Category: Household Items

ROSE – X (Roselux Chemical Co., Brooklyn N. Y.)

The brand name ROSE-X encompassed several laundry products manufactured in Brooklyn, New York by the Roselux Chemical Company and later the Rose-X Chemical Company from the mid-1930’s up through the mid-1970’s. Over that time ROSE-X newspaper advertisements were almost exclusively limited to New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, so it appears their product distribution was centered around the New York metropolitan area.

The brand’s initial manufacturer, the Roselux Chemical Company, was established in 1933 with the company’s incorporation notice appearing in the October 21, 1933 edition of the “Brooklyn Times Union.”

Over the next quarter century the company made their home in the East New York section of Brooklyn, listing addresses in the Brooklyn telephone books of 1100 Rockaway Avenue (1934 to 1939); 522 Dumont Avenue (1939 – 1941) and 301 Belmont Avenue  (1942 – 1960).

According to the “U S Patent Office Gazette” the company officially trademarked the term ROSE-X on May 3, 1938 but had been using the name as early as December 1, 1935.

They were certainly using the name in 1936 when their ROSE-X  Bleach began to appear in newspaper advertisements run by local grocery stores. One of the first was a November 19th ad found in the Yonkers, New York “Herald Statesman” where “ROSE-X Bleach Water” was named in a “Yonkers Food Center” ad as one of what they referred to as their “All-Star Eleven.”

By 1943, grocery store ads were also including ammonia under the ROSE-X name and by 1947 a third product, liquid starch, had been added to the ROSE-X menu as well. Appearing introductory in nature, this early  ROSE-X Liquid Starch advertisement appeared in the July 24, 1947 edition of the “Brooklyn Daily Eagle.”

Its wonderful this new ROSE-X Liquid Starch.

Before the decade’s end, this September 16, 1949 advertisement found in New York’s “Daily News” introduced a fourth ROSE-X product, “Crisp Plastic Starch” as “its newest sensation.”

In the 1950’s the menu of ROSE-X products continued to expand with the addition of ROSE-X Fluffy Rinse in the mid-1950’s and ROSE-X All Purpose Cleaner later in the decade. Both are included along with their bleach and ammonia in this December 15, 1960 advertisement found in Long Island’s “Newsday.”

By this time it appears that corporate changes were in the works. The first indication comes in 1960 when the name of the company was changed to the Rose-X Chemical Company. The change had certainly occurred by the fall of 1960 when the new name was referenced in this coupon found in the September 8th edition of the Yonkers “Herald Statesman.”

The Brooklyn telephone books listed the Rose-X Chemical Company at the former Roselux Chemical Company address of 301 Belmont Avenue until circa 1963 at which time their listed address changed to 585 Berriman Street, also located in East New York.  A coupon for their “ROSE-X Fluffy Rinse, found in the April 28, 1965 edition of New York’s “Daily News” specifically referenced that address.

By then, according to a story in the December 22, 1966 edition of Passaic New Jersey’s “Herald News,” the company was a wholly owned subsidiary of the J. L. Prescott Company.

The Prescott company operated three wholly owned subsidiaries, Arrow Container Co. of Lincoln Park, a manufacturer of blow molded plastic bottles; Rose-X Chemical Co. of Brooklyn, and Bonnie Home Products of Great Neck, L.I.

The “Herald News” story went on to describe the Prescott company as:

…one of the largest independently owned manufacturers of laundry and household cleaning products in the East.

I suspect the name change and subsequent move to Berriman Street were both related to the Prescott acquisition but haven’t been able to confirm it, so that remains conjecture on my part.

Over the next several years, products marketed under the ROSE-X brand continued to appear sporadically in local grocery store advertisements. The last mention I can find appeared in the “Staten Island Advance,” when on January 24, 1973 you could pick up a one gallon jug of ROSE-X Bleach  for 39 cents.

This all suggests an end date for the ROSE-X brand sometime in the mid-1970’s.

The bottle I found is machine made; contained one quart, and has the “ROSE-X name embossed on the shoulder.

The following two advertisements that both appeared in 1956 newspaper advertisements indicate that exact style bottle was used for both their bleach and liquid starch so it could have contained either.

When exactly the Roselux Chemical Company began using this style bottle is not clear. That being said, they had certainly adopted that style by 1948 as evidenced by its appearance in this September 16th advertisement found in New Rochelle, New York’s “Standard Star.”

Recognizing that by 1960, Rose-X Chemical’s parent company, the J. L. Prescott Company, also owned the Arrow Container Company, a manufacturer of plastic bottles, suggests that Rose-X likely converted to plastic around that time. This dates the subject bottle between 1948 (and possibly earlier) and 1960.

On a Final Note: The building that housed the business at 585 Berriman Street apparently remains to this day. According to street easy.com it’s a one-story commercial building built in 1960. That would make the  ROSE-X Chemical Company one of its earliest, if not its first, occupant. Today the building is occupied by a company called “Universal Beverages.”

As far as I can tell, the buildings utilized by the business prior to 585 Berriman Street are all long gone.

 

Saratoga Dressing, Restorff & Bettmann, New York, U. S. A.

The partnership of Restorff and Bettmann was established by Theodore Restorff and William Bettmann both of whom, according to census records (1900), immigrated to the United States from Germany; Bettmann in 1865 and Restorff in 1870.

Prior to establishing Restorff & Bettmann, Theodore G. Restorff was listed in the 1873-1874 New York City Copartnership and Corporation Ditrectory, partnered with a shoemaker named Charles (Carl) Schneider under the firm name of Restorff & Schneider. That partnership was short-lived and by the Spring of 1874 Restorff had moved on, forming his partnership with William Bettmann.

At its start in 1874, the New York City based business was formally called Restorff, Bettmann & Co. however, it was more often simply referred to as Restorff & Bettmann in early newspaper stories and  advertisements. This inconsistency was addressed in 1881 when the January 15th edition of a publication called “Bradsreets” announced that Restorff, Bettmann & Co. had been dissolved, with the firm continuing as Restorff & Bettmann. The business would operate under that name up through at the early 1930’s.

As early as 1875 the company was listed at 187 Wooster Street, before moving to Pine Street  (usually listed as 70 or 70-1/2 Pine) in 1876. It was in March of that year that the company filed an application to trademark the phrase “Saratoga Dressing.”  According to the March 21st  edition of the “Official Gazette of the United States Patent Office,” the application was filed on March 11, 1876.

Their Saratoga Dressing would go on to be one of, if not the first, of many shoe and leather related products manufactured by the company over the next 50+ years. Produced in liquid form, the dressing was touted as specifically made “For LADIES and CHILDREN’S BOOTS and SHOES.”

An advertisement made to look like a news item presented their early sales pitch. It was published in the March 18, 1881 edition of Davenport, Iowa’s “Morning Democrat.”

The smearing of thick and vile smelling paste upon the shoe, and the vigorous rubbing of the polishing brush to produce lustre, were done away with as far as ladies’ and childrens’ foot wear are concerned when the wonderful “Saratoga Dressing” was produced in the shape of a liquid, ever ready for use, and requiring no physical exertion to impart a bright and highly polished lustre, which the shoe will retain longer than from any blacking ever invented… It has no smell, and unlike many others, it does not stain stockings or dress…

Another advertisement, this one found in the  December 2, 1876 edition of the “Morning Democrat” announced that it revived and restored the shoe leather as well..

However daintily a lady may be dressed, an unfortunate crack, an abraded surface, a brown, scar-like patch upon her gaiters will disturb the serenity  of her mind. All these ills, and many more, may be avoided by using Saratoga Dressing, which will make ladies’ and misses’ boots and shoes, which have become coarse, rough, brown or cracked, as splendid as ever, and thus prevent premature throwing away of articles with months of wear in them. The Saratoga Dressing will not rub off, will not soil the most delicate silk nor whitest napery, while it softens the leather, and renders it impervious to dew or damp. It should find a place in every household.

Business apparently grew quickly such that by 1878, this advertisement for New York City’s Ehric’s department store, published in the October 27th edition of the “Daily Herald,” announced that the store’s shoe department had 100 gross “Saratoga Dressing” in stock, for sale at 5 cents a bottle.

Not just available in New York City, as early as 1876 newspaper advertisements for Saratoga Dressing began appearing  in the midwest, in places like Davenport, Iowa where this advertisement was found in the December 16, 1876 edition of the “Morning Democrat.”

The company’s Saratoga Dressing remained their marquee product until 1888 when they introduced a new product called Glycerole.

Described as an oil dressing, Resstorff & Bettmann’s own advertising, while not actually stating it, suggested that it was better than their Saratoga Dressing. Consider the wording in this July 18, 1888 advertisement found in Portsmouth, New Hampshire’s “Daily Chronicle.”

Ever since the now indispensable article of Shoe Dressing came into existence, it has been the source of constant trouble to parties using it, because it hardened and cracked the leather and to the dealer, because of the complaints of his customers. Conscientious Shoe Dealers have often dissuaded their patrons from using any Shoe Dressing whatever and advised the application of oil, as it is universally known that oil is the only preservative of leather, while other substances crack and destroy it.

It was claimed for most Dressings heretofore in use that they do not crack leather but it has never before been claimed that an Oil Dressing could be produced, the composition of which was said to be an impossibility. After years of patient work however, we have succeeded in solving the problem of producing an oil, which in addition to its softening and preserving qualities gives also an elegant lustre to leather goods.

Glycerole is a veritable oil and the only one in existence which answers the purpose of oiling, and at the same time dresses leather. It is perfect in its composition, does not rub off or soil dresses or skirts and imparts to worn goods a soft oily lustre which positively preserves the leather and protects it from water.

