New Years Eve Party

The countdown to my parents  1959 New Years Eve party had begun. On the cusp of the space age my parents prepared for a new years Eve Party that would send them soaring into the world of tomorrow.

1960 was just hours away.

Blast Off

My parents, like most suburban couples, enjoyed entertaining. But this was company unlike my standard family get-together’s, which had more to do with genealogy than congeniality. Neither relative nor neighbor, they were my parent’s friends, not mine.

Here was a constellation of adults mysteriously visible only at night, making appearances at certain times of the year and certain days of the week. Not withstanding the funny hats and loud noisemakers, this gathering was for mature audiences only.

This was no pin-the-tail-on-the donkey- ring –around- the –rosy- Simon –Says- kind of affair.

Strictly Adults, it was a party strictly off-limits to me.

Last Minute Rehearsals

As my father raced about giving last-minute checks of the Ronson silver plated lighters making sure the wicks were high enough, and Mom unloaded the last clean glasses from the GE dishwasher, my brother Andy and I kept a look out for the arrival of our guests.

Our faces pressed against the frosty picture window, we waited in watch for the convoy of cars carrying the party company that would soon appear at the top of our snowy suburban block. The clanking sound of chains and studs on snow tires would be heard before we spied a single car.

Along with my brother, I was excluded from the main festivities. After a brief walk-on, long enough for cheeks to be pinched and hair tousled, we were vanquished to our bedrooms. The show would go on without us; we were to wait in the wings until we got our cue, to reappear for the third act, the big countdown to the New Year.

Party Time Rules

Earlier that evening Andy and I had a run through of the company bathroom rules.

Once Mom brought out the fancy perfumed soaps and beautifully embroidered monogrammed terry towels, it was our cue- they were strictly were off-limits to us.

If we had to use the bathroom while the party was in progress we were to carry out towels from our rooms to the bath and back again. We were forbidden to touch the 12 delicate pink guests soaps. I would stare longingly those plump little heart-shaped bars each with a rose design molded in the middle, nestled on a Limoge dish.

In all the years of trotting out those eternally pristine soaps, I don’t think they were ever touched by guests either.

The Party Begins

The future seemed frosty as a blast of cold air greeted us as each guest arrived.

At the first sound of a doorbell ringing, like some Pavlovian response, Andy and I scurried into hiding like some frightened mice. Despite our protestations on being excluded from the party, the truth was we were both painfully shy and really didn’t need much coaxing to stay out of their hair. After our perfunctory meet and greet once the company arrived, we were vanquished until midnight.

But the lure of the forbidden world, the tantalizing smell of new and exotic foods, seemed irresistible and drew us out of our bedrooms. We stealthily slithered down the hall way to get a worm’s eye glimpse of the festivities.

My eyes like my brothers were focused on the drama being played out direct from the intimate living room of my house on fashionable Western Park Drive, a spectacle that could easily compete with TV or the movies.

Watching the spectacle from the sidelines, listening to the sounds and laughter, was like a guided tour through an exhibition of what adulthood might look like for me in twenty years, my own world of tomorrow..

The universe was changing for the night. This was a world in which I played a tertiary role. As a four-year old used to being in a starring role I was stuck backstage,  a mere walk on player, summarily called for to appear, just as summarily dismissed.

I who felt chosen, whose life revolved around Moms just as in equal measure I was sure hers revolved around mine, suddenly found Mom spun out of orbit into her own world, a different galaxy, one that didn’t include me.

Even dressed in my kids glamorous mink stole, puffing on kiddie puff puff cigarettes, I was way out of my league.

The glowing house and the beaming guests all so shimmering, glittering out dazzled me.

A Hair Raising Good Time

The gals, fresh from the beauty salon were set to have a hair-raising good time.

Their collective teased hair a colossal cacophony  of  colors, spun like great puffs of cotton candy, an homage to Clairol, the first name in hair color who were the proud sponsors of the  Guy Lombardo show.

Coming or going it was an eye filling picture, flirty bows, back and front, dresses of  midnight magic in velveteen whimsy, merged with heavenly, billowing rayon chiffon, fancied bodices in shimmering acetate competed with figure hugging sheaths in crepe and Shantung.

Underneath it all, a galaxy of girdles, firming with femininity, girdles with magic controls, to mold, hold, and control, gently assuring social security.

While hips were subdued, waists whittled and tummies tightly kept in check, bosoms were lavishly displayed, generously arranged, poised like missiles for take off in their bras.

With glowing faces shiny with pink pancake makeup, eyebrows deftly penciled in, their eyes as if smudged with crayolas in iridescent jewel tones of turquoise and sea green, the girls hotly debated and exchanged sizzling party recipes; fondues were scrutinized, zippy dips and dunks dissected, and potato chips pondered-with or without ridges.

Heavy trading went on, swapping a cherished Kraft TV Theatre clam dip recipe, for a new twist on Lipton’s California dip,

New Frontier

 Men smelling of Vitalis and Lavoris were trim in tapered slimming Continental suits. Suddenly they weren’t someone’s Dad who drove a dowdy De Soto but a man about town behind the wheel of an Austen Healy or an Astor Martin.

 Puffing on their Cuban cigars, dressed in cone-shaped cardboard party hats embellished with glitter feathers and ruffled crepe paper fringe, the men discussed politics.

On the cusp of a new decade we were ready to blast off into the New Frontier of the ‘60s leaving grandfatherly Old-father-time Eisenhower in the dust. Suddenly the promise of young men vying for his job was on everyone’s mind. And no more so than the young Senator from Massachusetts John Kennedy, the hottest democratic card in the race.

The biggest day circled on the upcoming 1960 calendar would come in November when the US would go to the polls to choose the president who would lead the US into the future- the fabulous promise of the 1960s.

Retreat

Vintage Cover Saturday Evening Post 1958 Illustrator: Thorton Utz

The future looked very hazy to me as the room filled with blue smoke.

After a quick meet and greet, with stinging eyes I retreated from the haze into the quiet seclusion of my parents bedroom. Stifling a yawn, I stretched out in the darkened room on the cool satiny bedspread, nestling in the heavy pile of coats and fedora hats that had been tossed their earlier by the guests.

Glamorous Mink coats with labels from I J Fox, Stein and Blaine, fancy monograms in contrasting color stitched onto the lining, either first name or initials. Silky smooth, beautiful linings-vivid cerise or orange brocade or gold lame with matching scarf from the  lining to complete m’ ladys look.

Stretched out on the cool satiny bed in my parents bedroom, I marveled how even the beds got dolled up in their company finest, dressed up in fancy quilted satin bedspread   instead of their everyday chenille.

Hibernating under the pile of coats, a tangle of dark brown ranch minks, luxurious beaver, Persian lamb and camels hair, not a single respectable republican cloth coat among them, I dozed off engulfed by smells of loose face powder, and a mélange of cloying floral  perfume.

Stay Tuned for  Remembrance of New Years Eve Past  Pt. III

Related articles

• Remembrance of New Years Eve Past Pt I (envisioningtheamericandream.wordpress.com)
• Remembrance of New Years Eve Past Pt III (envisioningtheamericandream.wordpress.com)

American husbands were getting the frigid-aire from their spouses. According to experts the mid-century American woman was as frosty and frigid as the polar vortex.

The cold war was a chilly time to be an American woman.

A big chill had crept into the well-appointed bedrooms all across the nation and it would appear that the American housewife’s libido was in the deep freeze.

An epidemic was ravishing the nation  …frigidity. According to the medical community the mid-century American woman was as frosty and frigid as the polar vortex.

American husbands were getting the frigid-aire from their spouses.

Happy Homemaker?

The most envied woman in the world was the post war American homemaker…smart yet easy-going with never you mind freedom… this was the new Mrs America.

Her judgement and taste helped make Americas standard of living the highest in the world. It was a life of comfort and convenience, no rubbing, no scrubbing, no waiting no fuss no muss a world that was  flameless, frost-free, filled with touch tone push button ease, and oh, it was … passionless.

Apparently the happy homemaker’s  ability to orgasm was not achieved with push button ease, nor was it as automatic as her fully loaded kitchen.

Ironically the modern problem of “frigidity” had little to do with a woman’s actual enjoyment of sex. No longer did frigidity only mean disinterest in or ignorance of sex. It now included the woman who was sexually responsive, even taking pleasure in sex but did not meet the new criteria

According to mid-century psychiatrists and gynecologists frigidity was now defined as a woman’s inability to have a “proper” orgasm with her husband, the lack of which  could result in the breakdown of the contemporary marriage.

The only cure for defrosting the frigid woman was to achieve a “mature” climax, a vaginal orgasm, the only AMA approved kind of orgasm.

The Big Chill

How Happy Was the Happy Homemaker?
(L) Vintage Ad Maytag 1960 (R) Vintage illustration by Jon Whitcomb for Pin It 1958

 To the outside world Betsy Bland’s life in 1960 was bewitchingly magical.

In her smartly tailored shirtwaist dress and Playtex living cross your heart bra  she was living the new American Dream- a lady Clairol colorful cold war world of carpools, cookouts, and cream of mushroom soup casseroles, catering to contented children and happy-go-lucky husbands.

But to Betsy everything seemed drab, a dull routine….even sex.

Not that she would ever let her husband Randy know how she felt. She prided herself on never denying him his rights.

“This was one wife,” she would boast,“who never said no.” Betsy had promised herself a long time ago that she would never shirk from her wifely duty.

But the once pleasurable sex act had become a ho-hum chore. In the dark of night Betsy wondered if there something wrong with her?

The Cold Woman

One brisk October morning as the laundry tumbled in the Kenmore dryer, and the roast cooked in the automatic oven Betsy flipped through the morning paper.

With the presidential election a few weeks away the race was heating up. The press loved Senator Kennedy and the paper was filled with flattering pictures of the handsome, smiling candidate. Betsy glanced approvingly.

Checking out the TV listings, one ad caught her eye: “This afternoon NBC will air “The Cold Woman: A study of Sexual Frigidity.” The show was described as: “A frank account of a problem affecting millions of American women today.”

Betsy blushed deeply.

Wash in Cold Water Only

Airing Dirty Laundry
Vintage illustration from Oxydall advertisement

Like most housewives, she was familiar with the popular Purex Specials for Women.

Decades before Oprah’s daily airing of America’s dirty laundry became the norm, this highly acclaimed  series of soapy pseudo docudramas geared to the housewife dealt with intimate topics rarely talked about on television.

Running  on certain afternoons the award-winning  show  dramatized such now all too familiar topics as “The Trapped Housewife,” “The Single Woman,” “The Glamor Trap,” “The Problems of the Working Mother,” “The Change of Life,” and this afternoons offering “The Cold Woman.”

The intimate topic came as no surprise to Betsy.

Checking Under the Beds

Mid century doctors and gynecologists had joined forces with psychiatrists and put the American bedroom under the microscope.
Vintage ad Sealy Mattress 1955

In recent years the American Woman had come under close scrutiny in the media especially when it came to her sexuality.

Kinsey wasn’t the only one peeking into the private  lives of Americans.  Mid century doctors and gynecologists had joined forces with psychiatrists and put the American bedroom under the microscope.

When authorities weren’t checking under the bed for Communists, they  were looking between the sheets for signs of frigidity,

What they purported to find was chilling.

Frost Bitten

Frigidity in women was so widespread a problem that some psychiatrists claimed “it is the emotional plague.”

In the words of psychiatrist Marie N Robinson, whose 1959 book on women’s sexual frigidity “The Power of Sexual Surrender” sold over a million copies, “no other health problem of our time even approaches this magnitude .” (With polio recently eradicated, they obviously were seeking some other health problem to challenge.)

Concern over woman’s sexual frigidity so consumed mainstream gynecology and psychiatry during the 1940’s through the early 1960’s  that even the well-respected  Journal of American Medical Association published an article in 1950 which began with the claim:

”Frigidity is one of the most common problems in gynecology. Gynecologists and psychiatrists especially are aware that perhaps 75% of all women derive little or no pleasure from the sexual act.”

The Deep Freeze

Deep Freeze Heart of the Home
Vintage ad 1953 Crosley Shelvador Freezer

Frigidity wasn’t new; it was the definition that changed.

In the 1920’s and ‘30s Female Sexual Anesthesia as frigidity  was called, was all too common. Though physicians may have seen women’s sexual frigidity as a serious threat to the stability of families, forcing husbands to seek sex outside marriage which could lead to VD and the break up of the home, the problem was considered normal as “nice” women were considered less hot-blooded than men.

Good girls were  told :“Nice men with marriage on their minds do not like girls to discuss sex, to go out all on the subject. Nice girls do not discuss sex, tell off-color jokes. Common sense and  good taste forbid this. A man cannot become romantically interested in a girl who dwells on the subject.”

But the term frigidity itself had taken on a new meaning in the more enlightened post-war years.

No longer did frigidity only mean indifference to sex.

Oh Come On!

Apparently the happy homemaker’s ability to orgasm was not achieved with push button ease,

Now the diagnosis of frigidity  included the woman who feels sexually responsive, who was aroused “who enjoys some phases of coitus, even reaching clitoral orgasm during manipulation.”

But that was woefully inadequate.

The new definition classified every woman as frigid if she was incapable of reaching vaginal orgasm during sex. Anything else was second-rate.

Along with her dollies and teddy bears the grown up mature woman was to abandon all childhood attachments including the girlish clitoris in favor of the womanly vaginal orgasm.

A wife’s inability to experience the requisite “mature” climax was a neurotic with “deep rooted psychological problems” that could only be cured with counseling and psychiatrists.

The husband’s skill was not to be blamed.

Defrosting the Frigid Woman

After Glow
In the nuclear age, the only way to defrost the frigid woman was for hr to achieve an orgasm of nuclear proportion.

When it came to sexual dysfunction Purex struck a nerve with the “Cold War Woman.”

With great interest Betsy continued reading the article on the show.

Starring a hot Kim Hunter as a frigid woman with Jack Klugman as the husband, the actors  “ portray a married couple deeply troubled by the most personal of emotional problems in a dramatization based on case histories, professional reports and taped interviews…today despite the American woman’s privileged status, her club memberships, college degree and kitchen full of appliances a great number of her kind is in distress.”

“The complexities of her new situation, in many cases, have only added to her anxieties. And she may reach a point where she becomes a problem for society-perhaps in a divorce court, a magistrate’s office or an alcoholic ward.”

After Glow

Fumbling through her purse, Betsy found the crumpled piece of paper with the phone number  her gynecologist had given her.

Before she too ended up in divorce court or a hospital ward, Betsy would go see a psychiatrist.

Who was to blame for this epidemic of sexual frigidity?  And what could be done about it?

The answer tomorrow.

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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The Frigid Woman in the Cold War PtII

When it came to sex, just how happy was the proverbial happy homemaker?

Not so much.

An epidemic was ravishing cold war America …frigidity. According to the medical community the mid-century American woman was as frosty and frigid as the polar vortex.

Doctors  and gynecologists joined forces with psychiatrists and put the bedroom under the microscope with alarming results.

The Big Chill

Vintage Advertisement Beauty Rest Mattress 1948

A big chill had crept into the well-appointed bedrooms all across the nation and it would appear that the American housewife’s libido was in the deep freeze.

Regardless of her enjoyment of sex, frigidity was defined by a wifes inability to experience the requisite “mature” vaginal climax, the only AMA approved climax. Cast as a neurotic with “deep rooted psychological problems” a housewife’s only hope of a cure was with counseling and psychiatrists.

Can’t Get No Satisfaction

Vintage Magazine 1960 “Medical Confessions”

Which was how in the fall of 1960  suburban housewife Betsy Bland found herself sitting nervously in the waiting room of a West End Avenue psychiatrist.

The dour faced doctor did not overlook the awkward manner in which the anxious faced brunette with the soft Toni Home Perm, slid gingerly into the chair facing him.

He made no comment.

Betsy was an up to date mid-century American housewife and helpmate, pretty and perky dressed in a becoming Bobbie Brookes tailored suit and a fresh coat of pretty in pink lipstick.

Gently Dr Otto Hesse spoke, asking what brought her here, though he knew only too well.

The only unanswered question facing the good doctor was the precise nature of the problem, the forces that would convert a good wife into a troubled one.

