Monarch and Beauty Queen Wringer Washers

[jamiel]

This is an interesting relic--a catalogue from a home furnishings distributor in Huntington, WV. Noticed a full line of Monarch wringer washers (including one using a unicouple...had never seen that before) in the 1957 catalogue (from Findlay, OH) and a full line of Beauty Queen wringer washers in the 1963 catalogue along with esoteric borax furniture, cheap reproduction artwork, etc etc. Bit of a timecapsule.

https://www.highpoint.edu/library/nhfa-collection/furniture-catalogs/

 

[frigilux]

Wow, thanks for sharing these with us! I pulled up the 1957 catalog to take a look at the Monarch wringer machines and it took two cups of coffee and about a half-hour for me to get there, as it was so much fun to see all the mid-century furnishings, cookware and small appliances that preceded the large appliance section. Will have to get to the Beauty Queen washers in the ‘63 catalog next.

 

[parunner58]

Thank you for sharing this page. I want to so bad place an order for many Pyrex and Corning Ware items. That unicoupler is a great idea. When my mom had a wringer, she used a cut off garden hose to fill her's.

 

[circlew]

Interesting catalogs; saw several items I either have or have had in the 1957 book. I also looked at the 1938 edition, and they sold Apex appliances at that time. I was surprised at how old fashioned most of the furniture looked; guess I was expecting a lot of chrome art moderne style like seen in movies from that time.

 

[rpms]

Mmmmmm some real tasty treasures.Who made the Beauty Queen wringers? The lint filter looks the same as on the Wizard automatic.
Personally I would never buy a whole set of furniture again. Most condos and houses now would never have bedrooms big enough to hold all that bedroom furniture.
My cousins had wagon wheel bunk beds. Very hard to climb on the ends and slippery.
The bookcase head board would be a dust collector.
Those huge,long sofas. As a designer said the only time three people sit on a sofa is when there is a reading of a will.
I would never buy a bed with a foot board. I have a four poster from Bombay company and it is a pain to make.
How safe and functional were rubber pillows? I guess you could give them a bit of a wipe. My grandma had them. Never really molded to your head and had a strange smell. Were they toxic back then?

 

[jamiel]

I kind of presumed Beauty Queen was the successor to Monarch...out of Findlay, OH. My suspicion is that this was a relatively rural, poor, Southern distributor of these furniture items kind of close to the NC furniture belt...so is influenced by that.

My guess is this was the furniture for the mine bosses and staff in the "hollers"...for whom a trip to Cleveland/Columbus/Pittsburgh/Cincinnati was probably not in the cards. The people and places Homer Hickam wrote about (Rocket Boys etc)

The "showroom" they tout gives the impression that this is where people would shop for "big" furniture they couldn't see at their local credit furniture store (there's a footnote to those stores to give the distributor a "head's up/referral" to preserve the margin for the local store (which would do financing/delivery/installation/etc etc etc).

 

[circlew]

One of the brands shown in the 1957 catalog is Statton. It was a very fine grade of furniture, and sold at high class stores. I would say it was comparable to Drexel in quality. My late neighbor Edith had Statton cherry furniture in several rooms of their home, including the dining room. She always bought very high quality in both her home furnishings and clothing.

As for rpms comment regarding bedroom size, I find the average square footage of bedrooms in newer homes to be much more than those constructed in the 1950's.