On SeeSaw Facebook this week

SeeSaw is now on facebook, with links from our archives PLUS interesting things I've found around the web. Here's what's been on this week. 

SeeSaw on Facebook here

 

THE NEGRO MOTORIST GREEN-BOOK

Source: http://www.theroot.com/…/black_history_road_trip_negro_moto…

"In 1936 a Harlem postal worker and activist named Victor H. Green decided to develop a guide that would help African Americans travel throughout the country in a safe and comfortable manner. The Negro Motorist Green Book (also called The Negro Travelers' Green Book), often simply known as The Green Book, identified places that welcomed black people during an era when Jim Crow laws and de facto segregation made it difficult for them to travel domestically without fear of racial backlash.

The Green Book listed businesses and places of interest such as nightclubs, beauty salons, barbershops, gas stations and garages that catered to black road-trippers. For almost three decades, travelers could request (for just 10 cents' postage) and receive a guide from Green. Eventually the guide expanded to encompass information about Canada and Mexico."

 

Perfection Salad and Something From The Oven by Laura Shapiro

 

Perfection Salad, and Something From The Oven, two fascinating books by Laura Shapiro. I heard Laura speak at the University Of Vermont last Spring. I first read Perfection Salad when I was doing research on Jell-O. Turns out Laura is also obsessed with Jell-O images, so she is now the proud owner of a set of Jell-O placemats that I made. 

Here's an interesting early article about Perfection Salad. 
http://meaningness.com/perfection-salad

 

Mid Century Cooking from Mid-Century Menu

 

Here's a link to an interview with Ruth Clark who blogs at The Mid-Century Menu. Interview in CollectorsWeekly.com

 

More on Mid-Century Cooking. 
"Today, foodies typically look back on this era with an upturned nose, preferring to mock its foods rather than eat them. So when Ruth Clark took the obvious, and daring, step of actually making these retro recipes for her fascinating website The Mid-Century Menu, it’s not surprising she received a bit of hate mail. Clark typically cooks one vintage meal per week, which she documents through scans of the original recipe, photos of her re-creation, and detailed tasting notes (often featuring amusing photos of her husband, Tom, attempting his first few bites). Her blog is an everyday cook’s version of the Julie & Julia project, featuring the food that real people made in mid-century America.

 

"Clark recently gave us her experienced take on the marvels of mid-century eating, and the lessons contemporary cooks can learn from it."

 

Heinz ads from 1925, fun reproductions now available.

Did you know that Heinz used to make peanut butter? I didn't until I ran across this series of ads in The Saturday Evening Post from 1925. I bought a stack of the old magazines years ago and made copies of the ads. I've reproduced them, full size, and had Silver Maple Editions in Burlington  fine-art laminate them on high density wood. You can buy them at my online store.

Heinz Peanut butter. 1925. Ready to hang.

Heinz Peanut Butter, ad, Saturday Evening Post, detail

 Heinz Baked Beans, 1925 ad. Saturday Evening Post

detail, heinz baked beans

     Heinz Cider Vinegar, 1925 Saturday Evening Post. 

  detail, Heinz Cider Vinegar.

These are all available in very limited quantities  at the Small Equals online store. HERE

Children's reading primers

I've been collecting early childhood readers and primers for ages. I love them for the typography, the illustrations and for the peek into the social life and pedagogy of the early 20th Century.

Here are a few lovely examples:

  

The Easy Road To Reading, Lyons & Carnihan 1919-25, illustrated by Mary Louise Spoor and Gertrude Spaller.

  

The Easy Road To Reading First Reader. Illustrated by Mary Louise Spoor. For more on ML Spoor

 
Champion Arithmetics, children's math primer, 1937, Evanston IL

 
Champion Arithmetics. Illustration by Nell Hulke Compton. 1937

  

Happy Days, Quinlan Readers. 1949 Allen and Bacon Publishers

 
Happy Days Children's primer. Quinlan readers. 1949. Illustration Constance Heffron

  

Down Our Street. McMillan 1939.

 
Down Our Street. Children's reader. 1939

  

Health Stories and Practice, 1931, Lyons & Carnahan publisher, illustrations by Vera Stone Norman and Irene Dorcy

 
Health Stories and Practice. 1931. Illustrated by Vera Store Norman or Irene Dorcy

 
Health Stories and Practice. 1931. Illustrated by Vera Store Norman or Irene Dorcy

 
Journey to Health Land. Ginn & Co. 1924, illustrated by Blanche Fisher Laite

 
A Journey To Health Land. Illustration Blanche Fisher Laite 1924

  

Childhood Readers, City and Country, Scribners,1932, illustrated by Florence and Margaret Hoopes and Margaret Freeman.