All the x-rays and thyroid pills and sex manuals in the world that this unhappy woman had been prescribed had no power to exorcise so subtle a disease, he thought to himself.

Betsy’s voice broke and she reached in her bag for a hankie. Offering her a cigarette, the doctor  lit one for himself. She sighed contently exhaling the smoke.

Dr Hesse had stressed that completeness and frankness was the first rule.

Biting hard on her freshly painted lips, she tried to explain.

The plight of the frigid housewife

Speaking as softly as a child, the attractive housewife confessed that she did not feel overpowering desire in response to her husbands advances admitting that she sometimes needed stimulation to be made to be excited.

With tears welling up in her eyes, Betsy concluded with the question, “Is something the matter with me doctor ?

The doctor grew thoughtful and removed his glasses. He came right to the point.

His answer was an unequivocal “Yes”.

If he’d heard this story once he’d heard it a thousand times.

Vintage ad Servel Refrigerator Freezer 1955

The portly psychiatrist informed her that she was suffering from frigidity an affliction affecting millions of American women. “No other health problem of our time even approaches this magnitude,” he explained somberly.

And who was to blame for this epidemic? For once it was something that could not be blamed on the Russians. Or an inept husband. The blame was the modern woman herself.

Medical experts were convinced that America was suffering from an epidemic of “unwomanliness” the root cause of their sexual dysfunction.

An acceptance of the inherent passivity of woman was key to a happy marriage.
“There were too many women who want to do or to get something for themselves rather than merely reflect the achievement of their husbands. These women show their resistance to their lot in their inability to have vaginal orgasms.”

Conventional wisdom placed the blame for the frigid woman squarely on her own immaturity: “ the normal woman accepts the “passive” receptivity of the vagina.”

“The neurotic woman suffering from an inability to experience vaginal orgasms finds a typical scapegoat-man.” stated sex experts Edmund Bergler & Kroger from their 1954 book Kinseys Myth of Female Sexuality.

“Ignorant of the fact that her own neurotic difficulties is responsible for her frigidity, she places the blame on mans technique…(But) a healthy and experienced man is helpless when confronted with a frigid woman. The frigid woman’s scapegoat theory is by no means harmless. It poisons a marriage and frequently leads to extramarital affairs and divorce.”

Always Ask a Man

Hollywood’s glamorous Arlene Dahl, “internationally known film star and one of the worlds loveliest women” spills the secrets of developing your femininity, in her 1965 book “Always Ask a Man Arlene Dahl’s Key to Femininity”

Dr Hesse knew it all boiled down to the basic question….was  Betsy Blane  rejecting her femininity?

Pulling a well-thumbed through book down from the shelf, he began reading a passage out loud from “Psychoanalysis and Female Sexuality.” In the introduction  to the anthology a Dr Hendrik Ruitenbeek’s  stated:

“There were too many women who want to do or to get something for themselves rather than merely reflect the achievement of their husbands. These women show their resistance to their lot in their inability to have vaginal orgasms.”

Betsy blushed deeply

The path to healthy adult femininity, Doctor Hesse explained, “was paved with sacrifices”. For women sex was to be an exercise in happy self-denial.

Psychoanalytic theory presented the necessary steps to achieve true womanliness.

“First as she outgrew her girlhood a woman had to renounce the pleasures of the clitoris in an attempt to transfer feelings to the more “womanly” vagina. When a woman accomplished that task of abandoning the clitoris she symbolically set aside all masculine striving and accepted a life of passivity.”

Deep Freeze

Along with the media, psychiatrists were steering women toward appropriate fulfillment by reminding them of the joy of subservient home life.
Vintage image from Honewell heating Ad 1951

Frigidity was a symptom of a bigger social problem-modern woman’s rejection of her femininity.

Along with the media, psychiatrists were steering women toward appropriate fulfillment by reminding them of the joy of subservient home life. “Women with other ambitions, “ the doctor continued  “were  likely malcontents and neurotic in her inability to accept her passive role.”

“You all know women who lack warmth tenderness delicacy and sweetness…” one psychiatrist advised a NY lecture audience. “They do not want to be homemakers they do not want to be mothers. They want to become presiding judges of the Supreme Court…’” Such women could suffer “total sexual frigidity or homosexuality,” he cautioned, and even worse than that, this psychosis could result in a woman “separating herself from all that is considered womanly such as cooking, making a home…”

“The greatest Casanova is helpless against frigidity,” Dr Hesse concluded smiling. “It is not to be cured by tricks or special art of lovemaking.”

An acceptance of the inherent passivity of woman was key to a happy marriage.

The best advise for the frigid woman was to put her ambitions in the deep freeze.

With that acceptance, the doctor  reassured Betsy she would soon be  back home reveling in her job as wife and mother. Snug within the warmth of a good man’s love she would once again glory in the laughter of her healthy children and glow with pride with every acquisition.”

So Betsy along with millions of other frustrated housewives took matters into her own hand. Learning how to “self defrost”- that’s what would make the happy homemaker happy once and for all.

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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(L) Vintage illustration from Time Magazine 4/12/48 General Lucius Clay and the Berlin Airlift Crisis

Cold war concerns of  Russian aggression are coming out of the deep freeze.

Russia’s recent  actions in the Ukraine feel straight out of the old Soviet playbook evoking a time when an expansionist Russia was viewed as a “hungry bear” whose insatiable appetite needed to be controlled.

Convinced that the Communist “imperialists” in Moscow were busy spinning a web of control hell-bent on forcibly enslaving free people everywhere, it would be up to the US to contain the cunning Russian bear.

Bear Hug

Soviet Soldier WWII

The big chill almost made us forget that only a few years earlier  this big brutal Russian bear had been our warm and fuzzy teddy bear of a wartime ally

During  WWII,  no one could hold a candle to those brave Stalingrad sacrificing red white and blue Russians.

Led by twinkly eyed pipe smoking “Uncle Joe Stalin they were our comrades in fighting the Nazis.

Songwriters cheered and praised our Soviet comrades as we whistled “You Can’t Brush Off a Russian” and “Stalin Wasn’t Stall’in.” Selling the Soviets to us like a bottle of Pepsi, one ditty went:

“The soviet Union hits the spot

12 million soldiers that’s a lot

Timashen and Stalin too

Soviet Union is Red white and blue.”

Frenemies

Like so many war born marriages it turned out our grand alliance with the Soviets was more a marriage of convenience.

Uncle Joe our warm and fuzzy teddy bear quickly turned into a cold-blooded grizzly bear ready to gobble up crippled Europe turning its starving shivering population into godless Communists.

As Soviet tanks angrily roamed eastern European streets our war born good will faded as quickly  as Elizabeth Arden’s vanishing cream.

Choosing Sides

As if shifting gears between enemy and ally was as effortless as the automatic transmission in your Chevrolet the considerable fury and fear that had fueled our hatred of those bloodless Nazis had been seamlessly and swiftly rerouted to those Godless Russian commies.

As long as the aggression existed in the form of the Evil Empire and “their unrelenting drive to enslave humanity” the threat of an unwanted nuclear war would cast a long shadow.

 The Hungry Russian Bear

Everywhere you turned were maps depicting the Soviet Unions aggressive tendencies appearing ominously splotched in red, depicting the global pattern of the spread of the Red offensive.(R) Map of Soviet Union Life Magazine 6/3/46

The long  shadow reached suburbia too.

What the danger of Russia and Communism posed to my ordinary suburban childhood was very unclear to me.

To help me understand the dangers of this big brutal Russian bear,  my father dad would read me a bedtime story,  a cold war classic which I  begged to have read to me again and again.

While other children adored Goldilocks and her antics with the Three Bears, my favorite was a story called “The Hungry Russian Bear.”

“Once upon a time, there was a Big Red Bear who was very, very hungry.

 “He lumbered through the forest eating everything in sight. His eyes were like saucers. No matter how much he ate, he always wanted more. Tramping through his neighbors forests, he gobbled up his neighbor’s portion.

 Looking around, he licked his lips. Lo and behold he spied a quiet little mouse.

 The Hungry Bear pounced and ate the mouse and all his food. Still hungry, he looked longingly across the big ocean to the other side, where there lay other lands full of all sorts of tempting goodies and treats.

The Big Red Bear would not be happy until he ate everything in sight. The bear just grew and grew.

Communist Russia, Dad explained to me  was like the hungry bear in the story. It was a large and ravenous nation with an insatiable appetite.

Their portion of porridge was never going to be enough for them. Nothing not even Metrical could curb their appetite

To avoid ending up in the tummy of a Communist Bear, I, just like America  was to be in a constant state of preparedness.

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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Cold War Defrosted PtII

Nuclear Jitters

Detail of Collage by Sally Edelstein “And They Lived Happily Ever After” Appropriated vintage images. The end of Camelot saw our own fantasy’s begin to crack

The nuclear family was once as American as the nuclear bomb. But by the end of the 1960’s the nuclear family detonated along with our notion of marriage and motherhood.

Parenting and partnering were not a priority for the newly liberated lady…..just ask Mad Men’s Peggy Olson.

And They Lived Happily Ever After…

As the decade drew to a close, the New Frontier years of Camelot came to a crashing halt and turned out to be just one more fairy tale.

It wasn’t long before the spell was broken and we realized not everyone would live happily ever after like Cinderella.

The only shining white knight coming to the housewives rescue would be the Ajax White Knight galloping into her suburban neighborhood destroying dirt in his path with his magic lance.

Love and Marriage

Only 10 years earlier, the family’s outlook had never been brighter.

McCall’s Magazine even created a term for this Togetherness.

Along with the rest of the media, the real mad men of Madison Avenue painted the same glowing picture of the American family emphatic in their belief that the family was the center of your living and if it wasn’t you’ve gone astray… or you’re a communist!

Some magazine articles even went so far as to imply that a woman’s failure to bear children was a quasi perversion and just plain unnatural. Nothing was more patriotic than having children and like the steel industry, mothering was running at close to 100% capacity.

Waxy Yellow Build Up

Detail of Collage by Sally Edelstein “White Wash” Appropriated vintage illustrations of American Housewives from the 1950s and 1960s

With their gleaming Ipana smiles, happy homemakers asked nothing more of others than to refrain from scuffing up the shine on her freshly Glo coated floor.

In a world rampant with wars , rioting and male entitlement, these happy housewives may have been smiling but more than likely they were numb from Miltown or Valium.

Like underground nuclear testing anger was to be buried beneath the surface, but the fall out would soon appear. Before the decade was out women would become as agitated as their miracle 2 agitator washers.

But by the late 1960’s happy housewives with their smiling faces  dressed in harmonized shades  to match their carefree kitchen appliances, were, like those same retro appliances replaced for a newer model.

Nuclear Family Meltdown

Detail of collage by Sally Edelstein “Always Ask a Man” An amalgam of mass media stereotypes of women from the 1950’s and 60’s . A reshuffling of clichés about popular cultures representation of female choices.

With the bewitching speed and ease of Samantha Stevens twitching her nose the job a generation of women had trained for was suddenly obsolete by 1970. Along with their bras, women libbers threw out the American housewife and June Cleaver got kicked to the curb.

The single gal exploded on the scene knocking the married lady off her pedestal. Ads proclaimed: “It’s your time to shine baby and we don’t mean pots and pans!”

As if hit by a strong dose of radiation, the familiar 1950’s nuclear family in the media had mutated into monstrous families as June and Ward Cleaver were replaced by Lilli and Herman Munster.

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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Vintage Girdles from Spiegels Catalog 1958

Long before spanx became a wardrobe staple, a good girdle was a must have for every mid-century gal.

The cold war containment policy was strictly enforced by the wives of Cold War Warriors, that is, at least when it came to being constrained by their Playtex living girdles.

Perfect for the cold war! “Playtex pink ice gives you the slim young lines the slender silhouette for spring. Hollywood designers say no other girdle slims so naturally stays so cool and comfortable fits so invisibly under clothes from spring suit to revealing summer wear.” Vintage ad Playtex Pink Ice Girdle

Any hint of expanding flesh was as deeply discouraged as the expansionist designs of the Soviets.

Undercover Strategy

Vintage image from Spiegal’s Summer Catalog 1959

Every cold war wife had her own special undercover strategy.

Yet no matter the costume, these latex-bound women were linked, connected by their day to day constraints and circumstances.Whether a smart new shirtwaist dress, or fetching capri pants, underneath it all was a galaxy of girdles firming with femininity, molding, holding assuring full feminine social security.

Vintage image Aldens Catalog 1955

While bosoms were lavishly displayed poised like missiles for take off in their Maidenform bras, hips were subdued, waists whittled and tummies tightly kept in check.

Housewives New Freedom…Jump For Joy (L) Vintage ad Maytag Washer (R) Vintage Jantzen Girdle and Bra ad 1953

Modern girdles were part of the new carefree living housewives were used to.

Whether it was the freedom of an automatic dishwasher or the ease of Arnel, the American girls life was filled with comfort and carefree living …including her waist-whittling, calorie cutting Warner girdle which promised new freedom .

In the great American tradition the housewife’s world would be one of easy does it never you mind freedom.

Whether shopping for the family , going to PTA meetings or housework the busy housewife would be at ease in her comfy girdle. Vintage Electrolux Booklet (R) Vintage ad Permalift Girdles

No Bones About It

The Modern Miss could say goodbye to old fashioned corset bones and stays.-miracle latex used in all the latest girdles was as easy as putting on a pair of gloves (that is if you were OJ Simpson donning a pair of ill fitting gloves at his murder trial.)

Latex was the wonder material for years even before the war.

Girdles made of tree grown liquid latex were designed without a pesky seam stitch or bone yet these new girdles would mold you smoothly allowing complete freedom of action controls your figure for your busy active life.

How incredibly young and comfy you’ll feel in these nylon weigh nothing do everything girdles. Sheer magic too!

The post war gal was was the beneficiary of wartime research and know how.

The concept of support was aided and abetted by new materials such as nylon netting and 2 way stretch fabrics- developed during the war but quickly applied to women’s under garments once victory was done. By the early 1950s a re-energized corset and brassier industry was poised for take off for extraordinary profits

Despite the constraints, and the tight security when it came to any unsightly bulge, these girdle bound women had more spring in their step .

Vintage Lingerie Aldens Catalog 1955

And why not?

Their curve curbing girdles controlled pounds and extolled their curves and they made good on their promise to “Giving your hips you’ll hooray and a waist worth buying a belt for!”

 Stay Tuned A Girl and Her Girdle Pt II

 © Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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The Smell of Democracy in the Air

Every July 4th our split level development would be shrouded by the smoke of burning charcoal, the sizzling smell of democracy was in the air.

Besides a parade, nothing was more quintessentially American than a July fourth back yard barbecue. Like some sacred Old Testament tradition of sacrificing an animal to please the Lord, every Independence Day a burnt offering of seared flesh was offered up in homage to Uncle Sam.

And in that  confident mid-century soaring bull market, Democracy was as vital to our health as a Delmonico steak.

Dad  knew tossing a hunk of  meat on a sizzling grill, the ubiquitous package of Kingsford briquettes at the ready proclaimed to the world “I’m proud to be an American.”

The Smell of Capitalism  In The Air

In fact nothing was more American than those Kingsford briquettes. Invented by the quintessential American capitalist Henry Ford as a way of further lining his own pockets, Ford had a better idea. By charring the wood scraps left over from his Model T’s and mixing them with starch fillers and just the right amount of chemicals, industrious Mr. Ford created briquettes .

The smell of democracy was indeed in the air – nothing reeked of capitalism more than turning industrial waste into profit.

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Atomic Fairy Tale

1950 was Cinderella’s year.

My mother Betty knew it was an omen. After 6 long years of waiting, Disney’s much anticipated movie, Cinderella was finally opening and now Betty Joseph’s days of waiting were over too- she was getting married.

Her prince had come! Albeit her prince, my future father Marvin, hailed from the less than regal Astoria Queens.

And it seemed to be no better time to be in love. President Truman presented a rosy picture of the future- if all went well according to his Fair Deal program, Americans would work less, play more, purchase more!

Why, it was predicted, the average American family would have an income of $12,000 by the year 2000! With a staggering income like that, there would be no limit to how much we could buy.

