American Sign Museum
2515 Essex Place
Cincinnati, Ohio 45206
(800) 925-1110
(513) 258-4020, ext. 336
Fax: (513) 421-5144
E-mail: tod@signmuseum.org
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Signs of Centuries Past
Signs of the Times magazine; May 1981 p 132.
By Margaret DeMarino
Signs of the Times may be celebrating its 75th anniversary, but the industry has been around for centuries. An exhibit in West Hartford, CT, captures the way things were before 1900's.
"Sign" language: the words people write and the pictures they draw speak loudly through the ages...
An ages-old sign that once adorned a quaint inn and tavern has lost none of its beckoning charm. A dashing and debonnaire fine-cut figure of a man still makes a pronounced fashion statement hundreds of years after he was painted onto wood and carved into shape.
As each generation makes way for the next, they leave their own unique "signs" behind. The billboards and marques of yesteryear may not conform with the glistening metal and multifaceted plastic counterparts of present, but their individuality and craftsmanship have indeed stood the test of time.
Many museums have storehoused such poignant pointers to the past and recently, one foundation in West Hartford, CT, put together an exhibition aptly titled "Signs of the Times", drawing on its own collections and those of other museums (including the U.S. Tobacco Museum in Greenwich, the Mystic Seaport Museum in Mystic, the Museum of Connecticut Historical Society in Hartford) as well as from private collections.
Fittingly, the museum is attached to the homestead of the man who, perhaps throughout our nation's history, has most realized the power of the written word — Noah Webster.
It is here at the birthplace and boyhood home of this man of many words that one can wander through history. The Noah Webster House is itself an excellent example of a typical Connecticut 18th century farmhouse, erected around a massive central chimney. Inside, the furniture whispers of more ancient lives and lore. One can view the simplified, almost sparse, lines of the times manifested in furnishings ranging from a "rope" bed (crisscrossed to form the equivalent of the 20th century boxspring) to Noah's own desk to original wood paneling in the parlor. Outside, the air is fresh-full of the fragrance of the herb, spice and dye plants that are tendered in the Colonial Gardens of the Noah Webster House and Museum.
It is no wonder that the same magic continues in the small exhibit hall at the rear of the building, where "signs" of earlier times give people of this modern era an eyeful of what used to be.
The idea for the display grew out of a search by director Catherine Boisseau through a part of the museum's permanent collection that had been put to rest in the storage room.
"I was simply looking for something for our next exhibit that would be different... something that you wouldn't see very often in museums. I noticed in or own collection that we had a lot of paper goods and one day, I started looking at them more closely, noticing the typeface, the styles of the letters, the designs I became aware, after doing this for awhile, that I was vaguely beginning to be able to guess the approximate date from the designs. Then it struck me — this would be an excellent topic for an exhibit... something of wide interest."
Her initial goal was to develop the display around typography, but as she became more and more involved in research, she continually found her interest sidetracked by other themes — trade signs, broadsides, trade cards, posters, newspaper and so on.
Consequently, the exhibit, presented throughout early 1980, became a potpourri of advertising and other "signs" dating from the late 18th century right on through the early decades of the 20th, with the main emphasis placed on the 19th century.
It includes everything from tobacco store Indians to a hotel poster appealing to temperance advocates to fill its halls after it had lost most of its patrons when it jumped onto the prohibition bandwagon.
The exhibit takes onlookers through a passage of history spiced wit the scrawls and scrolls of 19th century printers; filled with the frills and fantasy of the world of P.T. Barnum and his great circus; alive with lithographs and other artistic mediums.
Whenever possible, the display tries to tie into areas of particular local interest. One example of this is the tobacco industry, long a stronghold business in the fertile Connecticut valleys. In the earlier days of our country, free standing wooden Indian figures were "sure signs" of a tobacco shop and the Webster display is a temporary resting ground for two of these. One is an eight-foot tall figure adorned with a tobacco leaf headdress. While its age has not been determined, Boisseau estimated that it is probably a product of the 19th century.
