16 September 1956 “Fever and Rock N Roll’s Innocent Beginning”

Many may know the song Fever. It has been done again and again by various artists, even Madonna has had a go at it. The most memorable and often associated version of the song was Peggy Lee’s version. This, however, will not appear until 1958.
This year, ‘56, however Fever will belong to Little Willie John.

This  version is quite good. It has such a different sound and esthetic than the version we might be used to. That is due to Miss Lee’s wonderful rendition, which even included some additional lyrics. She gave the song it’s more ‘exotic chanteuse’ sound, I believe. Here is her version, two years from now:

Here is another Little Willie John song from this year.

This year and this decade has many changes in music. Genres are springing up left and right. And this year Elvis is becoming the Elvis we will begin to know. And a movie, “Rock Around The Clock” from this year will introduce teens to Bill Haley and his Comets and the popularization of what the young kids are beginning to call Rock and Roll.
This clip from that film features Bill Haley and two older men have to wonder, what is that music. “It isn’t boogie, it isn’t jive, and it isn’t swing. It’s sort of all three”. It is rather endearing to see the ‘new music’ of ‘crazy teens’ is really just some fun music and good dancing, the ‘sex drugs n rock n roll’ world is a good decade away. And, frankly, they can keep it.

15 September 1956 “Some Scandal Rags, Long Tall Sally, Peanut Butter Cookies, and My Middle Class Slip is Showing”

Here is a Movie Play cover from this month, 1956. I do wonder how Liz Taylor Flirts with trouble. The scandal rags are beginning to get up some steam already.
Here we see promise of ‘Secret Photos’ of Grace Kelly and her new Prince. Though the tabloids do not exist in any way as they do in 2010, we can see the little glimmer of it beginning. As we, as a nation, become more enamored of stars and as visual entertainment becomes more a part of our day, the importance of their private lives increases.

Many know Elvis, but not as many Pat Boone. He is often used today as an almost derogatory description of music of things, which is too bad. Here he is singing Love Letters.

I think the problem that may have arisen with Pat Boone was, as the Tv parade from this month is doing which is comparing Elvis and Pat Boone. This is an unfair comparison. For example, from this year here is Pat Boone singing “Long Tall Sally”

Personally, I think this song does a disservice to his voice and particular crooning styles. And then when you compare this renditon to Little Richard’s

You can see how the youth might prefer the higher kicking style of Richard over Boone. And of course Presley’s version also has so much more electricity and jive.

And, of course, in a decade or so this song, sung by the new group the Beatles, will obviously follow the more rhthmic blue patterns of Richard and Presley and Boone will seem eons away.

Pat Boone was much better suited to crooning, which he did so well.

Now onto the kitchen. I tried this peanut butter cookie recipe that worked quite well. Many Peanut Butter cookies require a few hours in the fridge, but I found these drop cookies to be easy and to taste just as good as an ice box version.
50’s Gal’s PEANUT BUTTER DROP COOKIES
1 c. brown sugar
1 c. white sugar
1/2 c. butter
1/2 tsp. salt
2 tsp. vanilla
2 eggs
cream the butter and sugars for 2 minutes. Add the vanilla and eggs while still mixing. Simply add the flour (with soda and salt mixed in) after that and then the peanut butter. And that is it.
Now simply drop teaspoon full dough onto an ungreased cookie sheet and make the traditional Criss-Cross pattern with a floured knife.
Bake for 10 minutes at 350 F. I always watch my cookies and when they still look a little raw in the center but their edges are just browning, take them out. Food continues to cook when it is removed from the oven. This is how you stop from having dried out cookies.
My hubby told me he used to hate peanut butter cookies until he had mine. Why, I asked, because they were always too dry, he said. We homemakers do like compliments. And we should strive for moist cookies and cakes, don’t you think?
Yesterday, I felt my middle class homemaker status definitely trumped any 1940’s homesteader in me. I know we recently had a discussion about the comparison and when and if the 40’s homesteading disappeared in the 1950’s. As many of you know, I have hatched and am raising my own chickens. We had five roosters, which we do not need. One, Roostie ( A fine proud fellow who watches his ladies with strength of purpose) is destined to go with two hens to my MIL’s for her to keep. One is for us and the other three were meant for the roasting pan.
Hubby and I talked about it quite a bit and planned on his killing the birds, which I do think he could have eventually done, and my cleaning them. When it came right down to it, with all that I have to do, I decided instead to give them to a local Farm. They have Jamaicans that work there and they were so excited to have fresh young chickens that were free ranged to kill and eat. I knew they would get a just end and be made into lovely food by them ( I am even promised some chicken foot stew, as they use all the bird).
What a hypocrite I am. I have the opportunity to have and raise fresh meat that I know is well treated and well fed and I opt out for the ease of the grocery store. I did feel, at that moment, as if I was feeling what many at that time must have felt: the ease to just let go and leave the ‘farm and the war’ behind and enjoy the convenience of the local super market.
I think all things do just need a good balance. I do make my own in other areas and I do still have my veg garden. And, perhaps in the future, hubby and I will be ready to go down that road, even just for the war time experience of it. But, for now, I have left it to the ‘working class’ and happily popped the pre cut sliced chicken into my cart. The ease of the middle class, cleaned prepared food with no discernable similarity to it’s source.  I can happily flour and fry up chicken for dinner and feed my hens outside the kitchen door and pretend, on the surface at least, as if the two haven’t anything to do with one another.
Yet, I know in the future that might change and that is okay with me. I know, as is true for any of we Vintage loving ladies, we must take steps that are comfortable for us. To some I might seem an extremist in my vintage clothing, using old appliances and reading outdated magazines, yet I know I could still do more. And any of you, who want a vintage life, don’t feel bad if you merely start out with one dress. Or perhaps you secretly wear a garter and hose under your modern dress, just to put your toe into the water. We have to go at our own pace and by taking it one step at a time, it becomes easier; more normal.
So the lesson from this: I always have further to go, another place to push myself or to work toward. Yet, to also look back and be proud of what I have already accomplished and now take in stride as a matter of course for my day. That lets me know and realize, too, that all of us CAN make a better future with our eyes to the past. Simple things at first, but always with the hope and goal for the next thing. And before you know it we may find ourselves in a vintage community of well dressed, well behaved people how are proud to do for themselves and to let others in their community do for them. We can’t do it all ourselves, now can we.
Until tomorrow, Happy Homemaking.

