No Home Should Be Without One!
No Home Should Be Without One! Ads from the back pages of Harper's Magazine in the late 1850s and Other Inventions. “No Home Should Be Without One,” my father used to grate sardonically whenever something useless or absurd was advertised in print or on TV. But in my latest blog entry of the same name, I look at what we take for granted today might have seemed silly then. Rubber bands advertised as "Elastic fasteners for bundling ballots" (too many or too few Russian rubber bands in the last election?!); “Paraffine Cream” for dry skin—we call Vasoline ®; ice cream freezers; “Sanitary Patented Diapers”—How’s that for a change? (sorry, I couldn’t resist the pun.) Not to mention kitchen ranges, portable heaters; steam heat installed in your home and floor vents designed to go with your wall or ceiling tiles. Plus the “best peacock feathers to brush away flies,” and, presumably, keep them brushed away. Notice, the ad promises eight different sizes of ranges; it ca...