(L) Cover Colliers Magazine 8/5/50 “Hiroshima USA Can Anything Be Done About It?” Imagining NYC following an Atomic Attack, (R) Vintage Illustration “Review of Wedding Presents” by Haddon Sundblom for “Beer Belongs” ad campaign

But right now, no amount of money could buy peace of mind.

It had been more than a year since we learned the Russians had the bomb, giving a renewed chill in the Cold war, while the war in Korea was heating up. By the beginning of the year we knew that President Truman was building a bomb that would make the one we dropped on Hiroshima seem darn right ordinary-a “superbomb” as Truman called the Hydrogen device.

Forget wedding jitters, Betty was suffering from Atomic jitters. The great fear that we, not them might be the next victims was to nip at the heels of Americans through the coming decades,

Along with her china pattern, revere ware and sterling, she wondered if she should  register for a Geiger Counter too.

A recent issue of Life magazine carried an article entitled “How you can prepare for Atomic war” that sent a chill through her… “the blunt truth at this moment”, the article stated much too bluntly for her tastes, “is that not one American city has so far made even a fair start toward minimum preparedness,” the alarmed editors claimed.  Their urban civil defense plan suggested that circular highways and Quonset hut hospitals would at least alleviate public panic after the attack.

Even with the new efficient defense plans being set up by the government, Betty worried what the radioactive fallout would do to her wedding plans….would she lose her hair and have to wear a wig?

Atomic Jitters

(L) Vintage Civil Defense Poster 1950s (R) Fairy Godmother from Cinderella Vintage illustration Walt Disneys “Cinderella” Random House 1974

To alleviate her panic, Marvin tried reassuring her, calmly pointing to another article, this one in the Saturday Evening Post that was much more upbeat.

Entitled: “How You Can Survive an Atomic Bomb Blast” it was written by Richard Gerstell.

“This fellow”, Marvin pointed out, “was a bone-fide expert on Atomic war and now was the advisor to the Secretary of Defense. He had been aboard a ship watching as the bomb exploded over Bikini Atoll. So he ought a know a thing or two about the Bomb.”

“Although repeatedly subjected to radiation on the Bikini ships,” the article stated, “Gerstell had suffered no physical damage, not even losing a hair.” Mr. Gerstell advised readers that after the blast, a careful citizen would do well to keep his eyes closed, lest “five minutes or so of blindness….result from looking into the explosion’s dazzling burst of light.”

Cotton clothing in light colors, Marvin added would help shield against the heat. Betty felt a little more relieved, “Good thing I’ll be wearing white!”

And They Lived Happily Ever After

Uncle Sam offered his own reassuring words.

Besides Betty Crocker’s Picture Cookbook, the recently published “Survival Under Atomic Attack” put out by the US Government was the must have shower present for any future bride. The booklet offered helpful household hints for any homemaker starting her own home.

Explaining how to protect oneself, ones food and water supply and ones home in case of an Atomic Attack, it reassured the reader: “Your chances, our government reassured us, of making a complete recovery from an Atomic attack  are much the same as for everyday accidents.”

Later that evening, a buoyed Betty cheerfully sang “I’m gonna wash that bomb right outtta my hair,” as she lathered up with new Dial soap that promised to keep you fallout fresh.

It would be a perfect fairy tale ending. Betty couldn’t wait to begin her own nuclear family!

At Home with the Nuclear Family (L) A series of images that ran in Life Magazine are from a government film as part of an Atomic Bomb test taken of a house closest to the detonation of the 3/53 Operation Doorstep (R) Vintage children’s schoolbook illustration 1950s “Stories About Linda and Lee”

Copyright (©) 2014 Sally Edelstein All Rights Reserved

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Nuclear Jitters

As eyebrows are raised as Russia tests a new ground launched cruise missile, my thoughts drifted to those pre-test treaty times when the sight of a truck toting  a missile was just part of Cold war summer fun.

Summer beach traffic during the Cold War had its own special flare.

The huge-wrap around picture window in the rear of my Grandmothers Cadillac  offered unexcelled visibility to see and be seen, allowing uninterrupted lavish vistas of Long Beach Road, as we drove to her beach club El Patio to spend the day.

Along with the flashy Ford Fairlaine convertibles filled with wind-swept teenagers blasting their radios… “Mr Sandman, build me a dream”  a common sight on those mid-century  roads was the military convoy of trucks loaded with soldiers followed by long trailers carting not-so-secret-missiles clumsily covered with olive drab-colored tarps on their way to the Missile base in sunny Lido Beach.

Along with the construction of the snazzy beach clubs up and down the narrow strip of land, the government  had built for M’Lady’s and Gents protection, a Nike installation.

Kept in cold storage were 60 Nike Ajax guided surface to air Missiles deep in concrete bunkers buried in the sand…”Mr Sandman Please turn on  your magic beams, Mr. Sandman bring me a dream!”

Building Sandcastle Missiles in the Sand

Sometimes, while driving past the chain linked enclosed Missile base, standing in the shadow of  the Grand Lido Beach Hotel, that Jazz age bubblegum colored sand castle in the sky, I might catch a glimpse of  those Mighty Birds  from the road as the soldiers put them up on their launches.

One week out of every month the base was placed on alert so some very lucky guests at the hotel, Long Islands answer to The Riviera, were treated, at no extra cost, to an extra thrill.

Whether you were dining at the elegant restaurant with its retractable roof for feasting under the stars or being entertained by flashy stars like Connie Francis, Edyie Gorme and Sammy Davis Junior, at the ritzy circular nightclub, you might get an extra floor show feasting your eyes at the sight of 40 foot long beckoning to behold Nike Aircraft Missiles aimed at the sky ready to shoot down any enemy bombers.

It was a real showstopper!

Gazing out the back of the Caddies large panoramic rear window the lingering image of the powerful Missiles thrusting into the deep blue summer sky would slowly diminish, resembling the tiny dioramas of model missiles preparing for launch displayed in the store window of Moe’s Hobby World.

Just as the image faded, we would arrive at the Beach Club.

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

For some, the suburbs were a splendid split level paradise

The suburbs of postwar Long Island silently simmered in a preordained sameness, no more so than in the summer.

Summer days were metered out in predictable beats.

Smoky backyard barbecues were a ho-hum summer staple of mid-century suburban life, but our annual king-sized barbecue for my mother’s birthday had a rhythm and tempo of its own.

It was always clear that the magnitude of this annual summer party ranked somewhere between a large Passover Seder, but not as big as a small Bar Mitzvah.

Vintage ad Cruising forward in your Plymouth 1957

This was a big operation requiring logistics and tactical maneuvering in order to mobilize the family who were traveling from near and far. The fact that our many guests traveled across great bodies of water, through tunnels and over bridges just to come to Mom’s birthday party heightened the excitement for me.

Unlike our standing Sunday family get-togethers, the genealogy net was cast wider than our immediate family to include “special occasion relatives.”

Not unlike those special little soaps that Mom would put out just for special company that were never to be touched by us ( or anyone else for that matter) so it was these relatives were purely decorative, never functioning in the nitty gritty of day to day family matters.

Family Relations

A king size barbecue Vintage Ad Phillip Morris Cigarettes 1958

The birthday barbecue in 1961 would be the biggest blow out of all.

Not only was Mom turning 35 officially making her middle aged, she would be meeting her future sister in law for the first time.

Dad remarked that the whole affair had taken on the feeling of a UN general assembly.

That summer a new member of the family was being vetted, requiring a high state of diplomacy.
Making her first appearance at a big family function was my Uncle Jay’s fiancé Evelyn.

The Beatnick and the Barbecue

A Bright Future? (R) Vintage advertisement calling for the end of Nuclear Bomb testing

The family’s curiosity was peaked.

Mom knew the basics- the couple had locked eyes while singing along to “Matilda” at a SANE (The Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy) rally held at Madison Square Garden, to hear Eleanor Roosevelt and Harry Belafonte call for an end to the arms race. Dad supposed she was one of those bone fide peace-nicks

But the family knew scarcely little about this daring career girl with her own bachelorette apartment in New York City, who had been dating Mom’s younger brother for nearly a year.

(L) Hats Off to the Suburbs (R) Birth of the Cool Album Cover Miles Davis 1956 Capitol Records

Her self-described bohemian proclivities made her especially repelled by banality and therefore shunned the suburbs; as if bourgeoisie were a communicable disease, she avoided it like the plague.

However her very practical job as a nurse working the wards of Bellevue precluded her from ever attaining bone-fide beatnik status. Although she professed to be more Simon De Beauvoir than Jacqueline Bouvier it came as a surprise when it was announced that the wedding reception in September would be held at the anything but Bohemian Hotel Carlyle on Manhattans tony upper east side

Family Relations

Behind closed doors the burning question that summer among the core coalition of family was whether this newcomer would disrupt the delicate balance of family relations.

Bronx born and bred she would bear the distinction of being the sole representative of that most unfamiliar borough. As if this distant northern borough were a third world country there was cause for concern within the family but my brother and I were thrilled at the seemingly exotic locale. She could be our ticket to unlimited Yankee games and visits to Freedomland.

Because Mom firmly believed in peaceful co-existence, in the spirit of family togetherness, differences were always left at the front door like a pair of muddy shoes and there was no reason that day should be any different.

The beat goes on

The Siren Call of Suburbia

While some beat a path to the Suburbs, others beat a hasty retreat (L) Cover “On the Road” Jack Kerouac

Although invitations to meet us had been proffered previously, this was the first one to be accepted.

Feeling a bit snubbed, rumors were rampant among the family that this soon to be new aunt of mine shunned the sub-division world of the suburbs, as if they were Kryptonite and would sap this die-hard urbanite of her vital life force.

For some the suburbs were the Exodus to the promised land; for others it was an exile.

Now under the hot glare of the summer sun my uncle jays fiancé had ventured in to the cold war world of carpools, cook outs and cream of mushroom casseroles and she was not so sure how friendly these suburban skies really were.

Post War Parade of Prosperity

Smile

On the day of the big barbecue my brother Andy and I set up surveillance on the front lawn sitting on either side of Pancho, our sombrero wearing Mexican stone lawn ornament, in anticipation of the parade of cars carrying our company that would soon be rolling up our block.

Pancho acted as a buffer. Like Stalin and Truman eyeing each other suspiciously at Potsdam, my bickering brother and I were reluctant allies, but committed to a bigger cause of the big family barbecue.

Like clockwork, the convoy of cars appeared at the top of the block, a gleaming collection of come hither chrome protuberances and sleek tail-fins soaring from fenders, their bomb like tailgates coquettishly beckoning.

It resembled nothing short of the Great White Fleet, a pulse quickening, punctual pageant of Post War prosperity, each family in his own boat-like car, no two cars alike, no car over two years old.

To amuse ourselves Andy and I would vote on our favorite automobiles and like contestants in a Beauty Contest  each car was shinier, more voluptuous than the next, each begging to be looked at, admired and envied.

(L) Vintage Oldsmobiles 1959 (R) Vintage Mercury Ad 1957

First to catch our eye was the sporty 2 toned turquoise Chevy Bel Aire followed by a bulky midnight blue Buick Road Master. Always a crowd pleaser, heads turned when Uncle Jack pulled up in his jaunty heart-throb drive of the year Thunderbird.

Representing New Rochelle were the Rob and Laura Petrie look-a likes my Uncle Sandy and Aunt Lois coolly driving the copper-colored Oldsmobile Cutlass. With its fetching grill work it drew our attention away from that tried and true dinosaur soon approaching its demise the old dependable DeSoto.

But the burning question was whether last years run-away–hands- down favorite, the ever popular Cadillac De Ville, the one with tail fins that wouldn’t stop, the standard by which the worlds motor cars should be judged, driven by our own Nana Sadie, would be bested by the brash newcomer a ‘62 Chrysler.

Chrysler Imperial Prestige 1962 vintage ad

All the way from Forest Hills, Queens the hot-out-of-the-showroom-too-new-to-be-believed ’62 Chrysler Imperial-the car of choice for the discerning imperialist – handled by Irv Shapiro a car salesman extraordinaire-pulled into our humble driveway.

It was just as the ads said

It was true.

Getting together was even more exciting when you get there in a new car.

With the timing and precision of a well orchestrated symphony the percussive sound of multiple car doors slamming in unison reverberated up and down the street as shopping bag schlepping relatives from near and far made their way up our walkway.

Turn The Beat Around

(L) Vintage Volkswagen ad 161

Suddenly heads turned to watch as a tiny, queer-shaped automobile maneuvered with remarkable ease into an impossibly small space between two parked Oldsmobiles.

As if on cue, a collective gasp shot through the group as my Uncle Jay and his fiancé exited from this odd, bug shaped, unadorned, and decidedly un-American vehicle.

But it was not just any foreign car, it was a German car, a chrome-less, austere relic of the Nazi nightmare a car built for the likes of the Autobahn not the bucolic happy-motoring  parkways of Robert Moses.

As Evelyn disembarked from the red Volkswagen Beetle, she looked about warily, like the tourist in a foreign location that she was, acutely aware of the disapproving gaze of her future family.

Behind everyone’s fashionable Foster Grant Sunglasses all eyes were on Evelyn. Her close-cropped Jean Seberg inspired pixie cut contrasted with the sea of beehives and bouffant like a smooth buoy bobbing in a sea of teased waves

For years to come, my dear Aunt would never be convinced that the raised eyebrows and collective tongue clucking was in fact not directed at her, but at the fact that they were driving a Volkswagen, Hitlers very own Wagen Fur das Volk, that most forbidden of all cars, so taboo it was practically traif.(unkosher)

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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Greetings From the Nevada Test Site- Wish You Were Here!

Vacationing was a real blast in the Atomic Age!

For a merry-go-round of real nuclear family fun, no trip out west was truly complete without a visit to the Nevada Test Site for a bird’s-eye view of a genuine nuclear blast…the greatest show on earth!

In the 1950’s the Atomic Energy Commission decided that Utah and Nevada with its so-called “virtually uninhabited” territory, would be the perfect site for atmospheric nuclear weapons testing.

With a ringing endorsement from the AEC confirming that Uncle Sam had taken all necessary precautions to ensure our safety, the Nevada Test Site, only 65 miles from Las Vegas became quite the tourist attraction.

At the rate of one atmospheric bomb test a month, it attracted crowds as large as Frank Sinatra drew at the Copa Room at the Sands Hotel in Vegas.

Thousands packed their Ray Bans and Coppertone and headed west for a rip-roarin’, rip snortin’, good time.

Danger Ahead?

Nuclear Road Trip-(R) Nevada Test Site 1951

Most shrugged off the potential hazards of atmospheric testing especially the long-term danger.

In fact the danger lay in not doing the tests.

Most Americans agreed that the ultimate benefit of peace and security that only nuclear bombs would bring us was more than enough for the potential risk.

Of course there were outlandish allegations from some alarmists who attributed everything from rising cost of living to climate change, birth defects even throwing the very earth off its axis, to the tests.

The government debunked each of these fears.

It was, Uncle Sam said with a shrug, the same nervous Nellies who thought we should be concerned about the safety of DDT!

Our government insisted that the spate of nuclear atmospheric testings in Nevada were no more a danger than the new fangled TV transmissions racing through the sky.

Bombs Bursting in Air

Rockets Red Glare, Bombs Bursting in Air….

In 1954, before I was born, my parents contemplated a family vacation out west to Las Vegas.

What could be more American than catching Sammy Davis Jr at El Rancho Vegas while taking in the sights at the Nuclear Test Site.

Zion National park and Death Valley were so ho-hum!

In fact in April of 1954, Mom had clipped out and saved the Sunday New York Times Travel section with the feature about the carnival of fun in Nevada that could be had “watching the bomb go off.”

For the Kiddies

A new attraction at the Nevada Test Site that year was one made especially for the kiddies- the appearance of “The Atomic Cowboy.”

Brandishing a foot long cattle branding iron with AEC ( Atomic Energy Commission) initials on it, our all American cowboy as brave and true at heart as any Marlboro Man, would ride a herd of cattle and horses over ground zero after the bomb detonated to determine the effects of radiation.

Yee-Ha! Young cowpokes like my 2-year-old brother would sure get a charge out of that!

Wild, Wild West

L) Vintage Ford Car ad 1953 (R) Nevada Test Site 1951

Thousands were flocking to Nevada to witness these bombs bursting in air.

