Category: 1950’s

In the late 1940s and into the 1950s, American playgrounds and ballfields were filled with kids sporting canvas sneakers that promised something more than style. Ads like the one proclaiming “Safe in PF Canvas Shoes by B.F. Goodrich” pushed a new kind of athletic footwear — PF Flyers — complete with a patented Posture Foundation insole and innovative suction-cup soles.

First introduced in 1937, PF Flyers were designed to give wearers “more speed, greater endurance, and better athletic performance.” By the postwar era, B.F. Goodrich had perfected its marketing, targeting children, teens, and parents with bold claims that sneakers could improve safety and sports performance. The campaign worked. PF Flyers quickly became one of America’s top-selling athletic shoes, rivaling Converse Chuck Taylors and cementing themselves as a cultural icon of mid-century sportswear.

The display pictured here, highlighting “The Tip-Off” sole with its suction-cup grip, is a classic example of B.F. Goodrich’s efforts to link science with play. It dates to around 1948–1955, a period when PF Flyers dominated basketball courts, baseball diamonds, and school gymnasiums across the country.

B.F. Goodrich, of course, no longer makes sneakers. In 1972, the company exited the footwear business to focus solely on tires, selling off the PF Flyers brand. Over the years, PF Flyers changed hands several times, even landing under New Balance in 2001. In 2021, entrepreneur Kassia Davis — founder of KADA — acquired the label, giving the heritage sneaker line new life.

Today, PF Flyers remain available as a standalone brand, with modern reissues of their vintage classics keeping the spirit of those mid-century ads alive. While the exact suction-cup sole model may not always be in production, the legend of “Safe in PF” continues to resonate with sneaker enthusiasts and nostalgia lovers alike.

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🕰️ Timex: A Watch That Made History
Founded in 1854 as the Waterbury Clock Company in Connecticut, Timex began by making affordable timepieces for everyday Americans. The brand reinvented itself in the 1940s with a sleek new name—Timex, a blend of “Time” and “Kleenex”—to match its modern, mass-produced watches known for durability and reliability.

But it wasn’t just engineering that made Timex a household name—it was television, and one unforgettable man.

🎙️ John Cameron Swayze, a former NBC news anchor turned enthusiastic pitchman, became the trusted face of Timex in the 1950s. He hosted live commercials that put the watches through outlandish “torture tests”: strapped to outboard motors, frozen in ice, dropped off buildings, even attached to a jackhammer. Time and time again, the watch survived, and Swayze would deliver the now-legendary line:

“It takes a licking and keeps on ticking.”

📺 That catchy slogan, born in a golden era of live TV and hard-sell advertising, helped Timex become one of the best-known and best-selling watch brands in the world. Even today, the phrase still echoes as a symbol of toughness and timeless style.

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Here is the voting machine I remember most. In my school, they were kept by the custodian’s office and we thought we were so clever discovering where they store them. They’d wheel them out the night before election day and set them up in the gymnasium. I also remembered when the bars had to remain closed until the polls closed so the “drink” would have an influence on the person’s vote.