As America entered the Great War in 1917, Uncle Sam encouraged all his “hyphenated” American nieces and nephews to join him in fighting this war to end all wars.

While we celebrate the centennial of Armistice Day, the shadow of anti-Semitism still casts a dark cloud over us. It is worth remembering that approximately 225,000 Jewish-Americans served proudly in WWI.

Among them was my Jewish maternal grandfather Arthur Joseph.

It was with great pride that a few years after the signing of the Armistice that Arthur and his wife my grandmother Sadie  listened as his former Commander, General John Pershing Commander of the American Expeditiary Force  deliver a stirring speech  extolling the value of the Jewish serviceman. The speech was given in 1926 in the majestic halls of the great Gothic Cathedral of St. John the Divine in upper Manhattan at an interfaith meeting to aid the suffering of Jews in Eastern Europe.

“ When the time came to serve their country under arms,” General Pershing said, “no class of people served with more patriotism or with higher motives than the young Jews who volunteered or were drafted and who went overseas with our other young Americans.

To Make the World Safe for Democracy my grandfather served with dignity as an American and as a Jew. A second generation American, he was born in N.Y.C. to Hungarian immigrants who had lived in the country for over 25 years. But he was always a Jewish-American.

There was still resistance to the “hyphenated” Americans despite the fact that nearly a quarter of the men sent to fight in Europe in 1918 were foreign-born.  Many had only arrived from Ellis Island months or years earlier when they enlisted.

By the time of the war the melting pot was roiling.

With one in three Americans in 1918 either born abroad or of foreign-born parents, resentment of immigrants became part of the Great American melting pot recipe. The idea of hyphenated Americans citizens who identified as Italian-Americans or Jewish-Americans made many native born citizens uneasy.

Terms like yid, kike, mick, dago, and polack, were tossed around as casually as baseballs. .

Former President Theodore Roosevelt encouraged the suspicion of hyphenated Americans insisting that all citizens no matter their birthright or ethnic heritage should embrace “the simple and loyal motto America for Americans.”

Sound familiar?

Immigrants along with Jews would prove critical to the country’s effort in WWI.  Despite their importance, America closed its borders in the years after the Armistice, ending what had been the largest immigration flow in the country’s history.

With American Jewish participation in WWI, Rabbi Stephen Wise wrote optimistically in a 1917 N.Y. Times op ed:  that military service would “ mark the burial, without the hope of resurrection, of hyphenism and will token the birth of a united and indivisible country.”

A dream that is clearly unrealized.

It’s time to call an armistice to hate of the Other.

 © Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2018. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

As America entered the Great War in 1917, Uncle Sam encouraged all his hyphenated American nieces and nephews to join him in fighting this war to end all wars.

“You came here seeking Freedom,” he told the masses of immigrants living on our bountiful shores “and now you must help to preserve it!”

And on the home front nothing was more patriotic than the battle on food conservation.

“Food will win the war,” Uncle Sam proclaimed, exhorting all patriotic American women to help win the war in their kitchen by voluntarily restricting precious food commodities so that the dough boys and our allies would be well fed.

Vintage WWI Poster US Food Administration

While we were fighting “over there” over here it was all out war on scarce wheat, meat, sugar and animal fats; it was, also all out war on anyone remotely appearing un patriotic, i.e. un American.

If conserving on wheat would help our fighting boys it was a small price to pay to show you were 100% American.

Enlisting the help of housewives by making them soldiers of the kitchen, women were on the front lines on the home front including my great-grandmother Rebekah and her daughter, my then 17-year-old grandmother Sadie

Pledge Drive

The newly formed the Food Administration relied on patriotic propaganda to reduce food consumption in the U.S. Uncle Sam persuaded, not forcing Americans to cut down on their consumption of white wheat flour and meat as well as butter and sugar.Besides pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, American women were asked to sign a pledge card promising to restrict their food choices.

Young girls were eagerly sought after to be part of Wilson’s infamous Call to the Women of the Nation” and my then teenage grandmother Sadie eagerly stepped up.

Literally

One way that Uncle Sam was able to persuade people into volunteer food conservation efforts was to sign a pledge card.

When the first Pledge Drive began in late October 1917, my high school student grandmother answered Uncle Sam’s call to canvass her Brooklyn neighborhood collecting signatures. From October 29th to November  4th,  Sadie and her classmates tramped up and down Bedford Avenue, brownstone to brownstone, house to house, encouraging housewives to sign the pledge cards during Food Pledge Week.

No one wanted to be accused of having questionable dietary choices which became synonymous with being unpatriotic. Just as the government had whipped a very reluctant country to go to war in order to “make the world safe for democracy,” so Uncle Sam became skilled at food shaming the American public.

Americans agreed: We shall cheerfully deny ourselves.

We Answer to a Higher Authority

Corn as well as other grains were encouraged as substitutes for scarce wheat. WWI Food Conservation poster

Returning home from school one late October afternoon in 1917, my then teenage grandmother Sadie found her mother standing at the coal cook stove in the spotless, onion scented kitchen, rendering chicken fat (schmaltz) in the “fleyshik” (meat) frying pan, and frying cheese blintzes in the milkhik (dairy) pan, never ever confusing one cast iron pan for the other.

The rambling house in Williamsburg Brooklyn was alive with the odors of burning carrots, frying onions, cooking cabbage and fermenting sauerkraut ( now patriotically called liberty cabbage.)  Without even looking up from the stove, Rebekah handed Sadie a piece of challah, schmeered with schmaltz, – a nosh before dinner.

Sadie was bursting at the seams to tell her mother not only what she had learned in her Home Economics class and how it could help win the war effort, but the importance of the pledge drive.

Vintage WWI Poster US Food Administration

Sitting at the oil-cloth covered kitchen table nibbling on the rich, greasy, bread, Sadie excitedly explained to her mother how scientists had devised new rules of nutrition classifying food into groups like proteins and carbohydrates and were now telling folks what was good for them to eat based on the foods recently discover chemical make up.

Relying on these principles of new scientific nutrition, Uncle Sam had established rules for how and what to eat for the war effort.

Happily cooking with Crisco was not only kosher, economical and digestible it was patriotic. Whether baking challah or pastries, Jewish housewives could avail themselves of Crisco. Vintage Crisco ads WWI 1917

Home economists from the newly formed U.S. Food Administration had prepared a hefty textbook for high school students explaining not only the theories of new nutrition, but devising war-time recipes and menus which would use substitutes for scarce precious wheat, beef, butter, and sugar.

We All Must Do Our Share

Holding up a pledge card, Sadie explained how Uncle Sam was now politely asked housewives to voluntarily sign pledge cards to obey the food conservation rules set out by the Food Administration, suggesting one wheatless day a week, one wheatless meal a day, one meatless day a week, and one meatless meal each day.

WWI Pledge card from the Food Administration signed by First lady Edith Wilson.The second pledge card campaign in late October 1917 managed to sign up nearly half a million out of 24 million families.

Proudly she told to her mother that Mrs Wilson was the first woman to sign this important food pledge card, setting the example for all American women to follow.

“There was no better way to support and show your Americanism than to sign a pledge card like our first lady,” Sadie urged her mother.

Besides which nowadays dietary transgressions, Sadie implied, were close to treasonable. “But all a patriotic housewife had to do was walk right up and ask Uncle Sam to show me how!”

Separate But Equal

But Rebecca had already signed a pledge card of sorts.

She had walked up to her own higher authority, the laws of Kashruth, the ancient Jewish Dietary laws and asked them to show her how.

In an Orthodox Jewish household like my Great Grandmothers, the only important rule- one that was non negotiable was the time-honored rule of Kashruth, keeping kosher an elaborate system of rules that dictated the kinds of foods that were permissible to eat and even the way the foods are prepared.

She needed a scientist or Uncle Sam to tell her about food, like she needed “a hole in the head.”

But no one wanted to be thought unpatriotic. In an age of heightened xenophobia this Russian immigrant dared not be thought un-American. Besides, if a mensch like Uncle Sam asked, who could refuse?

A proud citizen she embraced her Americanism. By signing the pledge card, she joined thousands of immigrant Jewish housewives all over Brooklyn who would hang the cards in their windows attesting to their oath (“the service tag of American women”)

Meaning of America

Vintage WWI posters Uncle Sam and Woodrow Wilson

One couldn’t say that our land-of-the-free-government didn’t take the needs of the melting pot masses in to consideration.

Thoughtfully, Uncle Sam had printed out a whole batch of pledge cards especially for his “Hebrew Sisters” conveniently translated into Yiddish, so that they would understand what they were signing.

Along with the door to door canvasing the cards were distributed in the local synagogues, along with government posters in Yiddish proclaiming, “You came here seeking Freedom. You must now help Preserve it – Waste Nothing!”

This was all part of President Wilson’s Committee on Public Information in an effort to solicit support for the war.
As part of the program, an army of volunteers called the Four Minutemen gave brief speeches typically 4 minutes long to spread support for the war, speaking wherever they could find an audience such as at theaters, nickelodeons, lodges and churches.

