6 days and counting

Some news from Monday, April 26, 1948 (thank you Time Magazine):

1. Harry Truman began his fourth year in the White House last week with the assertion that he would be there for four more years.
2. At Cudahy's Kansas City plant, women packinghouse workers walked the picket line wearing grease-smeared raincoats—thereby hoping to keep the white-collar office workers, who had walked through their lines before, from doing it again.
3. Dispersal. Chance Vought Aircraft Division of United Aircraft Corp., now making F4U-5 Corsair fighter-bombers for the Navy at Stratford, Conn, will move to a Navy plant at Dallas, Tex. to build F6U-1 jet-propelled Pirates.
4. Dr. Helen Maud Cam, 62, a tweedy, vigorous history don at Cambridge (her specialty: medieval local government) would be the first woman professor of arts & sciences in Harvard's 312 years.
5. Died. Dr. Rupert Blue, 79, onetime Surgeon General of the U.S. Public Health Service (1912-20), who wiped out two bubonic-plague epidemics in San Francisco by getting rid of the carriers (flea-infested rats and ground squirrels); in Charleston, S.C.
6. Said beaver-toothed Joe DiMaggio, with a grin: "Seems like it's the first time I've ever been ready for an opening game." No gimpy shoulder, no ulcer complaints, no bad heel troubled him this year: he felt good. If DiMag was ready, so were the New York Yankees. They were co-favorites—along with the Boston Red Sox—to win the American League pennant.

and the most interesting (I think):

• Average Cost of new house $7,700.00
• Average wages per year $2,950.00
• Cost of a gallon of Gas 16 cents
• Average Cost of a new car $1,250.00
• Loaf of Bread 14 cents
• LB of Hamburger Meat 45 cents
• Science and Mechanics Magazine 20 cents
• Movie Ticket 60 Cents

A great site to visit for 1948 facts is http://thepeoplehistory.blogspot.com/2007/09/state-of-israel.html