Print

     For my final post of my Blast to the Past blog, I interviewed Carol about her experiences with print. She told me how magazines and newspapers were incorporated in her life growing up and where they stand with her today.

     Carol definitely remembered that her family didn't have much use for newspapers. There wasn't much use for them, especially if they were getting their news through the radio station(s) and television. So, newspapers had no effect on Carol's life. But she does remember the St. Louis Post Dispatch newspapers being around when she was growing up, which are still around today. Carol told me that the paper was normally delivered by a paperboy, whom she attended school with up until she graduated.

 

An older version of the St. Louis Post Dispatch reporting about the Titanic.

The more modern version of the St. Louis Post Dispatch newspaper.



     Magazines played a more dominant role in Carol's household. Carol remembers her favorite magazine being Vogue, which is a fashion magazine, which like the St. Louis Post Dispatch, is still in circulation today. Carol said she and her older sister enjoyed looking at the different fashions and clothes in the magazines. Carol told me that fashioned always excited her. When I brought censorship into the conversation, Carol said that she and her siblings were banned from looking at Playboy Magazine and Sir! Magazine. Her mother didn't like how women were explicitly posed on the front cover of the magazines. She felt it gave a bad connotation to women. Also the content with the magazines had were too vulgar for Carol and her siblings to view also. After viewing some of the covers and some of the articles within these 2 magazines, I was not surprising as to why my great grandmother would censor her children from viewing such graphic content.

 

One of very few Sir! Magazines that have an appropriate cover page.



     Today, Carol still does not read any newspapers that she receives. She gets her news from Fox 2 News, but she is still invested in magazines. Her choice of magazines have changed over the years. Now, Carol prefers magazines like the National Enquirer and Star. Carol informed me that she knows that a lot of what these magazines publish are not true, but she finds the articles entertaining. The outrageous stories keep Carol coming back for more, which is why she continues to read these magazines.

An issue of The National Enquirer.

An issue of Star magazine.