A Four Minute Shtik

The local Four Minute Men organization tried to  tailor speeches to immigrant communities.

In N.Y.C alone some 16 hundred speeches addressed half a million people each week in their native tongues. Italian was popular but it came in second to Yiddish.

Yiddish speaking Four Minute men spoke at Yiddish theaters, playhouses, and synagogues, including my great-grandparent’s temple.

The jingoistic talks were called “The Meaning of America” and the appeal to patriotism was essential. Utilizing themes of shared sacrifice and responsibility of citizenship encouraging every American, adult and child, to “do your bit.”

This was the Great Crusade, the most insistent call for citizenship and participation the nation had ever seen.

The Great Crusade.

We would sacrifice for our Dough Boys – the crusaders of democracy. Vintage photo Ladies Home Journal

A handsome rosy-cheeked shtarker strode deliberately into the synagogue meeting room filled to capacity with Sisterhood members, and without any kibitzing got down to business.

“I am glad to join you in the service of food conservation for our nation,” he read aloud from a pledge card to the group of mostly former Eastern European Jews like my great-grandmother who listened intently. “Who could refuse? See what it says? You do not need to promise wheatless day.”

“Remember too, this pledge card is sent direct to Washington. It helps our boys and is an honor for every patriotic American woman.”

WWI Vintage Poster US Food Administration – “Don’t Waste Food”

Continuing in Yiddish, the young man explained that the American people should eat plenty, but wisely and without waste.

“It is our job, yours and ours to save food so that millions of starving people in Europe may have something to eat. (He got the Jewish guilt down right.) To buy or cook to eat more than you need to waste a single morsel of food that can be used –is a crime.”

“It was,” he said without a bit of irony, “the greatest crime in Christendom!”

It’s a Shame

Vintage Yiddish Theater Poster “Hard to be a Jew by Sholem Aleichem

It was only later when Sadie carefully read the card that she was asking her neighbors to sign, that she was shocked to see that in fact it wasn’t very kosher at all. Not only was it full of incorrect words in the translations, but her kosher mother had signed an oath promising to try to eat (in lieu of meat) shellfish, a violation of Kosher law.

The melting pot really started to simmer over that.

But if that wasn’t enough, an official circular from The Food Administration, signed by Mr. Hoover himself, was sent to the Sisterhood of the Synagogue-of which Rebeka was a member of good standing, urging them to convince the congregants to give up, just for the time being, mutton (forbidden ) and pork (really forbidden!) Rebeka also a member in good standing of the melting pot, really started to boil over on this one.

Thanks a lot Uncle Schmulie!

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Women and Food Will Win the War- WWI PT I

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2018. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

A page torn from a vintage Civics pamphlet for children distributed by the Democratic party in 1958 confirms Trump’s dubious claim of voters donning multiple disguises to cast multiple votes. Devious Democrats learn deception early as this guide to voting indicates.

“Good citizenship is our duty,” the pamphlet informs. “Voting is our privilege and our right. A good citizen is dutiful, devoted and understands deviousness.”

Young Democrats learn the importance of choosing multiple disguises when casting multiple votes.

Undetected as a hobo or dressed as a fairy princess you can cast a spell over a poll worker again and again.

It’s a safe bet that Smokey the Bear will not be trading in his Ranger hat for a red MAGA cap anytime soon.

It seems only Donald Trump Can Prevent Forest Fires With a Rake.

For more than 70 years that iconic phrase “Only YOU Can Prevent Forest Fires” has grabbed the hearts and minds  of generations of children. Whether chatting it up with celebrities on radio commercials or lecturing little cub bears on TV,  Smokey the Bear’s deep resonant voice calling attention to wildfire prevention is burned deep into our collective consciousness.

Other than Yogi, Smokey is everyone’s favorite talking bear.  But unlike Yogi who often overestimates his own cleverness, Smokey really is “smarter than the av-er-age bear.”

Especially when it comes to preventing forest fires. He’s certainly smarter than our “average” president ( who like Yogi overestimates his own cleverness ) who really believes rakes can prevent wildfires.

Apparently Trump is not fan of Smokey. A 2015 tweet is less than kind.

Is Trump telling Smokey to stand aside?

Not so fast Trumpy.

Dressed in an official rangers hat, belted blue jeans and carrying a shovel ( not a  rake) the talking bear environmental activist is not only instantly recognizable he is a piece of beloved  Americana. Smokey the Bear is in fact the longest running public service ad campaign ever and long after Trump is gone, Smokey will still be here inspiring us to prevent forest fires.

A true patriot, this red-blooded All-American bear has been around since 1944.

It was in fact WWII that sparked the idea for Smokey Bear.

The inspiration for Smokey Bear came into being in 1942 after a Japanese submarine fired shells near the coast of Santa Barbara, California that exploded on an oil field near a National Forest. With the war coming so close to our homeland, Americans panicked, fearful that incendiary shells exploding in the forests of the Pacific coast could ignite raging wildfires.

Now that so many firefighters were off at war, the government realized it was ill equipped to fight a major forest fire caused by arson, an enemy attack or started accidently. Protection of forests became a matter of national importance. People were urged to be careful to prevent fires.

War Advertising Council

To raise awareness and rally the public to the cause, the Forest Service organized the Cooperative Forest Fire Prevention and enlisted the help of the  War Advertising Council  ( later the Ad Council) to convince folks it would help win the war.

With the  recent success of their “Loose Lips Sink Ships” campaign, the  Council began a new campaign to put Americans on watch for forest fires. Launching  a fire prevention poster campaign they used  slogns like “Our Carelessness, Their Secret Weapon.” Like many ad campaigns at the time the  posters  were very anti Axis and utilized overt racial sterotypes.

They soon dumped Tojo moving on to a cuter mascot- Bambi

Bambi

In 1942 Walt Disney had a box office smash with their animated movie Bambi that celebrated forests and their sweet animal inhabitants. With a stroke of luck, Disney lent the U.S. Forest Service the use of their beloved character Bambi in 1944. The poster of the sweet fawn was a huge hit proving the success of using an animal as a fire prevention symbol.

But Disney only loaned characters for a year. The Forest Service decided it needed a permanent animal mascot.

What could be more fitting than a cute bear?

Smokey is Born

Enter friendly Smokey Bear, born in August 1944. Created by artist Albert Stachle Smokey was dressed in his familiar ranger hat and dungarees advising bear cubs and children alike. His first poster declared “Smoky says –care will prevent 9 out of ten forest fires.”

First Smokey Bear Poster 1944

Smokey would last long after his war time duties.

His famous catchphrase  “Remember …Only YOU Can Prevent Forest Fires” first appeared in 1947 and it remained that until 2001 when they changed forest fires for wildfires.

Within a few years Smokey went from posters to broadcasts, tee shirts to toys.

He even got his own song in 1952  Smokey the Bear which added a “the”  between Smokey and Bear to keep the songs rhythm. The addition stuck and from then on that was how he was popularly known.

It wasn’t long before they began commercializing Smokey’s image. Vintage Smokey the Bear Figurines from my collection

That  same year, Smokey went to work for Uncle Sam when an act of Congress passed  removing Smokey from the public domain and under the control of Secretary of Agriculture. Now any money made from liscensing his image to toy and media companies would used for continued  forest fire prevention education

A simple idea with a simple message – to help raise awareness about the simple precaustions people can take to protect American forests, grassland, and other areas from fire .

None of them involve a rake.

As millions crowd our airports for the traditional Thanksgiving trek home over the river and through the woods, the tension mounts at the thought of long lines, insufferable crowds, and the dreaded delays that inevitably await the weary and wary traveler.

Gloom is cast before the holiday even begins.

But for the Post-War population, the new air travel was a breeze.

For the modern mid-century family, the notion of flying home for the holidays was a novelty and a grand experience at that.

They could ditch their De Soto which was now as dated and old-fashioned as traveling by sleigh.

Fun is Never Out of Season …All year round, travel is better by air
American Airlines advertisement 1949

Flying High with TWA

“Over the River and Over the woods. To grandmothers house we go,” this 1951 TWA ad announces gaily.

The gleeful modern family fairly bursting with pep and anticipation couldn’t wait to board their flight to visit Grandma. Why let old-fashioned distance keep a family apart?

“There’s a new road now to an old tradition. It’s the TWA high way home for Thanksgiving. And what a blessing it is to families separated by too many rivers and too many woods….and so many years!”

“If you’ve let distance and lack of time keep you away too long, try traveling this high way. Find out how TWA can make it very near to someone dear- for even an ocean apart is only hours apart…by skyliner!”

TWA went out of their way to make flying a family affair!  Flying was no longer just for Dad and his business trips. Once the airline started their Family Budget Plan, “…parents have had cause to cheer,'” boasted TWA in this 1949 ad. “For now they can take the whole family by air at down to earth prices.”

