(Communal) House Cleaning

The community craft room was just given a drastic weed-out of orphaned items. No exertion from me; I only answered the call to take anything of interest before the rest was carted away.

And so, got a nice haul of vintage mother-of-pearl—

I took a few other sewing notions of use; otherwise, just brought away pictures of the more notable stuff.

Unfortunately damaged beyond taking: a German-made needle packet from the era of this kind of travel—

Have never heard of these, and I would guess this pack was kept for sewing—

Product was US-made, too. The packaging might be as recent as the 1980s—

Surely a useful item for the lady voter—

That's William Hanes Ayres, who held office 1951-71.

Ayres was elected as a Republican to the Eighty-second and to the nine succeeding Congresses. Ayres was well regarded by House members of both parties. He usually did not list his party affiliation on his campaign literature instead listing himself as "Your Congressman."

Did he simply choose to be a non-partisan public servant? If so, it's startling to realize that option once would have been possible.

"14 years" makes this 1965, and these matchbook kits still were made as advertising giveaways. (A post about kits and their history here.)

Other giveaways included quite a few mystery gadgets. Kind of a sad display representing an unknown number of years' worth of projects abandoned (or never quite started).

This was the most noteworthy of numerous odd gadgets—

Styles reflecting the 1938 origin, to be sure—

This is only half of the directions—

"READ... CAREFULLY!" indeed, when what's required involves so much getting thread through holes and woven around other thread.

Understandably, the would-be lacemaker didn't get far. But this is enough to give an idea of the pattern that was intended—

The set is for what I've learned is Tenerife lace, made by creating and joining wheel motifs. I'm not completely anti-lace, though I'd never be ambitious enough to try making it. But there's something about these particular designs that's oddly unsettling. Perhaps it's due to childhood memories of cartoons where this often was about to happen—

Though it seems like what's in my subconscious is some older, scarier (Max Fleischeresque?) version.

Depth psychology aside, here's a link to a better scan of Polka Spider instructions.

Le Urla Silenziose del Popolo

Found in library sale castoffs: thirteen years old, yet so timely...

MicroMega, February 2004

Essays published bimonthly; this volume's theme:

Antipolitics, indeed... A little less of that mentality, and the orange-tinged antipolitica to end all antipolitca would have been stopped.

Somehow, Gruppo Editoriale L'Espresso took a snapshot of the future. This definitely matches the current mood, for the sentient part of the American public.

Red Meat

The Republican Woman's Cookbook: Meats
National Federation of Republican Women, Montgomery, Alabama, 1969.

I don't imagine Maine was voting Democratic, so I'll assume it was on principle that the GOP  promoted apartheid South Africa's lobster industry.

Another sponsor: the Florida Citrus Commission. Though it wasn't until the late '70s that anti-gay rights agitation by a newly political religious right would become associated with Florida orange juice—or that a boycott would then target the product.

Interesting that the group was based in Montgomery, even before the full-blown Southern Strategy. At the time, racists could still run as Democrats and be elected to offices across the South. During most of the 1960s, for instance, George (and later, Lurleen) Wallace held the Alabama governorship as Democrats. Wallace was re-elected in 1972, then ran in Democratic presidential primaries.

If Nixon's plan for the South was not yet in evidence, the little woman puts in an appearance (cloth coat not in evidence, either)...

Also (from the Introduction): "No matter how involved Republican women become in the local and national scene, we are primarily interested in our homes and families." So it was then as it is now— at least for purposes of public consumption and culture war branding.

Some recipes set out to maintain the brand—

There are proletarian meals, and it's even possible to believe some of these people weren't faking ("Governor Romney's Favorite Bean Soup").

The senator wasted no time or fuss in the kitchen.

Hers was one of only a handful of attributions under a woman's own name. Some are names they just don't make anymore...

Fern R. Uglick, Corr. Sec.
16th and 17th Wards WRC 7
Toldedo, Ohio

Florence P. Toothaker, Sec.-Treasurer
Platte Valley RWC
Encampment, Wyoming

Shirley B. Hassdenteufel, Prof. Chm.
New Windsor WRC
New Windsor, New York

Male officeholders and cabinet officers offered recipes under their own names, but submissions from the womenfolk all stress their being wives of ("Black Walnut Stew," courtesy, "Mrs. Barry Goldwater, Wife of Senator From Arizona").

Now there's a name inspiring genuine terror that anti-Commie belligerence would get us all blown up.

... Yet Goldwater's later criticism of fundamentalist crazies—and the fact that his wife helped found Planned Parenthood—would get him drummed out of their party today.

Srom Thurmond shows up here, but so do Edward Brooke (Mrs.) and two Rockefellers (Mrs. Nelson and Mrs. Winthrop). Once upon a time, there were actual moderates in their party. And compared to the ones about to take over DC, the racist wingnuts of yesteryear's GOP may come to seem like pikers.

To be fair, the oddest recipes are no odder than what's found in other fund-raising cookbooks of the period. So, we see here "exotic" jello molds, fried chicken coated in crushed Ritz crackers, and "chow mein" made with tomato soup.

We also have—

Those two are "Meat Combination Recipes," not part of this section—

GOP housewives of the past: veritable cosmopolitans.