14 September 1956 “Shoes, Shoes, and more Shoes”

We had a quick discussion on the Forum about comfortable vintage shoes. So, I thought a fun post about shoes was in order.
To start us off, here is Gerry Mulligan with “Walking Shoes”. It is a interest to point out here that often in the 1950’s , the music one heard may only be instrumental. It was not all singing as we seem to have in 2010.

This is a 1956 artwork by Andy Warhol. Some very interesting shoe aspects.
(These three images thanks to EspiaCollection.)These two photos from Vogue 1956 show the variety of shoes this year. We see the beginning of the more stiletto heel that will continue on even into as late as 1965. Yet there is more rounded toes still prevalent from the early decade and 1940’s. The teal satin shoe on the top right of the first pick could also be an Edwardian shoe or a 1920’s shoe, yet is availabe in 1956 as well. The vintage look is not ‘one thing’ as we might oven think today. The variety of shoe styles were greatly varied, more so than we might think today.I think these images show a good range of vintage and comfortable shoes. The upper left slip on loafer is darling and shown worn with hose and a dress. Very Vintage and comfortable. I think a modern equivalent could be found. The wedge in the lower right is also easy to wear. A wedge shoe, even a high one, is very comfortable and I have some rather tall ones that almost feel like a bedroom slipper, they are so soft to walk in.
And though we do see the trend toward the very pointed top and heel being introduced, this style of shoe would be more prevalent over all. Where one might choose the more pointed look for an evening where one is not on their feet too much, except for dancing, the black and white add show some very practical and comfortable pumps. I would easily wear the low pumps with the bows on the bottom right all day.
We can’t mention shoes without Elvis’ Blue Suede Variety, as seen here on the Milton Berle show May of this year (1956)

Here we Cyd Charisse dance with the Four Aces singing “The Gal with the Yaller Shoes” from the 1956 movie Meet Me In Las Vegas released this year.

What is interesting, of course, is that she is in fact wearing black shoes in this number with Yellow Spats, but a great number none the less.
Until tomorrow, Happy Homemaking.

13 September 1956 “The Hard Disk Drive is Invented, and More Doughnuts!”

Today International Business Machines, or IBM, have invented the Hard Disk Drive. A hard disk drive is a storage space for digital data. It features one or more rotating rigid platters on a motor-drivenspindle within a metal case. Data is encoded magnetically by read/write heads that float on a cushion of air above the platters. Go HERE to read more about it.
Isn’t it amazing to think how far we have come with this technology? I am certain at this point there was never any though more than for business for these machines. This, as we well know, will change in a few decades.
This film tells the story of the early computer storage drive. It may seem a bit dry, but it is worth it to even see the ladies 1956 business wear. Very interesting stuff and very pertinent to all of us, as we sit sipping our tea/coffee and enjoying the ease and pleasure of our home computers.

Computers are beginning to become a part of offices in a small, or should I say BIG way, at this point. Most offices, of course, won’t have one, but the larger firms in CA and NYC may begin to implement the large business machines for efficiency and accounting.
The movie the ‘Desk Set’ starring Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn, which comes out next year (1957), deals with this very topic. Though it’s release date of May 1957 has yet to come, I am sure I would see the trailer for this around fall or Christmas time this year. Here it is.

This is a great movie and you can get it in the corner store HERE. I think there are copies as inexpensive as $6.
Here is a lovely song from this year sung by David Whitfield. After all, it is September.