By traveling on a Monday Tuesday or Wednesday, they could save substantially. “As head of the family,” they explain,”Dad pays full fare. Mother and the children under 22 go for only half fare each”…and  best of all crying infants and toddlers under 2 could fly free of charge!

Tempting you further, TWA promises, “The flight is a delight, the service supreme, with delicious hot meals served free. Best of all…and oh how mother loves this!…you’re there long before the kids start to fuss or fidget!”

Snowbound for the Holidays

Compare the cheery disposition of Mr. and Mrs. Modern who have chosen the up -to-date way to travel to visit Grandmother with their neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Outdated who chose the more antiquated mode of travel- their automobile.

Hampered by a snow storm they are unable to dig out in time for the turkey. Mrs. Outdated, with visions of stuffing and cranberries dancing in her head,  looks longingly at the speeding plane in the sky, carrying the wise Moderns to the destination.

Modern Means of Transportation

Vintage ad American Airlines 1949

“Don’t Give Up- Go Up,” declared American Airlines in this 1949 advertisement , touting the benefits and wonders of the new air travel that most post-war families had yet to experience.

“Air Travel- and only air travel can often make the difference between the accessible and the impossible. This is especially true during the holidays when the earthbound are frequently snowbound. Hence, wise travelers plan to go by air.”

“Also, air travel is little affected by the challenge of distance and time. The miles on the map lose their menace- the hands of the clock become friend instead of foe when you use this modern means of transportation.”

“So when holiday travel plans seem likely to get ‘bogged down’ don’t give up- go up.”

Once upon a time, but not that long ago, America was the world’s peacekeeper. We stood at the apex of power, united as a country, and our commitment to our Allies absolute. Our word was our bond.

For those too young to remember, this is not a fairy tale. This was the American Way for 70 years.

Our current foreign policy is totally foreign to me.

As it apparently is to Defense Secretary James Mattis who resigned a day after Trump’s surprise plan to withdraw troops from Syria, livid at what he views as a betrayal  of the Kurds who had allied with the U.S. and now must fend for themselves.

Once upon a time we treated our allies with respect.

“One core belief I have always held is that our strength as a nation is inextricably linked to the strength of our unique and comprehensive system of alliances and partnerships,” Mattis  wrote in his resignation letter.

While the U.S. remains the indispensable nation in the free world, we cannot protect our interests or serve that role effectively without maintaining strong alliances and showing respect to those allies.

The retired four star general didn’t hide his feelings concerning Trump’s dangerous departure from U.S. foreign policy that has been our bedrock since the end of  WWII.

America World PeaceKeeper

Victorious after WWII, America saw itself as the model for the world and American Dreams were to become global ones. They said it couldn’t be done yet we had just been victorious on opposite ends of the globe.

America had come out of the war as the only major industrial power not severely damaged, the richest country on earth.

After the war much of the world was economically shattered, returning home to cities that were often just rubble of broken bricks and smoldering wood, the desolate shell of a former city not yet done burning.

In our country, our economy was booming and there wasn’t a single building demolished by bombs, a brick displaced, or window broken and the only geographical scar was the one we ourselves had made on the empty deserts of New Mexico.

Uncle Sam became a hands-on uncle globetrotting around the post war world with assurance as we assumed our rightful place as peacekeeper and policeman to the world.

If the world was broken we could fix it and like Humpty Dumpty put it back together again.

Peace is Americas Most Important Business

(L) Detail of Collage by Sally Edelstein (R) Vintage Ad Republic Steel 1951

With our sparkling Pepsodent smiles Americans would meet our obligations to the free world – spreading democracy and offering a helping hand to people all around the globe – a Coke in every refrigerator and a Chevy in every garage.

As the world’s policeman we would protect the underdog from the big bullies and keep them safe. Yes sir, when there is a wrong to right, like Mighty Mouse, Uncle Sam will join the fight!

We Like Ike

Vintage Post War Recruiting Posters Us Army
(L) 1946 Ad with General Eisenhower for the US Army “Guardian of Victory” (R) 1951 Vintage Ad Us Army and US air Force Recruiting Station “Wear the uniform known around the world as the mark of a Man”

But it was important to safeguard the hard-won victory of the war and that meant building up our peace keeping force of soldiers. A massive campaign was launched to recruit  men to join the new army and U.S. Air Force whose motto was “peace is Americas most important business!”

By our victory, we have won the respect of the world,” wrote General Dwight Eisenhower former Supreme Commander of the Army and hero of WWII in one recruiting ad. “We can lose that respect and with it our influence toward a just and peaceful world order, if we reduce our military forces  to the point where they become week or ineffective.

Ambassador of Peace

“Your Army and Your Air Force Serve the Nation and Mankind in War and Peace

A popular ad that ran in 1948 appointed the American soldier as Ambassador of Peace, whose task simply put was to help the nations of the world in their efforts to balance the peace of the world at a time when too many people have despaired of peace. inviting the reader to be his companion in arms.

 On his broad young shoulders rests a burden that few Americans in history have been called upon to bear.” the ad begins. “His task is to help the nations in their efforts to balance the peace of the world at a time when too many people have despaired of peace.

He accepts his mission soberly but with pride. To him, as to every young man who has courage love of country and a belief in Democratic ideals the present world situation is a challenge. And he has met it squarely by putting on a uniform.

American soldiers don’t have to swagger to command respect. Though their numbers may be few their friendly presence in key spots around the globe inspire confidence in millions of people who are troubled and uncertain.

Soldier or Airman he is a true Ambassador of Peace.

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2018. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

For most American servicemen and women serving in the military overseas their holiday wish is simple: to be home for Christmas.

Soldiers sacrifice much for the sake of others, not the least of which is being able to spend the  holidays with their loved ones.

No Christmas song captures the soldier’s heartfelt longing more than  “I’ll Be Home for Xmas.”

The melancholy words of the soldier overseas writing a letter home, echos generations of  soldiers who long to be home but are unable to e because of the war.

The wistful holiday classic written during WWII was the perfect sentimental war-time song holding deep meaning to U.S. troops overseas and it rings as meaningful today as it did over 70 years ago when it was first recorded in 1943. It was so popular it became the most requested song ar USO shows.

Christmas on the Home Front

“Well! Look at Jimmy…pitching in on a man-sized job! Dad will be proud, when he knows” Vintage ad Carnation Milk 1943

Unlike today when service in the military is not shared by most Americans, WWII was a time when most families had at least one empty chair around the Christmas dinner table.

In the winter of 1943 the U.S. was a long way from victory despite the Allied victories at Guadalcanal, Tunisia and the surrender of Italy.

Wartime Christmas was different from the jolly ones we remembered.

Sure there were evergreen trees, and bright red  holly,  but grim necessity had forced so many things to change, now that war time rationing and shortages were in full swing. Ass the war continued nearly every item Americans ate, wore, used or lived in was rationed or regulated.

Christmas shopping continued if not with a heavy heart, then a with a strong back since shoppers were encouraged to carry all their packages home no matter how large due to cuts in delivery services. Even Xmas cards were scarce due to the paper shortage.

Guns and Butter

Holiday meals took on a war time footing

Our traditional holiday standing rib roast would have to wait till after the war since fighting men needed muscle-building meat more than we did. Unless you had an in witha butcher or patronized Mr. Black  ( on the Black Market) housewives often trudged from butcher to butcher seeeking a decent cut of meat.

Christmas would be less sweet without all the sugary treats since both sugar and butter were rationed too.

Of course we were better off than most of the boys overseas who would be eating Christmas dinner from a mess kit, so it was unpatriotic to complain.

But Uncle Sam tried to be a genial host over the holidays for our fighting soldiers and he promised a Christmas dinner with all the trimmings. In fact Armour promised its readers in the 1942 ad that: “This Christmas, millions of men in the service will find their holiday meal as bountiful as they enjoyed at home.”

So many traditional gifts were also unavailable.

That new pair of roller skates for Jr. would be hard to find since metals were desperately needed for war duty,  perfume for Mom was near impossible to get since the alcohol used to produce  it was vital to the war, and the holiday Whitman’s box of chocolates for Grandma was hard to come by because so many were going to our fighting men here and abroad.

A new Hoover vaccum always on M’Lady’s wish list would have to wait. Manufacturing had halted turning to making material s of war.  In its stead Hoover suggested a gift War Bonds for Christmas:

This Christmas a war Bond is just about the finest present we can think of.

Some day there’ll be Victory…Some day those War bonds will turn into US currency, …for when the Good Day comes to pay for new electric cleaners and automobiles and refrigerators and stoves.”

Fondly remembered things would mean more than ever.

The Ghosts of Christmas Past

Vintage Christmas advertisement Stromberg Carlson 1943
The company was currently devoting all their energy to making communications equipment to help speed victory so new radios were not. being produced. “If there are families who are getting courage from their pre war Stromberg Carlsons this Christmas,” the copy reads, “we are deeply thankful.”

