Today’s toddlers ride in style in the sleek and racy, brightly-colored, low-slung plastic numbers like the vintage Big Wheel from Marx – that whiz, spin, skid, slide, race and even roar.
Vintage family & old-fashioned parenting
The first vintage Etch-A-Sketch toy was made back in 1960. It was a big seller from early on, and over the years, Ohio Art made several other creative, artistic toys – such as those shown here.
When it came to parenting the ’40s, were moms too easy on their kids? Was being a parent harder than the generation before? Here’s what people said in 1940.
What better use to make of those big, clumsy cartons that once held ar new refrigerator or range? Make a fun toyland for the kids with these creative DIY cardboard box fort & playhouse ideas!
Some of the most iconic images of the Great Depression were the migrant mother photos of a woman named Florence Thompson, taken by Dorothea Lange. While one picture was famous, there were several other shots taken at the same time. See them here!
Remember getting drinks in vintage Dixie Cups? While many of us recall them from childhood because of their cute designs, they weren’t invented simply for convenience.
Do you remember Shrinky Dinks? They were DIY crafts that could be made by coloring on a plastic sheet, cutting out the various shapes, and then shrinking them down using heat.
Imagine, up above the clouds enjoying a cheeseburger from McDonald’s for lunch or dinner. McDonaldland cookies for dessert. That’s what United Airlines’ McDonald’s Friendly Skies Meals offered kids in the 1990s!
George Burns & Gracie Allen were not only married in real life, their work from the mid-1930s through the mid-1950s made them one of the biggest comedy duos in Hollywood. Meet the wacky couple here!
Have a look back at these cute vintage Fisher-Price dollhouses from the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s! Take a look at how they changed over the years, and see which one you remember best.
These vintage Rig-a-Jig toy sets were popular back in the fifties, and were sort of a hybrid of TInkertoys, Lego and an Erector Set. See how they worked, and what you could create with them, here!
More than 100 years ago, see how antique baby carriages like these were styled with beautiful designs, made from wicker, metal and wood – sometimes embellished with wooden spindles and woven reeds.
Put together a half dozen pieces of this DIY fun furniture for kids, and your child will have endless play ideas. Made from just one simple box construction, the pieces are great for pretend games, the right size to use as table and chairs.
Back in the seventies and eighties, these vintage Fisher-Price dolls enchanted millions of little kids. They were available in a few different sizes, styles and colors, and you could get them a lot of different outfits.
These vintage Sew Magic & Sew Perfect toys were working sewing machines that let kids do real sewing, but without having to use needle and thread by hand.
Hopefully, these vintage 1970s Playskool toys, dolls, ride-ons and more will bring back some happy memories! They may also remind you of a simpler time, when most toys were joyfully kid-powered.
Gen X kids got to prove that these 1980s fruit snacks – non-perishable packaged sweet and chewy treats – would be big sellers… and the forerunners of the dozens of similar snacks on the market today.
Take a look back at these adorable antique baby portraits from the 1800s, captured in these pictures on cabinet cards, cartes des visite, and other antique photographic prints from long ago.
To the average American girl, between the ages of, say, 10 and 17, slumber parties are as important as pizza, add-a-beads and Judy Blume.
Originally envisioned as a beer garden, this Florida destination has grown and grown. Here, see what the famous vintage Busch Gardens amusement park was like from the 1950s right through to the 1990s.
These pretty and old-fashioned paper Christmas ornaments are so easy to make, kids and adults can work on them together! As a bonus, they’re very cheap to create. Get directions and diagrams here.
The old-fashioned benefits of breastfeeding are many, no matter what century you’re living in. Here’s a look back at some of what experts were saying about nursing babies back in the early 1900s.
“A frightened, crying child’s ability to dial 0 for the operator in case of emergency could save a life. Your child’s life. Maybe yours.”
Check out some vintage 1940s birthday cards – along with old-fashioned greeting cards for Halloween, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Halloween and beyond.
The Waltons was a story of a large family living in Virginia during the Great Depression. The classic TV show originally aired from 1972 through 1981. Find out what the cast thought of the program here.
BMX (bike moto-cross) started to get very popular around the end of the 1970s, and continued into the 1980s. The racing sport used bikes like these that had been reinforced to withstand bumps, dumps, and controlled turns.
All of these unidentified antique photos was taken in Ohio before the Civil War, but we will probably never know who any of the people in these old daguerreotypes were.
San Francisco’s great old Sutro Baths was a huge structure with several enormous swimming pools, viewing galleries, museums and more, right next to the Golden Gate. See inside the Victorian marvel here!
If you think fashions in the eighties were bad, just wait until you see these ’80s maternity clothes – the often tent-like outfits pregnant women were wearing.
When this article was published, touting the wonders of c-section deliveries, they stated that the cesarean rate was one out of 20 births. And that
Check out these old school toys: vintage ’80s Playskool play sets, which kids could use to imagine and build their own mini worlds.
