Blogging about lunch boxes yesterday got me thinking about school supplies and how they’ve changed through the years. My daughter’s school provides lengthy, specific supply lists to parents each summer. On the first day of school, her backpack contains a spine-disfiguring load of tissues, hand sanitizer, spiral notebooks, folders, loose-leaf paper, and glue sticks.
School-supply shopping was simpler in the 1970s. My teachers rarely required anything specific—as long as you had paper and pencils, you could organize your work any way you wanted. Once, in seventh grade, I tried a complicated system of color-coded folders and spiral notebooks for each class. The more common organizational tool, however, was a binder. (Strangely, this is one supply my daughter’s school bans.)
Many people have fond memories of their Trapper Keepers. You can find tributes to them across the web, and people snap up vintage ones on Ebay. The Trapper Keeper even inspired a South Park episode.
My first and favorite binder, however, was the Trapper Keeper’s forgotten older sibling: The Mead Data Center.
As far as I can tell, Mead introduced the Data Center in 1975, three years before they released the Trapper Keeper. Like that later binder, the Data Center came with a detailed measurement conversion chart. Other features, according to an Etsy listing for vintage 1975 one, were a planner, a place to record your class schedule, a telephone directory, a three-year calendar, a notepad that clipped onto the binder, and a pencil holder.
Now, when I had this model in third grade, almost all these features were useless to me. But I loved the idea of having them. These extras, and the name Data Center itself, suggested a grown-up, businesslike level of organization—a level of organization I’ve never been able to reach as an actual grown up.
This second part of this commercial shows that Data Center lasted into the 1980s.
Final Fun Facts: Mead corporate history is a complicated series of acquisitions and sales. Some trivia:
In 1968, Mead spent $6 million to buy an information technology company; this company went on to develop the Lexis Nexis electronic research system, which Mead sold in 1994 for $1.5 billion.
In the 1960s, Mead also acquired Westab, the company that invented the spiral notebook and produced Big Chief tablets, a back-to-school staple for mid-century kids.
In 1992, Mead sold American Pad and Paper—Ampad—to Bain Capital. Ampad’s subsequent bankruptcy is controversial. But this transaction does allow you to connect Mitt Romney to a Trapper Keeper with only two degrees of separation.
As an adult, you have many ways to express your tastes—you do it with the clothes you wear, the cars you drive, the home décor you choose, and the statements you spew across social media platforms.
But as child anticipating the first day of school and wanting to make a strong impression, your options were limited. Your mom was still buying your clothes. School supplies were mostly bland. Only one back-to-school purchase was both an expression of your individuality and a totem connecting you to your peers: The lunch box.
The National Museum of American History is hosting a small exhibit of vintage lunchboxes. (To celebrate the exhibit’s opening, the Museum enticed ancient celebrities to pose with their younger, immortalized-in-tin representations.)
The Lunch Box Museum in Columbus, Georgia, displays a much larger selection (and has now earned a spot on my bucket list). Lunch box collecting is a bustling business online, and many web sites offer photo galleries of the best and worst lunch box specimens. (I’m pretty sure one of my schoolmates had that Exciting World of Metrics box.)
I grew up in the 1970s, the pinnacle of lunch box history. I remember my male classmates toting NFL, superhero, Six Million Dollar Man, and Star Wars boxes. Girls’ boxes offered the full gamut of 1970s female images, from Holly Hobbie to Charlie’s Angels. Disney, the Muppets, and Peanuts were always popular. All these boxes were metal, of course, with lithographed designs on every side. (This interview with a graphic designer who collects vintage lunch boxes provides some interesting insights on the design process.)
Though I remember other people’s lunchboxes, I can’t remember having one of my own in either first or second grade. I must have eaten hot lunch every day.
I do remember my third grade lunchbox—a yellow plastic dome-shaped Snoopy box. To my best friend and me, this box seemed innovative and different. Plastic! Domed, with a Thermos that fit in the top! We both bought them; I think hers was red.
That innovative plastic, sadly, signaled the beginning of the end for the lunch box heyday. Today, my daughter takes a cloth Vera Bradley lunch bag to school. It’s pretty and easy to carry, but I don’t think it will ever grace the Smithsonian.
As a fan of old-time radio, I like to organize shows into topical playlists. The recent Olympic games inspired this list of London-themed episodes. (Part 2 of this playlist.)
