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  A N N O T A T I O N S
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PASTELOGRAM is named in honor of the poet Marianne Moore, who wascommission- ed by Ford Motor Co. in the 1950s to come up with names for its new mid-priced car. Among her suggestions: “Pastelogram,” “Turco- tinga,” “Silver Sword,” “Resilient Bullet,” “Utopian Turtletop” and the especially cryptic “Mongoose Civique.” Ford declined to use any of these and instead went with “Edsel.” The rest is history.



WE’VE HAD LOTS
of requests asking the Curator: “You’re so darn modest, we don’t know much about you. How about posting a picture or some biographical info? And have I told you about the time I was abducted by aliens?” Well, you get the idea. So here’s a little about our history.

FUN A LA MODE
The old Patent Office applications in the PatentRoom are a soft- serve lesson in history. New on the menu: Tees.


 

COME FLY WITH ME
The early aircraft designs on view at AdventureLounge will take you back, though maybe not all in one piece.



ARE YOUR SCANS limp, lifeless, lacking pep and vim? Visit ScanTips for fast, safe, effective relief.



THE ART
of Josh Agle. Martinis, girls, guns. Think James Bond meets Jetsons at a tiki bar in Palm Springs.

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   L I N K A T O R I U M
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PRELINGER ARCHIVE
CAR MANUAL PROJECT
TV LAMPS
KITTY GIRL VINTAGE
IMPERIAL CLUB
1950s CARS IN NORWAY
WALTER MILLER
McLELLAN’S
IMAGINARY WORLD
RAY PATIN STUDIOS
LILEKS I.O.O.C.
SHAG ART
BUICKS.NET
PALACE OF CULTURE
KING OF THE ROAD
BROCHURES ON EBAY
STARBURST
FRANCISCAN OASIS
FRANCISCAN TRIO
SILVER PINE
SOCIETY of
   ILLUSTRATORS

ADVENTURELOUNGE
VoIP SOLUTION
PATENTROOM
SCREENMATH

   

MONDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2005

≈ Boo-ze

Notice  people at ease today. They relax. They have good times easily. And they turn to light refreshment for keeping up the fun. This is today’s leisure. And today’s light Schlitz goes right with it  . . .

The aftermath of this Halloween scene is too gruesome to describe — knives, beer and pretty girls don’t mix particularly well — but we can report that young Norman returned to work with a few new ideas on how to liven things up at his mother’s motel.

≈ DeSoto Adventurer for 1960

Never before available in the Adventurer line! Here is the perfect blending of sedan convenience and Adventurer luxury  . . .  smartly conservative  . . .

In its next to last year of existence, DeSoto offered a four-door version of the Adventurer, a mid-1950s “dream car”  now morphed into utilitarian family sedan. After the PT Cruiser and new 300C, we think the time is ripe for a revival of Forward Look styling. And here’s the perfect candidate for resuscitation.

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 26, 2005

≈ Siteseeing

We’d like to direct your attention to a really excellent article in the Christian Science Monitor that’s about one of our favorite subjects — us! Ignore the boring first half about someplace called the National Gallery of Art. Obviously the nice people over at the CSM believe in saving the best for last.

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 23, 2005

≈ Styled for the Mobility of Our Time

This 1955 Lincoln is a new kind of fine car. Its lines are long, low and sweeping. From the dynamic thrust of forward-leaning headlight rims to the new tail lamps, this is fresh, sculptured beauty  . . .

For ’55, Lincoln received a new automatic transmission, Turbo-Drive, as well as a face-lift that hinted at the dramatically larger cars to come a year later. Here we present  one  two  three  examples from Form L55-101, a dealer brochure printed in October 1954.

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 18, 2005

≈ The Living Garage

Make way for living. Roll your automobile out on the apron. And if you’re lucky enough to own a 1958 Lincoln, be prepared for admiring neighbors. Here is one fine car that’s not on view in everybody’s driveway. Lithe and low and clean of line, this fashion leader is an eloquent symbol of your good taste. As your neighbors will discover if you invite them for a get-acquainted drive, Lincoln also stands out in ability. For here is an extra safe margin of power — a lively, limber driving demean that you’d never expect in a car so spacious. No other fine car naturally says so many good things about you. The New Lincoln  . . .  the great new star among motorcars.

