Safer Than Water

Despite some of the more inebriating effects, for thousands of years people considered beer a healthier alternative to water. But prior to the 19th century, they did not understand why beer was safer. Many just held the belief that beer was not dangerous and water was harmful and could not be trusted, unaware that they were routinely polluting their own fresh water sources. Despite beer's "healthier" reputation, it could still go bad through bacterial contamination and/or poor sanitation and fermentation.

For many Early American and European brewers, beer went bad quite often. In a letter dated 1623, George Sandy of the Virginia colony wrote, "It would well please the country to hear he had taken revenge of Dupper for his Stinking [sic] beer, which hath been the death of 200." Like most food or beverage products, beer is not immune to bacterial growth or becoming rank from improper brewing practices. But through increased discoveries and understanding of the scientific study of microorganisms and biochemistry during the 19th century, brewing consistent quality beer became the norm by the 1880s.    

While Louis Pasteur is most famous for his discoveries in the causes and prevention of diseases, his lesser known research in fermentation was a giant leap forward for the brewing world. Pasteur began that work in 1857, examining distilling problems and eventually turning his attention to beer yeasts and their fermentation.   

Anheuser Busch advertisement, Warshaw Collection of Business Americana, ca. 1724-1977, Beer Series. Archives Center, National Museum of American History.  NMAH-AC0060-0002897-02.

After two decades, in 1876 Pasteur published his findings, "Études sur la Bière." He found that beer became foul not from "spontaneous generation," but when harmful bacteria were introduced at some point in the fermentation process, thus rendering the beer contaminated. Applying his discovery of bacterial effects on fermentation to his pasteurization process, he was able to produce bacteria-free brewer's yeast samples. But this was not the final step in improving the quality of beer or research in brewer's yeasts.         

Besides problems with bacterial infection, the accidental introduction of undesirable yeast strains also spoiled beer. Prior to the late 19th century, breweries struggled to control the type of yeast strains in the brewing process. Most batches of beer commonly contained more than one strain of yeast, each imparting its own characteristics. Multiple strains affected the fermentation, as well as the taste and smell of the beer; for many brewers, producing a consistent flavor and quality proved difficult at best.  Even modern brewing giant Carlsberg Brewery was no different than many other brewers in their struggle to produce beer of consistent quality.   

Soon after Pasteur published his research, Jacob Christian Jacobsen, founder of Carlsberg Brewery, read it. Motivated by the findings and his desire to brew high-quality beer, Jacobsen built a laboratory within his brewery.  But despite his financial ability to build a state-of-the-art lab, he needed a scientist to head the laboratory. Upon the recommendation of a friend, Jacobsen hired botanist Emil Christian Hansen for the position in 1877.   

Phillip Best Brewing advertisement, Warshaw Collection of Business Americana, ca. 1724-1977,
Beer Series, Archives Center, National Museum of American History. NMAH-AC0060-0002759-01.

Hansen's primary task was to investigate various issues that caused inconsistency. Through his research, Hansen had found that the yeast sample Carlsberg used had become contaminated with a second and different strain.  What he found was that not all yeast strains produced a positive effect in the fermentation process; some yeast strains were harmful to beer and fermentation.    

Utilizing Pasteur's research, Hansen developed a method to isolate and create individual-pure yeast strains.  By November 1883, Carlsberg brewed its first batch utilizing the pure strain, which Hansen named Saccharomyces Carlsbergensis.  The following year, all beer brewed by Carlsberg Brewery used this strain. But what do Pasteur's and Hansen's discoveries have to do with American beer?  

The same year Pasteur published his "Études sur la Bière," Anheuser-Busch's founder, Adolphus Busch, read the work and became the first American brewer to institute a pasteurization process in bottling his beer.  This insured Anheuser-Busch produced a bacteria-free product, resulting in a fresher tasting and better preserved beverage.  Pasteurization allowed Busch to ship his beer long distances, thus transforming Anheuser-Busch from a mostly local brewery to a national and even international prominence almost overnight. 

While Pasteur's discoveries in pasteurization caught immediate American attention, Hansen's contributions to brewing were not far behind.  The same year Carlsberg began using its pure strain, William Uihlein, owner of Schlitz Brewery in Milwaukee, reportedly bought a sample of Saccharomyces Carlsbergensis for his beer. Within a few years, additional American breweries, Pabst, Wahl-Henius, and Dewes, instituted the use of pure yeast strains, as well as employing chemists.   

Schlitz Brewing advertisement, Warshaw Collection of Business Americana, ca. 1724-1977,
Beer Series, Archives Center, National Museum of American History, NMAH-AC0060-0002775-01.

By the end of the 19th century, Pasteur's and Hansen's work played a significant role in transforming local American breweries into giants of American industry. The discoveries of these two European scientists brought new understanding to the roles of yeast and bacteria in brewing. And people finally knew why beer was safer than water to drink. 

Joe Hursey, Reference Archivist, Archives Center, National Museum of American History

Behind the Archives: Donation and Acquisition of a 10,000-Piece Collection

Collections frequently take a long journey from acquisition to access. Many of the patrons who visit the Archives Center at the National Museum of American History (NMAH) are there to use this amazing repository for research, but don’t know how the material got there. 

This question of how and who donated or sold the material made me interested in finding a donor or seller who gave a collection to the museum and would be willing to tell me about it. That’s how I was introduced to William (Larry) Bird, Ph.D. and his postcard collection. This blog post will take you through my first-hand experience with the donation and acquisition process.

