Lessons from the 1950s, Part 2: Baby Products

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A few weeks ago, I bought some parenting magazines from the 1950s. In a previous installment, I shared some baby-rearing advice found in those magazines. Today, I’ll share some baby products, including car seats, ’50s style!

A good portion of the magazine ads were for food. Carnation and Pet vied to be mothers’ choice for the evaporated milk used in making baby formula. Companies like Heinz, Libby’s, Gerber, Swift, and Beech-Nut advertised their delectable boxed and jarred baby food. (Liver and Bacon, anyone?)

There were lots of ads for diapers and detergent, too, of course. You know gDiapers, the cloth-disposable hybrid system available today? Yeah, that’s not a modern idea. In the ’50s, Playtex offered a system of flushable liners with reusable cloth covers:

Evenflo advertised artificial nipples that offered an even flow of milk, and long before they produced Sceneras, Cosco made really cool high chairs

 (I want one so bad! Preferably in aqua.)

As promised, here are some car seats. They’re horrifying by today’s standards, of course, but keep in mind the point was just to keep the baby contained in the car, not to protect it in  crashes. A lot of these served as multi-use chairs/beds for use outside the car as well:

  

Here’s an old-timey travel system!

Here’s a…thing…intended to keep your kid in bed, but great in the car, too!

Here are a couple “dedicated” car seats:

 

I hope you enjoyed the stroll down questionable-products lane! Stay tuned to CarseatBlog for my third and final “Lesson from the 1950s,” coming soon!

9 Comments

  1. Rena Goff December 28, 2012
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