Ephemera for Lunch #7: Higgins' German Laundry Soap

And this week's theme of "Ephemera for Lunch" will be Victorian advertising trade cards. Partly because they're so cool and partly because it's a good way to work through my backlog of these.

First up is Higgins' German Laundry Soap (not to be confused with Überweiss), which has the following caption on the front:

"Kind Captain, I've important information,
Sing, hey, the gallant Captain that you are."
Higgins' German Laundry Soap is the best.

It's OK. I don't get it, either.

The back of the advertising reads like a miniature almanac page, with a recap of all of the U.S. presidential elections through the controversial election of 1876. It also lists the number of electoral votes for each state and reminds people that the next presidential election is set to occur on November 2, 1880.

Some "From the Readers" and some links to great reading

It's been a fairly light summer in terms of reader comments here on Papergreat. Some of that, of course, is certainly the result of my reduced posting frequency in 2015.

So here's the latest small batch of reader comments, plus some links to great things to read around the web on this sweltering August day here in Pennsylvania.

A label for Frostie Root Beer (a jailhouse-born beverage): Rosemary Paul writes: "I grew up in Monessen, Pennsylvania, where my dad worked in the steel mill. Every payday, we would get to go to this small drive-in type place. It was called Frosties and the sign was exactly like Frostie himself. When you ordered a root beer float (my favorite) it would come in a boot mug and you got to keep the boot mug. Between my brother and I, we must have had 12 of those mugs! I still love Frostie and buy it whenever I see it. But here in the South, I cannot find it anywhere. That drive-in is long gone now, as are the mills and my parents, but Frosties root beer is still with us."

Thank you so much for sharing your memories, Rosemary! Does anyone else have memories of Frostie Root Beer, Monessen, or the root beer floats served in a boot mug?

Guy Brown Wiser, artist and World War I aviator: BroHogan writes: "Old thread, I know, but I had to write this. Guy Brown Wiser illustrated a 1940 science book How and Why Discoveries. I read and reread that book many times as a kid. Today 50 years later I still remember the illustrations. They made such an impression that I recently bought a used copy of that book. It was wonderful to look through it again and there wasn't an illustration that I didn't remember. They were the most illustrative illustrations that I have ever seen."

Indeed, the books we fall in love with during our childhood are the best books of all!

Ye Olde Papergreat Post No. 1,600, con pollo: Joan writes: "This makes me THE MOST HAPPY."

Psychogeography snapshot from the City of York: Joan writes: "I love this a ton. Randomly, yesterday, we happened on a 'poetry garden' in an alley in downtown York and I decided to take a photo. ... And I didn't even know that was called something!"

Great links for your reading pleasure

• Brain Pickings: "Legendary Lands: Umberto Eco on the Greatest Maps of Imaginary Places and Why They Appeal to Us" by Maria Popova
• Smithsonian.com: "In Bolivia's High-Altitude Capital, Indigenous Traditions Thrive Once Again" by Annie Murphy
• Priceonomics: "When the Great Alpaca Bubble Burst" by Rosie Cima
• Londonist: "The Hidden Graffiti Of Tate Britain"
• The Paris Review: "Unhousing: Foreclosed homes as haunted houses" by Colin Dickey
• My Inside Voices: "Assholes, ducklings and the end of the universe" by Susan Jennings
• Smithsonian.com: "Whatever Happened to the Wild Camels of the American West?" by Chris Heller
• Atlas Obscura: "Resurrecting the original road trip on America's ghost highway" by Sarah Laskow
• Literary Hub: "The deep, dark genius of Shirley Jackson" by Dale Peck
• Smithsonian.com: "The Entertaining Saga of the Worst Crook in Colonial America" by Ernest B. Furgurson
• Little White Lies: "Mission: Impossible III Is The Pinnacle Of The Tom Cruise Spy Franchise (and it's all down to an incredible antagonist as played by Philip Seymour Hoffman)" by David Ehrlich
• Gizmodo: "Russia Wants People to Road Trip from New York to London (via Moscow)" by Kiona Smith-Strickland
• Eric Kim Street Photography Blog: "12 Lessons Joel Meyerowitz Has Taught Me About Street Photography" by Eric Kim
• The New Yorker: "The First Light of Trinity" by Alex Wellerstein
• The New York Times: "As Bar Codes Replace Tickets, Something Is Lost Before the First Pitch" by Seth Berkman
• Atlas Obscura: "The Obsessively Detailed Map of American Literature's Most Epic Road Trips" by Richard Kreitner and Steven Melendez
• The Onion: "Vilsack Reprimanded For Spending Work Hours Writing Corn Blog"