For people who wanted to fit a 1958 Lincoln into their lives but had trouble fitting one into their houses, Ford had a better idea: Buy our huge new car, and build an enormous new garage — a three-car “Living Garage” like the one belonging to Mr. and Mrs. Fred Zeder of Greenwich, Conn. Think of it (or the car) as a living room with leather seats for six and a steering wheel under the window. Plus tile floors and a barbecue rotisserie (not to mention bar, soda fountain, playroom and potting sink). Our favorite line in this advertorial collaboration of Ford, General Electric and the Tile Council: “The 1958 Lincoln Premiere is one of the larger American models. Yet it takes up only a fraction of the garage space, leaving plenty of room for a buffet table.”

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 16, 2005

≈ Life Is a Circle

This is a little story about synchronicity. Sit, make yourselves comfortable. And turn down that TV, do you mind?  So. Yesterday morning we were enjoying a nice cup of coffee and flipping through the latest House & Home. And by latest we mean the most recent to appear on our doorstep, in this case the Spring 1959 issue. (We stopped subscribing to anything new years ago, but the ’50s stuff continues to arrive almost daily. We can’t explain it.) Anyway, like we were saying, we’re flipping through this mag and notice this nice modern house on a hillside in Connecticut. And we wonder if it still might be there. And we finish the article, churn some butter and before you know it, it’s nap time. Then later we’re scanning the Sunday New York Times. Real Estate section. (We can dream, can’t we?) We navigate to the “Still on the Market” column, click on the slide show. And bam, there’s the house. Exact same view and everything. For sale, 3 mil. Click on the pics, compare. Talk amongst yourselves.

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2005

≈ The Convertible Convertible

HERE, in the new Packard for 1956, is trend-setting styling that you, yourself, might have dictated. Typical of this brilliant Packard touch are the Caribbean seats, the first reversible seats in any automobile. They are as new and original and finely fashioned as a decorator’s smartest creation  . . .  and they permit you to change your car’s decor from sleek leather to glowing fabric at the flip of a cushion. Your dealer invites you to drive the limited edition Caribbean, the regal Patrician, the care-free Four Hundred — all available with Packard Electronic Push-Button Ultramatic, for the ultimate in automatic motoring.

The eye-popping Caribbean was the capstone to Packard’s half-century as a manufacturer of luxury transportation, the most expensive car in the company’s line for the 1956 model year, which would see the last of the full-size Packards. It was also something of a tombstone — after two years on a rebadged, slightly disguised Studebaker, the nameplate would be history.

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 13, 2005

≈ Over Here? Wait, N0, Over Here.

We will always feel the same about our creature comforts whether we pitch our tent on the green hill or among the suns and moons. In time and taste, Dunbar spans it, Edward Wormley designs it. Dunbar, Berne, Indiana. Showrooms: New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco. Through your decorator or interior designer.

Dunbar’s high-concept advertising from the 1950s might show a coffee table in the woods or an armchair up a tree. From 1958, we have an Edward Wormley sofa that’s either landing or taking off.

     
   
     

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 11, 2005

≈ Loves to Go  . . .  and Looks It!

It’s got frisky new power, V8 or 6, to make the going sweeter and the passing safer. The ’56 Chevrolet, you remember, is the car that set a new record for the Pikes Peak run. And the car that can take that tough and twisting climb in record time is bound to make your driving safer and more fun. Curve ahead? You level through it with a wonderful nailed-to-the-road feeling of stability. Slow car ahead? You whisk around it and back in line in seconds. Quick stop ahead? Nudge those oversize brakes and relax.

This rendering of the 1956 Chevy in Monument Valley is by
Bruce Bomberger, a West Coast artist known for a series of ads he illustrated later in the decade for Weyerhaeuser Timber.

     
   
     

≈ The Steel Kitchen, 1953

Even without the help of her cooperative dish jockeys, this young lady is getting a lot more out of her kitchen — and getting out of her kitchen a lot more! The explanation for this pleasant situation? Steel!  Yes, steel, throughout her kitchen — cabinets, appliances, ventilators, venetian blinds. Steel, just about everywhere you look  . . .

Steel kitchen cabinets, which attained a measure of acceptance after World War II when the laboratory look was in vogue, are pretty much extinct now, done in by clangy acoustics and a tendency to rust. This example includes a stainless-steel countertop with built-in dashboard-style controls for plumbing and appliances.

≈ Coloramic Daystromite

Blithe Fashion for Carefree Settings! Daystrom styles chrome with new flair to lend the light, bright touch to your casual dining. The rugged Daystromite table top whisks clean of spills in a jiffy, winks at scalding coffee and lighted cigarettes  . . .

