Cereal: the caffeine of the 1940s

The women and children of the 1940s were pathetic, weren't they? So tired and listless that even a bowl of Cream of Rice would pep them up. When did cooked cereal stop being a jump-start, kick-in-the-pants energy giver, and start being a stick-to-the-ribs, gut-loading comfort food? After 1949, at least--that's when the Cream of Rice ad came out (the oatmeal ad is from 1947; I thought the fatigued lady was holding her head, but maybe she's saluting the Quaker Oats man).

What I love in these ads is the insistence on how quickly processed cereals digest. Because God knows if you have to wait half an hour for your cereal to kick in, you're going to end up face down in the street with tire tracks across your back. "New life begins to pour into the system in a few minutes! Gives more energy!" Were women and children in a constant state of collapse in the 40s, or what?

I also love the footnote in the Cream of Rice ad saying that you can get data supporting their claims "upon professional request." We can't let just anyone in on the secrets of Cream of Rice, now can we?

As always, click 'em to biggen 'em.

I guess alcohol comes from vegetables

Wow. Let me just quote some of the text of this ad for Lydia E. Pinkham's Vegetable Compound:

"Nature may endow you with breathtaking beauty, a lovely curvaceous figure. She may bestow gifts on you that make you a brilliant actress, a leader in your class at college, sought after at dances, or a charming wife and mother.

"Yes, Nature may do all this. But even so--you may find your face mockingly slapped if you suffer these distressing symptoms which so many unfortunate girls and women do."

The "distressing symptoms," if you care to know, are pain, nervous distress, feeling weak, restless, "so cranky and irritable that you almost turn into a 'she-devil'" on some days, nervous tension, irritability, and "those tired-out, mean, 'pick-on-everyone' feelings."

Well.

In the good old days, the compound was compounded with 18% alcohol, which if, as the ad suggests, was "taken regularly throughout the month" undoubtedly did help "build up resistance against such distress."

Nowadays, the formula's a bit more new-agey. The current incarnation of her business empire is eager to assure us that Lydia was a feminist and female emancipator, but boy, it's hard to imagine this ad in the pages of Ms.

Noted without comment

Except to add, "educator"?

More spokesfreaks

The Salty Salt sailor with horrific goiter reminds me how long it's been since I focused on irritating/frightening corporate mascots. How about this cranberry guy, from a December 1949 Family Circle?

Or maybe it's two guys; you know, they all look alike.

This little sentient being is directing you how to cook and eat him. Perhaps that explains the panicked expression and the clock in his hand.

Some lucky ad man was patting himself on the back for keeping those sketches from the first year of art school, when they teach you how to draw the human figure in proportion by stacking up heads.












Up close:

Very nice brushwork on those highlights though. It's hard to tell, but I'm pretty sure most of the ad art in 40s and 50s food ads is watercolor, which is pretty astonishing to me, having worked in the medium. It's really hard to control. I doubt these illustrators could have gotten the glow they got from oils or acrylics though. Hats off to you, you old food painters.

It figures

Put up a post musing about how you never see salt ads anymore, and Google Ads plasters one on top of your blog.