Advertising has always been an interesting way to look at history. But when you see these vintage advertisements, the past seems a lot weirder than you thought.
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Actual review posted on Amazon: "If we can accomplish all humanity has accomplished by using just 10% of our brains, why on EARTH would you use the unleashed 90% of it to make your boobs bigger??? Think about if your brain was 9 times more capable. And you're going to use it to generate tissue on your chest so men will gawk at you??? FOR CHRIST SAKE, SOLVE WORLD HUNGER OR SOMETHING."
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"Are you ready for Centaur? It’s the Massage Cologne… half man, half beast, all male!"
"CENTAUR makes no coy promises… finding HER is up to you… then CENTAUR gives her the message. She won’t say, ‘what are you wearing?’ She will say, 'You smell good!’”
Nope. She is much more likely to say, "Ewwwww. I'm not into bears. Get out of here, you disgusting hairy beast."
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Tharp and Thurston Roberts obtained a patent on a medicine known as Roberts Remedies #666 in 1908. It contained a high concentration of quinine and despite an awful odor and taste it became a best selling remedy for malaria, chills, fever, influenza, colds, constipation, and bilious headaches. 666 cold preparation and cold tablets are still being made by Monticello Drug Co. and sold primarily in the South.
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In 1874, Edward E. Phelps, M.D., professor of theory and practice in the Dartmouth Medical College, compounded the formula for a tonic made from celery seed. The formula was placed on the prescription books of M. K. Paine, a local druggist, and became known as Paine’s Celery Compound. Besides celery, the contents included 21% alcohol and cocaine, and trace amounts of heroin. This concoction packed quite a punch.
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"Give it to your lady love and spend happy hours discussing how foolish we can be. Or are we?"
Her first sight of the world’s shortest nightgown would most likely have your "lady love" rolling her eyes in bemusement or annoyance.
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In 1895, a show called “Black America” took place in Brooklyn, New York. 500 African American performers, including vaudevillians, dancers and singers recreated a southern cotton plantation, complete with cotton fields and slave quarters in order to portray the "happy life of the American slave" prior to the Civil War.
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"Specialty new novelty tie creation for men who demand the distinctive and unusual! Bring gasps of sheer wonder, thrilling admiration the first time you wear it! By day, smart, handsome tie, that is unrivalled for sheer beauty and extravagant good looks. By night a glorious goddess of light revealed for all to see! She loses her clothes as she glows in the dark! A glorious, gleaming blonde beauty revealed in daring pose in the briefest of costume, mysterious and magnificent!"
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1868 ad from a British newspaper
James Morison was once a household name in Britain thanks to his Universal Vegetable Pills that were first developed in the 1820s and still being sold in the 1920s.
“In short, the blind may gain their sight, the dumb may find a tongue,
The lame may quickly run a race, the old again be young.
One dose will make you laugh or cry and every belly fills,
In fact if you would never die take Vegetable Pills”
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I. B. Kleinert invented dress and garment shields for excessive perspiration as well as products for incontinence and founded Kleinert's, Inc. in 1869.
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An anti-communist ad from the McCarthy era (1950s):
"So REMEMBER -- if you patronize a Film made by RED Producers, Writers, Stars and STUDIOS you are aiding and abetting COMMUNISM . . . "
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Before the development of condensed milk in the 19th Century, raw milk would only be safe for a few hours without refrigeration. In 1856, Gail Borden invented the process of condensing milk by vacuum. By the time the Civil War began in 1861, condensed milk was such a staple for armies on the move, that the US government became Borden's biggest customer.
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AT&T trying to convince us that there would be no civilization and we'd all still be living in caves without AT&T
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In this ad, the US Rubber Company is trying to take credit for bringing life-saving blood plasma to the troops in World War Two, when in fact it was an African-American, Dr. Charles Richard Drew, whose research into blood preservation made the collection, transport, and use of blood plasma possible. Because racism was still so deeply ingrained in America, the Army, Navy, and Red Cross had separate blood banks for blacks and whites, and it remained that way throughout the war.
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"For catarrh, asthma, deafness, headache, colds and all throat bronchial and lung troubles. The only advertised remedy indorsed [sic] by the medical profession."
"Vaping" has a very long history. During the 5th century B.C., Herodotus, recorded his account of vaping as practiced by Scythians:
“The Scythians take some of this hemp-seed and throw it upon the red-hot stones; immediately it vaporizes and gives out such a vapor as no Grecian vapor-bath can exceed; the Scythians, delighted, shout for joy.”
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Weimar Pursell, one of the top illustrator artists of the 1930's and 40's created this anti-NAZI poster to encourage ride-sharing during World War 2 to save gasoline.