The all too familiar trajectory of the American family’s Christmas in wartime was summed up in one sentimental wartime ad.

This Stromberg-Carlson radio that ran during Christmas time 1943 tugged at the heartstrings. It featured one such war-torn family, that gained strength thanks to the music from their Stromberg Carlson radio.

It seemed the only thing that got Lorraine Babbitt through Xmas that year was music.

Bing Crosby had really out done himself last Christmas season with his dreamy White Christmas.” How could Der Bingle possibly top himself this year,” she wondered.

The baritone crooner didn’t disappoint.

His Christmas time offering for 1943 “I’ll be Home for Christmas” caused lumps to form in everyone’s throats from the home front to the front lines.

The heartfelt words of the soldier overseas writing a letter home could have been anyone’s son, brother or husband. It certainly could have been Lorraine’s husband John.

 I’ll Be Home for Xmas

You can plan on me

Please have snow and mistletoe and presents on the tree

I’ll be home for Xmas, if only in my dreams

Lorraine would play that 78 record of the melancholy song over and over as if merely wishing John home for Xmas would make it so. Lorraine grew forlorn, her  thoughts drifting back to a happier time , Christmas 1940, a full year before Pearl Harbor and our last Christmas of peace for a while.

Silent night, Holy night…All is calm…”

“She was back three years ago and John was leading her into the room…and then she saw it the radio with a big red ribbon around it! She hadn’t said a word…just turned and kissed John…the kids had squealed with delight.”

The Caisson” go rollin along”…

By 1942, her husband John had been drafted  but was granted a Christmas furlough much to the delight of Lorraine.

”Last year, John came home from camp unexpectedly…it was last-minute leave and they’d had no warning. That was a wonderful Christmas…with the kids wearing Johns uniform and marching to the music. If war were only marching and music…”Lorraine muses to herself wistfully.

“There’s a long, long trail a-winding…”

Illustration from Vintage WWII Christmas advertisement Stromberg Carlson 1943

Now it was Christmas 1943.

“In a few minutes it will be Christmas again… Christmas without John,” Lorraine shares with the reader. “Tomorrow will be bad…there will be memories that hurt…but the children must have a real Christmas…the children. Tonight she’d sit and listen to music…and, in the soft sweet strains, she’d reach across the world and be with John…tonight.”

If only in her dreams…..

Merry Christmas to all and to all who can’t be with their loved ones for the holidays.

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2018.

Past Perfect- New Years Predictions

The New Year has always been the traditional time for crystal ball gazing offering tantalizing predictions for our imagined future.

For forward thinking post war Americans, peering into the future was a favorite pastime. So it was with great interest that on my very first New Years day 1956 my mid-century mom gazed ahead 20 years for a glimpse of life in 1975.

Despite the cold weather and the cold war, everyone was filled with high hopes not only for the new year, but for the future. Never before had a country so heralded the future, never before had a country so surpassed one’s highest hopes.

New Years Day 1956

On the first day of January in 1956  New Yorker’s were hit with an icy, blustery snowstorm and it showed no signs of stopping.  Cars were at a standstill as Ford Fairlaines were replaced by flexible flyers. The eerie suburban silence was broken only by the occasional sound of kids building forts in the snow drifts.

As the snow continued to fall silently, the weathermen advised everyone “to stay put in their igloos.” Fortunately for us, we were as well stocked with frozen food as any Eskimo.

Snowbound in our suburban ranch house, Dad raised the temperature on the thermostat to a balmy 80 degrees and why not; oil was still the biggest bargain in the American budget.

By late afternoon, with the dishes washed, laundry folded, and my baby bottles sterilizing in the electric sterilizer patiently awaiting refill of baby formula, Mom could take  a rare moment off for herself.

My 3-year-old brother was busily engaged with the TV. Displaying  the skill of a safe cracker,  he delicately adjusted the large knobs on the mammoth mahogany encased set- one for the snowy picture, another for the sound.

Mom could sit back, relax and give me my afternoon feeding while flipping through the latest issue of Everywomans Magazine.

 All The News Thats Fit to Print

As usual my father had his nose buried in the Sunday New York Times.

It was a slow news day. A new book released that day by the young Senator from Massacheusets, John Kennedy, garned some press.   Other than the story of Sudan declaring its independence from Egypt and the UK, and Egypt’s Nasser declaring his new year’s resolution  “to conquer Palestine,” the paper was filled with the usual new year’s predictions.

Dad read one optimistic article aloud:

Man is being thrust into the future even as he lives in the present,” the article buoyantly noted.

Mankind has already had a mouth-watering taste of the meal that technology is cooking up. Such modern wizardry’s as plastics, miracle yarns, TV, air conditioning and frozen foods, once the dream children of imaginative inventors has become commonplace…

Back to the Future 

As Mom read through the woman’s magazine, she skimmed over the feature  story on family weight planning  chock full of helpful hints on “how to slim husbands painlessly” and “add pounds to thin kiddies.”

Suddenly one article caught Moms eye.

Entitled “Predictions of Family Life Twenty Years From Now,” the colorful  feature promised to transport the reader two decades  ahead with a preview picture of life in America in 1975. Envisioning future technology, it ventured a guess at what we might find in a 1975 home.

In 1956 it was hard to imagine life getting any better.

 Tomorrows Living Today

Westinghouse Ad 1945 Post War Promises

 In 1956, Mom felt we were already living tomorrow’s life today.

Only 10 years earlier many of the post-war dreams envisioned by manufacturers busy with war production , had come true.

One end of the year ad in 1945 from Westinghouse offered a glimpse into that promised post-war world “Madam lets look to your future,” announced the headline.

What will it be like-your bright new world of tomorrow? New styles…new comforts new conveniences…new joy of living. All kinds of marvelous things to brighten your days to lighten your burdens to make life more enjoyable than ever before.

Now, it was a world of no waiting- no wondering- no defrosting- no fuss- no muss. Everything was long wearing, fast drying, king sized, the last word, the most convenient, working twice as fast.

From morning to night the colors of the rainbow were all around me thanks to all the gay and festive plastic toys and household items that surrounded me. From my pink polyethylene teething ring and vinylite pacifier right down to my cheerful Playtex waterproof Happy Baby pants in five happy lollipop colors, these laboratory-born wonder materials would make life easier and more convenient.

Yes, mine would be a sugar-frosted world of colorfast, frost-free fun.

Predictions of Family Life 20 years from Now

Intrigued by what the crystal ball-gazers would foresee for 1975, Mom read the lavishly illustrated, futuristic article aloud to me in the hopes of offering a guided tour of what we might find 20 years from now  – my own world of tomorrow.

With a dramatic flourish they announced spectacular changes for the American family. “Homes, food shopping, and transportation of all kinds will undergo tremendous transformations. Some of the great advances to be expected in the realm of family life by 1975.”

Predictions of Family Life 20 Years From Now. Vintage illustration from article “Everywoman’s Magazine” Jan. 1956 illustration by H.B.Vestal

“Tomorrow’s kitchen will be a triumph of controlled gadgetry,” Mom read with wonder and amazement, and  the same enthusiasm used for reading me a fairy tale.

The article explained:

You’ll probably have a dishwasher and clothes washer in which ultra sonic rays do the cleaning without mechanical agitation.

Mom gushed with obvious delight, visualizing her future homemaker daughter in this most modern of homes.

When you telephone,  your image will be flashed on a screen for the party at the other end, and vice  versa. TV sets will be wafer thin and hung like pictures. You’ll wear a two-way wrist radio. And your electronically guided automobile will have an  automatic parking brain.

Some of the great advances to be expected in the realm of family life by 1975 are shown in the pictures.

Predictions of Family Life 20 Years From Now. Vintage illustration from article “Everywoman’s Magazine” Jan. 1956 illustration by H.B.Vestal

Profit with Progress

The upbeat article was based on a 28-minute film that was put out in 1955 entitled  “People, Products, and Progress-1975” produced by the Chamber of Congress of the United States with the cooperation of industries and trade associations.

Interested readers were advised they could get a more detailed insight into life in 1975 from the film that was made  available for showing at local PTA meetings, Rotary and other civic clubs, and church groups.

“Does tomorrow’s world intrigue you?” the article asked the reader at the end.

“All these wonderful things will be possible,” they assured us, “so long as we maintain our free market economy, our American Way of life.”

Of course by 1975  the future had turned from promise to pessimism.

A post Watergate America saddled by an oil embargo, inflation, recession and dangerous pollution, had seen the future and nothing had turned out as advertised.

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2019. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

As has been noted by the press, a caravan of determined Democrats were sighted heading straight for the Capital due to arrive on January 3.

Donald Trump has a right to be terrified.

Forget about smallpox, leprosy, and satanic crime. That’s chump change.

This crowd is bringing morals, ethics, compassion, and intelligence.

That should  make Trump and the Republicans quake in their boots.

