My first Christmas was in Arlington, Virginia. My father was finishing his tour of duty as a Navy lieutenant, and mom was in forced retirement from American Airlines stewardess life (because of marriage and pregnancy). Looks like I got a teddy bear and mom got a vacuum cleaner from my ever-pragmatic father. And of course I had not the vaguest idea what would be ahead of me in the next 75 years...
What a wonderful photo! Merry Christmas, Stan.
ReplyDeleteYou don't look sorry you ruined your mothers career. Matter of fact she doesn't look sorry either, she looks quite happy with the swap. Happy jolly merry, and thanks.
ReplyDeleteShe did not have a choice.
DeleteHer career was glamorous -
Deletehttps://tywkiwdbi.blogspot.com/2011/08/twitter-of-1940s.html
- but came to an end well before my birth. In those years stewardesses needed to resign when they got married.
"She did not have a choice." Well, yes she did, Blue Female. Marriage was not mandatory in the 1940s. But, prior to the FDA approving the pill (1960) marriage typically led to child rearing and far less "planned" reproduction than we take for granted today. Mothering was a fully legitimate, full time job. My neighborhood, growing up, was nearly all full time moms. Only women in dire straits (my neighborhood was blue collar) or on a career track, that may not have included marriage, were working outside the home. Family planning, day care, etc. are very recent phenomena, for the average household, historically speaking. This is perhaps all obvious, but tends to be left out of the discussion when the case is made that women were arbitrarily oppressed in a patriarchal society. In fact, there is biological determinism in gender; sex roles followed. Widely available contraception and abortion revolutionized life in America; not ideological insights, IMO. Whether we are a better or happier society I'll leave aside. PS: Great photo and I do remember lead tinsel.
DeleteWhatever happened to tinsel?
ReplyDeleteIt got cancelled -
Deletehttps://www.romper.com/p/is-tinsel-safe-for-holiday-decorating-the-answer-is-surprisingly-complicated-15515705
Personally, I miss it.
Lead? I thought it was thin aluminum foil, then later it looked like mylar(plastic). How do they make lead that shiny.
ReplyDeleteNew info to me as well:
Delete"Lead foil was a popular material for tinsel manufacture for several decades of the 20th century. Unlike silver, lead tinsel did not tarnish, so it retained its shine. However, use of lead tinsel was phased out after the 1960s due to concern that it exposed children to a risk of lead poisoning."
Everything I’ve been able to dig up online says during/after WWI they alloyed lead with other metals and sometimes a tin coating for shine. The old fashioned tinsel icicles which were skinny, sometimes twisted, ornaments I could see a lead alloy, but not the thin flexible foils of the 50’s. Can’t find how it was supposed to have been made just lots of claims of the results.
DeleteThe other thing is the statement lead doesn’t tarnish so will stay shiny. Maybe you can differentiate between tarnish and oxidize, but anyone who has made lead plumbing joints or cast bullets will tell you it does not stay shiny.
From an article at Chemical and Engineering News:
DeleteThe 20th century brought tinsel mass production. Lyon, France, was a turn-of-the-century leader in tinsel manufacturing, but demand for copper during World War I made the tinsel trade a low priority across the globe. Aluminum, sometimes combined with cellulose acetate, was also popular but flammable.
Another choice for tinsel during this time was lead. German company Stanniolfabrik Eppstein received an imperial patent on lead tinsel in 1904. That tinsel consisted of a gray, dull lead alloy foil with shiny tin bonded on top, says Dirk Mälzer, chief executive officer of the firm’s modern-day descendant EppsteinFOILS. The other components of the lead alloy are no longer known, Mälzer says. The product was called Stanniol Lametta, from the Latin word for tin and an Italian term meaning “tiny blade.”
I remember as a young boy in 1950s placing the tinsel onto the tree then removing it to save for the next year. Sometimes would roll the brittle pieces into little egg-shaped balls and play with them.
I have similar memories, and IIRC we used to hang the tinsel one strand at a time
DeleteMy family stopped using tinsel because the cats ate it.
ReplyDeleteLovely photo!
ReplyDelete1946 was a good year for smart kids to be born. 😁
ReplyDelete