And, as it is September, Fall is just around the corner here in New England. Yesterday it was such a lovely cool but sunny day, Hubby, Gussie and I decided to have a fire in the outdoor fireplace on our little terrace.
With the smell of ripe leaves and to see the ripening grapes on the vine, we couldn’t help but think of lovely autumn traditions. One of those being cinnamon doughnuts and cider. Though, we hadn’t any cider, I thought it would be fun to use my little stovetop percolator on the fire.
This little pot was used and loved on our sailboat. I recall the cool mornings when hubby and I were playing vagabond for a year and living mainly on the boat. I had forgot he had even grown a thick captain’s beard. The cool late summer mornings on Martha’s Vineyard with the mist rising above the water. You would awake to the sound of the water lapping the sides of the V-berth where we slept and the seagulls mournful cry. The puppies would stir and I would slide out of bed and get the coffee going in that little pot.
Ah, the smell. The brine, the fresh cooling air and that hot burnt rich dark smell of the percolating coffee, if I could bottle that it would be a favorite scent.
But, yesterday we were not on a boat, but in our little yard on our tiny terrace and a fire seemed right. Hubby lit his pipe as I hopped into make the doughnuts. Here is the color version of our little treat. You can see how the flames lapped  up the side of my little coffee pot, turning it ashen brown (it will scrub off easy enough) and the doughnuts. I gave a doughnut recipe to you previously, but yesterday I had a thought. In my 50s Better Homes and Gardens cookbook, it has a ‘quick doughnut’ recipe. This simply has you buy the pre-made biscuits (newly available) and simply cut the hole out and fry those. Now, I have a wonderful biscuit recipe, so I figured I would simply make the biscuit dough, knead it a bit more and try that for a very easy quick doughnut recipe. We were not disappointed!
Oh my they were lovely. They rose even higher and lighter than my other doughnut recipe and were so fresh and good, I hate to admit it, but the three of us gobbled up the whole plate! So, I can’t report how good they are the next day, which I had wanted to find out, but the cool air, the crackle of the fire, the hot coffee and the melt of the sugared doughnuts were too much for us. So, they were gone in a flash.
The biscuit recipe I used is from my 4 May 1956 Post. If you don’t want to revisit that post, here is the recipe anyway:
Yummy Biscuits.

Ingredients

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon white sugar
• 1/3 cup cold butter
• 1 cup cream

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C).
2. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar. Cut in thebutter until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Gradually stir in cream until dough pulls away from the side of the bowl.
3. Turn out onto a floured surface, and knead 15 to 20 times. Pat or roll dough out to 1 inch thick. Cut biscuits with a large cutter or juice glass dipped in flour. Repeat until all dough is used. Brush off the excess flour, and place biscuits onto an ungreased baking sheet.
4. Bake for 13 to 15 minutes in the preheated oven, or until edges begin to brown.

Of course, don’t heat the oven, but rather heat oil in a skillet. (lard or vegetable oil is what I use. I don’t use shortening, but it certainly would work fine) and then I just kneaded it a bit more and squished it out about an half an inch thick. Then I cut the doughnuts out and as they oil was heating this allowed the doughnuts to rise a bit. Very easy. I don’t use a thermometer for my oil, though I should, I just go by sight. I usually take one of the doughnut holes as a tester. You want it to brown not too quickly on one side and then flip it so that it is not overcooked outside and raw inside. I usually find no longer than a minute or two per side is perfect otherwise it might get too greasy.
This is also one of the times that I use paper towel. Removing them from the hot grease and transferring them to a paper towel to drain and then while still hot, into the cinnamon and sugar mix. Mmmmm, so delicious and perfect for a crisp fall day. Serve these with warm cider or pumpkin ale for an outdoor fall gathering and you will be sure to get praise for very little work.
And, just for fun, Burl Ives’ “The Donut Song”

And let’s take the advice of this song:

When you walk the streets you'll have no cares
If you walk the lines and not the squares
As you go through life make this your goal
Watch the donut, not the hole.

Until tomorrow, then, Happy Homemaking.

