Cast Your Vote - Mechanical vs Computer

You made me look, and I notice that my Bounce towelettes are missing. Since coming back from one vacation and turning on the monitor after revving up the computer, to have the monitor fried by static - I've gone back to keeping Bounce sheets on the desk between the CPU and the monitor. It's a trick learned from the data processing supervisor where I used to work.

Excuse me, I'm running downstairs to fetch a couple of Bounce sheets. Sharon

Reply to
Seeker
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From actual reports of the day it was not bliss but necessity. Most ordinary householders never used the embroidery or fancy work techniques, they did not have time. However upper class households had dedicated seamstress in bondage to the house who did do these types of sewing. My Grandmother in England was in service to a house in Richmond England in the 20's, and she did do lots of heirloom sewing for the children of the owner. Never for her own. As for pocket money from these adventures it was unheard of ether side of the pond unless you were in business. Women of that day did not have time for such frivolities they were too busy keeping up the house, cooking, cleaning looking after children. Washing clothes took a whole day as did mending but you still had your normal daily grind too. . It was not a time of hobbies and pretty things and your husband owned your pocket money. Women worked in the home from sunup to sundown, sewing was just part of that work. Which is probably why all the accessories and manuals have come to us collectors in unused condition. They only used what was needed to get the job done. Even quilts were utility items salvaged from scraps old cloths and used for warmth. The only glamour was in the rich houses and those women DID NOT use a sewing machine it was considered beneath them. Sewing machines were considered lower class appliances well into the 1960's.

Reply to
Hanna's Mum

One of my old Singer treadles is in a plain parlor cabinet and came to me in nearly pristine condition. It had belonged to the woman whose husband owned the local paper. The machine in the cabinet was kept in a closet and brought out only when the seamstress came to work on new clothing.

Reply to
Pogonip

Hanna's Mum wrote: Sewing machines were considered lower class appliances

Not in the UK! During and after the war almost every house had and used a sewing machine, whatever their social status... Clothing was so expensive in coupons that Make do and Mend was the order of the day for all. My grandmother (very middle class - a factory manager's wife) would have thought it shame to let a garment lie un-altered or unmended in such times. And she used her grandmother's treadle... My mum was equally middle class (an officer's wife, and not permitted to work until the late 70's) had a sewing machine from 1958, and it was well used. She made curtains, clothes for my sisters and I, costumes for parties, altered and redesigned things and made lovely things out of the skirts of all those huge 1950's dresses when they went out of fashion. I remember her making shifts and skirts out of those for us! As did a large number of her fellow officer's wives... I was in and out of those houses as a kid, and I saw sewing machines in all of them, especially in the run up to the Christmas party season, when despite financial constraints and difficulty getting decent fabric in the depths of rural Lincolnshire and East Anglia (they build RAF stations on flat bits!), my mum and her friends were busy making and remodelling their gowns for the new season of official entertainments. This is how I gained so much experience handling silks and slippery fabrics at so early a stage in my sewing career: not only did I pinch the cotton, Vyella, and wool bits for OUR dresses, but I got given the silk scraps to play with too! And some of those fabrics were utterly fabulous: the husbands frequently went off on 'detachment' for weeks at a time, to places like Singapore, Hong Kong, Aden, Dubai... They always knew that 5-10 yards of nice silk would sweeten their return to the gloom and fog of the counties round the wash in the east of England...

In fact, it was the working classes who were less likely to have and use a sewing machine, as so many more of them went out to work and didn't have the time. Once the 50's came in and women were encouraged to stay at home, with only one income where there had been two during the war, many women found sewing a good way to make the clothes go further. Fabric and clothing was still scarce as we worked like stink to sell all of it to pay off war debts.

Reply to
Kate Dicey

It was, pretty much the same way here in the US, Kate--- though not to the same degree since the US proper was not directly attacked. When I was a little girl, nearly everyone had sewing machines. I was not around for the War but I collect vintage patterns and I'm pretty familiar with the era from a sewing & fashion perspective. As in the UK and Canada, America had very strict regulations during the war which not only dictated rationing of food and other materials but regulated the pattern and clothing industries. Hemlines were drastically shortened and the amount of fabric used in clothing was kept to a bare minimum. You were only allotted so many items of new clothing annually.

