Papergreat

Saturday's postcards: Black-and-white scenes from the past

2012-03-10T15:06:00.000-05:00

Here are three wonderful old postcards featuring human-scale streets¹ in western Eurasia.²

Oud Scheveningen

Text on back: "Uitgave: J. v. d. Hoek, Den Haag - Nadruk verboden No. 354"

This alley in Oud Scheveningen probably no longer exists.

Scheveningen is one of the eight districts in The Hague (Den Haag), Netherlands. It is now a tourism-based seaside resort known for its beaches (including a nudist beach), windsurfing, kiteboarding, fireworks, movie theaters, bars and gambling halls. Tourists can also check out the miniature city of Madurodam.

Garmisch, Frühlingstraße mit Waxensteine

Text on back: "3010 Verlag C. Schweizer, München 19, Frundsbergstr. 21"

Garmisch is now the mountain resort town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, thanks to Adolf Hitler. Garmisch (in the west) and the much-older Partenkirchen (in the east) were separate towns for many centuries. But, in 1935, in anticipation of the 1936 Winter Olympics, Hitler forced the two towns to combine. The Bavarian town, located in extreme southern Germany, has a population of about 26,000.

With the Waxenstein and Zugspitze mountains in the background, this is a popular perspective for photos and postcards. Here are links to a few others I came across:

Undated (but old) illustrated postcard
Black-and-white postcard with women out doing work
Another black-and-white photo postcard
September 2009 color photo on flickr (Look how little has changed!)

And here's one that I really love -- a postcard image of snow-covered Garmisch, which was featured on the German eBay site:

Bodrum, Turkey

Text on back: "A View of BODRUM ancient Halicarnassus TURKEY"

Finally, here's an undated (1930s or 1940s?) view of the port city of Bodrum, Turkey. In ancient times, this was the Greek city of Halicarnassus, and the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World (only one of which still exists³).

I love the detail of the small Mobiloil station in this photo of Bodrum. A sign, of course, that the Automobile Culture was starting to elbow its way into this ancient place.

The people and the details are what make these old photo postcards fascinating. They're time capsules of places -- except perhaps for Garmisch-Partenkirchen -- that can no longer be seen as they once were.

Footnotes
1. More Papergreat postcards of human-scale streets and alleys:

2. How many continents are there really? And what should we teach our children? The six-continent model featuring Eurasia is certainly compelling.
3. The Great Pyramid of Giza is the only one of the Seven Ancient Wonders that remains intact.

Enjoy a liver and pepper dish with Fluffy Rice Norman

2012-03-09T19:54:00.003-05:00

Still haven't decided what to have for dinner tonight? Here are some recipes to inspire you.

(Hey, where did everyone go?)

The recipes come from a 1951 issue of HomeMaker's Digest, which was published by The Homemaker's Institute in Evansville, Indiana, and featured a compilation of articles and highlights from home and women's magazines.

This issue, featuring a man wearing a pretty apron on the cover, includes the following articles:

How Big Is a Closet?
Here's How to Wash in an Automatic
Hearty Salads Please the Male
How to Preserve a Paint Job
Short Cuts with Quick-Frozen Foods
Save Sewing Time with Cellophane Tape

What caught my eye was an article titled "The Oven Makes the Meal," which features this lovely photograph of something you're apparently supposed to eat:

The article begins:

"Here's a good substantial oven dinner which takes about one hour's cooking time. Full of vitamins, easy to prepare, simple to serve. For convenience, plus gustatory gratification, you can't beat oven meals. Thanks to modern insulation, you're not conscious the heat's on ... the oven gets hot, but you keep cool. We have sneaked in two rather touchy subjects -- liver and carrots. They're such human benefactors, it seems a shame to neglect them."

The full suggested menu includes Fluffy Rice Norman¹, Liver-Sausage in Green Peppers, Vegetables en Papillote, Cucumber Tomato Salad with Avocado Pineapple Dressing and Hot Fruit Compote.

Here are the recipes for the main dish and side, if you want to give them a try and party like it's 1951.

Liver-Sausage in Green Peppers
Preparation time: 1½ hours
8 servings

1½ pounds scalded beef liver
1 pound bulk sausage
4 green peppers
1 large potato
¼ cup minced onions
1 egg

Cut liver in 2-inch pieces, scald in boiling water for 10 minutes. Remove, cool slightly before putting through meat grinder, combine with sausage and minced onion. Cut peppers in half lengthwise, remove seeds, place in boiling water 3 minutes, drain. Fill halves with liver-sausage mixture. Set in open pan, bake in moderate oven (350°) for 1 hour.

POTATO TOPPING: Wrap potato in aluminum foil, bake along with meat. Remove from foil, skin, mash, and beat in egg. Place fluffy mixture in length of brown paper. Roll paper to form cone; fold down broad end of cone, squeeze potato mixture, as from tube, through small opening to decorate meat servings.

Fluffy Rice Norman

Preparation time: 1 hour
4-6 servings

1 package pre-cooked rice
2 tablespoons butter or margarine
½ teaspoon salt
dash of pepper
2 halves pimiento, chopped
6 sliced ripe olives
4-6 chopped scallions
1¾ cup boiling water

Combine ingredients in tightly covered casserole, add boiling water, cover, place in moderate oven (350° F.). Bake 45-60 minutes.

Come back and let us know how it is, if you give it a whirl!

Footnote
1. In preparing this blog post, I did a Google search for "Fluffy Rice Norman" and got zero matches. So Papergreat has now officially introduced Fluffy Rice Norman to cyberspace.

Stalin's "Marxism and the National Question"

2012-03-08T21:05:00.010-05:00

Mike McCombs -- a good friend, former karaoke co-conspirator and the sports editor of The Island Packet in Hilton Head, South Carolina -- recently sent me an email with this interesting book story:

"Ever owned a book by a mass murderer? Here's one by Stalin.¹ Here's the cover. Don't know if it's rare or not but it was actually printed in the Soviet Union in 1950, so I'm betting there weren't millions of these floating around. At least not here. I paid $1 for this at a sidewalk sale at a bookstore in Hoboken, N.J., in 1997. I'll forward some more pics. The book is all paper, very fragile and about the size of my hand."

Some more details about Mike's book:

It's from the "Library of Marxist-Leninist Classics"
It was published by the Foreign Languages Publishing House in Moscow in 1950
The title page also includes the statement: "WORKERS OF ALL COUNTRIES UNITE!"
This publisher's note is included:

This book by Stalin, "Marxism and the National Question," was originally published in 1913. If you're interested, you can read the full text here, on the J.V. Stalin Archive.²

According to Wikipedia, the book represented one of Stalin's most important contributions to communist theory: "The groundwork for the Soviet policy concerning nationalities, laid [out] in Stalin's 1913 work Marxism and the National Question, [was] praised by Lenin."

The book isn't too hard to find, as it has been published quite a few times over the decades. Copies can be found on Amazon.com for $10 to $30, depending on the edition. It appears, though, that Mike has one of the less-common editions of this work.

Footnotes
1. He is also known, per various sources, as Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili, Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili, Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin, Иосиф Виссарионович Сталин (Russian) and იოსებ ბესარიონის ძე ჯუღაშვილი (Georgian).
2. Oh boy, this post is going to get this blog flagged by ALL KINDS of agencies, isn't it? (Hi, Mr. Petraeus!)

Bushkill Falls: "A Delightful One-Day Auto Trip"

2012-03-08T14:34:00.000-05:00

This undated advertising poster for Bushkill Falls in northeastern Pennsylvania measures 12 inches wide by 16 inches tall. The above image represents a composite of separate scans of the top and bottom halves of the poster.

Bushkill Falls, located in the Pocono Mountains, was opened to the public in 1904 by Charles E. Peters. It is still owned by the Peters estate, but is leased an operated by Aramark. It consists of eight waterfalls, five of which are named -- Bushkill Falls, Bridal Veil Falls, Bridesmaid Falls, Laurel Glen Falls and Pennell Falls.

The back of the poster features a huge, detailed map -- courtesy of Rand McNally & Company -- of eastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey, southern New York and northern Maryland -- designed to show how many cities and towns were within a day's drive of Bushkill Falls. You can see that the unincorporated (and historic) community of Egypt, Pennsylvania,¹ is located near Bushkill Falls.

The names and locations of the roads and highways on this map can also help us date this piece of ephemera, which I believe was originally distributed in the early 1920s. One prominently featured road is State Highway 5, an east-west route also known as the Lakes-to-Sea Highway, portions of which were the predecessor of U.S. Route 322. I'm sure the rest of the map, similarly, is a treasure trove for road and highway historians.

Also of interest is the eastern half of York County:

That's former U.S. Route 111, which was eventually replaced by Interstate 83, running north-south through York County. Some interesting locations noted within York County include Turnpike, Hametown, Holtz, Keys, Sunnyburn and Castle Fin.²

Footnotes
1. Here is some fun information about Egypt, Pa., courtesy of Wikipedia:

"Egypt is one of the oldest communities in eastern Pennsylvania, having been settled as early as 1733."
"Early Pennsylvania German settlers of nearby present-day Lynn and Albany townships had named the area where they settled Alle mängel ('all wants') due to the poor quality of the soil on which they were trying to farm and raise crops. By contrast, the soil here was found to be quite fertile, and early settlers named this region 'Egypta,' since ancient Egypt, with its fertile Nile delta, was the 'granary of the world.'"
"Development of the community was spurred by the organization of the American Improved Cements Company (later American Cement Company), which took over and modernized the older Egypt Mills cement plant. ... The New York City Subway was built using cement manufactured in Egypt's mills."
Former Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Curt Simmons hails from Egypt.

2. According to Jim McClure's York Town Square blog, Castle Fin name is a tribute to Robert Coleman, an iron manufacturer who once owned the iron forge in southeastern York county and was born in Castlefin, Ireland. Here's a peek at the Coleman family's Castle Finn Mansion, which dates to 1819.

1950 ticket stub for Colts-Steelers preseason NFL game

2012-03-06T10:40:00.000-05:00

(Warning: The following post contains a lot of math. And it was not vetted.)

Here's a very cool ticket stub for the NFL preseason game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Baltimore Colts that was played at 2 p.m. on Sunday, August 13, 1950, at Memorial Stadium.

The face value of the ticket is $5, which translates to a hefty $44.78 in 2010 dollars (for a preseason game!), according to The Inflation Calculator.

But what's more interesting to me is how the total of $5 was arrived at. The price of the ticket itself is $4.14, but then 83 cents in federal tax and 3 cents in state tax are added on. If I'm doing my math correctly, that means that a 20% federal tax and a 0.725% state tax were levied on the preseason football ticket.

The reverse side of the ticket stub is also interesting...

Sixty-two years ago, you could get a season ticket for all six Baltimore Colts games -- against the Redskins, Browns, Eagles, Packers, Giants and Lions -- for just $21.60. That's just $3.60 per game! (I'm not sure, however, if the 20% federal tax has already been included in these prices.)

In 2012, you cannot go to a Baltimore Ravens game for $3.60.¹

Season tickets for the Baltimore Ravens' 10 games (eight regular-season games and two preseason games) range from $550 to $3,500 per seat. That would be a mere $55 to $350 per game, but...

THAT'S NOT ALL!

In order to purchase Baltimore Ravens season tickets, you must make a one-time purchase of a Personal Seat License (PSL).² The cost of the PSL ranges from $750 to $8,000.

So, in total, if it's your first time purchasing Baltimore Ravens season tickets, you would be paying between $1,300 and $9,250 -- or $130 to $925 per game.

Think of all the wonderful ephemera you could buy with that kind of dough!

Footnotes
1. And $3.60 won't even get you one gallon of gasoline this morning.
2. The Baltimore Ravens website states: "The purpose of the sale of PSLs is directly related to costs that the team incurred in its move to Baltimore. These costs included corporate and personnel relocation, team relocation expenses, NFL league fees associated with the move and upgrades to the existing practice facility. PSL revenues covered about half of these costs, with the Ravens contributing the balance. Currently, PSL funds are used to maintain M&T Bank Stadium as a first-rate facility that our fans will enjoy for many years to come."

Five hundred "lost" fairy tales discovered in Germany

2012-03-05T13:00:00.000-05:00

That sound you hear is me drooling with delight and anticipation.

An article by Victoria Sussens-Messerer in The Guardian today details the discovery of 500 fairy tales that were collected by German historian/folklorist Franz Xaver von Schönwerth (1810-1886) in the 19th century and then, for some reason, locked away in an archive in Regensburg, Germany.

Von Schönwerth was collecting his folk and fairy tales in the Bavarian region of Oberpfalz at roughly the same time that the famous Brothers Grimm were also gathering tales.

According to the Sussens-Messerer article:

"Von Schönwerth spent decades asking country folk, labourers and servants about local habits, traditions, customs and history, and putting down on paper what had only been passed on by word of mouth. ... Von Schönwerth was a historian and recorded what he heard faithfully, making no attempt to put a literary gloss on it, which is where he differs from the Grimm brothers."

The Guardian article has numerous other great details about Von Schönwerth and this fabulous discovery. I recommend that you check it out.

You can also read one of the newly rediscovered von Schönwerth tales -- The Turnip Princess -- on the Guardian website.

A label for Frostie Root Beer (a jailhouse-born beverage)

2012-03-04T17:59:00.000-05:00

Here's a pristine label, measuring 6 inches wide by 4½ inches tall, that would have been applied to a one-gallon container of Frostie Root Beer fountain and vending syrup.

Some details from the label:

The correct ratio to use was one ounce of syrup added to five ounces of ice-cold carbonated water. (By my math, that means you could get 128 servings from one gallon of syrup.)
The ingredients were: sugar, caramel color, artificial and natural flavors, water and no more than 1/10 of 1% of sodium benzoate.
The syrup's "use in bottled beverages is absolutely forbidden."
The syrup was distributed by Chas. Gray Beverage Co. of Janesville, Wisconsin, which is no longer is business.

Frostie Root Beer is still around, but it has changed hands a number of times since it was created by George Rackensperger in 1939. According to this excellent online history:

"Renting an abandoned jailhouse in Catonsville, Maryland, a suburb of Baltimore, [Rackensperger] used the garage that formerly housed the police wagon for setting up his bottling equipment ... and the various cells were employed to store sugar, crowns, and other supplies. In this small and unassuming enterprise, there was born a product which rapidly forced the elimination of the many flavors being bottled by Mr. Rackensperger. ... Frostie Old Fashion Root Beer had dwarfed all other plant products in sales. Consumer acceptance and volume sales rapidly brought about the need for much larger quarters and larger machinery to handle the continuing growth. Mr. Rackensperger left the jailhouse ... and a new modern plant was built."

For more history of Frostie Root Beer, check out the article by "CokeGirl" on the Soda TraderZ website.

In addition to root beer, flavors offered by Frostie today include diet root beer, vanilla root beer, blue cream soda, cherry limeade, concord grape and orange.

The Frostie brand, as mentioned, has gone through the following ownership changes, according to Wikipedia:

In 1979, it was sold to Monarch Beverage Company of Atlanta, Georgia.
In 2000, it was sold to Leading Edge Brands of Temple, Texas.
In 2009, it was sold to Intrastate Distributors Inc. of Detroit, Michigan.

Despite all the changes, the Frostie folks seem to have maintained a great attitude. The "Fun" section of the official website includes a request for customers to submit photos of themselves with a Frostie beverage (and jokingly states that: "All photos submitted ... become property of Intrastate Distributors Inc., where they may be used for marketing purposes or hung on the wall for dart practice.") There's also a list of Frostie Root Beer recipes, including Frostie Root Beer Cake, Frostie Root Beer BBQ Sauce and Frostie Root Beer Baked Beans.

So, who out there drinks Frostie products? Comment below!

Saturday's postcard: Puerto Barrios in Guatemala (probably)

2012-03-03T14:10:00.000-05:00

This old postcard (1930s?) probably depicts a scene in Puerto Barrios, Guatemala.

We only have two text clues to work with. Scratched into the photo on the front is the word "BARRIOƧ" -- with a backwards S. And written in ink on the back is "GAUTEMELA [sic] BANNANA [sic] PORT."

So, yes, I think Puerto Barrios is a good educated guess. Located within the Gulf of Honduras, it was named in 1884 for Guatemalan president Justo Rufino Barrios. According to Wikipedia, "its heyday was in the latter 19th and early 20th centuries, following the construction of a railroad connecting large banana plantations with the shipping docks."

A major railroad can clearly be seen on the postcard. And the back of the postcard mentions a banana port. That's all the more reason to think this is Puerto Barrios.

Puerto Barrios was heavily damaged by a 7.5-magnitude earthquake in February 1976. Afterward the earthquake, a new primary seaport for the region was built in nearby Santo Tomás de Castilla, and Puerto Barrios has struggled since then to regain its former importance.

Handy information from the 1942 Civil Air Regulations

2012-03-02T11:29:00.002-05:00

This July 1942 edition of "Civil Air Regulations (Complete Examination)" once belonged to a York County, Pa., pilot.¹

The bulk of the content is questions and answers, to be used in preparation for a student pilot's solo examination. It also includes a partial list of recent civil air violations (with their associated fines), other review material and a glossary.

The staplebound booklet was mimeoprinted by Carlton L. Wheeler of Penn Yan, New York.² It originally cost 75 cents.

Written across the top of Page 2, in capital letters, is: "CIVIL AIR REGULATIONS MUST BE OBEYED!" As the United States was involved in World War II at this point, the text further states: "Violation of the Civil Air Regulations may result in a fine up to $500 or one year imprisonment, or both. Warning: Beware of flying over restricted areas! Guards at many defense plants, etc., are reported to be under orders to shoot at any plane flying low. Play safe and stay away from danger areas."

Here are ten interesting notes and tips from this 70-year-old guide:

1. Name the order in which aircraft in flight shall have right of way.
(a) Balloons (b) Gliders (c) Airships (d) Airplanes including rotor-planes.

2. What is "official sunset"?
As published in the Nautical Almanac, converted to local standard time for the locality concerned. This book is the authority for all officially designated time.

3. Name five items which would be classed as prohibited articles of transport in aircraft.
Arms, ammunition, explosives, munitions of war, and habit-forming drugs.

4. What are the minimum safe altitudes over various regions?
See illustration below:

5. Name the equipment required to be installed in an aircraft to engage in visual-contact day flight within 100 miles of a fixed base.
1 Altimeter; 1 Air Speed Indicator; 1 Tachometer for each engine; Oil Pressure Gauge; Oil Thermometer for each air cooled engine; Manifold pressure gauge for each altitude engine; Fuel gauge; Certificated⁴ safety belts for all passengers and members of the crew; Portable fire extinguisher in cabin planes; Position Indicator for retractable landing gear; Device for measuring amount of oil in tanks; First Aid Kit; Log-book for airplane and one for each motor; Rigging information.

6. What is the international radio distress signal when sent in Morse code? In radio telephony?
S.O.S. by radio; and the spoken word is "Mayday" in radio telephony.

7. What is the minimum legal altitude for acrobatic flight?
See (stomach-turning) illustration below:

8. What is the closest approach permitted to grandstand or spectators for any aircraft during an air meet?
200 feet.⁵

9. What do the letters "NX" signify?
That the aircraft bearing them is deemed to be safe only for experimental purposes.⁶

10. What should a pilot do if after taking off he finds that a passenger has with him intoxicating liquor?
Keep on flying. He has no authority to do otherwise unless the passenger becomes intoxicated. He should then land at the nearest airport and have the passenger removed by local authorities.

Footnotes
1. I detailed the acquisition of this book and several other related flight manuals in this October 2011 post.
2. Wikipedia has these interesting notes about Penn Yan, past and present: "The name of the village is said to have been contrived from the first syllables of 'Pennsylvania' and 'Yankee,' as most of the early settlers were Pennsylvanians and New Englanders (or Yankees). Many Amish and Mennonite families are recent arrivals to the area. Beginning in 1974, many Mennonite families moved to Yates County from Lancaster County, PA, seeking cheaper farmland."
3. A $500 fine in 1942 would be the equivalent of a $6,613 fine in 2010, according to The Inflation Calculator.
4. Certificated? OK, word mavens, here's an interesting article from dailywritingtips.com regarding the difference between “certified” and “certificated.”
5. The distance is now MUCH greater than 200 feet, and has been such for decades. According to this recent Associated Press story on safety (or lack thereof) at air shows:

"Before the Reno accident, the last U.S. spectator fatalities were at an air show in 1951 in Flagler, Colo., where 20 people were killed. That accident led to significant changes in the way air shows are staged, including a requirement that grandstands are kept a distance of 500 feet to 1,500 feet from planes depending upon the aircraft.

"The requirements were strengthened after 67 people were killed and another 350 injured in 1988 at a U.S. Air Force base in Ramstein, Germany, after the midair collision of an Italian Air Force team performing stunts. Wreckage from the collision landed on spectators. Planes are no longer allowed to fly over crowds at U.S. shows."

6. According to Wikipedia's entry on aircraft registration:

"An older aircraft (registered before 31 December 1948) may have a second letter in its identifier, identifying the category of aircraft. This additional letter is not actually part of the aircraft identification (e.g. NC12345 is the same registration as N12345). Aircraft category letters have not been included on any registration numbers issued since 1 January 1949, but they still appear on antique aircraft for authenticity purposes. The categories were:
C = airline, commercial and private
G = glider
L = limited
R = restricted (such as cropdusters and racing aircraft)
S = state
X = experimental
For example, N-X-211, the Ryan NYP aircraft flown by Charles Lindbergh as the Spirit of St. Louis, was registered in the experimental category.

