Vintage Automobiles in a Shoebox

A new technology always spawns multiple businesses, each one seeking to profit by its particular genius.  So it was when the motor car first hit American streets. Whether steam, electric or gasoline fueled, there was a sudden proliferation of makers, brands and models.  Some endured, others did not.  Old enough to remember the days when electric cars and the Ford’s Model T were not totally unusual sights on the streets of my town, I seldom pass up a chance to attend an exhibit of vintage automobiles and often wish I owned one.  Now it is possible to collect antique cars and store them in a shoebox. They just have to be captured on paperweights.

The limousine shown here was produced by the Columbia Automobile Company, created in 1899 as a joint venture of the Pope Manufacturing Co. of Hartford, Connecticut and the Electric Vehicle Company.  The outfit made both gasoline and electric powered vehicles.  Its electric models included taxis and police cars, buses, and limousines.  The Columbia electric runabout was the best sellng car in America in 1900 and the first to exceed 1,000 sales.  The weight can be dated to a reasonably narrow time frame.  The company was acquired by the U.S. Motor Company in 1910.

A nifty weight is from the Burr Co., Coach Builders of New York City. This firm was founded in the 1880s to make luxury horse-drawn carriages.  When the automobile was invented, Burr tried to make the transition from carriages to cars with a factory located at the southern edge of Gotham’s automobile row.   Speculation is that Burr created the bodies to fit on other chassis and never produced a complete vehicle.  In any case along with the buggy whip,  Burr & Co. became extinct about 1915.

The “Silent King” automobile, seen here on a celluloid paperweight issued by a Buffalo auto dealer,  was the brainchild of Charles King, the first person to drive a gasoline powered automobile in Detroit.   In March of 1886, operating a vehicle of his own invention,  King took a history-making ride down Woodward Avenue at a rip-roaring six miles an hour.   History records that Henry Ford followed him on a bicycle.  After working for other early auto manufacturers, Charles opened King Motors in 1910, producing sporty cars like the one shown here.

A cobalt glass weight proclaims Haynes as “America’s First Car”  with dubious validity.  As early as 1894, Elwood Haynes built an vehicle that he called the “Pioneer” and claimed that it was the first American automobile well after it was apparent that there were earlier U.S. models.   The Pioneer had no crank and had to be started by pushing it.  Once the engine caught the car moved at a stately seven to eight miles an hour.  The photo shows Elwood sitting in his invention.   Haynes continued to make cars until 1924 when financial problems caused the company to declare bankruptcy and ultimately cease operations.

The Kissel Motor Car Company was an American automobile manufacturer founded by Louis Kissel and his sons in 1906 in Hartford, Wisconsin.  The company built quality gasoline powered automobiles, hearses, taxis,  fire trucks and utility vehicles.  During World War One Kissel prospered, selling trucks to the military but stiff competition and the Great Depression forced it into bankruptcy in 1930.

About the same time that Kissel was crashing the Locomobile Company of America was going out of business.  Founded in 1899, initially in Watertown and later in Bridgeport, Connecticut,  Locomobile began by manufacturng small steam cars.  In1903 the company switched to making internal combustion-powered luxury automobiles.  Bought in 1922 by Durant Motors, the Locomobile line continued until 1929.

The Hupmobile was the brainchild of Robert C. Hupp who began to build automobiles in a factory in Grand Rapids, Michigan in 1908.  The vehicle was introduced to the public at the Detroit Auto Show in 1909.  A year later his production had soared to more than 5,000 units.  After disagreements with investors,  Hupp sold out about 1910.  The new owners were auto pioneers and among the first to use all-steel bodies.   The company survived the Depression and competition to close in 1940.

Based in Anderson, Indiana, the Lambert Automobile Company was founded in 1905 by another automotive pioneer,  John William Lambert.  His Lambert automobile was one of the most successful on the market, eventually selling 3,000 cars a year.  He also produced trucks, fire engines and farm tractors.  Most of these were chain driven, not powered through a drive shaft. With the outbreak of World War in 1917 Lambert converted his factory for defense work,  making explosive shells, caisson wheels and military fire engines.  Recognizing that automobiles were going to be made only by large manufacturers,  after the war Lambert did not resume automobile production.

