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Thanks for posting.

I very much like those early covers with the full length grip (knob sounds too small) and have them for my everyday Corning 1 thru 1.75 quart pans and 7 inch skillets.

When Corning stopped making Corning Ware, they said that they were in the business of inventing products which is how Corning Ware came to be as a by product of NASA research and that they were moving on.
 
A slightly modified version of the "shark fin" lid tops off CorningWare's SimplyLite bakeware:

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The first from the left in this ad

I could have had the whole base, dish, and lid with the Cornflower motif on it, but I thought it was too much at the time, and I didn't know it was that old! The rest of this magazine is interesting too.
 
The shape of the grip on these original lids reminds me vaguely of the lines of modern air terminals of the time and even a certain style of Safeway store with both the curve up toward the middle, then back down like a wave that builds to a crest and then returns to a trough, but does not disappear and the curving outward from the central rib, like the main terminal at Dulles. Like so many designs in the late 50s and into the 60s, the lines suggested optimism. I guess the next lid with the little knob used less glass and was cheaper to make. C'est dommage.
 
Aren't re-entry tiles made from pyroceram?

'deed they are.

World Kitchen has brought back Pyroceram. It's made in France so it's most likely produced by ARC International who sells it around the rest of the world as Pyroflam.
 
Oh That "Miss. America" Feature

1945: Bess Meyerson. Who would predict her tragic downfall years later.

1951: Oh my, that "Miss. Alabama" Yolande Bethdear (sp? cannot read the spelling). A girl has to start laying down plans at about thirteen to wear a dress like she has on in the right side photo. *LOL*

1959, 1960. The era of long formal gloves and ball gowns (Suzanne Sugarbaker (Miss. Georgia World) would have competed and won in this time period. Always thought the evening gown portion of MA was so regal at that time.

Chi Omega girls from "Ole Miss". Some of our best daughters of the South.

Did anyone notice? It looks like every single advert could have come right out of "Mad Men"? All white upper middle class or better, and no mixed groups shown.

Growing up it seemed every home (ours included) had "Life" and or "Look" on the coffee table in the living room/front parlor. This usually meant we children didn't get a look in as those areas were normally out of bounds (we got the family room). However as most every doctor's or dental office also had the magazines (along with Reader's Digest), so there wasn't a big loss.

Does anyone remember that children's magazine from this same period? Think it was called "Highbeam" or some such. It always had those drawings where one had to "find" objects. Always thought it was more boring than watching paint dry, but anytime we children went anywhere that had them, mother would shove one at us. Guess it was meant to keep us quiet and from touching anything else! *LOL*
 
Helen Williams

An African-American model from the heyday of fashion models, appeared in many black publications for years. I have a black & white pic of a young woman modeling a 1957 Plymouth Belvedere convertible, wonder if this was her?

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I believe the re-entry tiles are a completely different material and much more fragile than the Pyroceram rocket nose cones.

Laundress, what a shame you did not have access to the magazines. All of ours, BH&G, American Homes, Reader's Digest, Life, Boy's Life, Good Housekeeping, Redbook, American Heritage and others were waiting for us when we got home from school. Popular Science, Popular Mechanics, Tropical Fish Hobbyist and, later, Smithsonian came addressed to me. What a wonderful retreat from the everyday world it was to sit in the den or living room, whichever was quieter, and delve into the interesting stories and articles, to say nothing of the ads. Does anyone remember the mysterious Modess ads with the woman in an evening gown and the word "because", Cadillac ads with the jeweled crests by Harry Winston and other fine jewelers, the ad for the KD2P with the lid up and the water shooting 10 feet into the air or the KA ad with the dish drainer sitting over an electric surface unit stating that this was how other dishwashers dried dishes?

I can tell you from experience that a D&M-made Frigidaire portable dishwasher will throw water 8 feet high and we had the drops on our kitchen ceiling to prove it when the Frigidaire repairman was looking into ours to see what was wrong with it while tripping the lid switch with a screw driver. His reflexes were somewhat slower than the speed at which electricity travels when the timer advanced out of the flush period and into wash. Mother asked him to leave (of course, he was pretty wet too) and called the dealer to tell him to take the machine away. Then we wiped the water off the ceiling and cabinets.
 
Miss America 1959

I also enjoyed looking at the piece about Miss America, especially since it was from '59, when Mary Ann Mobley was the outgoing M.A. Several years ago in the birthday card I received from my Aunt Doris, was a small piece of paper. It was a note saying have a great birthday, and was signed Mary Ann Mobley. She was one of my aunt's customers at the clothing store she worked at in Jackson, MS. and they've know each other for many years. I always asked my aunt about Mary Ann, so she knew I'd enjoy getting her autograph.
 
We had a ton of the special corning ware for our flat top Tappen range in the 70's. We even had those removeable handles.
 
MaryAnn Mobley

IIRC, was a pistol, well for 1950's standards! *LOL*

Think the story went that as MA the "suits" wanted her to parade around downtown shops and stores in her bathing costume. Miss. Mobley a nice girl from a good family was convent educated (the last few years in a cloister convent school), and therefore that sort of thing shocked her modesty and simply wasn't going to happen. Sponsors of MA were'nt to thrilled, but MAB wasn't going to budge on this point.

Again, may have Miss. Mobley confused with another MA, but think this is how the story went.

Though many joke and otherwise poke fun at Miss. America and other beauty pagents today, back in the day it was one of the few ways for a girl to get funds for college and or launch herself. With no federal/state student loan/aid programs, higher education was out of reach for many Americans, especially women. If family could only afford to send anyone to college (and even then it might be a stretch), the boys went first. Since girls were supposed to heed the true calling of their lot, that is to become wives *then* mothers, it was often seen as a waste to spend money on them for higher education.

Lee Ann Merriweather, another Miss. America recalls that after her father died her mother laid out the cold facts; there wasn't any money so if she wanted to go to college or otherwise she would have to find a way get the funds.
 
corningware

I use corningware on my electric smoothtop ALL the time. Yes, I have to be careful what pieces I am using - there are some that do not have flat bottoms.

But most of the saucepans and such that I use are Corningware.

Yes, they have the thermal inertia that glass has, but I have found that the food does NOT flavor at all...and I realized that even stainless steel *DOES* flavor food by comparison to the glass. (That was a shock to me).

I find that my Swiss made pressure cookers do NOT flavor though, but that may have to do with shorter cooking time; cooking broccoli in 3 minutes with 2 ounces of water means that there isn't that much contact with the metal
 
A self-appointed health goddess made the ridiculous claim on her website that the "chemicals" used to strengthen Corning Ware Pyroceram and Visions amber cookware can react with and poison food, and that cooking in the microwave oven irradiates food and changes its molecular composition.

Not surprisingly, she could only, in good conscience, recommend conventional cooking on the stove and in the oven, but only if you used the brand of "earth-friendly" nonstick cookware she was peddling in her online store.

One can only imagine how many "Send this to 10 friends and family members IF YOU REALLY CARE ABOUT THEIR HEALTH!" messages with links to her site are clogging email servers all over the world.
 
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