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!
1953
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.
Imagine being able to call someone when you *weren’t at home*! It was a big deal back in the day. See the history of vintage payphones & phonebooths here!
See vintage car wreck photos of 35 of old auto accidents and crashes from the 1910s to the 1950s – before standardized seatbelts and airbags.
If you’re remodeling a 1950s home exterior, advice from that decade says to follow a simple, straightforward style. Your house will look better and cost less.
What’s the history of Necco Wafers? Here’s a look back at how a company made the candy such a big hit that it would be on shelves for the next 100 years.
Take a look back at dozens of vintage gift sets for women from the ’50s, ’60s & ’70s, filled with fancy fragrances, makeup, skincare products & more!
Seven-Up floats! Ice cream and 7-up – what a cool, cool combination for a summer afternoon! Get a few different vintage float recipes here.
The old-fashioned Lustre-Creme shampoo was famous for hiring famous actresses to promote their product. Here’s a look at some of the stars!
Albert Einstein was a man whose life, philosophies, discoveries and theories changed the way we looked at the world, and at life itself. Find out about him here.
Old-fashioned spice cake – a deliciously flavorful cake – was especially popular in the ’50s. Try making this homemade version and find out why!
Velvet crumb cake has the fluffy, loose texture, the old-time good eating, of Grandmother’s butter cakes. But it’s even more tender!
The Andrews Sisters were three little girls from Minneapolis, who resolved when young that they were going to be the greatest girl singing trio ever. And they were.
Take these vintage centerpiece ideas from the ’50s, ’60s & ’70s, and put your own spin on them for a modern-day retro-inspired holiday or party table!
In these vintage ads from the ’50s, the message was clear: ‘If you don’t wash with Lysol, you’ll smell bad, and your husband won’t love you anymore.’
Scroll down and take a stroll into the iconic orange-roofed ice cream restaurants – vintage Howard Johnson’s – that were so popular in the fifties & sixties.
Vintage card tables and other folding furniture were a staple in every home decades ago.
In this ’50s recipe for springtime fancy cake, a homemade yellow cake is spread with green buttercream frosting, then adorned with marshmallow flowers.
This beautiful pink royal rose chiffon cake is a light-textured and elegant old-fashioned dessert. Get the recipe from the ’50s here!
More than just a way to dry off, these retro towels from the 1950s gave vintage bathrooms color and style! Take a look back at this functional fifties decor.
Here are a few ways to make a happy Easter surprise — cute vintage Easter cakes, using ideas and recipes from the fifties & sixties!
See clips of past Civil Defense films from the ’50s & ’60s, plus how to make a bomb shelter, what to stock, and more details from the Cold War era.
Here’s a classic timesaving, money-saving dictating machine – the vintage Dictaphone Time-Master – plus other old dictation devices.
Years ago, the United States Brewers Foundation ran a series of kindly, old-fashioned ads for beer, all with the tagline ‘Beer belongs – enjoy it.’ Here’s a look back.
Look back at more than 40 different styles of vintage window coverings from the ’50s – draperies, blinds, shutters, curtains & more.
Take a look back at some retro shelf edging papers & liners – used especially to decorate open shelving in vintage kitchens without a lot of cabinets.
Here are some of the coolest vintage 1950s ice cream flavors, including several long-gone flavors. (And they seriously loved pineapple and cherry!)
Treet is the meat (1945) The meal-ready meat most folks like best! Yes! Treet is the Meat! More people choose Treet than any other meal-ready
Look back at more than 200 vintage license plates issued through the 20th century – including ones for every American state & territory – plus some special plates, too.
Try one of these vintage 7-Up cake recipes with lemon-lime soda! ‘Never before have you had a cake so light, so airy, so high, and with such a delightful new flavor.’
United Airlines flights in the ’50s offered a whole different kind of experience compared to now. Here, see what the travel industry hoped to provide to passengers!
Actress Betty White never gives up – and that’s the secret to her success. Here’s why, in the words of none other than her mother.
Years ago, young folks gathered after school and on Saturday nights in drugstores all across America and listened to vintage jukeboxes just like these!
