Live Burros By Mail!

I want these at the Spencer's Gifts location in my local mall!

From THE ELKS MAGAZINE for October 1954.

Posted By: Paul - Fri Feb 24, 2017 - Comments (2)
Category: Animals, Retailing, 1950s

Joan Ridgway, Yodeling Cowgirl

Plenty more of her on YouTube. But hardly any biographical info. What little there is seems to indicate that despite all cultural signifiers, she was Australian, not American.

Posted By: Paul - Tue Feb 21, 2017 - Comments (6)
Category: Human Marvels, Music, 1950s, Australia, North America

Miss Photoflash

The first foto below is of the 1945 contest. Given that it was the "First Revue" of the sponsoring group, we can tentatively date it as the first such contest.



Original foto here.

The next foto is from 1968, and definitively labels the contest as being in its 24th year. Did it end then, amidst the tumult of the era?



Original foto here.

Here are the 1945 contestants again.

Posted By: Paul - Thu Feb 16, 2017 - Comments (1)
Category: Beauty, Ugliness and Other Aesthetic Issues, Contests, Races and Other Competitions, Photography and Photographers, Regionalism, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s

Eye-Analyzer

In the early 1950s, Steven Warren opened the Foundation for Better Reading — a Chicago-based school that taught speed reading. One of the gadgets used in the school were these "eye-analyzers" that allowed an instructor to watch the eye movements of a student, and tell them when they were moving their eyes too much.

Newsweek - Jan 11, 1954

Chicago Daily Tribune - Apr 22, 1951

Posted By: Alex - Wed Feb 15, 2017 - Comments (1)
Category: 1950s, Eyes and Vision

The Sky Is Your Target!

"Air Flash from the Joneses!" What if they had to deal with drones?

Posted By: Paul - Tue Feb 14, 2017 - Comments (3)
Category: War, Civic Duties, Air Travel and Airlines, 1950s

Home Radiation Detector

If the crystals are glowing, it's time to get going.

The Opelousas Daily World - Sep 6, 1957

Posted By: Alex - Sun Feb 05, 2017 - Comments (3)
Category: Atomic Power and Other Nuclear Matters, 1950s

Mink Can Opener

Original ad here.

Posted By: Paul - Fri Jan 27, 2017 - Comments (6)
Category: Excess, Overkill, Hyperbole and Too Much Is Not Enough, Advertising, 1950s, Alcohol

Follies of the Madmen #302

TV in the teepee. What could be more natural?

Posted By: Paul - Thu Jan 26, 2017 - Comments (4)
Category: Business, Advertising, Products, Stereotypes and Cliches, Television, 1950s

House Call from Faux Dress Fitter

Despite all the contemporary tales of ingenious upskirt photographers and toilet-cam operators, I don't believe anyone has recently utilized the "free dress comes with home fitting service" routine.




Original article here.

Posted By: Paul - Mon Jan 23, 2017 - Comments (1)
Category: Annoying Things, Crime, Domestic, Sexuality, 1950s

When Billboards Become Visible

If you're in the billboard business you'd probably want to know exactly when a billboard becomes visible to drivers. So in 1953 research was conducted at the Iowa State College Experiment Station to get an answer to this question. The study involved having subjects watch miniature billboards slowly approach on a conveyor belt.

Source: Duke University Libraries - Archives of the Outdoor Advertising Association of America.

The Duke University blog also notes that in 1958 "The OAAA commissioned Jack Prince, a professor of ophthalmology at Ohio State University, to study the visual dynamics of outdoor advertising, resulting in the first legibility studies of ad copy." I'm not sure how these two studies related to each other. They sound suspiciously similar. And the 1958 studies obviously weren't the first given that the pictures below show research labeled as happening in 1953.









Update: The researcher in the photos is probably Dr. A.R. Lauer of Iowa State's Department of Psychology, and he may have been studying the phenomenon of "Highway Hypnosis."

In the early 1950s there was increasing criticism of the proliferation of billboards along the side of roads. People complained that they were ugly and possibly distracted drivers. So the OAAA sponsored Dr. Lauer to research the safety benefits of billboards, and specifically whether billboards distracted drivers.

Lauer came up with the result that the billboards did distract drivers, but that this was a good thing because it saved them from Highway Hypnosis —entering a trance-like state as they stared at endless, monotonous roads.

The OAAA then took out ads in newspapers promoting Lauer's research and the safety benefits of billboards.

The Des Moines Register - Mar 23, 1958

Posted By: Alex - Fri Jan 20, 2017 - Comments (9)
Category: Advertising, Experiments, 1950s, Billboards