23 October 1956 “Covetous of the Fitted Sheets, A New Comic, and an Easy Bread Recipe”

I have talked about fitted sheets before and yes they were available here in the 1950’s. But, I found this ad the other day in a 1954 magazine and I was instantly covetous! I want this style fitted sheet. Does anyone know if they still make them this way? To have the top and bottom sheet joined would be a treat for we homemakers making beds every day. Particularly if one had a large family. I also love the smart blue and white room, don’t you?
I think the latest vintage comic I put on the site has an interesting observation: It is funny, yes, but telling. A home in 1950’s with six people might very well only have one bathroom, not so today. Children sharing rooms even into their teens and a family sharing one bathroom was normal. The opportunity for new home ownership was a wonderful result of post war American, but it was also a realistic goal a young family could afford. I also like the style of the drawing as well, don’t you?
I think I have shared this recipe before, but I will do so again. It is very easy. It is a traditional bread in the sense that you have to let it rise, knead again and rise a second time, but honestly a no fail recipe. I can’t recall where I got it originally, but it now sits in my hand on a little index card in my recipe file. It is much used.

Easy White Bread

• 3/4 cup warm water
• 1 package active dry yeast
• 1 tsp salt
• 1-1/2 tbsp sugar
• 1 tbsp butter, softened
• 1/2 cup milk
• 3 cups all-purpose flour, approximately

Mix yeast and warm water in bowl until dissolved. Add the salt, sugar, butter, and milk and stir to mix.
Next I start one cup of flour at a time, as you may not need 3 cups or may need more, it depends on your humidity, elevation all that. You will know, however, as you want the dough to ‘chase the spoon around the bowl’ as they say. So you can pick it up and it is not too sticky.
Knead in flour and put in a bowl you lightly coated in butter. Turn it once (so it has a nice buttery sheen), place a towel dampened in warm water over it and place in a warm oven. I always turn my oven on warm as I am mixing it up and then turn it off when I put this into rise. It seems to make it a good environment for the rising. Let set one hour.
Next take it out (it will be like a science experiment the first time to see it so large-it is fun!) and re-knead a few times and shape into a cute little loaf shape and pop it into a buttered bread tin. Cover again with the towel, re-dampened warm and let set for 30 minutes. Preheat oven to 375 F.
Now, it is risen, so place it in the oven and bake about 40 minutes. You will know when it is down as it will have a nice brown top. And a bread is done when you can tap it lightly on top and hear an almost hollow thud.

This bread is SO easy. It just seems involved because of the time in between, but you can still do other things when this is going on. You will love this bread for toast, French toast, sandwiches. It cut’s a treat and stores well. And, if you make two or three loaves at once, will last a good sized family the week.
And look how lovely it rises and it is so wonderful warm from the oven with butter.
I also recently found out about the bleaching of white bread. My hubby read an article and shared it with me. I was shocked to find out that the way we bleach bread in this country is not even allowed in Europe and elsewhere. It literally involves bleach and, of course, is then in the flour. Actual bleached flour, as was often used, is done so by exposure to light. I have statistics and things, but I shall save that for another day’s post. Suffice it to say that I felt anger and frustration at our so called FDA (Food and Drug Administration) which seems to be more a voice for quick production and money for the few, than an actual federally funded institution that cares about the safety and health of our food. I now buy unbleached white flour. It tastes the same, is only a bit more yellow than bleached, and works the same as bleached flour. What makes me angry is I, who make most things from scratch, can simply make that choice to switch to better flour. Yet, all those of you out there who do rely more on store bought due to busy schedules and time cannot. Most things are made with bleached flour which literally is bleach. Think about a product we use with gloves when cleaning, needs warning labels on cleaning products, but is okay in our food apparently. It is actually illegal to bleach that way in other countries, which is scary enough for me. So, just a little bit of warning to any of you. Or if any of you know more about it, please share with us.
*Site news-new recipe of the week on main page, new vintage cartoon, and new video (the New Eames chair). I realized yesterday the design flaw in that all the new items appear on every page not only the Home Page. This would mean me changing ALL the pages every week. So, new changes just on Home today. Yesterday’s site day resulted in my working on the new menu link. In so doing I feel I may have mapped out and scheduled (you know I love making lists!) a main structure for myself for the coming year. The new menu (not yet uploaded) is almost a goal for me to flush out through the year. Like a great research and testing challenge for the year! It was almost cathartic, as if I was mapping out my knowledge for the coming year. I also think starting next week I will blog m-f and have Saturday be my site day and then Sunday answering reader question. Thank you all again.)

22 October 1956 “First Day of Site Day”

For those of you who have not visited the new site, you may not know my new blogging schedule. I now plan on my usual daily blogging M-TH and then Friday is going to be given over to Site maintenance. At this stage of the game that actually means still messing about with the layout and a bit of new content.

My hope is to get the site laid out to run smoothly enough that each Friday will find me going meticulously through all my old posts and inserting all the relevant information into the appropriate sections of the site. This will result, hopefully, in a well organized place to find any and all info that I have collected on Vintage life and History.

Today my big task is to reorganize the organization of the site. My simply buttons and links now are going to have a major re-haul as I try to learn how to make a more sophisticated and better to use file structure. Hopefully I can get that up by the end of the day (it is my plan). This will almost complete the skeleton of the site and allow me to begin filling in the meat, as it were.

For those of you who read me daily, again thank you for your kind words of encouragement and for putting up with my posts while I am ‘under construction’, I am afraid the editing is even below my normal sub-par level. But I hope you get the ‘gist’ of my posts during this time.

I will update here in the comments or a new post later today when I have uploaded whatever ‘site work’ I have accomplished today.

The remainder of my blog schedule will be Sat, normal blogging and Sundays, answer of reader questions. If you have or want to ask anything of me to have answered on Sundays either go to the Contact button on the site or simply click HERE to do so. I only use your name/blog link if you ask me to, if you merely ask a question, I will assume you are anon and will simply post the question and answer. If you would like your name/blog/web address included, then simply tell me to do so and of course include it in the email.

