Better Homes & Gardens Magazine - Sept 1958

[Unimatic1140]

If anyone would like a free copy of the 9/58 Issue of Better Homes & Gardens I've uploaded it to the Prelinger archive. I have hundreds of vintage magazines and some issues have fallen into the Public Domain, which means the copyright on the issue has completely expired and it's legal to share. Over time (like the over the next decade) I'd like to scan most of my collection and get it digitized in very high resolution so I can downsize/throw away all the paper in my house.

You can view it online or you can download the .pdf file so you can save it on your computer, tablet or phone. On tablets/phones and other mobile devices I like to use the SideBooks App. It's a great free app for reading these magazines and turns pages naturally.

https://archive.org/details/betterhomesandgardensmagazineseptember1958

 

[kskenmore]

Thank you!

These are great! Uploading them would be a great way to preserve and share.

 

[scoots]

Thanks also for generously sharing these publications.

 

[foraloysius]

Thanks you for uploading this. Wonderful reading material. I love looking at designs from the 50's houses.

 

[Ultramatic]

 

 

What a treasure trove! Thank you for taking the time and sharing Robert!

 

[pulltostart]

A great magazine

This is one of my favorite issues of BH&G.  I've daydreamed for years about building Five Star Home A.

 

lawrence

 

[48bencix]

Nice reader

The reader works nicely on my PC. I remember these issues as many were left by my Great Aunt when my Dad bought their house in Lakeport California, in 1958. I always loved reading the Buton Hillis column on the last page.

 

[golittlesport]

wow!

Thank you very much, Robert!!

 

[washerboy]

thanks!!

I've always loved old magazines!! I'm always amazed at the number of products that are still in production today. Thanks for uploading!

 

[sfh074]

How ......

on earth Robert do you go about scanning a magazine?

I scanned a 40 page frigidaire guide once and it took about 45 secs per page to feed and scan each page. That is after I cut the spline to free up the pages.

The BH&G magazine you uploaded was 160 pages. At even 30 secs per page that is 80 minutes of work! Do you have a quicker way of doing this?

 

[turquoisedude]

Thank you for scanning this and sharing it, Robert! I love the old BH&G magazines and books. Most of my cooking comes from the New Cook Book, Holiday Cook Book, Desserts Cook Book, etc etc etc and I modeled the kitchen in Ogden after kitchens I saw in the 1956 Kitchen Ideas special magazine.

 

[cycla-fabric]

Robert,

I love it, what a great thing to do, thanks so much

Doug

 

[Unimatic1140]

How ...... on earth Robert do you go about scanning a magazine? I scanned a 40 page frigidaire guide once and it took about 45 secs per page to feed and scan each page. That is after I cut the spline to free up the pages. The BH&G magazine you uploaded was 160 pages. At even 30 secs per page that is 80 minutes of work! Do you have a quicker way of doing this?

Hey Bud actually that is a good question. Scanning is time consuming for sure, but I have a sheet-feeding scanner that can handle about 20 pages per load, it can do up to 35 pages at once but I have found trying to load more than 20 or so large magazine pages can cause paper jams. But scanning is just one of the many steps in the process. The total time worked on this one magazine was about four hours. I've perfected the process over the past 7 years working on the Ephemera Library as I have nearly 1600 full documents scanned. A magazine like this used to take me two days to do.

Here are the steps involved with this Better Homes & Gardens magazine:

#1 Research copyright on the issue
#2 Take staples out of magazine and de-glue the pages carefully.
#3 Scan 20 pages at a time (reloading the scanner 8 times).
#4 Check files to see if any pages were missed, this time four pages in total were missed as the sheet-feeder pulled two pages in at one time twice.
#5 Re-scanned missed pages.
#6 Bring all 160 pages into Photoshop to make sure they are as straight as possible as they tend to scan crooked. Then make them look like the magazine was new off the newsstand shelf. Things like remove yellowing and brighten the pages and make the colors more vibrant. Also convert the all black and white pages to 8-Bit gray-scale.
#7 Create .pdf file in Acrobat.
#8 Upload them to the archive and add descriptions.

Here are just a few samples from this set of scans of before and after my processing...

 

[frigilux]

Wow, thanks for all the work you put into scanning documents, Robert. I wondered how a 61 year-old magazine could look so good!

 

[mattl]

I have pretty much a complete collection of BHG from the mid-late'40s through the early 2000s.  takes up a fair amount of space but interesting to look through.

 

[daveamkrayoguy]

If I could go there, back in time:

A certain religious pamphlet is one thing there, which I should have sent away for...

 

 

 

-- Dave

 

[mikael3]

I’m especially glad to see this on archive.org.  They do amazing work, and now this magazine is part of it. 

 

I hate to sound like public radio, but ... archive.org is supported by the public, and if we use it, we should donate to keep it running.

 

And thank you, Robert, for this and all the other fantastic things you do!!

 

[ovrphil]

Speaking for myself and others who might find your work

How GREAT is this? My mom used to get Better Homes and Gardens, House Beautiful, and McCalls..and others(mostly in the 1960s and early 70s). I used to POUR through them over and over. There were seasonal issues of either House Beautiful or ? that would feature homes only(fall, winter, spring and summer issues) and our local Berkley library kept them for years, hardbound. I still dream about those issues and wonder if anyone reading my comment here knows what I'm talking about. I'd love to see those scanned. I dragged those issues home many times in the late 60's /early 70's to view over and over the ranch and "mcm" home designs(photographed interiors, exterior and floorplans). The one house I still remember was built and owned by the Duponts(I believe)...it was a one level brick home with every room measuring 20 feet by 20 feet. There were many other cool homes in those issues. Hope someone reading this...has those issues. I have tried to find them online or on eBay without success. They were only SEASONAL issues featuring just homes and accompanying floorplans. But ....Robert. Thank you VERY VERY much for this work. I'll be sure to support archive.org, too. I know what you did to get those pages looking great- have been there, done that many times for my own purposes. I'm sorry for the longish reply but I love those old magazines and miss those times I grew up in. Thank you again, Robert!