Got Breathing Space?

When you don't have, or feel you don't have, an extra moment to read philosophy, history, or science, when great literature, plays, and novels are as foreign to you as hieroglyphics, do you have any chance of seeing your work, career, or life in a new light?

Too Clean for Our Own Good?

Stronger Than Dirt : A Cultural History of Advertising Personal Hygiene in America,

1875-1940 by Juliann Sivulka, review by Cahners Business Information, Inc.

“Only a century ago the privilege of washing with soap was a prerogative of the well-to-do, and a bath was something the average person avoided. But by the end of World War I a revolution in the standards of personal hygiene had taken place. Soap was not only more widely used but was suddenly viewed as a powerful symbol of purification, civilization, and progress. What caused this radical shift in attitudes?

In this fascinating cultural history, illustrated throughout with dozens of period illustrations and advertisements, Juliann Sivulka shows that the transformation of soap from luxury product to everyday staple and symbol of success was the result of both the newly emerging advertising industry and large-scale societal changes brought on by the modernization of daily life. The new emphasis on soap translated into more elaborate cleanliness rituals, creating in turn specialized places devoted to care of the body, more complex domestic interiors, and new customers for an emerging consumer society.

Cleanliness came to symbolize a morally superior and civilized individual. Keeping clean, according to advertisements, was not only a healthy habit, it also ensured romance, material abundance, and acceptance into the successful white middle class. Advertisements also reflected women's changing roles as agents of cleanliness, as well as creators of mass cultural images that reinforced narrow stereotypes, which feminists later protested.”

The Rise of Cultural Creatives?

“A new phenomenon is emerging in American culture, according to the results of a social research survey. We are at a watershed in history, when the country is shifting away from the modern technocratic society toward what sociologist Paul H. Ray calls ‘Integral Culture,’concerned with spiritual transformation, ecological sustainability, and the worth of the feminine.”

According to Ray, here are some of the values, commitments, and beliefs of the Cultural Creatives:

* Need to rebuild neighborhoods and communities / 92%

* Concerns about violence and abuse of women and children / 87%

* Xenophilism: Love of travel to foreign places, of foreigners, and the exotic / 85%

* Nature as sacred: Redwood groves, planetary stewardship, Gaia / 85%

* Ecological sustainability: Concern for global environment, species extinction, and overpopulation; and willingness to pay to fix it / 83%

* Voluntary simplicity: People should have simpler lifestyles, fewer possessions / 79%

102 Years Ago: A Simpler Time

The World in 1904:

The tallest structure in the world is the Eiffel Tower!

The average wage is .22/hr. The average worker earns between $200 and $400 per year. A competent accountant could expect to earn $2000 per year, a dentist $2,500 per year, a veterinarian between $1,500 and $ 4,000 per year. A mechanical engineer about $5,000 per year.

More than 95 percent of all births in the U.S. took place at home. Ninety percent of all U.S. physicians had no college education. Instead, they attended medical schools, many of which were condemned in the press and by the government as "substandard."

Sugar cost four cents a pound. Eggs were fourteen cents a dozen. Coffee was fifteen cents a pound.

Most women only washed their hair once a month, and used borax or egg yolks for shampoo.

And, about our neighbors to the north: Canada passed a law prohibiting poor people from entering the country for any reason.

U.S. Statistics, 1904

The average life expectancy is 47 years.

14% of homes have a bathtub.

8% of homes have a telephone.

A three-minute call from Denver to New York cost $11.

There are 8,000 cars in the U.S. and 144 miles of paved roads.

The maximum speed limit in most cities is 10 miles per hour.

With a 1.4 million residents, California is the 21st most populous state.

Alabama, Mississippi, Iowa, and Tennessee are each more heavily
populated than California.