Yes, they were, Thomas. Some were really considered furniture like our early T.V.s. If you look closely at the photo, you'll just make out a knob near his hand for either volume or tuning.
What you are about to see is still true. Only the name has been changed, to protect the innocent. Common expression in junior high school:. "You've got cooties."
It is almost true that there are "no knew cooties under the sun", but sadly there is many many many more kinds of pollution in the last several decades, especially since 2011, in air, food, water and medicine than ever before in the history of the world.
Mondays I believe this was exactly like our washing machine in the 50's. We had a room in the basement about 12 x 24 with multiple clotheslines running the whole length, for hanging clothes in the winter. It was an adventure (for a 4 year old) to ride between the sheets on a tricycle. I think I mentioned this before in another post (sorry). Not a skimpy little line like this, but the only picture I could find. And then... my mother would take all those dry clothes down, "dampen" them again, wad them up in little balls, and stuff them back in the clothes basket for ironing the next day. It seemed like we ironed everything back then, except maybe socks. So much work.
@Nancy Hart And did you have one of these: stuck into a quart bottle to sprinkle the clothes? Later years, they of course made them of plastic. The aluminum one could be dropped on it's head, dented, and continued to serve....... Frank
I actually think I still have one of those. I did the last time I looked which has been a looooong time.
@Shirley Martin Gosh, I haven't seen one since I went out on my own, 20 years old! My first wife ironed almost nothing, my second irons less than nothing! There is ow a T-V commercial playing in which wrinkled clothing on parents is decried by their young son. Frank
Christmas ornaments I remember from our tree in the 1950's. Lead tinsel. Bubble Lights. They are now making retro copies of these and the ones below.
@Nancy Hart As a small child, I recall having 2 toadstool ornaments which each year presented themselves for display when the year-earlier forgotten box was brought out. I think they were particularly liked because of their uniqueness. They looked like this, with a spring clip to hold them onto a branch: They were, of course, glass, and I broke one. Following years, I kinda grieved for the remaining one's loneliness. Frank
I remember going Christmas shopping with my mom when I was a little kid, and it was always a fun time, and the shoppers all seemed to be enjoying themselves, unlike the shoppers we sometimes see nowadays. We would travel to Spokane, the nearest larger city from our little town, and they had the large department stores like The Crescent, and Bon Marche. The stores were so big that they would take up most of a city block, and all of the outside windows had Christmas displays, some of them moving ones. Before we even went inside to shop, my mom and I would walk around those blocks that had the window displays, stopping to admire each one. After we went inside, there were even more Christmas displays, and one whole floor was called “Toyland”, and that was where Santa could be found, and had a lot of realistic displays, like Santa’s elves hard at work making toys, and things like that. Now, it seems like every one has to rush to find the sales, and we shop at Walmart, which doesn’t really have any kind of Christmas displays, at least not like those 1950’s department stores had.
I learned to drive my Dad's 1938 Studebaker in 1951, at age 15. Bought my first car, a 1934 Plymouth for $35. Ran great...just needed a used muffler, which I bought and had installed for One Dollar. Got my Driver License on my 16th Birthday, July 11, 1952. We got our first TV set in 1951, a 17" Packard Bell. Prior to that, we all curled up around the big Zenith Console Radio-Phonograph (it played 78 RPM records), and listened to family sitcoms. The Korean War was going on at the time, but it was over before I graduated from High School. The Ice Man would come regularly to put in a new 50-pound cake of ice in our Ice Box, after we emptied the drip pan. Milton Berle and Sid Caesar were the big comedy/variety shows on TV in the early 1950's. Ike was President from 1953 to 1961, when JFK took over. Hal (Shown: 1938 Studebaker and 1934 Plymouth)