Larry is a bit of a donor anomaly, as he is a former Curator at NMAH in the political history division and is now a curator emeritus in the same division. I had the pleasure of sitting down with him and discussing his very large collection. His picture postcard collection consists of over 10,000 postcards of a very unusual variety. Larry described how this collection was begun accidentally, stemming from another project he was working on at the time. He first became interested in postcards with holiday themes as depicted in window fronts, stores, and parades, for his book Holidays on Display. Larry became increasingly fascinated with postcards and attended paper and postcard shows. This is how he amassed most of his collection, because “you could get one of them for basically a nickel.” He also clarified that the reason many of them were so cheap was due to their being primarily from the 1950s with a glossy finish. To the “high-brow” collectors these were postcards whose value was low, and therefore they didn’t mind letting go of them.

BIG HAIR: Early American by Hanover Kitchens Limited Hanover Ontario Canada
Early American is the atmosphere created by this attractive kitchen, with its authentic looking hammered iron hardware and rich brown Honey Beige color. Courtesy William L. Bird. Archives Center, National Museum of American History. 

However, to Larry, these postcards captured moments in American history and what we deemed worthy of putting on a postcard. Many of them advertised products and services. “[It was a great window into] people and their stuff.” He donated his collection to the Archives Center in May of 2018. Bird curated the collection in three ways. First, he always had specific objectives while collecting. Second, he physically arranged the postcards into topical categories like “Dams” and “Horses”. Third, he created a Flickr account that links fun and innovative topics across categories. An example of such a category is “Saddle Up,” containing “vintage postcards of horses, ponies, [and] riders riding.” These categories give us a peek into the many stores, motels, hairstyles, clothes, and other entities that have since disappeared. When asked which category of his collection was his favorite, he chuckled and replied, “Big Hair.” Big Hair is also categorized under “Allure and beauty” and “Vintage postcards”. The image featured here was actually an advertisement for kitchen cabinets, but placing it in the “Big Hair” category provides added cultural meaning. Due to the way he organized his collection, the Archives Center now can maintain his insights while processing. 

Bird also digitized ALL of his postcards and made them available via Flickr. The Archives Center will get to take advantage of his work by using his scans to provide access to the collection. With Larry’s role finished, the collection is now ready to continue its journey into the hands of researchers.

Foucault Pendulum, Museum of History and Technology, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC
The Foucault Pendulum demonstrates the rotation of the earth. The earth (and therefore the floor) rotates daily, while the pendulum always swings in the same straight line and therefore lags behind. Courtesy William L. Bird. Archives Center, National Museum of American History. 

The job of an acquisition archivist is a very exciting and complex endeavor. An archivist is a person who strives to “understand and preserve the past on behalf of the future”. Acquisition is the first step the collection takes on its way to being preserved for the future and taking its place in the repository. When a collection makes its way into a repository it is usually either a donation or a purchase. Here at the Smithsonian Institution, there are policies in place that must be followed in order to acquire a collection for the Museum’s Archives Center. The Archives Center’s primary acquisition archivist is Craig Orr. Craig explained to me that the first step he takes is to make sure a prospective collection fits the mission of the Museum and Archives Center. Once he has determined that a collection will "fit," he must get it approved by the chair of the division. While this sounds easy enough, many questions arise when an acquisition is proposed. The acquisition archivist and the chair of the division might not see eye to eye every time when interpreting the mission of the repository. However, once approved, if the collection is over ten cubic feet in size, it also must be approved by the Collections Management Committee. Larry donated over 10,000 postcards but, but the collection size was less than five cubic feet and therefore not reviewed by the committee. The collection now awaits processing in the Archives Center. It was truly amazing to see a collection from the side of the donor and take a peek into the realm of acquisitions.

Today due to the progress of technology we seldom use postcards as a quick means of communication. Most new postcards are purchased nowadays as souvenir items. While they have fallen out of fashion, Larry’s postcards, now Archives Center collection number 1465, the "Larry Bird Postcard Collection," gives us a glimpse into the American past. Through these snapshots of America, we are able to see what photographs were once deemed worthy of circulating as postcards in our ever-changing society.

Sarah K. Rung, Summer 2018 Intern
Archives Center, National Museum of American History

Renaissance of Craft Beer

Today’s beer list includes numerous types and styles such as saison, lambic, coffee, porter, dampf, kriek, stout, Irish, English, Scottish, or bitter; the list seems endless.  As a person who may have tried a beer or two before, I am excited about the infinite variations, styles, and flavors of beer produced today.  But choice wasn’t always an option for beer drinkers.  From 1920-1933, the United States banned the production, sale, and transport of alcoholic beverages under the Eighteenth Amendment, known as Prohibition.  After Prohibition was repealed in 1933, beer production renewed, and you basically had one choice in beer, the American Lager.  This style of beer is light in color and taste, made primarily from barley, rice, hops, water and yeast.

But in the last few decades, there have been drastic changes in state and federal law, allowing for the brewing of up to 200 gallons of beer in the home, expanding our choices in beer.  Today the varieties of beer and their ingredients is almost limitless; if you want a beer made with sriracha sauce, you can have it.  These modern alternatives to the American Lager are not new, but are a reemergence of styles of beer produced by American breweries before Prohibition as depicted in the advertisement below from the “Beer” series of the Warshaw Collection of Business Americana.

Trade card, advertisement for Feigenspan's Breweries, Newark, N.J., ca. 1875-1900.
Warshaw Collection of Business Americana, Archives Center, National Museum of American History.

Before Prohibition, due to limitations on refrigeration and transportation, most beer was produced by small local breweries and consumed immediately.  These small breweries numbered over a thousand throughout the United States, producing a variety of beer.  During the thirteen years of Prohibition, most of these local breweries went out of business and were either sold or merged with existing breweries and businesses.  The breweries that survived this period, endured by changing how or what they produced.  Some were re-purposed as storage warehouses, while others produced soda, ice cream, and other goods and services. 

