Category:
1940s

Unauthorized Dwellings 8

Postwar squatting in England was a big thing.

This article goes into much detail. But they don't mention the weird squatter letter detailed in the news article.





Source.

Posted By: Paul - Mon Mar 11, 2019 - Comments (2)
Category: Antisocial Activities, Buildings and Other Structures, Urban Life, 1940s, United Kingdom

The Original Newsbabe

Urban Dictionary defines 'newsbabe' as "a sexually-attractive female news anchor or reporter on TV." It sounds like a modern term, but it actually was in use as far back as 1949, and originated in the context of radio news.

Back then, Christina Ohlsen earned the title of newsbabe while she was working at the U.S. Army's radio station in West Berlin (RIAS, or Rundfunk im amerikanischen Sektor). On-air, she played a character called 'Das Botenkind' which was a Berlin slang term that got translated as the Newsbabe. She would essentially make fun of the headlines in the Soviet newspapers, while in the persona of this newsbabe.

According to her obituary in the Washington Post (she died in 2012), she later married Air Force Col. William Heimlich, who was her boss at the station, moved with him to Falls Church, Virginia, and taught dance classes there for the rest of her life.

In an interview, her husband offered some recollections of her times as the newsbabe:

Q: How did you meet your wife, who was then Christina Olsen?

A: Christina Olson. She was a guest of my British opposite, Colonel E A Hollard, at a tea to which I was invited. I saw her, I thought she was the loveliest thing I'd ever seen in my life and wanted to spend the rest of my life with her - on the spot. I - came to know her then when she was in RIAS, came to know her much better, and when she came to the United States as a guest of the State Department in 1950 - yes, 1950, we were married here.

Q: If you describe exactly what she was doing for RIAS?

A: In RIAS she was an actress of course and a charming one, a very popular one, and - she did particularly a role called 'Das Botenkind' or 'The Little Messenger - The Newsboy, that's about the only way I can translate that. And she would sing song a pompous news story that appeared in, let us say, the T&aumb;gliche Rundschau, the Soviet Newspaper, and then poke fun at it. Typical example: 'The meat ration this month will not be filled. Instead you will receive four hundred fifty five grams of sugar.' or 'The potato ration this week will not be filled. Instead you will get thirty- three hundred and fifty grammes of soya beans.', or 'The travel cards between Berlin and Dresden will no longer be honoured until further notice. There will be no German personnel allowed to leave the city of Magdeburg until further notice' These pompous things would appear constantly in the Soviet newspaper, and she would talk about it on the air and say, 'I don't understand it. But the big ones, they've got to understand it. All of these things which violated agreements between the Western and the Eastern allies.


Racine Journal Times Sun - Jan 16, 1949

Posted By: Alex - Mon Mar 04, 2019 - Comments (0)
Category: Journalism, 1940s

Follies of the Madmen #411



Surreal pajama ad from armaments manufacturer.

Source.

Posted By: Paul - Thu Feb 07, 2019 - Comments (5)
Category: Business, Advertising, Fashion, Surrealism, 1940s

Artwork Khrushchev Probably Would Not Have Liked 19



Not sure how I'd feel about this sculpture if I were a British woman.

Posted By: Paul - Tue Feb 05, 2019 - Comments (6)
Category: Art, 1940s, 1950s, Europe, Russia

Official White House Squirrel Feeder

Odd trivia: Rick Feeney is arguably the longest-serving White House appointee ever, having served as the Official White House Squirrel Feeder since 1949, when Truman appointed him to the post. Having never been replaced, he presumably still holds the role. Feeney was 5 years old when appointed, which would make him about 75 now. I wonder what would happen if he wandered up to the White House and insisted on being able to perform his squirrel feeding duty.

The story goes that his father (who was Truman’s administrative assistant) took him to the White House in 1949 to meet the president, whereupon Feeney informed Truman that the White House squirrels were skinnier than the ones in Lafayette Park. So Truman promptly appointed him to be the White House squirrel feeder, noting that the Senate was in recess so their confirmation wasn’t needed. Feeney was to serve “at the pleasure of the President.”

In 1974, when Feeney was 29, he noted that it was really time for someone to replace him, but no other Squirrel Feeder has ever been appointed.

More details at Southern Maryland This Is Living.





Binghamton Press and Sun-Bulletin - Sep 6, 1974



A children's book published in 2016 tells the story of the White House squirrel feeder. Available on Amazon.

Posted By: Alex - Sun Feb 03, 2019 - Comments (3)
Category: Animals, Politics, 1940s

Laura the Nazi-Saluting Parrot

At the end of World War II, the Allied forces wanted to make sure that Nazism didn't rise again in Germany. So they implemented a program of denazification, making it a criminal act, punishable by up to three years in prison, to display Nazi symbols such as the swastika or to give the Nazi salute. However, they encountered resistance from an unusual quarter: a 15-year-old white, female, South-American parrot named Laura who lived in a cage at Munich's Hellabrunn Zoo. This bird had the disturbing habit of greeting visitors by loudly squawking the phrase 'Heil Hitler' as she bobbed her head up and down.

Children at the Munich Zoo hoping to hear Laura say her signature phrase. Image via icp.org.




More in extended >>

Posted By: Alex - Thu Jan 24, 2019 - Comments (7)
Category: Animals, 1940s

Follies of the Madmen #404



Not entirely sure why any company would emphasize the sufferings of its "antagonist" so dramatically. It would be like saying, "Poor germs! Doctors are killing them all!"

Source.

Posted By: Paul - Wed Jan 02, 2019 - Comments (0)
Category: Anthropomorphism, Advertising, Corporate Mascots, Icons and Spokesbeings, 1940s, Pain, Self-inflicted and Otherwise, Fictional Monsters

Ralph Slater, Hypnotist Against Hitler

I suspect that Slater would pitch anything just to get publicity.

Here he claims he can deprogram Nazis.



He did not fare so well in 1948.

Here's the man himself.

Posted By: Paul - Sun Dec 23, 2018 - Comments (1)
Category: Delusions, Fantasies and Other Tricks of the Imagination, Hypnotism, Mesmerism and Mind Control, Crackpots, 1940s

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