Capturing the rugged flavor of the old west where the sky is not cloudy all day- except of course when the bomb goes off- the desert landscape became littered with lawn chairs and luncheon meat. Insulated tartan plaid coolers dotted the desert as sight seekers in pedal pushers and sunny summer separates made themselves comfortable for the countdown.

Before the first light of dawn, dazzled tourists, their hearts thumping in their newly purchased wash n wear resort wear, sleepy kids in their pajamas and Roy Rogers hats, gathered with ex-GI’s in Bermuda shorts wearing WWII issued anti-glare Ray Bans.

Kodak’s at the ready, the thrill seeking tourists were told by their guide what to expect:

A Nuclear Humdinger of a Blast

“First of all one sees a very bright light followed by a shock wave and then you hear the sound of the blast. Then you look up and you see the fireball as it ascends up into the heavens,” he giddily enthused. “It contains all of the rich colors of the rainbow and then as it rises up into the atmosphere it assembles into the mushroom. It is,” he said with a sigh, “a wonderful sight to behold.”

As the pink clouds drifted across the flat mesas, the shock waves booming against the vacationers chests, a veil of radioactive particles gently floated over the test site. With the rockets red glare, bombs bursting in air, the heat from the blast stimulated a healthy radiant blush on the visitors, leaving them with an envied sunburned vacation glow.

And if you forgot your Brownie camera at home, not to worry- the adventure  would give you long-lasting memories. An experience that would stay with you for years.

Downwinders

And for those folks who couldn’t make any of the 126 tests detonated over 12 years from 1951 through 1962, no worries.
The wind would carry the mushroom cloud downwind, dispersing radioactive elements over the purple mountains majesty above the fruited plans, poisoning milk in New England, wheat in Iowa, and fish in the Great Lakes, making you feel just like you had actually been there.

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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Atomic Fairy Tale

No matter the season, mid-century Americans in unprecedented numbers were venturing out into the cold war world traveling abroad as never before spending billions of dollars on fun for all vacations.

But tourists weren’t the only ones packing their passports and spending oodles of money.

American soldiers were seeing the world too. Uncle Sam had gotten into the travel business offering soldiers a trip of a lifetime.

For over 75 years, Uncle Sam has racked up some serious frequent flyer mileage in his role as peacekeeper of the world.

Peace is Our Most Important Business

Ambassador of Peace- 1948 Vintage Ad US Army and US Air Force Recruiting Service “Your Army and Your Air Force Serve the Nation and Mankind in War and Peace.” A popular ad that ran in 1948 appointed the American soldier as Ambassador of Peace, whose task simply put was to help the nations of the world in their efforts to balance the peace of the world at a time when too many people have despaired of peace, inviting the reader to be his companion in arms.

In the post war years Uncle Sam enlisted the help of thousands of young men to be his Ambassador’s of Peace, globetrotting around the globe spreading democracy and freedom.

After WWII the armed forces had demobilized and war-weary soldiers sent home. Yet the government had pledged to defend friendly states around the world. As the world’s policeman we promised to protect the underdog from the big bullies and keep them safe. (Besides which, the booming military industrial machine that had been so profitable during the war couldn’t be allowed to erode.)

But keeping units of our army in ever-expanding overseas bases,  a sea power that patrolled the oceans and an air force that guarded the sky, required manpower.

Our Future

The demobilization of US armed forced after WWII in May 1945 and continued through 1946. The US had more than 12 million men and women in the armed forces at the end of the war of whom 7.6 million were stationed abroad. The public demanded a rapid demobilization and soldiers protested the slowness of the process. By June 1947 the number of active military had been reduced to 1,566,000. Rapid de-mobilization in the view of the military planners left the US military understaffed to accomplish its responsibilities.

It was important to safeguard the hard-won victory of WWII and that meant building up our peace-keeping force of soldiers. By 1946 a massive campaign was launched to recruit men to join the new army and US Air Force whose snappy mid-century motto was “peace is Americas most important business!”

And in a nation of big business, the military industrial complex was the biggest.

The call for volunteers went out: “The Army seeks young men who respond to the call of adventure.”

Efforts were made to get the Vet to re-enlist including pleas from their former Commander General Eisenhower in this 1946 recruitment ad. “How about it Vet? Want to get set for life? Hustle down to the Army and Air Force Recruiting office and see about the special deal that’s waiting for veterans.”

Sure Americans were peace-loving people but we had to be prepared and stay strong to meet the post war Communist threat.

“By our victory we have won the respect of the world,” wrote General Dwight Eisenhower former supreme commander of the Army, hero of WWII in one recruiting ad. “We can lose that respect and with it our influence toward a just and peaceful world order, if we reduce our military forces to the point where they become week or ineffective.”

Opportunity of a Life time

“Your Regular Army Serves the nation and mankind in war and peace-choose this fine profession now.” After WWII military recruitment shifted significantly. With no war calling men and women to duty, the US refocused its recruitment efforts to present the military as a career option and as a means to achieving a higher education. And although peacetime would not last, factors such as the move to an all volunteer military would ultimately keep career oriented military recruitment in place. Vintage ad 1946 US recruiting Service

As newly minted “Ambassadors of Peace” the adventure of a lifetime would be yours if you joined the army.  No worries about layoffs- there always someplace on the globe where we are needed to protect democracy.

“Forget about the fun and adventure I get out of my army job,” begins a recruiting ad from 1946. “ Forget about the chances to see foreign countries at the government expenses, and the top-notch training I’m getting.”

Your New Army

The adventures one could have in your new army were explained in this 1948 ad:

“Find out what a fine proposition the army offers- money wise and every other way. You realize it when you and your gang get aboard ship to go overseas as personal representatives of Uncle Sam.”

Vintage 1948 Army recruiting ad: “The Inside Story of Your New Army”

For those with wanderlust, occupied Germany was the place to go. Of course with the Soviet imposed Berlin Blockade in 1948 the same year this ad ran, that might prove difficult. Despite this first real crisis of the cold war, if one is to believe the copy, Germany was  one big fun fest filled with bratwurst, biergartens and lederhosen.

“After hours- Like you and the fellow next door, the soldier has time for recreation and relaxation,” the copy explains. “For example these members of the First Infantry Division- now stationed in Germany to help guard the peace have time after hours for taking part in sports, seeing the sights and visiting places of historical interest.”

Vintage 1948 Army recruiting ad: “The Inside Story of Your New Army”

 Join for the adventure…come for the food.

Army life was a tempting adventure for the taste buds as well as a real gourmets delight. All he needs to enjoy Army life is a healthy appetite and if he has a streak of glutton he will find himself in excellent company. Guarantee of good eating in café de luxe on base or al fresco on maneuvers .

Uncle Sam’s larder was carefully chosen treasures of the morning market, the reader learns: “Today’s soldiers gets the best food in the world-the finest meat and vegetables grown! Diets and menus varied and interesting.”

“Democracy at Work” is explained:“ Your army helped win the peace…today its members are working to protect it. Wherever they are-in Germany Korea or Japan-they spread the American way of life. These members of the First Cavalry Division for instance are your ‘on-the spot’ ambassadors of good will in Japan.”

Uncle Sam Wants You

Citing the nations depleted military strength and the fact that the threat to peace and security worldwide seemed as serious as it had at anytime in the past the draft was reinstated in 1948. On March 17, 1948 after consulting with the national Security Council President Truman went before Congress and asked for measures to reinforce the security of the nation in the face of mounting evidence that the Cold war would intensify. He asked Congress to fund the European Recovery program in the belief that strengthened economics would enable Europeans to resist Soviet pressure. Truman also asked Congress to reinstate the draft. Approved on June 24, 1948 the Selective Service Act of 48 required every male citizen and resident of the US between 18 & 26 to register for the draft. It was the first peacetime draft system.

Despite these tempting offers, the enlistments were not keeping pace with our growing needs. Uncle Sam still needed more  Ambassador’s of Peace to act as “advisers” to inspire good will and ensure confidence to troubled millions across the globe.

With the Cold war casting a big chill across the globe, the draft was reinstated in 1948 guaranteeing men 18-26 the adventure of a lifetime.

The Great Getaway

Vintage Ads The Army wants individuals who will volunteer. The Army seeks young men who respond to the call of adventure.

It wasn’t long before American GI’s were taking off by the hundreds of thousands in a big exodus whether an exciting fun-filled off shore cruise sailing over the sparkling blue seas showing our military strength or a more permanent stationing of armed forces. Best of all, Uncle Sam lets you stay free of charge at any of the hundreds of bases in his chain.

Uncle Sam’s boys were everywhere to be found.

From the Halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli…far from the humdrum of life at home Uncle Sam offered so may travel plans promising a date with adventure…pack your bags..join your friends…it was hard to refuse.

And after the Selective service Act of 1948, no passport needed…only a draft card was necessary.

A Trip of a lifetime

“Find out what a fine proposition the army offers. You realize it when you and your gang get aboard ship to go overseas as personal representatives of Uncle Sam.”

Some lucky lads might be off to the Mideast where Aladdin never had it so good, as storybook pictures come to life.

Or perhaps the lure of the Greek Isles was more to your fancy. Maybe Latin America the glamor capital of the New World where you can live out your daydreams you’ve had for so long as a travel adventure awaits you in sunny Guatemala or any number of puppet run banana republics.
And of course the exotic orient beckons you to return again and again and again.

Imagine!

All the foreign flavor of a romantic city are yours to enjoy in sunny Beirut…life takes on a new sparkle when you enter Tokyo. Double your fun in Berlin…enjoy unparallelled views from Korea…the breathtaking splendor that lies ahead Laos..romance under the stars is the perfect setting for an evening filled with thrills in Tehran…the land where yesterday meets tomorrow in the Belgium Congo where surprises are in store for you.

You’ll Love Everything About Vietnam

” Enchantment is just over the horizon” Vintage advertisements

For long-lasting adventure South Vietnam was the place to go.

Take this journey for pleasure and you’ll capture some of the happiest days of your life. You’re recruiting officers will tell you of the unspoiled beaches…when you sun on the sands you’ll feel like you re stretched out on a soft pink cloud and gone drifting off to never-never land. It has everything you’ll want…for gaiety and glorious hospitality the old world colonial charm of sparkling Saigon will keep your cameras clicking.

Only a wash of waves on pink sands, the rustle of palms in the breeze and laughter of village children fleeing a burning village, disturb the remoteness and calm that have become so rare these days.

 Have Gun Will Travel

Vintage ads

Wherever Uncle Sam sends you, you could be sure there’s a welcome mat.

In more than 100 countries…over 58 million times each day, someone enjoys the always welcome lift of the US Military; the sense of right that belongs to the US alone…erect a military installation anytime, anywhere- your on the spot ambassadors of good will.

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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Burning Leaves- Hokey Smokey!

The smell of burning leaves is forever seared in my mind.

As memorable as the blazing orange and red colors of the fall leaves of my childhood were , it was the vibrant warmth of the fall leaves burning that remains.

The first real nippy day in November , when early morning frost would sit on the grass like a frosting of sugar on cereal flakes, neighbors would be out raking their fallen  leaves- as they crunched  and crackled underfoot- into neat little piles of reds and scarlet, oranges and yellow.

A light breeze and suddenly leaves would take off from yard to yard, so that we might be raking up a Maple leaf from some other neighborhood amongst our oaks. It was if the trees were shutting down for the winter, not unlike the frozen custard stands that dotted the boardwalk at Long Beach, all boarded up, a sign posting “closed for winter- see you in the spring.”

We All Fall Down

Jumping in the pile of crunchy dead leaves, hurling them into the air like confetti, was a fall ritual for mid-century kids .

For Dads, burning leaves was a fall ritual to replace the Weber grills that they had put away for the season giving them one more opportunity to indulge in this primordial behavior. Fire making and maintaining it was a man’s job; they merely exchanged their Hawaiian shirts for plaid flannel ones.

Leaf burning was a communal event. Loaded down with a bushel basket of leaves, Dad dumped them into the burn barrel, as  all the neighbors  gathered around having conversations as their leaf piles slowly smoldered.

After discussing the big 10 football games, conversations could be as heated and full of sparks as the burning barrels containing leaves.

By the late 1950’s, early 60’s  one topic more than any other sparked controversy.

Mid-Century Fallout

Vintage children’s school book illustration “All Around Us” 1946

 The hot topic was the danger of radioactive fallout and some folks had begun questioning the safety of nuclear testing. The explosion of nuclear weapons produced radioactive debris which was carried in the wind along with fall’s foliage to all parts of the world.

Fall was the perfect name; apples and acorns were falling, leaves were falling and now there was fallout.

The mood of the world darkened at the thought.

Suddenly fallout contamination was no longer a vague phrase but real dust settling into every home.

Now it wasn’t just Chicken Little who thought the sky was falling. All anyone could talk about was the danger of radioactive fallout, something dangerous, scary, unseen, up in the sky that could cause great harm.

Harm that neither Superman nor a dose of penicillin could fix. The universe was already a dangerous place. Stars could explode, aliens attack, galaxies collide, and comets could crash into planets.

Revulsion against radioactivity, like the fallout itself, was settling invisibly into every home including mine. Nature’s most perfect food, milk, that miracle elixir, was now laced with radioactive  Strontium 90, released in above ground tests that traveled invisibly thousands of miles to land on grass American cows ate.

Inhaling deeply of the rich sweet aroma of falls burning leaves I would watch with curiosity as the sacrificial smoke wended its way heavenward filling the Autumn sky. I wondered if the dense smoke would interfere in the flight pattern of the flocks of birds migrating south, or clogging the airways for Superman, and Mighty Mouse in their missions to save the weak and helpless.

I now had a personal stake in air traffic. Would the Tooth Fairy from whom I hoped to be expecting a visit, get lost in this mess? Would she collide with a flying saucer, or a weather satellite and even if she could make it through this tangle, this traffic jam, would she be brushing off fallout instead of sprinkling pixie dust?

Tomorrow  Vintage Fall Follies- Fallout II

Copyright (©) 2014 Sally Edelstein All Rights Reserved

In the 1950s many believed comic books could destroy our moral structure and our very way of life. (L) “Is This Tomorrow?” A 1947 comic book designed to teach people about the subversive nature of Communist infiltration. (R) “Tales from the Crypt” EC Comics

1954 was a chilly year to be a Communist, a crackpot, or a comic book publisher all of whom were equally vilified.

Cold war temperatures had sunk to arctic levels, causing a frightened public into a hysteria worthy of a frenzied mob in some grade B horror movie.

When we weren’t looking under our beds for Communists, rooting out our closets for homosexuals, we were scouring our children’s bedrooms for comic books.

As much as crime, Communists and rock and roll were a plague on our society, there was one menace greater than then all.

Comic Books

More powerful than a locomotive, able to infiltrate children’s minds in a single bound…it was…comic books! Every child stood on the precipice of becoming a juvenile delinquent because of them.

Behind the innocence of the four-color printing was a darker depraved universe of plot-filled panels of vibrating pulsing cyan magenta yellow and black dots, lurking with lurid tales of sex, horror, murder and gore.

A thin dime bought you into a violent menacing crime-filled world of moral decay from which there was no return.

Seriously.

Fearing the corrupting influence of comic books on American youth, a Comics Code was formed guaranteeing the wholesomeness of comic books

A national crusade against the “corrupting influence” of comic books was on the march including book burnings and protests. It reached fever pitch by 1954 culminating with a Senate hearing worthy of Joe McCarthy, led by that anti-crime crusader Estes Kefauver, and a crippling censorship of the comic book industry giving birth to the creation of a Comics Book Code.

Until the wholesome comics book code came to their rescue, every mid-century child was in grave danger of being forever morally corrupted …including me.

A Brave New World

1954 started with a bang and a boom.

Our arsenal of missiles was becoming as bloated as the ever-expanding bellies of the prodigious legion of pregnant women including my own mother Betty who by late spring would be pregnant with me.

Along with the birth of a boatload of baby boomers a bouncing new US Policy was born and they would grow up together. The proud Papa Secretary of State John Foster Dulles named his progeny Massive Retaliation leading to the doctrine nicknamed MAD, Mutually Assured Destruction.

Under the watchful eye of his rich Uncle Sam the policy would grow up big and strong.