Many breweries that remained in business during Prohibition marketed and sold their malt extract labeled as a healing tonic or sugar substitute, while the product’s intended purpose was to enable the customers to brew beer in the home.  Although it was illegal for breweries to make and sell beer, it was not illegal to sell the ingredients to consumers so they could illegally make beer at home.  Some even sold the extract in protest to Prohibition, as seen in this American Supply Company advertisement. Many legal cases were brought before the courts to prevent breweries from producing and selling malt, but most cases proved unsuccessful.

Advertisement for malt extract by American Products Co., Cincinnati, Ohio.
Warshaw Collection of Business Americana, Archives Center, National Museum of American History.

In 1933 Congress repealed the Eighteenth Amendment and the surviving breweries immediately began production. Brewers realized that the newly legalization of alcohol was a sensitive subject for many Americans. In order to sway negative opinion surrounding alcohol production and its consumption, breweries began advertising to an underrepresented segment of the American population…women. The older styles and darker beers produced before Prohibition were not seen as palatable for female consumers.

World War II also played a role in the development of the American Lager. Due to increased demands on traditional and expensive grains needed the war effort, American breweries began supplementing Lager beer recipes with rice. These beers, augmented with rice, produced a lighter and softer tasting beer, were more marketable to women, cheaper to produce, and less taxing on grain needed for the war effort. This style of lager became the dominant recipe for most American beers for nearly fifty years. Even though American breweries created this American beer, Americans sacrificed many other beer choices in the process, like dopplebock, weizen, and biere de garde. 

Amsdell Bros. advertisement.

Warshaw Collection of Business Americana,

Archives Center, NMAH

The American Lager remained king of American beers for nearly half a century until the passing of H.R. 1337 in 1979, which legalized the manufacture of beer in the home. Home brewers desiring something different sought out old styles and recipes of American and European of beer to brew. Soon after brewing these forgotten styles, they realized that not only could they brew something new, but that there was an American demand for these beer styles. In the process a new market was born, the micro/craft beer.

The micro and craft beer industry has thrived since. Between 1933 and 1979, there were less than 50 to 100 breweries in the United States. Today there are over 3,500 micro and craft breweries in the United States, and this number is growing. So if you are looking for an old ale, extra stout or even a pumpkin spiced beer, you need look no further than your local micro and craft brewery.

Joe Hursey, Reference Archivist, NMAH Archives Center
National Museum of American History

75th Anniversary of "Gone with the Wind"

This October, the Smithsonian Collections Blog is celebrating American Archives Month with a month-long blogathon! We will be posting new content almost every weekday with the theme Discover and Connect. See additional posts from our other participating blogs, as well as related events and resources, on the Smithsonian’s Archives Month website.

Bulk-mail (postcard) hanging advertisement for the Marlboro Theatre, Upper Marlboro, Maryland, advertising the program for the week of April 14th, 1940, highlighting the premiere of ‘Gone With the Wind’. Robinson and Via Family Papers, Archives Center, National Museum of American History, AC0475-0000269-02).

The David O. Selznick film version of Margaret Mitchell’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, “Gone With the Wind” (GWTW) celebrates the 75th anniversary of its premiere in December 2014. In the current era, when blockbusters, or would-be blockbusters, are released at regular intervals, the excitement around the original opening of GWTW may seem strange to us.  This object of advertising ephemera from the Marlboro Theatre in Upper Marlboro, Prince George’s County, Maryland provides a window into the film’s promotion to a rural audience.  The Marlboro, designed by John Eberson, was built for theatre entrepreneur Sidney Lust and had opened for business in January 1938. 

GWTW did not go into general release until after a star-studded premiere in Atlanta in December 1939.  With immediate popularity and wide critical acclaim the film became the “must see” motion picture event of 1940.  GWTW did not reach Upper Marlboro until April 28, 1940 and Lust used bulk mail to advertise its coming to the Marlboro Theatre’s largely rural customer base.  Lust cleverly used a hanging card and on the reverse side of the GWTW promotional postcard advertised the theatre’s April 14-27 program.  At .75 for unreserved and $1.10 for reserved seating (roughly $12 and $18 in current money), the cost of a GWTW ticket was quite an investment for local tobacco farmers and their families.  The Washington Post reported the day after the opening, “'Gone With the Wind’ opened in three of Sidney Lust’s Maryland theaters yesterday before large and appreciative audiences.  The famous Selznick production was presented simultaneously at the Hyattsville Theater, in Hyattsville; the Milo Theater, in Rockville; and the Marlboro Theater, in Upper Marlboro.” (“Gone With the Wind”, The Washington Post, April 29, 1940, page 16.)



Verso of image above.  A bulk-mail hanging advertisement for the Marlboro Theatre, Upper Marlboro, Maryland advertising other films on the schedule for April 14-27, 1940.   Robinson and Via Family Papers, Archives Center, National Museum of American History, AC0475-0000269-01.

Other Archives Center collections contain material related to this film.  Only a few weeks earlier and about twenty miles away, African Americans had picketed the showing of "Gone with the Wind" at the Lincoln Theatre in the segregated Shaw neighborhood of Washington, D.C.  The film's racist assumptions and stereotyped portrayals of African Americans roused normally complacent residents to mount a protest that foreshadowed the civil rights activism of the 1960s.

"Jim Crow" showing of "Gone with the Wind" / at the uptown Lincoln Theater. Rufus Byars, manager of Lincoln on left.
Probably photographed by Roberts S. Scurlock, March 9, 1940.  Scurlock Studio Records, Archives Center, NMAH

Franklin A. Robinson, Jr.
Archivist, Archives Center
National Museum of American History

The Story of a Company

This October, the Smithsonian Collections Blog is celebrating American Archives Month with a month-long blogathon! We will be posting new content almost every weekday with the theme Discover and Connect. See additional posts from our other participating blogs, as well as related events and resources, on the Smithsonian’s Archives Month website.

