Cool for Sale, From Beatnik Bongos to Hipster Specs

Everyone hates hipsters. Yet we won’t stop buying iconic “hipster” accessories, like fixed-gear bikes, vinyl records, and Buddy Holly glasses. As these products are adopted by everyone from investment bankers to organic farmers, hostility towards the elusive hipster grows. After all, he killed authenticity and watered down the counterculture, right?
The real reason hipsters are so easy to vilify, and impossible to identify with, is that they never existed in … (continue reading)

What Were We Thinking? The Top 10 Most Dangerous Ads

Often the criticism of vintage ads focuses on their inherent sexism, racism, or other displays of social prejudices, which we find laughable today, despite their continued presence. But what about ads that steered consumers into dangerous territory, espousing outmoded scientific evidence or misleading half-truths to convince people that appallingly toxic products, or even deadly ones, were actually good for them?
While some faulty campaigns were merely the victims of evolving … (continue reading)

When the Wild Imagination of Dr. Seuss Fueled Big Oil

Ever had an encounter with a Zero-doccus, a Karbo-nockus, a Moto-raspus, or a Moto-munchus? These fantastical creatures are some of the first Theodor Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss, introduced to the world in the 1930s. But the beasts didn’t romp through the pages of his well-loved children’s books. No, instead, they were badgering hapless drivers and boaters in motor oil ads.

Yes, decades before he published 1957’s “The … (continue reading)

Getting It On: The Covert History of the American Condom

Right now, all across the country, people are having sex, just for the fun of it. Yet despite centuries of birth control designed to maximize pleasure and minimize risk, we still can’t admit this basic truth.
Maybe that’s because contraceptives are such a messy subject: Throughout history, people have used everything from seaweed to sheep intestines in order to prevent pregnancy, when all they really wanted to do was … (continue reading)

Baby’s First Butcher Shop, Circa 1900

PETA would never approve: This grisly 1840 doll-sized butcher shop with miniature animal carcasses and a floor covered in sawdust and blood would be shockingly graphic to our modern sensibilities. After all, here in the 21st century, we like to remain cheerfully oblivious about where our meat products come from.

But in Victorian times, such detailed model butcher shops were not uncommon, says Sarah Louise Wood, a curator at the … (continue reading)

Before Camping Got Wimpy: Roughing It With the Victorians

The great cities of the West weren’t even complete before urban dwellers fantasized escaping them. Compelled by sublime landscapes and the conservationist bug, 19th-century city slickers saw camping as a way to ditch the daily grind, plunging into the wilderness their forebears had just conquered. And after a century of high-tech camping innovations, from Gore-Tex hiking boots to smartphone apps, our desire to “rough it” is virtually unchanged.
Recreational camping first … (continue reading)

Cowboys vs. Spacemen: How the Toy Chest Was Won

The lone frontiersman, the rebellious explorer: These archetypal characters appear as frequently in the far reaches of outer-space as in the American West, from “Star Wars” to “Stagecoach,” on Planet Vulcan or the Oregon Trail. Today, toys, comic books, and even movie posters representing these figures are equally familiar. But which holds more power for kids and adults alike? Are spacemen our true heroes, or would we rather have a cowboy riding to our rescue, to protect … (continue reading)

Love Boats: The Delightfully Sinful History of Canoes

Before the youth of America fooled around at drive-ins and necked on Lover’s Lane, they coupled in canoes. Boatloads of them. In the early 1900s, canoes offered randy young guys and gals a means of escape to a semi-private setting, away from the prying eyes of their pious Victorian chaperones.
“To go canoeing on the weekend was pretty much what you did with your best girl,” says canoe enthusiast … (continue reading)

My Little Pony Smackdown: Girls vs. Bronies

My Little Pony galloped into the world in 1983 on a cloud of pink and purple sparkles, bent on winning the hearts of little girls. Set to a saccharine jingle, commercials showed pigtailed girls admiring these pastel-colored vinyl toy horses, unicorns, and pegasus, lovingly brushing their unnatural neon manes. And love them girls did.

Now, nearly 30 year later, My Little Pony mania has exploded again. But this … (continue reading)

Sea-Monkeys and X-Ray Spex: Collecting the Bizarre Stuff Sold in the Back of Comic Books

Amazing! Incredible! Unbelievable! Eyeglasses that let you see through clothes. The secrets to super-human strength. Scary seven-foot tall ghosts that do your bidding. All of this could be yours for a dollar or two. At least, that’s what vintage comic-book ads would have you believe. Six years ago, artist and historian Kirk Demarais, who runs the brilliant Gen X nostalgia site, Secret Fun Blog, became determined … (continue reading)

Make Me Mod! Top 10 ‘Mad Men’ Essentials

With the return of “Mad Men” to AMC this Sunday, Sterling Cooper’s attractive staff will raise the bar for contemporary cubicle-dwellers for the fifth season in a row. Along with the show’s cast, we’ll be thrown into the turbulence of 1966, when neon-colored plastic and the ubiquitous Twiggy kicked Mid-Century Modern to the curb. No doubt the characters will weather radically shifting social norms, … (continue reading)

Blueprint for the Occupy Movement? Read the Protest Manifestos of the 1960s

When I was invited into collector Rick Synchef’s home several months ago, I was drawn by the promise of signed rock posters from the San Francisco music scene, as well as first-edition copies of Beat poetry by such luminaries as Allen Ginsberg and Lawrence Ferlinghetti. But it was Synchef’s collection of flyers, pamphlets, and other ephemera, distributed by groups such as … (continue reading)

Rockin’ at the Rollarena, Pre-Summer of Love

If you were in a rock band in late-1960s San Francisco, the world beat a path to your garage door. Record executives walked the length of Haight Street and saw dollar signs instead of peace symbols, signing bands to fat contracts as fast as they could.
But if you wanted to rock ’n’ roll in the East Bay, particularly in that no-man’s land between … (continue reading)

The High Price of a Funky Christmas

When it comes to Christmas albums, the top dogs on our Christmas records page are usually The Beatles, which mailed flexi-discs to its fans from 1963 to 1970, and Pearl Jam, which has been pressing 45s and 10-inch vinyl for members of its Ten Club since 1991 (skipping a year in 1994). … (continue reading)

Before Sesame Street and Electric Mayhem, a Crude Kermit Lip Synced Pop Standards

When “The Muppets” storms the world’s multiplexes this holiday season, there will no doubt be lots of little kids who, thanks to “Sesame Street,” will associate the wide-mouthed cloth puppets with learning to count to 10 and reciting their ABCs. But for many of their Gen-X parents and Baby Boomer grandparents, “The Muppets” will conjure school lunch boxes, flannel pajamas, and brightly colored … (continue reading)