11 September 1956 “What is a Vintage Life? Rosie the Riveter or June Cleaver?”

Recently, I received a comment from a follower that said:
I love your blog, but sometimes I think that what you are trying to express is a return to "civility", to the social norms of the first half of the 20th century, rather than to the specific decade of the 1950s. Your homesteading and self-sufficiency seems to be more pre-war than post. After the war we truly did want to forget our home front struggles, just as our men who served rarely spoke of their war front activities.
This got me thinking. Am I living a more pre-war life? Am I more Rosie the Riveter or June Cleaver? Does my desire to want to keep chickens, grow veg as well as pretty flowers, and can my own food and sew make me more 1940’s than 1950’s? And it isn’t as if I need to really just choose a decade, I just happen to like the positive feelings of the 1950s and how much ‘hope’ there was in the world. But, I also don’t want to fall prey to the easy plastic world which really was beginning in the late 1950’s.
I met a woman who would have been close to my age in the 1950’s. She lived on the Cape and still does. I met here volunteering at our local church run antique shop in town. I talked with her about this concept, my being more 1940’s than 1950’s because I chose to make more of my own, grow my food, keep chickens. She laughed and told me that the 1950’s must have been different everywhere. She, living in my old town (1600’s is pretty old for the United States) said the 1950’s in the movies was not the 1950’s here.
First of all, as I can plainly see, there were very few ‘new’ modern 1950’s homes in my town. There are some, but they are greatly outnumbered by Capes and Colonials that have seen 1650 as well as 1950. Living here in 1950 may have been the modern world, but plastic, wonder bread and gleaming but sterile green lawns were not the norm. In East Sandwich, a town outside of my own, new developments were started and one might find a row of typical 1950’s ranch, but by and large my town is house much older than the 1950’s.
“Maybe this lady is thinking of the newer parts of the country” she told me “When a town just sprang up out of an old farmer’s field. But here, on Cape, I was keeping chickens and canning in 1950’s.”
My town is, in some respects, a garden lover’s dream. Many people care greatly for their garden and their yards are full of lush roses and hydrangeas as well as pots of annuals and an equal smattering of vegetable. This, at least according to this fine lady, was true even then.
I think what I must remember( not as if I need to validate the ‘true living’ to myself, but I do want to express a true experience) is that much like today or 100 years ago, the decade in which you live is going to be lived differently depending on your area. The middle class homemaker of my age in 1956 here on Cape Cod certainly did not live like a homemaker in Wisconsin in a new suburb of cookie cutter houses. The families living outside of NYC in the growing suburbs also most likely lived a different life. And though many regional dialects and atitudes are all but gone thanks to shared media and tv, in 1956 a Cape Cod wife would have lived a very regional existence.
“Look,” she told me, “We live and breath history here on the Cape.  In 1956 I may have bought a new sofa, but my house was also filled with colonial antiques because they were my families. They were what was available around here. My vegetable garden was as much a pride to me as was my rose garden. I didn’t pack up the chickens because the war ended. They make the best soil for roses. We still canned and even traded recipes and shared jams and pickles amongst one another.”
In trying to recreate as well as study a time period as I am doing, I must remember that there is no one way to ‘be 1950’s.’ There is no one right or wrong way to live “A Vintage Life”. I find myself naturally falling into step with what local ladies in 1950’s would have done here because I AM here. My house is not a 1950’s ranch. I do have old furniture that people have sat in long before 1956. I have a nice little yard with room for veg and chickens and flowers and I naturally fill them with that.
I think, then, if any of us want to live a Vintage Life, no matter to what extreme, getting to know the traditions of our own area will make it all the more rich and real. We might only want to simply where some vintage clothes or perhaps just learn to cook and dress better, but to learn our regions history and social history, rather or not we implement it, is worth it.
As much as I have come to see how important it is for Women’s History to really study and understand the Homemaking arts and skills, so to is it important to understand where and how your community was built. The history of it’s buildings and economy is all worth the effort.
When I asked this lady if it was true,what my commenter said, that the men rarely spoke of their war activities, she laughed and then sort of went quite, thinking. “Well, I suppose we never really heard of the bad things the men must have gone through, but to say they didn’t talk about it is not true. The men, when they got together, loved to swap war stories. And though it must have been horrible what they went through, what they talked and laughed about were the good times. Roughing it and the comradery was always discussed with these men. In fact we women would often say such things as ‘oh, here comes another war story’.”
She told me they even often sang old war songs, such as this line that makes me laugh,

The biscuits in the Army, they say are mighty fine
one rolled off the table, and killed a friend of mine

And the refrain of that song almost brought a tear to my eye

I don’t want no more of Army life,
please mum I want to go, but they won’t let me go
please mum, I want to go home.

Maybe it is the New England spirit. The old curmudgeon who can get a nickel out of a penny if he squeezes hard enough. He remembers ancestors who had to literally fell forests to eek out existence. To them, hardship is merely the very stuff they are made of. Though the war was filled with unmentionable horror, they old New Englander still enjoyed a good gossip about the ‘war’ with the comradery of men around the old wood stove at the local general store.
Much like that song, with the raucous joke combined with the said refrain, ‘I want to go home’. And they did and when they returned they did not complain and go on about the horror of it. But they also recalled the good times, imbuing our communities with the very idea that, even in deadly hardships one can laugh and smile again. That is the never give up spirit I truly love about New England.
I felt better after learning this. I began to realize life, in any form, is really how we make it, but also colored by our town, our culture. We are lucky in this country in that if we do not like or feel any affiliation with our area, we can pick up and move and soon become a part of a different town a different history a different set of local values. That freedom is one thing our country prides itself on. And though we might be thought as an ‘outsider’ if we were to move to a new community, we know we would still be accepted because what is more flattering to a town than to know an outsider would like to be let inside. Just as the ladies at the old antique store are flattered that I have taken a part of my life to re-live and rekindle a time in their life that they not only loved but of which they were proud.
The civility and comradery of the past is like that. It is willing to take you on and, though you don’t really belong there, it welcomes you. Because you have bothered to blow the dust off and care and to realize that what has gone does not have to be forgot. And even though sometimes in the modern world I might fell much like that refrain from the old Army song to return to a time I did not belong: “Please mum I want to go home” I realize, the old adage is true: Home is where your heart is. Corny but sincere. And we can make our homes and our community and our lives the way we like it. That might be different for you than for me, but we can all agree on the love of the past won’t ever steer us wrong.
And after all, even June cleaver took off the pearls and got into the garden, didn’t she?

