Vintage Boy Band

Well, how adorable is this trade card?  A vintage boy band!

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Vintage Niagara Starch Trade Card Printable

In 1898 people living in suburban Buffalo, New York were used to having factories in their neighborhoods.  Men liked being able to walk to work rather than pay to take a streetcar.  July 14th of that year was a day like any other day where children were outside playing and men were making their way home from a day of work when at about 5 p.m. an explosion came from the Niagara Starch Works plant, one of the boilers had exploded.  

The Buffalo Express described the scene:  "The Three floors of the milling department of the factory, which really made up Building A, had sunk to the level of the floor of the second floor. The roof was still attached to the edge of the building of Building B and it sloped from this roof to the center of the ruin of Building A. Two monstrous vats, which had held some sort of chemical used in the manufacture of starch, had tipped out of the second floor and sagged to the sidewalk on Oneida Street."

All four Niagara workers inside the boiler were killed.  But two babies and a mother were killed nearby from falling debris and another 25 people were injured, of which 11 were children under the age of 16.  Blocks of houses and storefronts closest to the blast suffered severe damage.  The Buffalo Express reported:  "Howard Street looked like a brick factory and a glass factory after a huge rolling machine had passed through them. The street was literally covered with broken glass and broken brick."

The owner of a grocery store located 500 yards away from the explosion reported that a 2.5 foot piece of steel weighing 107 pounds landed on the sidewalk outside his store.  

The cause of the explosion could not be determined because no part of the boiler remained and all four people inside of it were killed.   A story like this makes me thankful that we have zoning regulations that keep factories from being built in the middle of our neighborhoods as well as preventing developers from building homes around factories.

Here is a trade card from the Niagara Starch Company.  By the way:  Niagara Spray Starch is still sold today and is owned by Phoenix Brands of Connecticut, which owns several brands you have also heard of, including Rit Dye.

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Vintage Bon Marche Trade Card

Oh those wacky gents in their flying machines!

The inscription at the bottom of this trade card says:  The latest in air navigation.  Au Bon Marche translated means:  The Good Market or The Good Deal.  The Bon Marche began as a small shop in Paris in 1838 and is considered to be the world's first department store. 

Not sure what the Bon Marche had to do with air navigation but I love this whimsical trade card! Very imaginative machine.

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Vintage European Hotel Luggage Labels

I have a couple of lovely vintage hotel luggage labels for you today

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Click on image to download

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Vintage Trade Card

A lovely vintage trade card for you today

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Enjoy!

Vintage Silk Trade Cards

Japan had a massive silk trade across a 4,000 mile road called Silk Road.  Silk was more valuable than gold and was often traded for precious metals and other valuable goods.

Here are a couple Japanese silk trade cards

 Click on image to download

Click on image to download

Enjoy!

Vintage Ad

Here's a sweet little ad from a time gone by

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Vintage Girls

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Click on image to download

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The Rise and Fall of America's Textile Industry

The Willimantic Cotton Mills Company was founded in 1854 to process flax into goods and eventually changed over to all cotton.  The original plant was situated on the Willimantic River in Connecticut.  The company was started with $75,000 and within 18 years had amassed a fortune of $1,000,000 and used this fortune for improvements to their factory as well as donations to charities in Hartford.

For more than 150 years the textile industry in New England and along the Willimantic River had employed thousands of workers in their mills and helped build a thriving New England economy.  But in the early 1960's, one by one, these textile mills began to shut their doors and shift their operations to Mexico.  And in 1985 life in New England changed forever - the last textile mill closed.

We have seen this scenario play out across the United Stated in the last 25 years in almost all of the industries of the great Industrial Age here in America.  In the last 10 years alone 50,000 factories have closed their doors in the United States and took millions upon millions of American jobs with them.  And those jobs are never coming back.  

Our generation has witnessed the decline of industry and with it the decline of America's middle class.  The rise and fall of New England's textile industry was a predictor of what was to befall the entire nation.  When the mills and the factories thrived so did the local economies, as did science and technology.  But we don't make anything any more.

How can a country the size of the United States sustain itself when the middle class - the heart and soul and backbone of our country - has been essentially decimated?

The United States used to have the highest standard of living in the world thanks in great part to the factories and mills that employed millions, where we actually made stuff.  But for the last 25 years or so we have fallen way down the list in education and infant mortality for example.  And to think that thread and textiles predicted it all.  So sad and something I never thought I would witness in my lifetime.

The Willimantic Cotton Mills Company became quite famous for ads promoting their thread.  

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Here I have removed the writing on the chalkboard

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Here is another lovely trade card

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Thanks to the Millmuseum.org

and Textilehistory.org

for the information used to create this post.

Enjoy!

Fashionable Gentlemen's Trade Cards

I have a couple of very dapper gentlemen for you today.  It's hard to find a man who doesn't look good in a tuxedo!  What do you think ladies?

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It's hard to image a time when men's fashion shirts consisted of only collars and cuffs!  Remember dickies?

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Enjoy!

Vintage Dr. Thomas' Eclectric Oil - The Original Ben Gay?

Sometime during the 1840's Dr. Thomas' Eclectric Oil emerged onto the scene as a liniment and a cure for whatever ailed you - everything from a toothache to a bunyon.  It contained:

Spirits of Turpentine
Camphor
Oil of Tar
Red Thyme
Fish Oil

  Often these "medicines" were sold at carnivals and fairs, but we now know them as "snake oils".