Daystrom, based in Olean, New York, was “the mark of fine furniture in Chrome, Coloramic and Sunnywood.” This dinette is from 1953.

≈ Modern by Heywood-Wakefield

Heywood-Wakefield Modern brings you many special satisfactions. It is bright, satin-smooth and so adaptable to your space and needs. The secret of its instant eye-appeal is in the graceful, curving lines that make it so pleasant to live with  . . .

Somewhere between the kitsch of Kroehler and the elegance of Dunbar was Heywood-Wakefield of Gardner, Massachusetts, whose distinctive furniture is regarded as a touchstone of 1950s design.

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 9, 2005

≈ The Wonderful World of 28 Flavors

Here are 10 of them, from 1958. This is the dream we have whenever we mix fried clams with ice cream. (What were the 28 flavors? Surely someone out there knows.)

Thanks to Tom in California for the answer: Banana, Black Raspberry, Burgundy Cherry, Butter Pecan, Buttercrunch, Butterscotch, Caramel Fudge, Chocolate, Chocolate Chip, Coconut, Coffee, Frozen Pudding, Fruit Salad, Fudge Ripple, Lemon Stick,Macaroon, Maple Walnut, Mocha Chip, Orange-Pineapple, Peach, Peanut Brittle, Pecan Brittle, Peppermint Stick, Pineapple, Pistachio, Strawberry, Strawberry Ripple, Vanilla. We’d like that to go, please.

≈ Hi-Five

During an evening at home, with people who appreciate the things you do  . . .  perhaps no beverage fits so perfectly into the “mood” of the occasion — reflects so well your good taste — as a glass of beer or ale. Traditionally, beer is our country’s “at home” beverage. For pleasant companionship, in moments of relaxation — nothing satisfies like a friendly glass of beer.

From 1956, “Hi-Fi,” Number 116 in the United States Brewers Foundation’s “Home Life in America” series, a years-long marketing campaign that aimed to do for the home what beer had done decades earlier for pool halls, bars and taverns. The picture is signed by Haddon Sundblom, the legendary Coca-Cola illustrator credited with inventing Santa Claus as we know him today.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2005

≈ Those Legs! That Seat!

A woman knows what she wants! That’s why we asked thousands of you your idea of the perfect dinette. The result? This handsome, all new “Planter” Chrome Dinette Set. You’ll thank yourself every day for Kuehne’s Plastic top that defies wear  . . .  for the ever brilliant Kuehne Khrome styling  . . .

From 1952, an example of mass-market furniture that could hardly be cheesier if it was made of solid Velveeta. Kuehne, the ad tells us, is pronounced “Keen-ee.” The table has a planter built into the base, perfect for raising mushrooms. People collect this stuff nowadays.

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2005

≈ What Makes a Pontiac So Eager to Go?

This Catalina has more horsepower per pound than any other automatic transmission car made in America. (As much as one horse per 10.65 pounds.) That’s an ideal balance between weight and power. Gives you hustle when you need it. Improves gas mileage, too. Eager to go? Go see your fine Pontiac dealer.

≈ Pontiac Announces the 1961 Trophy V-8

A completely new fuel induction system gives this new free-breathing V-8
more air — to save you gas. Closer calibration of this big 389-cubic-inch engine
gives you maximum thrust at half throttle without over-carbureting  . . .

Somewhere on the timeline between the Quiz Show Scandals and the Missile Gap was the Over-Carburetion Crisis. Art Fitzpatrick and Van Kaufman illustrated this dispatch from the New Frontier.

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2005

≈ Carefree Tent-House, 1958

The simpler the house, the happier the holiday. For an amphibious family (or even mountaineers), here are 450 square feet of airy, easy-to-run house, sturdily anchored on a concrete slab. Materials to build this house cost about $1600  . . .

In the late 1950s mass-market modernism was headed in an interesting direction, then ran out of steam. This Jetsonian vacation home was designed by Dave Chapman for the Johnson Motors Family Boating Bureau. The raft at right is flying the skull and crossbones.

MONDAY, OCTOBER 3, 2005

≈ Fun Is Where You Drive It!

Seaside or highroad or right around home — there’s a never-ending thrill in owning and driving this brilliant De Soto! It’s long  . . .  wide  . . .  low-slung  . . .  roomy  . . .  amazingly luxurious at its low price — with many smart body colors  . . .

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