Ads to Catch the Eye of the Homemaker in the October 1952 Good Housekeeping Magazine

What did the 1952 Homemaker want in her house? Perhaps these Good Housekeeping ads filled out her 'wish list.' Starting with the kitchen.

I have to wonder what came first, the desire or the ads that created a need?

Youngstown kitchen cabinets are sought after by the Retro Renovation crowd. Some of our early parsonage kitchens had metal cabinets with cool features like a flour bin.

A modern kitchen needed to have a gas or electric range. Growing up, I actually knew a family who still used a wood burning stove until the later 1950s.

This range could bake and broil at the same time!

Mom always had Revere Ware. I did too, but I would get distracted and end up burning them up. I was better off using cast iron!

Wear-Ever is still around. 

I did not have a Chromcraft table and chairs growing up, but I still have my childhood table that Dad bought and finished. 

Mom bought Melmac dishes when I was a kid in the 1950s.

Anchor Hocking Fire King ovenware, made in Ohio.

I don't recall the name Styron from Dow Plastics. Made in Michigan.

What about the rest of the house? There were innovations in the bedroom, including 'bibb' or 'snug' fitted sheets.

Wallpaper was found in most houses. I recall my first bedroom had paper with black and white kittens playing with pink and blue balls of yarn. The whites of their eyes glowed in the dark and disturbed me.

Mom favored nylon sheer curtains.

Vinyl and linoleum flooring were easy for the 'weekend remodelers' to install. Dad installed tile in our house in 1963.

Back to the kitchen...What was for dinner in 1952? During the war America bought oleo, but now butter was trying to come back to the table.

 Macaroni Squares was an inexpensive meal to make.

 Spanish Rice Pronto is not too different from one of Mom's favorite recipes.

1952 Good Housekeeping

I have collected vintage magazines for years. I enjoy them for the nostalgia of remembering Mom buying magazines at the grocery lane checkout, and how I read the stories included for children and cutting out Betsy McCall paper dolls. Plus, they offer a glimpse into the world of my birth and childhood, providing an insight into women's history.

Recently I picked up this 1952 Good Housekeeping magazine. The cover is so cute and family friendly.

Then you find the fiction section...

Yes! this issue included Daphne DuMaurier's short story The Birds, the inspiration for the famous movie by Alfred Hitchcock!

I remember Mom had a ponytail when I was a tot and she was in her early twenties. And when soda pop only came in bottles and was a reasonable size.

Beauty Counselors, Inc, from Grosse Point, MI suggests using Q-tips for trying cosmetics. The company was founded in 1931.

Canned veggies, especially peas, never appealed to me. But the idea of a giant man in the kitchen to do the cooking? I'm cool with that.

 As if a bride didn't have enough to worry about. She had to use up a cake of Camay beauty soap before the wedding.

Beauty was hard work and involved discomfort. I wore a girdle and stockings for a year before pantyhose came along. Worse year of my life--Seventh Grade.

Celebrities were used to sell products, same as today. Betty Hutton appeared in two ads.

Mamie bangs or a pompadour?

 The classic 50s face: dark, arched eyebrows, red lips, white face.

 My mother-in-law only ever used Noxema to cleanse her skin, into her nineties.

Co-ed reveals all: she broke the rules at a football game...forgetting her GLOVES.

But Jergen saved the day!

May all your problems be so easily solved.

A Marshall Field's 100th Anniversary Handkerchief

I found this handkerchief on eBay. I knew it had a story and I wanted to know what it was. (It dated to the year of my birth--1952!)

The words "The Clock Strikes 100"appear next to a clock face-- a very specific looking clock-- in a field of repeated 100s. Around the border are drawings of buildings, people, and modes of transportation dated 1852, 1901, and 1952.

I goggled the motto and discovered that the clock is the famous Marshall Field clock at their Chicago flagship store. It was installed in 1871 as a beacon to the store which Field envisioned as a meeting place. (Which reminds me of the saying, "Meet Me At the Eagle" for John Wanamaker's in Philadelphia! Another large downtown store with an atrium--and pipe organ! See a souvenir hanky with the Eagle here.) 

The Clock Mender by Norman Rockwell features the Marshall Field Clock; Saturday Evening Post, 1945

You can see photos of the store and the clock here.  The Marshall Field & Company building is a Chicago landmark and is the second largest store in the world. The original building was lost in the great Chicago fire. Marshall Field moved into a new store in 1871. Additions were continuously made until 1914 and it reigned as the largest store in the world, covering 73 acres! 

I found many more Marshall Field 100 years handkerchiefs shared on Handkerchief Heroes.

I had no idea what I was going to learn when I bought this hanky!