10 September 1956 “Kitchen Ideas and is Less More?”

I thought today it would be fun to see some of the great kitchen idea’s found here in the 1950’s. This is definitely a time of DIY and renovation. Post War America not only had the money and the increased production due to the war, but now had the burgeoning middle class. And they were building houses by the thousands and re-doing older homes to fit their new ‘modern’ lifestyle.
Since my 1955 project my esthetic has changed drastically and I know find myself drooling over linoleum flooring and laminate chrome trimmed counter tops. My own very old home needs not only a kitchen renovation but to be completely gutted. We have found that the sills/joist under the kitchen ell are rotting and it needs to be brought down to the very bare bones. This will have to wait until next year and I am going to try and do as much of the labor as I can to save on costs.
But, with the idea of a new kitchen in my future, I am always planning and thinking of new ways to do it. I had originally had plans for a large mudroom and a separate pantry, most likely hold over ideas from the 21st century. Now, the more I study the smaller homes and house plans of the era, the less I realize I need or Want! Less space means you must be more efficient which means running your home like a tight ship. It also means LESS TO CLEAN and less space to store things, therefore we are left to de-clutter our life even more. All of these seem good to me.
Now, onto the fun ideas in the magazines. Click on these photos to see them full size.
I LOVE this idea of the dual purpose counter. The increased counter space is not simply dead static storage, no, it opens to a griddle! I must tell you gals, I use my griddle every day. I have an old Jenn Air stove that has a griddle attachment for two burners. I just leave this on and only have two burners to use. I have not missed the other two burners that are stored away so that the griddle may be out all the time.
What a clever use for extra fabric from you curtains. I like the idea of the divider between the mess of the kitchen and the breakfast table being a continuation of your curtain fabric. It looks lovely above the cabinets on the soffit as well, don’t you think?
I really like this divider between the dining and kitchen. You can see how the wall opens up to serve as a pass through, thus no sideboard is needed, and also extra storage is available. Yet, a simple closing of those doors and the wall separates the mess of the kitchen for you to enjoy dining. Here is the kitchen side of that same set up. The pass through and the depth allotted by these cabinets are wonderful for storage, don’t you think? I like the ‘Early American’ look of the wallpaper.
  Again, we see a divider. Here they cleverly used frosted glass. The telephone and mail is a nice idea, and it also shows that little bits of the modern world starting to encroach on the beginning of the day. Though, this is a far cry from the multiple texting and internet surfing done at table or the kitchen computer of 2010.
I LOVE my marble and use it for all my pastry. It keeps it cold and helps to make a wonderful baked good. I love how here it is imbedded into the counter and I would like a vintage laminate counter (chrome edged) with such inlays of both the marble and the chopping block. And I assume they lift out for easy cleaning.
I have found, lately, that I think more and more of living with less and more simply. It might seem odd, a middle-class homemaker in the middle of 1950’s thinking thus, but I think there is an historical precedent. When I consider my age now, I would obviously have been a War bride. My early marriage would have involved my husband being in the military and my suddenly having to do with much less. It might have been a shock, but over the years one gets used to it.
Using less, having less clothing and things because of the war effort and the scarcity of items and their high cost, would have made it a  necessity to live frugal. So, in some sense, I feel the 1956 me, which is so many ways is really the only me at this point, is simply recalling a time when one needed less. It is lovely to have matching kitchen items and new floors. A home full of furniture and fine things can often seem the ultimate goal here in 1956, but a part of me would recall those war years.
Perhaps in the garden, I might be digging potatoes and stop and remember when all my flower beds and lush lawn were given over to vegetables. There may be moments when I am wrapping up leftovers for the icebox and see the full shelves in the freezer and recall the almost empty larder and smile. The camp coffee, or smoking  your cigarette until it was the smallest nib, adding water to old coffee grounds or using that tea in the pot just once more to make it stretch. And in all the careful planning and doing without, I might recall, standing there in the middle of my living room, art on the walls, shelves full of books and china, cupboards full of Holiday dishes and stacks of linen, that when I had less, when life was simple it some how had a truer almost brighter shine to it.
As if the cold on a winter’s day is more memorable for having bit you to the bone before you went coasting on the old wooden crate, because the metal from your old sled was given to the war effort. The hot chocolate afterwards was recalled more sweet as you huddled in front of the fire, the only source of heat, while the rest of the house was so cold to step on the floor in the frosty morning sent knives through your feet. Now, there standing in the centrally heated and cooled room with plates of thermal glass and thick carpet from wall to wall, it might seem more unreal or cold than that spartan past.
Of course, I haven’t any carpeting but old wood floors, and my windows are single pane deadlies constructed in the 19th century, but I was just considering my 1956 me in my modern sleek temperature controlled home. There must have been moments like that for my older 50’s counterparts who recalled the simpler times and wondered if maybe, just maybe, all the new things out there for sale may not be what we really need to be happy. To be hungry and scared is not good, but to become bloated and spoiled is equally as bad.
There must be a balance, surely. One does not want to live without and to only have the bare necessities is almost not human. Even in the Depression in a cold tar paper shack, I am sure there were family photos or dried flowers tacked to the wall. We need decor, we need to nest and make our living space a home. I just want to strike the balance and not be too far one way or the other. That is the trick of it and I will strive to meet it somehow.
What do you think, for you, is the best balance between less un-cluttered simplicity and homey acquisition of things? It must be different for each of us, but it must be at least considered. We should want our home to feel homey and not that we are possessed by our possessions. How do you strike the perfect balance?
Until tomorrow, Happy Homemaking.