  Ben Gay is a product we have all heard of and is very likely sitting in your medicine cabinet right now - compare some of the ingredients of Ben Gay to the ingredients of Dr. Thomas's Eclectric Oil:

menthol 

camphor 

carbomer

  isopropyl alcohol
castor oil

sodium hydroxide 

Very interesting, don't you think?  Well, whatever works I guess!

Actually, Ben Gay was developed in France and brought to America in 1898.

Not sure if Dr. Thomas's Eclectric Oil worked or not but I sure love these trade cards with the kitties for his product!

Click on image to download

Click on image to download 

Enjoy!

Vintage Sprague Electric Company Ad and Blog Giveaway

Our blog giveaway ends Sunday, September 11th at midnight PST.  Find out all the details here.

Today's post is about the Sprague Electric Company.  Frank Sprague was an American inventor born in 1857.  Sprague contributed to the inventions of the electric motor, railways and elevators and invented the trolley pole which delivered electricity to trolley cars.

His contributions in the areas of electricity and transportation allowed for the growth of cities and urban areas.

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Free Vintage Clip Art - Vintage New York Color Plate Ad

This gorgeous ad is circa 1904.  The New York Color Plate Company developed a  method of adding more colors in the film development process which they called quadri color.  

So beautiful

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Here is another ad from the same company

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Enjoy!

Free Vintage Clip Art - Vintage "Christy Girl" Recruitment Poster

Vintage Howard Chandler Christy Recruitment Poster

Howard Chandler Christy was an American illustrator and artist, most notably known for his "Christy Girl" illustrations, similar to the "Gibson Girls".

He first gained attention with his paintings of the Spanish-American War that were published in Harper's Magazine, among others.  In 1940 he painted the Scene at the Signing of the Constitution of the United States which hangs in the House of Representatives wing of the Untied States Capital Building.  Some of his work is on display at the New York City restaurant Cafe des Artistes.

 This poster is from 1918 and features one of Christy's "Christy Girls"

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Enjoy!

Free Vintage Clip Art - Vintage Hotel Mason Poster

Vintage Hotel Mason in Jacksonville, Florida

The Hotel Mason was built in 1912 and sat on the corner of Bay and Julia Streets.  It had 250 rooms and had a cafe on the top floor overlooking the St. James River.

In 1950 the Hotel Mason became the Hotel Mayflower and boasted that every room had a private bathroom, radio, air conditioning and a rooftop lounge.  In 1978 the Mayflower and other buildings on the block were demolished to make room for the Southern Bell Tower.

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Enjoy!

Free Vintage Clip Art - Vintage Trade Cards

Vintage Trade Cards

I love this sweet little image!  It's true that little birds will make a nest almost anywhere.  I've even seen a little bird's nest inside of a garage in a raccoon's tail hanging on a wall.  Oh my.

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This is a beautiful card

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Enjoy!

Free Vintage Clip Art - Vintage Poster by Leonetto Cappiello

Vintage Poster by Leonetto Cappiello

Born in Italy in 1875 Leonetto Cappiello lived in Paris and was the first poster artist that used bold images that seemed to jump right out of a dark background.  Cappiello had no formal art training but had his first exhibit at the age of 17.  Between 1901 and 1914 he created hundreds of posters that revolutionized the art of poster design.  All in all he created more that 530 posters that are highly collectible by dealers around the world.

Here is one of his brilliant posters

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Enjoy!

Free Vintage Clip Art - Vintage De Dion Bonton Automobile Poster

De Dion Bonton was a French car maker and for a time was the world's largest automobile manufacturer.

The world's oldest car, powered by steam and built in France in 1884 by De Dion-Bouton and nicknamed "La Marquis" had an estimated value of $1.5 and $2 million!

The car was fueled with wood, coal and bits of paper and took about a half an hour to build up enough steam to drive and its top speed was 38 miles an hour.  This vehicle also won the world's first car race in 1888.

The car in this poster is not the car mentioned above but this is a great advertising poster

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 Enjoy!

Free Vintage Clip Art - Hood Trade Card and Vintage Bottle

Hood Advertising Label

The C.I. Hood Company sold a wide variety of over the counter medicines and by 1897 the company had the largest laboratory in the world dedicated to the manufacturer of patent medicine.  The 175,000 square foot, five story building contained a state of the art bottling machine that could produce 10,000 bottles per day for their various elixirs.  

Hood's advertising department took up almost half of their giant building.  Their printing room contained eighteen printing presses, two newspaper presses and a color printing press that was the largest in the world!  Their presses produced trade cards, jigsaw puzzles, posters, games, cookbooks, pamphlets and newsletters.

Here is an example of Hood's advertising

I love this trade card!

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And here is bottle like the kind Hood may have put his elixirs in

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Enjoy!

Free Vintage Clip Art - The Corset Controversy

The Corset Controversy

Vintage Corset Trade Cards

European women began wearing corsets in the 1500's.  In the 1790's there was a break in this tradition that coincided with the French Revolution when the styles changed to Empire waistlines.  In the 1820's the styles changed again and the waist became the focal point of fashion and the corset resumed its dominant role in women's fashion.  Doctors and much of the media deplored the undergarment.

The Corset Controversy was a series of letters and articles that appeared in newspapers and magazines in the 19th century.  The controversy raged for decades.  Women wrote to varies media in the United States and Europe complaining about the requirement that they wear them.  Laura Ingalls Wilder even wrote about the issue in her book Little Town on the Prairie.

Fashions again changed in the early 1900's and that was the beginning of the end of the corset and the misery of women everywhere!

Here are a couple of corset trade cards

Click on image to download

Click on image to download

Enjoy!