So far today I have been trying out a new header and logo I designed, which will show up now on some of the pages. I also need to point out that I have solved the SEARCH WINDOW issues and you will find on the pages with the new logo that the search window now works. It is in the upper right corner and searches my site and blog. Let me know how that works out for you.

Have a great day and as always, Happy Homemaking!

21 October 1956 “Cooking Pork Chops and Investing in the 1950’s”

Even though I am now going to be answering reader questions on Sundays, I thought there were two good comments on last post. So, for today’s post, I want to include them.
The first is from an Apronite who hails from Canada:

I have an off topic question, do you have an easy recipe for blade pork chops or butt pork chops.<<
I often cook them as my grandmother did in the 50`s with great results and the help of lipton onion soup mix :) They always turn out tender, but I would like another simple way to do them.......I never fry my food, and bake everything in the oven when I cook, as my mom did.

Well, first off, pork chops are very 1950’s. In fact the current president (Dwight Eisenhower) wife, Mamie was known to say, “Ike runs the country, and I turn the pork chops”.
I cook my chops both on the stove and in the oven. Usually when I bake my chops I either stuff them or at least have a stuffing of sorts over them in a covered pan to hold their moisture.
Let’s look at the pork chop. This image from my 55 Fannie Farmer cookbook shows us where the chop comes from. (click to view full size) Many people think of pork chops as being equivalent to the consistency of shoe leather. This stems largely from the fact that we were told for many years, including the 1950’s, too overcook it due to possible disease. As you can see in the diagram they say “All pork cuts require long cooking”. That is actually not true. I have a friend who recently did a ServeSafe class for her job. We now realize that pork should be tender and can be pink and doesn’t need to reach an internal temperature of any greater than 145 F. Sometimes to be safe, I might go as high as 160 F, but once you taste the sweet juicy flavor of a pink chop you will never go back.
Here is the instructions from that same Fannie Farmer book for chops:
Here are two pork chop recipes from my General Foods Cookbook.
I often cook my chops on the stove top. My way is very easy. This is easier, I think, if you use a cast iron pan, as the heat is retained. I simply season my chops on both sides with salt, pepper, (sometimes pepper corns), Coriander, and bit of sugar. Get your pan to a medium to hot heat range. Once the pan is hot, I add my fat. I often use bacon fat, which I save from my breakfasts. I suggest you use a fat that smokes at higher temps, such as bacon fat or olive oil. In the 50’s it would have been bacon fat, but today grape seed oil, peanut oil, those also don’t smoke until a higher temperature. While unrefined canola oil and sunflower and safflower smoke at around 250 F. I have a list of oils and the temperature at which they heat up on the COOKING page. If you go there, scroll down you will see it. (Simply click on it and it should enlarge. I finally found what I was doing wrong to not allow pop ups to work).
Now, pop the chops in the pan, don’t let them touch. I only give it maybe 2-5 minutes per side. You want it to look lovely and brown, then flip it and use the same amount of time and then put a lit on, turn off the heat and let it sit for 5 minutes. A cast iron pan will hold the heat and continue to cook when it is off the flame. If it is stainless steel, just turn the flame very low and cover for about 5 minutes. That is honestly as long as it can take. It is very simple and so juicy.
A meat thermometer is really good to have to test your meats. I use mine for roasts and birds all the time, but for something thin like a steak or a chop, I just use my finger. There is an old finger test to help you learn what raw to over cooked meat feels like. If you touch the fleshy bit of your hand below your thumb, with your hand relaxed, it is what raw meat feels like. Now, touch your thumb and your pinky and touch the same spot, that is Well done, and as you go through your fingers to thumb until you reach your index (that being rare feeling) you can learn to touch the doneness of food. The more ‘in there’ you are with your food the better, I have found.
I literally barely boiled water before 1955 and now find myself rather comfortable in the kitchen. The act of being a part of the food, touching and tasting and seasoning as you go, is really an integral part to being a homemaker, I feel. I often associate the kitchen with the art studio and one finds, in art as well, that the more in touch with the creation, often the better the result. This seems to be the same with food.
I have used the above baked recipes for my chops, only I really reduce the cooking time. If the chop is stuffed, it should bake a bit longer, but again, we must think of pork more like beef and less like chicken. Don’t over cook it.
Sometimes I will make a quick stuffing from leftover cornbread crumbs or bread crumbs and wrap the meat around it and toothpick it and pop it in the oven, covered and seasoned in a bit of water for about 20 minutes. I like to take the top off for the last five to crisp up the stuffing, as we like it that way.
Not sure if that helps. And please, others share your pork chop secrets with us!
The second comment I thought we could address today comes from hotpinksky35 who wrote:

One thing I've noticed about finance in the 50's is that as far as investing goes their seemed to be much more emphasis on savings bonds and life insurance in the mainstream media. Not much on mutual funds (and I know they had them back then) Maybe it was a product of the times. The rates on bonds couldn't have been high. Maybe they just had whole life insurance back then which is touted more as a financial investment than term life insurance is. Did they have term life insurance back then? With moms not working as much, maybe there was a greater perceived need for life insurance.

Is the lack of emphasis on mutual funds, stocks, currencies etc back then really a reflection of the growth of the financial services industry over the past 50 years especially with the growth of 401k plans? Personally after Enron and Goldman Sachs etc fiascos I've come to the conclusion that much of the financial services industry the mutual fund companies brokerage houses magazines Jim Cramer tv networks are all a bunch of hooey... They are selling most of the public a bill of goods and most don't take the time to learn about investing. I think you can make more money investing in stocks in the long term than you can keeping it in a savings account. But I think the financial services industry is trying to convince the public they can all become overnight millionaries by doing some $4 trades on etrade. Blah dont get me started.

I think with regards to investing we were better off in the 50s with defined pension plans savings bonds and life insurance. Most people don't know enough about investing to really grow their accounts in their 401K the way they should. I didn't until recently. I have taken the initiative to learn and my returns have improved significantly. Most people aren't going to take the time to learn the way I have.