If the idea of Kool-Aid Man meeting Ben Franklin seems like we’ve entered an alternative history, bizarro world, take a look around now. We are living in a bizarro world right now.

This ludicrous depiction of America history in a 1983 Marvel comic book is no less fantastical or absurd as what is currently happening in Trump world.

The daily delusional rantings of a moron commander-in-chief seem as bizarre and implausible as the fact  that he is actually the President of the United States.

Anyone who thinks differently has drunk from the  Kool-Aid.

Once upon a time real national emergencies  were shared with us by our President  in the oval office.

Seated behind the ornately carved  Resolute desk, it signaled that these were somber, sobering talks.  Ronald Reagan spoke to us after the tragic Challenger disaster seated at that historical  desk and it was where George W. Bush addressed a frightened nation in the wake of 9/11.

This 19th century partners desk a gift from Queen Victoria to President Rutherford Hays has been the backdrop to many real American crises. And now sadly some that are totally fabricated.

But it was  the 1962 televised address from the oval office by President Kennedy to the nation informing us of a missile crisis in Cuba that still remains so vivid to me.

A crises that was all too real.

The Longest Day

My Mother  had already had her longest day dealing with the measles crisis when the Cuban Missile Crisis was announced. (R) Headline of NY Daily News announcing the Cuban blockade

Monday Madness

Monday, October 22, 1962  was a day of superb weather with a burnish of autumn on the trees. Things had never looked lovelier or more peaceful.

But I was stuck at  home with a bad case of the German measles.These itchy red spots were spreading from my face to my body as quickly as the Red Communists aggression was visualized on maps and film strips at school

October 22 was also my parent’s 12th wedding anniversary.

They had planned on going to the movies that evening to see “The Longest Day”, that star-studded spectacle about D Day the Normandy invasion.

But now that our normally germ-proof home had itself been invaded with a contagious disease, plans were promptly cancelled.

John Wayne would have to wait.

Besides which my parents were anxious to watch President Kennedy’s live broadcast on television that evening.

Panic Goes Viral

At noon, while Mom was preparing lunch , JFK’s press secretary Pierre Salinger had made a dramatic announcement that the president would speak that night “on a matter of the highest national urgency.”

The crisis that was brewing in Cuba that had begun a week earlier had been kept top-secret. Now with rumors circulating, there was a nearly unbearable sense of foreboding and tension.

Across the country while American’s eyes would be fixed on their TV sets gripped in the most intense moment of recent history, I was confined to my bedroom without a TV. At a loss, I trained my ears to tune in to the console playing in the living room.

We Interrupt This Program…

At 7:00, I could hear the TV announcer from the popular game show based on the game charades saying: “Stump the Stars will not be seen tonight so that we can bring you this special broadcast….”

Along with 50 million other Americans my parents listened in pin-drop silence as President Kennedy spoke about Cuba.

Sitting behind the ornate Resolute desk, a solemn President Kennedy got right to the point. This was no time to play charades.

He grimly announced to a shocked nation that Russia had sneaked missiles into Cuba just 90 miles from Florida. Along with the Offensive Missiles, Khrushchev had deployed bombs and 40,000 Soviet troops.

The alarming evidence from photographs showed that nearly every city from Lima, Peru to Hudson Bay, Canada would lie within push button range of thermonuclear bombs in Cuba.

Panic was about to go Viral

Every major US city would lie within push button range of thermonuclear bombs in Cuba.

“To halt this offensive build up,” a determined Kennedy said, “a strict quarantine on all offensive military equipment to Cuba is being initiated.” The Navy’s mission was to block the flow of Russian weapons to Cuba.

Like me and my measles, the Russians would have a quarantine imposed on them but Dad wasn’t convinced this was the best tactic. It might work for preventing the spread of the measles but not for the missiles. If Russians didn’t withdraw the missiles as demanded, a U.S. pre-emptive strike against the launch site was inevitable.

The United States would not shrink from the threat of nuclear war to preserve the peace and freedom of Western Hemisphere, Kennedy said firmly.

The President’s voice faded away as my parents grimly turned to another channel to watch “I’ve got a Secret.”

Struggling with the ramifications of what they just heard, the longest day was about to get a lot longer.

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2019. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Carol Channing was Broadway royalty.

Even as a 9-year-old, I knew when I saw Carol Channing perform “Hello Dolly” in 1964 I was witnessing pure magic.

Seated in a plush seat at the St. James Theatre clutching my Playbill  I was dazzled. I couldn’t keep my eyes off this larger than life, fast-talking, gravely voiced powerhouse of a woman with the big saucer eyes gleaming with an innocence that belied her savyness.

Her incandescent smiled glowed all the way up to our seats in the mezzanine.

Resplendent in a scarlet gown embroidered in jewels and a feathered headdress she looked  like an animated kewpie doll as she belted out “Hello Dolly” with such an earthy zest all while leading a male chorus of waiters and chefs in a promenade around a walk that arched  the top of the orchestra pit.

I was mesmerized, forever solidifying my love of Broadway and Miss Channing.

I would cherish that Playbill for years.

The show album “Hello Dolly! An Original Cast Recording” reached number one on the Billboard chart on June 6, 1964, and as replaced the next week by Louis Armstrong’s album Hello Dolly. Vintage ad Playbill 1964

The 1964-65 theatre season was stupendous by anyone’s imagination.

It saw the opening of “Fiddler on the Roof” with the incredible Zero Mostel and “Funny Girl” starring the incomparable Barbra Streisand. But in a season of jewels, “Hello Dolly” sparkled like a diamond, winning 10 Tonys.

My mother had been a fan of the platinum blonde actress ever since Channing’s knock out performance in 1949  as the diamond obsessed Lorelei Lee in “Gentleman Prefer Blondes.” Her rendition of “Diamonds are a Girls Best Friend” secured her spot in Broadway history.

Though my mother and I would disagree as to who was the more iconic loveable, gold digger Lorelei Lee,  Carol Channing or my film based choice of Marilyn Monroe, there was never ever any doubt who owned Dolly Gallagher Levi.

Through the years countless others took to the stage as Dolly.Talented actresses from Pearl Bailey, Ethel Merman, Bette Midler, and yes even including  a 14 year old me in a Junior H.S.  production.

But for me there is only one Dolly – the originator  – Miss Carol Channing. A Broadway treasure who was an original herself.

We will miss her, but boy she had a good long run.

The image of a gleeful Donald Trump serving up greasy fast food  on glittering silver platters to college football Champions in the splendor of the White House State Dining Room caused quite a social media stir.

For some it was nothing short of a democratic homage to Great American fast food, while others were aghast at the tackiness of it. Still others couldn’t help but take note that serving junk food on silver platters is a perfect metaphor for Trumps entire presidency.

But there is a precedent for President’s serving  guests a more laid back fast food feast.

When it comes casual cuisine, Donald T loves his Mickey D’s but it may come as a surprise that FDR fancied Nathan’s hot dogs. When it came to enjoying the food of the common folk, Frankie D.’s heart was all a flutter for frankfurters.

Seventy years ago the lowly hot dog was ennobled by Royalty when it was served by President Franklin Roosevelt at a picnic at his country home for King George VI and Queen Elizabeth of England.

A diplomatic visit made gastronomic history. The Royals ate their first hot dog.

History is Made

It was not an insignificant visit. For the first time in American history a King of England set foot on U.S. soil.

The Royals had been on a hectic 4-day American tour in the spring of 1939. Arriving in Washington DC in June, the King and Queen had been treated to all the formalities one would expect from a State visit. In the same opulent State Dining room where 70 years later platters of Big Macs and McNuggets would be served by the glow of ornate candelabras, the Royal couple were feted with a formal state dinner.

After a whirlwind tour of DC, and a visit to the N.Y. World’s Fair where they were given the red carpet treatment,   FDR invited the weary Monarchs to a casual picnic at his bucolic home in Hyde Park, N.Y. The Hudson Valley provided an informal backdrop for this visit of the British sovereigns and the nation’s first family.

Eleanor Roosevelt decided no All American picnic would be complete without hot dogs.

But these would be no ordinary dogs.

No, these would be Coney Island hot dogs. Since Nathans considered itself “the king of hot dogs” it made sense that their dogs were fit for a King. So straight from Surf Avenue in Brooklyn to upper crust Hyde Park the hot dogs were ordered.

When word got out that plebian hot dogs were to be served to the King and Queen of England  the public was dubious at best.

Snobs everywhere including Roosevelt’s own mother balked at the thought of a hot dog being presented to His Majesty.  His proper mother Sara Delano  was horrified not only at the choice of food  but of inviting cooks, gardeners and other staffers to the picnic.

Snooty folks looked down on the lowly frankfurter, though in fact the hot dog could trace its family history farther back than any living king.

A Hot Dog Makes Him Lose Control

But the pearl clutchers could relax.