Many long lasting companies have unique stories scattered throughout their history, but the success of a company is often from the loyalty of its customers. The W. Atlee Burpee & Company was created by W. Atlee Burpee in 1876 as a mail order poultry business, turning into a successful seed company as an international seller of seeds in the early twentieth century. The Burpee Company gained attention for not only the seeds it sold, but the successful results of its products, gaining loyal customers in return.

Original flyer posting the rules and prizes for the 1924 contest. W. Atlee Burpee & Company Collection, 
Archives of American Gardens, Smithsonian Institution.

In 1924, the Burpee Company launched a prize-contest to recognize its faithful customers by asking them to write “What Burpee’s Seeds Have Done for Me.” Thousands entered for cash prizes by sending letters and photographs to the Philadelphia offices of the Burpee Company. Entries came from all over the world, written by those young and old, to express the impact of these special seeds in their lives. The letters tell the story of the Burpee Company. See more in previous post Seed Stories.

The Archives of American Gardens has an extensive collection of W. Atlee Burpee & Company materials, including a number of these letters from the 1924 contest. As part of a new project with the Smithsonian Transcription Center, these letters are being made viewable for everyone to learn more about the Burpee Company. With the contest closing in August of 1924, all of these letters are ninety years old and capture the history of Americans (and Canadians too) who often found pride and hope in their gardens through Burpee’s seeds.

A sampling of the letters from the 1924 contest.

As the letters are added to the Transcription Center please help us transcribe them! Through your help, we can further the story of the Burpee Company and also understand the impact of gardening in the early twentieth century. Many of these letters express the financial need of gardening or describe the joy of finding the best fruits and vegetables in one’s own backyard. Yet almost every letter offers the same praise, affirming the motto that “Burpee’s seeds grow.”

Catherine Bell
Summer 2014 Intern
Archives of American Gardens

Root Beer Blast from the Past!

Root beer is a small but powerful example of modern print advertising techniques in 19th century America.  The Warshaw Collection of Business Americana holds hundreds of trade cards, advertisements and ephemera.  The collection is organized into hundreds of categories ranging from agriculture to World’s Fairs, and root beer advertisements are found in the “Beverage” series of the Warshaw Collection.  The root beer companies exemplify new marketing schemes and a new way to make profit in patent medicines and “healthful” beverages.  There is also a large “Patent Medicine” series in the Warshaw Collection.

Hires Rootbeer trade card, ca. 1900.

The late 19th century, often known as the Progressive Era, was a time of shifting social customs.  Large corporations sprang up as smaller companies were absorbed or were run out of business.  New manufacturers such as Hires Rootbeer sent their products around the country to local grocers, druggists, and chemists, creating standardized nation-wide products.   Trade cards advertising Hires Rootbeer often give a local name and address to find the product, such as “S.O. Tarbox, Groceries and Drugs, Farmington, Me.”  Hires Rootbeer demonstrates the new way companies sold goods to a national market instead of merely a local one.

Some companies used games or pseudoscience to market their product.  Knapp’s Root Beer used palmistry on an advertisement for their root beer to attract more customers.  The drawing of a hand marked with letters corresponds to explanations on the back which supposedly indicate personality traits of the viewer.  Using palmistry on an advertisement attracted a new group of consumers to the brand.  People learned about the product while looking at the advertisement to figure out what their hands allegedly said about themselves.  Without the palmistry “hook,” consumers might not have given the advertisement a second look.  It is similar to the sponsorship that companies participate in today.  When Coca-Cola sponsors the World Cup they are getting brand notoriety, comparable to Knapp’s Root Beer palmistry.




Trade card for Knapps Root Beer, ca. 1900.

Verso of trade card at left.

Root beer advertisers also took part in the widely-used marketing scheme of patent medicines. Prevalent in the 19th century in America, patent medicines were non-regulated goods that a druggist or chemist would sell to the public claiming (mostly false) cures for common illnesses.  Dr. Buker’s Root and Herb Beer promised to be “a purifier of the blood” and “a stimulator of the digestive organs.”

Trade card for Allen's Root Beer Extract. 

Dr. Buker's Root and Herb Beer
advertising flyer.

Bryant’s Root Beer was used as “a general stimulant” and “a nerve tonic.”  Allen’s Root Beer Extract claimed not only to act “upon the Kidneys and Liver,” but to furnish “the most valuable elements of nutrition.” The unfounded claims of root beer producers demonstrate an attempt to profit from the budding consumer culture.

Bryant's Root Beer trade card.

Bryant's Root Beer trade card. Verso of card above.

 

Trade card for Raser's Root Beer Extract.

Similarly, Raser’s Root Beer believed in their product enough to warn their buyers to “Beware of worthless imitations.” Ironically, Raser’s root beer itself is an imitation of medicine, despite offering no proof of its promise as a “nerve strengthening beverage.” The advertisements never stated what ingredients of the root beer made it “nerve strengthening,” making the words dubious at best.  Questionable descriptions and claims such as these led to the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 passed by President Theodore Roosevelt, partly in an attempt to weed out false claims and misleading information.  The root beer trade cards in the Warshaw Collection of Business Americana are a minuscule part of Warshaw’s collection, but they tell a story of America’s early days of modern advertising.

-- Halle Mares, Intern,
Archives Center,
National Museum of American History









All images shown here are from items in the "Beverages" series, ca. 1880-1920, Warshaw Collection of Business Americana, Archives Center, National Museum of American History.