Great moments in Papergreat history: Spam advertises on the blog

2012-03-01T20:00:00.000-05:00

Screenshot from shortly after midnight on March 1, 2012.

Late last night, I became perfectly giddy when I came across this advertisement for Spam -- Spam! -- on Papergreat.

I'm a big Spam fan, so it's way cool to see it right here alongside the ephemera.

The funny thing is that, until now, I've only ever had one small mention of Spam on the blog.¹

Meanwhile, it's clearly time for Underwood's Deviled Ham to step up and respond to Spam's advertisement. Underwood has gotten a lot of free love here on Papergreat. It's time for them to put their money where their meat is!

Or, ahem, something like that.

Footnote
1. To rectify that, I must say of Spam: "I love it. I'm having spam spam spam spam spam spam spam beaked beans spam spam spam and spam!" (And, as an aside, the glorious Spam sketch premiered on December 15, 1970, the day after I was born. Spam.)

Photos of the abandoned Great Barrington Fairgrounds

2012-03-01T09:30:00.004-05:00

Joan and I were taking the scenic route home after a trip in Vermont in late January when we were compelled to stop the car and get the camera out.

Traveling through Great Barrington, Massachusetts, on U.S. Route 7, what caught our eye was the abandoned and overgrown Great Barrington Fairgrounds.

The fairgrounds took a direct hit from an F4 tornado in 1995 -- winds were estimated to be between 158 and 260 miles per hour. There were attempts to rebuild and reopen, but the fairgrounds closed for good around 2000 and are now surrounded by "No Trespassing" signs (which I obeyed).

Here are some of the photos I took on that cold and flurry-filled day.

If you're interested in more on the fairgrounds, check out this message board, which has a gallery of photos that were taken in 2008. It's interesting to see what's changed and stayed the same between and 2008 and 2012. The board has some interesting comments, including a bittersweet story from someone whose family used to own the fairgrounds.

Here's one last photo, which is definitely better if viewed in a larger version. (Just click on it.)

Some of my other photo galleries

Coupons for a 1980 book fair in Baltimore

2012-02-29T11:27:00.001-05:00

Tucked away inside a paperback copy of Samuel Beckett's "Waiting for Godot," I found a handful of blue coupons and a yellow bookmark for a book fair that was held on St. Paul Street in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1980.¹

The text states: "12 coupons may be exchanged for one free paperback book -- value to $1.95. (No Magazines)."

Alas, I only have seven coupons. No free book for me. (Plus, of course, the fair ended three decades ago.)

I don't know if this particular book fair still exists, but Baltimore has a snazzy-looking annual book festival, which will be held in late September this year.

Footnote
1. 1980 was also a leap year. Nice coincidence for the Feb. 29 post!

Otsu-e painting of an oni with a shamisen

2012-02-27T10:32:00.000-05:00

This is the illustration -- simultaneously creepy and amusing -- on the front of an old, undated postcard from Japan. The only words in English on the back are:

Post Card
ŌTSU-E
UCHIDA
KYOTO JAPAN

Let's start with Otsu-e, which translates to "pictures of the city Otsu," which is near Kyoto, Japan.¹ The Otsu-e were folk paintings done by unknown artists and sold to travelers, beginning early in the country's Edo Period (1603–1868).

The website of the Mingeikan Museum in Tokyo, which features folk crafts, has an in-depth article about the Otsu-e by Haruhara Yoko. Here's an excerpt:

"This genre of folk art ranges from themes of good luck to those of happiness and prosperity. The paintings are at once frivolous, light-hearted and disarming, providing an amusing blend of auspicious symbols and social commentary. ... The name otsu-e is derived from the place where these paintings were sold, in and around the post town of Otsu, which lay on the Tokaido Road running between Edo (present day Tokyo) and Kyoto. Stands were set along the road to sell these paintings as souvenirs to passing travelers. Created by anonymous artists, the paintings were sold in great numbers for little money."

According to "History of Otsu-e," a variety of techniques -- including compasses, a ruler, stencil plates and woodblock prints -- were used by the artists so that the pictures could be mass-produced. Sometimes, the entire family helped with the production process.

Today's postcard features one of the most popular and common Otsu-e images -- the oni (goblin or demon) of Japanese folklore playing a shamisen (a three-stringed Japanese musical instrument) with a sake bottle and a cup in front of him. One similar image can be found here. Others -- all slight variations on the same approach -- are easy to find online.

Haruhara Yoko specifically discusses this type of oni painting in his article:

"One of the most popular motifs of these paintings was the goblin, which came into vogue as a decorative theme in the 18th century. Although the goblin is a symbol of evil in religious iconography, in the satirical otsu-e folk art tradition, the symbol evolved to represent human folly. One such work is 'Goblin Playing the Shamisen,' which depicts a drunken, red-faced goblin immersed in playing this Japanese three-stringed instrument. The farcical nature of this depiction teasingly tells the viewer that too much drinking is overly indulgent."

The article features another example of the oni/shamisen painting.

As mentioned, oni are not always humorous and satirical within Japanese folklore. According to The Obakemono Project, "the term 'oni' is roughly equivalent to the English term 'demon' or 'ogre', and as such can describe a great variety of entities. Oni are roughly humanoid, usually large but sometimes small, and have faces like men or apes or beasts and sometimes even birds. They more often than not have horns, but these can range from tiny nubs to long, sharp, spiraling arcs like an antelope's, or antlers like a dragon's."

Wikipedia adds: "Depictions of oni vary widely but usually portray them as hideous, gigantic creatures with sharp claws, wild hair, and two long horns growing from their heads. They are humanoid for the most part, but occasionally, they are shown with unnatural features such as odd numbers of eyes or extra fingers and toes. Their skin may be any number of colors, but red and blue are particularly common."

A related and recommended film -- if you're OK with black-and-white cinema and subtitles -- is the 1964 Japanese horror film "Onibaba," which is available in a wonderful edition from Criterion. Here's an excerpt from the Criterion summary:

"Deep within the wind-swept marshes of war-torn medieval Japan, an impoverished mother and her daughter-in-law eke out a lonely, desperate existence. Forced to murder lost samurai and sell their belongings for grain, they dump the corpses down a deep, dark hole and live off of their meager spoils. When a bedraggled neighbor returns from the skirmishes, lust, jealousy, and rage threaten to destroy the trio’s tenuous existence, before an ominous, ill-gotten demon mask seals the trio’s horrifying fate."

Translations of onibaba, by the way, include demon hag, witch, old hag, mountain woman, ogre and "The Goblin of Adachigahara."

Much less cheery than the drunken oni playing the shamisen!

Footnote
1. I am almost certain to get something wrong in today's post, as I am clearly not an expert in the history and culture of Japan. Please comment below if I need to be corrected.

Mystery photos inside Cullum's "The Night-Riders"

2012-02-26T19:15:00.000-05:00

A worn copy of Ridgwell Cullum's¹ early 20th century novel "The Night-Riders" (A Romance of Early Montana) was about to leave our house last week with some other used books when, inexplicably, I pulled it from its box and leafed through it one more time.

This time around, I discovered that someone had pasted a pair of photos on the opposite side of one of the book's glossy illustrations.²

The photo of the mystery woman sitting on some rocks is 2½ inches wide by 4¼ inches deep. Underneath it is an upside-down sliver of another photograph, featuring only a man's head. Odd!

The only potential clue comes from the name and other information written in cursive on the book's first page:

Gerland G. Steck
Co. L, 10th Inf
Fort Benjamin Harrison
(Aside: The 46th Infantry Regiment, which served in World War II, was originally organized in 1917 at Fort Benjamin Harrison from the 10th Infantry, of which Steck was a member.)

But there's no way to know for sure if these two photos have anything to do with Steck or his relations.

Would these two people have been happy to see their faces side-by-side like this?

Footnotes
1. According to a short biography by John F. Barlow on imdb.com, Ridgwell Cullum was the pseudonym of British author and adventurer Sidney Groves Burghard (1867-1943). An excerpt of the biography:

"He was born in London, England on August 13, 1867 where, as a young man not yet eighteen, he chose leave England to prospect for gold in the Transvaal region of South Africa. Later he traveled to the Cape of Good Hope, where he became involved in the conflict between British and Boer settlers. Soon though, news of a gold strike lured Burghard to the Canadian Yukon. ... In time he would settle down and become a prosperous Montana cattle rancher. In 1889 Burghard enlisted in the US Army and may have been involved in putting down the Sioux Indian uprising of 1890-91. Burghard finally found the gold he was searching for after he published his first book 'Devil's Keg' in 1903."

Six of Cullum's novels were adapted into movies. That includes 1922's "The Night Riders," which featured an actor named Goober Glenn in a minor role.

2. Here's the illustration that's on the reverse side of the page that features the pasted mystery photos:

Saturday's postcards: Longfellow's Wayside Inn in Massachusetts

2012-02-25T14:58:00.000-05:00

Above: The Old Kitchen at Longfellow's Wayside Inn

Above: The Old Bar Room at Longfellow's Wayside Inn

Today's two unused and undated postcards are from Longfellow's Wayside Inn in Sudbury, Massachusetts. The inn stakes claim to being the oldest operating inn in America, dating to 1716.

The postcards were produced by The Albertype Co. of Brooklyn, New York.

The Historical Society of Pennsylvania has a huge collection featuring 43 boxes of Albertype Company photographs. According to the historical society: "The Albertype Company was founded by Adolph and Herman L. Wittemann in 1890 as a postcard and viewbook publishing company. The Brooklyn-based company used the recent technological innovation of the collotype, or albertype,¹ to photomechanically reproduce images. Amassing photographic negatives of towns and cities across the United States, the Albertype Company produced over twenty-five thousand collotypes before its closure in 1952."

Here is some more about Albertype's history from the fabulous Metropolitan Postcard Club of New York City website:

"Adolph Wittmann [sic] was the photographer of many of these images. Their postcards were not numbered and their name appears within the stamp box on their early cards. When the divided back postcard was authorized, the Albertype company created a line down the back of their cards with the words Post Cards of Quality and later with The Finest American Made View Post Cards². Many publishers large and small printed cards though the Albertype Co. They were purchased by Art Vue Post Card Company in 1952."

Much more about Albertype is available on the Metropolitan Postcard Club of New York City website, where you could lose yourself for days if you love postcard history.

As for Longfellow's Wayside Inn, here are some cool facts about that historic building, excerpted from its website:

"The Inn's Old Bar room [one of today's two postcards] represents the oldest room in the Inn. Originally the first floor chamber of David Howe's 1707 two-room homestead, this room eventually became his tavern in 1716, and is still in use today."

"Henry Wadsworth Longfellow visited the Howe Tavern in 1862. Inspired by the coziness of the Inn’s atmosphere and pastoral landscape, Longfellow wrote a series of poems focused on a group of fictitious characters that regularly gathered at the old Sudbury tavern. The poems were published in 1863 as the Tales of a Wayside Inn."
"Many overnight rooms at the Inn are packed with letters and notes from members of the Secret Drawer Society! The Society was formed in the late 1950s when then innkeeper Francis Koppeis entertained visiting children with stories about the hidden drawers found in many of the Inn's antique desks. Koppeis would hide small candies for his young guests to find, but soon people of all ages were leaving notes and treasures for other guests. Today, people record their unique experiences of the old Inn and stash them in the drawers of desks and bureaus in our guest rooms for future generations to ponder."³
"David Howe, the first Howe family innkeeper from 1716 to 1746, married Hepzibah Death on December 25th, 1700! Many of the traditions we recognize today as part of the Christmas holiday were non-existent in early New England. Our Puritan forefathers had no tolerance for the 'excessive revelings' associated with Christmas, so the day passed like any other until well into the middle of the19th-century."

Footnotes
1. According to the Wyoming Tales and Trails website, albertype was "a process invented by Austrian photographer Joseph Albert (1825-1886). The process using a collotype coating on glass plates permitted high speed mass production of photographs for the first time. Albertype photos also have an advantage that although the paper may yellow, the inks, unlike normal photographs, do not fade."
2. The Finest American Made View Post Cards is the slogan that appears vertically on the back of these two Longfellow's Wayside Inn postcards.
3. Papergreat strongly approves of this tradition.

1970s gang graffiti inside a 1928 book of plays

2012-02-24T11:00:00.000-05:00

I was leafing through 1928's "Plays Old and New"¹ in anticipation of sending it to its final resting place, as it has a fully detached spine and multiple loose pages.

Then I came to the inside back cover, where I found some interesting graffiti for the Black Spades of the Bronx (18th division).

The Black Spades were an African American street gang in New York City in the 1970s. According to Wikipedia:

"The gang originated in 1968 in the Bronxdale Houses in the Soundview section of the Bronx as the Savage Seven and began terrorizing the neighborhood. As the gang grew, they changed their name to the Black Spades. The gang quickly spread to nearby housing projects and throughout the Bronx, with divisions in almost every precinct and they had over 50 divisions in New York State alone. ... Afrika Bambaataa was the warlord of the Black Spades before becoming a famous hip hop DJ. He later went on to form the Universal Zulu Nation [an international hip hop awareness group in which reformed gang members organize cultural events for youths] on November 12th, 1973; Many Black Spades gang members followed Afrika Bambaataa into the group."

The page facing the inside back cover in "Plays Old and New" also features some graffiti:

I'm not sure what the "The Saints" specifically refers to.

It's interesting -- but not surprising -- to see "Dr. J" written on there. Julius Erving played for the ABA's New York Nets at Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum (on Long Island) from 1973 to 1976.

Footnote

1. The book, edited by Stella B. Finney, features a dozen plays, including "The Philosopher of Butterbiggens" by Howard Chapin; "Robin Hood in Sherwood" by Alfred Noyes; "The Farce of the Worthy Master Pierre Patelin" as translated by folklorist and anarchist Moritz Jagendorf; Alice Gerstenberg's adaptation of "Alice in Wonderland"; and "The Golden Doom" by Lord Dunsany, aka Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany.

Dunsany was one of the most important and influential fantasy authors of the early 20th century. Writers he influenced include H.P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, J.R.R. Tolkien, Jorge Luis Borges and modern author Neil Gaiman. Among Dunsany's writings were more then 150 tales featuring the character of adventurer Joseph Jorkens. The Jorkens tales established the popular literary subgenre known as the club tale.

Reader comments: Esso, THON, Koester's Bread and more

2012-02-23T09:25:00.018-05:00

I have awesome reader comments rolling in from every direction these days, including Facebook (do you like the Papergreat page?) and e-mail. So let's dive right in and get to your insights and feedback...

Esso touts the oil culture in these 1950s books for kids: Melanie Pancho wrote: "I remember books like this! (Dating myself, I know, but that's okay!) They must have been illustrated by the same person who did the Dick and Jane books, which were still in use when I was learning to read. By the way, you should use that last pic as your avatar right here on Facebook, it's fantastic!"

Mel Kolstad of Ephemeraology, who blogged about gas stations on the same day as my post, wrote: "YES!!! It MUST be your new avatar. Wonderful post, and great minds think alike - we posted an hour apart and we both did gasoline-related posts today! WEIRD!"

(Note from Chris: OK, I didn't use it as my Facebook pic, but I did follow through and make Beaming Boy my Twitter avatar.)

Finally, Anonymous wrote: "Funniest thing about the first picture is the coin changer the Esso serviceman is wearing."

* * *
"Wallpaper Does It," courtesy of Western Electric: Of the tricks and tips mentioned in this 1955 booklet, Linda Chenoweth Harlow wrote: "Design tricks still used today. Thank goodness the patterns are better!"

* * *
Memories of Penn State's 1993 Dance Marathon: I am humbled and happy to say that this post was shared quite bit among THON participants, past and present, and was able to bring back some poignant memories for a lot of people.

More importantly, I am thrilled to report, if you haven't already heard, that last weekend's THON raised $10,686,924.83 for the fight against pediatric cancer. Absolutely unbelievable effort by those Penn Staters!

Ashley Akright, Nick's little sister, shared this touching message on the first night of THON: "Mom and I read this in the hotel room tonight, with tears running down my face. So glad my family could inspire Chris and so many other dancers throughout the years. I wore my 1993 THON shirt tonight and brought the referenced red sweatshirt. Donate now if you haven't already to Thon.org, so no one else needs to shed a tear over a child's battle against cancer."

And Bud Akright, Nick's dad, wrote this: "Chris, After reading your words, I am reminded of how proud I am of all the Thon students, especially my daughter, who continued the fight even after Nick left us. Love you all, THON on!"

Ashley also found her 1993 THON hat, which I had autographed for her at the time. It's pictured here. In the meantime, Nick's 1993 letter, as promised, is in the mail to the Akright family.

* * *

Coupons from the E.H. Koester Bakery Co.: This post from March 2011 generated a number of great reader comments and memories.

One more came in early December, when this email from Linda Durkos finally made its way to me:¹ "I am always looking for Koester’s Bakery paraphernalia and I saw on your blog that you have two bread coupons for the bakery. Koester’s has a warm spot in my heart as my grandmother worked there during the 1920’s through her retirement in 1964 as an office manager and this is where I developed my sweet tooth. Anyway, to get to the point, I was wondering if you would be interested in selling these coupons as I have several other pieces of advertising from the bakery – bakery window decal in gold with black outlining; bakery window decal of twins; bread wrappers and believe it or not, an ashtray with the twins on it. I use it for soap. These would be a wonderful addition to my collection if you are willing to part with them."

How could I refuse a request like that? Of course, I wouldn't hear of taking any money for the Koester’s coupons. I just mailed them to her and told her that, if she had a few pieces of ephemera laying around that she wasn't interested in, she could send them my way. A good, old-fashioned Ephemera Swap!

I forgot all about it until a couple days ago, when my wife told me there was a package for me and my jaw dropped at the size of the box.² It was jam-packed with ephemera. There are enough postcards, envelopes, pamphlets, brochures, newspaper clippings, ticket stubs -- and more -- within this box to sustain two months worth of Papergreat entries. I am truly floored. Thank you so much, Linda! I cannot wait to dive in!

* * *
Only six days until Valentine's Day! Anonymous wrote: "Eons ago when I was in elementary school we used numbered letters from the alphabet to sign our valentines to classmates (a-1, b-2, ... z-26). If that's what the sender is using here, it would be JEC, which may be the perp's initials!"

* * *
Violet Anderson and Kenneth Lehman will sing and play: Blake Stough of Preserving York did some excellent sleuth work and wrote:

"I'm always interested in stories about York County...

"It appears there were several 'Green Valley Ramblers' around during the 1900s. I've found references to bands of that name in newspapers from the 1930s to the 1970s. The locations I came across via Ancestry.com were:
Hamilton, OH (1937)
Frederick, MD (1938)
Connellsville, PA (1951)
Lebanon, PA (1967)
Burlington, NC (1972-1977)
Uniontown, PA (1976)
Chester, PA (1977)
Gettysburg, PA (1978)
"The Gettysburg listing mentioned that the 'Green Valley Ramblers' playing there were from North Carolina, so it seems THAT particular band may have traveled quite a bit.

"Not much help, but perhaps a nudge in the right direction."

Thanks, Blake!

* * *

New occasional series: The Wanamaker Diary 1910: Mom wrote: "We had that Underwood typewriter when I was young. Mom bought it second (or third or fourth?) hand in the 1950s. If you typed too fast on it, the strikers would jam up and stick together. Easily fixed. Those machines were built to last. Not like the junk they sell today. And you could buy red/black ribbons. With a stroke of the right keys it would shift the position of the ribbons and you could type in one color or the other. High tech in those days!"

* * *
A very old Jules Verne book cover and a 1960 band photo: Finally, Scott Downs, the publisher of the Lebanon (Pa.) Daily News, checked in on Facebook to say that he liked this post: "Great cover art. I love the art used on antique books."

Scott then sent me some images of favorite book covers from his own collection, which I am happy to share here:

Above: From 1910, "The Boy Aviators in Nicaragua or In League with the Insurgents." This was the first book in "The Boy Aviators" series.

Above: From 1894, "Cruise of the Midge," of which only 1,500 copies were printed.

Above: From 1899, "Triumphs and Wonder of the XIXth Century."

Footnotes
1. You have to love the Internet. Linda got in touch with me by contacting the The Gettysburg Times, a newspaper I haven't worked for since 1994! (Fortunately, someone in Gettysburg knew that I was still working in nearby York.) In trying to find me, Linda wrote: "Good afternoon: I would like to get in touch with Chris Otto and my search has led me to the Gettysburg Times. I am not having success on his blog and, since according to my children I am an electronic Neanderthal, this is the only avenue I can find. If you could forward this to him, I would appreciate it." Hey, it worked! So Linda gets full credit and bonus points for creativity.
2. Using my favorite standard unit of measure, this box could have held 1.5 Gwyneth Paltrow Heads.

Get your Wanamaker office supplies

2012-02-22T14:30:00.001-05:00

Today's installment in the 1910 Wanamaker Diary series (see the initial post) focuses on advertisements for Wanamaker-brand office supplies.

This Criterion Office and Library Paste¹ is touted as being good for "mounting photographs, general office and home use."

(As an aside, I must point out that pasted and glued items are much harder for historians and ephemeraologists to salvage and preserve.)

