Pretty pictures

I just put up a new set of illustrations from some vintage kid's books I bought recently at a library book sale on to one of my many Flickr accounts. I love them both but I'm leaning towards loving the ones from C is for Circus a bit more than the ones from Our Great Northwest.
You can see the complete sets by clicking here.

Protecting Our Food

I put all the photos and a few illustrations from the 1966 USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) handbook entitled Protecting Our Food on Flickr.

It's chock full of photos of pesticides being applied, scientists working to come up with more additives, farmers, people working in food related plants, grocery shoppers, and animals and insects. I was surprised to find this photo of a young, hungry, but happy John Kruk in amongst the photos, but there he was nonetheless:
And this sexy thing is Pestina:
She was a cartoon that reminded people who travelled outside the country to check their clothes and luggage for unwanted bugs that might hitch a ride in to the USA and ruin our food supply. I'd kind of like to see her and Judy Jetson kiss and fool around a little bit. What? Did I say that out loud? Sorry.

Anyhoo, you can see all the cheesy vintage USDA goodness by clicking here.

Vintage "It's not what you think" picture of the day

I found this gem in a kid's picture book entitled You Visit a Newspaper Television Station. You can see the rest of the pictures from that little book by clicking here.

What's better than a woman with big hair?

A woman with big hair holding a baton.

You can see this photo and many other great photos from the 1968 edition of the ETSU Buccaneer by clicking here. I bit the bullet and bought a "Pro Account" on Flickr and I've added some other new sets as well. Look for many more photo sets coming in the days and weeks ahead.

The 1956 ESTU Buccaneer

I just finished putting up over 150 photos from the 1956 edition of the East Tennessee State University yearbook on Flickr and you can see the whole set by clicking here. The yearbook, known as The Buccaneer, was chock full of great photos of a bygone era.
I'm tempted to say that times were simpler then but the people who lived through that era would tell you they had their own set of problems to deal with just as we have our own set of things to deal with today.
What's important to me about scanning and saving books like this online is that they give us a glimpse into a specific time and place into the past and the picture sets also insure that some of these people and places will live on forever. I've got the 1968 Buccaneer and a 1970 edition yearbook from Hiwassee College yet to scan so stay tuned for those as well. But for now, enjoy 1956 ETSU style. Oh, one more thing, ETSU in 1956 was not a very ethnically diverse place at all, there was only one picture of a black person in this entire book and in that picture the black person was serving punch to a white person.

My scanner has been smoking hot because...

I just finished scanning this little book:


All comic books geeks and fans know who Will Eisner is. He was the guy behind the great comic book The Spirit. Most all comic book artists and writers today always mention what a huge influence Eisner is on their work. So I was shocked to find this great little paperback by him one day in the thrift store. It's a bit dated now, it was published in 1979, but it's pure pop culture fun.

It shows the origin of dating.

It shows you where to find boys,

and girls.

And of course no book from the 70's about dating would be complete without a handy dandy astrology guide.

I love this final page in the book.

I also scanned the illustrations from this book. I bought it for a quarter and I scanned the cover and I was going to toss it into the recycling bin afterwards but for some reason I flipped through it. Inside I found great illustrations like these:

They reminded me of Playboy cartoons or the innocently sexy cartoons from an old magazine that was called From Sex to Sexty, which was a magazine full of nothing but cartoons of big breasted women being hit on by old men or cartoons about the sex lives of good looking young couples. I remember sneaking peeks at it when I saw it on newsstands or in stores. My Mom caught me looking at it one day in a store and she slapped the heck out of me, she was a cool woman most of the time except when it came to "obscene" things. She'd spank us in a heart beat if we cussed or looked at something she thought was too "smutty."

You can see all of the scans by clicking here.