Ephemera for Lunch #6: Grandmother and Phyllis

To cap off the theme of Vintage Photos of Animals, here's a shot of an old woman doting over her sad-faced dog on her porch. Written on the back, in red ink, is "Grandmother & Phyllis." Phyllis is the dog in this case, because the dog being "Grandmother" wouldn't make any sense at all.

What I like best about this photo is the Totally Ignored Cat sitting on the railing to the left. The Cat couldn't care less about the photograph ... or Grandmother ... or Phyllis. The Cat does whatever it wants. If The Cat wants its butt, and only its butt, in Grandmother's photo, that's the way it's going to be.

Phyllis probably has that sad look because it knows that The Cat is the true ruler of the household.

Check back at noon Monday for a new Ephemera for Lunch theme!
(If The Cat allows it.)

Psychogeography snapshot from the City of York

Earlier this week, after dropping off some books at a Little Free Library and picking up an issue of National Geographic in return, I was driving through a York alley and was inspired to pause, get out of the car, and snap this photograph.

I didn't get quite the amount of sky I was looking for, but I still like the composition.

Psychogeography is a fascinating concept that is almost impossible to describe and for which there are numerous (and not necessarily agreed upon) intellectual definitions. I might explain it as: "To wander, without plan, in a locale, finding the things that make it unique and, optionally, recording your findings on whatever medium strikes your fancy (written word, photos, film, music)." But I am aware that my definition is too narrow and far too simplistic and perhaps also mostly incorrect.

In a 2010 Wired interview with writer Alan Moore there is an insightful bit about psychogeography that I've had bookmarked for a while:

Wired.com: Speaking of psychogeography, what do you think of our current connections to our regional locations?

Moore: Well, I think that we need mythology. We need a bedrock of story and legend in order to live our lives coherently. I think that in the past a lot of our monotheistic religions have provided that, but that has become increasingly problematic throughout the 20th and 21st century so far. There’s a lot of luggage that comes with those beliefs, and there has been a lot to erode them. And that has left people completely disconnected from any sense of place and history. And I think our personhood: We define ourselves by our surroundings and our situations. If you are brought up in a neighborhood that resembles a rat trap, pretty soon you are going to come to the conclusion that you are probably a rat. If on the other hand you have got to the tool of psychogeography — or poetry, to give it a less trendy and more accessible name — then you can look at the ordinary world around you with the eye of a poet. Finding events which rhyme with other events, what little coincidences or connections can be drawn to these places and people. You can put them into an arrangement that says something new about them.

I like that description quite a bit, even if it doesn't necessarily get us any closer to a true definition of psychogeography. Maybe that's the point, though. It's psychogeography, so it's entirely what we choose to make of it. There are no wrong answers.

Related post

• Ephemeral artwork seen on a late-night stroll through Brooklyn

Ephemera for Lunch #5: Marion and her dog

This is an older photograph than some of the others this week. I'm guessing it might be from the 1930s, based partly on the woman's outfit. Written on the back, in red pen, is "Marion." The dog is not named. (Unless, of course, the dog is Marion and the woman is not named. But that would be really odd. Also, Marion would be an odd name for a dog.)

The dog looks just a little on the spazzy side. If this was a modern photo, the dog might qualify for one of those Buzzfeed galleries, such as, for example "33 Dogs That Cannot Even Handle It Right Now."¹

Footnote
1. Sarah and I love these Buzzfeed galleries. I also love The Onion's mocking of them with "BuzzFeed Writer Resigns In Disgrace After Plagiarizing ‘10 Llamas Who Wish They Were Models’." Ahh, the Internet.

