Christmastime in Trenton, New Jersey in 1950


Let's time-travel to Trenton, New Jersey in 1950, at Christmastime. This imaginary journey is courtesy of the nice people at the Duke University Libraries, who scanned in this image with very high resolution and a lot of interesting detail. We're at State and Broad in 1950, and I know that, not because I'm any kind of expert on Trenton, but because it's right there in the photo.


Of course the Duke site is all about the advertising, which is interesting, but to me I just get a big kick out of the old images. My eye went immediately to Santa, and his reindeer friend, and I got to wondering when Rudolph, the red-nosed reindeer became popular, so I thought that I'd look it up. Hang on a second. Looks like Rudolph first appeared in 1939, but on this particular drawing, the artist stayed with a more traditional reindeer nose. Speaking for myself, as a cartoonist I've always drawn Rudolph when I've drawn Santa, but of course artists are free to make their own aesthetic choices, and of course Swern's may have directed the artist to draw the reindeer like that, as people might still be associating it with Montgomery Ward. 


The next thing that caught my eye were those beautiful cars! I'm pretty sure that's a Buick, but I'm not enough of a car expert to be sure. If you can identify the cars, please do and I'll update the post!


I enjoy looking at the people, and the shops. Looks like J.B. Wilson sold stuff for women, including bags, lingerie, skirts, slacks, sweaters, and suits. I'm pretty sure that it says "millinery" there next to the State Street sign, which was an old-fashioned term for ladies' hats. The moving car is kind of blurry because of the long exposure that the photographer used, which gave such incredible detail (to things that weren't moving).

It's December 6th, and there doesn't look like there's a trace of snow. I wonder if it was warm that year, or if that's typical for Trenton? I really have no idea.


There's a five and dime! Everything in the store either sold for a nickel or a dime, and in 1950 that amount of money went a long way. I'm too young to remember five and dimes, although they were around when I was a little kid, in the 1960s. By the time I started understanding the value of money, inflation was changing everything fast. You can Google "Nixon's Wage and Price Controls", if you don't remember the early 1970s. Prices were absolutely skyrocketing back then! The old-timers told me that they remembered when they could buy enough candy for a penny to get sick on. Those must have been the days!


Looks like there's a ghost sign on that building back there that says "Grayson". That means that some lettering was painted over some old lettering, and now the old lettering has become visible. I can read Nevius, but not what's behind "Grayson". If you can, and know what this is all about, please tell me.


Then there's the billboard for a Philco TV. When I was a kid in the '60s, we had a Ford-Philco TV. Looks like in 1950 it was a "True Focus", "Balanced Beam" television. Must have been pretty cool to see!

I guess that's enough walking around Trenton at Christmastime in 1950 for me. You can keep shopping, but I gotta sit down!




If you like pictures of old-time Phoenix, please become a member of History Adventuring on Patreon. I share a LOT of cool old photos there, copyright-free, with no advertising. Your support makes it happen! Thank you!

Click here to become a Patron!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why cars in the future won't need stop signs, red lights, or stripes on the road

Image
Time-travel with me into the future. Where we're going, we'll still need roads, but our cars won't need the kind of stuff that human drivers need, like stop signs, or stuff painted on the road. And if you're already panicking that computers will take over, don't worry, they already have. The fact that you're reading this right now combines so much amazing computing power that it would have been unthinkable to anyone in the 1960s, or '70s, when I was a kid. Speaking of being in the geriatric age group, if you're like me or older, you took a lot of pride in knowing the rules of the road, such as what to do at a stop sign if four cars approach at the same time, the difference between a "yield" sign and a "merge" sign, or maybe how to parallel park. But calm down there old-timer, that type of knowledge will just be as quaint as how to use a horse and buggy is nowadays. Sorry! The best way to picture how traffic will flow in the future is
Read more

Why did Adolf Hitler always have such a bad haircut?

Image
As someone who has been interested in history since I was a little kid, I've always asked the most childish questions, and quite often never got an answer. As a kid, I was told to run along and play, and don't bother the grownups, so I set my questions aside to work on when I myself became a grownup. But some questions I really haven't found a satisfactory answer for, and get thrown away as I find myself learning the more important stuff. I now understand the grownups, but the kid in me still has childish questions like "Why did Adolf Hitler always have such a bad haircut?" The first question to ask is whether a particular style (whether hair, clothing, etc.) was in style at the time. The moustache was, and you can Google a photo of Charlie Chaplin, who wore the same style of moustache at the time, and quite stylishly. The wide lapels were in style in the 1930s, as was were the tall shirt collars and small ties. But the haircut wasn't - it's just awful. Me
Read more

Watching a neighborhood grow and change in Phoenix, Arizona

Image
I stopped to take a closer look yesterday at where the old Circle K had been in my neighborhood, which is a suburb of Phoenix. And it's got me to thinking about how much Phoenix grows and changes over the years, and how people feel about it. This particular neighborhood was built in the mid 1980s, when there had been only a smattering of houses and a community college (Glendale Community College, built in 1965). There are some houses that I can tell are from the 1970s, and a few even older, but what happened here is that the neighborhood suddenly appeared in 1985 or thereabouts. There are three shopping centers on the corner of 67th Avenue and Peoria - the one in the photo is called "Peoria Station", and it was designed to kinda look like a train station. The other three are called Westporte Village, Brittany Square, and Crossroads Plaza. I've lived in this neighborhood for a very long time, and no one ever uses those names, even though the signs are still up. But the
Read more