Come see what kinds of retro Christmas cards people sent each other to celebrate the holidays back in the fifties and sixties!
In the ’50s, they wanted to know what secretary wouldn’t prefer a job that included one of these vintage IBM electric typewriters? Compared to manuals, they were so easy to use.
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.
Model kits: Build guided missile ships… jet planes (1956) with Revell Authentic Kits from Woolworth’s U.S.S. BOSTON, first Guided Missile Cruiser, built 1955. Revell model
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!
Here’s a look back at some popular vintage Christmas lights, along with several old-fashioned examples from the ’40s, ’50s & ’60s of this kind of warm and wonderful holiday decor.
Remember these retro cups so popular years ago? Colorama, Heller’s vintage “Colorized” aluminum tumblers, were beloved for as being unbreakable, lightweight, inviting to use and smartly designed.
Long nose? Thin mouth? Here are some ways to minimize your facial flaws with the help of vintage-style glasses, with based on fashion tips direct from the fifties!
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
Try these delicious vintage holiday recipes for a Devil’s Food, Cherry-go-round, Holiday star, candlelight, gingerbread, White Christmas cake and other festive classic treats!
Despite his military expertise, President Eisenhower didn’t know how to dial a phone. Even after being given the 50 millionth telephone, Ike was apparently still befuddled by the new tech.
Here are some delicious dinners to try from the ’50s — three different vintage country fried chicken recipes that you can make in your oven or on the stove.
Imagine the chewy, chocolately goodness of brownies rich with pecans. That’s the filling in Betty Crocker’s chocolate brownie pie recipe
Lemon cheesecake pie appeals to menfolks and everybody – because it’s not too sweet, thanks to the tang of fresh lemons. Try it!
In the ’50s, doctors started testing Thorzaine on patients – a drug capable of powerful, sweeping effects on the emotions, used for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.
For the ’50s housewife, laundry was huge: the love you had for your kitchen paled only in comparison to the adoration you felt for your washer and dryer.
This recipe from the 1950s for frosty pineapple pie is super easy to make, and doesn’t need any special ingredients. Best of all, the recipe can be easily adapted to make other kinds of delicious fruity pies!
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!
This classic 1950s recipe for a caramel-pineapple upside-down cake was one of the first to combine the popular tropical fruit with caramel candy cubes to make a tasty dessert.
Take a look at this vintage White Rain shampoo commercial from 1954 — so achingly wholesome and sincere, it’s easy to see why some ’50s stereotypes persist today.
Originally designed as a show car for General Motors’ Motorama display in early 1953, the Chevrolet Corvette generated so much buzz, GM decided to put the ’53 Corvette into production.
The top-rated TV show, I Love Lucy, ran from 1951 to 1957 – around the time these magazines with Lucille Ball on the cover were published.
A lighthearted look back at the 50s housewife during the sunny days of yesteryear, when a woman’s home was her castle — and her kitchen was the heart of that home.
This collection of vintage evening gowns is so over-the-top, you don’t have to even like fashion to appreciate the oomph factor of these formal dresses.
Get some retro decorating advice and see floors from 1950s homes featuring creatively striped and checkerboard flooring patterns with two or more colors.
Here, see a dozen classic old-fashioned board games that are freshly-made, but look just like you remember… or, at least, pretty close.
Take a look at a few of the many ways the recipe for a Thanksgiving staple – the old-fashioned green bean casserole – has been made over the years.
This Thanksgiving, we invite you to revisit pumpkin pie of the 1950s with three glamorous vintage recipes — from traditional to unique — that have been passed down through the generations.
These amazing vintage evening dresses were as glittery and shimmering as they were form-fitting and unforgiving of an extra ounce. But there’s more to the story beyond just gorgeous models and stunning gowns.
Suppose you were a young woman anxious to find a husband, get married and settle down. What would be the best sort of job for you? Here’s what a survbey ?
Fill your cookie jar today with these really prize-winning peanut brittle cookies made with peanuts, vanilla and fresh-ground cinnamon. They were the Best of Class Winner in Pillsbury’s 1958 Bake-Off!