King George VI and Queen Elizabeth loved it. For the royal couple this was a novelty never having sampled a hot dog before. The King it was said had been looking forward to sampling “this most favorite American snack.”

Sitting on the front porch of FDR’s new stone cottage overlooking the Hudson River was the perfect relaxed setting to enjoy the picnic.  The hot dogs were served on a silver tray but the Royals like everyone else ate off paper plates,  albeit on a table and not balancing it like others on their laps.

Unsure how to properly chow down on a hot dog encased in a doughy bun,  the Queen politely asked the President for some etiquette advise how to navigate a hot dog.

“Very simple. Push it into your mouth and keep pushing it until it is all gone,” the President  was supposed to have said. Demurely, the Queen elected to use a knife and fork instead.

The King seemed to have no such reservation and enjoyed it with gusto, so much so he asked for seconds, which made front page headlines the next day. The “N.Y. Times”headline announced: “King Tries Hot Dog and Asks For More.” According to the article, “the King enjoyed his 2 hots dogs with beer.”

It was in fact front page stuff when King George VI attacked the hot dog at the Little White House picnic at Hyde Park. Wires burned with descriptions of the event and wireless, radio, and cable carried the word around the world.

Headlines ranged from “King Bites Dog;” “With Mustard, is Royal Order” and “First Lady Triumphant; Royalty Eats Hot Dogs.”

Hot Dog Summit

Crafty as always, FDR had more on his mind than a menu when he called for this picnic . To him this would be an opportunity. Call it hot dog diplomacy.

The trip was undertaken in the shadows of WWII and Britain needed U.S. support. At the time, U.S. foreign policy was isolationists. On the brink of war, FDR realized the necessity of fostering closer political and social ties with Britain.

He needed to win the hearts of the American people.

Roosevelt  planned every minute detail of the visit to ensure the King’s success in winning over sympathy and support of the American people. The picnic was the perfect setting  for FDR to show that despite being royalty they were “just folks”

FDR hoped the visit would change the perceptions of the American people which in turn allowed him to do more for Britain.

Three months after the picnic England declared war on Germany and FDR was able to convince Congress and the American people to take steps to aid Britain while still maintaining American neutrality.

Did these hot dogs help save the Western world from Nazis?

That’s hard to say but several years later entrenched in the War ourselves, Roosevelt was such a fan of Hot Dog Diplomacy he had Nathan’s hot dogs sent to Yalta when he met with Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin.

The rest is history.

The worn out battle over who can serve in our military has resumed once again.

Transgender Americans are now banned from serving openly in the military and protecting our nation. .

This debate over who can be a legitimate soldier is a recurring feature of the history of inclusion and exclusion in the military and I’m beginning to get pretty battle fatigued.

Our histories tell us armies Make Men, even as now our definition of male is being re-evaluated. Vintage Army recruitment ad

Our military is no place for discrimination yet Trump has made it a battlefield once again with his wish to overturn President  Obama’s 20111 repeal of the “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy finally ending 17 years of secrecy and silence for LGBTQ members of the U.S. Military.

In the summer of 2017, nearly 70 years to the day in 1948 that President Truman signed an order abolishing racial discrimination in U.S. Armed Forces that  eventually led to the end of segregation in the military, Donald  Trump tweeted his desire to ban transgender people from serving in our military. Now the Supreme Court is allowing the Trump administration ’s ban to go into effect while appeals are heard in a lower court.

Is this hate driven policy yet another  step backward  in his quest to Make  America Great Again?

An American patriot willing to sacrifice their liberty so we can have ours is a hero, whatever their race, sexual orientation, gender or religion.

It’s common defense sense that the only qualities that matter in the military are skills, determination and character. This is a reminder that this White House puts bigotry before national security.

Freedom For All

Seven years after Truman issued his executive order 9981 forever banning racial discrimination our military, this 1955 ad from John Hancock Insurance  featuring inductees proudly taking their oath into the military, declared:

“Freedom is the most precious of our possessions.

But we do not all share  its cost equally. The heaviest tax it imposes is the obligation to bear arms in times of danger. There are hundreds of thousands who have paid this cost with their lives. There are millions of others who pay it in precious years…men who give up their personal liberty for a while so we can enjoy ours forever.”

Transgender men and women have always served in the US military.

They are our veterans and our heroes. They have died for our country.

Like any soldier  they are deserving of honor and respect. For whoever they may be, I feel sure they must have believed, as do I, in the equality of men, the duty of men to live justly with each other and with themselves.

They have chosen to give up their personal liberty for a while so we can enjoy ours forever!

Allow patriotic transgender Americans  the privilege to serve.

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2019. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Depressing news- income inequality in America isn’t new.

Frigid winters during the Great Depression could be particularly cruel as the chasm between the toasty haves and the chilly have not’s grew wider.

Decked out in their luxurious Russian Lynx or Persian lamb fur coats, harsh winter was no problem at all for the well-to-do; struggling to pay for the winter coal delivery was a problem for many.

As income inequality becomes the defining issue in this country today, the stark division seen in Depression era advertising seems oddly familiar.

While hardship, hunger and human despair was haunting much of the country in 1930,  the fortunate  1% were apparently  living life large.

As banks were failing, home evictions rising, and breadlines at soup kitchens lengthening, winter meant only one thing to those with deep pockets – a winter vacation.

How the Wealthy Weathered Winter

Vintage advertisement Studebaker Cars 1930 Lake Placid
“How significant, then, that so many of these play-bound motor cars should be Studebaker’s smart straight Eights.

Although it was the height of the Depression it was also, we learn in a December 1930 ad,  “the height of the winter sports season” where  Lake Placid attracted an elite selection of ski bunny swells.

Arriving at the plush resort in the Adirondack Mountains of N.Y. in their snazzy Studebaker Eights announced to the world they had arrived.

Clearly these play-bound fat cats schussing down the slopes as the economy spiraled downward, were part of the elite. That this ad ran in “Good Housekeeping” alongside helpful articles suggesting “budget saving meal tips” seems mind-boggling.

While everything was falling – industrial output, unemployment, wages, prices and human spirits, the rich need only worry about accidentally falling during a ski run.

“Flashing down the snow buttressed highways from Au Sable Forks toward Lake Placid, ride mainly those of means and discernment,” the ad explains as if it needed explaining, to those counting their every penny.

At a time when men re-sharpened and reused old razor blades and used 25 watt light bulbs to save electricity, few but those of means could afford a new car. When a Ford costing  $495 was a pipe dream,  a basic Studebaker starting at $1,395 was unthinkable.

Vintage Chrysler Imperial advertisement 1930
For sheer luxury, the Chrysler Imperial Eights costing $ 3595 were ” everything the word “‘Imperial’ signifies…as the dictionary says ‘fit for an emperor; magnificent; imposing; superior in size or quality.”

“Even if you have your own chauffeur,” this Chrysler Imperial ad informs us, “you will want to do the driving.”

As rampant unemployment and poverty became more and more common, the wealthy lived in a world that remained insular, arrogant, and out of touch.

Sound familiar?

Perfect for the country club set was their own personal Pitcairn Autogiro, a precursor to the helicopter. This 1930 ad entices the reader : “Open areas surrounding almost any country club offer room for the owner of a Pitcairn Autogiro to fly directly to his golf game. The practicality of such use has long ago been demonstrated by those owners of the Pitcairn Autogiro who have flown to football games, race tracks, hunt meets and other social gatherings.”

Disconnect

The folks in these advertisements, these owners of fine country homes, town houses and yachts,  seem oblivious to the crumbling economy around them.

But then again so did their President.

In his December 2, 1930 message to Congress an optimistic  but delusional President Herbert Hoover  said “…that the fundamental strength of the economy is unimpaired.”

That December as the International Apple Shippers Association faced with a surplus of apples decided to sell them on credit to jobless men for resale at 5 cents each, the wealthy began packing their Louis Vuitton steamer trunks for their winter cruises.

Goodbye to All That

Vintage Ad French Line Cruise Ships 1930
Naturally every need would be taken care of: “Bronzed and mustachioed tars whose Breton forefathers saw America before Columbus…well trained English-speaking servants within call…all is well-ordered for these fortunate travelers.”

For those less sports-inclined, a winter cruise was a  brilliant escape from harsh winter.

“Say Goodbye to All That,”  cheers on the headline in this 1930 ad for French Line Cruises.

A sumptuous liner with its spacious salons and charming staterooms where nothing is lacking, would take you far away from  wretchedness and misery and all that!

“Rackets and riveters cross town traffic and subways brownstone fronts with basement entrances conferences and conventions aren’t you fed up with them all?” the reader of the ad is asked.

Brother Can You Spare a Dime?

Who needed to be reminded of desperate men  in threadbare suits  selling apples on the street corner, hoboes and Hoovervilles?

“Now is the time when executives come back from lunch wondering why nothing tastes good anymore. Now is the time also when smart people give themselves a taste of good salt air and  few weeks abroad,” tempts the French Line advertisement.

