Yes, it's nearly that time of year that all kids dread and all adults love -- Back to School! And so I'm back for a third time with a set of vintage advertisements that will either appeal to you or drive you mad. Either way, I hope you enjoy!
By my count this will be at least the third gallery of vintage Halloween advertisement I've shared here, although it's been a long time since the last one. So let's scare up a good time by checking out some spooky ads from years gone by!
One thing that stinks about being an adult is that I don't get summers off anymore. One thing that rules about being an adult is I don't have to deal with the looming threat of Back to School time. So you see, now I can look at vintage back-to-school advertisements with joy and amusement, not dread. And now you can too. Enjoy!
One of the many things that makes Kentucky Fried Chicken unique in fast food history is that its growth as a powerhouse franchise was not quite as direct as, say, McDonald's. For one thing, the chain began not as a dedicated franchise location but rather as a menu of items out of a regular restaurant. In this case, KFC was essentially born in a pair of motels/restaurants in Asheville, North Carolina and Corbin, Kentucky. Colonel Harland Sanders, who owned both in the 1930s, rebuilt his Corbin location as a motel with a 140-seat restaurant after a fire struck in late 1939.
Here is a June 1940 newspaper ad for the Sanders Court & Café, published in the Asheville Citizen Times. Note how there is no reference to chicken:
The first Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise opened on Septem
In past ad galleries I've typically stuck with a particular theme or product, such as holiday-themed ads or new car lineups. I'm going to try something new and product an ad gallery from a single year, covering a wide range or products and services. Basically, a sort of visual shorthand to see what someone would've seen in print or TV ads in a particular year. Think of this as a virtual department store of sorts.
For the first edition I thought I'd travel back exactly 50 years to 1967. Let's browse!
Automobiles
Consumer Electronics
Entertainment
Fashion
Food and Beverage
Health and Beauty
Household Goods
Travel
I don't know about you, but there comes a point when convenience goes too far, and things just get weird. Case in point: This 1950 advertisement for Swift's Premium Canned Hamburgers, which purports to "take the labor out of the Labor Day Week End."
But hey, as gross as the prospect of eating preformed meat out of a can may be, at least you can send in that coupon and get a sweet sandwich toaster for just 50 cents!
Happy Father's Day from The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit and from the fine people who bring you Edgeworth Pipe Tobacco!
It's Dad who tends the furnace, it's Dad who mows the law,
And it's Dad who pushes off to work before the crack o' dawn...
It's Dad who carries bundles. And it's Dad who has to pay,
Let's give Dad the FINEST! for his pipe on FATHER'S DAY!
This lovely brochure comes from Pacific Telephone, and advertises their line of extension colorphones. There's no date on this one, but I think 1960s is a reasonable guess.
The front of the brochure features a delightful mid-century color palette that definitely predates the earth tones of the '70s. Perhaps someone more versed in commercial artwork of the period can figure out a more precise date range?
Pacific's full name at the time of this brochure was The Pacific Telephone and Telegraph Company, by which they were known until 1983. That's the year they moved from their parent company, AT&T, to one of the many new Baby Bells formed in the wake of the former company's breakup, Pacific Telesis.
Today, the company once known as Pacific Telephone operates as the Pac
For this third installment of vintage billboard photos, I have a gallery of roadside advertisements for local news broadcasts. Just about all of these date from the 1970s and '80s, and include ads for news broadcasts as well as local weather and sports teams.
All images courtesy Duke University’s Digital Collections site. Click for a larger version.
