Curtains, hair, underwear. Go HERE. Minor errors in text on first page; will fix.
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41 Responses to Sears 1934: Latest Update
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That’s it. The next time I call a Man-Card check on a buddy, I’ll accuse him of flaunting a “Demure Priscilla Style”.
“As accurate as color printing process will permit” suggests that, without permission, color printing would be more accurate?
“Save Embarrassment” Too late, the tragically named “Wix” sanitary product had me blushing instantly.
Sterno and hair care: What could go wrong?
Flesh-colored rubber shower curtains? I think I would flee the house if I caught sight of those.
Did anyone notice the Baldwin “Marceller” device looked a lot like the living room sculpture in “BeetleJuice”?
Is that poor lass modeling a primitive football helmet?
I love the curling iron on the last page of the update (upper right hand corner). You heat it up with a can of Sterno. Such the modern convenience!
Does the sheep on page 2 fit the criteria for Benedict Arnold Mascots? Probably not, I suppose, since it was just for shearing, not for eating.
@juanito – John Davey
“Wix” is now known as a brand of oil filters…coincidence?
@jamcool
I hear “wick” when I read that. Not that there’s anything too ooggie about that.
Well then….I don’t get the apron.
I’d love to stumble upon those bluebird curtains.
After we curl our hair we can make fondue!
A sanitary apron?! Made of gum rubber?! I don’t want to know, I just don’t want to know. And yet I can’t stop dwelling on it – what the hell was the purpose of that thing?! No – I’m quite sure I really don’t want to know…
@JerseyAmy
@Nancy
sometimes it’s hard to be a woman
For your own safety, do NOT place the Wix in the Sterno.
Unless you’re a terrorist. Then by all means…
I was curious about the sanitary apron as well and did a little research. The thing was worn “backwards,” and held absorbent cloth against the backside to prevent accidents while sitting down in a skirt. Ugh. http://www.mum.org/InsideMUM4.htm
As Elaine says to Jerry and George after the “Shrinkage” discussion:
“I don’t know how you guys walk around with those things. …”
Right. Back. At. You.
This whole topic gives me the whim-whams (or the vapours). Think I’ll go lie down for awhile.
One of the sanitary belts is described as having pneumatic edges. And the concept of sanitary aprons, wow. Ladies I feel for you.
I wonder if today’s products in 70 years will be looked at as weird or bulky?
I couldn’t say, but I’ll bet in 70 years they’ll still find the current Always slogan of “Have a happy period” to be weird and awkward. Sorry, Proctor & Gamble, don’t care how good your products are, there’s simply no such thing.
When I was a kid and my dad was stationed in Germany, my friends and I learned quickly that the German equivalent of the Sears catalog was in no way airbrushed. It was more, er, stimulating than the Playboy magazines of that era (early 1960s).
Reeaaally glad I live in this decade, and am postmenopausal.
As a preadolescent, I found the medical supplies pages in the Sears catalog, ca. 1965, interesting in that train-wreck sort of way.
I just noticed that the curtains come pre-yellowed at the top for your convenience.
Ewww….
Laxatives!
Er, what? Oh, sorry. Wrong thread. It was that first page with all those patterns that threw me for a loop. I’d be scared to walk in such a kitchen.
Nayr’s Waving Cap was a minor artifact in AD&D 2nd Ed., wasn’t it?
*Logician nit-pick alert*
“It’s not good if you can only find empathy in fictional situations…”
Correct. It would be terrible to have to spend every moment of your life finding empathy in fictional situations. The lack of sleep would surely kill you in short order.
What you meant: “It’s not good if you can find empathy only in fictional situations…”
All those marcelling devices have me wondering how come people don’t do that anymore? I think it’s nice. It doesn’t look THAT hard to achieve, going by the hardware in the catalog. (I mean, compared to the constant maintenance of the typical set of expensive, time-consuming and toxic acrylic nails the fashionable female is expected to maintain nowadays.) Nowadays, you’d have to use a half a can of hair spray to keep those “finger waves”.
Re the hardware on the “Ladies’ supplies” page: does it amaze any of you other “ladies” how many models of belts there were for sale? I’m not that old and those darn things only went away recently — now they’re unthinkable. Another technological achievement by the folks that brought us post-it notes, perhaps. Ahem. Now let us draw a flesh-colored rubber veil across further speculation…
@St. Chris
Yes, that’s right — it could cure split ends, add +1 to attacks with household appliances, pick out nice colors for the living room, and make the wearer look like a complete and total ass. Most players just left it unused….
