Well, At Least You’re Not A Blind Lampshademaker
Category: 1920s
1971 Roaring Twenties Party Still Looks Like 1971
And if that doesn’t make you feel old enough, now we are actually in another set of Roaring 20s, or whatever adjective you’d like to choose. I’ve seen so many hundreds of yearbooks and thousands of pictures over the last 150 years, that it really chaps my hide when folks don’t even try to look era-specific. Don’t get me started on the mom’s hair in A Christmas Story.
Flappers had bobs. Not Crystal Gayle hair. Not Marcia Brady hair. Certainly not Chrissy Snow pigtails or a beehive. Sigh. Then again, it was just one night.
He’ll Be In Mexico Before You Count Ten
Chicago, Chicago, that toddlin’ town, that toddlin’ town … ♪♫♪ No wonder they were toddling! Rolling on rubber was like skating on clouds with Chicago roller skates. This ad hails from my March 1926 issue of Child Life. You can bet they had a WAY better March than we just did. What do you make of this lantern-bearing imp?
The stock market was years away from crashing, so Easter was going to be LIT. Who wouldn’t want kraft toys of bunnies and ducks that ROLLED, just like those boss Chicago skates?
Or this disturbing gender-ambiguous amputee? What fun!
Little boys evidently wore ties when they colored and crafted. Mother, look, I dressed like Papa!
But when coloring was done, it was time to pull out the old Lanky Tinker (Tom Tinker’s cousin).
Choo Choo Chuesday
Today is Tuesday Travel day (but not for you or anyone else on this planet right now), and today’s mode of travel is TRAINS. My granddad loved trains, often joining the engineer up front, donning the requisite engineer cap. While most of his train schedules and pamphlets are normal map-sized (the kind we once bought at gas stations), none of today’s images are larger than your hand. Most measure only five inches tall.
The majority are from 1934-1935, but this one is about to hit the century mark.
Folks back then would have needed a good pair of glasses to read the small font to find a route and a fare to their destination.
Advertising air conditioning was very important.
Even if was glaringly racist.
It certainly sounds necessary, after reading about the “torrid, sooty blasts from open windows.”
The font and artwork are still eye-catching after all these years.
The luncheon options, however, would not fare so well today. Ox tongue? Prune whip? Prune cornbread? What on earth?
Perhaps you’d be better served by keeping your appetite until you hit the Fred Harvey counter at Union Station (where Harvey Girls served up lunch). Fred Harvey advertisements were ubiquitous on time cards.
Why, even Judy Garland was a Harvey Girl in the movies!
And she sang about the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe, which were all train routes.
What about you all? Have you ever ridden a train? Did you get a cool time card? Where were you going?
Raised To Walk In The Newness Of Life
Orange You Glad You’re Not A Wicker-Weaver?
Famagustan orange baskets make their way to Livadhia, where hopefully, a wicker market exists.
Main Street has yet to be paved, and the donkeys tire easily.
The goats, however, are doing just fine, thank you very much.
If oranges prove to be in short supply in Livadhia, the baskets can be used for other things.
What could go wrong?
Packing Away The Christmas Decorations
Space To Skate
Art Supplies Of 1929
Winner Of Atlantic City’s First Bathing Beauty Contest
Miss Washington, above, won the title in September of 1921 with knees “daringly bare.”
By 1923, hemlines had shifted to show yet more thigh. Can you even imagine wearing stockings to go swimming?
By 1935, the winner received a crown, robe, scepter, and a moment on the throne.
No wonder Atlantic City has been immortalized in art.
Last Of The Labor
Welcome back to more ways to be grateful that we live in the air-conditioned world of 2019. We have spent the week, diving into the classified ads of old Cyprus. Let’s cleanse our palate with ladies on looms or doing needlework.
Clothes were important, especially for these deacons in the courtyard of Kykko Monastery, which had fancy new electric lights.
This fine figure was the prelate (not the pre-early) of the Myrtou monastery dedicated to Saint Panteleimon (not pantemime), where he presided as bishop. As to what he is holding, do not ask me.
Less impressive garb was worn by the mountain maids of Platres, a popular summer resort.
The clothes of this young girl working in the bakery seem festive and refined.
But this toddler had the best job of all, grabbing the rear saddle handlebars as she rode her donkey backwards. “Away from Cyprus, mule! Let us be gone!”
Cypriote Labor
Yesterday, we got a taste of the laborious jobs on the island of Cyprus in 1928. But one post could not do the many jobs justice.
The men below are taking a reprieve from sacking, weighing, and carrying heavy bags of carob pods. Carob is the nasty chocolate substitute that my folks made me eat from Whole Foods. No wonder it was so expensive. Most of this crop went to England, France, Spain and Egypt to feed cattle. What? Yes, for energy-rich fiber. But some of it was made into sweets and syrup.
Understandably, men’s work differed from women’s work, though both wore them down. In front of this dyeshop hung with yarn dyed a deep blue for men’s trousers, this elderly woman spins yet more yarn. The trousers had full seats that were tucked into the belt for cross-country walking.
Speaking of walking, here we see another baker (similar to yesterday’s baker), carrying an entire bread counter on his shoulders.
If you didn’t like carrying, you could spend the day tossing, like this man and boy at a Famagusta pottery pile. The ones he neglected to catch would up in the dovecote.
The broken jars became shelters for doves, who made their way into lore in the tale of the Cypriote king who kept himself cool by causing doves to flutter around him. This was before boxed fans. 
If you looked like a Mediterranean Charlie Chaplin, you might find yourself in this job, where another version of Chaplin scrunched down inside a kiln.
There they fired oil, wine, and water jars. I would suggest a pair of shoes.
This might be hard to detect against the backdrop of the Sea Gate Tower, part of the city’s Venetian fortification, but here we see a two-man sawmill.
That kind of work calls for Gatorade. But that wouldn’t be invented till ’65.
Join us tomorrow for yet more fun and fabulous career choices! I leave you with this image of a 12-year-old on her day off from breaking rocks, enjoying a day of rest.
I Don't Get It 