Print

Carol has been an avid consumer of print media from a young age. Growing up, her family received the New York Daily News, New York Daily Mirror, and Life. All were morning newspapers and magazines, respectively. When it came to reading the papers, there was quite an interesting rotation. "The kids got the funnies. My dad got the sports. We all read the newspaper one at a time: first dad, then mom, and lastly us kids."

A picture of a front page of the New York Daily Mirror that Carol might have seen.
https://willstraw.com/united-states-sunday-mirror-new-york-1930s-1940s/#jp-carousel-3291

They got each of their newspapers and magazines from a local corner store called United Cigars. (Carol and her siblings referred to the building as the corner candy store where they could purchase cigarettes for a penny.) Carol said the newspapers were five to ten cents each, which was cheap.
"[The New York Daily News and the New York Mirror] could not have been too expensive, or my father would not have bought both of them." Her favorite content was the comics, or as she called them, "funnies." However, she always looked at the headlines first. She still does this to this day. "Maybe it was because of the war," Carol said. Despite her enjoyment of newspapers, Carol never sold newspapers as a job.

A picture of a front page of the New York Daily News
that Carol might have seen as a young girl.
http://www.nydailynewspix.com/sales/largeview.php?name=6le07kic.jpg&id=123984&lbx=-1&return_page=searchResults.php&page=5

When I asked Carol if there were ever magazines that she was not allowed to see, her facial expression changed immediately. "Yes, and I found them," she said after taking a deep breath. However, she said that they were not as graphic as some magazines are today. "Back then it was not sex or nudies but more like skimpy negligees."

As for books, there was no doubt that Carol loved reading. One of her childhood favorites was the novel "Black Beauty." This influenced her because she always wanted horses as a child. Eventually that dream came true when she moved out to Missouri with her late husband. She also enjoyed the Sherlock Holmes series. There were no books that were restricted for Carol since they never had dirty books in her house. When it came to acquiring books, Carol got most of her books from the local library. She was seven or eight years of age when she got her first library card. She spent a lot of time in her local library. "It was one of my hangouts," she laughed.  

"Black Beauty" was Carol's childhood favorite book.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Beauty

Over time, Carol believes that content has changed in newspapers and magazines. By content, she means the increase of nudity and cussing. "They just don't care if real young people see that stuff." In addition, she said that there are a lot more advertisements in newspapers and magazines today.

Nowadays, Carol has a Kindle with over 300 books on it. Some book series that she has on her Kindle are Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan series, Clive Cussler's Dirk Pitt novels, and Jeffrey Archer's Clifton Chronicles series. Tom Clancy novels happen to be her favorite currently. She spends most of her time reading on her Kindle. Carol was outspoken on e-books versus paper books. She prefers her Kindle. "I have over three hundred books on this little thing. One hundred physical books would take up a lot of space."

Carol's favorite author currently.
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/405746247655906810/

Audio: Radio and Recordings

Believe it or not, there was a time before television. It was the age of the radio –– an era that is most often overshadowed by the era of television. However, the era of radio was just as important as the era of television. It is also an era that Carol can prominently recall.

As a young child, Carol remembers a specific experience with radio. She and her siblings would wash dishes together and listen to the radio. The three of them listened to different programs such as the "Lone Ranger," "The Green Hornet," "The Shadow," and "Batman."  The radio was conveniently placed on top of the refrigerator for use when the kitchen needed to be cleaned. Since the radio was primarily used when the dishes were washed, it was only used between the times of 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.. Carol's family radio did not have any technical problems except for volume. As for commercials, Carol said she didn't remember any. "You know, we were young."

The Green Hornet was another program Carol loved.
https://www.otrcat.com/p/green-hornet

The Lone Ranger was one radio program Carol listened to frequently.
https://durnmoosemovies.wordpress.com/2013/07/04/old-time-
radio-thursdays-002-the-lone-ranger-1933-1954/

Along with a radio, Carol enjoyed listening to records. Her family had a Victrola, which sat in the living room. Her family listened to records whenever they worked around the house. "We never just sat and listened to radio or records," said Carol. The one limitation to listening to the Victrola was that all homework had to be finished first. Carol never seemed to have a problem with this.  As a child, there was no music that Carol was not allowed to listen to. However, there was a certain genre of music her parents did not like. "My parents didn't like listening to rock-n-roll because they didn't like the beat. They listened to Charleston beat music."

