I chose to read another periodical from Time Magazine because I wanted to see how a specific magazine changed twenty years after the previous periodical I had read. To be honest, I was very surprised with how difficult the layout and context of both magazines were. Also, I chose a periodical published around the date of Christmas because I thought that if any magazine focused their advertisements and articles around a particular holiday it would be Christmas. However, there was very little mention of Christmas in both the ads and stories. Aside from the differences between the periodicals twenty years apart I did enjoy reading and getting more of a sense of what living in our country and world was like fifty years ago.
Even though this issue of Time was published two days before Christmas, the actual holiday itself was not mentioned a lot. On the second page there is an ad for Metropolitan Life Insurance Company in which they wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a happy New Year and speak briefly about their company. This is the kind of advertisement I would expect to see today on TV during the Christmas season. Throughout the entire month of December every ad has some Christmas element in it to attract consumers’ attention. However, in this issue there is only one advertisement that even mentions Christmas. I was very surprised that only one company chose to bring about the holiday season in their ad; a strategy used often in marketing nowadays.
As for the articles I only found one with Christmas as a theme, but the article was not as happy and cheerful as one might think. This article was titled “White Christmas” and was published in “The Press” section of the magazine. This article told a story about how a group of white people from Little Rock, Arkansas organized the boycott of a local newspaper because the editors were publishing articles that were seen as “breaking down the segregation laws.” Towards the end of the article editor Harry Ashmore is quoted with saying, “The Gazette does not believe this revolution will succeed. But we do believe that the people of Arkansas should be aware that it is under way and should understand what its ultimate cost could be, not to this newspaper, but to all of us.” This is a very powerful quote that predicts how our country’s segregation laws would soon come to an end. I also find it very empowering that a small newspaper from Little Rock had the courage to publish these types of stories even when they knew their stories would not be received well.
Even though most advertisements did not center on the holiday season they were somewhat different than what I had found a couple weeks ago in the 1936 edition of Time Magazine. In the earlier issue ads were simply a picture of the product a company was trying to sell with a small caption or slogan. Twenty years later I found that companies were beginning to use different strategies in order to make their products more appealing. For example, an ad for Haig and Haig scotch depicts a large masculine man picking up a crate of the scotch out of a small boat on a white sandy beach with the ocean and mountains in the background. The caption at the top of the picture states, “For men who can’t be Vague.” This ad reminds me of the Dos Equis and John Jameson TV advertisements where they both portray a masculine and adventurous man in order to attract other men to buy their product. I find it pretty amazing that companies were using the same type of ads fifty years ago that we still find pleasing today.
Overall, this issue of Time portray a world that seemed very content and definitely on a rise due to the latest technology and inventions. I would definitely say that this edition depicted a happier and brighter world than the issue from 1936. I was surprised that Christmas and New Years were not talked about more which I guess became more of a popular theme in periodicals later on in our country’s history. It is also always very fun to read about products and technologies that seem so basic nowadays such as the spacesuit and shaving cream. By reading these two editions of an old magazine I have been able to see how the United States and the world changed throughout two very distinct decades.
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