We do not pretend that a single application of Glycerole will improve a shoe already dried and hardened by numerous coats of common shoe dressing, but we do warrant that all shoes oiled and dressed only with Glycerole will be positively improved in wearing quality, as this oil by penetrating into the pores of the leather will make it more supple and add to its durability.

Restorff & Bettmann, Manufacturers, New York

Not surprisingly, it appears that Glycerole quickly went on to overtake Saratoga as their marquee product, a point made clear in this company snapshot found in the 1891 edition of a publication called the “History of Commerce of New York.” The entry also made it clear that by then the business had grown substantially.

RESTORFF & BETTMANN …Among the leading and prosperous business enterprises of the great down town trade district will be found that of Messrs. Restorff & Bettmann, commission merchants and manufacturers of Glycerole and Leather Dressings, Nos. 70 and 70-1/2 Pine Street… The premises, an entire building 20 x 100 feet in size, are systematic in arrangement and the general complete appointment includes all the modern business conveniences and facilities. The firm do a heavy commission business in both home and foreign produce; their immense general line reaching pretty much all over the world. In the manufacture of “Glycerole” and leather dressings the house has gained a wide celebrity, these famous articles having today a large sale and standard value upon all markets both at home and abroad…

In 1895 the company moved to 35 Bond Street, likely the result of a January fire that occurred in their Pine Street factory. The fire was described in the January 28, 1895 edition of the “Evening World.”

Fire broke out on the second floor at 70-1/2 Pine Street shortly before 11 o’clock this morning. The building, a four-story structure, is occupied by Restorff & Bettmann, manufacturers of shoe dressing.

The flames spread from floor to floor with great rapidity and a second alarm was turned in. Seven men working on the third floor had to hustle lively to get out of the building, and two girls, Lena Cohen, of 170 Henry Street, and Bridget Brennan, of 86 Furman Street, Brooklyn, on the second floor, had a narrow escape.

They were at work pasting labels on bottles when the fire broke out, and becoming panic stricken, crouched trembling at the table where they worked. Phillip Goldberg, of 84 Monroe Street, called to them to get out. When they did not stir, he grabbed each about the waist and forced them to the stairway. The flames were then bursting through the walls and in a moment more escape might have been cut off.

The origin of the fire is a mystery. No one knows exactly where it broke out or how it began. It is estimated that the building is damaged to the extent of $2,500, while the stock, valued at $5,000 is a total loss.

During the 1890’s the company’s advertising suggests that their product line continued to grow, with this January 6, 1897 advertisement in the “Boot and Shoe Recorder” listing several new products under the name “Vaserole.” Though still included, “Saratoga Dressing” was listed last and simply called:

The best 10 cent shoe polish that can be offered to the public.

By the early 1900’s, another “Boot and Shoe Recorder” advertisement, this one in their October 21, 1903 edition,  makes it clear that their menu of products had expanded further.

Shortly after the above advertisement was published changes in management were in the works when Theodore Restorff passed away. According to the May 15, 1904 edition of  “The Shoe Retailer and Boot and Shoes Weekly:”

FIRM NAME AND BUSINESS TO BE CONTINUED

The recent death of Mr. Theodore G. Restorff, a well-known man in the shoe and leather world and who was a member of the firm of Restoff & Bettmann, 35 and 37 Bond Street, New York City, manufacturers of blackings, dressing and other preparations for men’s, women’s and children’s shoes, has necessitated the dissolution of the former partnership, and it is announced that all right, title and interest in the business has been sold to William Bettmann, the surviving member of the firm, who will continue the business under the name of Restorff & Bettmann, as heretofore. Mr. Bettmann retains the same efficient force of employees and he will be assisted in the management of the business by his son, Jesse W. Bettmann.

A year later, the May 14, 1905 edition of the “New York Times” announced that the business had incorporated under the Restorff & Bettmann name, with Bettmann, his son, Jesse and Ludwig Engel all named as directors.

It appears that the Bettmann’s left the business shortly after it incorporated. As early as 1906, the New York City Copartnership and Corporation Directory listed the company address as 426 East 106th Street and named Ludwig Engel as president. There was no mention of Bettmann who by 1910 listed his occupation as “real estate” in census records.

The company continued to operate under Engel for two plus decades. Sometime around 1910 the company moved back to lower Manhattan where they initially listed their address as 135 Wooster Street before  moving to 79 Mercer St in the early teens. At that point the company was still producing a large menu of items including “Glycerole,” as evidenced by this December, 1913 advertisement found in the “Druggist Circular.” Notably absent from the menu was any mention of “Saratoga Dressing.

Sometime in 1925 the company moved to Reade Street where it remained until sometime in the early 1930’s after which I lose track.

The subject bottle is 4-1/4 inches tall with a 1-1/2 inch square cross section. Blown in a mold it contains 3 ounces. It matches the style of bottle the company was using  by the early 1880’s, as evidenced by this advertisement found in several July, 1881 editions of Lafayette, Indiana’s “Journal & Courier.”

A bottle recently pictured on e-bay that’s embossed with the original company name of Restorff, Bettmann & Co. exhibits a different style so its possible the company  changed styles in 1881 after the formal company name-change to Restorff & Bettmann.

If that’s the case, then the subject bottle dates  between 1881 and roughly 1910 when I’d expect a machine-made bottle.

Acqua Lina M’F’G’ Co., Brooklyn, New York. “Acqua Lina”

Aqua Lina was marketed as a cleanser, disinfectant, germicide and deodorant from the mid-1920’s up through the mid-1960’s. Typically sold in quart bottles, it was bottled in concentrated form and had to be mixed with water before use.

As far as I can tell, it was strictly a local product that was both manufactured and exclusively advertised in Brooklyn, New York over most of its 40-year history.

The originator and driving force behind Acqua Lina was Vincent Quartararo whose family arrived in the United States from Italy in 1898, when he was only a year old. By 1920, census records indicate Quartararo was living in Brooklyn where he listed his occupation as “chauffeur for a trucking company.”

Four years later, in 1924, Quartararo was listed in the Brooklyn telephone book at 33 Wallabout Market with the occupation “grocer.” This photo of Wallabout Market taken about the time Quartararo arrived appeared in the August 10, 1924 edition of the “Brooklyn Daily Eagle.”

It was shortly after establishing what was likely a wholesale  grocery business that, according to an advertisement in the July 3, 1937 edition of a newspaper called the “Brooklyn Tablet,” Quartararo  began marketing Acqua Lina.

That being said, it wasn’t until 1930 that a listing for the Acqua Lina Manufacturing Co. began appearing in the Brooklyn telephone book, and when it did appear its address was the same Wallabout Market address as the grocery business. This all suggests that in its early years the operation was quite small, manufacturing just enough of the cleanser to sell through the grocery business.

Things began to change in the fall of 1935 when Quartararo filed a trademark for Acqua Lina with New York’s Secretary of  State. The announcement appeared in several October editions of both the “Brooklyn Daily Eagle” and “Brooklyn Times Union.”

A little over a year later advertisements for Acqua Lina began appearing in the “Brooklyn Tablet.” The earliest one I can find appeared in their May 29, 1937 edition.

Around the same time, this advertisement disguised as a news story laid out the company’s sales pitch. It appeared in the  July 3, 1937 edition of the “Brooklyn Tablet.”

“ACQUA LINA”

Man’s inventive genius, since the turn of the century, has helped greatly in relieving the dreary burden of wash day. To expedite and ease this work, there have been advances in hot water arrangements, washing machines and cleansing preparations. One of the most popular of the latter is Acqualina Washing Liquid, which has been marketed for the past ten years, with a steady increasing volume due to its efficient properties.

Acqualina can be used as a germicide, disinfectant, deodorant, cleanser and it has many other uses. Acqualina’s high quality and strong concentration makes its use very economical. The price of Acqualina is sold very reasonable and within the reach of all. It is sold only in handy quart bottles, each sealed with a special gold seal which must be broken before the bottle is opened, thereby protecting the purchaser against adulteration.

Mr. Vincent Quartararo, president of the Acqualina Manufacturing Co. of 33 Wallabout Market, has found over 1,000 uses for this fine washing liquid which does its work well, and in addition lessens the manual labor involved. The company is now serving many Catholic institutions, and has received good reports on its product from large users of this type as well as from private homes.

Acqualina Washing Liquid has many good properties as a disinfectant for personal use, as for cuts, scratches, burns and surface wounds and is excellent for baths and antiseptic douches.It is sold by leading grocers, and a call to EVergreen 8-6568 will bring the name of the nearest dealer.

Four years later, with Wallabout Market set to be razed and become part of an expanded Brooklyn Navy Yard, Quartararo bought a factory building in Brooklyn’s Fort Greene section. The transaction was announced in the May 4, 1941 edition of the “Brooklyn Daily Eagle.”

Factory Building Sold

Harry M. Lewis Co., Inc., in conjunction with John F. James & Sons, Inc., sold for estate of Thomas C. Craig to Vincent Quartararo, doing business as Acqua Lina Manufacturing Company, the two story brick mercantile structure on lot 49 x 80 feet at 368 – 370 Cumberland St., Fulton St. and Atlantic Ave. The purchaser is making extensive alterations to this building for his own occupancy.

Six weeks later, with the alterations suficiently completed, the  June 14, 1941 edition of the “Brooklyn Tablet” announced that the company was moving in.

ACQUA LINA MFG. CO. IN NEW QUARTERS

The Acqua Lina Mfg. Co., formerly of 33-34 Wallabout Market, manufacturers of Acqua Lina Washing Liquid, have removed their plant to 368 -70 Cumberland St., Brooklyn.