 
Childhood Readers, City and Country. Illustrated by Florence and Margaret Hoopes and Margaret Freeman. 1932

 
Childhood Readers, City and Country. Illustrated by Florence and Margaret Hoopes & Margaret Freeman, 1932

 
Childhood Readers, City and Country. Illustrated by Florence and Margaret Hoopes & Margaret Freeman, 1932

 
Meet Our Friends, Bobbs Merrill 19500. Illustrated by Janet Ross and Raymon Naylor

 
Meet Our Friends. 1950. Illustrated by Janet Ross and Raymon Naylor

MERRITT CUTLER FOOD ILLUSTRATIONS

 

 

Merritt Cutler New Magic In The Kitchen. LIza Cowan ephemera collections

These illustrations from the Borden Eagle Brand Sweetened Condensed Milk Recipe  book, New Magic In The Kitchen, are too...sweet...to ignore.

 

The Borden Company, Eagle Brand Sweetened Condensed Milk. Gail Bordon patented his invention for making condensed milk in 1856 and his company was  first manufacturer of condensed milk. 

 

The illustrations for the recipe booklet are by Merritt Cutler. Published probably in the  1930's before 1938 when  Elsie the Cow became the spokesbovine for the Borden Company.

Here's what a 1960 ad for Strathmore Paper had to say about Merritt

"Merritt Cutler graduated from Pratt Institute into a noteworthy career as art director in leading advertising agencies. In 1942 he enlisted as a Captain in the Army Engineers Corps. He formed and directed the department at Ft. Belvoir which turned out the Camouflage Training Aids and Manuals."

 

I sure would love to see those!

 "The free-lancing which Mr. Cutler has been doing since, includes two text books on scratch board techniques, book illustrations, advertisement and package design.

 Ad for Strathmore Artist Paper, American Artist , April 1960
 

 

 

 

 

 

  

Rice Pudding, Merritt Cutler, p. 45 New Magic In The Kitchen

 

 
Lemon Pie, Merritt Cutler, p. 41, New Magic In The Kitchen

 

Merrit Cutler. Hot Chocolate.

Hot Chocolate, Merrit Cutler, p. 28, New Magic In The Kitchen

 

 
Orange-Lemon Frosting. Merritt Cutler, p. 29 New Kitchen Magic

 
Cornmeal Muffins, Merritt Cutler, p. 12, New Magic In the Kitchen

 

 

Jello Desserts From Around The World.

In this week's mail: the great Jello book I blogged about recently.

This booklet, Desserts From Around the World, is from 1909, almost a hundred years old! It features very Eurocentric versions of people from around the globe and the Jell-0 recipes they've inspired. Here's the centerfold.

so you can see the details better:

 

This one is the Paris Jello eaters. The Eurocentric version of Parisians is, of course, pretty accurate, Paris being a fairly European city.

The view of Eve in the Garden Of Eden- eating apple snow Jello - is a riot. I love her garment made of fig leaves. And the text - check out the embedded assumptions:  "Whether woman has always been privileged to prepare man's food for him or not, and to persuade him to eat, is a point on which history furnished unsatisfactory information." But hey, in 1909 women in the United States couldn't even vote.

There are additional pages for the Indians (i.e. Native Americans), "now a vanishing race," as well as natives of India, Hawaii,  Japanese, Russia, "oriental countries," and Holland. With enough encouragement, I will post some of these pictures.

 

COLOR SEPARATIONS

I was browsing around the website COLORlovers, looking at how they analyze color trends in magazine covers and blogs and I was inspired to take a look at the color trends in some of the art I've been looking at and posting lately.

The last time I did something like this was when home computers were a gleam in their inventor's eye, during my first (and only) year at The School Of Visual arts in New York City in 1968. We used Color-aid paper. Yumm.

Now I use a design software that I love but almost nobody I work with has heard of. It's called Swift Publisher, and although it has only a fraction of the horsepower of Adobe Illustrator, which everyone recommends, I find it flexible and, best of all, I actually know how to use it.

Like most design software, it has a way to copy color from one place and put it in a designated location. Nifty. I depend on this feature for most of my digital color choices.

I did this mainly as a color exercise, but it turns out they're fun to do and quite nice to look at. I hope you enjoy them.

colors in Jello recipe booklet.

