Saturday’s ad is entitled Showing Off the Latest Project, and the illustration was done in 1954 by Douglass Crockwell. It’s #91 in a series entitled “Home Life in America,” also known as the Beer Belongs series of ads that the United States Brewers Foundation ran from 1945 to 1956. In this ad, a couple has invited another over to their home, only to take them into the workshop to show off the latest hobby that the man has been working on. And apparently he doesn’t collect stamps or coins, but instead make lamps?!? And of course they’re all dressed up as the woodman looks admiringly at his handiwork while his guest hold the book he apparently used as his instructions open, with a finger pointing at the diagram for the lamp he sees before him, come to life. The two women seem waay to happy about the lamp, too. It must have been a very dull evening for this to be the highlight.