The firm, 15 years ago, perfected a liquid which has more than 1,000 uses. It is an efficient cleansing agent, a potent germicide, a powerful disinfectant, and an effective deodorant. One drop of this fluid mixed with water forms a cleanser whose efficiency is unsurpassed…

Around this time references to Quartararo as a “grocer” disappear from the Brooklyn phone books so I suspect by then the business was entirely focused on the manufacture of “Acqua Lina.”

Quartararo passed away in December 1952 after which it appears that the family continued to run the business. In fact, as early as 1950, with Vincent unable to work, census records named his son Leonard as “plant manager.”

The company remained active throughout the 1950’s during which they made some changes to the product’s packaging. The first came in 1951 when they transitioned to a “no deposit” bottle, as evidenced by this advertisement that appeared in the April 5, 1951 edition of the “Brooklyn Daily Eagle.”

Later, according to this September 16, 1954 “Brooklyn Daily Eagle” advertisement, the company added half gallon and gallon sizes to go along with their traditional quart bottle.

In 1961, newspaper advertisements for “Acqua Lina Bleach” began appearing in grocery store price lists outside of Brooklyn, in near-by places like Staten Island and New Jersey and as far away as Buffalo, New York. Whether the name change and expanded distribution were the result of an ownership change is not clear but by the mid-1960’s all newspaper references to Acqua Lina vanish and the Acqua Lina Manufacturing Company was no longer listed in the Brooklyn telephone book.

The bottle I found is machine made and the company’s typical quart size. The company information is embossed on the base and the words “Acqua Lina” also appear on the shoulder.

I suspect it was manufactured sometime between 1930, when the company name began appearing in the phone book, and 1951 when they switched to a “no deposit” bottle, at which time I would expect to see those words embossed somewhere on the bottle.

The makers mark of an “F” inside a hexagon found on the base serves to further narrow down the range. According to  http://glassbottlemarks.com  the mark refers to The Fairmount Glass Company who, according to their trademark application, first used the mark on November 6, 1933 and used it up through the late 1960’s.

This puts the bottle’s manufacture sometime between 1933 and 1951.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lysol (Lehn & Fink)

All eight of the above bottles contained a concentrated disinfectant and antiseptic called “Lysol.”

Each bottle exactly matches the one pictured in an October 21, 1922 advertisement found in the “Saturday Evening Post.”

Sold in a concentrated form, the “Saturday Evening Post”ad indicated that it had to be measured out and mixed prior to use.

The advertisement then went on to provide mixing instructions and finally, how and where to use it.

Finding a total of eight such bottles out in the bay suggests Lysol was a “must have” in what must have been a remote and harsh environment back in the early 20th century.

So, with that as background, what follows is the “Lysol” story, a story that starts in the late 1800’s and is still unfolding today.

Lysol had its beginnings in Wiesbaden, Germany with a chemist and pharmacist named Gustav Adolph Raupenstrauch whose story appeared in the “Dictionary of German Biography, Volume 8,” published in 2005.

Raupenstrauch, the son of a pastor, began working in a pharmacy in Bistritz while still in school. From 1881 onwards he studied pharmacy and chemistry in Vienna and in 1886 obtained a doctorate. He was appointed departmental head at the food testing institute and the chemical testing institute in Wiesbaden and carried out research into disinfecting agents used to fight infectious diseases. His research resulted in the development of a new substance, Lysol, which was considered more effective and had fewer side effects than the disinfecting agents that had been used since then. In 1889 he received a patent for Lysol and in 1890 established a factory for Lysol production in Hamburg called Schülke & Mayr, whose Vienna branch he headed from 1892 onwards…

As early as 1890, word of the new product had reached the United States, as evidenced by this November 23, 1890 “New York Times” item found under the heading “Progress in Science.”

Among the latest disinfectants is “lysol,” which appears to be very much like carbolic acid. The emulsifying agent is resin or fat soap, tar acid being incorporated with the soap at the moment of saponification.

Two years later an August 28, 1892 story in the “Brooklyn Citizen,” announced that the New York City firm of Lehn & Fink was Lysol’s sole agent in the United States.

A CHOLERA PREVENTATIVE

Lysol Recommended by European Medical Authorities

The chief preventative of cholera and similar diseases is absolute cleanliness which insures the absence of disease germs. To secure this condition various antiseptic preparations are used. A new antiseptic has recently been discovered which many eminent physicians regard a superior to the old preparations.

Lysol, the new preparation in a 1 percent solution, possesses high antiseptic powers and is sure death to cholera and other disease germs. Unlike carbol and other similar preparations, it is convenient for ordinary use and leaves the skin smooth and soft.

Its use has been strongly recommended as a disinfectant and preventative by the Chief Sanitary Board of Austria. It is also used as a surgical antiseptic with marked success. Lehn & Fink, manufacturing chemists of No. 128 William Street, New York, are the sole agents in America for Lysol.

Over the next 100+ years, the stories of Lysol and Lehn & Fink would be  intimately connected.

Lehn & Fink had begun in business eighteen years earlier, in 1874. Their start was descried like this in a booklet commemorating the firm’s 50th anniversary, published in 1924. Simply entitled “Fifty Years,” it began:

There were no fanfare of trumpets,” no formal housewarming when on May 1, 1874, the business which is now Lehn & Fink, Inc., was started at 160 William Street, New York City.

Mr. F. W. Fink having spent the morning in the employ of another wholesale house, terminated this association, as previously arranged, at noon, and walked to his own place of business…

He had no monetary capital, but one of his retail friends, Louis Lehn of Brooklyn, put in capital, which combined with that furnished by a special partner, afforded an amount sufficient to start the partnership of Lehn & Fink.

As early as 1876 the partnership  of Lehn & Fink was listed in the NYC Copartnership and Corporation Directory with a capital of $10,000 and both Louis Lehn and Frederick W. Fink named as partners. Also included in the listing was “special partner,” Conrad Spengeman.

This advertisement for Lehn & Fink, the earliest I can find, appeared in an 1879 publication called “Notes on Assaying,” by Pierre de Peyster Ricketts.

A long-time employee named Robert R. Lampa, described their original 160 William Street quarters in a story written years later entitled: “Reminiscences of Forty-four years in the Drug Business.” It was  published in the January, 1922 edition of “The Practical Druggist.”

When I entered the drug business 0f Lehn & Fink, the firm had been established only a few years – in 1874 I believe. It occupied very small quarters – 160 William Street – the building about 60 feet deep. We had a cellar and sub-cellar and part of the third floor. Subsequently we managed to get the first floor also and eventually we occupied the whole building, which all told, consisted, aside from the store and cellars, of three floors and a cock-loft of a depth somewhat shorter than that of the street floor. In this small building the goods were stored; orders put up, and shipments made and received. Goods were placed wherever there was room- and space was scarce – which means that an orderly arrangement of stock was impossible.

This depiction of their 160 William Street building generally supports Lampa’s description. It was included as part of an advertisement found in the August 20, 1927 edition of a publication called “Sales Management.”

Ten years later in 1884, according to a March, 1927 feature on Lehn & Fink published in a trade publication called the “Glass Container,” sales had “increased from nothing to a yearly total of $500,000,” necessitating a move to larger quarters at 128 William Street.

Up to this point the company was largely focused on business generated in the local New York metropolitan area. According to the “Glass Container” story that changed in the mid to late 1880’s when the company began to expand nationally.  At the same time changes in management were occurring as well when, in 1886, Louis Lehn retired. Shortly afterwards, the 1888 NYC Copartnership and Corporation Directory named Fink, along with Charles Eberhardt and Albert Plaut as principals.

As the company was growing during the 1880’s they added two additional Manhattan facilities, a laboratory on Gold Street and warehouse on Pearl Street. Both are listed on their 1893 business card found in the June, 1893 edition of  a publication called “Notes on Remedies.”

It was during this period of expansion that Lysol entered the picture, and by 1892, having acquired the sole rights to sell it in the U. S., Lehn & Fink began promoting Lysol in professional publications. This early advertisement to the medical profession appeared in a number of medical publications, including the June, 1892 edition of the “Toledo Medical and Surgical Reporter.”

A September,1895 advertisement included in a publication called “Notes on New Remedies,” not only touts Lysol to the medical profession for surgical and obstetrical use but also to veterinarians as an animal wash and to horticulturists as a way to destroy insect pests of all kinds.

At this point, according to the  September, 1897 “Descriptive Price List of  Lehn & Fink’s Specialties,” Lysol was sold in both 1-lb. bottles and 1 gallon jugs.

In 1898, Lehn retired after which the 1900 NYC Copartnership and Corporation directory named Albert Plaut along with his brother Joseph as principals, with Albert serving as president.

Not long after Albert Plaut assumed the presidency, the April 6, 1900 edition of the “New York Times” announced that the company was planning another move.

Albert & Joseph Plant, who compose the wholesale drug firm known as Lehn & Fink have bought through Ruling and Whiting, the property 120 William Street, 25 by 150, together with 79 John Street, containing about 7,000 square feet. The purchasers will tear down the buildings now on the site and erect a modern structure, which will be occupied entirely by their own business. The price paid for the combined properties is $151,000.

According to Robert Lamba’s reminiscences in the “Practical Druggist,” before the company could move into their new quarters, their present location at 128 William Street was destroyed by a fire.

The fire cleaned us out completely – stock, fixtures and all – had not even a single desk, inkwell or blotting paper to start anew with. The fire occurred on Friday night. That same night quarters were rented in Beekman Street and the fitting out of a temporary plant began immediately. Profers of assistance came from our friends and neighbors in the wholesale trade – they were accepted and helped us materially in getting us on our feet.

Lamba went on to say:

At the time of the fire Lehn & Fink had a new building under construction at 120 William Street, but it was not ready for occupancy. The walls were about up – that was about all. This new building – an L shaped, double building in fact was entered by us in 1901…

The building was depicted in a book entitled “New York The Metropolis,” published in 1902, the year after the building opened.

