advertising
Sitting around my grandparents’ kitchen table, eating a grilled cheese sandwich, I started the interview.
“Do you remember any signs or billboards you saw out the car window while traveling?” I asked. My grandma heard the word car and immediately remembered something absolutely vital she had to tell my aunt about, so she twisted in her chair to look into the living room. My grandfather shook his head fondly and began to answer for her.
“The only ones we really remember is the Burma-Shave ads,” he replied. My grandmother was still turned around, discussing her car with my aunt. “Then again, you gotta remember, her parents never owned a car.”
“Never?”
“Nope. And my parents didn’t own a car until after World War II,” he continued, “and we were never on the road before then. But Burma-Shave was still around after then.”
Taken from: “http://acoustictalk.proboards.com/thread/31149/burma-shave-signs”
“Did you guys have, like, ads painted on the sides of buildings?”
“Oh, yeah! I remember seeing them... I don’t really remember anything earthshaking about them. There are still whole lot of them around downtown. You drive down, uh, Shaw Avenue from Grand, and there’s several of them on the walls of buildings there. If you, uh, basically, if you look hard enough you’ll find them on the walls in the city. If you find- well, I’m sure there’s a list of them somewhere.” He looked around the kitchen, and for a moment I thought he meant he personally had one, hidden behind the sugar jar, but then he continued. “You know, people study those things, and, uh, I know there were some I knew, but offhand I cannot remember what they were. One was for brain sandwiches!”
“Brain sandwiches?” I scrunched up my nose at his remark.
“Brain sandwiches! That’s quite a delicacy around town for some people!” His voice took on an almost scolding tone, as if he couldn’t believe I could be disgusted by brain sandwiches.
“What brains?” I asked. “Lamb?”
“Animal brains!”
I rolled my eyes.
“What kind of animal brains?”
“Pig, I think. I think they were all pig brains, but I don’t know.”
Taken from: “https://onestylishlife.wordpress.com/category/art-design-photography-graphics-ads/”
At that point, my grandmother turned back around and started talking about Burma-Shave signs. My grandfather sent me a look, and then said, “Yes, Marie, we know. We already went over that.”
Unphased, my grandmother continued. “Did you play any travelling games that involved road signs?” She read off of my printed sheet of questions. “No. Do you remember any road sign posters? No.” She hummed while reading through some more questions before finally finding one she deemed answerable.
“Propaganda posters! War bonds, rationing, troop support...”
My grandfather interrupted her, saying, “Oh, they were very very prolific during World War II, but they all went away after that. Everything that was for sale was related to World War II type stuff. The most memorable one was the slogan for Lucky Strike cigarettes. ‘Lucky Strike Green has gone to war’. Whatever dye they used to make the green that their cigarette packages were wrapped in was necessary for war. So they turned their packages white with a red bulls-eye on ‘em.”
Taken from: “http://nosceipsum.blogspot.com/2005/11/lucky-strike.html”
“And,” my grandma said, “in our day, uh, people questioned stuff. And it wasn’t like it is now, where they question everything, and they protest everything... we didn’t have that growing up. We accepted what they told us in school, we accepted what our parents told us. We didn’t go out and protest like now. Everything is more open now. Especially with the presidential campaign. Back in our day, we talked about it, but people didn’t argue about politics like they do now. My dad owned a barber shop, so we could not talk politics. I mean, he had both republicans and democrats for customers, so we could not distinguish.”
“Did they print political ads in newspapers and things?”
“Oh, yeah. They used any means that they could to get it out there, but I think that local committee-men, back then, I think they controlled it a lot better. They made sure if there were labor problems, they took care of it with the employers.”
Trying to get back on track, I nodded and moved on. “Did either of you have posters in your bedroom growing up?”
“No,” my grandmother shook her head, “I didn’t, and he didn’t either, but we lived in rented quarters.”
My grandpa nodded sagely. “If you did damage to property, when you moved you were gonna get a bill for it.”
“Did you ever go to, like, friends’ houses and they had posters hanging up?”
“No, most of our friends back in our day rented their homes too. Well, a few of my girlfriends owned their own homes, but... When we were growing up, the haves owned the houses and we just rented them.” This was, apparently, not a concise answer. My grandparents ended up explaining the entire layout of their neighborhood, as well as describing the people who lived in which houses, who owned their houses, and, in some cases, how they’re doing nowadays.
“Did your parents hang up art or anything?” I asked. My grandparents have pictures of Biblical figures, paintings of Italy, and cross-stitched quotes lining the walls of every room of their house.
“Maybe, I don’t know, two pictures at the most.” My grandfather answered. My grandmother only shook her head, saying the only thing her mother hung up was a crucifix and pictures of relatives.
“Did you guys read catalogs?” I asked.
“Yeah, we did. We looked at, uh, the styles of clothing. Because we only bought the furniture we could afford.” My grandma didn’t elaborate more, so I moved on again.
“Have newspapers changed since you guys were little? Like are there more ads or anything?”
“I don’t think they’ve really changed,” my grandma responded.
My grandpa added, “They still heavily relate to good looking girls. There’s a lot more exposure of body parts- they’re different in that way.”
“Back in our day, they didn’t advertise, like, panties or bras, or men’s undershorts, or shirts. That was more, you know, personal. Well now, they have bras and everything all over the newspaper and everything... and TV.”
“A sheet manufacterer probably ran the most outrageous advertisement. It was published in men’s magazines.”
“What was it?” I asked.
“It was an Indian woman in a teepee with the caption ‘a buck well spent’.” He answered.
“Do you ever feel like you just can’t get away from advertising?” I asked.
“No, I don’t think so- I just go get up and get a drink, or read the newspaper. Sometimes I’ll use the restroom.” My grandma responded. Distracted again, she asked me if I wanted anything to drink and then got up to get me a glass of ice water.
It seems that although advertising has gotten less conservative over time, my grandparents don’t think it is any more prevalent than it used to be. Although, they do miss the Burma-Shave ads.