Carol did not have much experience with live-music. She never went to a school dance. She never had church dances. She also never went to a concert when she was little. The first concerts that Carol remembers were in upstate New York. "My mother and father would never have let me gone to that. That turned out to be a bad affair." Even later in life, Carol still was never interested in concerts like Woodstock. "Dull, wasn't I?" She laughed.

When Carol was older, she developed quite a varied taste in music. She loved mostly country and western singers, but she also loved other popular singers of the day. Some of her favorite artists include Johnny Cash, Eddy Arnold, Johnny Mathis, Doris Day, Perry Como, Mario Lanza, and Elvis Presley. As for the Beatles, Carol never had "Beatlemania." "I never went crazy over the Beatles," she said. 

More CDs from Carol's collection.
This is a personal photograph that I took.

Some of the CDs in Carol's large collection.
This is a personal photograph that I took.

Nowadays, Carol doesn't even listen to the radio or records. She owns a Bose CD player. The only music she listens to is on CDs. She has a huge collection of CDs. As you can see pictured above, all of her CDs are albums with old favorites. She believes that music sounds better on her Bose CD player than any record player she ever owned. She often rarely listens to music, but when she does, it is as if no time has passed at all.

Movies

As a child growing up in New York City, Carol frequented the downtown movie theater with her two siblings. The movie theater was on Dyckman Street right next to a grocery store with fresh produce. Carol and her two siblings would often times steal some sort of produce and run into the movie theater. "We didn't count it as stealing back then. We were kids," said Carol. She also recalled that Dyckman Theatre was much bigger than theaters today because it only had one large screen. The theater had almost 1500 seats. 

This is the movie theater Carol frequented as a child.
Her siblings would steal produce from the grocery store to the right of the theater.
http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/27049/photos/34791

Back then, it only cost Carol five or ten cents to see two movies back-to-back. Compared to the price of seeing a movie today, I definitely would have gone to the movies constantly if movies were that cheap. Carol and her siblings always went to see matinees. As kids, they were not allowed to see evening shows. There were no movies that her parents forbade them to see. The only things that would have stopped them from seeing a movie were if they did not have the money or if the movie was an evening show. Going to the movies for Carol was for pure enjoyment. Any time that Carol had money, which was seldom, she spent it on black licorice. Even today, black licorice is her go-to movie concession snack.

Movies never played a role in Carol's courtship and friendships. When she lived in New York, she only saw movies with her older brother and younger sister. None of them ever went alone. This was a way for them to keep out of harm's way. Even later in life, Carol did not go to the movies with her friends or with dates. She never went to the movies with her late husband until after they were married.

Aside from movie theaters, Carol did experience drive-in movies. However, it wasn't until she had moved to Missouri that she actually went to a drive-in movie, putting her around the age of thirty. At this time, she had her own family along with her. They would park their car somewhere in the middle of the drive-in. She and her husband brought lounge chairs to sit outside in, blankets for the kids to sit on the ground, and their own snacks and refreshments.

Carol has a broad variety of movie genres that she thoroughly enjoys. Her interests include musicals, westerns, action, and comedies. Her favorite musicals are "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" and "Showboat." William Warfield singing "Ol' Man River" really stood out to her in "Showboat." She said, "I could listen to him sing that song all day long. No one can sing it like him." As for action, she liked the "The French Connection" because it was different from other movies she had seen. It was the first movie with profanity. Lastly, her favorite comedy was the "Long, Long Trailer," which featured Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz.

One of Carol's favorite musicals.
http://jacketmagazine.com/11/seven-brides-info.html

Growing up, I always remembered Carol having lots of John Wayne western movies. In fact, my older brothers enjoyed watching those movies with her. When it came to westerns, John Wayne was her absolute favorite. She has quite a few of his movies stored in her basement. In fact, she once went on vacation with her late husband and friends in which they passed through Monument Valley. She told everyone that they would have to stop and spend a few days there because she had to see where John Wayne filmed most of his movies. While she stood there looking out at Monument Valley, she could almost see the Indians, John Wayne, and the cavalry. "Imagination is really good, and I got it!"