The publication described the company’s new home as:

A new fireproof eight story structure with electric plant and complete appointments, specially designed for the drug business.

Up to this point sale of Lysol was limited entirely to the medical profession. According to a February 2, 1922 feature on Lehn & Fink found in an advertising publication called  “Printers’ Ink:”

Lysol was advertised in medical and hospital publications and by circularizing and sampling. The medical profession was circularized four times a year. Its use in hospitals spread rapidly, where as a bactericide in obstetrical cases it found favor…

This December 28, 1901 advertisement found in the “Philadelphia Medical Journal” suggested that it had certainly taken hold in the hospital community by then.

In daily use by thousands of doctors and in the most prominent hospitals FOR SURGICAL AND OBSTETRICAL WORK

The ad went on to name hospitals in several U. S. cities where Lysol was in constant use. New York City hospitals mentioned were Mount Sinai Hospital, Roosevelt Hospital, St Marks Hospital, German Hospital (now Lenox Hill), Presbyterian Hospital, New York Post Graduate Hospital and New York Polyclinic. Some of these hospitals are still with us today.

The “Printers Ink” feature went on to say:

Soon thereafter physicians began to prescribe it in the home, principally in confinement cases.

That almost certainly led to the smaller sized  bottle mentioned in this July 14, 1906 advertisement found in the “Medical Record.”

According to the “Findings of Fact” in the case of Lehn & Fink Products Corporation v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, Promulgated June 28, 1946 in U. S. Tax Court:

In 1910 Lehn & Fink, a corporation, was organized to conduct the business theretofore carried on by the partnership…

The following year, the 1911 Copartnership and Corporation Directory listed the firm as a New York corporation with capital of $600,000 and Albert Plaut named as president. Albert passed away several years later and in the 1915 directory his brother Joseph was named president.

It was around this time that the company began to broaden their advertising in an effort to reach the home market. Advertisements targeting the housewife began touting Lysol as a germicide and household disinfectant, a strategy exemplified by this January, 1915 ad found in “Good Housekeeping.” Leaning on their medical reputation, it read in part:

Lysol should be used regularly in your household, as it is in practically every hospital in the country. Disease finds it difficult to enter a house guarded by the Antiseptic, Disinfectant and Germicide, so much a favorite among physicians.

According to most internet sources,  it was also in the early to mid-teens that Lehn & Fink acquired the rights to manufacture Lysol in the United States. Coincidently, in March, 1912 the company was planning a new six-story factory building on Sedgewick Street in Brooklyn. The announcement appeared in the March 22nd edition of the “Brooklyn Daily Eagle” under the heading:”New Buildings.”

Located along Brooklyn’s East River waterfront in the block between Sedgeick Street and Irving Street, the building was listed between 1913 and 1919 at 83 Sedgewick St. (sometimes 74 Irving St.). I suspect this is where Lysol was initially manufactured in the United States. In fact, according to the company’s anniversary booklet, “Fifty Years,” by the late teens all of the company’s manufacturing was being done in Brooklyn.

Lehn & Fink’s own manufacturing department was seized with growing pains. 120 William Street was devoted entirely to executive offices, stock rooms and shipping departments. In Brooklyn, N. Y., the laboratories and plant spread out and covered all the available ground and then began to grow up in the air. Wider sales of Lehn & Fink specialties constantly demanded increased production. New products were added to an already comprehensive list.

By the late teens that list of products included several under the Lysol name including toilet soap and shaving cream. Both were labeled as “new products” in this September, 1918 advertisement found in the “Journal of the American Pharmaceutical Association.”

The need for more space came to a head in 1920 at which time the company moved their laboratories and all of their manufacturing operations to Bloomfield, N. J. The move was announced in the April 20th edition of “The Practical Druggist.”

Increased business has again overtaken Lehn & Fink, Inc. A site of 20 acres, located on two trunk line railroads at Bloomfield, N. J. with ideal motor trucking facilities to New York and with convenient trolleys for Newark and other sections of New Jersey, was purchased when it became evident greatly augmented manufacturing facilities would soon be necessary.

Despite uncertain weather and building conditions, new ultra-modern manufacturing plants and laboratories were put up on this site during the winter and early spring. All departments of the plant, now in full operation, are directed by experts, while small electric trucks maintain continuous coordination between the departments.

During the same year the company moved their New York City operation to 636 Greenwich Street where it was located between Morton and Barrow Streets. The same April, 20th “Practical Druggist” story announced that move as well.

During the summer, Lehn & Fink’s executive offices, and stock rooms will be moved to the 170,000 square feet of floor space in a new steel and stone building at Greenwich, Morton, and Barrow Streets, New York City.

A fleet of motor trucks will operate between the Bloomfield plants and the New York building. Delivery delays will be eliminated by the scientific time saving plan of order filling which the great increase in space makes possible.

The building has also been designed to include everything possible for the comfort and health of employees.

The enthusiasm which is now radiating throughout the Lehn & Fink organization means that the public will get products of the highest and purest quality, delivered with a speed and precision in every way abreast of the times.

Both their New York and New Jersey facilities were pictured as part of a Lehn & Fink advertisement that appeared in several 1924 editions of “Hospital Management.”

In addition to geographical changes, the company’s growth brought about corporate changes as well. According to the 1946 tax court records:

As the business expanded, various subsidies were organized by Lehn & Fink, Inc., the first of which, Lysol, Inc. was incorporated in 1920 in Delaware to acquire control of the Lysol business throughout the world.

It was contemplated that Lehn & Fink, Inc. would continue the manufacture and sale of Lysol in the United States under a contract by the terms of which Lysol, Inc. employed Lehn & Fink, Inc., as its sole manufacturing and selling agent in the United States…

In 1924, another subsidiary, Pebeco, Inc. was established and a similar arrangement was made for the manufacture and sale of Pebeco Toothpaste after which, according to the tax court records:

the business of Lehn & Fink, Inc., had three aspects: (1) A wholesale business in pharmaceuticals and other items commonly carried by druggists; (2) the manufacture and sale of pharmaceuticals; and (3) the manufacture and sale of Lysol disinfectant and Pebco tooth paste…

At this point, with Albert Plaut’s son Edward, now serving as president, it was decided to make substantial changes in the business.

The 1946 tax court records went on to describe those changes.

The management decided to abandon the wholesale drug business and the manufacture of pharmaceuticals, and to devote the entire facilities of the business to the manufacture and sale of Lysol , Pebeco and such other nationally advertised and trade-marked products as it might thereafter acquire, the first of which was to be Hinds Honey & Almond Cream. The decision was motivated by a recognition on the part of the management that a single factory and laboratory staff, operating under a single executive and sales organization, could manufacture and market in the same trade channels three or more noncompetitive products more economically, and therefore more profitably, than the several products could be manufactured in separate plants and marketed by separate sales organizations.

This lead to the formation of the Lehn & Fink Products Company to serve as a holding company and  acquire stock ownership of Lysol Inc., Pebeco, Inc. and the newly acquired A. S. Hinds Company. The prospectus appeared in several New York newspapers on August 4, 1925

Two days later, the August 6, 1925 edition of the “N.A.R.D. Journal” provided some additional information.

An event of unusual significance to the drug trade has been the formation during the past week of Lehn & Fink Products Company, a corporation organized to acquire all of the stock of A. S. Hinds Company, makers of “Hinds Honey and Almond Cream,” Portland Maine, and Lehn & Fink, Inc., New York, owners of the entire stock of Pebeco, Inc. and practically all the stock of Lysol, Inc.

Edward Plaut, who for the past five years has been president of Lehn & Fink, Inc., will be the managing head of the new company.

Lehn & Fink was founded fifty-one years ago… Since that time it has supplied the wholesale and retail drug trade throughout the United States with fine drugs and rare chemicals, and has proved an enormous source of new pharmaceutical and medicinal products. The two most widely known specialties of Lehn & Fink, Inc., are of course Pebeco Toothpaste and “Lysol” disinfectant. Lehn & Fink has been the sole distributor of these products for more than twenty years, and within the last ten years has acquired the entire ownership and trademarks of both.

Lehn & Fink Products Company will take over the splendid Lehn & Fink laboratories at Bloomfield, N. J. as its manufacturing plant. These modern laboratories among the finest in the country, are particularly well equipped to add the Hinds products to the L & F specialties already made there, and the actual transfer of operations from the Hinds plant to Bloomfield, N. J. will be accomplished practically without lost motion.

According to the March, 1927 edition of the “Glass Container” much of the plant space was devoted to “Lysol” and “Pebeco Tooth Paste.”

One wing of the plant is devoted to the manufacture and packing of Pebeco Tooth Paste, while another wing houses similar “Lysol” disinfectant operations. A large central wing is utilized for general manufacturing.

By 1927, according to Moody’s “Manual of Investments,” the plant in Bloomfield had grown to seven buildings covering seven acres of land and employed 400 people. Moody’s went on to make it clear the company’s products, including “Lysol” were being distributed world-wide.

Trade named products include “Pebeco Tooth Paste,” “Lysol Disinfectant” and other “Lysol” products, Hinds’ Honey and Almond Cream” and other “Hinds” products. Sale of products abroad is conducted through Lysol, Ltd., which manufactures and sells in United Kingdom, British Colonies and Japan and through German subsidiary, Schülke & Mayr, A. G. which handles continent of Europe, South America and Chinese business. Canadian business handled by Lehn & Fink, Canada, Ltd.

Throughout the early 1920’s Lysol Disinfectant continued to be touted primarily as a germ killer with their advertisements aimed at the housewife, as evidenced by this January 7, 1922 ad found in “The Saturday Evening Post.”