In 1952 only  6.5 million Americans owned common stock (about 4.2% of the U.S. population). Many people were still aware of and frightened by the market crash in 1929. So, many people in the 1950’s on average, shied away from stocks.It actually took until 1954 before the Dow Jones Industrial Average exceeded the peak in 1929.
It was more complicated and expensive to invest in the 1950’s as well. One didn’t merely go onto an e-comerce/investment site and buy up some shares. This, however, had many advantaged to today’s investing. I think many of us today merely see it as another item to purchase. And, as we are a purchasing people, if you make it easy, we will come!
A very interesting item I discovered today while researching this idea, was the Glass-Steagall Act which was passed in 1933. This act made it illegal for commercial banks to collaborating with full-service brokerage firms or participate in investment banking activities. In 1933, the country was in the depths of a Depression caused by the financial crisis of the stock markets. The very concept of trading and the ‘get rich quick’ mania, that many people still assume was just a part of the ‘American Dream’ was actually born out of such trading in the 1920’s. It’s result, we now see. So, the act was made.
Now, what I find very interesting and what I am always pointing out here is that we don’t seem to want to look to our past. We, as a people, have a very short term memory and it seems to get shorter all the time. We, ourselves, recently suffered a very bad financial problem owing very much to stocks and investments and brokerage and banking. And, it will be interesting for you to know that the Glass-Steagall act was dismantled in 1999! It then became possible for commercial banks and brokerage firms to intermingle and what we once considered ‘good solid banks’ really just became another leveraging money making risk institution. If you want to read more about the Glass-Seagull act go HERE.
The cost to individual to invest, then was higher. Fixed commissions were the norm, meaning what one had to pay their broker to handle the transaction between your choice, money and final stock, was rather set in stone. No competitive online pricing nor no brokerage fee deals. The technology of the day, as well, made such instant transactions non existent. Overseas investing, at this point, was almost not there. One could say, however, that the time it took and the limited information and the need of a trained professional made one less likely to part with their money.
And actually, mutual funds were not available until the very late 50’s and into the 60’s as we know them today. And certainly not something the average middle class American would even know about.  In fact what was to become Mutual Funds were only an idea in a Princeton grads thesis paper in the early 50’s. He went on to form and manage the now largest fund, Vanguard 500.

By the end of the 1960s, there were approximately 270 funds with $48 billion in assets. The first retail index fund, First Index Investment Trust, was formed in 1976 and headed by John Bogle, who conceptualized many of the key tenets of the industry in his 1951 senior thesis at Princeton University. It is now called the Vanguard 500 Index Fund and is one of the world's largest mutual funds, with more than $100 billion in assets.

So, it seems that the beginning of the 1950’s still saw very conservative attitudes toward investing. But, as the decade comes to a close we see a change. In 1954, the NYSE announced its monthly investment plan program, which allowed investors to invest as little as $40 per month.  This was really the precursor to the mutual fund concept and was used later by them. $40 dollars in today’s money would be roughly $280.00 something middle and lower middle class families may have had trouble finding. Particularly our Terre Haute family who saves a small weekly allotment.
This great little film does a good job explaining the late 1950’s new idea of investing. It will not come out until next year, 1957.(As an aside, this video and all others I will include in my posts can now also be found on my youtube channel. I have a page on the site specifically for that HERE.)

I think when you consider the ticker tape and the need to literally push paper and make calls to buy stocks, and therefore the time between your desire to own a share and your actually buying it, make stock ownership rather a turtle’s pace endeavor compared to  today’s instant digital world.
I also think we can see again how since that time we have been fed the very concept of the product. The idea of buying and we as consumers is vastly different from the 1950’s. It was beginning then, surely, but today it is easy to spend and most people have no idea what they spend even in one day, let alone a year.
Before 1955, I had little idea of money spent. I knew roughly what we hand and when to pay bills and all that. Yet, it was nothing for me to go out, almost daily, and buy here and there with my Debit card (another new invention created to make us mindless spenders). And, I cannot say how much the credit and debit card hurts the small business. I was once a business owner and the amount of fees I paid for every transaction was criminal. When you buy something from a small business and pay with debit/credit the owner has to take his profit from what is left after his/her cost of the product and then the percentage that goes to the credit/debit company. Another example of the commercial bank acting differently. And, another reason to use cash especially when supporting local business. Large concerns such as Wal-Mart and their ilk pay almost nothing and in some cases literally nothing to process these fees. So, the increased use and advertising for the convenience of them only drives another nail into small business and the middle class way of life.
And, really, that is what it comes down to with investing: convenience and ease. We are always sold on how much ‘better’ it is to have things “FAST AND NOW”. If a thing is done quicker and we get things faster that is better, we are told. Yet, what happens when we make haste? That is right, Waste. The old adage holds true. There is little time to think about what we are spending, how we should be saving, or where our money is even going when we can go online click a button and magically buy things. Hop down town with the gals, coffee, drinks, no problem plastic solves it. When really many of us have little idea what we are spending our money on. And, this in my opinion, is how the modern armchair investor works. It’s easy and ‘lower cost’ so why not do it? Yet, many people lost not only their nest egg, but in some cases as in 401K they felt safely invested for their retirement literally gone.
I heard a story of a man who was a driver for an electric company. When that company was bought out by Enron his 401K retirement plan was shifted to Enron stocks. He didn’t know as he merely paid out each week to his retirement. When Enron fell, the locked out small investors while the top few percent took millions out. This fellow had 300,000 dollars in his retirement and was close to retirement age. When they unfroze it after the crash, he was left with $1200.00! That’s not 12 thousand but 12 hundred. That is why when people say they are against caps or regulation saying it isn’t part of the free trade, they are only being lied to. It merely allows a free reign for large companies to do as they wish. And these regulations we saw fit to put in place, such as the Glass-Steagall Act, are simply wiped out and the general public has no idea. I think the 1950’s was simpler in what was going on so one had time to be more aware of what was happening in their world. Today we seem happy to forget our yesterday’s, why bother?
So, the continual lesson learned from the 1950’s: Pay attention and think before you act and plan plan plan and Be aware of  your world and  your wallet. Act with rational thought and consideration not  childish heated whims or anger. I wish we could get a 1950’s school teacher to come in and teach basic manners to many of our ‘news channels’ and the Government at large.
**As an addendum, I just want to add that from now on every post will subsequently be placed into the new site. So, today this site can be accessed again under the COOKING PAGE as well as the 1950’s PAGE. This way you can see how the site will build up with my information. And, every friday, I shall begin placing all old posts info accordingly. I am hoping this will lead to a very useful and easy to navigate site full of Vintage information. Thanks again for you patience with that.