The Jordan Motor Car Company was founded in 1916 in Cleveland, Ohio, by Edward S. “Ned” Jordan, a former advertising executive turned entrepreneur.  His factory produced what became known as “assembled cars,” using components from other manufacturers.  Jordan’s vehicles were known for their styling and original advertising, rather than their advanced engineering.  Jordan’s theory was that his competition was too dull and drab.  Since people dressed smartly, he reasoned, they wanted smart looking cars.  He provided them with the Jordan until 1931 when the Depression killed his market.

There they are: Ten classic automobiles and ten stories of automotive pioneers and their now vanished companies. The real vehicles, parked one to another, would fill a sizable barn  and cost millions.  Pictured on vintage paperweights, however, they easily can be housed in that proverbial shoe box.  Moreover, they never need a drop of gasoline.





                       


   

Risque Whiskey II: Clothed and Not So

In January 2011,  this bog featured a post dedicated to the various risque advertising and merchandising artifacts that the distilleries, rectifiers (blenders), wholesalers, liquor stores and saloon of the pre-Prohibition era issued to promote themselves and their brands.  In ensuing months I have collected a number of other images from that period that reflect the same “sex sells” attitude.

One thing always to keep in mind about America before 1920 is that women were not allowed in saloons.   That enabled publicans to feature over their bars and at other points within their drinking establishments,  pictures of unclothed or otherwise suggestive images of females, knowing there would be no outrage among their patrons.  For those selling whiskey, therefore, providing a steamy sign that advertised their liquor was a natural.

Five such are shown here.  The first, for Gilt Edge Whiskey, was the flagship brand of Wichman, Lutgen of San Francisco.  The lady, legs akimbo, lies on a red coverlet with a bottle of whiskey next to her.  She seems to be waiting for someone.  Either she or the whiskey is declared “A Treat that Can’t be Beat.”  Perhaps “Guilt Edge” might have been a better name for the booze.  Wichman, Lutgen, founded in 1877,  saw their building destroyed in the great San Francisco earthquake of 1906 and rebuilt, but could not survive Prohibition.

The following bar sign is typical of many in which a demure young lass with flowing hair is shown draped loosely in a blank or shawl of some type with a bit, just a tantalizing bit of a breast showing. It was issued specifically for bars by Auge’s for its G and H brand whiskey. So far my research has not been able to uncover either the brand or the outfit that issued it. 

The sign advertising White Seal Whiskey points up another frequent scheme for showing female nudity:   Place the ladies in a mythical or Oriental scene.  Here a pair of young lovers -- she bare breasted -- are being escorted down their river of love on a flower garlanded boat by no fewer than five totally nude river nereids.  This was a very popular bar sign from the Hulman and Beggs Company of Terre Haute, Indiana.  Herman Hulman, progenitor of the famous Hulman motor racing family,  was in the liquor business for many years but his alliance with John Beggs apparently lasted only from 1894 to 1896.

The fairy atop the Old Maid Whiskey sign clearly has a kinship with Hulman’s sea nymphs  and even more generously proportioned and clearly delineated.  When Orene Parker, a Covington KY rectifier,  took Old Maid as his flagship brand, he initially advertised and labeled the whiskey with a sour faced old maid.   The owner of a vaudeville theater and showman,  it apparently did not take Orene long to decide that a more appealing image might sell better.


Gustav Fleischmann,  part of the well-known Fleischmann yeast and distilling family,  did not take long to decide that a saucy sign might help sell his principal label,  Gold Grain Whiskey.  Gustav, an immigrant from Germany, apparently liked his ladies with amplitude.  Thus the woman on his saloon sign has a particularly robust backside.   Partners in a Buffalo wholesale liquor firm from about 1882, Fleischmann bought out his partner about 1893 and changed its name to the Buffalo Distilling Company.  It survived until 1918.

Another format for risque images were paper items like calendars and trade cards.  These would be given out to customers of all stripes to remind them of the proprietor and his wares.  The first here shows a quintet of comely maidens each dressed from head to toe and hardly scandalous in appearance except for the five cats peeking from their bloomers.  With a calendar attached, this image could be referred to on a daily basis for a year.

