1945 - Everyday Life

Everyday Life

Kentucky-born mystic Edgar Cayce dies at Virginia Beach, Va., January 3 at age 67, having given more than 14,000 "readings" while lying down in an altered state of consciousness.

Art nouveau glass designer René Lalique dies at Paris May 5 at age 85. His son Marc takes over the business started by Lalique in 1885.

French couturier Pierre (-Alexandre-Claudius) Balmain, 31, opens the House of Balmain with encouragement from emigrée writer Gertrude Stein. Having worked with Edward Molyneux, Lucien Lelong, and Christian Dior, he gains quick success with his elegant designs.

Teenaged U.S. girls in many cities flirt with soldiers at bus stations, engage in prostitution, and form gangs called "wolf packs" in the absence of fathers who are in military service and mothers who hold jobs.

Aerosol spray insecticides begin a revolution in packaging (see spray can, 1927). The commercial "bug bombs" employ a Freon-12 propellant gas and are based on a device developed by U.S. Department of Agriculture researchers Lyle David Goodloe and W. N. Sullivan last year to protect troops from malaria-carrying mosquitoes; the new spray cans are heavy and costly to produce but will soon be replaced by lightweight tin and aluminum cans employing lower pressure propellants, leading to widespread use of aerosol spray products (see 1946; Freon-12 refrigerant gas, 1931; Abplanalp, 1953).

The Slinky introduced at a Philadelphia department store has been invented by local shipyard worker Richard James, 31, whose 27-year-old wife, Betty, gave the toy its name. James was developing springs to support sensitive equipment on ships when he created the toy in 1943; inspired by the sight of a torsion spring falling off a table, he devised a machine that could take 80 feet of steel wire and turn it into a Slinky in 10 seconds. His first 400 pieces (priced at $1 each) sell out in 90 minutes, and the couple's firm will prosper, but James himself will join a religious cult in the late 1950s and move to Bolivia in 1960, leaving Betty (who will take over the nearly bankrupt business) and six children, aged 2 to 18.