“Only YOU can prevent forest fires!” Smokey Bear Arrives at the National Zoo

Statue of Smokey Bear in Smokey Bear Park in International Falls, Minnesota, sculpted by Gordon Shumaker, 1954, Smithsonian Art Inventories Catalog #IAS MN000034

Sixty-four years ago, in June of 1950, a tiny singed bear cub arrived at the National Zoological Park in Washington, D.C., having lost its mother and survived a forest fire in the Lincoln National Forest near Capitan, New Mexico.  Named Smokey Bear, he had been rescued and nursed back to health by Forest Service staff to become the living symbol of fire prevention.  Although most people believe Smokey Bear came into existence with the cub, he had actually been a fire prevention ad campaign for the Forest Service for six years prior to that. However it was the tiny cub, found clinging to a tree, who breathed life into the forest fire campaign and grew to be a nationally known symbol who taught generations of children to be careful while enjoying the national forests.

In television and radio ads, Smokey Bear admonished us, “Only YOU can prevent forest fires!” The Forest Service erected an exhibit outside his enclosure at the zoo and he was visited by thousands of families every year.  A popular jingle added the extra “the” in Smokey the Bear, but both are used interchangeably. He even had his own postage stamp.

Smokey Bear 20 cent postage stamp from 1984 shows Smokey the icon and Smokey the cub clinging to a burned tree.  National Postal Museum, #1985.0796.3181.

Unfortunately, the original Smokey lacked the charisma one might want in such an icon, and was, indeed, a bit cranky and solitary.

The original Smokey Bear frolicking in a pool at the National Zoological Park in the 1950s, photograph by Francine Schroeder.  Smithsonian Institution Archives, negative #92-3559. 

But given his difficult early months, it was not surprising he was not the cheeriest of fellows.   He never produced off-spring with with mate, Goldie, and he was retired in May of 1975.

He was replaced with Smokey Bear II for the next fifteen years, but the exhibit was closed when Smokey II was retired. 

Smokey Bear II enjoying the honey and berries that are dispensed from his new automated dispensing tree. National Zoological Park staffers put together the "honey tree" in Smokey’s exhibit area in the summer of 1984. The national symbol of forest-fire prevention turned 40 that year. The Cooperative Forest Fire Prevention Program funded the construction, photograph by Jesse Cohen. Smithsonian Institution Archives, negative #95-1209. 

Smokey I passed away in 1976 and his remains were returned to Capitan to rest beneath a stone marker in Smokey Bear Historical State Park.

I have a special fondness for Smokey Bear.  When I was five years old in 1953, I fell down while trying to fly a kite and I broke my arm.  After taking me to the doctor to have the arm set in a cast, my father consoled me by taking me to the little shop full of toys in my home town of Rochelle Park, New Jersey.  I did not hesitate for a moment and picked the little stuffed bear with a shovel, hat, badge, Smokey belt, and Forest Service uniform.  Smokey was my constant companion for many, many years!  This image on Pinterest is most like mine, although it lacks the shovel.  I was rarely seen without him, no matter how much my older sisters teased me, and never went to sleep without him at my side.

The Forest Service is planning to relaunch the Smokey Bear campaign for a 21st century audience, and I suspect he will snuggle with many more little children for generations to come and hopefully reinvigorate the message to care for our national forests.

Pamela M. Henson
Historian
Institutional History Division
Smithsonian Institution Archives

Celebrity Endorsements: Commerce, Credibility, and Cataloguing

One of the mixed joys of being the SIRIS cataloguing coordinator/editor for the NMAH Archives Center is the “opportunity” to correct and enhance old records, many of them entered by interns and volunteers in connection with scanning projects.  It isn’t easy to distinguish a preliminary catalog record intended for later enhancement from a simply incomplete, incorrect, or misleading description.  In the case of images, whether photographic or hand-rendered, and photomechanical reproductions from such originals, one fundamental issue for me is the need for a description of both the image being scanned and the object on which the image resides.  This might mean simply indicating the support for a photograph (e.g., paper, glass, film), or it might require a description or name for an object upon or in which an image has been painted, printed, or otherwise applied.  Sometimes I discover that someone scanned and catalogued an image from a calendar or book without naming the object containing the image.  Some attempt should be made to describe the object containing the image, not merely the pictorial image.  To me, this is a more fundamental step than searching for Library of Congress authority terms for tagging.  I think an accurate, concise MARC 245 field is a thing of beauty!

Point-of-purchase display card for Pears' Soap, with portrait of actress Mary Anderson, 1885.
Soap series, Warshaw Collection of Business Americana, Archives Center, NMAH

Recently I encountered an intriguing SIRIS record for a soap advertisement in the Warshaw Collection of Business Americana.  Warshaw soap ads were scanned some years ago in connection with our Ivory Soap Collection of soap advertising.  These collections include advertisements for other soap brands for comparison, including the nineteenth-century Pears’ Soap.  The advertisements take a variety of forms, although the majority were printed in magazines, so the artifact may be a tear sheet.  Some items, however, are trade cards and advertisements intended for display in stores, so they may consist of card stock or other sturdy stuff, rather than flimsy magazine pages.  The Ivory Soap Collection and the soap advertisements in the Warshaw Collection can tell us not only how soap and cosmetic products were advertised in mass-distribution print media, but they also contain examples of how products were advertised inside stores to attract shoppers actively involved in decision-making about their purchases.  If an advertising card large enough to attract attention is placed with products near the establishment’s cash register, the Art and Architecture Thesaurus calls it a “point-of-purchase display,” and Library of Congress Subject Headings calls it an example of “Advertising, Point-of-sale.”  The concept, of course, is that an alluring display advertisement near the cash register (with or without the product itself, which merely needs to be accessible to the cashier) can encourage the customer to make an impulse purchase.  To be effective, point-of-purchase displays need to be timely, attractive, imaginative, clever, or some combination thereof, and customers must be made to feel that the product is desirable.  The display might be text only, or it might bear some sort of image.