The trade cards that follow are from a single whiskey man whose name was Simon Hirsch.
A German immigrant who settled first in Leadville, Colorado, serving whiskey to silver miners, Hirsch moved on to Kansas City where he founded a very successful whiskey business. There his flagship brand was Quaker Maid rye.  Initially his label and advertising showed a modestly clad damsel.  But the racy images of the boomtown obviously prevailed and his ads featured women in various stages of nudity, but,  just as interesting, a male presence to ogle them.  Hirsch founded his business in 1877 and continued selling whiskey until 1918 when he switched to selling an alcohol-laced patent medicine.

Still a third format for using risque images in merchandising liquor was the use of the tip tray.   These were liberally provided to saloons and restaurants for use on the bar or by servers to present a bill, hold the payment, bring the change, and, presumably, find their tip.   The Edwin Schiele Distilling Co. put a bare breasted goddess on their tray advertising Autocrat Whiskey, their flagship label.  She seems to be emerging from a shimmer of silk or maybe soapsuds, but clearly thirsty for a shot of the good stuff.  The company was founded by Edwin Schiele about 1900 and lasted until Missouri went dry in 1918.


Thomas Moore, who billed his whiskey as coming from Possum Hollow, Pennsylvania, similarly found an outdoor setting for his tip tray nude,  reminiscent of the Manet painting “Luncheon on the Grass,”  but a whiskey bottle where a wine bottle would be.  Moore, who was forced by poverty to suspend his schooling at 14,  became very rich working in both the distilling and mining industries.   He died in 1898 but his firm continued until Prohibition.

Our final example is, to my mind the most sensuous of the lot.  It appears on a tip tray issued by the I. (for Isadore) Trager Company of Cincinnati, whose principal brand was “Cream of Kentucky.”  The image is of a red haired, bare-breasted woman with a come-hither look in her eyes.  The tray identifies her as the “Cream of Kentucky”  but clearly not the kind of girl one takes home to Mother.  Trager founded his firm in 1886 and met with financial success until Ohio voted “dry” in 1916.




 

Metal Whiskeys and the Louisville Brothers-in-Law

This is the third in a series of articles on metal whiskey objects,  the first two having been posted in December 2010 and September 2011.  This one focusses on just two distillers,  Isaac Bernheim, creator of the famous I.W. Harper Brand, and his brother-in-law,  Nathan M. Uri.  Each issued multiple whiskey-related containers of metal, perhaps in competition with each other.

Bernheim, born in Germany,  emigrated to the United States in 1867 with $4.00 in his pocket.  For a while he worked as a peddler,  traveling through Pennsylvania on horseback selling household items to housewives.   Then his horse died.  So he packed up and moved to Paducah, Kentucky, where he went to work in the liquor trade.  More important,  Isaac met the Uri family,  long established Kentucky residents who for years had been in the whiskey business.   He married Amanda Uri and in 1872 joined up with her brother, Nathan, in a liquor sales firm called Bernheim Bros. and Uri.  (The other Bernheim brother was Bernard whom Isaac had brought from Germany).

Because of Paducah’s proximity to large waterways,  the business grew rapidly.  About 1888,  the company bought the Pleasure Ridge Park Distillery and renamed it the Bernheim Distillery Company.  About the same time,  the Bernheims and Uri moved their business to Louisville, in order to be closer to their distillery.   Soon they began the production of an elite whiskey brand called I.W. Harper, a name they had trademarked in 1879.

Within three years of the move,  Nathan Uri had left the partnership and in 1893 set up his own firm.  called N.M. Uri & Co.  The reasons for the split, to my knowledge, have never been adequately explained.  Uri bought his own whiskey production facility, the International Distillery at Hunters Station, Kentucky.  His principal brand was “Parker Rye” which he advertised nationally.   His business flourished as did Bernheim Bros.

Each brother-in-law featured multiple “full metal jackets” either to contain or advertise their whiskey.   Shown here first are three such items from Bernheim brothers.  The Old Harper decanter is labeled “quadruple silver plate.”  It carries no maker’s mark but probably was the product of the Homan Silver Plate Company.  Founded in 1847, it was located in Cincinnati and produced such silver objects for distilleries, breweries, hotels, restaurants and even riverboat companies.

