One thing from 1949 for each letter of the alphabet. All pictures are from 1949 or are pictures of things made in 1949.
A is for automobile. The 1949 Ford looked like this:
B is for black beauty. Because bleaching creme and blackface was not a good way to start this post. A black beauty contest from 1949:
C is for computer. The 1949 EDSAC computer at Cambridge University:
D is for Donald Trump. As he was on July 16th:
E is for Ebony magazine, then in its fifth year. The August issue:
F is for film noir, a common style of film back then – femme fatales, cynical detectives, plenty of shadows:
G is for the Green Book, which listed businesses that would serve blacks.
H is for hard-cover book, not called that till 1949 when paperbacks became common enough. A Dr Seuss hard-back book from 1949, “Bartholomew and the Oobleck”:
I is for Ingrid Bergman, who in August said she was quitting both her marriage and film acting. This picture was taken by Gordon Parks, then in his second year at Life magazine:
J is for Jackie Robinson, a sports hero who was named Major League Baseball’s Most Valuable Player of 1949. He did a cigarette ad:
K is for King George VI of England. Here he is with his daughter Elizabeth, who is still the queen in 2017:
L is for lynching. The lynching of Ernest Thomas made page 48 of the New York Times:
M is for Mao, who took over China on October 1st.
N is for Negro, the New York Times word for black people, even when lynched on page 48:
O is for Orwell, who came out with his book “1984” on June 8th. Here he is with his son in 1949:
P is for polio, a crippling, sometimes deadly, disease with no cure.
Q is for quiche, a kind of vegetable pie. Now a word in English. A French wedding menu from February 19th:
R is for radio. It was like television without pictures. A Philco 49-902:
S is for “South Pacific”, a Broadway musical which gave us the word “dragon lady” and the song “Some Enchanted Evening”, which became a top-ten song in the United States four times in 1949: the original by Ezio Pinza went to #7, Frank Sinatra took it to #6, Bing Crosby #3 and Perry Como #1.
T is for television. Fewer than a tenth of American households have one. A Philco 49-1240:
U is for underdeveloped country, now a word in English. Some 1949 stamps from Liberia:
V is for Volkswagen Beetle, which started arriving in the United States in 1949.
W is for washing machine. In 1949 Maytag informed us that, “Your whole life will change when all-automatic machines do all the backbreaking work on washday.”
X is for “Project X”, because I could not think of anything that starts with X:
Y is for yellow cab. Fifth Avenue in New York on January 15th:
Z is for zither, a stringed instrument used to play the theme song of the film “The Third Man”.
– Abagond, 2017.
Source: Google Images.
See also:
- my 1949 media diet
- Not in H.G. Wells:
- baseball
- bleaching creme
- computer
- lynching – see the Strange Fruit lynching, etc
- polio
- quiche
- radio
- zither
- The United States in 1949
- 1949 in
538
Even as a baby Orange monkey 45 was a ugly little gutter snipe.
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All the 1949 posts have been quite enlightening. Thanks!
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Well done!
Those old washing machines were still pretty labor intensive compared to modern machines. You had to take the clothes out of the water and squeeze them to dampness through rollers and then hang the clothes to dry outside in all types of weather (excluding rain, of course).
I still remember seeing my great-aunts go through that process with their old machines. To that generation of women, those old washers were a huge step up from huge boiling kettles, washboards, and hand wringing on Monday washdays.
The first thing my mother purchased for my grandmother when she got her first job was a washing machine with spin dry. The second thing was a used car so she would not have to catch the bus to work.
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U: Undeveloped Country, the Liberian postage stamps are interesting each one has a story to tell of the history and development of Liberia.
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B: Black beauty, black beauty of 1949 I see colorism played a huge role in what was considered beautiful and the texture of ones hair pattern. Although all the young women in the photo are nice looking I bet they had to pass that dreadful brown paper bag test. It is very sad to me that even today young black women are being judged by European beauty standards. I am glad the black people are embracing the natural curl patterns of their hair and going natural. The coloristm issue however is still alive and that is so tragic. It unfortunate that even today many of us can’t love what the Creator blessed us with.
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“…huge boiling kettles, washboards, and hand wringing on Monday washdays.”
My mother’s family had no electricity and no indoor plumbing during the Depression. This is how my grandmother did laundry until her kids were way past the diaper stage.
They did have a three-seater outhouse, though, which was a big deal. No waiting in line!
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I’m surprised the Polio Fight Poster featured a black child, as if he were actually the first priority for treatment back in 1949.
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As usual, educational, informative and entertaining.
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@ Solitaire
“They did have a three-seater outhouse, though, which was a big deal. No waiting in line!”
A lot of people with indoor plumbing don’t have that luxury.
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@ Mary Burrell
“I see colorism played a huge role in what was considered beautiful and the texture of ones hair pattern.”
I noticed that, too. Sometimes it can be hard to be a chocolate woman in the USA.
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@ Afrofem
Been there. Only had one bathroom growing up and in most places I’ve lived since.
Another cool feature about that three-seater outhouse is that one of the seats was child-sized.
My grandmother never stopped using chamber pots. I have a rather traumatic childhood story about that, which I’m sure everyone will appreciate my not sharing here.
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That was also a year when L’Enracinement, prélude à une déclaration des devoirs envers l’être humain by Simone Weil was published first (the English title, he Need for Roots: prelude towards a declaration of duties towards mankind, azppeared in 1952).
In her work which some understood as a mixture of Catholicism and Buddhism, she made a foundtation for understanding universal economical rights of human beings, very close to the ideas of Welfare State in Northern Europe.
Weil also emphasised that ‘unrooting’ is a base for less participation in community life and regarded workers and peasants as the main representatives of the ‘unrooted’ people, those who were deprived of their cultural and economical rights.
Unfortunately, the same ideas that gave birth to French 1968 has also resulted in modern baizuo extravagancy of the European states.
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@ ARN
What does “baizuo” mean?
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@abagond
Literally, it’s Chinese for ‘white left’, but the actual meaning could be anything between a classification or an insult. Since I am not a Chinese and it’s said in English, it’s definately not an insult 😀
https://www.opendemocracy.net/digitaliberties/chenchen-zhang/curious-rise-of-white-left-as-chinese-internet-insult
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