One of the most effective types of advertising, as we know from contemporary media, is the use of celebrity endorsements.  The claim that a celebrity uses or recommends a product can attract and intrigue customers, especially loyal fans.  Even if a jaded public doesn’t believe the celebrity’s claim to use the product, a connection is established in potential customers’ brains, identifying a “star” with the product.  Such identification helps customers remember the product, which they might initially purchase simply out of amusement.  Embodied in the object shown here is the confluence of two strategems of advertising psychology—(a) attracting the customer’s attention at the cash register to purchase another item, and (b) appealing to endorsements by glamorous or influential celebrities to suggest that the product might help make the customer as attractive, wealthy, or influential as the celebrity.

It’s interesting that this particular celebrity endorsement served as a point-of-purchase advertisement, but the majority of such endorsements were created for various media, especially magazines and newspapers, then later radio and television—to attract customers into stores and markets.  Naturally, younger people may be totally unfamiliar with the names and faces of movie, radio, and television “stars” and celebrities from earlier generations, but how many ancient icons of popular culture can we reasonably expect them to remember?

When I finally edited the catalog record for this item, years had elapsed.  I looked at the image linked to the record, and it was clear that this reproduction of a painted portrait of a woman represented a specific famous person, and that this was an example of a celebrity endorsement of Pears’ soap (motto at lower left: “Pears Soap / The Very Best”).  I didn’t recognize the face, nor could I make out the name at the lower right, which appeared to be the signature of the subject, not the artist.  I didn’t need to look far for a transcription of the name.  It appears, along with other brief testimonials with signatures, on the verso of the card.  At the top of the list Mary Anderson is quoted as saying, “I find Pears Soap the very best,” followed by the same signature that appears on the image side of the card.  Ironically, the cataloguer knew the names Lillie Langtry and Henry Ward Beecher, whose testimonials appear under Ms. Anderson’s, and thought their names were worth entering into the record as MARC 600 fields for personal names as subject, but didn’t notice that the signature associated with Mary Anderson’s name matched the signature under the portrait.

I had no idea who Mary Anderson was.  I almost didn’t Google her on the assumption that “Mary Anderson” must be one of the most common names on the face of the earth.  On second thought, I tried, and a link for “Mary Anderson (actress, born 1859)” miraculously appeared on the first page of hits.  It led me to a Wikipedia entry, happily illustrated with the very profile portrait photograph from which I believe the advertisement portrait was painted.  She appears to be more delicately attractive in the photograph than in the painting.  She was a popular, celebrated stage actress who later appeared in silent films and who led a fascinating life that could inspire a book (she wrote two memoirs), a play, or a movie.  I never know what tangents “editing” SIRIS records may lead me on.  Perhaps I was too diverted by Mary Anderson’s life story, but at least her name now appears in the catalog record for retrieval.  I’m confident that someone will soon have a need for a portrait of her and will locate this image.
 
Many of the soap advertisements in our collections appeal to the public’s devotion to the cult of celebrity embodied by the “stars” whose beauty or charisma is so alluring.  At the same time, many of these ads include appeals to logic or common sense.  While Henry Ward Beecher’s statement, “I am willing to stand by every word in favor of it I ever uttered,” is amusingly pompous, Mary Anderson’s pronouncement of Pears’ Soap as “the very best” seems to carry weight: She is an actress, constantly in the limelight, who needs a soap that will not only cleanse her skin but will be kind to her complexion.  If a famous actress recommends a particular soap, women might well sit up and take notice.  After all, her livelihood depends partly on beauty products, and one would expect her to be discerning about soap—she must know what she’s talking about and her endorsement must be trustworthy.

Similarly, when a famous singer endorsed a particular brand of cigarettes decades later, the public might naturally assume that a vocalist would know not to abuse his or her throat and voice and accept the star’s presumably informed and tested choice.  If a crooner like Snooky Lanson could smoke Lucky Strike cigarettes (according to an ad in the Sandra and Gary Baden Collection of Celebrity Endorsements in Advertising), they must be gentle on the throat, right?  A professional singer wouldn’t risk a coughing fit on live television, would he?  (Lanson was a regular on the live show “Your Hit Parade” in the 1950s.)

The use of celebrity endorsements has waxed and waned over the years.  Some say Josiah Wedgwood was the first to use such an endorsement in the 1760s, by advertising his royal warrant, certifying that the British royal family was a regular customer of his ceramic products.  In the 21st century the phrase “by appointment to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II” is considered a benchmark of quality.  It functions as a celebrity endorsement, although one does not see photographs of Queen Elizabeth personally utilizing the product or proclaiming its virtues.  The message is far more subtle, but arguably more reliable.  The royal warrant signifies that the royal family actually purchases the product or hires the service, yet there is no appeal to exclusivity, no vulgar, direct comparison to competing products or services.  There is merely the proof of purchase which the phrase “by appointment to” elegantly signifies.  It means simply “we buy it, and you know how fussy we can be.”

Indeed, the personalized celebrity endorsements with which we are familiar sometimes leave a funny taste in our mouths.  We don’t always trust the movie, television, and recording stars and their endorsements, as we sometimes suspect that many of them will do anything for money and we don’t honestly believe their enthusiasm over the consumer products they hype—they’re actors, after all.  In the 21st century we’re too sophisticated to really believe in endorsements--aren’t we?  They’re just another form of entertainment, and stars’ names are associated with certain products just to raise visibility and name recognition, not necessarily to convince consumers of celebrities’ heartfelt enthusiasm and brand loyalty.  There currently seems to be a trend away from celebrity endorsements, as some authors suggest that they are not cost-effective, and businesses are jittery about star misbehavior as well, having found that sales sometimes plummet when their spokespersons become involved in scandals.