What brave new world awaited me?

The world loomed large with the prospect of invasion on all fronts, undetected often disguised. Subversive Communists invading my country, unseen radioactivity from unseen bombs and most insidious of all – depraved comic books threatening to destroy the moral structure and our American way of life.

Together they would send a collective shiver down our Cold War spine

Juvenile Delinquency

Are these young hoodlums in the making? Comic books could lead an innocent child down the path of juvenile delinquency- the menace of mid century America (R) Movie poster “Juvenile Jungle” 1958

That year nothing struck the same terror as comic books. And for good reason- like a virulent virus, ghoulish, crime ridden comic books were attacking good clean wholesome American kids leading them astray and threatening to corrupt an entire generation.

It didn’t matter how rich or poor, corruption by comic books was the great American equalizer.

Innocent children were a dimes purchase away from juvenile delinquency, sexual perversion and mental illness.

The very nations well-being was at stake.

Comics were dangerous to a child’s health. A major menace to society of epidemic proportion was on the rise and needed to be stopped.

Calling All Doctors

Comics filled with horror and crime were detrimental to your child’s health, diagnosed psychiatrist Dr Fredric Wertham in his best selling book “Seduction of the Innocent” tying comic books to the rise in juvenile delinquency claiming comic books gave children “criminal or sexually abnormal ideas.”

It would take a doctor to cure the nation of this scourge His mission: intercept and render comic books inoperable.

Coming to our rescue was Dr. Fredric Wertham.a bespectacled German American psychiatrist who was certain that comic books were responsible for society’s ills.

The author of Seduction of the Innocent the best selling book published that year was a scathing indictment of horror and crime comics and its harmful effects on youth. The good doctor offered his grave diagnosis:

“Comic books themselves are a virus.”

He cited case after case of children committing crimes, murders and suicides after reading comic books. Not only that, but superheros were sending subliminal homosexual messages. “Batman and Robin were a wish dream of two homosexuals living together,” he claimed  in his book.

A sad life of sexual perversion was right around the bend.

Comics destroyed one’s very moral fiber rendering you weak to resist, oh, say… communism.

With the same zeal others chased after Communists, Dr Wertham was convinced that hidden horrors were lurking in comic books.

Tortured Tales

One Major target of the witch hunt against comics was EC Comics (L) Vintage Little Golden Book “Mother Goose” (R) EC Comics 1954 “Tales From the Crypt”

For years, Wertham had alerted the public of the danger of comics books that had infiltrated our lives undetected.

And like communists who were hiding under the guise of good American citizens, comic books were hiding under the guise of harmless children’s literature.

Comic book writers and illustrators, he charged, were sneaky plotters carrying out covert actions in every continent, ready to subvert children into moral decay.

Just as Joseph McCarthy would liken Communists to a cancer cell, “…a monster gone berserk. Relentlessly increasing their numbers,” Dr Wertham explained how “cancerous comic books proceed to crowd out healthy minds.”

Who’s Mad Now?

And none were more evil, violent gory and horrific than EC Comics published by William Gaines, the future publisher of Mad Magazine,  who would soon come under the hot glare of Dr. Wertham and the US Senate.

Comic books it was clear were no ordinary enemy and it was no ordinary struggle.

American mothers were mad! Who could save our children?

A panicked public called for action.

Next:  Comic Book Tales From the Cold War Crypt PtII Censuring Comics

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It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad Magazine World

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2015. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

There was a time when measles was all but wiped out

I remember a time, not so long ago, when measles were just a memory.

Now the political debate over measles and vaccines has exploded creating a stand-off between those supporting vaccines and the anti vaxxers.

The last time politics and measles were merged together for me was in the fall of 1962, those harrowing 13 days in October that nearly brought us to the brink of thermonuclear war.

I didn’t know until years later that they called it the Cuban Missile Crisis.
In my mind it would always be remembered as the “German Measles Crisis.”

It was late October, Halloween was just a few short weeks away and as luck would have it, I came down with a nasty case of the measles.

The itchy red spots were spreading from my face to my body as quickly as Communist aggression was visualized on maps and films at school.

Those scary red splotches of Communism shown slithering around the globe, oozing over continents, a ready reminder that the Russians were hell-bent on world conquest, were a familiar feature in My Weekly Reader.

Now the measles red rash was on its own expansionist path with me.

German Measles

German Measles were goose-stepping across my ravaged body. (R) Vintage German Nazi Stamp “Victory at Any Price”

To make matters worse, I learned it wasn’t just plain old measles.

They were German Measles; Nazi measles goose-stepping across my ravaged body.

Despite having been born a full decade after the end of WWII, which in a child’s mind is an eternity, I was tormented by the very thought of Nazis.

I used to have nightmares that men in brown shirts, black jack boots, and wide Sam Browne belts, rank and file members of the Nazi Party would storm into my suburban ranch house, lustily humming the Nazi anthem Hort Wessel Song, brutally taking me away.

Now the Germans and their horrors fused with the Russians and their nuclear bombs, and there was nothing to stop the fiery red rash that was charging across my 7-year-old body.

Monday

House Calls

Monday, October 22 began as sunny clear day. A burnish of autumn on the sycamore trees that lined my suburban block made everything look peaceful and predictable.

But all was not quite on the Western Park Drive front.

Inside my house things were anything but peaceful; I awoke with a fever, sore throat, blotchy skin and the streaming morning light burned my watery, red-rimmed eyes.

My body was clearly sending out distress signals. With a sinking feeling about the telltale rash, Mom called the doctor.

Within the hour my pediatrician came to the house and confirmed the diagnosis.

The spots had Deutschland written all over them – German Measles – Rubella.

Solemnly my pediatrician Dr. King informed me that to prevent the spread of the very contagious disease, I would have to be quarantined.

Like a heat seeking missile, a careless sneeze, or an explosive cough could shoot troublesome germs in your direction at a mile a minute speed. In case they invaded the tissues of your throat, you could be in for a cold, or…worse.

I was to get back to bed mach schnell. And stay there.

Think Pink

Besides bed-rest, baby aspirin and fluids there was no cure. A big brown bottle of soothing Calamine lotion along with a suggestion to clip my fingernails to stop me from the inevitable scratching were the doctors best suggestions.

Not even the venerable Ben Casey could come to my rescue.

There was no debate about the merits of a vaccine because there were none. A vaccine would become available for measles in 1963, a rubella vaccine wouldn’t exist until the end of the decade.

The Longest Day

Mom had already had her longest day dealing with the measles crisis when the Cuban Missile Crisis was announced. (R) Headline of NY Daily News announcing the Cuban blockade

October 22 was also my parent’s 12th wedding anniversary.

They had planned on going to the movies that evening to see “The Longest Day”, that star-studded spectacle about D Day the Normandy invasion.

But now that our normally germ-proof home had itself been invaded with a contagious disease, plans were promptly cancelled.

John Wayne would have to wait.

Besides which my parents were anxious to watch President Kennedy’s live broadcast on television that evening.

Panic Goes Viral

President John Kennedy addressed the nation of the Cuban Missile Crisis on television

At noon, while Mom was preparing lunch , JFK’s press secretary Pierre Salinger had made a dramatic announcement that the president would speak that night “on a matter of the highest national urgency.”

The crisis that was brewing in Cuba that had begun a week earlier had been kept top-secret. Now with rumors circulating, there was a nearly unbearable sense of foreboding and tension.

Across the country while American’s eyes would be fixed on their TV sets gripped in the most intense moment of recent history, I was confined to my bedroom without a TV. At a loss, I trained my ears to tune in to the console playing in the living room.

We Interrupt This Program…

At 7:00, I could hear the TV announcer from the popular game show based on the game charades saying: “Stump the Stars will not be seen tonight so that we can bring you this special broadcast….”

Along with 50 million other Americans my parents listened in pin-drop silence as President Kennedy spoke about Cuba.

Sitting behind his desk, a solemn President Kennedy got right to the point. This was no time to play charades.

He grimly announced to a shocked nation that Russia had sneaked missiles into Cuba just 90 miles from Florida. Along with the Offensive Missiles, Khrushchev had deployed bombs and 40,000 Soviet troops.

The alarming evidence from photographs showed that nearly every city from Lima, Peru to Hudson Bay, Canada would lie within push button range of thermonuclear bombs in Cuba.

Panic was about to go Viral

Every major US city would lie within push button range of thermonuclear bombs in Cuba.

“To halt this offensive build up,” a determined Kennedy said, “a strict quarantine on all offensive military equipment to Cuba is being initiated.” The Navy’s mission was to block the flow of Russian weapons to Cuba.

Like me, the Russians would have a quarantine imposed on them but Dad wasn’t convinced this was the best tactic. It might work for preventing the spread of the measles but not for the missiles. If Russians didn’t withdraw the missiles as demanded, a U.S. pre-emptive strike against the launch site was inevitable.

The United States would not shrink from the threat of nuclear war to preserve the peace and freedom of Western Hemisphere, Kennedy said firmly.

The Presiden’ts voice faded away as my parents grimly turned to another channel to watch “I’ve got a Secret.”

Struggling with the ramifications of what they just heard, the longest day was about to get a lot longer

A Rash Decision

Temperatures were rising as the Cold War heated up. (R) JFK clashed with some military advisers about invading Cuba. After criticizing Kennedy’s call to blockade Cuba as too weak a response, General Curtis LeMay Air Force Chief of Staff (seated closest to JFK in photo) told the President that his refusal to invade Cuba was a mistake and would encourage the Soviets to move on Berlin. Photo by Abbie Rowe National Archives

As the cold war heated up so did my fever, and I was wracked with chills.

Despite being doused with great blotches of pink calamine lotion I was struggling not to scratch the angry rash that was invading my body.

Hot and bothered, the US military were having the same problem.

Just itching to go to war, the Joint Chiefs of Staff had to restrain themselves from scratching that very dangerous itch.

The Soviets had crossed the line. They had come into our Hemisphere, their nuclear warheads aimed directly at us and we had to make sure they didn’t strike first. The time had come for a direct military showdown with the Soviet Union.

Luckily cooler heads prevailed.

We Can Work it Out?

On Wednesday, when Soviet ships changed course rather than make contact with the naval blockade, there was some relief.

No new weapons were being shipped to Cuba. But Hi-ho-hi-ho it was off to work they go as industrious red dwarfs continued to work day and night on the existing missiles which would soon be operational.

The pressure on the President to order an air strike or an invasion was mounting.

As the tension grew, many atomic armchair strategists felt strongly that the best defense was offense – get ‘em before they hit us. “If the Russian offensive build up continued, Kennedy would have no choice but to unleash the mighty US force,” Dad remarked  gravely.

Russian nuclear retaliation would be inevitable

Going on the Defensive

Short of building a fallout shelter, there was little anyone could do about the missile crisis, but it was all out war on the measles at my home. (L) Vintage booklet “Fallout Protection Kit” for your shelter

An air of crisis hung over the country.

Short of building a fallout shelter, there was little anyone could do about the missile crisis, but it was all out war on the measles at my home.

Prepared to do battle, Mom took the offensive with the pre-emptive striking power of Lysol, Lestoil and Listerine, to immobilize and incapacitate any rogue germs. There was a full frontal attack on dirt – every counter every surface in the house was scoured and sanitized, hands were washed and rewashed until skin wrinkled and puckered.

School Daze

A Page out of history (L) Vintage illustration from “Our Country Historical Color Book” 1958 depicting the Atomic Blast at Hiroshima

With the containment policy strictly enforced, the days passed slowly for me but I busied myself with Colorforms, Crayolas and coloring books.What better way to pass the crisis than coloring in a picture of the Atomic Blast at Hiroshima in my American History Coloring Book.

Barricaded in my bedroom, I could still hear the ominous sound of the air raid drill alarm ringing every few hours at West Hempstead High School a few blocks away. I could picture all the frightened school kids jumping out of their desks as I had done countless times, kneeling underneath desks, hands clasped behind necks, eyes closed waiting for that imminent flash.

I had little sense how school officials were currently scurrying to make all sorts of contingency plans for what seemed like the possibility of a real attack.

Several years earlier, my school district had developed a plan for evacuating elementary school kids in the event of a threatened enemy air raid upon NYC. We had been issued plastic dog tags with our picture and address on it that we were to wear in case of an attack.

School Day drills (R) In a photograph published in Colliers Magazine June 1952, schoolchildren in Nevada practice what they have been told to do in case of an Atomic attack:lie flat on the ground, shield their eyes with one arm and protect their head with the other arm

On Thursday my fifth grade brother brought home a printed permission slip for my parents to sign, allowing students to participate in a practice walk-home air raid drill.

In case of emergency it was thought better to be incinerated at home rather than at school.

Irritable and impatient as only a sick 7-year-old could be, I was deeply disappointed that I would miss out on the fun of the walk home drill. Pleading with Mom to let me out of my sick room long enough to view the march, I wistfully watched from the living room window as my classmates, lined up in size order, earnestly paraded down my deserted block.

The loud roar of an overhead jet temporarily distracted me.

Anxiously I scanned the blue skies from our picture window for an enemy attack, as though it were WWII and I were a spotter standing on a rooftop scanning the skies for the sight of a Japanese flag painted on the belly of the aircraft.

I was too young to comprehend the total annihilation of nuclear war. All I knew was, we were to be prepared. I knew a nuclear attack could occur any time anyplace any day. Would this be the day?

My parents would shake their heads, as they watched me but neither of them had the heart to tell me what they already knew – that now, by the time you eyed the enemy…it was already too late

Tossin’ and Turnin’

By Saturday I had taken all the orange flavored St. Joseph aspirin that I could, yet my fever had still not broken. Along with the shivering and shaking, there was a whole lot of tossin and turnin’ as the red splotches of German Measles continued their assault goose-stepping across my body.

A vaporizer had been brought in to help with the breathing and between the fog and my feverish delirium, disparate sounds and thoughts merged in my mind, as I drifted between states of fractured foggy wakefulness and fitful sleep.

Have Gun Will Travel

Blending with the hushed anxious tones of my parents, the shrill, ear-piercing, buzzing signals on the radio during the CONELRAD broadcasting system tests and the ominous news bulletins, were the incessant commercials constantly blaring on TV…

“…..And now a word from our sponsor… This is only a test…In a world threatened by thermonuclear holocaust…. it’s new…. its different….it….gives the surest protection-the new Missiles with Gardol, wonderful new Anti-Russian fighter forms an invisible shield of radioactivity around them….They can’t feel it – taste it – see it – but its protection won’t rinse off or wear off all day, just like New Pepsodent…..

“…Don’t settle for wishy -washy conventional weapons….New deep penetrating Thermonuclear Bombs bring speedy relief from Reds…. Goes in-goes in fast….help restore restful democracy, relieves pesky Russian interference…

“Yes, fast acting Ajax the white tornado…. Ajax missiles kill millions of people associated with Communism, ..Reaches all infected areas in minutes….shrinks populations, restores free way of life. An exclusive anti communist Ingredient….That’s all there is to it…

“…This is not a test…we now return to Have Gun Will Travel…If this had been an actual emergency ….. take 2 aspirin and call me in the morning…”

As hot as I was with fever I knew things were only going to get a lot hotter once this thermonuclear war began.

On Sunday morning my fever broke and Moscow announced their decision to dismantle the missiles and return to sender. I wouldn’t understand until years later that the Russians backed off or as Dean Rusk was to famously say “We were eyeball to eyeball and they blinked first.”

Though my fever and measles eventually healed, the cold war chill I caught that week would never leave me.

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2015. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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An Atomic Fairy Tale

Right now sipping a rum and coke on glistening white sand basking in warm Caribbean sun sounds about right. Vintage illustration Coca Cola ad 1958 “Enjoying a Coke on Cuba’s famous Varadero Beach,” a 13 mile long peninsula with powder soft sands.

Bracing for yet another bone chilling winter storm, dreams of languishing on a white sandy beach soaking up the warm Caribbean sun are never far from my winter-weary mind.

And now a new dream vacation spot may open up… and its no dream.

Let’s raise a Cuba Libre in praise of normalizing relations between Cuba and the US.