Later in the 1920’s, and certainly in the 1930’s and 1940’s, in addition to advertising it as a  household disinfectant, it was also touted among other things as a cure for athlete’s foot…

…and as a feminine hygiene product.

In addition, the company wasn’t adverse to running focused advertisements in a specific geographic area that required clean-up after some sort of disaster. St. Louis, Missouri saw one such ad in early July, 1947 shortly after the Mississippi River overflowed its banks, flooding portions of the city.

In the late 1950’s and early 1960’s at least two new products emerged under the Lysol name. One, called Pine-Scented Lysol, was being advertised as early as 1957. This advertisement, one of the first I can find, ran in several west coast newspapers in November of that year.

Another was Lysol Spray Disinfectant. Advertisements for it, initially targeting boat owners, began appearing in Florida newspapers as early as the Fall of 1961. One, disguised as a newspaper article, appeared in the September 15th edition of Sarasota’s “The News.” It read, in part:

NEW SPRAY STOPS ODORS

Boat owners who despair at the amount of damage caused by mildew and suffer from unpleasant musty odors will be glad to know that there is a new product just being introduced which will render effective aid against these problems.

In a bright aqua and gold foil aerosol container, Lysol Spray Disinfectant not only counteracts destructive mildew but is also effective against germ-caused odors…

This early advertisement for their new spray appeared in several November, 1961 editions of Jacksonville’s “Florida Times-Union.”

In the meantime, over the course of the 1940’s and 1950’s the company added manufacturing facilities in Lincoln, Illinois and Toledo, Ohio. The October 11, 1947 edition of a Bloomington, Illinois newspaper called “The Pantograph” announced the opening of the new factory in Lincoln.

Official opening of Lincoln’s newest industrial development, the huge new plant of Lehn & Fink Products Corp., manufacturers and distributors of drugs and cosmetics was held Friday afternoon.

Edward Plaut, the New York City president of the company, headed a delegation of officials of the company from the East.

The plant located on Limit Street on the east side of Lincoln is said to be one of the largest in the country devoted to drug and cosmetic manufacturing. It consists of a main factory of modern, single-story design, together with a two story office building.

When in full operation the plant will employ 400 in the manufacture of the company’s various products which include Lysol disinfectant, Hinds honey and almond fragrance creams, Etiquet deodorant, Pebeco tooth paste and powder and the Tussy and Dorothy Gray lines of cosmetics.

Main offices of the corporation are in New York City. The Lincoln plant will augment the production of the company’s only other domestic manufacturing plant at Bloomfield, N. J.

In Toledo, Ohio they acquired and expanded the National Laboratories, Inc. facility there. The acquisition was announced in the September 23, 1957 edition of “The Blade.”

Sale of National Laboratories Inc. of Toledo to Lehn & Fink Products Corp., New York has been completed… National Laboratories will retain its present name, but will be incorporated as a Delaware corporation. It will operate as an independent subsidiary, one of 16 such Lehn & Fink units throughout the world.

Plans are under way for sizable future expansion of National Laboratories’ operations in Toledo, officials said. The company is in the process of constructing a plant addition, modernizing offices and more than doubling the size of laboratory research facilities.

Both factories were certainly needed when in 1963 it was announced that Lehn & Fink was closing their Bloomfield, New Jersey plant after 40+ years. The announcement, made by Edward Plaut’s son, Walter N. Plaut, who had taken over as president of the firm in November, 1960, appeared in the May 29, 1963 edition of  Passaic New Jersey’s “Herald-News.”

Walter N. Plaut, president of Lehn & Fink Products Corp., announced plans to relocate the company’s Bloomfield plant in connection with a reorganization of company facilities. He said the move represented one part of an over-all program aimed at providing expanded, modern facilities for manufacturing and packaging operations. Discussions on these plans are being held with employee representatives.

It is expected that the manufacturing and packaging operations now conducted in Bloomfield at 192 Bloomfield Ave. will be moved to other locations. The company now maintains plants and warehouses in Toledo Ohio; Lincoln Ill.; Los Angeles, San Francisco and several other locations.

The plan would call for gradual discontinuance of operations over a period of about six months… Offices and research laboratories now in Bloomfield may be moved to more modern quarters in the general vicinity.

The following year the October 1, 1964 edition of the “Herald News” announced that the plant was closed and the property had been sold.

Lehn & Fink Products Corp. sold to Leonard N. Stern a complex of buildings on a 10-acre site in Bloomfield it was announced yesterday…

Lehn & Fink recently closed a manufacturing plant which it had maintained there and moved its operations to Lincoln Ill. It will maintain a research laboratory and office staff in the buildings and will continue to do so under a short-time lease with the purchaser…

Though Lehn & Fink had closed their Bloomfield manufacturing plant it soon became apparent they weren’t abandoning New Jersey altogether when, a month later the company announced they were building what would become their world headquarters there. The announcement appeared in the October 28, 1964 edition of the  “Herald-News.”

Lehn & Fink Products Corp. has purchased approximately 35 acres of land in Montvale, N. J., to build a research laboratory and office building, Walter N. Plaut, president, announced yesterday.

The new facilities will be located on Summit Avenue, approximately one quarter of a mile west of Garden State Parkway near Exit 172.

In addition to research facilities, the buildings when completed in about 18 months, will house the corporate headquarters, the international division and the consumer products division which markets the Dorothy Gray and Tussy lines of cosmetics and skin care products, and the products of the L & F division which includes Lysol brand disinfectant, Lysol spray, Medi-Quick first-aid spray, Stri-Dex medicated pads and Noreen hair coloring products.

The company also operates manufacturing plants in Lincoln, Ill. and Toledo, Ohio and warehouses in Clifton, N.J., Lincoln and Los Angeles, as well as foreign plants in Hamburg, London, Milan, Toronto, Buenos Aires Argentina and Montevideo.

While the new facility was still under construction, the May 12, 1966 edition of “The Hackensack Record” announced that Lehn and Fink had merged with Sterling Drug, Inc.

MERGER SIGNED BY LEHN & FINK

Sterling Drug Inc. and Lehn & Fink Products Corporation have signed a joint agreement of merger, according to a joint announcement by Dr. J. Mark Hiebert, chairman of the board of Sterling and Walter N. Plaut, of Lehn & Fink. Lehn & Fink is building its headquarters in Montvale, N. J…

Under terms of the merger agreement, Lehn & Fink will be merged into Sterling, and Sterling will be the surviving corporation…Upon approval, the merger is expected to become effective June 30…

Lehn & Fink, now operating as a division of Sterting Drug, opened their new world headquarters in Montvale in September, 1966. The September 13th edition of “The Hackensack Record” covered the opening.

The gleaming new multi-million dollar headquarters of Lehn & Fink Products, the $75 million manufacturer of consumer and industrial products, was dedicated here today before 700 employees and invited guests…

James W. Newman, senior vice-president, said Lehn & Fink had consolidated its administrative, marketing and research organizations in order to place the principal creative functions under one roof and thus to achieve more efficient coordination of operations…

The story described the new facility as a 2-story, 100,000 square foot Y-shaped building on a plot of 35 acres, and included the following photograph.

As far as I can tell, at some point the company also re-established a manufacturing facility in New Jersey in Belle Meade.

An unscientific review of their newspaper advertisements suggests that sometime in the late 1960’s, while early in their tenure with Sterling Drug, Lehn & Fink added several more products under the “Lysol” name. These included the “Basin Tub and Tile Cleaner,” “Toilet Bowl Cleaner,” and “Deodorizing Cleaner,” all of which are pictured together with “Lysol Disinfectant” and “Lysol Spray” in this 1975 advertisement published in the “Ottawa Citizen.”

In January, 1988, Sterling Drug was acquired by Eastman Kodak Co. for $5.1 billion. Later that year a story in the August 18, 1988 edition of Rochester, New York’s “Democrat and Chronicle” announced that Lehn & Fink would continue as part of Kodak.

Eastman Kodak Co., heeding the advice of 26 internal task forces and disregarding Wall Street’s has decided to keep Sterling Drug’s L:ehn & Fink household products business.

Kay R. Whitmore, president of Kodak, told Lehn & Fink managers yesterday, in Montvale, N. J., that even though Kodak has had inquiries from would-be buyers, Lehn & Fink is too good a business for Kodak to lose.

That conclusion was reached, he said, after Kodak/Lehn & Fink teams reviewed 26 different aspects of Lehn & Fink to see if the business would be helped by being part of Kodak.

Some investors and Wall Street analysts had hoped Kodak would sell Lehn & Fink in order to reduce the debt it took on to finance the $5.1 billion Sterling purchase.”

Six years later, Kodak did sell Lehn & Fink which by then was simply called L & F Products. The sale was reported in Newark’s “Star Ledger” on September 27, 1994

Eastman Kodak Co. yesterday said it will sell the household product business of a New Jersey-based unit for $1.6 billion

Kodak said it will sell the $800 million household goods business of L&F Products to Rickett & Coleman, the London based maker of Woolite. The L&F operations included in the deal are best known for producing Lysol and Mop & Glo.

L&F, once known as Lehn & Fink, employs about 900 in New Jersey as part of its 2,400 person work force. About 640 people work at the Montvale headquarters and technical center – an additional 260 at a manufacturing and distribution plant in Belle Mead.

Eastman Kodak of Rochester N.Y., said it is divesting the L&F units as part of a strategy to return to its core imaging business… Reckitt & Coleman spokesman David Saltmarsh said the acquisition of L&F would increase his company’s foothold in the U.S market…

L&F’s manufactured-in-New Jersey products include Lysol disinfectants and cleaners, Resolve carpet and fabric cleaners, Mop & Glow and Beacon floor waxes, Chubs and Diapering baby wipes, Vanisol bathroom cleaner and Wet Ones moist towelettes. The products are sold in 37 countries.