The US had a government office that regularly published booklets that instructed women how to make use of things around the house to make new clothes because fabric just wasn't available. Most of the mills were working on the war effort. They told women how to make suits for themselves out of old men's suits and play clothes out of old tablecloths. If you could not sew, you were out of luck and class made little difference. The 50s in the US was the same as you describe in the UK. The main difference was that England has it much rougher due to the length of time needed to recover from the war. We were just watching a BBC documentary the other evening about the Blitz and I was again awed at the extent of damage. Relatively speaking, Americans had it easy compared to Britons.

Phae

Reply to
Phaedrine

Not many of us remember those days anymore. Ration books, shortages - I have bits of memory - standing in line at the A & P to buy one (1) roll of toilet paper because it was one per customer. Even a 4-year old could be a customer that day. "One sheet, sometimes two, but never, never three" was the byword for use.

The curtains in my bedroom were old sheets (white, of course) with pictures from a coloring book colored and ironed on by my mother.

Leather was not rationed, but it was impossible to get, so when the local shoe store got a delivery of children's oxfords, my father took me there and got a pair to fit, then he bought one of each larger size so that I would have shoes to grow into. I did. I wore those &^%$#@!! brown oxfords for years.

I also remember the blackouts and the airraid sirens, and the propaganda films at the movie theater. Very scary. But we were still so much better off than England and the Isles.

Reply to
Pogonip

You were soooooo lucky!!! My twin sister and I had to wear wooden-soled shoes with leather uppers. Not true "Dutch" wooden shoes, but very similar. As I recall, we were the only girls in our grade school who wore them (but that may be faulty memory). They "clunked" as we walked down the halls. I loathed those &$#*% things! Now, of course, faux-wood rigid mules are "in". :-}

Beverly

Reply to
BEI Design

My parents lived right through that era, and were 18 or so when the war in Europe ended. My mum left home and went to live in London in 1947. She still gets a surprise to see BUILDINGS where she knew heaps of rubble and holes in the ground.

Reply to
Kate Dicey

My mother was a little girl in Germany during the war. I remember a story about my grandmother trading their outgrown shoes to a local farmer for potatoes.

She also used to unravel old sweaters to knit mittens and things. I remember her knitting things for the church bazar when I was little. Wow, she was fast. I think it skipped a generation, my mom never sews or knits except to put on a button or repair something.

-Liz

Reply to
Liz S. Reynolds

I may be wrong but I think this is when platform shoes with cork soles became not only fashionable but a necessity since you could not get leather. I do know that cork and other materials were widely used as substitutes for leather and rubber soles during the war.

Here is a very interesting discussion of clothing during the two world wars with lots of links:

Phae

Reply to
Phaedrine

What a great link. It was like a walk down memory lane for me.

I can well remember the 1940's hairstyles, as my high school yearbook can attest to. When I think of the time it took to fashion those styles...!

But that yearbook also emphasizes the huge difference in teen styles between now and then. There, the girls are seen dressed in suits with bobbysocks and saddle shoes or sweaters with narrow straight skirts hemmed just below the knee cap. By today's standards, they were very well dressed. If by some time warp, a teen wearing today's fashions had managed to appear on that scene, the reaction would have been shock and disbelief. Washed denims and baggy t-shirts!? Heaven forfend.

After my father passed away a few years ago, I came across a ration book that had been issued to me which he kept all these years. It's in pristine condition and still contains all the ration stamps which supports what I recall of the impact of rationing. It was not severe at all. I think the main impact was on those with cars with the restrictions on gas. But the only rationing I recall that impacted us was sugar, which meant my mother couldn't make as many cakes for us as before.

The other 'deprivation' was the unavailability of nylon stockings which became available immediately after the war ended. A common sight then in New York City were lines of women queued up to purchase them - I remember that only too well since I was part of those queues.

Great site - I'm going to enjoy exploring the links.

Lois

Reply to
LT

Cake! Luxury... A quote for you on British rationing:

" This is how much you had for one week: 8oz meat 4oz bacon/ham 8oz sugar 1oz cheese 2oz butter 2oz jam/marmalade 2oz tea The amount of rations varied during the war. Bread, beer and tobacco were never rationed, but the beer was watered down. Later in the war clothing and fuel (for homes and cars) were rationed. Sweets were rationed. In 1942 there was a ration of 8oz sweets or chocolate per person every four weeks. There was a system of points for other foods. Everybody was allowed a certain number of points for four weeks. The foods for which you needed points were tinned foods, rice, peas and tomatoes, breakfast cereals, syrup, treacle and biscuits. Food on points rationing could only be bought from one shop at which you were registered."

