Home Show at the Pensacola Municipal Auditorium …
I am going to start off with this young lady displaying the new colorful rotary dial phones from Southern Bell and Telegraph. It comes in a variety of beautiful colors, however, since color film did not become used wide-spread until the 1960’s and this is 1956, you are just going to have to take this lady’s word for it. There is only one model of phone at the present time, but it does come in eight beautiful colors … as you can tell from the various tones of phones. Be the first on your block to get rid of your basic black phone … the start of phone envy!! Moving on to soft drinks …
Two magnetized Royal Crown Oven Mitts for only 50 cents and two RC bottle caps. I almost will wager that this is one of the first promotions in stores back in the 1950’s. It is hard to believe that before this time the retailers had yet to utilize store promotions. All of that untapped consumer advertising gone to waste for those previous years. Well friend, no need to worry, because in the next thirty years or more they would more than make up for years of no promotions. It is hard to even imagine the decades before without in-store promotions. And let’s not forget the radio stations and TV stations getting involved, along with magazines and newspapers. Your head should be spinning now in ” promotional heaven “… It has only just begun! Thanks for looking and if any of you remember this Home Show down at the Pensacola Municipal Auditorium, please let us hear from you. Thanks again … Frank
Frank Hardy Made My Photographs Two 
Really like your site and always enjoy your photos. Back then no matter what town you lived in there was a familiarity that created an atmosphere of unity across the nation. Maybe it was because everything in photos was black and white? (Meant as an actual comment, and the fact that things were so much “simpler” back then – no gray areas – black and white.)
Ever think about how once “color” was introduced and socially-accepted from the standard, beige, black, gray, brown, color of clothing, buildings, cars, etc. that the “unity” began to split up due to the individuality of new colored things.
I blame it all on “Disney’s Wonderful World of Color”!
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00individual
April 29, 2016 at 3:43 pm
I agree with what you said. I also like your site and enjoy reading about the concerts. Two of my biggest regrets in life … one – not saving all of the ticket stubs from concerts I attended back in the 1970’s and 80’s. Just to remember all of the ones that I attended and look at how little they charged per ticket. And two – not taking my camera and taking photographs … back then you could just walk up to the stage and hang out and no one would come and run you off or tell you to leave. There was no such thing as event or concert security back then. I cannot tell you how many acts from Alice Cooper to the Beach Boys to Elton John to whomever we saw that we went right to the stage and leaned up against it for the concert. It all changed when the Who played Cincinnati and the crowd stampeded and those people were killed. The Who played the Biloxi Coliseum and we had backstage passes and security was real tight and prevented you from going all over. I want to say that was 1982. Thanks again and I did not mean to get off track from your comment about the 50’s …
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Frank Hardy
April 29, 2016 at 5:38 pm
Actually, not off track at all as you completely nailed my two regrets also – tickets and photos. What were we thinking? Probably the two of the easiest and smallest evidences to retain.
I’ll have to admit tho’ that I was more of a participator than a thru-the-lens observer – it’s hard to Rock Out with camera gear to be mindful of. Plus the tickets would be excellent catalyst reminders of concerts we have probably lost track of among the many that stand out. Oh, well.
But on the positive side it is truly a great historic display of photos that you have archived – good on you!
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00individual
April 29, 2016 at 5:57 pm
I have a friend that has saved every concert ticket that he has attended and has posted photos of them on Facebook. Very impressive. Taking a camera to a concert back then was probably the furthest thing from my mind back then. What makes me think of that is seeing people on Ebay selling negatives from concerts back in the 1970’s. Someone had negatives of Jefferson Airplane that were sort of interesting and were not over priced, $5 or $7 a 35mm negative, but the composition was not very good, most were backs of band members, a few of Grace Slick from the side, etc, etc. If you ever run across any negatives of bands from the 1970’s, think of me … I still like to think that there might be a bargain or two out there. Enjoy your site also … Frank
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Frank Hardy
May 18, 2016 at 6:42 pm
Fun photos from the good ol’ days of yesteryear! I was 5 in ’56 and remember our black rotary – and party lines too!
Thanks!
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00individual
April 29, 2016 at 11:19 am
Thanks for the comment. One little story…when my parent’s built the house that we lived in in 1959, the phones were rotary dial. They kept those phones for 49 years. When my father died in 2008, I called Bell South to cancel the phone number that they had for over fifty years. Then she asked about the rotary dial phones and I said that there were two still in use at the house. She said she knew because the had been renting those phones monthly for all of those years and I needed to ship them back to Bell South. She sent me a shipping label but I still had to pay the shipping to return them. My father paid the bill and when he became ill, I just paid the amount never checking what I was paying for since the bill was never over thirty or forty dollars. I went back and checked and there was an “equipment charge” for $12 each month. I have no idea what it was when they first received the phones, but I would imagine that it would only have been a few dollars each month. Over the course of a lifetime I am sure it added up. One more thing since you mentioned black rotary, I do not think that they switched out one of the black phones for a more trendier beige until the late 1960’s. Something that my mother probably wanted because it would not have bothered my father. Thanks again for taking the time to comment … Frank
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Frank Hardy
April 29, 2016 at 3:26 pm