Children of America Stories: 5 awesome vintage covers

A small collection of vintage children's books recently caught my eye at a book sale because the cover illustrations are so vibrant and well done.

The series was called The Children of America Stories and, to the best of my knowledge, there were a total of six volumes published during the 1930s and early 1940s:

• Carmen of the Golden Coast, by Madeline Brandeis
• Little Farmer of the Middle West, by Madeline Brandeis
• Little John of New England, by Madeline Brandeis
• Little Rose of the Mesa, by Madeline Brandeis
• The Little Woodsman of the North, by Bernadine Bailey
• Two Boys of the Ohio Valley, by Margaret Sutton

Madeline Brandeis (1897-1937) wrote four of the volumes and established the template for the series. Each fictional story about a different region of America contained photographs, taken by the author, showing scenes from the tale and featuring child actors. Brandeis also used that format with her earlier international series, Children of All Lands. (In her amazing and too-short life, she was also a pioneer filmmaker. You can read about those efforts at the Women Film Pioneers Project.)

As for the other two Children of America Stories authors, you can read about Bernadine Freeman Bailey (1901-1995) and her world travels at the Illinois Woman’s Press Association website, and Margaret Sutton (1903-2001) was a native Pennsylvanian¹ who was best known as the author of the Judy Bolton detective series.

Brandeis, Bailey and Sutton were three amazing women of literature and the arts in the 20th century, for sure.

As for the book covers, which were the impetus for this post, I am sad to say that I cannot find any information about who the artist/illustrator was. A couple of the illustrations feature an "S" in the corner, but that's it. There's no information inside these Grosset & Dunlap books indicating who gets credit for the artwork. Any help on this matter would be appreciated!

So here are five of the covers. In each case, the same full-color illustration that appears on the dust jacket was pasted down on the hardcover front of the book. The dust jackets, when still present, served to protect the illustration beneath.

I am, by the way, far from the only fan of these books. They are still inspiring children well into the 21st century. On the Emmy's Book of the Day blog, Amy Pertl-Clark wrote earlier this year about her daughter's discovery of the series, through Little John of New England:

"Emmy enjoyed hearing the story of John who lived in Boston, but was left to live with his Aunt and Uncle in Maine while his parents went on a 'motor trip.' The story includes letters from John's mother telling of her New England adventures with his father. Emmy and I were both thrilled whenever she talked about a place where we have been. We both enjoyed John's relationship with the teacher at the one room country school. ...

"Whenever Emmy and I are in a second hand bookstore, we will look for Brandeis' books. It will be like a scavenger hunt to us and when we find one, we will celebrate! We hope that you, too, will look for her beautiful books especially if you are searching for interesting chapter books to read with your child."

Children's books. Reading. History. Bookstores. That excerpt is just Full of Win.

Footnote
1. According to Wikipedia, Margaret Sutton was born Rachel Beebe in Odin, Pennsylvania. This was the first I discovered that we have a place named Odin in Pennsylvania! It's in an extremely rural area, a little bit southwest of Coudersport. I will have to find it on a future Keystone State road trip. I wonder if we have a Thor and Loki, too.

Ephemera for Lunch #4: Two boys and a deer

This found photograph, printed on Velox paper and containing no identifications, shows two boys visiting what appears to be a petting zoo and feeding a tame deer. The boy on the right doesn't exactly look thrilled. Maybe he prefers goats. Or maybe he wishes he was back home, reading his Superman comics or playing with his rocketry kit.

At least the deer is happy! What are your thoughts on this one?

Ephemera for Lunch #3: A cat and its pillow

Here's an adorable color snapshot from 30 years ago — February 1985 — that features a calico kitty leaning up against a napping dog.

I have always wished that our cats and our dog Coby would have a friendship like this. Instead, the cats just steal Coby's dog bed and either ignore him or hiss at him.