"They're Washable!"
Jul. 11th, 2008 01:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gerisullivan"'Twinzy' toys can be chewed and washed. Have been used by many a baby for teething purposes."
Yup, the copywriter got that caption right. It's under a black and white photo showing an adorable Twinzy Toy elephant and a familiar Twinzy Toy horse in the December 1940 issue of Baby Talk magazine. It's the upper right image in the auction listing picture. Image size: 2-3/8"x 1-3/4".
Baby Talk has a cover price of 15 cents and claims it was read by over 100,000 new mothers every month. The fact that my copy is stamped "Compliments of Dy-Dee Wash, Inc." suggests just where those 100,000 new mothers were coming from. The fact that there isn't a natural spot in the layout of the cover for a diaper service or other gift stamp suggests that they were trying to maintain plausible deniability, or perhaps just that it was a different time.
Google and Wikipedia is my friend: BabyTalk is America' oldest baby magazine. And, yes, even the publisher's website agrees that it was launched as a supplement to a cloth diaper delivery service. It was only 5 years old when this issue was published; Twinzy Toys were 22. "Many a baby," indeed.
I'll enjoy looking through the entire 40-page issue, and also the newspaper clippings tucked inside pages 16-17. They all appear to be from the Decatur Herald. My favorite for the "have times really changed" contest is the Your Baby and Mine column. The headline reads "New Mothers Always Feel Helpless and Incompetent" -- not quite how a headline writer would handle the topic today, but it's still a common experience. Myrtle Meyer Eldred's lead, however.... Well, it tells a different story:
"Every mother who brings home a 10 to 14-day-old baby from the hospital..."
Right.
Another favorite is an ad at the back of the magazine: "Why not COLOR MOVIES of Baby?" the headline asks. "Baby is a '2-Thoother'...then a '4-Toother' the comes the first day in a high chair...the baby learns to walk. Catch all these fleeting, adorable changes, the first sweet expressions, on your own movie film.
"In color it won't cost much more.
"Making pictures, whether movies or snap shots, is simpler than ever today..."
That's from Medo, 15 West 47th Street, New York City.
There's a small ad for "Planned Families" offering a free "Happiness in Marriage" booklet describing how to use the Steri-Graph Calculator natural method of birth control based on the Ogino-Knaus Method. Offered by the National Hygienic Society in Springfield, Mo.
Most of the content addresses concerns of every era -- nutritional needs, eating and sleeping habits, parenting problems, family relationships, and much of the advice looks quite sensible. But the editorial...oh, yes, it was December, 1940. Here's "What's Going on in Baby World":
"To the lengthening list of urgently needed equipment and supplies, cabled from London to Bundles for Britain, Inc.[...], childen's cots have been added. And today through 300 branches scattered over 43 States, representatives of this great humanitarian organization are appealing for funds to buy and ship them overseas.
"The request, which lists children's cots among the "immediate requirements" of a war-ridden British people furnishes an ominous sidelight on the grim picture of England as it is today. [...]
"These courageous youngsters, like the adult refugees, are obliged to spend their disturbed nights in air-raid shelters, suffering the discomfitures of overcrowding, lack of bedding and fret air, and sometimes insufficient nourishment to supply resistance to the chill and damp of concrete floors in the catacombs in which they must live.
"The call for children's cots came to Bundles for Britain first in a cable urging the shipment of surgical, medical and hospital supplies. This was followed within a few days by a second and more urgent request, which read:
"Need children's cots, primarily (for) shelter use. One thousand at start would not be too many."
The editorial goes on to describe the child-size iron bedstead, mattress, two woolen blankets, two unbleached sheets, and a pillow and case...costing about $10 for the complete unit...and the fundraising efforts and results to that date.
There was an entire decade and more of hardship ahead. The second World War, staggering losses, the horror that was the Holocaust, and then, eventually rebuilding. And, yes, there were celebrations, too. Celebrations and babies galore. Many of those babies played with and chewed on Twinzy Toys, including yours truly. A few of us are lucky enough to still have some.