Over half a century of waiting, my long-delayed Havana holiday might actually happen despite the all too predictable political backlash. The outrage by some Republicans about this development feels overblown and as wildly outdated as the vintage Chevy’s that fill Havanas streets. Having grown up during the cold war with Cuba as a sworn enemy it is quite clear that the tiger has been de-clawed.

Cuba  Where Yesterday Meets Tomorrow

Vintage tourism ad that touted “Havana Where Yesterday Meets Tomorrow” has never rung truer.

The frozen-in-time feeling in Cuba fits perfectly with childhood memories of stories shared by my parents of their mid-century Havana holidays.

Dinner time in the suburbs sometimes took on a fiesta feeling when my parents wanted to reminisce about their travels.

Over a festive dinner of arroz con pollo - a dish first enjoyed by Mom in Havana and now in the suburbs  made the authentic Ladies Home Journal way with a can of Hunt’s tomato sauce and EZ Minute Rice – Mom and Dad would regale us with their adventures in Cuba, casting a spell as intoxicating as the island itself.

The glitter and glamor of pre-revolution Cuba, that tropical Technicolor paradise of palm fronds and turquoise water, a sultry cocktail of casinos, corruption and the Caribbean Sea would fill their Kodacolor memories for decades …and fuel mine.

On the triumph of the Cuban Revolution on January 1, 1959 the representatives of American company’s that operated the Havanas world-renowned Hotel National de Cuba departed. The glamorous hotel was the setting for the formation of the 26th July Movement revolutionary cell led by Castro. (L) Vintage travel ad Hotel Nacional de Cuba 1955 (R) Vintage Life Magazine cover Fidel Castro 1961

But New Years 1959 shattered any hopes of my own Cuban getaway. Along with ringing in the New Year with Guy Lombardo, Fidel Castro took over Cuba forever shuttering this Garden of Eden to American revelers.

Any dreams of rum-soaked nights dancing the rumba till dawn would have to marinate for well over 50 years.

For the  balance of my childhood, Cuba remained a mysterious and forbidden place; the romance and allure of pre-Castro Cuba now melded with a menacing bearded man, the specter of Communism looming so close to our borders  became a hot button issue in the cold war.

Honeymoon in Havana

My Havana honeymoon parents catch the rays on the Playa del Este a string of white beaches and brilliant aquamarine waters 12 miles west of Havana 1950

My parents had a romanticized sense of Cuba, and for good reason. It was after all where they had honeymooned in 1950.

As the years passed, the paradise would almost grow lusher, conjured by an imagination infused with nostalgia.

Did my PTA Mom and Republican Dad really linger an entire afternoon at La Floridita nursing daiquiris poured by highly skilled cantineros in the hopes of catching a glimpse of Ernest Hemingway at his favorite watering hole, which in their multiple tellings they had.

Hotel Nacional de Cuba

“In Havana at the famed Hotel Nacional de Cuba Roma Sherry precedes a happy dinner party.” Vintage illustration from 1947 ad for Roma Sherry

Like so many they were drawn to the fiesta that was Havana, the most exciting city in the Western hemisphere, the Caribbean playground to American socialites, politicians and movie stars.

Of course  the Honeymooners stayed at the world-renowned Hotel Nacional de Cuba , the iconic hotel filled with flowering gardens, sumptuous sun clubs and swimming pools where these newlyweds from NY could rendezvous with the smart Cosmopolitan set.

Tropical Adventure Awaits You in Sunny Havana

Gay Days in the Cuban Sun .The iconic hotel with its eclectic architectural style blending Art deco, Moorish with Spanish colonial was built in 1930 through an agreement with Cuba and US backed banks. Vintage ad Hotel de National Cuba 1947

This was the very same hotel that only 4 years earlier had turned my father away, during a winter school break.

It seems Lucky Luciano beat him to it, booking the entire hotel that Christmas week of 1946 for a big mafia summit at which the carving up of Havana among the crime families was on the agenda.

Undeterred, Dad found refuge in a little hotel on Obispo Street The Ambos Mundos Hotel, a place that Hemingway himself had stayed in during the 1930s

For a war-weary soldier 6 months out of the service and a few months into law school, Cuba with its tropical beauty and tropical beauties beckoned him.

It was a post war paradise

The streets of Old Havana, pulsating with African and Caribbean rhythms, were lined with architectural marvels of Spanish colonial architecture evoking tales of Cuba’s colonial past

A tourism magazine had described Havana as, “a mistress of pleasure, the lush and opulent goddess of delights.” It didn’t disappoint.

Havana was a paradise living up to its reputation as a tropical playground, a blend of glittering nightclubs, outrageous cabarets, all night bars with exotic drinks and backstreet brothels.

This young man from Astoria Queens was livin’ la vida loca!

Mama Loves to Mambo But Papa Likes to Cha Cha Cha

But the best stories were about the mythic Tropicana nightclub, the brightest jewel in Cuban nightlife.

“Havana’s glamorous Tropicana,” Dad never failed to point out between bites of Mom’s take-a-can-and-take it-easy arroz con pollo, “bore no resemblance to the one portrayed on TV!”

As much as Mom loved Lucy she would always smirk at the fictional Tropicana Club run by Lucy’s bandleader husband Ricky Ricardo ( famously played by Cuban Desi Arnez) a sanitized version of the sizzling club in Havana.

Billed as “a world of pleasure within a paradise of Magic,” the Tropicana, set in bucolic surroundings was a lush paradise of rumba and roulette, dazzling lights and equally dazzling “goddesses of the flesh” as the scantily clad showgirls were called, who pranced on catwalks set among tall royal palms rising above the tables through the roof.

Tropicana in the Sky

Taking off every Thursday from Miami International Airport , the flying party sets its happier patrons down in the balmy air of the land of daiquiris and sex at Havana’s Aeropuerto Jose Martin an hour later In between you are treated to excellent drinks, top-notch Latin Music and a floor show. Brainchild of Antonio Mintero, the promotional manager of Cubana Airlines, the flying saloon took 2 months to prepare before it was unveiled in 1956. Operated in a package deal with the fabulous Tropicana night club, revelers who want to try the thrills of a night spot in the air pay $68 for a ticket. Vintage ad 1957

Heralded as a “paradise under the stars” my parents took the nightclub’s slogan literally.

In 1958 they booked a flight on the famous Tropicana Special the first flight in the world with a live show aboard.

Offered by Cubana Airlines, the extravaganza was billed as The Greatest Show on Air!

“Treat yourself to an evening beyond your fanciest dreams Havanas Tropicana “The Monte Carlo of the Americas. Flying from Miami to Havana the 1 hour flight had a live show featuring Mambo, Rhumba, Cha Cha Cha and drinks on top of the clouds.”

Why wait until you got to sunny Havana to start the fiesta?

Whisking patrons 10,000 feet into the air, plying them with unlimited pink daiquiris and vibrating music  it wasn’t long before Conga lines of passengers and performers would be snaking down the aisles in the plane,  as the diamond chain of lights that were the Florida Keys move slowly behind.

Complete with miniature stage installed at the front of the cabin, decorated with a glowing arch like that at the Tropicana night club, musicians decked out in fiesta outfits played sizzling music on the piano trumpet, maracas and bongos.
Cha cha Cha’ing up and down the aisles were 2 saucy performers from the club, Gloria and Rolando encouraging passenger to sing along supplying them with Spanish lyrics printed on a card.

”As the torrid Cuban music poured over you would lose consciousness of the plane and its 4 huge engines and that 1 hour flight would fly by literally!” Dad would remember.

Of course lubricated by unlimited pink daiquiris didn’t hurt.

Breezing through the airport  in Havana  since Americans didn’t have to bother with customs thanks to a special arrangement through the airline and the Tropicana,  they were whisked to the real Tropicana Night Club, put up at the Hotel de Nacional for a few winks and flown back to Miami the next day with a complementary champagne toast.

Only 4/1/2 hours non stop from NY by air from Miami, American tourists flocked to Cuba in the winter. With the advent of cheap flights and hotels deals, the once exclusive hotspot became accessible to American masses.”Blend the glitter of Miami Beach with the romance and chance of the Riviera, spice of the West Indies and the rhythm of Havana.” vintage travel ads National Airlines

The best part was, this paradise was only 90 miles from Miami, my parents would remember wistfully.

For Whom the Bell Tolls

The proximity of Cuba being so close to Florida would take on a very different meaning especially in October 1962 with the Cuban Missile Crisis .

But while tourists eagerly spun the roulette wheel in sexy Havana, a revolution brewed in the less glamorous countryside.

This playground to American’s was abruptly shut down when Fidel Castro took over. The Tropicana that had opened to such fanfare on New Years Eve 1939, would close on another New Years Eve twenty years later, one which would ring the death knell of Cuba. Cuban revolution brought the curtain down on that era.

Soon the proximity of Cuba being so close to Florida would take on a very different meaning to me especially in October 1962 when Armageddon was narrowly avoided.

After that it was as if Moms famous arroz con pollo was seasoned with communism and its Spanish origins were emphasized as the chilly cold war came closer to home.

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2015. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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We’re Not Safe in Kansas Anymore

Yes, in Kansas it is now legal to discriminate against LGBT employees. State employees in Kansas can now legally be fired, harassed or denied a job for being gay or transgender.

Last week Governor Sam Brownback of Kansas rescinded an executive order protecting state workers from discrimination.

Take a Swing Through Kansas…as long as you don’t swing “that” way!

As Tom Witt executive director of Equality Kansas put it: “If you work for the state and have felt comfortable being “out” at work knowing you had protection from bigotry, that protection is gone.”

Wasn’t the passage of the Employment Non Discrimination Act supposed to be the ENDA discrimination in the work place?

With this latest, shameful decision taking the state backwards, it’s worth taking a look back at the U.S. government’s own shameful history, when  not that long ago, thousands of hard-working, qualified Americans were summarily fired from their jobs just for their sexual orientation.

Once upon a time our government actively sought out Gays and Lesbians for termination considering them unfit for employment.

The story is worth remembering.

America The Right to Choose

(L) Illustration from Vintage Boy Scout Handbook- A Handbook of Training For Citizenship Through Scouting (R) Free to Choose article from vintage Boys Life Magazine

Like most mid-century Americans, Virgil Adams believed hard work paid off. Like truth and justice, it was the American way.

So in 1950 when an article  appeared in Virgil’s Boys Life Magazine outlying the promise of the American Dream stating: “the right to choose any career a fellow felt qualified to follow,” it merely confirmed what the earnest 16-year-old Eagle Scout already knew.. “Americans Are Free To Choose the Kinds of Work they Want to Do.”

With a good job, he would achieve the American Dream.

Land of Opportunity

“In the US all the people have the right to choose in nearly everything that concerns them…that’s what it meant to be an American.” the impressionable honors student proudly read.  “Only under the great American system of free enterprise that not only challenges individual initiative but provides opportunity, could this be achieved!”

All across America post war prosperity was booming. Opportunity, Virgil was certain, would come a knocking.

In Springfield, the Adams family had a long history of civil service. Like his father and grandfather, he would choose to work in government, eager for a chance to serve Uncle Sam.

Whose Choice?

Vintage Illustration from “Boys Life Magazine” – The Right to Choose

While our optimistic young eagle scout was reading the Boys Life article extolling our great American system of free choice, Republican senators were setting in motion actions that would severely limit the ability to choose.

Lavender Scare

With Senator Joseph McCarthy creating a culture of fear and paranoia with his communist witch hunt, he fanned the flame by claiming that a “homosexual underground” was aiding the “communist conspiracy.”

America was being infiltrated not only by a red menace but a lavender menace as well

Post war paranoids weren’t just looking under their beds for communists; they were also checking their closets (and their neighbors) for homosexuals

With religious fervor, government alarmists cried: “As dangerous as the actual communists, are the ‘sexual perverts’ who have infiltrated our government in recent years!”

Americans may have preferred being “dead than red,” but in that mid-century hot-house of homophobia nobody wanted to be considered “queer.”

Government By The People For The People

“An American has the right to choose any career he feels qualified to follow, education and training are available to him in practically any type of work he chooses to do!” from The Right to Choose “Boys Life Magazine”
(L) Vintage Ad for Government Jobs (R) 1950 NY Times Article “Sexual perverts have infiltrated our government as dangerous as Communists”

Republicans formed a subcommittee to study the Truman’s administration employment policy concerning homosexuals.

The 1950 Senate report entitled “Employment of Homosexuals and Other Sex Perverts in Government” led to the systematic purging of gay and lesbians from the government.

Experts argued that “moral perverts” were bad national security risks because of their susceptibility to blackmail and threat of exposure, recommending that homosexuals be dismissed from government jobs.

Adding insult to injury, gays were unsuitable for government jobs because of the “lack of emotional stability which is found in most sex perverts and the weakness of their moral fiber.”

Morally Straight

Vintage Illustrations From Boy Scout Handbook- Scout Oath

When it came to moral fiber, no one could beat a Boy Scout. Virgil lived by the Boy Scout oath: “On my honor to do my duty to God and my country.”

Virgil Adams was proud to be a Scout and proud to be an American.

“You owe it to your country to become a good citizen to do your best,” his scout leader would tell his troop. “It is important to America and to yourself that you become a citizen of fine character, physically strong mentally awake and morally straight.”

As a good scout Virgil was indeed morally straight…but privately he was gay.

One thing that wasn’t a choice was his homosexuality.

Most folks in Springfield preferred to think that there were no homosexuals in their own town. Maybe a handful in Chicago. Definitely some in NYC. But certainly not Springfield.

Grappling with his feelings, Virgil would adhere to the Boy Scout credo of “Being Prepared”-a good scout is always in a state of readiness in mind and body to face danger.”

Virgil’s secret would be buried as deeply as the atom bomb was from our enemies.

Proud to Be an American

“ We must defend America against the enemies within our own borders-enemies who sow the seeds of distrust among our people, who try to stir up hatred who attempt to ruin others by lies and smears, who break our laws.” Boy Scout Handbook
(L) Vintage 1947 US Army Air Force Recruiting Advertisement (R) vintage illustration patriotic boy scouts. from “Boy Scout Handbook”

“Citizenship is your privilege,” the Boy Scouts had taught him. It would be his honor and privilege to do his bit for his country.

Heeding Uncle Sam’s call in 1953 he served with distinction in Korea. Now that the champion of his childhood, General Dwight Eisenhower was the new commander-in-chief, Virgil accepted his mission soberly and with pride.

I Like Ike…Ike Doesn’t Like You

While our Eagle Scout fought bravely overseas at the Battle of Pork Chop Hill, back home his hero Dwight Eisenhower launched a full-blown attack on homosexuals, signing a bill calling for the removal of homosexuals from all Federal agencies.

The homophobic hysteria was at an all-time high.

During the 1952 Presidential elections the Republicans claimed that the Truman administration was “honeycombed with homosexuals” and his policy for dismissing homosexuals was criticized as too weak.

Ike would take care of that in short order.

Law and Order

Within 3 months of being sworn in at his inauguration, in the spring of 1953 President Eisenhower issued Executive order 10450 which empowered all Federal agencies to investigate and fire workers on the grounds of “sexual perversion” effectively banning gays and lesbians from working for any agency of the federal government.

The Order mandated the investigation of homosexuality not only of persons in sensitive positions but of any government employee and of all new applicants for positions. Homosexuals were harassed in local and state government too.

An employee who felt he was dismissed unfairly would have no recourse beyond his department. He could be fired merely on the basis of an anonymous accusation.

 Outcast

Virgil’s conscious, formed by the Boy Scouts code of ethics told him to obey the laws of our country. After all, ”America’s laws,” the Scouts affirmed,” were created to benefit all our people – to keep them safe.”

Struggling with his homosexual feelings, policing his emotions, he lived so deep in the shadows he was sure to leave no trace of his secret.

Scouting For A Job

(L) Vintage Book “How to Get a Civil Service Job” by Arthur Liebers 1959 (R) vintage illustration from “Boy Scout Handbook” A Boy Scout Traits

When he returned from the service, the decorated veteran expected to have the American Dream gift wrapped and tied with a red white and blue bow.

Virgil wanted to continue serving Uncle Sam and do his part in keeping America great. Naturally he applied to the civil service, the Adam’s “family business.”

Because it was an old American tradition to give preference in government jobs to honorably discharged veterans, Virgil Adams received a position immediately.

