In the late 1930s, my mother, Phyllis McCarthy, was working for the Powers Agency in New York City and living a high society lifestyle as a model. Six years before she met my father on a Lake Superior cruise, she did a photo shoot for this catalog by Stern & Company of Philadelphia. Timed for Christmas 1939, it is an amazing showcase of appliances featuring lots of new electric marvels…

Her pseudonym in the catalog is Jane Bilrue, and she is presented as their “authority on modern home management.” This is a time capsule of cultural history, and I scanned all 24 delicate pages. Brightness and contrast have been brought up a bit, as the original had become muted over 83 years in the archives.

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