Woman Lives 1930s Lifestyle

[missjo]

True but everyone did get a choice to accept the way they lived or not.
The 1930s were a era when countless people went on strike, to war, started revolutions, many tried to change the world and how they lived.
It was a time of idealism and the desire for change.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Exactly. In many ways, the thirties were the sixties, without the self-righteousness.

 

[missjo]

Exactly. In many ways, the thirties were the sixties, without the self-righteousness.

And with style, class, better music, nicer clothes, better design, cooler movies, greater hairstyles, and better manners

 

[Mr. Hallack]

Yes this is an awesome thread. I don't think I can immerse myself as much, but I do love the styles of the 20's-50's and collect and preserve as much as I can. I also teach my kids about these decades too, even though at the moment they're not too interested, yet. (6 and 7 years old)

 

[englishrose]

I enjoyed that very much, thank you Would love to be able to do that with the 1940s, and see how people really coped during the war but don't think I'll ever get that chance!

 

[Chas]

Exactly. In many ways, the thirties were the sixties, without the self-righteousness.

Except there weren't soup lines in the 60's.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Depends on where you lived. The "War On Poverty" wasn't just pulled out of the blue.

 

[Dagwood]

I enjoyed that very much, thank you Would love to be able to do that with the 1940s, and see how people really coped during the war but don't think I'll ever get that chance!

I would recommend "1940's House."

 

[hubbit]

Exactly. In many ways, the thirties were the sixties, without the self-righteousness.

And with style, class, better music, nicer clothes, better design, cooler movies, greater hairstyles, and better manners

And with nearly impeccable personal grooming.

 

[missjo]

Just had another photo shoot in my house;
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hab3045/sets/72157627005722703/with/5908697836/

 

[St. Louis]

I thought I'd resurrect this thread because I find Miss Joeri's way of life, and her philosophy, so inspiring. I'm passionately fond of the music, furniture, clothing, movies, and ... well, let's say deportment of the 1930s and 1940s. I've felt this way since I was in my teens, but it's only when someone sent me a link to the youtube video (the one linked in the first post) that I realized that I could actually create that life for myself. I find it absolutely fantastic that someone has chosen to live in the 1930s -- that was one of those "aha" moments for me, and it suddenly struck me, "why on earth don't I do that too?"

I've always lived with early-to-mid 20th century furniture and dishes, and I've been slowly "retrofitting" my entire home life and clothes over the past few years to eliminate most of the contemporary stuff. It's about 90 percent there, not counting the kitchen (which I can't afford to re-remodel.) At least my dishes, toaster, waffle iron etc are all from the 1930s.

I'm quite grateful to Miss Joeri for the inspiration, because I don't think it would ever have occurred to me to live the life I love if I hadn't seen that video in the first place. I'm not done yet, but I have definitely enjoyed the process of getting there.

Just out of curiosity, about how many people on the FL actually live in the golden era? And how far do you go in your pursuit of the 1930s or 1940s?

 

[Shangas]

I dress more-or-less period (or as period as my current wardrobe allows), and work period stuff into my everyday routine.

I shave with a cutthroat razor. I write with a fountain pen. Type with a typewriter. Listen to vintage jazz and OTR. I Do my hair in a vintage style (at least, when it's not covered by a hat), and to achieve it, I use vintage hair-products and a pair of vintage men's hairbrushes, from the 1930s.

I collect all kinds of little vintage nicknacks.

Interesting story about the hairbrushes - My dad bought them at the flea-market for $8 YEARS ago, thinking that they were SHOE-BRUSHES. Fortunately, he never used them. And he kept them in their little leather pouch in the front closet. One day, I took them out and researched them. They were made by Kent Brushes of London (which still makes brushes to this day; and has done for over 200 years!!).

I fired off Kent an email about the brushes. A description, model-number, etc. They emailed back a few days later, saying that they were military-issue men's hairbrushes with ebony grips (check), leather case (check-check), and dated to ca. 1935!

Not bad for $8 at the flea-market!

I'm sure there are members here who go much further, but that's about the extent of my...um...submergence into this way of life.

 

[St. Louis]

Thanks, Shangas. I've been reading your blog--so informative & fantastically interesting! It inspired me to look for a portable typewriter. I saw one in a local thrift shop. The tag indicated that it's 1940s; is there a source that will help me figure out whether it really is from the 40s?

 

[LizzieMaine]

Get the serial number -- it should be on the back of the carriage or somewhere underneath it on the body of the machine -- and then do a search for the brand name. Most of the leading brands of typewriters have serial-number lists online.

I don't try to recreate a precise year or even a precise period -- but I guess I live a Golden Era lifestyle by default because it's what I've been doing as long as I can remember. Even when I was a little kid I lived in a neighborhood that was out of synch with "modern times," and I've never seen any good reason to diverge from that. This computer, and some of the equipment at work, are the only concessions I'm likely to make to modern ways as I hunker down here and wait for this whole 21st Century racket to blow over. It's like Faulkner said -- the past isn't dead, it isn't even past.

 

[CSG]

Very interesting and not such an easy thing to do if you remain accurate to the era in all things. Personally, I like to be inspired by things from the era (furnishings, books, an old radio streaming old music and shows via a modern internet wi-fi connection) but actually living like it was the 30's is more than I could do and still be a part of the modern world. I admire her dedication.