Here are some John Wayne movies from Carol's collection.
This is a personal photograph I took. 

Here are more movies from Carol's collection.
This is a personal photograph I took.

As for the influential qualities of films, Carol has never felt that a film has been influential in her life. She has definitely enjoyed films, but they have not changed her. The only thing close to influential she could think of were the newsreels shown before each movie. This was how Carol got her news about what was going on in the world during World War II. "I hated seeing the killing. Even today I hate killing."

In regards to convergence, Carol has little experience. She has never rented a movie before. She has only ever watched movies in a theater or on television. "I guess I had better things to do in life than rent movies," she laughed. Just as with t.v. shows, Carol does not watch movies online. That is too complicated for her. It seems as though media convergence with movies is something that Carol will not dabble too much into.

Television

While it may seem like a time before television was ages ago, television is still fairly new compared to other mass mediums such as radio and print. Many of us today take for granted having a television, or more than one, readily available for recreational use. In fact, most of us have never considered the idea of not having a t.v. in our homes. That would be absurd. However, for Carol, this was a completely different story.

Carol's family did not purchase their first television until she was about 20 years old. (Carol was the middle of three children in her family.) Her family's first television was an RCA model with a 10" screen. One of the things she could clearly remember was the size of the television screen. Carol also was able to recall what the viewing experience of their first t.v. was like. The quality was not very good according to her memory. "We kept getting zig-zag lines, which we referred to as 'snow.' In order to fix this, we had to move the antennae, or bunny ears as we liked to call them, around." At first, she remembered being disappointed in it and preferring to listen to radio instead.

Carol's first family television was something similar to this model with a 10" screen.
https://antiqueradio.org/RCA630TSTelevision.htm

This is the 1951 version of CBS's logo that Carol would've seen.
http://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/the-evolution-of-the-cbs-eye/

While Carol wasn't very impressed at first, she eventually came round. The t.v. was placed in the family room where there was one couch and two seats for her family of five. Seating was first come, first serve. Like clockwork, she and her family gathered around that small screen every evening to watch their programs on either NBC and CBS. In order to fix the picture quality problem, Carol recalled her brother putting Reynolds aluminum foil around the "ears." Even though the television was new and exciting, Carol said that it did not change her home life much. The children still had to finish their homework before being able to enjoy the television.

Before television had color, Carol remembered something her family had to make the black and white t.v. "colored." There was a plastic sheet that was placed in front of the t.v. to give it color. "If I remember correctly, all it did was make a colorful blob. It was not that clear." It wasn't until about 1965 that Carol and her late husband purchased their first color television. Since color televisions were still expensive at that time, they purchased a used one. She recalled that the color t.v. was able to get more channels than the t.v. her family originally had. She and her husband were able to get channels 2, 4, 5, 11, and 30.

Duz detergent advertisement from the 1950s.
https://hiveminer.com/Tags/1950s,detergent/Interesting

Along with television came lots of advertisements. Some prominent advertisements that Carol watched were Chevrolet, Speedy Alka-seltzer, Texaco gas, Duz detergent, and 20 Mule Team Borax. Back then there were also lots of cereal and cigarette commercials on television.

Speedy Alka-Seltzer from the 1950s.
https://wn.com/speedy_alka_seltzer

Aside from watching television for recreational use, Carol also watched major news events. She said that she always watched major news events on television. The one news event that she vividly remembered was the first space trip to the moon in 1969. "The first trip to the moon blew my mind! It was more exciting to me than earlier space endeavors."

