Funny Vintage Ads (84)

 

 Advertising has always been an interesting way to look at history. But when you see these vintage advertisements, the past seems a lot stranger than you thought.

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Kung-Fu is Chinese, but these 1970s sandals are made in "Old Japan."

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Using a product to turn a black person white was a common advertising trope from the 1870s to the 1950s.

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This iconic Coke bottle design lasted from 1917 to 1965.

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"Speed from 3 to 20 miles an hour..." 
This first advertisement in a periodical for an automobile appeared in Scientific American in 1898.

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Dr Jeanne Walter's Medicated Rubber Undergarments (1909) included Head and Chin Straps and Face Masks. 

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"Helps kids grow huskier" sounded good in 1955 because most kids were thin.
Royal Dessert, founded in 1929, is owned by the Jel Sert Company, named after their first product, JelSert, a combination of the words Jelly and Dessert.

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Asbestocel pipe insulation had corrugated layers of asbestos paper, similar to corrugated "air cell" insulation. Asbestocel can still be found installed on low-pressure steam and hot-water pipe systems.  Although medical evidence in the 1930s linked asbestos exposure to mesothelioma, asbestos is still not banned in the United States. 

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In 1915, Washington DC area bowling alley owners advertised that bowling cured "Stomach-Fag" and prevented appendicitis. 

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The Bonomo Culture Institute published a lot of books about healthy living in the 1940s and 50s. All the books were written by Joseph Bonomo, an American weightlifter, strongman, stuntman, and actor. 

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Throughout the 19th century, most tobacco in the US was pressed into bricks and sold as "plugs." 

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Imagine the luxury and convenience of hanging out in the basement while the dryer runs!  All she needs is a glass of wine and good book.

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"The Key to Hypnotism" is included for those who prefer mind over muscle.

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This year's crop of panty hose for anorexics is ready for harvest.

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Nervine was a patent medicine tonic with sedative effects introduced in 1884 by Dr. Miles Medical Company (later Miles Laboratories).  Nervine contained bromides, a class of tranquilizers that was eventually banned for their toxicity.

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  "Cures female weakness"  
They should have called this a maternity belt, but they wanted to sell it to anyone with a low-hanging belly. References to the "female weakness" and the “weaker sex” were common in advertisements until the 1950s.

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"Ends the blown fuse nuisance" but not the overloaded circuit that caused it.

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"Rocket Times" Magazine was a favorite of introverted adolescent males in the 1970s who hadn't yet discovered computers. 

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Orizaba (1854-1887) was one of the first ocean-going steamships in commercial service on the west coast of North America and one of the last side-wheelers in regular use.

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 In the 1940s, the mail-order Wayne School of Practical Nursing, Inc could actually prepare a HS dropout for an entry-level job in nursing. Now it takes considerably more effort.

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The Great Chicago Fire of 1871 was hardly a triumph of insurance, except as a scare tactic.

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  As silly as this looks to us now, this book was actually a best-seller in the 1950s because average people knew almost nothing about the reproductive system.
High School sex education from the 1920s when it began, until well to the 1960s was confined to lectures on abstinence.    

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Bock was first brewed in the 14th century in Einbeck, Germany. American-style bock beers date back to the 1800s, when they emerged in every region of the U.S. with a large German population. The Minneapolis Brewing & Malting Company began as John Orth's Brewery in 1850. 

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It's always a good sales tactic to depict the customer holding a baby with one hand and operating your appliance with the other. 

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"Beer Belongs -- Enjoy It!"
Dad and his pals can knock back a few while listening to the ball game. Meanwhile Ma will look on enviously while serving up snacks.  That's the way the United States Brewers' Foundation depicted American life in 1947 and it was pretty accurate.

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"...guaranteed to contain one or more genuine cultured pearls -- possibly of surprising value!" 

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A1, tuna fish and cream cheese...what's not to like!

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 Is she really happy about getting a toaster for Christmas or is she plotting her revenge?  

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Early automobiles had no heater and were completely open to the weather. These rubber coats by Saks were very expensive for the time, but very necessary for winter driving.

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Wirephotos changed the way people understood and consumed the news. It wasn’t just that photos of an event on the other side of the World could now be published alongside news of that event, as groundbreaking as that was. But for the first time in history, millions of people were seeing the same photo of the same event on the same day. Wirephotos dominated newspapers from 1935 to the mid-1970s, when papers began adopting new types of photo technology, eventually leading to the digital world we live in today.

 

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"Don't let yourself become one more victim of modern sedentary existence!...The common-sense way to retain your present athletic fitness is to wear Linia Shorts."

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