In the ’80s, vintage Crispy Critters cereal had little animal shapes like rhinos, hippos, lions and camels, and a lightly-sweetened crunch. Remember it?
Take a look at more than 40 of the cute vintage plush toys and sweet stuffed animals that millions of kids cuddled back in the ’80s.
These old Betty Crocker Storybook Dinnerware sets featured vintage kid-friendly characters like Peter Rabbit, Raggedy Ann & Andy, 3 Little Pigs and more. See them again here!
Here’s a little guide from the thirties to teach people how to make art using their vintage manual typewriters – pretty much old-fashioned ascii art and old-school smileys!
These cute vintage greeting cards were sent to parents in the ’60s to welcome a new baby to the world. Here are some of the sentiments people shared 50+ years ago!
When Princess Diana was pregnant with baby Prince William, a geneticist weighed in on what he thought the young prince or princess might look like.
As long as there have been kids, there have been _bored_ kids. For parents in the ’60s, one magazine offered these great old-fashioned ways to have fun.
Did you ever have one of these vintage Paas Halloween makeup kits from the eighties, so you could go trick-or-treating looking like a vampire, clown, werewolf or ghost?
Here is a collection of tips from the past, for researching your past – namely, how to start a genealogical record for your family. Get ideas for tracking down your ancestry here!
Compared to now, teenage girls in the 1950s had a lot of strict rules and etiquette considerations – and the consequences of falling short in certain areas could have a pretty considerable effect on her life. Here’s a look at the kind of messaging teens got back then.
These vintage play tunnels were mini passageways that kids could crawl through, play in, or even sleep inside. Here’s a look back at a few!
Vintage Hoppity Hop toys – and the Hoppity Horse – were inflated vinyl balls with a handle. Kids and adults alike would climb on and bounce for fun. Take a look back!
In the ’30s, ’40s and ’50s, old-fashioned maternity wear existed – but its main job was to help the mom-to-be hide her pregnancy. Here’s a look back at fashions to help women camouflage that bump!
Antique Ladies’ Home Journal magazine cover: March 1890 Featuring “Mrs Harrison’s Daily Life in the White House”, “A Man’s Idea of Home Comfort”, “Hints on
Look years back at teachers, students and old school classrooms from more than a century ago, and see what education was like back then.
See some of the vintage baby gear from the 1950s that parents used when raising our parents and grandparents – including a lot that wouldn’t be considered safe today.
Through vintage interviews, meet Theodor Geisel – aka Dr Seuss – the man behind The Cat in the Hat, The Lorax, Green Eggs and Ham and many more classic books for children.
See some of the dozens of the most popular vintage board games from the ’30s & ’40s, including Camelot, Ro-Nock-O, Crow Hunt, Senet and more old-fashioned fun.
Take a look back at the latest and greatest toys from 1986 in these pages from the vintage Toys R Us catalogs called the 80s Out of this World Toy Book.
Here are two vintage articles from the turn of the century with advice for young married couples about some of the ways to make their years together happy ones.
Retro pool toys like these plastic inflatables made summer twice as fun when you could float and play and create pretend worlds right in the swimming pool!
These sweet bandana baby clothes are wearing tops made from the kind of cotton scarves you can buy anywhere. Here’s how to make these outfits from 1977!
Find out how to make some sweet vintage Easter egg crafts for spring – everything from bunny-decorated eggs to lacquered lace eggshells.
Who remembers these popular vintage Fisher-Price baby toys from the seventies and eighties — from the crib busy box to the stacking rings.
Make bedtime wonderfully wild with these lion and elephant quilted comforters for kids, that can turn nights from hassle to heyday. See how to make them here.
What’s the history of Q-Tips – the little cotton swabs found all around the world? This big brand had a little baby-sized beginning. (Also find out their terrible former brand name.)
Here, take a look back at some of the most popular vintage Tuppertoys of yesteryear, including the now-iconic Tupperware shape sorter!
Back in the ’80s, these now-vintage baby nursery monitors were new – easy-to-use one-way intercoms that let parents hear what their baby was up to in another room.
What were mutts and pedigreed pups eating in the ’40s-’80s? Here’s a look back at vintage dog food print ads & TV commercials you might remember.
The first ‘children’s liberation’ album, ‘Free To Be… You And Me’ – featuring stars like Marlo Thomas, Mel Brooks, Harry Belafonte, Alan Alda, Diana Ross and Shirley Jones – was catchy, upbeat, and like nothing else, and by 1976, had sold half a million copies.
Have a look at 126 of the most popular toys from the ’40s that millions of kids found under their Christmas trees back in 1948, courtesy of Santa… or from mom and dad.
Bad News Bears, about a drunken ex-pitcher who transforms a bedraggled group of kids into a winning little-league baseball team, won raves for showing kids as real people.
See some of the dozens of the most popular vintage board games from the ’50s, including Easy Money, Alfred Hitchcock’s WHY, Summit and more fifties fun.
