The Pennsylvania Trolley Museum displays era-appropriate advertising in their restored trolleys. Besides providing a real feel to what the passengers saw at the time, it also shows how society has changed, in particular the role of women.
These advertisements are reproductions, providing better color and quality than authentic advertising; other railroad museums use original ads which are faded, water damaged, torn, etc., so it was very cool to see what they might have looked like at the time.
Consumer Goods
Apparently the cola wars have been a thing for decades, though I had never heard of Red Rock Cola.
Apparently targeting the nouveau riche and female, Old Shay Beer appears to be a regional beer from the Fort Pitt Brewing Company. Surprisingly, I found no other alcoholic advertising on any of the trams (or just missed them).
My naive, uninformed take is that this is likely 1920s, based on hair style, font and color, basically the cleanliness is next to godliness message (without the explicit religious reference).
This appears more 1940s, wonder how well this would have been received during COVID.
Communism
After World War II, the new threat to American democracy was the onslaught of communism, which reach levels of absurdity, culminating with McCarthyism and the Red Scare.
Public Service Announcements
The US Food Administration was established just after the United States entered World War I to manage food supplies via rationing to ensure troops and allies were sufficiently supplied. Headed by future-president Herbert Hoover, the Food Administration continued to supply food to a devastated Europe following the end of hostilities.
The Nazi swastika makes this World War II, the US Employment Service Office was created in 1933 to help citizens find jobs during the depression.
I suspect pedestrians have been at risk since horse-and-buggy days, and that no amount of advertising helps. Whether car, bus, light rail, subway, whatever, the fact is there are too many potential distractions that prevent pedestrians from noticing risks, or that modern technology makes vehicles more difficult to notice. And that’s ignoring people’s proclivity to have their face down in their phones!
Yes, totally agree that the handicap can do many jobs, especially in modern times; the flip side is that returning war veterans displaced women who had opportunities unavailable in peacetime and did these jobs well. It wasn’t until the 1970s that attitudes changed and that the percentage of women in the workforce substantially increased, especially in areas that historically did not employ women.
As a white mail, I’ve rarely run into issues; however, it’s still very much an issue. In today’s political world, I would not be surprised if religion was removed as one of those “do not ask” questions. I hear stories of race, women’s marriage status, and sexual preference and identity apparently implicitly effecting potential employment, even if explicitly those can not be reasons used to hire.
Smokey the Bear has been around since 1944 touting fire safety, and yet almost yearly we learn of a untended camp fire starting an out-of-control forest fire (almost always in California). Has there been any research on the effectiveness of the longest-running public service announcement campaign in United States history?
Boy, Have Times Changed!
Some of the advertising is so out of touch with what we expect today.
Ah, the flapper and debonair gentleman obviously knew something that we’ve lost over the last 100 years, that simply chewing gum makes smoking acceptable. Wonder if today’s cigarette manufacturers understand that gum is a gateway drug to increased smoking?!? All I’ve missed for not chewing gum.
So is this saying that nursing leads to marriage, that marriage is the expectation of all women, or that only in a traditional female occupation is there a future career? Regardless of your interpretation, this is soooooo sexist.
Hi honey, here’s your Mother’s Day present, now could you bake me your apple pie while I recover from my hard day at the office?
In the United States, women did not enjoy the right to vote until the 19th Amendment was ratified in 1920, which this ad appears to mock. And I have no idea what the black babies signify or mean. Tone deaf on two accounts.
Image Credits
All images © 2024 Scott C Sosna, the copyrights of the individual ads are unknown.
