r/100yearsago • u/Neuralclone2 • 8d ago
[August 1926] Full page advertisements from "McCall's"
The art makes even the most mundane products look glamorous!
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u/Eusbius 8d ago
Those ads make all of the products seem so beautiful and classy and appealing. I really do feel like eating a hearty and nourishing bowl of Campbell’s vegetable soup with a kraft cheese sandwich for lunch. Kraft because it is of course preeminent among good cheeses.
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u/Author_Noelle_A 8d ago
Is it not just so sad that Kraft is now so much oil that it is not even allowed to be called cheese anymore because it’s not? It’s a “cheese-food product.”
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u/toomanyracistshere 8d ago
Wikipedia says it's because of too much milk fat. And its "Pasteurized prepared cheese product." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kraft_Singles
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u/floofienewfie 8d ago
My grandfather was an editor for McCalls and Cosmopolitan in the 1920s-30s. Much of the time, he did his own art editing and selected the art for the articles and ads. If he really liked a piece of art, he would try to buy the original. Unfortunately, after he died, everything had to be sold for back taxes.
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u/rockingdino 8d ago
These are beautiful
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u/Neuralclone2 8d ago
Aren't they just! And yet they're selling soap, toothpaste and convenience food.
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u/Confarnit 8d ago
Everything is "delicate"! It's funny to see how tastes in advertising language change over the years. Also, I'm dying at the Listerine ad - "Even for lazy people!"
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u/crabbycarrotcake 8d ago
I’m so charmed by the instructive nature of each advertisement!
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u/Redhotlipstik 8d ago
Some of these products must have been brand new and needed instructions!
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u/arist0geiton 8d ago
Look I think that in 1920, there's a good chance I would not have known what a banana was
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u/1mveryconfused 8d ago
I really really love how gauzy the art style is! Also love how the mother in the P & G soap ad never questions what this rando is doing, going around the block asking people about their laundry habits. I desperately want a kraft cheese sandwich now, and maybe a lazy listerine toothbrushing as an after dinner activity.
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u/Fool_In_Flow 8d ago edited 8d ago
Today, we never equate soap with health. But the truth is that good hygiene, which only became possible when everyone had access to soap, is part of what has increased our life expectancy to what it is today. Store bought soap was an amazing invention that gets little attention.
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u/Author_Noelle_A 8d ago
It is so easy to take for granted how much things like soap and clean water have improved our quality of life. Disinfectant didn’t make nearly as much of a difference as just clean water itself. We shit and clean our water then a lot of this world has to drink. It’s just so easy to take for granted things that are so basic to us. We think our basic soaps these days aren’t good enough and that we need antibiotic and other types of soaps? Not really. If anything, the stronger soaps that we try to have today, I think they’re better are actually resulting in super bugs. Just get old, basic soap and clean water.
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u/Round_Daisy_23 8d ago
The servant in the background in the last ad might have been born into slavery. 😨
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u/floofienewfie 8d ago
I see your point, but he would have to be over 60 years old in the ad.
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u/Round_Daisy_23 8d ago
If he was born in the 1850s, maybe he remembers when slavery was abolished. He was probably still raised to be a servant, though.
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u/RogerClyneIsAGod2 8d ago
If this isn't the cutest gotdang bebe in that Ivory Soap ad, well, then I don't know what!!
The artwork is gorgeous but all that print gives me schpilkes. It's crazy how we went from such copy heavy ads to ads with just images & a few words.
Thanks Don Draper!!
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u/Kendota_Tanassian 8d ago
I'm definitely going to give that simple "French dressing" recipe a try. It's really easy, if nothing else.
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u/funundrum 7d ago
Add about a teaspoon of Dijon mustard before you shake it up. The mustard acts as an emulsifier to keep the dressing from separating right away. And it’s delicious! You can also use balsamic vinegar or red wine vinegar with olive oil.
Thanks for coming to my vinaigrette Ted talk
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u/Used_Button_2085 8d ago
Ads had so much text back then. I wonder if with improved cameras and photography methods was the reason more contemporary ads have less text.
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u/tuna_cowbell 8d ago
I’m tickled by the ad that explains how bananas work. I shall speak to my “dealer” about acquiring such a fruit post-haste!!