Sugar Frosting

The National Sugar Refining Co. of N.J., 1932

Early in the twentieth century this brand turned the name of a nipping-at-the-nose winter demon into a cheerful kewpie, personifying the snowy whiteness of its product.

When this booklet's inner pages are opened, a cutout at the fold displays a Jack Frost image printed on the inside covers.
As is so often true of old giveaways, the print quality is impressive. Like the front cover border, this background is embossed metallic silver.

The "really unusual recipes" pitch is interesting. From the inside front cover—

They are something different. Each one has been tested by people who love good things to eat and we have included in this booklet only those recipes where the verdict rendered was, "Mmmm, isn't that good!"

The secret of them all is that they are simple recipes and if followed exactly, can be made by the most inexperienced cook. Unusual and perfectly delicious results are obtained, through the choice of different kinds of Jack Frost Sugars. These recipes illustrate perfectly how the right kind of Jack Frost Sugar in the right place makes eating an exciting adventure instead of a routine activity.

Perhaps it was a subliminal approach, for a sugar company to persuade home cooks that these recipes were especially refined.

And it may well have reflected the early twentieth century popularity of tea rooms. Luring customers with creative décor and atmosphere, tea rooms seem to have led the way to eating place as special destination, according to Jan Whitaker's book. Menus consisted of "dainty" specialties, billed as intriguingly unique—even if most establishments served pretty similar items.

Of the eight pages of recipes, here's another sample—
The brand still exists, although it's part of a newer conglomerate. Instead of the old, androgenous kewpie, the logo character now is a blandly generic elf.

Day By Day (...By Day...By Day...)

More library sale illustrations removed from unknown books.

This time, the illustration style and settings are 1950-ish. But this may have been a reprint: pages are completely clean and unyellowed, plus floral borders have the look of something added later.




Thinking of these, as a new year at the office looms tomorrow...

All my days are pretty much spoken for—though I am hardly as cheerful about my tasks as the little housefrau in training is about hers.

It happens that a day of rest is missing from my set—though I assumed that too would involve duty.

I still don't know what book these are from, but I've found someone with the same illustrations, used this way.

Not my taste; I prefer the unadorned versions, for the bright colors, illustration style and household object details (if not for the stereotypical content).

But now I know the last rhyme—

Sunday
From all tasks we're free
After church we have our tea

This is a cluttered and even more sentimentalized use of the illustration than the original, but here's Sunday—if without good detail (or a decent look at the tea set)—

Bonne Année

Early 20th century French card, actual size.
Partly tinted photo, with embossed New Year's greeting.

Crafts For All Seasons

How about these, for last minute gift-making ideas?

From this publication—I have several copies, found on the shelves the library provides for magazine donation/recycling/local house cleaning. This one is the oldest (1967); the others are from the early '70s.

According to a collector, the magazine began as a family enterprise in 1935, with 16 newsprint pages of sewing and needlecraft patterns. By the late 1940s it had become successful enough to expand to a small magazine format. Bought by a larger company in 1990, the magazine folded six years later.

My '60s-'70s copies still are mostly newsprint; covers, plus a few interior illustrations and ads, are in color.

The magazine's long-time formula was a homey mix of recipes and needlework or other craft projects. Most of this went for the price of a subscription, or a single issue ($.25 to $.35 during this period), though some pages were devoted to sewing and other projects requiring readers to order patterns by mail.

Each month buyers got new patterns, like these good looks of the '70s—


Ads include lots of money-making schemes, both occupational and fund-raising.

A regular feature:

Not only could readers make $.25 to $1.00 a piece for these...
... but they also would earn $2 for a published submission (raised to $5 in the '70s).

Besides money-making opportunities, there were the usual women's magazine possibilities for self-improvement—even if companies and ads may have been a bit less slick than those in the pages of Good Housekeeping or McCall's—


Although there were some brand-name products also sold in stores, most items were mail order only, from companies that didn't seem to come with a Workbasket Seal of Approval.