This Jell-o booklet was printed by chromolithography, which separates (and combines) colors in many many layers of printing plates, often dozens of layers. The way they combine, and the way the light hits the colors and the eye decodes the message is both subtle and tricky - think of a pointillist painting. So in this Jell-0 cover, it looks like there's lavender, but there isn't an actual lavender ink. These are the colors that separate and combine to make the final impression.

Diamond Dyes booklet. Circa 1890's. Wells Richardson & Co. Burlington, VT

This is a detail from a Diamond Dyes chromolithographed booklet, circa 1890. The colors I've defined don't necessarily reflect the colors of ink that were used to make this chromo. I'm sure there's a way to figure that out, but darned if I know it. The colors I've extracted are from a digital scan, as all of these images are. The colors, at least on my screen, are faithful to the original, but they are still digitized. So if two layers of ink are superimposed - layered on on the other, they will read as a third color. Even to the scanner. Still, its quite interesting, I think.

Ad for American Gas Association, Saturday Evening Post 1940

This 1949 ad uses different printing technology. Using a four color printing process, the inks combine to create colors from only four colors: cyan, yellow, magenta and black. The finished print, of course, is defined by the original work, in this case a painting, probably guache.The colors of the kitchen are a simple yellow, blue and white palette. The greens are only in the out doors. I've written about this ad before in this blog. It's one of my favorites and I keep coming back to it. Also, the American Gas Association has a google notifier, and last time I posted this ad I got a really nice note from them, so if you are reading this from AGA, hello!

Liza Cowan aka Liza Leger from FAKE!Paintings by Liza Leger et. al.

This is a digital photo (by Dok Wright) of a painting by me, Liza. The colors are paint in the original, and they look pretty faithful to me. I paint using mixtures of only five colors: Cadmium yellow medium, cadmium red medium, cobalt blue, titanium white and black. I get my neutral grayish greens and etc. by mixing all three colors plus white.

I was having so much fun with my color game that I introduced it to my children. I showed them how to do it and they each came up with one.

Photo by Liza Cowan 2002

Older daughter, WG, decided to do this photo I took of her many years ago. It was a digital capture, so the image was pixilated in it's inception. She chose to design her page with the colors right up against one another in different sizes.

detail from Alphabet Of Country Scenes. 1875, McLaughlin Bros. NY.

Younger daughter GW did this one, another chromo, and I love how she made the colors different sizes. Lively composition. I didn't discuss options of box sizes with the children, nor did we explore using different shapes or placement. We'll save that for another time.

FRIGIDAIRE 1931

Here are some beauties from a 1931 Frigidaire booklet. According to the Frigidaire website, 1931 was the year freon was introduced as a refrigerant. Previously refrigerators had depended on ammonia and methyl chloride and sufor dioxide which proved fatal in several accidents. Freon, it turned out, wasn't so great either, since the chlorofluorocarbons destroy the ozone layer. See about.com:inventors .

For more information on the history of refrigerators, The History Channel history.com has some good stuff. Including that the ice trade between Boston and the South was one of the first casualties of the Civil War, and then warm winters in 1889 and 1890 created severe shortages of natural ice in the US which stimulated the invention, commercialization and marketing of mechanical refrigeration for fish and for the brewing, dairy and meat industries. Home refrigerators came later, in 1911. According to History.com frozen food storage at home didn't become widely used until the 1940's, so the freezer shown below must have been a luxury- even more so than refrigerators - although they had been introduced in the 1920's. You can see in the Frigidaire post below from 1925 that there are ice freezing compartments.

1931 Frigidaire booklet. Collection PSAW

This is the cover. It follows the theme of mothers and daughters (or sometimes sons, but not as often) standing in front of the wonderful refrigerator. Mothers nurture and feed. And they teach their daughters that they will be doing so for their own offspring. And nothing says loving like a full fridge. Polemics aside, isn't this a gorgeous, compelling illustration. Beautifully rendered to display the warmth and joy of a happy home. I love how the mother and daughter are bathed in a pool of light, the daughter quietly contemplates the new appliance, which you can tell even from behind, while the mother lovingly and casually enjoys her daughter's attitude.

frigidaire 1931. Liza Cowan Ephemera Collections

Chilled puddings. A marvel of modern mechanics. It looks like the girl is eating an apple, and the boy is drinking a glass of milk, so I'm betting that Mom made the treats for dessert and is putting them away, rather than taking them out. Maybe it's Jell-O.