“Journey for Margaret”
Screen Guild Theater, April 5, 1943
“A man can’t go on feeling forever. There’s a limit. By and by, he finds himself dead. That’s why I can’t get mad; I’m dead.” Notable Cast Members: Robert Young, who shows off his fatherly side well before Father Knows Best appeared on radio and then TV, and 6-year-old Margaret O’Brien, recreating the movie role in which she made a name for herself, literally and figuratively. Four-year-old actor Billy Severn also appeared—it must have been terrifying for the director to rely upon such young children in a live radio drama. O’Brien does a great job, and Severn is adorable. About Screen Guild Theater: This was one of several shows that condensed popular movies for radio audiences. At least the better-known Lux Radio Theater had 60 minutes to work with; 30 minute shows like Screen Guild Theater often leave only a sketchy outline of the movie plot. As John Dunning put it in The Encyclopedia of Old Time Radio, “Screen Guild always seemed like the quick economy tour, jerky and uneven, scenes knit together by thin thread and taxing a modern listener’s willingness to suspend disbelief.” Story: A war-weary American journalist and his wife, in London during the Blitz, lose their unborn child and decide to adopt a traumatized war orphan. Based Upon: The successful 1942 movie of the same name, in which Young and O’Brien also starred. The movie, in turn, was based upon the novel by journalist William L. White, and that was based on his true story of adopting a British war orphan. Life ran an interesting story on the “real Margaret” (not revealing that her name was actually Barbara), who would grow up to carry on her family’s journalistic legacy. Google-worthy References: Ack-ack—Anti-aircraft guns.
Also, when the pregnant wife and her husband share a toast, she drinks milk. This surprised me and got me wondering how long doctors have been advising pregnant women to avoid alcohol. I didn’t find a definitive answer, but this history suggests alcohol’s potential harm has long been common knowledge. My Verdict: These short movie adaptations work best when you haven’t seen the movie, which I haven’t in this case (although I want to now). As a radio story, it feels complete, and Robert Young and the children give enjoyable performances.
“Berkeley Square” Everything for the Boys, February 8, 1944
Dangerously Yours, September 24, 1944
Hallmark Playhouse, March 3, 1949
“Out of what’s wrong with this world came a better time, and somehow the same will happen out of the struggles of my world.”
Based Upon: The John L. Balderson play Berkeley Square, which was a hit when it opened in 1929. This time-travel romance was also a hit with old-time radio audiences, if you can judge by the number of shows that adapted it. Story: Peter Standish longs to leave the 20th century behind. Obsessed with the diaries of an 18th century ancestor, he soon finds himself living his ancestor’s life. Complications arise when he falls in love with the sister of the woman his ancestor married. Setting: Berkeley Square, a perennially fashionable London neighborhood. Notable Cast Members: Ronald Colman plays Peter on Everything for the Boys, a wartime dramatic anthology. Greer Garson plays his love interest, Helen. Victor Jory stars in the Dangerously Yours episode. David Niven stars in the Hallmark Playhouse version. About the Programs: Everything for the Boys ran for 21 weeks, with Colman hosting and starring in each episode and the legendary Arch Oboler writing and directing. Each episode ended with a short-wave call to fighting men overseas—this was a major technical challenge then and didn’t always work. The romantic anthology Dangerously Yours was also a short-lived 1944 show with a regular leading man—Victor Jory. After 16 episodes, it morphed into Vicks Matinee Theater. The high-toned Hallmark Playhouse presented Hollywood stars in literary adaptations. My Verdict: Without having seen or read the play, I can’t say which version adapts it most faithfully. In all three versions, the time travel is abrupt and unexplained. The Everything for the Boys script adds an extra layer of resonance to the play by giving it an explicit World-War-II context. This makes it easier to see why Peter wants to escape the 20th century, why Helen is so horrified by her vision of the future (she sees men, women, and children being herded into open graves), and why Peter feels he must return to his own time and address its challenges. Final Fun Facts: Oboler and Colman did not enjoy their collaboration. In fact, Dunning quotes Oboler as saying, “We hated each other’s guts.”
Also, Leslie Howard starred in the original Berkeley Square play and the 1933 movie version.
