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From The Cabin Coffee Table — An occasional look back at what the old Codgers saw and smoked (with a little detour and frolic, here and there):
Yes, we had two sets, both from the A & P grocery store weekly release. One was grammar-school level, the Golden Book series, and the second was more adult, the Golden Home and High School Encyclopedia. I was still using the latter for information when I was an HS senior. There was also a Compton's Encyclopedia, I think?From The Cabin Coffee Table — An occasional look back at what the old Codgers saw and smoked (with a little detour and frolic, here and there):
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The family encyclopedia. A staple in middle America homes throughout most of the Twentieth Century. Long before the Internet, it was the average household’s main repository of general knowledge and basic research material. Just how many were sold door to door, the world may never know. Or through grocery store promotions, one volume at a time. Just about every respectable family had one. Often right alongside a big fat dictionary, in the family bookshelves.
And they were snapshots in time, too. In many retirees’ now quiet homes, one knows when the children were growing up, and the house was more alive, by the year of the encyclopedia, now sitting idle. Perhaps it was the world of 1954, when Eisenhower was President and the Cold War a daily fixture. Or of 1962, of Kennedy and the soaring space age. Or of 1978, of Jimmy Carter, tuning thermostats down, and disco. But there it sits, whether factually still right or wrong today, a snapshot of the generally believed pool of knowledge from another era. A pool from which Mom and Dad and Judy and Johnny drew often back in the day. . . .
From The Cabin Coffee Table — An occasional look back at what the old Codgers saw and smoked (with a little detour and frolic, here and there):
View attachment 1799233
The family encyclopedia. A staple in middle America homes throughout most of the Twentieth Century. Long before the Internet, it was the average household’s main repository of general knowledge and basic research material. Just how many were sold door to door, the world may never know. Or through grocery store promotions, one volume at a time. Just about every respectable family had one. Often right alongside a big fat dictionary, in the family bookshelves.
And they were snapshots in time, too. In many retirees’ now quiet homes, one knows when the children were growing up, and the house was more alive, by the year of the encyclopedia, now sitting idle. Perhaps it was the world of 1954, when Eisenhower was President and the Cold War a daily fixture. Or of 1962, of Kennedy and the soaring space age. Or of 1978, of Jimmy Carter, tuning thermostats down, and disco. But there it sits, whether factually still right or wrong today, a snapshot of the generally believed pool of knowledge from another era. A pool from which Mom and Dad and Judy and Johnny drew often back in the day.
Once Dad stockpiled these little bound helpers, like so many sandbags against a rising sea of youthful questions, the usual answer when Johnny had some obscure question about Neanderthals, Neptune or nuclear fission was “go look it up”.
And when the World Book couldn’t get you off the spot with Johnny, Paul Jones usually could …
Yes, we had two sets, both from the A & P grocery store weekly release. One was grammar-school level, the Golden Book series, and the second was more adult, the Golden Home and High School Encyclopedia. I was still using the latter for information when I was an HS senior. There was also a Compton's Encyclopedia, I think?
I think they need an update on their Encyclopedia - the closest star to Earth is our sun.
Now, the closest star outside of our solar system...
I guess the closest we have today is Wikipedia, and a couple other online "encyclopedias". And that's a very poor substitution for what we had back in the day, IMO.
That's the age we are living in. It's true of everything from advertising to zoological displays.If there is even the most remote chance that politics can be introduced, it is, and by the bucket.
Well, they do have editorial review, and "vetting".No vetting, no proof reading, no editorial review.
I have a set of the Britannica plus an Unabridged Webster's Dictionary in three volumes. Purchased in 1984, so somewhat out of date here and there, but still authoritative.This is very similar to the set growing up. Included the bookcase.
I would trust the information in these volumes. Wikipedia, not so much. The issue with Wikipedia like much of the internet is every Tom, Dick, and Harry with an opinion can write about subjects they are not qualified for. No vetting, no proof reading, no editorial review.
The quality of information on Wikipedia better than an Encyclopedia? Laughable.
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Well, they do have editorial review, and "vetting".
The problem is that it is the very vetting and editorial review that ensures that bias is in place in order to project an ideological perspective.
Thanks man. Now I have to find shoe trees like that!From The Cabin Coffee Table — An occasional look back at what the old Codgers saw and smoked (with a little detour and frolic, here and there):
Speaking of biases ... how about some guns and tobacco with your fine footwear!
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