It's also noted that the paste "dries very quickly and will not discolor anything."

The 1910 price for one quart of the stuff is 50 cents. That might not seem like much. But it would be the equivalent of $11.55 in 2010 dollars, according to The Inflation Calculator.

These Wanamaker Criterion Lead Pencils aren't cheap, either. The price is 50 cents for a dozen. (Again, $11.55 in 2010 dollars.) Or $4.50 for a gross of pencils. A gross is equal to "a dozen dozen" -- or 144 pencils. The cost for those 144 pencils is indeed gross -- in 2010 dollars it's $103.96!

I guess we can be happy that pencils are among the few things that have gone down in relative cost over the years.²

Finally, here's an advertisement for Wanamaker Commercial Fluid.

The copy states: "It writes a Beautiful Blue, changing to permanent Black in a few hours, and is absolutely free from sediment."

The cost for a whole quart is just 30 cents, which would be a reasonable $6.93 in 2010 dollars.

The fluid came in the following sizes: quarts, pints, half-pints, four ounces and two ounces.

I hope the Wanamaker Series can bring back a lot of memories for folks throughout the coming year. Papergreat reader Dianne left this great comment after the first entry:

Wanamaker's was a fabulous place! I worked in the toy department one Christmas for my first post-college job, 1971. Children and parents could ride a monorail that ran around the entire ceiling of the 8th floor toy department. Kids often spit out the windows of the monorail.³

Tours were given of Wanamaker's well-hidden office. Even though he died about 1922, it was kept much as he left it. The office had large windows overlooking downtown Philly while most of the store was windowless.

The store had a post office and a furnished model house in the furniture department. People would joke about spending a weekend in the model house. Wanamaker's in-store bank was on a lower level. We carried cash to the bank before checking out.

The Wanamaker Christmas show was a treat with a multi-story display of flashing lights and the Wanamaker organ music. We watched from the balcony cafe (3rd floor) or the Crystal Tea Room on the 9th floor. The organ was built for the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair. Wanamaker purchased it in 1909, but the installation took 2 years with nearly 10,000 pipes.

Strawbridge & Clothier had the brass wild boar, unimpressive in comparison to the Wanamaker eagle in the Grand Court. The eagle was THE place to meet in the store.

Thanks for sharing those great memories, Dianne!

Footnotes
1. Note how "Criterion Office and Library Paste" is printed on the side of the jar, but "Photo and Office Paste" is printed on the lid.
2. One example of many: 144 pencils for about $15 on Amazon.com.
3. That's a wonderful detail! Also, "Ewwwwwwwwwwwww."

Wonderfully illustrated postcards from Belgium and Japan

2012-02-21T10:00:00.021-05:00

I'll let the images do the talking with today's quartet of gorgeous postcards from the middle of the 20th century.

First up is two illustrated cards by an artist named Browne from Expo 58 in Brussels, Belgium, which was the first major world's fair after World War II.¹

Second, these two postcards from Japan feature woodblock prints by Tomikichiro Tokuriki.

Footnote
1. Expo 58 was also known as the Brussels World’s Fair, Brusselse Wereldtentoonstelling or Exposition Universelle et Internationale de Bruxelles. As an interesting aside, Orson Welles' "Touch of Evil" was awarded top prize at Expo 58.

1961's World Flag Game About the United Nations

2012-02-20T10:15:00.002-05:00

Among the miscellaneous items that I picked up last year from a local auction were the playing cards and instructions for the 1961 Parker Brothers¹ game "World Flag Game About the United Nations."

The original box, playing board and information booklet were NOT included.²

The flag cards are very small, measuring just 2½ inches wide by 1⅝ inches tall.

Here's an excerpt from the introduction in the playing rules:

"This game has been published in cooperation with the Office of Public Information of the United Nations. With four exceptions all of the countries appearing on the board were members or prospective members of the United Nations as of July 31, 1960. The four exceptions are the two German Republics (both appear in the same square), Switzerland, and the Peoples Republic of China. These important land areas are essential to the play of this game."

Here are six of the playing cards the piqued my interest:

Above: Switzerland got the "NOT A MEMBER OF UNITED NATIONS" stamp, even though one of the organization's primary headquarters is located there. Switzerland did not join the United Nations until 2002.

Above: The Federation of Malaya was in existence from 1948 to 1963. It was reconstituted as Malaysia in 1963 and kept the same flag.

Above: The Republic of the Congo (Léopoldville) was, according to Wikipedia, "an independent republic established following the independence granted to the former colony of the Belgian Congo in 1960. The country's post-independence name remained only until 1 August 1964, when it was changed to Democratic Republic of the Congo, to distinguish it from the neighboring Republic of the Congo, formerly French Congo." (Phew!)

Léopoldville is now known as Kinshasa³, a city of 10 million in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Above: This two-country card was stamped with "NOT MEMBERS OF UNITED NATIONS." The Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) and the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) both were admitted as members in September 1973.

Above: The Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic (1920-1991) was one of the four original founding members of the Soviet Union in 1922. It became the Republic of Belarus (Беларусь) in 1991, following the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Its flag remained similar after 1991, with the golden hammer and sickle and the red star being removed.

Above: The Mali Federation was sort of the Moonlight Graham of countries. It barely had time for a cup of coffee in the majors. According to Wikipedia, it was formed by a union between Senegal and the Sudanese Republic and became entirely self-governing when it gained independence from France on June 20, 1960. Two months later, on August 20, 1960, the Mali Federation collapsed when Senegal withdrew over political disagreements.

The Sudanese Republic was renamed the Republic of Mali in September 1960. The flag's color pattern remained the same, but the human figure quickly disappeared.

Why? According to WorldFlags101.com, "A 'kanaga' symbol was used on the first Mali flag, until it was abolished in 1961. The symbol is a black human-like image and it was removed because of pressure from Muslims who do not approve of making images in the human form."

Footnotes
1. Another Papergreat post about a Parker Brothers board game: Top of an old box of Tiddledy Winks
2. BoardGameGeek.com has an informative entry for this game, complete with a slideshow of images. The users have given it a rating of 5.57 out of 10. But a few commenters have fond memories of it, including one who states: "An old 'classic' that I played in my youth. Recently acquired and still greatly enjoying it. I contemplated giving this game a '10' for it's longevity. My children like the game too, although they don't understand the subtle strategy involved. Still love it!"
3. Former professional athletes Dikembe Mutombo and Tim Biakabutuka were both born in Kinshasa. Their full names, by the way, are Dikembe Mutombo Mpolondo Mukamba Jean-Jacques Wamutombo and Tshimanga Biakabutuka.

A very old Jules Verne book cover and a 1960 band photo

2012-02-19T10:21:00.001-05:00

Today's two items come from school books decades apart...

First up is an undated, but quite old, hardcover featuring two works by Jules Verne. Pictured at right is the cover of the volume, which contains 1865's "From the Earth to the Moon" and 1870's "Around the Moon."¹

It was published by A.L. Burt of New York, and, if I had to hazard a guess, I'd say it was issued sometime between 1890 and 1905.

Written in neat cursive handwriting on the inside front cover is the following:

No. 14.
Property of
Sch. No. 3 Dis't. No. 8.
Chas. Co. Md.
I'm sure that I could find, somewhere, a history of the numbered schools and school districts within Charles County, Maryland.

Getting back to the cover -- it's scuffed, worn and faded, but you can see how beautiful the full illustration must have been before time took its toll. One thing I find interesting is that the bookshelf is curtained, which one might imagine would be an enviable design touch for certain areas.

If you narrow in on just the young man and bookshelf, you get this attractive cropped image:²

While Verne's fantastic fiction was written in the wake of the Civil War, today's second book was published in 1958, after two 20th century world wars had taken place. It's volume one of "World Civilizations" by Edward McNall Burns and Philip Lee Ralph.

But what caught my eye was not Burns' and Ralph's text encompassing the Stone Age to the Commercial Revolution.

No, in leafing through the book, I was stopped by the discovery of a single snapshot tucked away inside.

The photo, dated September 1960, shows a band practicing somewhere more than a half-century ago. The back of the photo reveals only that it was taken by Eze Obi and that it was printed on Kodak Velox Paper.³ Here it is:

I doubt we'll ever be able to identify what band this is, practicing on a lined football field. But, just in case there are any clues to be found, here are a couple closeups of the band members:

Footnotes
1. Interestingly, the title page contains a slight variation on the title of the sequel. It lists the two novels as "From the Earth to the Moon, and Round the Moon" (not "Around the Moon"). Furthermore, according to Wikipedia, the two novels were later officially combined into one novel titled "A Trip to the Moon and Around It."
2. In case you missed it, these were my favorite Papergreat images of 2011.
3. Although the photo is dated on the front, the words "Kodak Velox Paper" on the back could have helped us to generally date the photo, too, according to David Rudd Cycleback, who writes on Cycleback.com that "If the back of the photo has the three line printing 'Kodak/Velox/Paper,' the photo dates circa 1950s-60s."

1959 receipt from The Colonial Bookstore in York, Pa.

2012-02-18T10:00:00.018-05:00

I found this receipt tucked away inside a pristine hardcover copy of 1959's "The Artist's Handbook of Materials and Techniques" by Ralph Mayer. (Or, more precisely, the July 1959 printing of 1957's revised and enlarged edition.)

The book has had great staying power over the decades. It was first published in 1940. A revised and updated fifth edition was issued in 1991 and sales of that edition remain strong on Amazon.com. It has been referred to as "the painter's bible."

The cover price of this book in 1959 was $6.75, which was a significant amount of money in those days. According to The Inflation Calculator, $6.75 in 1959 is the equivalent of $49.91 in 2010 -- definitely a college textbook type of price (which is exactly what this 700-plus-page tome was considered in some places).

But what about where it was purchased? The receipt, dated September 23, 1959,¹ is from The Colonial Book Store, Inc., ("Books and Imported Gifts") located at the rear of of 970 South George Street here in York, Pennsylvania. There's also a tiny gold bookseller's label² for "The Colonial Bookstore" affixed to the bottom of the inside front cover.

The bookstore is no longer around. I think it's been gone for decades. At least one famous York County native, however, remembers it well. Playwright and director Ken Ludwig, whose credits include the Tony-nominated book for "Crazy For You,"³ remembers how P.G. Wodehouse and The Colonial Bookstore helped him on the road to becoming a writer in this excerpt from KenLudwig.com:

"My love for everything Wodehouse began when I was 14 years old. My mother and I were cleaning boxes out of my grandmother’s attic when she came upon a copy of Cocktail Time and turned to me and said 'You know, Kenny, you might enjoy this. Give it a try.' ... It was the same summer, and in significant part because of Wodehouse, that I decided to become a writer. (Admittedly, Austen, Coward and Shakespeare had something to do with it, too.) We lived in a smallish town in Southern Pennsylvania ('York' by name, the setting of one of my latest plays), and for the next several years I would make a yearly pilgrimage to the Colonial Bookstore (the one in the little shopping strip near the hospital⁴) to buy the latest Wodehouse – and then devour it in one unstoppable gulp that night. Thus were acquired and digested Aunts Aren’t Gentlemen, The Girl in Blue and many another late work of the master."

Perhaps Ludwig still has one of his original Wodehouse volumes, complete with a gold bookseller's label from The Colonial Bookstore. (Ludwig, by the way, recently returned to York County to help raise money for York Little Theatre, as documented in this York Daily Record/Sunday News story.)

Getting back to the 52-year-old receipt, it contains one final treat for historians and ephemeraologists. Check out the small type in the bottom left-hand corner of the receipt (shown magnified above). Apparently, this receipt pad for The Colonial Bookstore came from Eber's Typewriter Shop, also in York.

I couldn't find anything regarding a business with that name (after a quick search online), but there are a few records for an Eber's Business Machines that was located on East Market Street in York.

Beyond that, the floor is now open and I'm looking forward to any and all memories of The Colonial Bookstore and Eber's Typewriter Shop.

Footnotes
1. That's also the date that "Seinfeld" star Jason Alexander was born.
2. For more on bookseller labels, see these past posts:

3. Coincidentally, "Crazy For You" is one of a handful of shows I've been fortunate enough to see on Broadway over the years.
4. That would be York Hospital.

Memories of Penn State's 1993 Dance Marathon

2012-02-16T08:15:00.051-05:00

Tomorrow, more than 700 Penn State students will take to the floor of the Bryce Jordan Center for the start of a 46-hour dance marathon (THON) to raise money for families battling pediatric cancer.

The full name of the event is The Penn State IFC/Panhellenic Dance Marathon. It is the largest student-run philanthropy in the world.

It dates to 1973 and, over the past 34 years, THON has raised and donated more than $78 million to The Four Diamonds Fund at Milton S. Hershey Medical Center.

I was a THON dancer in February 1993 -- just one of thousands who have volunteered for the event over the decades and spent a long weekend trying to stay awake and on their feet. My girlfriend, Jessica Hartshorn, and I were one of the couples representing The Daily Collegian, Penn State's student newspaper.

Last fall, I pulled out an envelope that contained my THON memorabilia. Inside were my plastic ID bracelet, my paper number (182) that I wore on the back of my shirt, some snapshots, the dot-matrix printout of an article I wrote for one of my journalism classes after the event ... and a letter.

The letter was from the Akright family of Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania. Nickolas, age 8, was the young cancer patient who I was partnered with as a pen pal for THON. (Many cancer patients and their families travel to Penn State for THON weekend to support the dancers and enjoy the festivities.)

Nick had typewritten a letter of support to me before the dance marathon, in response to a letter I had sent him earlier.

Here's an excerpt from his 1993 letter:

"I am in second grade & just turned 8, my favorate subjects are math & USA (A gifted class). I enjoy Nintedo and Leggos, maybe we can nineto at Thon? But I will miss the water guns, How about you? I don't know your couple # but I will be there friday night wearing my red Phi Gamma Nu sweatshirt, (they made me a member) and a Penn State pin that another pen pal gave me. Hope we can find each other!

"I live near Hershey Pa, and have a sister, 6, & a cat named Pumkin, a dog named Benji, and some rabbits.

"I am near my second year of treatment for Leukemia So my dad will tell you about it because I don't like to talk about it. ..."

The letter is signed by Nick, Ashley, Bud and Cara Akright.

* * *
My memories of the 1993 THON, which was held in Penn State's White Building, include a whole range of emotions -- joy, exhaustion, wonder, crankiness, pride.

From 7 p.m. Friday night until 7 p.m. Sunday night (it was 48 hours long back then), Jessica and I (right) and 538 other dancers were on our feet constantly.

There were motivational guest speakers; heavenly foot and leg massages; non-stop songs -- including a bunch by a relatively new band called Pearl Jam -- booming over the loudspeakers; a Tetris arcade game; line dances and more.

A former Penn State football player named Craig Fayak, a member of the morale/support team, was constantly and gently reminding me not to lean on the beverage table. No leaning for 48 hours!

After scheduled bathroom breaks (which came only every eight hours), dancers got to come running back into the gymnasium, slide across a powder-covered wrestling mat and get their legs massaged for a few seconds.

The hours piled up.

At one point, I swear I had an out-of-body experience. Exhausted, I imagined myself floating to the ceiling of the gymnasium and looking down upon THON. I was assessing the layout of the building so that I could plot my escape.

In my journalism class article, written a few days after the event, I wrote about the inspiration that ultimately helped me get through the 48 hours:

"It didn't take me long to find Nick that Friday night. He was playing foosball with some of his other friends while he waited to play, of course, the Nintendo video games set up at the end of the gymnasium.

"Standing there, Nick is a perfectly normal 8-year-old. He has on jeans and the red Greek sweatshirt to go with a mop-top of brown hair that probably doesn't get combed too often. Like any kid would he thrust himself into the middle of the games going on around him. ...

"Nick's best friend from the 1992 Dance Marathon, Ronnie Powley, isn't here this time around. Ronnie died from cancer. Nick still doesn't talk about it, his father Bud says."

The Akrights returned to White Building on Sunday afternoon, a few hours after I had essentially fallen asleep standing up while eating breaking. Another excerpt from my article:

"I caught up with Nick at -- where else -- the video games. I gave him a stuffed Nittany Lion doll I bought before the weekend began. Never one for too many words, Nick smiled a little. That was enough."

"Nick's 6-year-old sister, Ashley, was making her own rules with a game of Connect Four up near the stage. I gave her a ribbon for her hair and talked to her for awhile before she was snatched up by some other dancers for photographs.

"Nick's dad, Bud, was helping serve refreshments to the dancers. He smiled and offered me an extra slice of pizza while he tapped his foot to the music."

As that THON came to a close, the dancers gathered in small circles and swayed as "American Pie" played. We did one final line dance ("Move Any Mountain" by The Shamen). It was announced, to thunderous cheers, that THON had raised more than $1 million for the second time in its history.

When it was all done, I walked back to my dorm room in West Halls and slept for about nine hours straight.

* * *
When I opened that manila folder labeled "Dance Marathon" last fall, one of the first things that slipped out was a yellow sheet of paper with Nick's name and address, given to me so that I could write to my THON pen pal.

It's two decades later, and I wondered how Nick was doing -- understanding that, of course, not enough pediatric cancer cases have happy endings.

Nick died in 2004.

I learned this from a January 2008 Daily Collegian article written by Heather Schmelzen. An excerpt:

"Ashley Akright (junior-hotel, restaurant and institutional management) was not a Four Diamonds child, but she lost one close to her. Through time and her own experience, she has found the courage to tell the story.

"Akright's brother, Nickolas, was diagnosed with ALL when he was 7 years old. During Nickolas's treatment, the family's insurance company dropped them.

"'That's really how the Four Diamonds Fund helped us,' Akright said. The Four Diamonds Fund allocates support for families battling pediatric cancer.

"Though Nickolas went through chemotherapy and was cured, he developed bipolar disorder -- linked to chemotherapy -- and committed suicide in 2004 at age 19 as a consequence of the disorder.

"Since Nickolas's death, Akright's family has continued to participate in Thon events.

"She said her fondest memory of Thon was family hour the year after Nickolas died.

"'Singing "Angels Among Us" took on a whole new meaning after Nick passed away,' Akright said.

"Akright, who is dancing in Thon, came to Penn State because of her Thon experience.

"'Since Thon is why I'm here at Penn State, I can't imagine not being involved with it. It's been such a big part of my life for the past 17 years,' Akright said. 'You truly see what courage, honesty, wisdom and strength are when you look at these children who are battling cancer every day of their lives.'"

Recently, I was able to get in touch with Ashley -- who I had chatted with while she played Connect Four all those years ago in White Building.

We talked a little about our THON memories. She said she still goes up to the event in State College every year.

I'm going to send her the original letter that Nick wrote to me in February 1993. I feel like it belongs with the Akright family.

In the meantime, click on Nick's autograph below to learn more about THON at the official website. Learn how you can easily make a donation to support the dancers' goal of raising money for The Four Diamonds Fund.

There's even a way for you to make your donation in memory of Joe Paterno, who was always a firm supporter of THON.

A heartfelt gallery of vintage Valentine's Day cards

2012-02-14T08:40:00.002-05:00

Happy Valentine's Day! As promised last week, here's a gallery of vintage Valentine's Day cards that I've been collecting during the past 12 months.

Above: This card, which was printed by Carrington Co., of Chicago, Illinois, has the following inscription in cursive on the back: "To Wilma from Max Myers and Leona"

Above: This card, which was printed in Germany, features a puppy, a girl and a boy with checkered pants, argyle socks and a saw. On the back is written: "To Mary Holstein, From Ruth Rhinehart"

Above: This "Come on and be My Valentine" card features no indication of its manufacturer or country of origin. I find it interesting that two of these first three valentines feature winter scenes. Valentine's Day is, by definition, always during the wintertime. But it seems to me that modern-era valentines rarely incorporate the snow and cold into their scenes and illustrations.

This one has some interesting writing on the back. The following is written in blue ink:

To my Dear Friend Mary Olivera
sending you my best wishes ~~for~~ on Valentine
From Your Friend Elvera Rodrigues [or Rodriques]
Santa Maria, Cal., P.O. #153

In the spot where "Mary Olivera" was originally written, the name "Lottie Fernandez" has been written over top of it, in dark pencil.

Above: This "MADE IN U.S.A." card, of comparatively more recent vintage than the other cards, is quite romantic with its pipe and tobacco, don't you think? The card has never been used. The pre-printed inscription inside states:

"A Valentine message, short and sweet
But full of zip and punch --
It comes to say that night and day
You are my honeybunch;
You are my heart's desire and, dear,
You make my life complete;
So let me say I hope this day
Brings joy that's hard to beat."

Above: Finally, here's another card that was made in Germany. The front states: "Come on Sweetie, raise the lid! Meow! Meow! I love you, kid." On the back, the inscription indicates that it's "To Wilma, From Billie Jean and John Alden."

And what happens when you raise the lid? Here you go!

My Valentine's Day wish to all of you: I hope you never, ever come across a cat in real life with lips like that.

If you do, run like hell.

"Wallpaper Does It," courtesy of Western Electric

2012-02-13T13:40:00.000-05:00

This 16-page staplebound booklet, titled "Wallpaper Does It," was published in 1955 by George W. Stewart, and this copy was provided as part of the "Western Electric Booklet Rack Service For Employees."¹

The wallpaper² manifesto was written by Marni Wood and illustrated by Harrie Wood.

