Although school has been in session for many school systems for several weeks now, many of my readers remember fondly when school did not start until the first week of September. It made for a nice, clean transition from August to September.
And with school starting later back then, the back-to-school ads didn't begin to appear until the end of August. Many (if not most) of them seemed to focus on school clothes, specifically shoes.
We never wore our 'gym shoes' to school when we were little – it would have been unthinkable. (Remember bringing them to school in a gym bag along with a towel and gym shorts?) Nope, we wore shoes that had to be polished and tied. I don't remember a lot of slip-ons.
Anyway, here's a not-too-ample sample of ads from 1966 with a back to school theme. This first ad for Gray Drug Stores has a neat transistor radio giveaway.
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| Aug. 31, 1966 |
Amazingly, some of those radios have survived. You can see one on the
radio museum website. Here are a few poached pictures courtesy of that website.
Hills usually had some great clip art in their ads, but the illustration in this one is a little odd. I'm not sure what you would call the young boy's hairdo. Maybe he was a Cesar Romero fan.
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| Sept. 1, 1966 |
And as I mentioned, there were tons of shoe ads. I like the little dog illustration in the Hageman Shoes ad.
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| Sept. 2, 1966 |
I've never heard of Lazy Bones Shoes, but apparently they were popular enough to run four color ads in magazines well into the 1970s. And the cute dog mascot was featured prominently, which is doggone nice.
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| 1977 ad |
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| 1978 ad |
Other shoe ads featured the old Brady favorites: Nobil's and Pic-Way.
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| Sept. 1, 1966 |
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| Sept. 1, 1966 |
Hey Dan - that was probably the year I got a pair of “Beatle Boots “
ReplyDeleteFrom Pic-Way. Pointy toes high heels spandex panel on the side. I was ultra mod my first day back at Harrison. Todd
I too got a pair of Beatle Boots about the same time - mine were from Hills. I could only wear them at home cuz girls had to wear dresses to school. It’s lucky I didn’t fall flat on my face or get run over when I did wear them - since I was so enthralled looking down at my feet in those cool boots to be watching where I was going… Come to think of it, I’m gonna order a new pair today!
ReplyDeleteSlip-ons? No way! And gym shoes to skool. Wasn't allow when I was a kid. Neither were white socks, dungaree, shirts without collars, or trousers on girls. In fact, no nylons on girls. AND NO BARE LEGS YOU HUSSIES!!!! Knee socks and skirts to the middle of your kneecaps.
ReplyDelete