Assuming the reader of this ad which appeared in “Fortune” magazine has a chauffeur the copy  goes on to say:

Seymour they say, ‘get out the trunks. We’re off on the vast deep’.. And presto! The moment they set foot on deck they’re in  France!

Ask your travel agent about voyaging on France afloat…and as the skyline vanishes from view wave your hand sniff in the salt breeze and say Goodbye to all that!

 

Little White Lies

President Hoovers first reaction to the slump which followed the crash in October 1929 had been to treat it as a psychological disorder. He had chosen the word “Depression” because it sounded less frightening than “panic or “crisis”.
By the end of 1930 and unemployment rose sharply passing 4 million, meant a great deal of people were indeed “depressed.”

A secure job. a warm home, and food on the table; many during the Depression had already said goodbye to all that.

For members of the well-heeled class everything was aces!

Especially if you listened to one of their own, Secretary of the Treasury Andrew W. Mellon the banker, businessman, industrialist, and member of the prestigious and wealthy  Mellon family.

In the same year these ads ran, Mellon responded to the dire economic times commenting: ”I see nothing in the present situation that is either menacing or warrants pessimism. During the winter months there may be some slackness or unemployment, but hardly more than at this season each year.”

That dynamic duo of Wall Street and Washington  was personified by Andrew Mellon.

Regarded in the roaring 20s  as the greatest Secretary of the Treasury since Alexander Hamilton, only one year after the crash he was mocked by middle-class children chanting:

Mellon pulled the whistle

Hoover rang the bell

Wall Street gave the signal

And the country went to hell

Copyright (©) 2019 Sally Edelstein All Rights Reserved

Roger Stone’s tattoo notwithstanding, I’m not sure Tricky Dick would be the image I’d want to replicate right now.

As Stone exits the Florida courtroom after his arrest,  the former campaign aide boldly strikes the infamous Nixon victory pose. Ironically this gesture is most vividly remembered from when the former president left office in disgrace.

Fingers crossed there is the same outcome for this President.

For many, movie going meant being turned away from the box office of a white theater, climbing outside stairs to the balcony section “reserved for colored” moviegoers, being allowed to enter a white theater only late on Friday nights after the last showing for white audiences or going to a Black Theater.  (T) Movie poster for 1944’s  “To Have and Have Not”  (B) Jim Crow Race Sign of the times 1932

What was black and white and divided by color?

Some with a long memory might answer the movies. Today some might just answer Hollywood.

Accusations that the movie business is a “white industry” had been  pretty much confirmed by the dearth of color in Oscar nominations until this season. This years class of Oscar nominees is among the most diverse with both Black Panther and BlacKkKlansman up for Best Picture and Spike Lee for Best Director.

Is Hollywood finally shifting in the right direction for racial diversity? That remains to be seen.

As white as the film industry remains today, it is still a far cry from the not-so-distant past when Hollywood had no place for African American’s in film except as shuffling buffoons and obedient servants .

Even as moving pictures evolved from black and white to color, the movie industry was slow to follow suit.

Celluloid Color Lines

(Top) Movie Poster “Big Sleep ” a 1946 film noir directed by Howard Hawkes starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. (Bottom) Jim Crow racist sign from Grand Theater in Birmingham Alabama

Heck, to even see a Hollywood movie, most African-Americans in the first half of the twentieth century couldn’t even see a first run film except from a balcony or at an after hour “midnight rambles” when films were shown to African-Americans after midnight in white movie theaters where under Jim crow laws they would never have been admitted at any other times.

Dreaming in the Darkness: a Dark Part of our History

Americans flocked to the movies in record numbers during the first part of the 20th century. Going to the movies was an escape…for some.

Jim Crow in his many draconian roles as segregation enforcer, also wore the hat of a movie critic who determined the experience of and access to movies. It was a time in America of the big sleep.

Jim Crow determined the experience of and access to movies. It was a time in America of the big sleep.

If there was no place for Blacks at the movies, they created their own.

Black Theaters

Oscar Micheaux was known as the King of Black Film Makers. His 1936 movie “Temptation” touted Ethel Moses the star of the film as the “Negro Harlow.” (R) When Herb Jeffries donned a ten gallon hat in 1937’s “Harlem on the Prairie” the singing cowboy became a real movie star appearing in 4 movies. Image Source: “A Separate Cinema” by John Kisch

Once upon a time, there were hundreds of “colored” movie theaters across the country, offering safe havens of comfort and entertainment to African-Americans.

It was a chance to watch a movie without being reminded of Jim Crow realities

Unlike white movie theaters, entrances and seating were not restricted by race. And unlike a white theater where the only blacks were the porters and maids, here the manager, tickets takers, ushers, and concessionaires were all black.

Yes, Negro Theaters were less grand and operated in specifically defined and constrained neighborhoods . They were generally not air conditioned at a time when air cooled movies would lure customers in with their big sign  announcing in shimmering blue  icicle lettering “It’s Kool Inside.”

Black movie theaters were usually considered last run possibilities for major Hollywood studio movies. Bogie and Bacall usually took a year to make their way into black theaters and some prestige film never made it at all.

But there were the “race movies” and there was no shortage of them.

A Great Colored Cast

(R) Chicago After Dark 1946 (L) “Gang Smashers” was a 1938 Million Dollar Pictures starring Nina Mae McKinney as a tough talkin’ dame who runs Harlem’s underworld rackets. Image Sources: A Separate Cinema by John Kisch

If there was no place for Blacks in the movies they made a place for themselves and created  their own.

Black audience movies also called “race movies” with all black casts were made in the first half of the 20th century and distributed to all black cinemas.

It gave new meaning to the term Film Noir.

These movies produced away from the big Hollywood movie studios flourished, offering genres ranging from melodrama, musical, and comedies.

(L) “Ebony on Parade” 1947. An all-star compilation of Black stars- Cab Calloway, Count Basie, The Mills Brothers and a young Dorothy Dandridge. (R) ” Life Goes On ( His Harlem Wife )” 1938 courtroom drama starring Louise Beaver. The talented actress was probably best known to white audiences as TV’s Beulah, the star of the 1950s sitcom where she was known as “queen of the kitchen” playing a more stereotypical mammy character. Image Sources: “A Separate Cinema” by John Kisch

Unlike mainstream Hollywood movies that invariably offered demeaning stereotypes of African-Americans these low-budget black films produced by black writers, producers and directors between 1916 and 1950, gave African-Americans a chance to play leading roles, while showed positive portrayals of Blacks .

In the safety of these  Black Theaters Africa Americans could do their own dreaming in the dark without the dark history that often accompanied them to the movies.

Copyright (©) 2019 Sally Edelstein All Rights Reserved

1970 was a year of great cultural divides.

Alongside war protests and racial unrest, women were in revolt. But in a year of turmoil there was one divisive issue that  captivated the media. A hot button topic if ever there was one, it pitted women against men, and women against women. For months on end, day after grinding day, the media covered it unrelenting from the front lines.

What was this deep cultural divide? Was it women’s liberation, the bombing in Cambodia, legalizing abortion,  or gender pay inequality?

Nah! It was the Great Hemline Battle of 1970.

As the year spiraled into social and political chaos,  women’s hemlines suddenly fell from thigh high to near floor length. At a time of unprecedented upheaval, the media devoted endless ink to covering not only the War in Vietnam buut  the fashion war that raged on between the Mini v.s. the Midi.

Since the mid 1960’s the mini skirt had reigned supreme.

The introduction of the Midi length skirt put fear into the hearts of ogling men and spunky women alike. It also caused   some dress manufacturers a good case of jitters as to whether the public would accept this dramatic change. But for all the women’s talk of liberation, the fashion world  was banking on the fairer sex’s  traditional slavish devotion to fashion.

“Every time the ladies turn around these days they discover another freedom,” Life magazine gushed in its March 3, 1970 issue devoted to the Hemline Hassle. “They can protest, they can compete, they can even – if they are Russian- fly of into space. But freedom stops when they turn around to regard their own hemlines in the mirror.”

In and Out

It would seem as though few things struck at the heart of a womans self-esteem than to be out of step with current fashion.

Like wearing white after Labor Day, hemline decrees had to be obeyed, like it or not. The word had been passed down from above through that sacred Bible of Fashion  Women’s Wear Daily commanding all women – libbers or not-   that skirts shall henceforth plunge to midcalf in what they called the Midi. Dress houses rushed to lower their hemlines  to prepare for the big fall preview. The US fashion Industry declared  definitively that the Mini was officially OUT.

Devotion to Fashion was just what the greedy Midi Men were counting on to line their own maxi pockets.  “There’ll  always be that strange woman, God bless her we love her,” reasoned an executive  at Marshall Field, “who wants to be the first out of the hen-coop with the latest oddity. She’ll go to any length to be au courant and we make a lot of money because of her.”

Along with fashionistas, they predicted the Midi would be favored by girls not built like Twiggy.