The second figure in the collection is a much smaller counter-top figure. It was carved in England circa 1800, but was, interestingly enough, made of American pine — possibly carved from the mast of an American ship, she said. Like many tobacco store Indians made by the British during this area, this one looks almost more like a member of the Negro race than it does an Indian.
Boisseau explained: "There arose in the British mind a confusion between the black man and the American Indian. Most British had never seen and Indian, although they knew what the black slaves from West India looked like. In heir minds, a blurring of the Indian and the Blackman emerged in identity."
She said that the statutes which contained the Negroid features — i.e. close curled hair, the wider nose — were actually termed "black boys".
Many of the Indians were very highly developed in both technique and art, she pointed out. "The East was very fortunate, particularly, in that there were a lot of talented wood carvers and sculptors who made the Indians. Some of them are very fine — they border very close on the portraiture of famous Indians," she said.
Equally as developed in the world of art are the cigar boxes into which the cut tobacco products were packaged. These were more than mere containers. In actuality, they served as a sort of "point of purchase" advertisement. In most 19th century tobacco shops, they would be lined up on the counter, with their lids raised to display the elaborate inside label. "A customer would walk in and see all the beautiful color," Boisseau said. "It was sort of like the way billboards are to us today."
Such labels grew more and more intricate through the years, spurred on by the onset of lithography.
Often, no expense was spared in their design with some manufacturing concerns even utilizing gold leaf designs and bronzing techniques.
"The inside label became so ornate that pretty soon manufacturers realized that they would have to protect them so they added an overly protective label layer on top to prevent the inside label from touching the cigars," Boisseau pointed out.
The artists used to create the labels were highly skilled, and often the printing process required craftsmen of an equal caliber. One label, for instance, called for a lithography process to be used 22 times.
While the cigar industry was blessed with many top-notch artisans to assist in the promotion of their products, not all signs and advertisements in the 19th century were brought into being by accomplished artisans. By way of example, Boisseau pointed to a wooden figure of a man, hand painted onto a flat board.
"He's probably a product of a local craftsman rather than a skilled artist. He was probably made by someone who was a master of another trade. His body is a bit out of proportion — one shoulder is too sloping, etc.," she said.
The sign, which was probably used for a tailor's establishment, depicts a "dandy" — a flashy and fancy gentleman of the late 19th century. Very few of these life size, hand-painted, flat figure signs exist, according to Boisseau. It seems, she said, a favorite occupation of townspeople was to snatch them from stores on the 4th of July and other holidays and feed them to bonfires.
Very often, according to Boisseau, the signs outside stores were cut in the shape of the object to be sold — for example, the sign outside a fish monger's shop would be designed to look like a trout or perch or other water creature.
One striking example of this is a wooden sign which is cut and painted to simulate a large pocket watch, leaving the passerby no doubt what proprietor E. Pugsley did for a living.
Symbols were often important in early American signmaking — the American eagle was a particular favorite. One tavern sign in the collection depicts such a bird in full dramatic glory. The sign bears the date of 1818 as well as the owner's name — one R. Hammon. However, if you look closely, you can see the outlines of another name underneath Hammon's — A. Wilkinson, who was most probably the previous owner.
Sometimes symbols were used to give the illiterate an edge. For example, in the 17th and 18th century, Boisseau explained, a large percentage of the population was unable to read, therefore the signs such as one displayed in another museum would have come in handy if the illiterate person wanted to know the tavern owner's name. All he or she would have to do would be to piece together the symbols — a picture of a crow flying by a cloud which had a foot emerging from it — to come up with Croufut.
In addition to wooden and cardboard "signs of the times", the collection shows a large assortment of "paperwork" — from old newspapers to graduation announcements to catalogues.