9 September 1956 “Elvis on Ed Sullivan”

This evening, for the first time, Elvis will appear on Ed Sullivan. It is a milestone not only in the change in music, but also the new movement towards youth culture and tv marketing. This first showing of Elvis on Ed Sullivan resulted in 60 million viewers tuning in.
Ed Sullivan had initially said he did not want Elvis on his show. He did not approve of his overtly sexual stage moves and the music in general. And, what is interesting, is what turned his opinion is the beginning of that change to our now modern world: He wanted as many viewers as The Steve Allen Show, as they shared a time slot. Elvis had already been a guest on the Steve Allen show and when the numbers were in for the audience, Sullivan agreed.
It was decided that Elvis would make three appearances (one tonight, one on October 28, and finally, next year in 1957 in January) The fee for this was $50,000.00 Today, I am sure this seems a very small amount for a rock star, but you must realize the whole concept of this form of entertainment, mixed with media beamed into every home in America is a new idea. In today’s money that would be $350,000. Even that would be small for such a star these days. Money is beginning to talk. This is also an amazing amount when one considers two years earlier in 1954 Elvis was paid $10 to perform at the grand opening of the Lamar-Airways Shopping Center in Memphis Tennessee.

So, tonight at 8 pm EST, Elvis will appear on the Ed Sullivan Show. Ed will not even be hosting, as he had been in a serious car accident, so the actor Charles Laughton will host from the studio in New York City. Elvis, however, was in Los Angeles filming Love Me Tender.
After being introduced by Laughton, Elvis thanked him and then said, "This is probably the greatest honor that I've ever had in my life." Elvis then sang, "Don't Be Cruel" with his four back-up singers (the Jordanaires) followed by "Love Me Tender," which was the not-yet-released title track from his new movie.
This is the first song he performed, Don’t be cruel, though this is not from that performance but from the same year.

The second song was “Love Me Tender” and this video is from that actual first Ed Sullivan from this evening, 1956.

Love Me Tender the movie will be released this November 21st.

I really am beginning to feel this year, 1956, is beginning to mark many little changes that are leading to our modern 21st century world. With the increase in money to be made from ‘big music stars’ combined with the media of TV and movies and the Youth Movement, we begin to see the kernel of our new world.
I only wish we could have just veered things a little different direction. Even poor Elvis will ultimately succumb to the very machine that made him. It seems this is the point when people are not just being used, as they once were in the beginning of the Industrial Revolution as simple slaves, but as the product themselves. This, of course, has culminated into our being walking billboards who advertise and sell to ourselves to the point that we are literally working to buy. If only I had a real time machine, but alas, I can but try to live on that old cusp of the new materialism and try to make small changes in my own life. We can’t erase the past but we do have control over our present and futures.
Until tomorrow, Happy Homemaking.

8 September 1956 “September’s Challenge Dress and a Day Out With a Friend”

I do apologize for this late posting. A friend and I had planned today to vintage shop and lunch. I wanted to finish my latest dress, which is a lovely sheath dress from this pattern I know this vintage pattern is from 1960, but the style is still very 56, only shorter. I made the skirt longer, over the knee, but still shorter than I would have in 55. I am the type who would read Vogue and as I am making my own clothes, let my hemlines follow some of the newer shorter versions of the ever popular sheath dress.
Here it is with my cardigan and matching vintage pocketbook. I did not wear a hat today, as I wore my hair in a french twist and had a fabric brown flower pinned in to go with the flowers of the dress.  This is a close up of the fabric. I really love it and it is very vintage, though it is actually a new cotton/linen. It is a bit summery, but with the brown I felt it could wear into Autumn. And I wore it with brown shoes (my white shoes are away until next Memorial Day).
I really liked this pattern and am going to make the full skirted version next. What I did, and I will show more up close photos later, was cut out the four pieces of the dress (the front is one piece the little side front strap is another and two back pieces) in both this fabric and a nice white muslin. I cut the dress one size bigger than my own. Then I stitched the muslin and fabric together and flipped it out, ironing it flat. So now I had finished edges on the neckline, armholes, and hem. Then put the darts in (which went in lovely through the two layers of fabric) and put them together. I installed the zipper into the back two pieces BEFORE I sewed it to the front and this made an easier time of it as well. The whole thing went together rather quickly and easily this way and really gives a nice finished look. My friend gave me the nicest compliment in saying that it looked ‘store bought’.
We went to our local high end thrift store, Plush and Plunder, on Main street in Hyannis and my friend found a wonderful 1960 sheath dress in vintage sequins with the original metal zipper! I was envious of it, but she and her hubby of 10 years are going to be renewing their wedding vows in Las Vegas this fall and she wanted something “Rat Pack” and this was it. The bottom half is ice blue and meets the top cream in a very geometric triangular shape, much like the older signs in Vegas. I even helped her talk the ladies down from the original price. It is a very classic piece she can have in her wardrobe for ever.
We also hit Good Will where I found four lovely cardigans, all vintage, for only a few dollars each. When my friend said, “Hey, do you need a Connie Francis album?” half jokingly, I said, “Yes, I hope Stupid Cupid is on this one” and it was! So, I bought this album for 99 cents mostly for stupid cupid, but it has other good songs as well and I am listening to in on my old record player as I write this.
Here is a snippet of the song sung by Connie live. ( I know it doesn’t come out until 1959, but I really love the song. And don’t you love her dress!)

