Tag: 1939

A Eugene Wave will make you brave, 1939

Post author By Estelle
Post date April 29, 2016

Manchester Evening News, 25th October, 1939

Britain had been preparing for conflict long before the actual declaration of war on 3rd September 1939. The government had started building warships from 1938, but a lot of thought was also given to how life would best work on the home front. It was clear that this war would be all-consuming, and so things like how food would be rationed, and whether evacuations from the larger cities would be needed were all considered. Right from the start, bombardment by the Luftwaffe was considered to be a threat which could begin at any time, and the Blitz of the UK began a year after the war started, in September 1940.

What’s interesting about this advert, for a “Eugene Wave” home perm, from only a few weeks into the war, is that it references the “midnight alarms” that were anticipated, as well as women’s “war-time jobs” that were immediately called for. The Eugene Wave was marketed as a way to continue your preparations for war on a personal appearance level.

“Midnight alarms are apt to catch you unawares and the wan light of dawn has no mercy. The rush and fatigue of your war-time job calls for special attention to your beauty. Now is the time to treat yourself to a Eugene Permanent Wave, the really permanent wave, which keeps its charming natural “shape” under the most difficult conditions.”

Tags 1939, advert, Eugene Wave, Second World War

1900-1949 Adverts Women

My Horrible Hands, 1939

Hand-shaming here in 1939 by Hinds Honey and Almond hand cream.

“I try to hide my horrible hands,” says a woman whose hands are dried out from the washing and housework at home. To be fair, washing laundry by hand is absolutely brutal on the skin. It’s so bad that “No-one ever dances with me twice – I’m sure it’s my horrible hands that keep men away.”

A spot of Hinds Cream later, and she has “Honeymoon Hands”, whatever they are – does it mean hands as soft as the women who have managed to get married? Or have her new improved hands resulted in an immediate proposal?

Apparently Hinds is still a popular brand of hand cream in Mexico and Argentina, and now owned by GlaxoSmithKline. I don’t know if they still sell the Honey and Almond variety, though – analysis in 1917 by the American Medical Association showed that there was no honey in the formula at all, but that clearly hadn’t prevented them marketing it as such for at least the next 20 years.

It’s funny how this is pretty much the same basic premise as that of Fairy Liquid, which cut out the need to use hand cream (supposedly, although not actually in reality, in my experience) with their “Hands that do dishes can feel as soft as your face with mild green Fairy Liquid.” At least it didn’t go on about your horrible hands though, and it assumed the woman was already married. Hooray!

Tags 1939, advert, fairy liquid, hinds hand cream, women

1900-1949 Adverts Pharmaceuticals

Stale Foot Acid, 1939

Post author By Estelle
Post date January 11, 2016

It feels like there’s always something new to be body-conscious about. A new zone that hair should be entirely removed from or else some hidden part of the body that now, apparently, should be bleached. Of course, there’s always the accompanying new products marketed to solve our problems before we even knew they were problems.

Well, it was always this way. Just like Skin Constipation tried to become a “thing” in 1937, “Stale Foot Acid” was the new thing to worry about in 1939. It was basically the same thing – clogged pores which could be cured by, well, having a good wash.

Here’s the (not-so) science bit – the sweat from your feet, left to become “stale”, turns to acid, blocks up all the pores in your feet and then starts piling up in the muscles, resulting in corns, callouses, stabbing pains, burning and tingling.

“You’ve got to shift that acid or go on suffering!”

So, what can be done to alleviate this dreadful condition? The “modern treatment” is to bathe your foot daily in water with Radox bath salts added. Radox is the best bath salt to use because it “liberates about five times as much oxygen as other bath salts.” Somehow, this “supercharges” the bath water and lets the acid escape through the now unblocked pores. Hooray!

And as a bonus, you now also don’t have people fainting at the vinegary stench when you take your shoes off.

Tags 1939, advert, pharmaceuticals

1900-1949 Marriage Advice

Advice to Husbands, 1939

It’s another entry for my series of historical marital advice articles today.

This time – advice from an Austrian newspaper, as reprinted in The Berwickshire News in 1939, a few months prior to the outbreak of the Second World War. It’s almost the counter advice to a previous post of mine – a policeman’s advice to wives from 1912. There, the policeman counsels a wife to “Have your own way by letting him think he is having his.” Here, it says that the husband should let his wife think she is in control of his life, without actually being so.

