For Dream Hands, Cream Your Hands!

[write-light.livejournal.com]

::snicker::

Pacquins Hand Cream, 1949



And yet for some odd reason, she looks like she needs Handi-Off.

Comments

[ejia-arath03.livejournal.com]

If that's all it takes, I should've had dream hands years ago.

Oh wait, not what you meant, never mind...

[pikkewyntjie.livejournal.com]

A regular Pacquins hand massage is even more important these "servant problem" days.

Exactly. The servants aren't around anymore to "service" you anymore so you have to take matters into your own hands. But 12 seconds? That's pretty efficient. Either Gertrude is very skilled or she's very popular with the neighborhood boys.

I agree that the woman looks like she has extra fingers, but I'm not sure why.

[write-light.livejournal.com]

What the hell does that mean "these servants problem days"?

And I think she's flashing gang signs!

[pikkewyntjie.livejournal.com]

I was discussing "the servant problem" with someone just the other day. My understanding is that about that time (at least outside the South, where this happened later), the middle class was beginning to question the need to continue to keep servants and whether the convenience of having them was worth the trouble. With all the new labor-saving appliances, they weren't as necessary. Domestic workers were also beginning to make all kinds of "unreasonable" demands like wanting decent pay and working hours, and to be treated like human beings, like if a pretty young maid refused her employer's sexual advances, then she shouldn't be fired for it--you know, crazy stuff!

[jocelmeow.livejournal.com]

There's the very big issue of the recent wartime, and that because of that, people who had been in service found better jobs with less encumbrance elsewhere, that including the immigrant and African-American populations that had for generations been mostly relegated to domestic service. There's an excellent answer about this, among several others, at AskMetafilter (http://ask.metafilter.com/220320/What-happened-to-the-servants#3183705), though it's about Britain specifically.

[luke-russell.livejournal.com]

WELL! If Gladys Swarthout, Rise Stevens, Lynn Fontanne and Vera Zorina use it, it MUST be good!

[luke-russell.livejournal.com]

And I also notice the esteemed "Gertrude Lawrence" advises to cream, cream, CREAM your hands. That's enough for me!