The two teapots following were made by other companies.  The just plain “Harper” teapot was the product of the Taunton Silver Company. During the 19th century, Taunton became known as the "Silver City", as it was home to many silversmithing operations, including Reed & Barton, F.B. Rogers, and Taunton Silver.

The second teapot is marked on the bottom as quadruple silver plate and the product of the Western Silver Metal Company.  Brothers-in-law Louis Schnitzer and Nathan Gelfman had both been experienced metalworkers in their homeland of Kiev, Russia.  In the early 1920s, they were polishing and plating silver at their silver housewares business in New York City called Western Silver Works, Inc.  This may have been one of their products.

Not to be outdone by the Isaac Bernheim,  Nathan Uri also produced multiple metal items for his whiskey.  The silver decanter marked “Parker Rye” on the base is a Homan-made product.  It is marked “Special Metal,” another name for silver soldered silver “quadruple” plate.  The whiskey jug that follows mimics the shape of many ceramic jugs of the time.  It says “Parker” on one side and “Rye” on the other.  It is marked quadruple plated with a shamrock logo and “afc co.” 

The third container is a whiskey dispenser with a spigot.  It presumably could hold a gallon or so of Parker Rye and be ready for the saloonkeeper to turn the handle.  Because it was impossible to tell just what these back of the bar items were dispensing,  they were banned by law after the repeal of Prohibition.

Uri issued two teapots.  The first shown here advertises “R. H. Parker Whiskey.”  I personally like the simple but elegant lines of this object.  My notes, unfortunately, are silent on its maker.  The second teapot, shown in in two views,  is once again a Homan product.  The base also says that it is warranted quadruple plate, with an additional statement “808 Special H Metal.”

Why are these brothers-in-law each responsible for issuing to favored customers these several whiskey metal artifacts?  My guess that rivalry between them spurred each to try to outdo the other in providing attractive containers for bar use.  Whether Uri was imitating Bernheim or Bernheim was imitating Uri, however, remains undetermined.

Politicians with Feats of Clay

It is 2012. The country is immersed in national politics, with the primary seasons over and the head-to-head between Barak Obama and Mitt Romney in full steam. Accordingly it seems appropriate to take a look at how Presidential contenders and their parties have been captured in ceramics down through the years. 

 Grover Cleveland was the first Democratic President following the Civil War. . Cleveland also is the only U.S. President to serve two nonconsecutive terms (1885–1889 and 1893–1897) and therefore is the only individual to be counted twice in the numbering of the presidents.  He also was a man of tremendous girth so that it is not clear whether the pottery pig shown here was a ceramic artifact from his supporters or his detractors.

Teddy Roosevelt became Chief Executive in 1901 when, as vice president, President McKinley was assassinated.  Roosevelt was 42 years old when sworn in as President of the United States in 1901, making him the youngest president ever. Known for his “cowboy” persona,  Roosevelt declared once that in foreign affairs it was good to “walk softly but carry big stick.”   An enterprising potter incorporated that idea in a corked whiskey flask. The item probably dates from Teddy’s second term, 1905-1909.

The small whiskey jug shown here was entirely appropriate vessel to  carry the name of  “Al Smith.”   Smith,  an Irishman, a Catholic and a very popular governor of New York, was an unabashed “Wet.”  That is, he opposed National Prohibition of alcohol which had been imposed in 1920.  His opponent, Herbert Hoover was a Dry and in the election of 1928 he trounced Smith in a landslide.

 Old timers may remember the time when the rooster was a popular symbol of Democrats.  In the 20th Century it was the donkey that came to epitomize the party of Jefferson and Jackson.  Here it is a ceramic figural labeled “New Deal Coin Bank.” The designation likely was a sarcastic comment on President Franklin Roosevelt’s programs which were widely attacked by for allegedly putting money into Democratic  coffers.

