Prepare to be disappointed. These personal ads are from the mid and late 20th Century and there is a chance that the advertiser looking for love and whatever else passes for it might not return your call. Hell, they might happily married, dead or jailed. Maybe they finally dug that basement under the house. They might even be your grandma.
These old classified ads have been collected by the brain behind Long Lost Personals on Instagram. “As far back as I can remember, I have always enjoyed collecting things. I also have always loved magazines and newspapers, especially the classifieds sections,” he tells us. “When I was in high school, I used to circle garage and estate sales every weekend and plan out a route.”
Many of these ads are NSFW – unless you work in local politics or consort with fellow badger enthusiasts. In which case, let us know if you recognise yourself in any. That said, the ads are diverse, idiosyncratic and niche. We’ve tried to steer away those that rely for their allure on pictures of naked flesh and thumb their nose at basic safely protocols.
Anyhow, enough of the pillow talk, let’s go. Its date night. Grab that ad and stick it in your wallet – you may need it later to show to the police. Let’s begin:
“For the personals, it all started in 2008. I had a friend working as a librarian at the Newberry Library in Chicago, where I live. It’s a private research library, but she invited me in one day to see a few things. Knowing I like Chicago history, she brought out a few items connected to the city. One of them was a newspaper from 1877 called The Matrimonial News and Special Advertiser, and it was just page after page of personal ads from 1877. It was published in Chicago but featured listings from all over the US. I had her make me a copy and duly forgot about it.
“Fast forward to 2020. I was cleaning my place out during Covid lockdown and ran across it. I remembered how much I enjoyed it and decided to look for more similar publications. Within a year, it had turned into a full collection and obsession. In early 2022 I decided to start displaying my collection on Instagram (which was not easy at first because I am not really a social media person and had never used Instagram before). My collection goes all the way back to the 1850s, and I rarely post anything beyond the year 2000.”
“99% of what I post is from my own personal archive that I maintain in my residence,” he adds. “I have 1,000s of newspapers, magazines, books, etc. from all kinds of different places. I purchase lots online – places like eBay, Etsy, online book stores and more. I also find them at antique stores/malls, estate sales, used bookstores, and really anywhere I can find them. It is important to me that what I post comes from my collection. If I see a personal ad that has been posted a bunch of places online already, I will not bother to post it. I want my page to be ground zero for my content.
“The 1% of posts that are NOT from my archive are either follower submissions (and they have to be in physical form – as in, the follower had to have liked it enough to clip it and save it decades ago). Or I will post from online sources if the ad is very rare and historically significant. For example, the earliest known instances of gay personal ads in the US are from a 1940s hobby magazine called The Hobby Directory. The only known copies to exist are in an archive in San Francisco. Since I will never own those and they have historical significance, I will post scans from the online archive.”
Let’s en with an advert from 1927. Please ensure your financial circumstances can support your search for love.
To see more from this repository of good taste, follow Long Lost Personals on Instagram.
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