Taking his oath of office seriously, he swore he wasn’t a communist and did not belong to any group that advanced the overthrow of the government.

We Will Work It Out

“By helping other people at all times by working with them you will come to know the kind of people that Americans are and learn to get along with all of them”
(L) Vintage illustration “Boys Life Magazine”- The Right to Choose (R) Illustration from vintage ad 1953

Virgil worked hard, stayed late and boosted the morale of the office.

He knew that if he was good at his work and was ambitious he was certain to advance to higher paid levels. He remembered the words from Boys Life that he had read years ago:  “In America employers are always anxious to reward workers whose industry and ability qualify them for advancement and increased wages.”

It was the American way.

Be Prepared

“A good scout he learns to respect others rights, treat them justly give the a fair chance, to become a true American boy who will grow into a true, upright American man.”
(L) Boy Scouts American’s Creed from “The Boy Scout Handbook” (R) 1950 NY Times Article “Sexual perverts have infiltrated our government as dangerous as Communists”

Virgil had learned early a good scout is always prepared.

The scout’s motto meant that you are always in a state of readiness in mind and body to do your duty and to face danger.

But nothing prepared Virgil for what was to come.

You’re Out

One day he was brought into an office and told he must resign.

.The Civil Service Commission put him through 4 days of interrogation. For the first 3 days he was confronted with evidence of his communist leanings such as having danced with a female USSR liaison officer in Korea when he served there.

On the fourth day he was asked directly “Are you a homosexual?” After his adamant denial he was informed that the government had unearthed evidence. He was seen in the company of a known “pervert.”

With no better proof against him, he was banned from federal government employment “for security reasons on the grounds of moral turpitude.”

Immoral lawbreakers were unfit to serve in government.

Humiliated and with no choice, he was forced out of his job

Broken Promises

Vintage illustration from ” Boys Life Magazine” The Right to Choose- Americans Are Free to Choose The the Kind of Work They want to Do

“The American is Free to pursue happiness in his work as well as in his leisure “he recalled with some bitterness. “An American has the right to choose any career he feels qualified to follow.”

Some Americans it seems were not free to choose the kind of work they want to do.

No Choice

The lavender scare lasted far longer than the red scare and during the Eisenhower administration the purge of gays from the government reached its peak. For the next 3 decades FBI and other federal agents hunted down thousands of LGBT workers who were fired from their jobs. Careers were ruined lives destroyed.

If most Americans seemed blithely unaware of all the discrimination, it was only because they never chose to really look.

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2015. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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On a recent chilly Sunday women started disappearing from ads, magazine covers, billboards and posters directing readers to Not-There.org. Part of a powerful ad campaign to raise awareness of gender inequality, it was a graphic reminder to women “we’re not there yet.”

It’s a déjà vu for the real housewives of the cold war.

70 years ago images of working women suddenly disappeared from the media and it took them over 30 years to return.

During WWII women might have thought that they were finally there…until they weren’t.

Women went from serving the country to serving hubby a beer. L) Vintage ad Canada Drive 1944 (R) Vintage Schlitz Ad 1953

One day, dedicated working women were glorified, proudly featured in articles and advertisements; the next they vanished, replaced by dewy-eyed brides, and happy homemakers with nothing more taxing on their minds then getting rid of ring around the collar.

In a blink of an eye women went from serving the country to serving hubby a beer.

But this wasn’t a campaign to raise awareness. It was a tactical decision.

Most of these women didn’t opt out of working; it was more like they were pushed out by Uncle Sam: “Here’s your pill box hat. What’s your hurry!”

As fierce as Uncle Sam’s Rosie the Riveter campaign was  (deployed in WWII to recruit women into the depleted work force) once  victory was in view a decidedly different, equally aggressive, operation was launched aimed at these same women.

Women transitioned from working woman to homemaker with push buttons ease. (L) Woman war worker -Vintage ad General Electric 1943 (R) Housewife vintage ad

Not unlike like the post war US defense policy, the media went on a permanent war footing against positive portrayals of women in the workplace.

It was now all out war to get the ladies back into their soon to be fully-loaded Kelvinator kitchens and into high heels.

It would be more than a decade until this secret campaign would reveal itself: “Operation: June Cleaver” would be a huge success!

My mother Betty along with millions of other women of the greatest generation would be one of it’s casualties.

All Out War

Vintage WWII Recruitment Poster

It was wartime.

The patriotism was so thick you could cut it with a knife. Everywhere you looked, posters, ads and articles appeared applauding the resourcefulness and ingenuity of Americas working woman, that patriotic lass who had stepped up to fill the shoes of the boys who had gone off to war.

Rosie the Riveter rides the greyhound bus to her job

No effort was spared to get these ladies out of their homes and into the defense plants.

The campaign orchestrated by  Uncle Sam’s Office of War Information in collaboration with Madison Avenue,  women’s magazines, radio producers and Hollywood, tried overnight to make wearing overalls and operating a lathe glamorous.

When Uncle Sam came calling, these ladies “leaned in” and took over the man power.

Working girls were the new glamor girls and for impressionable teens like my mother Betty it was empowering.

What a difference a year makes. McCalls Magazine went from table setting tips pictured on the left 1941, to a war worker plotting her blueprint for a bomber on the right, 1942. Women were no longer pictured as weak, non mechanical incapable of leadership or unsuited for the challenges of the world.“The day of the lady loafer is almost over.” boasted Margaret Hickey chairperson of the Women’s Advisory Committee to the War Manpower Commission

With the bombing of Pearl Harbor, our very notion of woman’s place was  decimated.

A public more accustomed to seeing their women depicted in dainty dresses while luxing the family dishes, were now being bombarded with images of hardy gals dressed in coveralls and bright bandanas doing a mans job

There was nothing a woman couldn’t do and the media couldn’t stop gushing about her.

You’re No Sissy Now!

Typical of these positive ads was one from Kotex.  Geared to high school girls like my mother, it typified the wartime emphasis on female strength: “Remember when the boys used to say that girls were made of sugar and spice and all things nice? Those days are gone forever…you’re no sissy now!…”

Talk about girl power!

For a 16-year-old girl it was all thrilling . All around Betty were wives mothers and older women actively engaged in non traditional work; women who had a feeling of accomplishment proud to be part of the war effort. These jobs gave them confidence and a new sense of their capabilities.

Betty Co-ed

(L) Vintage Illustration 1948 by Harry Fredman “Women’s Home Companion” (R) Vintage Brenda Starr Comic Book 1940s

By the fall of 1945 Betty was a college freshman who took her studies seriously.

As editor of Erasmus  High School newspaper she had dreams of being a star reporter for a big city daily. But no sob sister stories for her- she didn’t want to get stuck covering the usual girl beat of weddings and social clubs.

No sir, she fancied herself more as a glamorous foreign correspondent type like Martha Gellhorn one of the greatest war correspondents of the twentieth century and the only woman to land at Normandy on D Day. Married to Ernest Hemingway they traveled the front lines together.

Perhaps, Betty pondered, one day she might even report from the front lines standing by her beau Stanley a Marine serving overseas.

A Fellah Needs a Girl

“Hats off to the Woman of the Year” begins this 1942 ad from Mutual Life Insurance, lavishing praise on Americas working woman.

Our fighting boys were proud of these women.

Throughout the war, the armed forces newspaper, The Stars and Stripes had been bursting with pride with uplifting, home-front stories of the swell of patriotic cuties in blue overalls and hair bandanas, standing shoulder to shoulder with their men, taking up the load for Uncle Sam.

But as the war drew to a close, Uncle Sam started whistling a different tune, as in a widely circulated War Dept. brochure proclaiming that : “A woman is merely a substitute, like using plastic instead of metal.”

Fueled by fears there wouldn’t be enough jobs for returning servicemen and that Depression conditions might return, the campaign to get women out of the workforce began in earnest. That, coupled with pent-up desires of both women and men to start a family were unleashed, producing an unprecedented idealization of the nuclear family.

The ideal of the family served as a national unifier becoming a symbol of what the American system was all about. It’s what they were fighting for.

Motherhood and the proliferation of baby images were churned out from 1944-1946. Women were about to be enshrined as wives and mothers .

With the same secrecy of the Potsdam conference, a final meeting between Uncle Sam and his media allies commenced  to clarify “the post war administration of women” and the rebuilding of the American family.

Those same glowing home front stories, now took a more scolding tone accusing these same patriotic girls of doing “unwomanly” jobs and taking jobs away from the returning men.

The Way We Were

GI Joe gets his job back ((L) Vintage Texaco ad praising the working woman 1943 . R) Texaco ad 1945 “I’ll be a Texaco service man again when I get home.”

Articles and advertisements began to appear, that seemed to speak directly to the battle fatigued boys overseas. One ad for instance featured a soldier in combat wistfully daydreaming about the peaceful world he has left behind, yearning for the familiarity of home: “I want my girl back just as she is.”

The media assured the boys  the American Dream would be there when they returned, that “life would be just as you left it.”

Including your job…and your best girl.

Blue Print For The American Dream

“… Yes these were the things I was fighting for, waiting for…the soldier asserts.” Vintage ad Kelvinator 1945

No series of advertisements  served up a bigger helping of the post war  American Dream than the brashly sentimental ads of Nash-Kelvinator.

The ads took on the tone of a letter often written by the hometown gal he left behind who had plenty to dream about too.

In this ad from 1945 the soldier pleads that once he comes home:

“…don’t let anyone tamper with a way of living that works so well.”

“Never fear darling,” – his sweetheart writes him back, that’s the way we all want it. Everything will be here, just as you left it, just as you want it…when you come back to me!

And when you come back from the war you will find, just as you left them, everything your letters tell me you hold dear.

….inside in the living room you’ll find your easy chair, your footstool and your slippers, just as they always were each night before you went away to war.

When you come back you will find nothing changed. Those at home promised that. Here in your town your children are still free to sleep and laugh and play…still free to look at the sky, clear-eyed and unafraid…our house still stands lovely as it always was…

“…Yes, back home to the same town to the same job , you liked so much…to the same America we have always known and loved…where you can work and plan and build…where together we can do things we’ve always dreamed of…where we and our children are free to make our lives what we want them to be…where there is no limits…

…where nothing has changed.

And We’ll Live Happily Every After

”You’ve said, That’s the America I want when I come home again. Ads promised GI Joe that His wife and son will make life what it ought to be once more.

“That’s the America I fought for…that’s the America I’ll be looking for when I come home.”

The way things were.

But the fairy tale American Dream didn’t include working woman.

I Want My Girl Back Just As She Is

Overseas, Betty’s beau Stanley worried.

With Victory in Europe nearing, Seargent First Class Stanley began to echo his GI buddies concerns: “Exactly what was getting into these dames anyway?”

Looking longingly at the pin-up of Betty Grable on his Barracks locker, he began to question what the heck they were fightin’ for if all the girls back home had their heads filled with a lot of hot air and plain baloney.

Would the women be willing to return to the home after the war, they worried in unison.

Even Hemingway was resentful of his glamorous wife Martha Gellhorn’s long absences during her reporting assignments. He famously wrote her “Are you a war correspondent or a wife in my bed? Needless to say They divorced in 1945

Stanley thought about Betty away from home, at college susceptible to all kinds of ideas and nonsense.

He knew she had her heart set on being an ace reporter, solving mysteries and having fabulous adventures. But he didn’t really want her globetrotting around the world in search of sensational stories, not to mention the steamy romances.

And even if Betty did stay at home in N.Y. and get that job as a reporter for a daily paper, he still worried.

Newsrooms were he-man territory. They were smoked filled, grubby joints with spittoons on the floor and racy pin ups on the wall.

He imagined her going out after work with the boys, downing whiskey at some smoky watering hole, staying out late betting on some palooka. This Sergeant First Class  didn’t want his wife  shouting at boxing matches when she should be home darning his socks and cooking a casserole for him. …and taking care of the children.

Back Home For Keeps

The big push back

Stanley was right. Back at school Betty’s head was being filled with all kinds of ideas and nonsense. But not what he feared.

Operation June Cleaver had begun on the homefromt .

Suddenly it seemed, wherever you turned a fierce campaign was being launched with ominous warnings aimed at the modern women.

It was now important to keep your man in the drivers seat. It was soon feared that the masculinization of career women would drive him away.

The women’s magazines once filled with glowing stories of courageous women  were now filled with  threatening articles implying that careers and higher education were leading to the masculinization of women with dangerous consequences to the country, the home, the children.

If a woman held an important professional position, they implied, she would lose her womanly qualities affecting the ability of the women as well as her husband to obtain sexual gratification!

And if a career woman had children, watch out.

She turned them into “juvenile delinquents,” “criminals” and “confirmed alcoholics.”

Or worse…she could end up an old maid.

The Tide had Turned

(L) Vintage Magazine cover Colliers 1944 (R) Vintage Tide ad

With victory the tide had turned against working women.

Gone were the ads telling women they could do anything a man could do. Gone were the ads congratulating women for performing double duty on the homefront so brilliantly.

Instead ads began appeared affirming  the new conventional wisdom – there was no more important job than wife and mother.

7-UP ads ceased claiming it would produce a good disposition in women in order to win a better job as the ad on the left proclaims, to boasting the beverage would help them be happy homemakers and bring good family cheer.

Up In smoke

Womens aspiration would soon go up in smoke. During the war Chesterfield had frequent ad supporting military recruitment and factory work. By 1946 they featured a bride.

Nuclear Family

The ideal of the family served as a national unifier becoming a symbol of what the American system was all about.

It’s what they were fighting for.

After Rosie the Riveter finished her stint on the assembly line, Uncle Sam wanted her to keep up the same wartime production…only this time, in bed.

Family was about to go nuclear.

Here Come the baby boomers Vintage ad Swan Soap 1945

Ashamed at even thinking of being a career girl, Betty worried not only had she lost  femininity, but whether Stanley would  leave her when he returned?

Betty felt so dull and droopy.  Now all she could dream about was marriage and a warm and cozy home together, just like she and Stanley talked about.

With Victory here all thoughts turned to the future.

Post War Promises: Occupation:Wife

There was no more important job than being a wife and mother. So important in fact that in 1946 The Penn Mutual Life Insurance Company offered “wife insurance” in case the poor widowed hubby was left having to cook, clean, shop, do laundry, …etc for himself!

Like many war born romances Betty’s relationship with Stanley soon fizzled out.

But in the fall of 1945 with a post war bounce in her step, Betty returned to school more determined than ever to excel, clear in the things that were really important.

She came to the realization that the highest value and only real worthwhile commitment for a woman was the fulfillment of themselves as wives and mothers.

A barrage of books and an onslaught of articles  bombarded the media convincing women to stay home. Working women became the target of vehement attacks by academia, industry and politicians. In fact now the  conventional wisdom was that women who wanted to continue working outside the home were neurotic.

Women’s magazines soon replaced the WWII working girl with a loving Mother who became the reigning cover girl for years, solidifying the only real worthwhile commitment for a woman was the fulfillment of themselves as wives and mothers. L) McCalls Cover 1942, (R) Ladies Home Journal cover 1946 illustration Al Parker

In her Junior year in college a crippling cloud of pessimism had drifted over the fate of the modern American Woman and the American family.

According to a 1947 bestselling book both were in dire danger.

In sociology classes all across the country earnest student like my mother cast aside Margaret Mead and devoted college papers to a dense cerebral book co authored by Marynia Farnham and Ferdinand Lundberg, a shrink and sociologist, called Modern Woman:The Lost Sex.

If there was unhappiness and uncertainty in modern life they wrote, it had a sexual reason: modern woman had denied her femininity and her womanly role.

Only by accepting her place as wife, mother homemaker and by erasing her “masculine aggressive” outside interests would woman be content. Women who avoided this natural state were “neurotically disturbed women”.

Feminism was, “at it’s core, a deep illness.”

Mission Accomplished

Operation: June Cleaver – Mission Accomplished. (L) Vintage 1944 Saturday Evening Post Cover of Rosie the Riveter illustration by Robert Riggs (R) Vintage 1955 Saturday Evening Cover – illustration by Steve Dohanos

Operation June Cleaver was a success! Mission Accomplished!