Today Rickett continues to make products under the Lysol brand name with their marketing message relatively unchanged from 100 years ago.

Each of the eight subject bottles that were found is 4-inches tall; 1-1/2-inches in diameter and contains about 4-ounces. It exhibits 3 horizontal measurement lines, so it contains 4- 2 quart doses. According to the 1922 advertisement mentioned at the beginning of this post, that makes it the 25c size.

One bottle is embossed with the corporate name “Lysol, Inc.” and the Bloomfield N. J. location on its base. It also exhibits what is almost certainly the maker’s mark of the Owens Bottle Company, consisting of the letter “O” inside a square that was in use between 1919 and 1929. Recognizing that Lysol, Inc. was established in 1920 and the company moved to New Jersey the same year,  puts the approximate date of the bottle between 1920 and 1929.

Another bottle includes the embossed  location of “New York” along with the company name of Lysol, Inc. on its embossed base. It also exhibits what appears to be the maker’s mark of the Illinois Glass Company, consisting of an “I” inside a diamond that was in use from 1915 – 1929. So this bottle dates to the same time frame, from 1920 when Lysol, Inc. was incorporated up through 1929.

The others are simply embossed on the base with the words “Bottle Made in U S A.”

That being said, I suspect they date to the 1920’s as well. By 1930 advertisements began to picture a different style bottle, one with “Lysol” written horizontally near the shoulder.

An example of this later bottle type recently appeared for sale on the internet.

 

 

Oakland Chemical Company, Dioxogen

In the late 1800’s The Oakland Chemical Company manufactured and marketed hydrogen peroxide under the  name “peroxide of hydrogen” and later, “hydrogen dioxide,” before finally settling on the name “Dioxogen” in 1901. They would go on to manufacture and market it under that name up through the late 1940’s and possibly into the early 1950’s.

The Dioxogyn story starts with a native New Yorker named James G. Timolat who was born in 1862.  Throughout much of the 1880’s he was listed in the NYC directories at an address of 206 Greene Street in Manhattan with the occupation “dyes.” Recognizing that hydrogyn peroxide is a bleaching agent and a key component of hair dyes, it’s possible that Timolat’s familiarity with it dated  back to these early days on Greene Street.

That being said, he was certainly familiar with it in 1890 when having established a Manhattan office on South Fifth Avenue (renamed West Broadway in 1897)  he incorporated the Oakland Chemical Company to

manufacture and sell peroxide of hydrogen and other chemical compounds and products.

The incorporation notice was published in the May 29, 1890 edition of the “Brooklyn Daily Eagle.”

Timolat was named the company’s first president, a position he would hold until 1945 when he was succeeded by his son. James G. Timolat, Jr.

Around the same time he incorporated the business, Timolat also acquired property in the Greenpoint section of Brooklyn that would serve as the company’s manufacturing facility. The “Real Estate Transfer,” documented in the May 18, 1890 edition of “The Brooklyn Citizen,” located the property on the east side of Oakland Street (just north of Dupont Street) revealing the reasoning behind the company name.

Later that year Timolat transferred the property to his Oakland Chemical Company. The transfer was  also documented in “The Brooklyn Citizen” on September 20, 1890.

At its onset the Oakland Chemical Company was one of at least 14 companies manufacturing and marketing peroxide of hydrogen at the time. A list of those 14 manufacturers that included the Oakland Chemical Company (No. 8) appeared as part of a study that was summarized in several pharmaceutical journals in late 1894/early1895.

So, almost certainly in an effort to distinguish Oakland’s product from the pack, Timolat changed its name to “Oakland Hydrogen Dioxide.” The announced name change began appearing in the pharmaceutical and medical journals in late 1894. The following, found in the December, 1894 edition of “The New York Medical Times,” was typical.

Over the next several years advertisements like the following one, found in several editions of a weekly publication called “The Philadelphia Polyclinic,” touted Oakland Hydrogen Dioxide under the heading “Oxygen By Inhalation.”

for diseases of the throat, lungs, respiratory tract, impoverished blood, defective assimilation, dyspepsia, melancholy, etc.,

Selling it in concert with

THE OAKLAND INHALING BOTTLE, a simple and effective vehicle for administering oxygen obtained from OAKLAND HYDROGEN DIOXIDE.

Then just after the turn of the century there’s another name change, this time to Dioxogen, the name embossed on the subject bottle. The announcement appeared in several 1901 editions of the “Dominion Medical Journal.”

The announcement read:

The change in name has become imperative both to protect the physician from inferior solutions and to preserve the reputation of the product itself.

The therapeutic value of Hydrogen Dioxide depends solely on the purity of the solution. In its manufacturing details, no drug or chemical demands more exact attention and none suffers more from the carelessness or ignorance of its physical qualities.

Dioxogyn will continue in the future as in the past to answer all the requirements of a perfect antiseptic and disinfectant.

Their new  label appeared in this  January, 1903 advertisement found in  “The Chicago Medical Reporter.”

This new name and label along with advertisements stressing purity and reliability like the one below, found in the April, 1905 edition of the Maryland Medical Journal,  all contributed to the company’s success in creating demand for their version of a relatively common product that was dressed up as a new/better alternative.

Up to this point, whether called Oakland Peroxide of Hydrogen, Hydrogen Dioxide or Dioxogen, the product was manufactured at the company’s Oakland Street factory, a factory described like this in the November 25, 1898 edition of the “Brooklyn Daily Times.”

The factory is a three-story brick building, 100 feet front and 50 feet deep. Adjoining the factory is the warehouse, a wooden building of the same height.

Their factory survived a fire in 1898 and as late as 1901 was even expanding as evidenced by this item that appeared in the September 28, 1901 edition of the Brooklyn “Times Union.”

Not long after the 1901 expansion the company changed direction and relocated their manufacturing arm to Staten Island. The move had certainly occurred by 1907 when a December 28th item published in the “Brooklyn Daily Eagle” announced that the company was in the process of leasing out their former plant location in Brooklyn.

BIG FACTORY LEASE

Stokes & Knowles have leased through their factory department, the building at the corner of Oakland and Dupont Streets for the Oakland Chemical Company to the Consolidated Paper Company for a term of years. The latter will occupy the building at once.

This undated photograph of their Staten Island factory located in Rossville, Staten Island, near its border with Charleston, appeared years later as part of a “Now & Then” story found in the January 20, 2002 edition of the “Staten Island Advance.”

According to another story written years later, this one in the November 4, 1955 edition of the “Staten Island Advance,” at its peak, likely in the late teens or early 1920’s, the plant was one of the largest in Staten Island with respect to both buildings and acreage encompassing 25 buildings, over 44 acres and employing between 250 and 300 people.

While the factory moved to Staten Island, the company headquarters remained on South Fifth Avenue/West Broadway in Manhattan until 1908. Later, they operated out of 98 Front Street and 10 Astor place before purchasing a building at 59 Fourth Avenue in 1919 where their headquarters remained listed until the 1950’s.

By the time their factory was operational in Staten Island the company’s advertisements pretty much focused on Dioxogyne’s antiseptic properties both as a wound clenser and mouthwash as evidenced by these two advertisements that both ran in several May/June, 1908 editions of the Syracuse N. Y. “Post Standard.”

Dioxogen continued to be advertised quite heavily in newspapers up through 1930 still with the same label and still touting it as an antiseptic and mouthwash.

Dioxogen , in 4, 10 and 20 oz bottles was still appearing in drug store price lists advertised in newspapers as late as 1949.

In the early 1930’s the Oakland Chemical Company entered the cosmetics field when they introduced Dioxogen Cream. This April 11, 1935 advertisement in  Elmira N.Y.’s “Star-Gazette”ran under the heading Blackheads Don’t Live Here Anymore” and bragged:

By means of a new discovery – – DIOXOGEN CREAM – you can now bring out the hidden charm of your complexion. You can prevent blackheads and other skin blemishes. You can bring quick refinement to large, coarse open pores. Lines, discolorations and wrinkles will not show. Excessively oily or dry skin will be normalized, and sallow or muddy skin given new life and natural color…

Dioxogen Cream was included  in newspaper advertised drug store price lists as late as 1948.

When exactly the Dioxogen name disappeared from the market is not clear, but it was certainly gone by 1955 when their Staten Island factory was put up for sale, not once but twice. This November 4, 1955 story published in the “Staten Island Advance,” described the company’s final days.

The Oakland Chemical Company plant, a Rossville mainstay for half a century, is on the auction block again – only a month after being sold by its original owners.

The Rossville factory, shut down in September after operating at a snail’s pace for six months, continues idle, no longer producing the hydrogen peroxide it made for 50 years…

Business declined steadily in recent years. When production stopped last May, only about 25 employees remained and many of the factory’s many buildings had fallen into disrepair.

A SKELETON force continued at work, liquidating the business, until its sale to an off-Island investor in September. The entrepreneur, whose identity remains undisclosed, planned to launch a chemical business but changed his mind after a discussion with European associates…

As a result the plant is up for sale again, with a $100,000 price tag. The price is far below the property’s actual valuation, but the plant’s specialized nature makes it a difficult one to sell…

The story was supported by this advertisement that appeared in several issues of the “Staten Island Advance” around that time.

The previously referenced “Now & Then” story found in the January 20, 2002 edition of the “Staten Island Advance” indicates that by 2002 all evidence of their Rossville factory had disappeared..

As far as I can tell, in Brooklyn, Oakland Street was later widened and renamed Mcguinness Blvd, leaving no sign of their former factory location there.

