The most appalling thing I have seen on eBay in a long time...

[jasonl]

Cake anyone?

How about a chocolate covered cheesecake.

 

[bethann]

Damn you Guy's!

What in the hell is wrong with everyone? That ashtray is Black Americana, very collectible, by everyone! It's been around forever. Do I find it offensive? NO! It's a piece of history! Chill and eat some cake! LOL!

 

[sudsmaster]

Yes I'll have some cake, but

I find the piece offensive because it shows a servile woman in obvious pain and distress. That she's black probably makes it more offensive. Sure, it doesn't show a white master whipping her, but still, if it showed an irish washerwoman getting her breast pinched between two rollers, I'd still be offended. Just my prerogative and opinion, you see.

Plus it's a pretty shoddily made piece.

Can I have some columbian coffee with that cake, please?

 

[perc-o-prince]

She's been interviewed on TV

I was going to bring the same woman to everyones attention but you beat me to it, Sudsmaster I'm glad that I wasn't the only one to know about her. She has also been written up in an antiques journal.

I don't honestly feel one way or another (offended or amused) about this object BUT I am curious (please take no offense, Brett) as to why you brought this eBay item to this group? Was it because of the washer? I'm not insinuating that there was anything wrong with it. I'm just curious.

Rich

 

[sudsmaster]

I'm also wondering - based on the shoddy construction - if this was a hand-made one-off piece, and further that it's a fake, made in 200x and being passed off as a relic.

The clue for me is the amateurish lettering. If it were mass-produced, someone would have used letter stamps to at least make the letters uniform. It also doesn't look like it was made in a mold. Is chalkware hand-carved from chalk?

 

[Maytagmom]

My 0.02

Let's all agree to disagree, here. We CAN have our cake and eat it too.

I read this thread this morning, and when I saw it, I also thought it was rather funny, and the opening bid a little steep. I didn't want to say anything at first, but I will now. Hope I don't make any enemies, before I have a chance to meet them, LOL

I agree with Bethann, it's black Americana, and highly desireable. 20+ yrs. ago, when I first started collecting antiques and hitting flea markets, etc. I got into the black americana thing, just a little.

It all started with a Box of Gold Dust Twins laundry powder. Along with that, I also had 4 framed posters of various scenes of the same Gold Dust Twins. Very interesting artwork, and although the posters are long gone, I still have the unopened box of Gold Dust.

And one more thing, although I hate the damn things, thank God for the person who invented bra's, so something like this doesn't happen!

Carol
(who will watch her T$Ts when she gets the Maytag Wringer)

 

[brettsomers]

as to why you brought this eBay item to this group?

well, i searched "wringer washer" in eBay, and this was in the results. and i post about so many things i find on eBay. i know how this group likes a good discussion and so here we are. im not exactly a FAN of *black americana*, as its called, but i have noticed some things. some items, like the mammy cookie jars, while depicting black people in humble positions, present attractive, warm images. some of the *mammy* type items almost look as if made with admiration, dignified even. others obviously have a negative look, with plainly ugly faces and undignified poses. this ashtray seems to fall in the latter category.

 

[sudsmaster]

Brett,

Good description of the "work".

I have to correct myself on my guess that this was a fake. I googled "chalkware" and apparently it's just a plaster of paris statuette. According to one source, chalkware in the 30's and 40's was a cheap way to reproduce more expensive ceramics, with a serious aim. A lot of it was produced in Japan. Post-war chalkware was often humorous, as this one was supposedly intended to be. The lettering and crude sculpting was apparently not out of the ordinary for chalkware. Some of the examples of carnival prize chalkware showed really crude stuff - things that look good from eight feet away, as close as one might get in an arcade shooting gallery, but up close are really poorly painted. At least this one has the paint applied accurately. Maybe too accurately.

Frankly I don't see this as a rancorous discussion - nobody is criticizing anyone else in the club here... just questioning the motives of whoever made this piece in the first place. Thanks for sharing your "discovery" with us.

 

[tomturbomatic]

David, I agree with you. There is a world of difference between the Black man and woman salt & pepper shakers that sat on many a stove in the 50s and this thing. I have read articles in our paper of Black people who collect Black "Americanna" and none of what they displayed looked like this.

I have never searched "wringer washer" on Ebay. I will have to give it a try, although I get into enough trouble with my usual searches.

 

[Unimatic1140]

Wow you guys are right, that is gross. There is another thing I noticed right away and wanted to point out about this auction. Why did this seller think that he or she need to censor the nipple on this nasty statue, does this somehow make it OK? This whole thing not only shows our past racism but also points out what a sexually repressed society we currently live in to the point of being pathetic.

 

[tomturbomatic]

And yet, the one not caught was not covered! The seller is probably representative of the people in this country who feel that bigotry and violence are ok, but SEX??!! NO, unless it is fantasies of rape. And all the while they are walking around horny & frustrated. The sexual perversions those fine religious types envisioned (father-daughter incest was not only among the very first to be mentioned, but was also especially frequently mentioned) that would follow immediately after and because of same sex marriage were things I had never thought about, but then my mind does not work like their minds do; I am not fixated on sex, thank heaven. Some of those sleaze-ball legislators and "religious" types had to be sporting a chubby, if not a diamond cutter, as they preached on the subject, unless they were beyond any help the medical profession could offer; in which case, I can see why they were obsessing over sex. The only kind they have is oral: talking about it.