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"A daily wash with new Lux Kebab soap (for women) will freshen up your flaps and stop it stinking like an old kipper."
Sounds great, but what if your mimsy's mister loves a musky mimsy?
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"Smooth move to a really new breed of underpinnings that makes other controls old hat!"
Australia's most popular manufacturer of ladies undergarments was founded by a Mrs Burley and Mrs Gower in 1907 and became a multinational corporation by the 1930s. The Sarong was their main girdle design and its popularity was helped considerably by referring to the garments as "panties" instead of "girdles."
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The Nehru jacket is a hip-length tailored coat for men or women, with a mandarin collar, and with its front modeled on the Indian achkan or sherwani, a garment worn by Jawaharlal Nehru, the Prime Minister of India from 1947 to 1964. It was marketed in Europe and America in the mid 1960s and early 1970s, and was briefly a favorite of numerous rock bands, including the Beatles and the Monkees.
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Hopefully the "Red Ass" in this ad is a reference to the donkey logo and not the condition of your rear after a night of drinking. This is a table card for the famous Houston Bar, located at the Monterrey Gran Hotel Ancira in Mexico.
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"Listen! Before I go crazy, get me some Shorts with 'Grippers'!" Men! Why put up with "button bother"? Women! Why be "sewing slaves"? Shorts with GRIPPERS fasteners are laundry-proof— no buttons to sew on — no torn button holes to mend. They're neater and a thousand times more convenient! Be sure to ask your local dealer for shorts with GRIPPERS today."
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This Toilet Training Saddle Seat is trimmed with a gay Western motif for your pint-sized rhinestone cowboy.
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The Keeley Institute, known for its Keeley Cure or Gold Cure, was a commercial medical operation that offered treatment to alcoholics from 1879 to 1965. Founded by Dr. Leslie Keeley, who had studied alcoholism among Union soldiers during the Civil War, the movement claimed some 30,000 members and 200 branches in the US and Europe by 1897. Involving a series of painful hypodermic shots and strict lifestyle changes, Keeley claimed his solution had a 95% cure rate. The FDA began to investigate the Keeley cure in the early 1900s, and discovered the injections contained morphine, cocaine, and other drugs.
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"I am de cook and de Hub Range am de cooker" Smith & Anthony Company of Boston, Massachusetts was a high end stove, fireplace and range furnace manufacturer during the late 19th century. The company went out of business in 1917.
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Do you suffer from cholera, epilepsy, scarlet fever, etc.? Don't worry, because you’re just an electromagnetic bath away from being completely cured. Introducing “Bonnore’s Electromagnetic Bathing Fluid.” -- patent registered to Louise Bonnore in San Jose, CA in 1881.
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"Sabrina demonstrates the world's finest projection equipment ..." reads this Bell & Howell ad from 1959.
Heh heh. Get it? "Projection equipment..."
Sabrina was the voluptuous British lass, Norma Ann Sykes (1936-2016); a 1950s glamour model who became famous for her "projection equipment."
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"It will test the capacity of the Lungs, as accurately as a $50,000 lung testing machine"
That seems unlikely, since this device doesn't actually measure anything.
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The Revigator of the early 1900s was intended to be filled with water overnight, which would be irradiated by the uranium and radium in the liner, and then consumed the next day. This was marketed as a healthy practice which could prevent illnesses including arthritis, flatulence, and senility.
The Revigator contained carnotite. Water stored overnight in a vintage Revigator was analyzed, and although the water contained higher levels of radon, the health risk from radiation was low. Even so, the water contained detectable levels of arsenic, lead, vanadium, and uranium.
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This ad for Dormeyer Appliances advises women to circle the household devices they want their husbands to buy, and should he not oblige, the wife is urged to ... cry. "Not a lot. Just a little. He'll go, he'll go." And the husband is urged to avoid spousal waterworks by buying her just what she wants.
The A.F. Dormeyer Corporation began in Chicago in the early 1900s with a line of hand-held mixers. The typical Dormeyer appliance was priced higher than their competitors and by 1968, Dormeyer went out of business.
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"Too bad about the headache, Joe. But the audience paid to laugh. They came for amusement, entertainment and fun. To roar at your jokes, to cheer and applaud. Show after side-splitting show, the big time comedian wants laughter. Knows they can sense it if he's out-of-sorts. That's why a comic can't afford to have headaches."
"California Prunes are a natural health aid." That's true, but since when do prunes help headaches?
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Button & Ottley Manufacturers company was located at 56 Warren Street, and later at 71 Barclay Street, in what is now called the TriBeCa (Triangle Below Canal) neighborhood in New York City. The company was in business from 1880 to 1910.
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