This image is the one that Carol would have seen in July of 1969 during the first moon landing.
http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/news/1969-moonlanding-vin

Since Carol's first experience with television, the medium has rapidly changed. Televisions have gotten larger, quality has gotten better, and channel selection has gotten broader. In fact, Carol's television experiences today vastly differ from those of the 1950s and 1960s. Carol said that the picture has radically changed. "With every new t.v., we got a bigger screen, and with each bigger screen, we liked it a lot more." Carol went from a mere 10" screen television to a 65" screen television. Talk about a better picture. Additionally, there are now DVRs that can record shows and movies for viewers to watch later, a process known as time-shifting. Carol currently has a DVR and uses it. She said that the device is convenient, but she doesn't mind it either way. Furthermore, Carol has satellite television. There are times when she really doesn't enjoy satellite. "With the exception of sports and a few movie channels, I could be satisfied with only the cable channels 2, 4, 5, 11, and 30." However, she did admit that satellite television has a better picture than cable.

With all of these vast changes in roughly sixty years, Carol has drawn the line at the newest trend of online television programming. This is one change that I believe Carol will not jump on board with. She made it very clear that she only watches t.v. on the television. 

Advertising

For most people, the advertisements they are exposed to correspond with where they reside. This is a result of the distinct demographics that advertisements are purposely constructed to reach in order for their messages to be effective. For this reason, many people do not encounter a variety of advertisements. However, my interviewee is a completely different story. Living in both New York and Missouri, my grandmother, Carol, has experienced her fair share of advertisements. 

Carol grew up in New York throughout the 1940s and most of the 1950s. Living in the city, her community did have advertisements painted on the sides of buildings. She remembered painted advertisements being in certain areas of the city. "If we went down toward the old New York City Polo Grounds, where the Giants used to play, and the outskirts of Harlem, there was lots of graffiti, even back then," said Carol. "Most of it was slutty. I can't think of a better word than that." Another poster advertisement that she remembers fondly is the RCA gramophone with a dog. She couldn't remember if the advertisement was along the highway, but she knew that it was definitely in magazines. In addition to those, she also remembers seeing Burma Shave signs all the time while on the road. Carol used to go on road trips all of the time with her late husband. "As a matter of fact," she said, "I miss them today when we traveled because they were everywhere."

New York City Polo Grounds in the 1950s
http://wikimapia.org/144172/Site-of-Polo-Grounds-II-III-and-IV#/photo/477337

RCA gramophone with Nipper
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Talking_Machine_Company

Carol unmistakably remembers that there were always advertisements for transportation. As a child in New York, she said she always saw the Pan American World Airways advertisement for travel. However, her family always did traveling by car because they couldn't afford anything else. When Carol moved to a smaller town in Missouri, there was still transportation advertising. The big advertisement was Trans World Airlines. Despite her change in location, Carol experienced major advertisements for traveling airlines. This is interesting considering that she eventually became a travel agent.

Pan American Airways Advertisement from the 1950s
https://www.pinterest.com/moonhorse/pan-american-world-airways/

Over the years, Carol has had a firsthand account of how advertisements and commercials have changed over time. One of the main things is how much money is spent on advertisements. According to Carol, money spent on advertisements and commercials were maybe a few hundred dollars. Presently, companies spend millions of dollars on advertising their products. Another change is the acceptable content in advertisements. When I asked Carol about how television commercials had changed, she immediately brought up Super Bowl commercials. "Do you remember seeing Mr. Clean commercials? Well all of a sudden on the Super Bowl commercials, Mr. Clean was a macho man!" A commercial like this would not have been aired during the 1940s or 1950s. Carol has noticed that advertisements and commercials have become more and more provocative. This has made them less enjoyable for her.

As for advertising frequency, Carol was outspoken. She feels as though one cannot get away from advertisements. Whether you are watching television or are online, they are everywhere. She mentioned that while watching an hour long program, she has counted five or six advertisements before. This cuts into her program, which she does not enjoy. However, she is able to record her shows and thus fast forwards through most advertisements. "Thank God for recording!" She said.

One of the last things I asked my grandmother was if she had a favorite advertisement. Her favorite advertisement is a 1953 commercial for Chevrolet. "I didn't know it at the time, but I'd marry a man who worked for Chevrolet. My favorite advertisement was 'See the U.S.A. in Your Chevrolet,'" said Carol. She then proceeded to sing the song from the commercial, which features Dinah Shore singing the catchy jingle. I watched the commercial myself and rather enjoyed it. Unlike commercials today, it is long, simple, modest, and forthright. When watching it, you can see just how much advertisements have evolved since the 1950s.