You got 48 clothing coupons per year. A coat cost 12 of them, if you could find one!

Some things were rationed until 1956, the year I was born. My husband (five years older than I) remembers getting his ration of orange juice every week. Even furniture was rationed: you needed a licence to buy a wardrobe! And just getting married and trying to set up home was no reason for getting one, when folk were being bombed out every day... We recently got rid of a Utility pattern wardrobe: very solidly made, but effin' ugly! It went to the school, full of their costumes.

Reply to
Kate Dicey

This is probably very valuable. You might want to start looking up collectables in your local library. Find a knowledgable auction house for an estimate. Not if you really don't want to sell it of course. The memories might be more valuable.

AK in PA

Reply to
AK&DStrohl

"AK&DStrohl" wrote in news:44959575$0$12715$ snipped-for-privacy@news.enter.net:

even if keeping it for the memories, it's best to document a value in case something happens (fire, flood) or so that any heirs know that the item has a value & they don't just pitch it when cleaning up the estate... although personally, i'd make sure my will left things of that nature to a museum. lee

Reply to
enigma

There is no question that those in Europe were much more restricted in available goods and food during the war. I participated a discussion of this topic some years ago with Europeans and Americans who recalled that time. In general the Americans agreed that it was not a difficult time at all (in terms of rationing). I'm surprised that rationing was still going on as late as 1956 in the UK!

Lois

Reply to
LT

Now that is a great idea. I realized it was probably very valuable to collectors when I found it. But you're right, it would be impossible for me to sell it just for money and this is a wonderful suggestion for having it disposed of correctly.

Lois

Reply to
LT

We don't do for "fun" what was a necessary burden during our formative years.

Reply to
Pogonip

But there was still that stigma attached of 'home made' well into the

60's and then it seemed to change. I remember in the 50's begging my Mum who was an excellent seamstress for just one store bought dress. When I got it though I was disappointed that it fit so poorly. When my Mum was a girl she did sew for the big house, and was always ashamed of her talents, but I know she would have adored the new machines, especially the embroidery ones. She would have had a ball.
Reply to
Hanna's Mum

According to what I've been told, my family did very well. When his hand was drafted, Dad rented the farm to a neighbor, moved into town, and got a job in a war plant, where he earned enough money to pay off the farm, buy machinery to replace the hand, and install electricity and indoor plumbing in the house.

But I never tasted gingerbread until I was grown up. Sugar was rationed; gingerbread mix wasn't. Mom got so tired of gingerbread that she never made any again. And she never got over the habit of restricting us to one egg per sitting -- she had her own flock of hens, and was deathly afraid her children would get tired of eggs.

Mom's hen yard was a handy place to dispose of garbage. She once remarked of an extravagant neighbor "she fed my chickens and bought my eggs!" but I never thought to ask her whether she had to collect coupons when she sold her eggs.

That was a hundred miles south of where I live now. Whenever Mentone

-- a very small town west of here -- is mentioned, someone says "during the war, they shipped out eggs in railroad cars." Mentone still supplies a good fraction of the nation's eggs. I'm told that when pilots hold conventions in Mentone, another frequently-heard sentence is "don't fly down to look at the long, low buildings -- you'll scare the chickens".

But I don't remember any stories about fabric or clothing. Perhaps I should e-mail my older sisters before posting, in order to have something on-topic to say!

Joy Beeson

Reply to
Joy Beeson

I think that was true for almost everyone. The economic boom started then and except for an occasional blip (recessions that really had only regional effect), it's still going on.

There were a lot of food and materials that were not readily available but it was easy to improvise. I recall that we were introduced to margarine for the first time during the wars years. And of course, there was the black market where almost anything was available. I had a classmate whose mother was a superb seamstress and as a result my friend was always beautifully dressed - gorgeous, tasteful clothes. But on top of that she wore nylons during the entire war. She drove us crazy because the rest of us were stuck with rayon stockings. And if you ever wore a pair of rayon stockings you would know why women went crazy for nylons. But she never revealed the source of her nylons.

(On another topic altogether, it is so distressing to have to wade through all this muck. The fact is the same thing is occurring on other newsgroups that I monitor - unrelated, controversial crossposts. I'm beginning to think there is some conspiracy to disrupt Usenet.)

Lois

Reply to
LT

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