Monday, November 25, 2024

Thanksgiving Grocery Ads – November 1954

Thanksgiving is only a few days away – so hopefully you have your menu finalized, and everything you need to prepare it in the fridge already.

Back in late November 1954, you had a lot of choices when it came to where you bought the items for your holiday feast. Here's a veritable corny-copia of grocery store ads that all ran in the Lorain Journal on November 22, 1954, all designed to put you in the Thanksgiving mood with great graphics.


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And as a bonus, here's an IGA Thanksgiving ad from ten years later – November 1964. What's odd is that the price per pound of turkey (31 cents) is less than it was in the 1954 ads. And it has a nice holiday sentiment at the top of the ad.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

It’s interesting to see that 60 - 70 years ago grocery stores used display advertising instead of inserts to deliver their advertising message. Todd

Don Hilton said...

Back home, it was turkey and all the fixin's for the family, the childless next door neighbors who were like grandparents, at least one uncle and aunt, perhaps some cousins, and a friend or two of my parents (typically including a real-life, retired spinster skool-teacher, Miss Ida Hubbard, who taught many of my own teachers and told stories of how dumb they were).

Once away from home, it was my sweetheart's family, who didn't like turkey, so we switched to ham, but it was never very traditional. A couple of years we had pizza that the kids helped their mom make. Sometimes, when we had relatives visiting from Baltimore, it'd be fresh seafood. A few years, we hit The Hometown Buffet (where serious eater ate) for our holiday meals.

Now that it's the two of us, things have scaled-down to simple meals, but it's still nice to have a little cranberry sauce.

Now that I think of Miss Ida... I need to use her as a character in one of my books!

-Alan D Hopewell said...

The name Ida Hubbard sounds really familiar; where did she teach?

Don Hilton said...

ALAN... This was over in Pennsyltucky, far away from Lorain. Maybe you're think of Old Mother Hubbard, who went to her cupboard.