Christmas goes to the dogs! Here are 8 adorable antique Christmas postcards with dogs, plus a tale of how some boys got together and gave their pups their own holiday party.
Featuring stars like Morgan Freeman and Rita Moreno, ‘The Electric Company’ was a fab ’70s TV show for kids too old for Sesame Street. With lots of humor and music, this troupe made reading fun.
Here are just a few of the toys you could find at a Woolworth’s store in the ’50s – the old discount retailer that seemed to sell just about everything!
Look back at all of these talking dolls from the ’60s! Just pull the string – or the ‘Magic Ring’ – and you never know what these toys will say next!
When Dr Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas! originally aired in December 1966 no one expected the cartoon to become a part of American pop culture legend.
Leave it to the kids if you want an honest opinion of TV’s effect on family life (1955) by Jack Cluett – June 1955 When
The Addams Family TV series portrayed the everyday life of one kooky and spooky family. Although the show had a huge impact on pop culture, it only ran for two seasons – from 1964 to 1966. Meet the cast and hear the snappy theme here!
We asked some very blunt questions – and got 350,000 equally candid replies – and a good deal of hope for the American family. Here’s what people had to say.
This vintage playhouse from the ’60s is a real house, with a Dutch front door and hearts and flowers dormers and a white picket fence.
Why so much excitement? Because the teacher brings a basket brimming with weepuls — doughnut-hole-sized bits of brightly colored fur with shaky eyes and sticky feet.
See vintage Milton Bradley board games like Uncle Wiggily, Candy Land, Go to the Head of the Class, Chutes & Ladders, Stratego, Concentration and others!
Take a look at the top 50 old-fashioned baby names for girls from 1900 for a few names that don’t even rank in the top 1000 today.
In the early 1940s, Whitman’s Chocolates heavily promoted their product as the ideal Mother’s Day gift — and they laid the guilt on thick. “There is no hurt like forgetting.”
For the picture-perfect housewife of the ’50s, the kitchen was the heart of the home. And the heart of the kitchen was the refrigerator/freezer combo – the kind of luxury that mother and grandmother could have only dreamed of!
While the term “early infantile autism” was first coined by Dr Leo Kanner of the Johns Hopkins Hospital in 1943, for decades beyond that, autism
Although the story below was the topic of the 1994 made-for-TV movies Death of a Cheerleader/A Friend to Die For, this story has personal meaning, because I was another teen girl at the same school.
To make any kitchen cozier and more welcoming! start by rethinking it as a room, not just a place to cook. Here are some ideas for how to make your kitchen work both ways.
This TV movie debuted in 1973, and played occasionally in reruns at least until the 1980s. The Incredible, Indelible, Magical, Physical, Mystery Trip: Musical fantasy
Surprise baby is puzzling doctors – Mother had no idea baby was coming until doctor brought her into the world
Back in the ’80s, when disposable diapers were still somewhat of a novelty, the biggest brands were Pampers, Huggies & Luvs — all of whom continue to dominate the market. Here’s a look back at these vintage disposable diaper brands!
“How did he propose?” was asked in a series of nationally-syndicated newspaper columns during the early 1920s. Here’s a selection of some of the best engagement stories – from the sweet and simple to the too-cute-for-words.
The expensive facts: Can you afford a baby? (1976) By Richard Flaste NEW YORK — Forget, for a moment, the buzzing confusion that greets infants
Take a look back at the most popular names for dogs from the 1870s!
Can you guess what was the #1 evening pastime according to nearly half of the people interviewed in a 1974 Gallup survey?
When it comes to diapers, all the absorbency in the world won’t help, if it’s not in the right place. That’s why we shaped Kimbies like a baby, instead of making it square.
Here, see a dozen classic old-fashioned board games that are freshly-made, but look just like you remember… or, at least, pretty close.
Find out how to make an assortment of jolly snowmen desserts with these retro recipes: two made of cake, one of popcorn, the others cookie dough.
The Hula Hoop fad had millions of children and adults shaking their hips to make the hoop spin. See what the craze was all about – and how to hoop!
Parenting advice from long ago: When a baby does not want to sleep, either it has been spoiled and actually trained to be wakeful by a thoughtless mother, or it is in need of medical care.
When I was a kid, we had the same desire to loot and pillage and rape as these kids today, we were as savage as kids always are, but at the same time, we knew that our parents and all other grownups were unalterably opposed to it, and we didn’t do it.
Ozzie and Harriet Nelson, with their progeny David and Rick, are synonymous with the American family image both on and off television. The Nelson boys are perhaps the only people who have literally grown up before the eyes of millions of weekly viewers.
Have you ever wondered about Mother’s Day — like how it got started? In the early years of the 20th century, Anna Jarvis started a movement that spread throughout the world: the custom of observing the second Sunday in May as Mother’s Day.
Did you ever think that every first or last name must originally have meant something? It originally meant something, and was intended to be applicable to the person who first bore it.
True autism is defined by specific characteristics — characteristics guaranteed to have any mother, babysitter, and even many doctors climbing the wall.
