Sign Industry Snapshot from 125 Years Ago

HERE’S THE STORY of an “advertising man” and the US president who made the Teddy Bear famous, an innovator who had wowed the country with sign special effects only to have his invention knocked off, an “advertising woman” who doled out brutal advice on typographical mistakes, and more.

This is the story of Signs of the Times, January 1909 issue.

Researching “A Look Back,” our last-page feature, is one of our more enjoyable tasks as we can’t help but marvel at our forerunners’ style, subject matters, turns of phrase and most of all, the attitude that pervades the text-intensive pages.

For example, Henre Carl “H.C.” Menefee, the first editor of Signs of the Times, writing “Editorial Announcements” for the January 1909 issue, penned, “The failure of the present-day business man to grasp and adopt the most approved present-day methods of selling, is one of his greatest draw­backs… [and] the merchant or manufacturer who, by failing to bring about real co-operation between his sales and advertising departments, is following the most extravagant methods of dispos­ing of his goods.” Sick burn, H.C., but there’s much more.

Back then Signs of the Times catered as much, if not more, to the needs of the “advertising men” working for merchants or manufacturers as for sign companies. January 1909 devotes several pages to a directory of “Publications: The Ones Worth While, The Ones That Count, The Pick of the Pile from an Advertising Standpoint,” including Harper’s Weekly and The Saturday Evening Post. Following that is a list of Advertising Clubs, where the grandparents of AMC’s Mad Men generation surely gathered.

TEDDY BEAR MONEY TO BURN

Which brings us to Mr. S.O. Lindeman, the Kansas City ad man “who made the Teddy Bear famous.” ST had previously reported, “S.O. Lindeman, of the Lindeman Company, Kansas City, Mo., who has made several million dollars promoting Bakers’ advertising, was in Cincinnati a few days during the month en route to Baltimore, Md.”

This prompted an eight-paragraph response from Lindeman in the January 1909 issue, in which he bemoaned, “What a lot of trouble you have caused me! Here I am, a poor weak little ad man on the banks of the Kaw, and in such financial straits that if steamboats were selling for a dime, I would not be able to buy the echo from the whistle.” Among the throngs purported to be beseeching Lindeman for investment funds, he stated, “At Cincinnati, one of your ad men requests that I furnish in sufficient amount of money to buy a large-sized dove to be used, I understand, as an emblem of the Cincinnati Ad Club, with the hope that it may infuse the members of that club with the spirit of peace.”

I DON’T GET YOUR MEANING: Words and expressions such as below change in meaning over time. “Trite” was once positive.

The editor, who introduced Lindeman’s letter by stating the author “confesses to poverty — absolute dire appealing [?] poverty,” did some investigating and reported “expert testimony on the subject. Returning delegates from the national convention, including Billy Kreidler and Paul Poindexter, confide to us that [if] the local club be in need of such a bird they would only have to seek a gift from Kansas City as they say that the city by the Kaw has doves to burn.”

To read the complete and amazingly worded back-and-forth between Lindeman and Menefee as originally published, see signsofthetimes.com/082407.

SIMILAR FORMAT: The classic photo of a sign followed by a hundred-word description may never go out of style.

FAMOUS FLASHER

Back in the day a great many more people contributed to each issue of Signs of the Times than now. One was Mr. E.R. Dull, who provided an article with photos for “Attractive Electric Displays: Dimensions, Data and Information Concerning their Operation.” It’s similar to our “Benchmarks” department in which a type of signs — in Dull’s case, electric signs — are pictured and described in a paragraph.

Like Lindeman, Dull had made a name for himself, but not for a toy bear. Rather, Dull had wowed the “First Annual Show of Electrical Trades Exposition Company” in 1906, at which a message from President Theodore Roosevelt — on whom the Teddy Bear is based — offering congratulations and best wishes started the show, according to The New York Review of the Telegraph and the Telephone and Electrical Journal, January 1906.

“The spectacular was very much in evidence, with the giant, revolving flashing star built by Egbert Reynolds-Dull,” read the account. “This star was twenty-five feet six inches in diameter, weighed 630 pounds and was equipped with 314 incandescent lamps… Various combinations of circuits were continually flashed on and off while the star revolved…”

GALLERY OF SIGNS: Albeit in black and white, sign people have always loved looking at pretty pictures of signs.

