Old school WWII towel ads... O.o

[TheMightyFavog]

http://www.retronaut.com/2012/09/army-day-crocodiles-keep-out-cannon-towel-ads-1943/

[Tuesday Afternoon]

1. Canon made a good towel. Those textile mills are long gone now.

[olddots]

2. those were the days

an actual artist drew and painted those ads and the product wasn't hopefully slave made .

[TheMightyFavog]

3. Wow. There's absolutely no homoerotic undertones in these ads at all...

[LeftofObama]

4. Exactly what I was thinking!

[Tuesday Afternoon]

5. Are you implying that there is something wrong with that?

I know there is really something wrong with all the textile mills being closed and all the people out of work.

[texanwitch]

10. No.

None at all.

[kwassa]

6. Men used to go swimming nude at the YMCA, too.

It was considered normal at the time.

In a way, it seems like our society has become more uptight, not less.

[TheMightyFavog]

7. Although, I'll bet a few of these ads ended up becoming pinups for single female factory workers.

[Chan790]

8. Okay...

but did they go prancing around on a tropical beach nude doing a fan dance with a palm frond after bathing in a canoe with 10 of their closest friends...because that's what's happening in that first ad. Just going to say that I'm skeptical that was ever normal.

[texanwitch]

9. I need to study these ads.

So much historical importance to them.

We could learn a lot about WW2 from these ads.

These ads were meant for women, to buy the towels.

I would have.

[Tom Ripley]

11. It's as if Tom of Finland and Norman Rockwell collaborated on an ad campaign

[In_The_Wind]

12. Loved those big strong towels.

[texanwitch]

13. How did these ads get into print to begin with.

Mostly naked men.

Well, it was War time.

I am sure a large part of the population enjoyed them.

I am.

There was a lot of lonely women.

I love this ads.

[In_The_Wind]

14. I enjoyed seeing them today.

Times have changed. Now, we are worried that ads are too gay or filled with sexual overtones.

[texanwitch]

15. It was a more innocent time.

We are looking at with 2013 eyes.

But still, the bathing in the canoe.

I don't know anyone I would do that with, in public.

Great ads.

I am going to ask a neighbor to look at the ads, she was a young woman then.

I want to get her view point.

[In_The_Wind]

16. I'd love to hear her reaction.

I did a lot of things twenty years ago that I wouldn't do today but bathing in a canoe wasn't one of 'em.

[texanwitch]

17. I will see her today or tomorrow.

I am sure she will enjoy the ads.

She liked going to the USO dances.

She has told me a lot about the times back then.

One thing she has told me that gay people were invisible.

So I can see how these ads were seen as just as just boys having fun.

The boys in these ads were having fun.

I love these ads.

[Liberal Veteran]

18. That must be the "Gay old time" they were talking about in the Flintstones.

[madamesilverspurs]

19. OMG, that last one --

I did a double-take, could have sworn it was these guys:



Rep. Cory Gardner (R-CO4) and Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell