by david allan van nostrand | Jun 27, 2022 | Americana, Anthropology, Marketing, The Wayback Machine
In the 1950s, 60s and 70s, advertisers hired lots of second- and third-tier actors to play fictitious characters in their TV commercials. Jesse White was the lonely Maytag Repairman, Jan Miner played Madge the Manicurist for Palmolive dishwashing liquid, Nancy Walker...
by david allan van nostrand | Jun 20, 2022 | Americana, Anthropology, Marketing, The Wayback Machine
The Chicago World’s Fair was opened to the first of 27 million visitors when U.S. president Grover Cleveland pushed a button and the newfangled electric lighting dazzled goggle-eyed fairgoers who only knew lanterns and candles. PBS tells us “Visitors gawked at...
by david allan van nostrand | Jun 13, 2022 | Case Study, Items in the News
“There’s a holdup in the Bronx, Brooklyn’s broken out in fights. There’s a traffic jam in Harlem that’s backed up to Jackson Heights. There’s a Scout troop short a child, Khrushchev’s due at Idlewild; Car 54, Where Are You?” The...
by david allan van nostrand | Jun 6, 2022 | Point of view, The Wayback Machine, Using Information
The ship was on its way from Crete to Rome when a ferocious storm struck. At the mercy of gale winds and violent waves, the ship was perilously close to sinking. The crew were forced to do the only thing they could to try and save it: lighten the ship enough to give...