A friend of mine who used to have an antique store gave us boxes of old magazines for the Op Shop. He says they are not worth the bother of selling online as they have loose and missing pages and other faults but that we might still get something for them.

As Naomi and I love old stuff and I knew that we were running short of storage space at the shop I volunteered to have them at home and sort them out. Several boxes went back to the shop last weekend but there are odds and ends that got missed and I thought I’d share a couple of them today.

These are two old copies of Every-Woman’s Encyclopedia which were on sale in installments. I could not find a date on them but it seems that King George V was on the British throne and there is no mention of WWI. I found a reference to 1911 in one of them so I’m going to say I think they are from that year or maybe early 1912. I found no reference to the Titanic in either and that was big news that year.

The magazines cover all sorts of subjects, there are recipes, tips on home nursing, childcare, fashion, and sewing as well as articles about prominent women.

Here are some interesting bits.

The Women’s Law Book

This chapter covers juvenile law and talks about such things as Parental Discipline, Juvenile Smoking, Intoxicating Liquor to mention a few. There is also a couple of pages about the law as it is applied to servants covering such things as Employer Liability, Workers Compensation, Burglary and “When the Master is Liable”.

“Marriage”  by “Madge” (Mrs. Humphrey) includes helpful advice for husbands and wives about gift giving;

To bring home to an already overcrowded household a pair of vases which are “two things more to dust” is not the way to arouse rapturous sentiment in the bosom of one’s wife.

To buy cigars, socks, waistcoats or even ties for one’s husband puts him under a feeling of obligation, while, very often he execrates  the”vile taste”, of the wife as he considers it, with the best intentions , trodden on his tenderest sartorial feelings.

The article tells us that “it is very bad for any husband for his wife to fetch and carry for him in a servile way.” and that “Men are very careless, as a rule, about their own clothes.”

There is even a handy pull out first aid guide for the reader to hang on the wall.

It’s a fascinating glimpse into the world that our grandmother’s and great grandmother’s lived in.  My maternal grandmother was a young wife just before WWI so I can easily imagine her reading this perhaps with her older sisters in 1911.