Amusement from Wife and Home Magazine

Wife and Home Magazine July 1947

I bought two copies of 1947 Wife and Home magazines from a vintage shop recently. They’re very amusing, and a real eye-opener. One the most interesting thing about them are the adverts.

For one thing, the names of the products are so bizarre, it’s like they’re from a foreign country. Names like Pepsodent, Rinso, Gumtex, Thawpit, Zebo, Swando, Welgar, Natex, Curicones, Cephos, Meltonian, Silvikrin, Bermaline, Bikipegs, Ostermilk, and Horrockses (I could go on…).

I especially like the advert for soap that ends with the slogan “The soap nice people like”.

In Sarah Haskins’ hilarious Target Women series, she highlights how euphemistic many ads today are about… erm… number twos…. using words like ‘fiber’ and ‘bloating’ to cover up what they’re really talking about.

Well in 1947, it seems things were VERY different:

Amusing advertsAdvert - no euphemisms here!

Mmm, Fissan Anal Ointment!

Compare to this advert from the same page. Obviously some things need to be couched in more delicate terms.

Terms like: beauty, poise, ‘that something’, assurance, freedom, peace of mind, serenity….

Oh of course, its a Tampax ad! Shhh…..

Compare and contrast

Finally, this ad amused me with it’s protesting too much headline ‘This actually did happen’.

Protesting too much?

What incredible story actually did happen, you’re wondering? What crazy, hard to believe tale is being related here?

Well, it turns out that a boy cut his foot on a beach, it was dressed with TCP, and everything was fine.

Wow! Incredible. I’m glad they told me it actually did happen otherwise that kind of story would just be impossible to believe, I don’t think my brain could take it.

More amusing things from these mags to come, probably.

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Posted on 27 July 2009 in Fun stuff

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