20 October 1956 “The Typical American Family 1951, Home-Made Cornbread, and Bathrooms”

UPDATE: I cannot for the life of me get Dreamweaver to allow me to let the images increase on the website, so I will post the blogs in their entirety here and then leave a link at the end to the website to also enjoy. Thanks, this seems my only solution at present.
I hope, with this first post done in my new manner, that my readers will bear with me. I have never claimed to enjoy nor truly understand technology. Don’t think I don’t find it ironic that in my ‘trip to the past’ I have had, in these past two years, to really wrap my head around technology.
As I wished to improve the way I present things to you and for my own needs to want to make it become more organizes, I have had to really study the computer. The amount of time I do spend on the computer, however, is always work. I enjoy it, most times, but if I ever gave into ‘just searching and playing’ on the beast, I’d get little done. And believe you me, this sad little skeleton of a new site is more work than it might appear.
Now, concerning the site, I know some links are connecting. I had an issue with the header or top image and the one I had spent time on designing would not load, so last night I had to go through and manually change every page to the Apron Revolution image you now see. Luckily I had that as a back up. It shall have to do for now.
So, a few explanations for the site.
1. I wanted to make the site one Frame. The multi-frame system is horribly out of date, much like me. So that needed doing.
2. With the old site I was presented with the problem of making new content IN ADDITION to all the work and research I already do for my BLOG. That was when I realized MY BLOG is the SITE and therefore the past two years of work needs to be cataloged into the site. I have quite a bit of information, but it is almost lost in that I have never categorized my posts, as I didn’t know you were suppose to (again, no technology experience).
3.So, now my daily posts will BE the site. I will post it in part on Blogger with a link back here. Then the entire post will be here. Now, when I have posted that, I will add the relevant parts of the post to the various pages, cooking to cooking and so on. I hope this isn’t confusing.
4. I will now have a dedicated no post but website maintenance day so that I can slowly but surely take 1 January 1955 up to today and begin to place it in the site. This will mean, when I finally catch up that finding things here should be easy and to new comers, posts about food will be easy to find.
5.I cannot get a proper search bar to work, so that is still in the making. If anyone knows how to do so, let me know, as I have tried and obviously failed. I do apologize for that.
6.You will notice some things like Apron TV, which is my own Youtube channel. When a friend pointed out to me that you can make your own channel, I realized all the time I had been finding and adding relevant video to posts, I could have also been adding it to my own channel under various headings. When you visit that page you will see I have started with things like full old movies I love, old tv shows (I love Lucy) and so on. Check it out, I am excited to be able to collect together the things relevant in video for the site.
7.Facebook and Twitter. Now, these are things that I have almost no idea what they are actually for. I know people talk about Facebook all the time, and quite honestly I can’t see exactly what it does. It’s like email that you have to do even less work for and needn’t mail to individuals. But, as I wanted this site to feel connected to the modern world as a bridge to the past, one must do one’s best. My Facebook and Twitter will mainly be about this site and updates on blog posts, I believe. But, there it is, I am ‘plugged in there’ as it were.
8.I made an Etsy page, which now has only 4 items mostly to just set it up. Another follower mentioned another site that might work better for vintage items. I am not sure this is something that will stay, as running a full time tag sale and my home and this site may be a bit much, but I will try to list a few things and see if anyone is interested or not. Again, bear with me in these new endeavors. I am learning as I go, as much of the past two years have been.
So, I hope that is not too boring or overwhelming and I shall endeavor to make it easier and more fun for us to be on the site, I hope.
So, now back to some normal posting. Oh, and as a clearer explanation of how I intend to now use my post as my site, today I will be discussing an article on the ‘Typical American Family’ so that will also live in part in the 1950’s history section. And my recipe for cornbread will, of course, go in cooking. And the fun images of Bathrooms will, you guessed it, also be in that section of the Decorating page. So, later on if someone wished to just access images of 50’s bathrooms, they may do so. I know, clear as mud, right?
In my July 1951 issue of American Magazine I have a great article on the “Typical American Family”. I can’t recall if I have shared any of this article with you before, but it is worth a re-visit.
Based on a series of questions, they found the ‘Typical’ Middle class family who happen to live in Terre Haute Indiana. It is a rather long article and so I will just be touching on some of it here. If you enjoy it I will be glad to share it in it’s entirety with you, just let me know.
As always, merely click on image to see it larger. I think this such a sweet picture, the family in their yard enjoying a picnic.
To determine the average American family, people across the nation were asked a series of questions including these here in this image. You can click on image, but I will also relist these questions here. I think it would be fun to answer these ourselves and see how we compare to the worries of 1951, don’t you?

• What’s your main worry?
• What would you do with a sudden windfall?
• Do you believe your children should go to college?
• What’s your favorite recreation?
• Are you able to save money?
• Do you think life is simpler today than it was for your parents?
• What’s your idea of success?
• Do you believe your town is the best to live in?
• Do you operate on a budget?
• Do you feel a sense of achievement in your job?
• What’ your favorite food?
• Do you send your children to Sunday school?