I can't find much additional information about the Woods, other than the fact that they co-authored a children's book titled "Something Perfectly Silly," which was published by A.A. Knopf in 1930. According to a roundup of new children's literature in the August 30, 1930, edition of The Evening Independent (St. Petersburg, Fla.), "Something Perfectly Silly" was "a nonsense book of gay limericks for young and old, illustrated with 30 full-page pictures in color."

So, a quarter century later, the Woods had moved on from limericks to wallpaper.

Here are some of Marni Wood's wallpaper insights, all direct quotes:

Wallpaper is the magician in the house. It seems to open solid walls, lift ceilings, and even make two rooms where one grew before.
On the cover [pictured above] two wallpapers accent the two areas in a living-dining room. An ordinary dining alcove becomes a garden room. Trellis paper, a bird cage and plants in the window, separate it distinctly from the rest of the room.³
Choose one of the many patterns that give the effect of depth for the long wall above your TV and record-player cabinets.⁴ You add space to your room without resort to hammer and saw.
Stripes work wonders on problem walls. For a too-low ceiling, vertical stripes on the walls (no border) make it seem a foot higher.
Stripes are a sure cure for a long, gloomy hall. Use light-colored, open pattern on side walls, and deep-toned paper on the end wall; striped paper across the ceiling, and floor tiles in cross stripes. Colors help the illusion.
Or try this scheme in a dinette with one of the new "edible" papers -- fish and fowl, herbs and lettuces, or fruits and vegetables. They are fun, gay, and mix or match beautifully with the new table linens.
Two strips of scenic paper as a panel over your bed won't break you, and will be an endless satisfaction.

I'll leave you with a couple more of Harrie Wood's illustrations from the booklet:

Footnotes
1. I featured another booklet from the "Western Electric Booklet Rack Service For Employees" last March in the post titled "The Future of America (57 years ago)."
2. An interesting note, via Wikipedia, on how Henry VIII affected the history of wallpaper. It seems that wallpaper's popularity in England increased following the king's separation from the Catholic Church in the 1530s. Previously, English aristocrats had imported tapestries from mainland Europe, especially France. But the split with Catholic Church affected trade with the mainland, and England had no tapestry manufacturers of its own. So it turned to wallpaper.
3. This would be easier to see if the cover had more than two colors (both of which are pukish).
4. Another Papergreat blast from the past. Remember this record cabinet?

In her own words: Ruth Manning-Sanders on fairy tales

2012-02-12T20:56:00.000-05:00

In many of her collections of retold folk and fairy tales from around the world, Ruth Manning-Sanders wrote short forewords and introductions. I wish she had written more. Her own thoughts and insights on the meaning and importance of fairy tales -- and the characters found within -- are quite wonderful and eloquent.

Shared here today is a selection of those passages (with a few illustrations by Robin Jacques mixed in, to keep the post from getting too text-heavy):

Beginnings and inspirations

"The fact is that the story is ages and ages old, and no one can now tell where it originated, or by what wandering folk it was carried about the world. But we do know that it was being told, in some form or other, long before any book was written; before, indeed, anyone could read or write. And this is true of all these old stories that we now call fairy tales." -- from "A Choice of Magic"

"When we were children, my sisters and I, we spent our summer holidays in a farmhouse at the edge of a sea loch in the Highlands. The farmer's family was a big one, ranging from Granny Stewart (very old, very lame, and generally laughing) down through parents, grown-up sons and daughters, to children of our own age. Granny Stewart knew no end of stories, and she loved to tell them as much as we loved to listen. ... Of course, we weren't always listening to stories: that was a wet weather pastime. At other times we were out swimming, or riding the farm horses (when they allowed themselves to be caught) or boating on the loch and singing to the seals. ...The evenings would usually find us gathered in the big candle-lit barn, with one of the grown-up sons (either Jock or Lachie) marching up and down playing the bagpipes, and all the rest of us energetically dancing reels. What fun we had! But I think the highlight of all these holidays came on my tenth birthday. On the evening before this birthday (unknown to us children) a gipsy with a dancing bear arrived at the farm, asking to be ferried across the loch. With a good supper of cheese and oatcakes, and a bed of straw in a disused stable, the gipsy was easily persuaded to stay the night. Imagine my joyous surprise when, on running out the next morning after breakfast, I saw the bear on a grass plat close to the quay, waiting to go through his tricks. ... And when the tricks had been duly performed, with ample rewards of 'sugar and spice and all things nice' between each one, the bear was led down to the waiting boat, clambered in, and seated himself in the stern, like the seasoned traveller he was. I remember it so vividly: the bear with his humped brown back and heavy head, the two rowers watching his every movement rather anxiously, and ourselves standing in a group on the quay, shouting our farewells. But not once did that bear turn to give us a parting glance. His eyes were fixed on the opposite shore, where doubtless he would go through his performance all over again: though never, surely, to a more appreciative audience... (The name of the farm, by the way, was Shian, which means the place where fairies live.)" -- from "Scottish Folk Tales"

"Valiant lad, beautiful maiden, tyrannical parent, a host of difficulties to be overcome, but in the end triumph and a living happily ever after -- these are the essential ingredients that go to make up these age-old stories: our heritage from a vanished world where magic is everywhere present." -- from "A Choice of Magic"
"For of course the world of magic is not all friendly. There are giants in the mountains, trolls in the hills, witches and wizards and werewolves in the woods, dragons and monsters in the lakes and caves, and malicious dwarfs lurking under stones and behind trees. Up then, brave lad! Gird on your sword of sharpness, for the battle must be fought. There is no doubt that you will conquer." -- from "A Choice of Magic"

Cast of fairy-tale characters

"Mischievous [dwarfs] have remained from that day to his; but most of them are good-hearted, and if you treat them well they will lavish wonderful gifts and kindnesses upon you. But beware of taking liberties, even with the best of them! Of course a few of them are bad-tempered and as for these -- well, keep out of their way, if you can. But if you can't keep out of their way, try pitting your good feelings against their bad feelings, and you will generally come off best. At least that is what the story books say." -- from "A Book of Dwarfs"
"You will notice that the giants, wherever they come from, have one thing in common: they are all very stupid, and the way to overcome them is to use your wits. It is a question of 'brain against brawn'. Most of them are not such bad fellows as they are sometimes made out to be. True, they eat people when they can, but that is natural to them; and perhaps we should no more blame a giant for eating a man, than we blame a tiger for eating a deer, or a wolf for eating a sheep." -- from "A Book of Giants"
"What is the difference between an ogre and a troll? To begin with, ogres all are all huge creatures, and trolls, though they are sometimes very big, are just as often very little, like dwarfs. The ogres usually live in castles; the trolls make their homes in caves, or in grassy mounds, and they live in the northern parts of the world, in Iceland, Norway and Denmark. You will not find a troll venturing south, nor will you find an ogre going very far north; for ogres and trolls never live in the same countries." -- from "A Book of Ogres and Trolls"

"There is something rather pathetic about monsters. After all, they didn't make themselves; they can't help being huge and hideous. And if they are usually fierce and cruel -- well, if everyone hated and feared you, and ran screaming from the sight of you, wouldn't that be enough to give you a grudge against all humanity? It is really a wonder that any of them are kind-hearted; and yet some of them are." -- from "A Book of Monsters"
"Every country in the world has stories to tell about wizards. There are Red Indian wizards, and Chinese wizards, African wizards, English wizards, Celtic wizards, Greek, Italian, Arabian and Persian wizards. ... But there are many more good wizards than there are good witches; for whereas a good witch is the exception, there seem to be just as many good wizards going about the world as bad ones." -- from "A Book of Wizards"
"There are good witches and bad witches; but the number of the bad witches is great, and the number of the good witches is small. And since the business of the good witches is mainly to undo the mischief made by the bad ones, their stories are not very interesting. ... Now in all these stories, as in the fairy tales about witches in general, you may be sure of one thing: however terrible the witches may seem -- and whatever power they may have to lay spells on people and to work mischief -- they are always defeated. So that though, at some point in the story, you may find the hero or heroine in utter distress, you need never fear for them. Because it is the absolute and comforting rule of the fairy tale that the good and brave shall be rewarded, and that bad people shall come to a bad end." -- from "A Book of Witches"
"Sorcerers and sorceresses work their magic spells in much the same way as wizards and witches; and if you were to ask me what the difference is between a sorceress and a witch, I should say it is just a matter of dignity. You will never find a sorceress careering through the air on a broomstick, or bouncing over the ground in a wash tub, or indulging in undignified capers with devils on hill tops, after the manner of witches. The sorceress broods solitary over her books of spells and sends her powerful maledictions forth on the wings of the wind, or by some willing messenger." -- from "A Book of Sorcerers and Spells"

"Once upon a time and never again"

"It is the prime requisite of the fairy tale that it should end happily. I remember as a small girl hurling the book I had been reading across the floor in rage, because the heroine, instead of marrying the hero and living happily ever after, just went and died. A thing she had no right to do.
"The heroine of a folk or fairy tale may be carried off by demons, she may be locked in a high tower, she may suffer untold miseries. The hero may be shipwrecked and left desolate on a desert island. Her may be attacked by giants, hurled into a pit by devils, wounded and left for dead by that treacherous fellow, Sir Red. What matter? We read on untroubled, knowing that all will come right. That is, of course, so far as the heroine or hero is concerned. A very different fate awaits the Sir Reds, the wicked stepmothers, the jealous sisters, the scheming elder brothers. For them it remains to be flung into burning pits, to be carried off to Hell by devils, or gobbled up by the witch Baba Yaga. That is the only justice: the young mind is stern and unforgiving in this respect." -- from "Folk and Fairy Tales"
   "One sunny morning I was out walking hand in hand with a very small girl.
   "'Tell me a story,' said the very small girl.
   "So I began, 'Once upon a time...'
   "I thought I was getting on nicely, when suddenly the very small girl stopped walking, flung away my hand, stamped her foot, and cried out, 'No, it wasn't -- it wasn't like that!'
   "'How do you know?' I asked.
   "'Because I was there,' said the very small girl.
   "Well, after that, of course the story had to go her way, not mine." -- from "A Book of Enchantments and Curses"

"But, alas, the stories are brought to a close. There can be no new fairy tales. They are records of the time when the world was very young; and never, in these latter days, can they, or anything like them, be told again. Should you try to invent a new fairy tale you will not succeed: the tale rings false, the magic is spurious. For the true world of magic is ringed with high, high walls that cannot be broken down. There is but one little door in the high walls which surround the world -- the little door of 'once upon a time and never again'.
"And so it must suffice that we can enter through that little door into the fairy world and take our choice of all its magic." -- from "A Choice of Magic"

Saturday's postcards: Planes, boats, waterfalls and ice skating

2012-02-11T13:25:00.002-05:00

Let's zip all over the world this afternoon with some cool 20th century postcards.

Eastern's Giant Douglas Silverliners

The front of this undated, illustrated postcard states: "Eastern's Giant Douglas Silverliners Bring a New Degree of Speed to Air Travel."

The back of the postcard provides more detail:

SKYMASTERS JOIN THE GREAT SILVER FLEET
Eastern Air Lines has selected the famous Douglas Silverliners as one of the four types of new planes -- each picked for specific travel service over the routes of The Great Silver Fleet. Flying at 230 miles per hour, and carrying 56 passengers, these 4-engined giants of the air have been selected for fast flights of intermediate distances.

So this airplane is, if my research is correct, a modified Douglas C-54 Skymaster. These were originally military planes used during World War II and the Korean War. After Korea, it had a long career of military and civilian use. It was one of the first aircraft to carry the U.S. president while assuming the call sign Air Force One, according to Wikipedia.

Also printed on the back of the postcard is: "Hand to flight attendant for mailing."

Aborigine girls at Sun-Moon Lake, Formosa

This undated, unused Japan Air Lines ("Route of the Couriers") postcard doesn't contain much more information than what is stated above. But we can still learn a good deal. Breaking it down, piece by piece:

Aborigine girls: Taiwanese aborigines make up about 2% of the population (just under 500,000) of Taiwan. Wikipedia has a wonderful, in-depth article on these peoples. You could lose yourself for an entire afternoon there.
Sun Moon Lake: This body of water, the largest in Taiwan, is also referred to as Rìyuètán, Ji̍t-goa̍t-thâm, Zintun and Lake Candidius in various languages and historical eras. It surrounds tiny Lalu Island. In legend, Thao hunters discovered Sun Moon Lake while chasing a white deer through the surrounding mountains.
Formosa: Formosa is one of the former names of Taiwan. The name comes from the Portuguese phrase Ilha Formosa, which translates as "beautiful island."

Fossli Hotel, med Vøringfoss

Yes, there's a hotel pictured in this breathtaking postcard. Can you see it?

It's the Fossli Hotel in Vøringfossen, Hardanger, Norway. It was opened in 1891, according to the hotel's website. It is only open from late May through the middle of September each year.¹

Here is some more background and history from the hotel's website:

"Fossli Hotel, established in 1891, is situated at the innermost end of the Hardanger Fiord in the beautiful Hardanger mountains. The hotel overlooks one of the highest waterfalls in Europe.

"The magnificent Vøringsfoss waterfall has attracted the Kings and Queens and, writers and musicians of Norway and Europe to stay at the Fossli hotel for almost 120 years. Edvard Grieg² wrote his Opus 66 at the Fossli Hotel.

"The hotel which has been family owned for four generations was designed by the famous architect Konow Lund in the Art Nouveau style for visitors to relax in the clear mountain air. The hotel has retained it's original character to this day.

"In the absence of roads in 1891 the building materials which were carried on horseback to the mountain plateau."

A single room at the Fossli Hotel has a price of 790 Norwegian krones. If I'm doing my math correctly, that would convert to about $137.45 in U.S. currency on the date of this blog post. Not too unreasonable (if you can get yourself there).

The Galleria in Houston, Texas

And here's one last undated, unused postcard. It's an "Astrocard" postcard of the ice skating rink at the The Galleria shopping mall in Houston, Texas. The mall opened in November 1970, one month before I was born.

Stated on the back of the postcard is the following: "Three levels of shopping including over 60 Shops and Ice Skating Rink. In the Galleria -- Post Oak Complex, Houston, Texas."

But the main reason I'm featuring this image is a silly one. This old photo of people awkwardly milling about the ice rink inside a shopping mall totally reminds me of the mall zombies in "Dawn of the Dead."

And so, after Douglas Silverliners, Taiwanese aborigines and the magnificent Vøringsfoss waterfall, I'm leaving you with the wonderful product of American culture and society that is ... Herbert Chappell's "The Gonk."³

Footnotes
1. In the winter, the Torrance family takes care of Fossli Hotel. They've always been the caretakers.
2. Ha! This makes two Saturdays in a row that Edvard Grieg has been mentioned.
3. Here's a fun read about the incidental music from "Dawn of the Dead."

Four great Facebook pages for ephemera lovers

2012-02-10T19:18:00.002-05:00

If you can't get enough daily doses of great ephemera, here are four terrific Facebook pages that feature wonderful old advertising, illustrations and other artwork, along with one sample image from each page to whet your appetite.

Go check them out!

Vintage Advertising and Poster Art

The International Poster Center

Leonetto Cappiello

Vintage image restoration

Violet Anderson and Kenneth Lehman will sing and play

2012-02-09T10:45:00.002-05:00

This is one of the more obscure things that I've posted, but I love this little note.

Scrawled across the bottom of a page within the 1933 textbook "Contemporary Banking" (by H. Parker Willis, John M. Chapman and Ralph West Robey) was the following:

"If you want some enternainers [sic] you can get Violet Anderson from Emigsville and Kenneth Lehman from the Glades¹ to sing and play for 5.00."

This singing-and-playing duo were also partners in marriage.

According to online genealogy records², Violet and Kenneth were born and died here in York County, Pennsylvania:

Kenneth E. Lehman was born on August 3, 1916, in Hellam Township and died on May 11, 2002, in York.
His wife, Violet M. Anderson, was born on April 13, 1918, in Manchester Township and died in 1995 in York.
Both are buried in Mt. Zion Cemetery in Springettsbury Township.
They had one daughter.

It doesn't appear that either one of them made entertainment a primary career. According to her obituary, Violet worked at the former D&D Sewing Company in North York. And according to his obituary, "Mr. Lehman was a retired self-employed painter who also worked for York Safe and Lock."³

But, within both obituaries, there is a hint of how making music was a part of their lives. Kenneth's obituary states that he was a member of the Green Valley Ramblers Country Band. Violet's obituary states that she was a member of Green Valley Ramblers String Band.

Surely, those are the same band. But what is (or was) that band? I found that a group called The Green Valley Ramblers released an album titled "Bluegrass Dawn" in 1974. Neither Kenneth nor Violet is listed among the group's members. Other evidence online seems to indicate that the group was around until at least the early 1980s.⁴ Was the York County couple involved in this group at some point? In what capacity?

Time to do some more digging...

Footnotes
1. York Daily Record/Sunday News editor Jim McClure writes about "The Glades" area of York County in this York Town Square blog post. Here's one small excerpt, in which McClure quotes Springettsbury Township's 1991 centennial book:

"The name Glades was given to the village about 1800 by travelers going from York to the river because it was an open passage or space in what was then a forest for miles around."

2. The source for this genealogy information is "Descendants of John Henry Shermeyer (6/18/09)" on Anita's Hobbies, which is written by Anita Heisig. Her tremendously organized and detailed website is also the source of the obituaries cited and linked to in this post.
3. I turn once again to McClure's blog for some background on York Safe & Lock, which was located at the site that later became part of a Harley-Davidson plant. (Check out this previous Papergreat post on Harley-Davidson attire.)
4. In trying to find information about the Ramblers, I came across this Mandozine interview with mandolin player extraordinaire Tony Williamson (a former Rambler), which is fascinating in its own right.

Only six days until Valentine's Day!

2012-02-08T22:48:00.004-05:00

In just six days, it will be Saint Valentine's Day. Are you ready?

I am! I've been hoarding vintage Valentine's Day cards over the past year, waiting to present them on the blog this month.¹

So look for a high Schmoopie² Ephemera Quotient (SEQ) next Tuesday.

In the meanwhile, here's a sneak preview.

It's an undated valentine that was printed in Germany. On the back, written in cursive, is "To Mary Holstine." Under that is the mysterious notation:
"From 10-5-3"
Someone wanted to remain anonymous in sharing their heartfelt sentiment. And anonymous he or she shall remain!

Footnotes
1. This is probably not the portion of my Valentine's Day preparations that my beautiful spouse is interested in.
2. How time flies! It's been 17 years since "schmoopie" made its modern-language debut in "The Soup Nazi" episode of "Seinfeld."

New occasional series: The Wanamaker Diary 1910

2012-02-06T13:05:00.003-05:00

This is a battered, falling-apart-at-the-seams copy of "The Wanamaker Diary" for 1910 that I've been wanting to write about for a year. But the problem is that it's too interesting. I could never figure out where to start or conceive of how to fit all of the cool stuff from its 400-plus pages into one blog post.

I mean, this thing is PACKED with goodies. Vintage advertisements, diagrams of Philadelphia's sports and theater venues from a century ago¹, poems, recipes², household tips, pet names for a baby's fingers³, song lyrics, news reports of telepathy, some family information scrawled in pencil by its former owner, weather-forecasting guides and much, much more.

So I'm turning it into a series!

I can imagine churning out a dozen or more posts on this gem of a 102-year-old book during the next year. I have created a Wanamaker Series label to organize the posts as they accumulate.

For today, we get no further than the inside covers.

This is the inside front cover:

The advertisement for the Underwood Typewriter Company touts the No. 5 Underwood Retail Bill and Charge Typewriter: "For entering charges and making entry on weekly or monthly bill at one operation, this machine is incomparable. Typewritten Records, Time Saved, and Underwood Satisfaction."

Meanwhile, the inside back cover touts the Philadelphia Wanamaker's (which I'll write more about in coming installments):

Footnotes
1. Including Franklin Field, Adelphi Theatre and the Chestnut Street Opera House.
2. Including this recipe for Meat Tea: "Cut a pound of lean meat into thin slices, put into a quart and half a pint of cold water, set it over a gentle fire where it will become gradually warm. When the scum arises let it simmer gently for about an hour, then strain it through a fine sieve or napkin, let it stand ten minutes to settle, and then pour off the clear tea. An onion and a few grains of black pepper may be added."
3. Thumbo, Lickpot, Long Man Ling, Side Finger Ring, Lit-tle ducky duck-y ducky duck-y darling, Thumbkin, Pinnikin, Long Man Gray, Ring Man and Peezy Weezy, of course.

Advertisement for USFL clothing from 1984 championship program

2012-02-05T17:53:00.000-05:00

As you're getting ready for Super Bowl XLVI, here's an advertisement from the $3 program¹ for the second United States Football League championship game, which my dad and I attended on July 15, 1984,² in Tampa Stadium.

The Philadelphia Stars³, my favorite team, defeated the Arizona Wranglers, 23-3. Before the 1984 season, the Arizona Wranglers had been traded for the Chicago Blitz. After the season, the Philadelphia Stars moved to Baltimore. And people wonder why the league was only around for three seasons.

It wasn't for lack of trying that the league folded. The teams had bright colors and memorable nicknames/logos -- including the Denver Gold, Birmingham Stallions, Memphis Showboats, Houston Gamblers, Tampa Bay Bandits, San Antonio Gunslingers and Pittsburgh Maulers.

