Re: [OT] Memories from the 50s

On 2025-07-12 7:12 PM, anim8rfsk wrote:

Rhino <no_offline_contact@example.com> wrote:

This article showing 20 photos of things from the 50s came up in my news
feed today and I rather surprised by a couple of them:
>
https://www.buzzfeed.com/ajanibazile/1950s-photos
>
Photo #8, showing a refrigerator mounted sideways on the wall was brand
new to me. I never saw anything like that at any time in my life. I
suspect this must have been a fad that vanished very quickly after it
started.

 I actually saw a photo of one of those on Facebook last week. It was the
first time I’ve ever seen one as well.
 

>
Photo #9 showing the ad for cigarettes that were recommended for
pregnant women actually shocked me. I know that cigarettes were being
widely endorsed in those days, both by real doctors and actors who
pretended to be doctors but the idea of a cigarette marketed
specifically to pregnant women with the tag line "When you're smoking
for two" was worse than anything I'd seen previously.
>
The medical bills for a birth and for a week in hospital after an
operation were also a surprise. I shudder to imagine what that would
cost an uninsured person today in the US....
>

 Think how much higher it would’ve been if she wasn’t smoking for two.
 

I was struck by the ignorance of the person writing the article when
they chose Photo #12 and described the item as a typewriter when it is
clearly an adding machine. It actually SAYS adding machine in the ad
blurb but that was apparently not a big enough clue!
>

 Sigh
 

I'm perplexed by Photo #17 which purports to be a "double oven". I'm not
sure what a "double oven" but the name suggests that it would have TWO
separate oven compartments in it; perhaps each could be set to a
different temperature if you wanted to cook two separate items that
needed different temperatures.

 Exactly right
  I don't see anything resembling a second

oven in the picture: it looks just like pretty much every stove I've
ever seen with a stove top containing several burners, an oven, and
finally a drawer for various cooking supplies like pans or whatever.
>

 That’s a double oven. The top oven has the cloth hanging over the handle
and below it you can see another handle on a shorter unit. It’s most likely
that the larger top oven is a regular oven and the smaller unit is just for
broiling.
 

Without the lower one being open, I can't prove it isn't an oven but given that it's lacking a window and is positioned exactly where the drawer under the oven normally is, I'm very skeptical that it is actually a second oven.
--
Rhino