Nevertheless, I still fervently want to believe that the famous actress Mary Anderson actually used Pears’ Soap in the late nineteenth century and found it superior, and now her name has been reunited with her endorsement.  As you may know, Pears’ soap is still manufactured and is still distinctive.  It was the world’s first registered brand and is therefore the world’s oldest continuously existing brand.  According to Wikipedia, “Lillie Langtry’s famous ivory complexion brought her income as the first woman to endorse a commercial product, advertising Pears Soap.”  And Mary Anderson soon followed.

(No, I’m not endorsing Pears soap.  Never tried it.)

David Haberstich
Curator of Photography
Archives Center, National Museum of American History
   

Proto-Surrealism and Fantasy in Early Advertising Art

Advertising card for Soapine, manufactured by Kendall Manufacturing Co.
From the Soap series, Warshaw Collection of Business Americana

Among the sources, progenitors, and inspirations for the Surrealist movement in twentieth-century art and literature were the art of children and the paintings and drawings of "naive" artists who lacked formal training. Their visual and verbal fantasies appealed to the creators of Surrealist theory, who sought to demonstrate the prevalence of dream imagery and its connection to the subconscious in our everyday lives in the "real" world. While viewing examples of advertising illustration from the 19th century and early 20th century, as found in the Warshaw Collection of Business American in the NMAH Archives Center, I have often been struck by the proto-surrealist sensibility of commercial advertisers and their illustrators from this period. Frequently based on simple verbal and visual puns calculated to capture the attention and amusement of the average unsophisticated American consumer, this imagery utilized fantasy and humor to help imbed product names in consumers' brains, and mental associations with bizarre illustrations and texts helped make products memorable to the shopper. Nowadays many television commercials seem to recall elements from early print advertising in their sheer wackiness. At times early advertisements also relied on popular racial, ethnic, and even occupational prejudices, represented in bizarre forms, to attract the attention of consumers.


Advertising card for American Soap Co.
From the Soap series, Warshaw Collection of Business Americana

Soap advertising was particularly rich with fantastic imagery, thanks to the implicit notion that a successful soap should be able to clean and "whiten" anything, including surfaces which weren't actually dirty: think spots on a leopard, for example, and beyond. Some of these ads were cruelly explicit in utilizing racist humor, while others were cleverly disguised. Here are a few examples of more benign soap advertisements from the Warshaw Collection to intrigue you: these clearly equate cleanliness with beauty and innocence. While social and cultural historians have studied such materials avidly for decades, I hope more art historians explore them as well.

Advertising card for American Soap Co.
From the Soap series, Warshaw Collection of Business Americana

David Haberstich
Curator of Photography
Archives Center, National Museum of American History

Canceled: Easter Monday Blues

As everyone knows, the threats and rumors of a cancellation of the traditional White House Easter Monday Egg Roll due to sequestration eventually disappeared, and the eggs did in fact roll, much to the delight of the lucky children (and adults) who participated!  White House tours, unfortunately, are another matter.

Among the rich visual collections of the National Museum of American History's Archives Center are many items with holiday themes, some religious and some secular, and some being a combination thereof.  Yes, I'm still in a holiday mood (or mode), having referred to St. Patrick's Day in my previous blog, and musing about Mother's Day and Father's Day in earlier pieces.  (When bloggers suffer blog-block, they're often advised to consider holidays as subject matter.)  At this time of year, Easter comes to mind, which brings me back to an image from a prior blog, Donald Sultner-Welles's simple, color-drenched study of Easter eggs.

Untitled color transparency by Donald H. Sultner-Welles, ca. 1960s.
Donald H. Sultner-Welles Collection, NMAH Archives Center

Several images from the Scurlock Studio records depict African American families of Washington, D.C., dressed up for Easter church services, or participating in a mass baptism.

"Easter Baptising, Shiloh Baptist Church / Washington, D.C., March 28th 1937.  Rev. E. L. Harrison, Pastor."
Photograph by Addison N. Scurlock.  Scurlock Studio Records, NMAH Archives Center

The Easter holiday is as commercialized as Christmas, of course, although in a less blatant or pervasive manner, since it is not yet a life-or-death occasion for merchants.  But the card below advertises Western Union's special Easter greeting services, again utilizing the "egg" imagery.  I think you have to watch old movies in which telegrams are delivered in person by a uniformed Western Union messenger to appreciate how this service could make the recipient feel special, and what we've lost without such customs.  I haven't checked the date that Western Union's personal delivery service ended, but it apparently was many decades ago.  I first became aware of this loss to American culture after I moved away from home following college graduation.  I wanted to send my parents a very special wedding anniversary greeting (they were married on July 4), so I sent a telegram, assuming that the traditional uniformed messenger would deliver my greeting in person, to their delight and surprise.  Wrong.  Guess how Western Union conveyed the greeting?  They telephoned my parents!  Not only was my desired effect of a surprise greeting by a smartly uniiformed messenger not achieved, my parents were mystified and half-offended.  They wondered why I felt a need to pay a stranger to call them rather than to just pick up the phone and speak to them directly.  When I explained, they said I watch too many old movies.

"Greetings by / Western Union / for Easter / April 12, 1936."
Western Union Telegraph Company Records, NMAH Archives Center

Finally, I close with another Scurlock "Easter" photograph that I couldn't resist--in this case, depicting a Negro Leagues baseball player named Easter!