I have plenty of great USFL memories. The Philadelphia Stars and the USFL in general were much more interesting in the early 1980s than the Philadelphia Eagles, who had a guy named Marion as their head coach. Nuff said.

Share your favorite USFL memories in the comments section below!

Footnotes
1. From Page 57 of the program:

"Today's National Anthem will be performed by one of the country's newest and exciting country-rock bands: Alabama.
"Halftime performances by the Chamberlain Chiefettes, Just Kids, Mary May Dance Studio, Suncoast Girl Scout Council, Suncoast Twirlers, Good Time Cloggers, Berry Patch Cloggers, Sun Country Cloggers and May's Twirling Cadets."

2. This game was played one year, to the month, before New England Patriots running back BenJarvus Green-Ellis was born. You may go ahead and feel old now.
3. The Philadelphia Stars' impressive roster included Kelvin Bryant, Chuck Fusina, Sean Landeta, Sam Mills, Bart Oates, Brad Oates and, hailing from Red Lion, Pennsylvania, York County's own Scott Fitzkee.

Saturday's postcard: New Jersey trolley line in 1907

2012-02-04T14:01:00.000-05:00

This postcard was postmarked September 3, 1907,¹ in Ocean City, New Jersey. The front of the card states "Fast Shore Line between Ocean City and Atlantic City, N.J."²

Whoever produced the card transposed two words. It was actually called the Shore Fast Line. According to Wikipedia:

"The Shore Fast Line was a line of fast trolley cars running from Atlantic City, New Jersey, to Ocean City, New Jersey, by way of the mainland communities of Pleasantville, Northfield, Linwood and Somers Point. The line ran from 1907 until 1948. The company that operated the Shore Fast Line was called Atlantic City and Shore Railroad."

More history on this trolley line can be found in Mervin E. Borgnis' 1979 book "We Had a Shore Fast Line."

Also, here's a headline and excerpt from a related article published by The New York Times on March 2, 1907:

TROLLEY TO LINK
JERSEY RESORTS
The Pennsylvania Planning a
Line from Sandy Hook
to Cape May.
READY IN SUMMER, 1908
Trip May Then Be Made in Five
Hours Without Change
of Cars.
ATLANTIC CITY, March 1. -- Pennsylvania Railroad capital is back of a plan to link all resorts on the Jersey Coast from Sandy Hook to Cape May by trolley. Railroad engineers assert that within three years it will be possible to go from New York to Sandy Hook by steamer and ride without change of cars to the southernmost point of New Jersey.

This postcard was sent between two of my ancestors. It was mailed by Edgar Chandler Gause to Miss Edna Chandler in Wilmington, Delaware. Here's the note Edgar wrote on the back:

So, my ancestors had more house parties than I do.

And they also used the word "dandy."³

Finally, the 1¢ stamp on this postcard features Captain John Smith. It was one of the Jamestown Exposition stamps of 1907, a commemorative set for a world fair that was held that year.

According to 1847usa.com, this stamp is exceptionally difficult to find well-centered. For more information, check out the website's article titled "Postage Stamps of the United States First Issued in 1907."

Footnotes
1. One day later, on September 4, 1907, composer Edvard Grieg went to the big Hall of the Mountain King in the sky.
2. Side note: Less than one year before this postcard was mailed, 53 people died in an Atlantic City train wreck involving the West Jersey and Seashore Railroad on October 28, 1906. And as a further side note, according to Wikipedia:

"The accident resulted in what is regarded as the first press release when public relations expert Ivy Lee, working with the Pennsylvania Railroad, parent company of the West Jersey and Seashore Railroad, convinced the company to present a statement to journalists at the scene of the accident. The New York Times printed the release word-for-word on October 30, 1906."

3. Now, the people who know my own fondness for the word "dandy" will understand that it's in my family blood. I clearly cannot help it.

Esso touts the oil culture in these 1950s books for kids

2012-02-02T09:00:00.001-05:00

I have a pair of interesting staplebound books published by Esso Standard¹ in the 1950s and intended for use in classrooms. What better way to indoctrinate fledgling Baby Boomers into the wonders of automobiles and petroleum than to pepper their schools with propaganda?

The first book, published in 1957, is titled "What Makes a Car Go?" It features an unnamed boy and girl, their little black poodle, the friendly service-station attendant pictured at the top of today's post, and "Men."

In the 16-page book, students learn that:

"Gasoline comes out of the hose into our car."
"Gasoline is not made at the service station."

Well, that's not all they learn. Students learn about crude oil and drilling deep into the ground and refineries and pipelines and jet fuel and heating oil. And the fact that most of the roads we use are paved with asphalt, which is made from crude oil.

And they learn who makes this all happen: Men.

Men. Men. Men.²

"Men use oil to make many things to help us work and play and travel."

Here are two additional illustrations from Esso's "What Makes a Car Go?"...

"Men can make many things we need from oil." This illustration must be straight out of James Howard Kunstler's worst nightmare.

"Hey Sis, did you know that 32 years after the publication of this book, an oil tanker much like this one will hit a reef off the coast of Alaska and spill hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil, which will turn birds like the ones in this illustration as black as our pet poodle?"

The second book was published in 1959 and is titled "Travelers' Island." It's the story of Tom, a young man who is very excited because he gets to work at Bart's service station for two weeks in the summer. This leads to the following family scene:

"That's wonderful, Tom. You always did like to work around cars."

"Do you know enough about them to be a helper?"

"Oh, sure, Dad. There's nothing to it."

Tom's sister, Penny, made a face. She said, "Oh, Dad, you should know that Tom knows everything." They all laughed and sat down for supper.³

Tom discovers he doesn't really know everything. At Bart Carlson's service station, he puts on coveralls and learns words like "island"⁴ and "bay."

Tom also learns how to use tools. And watches as Men deliver gasoline and other oil products to the service station.

Tom is left with many wonderful memories, as clearly evidenced by this illustration at the end of the story:

I am strongly considering making this my new Twitter avatar. Thoughts?

Footnotes
1. Esso is an international trade name for ExxonMobil, which is a direct descendant of Standard Oil. Esso stations were widespread in the United States until around 1972. They can still be found throughout the rest of the world.
2. Within the 16 pages, there are 11 references to "men" making this all happen.
3. That scene is an accurate reflection of real family life in the late 1950s. I checked this blog post for historical accuracy by watching an episode of "Leave It to Beaver."
4. "This concrete island keeps cars from bumping into the gasoline pumps," Mr. Carlson explains.

Recipes from Cook's Corner in the Tyrone Daily Herald

2012-02-01T09:00:00.000-05:00

Peg Hurd worked for the Tyrone (Pa.) Daily Herald¹ from 1972 to 1992 and wrote this of her two decades there in her September 26, 1992, farewell column: "Since I arrived in the Herald newsroom in 1972 (a wide-eyed kid of 45), I have worked with four publishers and five editors. I have learned to type, to use a computer, to avoid adjectives and to be objective in my reporting. I have also had fun."

One of the things that must have been fun for Hurd was putting together the "Cook's Corner" food column.

I came across some of those newspaper clippings in a bag filled with recipes that I picked up at a flea market in northcentral Pennsylvania last year.

In one 1984 "Cook's Corner," Hurd wrote: "Penn State football fans are in a quandry. When Paterno and Company move kick-off time to noon, what do you serve at the tailgate picnic? If you want to make it to your seat 80 rows up before the Blue Band leaves the field, it means you better have the table set up and be munching your lunch before 10:30 a.m."

That column provided recipes for Impossible Quiche, Coleslaw With Fruit, Spicy Raisin Coffeecake, Coconut Cake Doughnuts and Poppy Seed Muffins.

The "Cook's Corner" clipping pictured with today's post also mentions Joe Paterno. On October 17, 1984, Hurd wrote: "WPSX-TV recently published its second annual edition of 'Joe Paterno's TV Quarterbacks Tailgating Cookbook,'² and since this is definitely the season for it, we have chosen some of the recipes contributed to the book by veteran Penn State tailgaters."

Here's the Tailgate Bean Soup recipe:

Ingredients

2 ounces each: large limas, small limas, yellow split peas, green split peas, kidney beans, barley, lentils, navy beans, black-eyed peas, small red beans
2 or 3 ham hocks or ham bone
1 can tomatoes (blended in a blender)
1 pod red pepper (optional)
juice of one lemon
salt and pepper to taste

Wash beans thoroughly and place in a large kettle. Cover with water, add 2 Tblsp. salt and cook overnight.³ In the morning, drain well and add 2 quarts water and ham hocks. Bring to boil; simmer slowly 2½ to 3 hours. Add onion, tomatoes, pepper, lemon, salt and pepper. Simmer another ½ hour or longer if desired. The soup can be made ahead of time and frozen. Before the game, be sure the soup is hot. Place in thermos jug and take to tailgate. It is especially good at late season games when the weather is likely to be cold.

Footnote
1. Tyrone is a small borough in Blair County, Pennsylvania. It has a notable historic district and is the birthplace of Fred Waring -- "The Man Who Taught America How to Sing." It's not clear, by the way, whether the Tyrone Daily Herald is still in business.

2. At right, see what the cover of "Joe Paterno's TV Quarterbacks Tailgating Cookbook" looks like, according to Amazon.com's product page.
3. Maybe I'm just dim, but it would be nice to know what temperature to cook them overnight.

Reader comments, including an update on the quest for Oona

2012-01-31T10:00:00.001-05:00

Earlier this month, I received a request for help finding a book of fairy tales featuring Oona. Simon, who contacted me through my Wikipedia account, is trying to help his grandmother find a book from her youth:

"She could not remember its title, only that it was a book of fairy tales, and that the main character was a fairy called Oona (she was certain of that spelling). She said she read it between the ages of 7 and 9, which would mean c. 1932-35 (although of course the book may have been published before that)."

Reader Cindy Snyder was the first to respond. She prefaced her Oona information with "I found this information, but I'm not sure if it will help because of the publication date." What Snyder found was "The Wee Christmas Cabin of Carn-na-ween" by Ruth Sawyer, which was originally published in 1941.

The Amazon.com book description states:

"A hundred years ago and more, on a stretch of road that runs from the town of Donegal to Killybegs and the sea, a drove of tinkers went their way of mending pots and thieving lambs. Having a child too many for the caravan, they left it, new-born, upon a cabin doorstill in Carn-na-ween.

"So begins the life of Oona Hegarty, who grows up to be beautiful, kind, talented and clever — but doomed , as a tinker's child, never to marry or have a home of her own. She spends her life wandering from cabin to cabin, nurturing others' children or tending the sick and the old, only to be turned out again when her usefulness has passed. Then comes the snowy Christmas Eve when Oona, an old woman now, finds herself homeless, hoisting a bundle of donated treasures almost too heavy to lift. With a famine turning human hearts to stone and not a soul who is willing to take her in, it seems Oona will end her days with no place to rest her head or warm her bones. But what of the Gentle People said to live in the boglands near Carn-na-ween — will they let an old woman's lifelong kindness go unrewarded, especially on a white Christmas?"

Simon, who has since contacted me by email, agrees that this is probably not the book his grandmother remembers. (It's worth noting, though, that Sawyer began publishing books in 1915. Perhaps she had more than one story featuring a character named Oona?)

Meanwhile, Justin Mann of Justin's Brew Review let his Google+ friends know about our search. One of them, Floyd McGaha, suggested searching Google Books with a date filter of 1900 to 1939. You can view those results here.

And my mom, who works at The Helen Kate Furness Free Library in Wallingford, Pennsylvania, and loves to help with the mysteries we come across, added the following suggestion: "Check out 'Oona and the Giants,' an old Irish folktale which has been published many times with different titles by several tellers and retellers. I can't find an original author, which is normal for old folktales."

So we haven't solved this one yet for Simon and his grandmother. But I feel like there are still some good leads to pursue. I'm definitely going to delve more deeply into Google Books. Stay tuned!

Moving along to other recent reader comments:

Reader memories of West Pittston, Pennsylvania: Reader Jo Ott provided us with some wonderful tales of growing up in West Pittston. At one point, she wrote: "There are many more stories -- like how our family received eggs and sugar in the mail from a relative in Juniata County during those war years."

That prompted me to ask, "How does one mail eggs?"

Jo, of course, had a fascinating answer. She writes:

"The egg story goes like this: My aunt Lydia owned a restaurant in Mifflin, across the Juniata River from Mifflintown. As a business owner, she was able to have much larger rations of food items than residents with those tiny ration coupons. She would share with some family members & I'm sure some town folk some restaurant supplies that were rationed by the government during those war years. She had a square box made out of some kinds of composite materials that was very sturdy. Inside were three layers of dimpled and thick fiber board. Each dimple held one egg, so the box was able to hold two dozen eggs, with one layer on the bottom, one above filled with eggs and the third on top for protection. Once filled and ready to be shipped, there were two heavy-duty straps to hold the lid, which fit down over the sides, in place. On the outside there also were two square, metal frames in which to place address to and return address cards. Aunt Lyd, as nearly everyone called her, would ship the carton of eggs to us and we would ship the empty carton back to her to begin the process all over again. I don't recall if any or how many eggs were ever broken in the few years we did this. I've no idea whatever happened to that box. With the many floods in that area, I'm sure it floated on down into the Chesapeake Bay and out to sea many years ago!"

J.C. Savage of Belfast, tailor and breeches maker: JT Anthony of A Pretty Book writes:

"My eye caught this phrase and it made my brain stumble: 'Remittances payable to J.C. Savage, and crossed Ulster Bank, Carlisle Circus, Belfast.'

"I know that 'remittances payable' is old-fashioned code for check, but I've never run across the phrase crossed, even in my brief, but tortured stint, as a bank auditor.

"Research indicates that it is a banking practice found in Europe, Asia, and other places but not the U.S.

"To cross a check, you draw two parallel vertical lines across the face of the check with various notations between the lines, each meaning something different. At this point the check cannot be cashed, it must be deposited.

"If a bank name, as requested by J.C. Savage, is included in the lines, it's even more restrictive, indicating that the check must be deposited to that bank in order to get payment.

"Very similar to the U.S. endorsement 'For Deposit Only' except that the safeguards are made by the person writing the check not depositing the check.

"More than any sane person would want to know..."

And exactly the kind of cool history I love to pass along here on Papergreat. Thanks, as always, JT!

The (new) oddest stuff I've found tucked inside a book: Wendyvee of Wendyvee's RoadsideWonders.net comments: "I love a person who would track down info regarding embroidery floss and tags found in a book ... I would totally do the same thing."

Postcard: Wishing Thoma a Merry Christmas in 1913: seldom_seen writes: "If you find out who the publisher of the Post Card is, let me know. I have a card with an identical Post Card header but underneath it is an additional little Trademark of an S inside a larger Q. I have net been able to identify the trademark, yet."

Saturday's postcard: America House Motor Inn: Melanie Pancho, responding on Papergreat's Facebook page (do you "Like" this blog yet?) was able to solve the primary question posed by the post, because she lives in Virginia Beach, Virginia. She writes: "Yep, it's still there! It's called the Sunset Beach Resort now, though." And she provided this link.

Advertisement for Murine Eye Remedy Co. in "The Rival Heiresses": Also commenting on Facebook, Linda Chenoweth Harlow writes: "I'm going to see if I can get out of doing a lot at work tomorrow because my eyes are 'enfeebled' and the computer screen makes them worse."

Advertisements from a 1982 issue of Creative Computing: Finally, I received this mysterious comment from Anonymous: "wondering about the poster in the upper left." Attached to the comment was a link to this photo:

Now, I'm sure the reason Anonymous sent me this photo is because of the Microsoft poster on the right. I have no idea what product Microsoft is touting with this colorful illustration of what appears to be a samurai.

Of course, the rest of this obviously-early-1980s photo is amusing, too. We have:

Three young women doing something odd with their hands
poster for Vail, Colorado
A T-shirt that states: "Still looking for Prince Charming"
And an E.T. button

You never know where this blog is going to take you, eh? Today, it was from Oona to E.T.

A trio of cool cover illustrations

2012-01-30T09:15:00.002-05:00

Let's start off the week with three wonderful book-cover illustrations that I came across over the weekend.

This above illustration is from the torn dust jacket to the 1922 novel "Georgina Finds Herself" by Shirley Watkins.

You already know that I'm a sucker for illustrations of young ladies reading books. So, naturally, I was drawn to this piece of artwork featuring Georgina sitting in a window alcove and sporting a pair of nifty red slippers!

Pictured above is the front cover of "A Text-Book of Nursing," compiled by Clara S. Weeks and published in 1888 by D. Appleton and Company. I love the gold lettering, which looks practically hand-drawn, and the line illustration of the sick woman in bed.

Finally, here's the cover of 1909's "The Submarine Boys' Trial Trip" by Victor G. Durham. This adventure series was published by Henry Altemus Company¹ of Philadelphia.

Eight books in this series were published between 1909 and 1920. ("Trial Trip" was the second in the series.)

If you check out this excellent web page on henryaltemus.com, you can find out all you ever wanted to know about the Submarine Boys, including the title of the never-published ninth book in the series. One interesting note is that this same cover illustration was used throughout the series.

I also highly recommend this in-depth history of the Altemus Juvenile Series on the same website. The Altemus titles were in competition with the Stratemeyer Syndicate juvenile-fiction books that I wrote about last April.

Footnote
1. Henry Altemus Company was previously mentioned in "American flag history, compliments of Leinbach & Bro. in Reading."

Three old postcards from Cairo

2012-01-29T12:27:00.002-05:00

I haven't written much about the Middle East. (As you might imagine, my ephemera bins are not overflowing with old magazines from Lebanon, receipts from Syria or clipped recipes from Iraq.)

But I do have some postcards, courtesy of decades of world travel by my 20th century ancestors.

Here are three old, black-and-white postcards featuring various scenes from Cairo -- Egypt's largest city:

"Cairo - Interior of the Mosque Mohamed Ali"

The generally accepted English spelling of this place is now Mosque of Muhammad Ali Pasha. (It's also known as the Alabaster Mosque.) It was commissioned by Muhammad Ali Pasha al-Mas'ud ibn Agha¹ and was constructed between 1830 and 1848. Situated on a summit, it is one of the most visible buildings in Cairo, and can be easily seen as one approaches the city.

This Wikipedia image of the mosque's interior, shot in 2006, was taken from an angle similiar to the one in the postcard and shows that little has changed inside the mosque throughout the decades.

None of today's postcards are dated or were sent through the mail. Other than the cursive script on the front, this one has the following text on the back:

POST CARD
EGYPT
Publ. & Copyright, Lehnert & Landrock, Cairo

Lehnert & Landrock is still around. It's a famous and prestigious bookshop and art gallery in Cairo. Its extensive website contains biographies of Rudolf Lehnert and Ernst Landrock.

"Cairo - General View"

This is another Lehnert & Landrock postcard.

I have no idea what corner of the city this is, or what that location looks like today.

Church of St. George

I might have been out of luck on identifying this postcard if a relative hadn't scrawled something on the back, because the only markings are some odd etchings on the front of the card (more on that in a moment) and the single word "FORTE" on the back of the card.

But someone, either my grandmother or great-grandmother, wrote the following in ink on the back of the card:

"Coptic Church (Christian)
Oldest Church in Cairo
St. Georges Church
(Orthodox)"

So that would make this a postcard from the Church of St. George, a Greek Orthodox church in Coptic Cairo. The original church building dated to the 10th century, but was destroyed by a fire. The church shown in this photo dates to 1904. There is also the Monastery of St. George, which is next door to the church.

Here are some sites where you can read more about the Church of St. George and Coptic Cairo:

Church of St. George, Cairo, on Sacred Destinations
"The Monastery and Church of St. George in Old Cairo," an article by Jimmy Dunn on Tour Egypt
"Old Cairo," an article by Su Bayfield on Egyptian Monuments

But what about those etchings on the left side of the postcard? A closer look:

To me, the four letters at the top look like BADG.

It's not clear what's written underneath. But, with a little imagination, you can perhaps see the C, A and O of the word "Cairo." Thoughts?

Footnote
1. Muhammad Ali Pasha al-Mas'ud ibn Agha (1769-1849), who is regarded as the founder of modern Egypt, is buried in a tomb in the courtyard of this mosque.

Old receipt for Landis Stone Meal Company in Lancaster County

2012-01-28T11:22:00.002-05:00

This receipt was never officially used (except for some calculations scrawled on the back), and it's not tremendously fascinating. But I wanted to post it because the Internet is lacking in detailed information about Landis Stone Meal Company and its history. So this helps add to the online knowledge base on that (admittedly obscure) topic.

This "Customer's Copy" receipt indicates that H.K. Landis was manager of the company. There were two phones -- at a residence and quarry in Elizabethtown. And the company made poultry grit¹, mineral and pulverized limestone.

Here's what else I was able to dig up about Landis Stone Meal Company:

It was chartered as a Pennsylvania corporation, based in Rheems², Lancaster County, on October 14, 1915. It had capital of $25,000 and was chartered for "manufacturing and selling stone meal and kindred products."
According to a bulletin of the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture, the company had a license to sell "White Lily" pulverized limestone in Pennsylvania in 1918.
This advertisement for the company appears in Volume 19 (1921-22) of Our College Times, a publication of Elizabethtown College:
A 1922 Penn State University bulletin on Pennsylvania's mineral industries indicates that Landis Stone Meal Co. had P.K. Landis as president and H.K. Landis as general manager. It had capital of $30,000 and production of 6,330 tons. There were seven employees and the annual wages were $6,500.³
Here's an excerpt from a 1932 bulletin of the United States Geological Survey:
"Two miles south of Rheems there is another active quarry (No. 9), also in Beekmantown limestone⁴, belonging to the HK Landis Stone Meal Co. The quarry is 50 feet square and about 25 feet deep and is equipped with tracks, crusher plant, and bins. There are three crushers and rolls..."

