December 1934 Signs of the Times Featured Alf Becker Alphabet

Black and White and Red All Over

STARTING THIS MONTH we continue our journey past what’s available in the scanned archive into the personal collection of Tod Swormstedt, founder of the American Sign Museum (Cincinnati) and before that, a fourth-generation family member to run Signs of the Times for several decades. Thank you, Tod, for graciously allowing us to borrow and scan a dozen or so samples from your collection.

The December 1934 issue — then 30 cents a copy — featured several articles in its electrical advertising section plus others including “A Theatre Display Stunt: For Pictures Adapted from Popular Books,” in this case that year’s film British Agent starring Francis Howard.

See Signs of the Times issues dating from 1906 to 1921 at signsofthetimes.com/archive.

• The Great Alf Becker’s Alphabets
  As Signs of the Times had been doing for a while, December 1934 also included an “Art and Design Section” with paper that’s slicker and yellower, yet more receptive to fine-image details than the paper used in the rest of the issue. One page features “Modern Gothic bold script for heavy display lettering” by Alf R. Becker, “the thirty-sixth alphabet in [his] famous series.” Generally these appeared in each issue, thus the promise, “Next month — Egyptian thick-and-thin.” Becker’s alphabets were used by and inspired sign artists for scores of decades including some at present.