Comments on: Your wife is embarrassed by your tiny paycheck ad: Dec, 1929

By: halfacre

halfacre — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

The career track for ALL of the hubbies led to management. Glad I didn’t live in ’29. (shudder)

By: Purly

Purly — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Without any concept of property, what would marriage be like?

By: Purplecat

Purplecat — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

It’s classic advertising from that era. Induce a sense of anxiety in the mark, tell him he has a problem that he didn’t know he had, then introduce your product as the solution.

This was done for all sorts of things, and started the (still current) trend of “disease mongering” for quack cures.

By: notasheep

notasheep — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I hear the field of telegraphy is the future. If I can just master morse code…

By: ackpht

ackpht — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

An attitude still quite common in the USA.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

My friends? Hell, *I* feel sorry for my wife!

By: Andrea James

Andrea James — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

For those who missed it, I did a piece on the genius of La Salle’s marketing campaigns earlier this year. They are one of the legends of direct response advertising, with a 20% conversion rate on inquiries.

http://boingboing.net/2010/01/02/lasalle-extension-un.html

I have a Flickr set (mentioned by jacques45 above) here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/andreajames/sets/72157623119118714/

By: tylerkaraszewski

tylerkaraszewski — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I’m slightly surprised that by 1929 “a new car” was already on the list of things that you should obviously be able to provide for your family. I thought it took longer than that before they were just sort of standard for everyone to have.

By: jungletek

jungletek — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

They punctuated correctly to indicate talking about old friends from school. What you were having a laugh at would likely be written with a hyphen, i.e. ‘old-school friends’. Mind you, this is just IMHO, and I’m far from an English teacher.

By: Neon Tooth

Neon Tooth — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Well, prepare yourselves for all the coming X-mas commercials: The new Lexus in the driveway with the bow on it (as if it’s supposed to be perfectly normal) for the wife is one of my favorites.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

How ironic that the writer invokes Jack London – a socialist and a proponent of women’s suffrage.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

This post made me sad, because my boyfriend and I have been discussing his feelings of inadequacy lately of not being able to provide for me or for future children. He wants to be the breadwinner, and right now, he isn’t. I earn more money than he does, and it literally pains him. I mean to the point where his stress over money renders him incapable of moving his neck at times. I love this man, and I don’t care about who earns what. I just want to be with him and have a family with him, and he feels he can’t until he’s the earner. Years of socialization, external and internal pressures to perform, earn, and provide…it’s sad, and I’m sorry for woman (or man) who has to live with anyone who feels inadequate and stressed over something as arbitrary as money.

By: Editz

Editz — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Yeah buddy, earn enough money to buy her a new STOVE!

By: fnc

fnc — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

“Also, your wife is cheating on you.”

By: valdis

valdis — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Do people actually buy stuff as expensive as a Lexus as a *surprise* present? I mean, wouldn’t it be embarrassing to shell out $45K or whatever for something, and find out you got the color wrong, or missed an option the recipient *really* wanted, or something?

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I read the sentence as “old school friends” as opposed to “old, school friends”. I thought, those people were pretty hip in 1929.

By: Ugly Canuck

Ugly Canuck — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

They were indeed hip in 1929:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Who6fTHJ34

Were they ever!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlHUqFSDD9A

And those musicians needed day-jobs too: why not try LaSalle Extension Courses to gain some additional, more marketable, skills?

By: jacques45

jacques45 — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

The ad running 2 months after the crash would mean that the ad got to the printers right before or immediately after the crash.

At least the XM advertisements that were supposed to start airing on 9/12 showing things falling out of the sky were able to be easily pulled (especially because no ads were airing that I can remember on 9/11-9/12). I would imagine it was not nearly as easy to pull a current-event-insentitive ad in ’29. The ads by 1932 were much closer to what one would expect.

By: RockMutha

RockMutha — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

“Brave, loyal woman, she would be the last to reproach her husband..” oh I’ll reproach! he’ll be like whaaa? and I’ll be all…reproached! In u face!

By: nixiebunny

nixiebunny — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

My friends feel sorry for me because my wife’s paycheck is too small.

By: daneyul

daneyul — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Whew! All this time I thought it was my tiny penis!

By: mkultra

mkultra — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Christ, what an asshole.