Here is the song in its entirety.

This song is also on the album:

I also purchaed a lovely Julie Andrews Christmas album (never too soon to think of Christmas, is it?)
Well, I have had a rather busy day and need to unwind now with hubby. I hope all had a find day and I will see you tomorrow.
Happy Homemaking.

7 September 1956 “Picnic, Peyton Place, and To-doing”

I hope all of you, here in the USA, enjoyed Labor Day.
Here is the song from the movie Picnic (starring Kim Novac and William Holden) played on a jukebox from 1954. This would be the way to enjoy music here at a bowling alley, bar, or possibly a soda shop that allowed dancing.

The movie Picnic came out last year 1955 and I believe I discussed it then. It occurs on Labor Day culminating in, of course, a Picnic.

Another 1950’s film that involves Labor Day is Peyton Place. This film will not come out until next year (1957) but this year the book was released. I am currently reading it and am really enjoying it. It is a good description of the New Englander of the small town. This book would become somewhat of a scandal and particularly in the lakes district of New Hampshire, where Metalious lived. My husbands great great grandparents owned a summer house/farm in this area back in the 1890’s.
This book would have a sequel, Return to Peyton Place, and it also had a daytime tv drama that ran from 1964-69.
I am sorry for the absence of a post yesterday, but I did take the day off. Today’s post is rather short, as well, as I am really going to be spending some time on the website this week, so I can finally just get that up. I want to be able to start focusing on my book. After my post about the book challenge ( I still don’t know who the winners are for that) and some of your lovely comments and emails, I really feel like I should write a book. I have much of it in my head already, many notes and so much in my blog that I have already covered, that I thought, "Why not just do it”. I am not sure how it will be available. I most likely will have it available as a self-published book or e-book when it is done. I don’t know that I want to mess about with agents and publishing companies. I think there is just to much of the ‘You can do it yourself’ atitude in me to go through normal channels. And I like our community we are growing and feel if we want to make and share a book, than we should. Maybe in the future, if others want to make their own books we can have a ‘book sale’ on the new site and give all our readers a chance to join in.
Well, I hope all are having a lovely day. Here on Cape our weather is perfect, 70’s, sunny, soft breeze, perfect biking and beach walking weather. And I shall still give myself that time to walk and be outside as well as my usual chores and now my book and site. I find when one get’s busier, we must still allow ourselves to LIVE in that day. To stop and ‘smell the roses’ as it were, for me it is having a cuppa while watching my chickens scratch in the garden. Taking a walk down to the canal and back home. Enjoying a cocktail or talk with hubby after dinner. When we remove modern media from our lives, other than for a few reasonable hours, it is amazing what one can accomplish in one’s day.
Until tomorrow then, Happy Homemaking.