I don't know what eventually became of Landis Stone Meal Company, but I did find some evidence that it was still in operation as late as the 1960s.

Footnotes
1. Poultry grit is a material fed to birds that consists mainly of crushed stone, which helps a bird's digestive system grind food.
2. Rheems also appears in this March 16, 2011, Papergreat post: "Crown Coal, J.W. Wolgemuth and Wenger Feeds."
3. That's not $6,500 per employee. That figure would have been the total wages earned by all employees, combined, in a year.
4. Beekmantown is a geologic unit found throughout the Appalachian Basin. According to the National Geologic Map Database, it was named Beekmantown limestone for exposures at Beekmantown, in Clinton County, New York. The unit was previously called calciferous sand rock. In central Pennsylvania, Indian Echo Caverns and and Penn's Cave and Hotel are examples of natural attractions featuring Beekmantown limestone. More information on Beekmantown can be found here.

Bookplate Junkie shares some bookplates with Papergreat

2012-01-26T23:03:00.001-05:00

After I featured Lew Jaffe's wonderful blog, "Confessions of a Bookplate Junkie," in a post earlier this month, he was nice enough to send me some bookplates in the mail. Here they are:

According to this February 2009 Bookplate Junkie post, Elizabeth Watson Diamond "was a remarkable collector. She commissioned many artists to create bookplates for her library." Some more about Diamond can be found on this Art of the Print web page.

Reva Kern is a well-known designer of bookplates. According to the Penn State Special Collections Library, "she utilized a uniquely American method called the 'Provincetown Print' or 'White-Line Woodcut.' She wrote a history of the Provincetown Print, which can be read here.

On the back of this cat-themed bookplate is scrawled the word "Luxemburg" (Luxembourg?)

And here is one of Jaffe's own Ex Libris, with a meerkat theme.

Thanks so much for sharing these terrific bookplates, Lew!

A 1947 card from Arendtsville Lutheran Church

2012-01-25T09:35:00.001-05:00

I came across a hardcover copy of Cornelius Weygandt's¹ "On the Edge of Evening" (The Autobiography of a Teacher and Writer Who Holds to the Old Ways).

Pasted to the inside front cover² is a small card noting that the book was given as a gift 65 years ago -- in 1947.

The left side of the card states, in cursive:

"Arendtsville Lutheran Church
Mother-Daughter Banquet
May 14, 1947"³

And the right side of the card states:

"For Miss Clara Myers
in gratitude for your
contributions to the program."

Arendtsville is a small borough in Adams County, Pennsylvania, about eight miles northwest of Gettsyburg. The church mentioned is almost certainly Trinity Lutheran Church, which is located at 38 North High Street in Arendtsville and, as a congregation, dates to 1787.

Footnotes
1. Here are some interesting excerpts about Weygandt from Seth D. Parker's biographical essay, which is featured on the website of the Pennsylvania Center for the Book (which, fittingly, is based in the Paterno Library at The Pennsylvania State University):

Weygandt was born on December 13, 1871, in Germantown, Pennsylvania.
"In his autobiography, 'On the Edge of Evening,' Weygandt reminisces about his childhood, having been different from most of his peers. He recalls the other children running and playing while he was busy with his texts or learning Latin. Most of his childhood friends were actually adults. He would spend his free time listening to stories from his Aunt Rachel or Lawrence Kelly, the family gardener, who would teach Weygandt rhymes as they worked together."
"Weygandt wrote with pride of the Pennsylvania Dutch. He even opposed the movement to correct the phrase to Pennsylvania German, on the basis that, to the world, they were Pennsylvania Dutch. He felt that most of the greatest things about their heritage would be forever tagged as Dutch. Dutch cookbooks, Dutch furniture, Dutch pretzels, and more would all be lost to their rightful owners if they insisted on being called Pennsylvania German."

2. I wrote about another instance of a gift-inscription card being pasted to the inside front cover of a book in "Birthday gift from the Class of 1943-44."
3. On that date in history -- May 14, 1947 -- the St. Louis Cardinals officially released Frank Angelo Joseph "Creepy" Crespi, who I wrote about in this June 2011 post.

JoePa 1926-2012

2012-01-23T12:26:00.003-05:00

Sorry, ephemera fans. I've been in another round of "So, yeah, that's what I've been doing..."¹

Check out the York Daily Record/Sunday News' extensive and excellent coverage of Joe Paterno's death here. (And read more about the creation of this front page on newsroom artist Samantha Dellinger's Facebook page.)

I'll be back when I can!

Footnote
1. This was the previous installment.

Saturday's postcard: America House Motor Inn

2012-01-21T12:03:00.000-05:00

Today's unused, undated postcard showcases the American House Motor Inn & Restaurant, which I don't believe exists any more.

According to the back of the card, the facility was located "On Eastern Shore of Virginia at Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel Plaza." I think that means it was located in Virginia Beach, but I could be wrong. Scanning some maps, it appears that residential development has taken hold in the area where this motor inn would have been previously located.

The facility was described on the back of the postcard as follows:

"40 acres of family seaside fun! Ten-acre private sandy beach, world's best sports fishing, sailboats, swimming pools, putting green, driving range, playgrounds, picnic grounds, indoor and outdoor game facilities, famous Chincoteague ponies. Soaring observation tower gives beautiful view of Chesapeake Bay, Atlantic Ocean."

Does anyone have any memories or further information regarding this place?

Two groovy images of gloomy castles

2012-01-20T20:17:00.000-05:00

As some bad weather rolls into Pennsylvania for the weekend, here are a pair of illustrations of castles.

First up, Leonard Lubin's cover illustration from the 1979 Scholastic paperback "Star Jewel."

And ... drum roll ... I proudly present this illustration of a castle and wolves created by my daughter, Sarah, in her sixth-grade computer-design course at West York Area Middle School. Awesome sauce, Sarah!

"Personally trained in the [Jack] Woodford style"

2012-01-20T11:18:00.000-05:00

This 1952 hardcover of "Two Can Play" by Jack Woodford and Jeanne Renée isn't especially rare or notable. But what caught my attention was some of the text on the dust jacket of the Signature Press, Inc. novel.

The lone paragraph on the back of the cover states:

"SIGNATURE PRESS, INC. was formed with Jack Woodford as one of the principal owners to publish and promote books written by him and by young authors whom he personally trained in the Woodford style."

And the inside front flap states: "This is the first book that Jack Woodford and his protege, Jeanne Renée, have written together. There will be more to come."

So who was Jack Woodford?

First off, that's a pen name.¹ His real name was Josiah Pitts Woolfolk.

Writer Richard A. Lupoff posted this wonderfully concise biography of Woodford on Biblio.com last October:

"Jack Woodford (1894-1971) was one of the most accomplished (and eccentric) novelists of his time. He quarreled with the publishing industry, he was attacked as a pornographer, he had been a heroin addict and alcoholic, he spent time in a Federal penitentiary for mail fraud and ended his days (by his own description) living in a comfortable suite in a mental hospital. His books on writing remain some of the best ever published on that subject. His 'sleaze' novels were packaged sensationally² but in fact, at least by modern standards, are little more than tepid romances."

Sleaze aside³, Woodford's greater legacy is probably his well-regarded books about writing, especially "Trial and Error," which was originally published in the 1930s and has various editions that sell for $10 to $30 today.⁴

How well-regarded was Woodford's no-nonsense writing advice? Here are quotes from some of his fans and disciples:⁵

Ray Bradbury: "Jack Woodford's 'Trial and Error' was the first book on writing I ever read, at the age of fifteen. He said all the right things and said them clearly. I stayed afloat and got my work done because of him."
Piers Anthony: "I have a strong feeling of affinity for Jack Woodford, an ornery cuss who answered his mail and his critics and told it as it was — as I do now. ... Jack Woodford was writing on writing back when I was born — and he still makes more sense than anyone else. His references may be dated now, but his truths are eternal."
Robert A. Heinlein: "I read 'Trial and Error' in 1939, started writing and did exactly what he said to do, and it works and I've sold it all."

That's a pretty nice trio of recommendations!

So, while the "Woodford style" of trashy pulp fiction might not have done much to advance to world of 20th-century literature, his advice has certainly inspired legions of writers, including some of our greatest science-fiction and fantasy authors.

Footnotes
1. His other pen names included Gordon Sayre, Sappho Henderson Britt, and Howard Hogue Kennedy.
2. If you're curious about the "sensationally" packaged "tepid romances" of Woodford ("Two Can Play" might have been his tamest cover of all time!), you can check out some of his raciest covers at a blog called Vintage Sleaze, which is precisely what you would expect it to be. I think my favorite title is "3 Gorgeous Hussies."¹
3. Here's an amusing quote attributed to Woodford, regarding the art of keeping the plot simple in his style of pulp novels: “Boy meets girl; girl gets boy into pickle; boy gets pickle into girl.”
4. Woodford's non-fiction bibliography on Wikipedia is a good place to start if you're interested in his books about writing.
5. These are excerpted from Woodford's Wikipedia page.

Secondary footnote
1. Little-known fact: "3 Gorgeous Hussies" was the runner-up when I was deciding what to name this blog.¹

Tertiary footnote
1. Not really.¹

Quaternary footnote
1. Learned something new today. Did you know that the answer to "What comes after primary, secondary, tertiary?" -- according to Oxford Dictionaries -- is this: "The sequence continues with quaternary, quinary, senary, septenary, octonary, nonary, and denary, although most of these terms are rarely used. There's no word relating to the number eleven but there is one that relates to the number twelve: duodenary." So there.

The (new) oddest stuff I've found tucked inside a book

2012-01-19T11:13:00.000-05:00

I was paging quickly through a battered copy of "Frye's Elements of Geography" (published circa 1902), trying to find something interesting to write about on the blog. The book was in really rough condition, with multiple pages missing and numerous ripped, scissored or otherwise damaged pages. There was one nice illustration that caught my eye¹, but, other than that, the book seemed destined for the trash can instead of the blog. Its usefulness had expired.

But then something caught my eye. A flash of color.

Tucked far back between a pair of pages, near the spine, was a purple piece of thread. Interesting for sure, but not terribly notable all by itself.

Then I started noticing more things.

Another flash of color. Glimpses of several small, folded pieces of paper.

I slowed down and went through the book page by page, opening it wide to find the treasures tucked in near the spine.

The final tally, after everything was extracted and unfolded:

9 small labels for embroidery thread, age unknown
4 old pins
5 strands of colorful embroidery thread, of varying lengths

Such odd materials to be shoved into the far reaches of an old textbook! Who did this? When? Why? Was the book already in terrible shape when this was done, and it was just thought to be a good place to discard these materials?

I dug up some more information about the companies mentioned on two of the embroidery-thread labels:

Cynthia Mills: The silver tags are for four different colors of thread -- 751, 657, 484 and 750. The information on the tags includes:

DO NOT REMOVE THIS TAG
CYNTHIA MILLS
PAT. NO. 1,592,432 (see Footnote 2)
PULL FROM THIS END
CYNTHIA PULL-SKEIN
BOIL-PROOF
SIX STRAND
ARTICLE 1170 - 9 YDS.

Cynthia Mills was a cotton-yarn factory in East Boston, Massachusetts. The mill was represented by Harding, Tilton & Company.³

In a statement dated Dec. 29, 1917, and appearing in "America's Textile Reporter," Cynthia Mills is listed as being located at 16 New Street in East Boston. Here's the full financial statement, pulled from Google Books:

Clark's O.N.T.: These light-yellow tags are for three different colors of thread -- 182, 38 and 1. The information on the tags includes:

BOILFAST
PULL OUT LONG END
DO NOT REMOVE THIS BAND
CLARK'S O.N.T.
6 STRAND COTTON
8 YARDS

There is plenty of information about Clark's available online. Textile Industry History (www.textilehistory.org) has a wonderful page full of the detailed history and the ephemera of Clark Thread Co., which was based in Newark and East Newark, New Jersey, from 1866 to 1949.

O.N.T. stands for "Our New Thread" and the brand dates to the mid 1800s. Given the era of its prominence, it's not surprising that there are numerous Victorian trade cards for O.N.T. that can be easily found online.

Clark Thread Co. is now known as Coats PLC.

Footnotes
1. Here's that one illustration that I thought was pretty cool. The caption states: "Iron Works, Pennsylvania. NOTE: -- The picture shows a huge retort in which hot air is being forced through liquid iron, changing it to steel."

2. Patent number 1,592,432 was filed by John L. Barry on October 1, 1924, and published on July 13, 1926 (which helps to date these materials, a little bit). You can read all four pages of Barry's patent application on this PDF.
3. Here's an excerpt from 1922's "History of American textiles: with kindred and auxiliary industries":

"A prominent firm in the textile industry is that of Harding, Tilton & Company which acts as selling agents for several of the largest mills in the country and which has its principal offices at Boston, New York, Chicago and Philadelphia. This Company specializes in handling yarns and grey goods. It was established in 1909 by Mr. Charles L. Harding, of Boston, and Mr. Newell W. Tilton, of New York. Mr. Harding was formerly connected with the firm of Harding, Whitman & Company of New York and Boston. ...

"The cotton goods which are sold by Harding, Tilton & Co. are manufactured by the Whitman, Gosnold and Page mills of New Bedford. The cotton yarns are the products of the Holmes and Fairhaven Mills of New Bedford, the Nyanza Mills of Woonsocket and the Cynthia Mills of East Boston. The worsted yarns are manufactured at Woonsocket by the Samoset Mills, and at Dedham, Mass., by the Dedham Worsted. ...

"These mills represent a combined working capital of about $25,000,000 and give employment to about 9000 hands."

J.C. Savage of Belfast, tailor and breeches maker

2012-01-18T13:48:00.001-05:00

Pictured above is the measure chart that is included as part of an old tri-fold brochure for J.C. Savage, a tailor in Belfast, Ireland. The brochure dates to sometime in the 1920s. My reasoning: While there is no specific date mentioned, it is stated that (a) J.C. Savage was established in 1840 and (b) the company has been "Master Tailors for over 80 years."¹

Here are some excerpts from the brochure, which indicates that J.C. Savage was located at 119 Donegall Street in Belfast:²

"In presenting this Folder to you for your kind inspection, we beg to state that as Master Tailors for over 80 years in the Cutting and Making of garments in Riding attire, we can give these garments in the Latest Styles, comfortable in Saddle, and Tailored to merit your custom in the future, and also your good recommendation to others, for which we would thank you."

"As we have the honour of being official Tailors to the majority of the Hunt Clubs at home, and can number amongst our extensive Clientle [sic], many of the foremost Equestrians at home and abroad, we offer you with every confidence our services as an authority on the subject of Riding Garments in the Latest Styles."
"Remittances payable to J.C. Savage, and crossed Ulster Bank, Carlisle Circus, Belfast."³
Products included jodphores, breeches, leggings and a waterproof riding coat. All could be ordered and tailored for men or women.
Customers were asked for a number of details, including:

Split Fall or Fly Fronts
Ladies -- Split Fall or Buttoned each side
Buckskin -- if to match cloth or lighter shade or white
Laced or Buttoned, and where -- front of knee or inside Shin Bone
If Whalebone (yes or no)
Level Tops or high at back
Pockets
Belt Loops
Brace Buttons -- if on outside or inside or if any
State if required for Riding or Walking

Pictured below is the illustration of three kinds of leggings sold by J.C. Savage -- Brooklands, Malton and Canvas. Regarding the leggings, the brochure states: "We recommend your Leggings to be worn with Riding Boots (which extend approximately three inches above Ankle longer than walking boots), and to measure Length of Legging short, so as not to reach Ankle. In this way your Leggings last for years."

Footnotes
1. There is little available online about J.C. Savage and its history, but I did find one small advertisement in a 1935 issue of Esquire.
2. Please read these quietly to yourself in an Irish brogue.
3. Ulster Bank does a great job of putting its company history online. There's a 4½-minute video on the Our History page and the Our Story pages describe the company's narrative from 1836 to present. Also, Ulster Bank is now a wholly owned subsidiary of The Royal Bank of Scotland Group, which has a fantastic history and heritage website.

Warm up with baseball photos from the early 20th century

2012-01-17T10:55:00.007-05:00

Pitchers and catchers report in about one month. We can make it.

In the meantime, here are some roughly-100-year-old photos of baseball players from a family album.

(Alas, there are no identifications for any of these.)

Anyone notice a slight resemblance to Chase Utley?

If you need more of a baseball fix, check out the sad jinx that was Guide to Papergreat's Phillies ephemera posts and co-worker Pat Abdalla's fine baseball blog The Southpaw.

A protractor (and more) inside a 1938 arithmetic textbook

2012-01-16T10:00:00.080-05:00

One of the neat things about the old copy of 1938's "Modern-School Arithmetic Advanced Book (New Edition)"¹ that I came across is that it still contains the dark-blue cardboard protractor that was originally attached to the inside back cover of the textbook.

A small cardboard tab had been glued to the inside back cover, and the student removed the protractor at the perforated mark. The tab contained the following statement from World Book Company, the textbook's publisher:

"Fold back on perforation and then cut along perforation with a knife.² When not in use, the protractor should be inserted in the flap of the stub.

"An extra protractor will be sent by the publishers on receipt of five cents in stamps and a self-addressed envelope bearing a 1½-cent stamp."

The textbook, intended for seventh-graders, beings with some interesting graphics that give us some insight into the time period.

The above graphic, for example, indicates that -- in the farm community that was surveyed -- 20% of homes had bathtubs, 30% had running water, 40% had electric light and 50% had telephones. (Assuming those numbers weren't just made up for the sake of the textbook, which is entirely possible.)

Here's another neatly illustrated graphic about student activities:

You have to love seeing 60% of the seventh-grade students in the Book Club (even if that's a made-up figure, too)!

Finally, browsing through the book brought a big and unexpected surprise. In a section of word problems titled "Preserving Our Forest," I came across this photograph:

What are the odds of a York Countian finding a York County photo within a 1930s arithmetic textbook?³

I wonder where this "young red pine forest in York County" was located? Perhaps if the original U.S. Forest Service photo still exists, it contains more specific information about where it was taken.

AFTERNOON UPDATE: A reader who got here from Twitter (@pstirk) says the above photo is from what is now William H. Kain County Park, looking toward Lake Redman and what is now Interstate 83. It was apparently trumpeted as one of the first reforesting successes. Very cool!

Note to readers
I've created a new subcategory called School Days on Papergreat, so that you can easily find all of the previous and future posts related to education, textbooks, schoolchildren and the like. I realized that I have a bunch of posts on this topic, and some of you might enjoy browsing through just those posts and the memories they bring back.

Footnotes
1. According to the inscription on the first page, this book once belonged to Mary Ellen Spitler of Greenville Grade School.
2. You don't see many textbooks these days that ask students to wield a knife.
3. My wife, a college math major, would have a somewhat stern answer to this question. Perhaps I should not have brought it up.

Reader memories of West Pittston, Pennsylvania

2012-01-15T17:00:00.018-05:00

Photo of West Pittston from www.city-data.com

I wrote about Sue Tatterson's trip to Scranton Lace Company last week, and reader Jo Ott used that post as a springboard to share these wonderful memories of growing up in West Pittson, Pennsylvania:

If I'm reading that ticket correctly (my old body doesn't twist sideways much any more!) that ticket says "West Pittston." My family lived in West Pittston -- 144 North Street -- during the 1940s -- most of the WWII years. My sister (1 year older) attended West Pittston High School and I attended elementary school there. I have old report cards from all four of our school days there.

It was a fabulous town to live in back in those days. A June Cleaver kind of community. My best memories are the snow sledding on the town's great hills in the very deep snows the area received every winter, staying out, even at night, until my wet gloves and snow pants turned to ice and I was in very bad need of a nose wipe.

Being in coal country in coal's peak mining days, I remember as a little kid seeing neighbors coming home from the mines totally black with coal dirt, carrying the metal lunch pail all miners then carried into the mines. Speaking of the mines, I remember one day hearing of a little girl who was walking down the sidewalk across the Susquehanna River in Pittston, eating an orange, and she just disappeared. There was a cave-in and she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Cave-ins were frequent back then and as a little kid I would sometimes wonder if our house would sink into the ground. I'd scare myself thinking I heard digging underneath!

I drove up to West Pittston back in the summer to see what it's like today. Not much has changed. The great high school is still there although it's no longer used as a the high school. The Grand Union is gone. So is the wonderful skating rink where everyone in town could be found except when on the hills sledding in winter. My old house is still there, as are the neighbors'. They're all gone now, including, Louie Lewis who managed the cemetery. Louie and his wife Betty and my parents were good friends and played cards with other neighbors all the time. The Michalango funeral home up the street is still in operation, but with a new name and owner. Grablick's Dairy is gone or at least I couldn't find it.