While they would not exactly get their designers into MOMA...
...the products were made by small manufacturers located throughout the US. Ads for their wares crowded the pages of what, according to the collector's site above, had grown from its start in 1935, when—

The depression was in full swing, and Clara Tillotson's husband Jack had lost his job. Mrs. Tillotson used her resources and began putting together knitting, crocheting, tatting and quilting instructions. It was a time when people didn't have the money for new things; if they needed something, they made it. She sold patterns through the mail under the guise Aunt Martha's WORKBASKET; Home and Needlecraft for Pleasure and Profit.

Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

The plastic wrapper from a kitchen item (cheesecloth straining bag) purchased in a Chinese grocery—Yes, this time of year and that translation could only make me think of this: some background and sound.

Made in Western Germany

c. late 1950's—

2½ by 3½ inch card (Images slightly enlarged)

My mother bought these and other glass buttons during my childhood. Like sewing goods of all kinds, they were on sale in a wide range of stores; this card came from Woolworth's, or a similar budget store.

This button has gold edges and a raised, faceted center.
Although this set is ho-hum, I have some surviving single buttons in nice colors and designs. These are made of moonstone-like glass in gray or rose, with details on raised, curved surfaces: a leafy silver scroll here, or gold swirls there.

I had always assumed the "West Germany" labeling began early—as soon as post-war German industries produced enough to export, and as Cold War politics were hardening.

But according to this—

In 1974, the Bundesgerichtshof made a ruling that Made in Germany does not enable people to properly distinguish between the two Germanys of the time, so Made in Western Germany and Made in GDR became popular.

If not promoted officially until 1974, it still may have been common practice to label products this way after the post-war division of the country. Glass buttons were the only German import I remember in our house during the '50s and '60s, so they are my only point of reference.

I've read in a book on button jewelry craft that glass button-making had long been centered in Bohemia, but relocated when craftsmen fled across the German border in the late '40s, after the Stalinist takeover of Czechoslovakia.

Bead & Button has this interesting history of Bohemian glass buttons, focused on handcraft techniques and period styles.

It presents a different picture from my memory of the book above: it seems the pre-war Bohemian industry was made of ethnic Germans forced to return to Germany in '46 (and to leave the equipment in Czechoslavia). There may have been migrations of both types; in any case, German button-making was being firmly established by the end of the '40s.

The buttons I saw as a kid were made around the late '50s or early '60s, and the Bead & Button article explains the style and manufacturing process—

1947-1960s in Germany

Button making in Germany begins from scratch. Although equipment and canes were left behind in Czechoslovakia, the German glass craftsmen who were forced to leave Czechoslovakia brought their knowledge with them, and the tools of the craft are fairly easy to duplicate without a tremendous amount of capital. The first glass buttons made in Germany after World War II are DIGS (designs in glass surface) because the manufacturing process is relatively simple compared to other glass types. Manufacturing capabilities soon achieve pre-war levels. At the high point, more than 400 individual companies are making glass buttons in Germany. German designs tend to be more conservative and more "haute couture" than Czech designs. Black moonglows appear in the mid-1950s. Intermixed glass and painted and lustered moonglows are popular, as are plain, painted, and lustered black glass.

These, the article notes, would later be replaced by plastic and metal, both more easily handled by a mechanized garment industry and home washing machines.

Acrobatics

After managing to breathe for a couple of days, the work week already looms; tomorrow, it's back to being expected to juggle thirty things at once, while bending over backwards to please those with unreasonable expectations...

Though I'm far from graceful at it, I'm reminded of—
Well, with my boss' negligence causing a pile of backlogged "priority" work to get to me at the last possible moment before the holiday, I know what awaits tomorrow—and the only thing spinning in the cubicle will be my head.

"Plate-spinning" image is c. 1970s—from a set of eleven post cards, published by Shanghai People's Publishing House—
At least this is not in my job description—

Cycling act
A douze sur une bicyclette

(The French caption clued me in; I had to really look, to see the twelfth person...)

Some other acts—

Acrobatics on poles
Acrobaties á la perche

Balancing on a ladder
Equilibre sur une échelle

Less strenuous, perhaps, but I like the way the performers are just so perky, as they go about The People's entertainment—

Conjuring
Prestidigitation

Diabolo Play
Diabolos