Roberta McKern
First, a joke:
A lady lost her little shaggy poodle.
When a policeman brought back her soiled and bedraggled little dog, his mistress rejoiced, but asked, “How did he ever get so wet?”
“Why, when we found him,” replied the policeman, “a man had him tied on a pole, washing windows with him.”
That’s a little 1910 humor from the July issue of McCall’s Magazine, which subtitled itself the “Queen of Fashion.” We came across it in the East Linn Museum research room and thought, “Why not take a look?”
In 1910 King Edward VII of England died. As successor to his mother, Queen Victoria, he entered the throne as an already aged king who’d spent many decades as the Prince of Wales. His reign lasted but 10 years, giving that era its “Edwardian” distinction, one we think of often represented in the museum.
Therefore, that copy of McCall’s marked the end of Edwardian times and fashions. The magazine, aimed straight at ladies and girls, showed underpinnings (in illustrated form) as well as dresses and hats.
Edward’s reign was relatively peaceful, and ladies’ clothing reflected quiet times by being svelte and sleek. The pigeon-breasted, sway-back look was in vogue, with its square necklines, limited lace and embroidered trim, and gently flared skirts.
Big hair was fashionable, too, often augmented with the rats and falls as depicted in the magazine’s advertisements. Hats with enlarged crowns covered such hairdos. A woman’s straw boater could look as if it were made for a giantess.
Another joke:
“What is your opinion of the long hat pin?’
“They may be all right in some people’s eyes.”
“Exactly, but we don’t want them in ours.”
It took long hat pins to hold the big hats in place, and the museum has one or two on display. The large crowns on Edwardian hats took a lot of decorating, and one shown in the magazine seemed to accommodate the carcass of a white leghorn hen, but perhaps it was just a squab.
The magazine aimed its contents at the ladies of the rising middle class, for this was a time when industrialization contributed to urban growth and the rise of suburbs. In general, its articles and fiction, along with advice and advertising, emphasized this focus.
However, there is a nod to the death of the late English king.
A gentleman arranged to visit the king’s stables in London. There they held the showy teams of horses used on state occasions, plus the coaches and other equipage.
The author liked to collect buttons as souvenirs wherever he went, and by twinkling a crown (coin) he caught a groom’s eye. The groom disappeared and reappeared with several buttons and a handsome piece of trim possibly broken from a horse’s harness.
The latter made the coin well-spent, for it could be fashioned into a nice belt buckle. (Edward VII had favored bay horses, by the way.) This was a somewhat exotic side trip for the magazine, but then as now its readers were interested in royalty, as the editors recognized.
This issue of McCall’s did not really deal in horses or farm animals. The only other mention of a horse shows a lady chicken farmer of uncertain age daringly astride one. She does introduce the topic of chickens and the all-American desire to find an easy way to get rich quick. Following do-it-yourself steps slowly and carefully, she was more likely to win the day, and, anyway, it took a while for hens to produce and chicks to grow.
She did not work alone, however, on her 10-acre farm: she was helped by an elderly German gentleman who wanted to find a secure place to work out his old age. And when the flock grew bigger, she also hired a boy.
In the end she had award-winning Plymouth Rocks, a house with a bathroom and $1,000 in profit. Plus, by returning from the city to farm life she had regained her health and vigor while keeping her chickens healthy and productive, feeding them skim milk and cooked corn meal.
With a tongue in cheek and the “Don’t count your chickens before they hatch” adage in mind, the editors also included a short piece of fiction, “Mr. Peebles Sets a Hen.”
This is another tale of do-it-yourself chicken-raising involving one Alexander Peebles, usually called just Peebles, and his patient wife, Mary Ellen. Following the magazine’s advice, she is tactful, understanding and quiet when it comes to her husband’s activities. Apparently, a failed garden scheme has taught her not to become too outspoken, as Peebles admonished her. He did not want interference from someone who knew it all. By remarking that she wished for farm-fresh eggs after serving Peebles a small, doubtful one, Mary Ellen actually launched him on a quest to get rich from growing chickens and selling eggs.
Did he build a chicken house? No, he got two sugar barrels and put laths across the top. Then he acquired a bird, paying three dollars for it only to have a policeman stop him to ask about foul (fowl) play.
He placed the hen in a rebuilt-sugar-barrel nest made cozy through Mary Ellen’s rat and puffs, false hair pieces. When he couldn’t find eggs to match the speckles and color of the Plymouth Rocks and Rhode Island Reds recommended by a do-it-yourself book, a friend advised him to paint the $4 worth of eggs in the desired colors. The chicks would come out all right.
Mr. Peebles decided to set the mother-to-be on her nest in the tool shed. The dog slept there, but could go under the porch even if he was reluctant.
The great day came when Peebles tried to set the hen with much squawking. With damaged hands and wrists, pecked and scratched, he entered the house demanding rope and Mary Ellen surmised he was trying to tie the hen to the nest.
