Bostonian Flexaire $19.95

My favorite ad was one by Continental Airlines that boasted, “You can buy your ticket on the plane.” Fifty years ago this month Time Magazine ran that ad. A lot can change in 50 years. You can hardly buy a Coke on the plane today without three forms of identification. In 1962 you could buy a Botany 500 suit for $69.50 and dress it up with Bostonian Flexaire shoes for just $19.95. Botany 500, originally a Philadelphia based firm doesn’t appear to exist anymore but you can still buy Bostonian shoes for about 10 times the 1962 price. Leafing through several issues of Time Magazine dating back to 1962 is an interesting exercise. I heartily recommend it to those old enough to remember the year 1962, and those too young to believe that there ever was an actual year 1962. In historic terms 50 years isn’t very long. The magazine itself only goes back 88 years to 1923. There are several things you can’t miss even with only a cursory look at the magazine. The pages weren’t glossy, there was very little color photography and to say women and minorities were under represented is a gross understatement. One of the ads I loved, placed by Goodyear Tires, typifies the way we were back then. They introduced the “Captive-air Double Eagle by pointing out that a Double Eagle won’t go flat. It “carries the load for up to 100 miles until you or your wife can conveniently stop for service.” I guess back then women weren’t expected to be customers for tires. The ads then were directed mostly at men. Just a couple of years later Goodyear dipped a cautious toe into the women’s market in a backhanded way, running ads that showed a woman trying to change a tire herself but the ad was directed at man’s responsibility to keep his wife out of such predicaments. One ad that startled me was one placed by the Blue Cross Association which pointed out that Blue Cross paid out over $1.3 billion dollars in benefits in 1961. This was before Medicare and Medicaid of course. In those days Blue Cross all but owned the health insurance market. So that number probably was a reasonably good indicator of what the nation was spending on health care back then. Even if it was double that amount including out of pocket expenses, it was a pittance compared to recent years. In 2010 we spent $2.6 trillion! While our population hasn’t quite doubled in the last 50 years our healthcare expenditures are nothing less than breathtaking. One thing some advertisers did back then was include prices in their ads, something you rarely see now. Kings Men after shave went for a buck a bottle. A Ronson Big Daddy electric shaver (which “ate beards for breakfast”) could be had for just $29.50 A Zenith Piedmont, transistorized, space command, remote control TV was advertised at $575. Unlike healthcare by the way, you can buy a Zenith 50” Class 720P Plasma HDTV for $499 today. Somehow inflation got knocked completely out of the box when it came to TVs. If healthcare services were like televisions, healthcare would cost less now than it did in 1961. And x-rays would be available on wide color screens in high definition. Some of the captions that appeared in news stories would be anathema today. Oscar Brown, Jr. singer-song writer was described as a “hip negro folk poet. for example. Then there was a picture of First Lady, Jacqueline Kennedy watching a mongoose fight a cobra. The caption: “A treat for an animal lover?” And of course there were some questionable claims like Florsheim Shoes. Their ad claimed, “Florsheim introduces the square toe and again changes the shape of the nation.” And you thought the social upheaval of the Sixties was responsible for a changing nation. Western Union placed a full page ad that simply said, “To be sure to get action, send a telegram.” Imagine what the Madman who wrote that line would do with a Tweet. Looking back at the way news and advertisements were presented in the past can be a very enjoyable experience. If you were alive during the period you’re studying, it gives you a fresh perspective and can even confirm events you think you remember but wouldn’t bet on. It can also clarify and even correct some ideas you have about why the world is shaped the way it is today. If nothing else, it can make you wish you could take advantage of those Bostonians for $19.95. Copyright 2012, Len Serafino. All rights reserved.