Monday, July 13, 2020

Advertising card for Harry M. Herr's of Lancaster


This is an advertising card for Harry M. Herr's Book and Stationery Store, at 32 East King Street in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. It was located, long ago, just a short walk from where I now work, the LNP|LancasterOnline office building at 8 West King Street. (However, I've only physically been inside that West King office once since mid-March, and when we do return to working in an office, it will be in a different, nearby building — part of a move that had been planned long before COVID-19.)

The advertising card, which has the thickness and rigidity of an index card, is 4⅜ inches wide. The illustration shows three children engaged in some shenanigans that are seemingly related to neither books nor stationery. Perhaps they're supposed to be doing the wash? Is that item on the ground (to the right) a wringer that attaches to the washtub?

Herr is an extremely common name in Lancaster County. There was also an L.B. Herr's Book Store that I wrote about way back in 2011. I have no idea if there's a connection between the two.

On Flickr, I found another Harry M. Herr card. It indicates that the store's inventory included fine illustrated books, poems, standard works, writing desks, games, toys, gold pens and pencils, scrap books, photograph albums, autograph albums, stereoscopic views and glasses, cabinet card frames, family Bibles, reward books and cards, materials for wax flowers and oil piainting, and much more. So it was clearly a high-end store.

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