5 September 1956 “Comments Continued…”

My latest comment to your comments on yesterday’s post was too long to be processed as a comment, so I am just making it into today’s post. Therefore, it is my continuing comment on those comments made on THIS post.
Missfifi-isn't it funny how often the 50's are shown as the time of 'keeping up with the Joneses' and certainly that was somewhat true then, but not like today. Today it is all about who is the coolest, hippest with the latest gadgets or most ironic tshirt saying or lowest rise most expensive track suit.
Dianne-That is very kind of you for thinking of me for the top ten list. I thank you again.
Sue G.-Vive la Revolution!
Jenny-Your husband sounds very right on. Funny that our phones should be a mobile office of organizing tools and blackberry's and stylus pens to keep our lives in order and yet it only adds to the chaos and includes one or more things to have to add to an already growing list of demands. How about a filing cabinet. A desk phone. A briefcase. A calendar. and a Weekly 'to do list' simple AND effective!
It is also so true about the branding of adults. Once this was a teenage or childish pursuit, but in a way it only cements what I have come to fear, all the old adults are dying off and we are left with the grown babies. Rather one is hip or cool or has the latest gadget is not a surprise for someone 13, but when one is a mother in her 50's it should not matter. Of course, this type of attitude only continues to teach the subsequent generations how important that is.
I was thinking how whenever someone drives by with their music blaring SO loud that you can literally FEEL the bass line, they are obviously doing that for OTHERS more than themselves. It says, 'Look at me, this is who I am by the definition of this song'. If they enjoyed that music, wouldn't' they listen to it at a comfortable level and who cares if others heard YOU listening to it. We live so much THROUGH the media of TV/computer/phones/text that we think we ALL OUR ON TV all the time and we have to live each day as if it is our reality show. "HEY LOOK AT ME" we all cry. And in some ways I almost feel as if we as a culture have so little to really say or think with and to ourselves that we are just grasping for anything for identity. It is truly sad that is out there to grasp is so empty shallow and pointless.
In some ways I worried that my own pursuit of 1955 was just that very same atitude: Look at me. And quite possbily in my early still modern mindset on 1 Janury 1955 that may have been my subconscious drive. However, what I have come to learn and feel of the depth and breadth of the homemakers of the past and truly that very War Generation has become more about the quality of my life. To me, when I dress vintage, it is about my own personal pride. There are days that I might not even be out in the public in any way, yet I am still dressed and living my life through vintage means. This is because it feels solid and real and tangible and honest to me. There is no one there to see me do it, yet I do it because it feels right and is for me and my family. That feeling of quality and purpose to life is often missing from the modern world. I am not sure why it vanished, but I have a strong feeling it went away when the importance of life switched to how cool you are and how many things you can own. Even now, many aspects of life are simply a drive to buy products that somehow represent the box in which you want to be put. If you like something you wear the advertising for it on your body, fill your shelves with the molded versions of it, yet all the while are not truly living it. Owning something does not give you the power of what it once represented.
That was the hardest lesson for me to learn as I ventured into 1955. That to simply buy up a decade in objects was not truly living or feeling what it was to be there. Now, most things I use and own ARE vintage, but their use is more tantamount to the production of my day than to how ‘cool’ or ‘retro’ I might look. My old mixer has the advantage of being lovely to look at, but that meat grinder attachment gets a good workout and all my foods are made in those bowls for my family to eat. My clothes are lovely, to me, but do not merely represent a new form of the t-shirt that says, ‘Hey I love 1950’, but both stand as a uniform to my day of pride of that time and also practicality. It is cheaper to make my own clothes and keep and maintain their sturdy construction by me than to simply plop down 20 dollars at Old Navy for an entire wardrobe.
I guess this is all really continuing the same thoughts I have been having of the actual tangible quality to a vintage life. What that can really mean. And I am all for filling our homes with vintage items because they DO make one feel a certain way, but then I want us to really take those items, look at what they did and perform tasks with them and see how the simpler aspect of your life, the preparation of food with less tools but well made beautiful ones actually DO MAKE A LIFE and is not a chore. Many of us have no problem setting aside 5 hours of a Sunday to sit online, but ask someone to take an hour to make, rise and bake bread and you might as well ask them to fly to the moon. I think this does a disservice to us. We people are much smarter than we have allowed ourselves to be in the ease of the modern world.
The real truth and the ‘secret to life’ is often just this:
Life is NOT better when it is cheaper and easier. Hard work often DOES=Better life
And when we begin to see that what we consider ‘hard work’ is actually the actions of living, we will realize it is not work at all, but life itself. They say God is in the details and surely Life is in the Doing not the Owning.
And as Jenny pointed out, try not to judge and to teach our children not to judge is the right and often the hardest thing to do. Perhaps because we are so judgmental ourselves we are so scared of BEING judged.
Many people write me and say they wish they could dress vintage or try to live a more vintage life, but they are afraid. It is hard, but we must let go of this fear. And we, as humans, are natural judges, but if we can learn to look kinder to others than perhaps we can, in turn, be kinder on ourselves and not worry of others judgment. Who cares, truly, if you are wearing a full on 1950’s outfit, hat gloves and all, and others stare at you. If you feel good and proud of this, do the opinions of others who ARE judgmental truly matter more than your own?
This is always a hard lesson, but it once was was the lesson of adulthood. There are countless episodes of 1950’s sitcom where the wiser mature parent teaches this lesson to the children: Do not judge others, be kind, and don’t worry about ‘going along with the crowd’. While today I am sure sitcoms have the parents merely older versions of the teens, worrying about how cool they or who has the best stuff.
We have lost that entire generation of mature parents. There is no Father from father knows best or Donna Reed to turn to us and say, “Now, darling, don’t let what those people are saying about how you are dressed bother you. They, themselves, must feel inadequate or hurt to hurt others. We must let each of us live the life we must, but truly people are good and are just misunderstood or misunderstanding”.
I hate to think of the modern mother role model of today in her SUV shouting at the other drivers while on the cell phone. Her kids mindlessly staring at the video screens in the seats in front of them, branded with their favorite character or store, while piled in the back is their daily booty of bags of frozen foods and soda and later that night, the mother borrowing her daughters cool top to go out and ‘party’. I want a grown up! I want someone to say, ‘it matters little what they say, but MORE what you do. You should live right and conscientiously and you will feel fulfilled and look inward and not care who is looking at you”.
PAT-I too, before my project, would say I was a number one consumer. I always looked for happiness at the end of a shopping line or in the bottom of my Home Goods bag. It wasn’t until I began to truly live and live simply, that my life began to feel real. I began to actually FEEL like a grown up. I always wondered when that magic moment of adulthood would come and I realize it never would had I not done this project because that transition from teen to adult almost does not exist any longer. So, in a way, it is up to we Vintage followers to make it apparent to others that the chores and lessons of Homemaking are not drudgery or ‘work’ or even demeaning, but in fact living and feeling alive in the moment of your life. You can play a video game, such as the sims, where you make up a world with a house and family, or you can simply live your own true life. And you know what? The Graphics are GREAT in real life. They are very lifelike and the experience is very 3-D.