 

[Shangas]

Hi St. Louis,

Yes, there are certain ways to tell how old a typewriter is. These are GENERAL GUIDELINES, but if your typewriter has...

- No Spool-covers = Before 1930.

E.g.:

1926 Royal Portable Model 1.

1932 Royal Portable Model 2.

- Glass keys = Before 1945.

With advances in plastics, the old-fashioned glass typewriter-keys...

...pretty much died out by the end of the Second World War. Some manufacturers continued making glass-key typewriters up until about 1950, but as a general rule, most had stopped by 1945.

This is BY FAR the BIGGEST dating-factor. Almost without exception, if a typewriter does NOT have glass keys, it was made AFTER 1945. And if it was, then it was likely to be unsold prewar stock.

- Lack of 1, !, and other keys = Before ca. 1960

There is of course, no hard and fast rule about this, but MOST typewriters before the 1960s did not have those keys. Neither did they have dedicated 0-keys. One notable exception to this is the Imperial Model 50 desktop typewriter from 1927. I haven't seen another pre-1960s typewriter which came with such a layout. There probably were exceptions, but from what I've seen, they would've been few and far between.

The missing keys was an attempt by typewriter manufacturers to save money, and space. A lowercase L made the numeral '1', and a "'" + "." = !

Lizzie, I should warn that not all typewriter-serial-numbers are listed online. While most of the major brands are covred (Royal, Underwood, Remington, Olivetti, etc, etc, etc), not all the MODELS are covered.

- Plastic Parts = Postwar Machine.

No email back then. And no photocopiers. If you wanted typewritten material, it was done on your typewriter. They were used every single day, for every single application, from writing a love-letter to bookkeeping.

A typewriter with plastic parts would've cast doubt. Nobody would want to buy a machine that didn't look like it would last through an air-raid. Machines before the 1940s were almost completely devoid of plastic.

After WWII, machines started having plastic put into them. Usually, keys, but also bodies, platen-knobs etc.

Also...

Portable typewriters did not start showing up until after WWI.

There were a couple of portables (in a manner of speaking) BEFORE 1918, such as the Royal Standard, and the Corona 3, but the market didn't REALLY take off until 1919. In the 20s, portables started really coming out. Underwood, Royal, Remington, Corona, all produced portables during this time. It was their golden age.

So if you see a portable typewriter with a date on it of BEFORE 1919...be suspicious. Unless it's a Royal Standard...

...it ain't before 1918. And the Royal Standard was never very portable, anyway. It weighed nearly 20lbs.

By comparison, my typewriter weighs less than 10lbs.

Also...

I'd be weary of a machine dated "1940s". During the 40s, getting a typewriter (brand new, at least) was almost impossible. Royal, Underwood and Remington had all stopped civilian manufacture of typewriters by that point. Actually, I believe they'd stopped manufacture of ALL TYPEWRITERS at that point. From 1942-1945, they produced FIREARMS for the U.S. ARMY. Rifles and pistols, for the most part. They didn't resume manufacture of typewriters until 1945.

In Germany, typewriter manufacture continued throughout the war, I believe. They were manufactured few, and far between...and to even GET ONE you needed a special permit...but there you have it.

In fact, when the Allies came through Germany, they found a typewriter-factory still in operation. It wasn't churning out guns...but typewriters! They might have bombed it out of existence, but they saw the benefit of having a factory producing typewriters, so they left it alone, so that they'd have a source of writing-machines during the immediate postwar-era.

Also...

During the 30s, there were a LOT of cheap "Depression" typewriters. Remington and Royal were notable for these. They were cut-price, cheaply-built, no-frills typewriters, designed for the writer who'd lost all his money or hadn't been paid, but needed something to type on.

No frills? No kidding.

No capslock, no backspace, no platen-knobs, no lowercase keys, no fourth row of keys, no tab-keys, no margins...Some didn't even come with a return-lever.

 

[Flat Foot Floey]

Did you read about "Ghosts of History"? It is also the work from Jo Hedwig Teeuwisse (missjoeri in the FL) and maybe worth an own thread in the WW2 part of this forum.

http://www.facebook.com/thenandnowghostsofhistory
http://www.ghostsofhistory.co.uk/

 

[missjo]

Thanks all!

It may sound a bit odd and like I have a massive Ego, but I have a facebook page for myself and my house...
I do this because I get a lot of publicity in my little country and really don't want to add everyone to my private facebook page, also history is my business.
And yes, before you ask, I hate facebook

Me:
https://www.facebook.com/juffrouwjohedwigteeuwisse

My house:
https://www.facebook.com/jaren3040woning

 

[St. Louis]

It doesn't seem egotistical at all. In fact, I've always thought you should write a book: a "how-to" manual for other neo-traditionalists (or whatever we're called!)

I do learn a great deal on this forum, but I have to ask specific questions and dig through many old threads. It would be great to have a book that described the whole philosophy and process of finding your way forward to the past.

 

[missjo]

My house now has its own facebook page;
https://www.facebook.com/jaren3040woning
(lots of Dutch stuff though