The salesman shows off his wares to....the wives. Somehow the husbands are not in on the decision making here. We can make believe that the two women shopping actually live together rather than with husbands,but we would most likely be imposing a 21st century narrative on an seventy year old moment in history.

If part of the job of advertising is to teach people class behaviors, usually just slightly above the class they are actually in, this one teaches the smooth elegance of shopping in your best clothing, listening quietly, and paying attention to the authority of the salesman in a beautifully appointed showroom. In my own Jewish upper middle class New York City childhood in the 1950's, we always had to dress up to go shopping. Although my mother encouraged me to wear dungarees for play at home and in the park, if we were going out to a restaurant or to a store or on a trip we always had to wear "nice" clothes. My brothers had to wear ties if they were going four blocks from home, unless it was to the park for sports.

In an alternate universe, the women come home to their new fridge. In the 1931 advertising universe, however, the wife who just bought the Frigidaire is showing it off to her friend. Part of the appeal of the new appliance is that it excites admiration and perhaps even envy from one's friends and neighbors, which is always rather satisfying. 

 This picture, in my opinion, could be featured in the Museum Of Modern Art. A perfect modernist study of form, line and color.

Lovely, cold ice. At your fingertips. It must have seemed miraculous, really, and so different from having ice delivered for your ice box. Or, if you remember Almanzo in Laura Ingall's Wilder's Farmer Boy, it took three grown men (Father and his two French Canadian hired men), plus Almonzo and his older brother an full, long day to cut the ice from the frozen pond, haul it to the ice house, and pack it tight in sawdust. "Buried in the sawdust, the blocks of ice would not melt in the hottest summer weather. One at a time they would be dug out, and Mother would make ice-cream and lemonade and cold egg-nog."

Ah, so that's where the men were. Off playing golf. Well, never mind. They've come home for brunch, and the wives got on just fine, making some big financial decisions with enough time left over to make a chilled punch. And here comes the ice, fresh from the freezer.

 

Frigidaire, 1931

And now, back to the daily day. Making a pie with those eggs and butter? Maybe a ham pie? Because, of course, the ubiquitous ham is sitting there waiting. What a well fed family. How happy they are.

PS: I found another great web essay from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.

KITCHENS IN ADS

Kitchen ads from the Liza Cowan Ephemera Collections.

"Bellflor seems almost too lovely for the kitchen" Nai Linoleum, 1925 Good Housekeeping

"The kitchen, where you spend so much of your time, should be just as attractive in its own fashion, as any room in the house"

Doesn't she look happy, all alone, perched on a stool wiping the dishes? 

The kitchen as living room theme is repeated in this ad:

1956 Hotpoint Ad from Better Homes And Gardens. "Enjoy a living room kitchen."

"Just think of creating a kitchen exactly as you want it - a center for family activities, entertainment - yet completely equipped with modern electric appliances."

This happy homemaker has her daughter for company, at least after school. Maybe the daughter is scheming and plotting her eventual escape from the world of household economy.

 

American Gas Association 1949 Saturday Evening Post

Probably it's the yellow and blue and the view outside, but this kitchen always makes me happy. Face it, even though I've been a feminist, media/cultural theorist, patriarchy resister for my entire adult life, the all- gobbling woman=home paradigm grabbed me as strongly as anyone. "Resistance is Futile" and patriarchy might as well be The Borg. That's how strong it is. Now think about people who never even imagine resisting!  Yep, that's why ads work so well to sell us the product, the lifestyle, the paradigm.

I joke that resistance is futile. Of course if you engage your brain at every moment you can think your way to another way of looking at the world. Nevertheless, I'm a sucker for these ads directed at women, engineered to create a world of consuming, serving wives and daughters. Partially because it is virtually the only mainstream representation of a world of women, partially because the brainwashing worked so thoroughly that this world feels "natural"  and partially, or so I argue to myself, the images are really wonderful. So, here come some more.

 

Norge, 1944 Better Homes & Gardens

Norge, 1944 Better Homes & Gardens

This is a wartime ad. The woman is making the purchasing decisions alone, possibly for the first time. She turns to her Norge Dealer for advice.

 "All over the country Norge dealers are working for today by helping their customers through this difficult period when the purchase of new household appliances is restricted. They are preaching the doctrine of conservation - of better care, less repair, they are suggesting ways and means of prolonging the life of valued equipment... Norge dealers of all types...are planning for that great day when their showrooms will again be filled..."

Norge, detail

 

 

GE 1945 Good Housekeeping

Mother, mother in law, neighbor? It's important to have her approval.