Two years after that expo, an injunction was issued restraining a certain “Reynolds Electric Flasher Mfg. Co.” of Chicago from further manufacturing, selling or using their “Reco” and “Reynolds” flashers. They’d infringed on a patent held by Dull and his Reynolds Dull Flasher Co., also of Chicago, according to Merchants Record and Show Window, January 1908.

While Dull’s signs may have sparked interest, his prose left something to be desired, suiting his name. “There is something electrical about the popularity of electric advertising signs…” was his opening line. Yep, good thing he stuck to flashing.

MASTERING LAYOUT?: 125 years ago, printed pages were stuffed to the gills with words — even moreso than The New York Times does these days!

A WOMAN’S ADVICE

All this talk about advertising men shouldn’t be lost on us. The early covers of Signs of the Times mostly featured portrait headshots of white ad men. Women depicted within the early-days pages usually populated ads, dazzled by elaborate drug store signs for … talcum powder or the like.

While the occasional women stand out (see ST, April 2024, page 70), one caught our attention in the January 1909 issue. Charlotte Mangold and Sam Pennington co-authored an article (though Pennington received top billing) entitled “The Business of Ad Writing.” Mangold, however, is the only of the two pictured, the caption beneath her name reading, “Well-known advertising woman of Newark, N.J.” Respect!

In the second half of the article, under “Typography” Mangold asked, in so many words, why some advertisements of the same size and for the same kind of goods are different. “Why are they…more restful than others?” she posed. “I beg to say that the advertisements that pay are those that have originality and unbroken earnestness, coupled with a knowledge of white and black in pleasing relations, the facility to make type convey thought clearly.” Then as here, those words were bolded.

The article presented a number of do’s and don’ts, the latter taken up under “Makes Bad Impression.” Mangold wrote, “A typographical mix-up perplexes the mind, and where a reader has to dig deep to catch your thought he is apt to ‘dig out’ before he finds it. The ludicrous attempt to excite attention by the use of italics and type of a size out of all propor­tion to the rest of the lay-out is often apparent. Impressions are not made by brute force — that is, mental im­pressions.” See what we mean by brutal?

Nevertheless, sage advice as applicable today as it was then.

SELLER’S MARKET: Also advertised in this issue, not shown: “elastic” bookcases, typewriters and even “Southern Plantations” in Alabama.

WORDS FROM OUR ADVERTISERS

In those days, newspapers, magazines and catalogs were among the only means of advertising with reach. And all manner of things are advertised in the January 1909 issue.

Historical sign-product companies Rawson & Evans Co. (Chicago) and The Tuchfarber Co. (Cincinnati) advertised, as did companies still in business today. Paasche Air Brush Co. (Chicago) claimed to be “… the greatest time and labor-saving devices for you to use,” and N. Glantz (New York) offered “One Stroke Genuine Red Sable Brushes, any size, $2.30. Reduced to $2.00 including brush box free.”

Then, suddenly, there’s a half-page ad for encyclopedias: “This Great World History Sent to Your Home FREE!” promises the headline. How? “Publisher Fails — Receiver’s Sale.” Now we see. Wanna buy some encyclopedias from a publisher that failed? Also, “Hotel Touraine, Buffalo, N.Y. ABSOLUTELY FIREPROOF.” Sounds like famous last words.

Craziest of all, at the bottom of the inside front cover, under the headline “Don’t Buy Trouble” was this: “When you buy Sign Flashers for your customers, be sure and get the genuine NEW RECO. It is a flasher of quality and will outlast several of the ordinary kind.” Remember the patent-infringing Reco flashers mentioned earlier? That manufacturer — Reynolds Electric Flasher Mfg. Co., self-proclaimed “Largest Manufacturers of Sign Flashers in the World” — had found a way around the patent.

Not to be outdone, Dull augmented his article contribution with an ad for his own company, Reynolds Dull Flasher Co. (Chicago), though farther back in the January 1909 issue. “They’re Certainly Coming,” states the ad headline touting his advances in flashers. “Send us any designs that you may have. We will keep your idea strictly confiden­tial and we are not engaged in the sign business in any way, shape, form or man­ner. We are the only flasher builders in the world who are not in the sign busi­ness, hence, your ideas are of no value to us, which they are to others.” They would know something about keeping ideas confidential.