@JerseyAmy
I still can’t believe the ads—I.will.never.be.a.pearl-girl! Aiiiigh!
Sanitary aprons. I don’t get it and probably don’t want to. Also sanitary bloomers. All in all a very sanitary time could be had.
Sterno-fueled curling irons? A two-fer! Keep the hors d’ouvres warm with the same can that you primped with!
BTW – I think I have one of those wool blankets on my bed. (Good wool blankets never wear out, and good parents pass on their excess wool blankets to their children – I have my mom’s wool Michigan State stadium blanket from the early 1950′s.)
The Weepys- I really only succumb when someone has to stay behind to keep the Nazis/Space aliens in check long enough to blow the bridge/ be the human decoy to lead N/SAs away/ stay behind because there arent enough seats in the lifeboat etc.
Quiet dignity in death will do it to-”A Night to Remember”(I think) when the band stops playing and the leader says “All right men, off you go to the lifeboats” but he has to stay because he is a bachelor…and they all come back, and pick up their instruments and keep playing.
I had a really bad episode about 10 years ago when I was home sick with mono and hadnt had sleep for about 3 days, first watching “Going my Way?” and they bring Barry Fitzgeralds “mother” out, who they flew in from Kilarney (oddly she and Barry looked about the same age. THAT primed the pumps for me, the into “Proudly We Hail” or “Nurses on Bataan” as it came to be called at my house-Veronica Lake gets remorse for trying to kill an enemy patient in her care because her brother died at Pearl. Instead of just apologizing, she sacrifices herself so others can escape by pulling the pin on a grenade and walking, willingly, up to an enemy machine gun nest. BOOM. No music, no sting of strings, just BOOM, Paulette Goddard looks away, pained, then hustles everyone into a truck and flees. I called my wife in tears, in my sleep starved addled way trying to explain what had happened.”Yeah, OK honey, Ill be home later, busy gotta go”. I still hear about it.Sorry for gassing on
@xrayguy
Wow, all that from a Sears catalog, good thing it was not a J Peterman catalog.
The Wix Company, Minneapolis, Minn.
http://www.mum.org/WixStor3.htm
We need more details.
Ah to live in the ’30s and to be able to buy rubber sheets [the heavier kind] for 39 cents/yard. It’s hard to find good rubber sheets anymore.
I was entranced by the couterpoint to all those hair curlers. It’s on the right-hand side of the hair page, about half-way down. I quote its description:
Hair Straightening Comb
Genuine R. F. no. 32 Forged brass comb. Extra heavy fine quality comb that retains heat. Curved teeth that allow treatment close to the scalp.
Mmmm, heat retention and curved teeth . . . .
The only use for Sterno I can recall is that drinking it makes you immune to alien blood-crystallizing virus strains from the Andromeda galaxy.
Which is handy.
Sheesh. Guess there’s at least ONE reward for being an “older” woman now. But only one
But, ick, it all kind of puts you off bodies in general – oozing, leaking, smelly things . . .
Cool. We’ve all seen pictures of those 1930s wavy hairstyles, but somehow I thought that’s just how women were made back then. It never occurred to me to wonder what kind of equipment was required to create that look.
Yeah, well, it takes a pile o’ equipment and expense to create most kinda looks, Bub! ;^)
The bluebird curtains would be a great find. Twenty years before, bluebird china was very popular. Anything bluebird is *Gone* immediately in my antique shop.
Re: all the sanitary supplies . . . I also have in my inventory an unopened box of “Fibs”. They were the forerunners of Tampax, as I recall, when googling it.
As a young girl, I always dreaded having to go to the small general store a mile from our town. Ed the grocer kept HUGE boxes of Kotex (purple for super strength, blue for regular) on the top of canned goods shelf and would take a broom to poke a box down, upon request. The shame of it all . . . .
Those rubber sheets would be between $5-$6 in today’s money.
I’m impressed they had tampons then. Interesting that the napkins were still predominantly used.
My mother said most of those waving devises just didn’t work. Tidy rows of pin curls was time consuming, but the best way to achieve a good Marcelle wave. I think you could also get a professional Marcelle perm.
‘I’m getting a certain small but unmistakable impression that “waving” was popular in 1934. Just a guess.’
It’s mentioned in two of the most popular songs of the era: “You’re The Top” and “Keep Young and Beautiful”.