Permanent Waves Guaranteed!

The business of hair has been around for centuries from elaborate updos to stylish bouffants.  In Hannah Campbell's Why Did They Name It...? we learn the story of a skilled stylist, Charles Nestle (born Karl Ludwig Nessler), who was fixated for years on the idea of creating a product that would imbue women's hair with permanent waves.  After much trial and error he came up with an elaborate machine that looks a lot like a contraption for torture:

 “When the inventor of the permanent waving machine, Charles Nestle, advertised the opening of his salon in New York, sixty-two women responded.  Sixty-one walked away without the permanent—frightened either by the waving apparatus itself (although it was guaranteed shock-proof) or the price.  But one woman stayed and this was the beginning of Nestle’s American success.  By 1919 a Nestle permanent was part of many women’s beauty regimen” (Campbell, following page 112).

Would you have been brave enough to stay (and pay) for this experiement on your hair, or politely decline?  Another option would've been to say to the woman behind you, "You go first!"

This process took nearly ten hours using harsh chemicals to break the bonds on the hair as it was rolled onto hot cylindrical hair rollers (electrical currents were not predictable in the 1900s) and then the hair was oxidized to maintain the newly formed curls.  This often caused hair breakage which coined the term "pocket perm" because the hairstylists would quickly tuck the broken pieces of hair in their pockets before the clients viewed their final style (Sherrow 303).

My colleague, Elisabeth, told me about a bonnet hair dryer bestowed onto her by her mother.  This contraption from the 1960s did not involve chemicals, but instead involved placing a nylon-like bag (bonnet) over your head with a hole in some vicinity around the bonnet just big enough for the tube attachment.  There was no place for the water to escape, and your hair line received a nice, itchy indentation from the bonnet's elastic rim upon finishing.  It looked a lot like this Lady Sunbeam bonnet hair dyer:

At least it was portable, and hopefully shock-proof!

Lady Sunbeam image: http://www.etsy.com/listing/75620920/lady-sunbeam-1960s-bonnet-hair-dryer

Campbell, Hannah. Why Did They Name It…?. New York, NY: Fleet Publishing Corporation, 1964. Print.

Sherrow, Victoria.  Encyclopedia of Hair: A Cultural History. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2006. Print.

Kosciusko, 1955.

This morning I was doing a little searching in a couple of reels of microfilm and not only did I find exactly what I was looking for (info on a family home; an obituary), but I also found some entertaining tidbits, especially in the March 10, 1955 edition of the Kosciusko Star-Herald. Like what, you ask? Well. . .

1. From the Personals:
Mar. 8
Dear John:
Please come back home! Didn’t realize it meant so much to you!
--Mary

Feel free to suggest what it is Mary and John were arguing about. My guess is that she threw away his bottle cap collection.

2. There is a section called “At the Hospital” that lists everyone currently in the local hospital! No wonder everyone in a small town knows everyone’s business. In 1955, it was in the paper!

3. A shoe ad from Penney’s offers “SHOES for the entire FAMILY!” What is notable is that in every description of the shoes (baby shoes, pumps, something called "vamps,") there is the added detail that they are also “sanitized.” I am all for shoe sanitizing (especially at a bowling alley), but I am not quite sure why new shoes needed to be sanitized--or why this was a selling point!

4. I was delighted to know that in 1955, ear-piercing was becoming popular:
The old-fashioned custom of pierced ears is returning. The Jewelry Industry Council says that manufacturers report an increasing demand for earrings to fit pierced ears. The council says two factors probably influence the revival: comfort and economy. When today’s woman invests quite a bit of money in earrings, she wants to make sure they won’t get lost.

When I told Elisabeth this, she told me about the method her mother used in order to pierce her ears: some crazy screw-in earrings called “self-piercers.” From the ever-interesting Wikipedia:

Another method for piercing ears, first made popular in the 1960s, was the use of sharpened spring-loaded earrings known as self-piercers, trainers, or sleepers, which gradually pushed through the earlobe. However, these could slip from their initial placement position, often resulting in more discomfort, and many times would not go all the way through the earlobe without additional pressure being applied. This method has fallen into disuse due to the popularity of faster and more successful piercing techniques.

Funny that this method has fallen into disuse. It sounds so effective. . .and so pleasant.

Happy Easter, Again.

One day, all of our archives will be back up (we keep telling ourselves that, anyway) and it won't be so hard to find older posts. Here's part of one from around Easter last year featuring interesting names from the U.S. Census, 1900-1930. You know what? I still find them entertaining!

Daffodil Wright
Egg Flattum
Bunny Warren
April Showers
May Flowers
Spring Hatcher
Spring Parks
Spring Poole
Easter Lily
Easter Bunny
Easter Cross
Tulip Pitts
Tulip Summers
Zinnia Cooner [note: male]
Zinnia Funk
Calvary King
Ernest Salvation
Victory Cross
Jesus Man [female!]
Jelly Bean Cook [male!]
Pansy Wood
Pansy Ham
Magnolia Posey
Lent Johnson [female]
Bloom Green [male]
Peter Tisket
Royal Tasket

And in other Easter news, check out this article from Time.com: "Top Ten Things You Didn't Know about Easter."



Have a great weekend, whether you wear a hat like these or not.

Wisdom from Life

I love shoes. I think most women like (love) shoes. I’m always keeping an eye out for those new shoes that would be perfect with my wardrobe. I recently saw a pair at Nine West that I have been tempted--so tempted--to buy.

And then, I saw this:
It was prepared by the War Advertising Council and appeared in the June 5, 1944 issue of Life Magazine. The War Advertising Council was founded in 1941, and is now known as simply the “Ad Council.” The War Advertising Council campaigned during WWII to encourage Americans to buy war bonds and do other things to support the war effort, including conservation of money and resources.
They are also the ones responsible for Rosie the Riveter, Smokey the Bear, McGruff the crime dog, and Vince and Larry, the crash-test dummies. They now have campaigns that cover all types of issues, such as energy efficiency, lifelong literacy, and cyber bullying prevention. To learn more about the Ad Council, visit http://www.adcouncil.org/

This particular ad grabbed my attention right away. I thought it was very interesting, especially when you consider the state of our current economy. When I was younger, I watched my grandmother take a piece of used aluminum foil, wash it off, dry it, and put it in a drawer. I thought that was so strange! I had never seen anyone do that before.

What I didn’t realize at the time was that my grandmother, who grew up during the Great Depression, learned to conserve from a very young age. She continued to do so even when she was 80 years old and had plenty of money to buy more aluminum foil.

While I will probably never be one to start saving pieces of aluminum foil, I can definitely learn from the actions of my grandmother and others who lived through the Great Depression and WWII. To them, conservation was a necessary part of life. It was a responsibility that they gladly carried for themselves, their families, and their country.

The ad in Life Magazine is a little snapshot of the history of our nation. But the more I think about it, the more I think that it applies to my life today.

I guess that those multi-leather Nine West flats with the cute little buckle will just have to wait. At least, for now.

References:
"United States War Message." Advertisement. Life Magazine 5 June 1944: 111.