Vintage Advertisement of the Week – September 26, 2024

Seventeen Magazine – June 1950

My gosh, what can I say about this ad? I love it! Not only for the retro aspects (hairstyles, clothes, wallpaper), but also for the things it leaves out. Not a single mention or allusion to marriage. The few popular magazines geared toward teenaged girls during the 1940s and 1950s often contained what we might, by today’s standards, consider to be strange ads. It was common to see full page spreads taken out from silver, cedar chest, china (dishes), and carpet companies. If there was talk about silver sets, it usually meant one thing, engagement, but not this ad. There is no mention of upcoming bliss, let alone a guy.

For fun, let’s compare the words of the 1950 Seventeen magazine advertisement and another silver set ad from the late 1940s. Here’s the text in a more readable photo:

In contrast, this ad from a 1947 Ladies Home Journal hits the marriage theme right between the eyes:

The Nobility Plate ad starts off by the owner of the silver bragging to her girlfriend. She says she bought the silver with her very own money she earned babysitting. She had help picking it out, but not from her fiancé or steady fella. Rather, she used advice from her mother and the Nobility Club Director to inform her decision. She plans on using it for the next club meeting the girls are having and is going to store it in her personal hope chest when not in use. No mention of a steady beau or betrothed in sight.

On the other hand, the Community Silver (Oneida) advertisement mentions a bride right off the bat. The advertisement hits us over the head with the girl pointing to a picture of their dream house she drew in the sand with her fingernail. This ad uses words like, “depth”, “dignity”, “distinction” and “lifetime wear”. Making the reader feel the couple has a long lasting chance at a happy life shared together if they purchase the pictured Community silver set.

Our Nobility Plate ad uses adjectives and phrases such as “dreamy”, “choosing my very own silver”, “good taste”, “making my choice” and “personal appointment”.

The girl holding the silver in the Nobility ad is showing it off to her girlfriend, while the girl in the Community ad is talking about future plans with her obviously betrothed male companion.

Most silver set ads of this era either showed a newlywed couple, a married couple or just the silver, laid out beautifully on a table set for entertaining. It is actually very difficult to find an ad for silver from the 1940s to the 1960s that doesn’t cover one of those angles. A few more examples illustrating these common themes are:

June 1947 Good Housekeeping – Holmes and Edwards (June, the traditional month marriages took place back the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s.)

1945 Mademoiselle Magazine – Rose Point Pattern by Wallace (“Mood of Romance”)

Another Community Silver Ad Oneida Limited circa 1949/1950.

Brides, brides and more brides. Silver set companies like Oneida and Wallace built their empires around marriage. It makes sense. Most people didn’t have a need for a silver set unless they were getting married and needing to fill a new house. But, that’s what’s so novel about Nobility Plate. To put their eggs into a different basket. The basket of the young girl with a dream that did not center around a man, getting married, starting a family and entertaining to their married friends. Nobility Plate pitched their message to those girls that wanted to do their own thing. Ride their own wave. Not because owning a silver set was a necessity even, but because, gosh darn it, she could have it. And, she could have it with the money she earned herself.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not anti-marriage. If that’s your dream, go for it. Plenty of people are and there’s nothing wrong with it. So go ahead, get married, pick out the perfect silver set for you and yours. Yet, if it makes you happy to buy the silver while you are single to show off to your chums, sorority sisters, or what have you, I say go for it. Treat yourself, you deserve it. After all, you earned it. That goes for all the single guys out there, too. Buy the silver, show it off, be proud of it. It’s your life and your dreams.