[Negro Leagues baseball players Luke Easter of the Homestead Grays and Josh Gibson, ca. 1930s.]
Attributed to Addison N. Scurlock.  Scurlock Studio Records, NMAH Archives Center

David Haberstich
Archives Center, National Museum of American History


     

The Wonders of Manhattan Real Estate

The island of Manhattan, featuring some of the priciest real estate in the United States, inspires dreams of great fortunes that can be made by shrewd investors. Who hasn't marveled over the phenomenal rise in value of Midtown commercial and residential property in Manhattan, and wished they'd been able to get in the market when lots could be bought for even one-tenth of their current value? As this featured pamphlet from 1908 demonstrates, would-be real estate tycoons have been daydreaming for more than 100 years about the fortunes they could make by snapping up some odd little property, just off Broadway, for a song.

Map of Hot Real Estate Areas in Manhattan in 1908

The Wonders of Manhattan Real Estate: Fabulous Fortunes Made by Fearless Investors in the Last Fifty Years was originally published as a column in the Sunday, November 29, 1908 issue of the New York Herald newspaper, and reprinted as a pamphlet in the same year. Written by Cromwell Childe, a freelance writer whose other publications have such beguiling titles as Water Exploring: A Guide to Pleasant Steamboat Trips Everywhere (1902), Where Shall I Go? Short Summer Trips for Busy Men (1902), and Trolley Exploring: An Electric Railroad Guide to Historic & Picturesque Places About New York, New Jersey, and New England (1903), this essay was designed to whet the appetite of investors and prospective clients of the New York Realty Owners group, which was founded in 1896. As an advertisement at the back of the pamphlet boasted, "The New York Realty Owners incorporated will give you the same advantages as the Astor estate secures to the members of its family" (the Astors being the descendants of John Jacob Astor, the first multi-millionaire in the United States, whose real estate holdings included large tracts of land throughout Manhattan). Rich with anecdotes, this pamphlet is a delightful read for anyone who loves New York City.

Scene of Wall Street and Broadway, Manhattan, Circa 1908

Childe's essay offers some interesting insights into the factors that alternately spurred and hindered rising real estate values. As he noted on page 8, "Most men would likely figure ... that the chief factor in the development of Manhattan has been its rapid transit. That may be right, but the passenger elevator should have a good slice of the credit." Taller buildings offered more residential or business leases to generate profits for investors. On the other hand, as Childe observes on the same page, "family feuds, litigation and the whims of wealthy owners have brought about many oddities in the development of New York," dragging out the resolution of land claims in the courts and creating the rare opportunity to purchase a misshapen parcel or scrap of real estate that would grow in value.

Along with the street-car and elevator, there were other developments in Manhattan creating a hot real estate market during the first decade of the twentieth century. Ground had recently been broken for the construction of Pennsylvania Station (which opened in 1910) and Herald Square. Another hot area of growth was the Upper East Side, where Andrew Carnegie's mansion --later to become the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum --was built from 1899 to 1902.

This pamphlet was recently acquired by the Smithsonian Institution Libraries' Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum Library as a gift transfer from the Museum of the City of New York. It also bears the stamp of the New-York Society Library, the oldest library in the city, founded in 1754 and still operating on a subscription basis.

Childe, Cromwell. The Wonders of Manhattan Real Estate: Fabulous Fortunes Made by Fearless Investors in the Last Fifty Years. New York: New York Realty Owners, 1908. Call number: HD268.N5C45 1908 CHMRB Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum Library

--Diane Shaw, Special Collections Cataloger, Smithsonian Institution Libraries, with the assistance of Daria Wingreen-Mason, Cullman Library Technician

Can Cute Children and Clever Cats Sell Coffee? Yes, Indeed!

Front Cover

As the Special Collections Cataloger for the Smithsonian Libraries, it seems I'm always coming across something wonderful or surprising in my cataloging backlog. While I spend my time creating and upgrading records for historically significant publications on science, technology, and the decorative arts to support research on artifacts in the Smithsonian's collections, they're not all serious scholarly works bound in leather with gilt-lettered spines.

Recently I was amused to find this adorable eight-page booklet, Baby's Letter, published by Raphael Tuck & Sons of London, Paris, and New York, dating probably from the 1890s. Beautifully designed, the booklet features chromolithographed illustrations and a cursive text in the form of a rebus, substituting pictures instead of spelling out some of the words, as a little child might do.



Example of the rebus-style text in Baby's Letter



Baby's Letter is written in the voice of a little girl vacationing at the seaside to her pet cat back home, together with the cat's response. Anonymously written and illustrated, the booklet ("no. 1027") was designed at Raphael Tuck & Sons' studios in England and printed at the Fine Art Works in Germany.



Back cover

This particular copy of Baby's Letter was given away as an advertising promotion. Inside the front cover, an ink-stamped notice reads, "These books given with AAAA Coffee and one pound can Unrivaled Baking Powder. Sprague, Warner & Company, Chicago." One of the largest wholesale grocery firms in the United States at the turn of the twentieth century, Sprague, Warner & Company offered a number of premium items like this booklet to help promote sales of its household goods. Inexpensive little publications like Baby's Letter, and similar printed advertisements and promotional items originally intended to be kept around for a short time before being discarded,  are known as ephemera. 

Ink-stamp on p. [2] of cover

Raphael Tuck & Sons, a British firm which flourished from 1866 until the 1950s, issued an astonishing variety and number of illustrated postcards, greeting cards, and other printed souvenirs that are highly popular collectibles today. Surviving examples of many items published by Raphael Tuck & Sons can be browsed online in the crowdsourced databases TuckDB and TuckDB Ephemera.

Baby's Letter. London ; Paris ; New York : Raphael Tuck & Sons, [189-?].
Call number: PZ7 .B339 1890z CHMRB Cooper Hewitt National Design Library

--Diane Shaw, Special Collections Cataloger, Smithsonian Libraries