 

[petek]

Until recently I had a small collection of "black americana" I'd been collecting for about 25 years but I've sold most of it off to another collector only keeping my cookie jar. BTW it's far from the truth that Canada was an accepting society. Yes many blacks came here on the underground railroad but that doesn't mean that they were welcomed with open arms because they weren't. They were discriminated against all the same and shuffled about with most ending up in Nova Scotia living on the wrong side of the tracks where many of the original families that came still live today. As for opportunites in some ways blacks in Canada were worse off because they were so few and far between there was no way of getting ahead and all were relegated to the "traditional" roles of cooks/porters,laborers etc as late as the late 1960's. It was the future prime minister Pierre Trudeau in 1968, then the justice minister that turned this country on its ear with sweeping changes to the divorce laws, multi-culturalism and of course his most profound statement that "the government has no business in the bedrooms of the nation" referring to the decriminalization of homosexuality in Canada. I wished we had another one of him now, he would point blanketedly tell any neo-cons exactly what to do in no uncertain terms and show them the way with his middle finger.. He really was a great man. And he could pirrouette.

 

[perc-o-prince]

Frankly I don't see this as a rancorous discussion

Hi,

I hope that nobody thinks that I was insinuating anything. I think, Sudsmaster, that you may be taking me to task for being curious. I'm always amazed at the topics that are discussed here. They are either thought provoking or passion evoking. Nothing more-nothing less

Brett, Thank you for taking the time to reply to my inquisition. I do appreciate it. I hope that you weren't offended by my asking. If you were then I apologize.

Rich

 

[lightedcontrols]

Sometimes....

I've got to tell you that sometimes I think some of you are just full of sh*t. The 50's were a different time. Today's thoughts on race, life, sexual orientation, etc.... is profoundly different. What you see listed on Ebay is part of our American history and culture, like it or not. (were black women not supposed to have the latest technology, a wringer washer?) Would you have looked at the listing differently if it had been a white woman, or (Heaven forbid, a Chinese woman???) Covering up history and ignoring it is just stupid. So, get off your high horses with your attitudes of today's world, it WAS the 50's ya'll. Mark

 

[sudsmaster]

LC, No I just don't happen to think that a woman getting a breast flattened by a mangle is funny; I already said I'd find it offensive if it were an Irish washerwoman; if you can't say something nice about others the conventional wisdom - as it surely was in the 50's - is that it's most polite to say nothing.

An extreme example: the Holocaust is part of history and certainly doesn't need to be ignored or swept under the rug. But that doesn't mean that lampshades made out of the skins of victims are not extremely offensive, even though at the time they were highly prized among some people.

 

[sudsmaster]

Perc,

I don't recall directing my comments at you... so no problem there.

 

[hoovermatic]

I don't know

which is more ridiculous, some of the OTT reactions to this ashtray or the fact that the seller felt the need to cover the nipple with a little piece of paper!!

 

[brettsomers]

Good points, Sudsy

truth is, there was a culture of degradation/oppression of blacks. its there in the movies and news archives and advertisements of the day. in this context, yes, this ashtray is offensive. also, ive gotten the impression this group is a cut above the other tacky message boards with their flame wars and insults. a group of mostly male washing machine enthusiasts should have a superior sense of inclusion and compassion for outsiders. dismissing/mocking someones compassionate sentiments is unfortunate. err on the side of charity, its more civilized. for example, "the Dyson has a nice dusting tool feature". there, see how nice *I* am? LOL

 

[perc-o-prince]

I don't recall directing my comments at you

I'm glad that it wasn't me

Before I join the rest, for cake, I just thought that I would leave with a "funny" story.

I was on the phone last night with my old high school sweetheart/girlfriend so I had her take a look at this (she is a doctor in Boston who happens to be black)ashtray and the posts. After she stopped laughing all she could say, in her best southern drawl (she is from Alabama), was "You seeze. I tolds ya dat weeze was da first to invent dat there mammogram machine!"

I hope that this made some of you laugh. I can tell you that I just about wet myself!!!

Rich

 

[lightedcontrols]

Sometimes the most offensive things are things we DON'T

Girls, Think of all of the offensive things that we DON'T ever see! Everytime you use that TIDE, TIDE HE, DAWN, CASCADE, or any P& G product for that matter, do you realize that it has been tested on dogs, cats, and monkeys? Lets put this stuff in their eyes and see how long it takes them to go blind......lets put it into their stomachs and see how long it take for it to become toxic and kill them.....lets put some.....and on it goes. I've found through the years that PEOPLE can and will take up for themselves, (and once they have been degraded enough, they will unless of course they're into that sort of thing for fun) animals can't. NOW THAT'S OFFENSIVE! Mark