Very interesting, indeed.
Here are some of the answers to the above questions given by the Simmon’s Family. Their candid responses about not having a savings plan, being not too ‘leaning’ on one party, they are Republican but would vote Democrat if the person was better suited (I like the idea of voting with your head and not your party). Their take on college is interesting as well as their idea of freedom of religion. That sad bit about their child being in uniform was most likely true, though it was nothing to do with Russia, but our odd involvement in Vietnam. Even their feelings about impeachment are rather open-minded.
Here are some great photo’s of the Simmon’s family daily life.
Now, though I was busy with my site I still found time to make some cornbread for dinner last night. I love homemade cornbread when made with good coarse ground corn meal. We are lucky in our town that we have a very old and working water-wheel driven stone grinding Mill. The Dexter Grist Mill. This is a shot of the pond downtown in my town, you can see in the background the little grey shingled mill and behind that our Town Hall. The large Home across the way is a lovely example of our towns Colonial architecture. Here are the inner workings of the mill
The touring of the mill closed for the season last Sunday, but our local farm, Crow farm, where I do some of my weekly marketing, sells the corn flour/meal there as well.
See what darling bags it comes in. Here is the recipe I use, it is from my 1950’s Fannie Farmer Boston Cooking School book. It is a very easy recipe and you can see some variations. It is also quite easy to make your own versions from this recipe adding what you like. I always drizzle a little maple syrup along the top before I pop it in the oven to bake.
You can see how wonderfully grainy the texture is when you use a coarse ground meal such as this. This recipe will now, as well, be placed in the COOKING section.
Now, just for fun and also as an exercise for me to post and then immediately place information into my new site: 1950’s Bathrooms!
This Red and Yellow bath is almost like living in a comic book. If you can notice, the red and yellow theme has even been carried to the sink faucet handles, which have  a red color. The paper in the room with the toilet is so bold!
 
This Yellow and Blue number I rather like. And the little boy’s pajama’s would be a lovely fabric to have the shower curtain in, don’t you think?
So, now how I will update daily the site with the content of my posts would be that the above images would be available to view in the Decorating Page under the BATHROOMS section. And these are both full ads so those could be viewed in the VINTAGE ADVERTISING section. I hope this is all making sense. It will now allow me to approach each post as content to build upon.
I hope all have a lovely day and Happy Homemaking.
Sorry to those who commented on this post while it was on the site. I am not sure how to fix the problem, so now it is imbedded into the site.
Please still check out THE NEW SITE HERE --->

19 October 1956 “The New Site”

These past months I have been trying to redesign our website. As you may have noticed there has been no new content or updates, except my blog, for quite some time. My hope is to redesign it to be a single page, rather than frames as it is currently. I also began to realize that the amount of information IN my blog posts should BE the website. Thus, I have been trying to rethink how the site would work.

It is difficult trying to learn web design and layout. I have been teaching myself all along this year. I must say tackling sewing and cooking, even learning more about gardening can be easier as it deals with the physical world. When one gets frustrated with the digital world, you cannot merely, ‘lift the hood and tinker about a bit’. There is no ‘re-cutting the dress or bringing in a seam’ with websites!  I still get rather stuck and frustrated and my current predicament is just getting a reliable way to search the site. So that anyone of you could simply type in ‘Recipes’ or ‘two egg cake’ and immediately find the information. I have found a Google version, but when I test it, it seems to only search our forum. I am not sure why this is. My hope is that if I lay out each page in a thorough fashion, if the search does not work, finding things should still be easy enough.

I have finally decided that perfection it shall not be. Many people hire outside companies with offices full of people whose full time paid career is site building a maintenance. I am but a simple little homemaker with a very strict schedule, so though I may now try to give daily attention to it, it will not be as amazing as a professional site.  So, with that in mind, later today I hope to simply launch it in its very naked state. It will have the new layout and design and the pages should hopefully load. My plan is, though they are now rather blank, to be enlivened each week by my going tediously through all my old posts starting 1 January 1955 and placing their relevance into the site. This way all the research and info I have done will be available as an entire system, rather than merely lost after a week of posting.

So, I ask you bear with me while this is happening. In a way I am hoping its evolution will be, in part, a growing aspect of my next coming project year. I will hopefully, with the new layout, be able to post my blog and then immediately plug it in to the relevant pages of the site. Previously I had tried to make all new content for pages forgetting that all my old posts were, in fact, riddled with content that I had worked hard to research and write and then all but ignored.

You will also notice that I have Google ads as well as some of my Amazon store ads. I hope, with the new apps, to actually make the items I am always placing in the store, more relevant and available per specific page. And, if it seems viable for any small businesses that do a vintage business, to want to advertise on my site, I shall make it very affordable, as I want to help support and get the word out for individuals trying to make it in a vary meek small business climate.

I am also toying with an Etsy site, but not sure if that should become to much more work. I will include it as an idea now, with a few vintage items, and see if it is of interest. It will really be like a tag or estate sale of things available to you. It will mostly be vintage items, such as old patterns, or items I have bought and no longer need or perhaps bought with you in mind. If it is of interest, I might choose one day, say Saturday, to put up new items and ship items purchased. One must try and be organized, that is the main thing I have constantly learned and re-learned these past two years.

My reasoning for all of this is to hopefully make a bit of pin money. My days now, along with the schedule of being a homemaker, includes a good allotment of time seven days a week to work on my blog. With that comes the subsequent research, scanning and editing of photos and content, reading, and even testing recipes, so in a way it is a job within my career of homemaking. I hope these ads will not be seen as grabbing or offensive. One makes pennies on them anyway, but I feel if I am to move forward with the site, that a few pennies here and there from them and Amazon will surely help a bit. In a way I see it as my making pin money as I would knitting antimacassars for a jumble sale or selling cakes to the local bakery to make extra money. I hope you too shall see it that way.

I hope the site to become even more a place for we vintage minded people to meet (on the growing forum for example). And also a repository for all the items and knowledge and history that I have thus far found and hope to continue to research about the vintage world. I think in some ways the vintage community now is, though not a bad thing, mainly based on fashion and interior. I love both of these and think there are some wonderful sites out there doing a great job. In some ways, were I more specialized, I might even find this task easier, but this site/blog is much like myself with varied interest.

