Modern brides may appreciate retro book
SPECIAL TO THE WASHINGTON POST
Stumped for an insouciant shower gift for the modern bride? How about a reminder of how things were for bygone brides?
Popular culture writer Kristin Tillotson's spoof on the joys of homemaking in the '40s and '50s -- "Retro Housewife: A Salute to the Suburban Superwoman" (Collectors Press, 128 pp., $16.95) -- is filled with vintage ads and photographs showing mid-century wives joyous and fulfilled while changing the sheets, scrubbing the tub and getting a vacuum cleaner for Christmas.
Rinso detergent (with "Solium") promised "3 times the whiter washing action of any other soap" and a $39.95 Regina Electrikbroom could get the house "company clean every day -- in minutes."
Those were the days.