Saturday mornings it was walking across one of the river bridges to downtown Pittston to the old Roman Theatre to watch all the cartoons. Roy Roger, Tom Mix, Abbott & Costello, Our Gang movies, all the great musicals and love story movies. Loved playing marbles in the dirt in the yard next to our house. There are many more stories -- like how our family received eggs and sugar in the mail from a relative in Juniata County during those war years. [Comment from Chris: How does one mail eggs?]

We left West Pittston for York County in 1947. Myself and one brother entered Edgar Fahs Smith, another brother finished his last grade school year at Shiloh Elementary and my sister went into York High. Three of us graduated from Ol' York High.

Sadly, West Pittston was badly hit by flooding this year. One newspaper article I read included the information on how the town's citizens voted down flood walls similar to those installed up river in Sunbury, I believe. They didn't want to lose their views of the river.

Every family I ever knew growing up in Pennsylvania had at least one Scranton Lace table cloth. They were brought out every Easter and Christmas and other special occasions. Some families even graced their dining room table with a Scranton all the time, then would bring out the "good one" for holidays.

Thanks for sharing all of those wonderful memories, Jo!

Plato, Socrates and an old brassiere advertisement

2012-01-15T11:25:00.002-05:00

Sometimes, the items that are found tucked away inside books make perfect sense. For example, when I discovered a card promoting an event with a labor activist inside a biography of Karl Marx.

And sometimes the juxtaposition between the book and the piece of paper inside makes no sense at all.

Tucked away inside the 1971 Penguin paperback "The Last Days of Socrates" by Plato, I discovered a folded advertisement for the Private Life bra by Tru Balance.

So, perhaps, the person who once owned this book didn't much care about what Socrates asked Crito, with his dying words, to offer up to Asclepius.¹

The advertisement for the Private Life bra, which cost $3.95, states, in part: "The bra to feel you're-not-wearing-a-bra in! Helanca² stretch lace and very pretty. ... Wear it for the new fashion silhouette. For sleeping. For loafing. Or whatever. How can you resist feeling naughty so nicely? White, pink, blue, black."

It does not appear that Tru Balance Corsets Inc., maker of the Private Life bra, is around any more. The Private Life trademark is expired. Tru Balance's other trademarks, also expired, included Just-A-Nuff, Like Nothing On and Softpower.

I don't have any further details about the demise of Tru Balance Corsets. It would have been helpful if Plato had written a book about the company's last days.

Footnotes
1. A rooster.
2. Some history of Helanca fabric is described on the virtual German Hosiery Museum, which some day hopes to have a physical museum:

"In 1931, the American Rudolph H. Kägi presented the result of months of research to the manager of the American subsidiary of the Swiss company Heberlein & Co. - a new yarn. Mr. Kägi was a specialist for twine production, and he developed a new method of achieving the characteristics of wool in flat artificial silk fibers. In his method, he spun the acetate fibers into a springy spiral, then wove it with wool to produce the first stretch fabric.

"The company Heberlein & Co. in Wattwil acquired this process and patented it. This new yarn, which no longer possessed the gloss and smoothness of synthetic silk, was soft and warm just like wool, and was trademarked under the name 'Helanca.'"

Read much more on the German Hosiery Museum's in-depth website.

Saturday's postcard: A barrel organ in Amsterdam

2012-01-14T11:40:00.000-05:00

(Warning: This post features a tangent into 1970s European prog rock. Who said postcards were boring?)

Today's postcard is an undated, unused postcard produced by Kruger. The multiple-language caption on the reverse side states:

AMSTERDAM - C.
Draaiorgel
Barrel - Organ
L'Orgue de Barbarie
Drehorgel

A barrel organ is described by Wikipedia as "a mechanical musical instrument consisting of bellows and one or more ranks of pipes housed in a case, usually of wood, and often highly decorated. The basic principle is the same as a traditional pipe organ, but rather than being played by an organist, the barrel organ is activated either by a person turning a crank, or by clockwork driven by weights or springs."

The following text appears on the front of this barrel organ:

WESTRSTR. 119
AMSTERDAM
G. PERLEE
DE CELLO

G. Perlee Draaiorgels in Amsterdam still exists and has a Dutch-language website. With the help of Google, I translated some information and history:

The company dates to 1875 and still has organs throughout Amsterdam.
The founders were Leon Warnies¹ and Gijs Perlee.
Names of some of the company's organs (assuming the translation is correct) include The Arab, The Hindenburg, The Pod, The Puntkap, The White, The Flamingos², The Three Wigs, The Trembling and The Rummage.

On Flickr, a user named "Canadian Pacific" has posted a photo and a 15-second video clip of "The Arab," which now resides in a museum.

Getting back to the postcard, I'm not sure what's up with the folks to the left of the barrel organ. It looks like a staged scene to me. But I'm not exactly sure what is being staged. Are the two girls giving something to the men? Thoughts?

Footnotes
1. According to this genealogy message board, Leon Warnies was born in the Netherlands in 1835, moved to Paris in 1840, moved to Rio de Janeiro in 1872, and returned to Amsterdam in 1875 with his wife "with the intention of showing off their newly-modified Street organs."

2. OK, this is fun: On "See See the Sun," a 1973 album released by the Dutch progressive rock band Kayak, the song "Mammoth" features G. Perlee's "Flamingo" barrel organ. Per Wikipedia, "The organ, The Flamingo, was too big to get through the studio entrance. Therefore the melody was recorded outside. Being a manually operated organ, the pace varied all the time, making it very hard to fit the piece into the rest of the song."

The opening lyrics of the song are: "Yes I feel like a mammoth today, Like I'm going to die."

And, best of all, there is a video for 1973's "Mammoth." I am offering a full money-back guarantee that this the most awesome YouTube clip you will watch today!

Seeking help on book of fairy tales featuring Oona

2012-01-13T09:15:00.018-05:00

I have a mystery this morning that perhaps we can crowd-source the answer to.

I rarely log in to my Wikipedia account these days (although I use the site all the time). But I logged in yesterday to find that I had a message from someone named Simon back on December 21.

Here is Simon's message:

"This is a real long-shot but I wondered if you might be able to help me. My grandmother is in the early stages of senile dementia, and with this in mind the family have recently been making an effort to talk to her about her childhood, which she still remembers vividly, rather than more recent events (which sadly she does not).

"In our last conversation she was reminiscing about a book she read repeatedly during her childhood. She could not remember its title, only that it was a book of fairy tales, and that the main character was a fairy called Oona (she was certain of that spelling). She said she read it between the ages of 7 and 9, which would mean c. 1932-35 (although of course the book may have been published before that).

"I have been trying to see if I can identify the book, and get hold of a copy, since I think it would mean a lot to her to read it again. My research indirectly led me to the Ruth Manning-Sanders page, which it appears you are largely responsible for, although it appears that only a handful of her publications are early enough to fit the bill. And sadly I can find no details of those books anywhere.

"Any advice you could offer would be greatly appreciated. Does the name Oona ring any bells? Are there any other online resources or catalogues that might prove fruitful?"

I'm going to do some searching this weekend. But I wanted to throw it out there to all of you, to see if we can come up with as many leads as possible for Simon and his grandmother. Spread the word!

Leave anything you find in the comments or email me at cotto@ydr.com.

Potluck Day: Two inscriptions and photos from France

2012-01-12T11:06:00.001-05:00

Here's a fun collection of odds and ends on a wet and chilly Thursday here in southcentral Pennsylvania.

Stricklen's stamp and signature

My copy of "The 'Canary' Murder Case (A Philo Vance Mystery)" by S.S. Van Dine -- with its wonderful front-cover graphic design pictured above -- contains both the stamp and signature of its long-ago owner, R.L. Stricklen, Jr.

Here's a scan of the stamp. (Full disclosure: I futzed with the brightness and contrast to try to make it a little more readable.)

So, the stamp reads:

R.L. STRICKLEN, JR.
Library of Fact and Fiction
1649 W. Beverly St.
Staunton, Va.
No.

And here's his signature:

So, who was Mr. Stricklen? In the early 1930s, there was an R.L. Stricklen, Jr. Advertising Agency. It seems one of the agency's specialties was advertisements targeted to black Southerners. These two classified appeared in 1930 issues of Popular Mechanics:¹

September 1930: "REACH Southern Negroes through their own newspapers. Write R.L. Stricklen, Jr., Box 661, Staunton, Va."
December 1930: "25 WORD Classified ad in five southern Negro newspapers (circulation 14,650) -- Only $1.00. R.L. Stricklen, Jr., Staunton, Va."

In addition, the R.L. Stricklen, Jr. Advertising Agency published "Reaching Dixie's Constantly Growing Purchasing Power," a 27-page book, in 1931.

Editorial comment in a math book?

I found this inscription added to the title page of 1915's "Plane Geometry" by Webster Wells and Walter W. Hart. I'm thinking it speaks for itself.

Hidden gems in photos from France

I've been going through some photos that my late grandmother, Helen Adams Ingham, took during a trip to France in the early 1970s. Most of the shots are of buildings and other famous landmarks. In a few photos, though, sometimes in the corners of the shot, she captured everyday French people going about their lives.

Through the wonders of modern technology, I've been able to crop and magnify those shots. And so I present "Great Snapshots From France My Grandmother Never Knew She Took":

Footnote
1. Links to those two Popular Mechanics references via Google Books: September 1930 and December 1930.

Maps, maps and more maps

2012-01-11T15:42:00.000-05:00

I've been coming across a higher number of maps than usually lately, mostly by sorting through books and peering at their endpapers. So I thought it might be interesting to share images of some of those maps this afternoon.

From "The Robe" by Lloyd C. Douglas

Douglas' 1942 novel take place during the reign of the Roman Empire in the first century. Locations and peoples noted on this portion of the map include Londinium, which was established by the Romans around 43 AD; Belgica; Lugdunum; Cisalpine; and Marcomanni, a Germanic tribe.

From 1964's "European History Atlas Without Text"

This map, intended for students, highlights medieval commerce and industries, including the scope of Hanseatic League. I thought it was interesting to note the various products listed, including wax, hemp, flax, furs, honey, pitch, wool, skins, wheat, tar, grain, amber, iron, horses and slaves.

From 2007 Taschen calendar "Maps from the Atlas Maior of 1665 by Joan Blaeu"

The Atlas Maior was, according to Wikipedia, "a comprehensive world atlas, conceived by Willem Blaeu of Amsterdam, but compiled by his son Joan Blaeu, and completed in 1665. The original work consisted of eleven volumes, in Latin, containing 594 maps."

This map features Gotland, a region within Sweden. An English translation of the original text on the map states: "Gotland is a region of Sweden covered with forests and mines. The air there is relatively temperate and devoid of infection and the soil is fertile."

From "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich"

Key locations from the European front of World War II are shown on this map, which appears in "The Rise of the Third Reich," a map featured at the front endpapers of William L. Shirer's epic work. The map on the back endpapers details "The Fall of the Third Reich."

A very tough city in "Halo in Blood"

I love when novels contain maps of their settings. This one appears at the front of John Evans' 1946 Bantam paperback "Halo in Blood" (a tough mystery about a tough guy in a very tough city). It includes hero Paul Pine's office, apartment and "Where Pine gets conked." Not only does the book contain a map, but it also includes a "Cast of Characters." One of the characters is "Pasty Face," who is described thus: "D'Allemand's muscle-man, had a toadstool complexion."

Sue Tatterson's trip to Scranton Lace Company

2012-01-11T10:26:00.001-05:00

What is the meaning of this tattered old ticket to a 1936 American Legion event? To find out, you need to go read Sue Tatterson's new blog entry on Spirits of the Abandoned.¹ It's about her recent exploration of the shuttered Scranton Lace Company complex in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and a tiny shred of ephemera that she found there.

It comes with the highest recommendation. It's one of the best pieces I've read about photography, history and the compulsion to explore -- whether it's by traveling somewhere or spending hours combing through Google searches.

So go check out her blog. And you can see some of her photos from Scranton Lace Company, including a jaw-dropping shot of the clock tower, on her Facebook gallery page.

I'll be back with a new entry later today.

Footnote
1. Tatterson's terrific work was previously mentioned in my post about the swimming pool at Buck Hill Falls.

Reader comments: Allie Dillon, microcomputers and more

2012-01-10T10:00:00.124-05:00

Today brings another wonderful and insightful collection of reader comments:

Fairy tales: From laxatives to Littlestown to Johnny Depp: Here's a comment from an Anonymous who I wish had left his or her name. The comment refers to the illustrations in "Famous Fairy Tales for Children," a 20-page staplebound booklet published in 1930 by Pepsin Syrup Company:

"Every once in awhile, I search for work by my grandmother, Allie Dillon. This little booklet is one of those examples. I think she was just in her teens when her work was first published in St. Nicholas Magazine. She studied at The Chicago Art Institute and was a student of Frank Dillon. They married in 1911. As was customary at that time, they added his name and possibly a little of his hand to her work to facilitate selling it commercially."

Great note! The illustrations by Allie Dillon within this little booklet are terrific. Two more of them are pictured with today's post.

"Objectionable Words and Terms" from an 1884 cyclopedia: Two comments on this one.

Mel Kolstad of Ephemeraology writes: "Good lord, the writers of this cyclopedia would have died of heart attacks if they heard people speaking today!"
And Mom writes: "Shall we add your own modifications of the English language when you were a toddler? Instead of Peek-a-boo, you'd cover your eyes and say 'dis-me-appear'! And I won't mention how you destroyed the word helicopter!"

Advertisements from the August 1963 issue of Farm Journal: Jo Ott, a frequent commenter on Only in York County, writes: "Couple of things, Chris: I have a jar of 'Fruit Fresh' in the pantry which is similar to the product in the ad. It contains dextrose, ascorbic acid (vitamin C), citric acid & silicon dioxide (anti-caking agent). It is put out by Ball, the canning jar company, and 1/4 tsp. (1 g) contains contains 230% vitamin C. Also, I have the 1976 edition of the Farm Journal's cookbook titled 'America's Best Vegetable Recipes.' If I remember correctly, years ago the only way one could acquire a copy of this cookbook was to subscribe to their monthly magazine. I was never a subscriber nor do I remember how I got this copy."

Mystery photo of couple on New Year's Eve: Good friend Mike McCombs, who I hope restarts his fine Raising Two Americans blog some day, notes "that looks like a Marines uniform."

Old booklet for Harrisburg's Capital Roller Rink: Sharon writes: "Chris, where did you find this booklet!? I was cleaning out my closet this morning, and dug through a box of my grandfather's business items and came across a paper embosser (seal) of the Capital Roller Rink (dated 1947). He used to co-own the place! Googled it and found your blog! Awesome write-up!"

Christmas 1971 and a vintage greeting card: Justin Mann of Justin's Brew Review writes: "About 'brand-new' (I just had to address it!): What can I say? It's definitely an 'improper' use of a hyphen. (Not sure why? Check out the book 'Eats, Shoots & Leaves' by British author, Lynne Truss. It's an amusingly informative approach to grammar!) But why should we care all that much? As long as there is no chance for miscommunication, I say forget about whether it's 'right' or 'wrong' and just say it! Of course, be prepared to tick off the guardians of the language, as you've noted. They'd probably read that and say 'Ouch! that punctuation has caused our boat to start sinking!'"

It's beginning to look a lot like 1956: York Daily Record/Sunday News co-worker Scott Blanchard writes: "That's really cool. What's the significance of the words 'Daily Memorandum' under the month/year? Something to make it seem more sophisticated than just a calendar?"

Advertisements from a 1982 issue of Creative Computing: Two commenters on this one.

Justin Mann writes: "Wow! It's amazing to see how far computer technology has come! While I don't have any specific suggestions for future computer-magazine history posts, I very much look forward to reading the sequels!"

Jeff Salzman of the Vintage Volts writes: "That very same VIC-20 advertisement was also used in poster form (minus the quoted price). I remember back in 1981 when my parents took me around to different stores to buy my very first computer. One of the last places we went to look for a computer was the Computerland store out on Prospect Road.

"I never really knew about Commodore computers at the time. Computerland was mainly an Apple shop, but they did stock the Commodore PET and (at the time) a brand new 'Friendly Computer', the VIC-20.

"The salesman pointed to the VIC-20 poster and it piqued my curiosity. After being led to the demo machine, I was hooked. I almost picked a Radio Shack TRS-80 CoCo as my first computer until I saw the VIC-20. It had everything I wanted and at a great price.

"I still own that same VIC-20, and it still works. I hook it up to a TV from time to time to (ahem) play some of the few games I have for it. You know, just to make sure it works, right? (wink, wink)

"An interesting note about computer magazines at the time is the scope of the content.

"Magazines like Creative Computing 'generalized' computer information and abstracted the finer details so the public could understand basic computing concepts.

"To really dig into the details about computers at the time, one would need to choose from the many brand specific computing magazines. Of course, ads in those magazines were more for peripheral and software add-ons and not necessarily for advertising the computers themselves."

Dust jacket of "Your Dream Diary and Dream Book"

2012-01-09T10:30:00.031-05:00

The tattered and torn dust jacket of 1938's "Your Dream Diary and Dream Book" presents some interesting points for discussion.

The cover of the jacket is nicely designed. The bottom half features a black-and-white photo of a pretty young lady, taken by Ewing Galloway.¹ Above her, the white title letters are set against a background that's nearly midnight blue.

The blurb on the front cover states:

"It's the latest rage to keep a record of your dreams and their interpretations. This book provides the space for keeping your dream diary day by day and Gabrielle Rosiere, the well-known authority, tells you their meaning and significance."

The first three-quarters of the book consist of Rosiere's dream dictionary, while the final quarter of the book contains mostly blank pages (still blank in my copy) intended for the reader's dream journals. The pages state "Keep this beside your bed and use it first thing in the morning."²

Here are some of Rosiere's dream-dictionary insights from 1938:

Corn: Increase in fortune or family
Lettuce: Healthy and many good things
Eggs: Happiness and wealth
Broken eggs: Lawsuits
Rotten eggs: Disgrace
Boa constrictor: Great danger from powerful foe
Clams: Sorrow through stupid lack of kindness
Outdoor moth: Dangerous flirtation
Indoor moth: Losses through employees
Mothra: [Rosiere provides no entry]
Pirate: A very fortunate adventure
Pope: A warning against evil conduct
Mustache: Vanity causes humiliation
Girdle (new): Honors and love
Girdle (old): Hard work and trouble
Ice cream soda: Happy times with lovers or friends
Torpedo: A startling occurrence causing great excitement, perhaps horror
Sponge: Unreasonable demands from family and friends
Debts: Temporary embarrassment
Hearse: Illness
Hearse (empty): Slight illness

Meanwhile, the back of the book's dust jacket is used to tout more books by publisher Grosset & Dunlap.

The marketing pitch is fairly amusing. There's a sad-looking man in a suit and the quotation "If I Could Only Express Myself." The pitch continues:

"Millions of men and women, ambitious for success in life, eager to get ahead, anxious to make a good impression upon their friends, associates, employers are held back because they cannot command the right word at the right time, because they cannot express in their correspondence, their conversation, their writing what they really want to say."

Thus, some of Grosset & Dunlap's books can help this man from being so sad. Some of the books promoted on the back cover include:

Roget's Thesaurus
Crabb's English Synonymes³
Similes and their Use
A Desk Book of 25,000 Words Frequently Mispronounced
Shakespeare's Complete Works
Words We Misspell
One Thousand Sayings of History
How to Speak English Effectively
How to Use English
A Working Grammar of the English Language

And those are only some of the Grosset & Dunlap titles!

I don't know. Perhaps the thought of having to purchase all of those books and keep them at his desk is what's really making the guy depressed.

Footnotes

1. The photo probably wasn't taken by Ewing Galloway, but by his agency. According to the Syracuse University Library, Galloway (1881-1953) was a journalist and photo editor who ran the Ewing Galloway Agency in New York City. More from Syracuse's biography:

"In 1920 he opened his own photographic agency on 28th St. in New York. Although he had relatively few photographs at first, he soon expanded his stock and 1925 purchased a collection of 8000 images of Africa and Asia. ... By handling only general topics as opposed to time-sensitive news photographs, Galloway established a profitable market niche while pioneering the photographic interpretation of industry, transportation, and commerce. ... The 'Ewing Galloway' byline that appears under many photographs reproduced in books, magazines, schoolbooks, and encyclopedias, refers to the agency and not to Galloway himself, who learned to operate a camera only later in life. The caption was an advertising device: it could be left off, but the photograph would cost more without it. The lack of records from the company makes it impossible to identify the actual photographers."

Posters of some of the more famous Ewing Galloway photos that have stood the test of time -- including trains, train tracks, bridges and lighthouses -- can be found at Art.com.
2. My foray into writing down what I remembered from my dreams lasted all of one day when, a couple of years ago, I jotted down the following in my notepad one morning: "Things I received in a dream: exercise bike; 2 folding chairs; plate; mental hospital diary; calendar book w/ days marked w/ paperclip + reminder cards; tennis racquets; Life in a Northern Town; broom that made train noise to keep cats out of the way; items to get you to NYC." Good luck with that, Gabrielle.
3. The quick pitch for "Crabb's English Synonymes" states: "What the slide rule is to the engineer this volume is to the person who reads and writes."

Advertisement for Murine Eye Remedy Co. in "The Rival Heiresses"

2012-01-08T18:13:00.000-05:00

The most notable thing I discovered within the 1897 potboiler "The Rival Heiresses" by Dora Delmar¹ is the full-page advertisement for Murine Eye Remedy Co. opposite the first page of text.