The bottle I found was blown in a mold with a tooled lip and contained 4 ounces. “Dioxogen” and “The Oakland Chemical Comp’ y” are embossed near the base in small lettering.

Likely from the early 1900’s, the bottle’s shape and size exactly match the bottle pictured in this March 13, 1910 “New York Tribune” advertisement.

 

 

 

I. Rokeach & Sons, Brooklyn N. Y., Refined Oils

 

Israel Rokeach is credited with organizing the first kosher soap company in America. During the first half of the 20th Century his company, I Rokeach & Sons, evolved from simply a manufacturer of kosher soap and vegetable oil into a business that, according to a 1950 “Asbury Park Press” story:

produced everything used in the kitchen from cleaning to eating.

Products are still sold today under the Rokeach name.

Israel Rokeach’s career began, not in America, but overseas in Lithuania where he was born in 1841. According to a feature on the Rokeach business written years later in the January 20, 1980 edition of the “Asbury Park (N. J.) Press:”

Rokeach discovered in 1870 that soap could be made from vegetable oil rather than non-kosher lard. Orthodox Jews were prohibited from using the traditional cleaning product.

But with Rokeach’s discovery a ready market was eager to purchase the firm’s new product guaranteeing the company’s initial success.

Several internet sources and even some Rokeach advertisements produced years later also indicate that his soap hit the market as early as 1870. While this may be true on a small scale, the “Statement of Facts” in a 1935 case heard in the Appellate Division  of  the New York State Supreme Court made it clear that it wasn’t until 1884 that Rokeach actually established a company to sell the product.

Israel Rokeach established in 1884 in the City of Kovno, Lithuania, the business of manufacturing and selling white oblong cakes of Kosher soap and originated and popularized the idea of putting three Hebrew letters either in red or blue coloring spelling the word “Kosher”all the way through the soap.

This early pictorial representation of Rokeach’s soap cake was found in the April 18, 1924 edition of “The Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle.”

The court records go on to say:

In 1894 said Israel Rokeach came to the United States and became a resident and citizen thereof. In that year he commenced, in the City of New York, the sale of Kosher soap… and also commenced the sale of vegetable oil for domestic use.

Their vegetable oil, available in both tins and bottles, was depicted in another “Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle” advertisement, this one in their June 13, 1924 edition. The ad touted it as:

Best for baking, frying and salads.

Several Internet sources suggest that Rokeach arrived in the United States, not in 1894, but as early as 1890, while  1910 census records record his arrival in the U. S. as 1891.  That being said, the first directory entry I can find for him was in 1893/1894, when he listed a Manhattan address of 30 Suffolk Street and the occupation “soap.” So, suffice to say, his U. S. business was up and running sometime in the early to mid-1890’s.

Up through the early 1900’s Rokeach was apparently content to only supply the Jewish population of New York’s Lower East Side with his soap and vegetable oil. During this time he listed lower Manhattan addresses of 48 Market Street in the late 1890’s  and 8 Birmingham Street in the early 1900’s.

Then, in 1906, according to the court records, Rokeach formed a partnership consisting of himself and his three sons, Aaron, Louis and Levi, calling it “I. Rokeach & Sons.” At this point, his “Rokeach Hand Soap” was apparently gaining traction in other parts of the City as evidenced by this February 10, 1906 advertisement for a Brooklyn department store named Lautman’s. The ad, partially reproduced below appeared in a Brooklyn newspaper called “The Chat” (his hand soap appears on the lower right-hand side).

Shortly after this advertisement was published the company moved to Brooklyn where they listed their address as 29 Ten Eyck Street in Brooklyn’s 1908 directory. By 1910, they had moved to 409 Hewes Street, also in Brooklyn.

Five years after forming their partnership the business incorporated as I. Rokeach & Sons, Inc. The notice of incorporation appeared in the December 14, 1911 edition of the “Brooklyn Times Union.”

The corporation styled “I. Rokeach & Sons, Inc.,” of Brooklyn has been chartered with a capital of $25,000, divided into shares of $100 each, to make and sell soap, scouring powder, etc. The directors are Israel Rokeach, Louis Rokeach and Levi Rokeach of Brooklyn.

Around the same time the company also began to expand its product menu, periodically adding new items to complement their kosher soap. By the early 1930’s the company was manufacturing a menu of “Household Products” that, according to this July 19, 1935 advertisement in the “Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle,” will:

Keep Your Home Clean and Kosher

Likewise, another “Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle” advertisement, this one in their August 8, 1935 edition, made it clear that their vegetable oil was now one of a number of:

Pure and Kosher Food Products

Later, the company even added wine to the menu as evidenced by this licensing notification that was appearing in the “Brooklyn Daily Eagle” as early as January, 1941.

This selection of their wines appeared in a  March 20, 1945 “N. Y. Daily News”  advertisement for Hearn’s Department Stores under the heading “Fine Passover Wines & Liquors.”

As the company’s product menu expanded so did their facilities. As early as 1913, a May 31st article in “The Chat” announced that they were moving to a new location on Hewes Street (No. 345).

The six-story and basement brick factory building, formerly occupied by the Thomas Shoe Co., and located at the southwest corner of South Fifth and Hewes Streets, was sold during the past week. The factory is of heavy mill construction, with boiler, engine, elevators, being built on a plot 75×100…

The purchasers, I Rokeach & Sons, Inc., are the largest bottlers of salad oil in Greater New York. They are also extensively engaged in the manufacture of scouring powder. The concern was established in 1891, and their business has grown to such an extent that they will now utilize the entire building for the manufacture and distribution of their products.

They contemplate making many alterations and improvements to the building.

An item in the October 4, 1928 edition of the “Brooklyn Daily Eagle” announced that the company was on the move again, this time to a newly constructed building at 240 Wythe Ave, also in Brooklyn.

I. Rokeach & Sons, Inc., awarded the building contract for a new factory at N. 3rd St. and Wythe Ave. to Turner Construction Company. Construction will start immediately. The building will be four stories and basement in height, 200 x 90 in plan, reinforced concrete throughout.

A decade later, in 1940, the company added a second location to the business, this one in New Jersey. The announcement appeared in the April 11, 1940 edition of the “Asbury Park Press.”

I. Rokeach and Sons, Brooklyn, has purchased the Farmers and Packers plant at Farmingdale, N. J., for establishment of a new business in canning soups and other products…

The plant has not been operated for about a year. It includes a one-story building, contains 20,000 square feet of floor space, on a three-acre plot.

The Rokeach’s will employ about 75 persons in the new enterprise…

The reasoning behind the new location was explained years later in the October 19, 1952 edition of the “Asbury Park Press,” by  William I. Rokeach, a grandson of Israel Rokeach who at the time was a vice president in the firm.

Until 1940 all production was done in New York. But high costs of water and shipping vegetables to the city prompted the firm to hunt for a new location.

“We settled on Farmingdale,” said Mr. Rokeach, “because it is right in the heart of a great farming area. We are now able to obtain all our fresh vegetables within 30 miles of the plant.”

Within several months of the announcement the company was already soliciting local farmers for their vegetable crop as evidenced by this advertisement for carrots in the September 27, 1940 edition of “The Freehold (N.J.) Transcript.”

…which led to among other things a variety of canned soups.

On a side note: ironically, during World War II, German prisoners of war actually worked alongside local workers at the Farmingdale facility. According to a January 20, 1945 “N. Y. Daily News” story headlined “Hey Adolf – This Kosher?”

Farmingdale, N. J., Fifteen German prisoners of war, quartered at Fort Dix, are packaging kosher food products at the I. Rokeach & Sons plant here, it was learned today. They’ve even developed a fondness for the kosher food, fellow workers reported. The prisoners are employed to help meet the manpower shortage under contract between the company and the government.

In 1950, I. Rokeach & Sons decided to expand the Farmingdale plant and consolidate the entire operation there. The announcement appeared in the December 10, 1950 edition of the “Asbury Park Press.”

Work has been started on a 40,000 square foot addition to the I. Rokeach and Sons plant at Chestnut and Water Streets.

William Rokeach, vice president of the firm, which prepares foods and manufactures cleansers, said that when the expansion is completed all production at the company’s 75 year-old Brooklyn Plant (not sure how they came up with that number…they operated in Brooklyn for roughly 45 years so maybe its a typo?) will be transferred here.

Mr. Rokeach said the present staff of 40 employees will be increased to 100 when the new facilities are completed….The new building will triple the company’s capacity here.

The company’s production includes “everything used in the kitchen from cleaning to eating,” Mr. Rokeach said.

The announcement included this rendering of the expanded New Jersey facility.

A year later, an October 19, 1952 story in the “Asbury Park Press” referred to the company as “the world’s biggest manufacturer of kosher food products.”

The company, which processes 50 different products, is the world’s biggest manufacturer of kosher food products. Its most widely distributed items are soap, canned soups, borscht, gefillte fish, scouring powder and silver polish.

From 50 to 150 persons work at the one-story plant, depending on the season.

This detailed listing of the company’s early 1950’s offerings appeared in the March 24, 1953 edition of the “N. Y. Daily News” under the heading “Your Passover Shopping List!”

Up to this point, over the course of three generations the Rokeach family remained active in the company business. This changed in 1956 when, according to a feature on the Rokeach business published in the January 20, 1980 edition of the “Asbury Park Press:”

An 86-year tradition was broken in 1956 when the firm was sold to a Wall Street group and a Rokeach no longer was listed among officers on the company letterhead.

This change apparently led to a diversification of the business that four years later resulted in the sale of the kosher food business.” The August 12, 1960 edition of the “Buffalo Jewish Review” announced the sale in a story under the headline: “Company Plans Shift From Borscht to Bras.”