I cannot, it seems, ever just zoom into one aspect of a subject. So, when I began my 1955 year I wanted to know it ALL. The fashion and Interiors of course and the food, but also :what we were thinking, what politics were happening, what we were listening to, watching on tv and at the pictures? What art we were looking at and why fiction was as it was and so on. I still want to find more of the puzzle pieces that are really beginning, for me, to take shape into the picture of my American Past. In this, and the coming new year, I will also try and bring the 1950’s into context by letting the 1930’s and 1940’s color the experience as well. I think the more the thing is fleshed out, the better we shall enjoy it. And, as I have found, make our own modern world make more sense. We might begin to understand why we do what we do or even consider changing our current ways for the better.

So, again, bear with me today and this week. I shall be uploading pages today and try to get the new ‘look’ up. And hopefully explain how the layout will work. My blogging schedule, as well, will be trying to blog daily, as I have been trying to do. On Fridays I will dedicate that computer time to updating and adding to the site for the upcoming week. And Sunday’s I might now dedicate to answering some of the many email questions I receive, which might be a fun exercise.

Thank you for your patience with this and I hope you will like the new layout and plan for the future. Have a great day and I might be posting again or adding an addendum to this in the comments on today’s progress.

Happy Homemaking.

17 October 1956 “I revisit an Old Friend”

Now, readers, that old friend isn’t a person nor even a place, but a cake. That’s right, ladies and gentleman, a cake.
Back in my early days of 1955, it seems so far as to almost have been in 1955, yet is under two years ago, the kitchen was a new frontier. I was having a 1950’s dinner party and with all the newness of the kitchen and the cookery book, I felt overwhelmed. Then, out of the blue, my friend saved me: The Best Two-Egg Cake. You can read about that first encounter in my old post HERE.  Re-reading that post, I had forgot how in those early days  things, such as the microwave, lurked around every corner to taunt me with the convenience of modern cookery.
The reason for my friends recent return yesterday, was convenience and a slimming pantry. I have learned, over the past two years, that to have a stocked and prepared pantry is important. Yet, I have also learned that to over-stock can often be a mistake both financially as well as for your baking results. Things, such as baking powder, even baking chocolate, loose thier flavor and cooking chemistry with time. So, with my weekly shopping schedlue, pantry basics take their turn in my weekly budget. One week may be flour and sugar, so cream of tartar or baking powder takes a back seat.
In the beginning I thought little of simply going out and filling up my cart just to see all those items waiting for me, as if I OWNED my own grocery store. For me that is no longer my situation. I have found, then buying less, having the essentials on hand but in smaller quantity, has allowed me to be both more frugal and more inventive. I often think of our 40’s wartime sisters faced with empty larders and having to invent sweets from ground up beetroot or egg-less cakes. So, for me, I often can find myself at the end of a shopping week with less things. Do I think, “drat, I forgot to buy this”, no for you see it is planned, in a way. I allow myself to fill the needs of the week within the allotted shopping budget and make do with what needs to be done.
I noticed, as time when on, how many advertising in the 1950’s ladies' magazines will show a new freezer packed to the rim with food. I think this must have felt a safe or happy thought, coming out of the war and also living in the threat of the nuclear bomb, as the Atomic Age was. Yet, as we can see, it was truly a false sense of safety, as their never was a need for hoarding and it merely worked its way into our American way of shopping. We wanted to ‘save up for a rainy day’.
I remember when I lived in Paris as a young girl. There were many aspects of that city that showed how different other parts of the world were to my own USA. Even the way one was treated as a customer was foreign to one who was used to the ‘the customer is always right’ mantra here in America. But, what I really noticed was the French housewife’s shopping.
Being young and rather poor I, out of necessity, would shop daily for my sustenance. I was no cook then, but found my ‘budget’ best used to grab some bread and cheese here, pate’ there, today an afternoon on a sidewalk cafe’ and a cigarette. My empty shopping basket was out of necessity, but I noticed, as I frequented the daily stalls and local Super Marché’, that I would see the same faces again and again. I came to learn that the French housewife does shop daily or almost daily, prefers fresh ingredients and to hand pick them herself every day. Even when fresh wasn’t available, daily shopping seemed to be the norm.
I must tell you readers, for those of you who have not been to Paris, the quality of fresh food available at every turn is wonderful. There one finds stalls of veg/fruit a fish monger, a butcher, and on and on. Wonderful fresh food at one’s fingertips.
In our country we began to want to have shelf-life, longevity, and ease in our food. This began to be more important than flavor, or nutrients of the food. Now, when one really considers the quality of prepared food in taste and nutrients, I am sure most would be appalled. But, when one doesn’t know, there is no comparison.
For me, store bought and easy here in the USA had become the norm. Yet, now, after two years of increasingly more home-made, I sometimes find prepared or store-bought foods to be almost inedible. After you have become accustomed to a home-made cake, try a box cake and you will know the difference. Even a pastry I once enjoyed at a chain cafe now tastes like chemicals and I wonder how I ever enjoyed it. Knowing the chemistry and ease of baking has made me appreciate ingredients. Therefore, when marketing day comes, the pantry does not get restocked full every week.
This week, my baking chocolate was almost gone from last weeks chocolate cake and a few nights of homemade hot chocolate (another thing that is far easier and tastier than premade mix you had hot water to). I also checked my egg supply (my hens have not yet started laying) and counted out the remaining breakfasts of the week. So, I knew a white cake (using so many precious egg whites) was out as well. Then, of course, I recalled my good friend: The Best Two Egg Cake.
For those of you who have not yet wanted to tempt fate with making your own cake, I really can suggest this as a good starter. It really is quite simple. And when making this cake, really when doing any baking where one is creaming butter and sugar, really give that some time. The longer you cream your butter and sugar (to a point) the lighter your baked good will come out. This is a secret to light home-made cakes. What I have noticed is the super high moistness of a box cake tastes bland and rather cardboard like to the lightness combined with rich density of a homemade cake. And quite honestly it is not harder to make a homemade cake. You are still adding dry to wet ingredients and mixing it. Yet,  you can control what you are putting in and will learn to tweak recipes as you go. A pinch here, a dash of this there. And even a base recipe like this can become an easy chocolate cake with added baking chocolate or a touch of peppermint for the holidays.
So, from that simple recipe you get a lovely dense and moist yellow cake. It has such a rich almost pound cake flavor, but really minor ingredients.
It serves up a treat!
And, when you are also low on confectioners sugar, as I was, you turn to your other old friend, 7 minute frosting. Many frostings require powdered or confectioners sugar to thicken them and are often just a ‘mix it up’ frosting. When you use regular sugar, which is coarser, you must make a boiled frosting, sometimes using egg whites as is the case here, to get a stiff frosting. The wonderful result of this type of frosting is the sheen! It is a marvel to look at.
I think this close up of yesterday’s cake shows the joyous sheen and movement if this easy frosting. It colors a treat, taking food color and making it a true shade. Wonderful at holidays, looks splendid coated it coconut, toasted coconut, dusted in powdered chocolate, a great canvas for shaved bits of rich dark eating chocolate. It is an all round good staple to have in the homemakers baking arsenal. So, do try it if you have not yet done so. Here is the recipe from my cookbook with variations on it.
So, I hope you enjoy trying this cake. It is a good penny pincher and yet always elicits happy smiles at the dinner table. Even my friend who often says, “Oh, I don’t like frosting, too sweet” raved about this cake yesterday. And it is a sweeter frosting, but it doesn’t have that over-sweet waxy taste of a bakery or grocery store frosting taste. Give it a try.
Until tomorrow Happy Homemaking!