Like the donkey, the elephant has become a familiar object in political parlance as a symbol for the Republican Party.   Less well known may be Everett Dirksen, after whom one of the Washington D.C. Senate office buildings is named.  In December 1943, Congressman Dirksen announced that he would be a candidate for the Republican Presidential nomination in 1944. He stated that a coalition of Midwestern Republican Congressmen had urged him to run and that his campaign was serious.  Word was he really was trying to syphon votes away from another Midwest Republican, Wendell Wilkie, or was angling to become vice president.  When all was said and done, Dirksen received not a single vote for either office at the 1944 Republican Convention. He subsequently would be elected to the U.S. Senate and part of the Republican leadership there.

 Adlai Stevenson was another politician who twice sought the presidency.   Stevenson had been a very successful governor of Illinois and the Democratic Party was strongly behind his candidacy.  But in the elections of both 1952 and 1956 he faced Dwight D. Eisenhower,  a World War Two general and hero.  A coffee cup depicted Stevenson apparently riding the Demo donkey toward the White House.  He never got there.

 The ceramic ashtray, next in line,  is clearly a satire with its message: “Nixon and Agnew in ‘76.” By the time of the 1976 Presidential campaign,  Richard Nixon had left the White House in disgrace over Watergate and Spiro Agnew had preceded him from the vice presidency because of a criminal conviction in Maryland.  Neither was in the slightest contention for the Republican nomination.  Jerry Ford and Nelson Rockefeller were the (losing) GOP candidates that year.  The winner, however, was a man whose toothy grin marked a field day for cartoonists and caricaturist -- Jimmy Carter.  His face is unmistakable on a ceramic coffee mug.

Beer mugs and coffee cups frequently have been the utilitarian ceramic of choice for political comment.   The elephants shown here, dancing in line, date from 1987 during the Reagan Administration.  Republicans in Congress were well known for hewing to party discipline and doing the will of the President.  The cup is an affectionate spoof on “keeping the party line.”

 Our final piece brings the story pretty much up to date.   The last ceramic is a small statue of George W. Bush.   Bush is as recognizable on the item as the former President as Jimmy Carter on the coffee mug.  Nevertheless, I am somewhat mystified by the crown.   In fairness, whatever Bush’s shortcomings may have been, taking on imperial airs was not one of them.   That said, the statue fully is in the American tradition of satirizing our leaders.

 Here we have seen politicians described and sometimes satirized in pottery “feats of clay.”  Not a new phenomenon.  We have seen examples ranging for more than 132 years in American history.  Let’s hope the tradition lasts another 127 years, one symbol of free speech in America.  And, by the way,  a source of interesting collectibles.







 

Curing Malaria Without a Clue

I have a abiding fascination with the quack medicine purveyors and their phony wares of the 19th and early 20th Century before food and drug laws helped to shut many of them down. Of particular interests are the nostrums and accompanying advertisements to cure malaria at a time when no one had a clue to what malaria was, how it was spread, or how to treat it.

Lack of knowledge never inhibited the “medical messiahs,” as one author has called them. In fact, utter ignorance was their friend since the ordained medical profession did not have much of an idea about malaria either. The disease, often called “ague” in an earlier day, is believed to have been in existence for centuries.

It was a familiar plague among Civil War soldiers who often were camped in marshy ground in order to be near sources of water. The mosquitoes that carry the disease were endemic to such locations. Ayers Ague Cure. “warranted to sure all malarial disorders,” took advantage of this identification with swamps in its trade card advertising. The scene is a Louisiana bayou or Florida wetlands. Even an alligator is sick and being fed the ague cure by frogs.

During the U.S. military occupation of Cuba and the construction of the Panama Canal. At the time, malaria and yellow fever were a major cause of death and disease among the workers constructing the canal. Of the more than 26,000 people working on the Canal in 1906, more than 21,000 were hospitalized for malaria. Ayers, a patent medicine firm that made a multimillionaire of its owner, was quick to pick up on the Panama connection, showing a compesino being ministered to by his lady friend. Malaria also was a scourge in other parts of the United States. In the late 1870s the number of cases peaked and victims ran close to a million annually. In some localities malaria was the cause of one death in seven.