Boisseau traced the history to type: "In the eighteenth century, the printer supplied the community with broadsides, handbills, and public notices. Much of his equipment and 'stock cuts' were from Britain: consequently he was able to supply his customers with a limited selection of types and woodcut sketches or drawings. Graphic arts changes after 1800, with the establishment of typefoundries in America and with changes in type design. Typefoundries expanded the visual vocabulary of printing by creating and supplying printers with new types and ornamental embellishments," she said.
"During the nineteenth century the United States experienced a tremendous period of physical and technological growth. Throughout the century, a myriad of new possibilities for advertising presented itself. Food products began to be packaged rather than sold in bulk. Magazines, almanacs and directories were established and soon proved to be more desirable than newspapers for advertising purposes. The precursor to the modern-day department store was developed in the later half of the century. An increase in leisure time opened up a wide range of entertainment activities, all promoted by advertising. As advertising expanded, advertisers felt the need for a new, eye-catching type. This resulted in numerous innovations and years of experimentation in type design.
"The increases in advertising opportunities were matched by constant technological innovation. Lithography, introduced by the Pendletons in Boston, and chromolithography, perfected by Louis Prang, helped satisfy the public's appetite for pictures while providing another mode of advertising. Lithography began to replace the hand engravings once so popular, and eventually led to the development of full-color reproduction," she said.
"The late nineteenth century interest in the picturesque and foreign were also reflected, if not in pictures, then in type design. The interest in the romantic was reflected in a series of revivals in American design, the Gothic revival, the Renaissance revival, the Egyptian revival. These trends affected the development of typography as well, and the era of experimentation begun in the first half of the nineteenth century blossomed and continued through the end of the century. In the Victorian era, letter forms were squeezed, distorted, and transformed again and again. This 'flowering' of nineteenth century typography and its subsequent effect of advertising has been denigrated by many scholars as a decline in taste and the art of design. Regardless of its aesthetic merit, however, these developments indicate the changing tastes and ideas of American society," Boisseau said.
One extensive example of 19th century handiwork which combines both artwork and typography are "trade" cards, which were handed out by merchants.
These cards usually centered around two basic themes — females and children. The women were usually seductive in a very sweet and quiet sort of way and the children sweet, saintly and cherubic, she observed.
The trade cards are also blatantly full of cultural stereotypes. For example, she pointed out, one sewing thread company proclaimed the slogan "We never fade" and showed a little black child playing.
Often, she said, the card's design had nothing at all to do with a product. For example, one card shows a man coming home from work to a chaotic household — the room is a mess, the woman is screaming, the children fighting — even the cat is testy, sharpening his claws against the furniture.
After the homemaker uses some sort of fluid that has nothing whatsoever to do with anything, the man comes home to a peaceful house — everything is as neat as a pin, the woman is knitting, the children are playing quietly and the cat is napping.
This illustrates poignantly the fact that the 19th century advertising got a bit on the exaggerated side.
"Many people would out and out lie — hence, the elixirs which would promise that they could do everything from curing colds to removing unwanted hair to relieving ingrown toenails.
"P.T. Barnum also got caught up in the fantasy world, 'I don't know if you can ever say he lied, but he certainly couched his terms'.
One famous legend connected with Bridgeport, CT native was that he once made a sign that said "See the Egress" and pointed to a door. People, thinking an "Egress" was some exotic animal, would file through the doorway finding themselves outside and wondering why they hadn't realized that the word egress was just another way of saying "exit".
And while it wasn't funny to be left out in the cold, a lot of advertising viewed in the perspective of modern days and ways does tickle our 20th century fancy.
"Though much of the advertising seen here may strike us as quaint or amusing, it provides us with clues to the trends, popular beliefs, biases and events of another time," Boisseau said.
She is correct, of course. And though it's not hard to smile a bit at an over-fluffed 19th century lady with all her buttons and bows or at the priggish message of a temperance poster, they are indeed signs of the past — signs whose echoes can still be heard throughout the passage of time.
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