BEST. MAGAZINE. EVER.

At work, I discovered the best magazine ever. Okay, maybe not the best, but it's up there. It's called "The American Home" and it is fantastic. Someone requested something from volume XXVIII, which is June to November, 1942. I can't put it down.

I have six excellent things to share from within these issues. They are:
1. Four great IDEAs!
2. A Kleenex advert.
3. Two Windex adverts.
4. An Air Warden Shindig.
5. An article about how children can help us win the war.
6. A VICTORY DIET!

These are really amazing. If you want to see pictures of the covers from these magazines, they are posted here. Totally worth it. According to Wikipedia, it was published from 1928 to 1977. I don't know. I don't know if it was quite this amazing after the war, but during the war, like every page is about ON GUARD...the home front. Cooperating for VICTORY. I love Victory. So did they. They had Victory vacations, Victory parties, Victory dinners where everyone dressed up as vegetables from their Victory gardens. Victory hobbies, Victory everything!


Just a thought--maybe this is why we keep having problems with our wars now. Maybe if we would just buy some war bonds and take care to feed our future citizens more vegetables, and use more Bon Ami cleaner and take care of our homes since they are Second Fronts, maybe we would win our wars in the middle east. I'm just saying. Nobody invited me to an Air Warden Shindig during the war in Iraq.

Anyway, here is the first part, which is actually four parts:

IDEA! IF "Drink your orange juice, Junior!" raises a storm of stubborn objections, you can settle your tempest, in a teapot! Invite your young problem child to have "tea" with you. Lay the table just as you do for grown-up parties, with regular cups and a large teapot. No kid stuff! Make a plate of miniature, but healthy sandwiches and sit down to "tea," while your child pours. -EFFIE LEE ESTES
IDEA! CAKE FOR BABY: For baby's first birthday, pile mashed potatoes into the shape of a cake, surround with "frosting" of buttered beets or spinach, and center it with a hollowed-out cooked carrot candle holder and an asparagus stalk candle. - MRS. ELMER STOWELL
MYSTERY MAKES MONEY: If you're giving a benefit party, remember that curiosity is one of your best allies, and wrap up the white elephants instead of letting them stand out in the open for sale. People are much more likely to part with their nickels and dimes if they aren't sure of what they'll get. - MRS. DAVID CANFIELD
IDEA! MY THINKING-TIME BILLBOARD is thin wood veneer decorated with decals appropriate to the kitchen and is hung on the wall with tiny rings and glass-headed picture tacks. It holds ABC vitamin lore, perhaps a club speech to be "polished off," a lovely poem, a new recipe, or the day's menu. - MARION FISCHER
TO SAVE THE FLOOR: To eliminate those dark smudges on linoleum caused by the bottom of chromium kitchen chairs, apply Scotch tape to the parts touching the floor. - MRS. FRANK JACKLE
IDEA! Yes, it's done with mirrors--big ones or little ones, whole ones or in pieces--hung on strings or thing wires here and there in the fruit garden so that they swing and send flashes of sunlight in all directions. Robber birds just can't figure out what it's all about, so they go away from there as fast as their wings will carry them. - MAY LEWIS

These things worked in 1942, people, and they'll work now. Help us win the war! Make your babies vegetable birthday cakes!