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VINTAGRAPH • WPA • WWII • YOU MEAN A WOMAN CAN OPEN IT?

Kodachrome Cake Mix: 1952

A mad clash of colors and styles in this vintage Kodachrome; I love it all, but not all in the same room. It's one side of a mounted 3-D pair from a collection found in a thrift store. I'm fairly certain the woman making the cake is the mother of the young boy behind the table, but I'm not sure of the others. View full size.

A mad clash of colors and styles in this vintage Kodachrome; I love it all, but not all in the same room. It's one side of a mounted 3-D pair from a collection found in a thrift store. I'm fairly certain the woman making the cake is the mother of the young boy behind the table, but I'm not sure of the others. View full size.

On Shorpy:
Today’s Top 5

Enjoy them, then mourn.

I loved the Pyrex set, found them at a second-hand store in the early 80's,then from daily use, broke everything but the middle red and the tiny blue bowl.

House beautiful?

That wallpaper is burning my retinas!

Blue Bowl

We had (have) a set of those blue and red mixing bowls from that era. Our blue one got "compromised" for a while in early 1951 when it was the nearest convenient thing to quickly dump a shattered bottle of black shoe polish into before the floor/carpet got badly stained! I well recall scraping the remnants of some caramel frosting out of the red one while watching the 1956 election returns.

What a picture!

The linoleum looks like a 1930s pattern; "Thermos", you're exactly right about the wallpaper/thermos match. One of my favorite things to do as a 4 year old was to "help" my grandma put on her round elastic garters over her "stockins" every morning. She passed in 1987, at age 87, and never wore trousers in her entire life. Dishwashers are the ruination of many vintage Pyrex bowls. That is the end of my memory dump.

The dreaded "sandwich loaf"?

Someone suggested pinwheel sandwiches - another possibility is that she's making a sandwich loaf. My mother made these for "special occasions," and as kid they struck me as the height of grown-up party food. She had to get the supermarket bakery to slice a loaf of bread horizontally. Mom's layers were egg salad, deviled ham, pimiento cheese, butter and jam. The whole mess was "frosted" with a cream cheese mixture.

Kodachrome is my friend

Being colorblind, I don't always get to see the vibrant colors that most other folks do in daily life, but Kodachrome helps! I'm sure I'm not seeing what others are seeing exactly in these vintage Kodachrome slides but I appreciate the opportunity to see something truly colorful, such that it is to me, so thank you!

Thermos

In the '50s and '60s, my dad took a Thermos of hot coffee with him every morning in his flight bag and I swear it had the same print as that wallpaper.

A Visual Delight

The curtains, the wallpaper, the tablecloth, the aprons, Granny's dress and the Cut Rite wax paper -- it doesn't get better than this. Thank you for this visual smorgasbord!!

Curtains

We had plastic curtains in our family room but they were textured and had a splattered modern art look to them. A friend gave me a set of these bowls that he picked up cheap at a Florida garage sale. Pyrex should make this type of bowl today.

Grandma

I would bet money that the older woman in the photo is about my age now (67) or maybe just a little older. Here I sit in my jeans, fleece and athletic shoes. Grandmas back then all had the same "sensible" black laceup shoes, and never, ever wore pants. I miss a lot of that era, but I'm sure glad I don't have to dress like that!

Grandma's Stockings

I was 4 years old in 1952, and remember that my grandma used to roll her nylon stockings down too. I don't know why but one day I asked her why she did this. She told me that nylon stockings were expensive, and that she would roll them down to "protect" them from rips and runs while she was doing housework. If someone came to the door, she would disappear briefly and roll them up, so that she would appear properly dressed to receive visitors.

These women are Grandmas

the mother of the children would have been much younger. Mother used the yellow bowl for cookie baking too. Yesterday at a thrift store I saw a set of 3 nesting Pyrex, all uniformly badly discolored yellow outside. Clear "Pyrex" embossing and classic white inside. What could have happened to the outside finish?

Mercy!

This is one of those times when "black and white" film would have been a mercy!

Relatives

I think the three kids are siblings. Their mother is mixing the cake, and that's Grandma (the mother-in-law of the baker) between the two girls. The girls are obviously sisters (look at their socks), and the boy sitting next to one of the girls looks like her. The other girl looks just like Grandma. It's even possible that the baker is the other grandmother - but women looked old faster in those days, so she could be the mom. Interesting picture!

Color color everywhere!

Those curtains...I'd kill for those curtains. And that wallpaper. And the flooring. Look at the Native American head on the tablecloth! It is so hard to gauge ages of people in these photos, while I feel like both the women are elderly, in reality they are probably not. Whatever was going on that day, everyone was dressed up. Party time!!

Counting Cookies

I have the red bowl. When I was a kid, we always used it for leftovers. The yellow bowl was the cookie mix bowl. I was barely 10 years old when my assigned Sunday chore was to bake enough cookies for the week. Double batches of chocolate chip, oatmeal, or peanut butter. My mom counted the cookies after I made them and woe betide the kid who took an extra cookie! My dad would leave notes in the cookie jar saying he had taken two cookies so we would not be punished!

No beaters to lick???

The yellow bowl is ridged and yellow on the inside and doesn't belong to the set. As the others are Pyrex White on the inside. Beautiful picture.

The Wallpaper!

I too have my grandmother's bowl set. But get a load of that wallpaper!

Those Pyrex mixing bowls!

I have the complete set, in perfect condition, due to my mother's diligence in caring for them. The largest one, yellow, was used for Christmas cookies. The smallest one, blue, ended up being used to make frosting. I think she usually made meat loaf in the green one, and no idea what she used the red one for. They all nest together so nicely.

Collectible Pyrex

As an antique shop owner, I can sell the set of Pyrex mixing bowls all day long! Here we have, I believe, three of the four--the smallest blue, elusive red, and second largest teal green. Largest bowl in the set is yellow, but since this yellow one is smaller than the teal, I'd say this particular bowl is from a different set. What a memory jogger! Things definitely weren't "matchy-match" back then.

Polychrome Kitchen

This lady makes the Tuttles and their friends look like a bunch of Bauhaus minimalists.

Pinwheel Sandwiches

She's not baking a cake, she's making pinwheel sandwiches. I used to watch my mom do that in the 1950's. Loaves of bread sliced lengthwise, spread with a cream cheese concoction or pimento, rolled up and sliced. The lady doing the spreading with the rolled down hose looks a bit on the older side and more like an aunt or grandma, rather than the boy's mom.

Memories

This brings back the best memories of spending time in the kitchen as a child. Thanks for sharing this.

It hurts my ears!

The colors in this photo are triggering an undiagnosed form of synesthesia.

Panty Hose

I love the rolled-down pantyhose on the cake maker.

[Those are nylon stockings. Pantyhose didn't exist until 1959. -tterrace]

Point taken. Still fun to see.

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