“It’s Always Tomorrow”
Words at War, January 2, 1945
“I’m gonna keep an eye on certain people here in England…and if they try to cheat us out of anything we’ve won in this war, then we’ll see if we can arrange another direct hit, especially for their benefit.” Based Upon: It’s Always Tomorrow by Robert St. John, a journalist whose life spanned the 20th century and whose adventures spanned the globe. (He reminisces about his career in Studs Terkel’s Coming of Age—thanks, old-time radio, for making my to-be-read list even longer.) Story: An American journalist assigned to London finds himself disgusted by out-of-touch, imperialist aristocrats. He falls in love with Polly, a bitter working-class woman, who refuses to support a war she thinks will benefit only the rich. Notable Cast Members: Cathleen Cordell, who plays Polly, went on to have a long career as a character actress in television. I think William Quinn, who plays Dave, may be the same person as Bill Quinn, another prolific TV character actor. About the Program: Words at War was a dramatic anthology that told timely stories from the world’s literal and figurative battlefronts. The New York Times called it “the boldest, hardest-hitting program” on the air. My Verdict: Once you get past some heavy-handed British stereotypes, this is an interesting, nuanced story. Polly is a shockingly unpatriotic character by wartime radio standards. At one point, she even cries, “Let Germany win! Let Germany win!” Dave, playing devil’s advocate, tries to convince her that World War II is a “people’s war.” He interviews working people who are glad to make sacrifices and an aristocrat who is paying 97.5 percent of his income in taxes, but Polly remains unconvinced. When Dave loses his leg in a bombing, I thought sure the writers would give Polly a quick attitude change. She does agree to take Dave’s place in a war plant (where he’s begun working because his newspaper superiors banned him from writing about war’s effect on “the little people”). She stresses, however, that she’s making this choice based on love, not patriotism. A reviewer of St. John’s novel noted favorably that the book “makes a passionate plea for general understanding of the bitter hatred the common people in war-torn countries feel toward rulers who quit them ingloriously, shamefully, taking with them their loot and their foolish hides.” In the 1950s, author Robert St. John was blacklisted as a Communist, a label he disavowed. It’s sad but not surprising that his concern for the world’s common people would suggest Communism to 1950s red hunters. Final Fun Fact: At one point, Dave and Polly visit a pub, where the crowd sings this song.
“Kissing for fun is like playing with a beautiful candle in a room full of dynamite!”
‘Twixt Twelve and Twenty by Pat Boone, 1958
Would you let your teenage daughter take advice from this man?
About the Author: If you’re like me, and you know little about Pat Boone besides the fact that he’s Debby’s father, you may be surprised to learn just how popular he was in the 1950s. With 38 Top 40 hits, he was second only to Elvis in chart dominance. He also had his own TV show, The Pat Boone-Chevy Showroom, and starred in 15 feature films.
Boone has put his conservative Christian beliefs into practice throughout his career, avoiding sponsors and material that he considered offensive. His most controversial career move came in 1997, with his tongue-in-cheek foray into heavy metal.
Considering his conservative background, one shouldn’t find it surprising that Boone is a Republican political activist today—but it is disappointing to see he is a birther.
When ‘Twixt Twelve and Twenty was published, Boone and his wife Shirley had been married for five years and were raising four daughters.
About the Book: If it seems strange today that teens would turn to a young married celebrity for advice on surviving adolescence, the phenomenon was common in the 1950s. ‘Twixt Twelve and Twenty was one of the most popular books of its kind—in fact, according to the Washington Post, it was 1958’s second-highest selling nonfiction book.
While a ghostwriter probably contributed to this book, it displays a convincingly folksy Booneishness. Words and phrases like “chillun,” “’taint true,” and “lil ol’ teenager” appear frequently. Boone’s evangelical Christian beliefs pervade the book, which according to Time, he promoted at Church of Christ congregations nationwide. Parents who share his beliefs would probably find much to like in this book, even today.
While he avoids details on sex, Boone urges teens to stick to innocent “April love,” until they are truly ready for “May” (a serious, steady relationship) and “June” (marriage). He doesn’t go the full Duggar by condemning teen dating and kissing entirely.
Basically, Boone recommends being yourself, developing good habits, practicing the Golden Rule, and resisting the urge to grow up too fast—things that even a secular-minded, liberal parent like myself can get behind.
The Boone Family Spanking Situation: The book hits its one really weird note on the issue of corporal punishment:
“And of course there are spankings—and spankings. There is the delayed spanking that sets in when you’re too old to go across Mama’s knee and have to wait until you get home and lean over the bathtub. There is the angry spanking and the loving spanking. My mother never gave ‘loving’ spankings. I wouldn’t know what they were. But hers weren’t angry either; they were intelligent and they were just.”
Boone informs readers that his mother delivered these spankings with a sewing machine belt, and didn’t stop her “lean over the bathtub” spankings until he was seventeen (and only then, apparently, because her inability to make him cry frustrated her).
Now, I don’t believe in spanking at all, but surely even most spanking advocates would find that a bit excessive. Even more shocking is the way this carried over into the next generation, as the Washington Post described in a 1978 Debby Boone profile:
Perhaps the man she is still closest to is her father. Both say that their stormy battles during Debby’s teens have made them even closer now. For Debby the turning point was in Japan; for Pat it was in Columbus, Ohio, two years ago when the family appeared at the state fair. They all thought it was going to be their last show together.
