You wouldn't think that geeksugar would have much to say about AMC's runaway hit Mad Men, set in the early 1960s β but you'd be totally, utterly wrong.
The retro-era show is actually rife with geekery β vintage geekery that is. Not only is it a rare look into how the times were for health, the sexes, minorities, and business, we also get to see the infiltration of technology into the home and the workplace.

Amazing tech quotes abound, like this over-the-top sexist zinger: "The manufacturer made it so easy a woman could use it." Of course, we'd love to say that sexism in regards to technology manufacturing has gone the way of the black and white TV, but we can't, necessarily.
Besides the women-friendly typewriter, there's the old-school video cameras, the wild concept of the copy machine, the out-of-placeness of a tube television in a single woman's apartment, and one of my favorites, the crazy (and crazy important) sight of the switchboard ladies, connecting the mad ad men with their clientele.
Photo courtesy of AMC

Kurt Geiger
never watched the show but the 60s is a period i have no interest in revisiting. thank goodness i was born later. i couldn't handle the outright racism and denial of basic human rights.
1I actually love this show, but I completely agree with you kcwebgirl. A lot of shows romanticize the past and I for one would never want to go back to that era, or any other for that matter. The present isn't perfect but I'm so glad I was born now, and not say 1765. Mad Men does an excellent job of showing the covert prejudices that some people held, and somehow usually in a humorous way.
2Actually it's the early 60's-it's 1960 in season one. Ten years make a lot of difference in the social mores...
3I knew I wasn't the only one paying attention to the gadgets on Mad Men. Although, I'm slightly more obsessed with the books Don Draper reads.
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