The phrase – “A woman’s happiness always wears the face of a man,” stands out for me here. What I have deduced so far from all this marital advice is that the wife wants to be in charge and the husband wants his ego boosted, and that each should act in such a manner as to let the other think they are getting what they want, without really letting them have it. Exhausting, this battle of the sexes.

If your wife is unbearable, take it with a smile and remember that the woman who never nags you or reproaches you for anything most certainly does not love you any more. If your wife is pretty don’t tell her so, because she knows it. But if she isn’t – and this is often the case – insist that she is and she will think; “He has the soul of an artist.”

If you are on a little holiday with your men friends and you have a good time, don’t admit it in your letters. On the contrary, say that you think of her all the time, that you miss her and are bored without her. Women do not believe that men have the right to be happy with something because they can only be happy with somebody. A woman’s happiness always wears the face of a man.

Let a woman think she regulates and directs your life, but do not let her do it.

A husband should not compare his wife’s looks with those of slimmer and richer women – for that matter not even with her own in the dear days of their engagement.

Nor should he neglect using the hair tonic she’s bought at great expense to prevent a threatening baldness on her darling’s head. And he must never say “I won’t have to shave to-day. It’s going to be just the two of us so I guess it’s all right.”

Never forget the fundamental truth: you will only be happy if your wife is happy.

Tags 1939, advice for husbands and wives

1900-1949 Women

Feminists Condemned, 1939

Post author By Estelle
Post date August 13, 2015

I’ve posted before about the frisson of anger-enjoyment, perversely getting a bit of a kick out of things that wind you up. I had it in abundance in this curmudgeonly-in-the-extreme Advice for Wives article from 1895.

But here my feminist hackles are raised, good and proper. It’s a report from “The National Association of Schoolmasters” 1939 conference, where “a resolution opposing the principle of equality of salaries between men and women teachers was passed.” Well, they might have had to even go so far as to change the name of the association.

“It declared the application of equal pay must compel schoolmasters to accept a lower standard.”

The kicker is from Mr H. Meigh, mover of the proposition, who stated that “the feminist movement was a case of the tail wagging the dog. A small politically-minded section of advanced feminists in the teaching profession, who cursed their Maker because He did not allow them to enter the world wearing trousers, were prepared to cast aside the superiority which all true men automatically accorded them in favour of mere equality.”

Isn’t that annoying? All true men apparently consider women to be superior, in an undefined and unapparent way, and so why should women “settle” for equality?

I can’t help but be reminded of Bic’s recent woefully backwards-looking advert released for Women’s Day in South Africa – here. It’s a similarly irritating attempt to maintain the sexist status quo while cack-handedly pretending to compliment or inspire women. If Bic really thought that any one of their shameful statements was in any way progressive I’d be amazed. And never mind “Work like a boss”, how about “Get paid like a boss?”

Women, know your limits.

Tags 1939, Bic, Feminism, sexism, teachers, women

1900-1949 Adverts Ephemera Pharmaceuticals

Owbridge’s Lung Tonic, 1939

Post author By Estelle
Post date September 12, 2014
15 Comments on Owbridge’s Lung Tonic, 1939

Owbridge’s Lung Tonic was a cure-all preparation invented in 1874 by Hull pharmacist Walter Owbridge. It was advertised as a cough medicine, a remedy for bronchitis, asthma, consumption (tuberculosis) and all manner of other throat, chest and lung afflictions – “It never fails”, or so it claimed.

It had a secret formula, but an archive analysis shows it to have consisted of chloroform, along with honey and alcohol in the form of ipecacuanha wine. Not recommended for babies under 6 months old, but fine after that, apparently.

(This archive text from 1909 is an interesting read on the subject of this and many other ancient pharmaceuticals – “Secret Remedies – What they cost and what they contain“)

They were also keen users of promotional merchandise. This small booklet, Owbridge’s Table Companion, is from 1939 and is designed to help schoolchildren with facts and figures, while advertising their wares.

The section on measurements of all manner of things interests me the most. All the befuddling names for specific amounts used just for that one item. I wonder if the schoolchildren were actually expected to know and remember all this information?

Tags 1939, ephemera, Owbridge's lung tonic, pharmaceuticals