According to Life: “Merchants are now even briefing their armies for the attack, backed by the big manufacturers who are deep into the midiskirt, the big name designers here and abroad who thought it up, and women with heavy thighs.”

For those women hemming and hawing about the hemline, fashion manufacturers prepared to go to battle. Stores quickly banished the mini,  sweeping them totally off their racks. By late summer the mini was missing in action.

In August the die was cast. It would soon be farewell to knees and maybe even calves once the enemies of the miniskirts got their way.

Department stores began a vast campaign to re-train the customers eyes  and the first target was their personnel. Salesgirls were encouraged, urged, even shamed into wearing the Midi at work. Nearly all stores staged fashion shows to woo their staffs to the Midi and show them how to sell it, encouraging them  to spend more time with dubious customers to “get them to try on at least one Midi.”

August 3 was D Day at all the N.Y.Department stores,  the day the Midi became the law of the store. At tony Bonwit Tellers in N.Y. salesgirls were given the option of wearing either Midis or pantsuits. No minis.

The President of Saks Fifth Avenue gave the final death knell: “The mini is as dead as a doornail.”

For many these were fighting words. Battle lines were drawn. Suddenly the hemline debate became a matter of absorbing national interest.

Girl Watchers In Revolt

Girl watchers were in an uproar. The mini gladdened  (and the past tense was  painful) girl fanciers from California  to Manhattan.

Most men wanted  to see the hemlines remain exactly where they were. “Standing on the other side of the debate were all males over 12 (especially husbands)”  Life magazine exclaimed.

For men accustomed to seeing the female leg in full display it was a sad step backwards. How can we bear to bid goodbye to all this, they wailed in unison.

“The only thing this change is going to help is Saturday and Sunday television,” said a man in Denver quoted in the Life article. “Guys who would ordinarily  be out in the fresh air watching girls will be inside watching TV.”

Even our National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger  a world-class girl watcher chimed in on the issue  commenting “that legs were about the only scenery his basement White House office had to offer.”

The most wistful comment came from the Hallowed Halls  of Congress where a congressman lamented “I sort of feel momentary regret for the passing of a golden age.”

While most men preferred the  mini to mid calf length in women’s fashion, women were evenly divided. While some women said they would wear the midi length just to keep in style, and some praised the Midi’s feminist qualities, others echoed Time magazines assessment that the midi was “ungainly unflattering and unwarranted.”

Mini-skirted women march in protest of the midi skirt, July 13, 1970, in Miami, Fla. The women are afraid stores will stop stocking the mini skirt and they want freedom of choice in their attire. (AP Photo/Jim Kerlin)

The most vocal were the female mini skirt devotees  who vehemently opposed the Midi and held protests across the country. One lass in a micro-mini vowed that, “if the Midi becomes the style I’ll commit suicide or murder. I’ll stay out of the stores for 4 years if I have to.”

In Their Clutches

The real war often took place right at home.

If a fashionable gal wanted to refurbish her entire wardrobe with new hemline lengths it didn’t come cheap. And convincing husbands  to part with money for something they opposed was a battle itself.

“My husband won’t pay the bills,” cried legions of women confronted with the racks of new hemlines.

The style on which the U.S fashion industry was staking its money on, couldn’t very well be  paid for it with  a woman’s own credit card.

Giving Credit Where Credit Is Due

In 1970  a woman would need her husband’s  store credit card since she couldn’t get one of her own.

Even a working woman who got married would have to reapply for a charge account at a local department store under her husband’s name, despite the fact she was  working at the same job prior to her  marriage. A woman applying for a credit card could be asked a barrage of questions: Was she married? Did she plan on having children? Many banks required single, divorced, or widowed women to bring a man along with them to co-sign a credit card.

A single gal trying to obtain a BankAmericard in her own name would  be told: ”Our policy allows cards in the husband’s name only.”

Didn’t matter whether you were dressed in a Mini, a Midi, or a Maxi. Your application would be  declined. You needed a man in a pair of pants.

Now that was a hassle. A real battle worth fighting over.

Postscript

Filed Under Early Sexists Cartoons

A cartoon reflective of the times done in 1970 by my 15 year old self  clearly shows that unlike hemlines, my young consciousness had yet to be raised!

Not all wounds are visible.

The trauma the children at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School experienced did not end with the last bullet fired on that ghastly day in Parkland.

That’s when it begins.

The unrelenting gunfire pierced many more than those wounded or killed in that tragedy. For hundreds of others who witnessed the unimaginable carnage but were not physically wounded you can be certain the shooter pierced their hearts and minds.

Many endured weeks or months of nightmares, anxiety, depression, and hypervigilance. A smaller group developed psychiatric illness like PTSD and substance abuse that can linger for decades. But all of them will be changed forever. The victims are not just those whose lives perished in the shooting. They are those that survive too.

The aftershocks of the Parkland shooting tragedy continues to reverberate.

Two Parkland shooting survivors have now committed suicide in a week. We must do something.

Thoughts and prayers  do not help trauma victims.

Support is essential. We need better mental healthcare for those who survive shootings and have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.  The National Center for PTSD estimates 28% of people who have witnessed a mass shooting develops PTSD and 1/3 develop acute stress disorder.

Our Future

This is a national emergency.

This is about our children’s future. All our children have absorbed these shootings, informing them that life is not safe.

This is the world they grew up in. These are kids who have never gone to school in a place where gun violence was not normalized and that is no longer acceptable.

We have failed the Parkland students.

They are our future. Let us ensure that they have one.

PostScript

Tragically on the very day this was posted, our hearts are shattered once again.  Even as we still mourn the death of the 2 Parkland survivors, we learn that Jeremy Richman, the father of a Sandy Hook victim died as a result of suicide. A neuroscientist, he founded the Avielle Foundation in his daughter’s name that studied the brain and violence.

In the U.S., the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255.

Politics is a touchy business.

There was a time when a kiss and a big hug was de rigour for a politician. Pressing the flesh is a vital part of a campaign.

Politicians shake hands, they hug, and there is the ultimate political gesture kissing a baby.

Now with the attacks on touchy feely Joe Biden coming under attack  will that old time honored campaign ritual of baby kissing go by the wayside, as out of touch as a rotary phone?

Lets not throw the baby kissing out with the bathwater.

The politician and the bald-headed baby were made for each other.

A baby’s first kiss from a politician is always remembered and mine in 1955 was no exception.

That year my parents believed that as a four-month old it was time for me to be introduced to “The American Way” at an Independence Day campaign rally in my suburban Long Island town.

July Fourth was Nassau County’s official political campaign kickoff.

The heat seemed to have little effect on the swarm of soggy, seersucker-suited town clerk, and district court judge candidates who were buzzing around the rally. Their well-honed eyes were darting amongst the crowd for a shapely leg to admire and a baby to kiss.

Displaying high-beam campaign poster smiles, the politicians, along with their adoring Vic Tanney-toned wives, shook hands while handing out ambiguous promises as easily as they gave out promotional emery boards and plastic rain bonnets with their names printed on them.

Nothing said the America Way of Life more than that age-old kiss from a politician and it didn’t take long before some VFW hat-wearing, county comptroller wannabee’s radar had me in his sights.

Mopping his brow, and peeling off his jacket, the well-upholstered Sicilian-American with a melting pot belly waddled over towards us. Clumsily clutching a hot dog in one hand, the juices trickled down his chin as he bent over to kiss me on the top of my head with his garlicky breath.

With a greasy hand, he presented Mom with a wink and a green plastic comb emblazoned with his name on it hoping to win her vote. The tangy residue of French’s yellow mustard and the sandpaper sensation of the heavy stubble on his chin lingered on my forehead longer than his name lingered with my parents.

Jacob Javits

But when a balding gentleman with a sharp nasal voice and unruly eyebrows chose my own bald little head to kiss, Mom was ecstatic.

Despite the heat, the charismatic Republican N.Y. State Attorney General, Jacob Javits, was crisp and cheerful in a chocolate brown suit and purple-hued tie.

“That should be good for a few dozen votes when he runs for the Senate next year,” my father said.

There was talk of the affable Attorney General running for N.Y. Senator next year which explained why Javits was out in full force helping local campaigns in our small suburban town.

The Jews claimed Jack Javits as one of their own.

A son of Jewish immigrants, a boychik born in a tenement on the Lower East Side of N.Y.C. helped explain why he was the first and only Republican my Roosevelt-nik -Democrat mother ever voted for. The fact that he had run against F.D.R. Jr. in last year’s Attorney General election made the choice even more agonizing for her but the Jewish card trumped everything.

As the compact Javits bent down to kiss me, his breath fruity from a constant consumption of cough-suppressing, cherry flavored cough drops, a skinny young photographer from The Long Island Press snapped his Graflex Speed Graphic and captured the moment forever.

Along with my vaccination records, the now brittle yellowing paper is tucked into my baby book where it remains to this day.

Lets hope the baby kissing tradition remains too.