GE 1945 detail

It's important to have her approval for the appliances because of what they say about how good a housekeeper/wife you are. The borders of femininity are patrolled not so much by men, but by other women.

 

Magic Chef, 1939 Saturday Evening Post

Magic Chef, 1939 Saturday Evening Post

"1. Gadding around all afternoon...land sakes! Her poor husband probably eats his dinner right out of a can, and her house must be a sight!"

"2. I know my duty when I see it. I called on that new Mrs Jones next day, to tell her a wifes' place is in the kitchen. But did she surprise me!"

"3. Neat as a pin her kitchen was, with a bright, shiny new gas range. Seems it all but cooks by itself! That girl's not lazy...she's smart!"

"4. 'I'm ashamed' I told susan. 'Just think how long I've slaved over my old range! Fiddlesticks! come on. let's do something about it!' "

 

REFRIGERATORS PART 2

In a recent comment about Jello ads,  David Apatoff wrote:

It's funny... this week on Leif Peng's Today's Inspriation blog he showed illustrations for U.S. Steel which used a highly attractive spokeswoman standing around construction sites talking about all of the important applications for steel. She obviously had no connection whatsoever to the product, and everyone had a big laugh about what dopes men are, and how easy they are to manipulate.

Now I am looking at your ads for Jello and I see wedding gowns and handsome husbands, which again have no connection whatsoever to the product. I would hate to think that women are as easy to manipulate as men...

First of all, you should all check out David's blog, Illustration Art, and Leif's blog. Today's Inspriation.  I read them both daily and highly recommend them. But on to an answer, as relevent here about refrigerators as it is about Jello.

Of course women are as easy to manipulate as men. Otherwise advertising wouldn't work. Because what they are really selling isn't product, but values. Advertisers sell products by selling values. For men, the value is masculinity: the appeal to masculinity is through heteronormative sex, i.e. pretty girls, or other forms of masculinized behaviour, such as beer drinking, or driving cars. Or supporting a family, being a protector, provider etc.

Advertising appeals to women through values like family, home, frailty and beauty. Not that these need to be values associated with women, (or with men)  but advertising is one of the most effective venues for creating femininity and masculinity. In short, advertising works to sell product, but more important, it works to sell culturally shaped masculinity and femininity. And until we learn how to read advertising critically, we are all suceptible to it. Even then, it's hard to resist.

Frigidaire 1925. Showing off the new fridge. Notice how little food is actually in it. This looks more like the inside of my fridge. My children often accuse me of only having condiments, which isn't exactly true, but they'd be happy if I'd always stock up on puddings, ice cream and cake. Real foods like vegetables, fruit and yoghurt don't count.

 
Gurney, 1925. Still not much food in the fridge. Enough, but not crammed.

frigidaire 1940. Why would you put canned food in the fridge? Isn't the point of canning that it doesn't need refrigeration? After it's open, don't you put it in another container that has a lid? I guess it doesn't matter to the folks who live in ad land, since they put slabs of unwrapped meat right on the fridge shelf.

 Another stuffed fridge. Meats, puddings, cake, milk, frozen food, salads. The milk is still in glass bottles.

Norge 1946. An abundance of unwrapped food, including what looks like a ham and a roast.

GE 1948. Even more food, including the ham, a whole turkey, puddings, fruit, frozen foods, milk in cartons.What is is about the hams that seem to be in every fridge? They must be fun to draw, or they are thought to be very recognizable. I suppose they didn't consider the market segment that kept kosher.

international harvester 1954. "Femineered" I love that. She gets to decorate the outside.

Frigidaire 1933. This is one of the very few fridge ads I've seen featuring a man, but notice that he's not going to prepare a meal, he's just grabbing a few beers. That's better than yelling, "Hey hon, get me a brew" but still...

REFRIGERATOR ADS

I've been collecting kitchen ads for about twenty years, on and off. Mainly I have refrigerators, sinks and stoves.  I've just started to scan them. Of course, I love the illustrations and the cultural history, but what I think I love most about kitchen ads is seeing all the food in the refrigerators. You'll see, as we get further into the collection, just how abundant the food is, and how it's never wrapped.

Frigidaire, 1940, detail. Saturday Evening Post. PSAW ephemera collection

Frigidaire, 1940.  Detail The Saturday Evening Post. PSAW ephemera collection

When you get such a fridge as this, you must invited the girls over for a look see.



Just how big is the family, one wonders.


Frigidaire. Detail


Frigidaire. detail.