I had big plans for a post today about love, but my main computer went into the shop last night and I am typing on the iPad, which I admit I am not very speedy at doing! So instead of a big post here, I thought I would share snippets of love advice and other […]
Category: Advice
All advice posts go here.
Tips from the S. S. United States Passenger List Booklet (1956)
My mom and stepdad are avid cruisers in their retirement years. As I type they are sailing the (reportedly rough) high seas along the coast of Australia, headed soon to New Zealand. So it was exciting for me to find a booklet in a local antiques shop from a cruise on the S.S. United States […]
The Care and Feeding of Children: Airing (1907)
My fabulous friends Laura and Dave are, in the next few weeks, about to have their lives changed by the arrival of a bouncing baby boy. Upon realizing that I had an extra copy of a book called The Care and Feeding of Children, I passed along the 1920s version (I kept the 1907 copy […]
1928: Installing a Shower-Bath
We’re in the midst of planning a bathroom renovation, and although the driving force behind it is to replace the tub with a deep one that I can actually bathe in, I was amused to find this advice about “Installing a Shower-Bath.” It appears in The House-Owner’s Book, written by Allen L. Churchill and Leonard Wickenden […]
1930: How to Be a Successful [November] Hostess
In honor of Thanksgiving week, and since many of you are probably entertaining friends or relatives in the coming days, I thought I’d bring you a bit of advice from a book I picked up while on summer vacation: How to be a Successful Hostess. Published in 1930 and written by Charlotte Clarke and Thelma […]
The Most Dire Female Crimes in Looks and Dress (1959)
One of the books that fell off my shelf during the “The Big Mineral, Virginia, Earthquake of 2011” was a paperback titled McCall’s Guide to Teen-Age Beauty and Glamour, written by Betsy Keiffer. My version is from 1959 and claims to provide “the sure-fire way to become the most charming, poised and popular girl in […]
Personal Hygiene for Young Women and Men (1920s)
For my day job, I work at the Library of Congress helping archive the Internet, and I don’t often get to see the physical stuff in our collections. So when a colleague tipped me off to some amazing films from the 1920s that had apparently been in our nitrate vault and scored by another colleague, […]
The Frighteningly Illustrated Encyclopedia of Sex (1950/1977)
I meant to post this earlier this week, but in the D.C. region we’ve been overcome in the last few days by earthquakes and impending hurricanes, so it’s been a bit hectic. As I reported over on my Facebook page, a few stacks of paperbacks fell off the tops of my bookshelves during the earthquake […]
A Helpmeet (1890)
“A compendium of valuable information for women” so describes the title page of the 1890 book The Mother’s Guide and Daughter’s Friend. It’s true, this book covers just about anything a woman of the late 1800s might need to know. The anonymous author (who suggests that if you really must find out who [she or […]
Summer Icicles (1955)
What else is there do to do on a sweltering summer day but to stay inside and blog about it? Here are some summertime tips from a book called Teen-Age Glamor, written by Adah Broadbent in 1955. These could come in handy on a day like today: When the sun is at its zenith, and the […]