If you have ever thumbed through a vintage magazine, with its colorful, full-page ads, you have seen the illusion of perfection. Adds for everything from a glamorous brand of cigarettes to a shiny new family sedan grace the pages, making the reader long for that perfect item.  In 1950, Inglis ...

Most of the parents in the neighborhood where I grew up were disciplinarians. Children were expected to be in their own yard by the time the streetlights came on in the evening. Chores varied by household, but all of us kids had them. Some pulled weeds and helped mow their ...

In early American schoolrooms the art of beautiful penmanship was more important than learning the proper spelling of words, but lessons in good moral character were of the most value. Students began by drawing straight lines over and over before moving on to the letters of the alphabet, and finally ...