15 October 1956 “1930’s Decorating Class”

I thought it might be fun today to look at some 1930’s interior design images. As I have mentioned before, my 1956 homemaker would have been a young lady or teen in the 1930’s. And in my study of home economics, I would probably have seen many of these types of styles and interiors and furniture.
I have a few wonderful 1930’s interior design books as well as cookery books. I am hoping to increase this collection as I begin to look further into what would have made me, a 1950’s homemaker, esthetically and from early teen age training.(all images can be enlarged by clicking on them and those I borrowed from other sites have links by clicking the image, thank you.)
I think this illustration from one of my books shows the fashion for painted furniture. As one can tell, many of these pieces are actually older late Victorian or even Colonial inspired pieces (these colonial pieces began being reproduced in the 1930’s as well) and are enlivened and made modern with paint. I rather like the color tones of this era of reds, greens, yellows, soft blues and all grounded with some form of black. I think these pieces, as well, work very well in a 1950’s kitchen.
I most likely would have some pieces from my mothers own 1930’s kitchen that I would still use in my modern 1956 kitchen. Certainly the colors could and would harmonize.
Even the lines of the modern chairs of the 1930’s show that the similar angles and lower position to the floor had begun in the 1930’s. These drawings by the 30’s furniture maker Ernst Kauffman demonstrate that. And the Eames work, as this famous chair and these Herman Miller Eames chairs exhibit similar lines.
The color palette, especially in baths, were much softer and more muted in the 1930’s.This lovely frieze of wallpaper above the tiles from a 1930’s wallpaper book I have, are really beautiful. The design is more more enchanted almost fairy book in its organic movement. While a 1950’s paper would be more stylized and patterned as this 50’s bath shows.
The 1950’s has the ‘new’ plastic tile. It was an easy application a Do-it-yourselfer could manage for less effort and money than actual tile. In the 1930’s linoleum was still very popular. Here we see a bath with what looks like a papered top and a tiled lower wall.
Yet, the lower wall was actually a product called lin-o-wall, also found in my 30’s wallpaper design book. Here are more examples of the 3-d style it came in.I have to say, I am rather enamored of these looks. The stone and the brick, but especially the lower left images would look so good painted in a turn of the century home. And, what is lovely for today is linoleum is a very ‘green’ product in that it is made literally from wood/cork pulp mixed with linseed all and is very renewable. I wonder if any such things are being made currently?
Here are some fun wallpaper examples from the 1930’s.I think some of these would be great in a traditional home, but some of the more modern patterns would be fun in a kitchen or bath. The sample on the right with the kitchen breakfast room is geometric and organic combined. I think the top paper on the right ad which looks like blue and white delft tiles would be so lovely in an all blue and white breakfast nook. White painted furniture and woodwork. Soft white sheer drapes with blue and white seat cushions. And little punches of yellow in some framed prints of daffodils or ladies in yellow dresses. It would be such a bright way to start your morning.
How adorable is this little bedroom? I love the mixture of both the very glamorous skirted dressing table and the stoic ladder back colonial chair. The wall paper is very traditional and yet look at the whimsy of the rug under the chair? The mixture of both old and ‘new’ is done white great affect here, I think. I can’t imagine even needing to change the dressing table for the 1950’s although you might use that wonderful little side chair as your dressing table chair and cover that and the table skirt in the same fabric. A room I certainly would enjoy greeting the day with, how about you?
I think I shall close with this video of a 1930’s fashion show (of course fashion and interiors always played off one another). It is quite fun and taken from the 1930’s movie “The Life of the Party”.

Well, that was just some fun interiors from the 1930’s. As my project begins to come upon the beginning of its third year, I am left wondering where to go next. And, I really think in understanding myself in 1950’s, as the decade wanes, is to understand myself in the 30’s and 40’s both politically, and through the design and food. So, I may do more ‘between the war’ posts, if that would be of interest to any of you.
Have a lovely day and Happy Homemaking.

13 October 1956 “It’s an election year here in 1956”

This year, 1956, was an election year. This year saw a repeat of 1952 in that both Dwight D. Eisenhower and Adlai Stevenson would be opponents in the Presidential race. This time around, however, Eisenhower had been running the country for the past four years. His victory was fairly plain to see. He had ended the Korean war and the country was booming in prosperity. Though issues such as the high cost of food remained concerns of American’s.
Dwight D.Eisenhower and Adlai Stevenson.
Eisenhower’s running mate would again be Richard Nixon (our current vice-president here in 1956) though privately Eisenhower did not want him. He felt Nixon was too partisan and controversial. Nixon had, since 1952, greatly changed the power and position of the office of the vice-president. He began to use the office as a platform to run and help elect Republican’s at state and local elections, a power never held nor demonstrated by the office before.
Eisenhower would have preferred Massachusetts Governor Christian Herter. I find this a very interesting choice, as Herter, today, would be seen as a liberal elite, though in fact he was a Republican from Massachusetts. But, he had been born in Paris to Artist parents, educated in NYC and Harvard. He was well versed in foreign affairs and honestly, as we were to find out, much more honest than Nixon.
So, in the Republican National Convention this year held in San Francisco, CA, there was no discussion, Eisenhower was elected to run for the Republican Party.

