stamping (or printing) should be black or gray, navy blue, or brick red."

Page 495-496 also mention that "For a handwriting which is habitually large, a larger sized paper should be chosen than for writng which is small. The shape of your paper should also depend somewhat upon the spacing of the lines which is typical for the writer.....Low spread out writing looks better on a sqare sheet of paper; tall, pointed writing looks better on paper that's high and narrow."

Regardless of your social status and occupation, prior to WW2 writing a letter on lined paper was out of the question; if your handwritng wasn't straight and neat, you used a lettering guide, which was a sheet of lined paper placed beneath the stationery you were writng on so you could follow the lines.

Given that "only 5 percent of white adults and 1 percent of blacks had completed college in 1940" (Source: New York Times article citing a Census Bureau report), and that the Depression was still on, if you were a college student in 1940, you were probably from a well-to-do family and would have used nice stationery, along with the social customs (Post's) that went along with it. During the War, soldiers most likely wrote to their loved ones on whatever paper they could get.

 

[Mike K.]

Just because I was bored...
http://www.thefedoralounge.com/showthread.php?t=42280
http://www.thefedoralounge.com/showthread.php?t=37952
http://www.thefedoralounge.com/showthread.php?t=34973
http://www.thefedoralounge.com/showthread.php?t=31200

Any reason why all these common threads cannot be merged into one for easier reference?

 

[vintage_jayhawk]

As, Lizzie and others have covered so well, papers for offices, students, and homes had specific purposes and sizes.

As to letter paper, there's an entire chapter on letter stationery, its selection, and its usage in my 1945 Wartime edition of Emily Post's Ettiquette (Chapter 41). The rules for pre-War stationery are similar, if not identical to, my 1945 edition. As with many things, World War 2 was a contributor of social change.

Before WW2, unless someone was in dire circumstances, you'd never see someone write a letter on just any paper. Men and women and boys and girls of a certain age had stationery, the quality of the paper and printing/engraving depending upon your social status (although Emily Post phrased this more diplomatically). Alternately, members of the family living under one roof shared "family" stationery which simply had the family's address printed on it, or if a "large country house," the address, telegraph station or telephone number, and nearest railroad station with little pictures of a house, a train, etc. printed next to each.

Page 497 describes "Paper for a Man": "Writing paper for a man should always be conservative. Plain white, or cream, or gray or granite, or a deep blue (not turquoise) paper of medium or larger size, and stampd with his address or his initials, or, for social correspondence, with his crest is in good taste. The color of the stamping (or printing) should be black or gray, navy blue, or brick red."

Page 495-496 also mention that "For a handwriting which is habitually large, a larger sized paper should be chosen than for writng which is small. The shape of your paper should also depend somewhat upon the spacing of the lines which is typical for the writer.....Low spread out writing looks better on a sqare sheet of paper; tall, pointed writing looks better on paper that's high and narrow."

Regardless of your social status and occupation, prior to WW2 writing a letter on lined paper was out of the question; if your handwritng wasn't straight and neat, you used a lettering guide, which was a sheet of lined paper placed beneath the stationery you were writng on so you could follow the lines.

Given that "only 5 percent of white adults and 1 percent of blacks had completed college in 1940" (Source: New York Times article citing a Census Bureau report), and that the Depression was still on, if you were a college student in 1940, you were probably from a well-to-do family and would have used nice stationery, along with the social customs (Post's) that went along with it. During the War, soldiers most likely wrote to their loved ones on whatever paper they could get.

Great summary! It's unfortunate that letter writing is a dying art.

 

[Foofoogal]

For this kid the Big Chief experience was not complete without a fat carpenter's pencil, usually sold right next to the tablets at TG&Y or Rexall's.

no kidding. memories.
i just bought each of my granddaughters their own stationary, It was very difficult finding something fun and together in a box. Nice pencils and of course stamps. So they can write Nana.
http://sandysfancypants.blogspot.com

 

[poetman]

This site has some very nice close-up shots of an old stationery store. You can click the photos to enlarge them. I wish I knew what all that inventory was.

http://www.ameshistoricalsociety.org/exhibits/tribune/09/wf_0903b.htm