Yup, the copywriter got that caption right. It's under a black and white photo showing an adorable Twinzy Toy elephant and a familiar Twinzy Toy horse in the December 1940 issue of Baby Talk magazine. It's the upper right image in the auction listing picture. Image size: 2-3/8"x 1-3/4".
Baby Talk has a cover price of 15 cents and claims it was read by over 100,000 new mothers every month. The fact that my copy is stamped "Compliments of Dy-Dee Wash, Inc." suggests just where those 100,000 new mothers were coming from. The fact that there isn't a natural spot in the layout of the cover for a diaper service or other gift stamp suggests that they were trying to maintain plausible deniability, or perhaps just that it was a different time.
Google and Wikipedia is my friend: BabyTalk is America' oldest baby magazine. And, yes, even the publisher's website agrees that it was launched as a supplement to a cloth diaper delivery service. It was only 5 years old when this issue was published; Twinzy Toys were 22. "Many a baby," indeed.
I'll enjoy looking through the entire 40-page issue, and also the newspaper clippings tucked inside pages 16-17. They all appear to be from the Decatur Herald. My favorite for the "have times really changed" contest is the Your Baby and Mine column. The headline reads "New Mothers Always Feel Helpless and Incompetent" -- not quite how a headline writer would handle the topic today, but it's still a common experience. Myrtle Meyer Eldred's lead, however.... Well, it tells a different story:
"Every mother who brings home a 10 to 14-day-old baby from the hospital..."
Right.
Another favorite is an ad at the back of the magazine: "Why not COLOR MOVIES of Baby?" the headline asks. "Baby is a '2-Thoother'...then a '4-Toother' the comes the first day in a high chair...the baby learns to walk. Catch all these fleeting, adorable changes, the first sweet expressions, on your own movie film.
"In color it won't cost much more.
"Making pictures, whether movies or snap shots, is simpler than ever today..."
That's from Medo, 15 West 47th Street, New York City.
There's a small ad for "Planned Families" offering a free "Happiness in Marriage" booklet describing how to use the Steri-Graph Calculator natural method of birth control based on the Ogino-Knaus Method. Offered by the National Hygienic Society in Springfield, Mo.
Most of the content addresses concerns of every era -- nutritional needs, eating and sleeping habits, parenting problems, family relationships, and much of the advice looks quite sensible. But the editorial...oh, yes, it was December, 1940. Here's "What's Going on in Baby World":
"To the lengthening list of urgently needed equipment and supplies, cabled from London to Bundles for Britain, Inc.[...], childen's cots have been added. And today through 300 branches scattered over 43 States, representatives of this great humanitarian organization are appealing for funds to buy and ship them overseas.
"The request, which lists children's cots among the "immediate requirements" of a war-ridden British people furnishes an ominous sidelight on the grim picture of England as it is today. [...]
"These courageous youngsters, like the adult refugees, are obliged to spend their disturbed nights in air-raid shelters, suffering the discomfitures of overcrowding, lack of bedding and fret air, and sometimes insufficient nourishment to supply resistance to the chill and damp of concrete floors in the catacombs in which they must live.
"The call for children's cots came to Bundles for Britain first in a cable urging the shipment of surgical, medical and hospital supplies. This was followed within a few days by a second and more urgent request, which read:
"Need children's cots, primarily (for) shelter use. One thousand at start would not be too many."
The editorial goes on to describe the child-size iron bedstead, mattress, two woolen blankets, two unbleached sheets, and a pillow and case...costing about $10 for the complete unit...and the fundraising efforts and results to that date.
There was an entire decade and more of hardship ahead. The second World War, staggering losses, the horror that was the Holocaust, and then, eventually rebuilding. And, yes, there were celebrations, too. Celebrations and babies galore. Many of those babies played with and chewed on Twinzy Toys, including yours truly. A few of us are lucky enough to still have some.
