There’s a newspaper clipping making the rounds today. It’s all over Facebook, and I’ve found it in a number of other webby places.
No, it’s not this one. It’s that other one — below.
I couldn’t find out anything specific about the clipping (I’m only assuming it’s authentic), but the New York Mirror newspaper was published between 1924 and 1963.
The two addresses, which use postal zones rather than ZIP codes, narrow it down a bit. Zones were initiated in 1943, ZIP codes came along in 1963 (initially voluntary, they became mandatory in 1967).
I’d guess this piece appeared in the 1950s.
You’ll notice none of the interviewed men said “No!” In that era, they probably didn’t dare. Who would go to a barber who let his wife dominate him?
The last respondent perfectly nails the paradigm of the day:
Yes. Most of them have it coming to them anyway. If they don’t, it will remind them how well off they are. I subscribe to the theory that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
It’s the bit at the top that throws an interesting little quirk into the story, the part that says “Today’s question by Herman Martin, 125 Broad St., New York 4, N.Y.”
Guess who has that address today?
The New York Civil Liberties Union.
Progress.