Robot bombs, Nazis, sexism and home rental at $50 per month. News in Painesville, Ohio during the 1940s.

Sorting through old suitcases I own (I have been trying to collect a lot of them for a project) I actually stumbled into an old Painesville, Ohio newspaper. The paper is dated July 10, 1944 and begins with headlines such as “Robot Bombs Destroy Famed London Chapel” and “Nazis Report Red Forces Are Within 125 Miles Of Baltic Sea.” The paper is also full of numerous laughable ads and “news” stories from the time period.

If you want to download, and look through all of these in full resolution so you can zoom in and actually read them much easier, you can download all of the pages by clicking HERE

One thing I found interesting was that stories were published about such mundane things, such as – “Mrs. Jeffries Is Hostess To Club” where it goes on to tell about Mrs. Ralph Jeffries and her card club, which she had hosted at her house on a Wednesday night. A following article talks about a family hosting a Sunday dinner at their home.

The paper also throws out a whole bunch of personal information about people:

“Miss Suzanne Miller of Cleveland has returned to her home after spending two weeks at the home of her grandmother, Mrs. H. G. Early, and her cousin Alice Young, of 111 E. Jackson St.”

“Mr. and Mrs. George Yager are now residing at their newly furnished apartment at 236 Courtland St.”

and many more to go along with those ^

If things like this were shared today, people would be throwing a fit (never mind that people share their entire lives on social media)

You could buy a home for anywhere from $3,000 (for a 3 bedroom home in Painesville-on-the-Lake) to about $7,000 (for a 7 room home in Fairport)

Not to mention rentals, where you could rent a home for $50 per month, which is equal to about $900 today.

You may be asking why I’m even bothering to post this. Well, one reason is that I think it’s both interesting and strange to look back at our history. Sometimes even kind of gross (reference the jobs specified for women and sections about duties of housewives)

But other than that, there were two things that really stuck out to me in this paper. I had noticed two companies mentioned in advertisements – Diamond Magnesium/Diamond Alkali and the Industrial Rayon Corporation.

If you have followed my blog for a while, or own one of my books, you may be familiar with stories of these two places, which had been abandoned for years when I photographed them. If you’re new to my blog, or have not seen or read the stories of these places, you can find them by clicking the names of each below. I thought it was interesting to see a time where ads were being placed by these companies looking for workers, because I was able to see them in a total opposite light – empty and rotting years later.

Diamond Shamrock/Alkali/Diamond Magnesium

Industrial Rayon Corporation

If you would like to view some of these newspaper sections at full resolution, you can download the files by clicking HERE