During the post war years, the Culture of Containment was not just a foreign policy but applied to women and their identities as much as it did to the Soviets. Women were to contain their aspirations

It would be a long fifteen years before another, young Jewish woman named Betty, would step forward and write about “the problem that has no name.” So for now my mother Betty would follow in the footsteps of yet another Betty, ol’ reliable Betty Crocker, and become the perfect homemaker.

A tale of 2 Betty’s (L) Betty Crocker Vintage Ad 1950s (R) Betty Friedan

Copyright (©) 2015 Sally Edelstein All Rights Reserved

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Matriculating into Matrimony

Questioning whether a woman can be President is as dated and ludicrous a notion today, as this vintage 1956 Maidenform ad of a woman on the campaign trail with the tag line “I Dreamed I Went Whistle Stopping in my Maidenform Bra!”

What would JFK think of Hillary’s bid for the Presidency?

As Hillary Clinton begins her run for President  some Republican pundits are still debating whether a woman is worthy of sitting in the oval office. During another presidential election nearly 60 years ago, a brash young senator named John F. Kennedy asked and answered the prescient question “Can a woman be President?

His answer may surprise you. It didn’t Hillary.

Hillary Rodham for President

“Would You Want Your Daughter to be President?” inquired the bold black headline. “Before becoming too deeply involved in the merits of the question we ought to first ask ourselves: What are the chances of a woman becoming President?”

It was late October 1956, election day was a few weeks out and the Presidency was on everyone’s mind.

Including a 9 year old Hillary Rodham.

Proudly sporting an “I Like Ike” campaign button pinned to her brownie uniform, her sash bedecked with patches and pins attesting to her many achievements, the studious Park Ridge, Illinois schoolgirl had her bookish nose buried in an unlikely magazine.

Reading with the same diligence and enthusiasm she normally gave her studies, an article in Everywoman’s Magazine – penned by a handsome Junior Senator from Massachusetts – had riveted the earnest young girl who all but ignored the birthday celebration that awaited her.

Neither the lure of a luscious birthday cake or the pile of fanciful wrapped presents festooned with satin ribbons and bows could distract the determined young Hillary from this engrossing feature that posed the question “Can a Woman Ever Be President?”

A Lot of Moxie

The 1956 “Book Profiles in Courage” by Senator John F Kennedy profiled U.S. Senators ( all male) who defied the opinions of others to do what they felt was right despite great criticism. The lack of any women featured in this book is no surprise. In post war America, women who had dutifully served their country with courage during WWII were now dutifully serving their husbands at home.

The provocative article written by John F. Kennedy, the author of the years best-selling book Profiles in Courage, displayed a different sort of courage to ask such a question in 1956.

This was, after all, the era of the happy homemaker a time when women were celebrated for their domestic prowess’. It was the same year that Life magazine proudly declared “ Of all the accomplishments of the American Woman, the one she brings off with the most spectacular success is having babies.”

Estrogen and ambition seemed a dangerous cocktail to some.

Kitchen Ambitions

From the cheery suburban kitchen, Hillary’s mother Dorothy tenderly eyed her only daughter deeply engrossed in the magazine article. Smiling in satisfaction, Mrs. Rodham expertly spread the angle pink frosting on the 7 layer devils food birthday cake.

It was an ambitious undertaking but she had promised to make Hillary’s favorite cake, carefully following the recipe from the well-worn United Methodist Women’s First Church Cookbook of Park Ridge. Chuckling to herself, Mrs Rodham knew the frosting was the only thing “pink” in this fervently anticommunist home that her prickly husband Hugh would tolerate.

Recipes For Success

Vintage magazine cover Everywoman’s Nov. 1956

Earlier in the week the happy homemaker had been thumbing through the latest issue of Everywoman’s Magazine when she spied an article that fairly jumped out at her.

There nestled between features for fanciful new bathroom curtains and cook-to-please casseroles was an item that she was sure would interest her brainy, motivated daughter.

“Could Your Daughter be President?” the article asked its readers.

Imagine that, Dorothy thought in amazement. But what were the chances of a woman actually becoming President? With the Middle East in an uproar, Russia flexing their formidable muscles, and the  civil rights crisis brewing at home,  the highest office in the land required formidable skills.

On the other hand Dorothy thought to herself, she would never have imagined in her wildest dreams that her own United Methodist church would decide to grant women full ordained clergy status just this past May.

But a woman President!

However, if any daughter could be President it could be Dorothy’s.

She was certain her little girl would find the article captivating.

This was no Grimm’s fairy tale (though the prospects seemed rather grim.) The story spun by the idealistic senator would hold more appeal for young Hillary than any Cinderella story. Gorgeous Grace Kelly may have married her prince that year, but Hillary had her eye on a bigger prize.

All the Way with JFK

The 1956 Democratic convention turned out to be a national showcase for the young Massachusetts Senator who only a year earlier had been little known across the country. Chosen by Governor Stevenson s camp to place Adlai’s name in nomination for the Presidency, Kennedy also narrated a film about the Democratic Party. JFK had thrown his hat in the ring for Vice Presidency but was defeated narrowly by Senator Estes Kefauver.

It was no accident that the magazine had asked the ambitious Senator Kennedy to write the article. The telegenic politician’s star was rising, and some thought he had his eyes set for the 1960 presidential run.

Only a year earlier  the fresh-faced Junior Senator had been little known across the country. But the recent 1956 Democratic Convention held in Chicago turned out to be a national showcase for the young Senator where he had been narrowly defeated as a vice president.

By the end of summer, Chicago was buzzing about the 39-year-old Kennedy after his stirring nomination speech for Adlai Stevenson, none more so than the ladies who swooned at his movie star good looks.

Father Knows Best

Basking in Eisenhower post war peace and prosperity, the Rodhams were die hard Republicans

Everyone in Chicago it seemed was taken with Kennedy.

But not Hugh Rodham.

Hillary’s father was unimpressed with the young upstart.

Looking up from his newspaper, Hugh sourly sniffed at the very sound of JFK’s name when the die-hard Republican  inquired about the article that had so fascinated his daughter..

The Chicago businessman had had his fill of his town being run over by Democrats that August. If there was one thing Hugh  held more in disdain than Democrats it was the Chicago Democratic machine.

It was all meaningless anyway.

No Democrat could drive Ike out of office despite his advanced age of 66. The Eisenhower post war prosperity assured his reelection was inevitable, eventually passing the Presidential  baton to his capable Vice President, Richard Nixon in 1960.

Compared to a real hero like Dick Nixon, Hugh thought Kennedy was  a lightweight coasting on his good looks and privilege.

While her father groused on about JFK, Hillary ignored him focusing on the future of the Presidency.

It wasn’t the author’s movie star good looks that drew her to the article.

It was the sense of possibility.

A Woman For President? by John F. Kennedy

The permanence of a patriarchal presidency still seems written in stone for some. The question of whether is America ready for a female president, is still a favorite among the pundits on Fox news who seem to enjoy rehashing this old nugget.

Kennedy’s  article in Everywoman’s Magazine opens in the far distant future. Taking on the tone of an episode straight out of the Twilight Zone, the reader is presented with a fantastical daily schedule for an imaginary female President detailing the overwhelming challenges a Commander-in-Chief would have to face. Surely it would seem unimaginable for a mere mortal woman to handle.

“Today’s Appointment Schedule for President Lucy R Jones as released by the White House Press Secretary, is as follows:
10 A.M.- Review troops at Andrews Air Force base as Commander-in-Chief of all US Armed Forces
12 Noon– Address US Chamber of Commerce on her Administrations Tax, Fiscal and Tariff Policies
2P.M.– Confer with her party chairman and national committeemen on this years political prospects.
3P.M.– Press Conference.
4P.M.- Confer with British and French Prime Ministers on current threats to peace.

“Ridiculous, some will say; why not?, say others. It will never happen, say still others.

Parents react differently too. “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if my daughter grew up to be President?”, some mothers are thinking. “I certainly wouldn’t want any daughter of mine in that job,” say others.

Before becoming too deeply involved in the merits of the question as to whether a woman should ever become president, we ought first to ask ourselves: What are the chances of a woman becoming president? Is the above hypothetical press release on an imaginary woman President of the future a complete fantasy, a fictional dream impossible of realization in the foreseeable future?

The answer to this question may throw considerable light on the question of how desirable it would be to have a woman President.

Hillary’s eyes grew wider as she carefully underlined key passages.

“After all, little more than a generation ago both men and women scoffed at the idea of women generally running for office at any level or being appointed to any government or position of real responsibility. Women might eventually be permitted to vote it was said and a few would be given honorary positions here and there to attract the “female vote”; but surely it would go no further than that.

Speaker of the House?

“These prophecies were proven mistaken in rapid order- 51 women have served in the House of Representatives and 9 have served in the Senate.

But, some will say, naturally women can be elected to Congress because they possess the one necessary qualification – they can talk.

This is, of course, not an accurate picture of the difficult requirements for Congressional service today; but further answer to these skeptics ( who apparently shudder at the awful possibilities of a female filibuster) is found in the many responsible executive and administrative posts which women have filled in the last generation.

Blonde Ambition

Despite their many accomplishments women in politics are still trivialized by sexist stereotypes Would you trust Barbie to have her hand on the nuclear button?

The article goes on to outline the history of women’s accomplishment in government.

“…Women have been appointed to courts to represent us as “ambassadresses” in diplomatic negotiations abroad and to be Treasurer of the United States ( This last appointment, when first sent to the Senate for confirmation, was received with considerable suspicion by Senators whose wives had difficulty balancing a bank account)

Another woman ( Mrs Anna Rosenberg) was even appointed Assistant Secretary of Defense in charge of manpower!

In short, the past generation has sen a revolution in the old concepts of woman’s role in public life.

Unlikely as the possibilities of there being a female President seem today, it would be a foolhardy prophet indeed who would predict that event would never occur, once he had reviewed the changes wrought in the last three decades.

The Park Ridge baby boomer’s ears perked up.

Who Counts

“Public opinion to the surprise of many has kept pace with this trend. In 1937 the Gallup Poll first asked a cross-section of the American public: “Would you vote for a woman for President?” Only 33% said “yes” while 63% said no with 4% having no opinion.

But in 1955 less than 20 years later, 52% said “yes” and those replying in the negative had declined to 44%.

Interestingly enough, according to the polls, women are about as prejudiced against sending a member of their sex to the White House as men are. On this I have no comment.

That prejudice remains today. In 2014 Michelle Bachman famously said “I don’t think there is a lot of pent-up desire for a woman president.”

Diversity

Hillary Clinton and President Barrack Obama Photo courtesy of AP

“This gradual decline in the prejudice against women in politics and the Presidency is I believe part of a general decline in the perpetuation of unfounded political barriers and prejudices.

Catholics, Jews and Negroes are among those elected today to high offices in states where such occurrences would have been considered unbelievable only a few years ago.

Majority Rules

“But even further cause for the rise of women in high office is their status as a “majority “ group.

Approximately 2 million more women than men are eligible to vote this year, and this year women are expected to outnumber men at the polls on November 6.

Sixty years later this “majority” still earns less than men and don’t occupy top executive positions.

The Woman Thing

Sure Peggy’s dismal. Women in politics have long been stigmatized as being “ruled by their emotions.” A guest on Bill O’Reilly’s Fox News Show lamented not long ago that a female President would be undermined by “PMS and mood swings.” Just this past week a Dallas woman’s post on social media went viral when she stated that “A Female Shouldn’t be President” because of hormones despite the fact she herself was a successful businesswoman. Vintage ad for Midol 1966

“The ability of women to direct rugged political campaigns, administer vast executive departments display brilliant legislative leadership and handle difficult foreign military and domestic problems has shattered the old concepts of political inferiority and executive weakness.

Appearances Matter

“If I want to knock a story off the front page, I just change my hairstyle”- Hillary Clinton

“The possibilities of there being a woman in the white house should thus be considered neither unlikely nor disastrous. The more important question is when this will occur, and how and under what conditions it might be brought about.

And no doubt some parents will ask what steps they should take to prepare their daughters for the Presidency.

In answer to these questions it seems to me that it is important first of all to stress that a woman will enter the White House only when she is not looked upon as a woman. By that, I do not mean that her sex should be concealed or ignored; but it would have to be considered irrelevant to her qualifications for the office as her religion, maiden name or shoe size.

Don’t Drown Me in Estrogen

Sound familiar Only last week on CNN’s  State of the Union broadcast, Republican strategist Ana Navarro advised Clinton to stop emphasizing the “woman thing” because voters did not want to be drowned in estrogen.

Made For a Broad

A future president according to Kennedy would “require the charm and wisdom of an Eleanor Roosevelt, the leadership and military prowess of a Joan of Arc, and the pluck – to keep going under almost overwhelming odds- of a Helen Keller.” Since it has long been rumored that Hillary held imaginary conversations with Eleanor Roosevelt while First Lady in the White House, she may have been on to something. Images L-R, Eleanor Roosevelt, 1948 Movie Poster “Joan of Arc” and Helen Keller

 “For the Presidency, above all, requires broad representation of, and outstanding leadership for, all elements in our society.

It requires an outlook which does not emphasize only the “traditional “women’s issues”- equal rights, world peace, education and child health and welfare – but is equally at home with foreign and military affairs, labor relations, the needs of agriculture, governmental administration and other issues.”

There is every indication that more and more American daughters are acquiring this kind of broad political outlook and interests.

The fashion police are in full force when it comes to female politicians. Now that Hillary’s in the race, pundits can start talking about important things that mater to the voters like pantsuits and hairstyles.

Recent surveys moreover have indicated that women are concerned about the same important issues as men.

Finally, I would remind young women aspiring to the Presidency- or their parents who aspire for them – that the first woman president, because of the fact that she is a woman, will have to be an extraordinarily capable chief executive. ”

She will require the charm and wisdom of an Eleanor Roosevelt, the leadership and military prowess of a Joan of Arc, the stately compassion of a Queen Victoria, the political sagacity of a Clare Boothe Luce, the courageous determination of a Sister Kenny, the pluck – to keep going under almost overwhelming odds- of a Helen Keller, and, in addition, all of the best qualities and skills of the Republican and Democratic lady officials mentioned earlier in this article.

“No doubt beauty and grace will also be important to her nomination and her election.”

“Is there such a woman, or is there a chance that their ever will be? Of course there is- and if the Democrats nominate her, she will receive my vote!”

Birthday Wish

Dorothy called out to her daughter – they were ready for Hillary . In the distance the joyous singing of her family gathered around the dining room table, broke her reverie. Sporting a coonskin hat, her younger brother Hugh boisterously singing “Happy Birthday” nudged his sister into the celebration.

The bright orange glow from the candles on her birthday cake lit her smiling face.

Closing her eyes little Hillary blew out her birthday candles and made a big wish!

Sixty years later, do you think her wish will come true?

Copyright (©) 2015 Sally Edelstein All Rights Reserved

Mutually Assured Consumption and Destruction – Collage by Sally Edelstein

I am pleased that my collage Mutually Assured Consumption and Destruction will be on exhibit at Guild Hall in East Hampton, New York from May 2 – June 6, 2015

Using collage as a means of examining social fictions, the piece is composed of images appropriated from vintage advertising, periodicals, newspapers, vintage school books, and old illustrations, dissociating them from their original use to better evaluate its original meaning.

The collage filled with appropriated mid-century American imagery offers a glimpse into American consumer culture that helped define the fairy tale American dream and the possibility of its attainment..

Mutually Assured Consumption and Destruction

The mid-century martini swilling magicians of Madison Avenue were working their magic in tandem with the Mad men of the Military Industrial Complex, working double time fusing a double set of desires for the nuclear family for more weapons of mass destruction and more ease of living.

The desire for the ever larger tail finned car and ballistic missile, frost-free refrigerator and 3 stage rocket were brought to you by the same corporation..

Nuclear weapons both to protect and threaten became the icons of the Cold War.

What enhanced the happy housewives Clorox clean home was not unrelated to what protected the homeland since many of the same consumer companies like GE, Westinghouse and Chrysler were also major defense contractors.

It was a time of mutually assured consumption and destruction.

Exhibition

Guild Hall 158 Main Street East Hampton, NY 11937

If you are in the East Hampton area I invite you to the opening reception on Saturday May 2 from 4-6pm.

Copyright (©) 2015 Sally Edelstein All Rights Reserved