A nostalgic journey back to a time of stay-at-home moms, vinyl long-playing records, telegrams, radio days & manual typewriters. Personal stories of the 20th century, plus 250 vintage photos.
United States of America (Press Release) August 26, 2007 --
Longing for the “Good Old Days” when you didn’t have to spend half your life parked on the freeway, and the other half deleting mountains of spam to get your email? Does your blood pressure rise at the end of the day when you try to have a quiet dinner in a restaurant and the inconsiderate jerk at the next table is hollering into his cellphone? Take a break from this frenetic madness and enjoy REMEMBRANCES OF TIMES PAST, by Marta Hiatt, a nostalgic collection of stories and photographs recalling the way life was in the early part of the 20th Century, when living was much less complicated.
This book is a sentimental journey back to a time of Model-T Fords, stay-at-home-moms, vinyl long-playing records, telegrams, radio days, strict rules of etiquette, and manual typewriters. Hiatt has compiled hundreds of personal stories of “the good old days,” in her charming book, illustrated with 250 black and white vintage photographs that vividly bring the stories to life.
“My sister and I were reminiscing one day about how we used to spend almost all day Saturday helping mom pull the wash through a wringer several times to get the water out,” Hiatt says. “What a chore that was! We also discussed how we had to make soap suds to do the dishes in the days before detergent was invented. We put the hard bar of soap in a small wire grate and swished it around for about 10 minutes to get enough suds. After our talk I thought it would be interesting to put together an entire book about the so-called “good old days” by asking friends and family to contribute their stories.”
Dr. Hiatt compared her childhood in the ‘40s to life today:
• You have a cell-phone, we had a party-line, and everyone on our line could listen in, usually surreptitiously.
• You send email, we sent telegrams.
• You play your music on a pocket-size iPod, ours came on 12-inch vinyl records.
• If you want information, you just Google it, but we had to search through index cards at the local library.
Hiatt’s book is full of interesting, personal stories such as this:
“In our family on Sunday evenings we all sat around the kitchen table and listened to the radio; programs like “The Lone Ranger,” “Jack Benny,” “Fred Allen,” and “The Shadow Knows.” Of course there wasn’t any TV, so we talked to each other.
Hiatt thinks the biggest cultural changes were the feminist revolution of the ‘70s, sparked by Betty Freidan’s book “The Feminine Mystique” and the hippie revolution of the ‘60s, which transformed the social order. "We went from being a very uptight society governed by religion and strict rules of etiquette, to anything goes, and 'do your own thing.' --From bathing suits that covered a woman’s entire torso, to bikinis and thongs, and from ties and white shirts at work to ‘casual Fridays.’ She explores the changes from Victorian prudishness to personal vibrators, and from corsets to Wonder Bras.
This book is a sentimental journey back to a time of Model-T Fords, stay-at-home-moms, vinyl long-playing records, telegrams, radio days, strict rules of etiquette, and manual typewriters. Hiatt has compiled hundreds of personal stories of “the good old days,” in her charming book, illustrated with 250 black and white vintage photographs that vividly bring the stories to life.
“My sister and I were reminiscing one day about how we used to spend almost all day Saturday helping mom pull the wash through a wringer several times to get the water out,” Hiatt says. “What a chore that was! We also discussed how we had to make soap suds to do the dishes in the days before detergent was invented. We put the hard bar of soap in a small wire grate and swished it around for about 10 minutes to get enough suds. After our talk I thought it would be interesting to put together an entire book about the so-called “good old days” by asking friends and family to contribute their stories.”
Dr. Hiatt compared her childhood in the ‘40s to life today:
• You have a cell-phone, we had a party-line, and everyone on our line could listen in, usually surreptitiously.
• You send email, we sent telegrams.
• You play your music on a pocket-size iPod, ours came on 12-inch vinyl records.
• If you want information, you just Google it, but we had to search through index cards at the local library.
Hiatt’s book is full of interesting, personal stories such as this:
“In our family on Sunday evenings we all sat around the kitchen table and listened to the radio; programs like “The Lone Ranger,” “Jack Benny,” “Fred Allen,” and “The Shadow Knows.” Of course there wasn’t any TV, so we talked to each other.
Hiatt thinks the biggest cultural changes were the feminist revolution of the ‘70s, sparked by Betty Freidan’s book “The Feminine Mystique” and the hippie revolution of the ‘60s, which transformed the social order. "We went from being a very uptight society governed by religion and strict rules of etiquette, to anything goes, and 'do your own thing.' --From bathing suits that covered a woman’s entire torso, to bikinis and thongs, and from ties and white shirts at work to ‘casual Fridays.’ She explores the changes from Victorian prudishness to personal vibrators, and from corsets to Wonder Bras.
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