One of the most popular cookbooks of the 1960s was not enamored of the culinary arts: The I Hate to Cook Book by Peg Bracken.

Recently, while browsing my favorite website on the Internet—that beautiful virtual junktique mall called Etsy—I noticed something. Specifically, all these midcentury aprons announcing, “To hell with housework!”

Monday brings the annual July 4th Nathan’s Famous hot-dog eating contest on Coney Island, a spectacle teased 365 days of the year with a giant billboard outside the chain’s beautifully grimy mothership. So let’s revisit the scene at the stand one day in the 1950s.

See here, we’ve got a pretty young woman in a swimsuit we’d like to display to her best advantage. What’ll we do? Oh, obviously—we’ll perch her on the diving board.

Check this guy out. He’s ordered room service but—twist—he’s a dog!

Retro swim fashions are all the rage these days, a trend that’s likely to continue this summer. With temps soaring and the beach increasingly appealing, let’s turn once more to the past for some summer seaside style inspiration. Are you ready? Well, here we go.

Haven’t quite nailed down the menu for your Memorial Day weekend barbecue? Why not just copy this absolutely scrumptious 1957 spread?

On this holiest of holidays, 4/20, let’s revisit how pot-smoking was packaged for postwar America.

If you left your tax return until the last minute, take some comfort in the fact that you certainly aren’t the first. Sometime in the late ‘50s/early ‘60s, the National and State Organizations of Certified Public Accountants were apparently so exasperated they had comedy duo Mike Nichols and Elaine May make these PSAs…

A refrigerator dating back to 1954 that once belonged to Queen Elizabeth II’s mother has passed its annual electrical inspection to certify it’s in proper working order. Congrats to everyone involved.

According to the caption provided, you are looking at a dog “having a hard time choosing between a mink coat, a diamond collar and a leather sports coat at the Swank Poodletown shop on New York’s Park Avenue,” circa 1956.

Dig out your blue eyeshadow, your body glitter and your Aqua Net, because it’s time for PROM WEEK on Pictorial.

Miss America requires its contestants to be legally single. But what about the married beauty queen wannabes—who no longer qualify for the big leagues, but still want to wear the sash and crown?

Might not feel like it, but today—December 22—is the first day of winter, which means that blessed, precious sunlight will soon return. As for the cold weather, that can be remedied with one of these cunning midcentury coats.

One of my most vivid early-childhood memories is browsing the Tinkerbell Cosmetics section at some department store.

From 1923–1949, the American Medical Association published Hygeia, an educational health magazine for the American public.

As Americans prep for Thanksgiving, Pictorial has decided to honor our communal gorging by taking a look at promotional recipe pamphlets of days gone by.

Ah, midcentury America, when even authors responsible for envisioning wild and wacky futures in SPACE could hardly fathom women doing science.

Apparently today is “National Lipstick Day.” “National Lipstick Day” is not a real holiday, but it’s a great excuse to look at some vintage cosmetics. Let’s get inspired.