Retro Advertisements & Art

Happy Thanksgiving

The median value for a new house in 1936 was $4,000. Adjusted for inflation, that's about $45,000 today! As you can see, houses back then were much smaller in size and were aesthetically far more pleasing than those tacky, oversized McMansions that have been a drug on the housing market for the past 20 years. If you could offer a young zoomer couple a house like this for $45,000 would they buy it?

While this post isn't about the ad per say, it's about the color used called Paris Green. At the time, Paris green was praised as a more durable and vibrant substitute for Scheele’s green. Problem was that Paris Green was highly toxic which doubled as a rodenticide and insecticide.

The Folies Bergère is a cabaret music hall, located in Paris, France. Located at 32 Rue Richer in the 9th Arrondissement, the Folies Bergère was built as an opera house by the architect Plumeret.  Revues featured extravagant costumes, sets and effects, and often nude women. In 1926, Josephine Baker, an African-American expatriate singer, dancer and entertainer, caused a sensation at the Folies Bergère by dancing in a costume consisting of a skirt made of a string of artificial bananas and little else.

KFC Corporation, doing business as Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC), is an American fast food restaurant chain headquartered in Louisville, Kentucky, that specializes in fried chicken.  In 1930, Sanders took over a Shell filling station on US Route 25 just outside North Corbin, Kentucky, a small town on the edge of the Appalachian Mountains.It was here that he first served to travelers the recipes that he had learned as a child: fried chicken and other dishes such as steaks and country ham.

1950s retro advertisement for Tootsie Rolls. The chocolate-flavored taffy that has been manufactured in the United States since 1907. According to the official company history,founder Leo Hirschfield (spelled Hirshfield in Tootsie Industries history) was an Austrian Jewish immigrant to the United States of America, son of an Austrian candy maker.

Joan Bennett in a 1937 ad for Calox tooth powder. Lovely smile and hair!

Eat candy bars and the sugar rush will help you skate or bowl! Weren't the serving sizes a lot smaller back then? They didn't have King Size, so you were probably only eating 130 calories per candy rather than up to 350-400.

Who's that lady? It's Veronica Lake!