“We all were in an emotional state,” he recalls. “Debby (who was 19 then) had left the room to go and get candy; and was gone for a half-hour. I was worried about her and went to find her. She was in the lobby talking to some musicians, but was upset that I embarrassed her in front of them. It was a trivial matter really, but when we got back to the room I thought she was pretty sassy. One thing led to another and suddenly I threw her over on the bed and spanked her in front of her mother and her sisters.”
Afterwards, feeling chagrined and guilty, the father apologized to his family and led them all in prayer. “But there were no hugs and kisses that night,” he remembers. The next day on the plane, he heard Debby laughingly tell the girls about the black and blue marks on her bottom. “I found there were tears in my eyes,” he says, “for I realize Debby had let me off the hook. Overnight, she had forgiven me for being out of line.”
Spanking your 19-year-old daughter? At the risk of Pat Boone considering me unladylike: WTF?
Original Owner: My copy belonged to a girl named Carol Sue, whose parents inscribed it to her and gave it to her as a 12th birthday gift.
Final Fun Fact: Twixt Twelve and Twenty is also the name of a 1959 Pat Boone hit.
Other Quotes from ‘Twixt Twelve and Twenty:
“Popularity—‘manifest approval of the people in general’—can be a good, sound thing, but it can also be a personality freak or a snow job. Adolf Hitler was the most popular man in Germany for quite a spell.”
“It doesn’t make sense to me that girls who want to be as pretty as possible, who intend to be feeding and caring for a whole family day after tomorrow, don’t know how to feed and care for themselves today. Yet magazine articles, dietitians, beauticians, high school principals, all sigh over the high percentage of poor physical care and poor nutrition among teenagers, even in top economic areas.”
“Take my first steady…She was a very pretty girl, a wonderful singer, much in demand. But she put too much strain on young love. She let me see her in her curlers.”
“(Shirley) has the kind of beauty I admire. A neatness, a freshness and cleanness, as well as pretty features. Her physical attractiveness is the quiet, decent kind that a man looks for in a wife.”
“Sometimes, girls, if you let your husband boss the project a little, he’ll wind up doing the work quite efficiently. Because, you see, it’s his corporation.”
“Bad language is a dead giveaway that the user is covering up ignorance (he doesn’t know what he’s talking about) or is pretty lazy (he knows, but he won’t take the trouble to say it). Or, worst of all, that he thinks it’s smart!”
Also on swearing—“We’ll assume ladies never develop the above mentioned habit—I hope—I hope!!”
For all of $3 at a local flea market on Sunday, I got two cute Whitman items from the 1970s.
I like this Barbie frame-tray puzzle from 1972 because it includes Skipper and because Barbie is a redhead. In the two decades following the debut of Superstar Barbie in 1977, white Barbie dolls were almost invariably blond.
This puzzle also suggests an interesting story–Skipper’s horse is sporting a first-place ribbon, and Skipper is beaming with pride. Barbie, who’s clutching a third-place ribbon, is responding with a pretty cold stare.
The Calico Cathy paper dolls are from 1976, the height of the “prairie” trend in 1970s fashion. I remember my fellow first-grade girls wearing sunbonnets and long skirts and Little-House braids around this time. Calico Cathy takes things further–even her pantsuits are calico. Well, I guess that’s how she earned the name Calico Cathy.
Each weekend, I will forage into my vintage board game collection to show you a truly embarrassing treasure.
Today’s Game: Charlie’s Angels Game (“Based on the television series,” the box announces helpfully, so you know it’s not based on a Chekhov play of the same name or something.)
Copyright Date: 1978
Object: “Be the first to capture the culprit with your team”
Recommended Ages: 8-14. Realistically, this game probably appealed to girls age 8-10, while the Jaclyn-Smith-in-a-bikini game piece appealed to boys ages 12 and up.
Game Board: Better than most TV board games, since it featured real cast photos instead of vaguely related cartoon drawings.
Game Pieces: Cool! A team of actual Angels and a creepy villain beats colored plastic pegs any day.
Personal Notes: I never owned this game as a child, but it was my go-to birthday party gift in third grade. Board games always made a respectable gift, and if a TV show was popular, its board game would produce a satisfying response from the birthday girl and her guests.
Kelly mesmerizes the villain while Kris and Sabrina sneak up on him
Game Play: Whether the birthday girl would ever play the game was another matter. TV show games generally put the “bored” in board games, with simple “move 2 spaces forward,” “move 1 space back” instructions. At least in the Charlie’s Angels Game, the object relates to the show’s crime-fighting concept. To win the game, however, you have to trap the villain THREE times. I forced my daughter to play this with me, but we gave up before trapping him even once.
Embarrassing Treasures 