It's fun to read old textbooks.

[aimeeandbeatles]

I found an old "world economics" book from the 1940s or 50s, I think, it had several dates in it. In the book, the chapter on Africa is basically 5 pages long and it says something about European people having trouble finding "Negros" to run their industries and it basically said that that they were too lazy to "work for a steady wage". I dont know why but I find this amusing.

 

[GoodGame]

Old books on history are generally about the same. You get to read a lot of old school prejudice, 1st hand.

 

[Ajidica]

Yep. Best of all are the old science kids encyclopedias where they showed earth from space without clouds. Morons.

I love reading them for what they thought the future might be.
There was one where they said we could drill for arctic oil by pumping waste heat into the water so the drill shaft doesn't freeze. And there were a coupel polar bears running away from it on melting ice......

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

For some reason, I also have some sort of weird geography book "for Christian schools" which is absolutely freaking hilarious. In the middle of some paragaph about the economy in South America they say something about the people worshipping false gods and that they're going to hell. I need to find it and type it up because it was pretty funny and made me think the author was extremely absent-minded.

It's also a Cold-War-era book and all the fearmongering about communism was amusing, too.

 

[_random_]

I used to have a World Book set from the late 70s with an article on Bomb Shelters that essentially said "Here's what to do when the Ruskies nuke us." My school used to use Christian textbooks, which would straddle to fence between amusing and sad.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

I also have an old California 4th grade (I think) reader from 1950 which has a LOT of stereotypes.

 

[Maimonides]

I have one of my grandmother's high school U.S. history textbooks from the 1920s. It uses terms for African-Americans & Africans that are considered incredibly offensive today. Times change.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Not a textbook, but I have this Readers Digest from the 1940s and one of the articles is about the lack of women available for "stenographing" (I dont know what that means) and secretarying. It seemed to imply it was the only real job for women and that men were too smart to do it and it also said there were a lot of benefits such as spas. I dont know any secretarys who get s spa in their benefits.

 

[Perfection]

I want spa benefits

 

[Azale]

I used to have a World Book set from the late 70s with an article on Bomb Shelters that essentially said "Here's what to do when the Ruskies nuke us." My school used to use Christian textbooks, which would straddle to fence between amusing and sad.

Those were the bedrock of my education after about the 2nd grade I think I had just about every book in the set. It definitely taught me geography and how to hate communists, if nothing else.

 

[GoodGame]

Not a textbook, but I have this Readers Digest from the 1940s and one of the articles is about the lack of women available for "stenographing" (I dont know what that means) and secretarying. It seemed to imply it was the only real job for women and that men were too smart to do it and it also said there were a lot of benefits such as spas. I dont know any secretarys who get s spa in their benefits.

Stenography is basically a form of speed note-taking using an abbreviated form of written English. But yea, it was one of the "respectable" ways for a woman to get into business. Remember at one time, American Women didn't even have property rights.

 

[Haseri]

My grandparents have a set of encyclopedias from toward the end of WWII. It's fun to read the article on flight and it says at the very end 'we may never go to the Moon...'.

 

[W|M]

My old History textbook has two MASSIVE mistakes on the same page - It says that there are only 2 types of Dictatorship (Fascism and Communism), and that Communism is always a Dictatorship! XD (Have the bookmakers ever heard of Trotsky? I'm Trotskyist myself!) Also, it's WAY too biased towards Britain in World War II, it barely says anything about the real (albeit, pyrric) winners! (In case you're not good with History, it was the Soviet Union). And it only tells you about the positives of capitalism and negatives of communism...it doesn't even say anything about Gorbachev's reforms!

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

Reading outdated scientific texts might be cringe-inducing for me.

My school used to use Christian textbooks, which would straddle to fence between amusing and sad.

What subjects did they use them for?

 

[NedimNapoleon]

My old History textbook has two MASSIVE mistakes on the same page - It says that there are only 2 types of Dictatorship (Fascism and Communism), and that Communism is always a Dictatorship! XD (Have the bookmakers ever heard of Trotsky? I'm Trotskyist myself!) Also, it's WAY too biased towards Britain in World War II, it barely says anything about the real (albeit, pyrric) winners! (In case you're not good with History, it was the Soviet Union). And it only tells you about the positives of capitalism and negatives of communism...it doesn't even say anything about Gorbachev's reforms!

I pulled out my Grandpa's RED encyclopedia and it says
1.There are two forms of Dictatorships (Fascism and Capitalism "The rule of the rich over the poor")
2.It says Stalin is a betrayer of Communism
3.The Partisans won every battle against the Germans

 

[Zelig]

So old people aren't senile, just poorly educated?

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

I found that funny Christian textbook:

As we know, the oil fields of Venezula provide petroleum for export. Large quantities of copper, tin, bauxite, silver, industrial diamonds, and other minerals come from South American mines. The hardwoods of the tropical rain forests are exported to provide lumber for beautiful furniture and other wood crafts.
Today, many of the people of Peru are descendents of the Incas. Although these people were turned from a pagan, sun-worshipping religion to Roman Catholicism, most have never learned of the true worship known to those whose faith is in the Lord Jesus Christ. No religion, no matter how crude or sophisicated, how terrifying or pleasant, can give a person eternal life. It is not the works of any kind of religion -- not bowing down to the sun, now praying to a saint, not even going to Sunday School and church or being baptized -- but a personal trust in Christ that brings salvation. This is the gospel that the people of South America need to hear. But also, it is the the message that each one of us needs to heed. Have you accepted Christ as your personal Savior?
Sugar, rice, bananas, rubber, coffee, and a few other crops grown on plantations provide agricultural products for sale. In addition, cattle ranches are shipped abroad to feed the people of other countries.

 

[SG-17]

You should scan this stuff if you can. I doubt it would violate any copyright laws, because besides their age, who would want to claim that they published that stuff nowadays?

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

I did try scanning it to save all the typing but it came out all glare.

 

[Mise]

If you have a lot of these old textbooks, you should start a blog featuring extracts (with scans, preferably) of them. I think there might already be blogs like that, but a site like http://www.tumblr.com is perfect for this (it's mostly 20-something hipsters on the site, who would love this kind of "vintage" thing).

I remember Godwynn (I think) linking to a hilarious book on google books that described various different nose types. Wish I could find it...