Movie stars love this black bottom pie. You’ll love it, too. Key to its fluffy, chiffon lightness is Knox unflavored gelatin. Make Hollywood’s favorite Brown
In an age when comparatively few people have room for ball gowns, top French fashion designers live in surroundings which make their most opulent evening dresses look like the natural outfits to wear.
What were 1950s washing machines like? Here are some old-fashioned washers with high-end features for their time. These brands paid big bucks to promote these laundry appliances!
California – particularly Los Angeles – is notorious for having awful traffic, but as this video and these photos from the 1950s prove, that bumper-to-bumper freeway crawl is nothing new.
Ideas for more than 20 vintage recipes for hot dogs, including Pronto dogs, Frank-roll slices, hotdog boats, hot dog-bacon roll-ups, franks in blankets, Snappy frank-cheese rolls and lots more. Check ’em out!
The way life is carried on now seems near discovery (1953) By Watson Davis, Director, Science Service – Rocky Mount Evening Telegram (North Carolina) December
An expert said American dating and courtship is characterized by romance… After a brief, ecstatic acquaintanceship, they believe that they can go on living happily ever after.
If you’re a salad-lover, but you’ve run out of new salad ideas, this will be the best news you’ve read in years! It’s a completely new kind of salad. One that wins applause — especially from men — like no other salad you ever served!
Fun to make and fun to eat (plus super easy), your family will love this vintage recipe for porcupine meatballs!
So for dessert tonight, why not start make a caramel surprise chiffon pie with that true caramel flavor you’ll never forget? Your family will love you for it.
Turns out the majority of baking techniques our great-grandparents used to make a cake from scratch still apply today.
Vintage Los Angeles in the 1950s Take a retro peek back at the Los Angeles area of yesteryear! In addition to the huge cars (plus
Woman’s Day magazine launched in 1937 as an inexpensive in-house magazine for customers of A&P grocery stores. By the time A&P sold the brand in
This Pride O’Pumpkin cake is a real holiday cake… fragrant with spices… crunchy with tender-sweet nuts. Get the retro recipe from the ’50s here!
Campfire marshmallow fudge cake (1925) 2 tablespoons butter 2 cups sugar 4 squares bitter chocolate, melted 2 eggs 2 cups cake flour 2 teaspoons baking
Why were pink & yellow kitchens popular inn the ’50s? Because it wasn’t enough for homeowners to decorate the kitchen with just one color – they had to combine them, for a pastel buttermint effect.
Presenting America’s finest sports car… the 1953 Nash-Healey Pictured here is the exquisitely beautiful car that started the whole new sports trend in the American
No fresh milk on hand? Here are some recipes you can make with canned evaporated milk – all coming to you from the 1950s!
Avisco Rayon, blended with silk or dacron, has a soft, lightweight touch which is so enjoyable in the summer. Handmacher tailors these superbly-fitting unlined suits in fabrics that owe more than half their composure to Avisco rayon fibers.
Who needs a nursery? Make your kitchen the happy hub of your home! (1963) A playful candy-striped rounded kitchen from the 1960s MORE: 16 kitchen
Studio ticket stubs saved by a kid in 1953 grew into a massive 10,000 piece collection of TV history
Ticket stubs from Joel Tator’s massive collection reveal what it was like to attend live TV tapings in the 1940s and 1950s.
Enchanted evening by Zenith. (1950-1951) The setting: You… your guests, 1951 Black Magic TV with reflection-proof screen. Supreme moment! When Zenith Black Magic Television comes
1955 Cadillac: Styling the whole world admires We doubt seriously that any other automotive design ever inspired such deep or such widespread admiration as that
California’s versatile, economical wines are for all America, anytime… Let wine spark up your mealtime, every day.
Here’s that new ”morning freshness” idea you hear so much about these days… What they do is take a cup of new, improved Ovaltine each night at bedtime…
Step back in time to explore the iconic world of 1950s candy. From classic confections to sugary inventions, discover the sweets that helped shape a generation.
Why not go native at your next party with a retro Hawaiian luau party? It’s now officially as American as a New England clambake.
