Wayback machine (Puzzle No. 581)

Sherman, set the Wayback Machine to August 1954.  The armistice in Korea was holding, campaigns to vaccinate children against polio were underway, “Sh-Boom” by the Crew-Cuts was at the top of the charts, Raydoc was getting ready for his senior year of college at Ohio University, and my mother had just graduated from Indiana State.

Sixty years ago this week, The Nation published Crossword Puzzle No. 581.  In order to solve puzzles of this era, you have to take yourself back in time; sweep more recent events, songs, and books out of your mind; and think about what was going on then.  The key that unlocked this puzzle was an item that is obsolete now but would have been in many solvers’s desks in 1954.  Can you find it?

Link to puzzle: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B63FHswHWCruMFJBN1JNSVpRakU/

Degree of difficulty (compared to the current The Nation puzzles): Very hard

Hozom’s comment: No blog post this week—the magazine is on its summer schedule

Cluing challenge: posted here