If it had not been for the efforts of a New York inventor named John Wesley Hyatt to find a substitute for elephant ivory in billiard balls, the artifacts shown here would not exist. As the result of his experiments he created a substance we call celluloid — the world’s first industrial plastic.
Put into mass production in 1872, celluloid rapidly became popular for its ability to be shaped and to carry elaborate colored lithographic images. In particular it was suited as backing for small mirrors that could be stowed away in a pocket. Because celluloid took color well it proved a good venue for advertising, as the pre-Prohibition whiskey merchants quickly realized.
Walter B. Duffy of Rochester, New York,made the unsupported claim that “malt whiskey” really was medicine and even convinced some Temperance advocates. Duffy backed up his fiction by concocting a story that his remedy was made from a formula worked out fifty years earlier by “one of the World’s Greatest Chemists.” The distiller featured a trade mark of a bearded scientist who apparently had discovered this wonder liquid. The old gent appeared on many Duffy items, including a giveaway hand mirror.
Among others who recognized the marketing value of these artifacts were J & A Freiberg whose Cincinnati liquor house enjoyed a 62-year life from just after the Civil War until the coming of National Prohibition. One of their many brands was “Puck Rye,” a mischievous character in Shakespeare’s play, “Midsummer Night’s Dream.” Puck is represented here on a pocket mirror by a small boy with a top hat and whiskey bottle.
Comely women often were depicted on pocket mirrors. George Alegretti, a grocer, liquor dealer and saloonkeeper in Stockton, California, provided the world with the archetype beauty of the time, replete with bouffant hairdo and bee-sting lips. Alegretti’s giveaway mirror illustrates in the flowers how well celluloid took delicate colors.
The “Harvest King” mirror presents a photographic image of a woman in advertising its brand of whiskey, said to make “A sick man well and a well man happy.” This brand originated with the Danciger Brothers of Kansas City who fashioned themselves as the Harvest King Distilling Company. In fact, they were “rectifiers,” blending whiskeys bought from authentic distilleries.
Pocket mirrors came in two shapes, both round and ovals, with typical size for the latter at 2 3/4 by 1 3/4 inches. An ad was on the back, a reflective surface on the front. As shown on this example for “Good Friends” whiskey, often the ovals represented a whiskey barrel with one end devoted to the advertising. Although Samuel Goodfriend of Wellsburg, West Virginia, meant his to represent comity between Quaker and Native American, they could be passing a bottle.
It is not a coincidence that the pocket mirror for Bald Eagle Whiskey, would advertise the flagship brand of S. F. Petts & Co. The driving force behind the Boston liquor wholesalers, Sanford Petts, was himself a certifiable Yankee Doodle Dandy. Many of his forebears had served General Washington gallantly in the Revolutionary War. By using the national symbol to sell whiskey Petts was invoking his patriotic heritage.
Originally from Bowling Green, Virginia, Henry Gunst, a Confederate soldier, migrated with his wife and children to Richmond after the war and founded a liquor firm, claiming to be both a distiller and whiskey blender. Although his partner Straus appears to have exited early, Gunst kept the original name. The liquor firm advertised widely in regional newspapers and claimed outlets for its whiskey and other liquor in the Mid-Atlantic region and as far south as Florida. Gunst also carried on a vigorous mail order trade, particularly in states and localities that had enacted anti-liquor laws.
John Casper, a well-known distiller in North Carolina, was dislodged from the state by prohibition laws. He thereupon moved some of his operation to Arkansas, as the “proprietor” of the Uncle Sam Distilling Company in Fort Smith. An ad for this firm indicates he took Casper brands like “Gold Band” and “Golden Rose” whiskey with him. His pocket mirror is unique for showing a primitive still.
Calvert Whiskey was named after Lord Calvert, the first governor of Maryland. It was a brand from the Maryland Distilling Company, under the leadership of Albert Gottshalk with his son, Joseph. Organizing about 1894 and closing only with National Prohibition, the Gottschalks successfully marketed Calvert Whiskey to become a highly popular national brand.
The Orinoco brand of whiskey, advertised by a pocket mirror, was created by an Irish immigrant named Edward Quinn in Alexandria, Virginia. His son, also named Edward, subsequently took the label over the border to Washington, D.C. where he established a saloon and liquor store on Pennsylvania Avenue. When as a young father he died about 1911, his widow sold the business to another local Irishman named D. J.O’Connell. O’Connell also got the rights to the Orinoco brand name and made the most of it.
James Maguire was thumbing his nose at the notorious “Whiskey Trust” when he refused to buckle under to the monopoly and issued his Montezuma Rye. Retail customers could buy Montezuma Rye in glass bottles, sized from quarts to flasks, or get their liquor in an attractive canteen sized metal bottle that carried a bronze plaque on each side. McGuire also featured giveaway items to customers, including pocket mirrors. Through the excellent color qualities of celluloid, the mirrors provided an effective merchandising tool.
Longer post on many of the “whiskey men” here may be found elsewhere on this website: Duffy, April 12, 2022; Freiberg Bros., February 3, 2014; Danciger, January 26, 2012; Petts, July 4, 2011; Gunst, August 3, 2011, Gottschalk, November 5, 2018; Casper, June 30, 2011; Quinn/O’Connell, June 25, 2013; McGuire, Nov. 18, 2017.
No comments:
Post a Comment