Even in older books, which tend to have more advertising, it's not too often that I come across product pitches in such a prominent position.

This advertisement boasts that the purpose of Murine Eye Remedy is "To Refresh, Cleanse and Strengthen the Eye. To Stimulate the Circulation of the Blood Supply which Nourishes the Eye, and Restore a Healthful Tone to Eyes Enfeebled² by Exposure to Strong Winds, Dust, Reflected Sunlight and Eye Strain. To Quickly Relieve Redness, Swelling and Inflamed Conditions."³

Prices for Murine Eye Remedy included:

DeLuxe Toilet Edition - For the Dressing Table, $1.25
Tourist - Autoist - in Leather Case, $1.25⁴
Murine Eye Salve in Aseptic Tubes, 25¢ and $1.00
Granuline - For Chronic Sore Eyes and Trachoma, $1.50

It seems, however, that Chicago-based Murine Eye Remedy Co. had some troubles in the first half of the 20th century. According to this excerpt from the Museum of Vision website:

"Drs. James and George McFatrich founded the Murine Eye Remedy Company in 1897 in order to sell their patent eye water. Eventually the business expanded to salves, tonics, baths, powders and pills to help cure various eye ailments.

"In 1912 The American Medical Association blasted Murine for using false advertising. ...The AMA tested the eye water and claimed that its composition was not uniform between sample bottles. It also noted that the simple solution cost the company approximately 5 cents a gallon, but the public was being charged $1.00 for an ounce. ... Murine continued to be investigated by various groups and federal agencies through the 1940s. After that time, Murine eliminated outrageous claims from its advertising and today Murine is still a top seller of over the counter eye drops."

For more, check out the Museum of Vision website, which also has some interesting articles and history about medical quackery.

Footnotes
1. Chapter 1 opens with characters named Lady Glynne and Sir Huldibrand and contains the following ridiculous passage:

Yet they were sitting in a kind of fairy-land, in a place that ought to have been sacred to youth and beauty.

Lansmere Court is the chief attraction of the beautiful and fertile county of Devon. It stands in the rich, green heart of the land, and has every charm that either nature or art can give -- the charm of the whispering trees, of purple hills, or shady woods, of broad streams, of running brooks, of meadows and valleys; the charm of a bright sky, of clear, fragrant air; the music of innumerable birds. Nature had done its best for Lansmere, and art had assisted her.

The picturesque, grand old building, with ivy-clad turrets, gray towers, oriel windows, and a massive Gothic porch. It belonged to no particular style of architecture, the ancient and modern were so wonderfully and strangely intermixed.

Lansmere Court had been sketched by artists and sung of by poets; it was one of the "free, fair homes of England," for which the land has ever been famous.

Lansmere Court is entirely fictitious. Thank heavens.
2. "Enfeebled" is a great word. We should use it more in modern times.
3. You have to Love how Many Words are Unnecessarily Capitalized in some Advertisements, don't You?
4. While "The Rival Heiresses" was first published in 1897, this reference to the "Autoist" version of Murine indicates to me that this advertisement might be appearing in a slightly later edition of the book. Perhaps sometime between 1910 and 1920.

Great links: Confessions of a Bookplate Junkie

2012-01-08T11:23:00.000-05:00

After I wrote about Herbert W. Rhodes' early 20th century bookplate last week, I got a note from Philadelphian Lew Jaffe, the author of Confessions of a Bookplate Junkie.

I'm so glad he got in touch, because Jaffe's blog is outstanding and I hadn't known about it. He has been blogging consistently -- about 65 long, in-depth posts per year -- since 2006. So you could lose yourself for hours in his archives! His self-description states: "I have been collecting bookplates for well over thirty years and am always interested in buying collections or exchanging duplicates with other collectors."

I knew Jaffe was a man after my own heart when I saw that his first post of 2012 was titled "If I had more disposable income I would be dangerous."¹ How true!

Some of Jaffe's posts include:

Magician's Bookplates
Soylent Green, Tom Mix And Sam Colt
Airplanes on Bookplates
Silent Film Star Bookplates - Part One
Silent Film Star Bookplates - Part Two
Judaica Bookplates For Exchange
And the image in today's post comes from the August 2011 post Recent Discoveries and Pending Research

Between Confessions of a Bookplate Junkie and Hotel Stationery, I feel like I've added a pair of home-run links to the Cool Stuff Elsewhere section of Papergreat in the past couple of weeks!

Footnote
1. Cue stern look from wife. "What did we just get you for Christmas?" she would ask. Indeed, my Christmas haul included oodles of wonderful books and ephemera from my wife, mother, mother-in-law and good friend Nina Zeiders of "Aspiring Memories by Nina." But that doesn't mean I can't look at other pieces of paper, right?

Old newspaper clippings of crime and punishment

2012-01-07T14:17:00.000-05:00

What will we do in the future when we don't have old newspaper clippings to browse through any more? Will we repost bizarre blurbs on the Farks and Diggs and Reddits of the future? Will weird writeups be sent daily to our Nooks and Kobos and Kindles?¹

Here are some old clippings from the world of crime and punishment.

Assaulted Farmer

This article comes from the October 4, 1919, edition of The State Register of Laurel, Delaware.² And to think that it all started with the theft of a blanket...

Hunting for an "Ape Man"

These next two clippings come from the late-October 1935 issues of the St. Paul (Minn.) Dispatch that have been featured often on Papergreat. This one is full of lurid details, including the "ape man," a drain pipe, an automobile accident, mysterious messages and more. It would be interesting to know how this whole case turned out. One of the saddest things, though, is that the woman with the skull fracture doesn't even get a name. She's just "Mrs. Jack London," the red-haired wife of a grocer.

Roughing up the referee

This one involves a crowd getting out of hand at a wrestling match in St. Paul, Minnesota. It includes "groan and grunt" men, cries of "Kill him!", a hurled flashlight³ and some missing teeth. My favorite quote comes from the victim, referee Carlos Phenicie, at the end of the story.

Footnotes
1. I think Dr. Seuss would be proud of those two sentences!
2. Other items from this newspaper were featured in the Papergreat posts Please remember to proofread the advertisements and Stay away from the hard cider.
3. Who takes a flashlight to a wrestling match? Actually, given that this was a theater and that the "show" involved both a motion picture and a wrestling bout, perhaps the flashlight came from one of the ushers. (Or was thrown by one of the ushers.)

Family time, Vikings and a gnome named Norbert

2012-01-06T21:08:00.001-05:00

Due to some unexpected but hardly surprising drama in the world of sports today, I'm running out of time to post an entry.¹ But the family has inspired me to post something short and keep alive my streak of having blogged every single day in 2012 thus far.

At the top of the entry is a crayon drawing of a Viking ship that represents the combined artistic efforts of my mother-in-law, wife and daughter.

Why a Viking ship? Well, Sarah said she wanted to draw it so that two of her favorite figurines felt "at home."

The figurines, which she got from her grandmother, are Olaf the Viking and Norbert the Gnome.² Sarah said he would like to collect more cool figurines like these, which led to the following exchange:

Sarah: I found more of them on the Internet.
Me: How did you know what to look for? Did you type "gnome figurine"?
Sarah: No, I typed "figurine gnome."
Me: Ahh. Pretty cool.
Sarah: Yeah, Google has everything. Google's been around for like 100 years.

And what did I contribute to all of this? Ephemera, of course. I just happened to come across this postcard of a Viking ship, which dovetails nicely with the rest of the evening's artwork...

The text on the postcard states:

Gogstadskipet på Bygdøy.
Fra 800 årene
6
Enerett Universitetets Oldsaksamling

which translates from the Norwegian to:

Gogstad Ship at Bygdøy
From 800 years
6
Exclusive collection of the University

Footnotes
1. Cough, cough, Penn State football, cough.
2. Two things: (a) Norbert's nickname is "Nor," Sarah says; (2) All this gnome talk reminds me of the 1977 Wil Huygen/Rien Poortvliet book "Gnomes," which I browsed through often at the W. B. Konkle Memorial Library in Montoursville in the early 1980s.

Swift's Premium, Meat power and two fried chicken recipes

2012-01-05T09:55:00.002-05:00

Swift & Company, maker of Swift's Premium meats, published a 12-page staplebound pamphlet in 1962 urging people to eat more meat and providing plenty of party recipes.

The back page of the pamphlet is pictured at right and states simply, "Party Giving with Meat power."

Meat power, baby!

Some of the meat propaganda within includes:

Meat power from Swift puts the energy and enjoyment into America's entertaining today!
At this fast-growing age, youngsters are like "dynamos" that need a constant source of energy. It's Meat power from Swift that does most to keep 'em fit and assure their sound development.
What makes young America run? Sturdy legs, strong muscles, robust health! Moms know it takes plenty of Meat power from Swift to "propel" small citizens into the healthy future Nature intended for them.
In this land of abundance there are many, many foods available for meal-planning. But there is no substitute for meat.

And here are some additional Meat power photos from the pamphlet:

There is an interesting selection of recipes, including Mandarin spareribs, lamb-apricot-curry kebabs, steak on a stick, grilled bacon and peanut butter sandwiches, beefburgers in parmesan rolls and, sadly, because it's the 1960s, "Prem Salad Mold."¹

Also, two different fried chicken recipes were presented. Here they are:

Oven Fried Chicken
Yield: 4 servings

2½ to 3 pound tender-grown Swift's Premium Chicken, cut-up for frying
1 stick (½ cup) Swift's Brookfield Butter or Allsweet
½ cup evaporated milk or light cream
1 cup crushed corn flakes
¼ cup finely chopped onion
¼ cup finely chopped parsley
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon dry mustard
½ teaspoon marjoram

Melt butter in shallow 13 by 9½-inch baking dish in a hot oven (400° F.). Remove. Dip chicken pieces into milk and roll in corn flake crumbs. Arrange chicken in baking dish skin side down. Cover the top of the chicken with the remaining ingredients. Bake in a hot oven (400° F.) for about 20 minutes. Turn chicken. Bake another 20 to 30 minutes or until chicken is tender. Serve hot or cold.

Beau Catcher Fried Chicken
Yield: 4 servings

1 tender-grown Swift's Premium Chicken, cut up for frying
½ cup buttermilk
1 cup flour
2 teaspoons salt
¼ teaspoon pepper
2 teaspoons paprika
¼ teaspoon leaf thyme
2 tablespoons dried minced onion
1 stick Swift's Brookfield Butter

Dip chicken pieces into buttermilk and then into a mixture of flour, salt, pepper, paprika, thyme, and minced onion. Melt butter in a shallow baking pan in a hot oven (400° F.). Remove pan from oven. As pieces of floured chicken are placed in pan, turn to coat with butter, then bake skin side down in a single layer. Bake in hot oven (400° F.) for 30 minutes. Turn chicken. Bake another 30 minutes, or until tender. If guests are late, reduce heat and brush with melted butter.

Here's a picture from the pamphlet of a woman apparently catching her beau with the above recipe...

Footnote
1. Previously on "The Gelatin Chronicles":

Also, to double down on the fun, "Prem Salad Mold" calls for using one 12-ounce can of Swift's Prem, which was essentially the company's version of Spam (with beef added). Check out some advertisements for Swift's Prem here and here. Canned meat in gelatin. What a combination!

Advertisements from a 1982 issue of Creative Computing

2012-01-04T14:03:00.003-05:00

Old computer magazines are awesome. Especially when you're my age (41) and you grew up during the rise of microcomputers and have seen first-hand how much computer technology has advanced from the 1970s to today.

Today's advertisements are 30 years old, from the March 1982 issue of Creative Computing
magazine.¹

Pictured at right is the full-page advertisement for Commodore's VIC-20. The ad touts the computer's 16 colors, four sound generators, 66 graphic characters, expandable memory (to 32K!) and Microsoft/PET BASIC. Peripherals available included a joystick, paddles, disk drive, printer and cassette unit.²

"The Friendly Computer" came with a price tag of just $299.95. (That would be about $668 in 2010 dollars.³)

Speaking of Microsoft, it has a pair of full-page advertisements in this issue. One is for the Manager Series of software (Time Manager, Project Manager and Personnel Manager).⁴ The other is for TASC, the Applesoft Compiler, which converted standard Applesoft BASIC programs into "super-fast machine code."

What was most interesting to me, though, was seeing the 1982 version of Microsoft's logo on these advertisements:

Meanwhile, the microcomputer advertisement at right is for the Atari 800 and trumpets the computer's graphics. The ad copy states:

"3.7 million reasons why the ATARI Home Computer is something to see. The display screen used with our computers is composed of 192 horizontal lines, each containing 320 dots. Delivering color and luminosity instructions to each dot for a second requires 3.7 million cycles ... a lot of work for the normal 6502 processor.

"That's why the ATARI computer has equipped its 6502 with its own electronic assistant. It's called ANTIC, and it handles all the display work, leaving the 6502 free to handle the rest."

Here's a closer look at the cutting-edge graphics that Atari and ANTIC helped to create:

There is no mention of the price of this Atari 800 computer.⁵ According to oldcomputers.net, the Atari 800 was released in November 1979 with a price of $999.95 (about $2,963 in 2010 dollars).

By May 1983, however, Atari was offering a $100 rebate on the machine, which brought its retail price below $400, according to oldcomputers.net. So a good guess would be that, by March 1982, this microcomputer cost somewhere between $500 and $700 -- about twice the advertised price of the VIC-20.

How about some peripherals and software? Below is an advertisement for Okidata's printers, with their standard typewriter ribbons, dot-matrix output and speeds ranging from 120-200 characters per second and 76-to-114 lines per minute.

Here are some other advertised products and their prices from this 1982 issue:

Ricochet, a strategy game from Automated Simulations, cost $19.95 ($44.47 in 2010 dollars).
The Battle of Shiloh and Tigers in the Snow⁶ from Strategic Simulations Inc. cost $39.95 apiece for the Apple disc version ($89.05 in 2010).
Olaf Lubeck's "Red Alert"⁷ from Brøderbund Software cost $29.95 ($66.76 in 2010).
Sharp's 64K business computer was on sale for just $3,995.95 ($8907.23 in 2010!).
Grammatik from Aspen Software Company was a spelling- and grammar-check program that cost $54 ($120.37 in 2010).
Tax-Manager from Micro Lab was an early tax-preparation assistant that was available for the introductory price of $150 ($334.36 in 2010).
Mountain Software of San Bernardino, California, had plenty of popular early software titles -- including Sargon II, Castle Wolfenstein, Mystery House, Wizard and the Princess, Ultima, Star Warrior and Infocom's famous Zork⁸ -- available for prices generally ranging from $24.95 to $39.95.

So many memories! I could write about the advertisements and articles in this old issue of Creative Computing for hours. As it is, today's entry only spanned material from the first 50 pages of the 256-page magazine.

So you can expect a sequel or two to this blog post down the road. Let me know if there's any particular kind of computer-magazine history you'd like me to delve into.

I'll leave you with this cute cartoon from the same issue:

(I can assure you, though, that I did note write today's post while wearing my jammmies.)

Footnotes
1. The magazine, which had a cover price of $2.95, touted itself as "the #1 magazine of computer applications and software." It was published from 1974 until December 1985.
2. I had a computer-programming class during eighth grade at Madeira Beach Middle School, and we saved all of our programs onto cassette tapes. We were definitely the cool kids!
3. All of this post's price equivalents are from The Inflation Calculator.
4. The Microsoft Manager Series advertisement states: "The Manager Series from Microsoft turns an inexpensive personal computer into an executive's toolbox. Not a computer programmer's toolbox. An executive's toolbox. Computerized management tools for non-computer people. ... Even if you've never used a computer before, you should be able to productively use the Manager Series in a very short time."
5. Atari did offer copies of the Atari 800's "Technical User's Notes" -- intended for the serious programmer -- for a mere $27.
6. Game description: "Ghostlike Nazi Tiger tanks and infantry sweep across the dark, frozen forests of the Ardennes against a surprised U.S. force in the division/regiment-level simulation of Hitler's last desperate attack."
7. Game description: "Your civilization is under attack by the stinging space meanies and vicious thudputters. A protective shield slows their assault, but without quick counteraction your defenses will crumble one by one." (So, there. I've worked both Hitler and thudputters into these footnotes.)
8. Here's a list of places where you can download Zork or play it online for free.

Happy 120th birthday, J. R. R. Tolkien

2012-01-03T11:56:00.000-05:00

Above: The pastedown label on the slipcase of Houghton Mifflin Company's 1965 hardcover boxed set of "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy.

Today is the 120th anniversary of the birth of John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, better known as J. R. R. Tolkien, who gave us the wonderful tales of Bilbo Baggins, Gandalf, Gollum, Smaug, Frodo Baggins, Samwise Gamgee and more. All of them set in the Middle-earth that he painstakingly created from his own imagination.

The Tolkien Society has an excellent website that you should check out if you're a fan of the author and his writings.

Its offerings include lists of Tolkien resources, an F.A.Q. section (including suggestions on the order in which to reader Tolkien's works), links to Tolkien news¹, and 21st century amenities such as Twitter, Facebook, podcasts and i-Phone apps that no doubt would have amazed everyone back in the Shire.

In addition to 2012 marking the 120th anniversary of Tolkien's birth, this year will also see the 75th anniversary of the publication of "The Hobbit, or There and Back Again." And, of course, we will be treated to Part 1 of Peter Jackson's film adaptation of "The Hobbit" in December.

Here are some more images from our family's copies of Tolkien's works. These are our scruffy paperback reading copies of "The Two Towers" and "The Return of the King":

On the left is the November 1965 paperback edition by Ballantine Books. The illustration is by Barbara Remington. Tolkien Collector's Guide has a fascinating interview with her in which she discusses how her one illustration, which spans the covers of the three 1965 "The Lord of the Rings" paperbacks, came to be.

On the right is February 1978 paperback edition by Ballantine Books. The cover illustration of Barad-dûr is by Tolkien himself.²

Meanwhile, here are some international illustrations from "The Hobbit" that are featured in my copy of "The Annotated Hobbit" by Tolkien and Douglas A. Anderson:

Above: This is from a 1976 Russian edition of "The Hobbit" and it kind of makes Bilbo Baggins look like a cross between W.C. Fields and Mr. Magoo.

Above: This is from the 1962 Portuguese version of "The Hobbit."

Footnotes
1. My favorite headline: "Tolkien's fireplace for sale."
2. If you're interested in more on the myriad editions of Tolkien's works, one place to start might be this March 20, 2011, article by The Literary Omnivore.

Herbert W. Rhodes' early 20th century bookplate

2012-01-02T10:15:00.000-05:00

This black-and-white bookplate¹ for Herbert W. Rhodes is pasted on the inside front cover of the the 1903 novel "A Forest Hearth" by Charles Major.²

The bookplate is interesting because it features illustrations of a camera, a microscope and a bicycle -- perhaps signifying well-rounded interests in science, the arts and the outdoors.

On the final page of the novel, two people have signed their initials and the date, presumably to indicate when they completed reading it.

The initials are "H.W.R. 5/12/1920" and "S.H. 2/3/23".

But other than that, there is no other identifying information about Rhodes. So I can only speculate on who he might have been:

I found some genealogical evidence of a Herbert W. Rhodes who was born in New Jersey in 1874 and worked as an insurance clerk.
There was a Herbert W. Rhodes of Norwood, Massachusetts, who, fittingly, manufactured postcards in the first decade of the 20th century.
And there was famed Portland, Maine, architect Herbert W. Rhodes, who designed the State Theatre and Eastland Park Hotel in Portland in the 1920s.

I suppose any of those three Rhodes could have owned a copy of Major's 1903 novel.

Some other notes about "A Forest Hearth."

The subtitle is "A Romance of Indiana in the Thirties." (That would be the 1830s.)

It featured illustrations by Clyde O. DeLand (one of which is pictured at right).
The full text is available here from Project Gutenberg.
Need a taste of Major's prose? Here's the opening paragraph, which takes up an entire page:
A strenuous sense of justice is the most disturbing of all virtues, and those persons in whom it predominates are usually as disagreeable as they are good. Any one who assumes the high plane of "justice to all, and confusion to sinners," may easily gain a reputation for goodness simply by doing nothing bad. Look wise and heavenward, frown severely but regretfully upon others' faults, and the world will whisper, "Ah, how good he is!" And you will be good—as the sinless, prickly pear. If the virtues of omission constitute saintship, and from a study of the calendar one might so conclude, seek your corona by the way of justice. For myself, I would rather be a layman with a few active virtues and a small sin or two, than a sternly just saint without a fault. Breed virtue in others by giving them something to forgive. Conceive, if you can, the unutterable horror of life in this world without a few blessed human faults. He who sins not at all, cannot easily find reason to forgive; and to forgive those who trespass against us, is one of the sweetest benedictions of life. I have known many persons who built their moral structure upon the single rock of justice; but they all bred wretchedness among those who loved them, and made life harder because they did not die young.
At the back of the book, there are 18 full pages of advertisements for other books, including MacMillan & Co's "new six-shilling novels." Among those are "The Crossing" by American novelist Winston Churchill, who is sometimes confused with the British statesman.

Footnotes
1. Other bookplates featured on Papergreat can be found in these entries:

2. Majors' 1898 debut novel "When Knighthood Was in Flower," published under the pseudonym Edwin Caskoden, helped to spur a pop-culture interest in historical-romance novels and films.