Adlai Stevenson, whose unique name was used in this tv ad

did not so easily get elected to run on the Democratic ticket. He was up against Tennessee Democrat Estes Kefauver. Their neck and neck campaign for the bid to run as Democratic Presidential hopeful resulted in another TV first this year: the first televised presidential debate. It occurred, of course, between these two democrats. The final result being that Stevenson was again to run for president and this time Kefauver would be his running mate.
Adlai Heralded from the Midwest, Illinois. What is interesting in the political world of 1956, is the south supported him and was mainly Democratic. What I did find interesting about Stevenson was that, though he was wealthy, as any Presidential candidate now had to be, he lived very modestly. He did not have a lavish home nor spend as a rich man. This thrift actually became a laughing point and was used against him (if you can believe it) in a campaign button for the Ike (Eisenhower) party.There had been circulated a photograph of Stevenson being interviewed and when he crossed his leg, he had a hole in his shoe. This was somehow seen and used against him, in these buttons. I find it interesting that the ‘spin’ in this case was that you might end up with holes in your shoes if you vote for him. But not that he might be frugal and therefore care more about country and saving money than how he looks our sounds on tv. In fact, he did not like the idea of tv ads and was rather wooden in the tv spots he was required to perform during the election year.
In response to this, the Democratic Women used the image with pride in this button Of course, leave it to we homemakers to notice thrift for its good attributes. Even if you were an Ike supporter, and most of the country was, you had to acknowledge the silliness in seeing thrift as bad.

It is interesting that concern for the small farmer and the increasing growing corporate business (which really has signalled the end to the small business in our country) was topical then.
Here is a map of the results of this year’s election. You can see that the south farming states were strongly Democratic.
A very interesting thing happened at the Democratic Convention when Adlai Stevenson was chosen, he let the convention choose his running mate. This was never done before and the two leading contenders were Kefauver and a new young Senator, John F. Kennedy from Massachusetts. Adlai Stevenson privately wanted Kennedy, but in the end it was to be Kefauver. Of course we now that we would hear from Kennedy again come next election, when he became our president in 1960. Many changes are to occur from now to 1960.
I have often been shocked, in the modern world, by both political parties use of advertising to get elected. Their ‘subterfuge’ is really quite modern and savvy. Yet, I was surprised to see, this was happening here in 1950’s. In fact, the political arena has always been a platform of finding what the country cares about and play it up during the election year. What is different about this year, 1956, is we are really comfortably in the TV/Media age.
In 1952, when this pair ran against one another, there were less tv sets. And prior to that fewer still. In 1946 there were 6000 tv sets in America, by 1950 there were 12 million. That is a large increase. Yet, by 1956 more than half of Americans owned a TV set. It was not only here to stay, but it was a talking platform in our homes. Commercials and ads had become a normal part of the American evening. So, that platform was finally really utilized.
This was an ad against the current president Eisenhower. It is interesting how they use his words against him, much as is done in today’s political climate.

This cartoon ad also has similar rings to today, with mention of getting in or out of a war we may or may not have needed (in this case it was Korea, which we had been out of at this point). What is really interesting in the second ad is the mention of a possible invasion of Communist China. Imagine had we really a time machine and could go to 1956 and tell the people that Communist China is stronger than ever and that almost all the things in our homes and business are produced there. Frightening to think of for them, yet to we modern people, hardly ever mentioned.

Of course, on the Republican sides, such ads were also prevalent as this one here

The idea of running a campaign based on fear rather than simple facts was already becoming the norm. And in this ad we see, already, that one party wants to use simple buzz words such as family and religion, as if only one party truly cares about one’s families.
I have been accused of being political before on this blog, though I have never intended to be. In fact I hate politics in that it seems just another game to play and all it does is separate the majority of people and turn us against one another. When, really, we would be greatly helped if we put these things aside and just tried to actually make a world we could be proud of that was fair for all.
I might be considered political in saying things against the large corporation of today, but honestly, all that we love about the 1950’s and earlier are very counter-big corporation. The very demise of the small business and the American dream is due to their monopoly on our towns and wallets. Even the immigration problem that seems to worry so many is in fact due to the corporation, as they are working on large corporate run farms and not at the local privately owned drug store or mom and pop restaurant.
It is a sad side affect that my project has, along with creating my love of this time and respect for the people of that era, it has made me see, more clearly, our own current world. I have to say I am not happy with our current or even recently prior conditions of this country. I can see the writing on the wall, as they say, and as the digital world increases I think we will see more than just our manufacturing leaving our country for overseas. I believe what is left to the majority of us, our towns and small business the ability to care for ourselves and children and our land, is slowly vanishing. The sad this is the smoke screen of worry over the government controlling us hides that we are really very controlled now by the corporations and in fact the government is largely run by those involved in the big corporations. The idea of ‘two sides fighting it out’ is almost some great ruse to keep us separate, when really they all seem to be fighting for the same master, the Almighty Dollar over us. I wonder, then, when we are so quickly sold out to the large corporations for a fast buck, what shall we have left. And those who are left, what shall we care about? I am sorry if that seems political, but it is, quite honestly, how I now feel after two years of very detailed study of all facets of our country.
Who would have thought when I began looking through old magazines for recipes or dress styles, that I would find myself falling down the rabbit hole of discovery of our current American condition. I am sorry if this seems offensive to anyone, but it is in fact my LOVE of America and what it once meant that I feel saddened. You can call a duck what you like, slick it up, throw smoke screens or put it in an expensive three piece suit on TV, but if it quacks like a duck and walks like a duck, you can bet it IS a duck. And it seems rather Republican or Democrat, we have many fancy ducks these days.
I hope we gals and gents can make a little difference.