Brown’s Iron Bitters was a quack medicine merchandised to mothers with trade cards stressing its value for babies and toddlers. A analysis of Brown’s Iron Bitters in 1883 indicated that it contained cocaine and 39% alcohol, virtually the alcoholic strength of whiskey. The potion also contained phosphorus, calisaya bark and, yes, even some iron: Just the thing for baby. Although Brown’s Iron Bitters sold well, it was not until the proprietor claimed that the medicine also cured malaria that sales soared. Brown declared in his merchandising that his Iron Bitters was “a sure antidote again malarial poison, fever, and ague and other intermittent fevers.”

Using a considerably less dramatic image than Brown to sell his product was G.G. Green.
Green, a Yankee colonel in the Civil War, started a wholesale drug business in Baltimore soon after the conflict, then moved successively to Ohio and New Jersey. It was after he bought the rights to several nostrums that he found his groove. . George created a marketing campaign involving mass mailings of free samples, and the distribution of thousands of his almanacs. His elixirs, including the Ague Conqueror, were found to be mostly derivatives of opium. The Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 spelled an end to his business and the Ague Conqueror met its demise about 1916.

If opium was a common ingredient in anti-malarial nostrums, so was alcohol. Perrine’s Barley Malt Whiskey, shown touted in a trade card as a “specific” for malaria and other ailments was not the product of a drug outfit, but a Philadelphia whiskey distributor. The Perrines had discovered that in addition to its “Palace Gin,” “Palace Rye,” and other liquor brands, a whiskey nostrum would add significant cash to the till. The picture of a winsome lass filling the orders from the ague-stricken on its trade card was added indication that it was, as advertised, “pure.”

Chambers & Brown of Louisville were also promoting whiskey as a remedy that would fix loss of appetite, bronchitis and malaria, all in the same big gulp. But to the alcohol they added an ingredient called “boneset,” which was just then becoming the darling herb of the quack medicine crowd. It is a common plant that grows in low meadows and damp ground throughout North America, The popular name Boneset is said to have been derived from use of this remedy in the treatment of a particular flu because the pain attending it was commonly called “Break-Bone Fever.” Boneset is reputed to have been a favorite in the pharmacology of Native Americans. They called it by a name equivalent to “ague-weed,” not indicating if it caused or cured the disease. Since Chambers & Brown knew nothing about malaria, why not cure it with an herb about which they also knew nothing?

Edwin Wiley Grove actually put something in his “Grove’s Tasteless Chill Tonic” that would relieve malaria symptoms. Quinine had been known for centuries as alleviating the chills and fever of the disease. Its bitter taste, however, rendered it unpopular. Grove is quoted to have said: “I had a little drug business in Paris, Tennessee, just barely making a living, when I got up a real invention, tasteless quinine. As a poor man and a poor boy, I conceived the idea that whoever could produce a tasteless chill tonic, his fortune was made.” His enterprise was called the Paris Medicine Company and it made him a fortune. Grove’s advertising was a bit startling, however, with a baby’s head superimposed on a pig’s body and the assertion that the tonic makes children and adults “as fat as pigs.”

Lash’s Kidney and Liver bitters also employed a wee tot who is crying over his chamber pot while his puppy looks on. Because this nostrum claims to a sure cure so many ills, including malaria, we can speculated on what is bothering the youngster. Noting that it also is said to be good for constipation, perhaps that is what is on the little one’s mind.

Prior’s Ague Cure made its trade card prop the primitive phonograph of the time, broadcasting the word that it cured malaria “in any form” or money would be refunded. P.J. Prior was a druggist in Plainfield, Connecticut, who advertised his nostrum widely. We can assume that his ague cure was swallowed in some form. The Holman folks would cure your malaria by application of their medicinal pad. It was, they averred, “the only true cure for all forms of malaria.” By the way, it also was a “sovereign remedy” for liver and stomach troubles of undefined origin.

Interestingly enough, the American Medical Association which spent a great deal of time, money and effort in debunking various quackeries, never spent much time on malaria cures. My theory is that the real medical experts of the time had so little knowledge of the disease that they largely refrained from comment. During the 20th Century a great deal of knowledge about malaria was gained and its incidence in the United States virtually was eliminated. Worldwide, however, malaria remains a scourge . While millions of dollars have been spent to find a preventative inoculation, including U.S. government money I myself authorized in the 1970s, a solution continues to be elusive.