A ruckus burst from the tool shed. A half-starved chicken fluttered along, trailing lath and covered in egg yolks, whites and shells, followed by the unhappy dog and Peebles with the rope all rolled together in a melee. The red hen meant to start Mr. Peebles’ lucrative business lay dead. It was right, Mr. Peebles said, because the dang thing had cracked all the eggs and eaten half of them.
Mary Ellen looked at the deceased mother-to-be.
“You ninny,” she said. “You bought a rooster.”
We have to think of a Sweet Home matron reading about the successful chicken farmer with her 10 acres and also about Mr. Peebles with amazement on one hand and amusement on the other as she considered what she gained in butter and egg money. With a population of 176, many of the town’s homes likely included chicken runs and barns for a cow and maybe a horse.
Also coming as a surprise to her may have been plans for two luncheons mentioned in the magazine, one for the Fourth of July and a “rose” luncheon. The latter involved simply placing vases everywhere with roses picked from perhaps an acre of bushes. A charming game called for participating ladies – of course, it was a luncheon for ladies – to guess the number of rose petals in a fancy vase. The winner got the vase, but first the petals had to be plucked with “He loves me, he loves me not.”
A main feature of the Fourth of July luncheon involved guests representing different nations according to flags stuck in their hair.
The dishes served cleverly matched this mode, and each guest had a small notebook in which to copy recipes. Because it was an event for ladies, we might expect dainty delicacies.
What were they? As the girls (all women became girls at luncheons) “sail” to various countries, they are served lobster bisque (America); mackerel pie (Scotland); Dutch veal roots served with mushroom sauce and Holland-style potatoes (the Netherlands); baked spaghetti Neapolitan (Italy); a salad of black beans and celery and red peppers lightly flavored with garlic (Spain); Turkish-delightful jellied candy (Turkey); lychee nuts and crystallized kumquats (China); and rice cakes (Japan).
Accompanied by a toy steamboat, the gustatory journey likely meant a survival of the fittest when digestive tracts were considered. It’s also doubtful that lychee nuts and crystallized kumquats were common in the East Linn area, but with Chinese miners passing through, they might have been here.
Planning and preparing for this luncheon should not have taken less than a year if the hostess started the previous July 5.
At any rate, a McCall’s subscriber could find many things of interest, including offers of premiums for pulling in new readers. These were gifts like a whole page of gold-filled rings, some with brilliants and others with gemstones.
It cost 50 cents to subscribe to the monthly magazine for one year, $1 for two. Should a reader submit two or four subscriptions – one her own – she could receive one of these rings.
For more subscriptions, other premiums were offered, such as a seven-piece set of enamelware pots and pans, coffee and teapots among them.
A heartwarming promotional story speaks of Mr. A.N. Kennedy from upstate New York. Having lost both arms in an accident, he still went to work selling McCall’s subscriptions, netting about $240 in two months.
How could McCall’s afford such premiums? Advertisements paid off, letting area subscribers who received the July 1910 issue order such finery as an embroidered shirt waist for 98 cents or a chanticler hairpiece for $2.48. The one shown in an ad is fulsome and wavy, so its owner wouldn’t have to worry about looking like a plucked chicken.
Although Pabst out of Milwaukee advertised a malt and barley tonic, the blatant patent medicine ads of the past did not make it into this magazine. There’s a good reason for it: the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906. Ads were not supposed to lie.
One of the few health-related articles concerns “Pretty Eyes.” One of its main suggestions calls for holding a quarter between the thumb and forefinger, with the arm outstretched. The eyes are moved to follow the moving quarter up and down and around as exercise. However, it doesn’t say if a nickel or dime would do, or if the nearsighted could use a 50-cent piece.
All in all, the July 1910, McCall’s surely brought pleasure to its many readers, although few ladies here likely planned to use the Fourth of July menu suggested for a luncheon party. Maybe for mackerel salmon could have been substituted and salmon pie turned into popular fare.
For those of us who like old magazines, there are always new things to discover and humorous stories to enjoy. This 1910 McCall’s obviously offers still more than what’s been suggested here. We didn’t include the story on planning cheap vacations by renting a spot beside a farmer’s lake and his son’s boat at 10 cents a trip.
Sanitation measures are lacking, sanitation not being genteel enough to discuss, it seems. But we wondered about a possible privy-privilege charge to use the farmer’s outhouse.
And, too, perhaps there was also a slight charge to pump water for drinking and cooking from the farmer’s backyard well. Even for polite gentility’s sake, some things are hard to ignore.
We will again try for a rock identification day, scheduled from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 8 (weather concerns caused us to cancel the initial Sept. 10 event), at the museum, 746 Long St.
Bring rocks. A geologist will identify them.
We are always in need of more volunteers, and we always appreciate having visitors pass through.