⛽Ethyl Got Full Service: A Vintage Gas Station Long before self service pumps and convenience stores, a visit to a gas station was a very different experience. A bell rang as your tires rolled across a rubber hose. An attendant…
From Bullet Bras to Magic Fingers: A Mid-Century Motel
From Bullet Bras to Magic Fingers: A Mid-Century Motel For travelers in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, pulling into a motel parking lot was its own kind of thrill. The neon sign buzzed and flickered against a darkening sky. A…
🚬 Collecting Vintage Ashtrays: A Forgotten Hobby Full of History and Advertising
🚬 Collecting Vintage Ashtrays: Full of History and Advertising Not long ago, ashtrays were as common as coffee cups. They sat on kitchen tables, hotel nightstands, restaurant countertops, casino floors, office desks, and airplane armrests. Every bar had them. Every…
🚬 Forgotten Cigarette Machines From America's Past
Forgotten Cigarette Machines From America's Past There was a time, not so long ago, when forgotten cigarette machines from America's past stood in the corners of American public life as naturally as pay phones and jukebox selectors. You would find…
🍀 Collecting Shocking Irish Stereotypes in Newspaper Strips
🍀 Archiving Irish Stereotypes in Newspaper Strips The comics page of an American newspaper from the late nineteenth or early twentieth century was rarely a neutral space. It reflected the attitudes, anxieties, and biases of the society that produced it,…