I Rokeach & Sons Inc. announced that it will sell its Kosher Food Division to Crown Products Corp. and will continue negotiations for acquisition of Exquisite Form Brassiere, Inc.

Benjamin C. Wheetler, Rokeach president, said the Kosher Division, which had sales under $3 million a year, had been unprofitable for the past six years. Crown will acquire the Rokeach Kosher food products plant at Farmingdale N. J., existing inventories and the right to use the Rokeach name. The sale must be approved by the Rokeach stockholders.

Two months later, according to a story in the October 14, 1960 edition of the “Bridgeport (Conn) Post:” the stockholder approval of the sale was obtained along with approval of a corporate name change.

L Rokeach & Sons, Inc., shareholders at a special meeting today approved proposals designed to merge Rokeach with Exquisite Form Brassiere, Inc… They also voted to change the name of I Rokeach to Exquisite Form Industries, Inc.

The new company will devote its energies primarily to the manufacture of women’s foundation garments, a spokesman said. Rokeach, which had been engaged both in food manufacturing and production of women’s undergarments, sold its food business recently. A spokesman for Exquisite Form said that Exquisite Form’s sales, plus the non-food business of Rokeach totaled “in the area of $25,000,000.

Crown Products apparently continued the kosher food business under the I. Rokeach & Sons name with Monroe Nash now serving as president of the subsidiary. The 1980 “Asbury Park Press” feature on Rokeach mentioned that at the time, the company had a total payroll of 120 employees and was manufacturing more than 75 kosher products that were distributed to about 1,000 accounts.  Sales during the 1978 fiscal year were reportedly $9 million, and sales had recently increased when the company acquired Mother’s Food Products, Inc., and its Newark N. J. production facility in January, 1979. By then, the company also maintained a corporate office in Englewood Cliffs with 15 employees.

That 1980 feature went on to say that the company remained true to its kosher roots.

Rokeach continues to follow all prescribed religious practices for the production of kosher products which allows it to display The Union of Orthodox Congregations’ endorsement on its packaging.

Only kosher ingredients are used by Rokeach. It observes all Jewish religious holidays, including the Sabbath, by halting production.

After 48 years, in 1988 the company shut down its Farmingdale N. J. plant consolidating the entire Rokeach operation at the Mother’s Food Products plant in Newark N. J. The reasoning behind the move was explained in an August 31, 1988 story in the “Asbury Park Press.”

In separate decisions, I. Rokeach & Sons Inc., a kosher foods canner on Water Street, and Foster Canning Co., a pet foods canner on Railroad Avenue, are ceasing operations after about a half century as two of the borough’s businesses.

Rokeach, a subsidiary of publicly held Crown Cork & Seal Co., Engelwood Cliffs, has laid off 72 of its 75 workers under a plan to relocate its business to the company’s Newark plant by the end of September.

Rising water costs and an inability to attract workers for production jobs paying between $5 and $8 per hour made operations at the 48-year-old, 150,000 square foot Rokeach plant unprofitable, said Oney Sims, vice president of manufacturing.

State Department of Environmental Protection regulations that require area municipalities to cut groundwater use by 40 to 50 percent by 1990 to prevent salt water intrusion figured heavily in the decision, Sims said.

“We were considering either closing the Newark plant or the plant here,” Sims said. “When we looked at how high our water costs would be, the choice was obvious.”

Under DEP rules, enacted in 1985, Rokeach would have had to buy 100,000 gallons of the approximately 200,000 gallons of water it used daily from expensive treated surface water sources, he noted.

Ultimately, the Rokeach brand was acquired by R. A. B. Food Group in May, 2006. The company had previously acquired the Manischewitz  brand in 1998. According to a December 11, 2006 story in the New Jersey “Courier News:”

In addition to new products at Manischewitz, R. A. B. Food Group’s growth comes from acquiring smaller kosher labels and the consolidation of operations at a renovated, more modern plant in Newark. This May, it acquired the 136-year-old Rokeach brand, whose holdings include Mother’s, Mrs. Adler’s and Margareten.

To this day, items are still sold under the Rokeach name.

The six-story Brooklyn building at 345 Hewes Street that I. Rokeach & Sons occupied from 1913 to 1929 remains to this day. Built in 1900, today its occupied by Bnos Chayil, a private all-girls Jewish school.

The four-story building on Wythe Avenue that the company built in 1929 also remains to this day. It’s currently a rental building with 48 units.

The company’s Farmingdale, N. J. building, pictured here (likely in the 1970’s?) looks pretty much the same today.

It’s currently occupied by Kid International.

The bottle I found is machine made and contains about seven ounces. Its embossed:

“I. Rokeach & Sons, Refined Oils, Brooklyn, N.Y.

Similar versions of the Rokeach bottle that occasionally appear on the internet include the added embossed letters “INC,” below the company name. This suggests that the embossing may have changed when the company incorporated in 1911.

If so, it’s likely that the subject bottle, which doesn’t include the embossed “INC.” dates no later than 1911 when the business incorporated in New York.  That being said, recognizing its machine made I expect that it wasn’t made much earlier either, say 1905 to 1911.

The other side of the bottle exhibits the embossed outline of a crown and the Star of David. Both likely outlined paper labels that are readily apparent in the 1924 advertisement that appeared earlier in this post.

   

 

 

“GEM” Asbury Paine Mfg. Co., Philadelphia, Pa., U.S.A., Pat-2-3-1880

At first glance you would think this small 1-3/4 inch diameter jar contained some sort of medicinal or cosmetic cream but you’d be wrong.  In fact, it served as the lower portion of a jar that contained oil and could be converted to an oiler by adding a nozzle at the top.

An example of the jar adapted for use as an oiler was recently offered for sale on the internet

Called the “Gem” Oiler, it was on the market from the late 1880’s up through the turn of the century when you could pick one up for between 10 and 15 cents.

Its story begins with a native Pennsylvanian named Reuben Ritter who in the mid to late 1800’s was listed in the directories with a wide variety of occupations that included patent med’s, insurance agent, salesman, foreman, oiler and watchman. That being said it’s clear that he could also have been listed with still another occupation, that of  inventor. As early as 1874 he obtained a U.S. patent for what he called the “self sustaining paper box.” The July 14, 1874 edition of the “Scranton Republican” told the story.

On the 30th, Mr. Rueben Ritter of this city, was granted a patent upon a paper box, samples of which are to be seen at Peacock’s drug store. It is called the self-sustaining paper box, and its merits lie in its being composed of only one piece of paper, (ingeniously cut by a machine for the purpose of which is also the design of Mr, Ritter), and put together so that it cannot come apart, and will hold water, so perfectly is it cut, and yet no paste or any fastening substance is used. The box is called by all who examine it, an admirable invention, and when introduced, Mr. Ritter will not fail of securing an unlimited demand for it.

Six years later, on February 3, 1880 (the date embossed on the base of the subject jar), Ritter obtained a patent (No.234,041) for what he called his “Combined Oiler and Oil Bottle.” According to the specifications included with the patent application, in addition to serving as an oiler the bottle/jar could also be adapted for use as a night lamp.

The bottle may be made with very little cost, filled with oil, closed by a suitable stopper and sold as a bottle of oil.

The purchaser can, at the time of first purchase, procure the oiler nozzle and a night lamp. The device may then be used either as an oiler for machinery or a night lamp.

Both the nozzle and lamp configurations were illustrated on this drawing that was also part of the patent documents.

At around the same time that Ritter was obtaining his patent, George H. Paine was establishing  George H. Paine & Co. in Philadelphia. The company was first listed in 1881 as “commercial merchants” with an address of 105 S Front.  In 1883 William E. Diehl joined Paine and the company changed its name to Paine Diehl & Co. The company operated under that name up through 1894 utilizing several different Philadelphia addresses over that span including 105 S Front (1883), 7 Strawberry (1884 to 1885), 12 Bank (1886 to 1887) and 430 S Penn Sq. (1888 to 1894).

During this time the company marketed several unique household items. The one they advertised the most was called the “self-pouring coffee and tea pot.”

Another was their “Egg Beater and Cream Whip.”

Sometime in the mid-1880’s  Paine, Diehl & Co. apparently obtained the rights to Ritter’s design and by 1889 they were running advertisements for what they called the “Gem” Oiler. One of the first ads I can find appeared in the June, 1889 edition of a publication called “The Iron Age.”

Turning to page 67 you found the following item that touted the oiler’s benefits and described how to use it.

GEM OILER

Patented February 3, 1880

The oiler is made of heavy flint glass – strong, clean and durable; filled with the best of oil. It has a metallic top (the bottom is glass), with a flexible chamber with which to squirt the oil. The cap is screwed onto the bottle, making the oiler absolutely leakless.

Being transparent, the quantity of oil in or being poured into the oiler can be seen at a glance, thus enabling you to fill without spilling the oil. Having the bottom and sides all in on piece and of glass, they are perfectly clean, with no spring bottom to leak or come out.

They are sold so cheap that they can be sold at about the price of a bottle of good oil alone.

To the dealer it is a most convenient article and ready seller.

With the consumer it is a most desirable arrangement, as it enables him to get an oiler with his oil, and a splendid offer too.

In using – Place your thumb on the bottom of the oiler, letting the spout pass between the fingers. To squirt the oil, press down on the washer around the spout. This gives a better flow than a spring-bottom oiler, and is easily regulated.

They are sold by Grocers, Stationers, House-Furnishers, Druggists, Hardware Merchants, Novelty Dealers, Typo-writer Dealers and Sewing-Machine Dealers.

__________

PAINE, DIEHL & CO.

Paine, Diehl & Co. was last listed in the 1894 Philadelphia directory, suggesting that the relationship between Paine and Diehl ended around that time. That same year Paine apparently associated with a man named Charles W. Asbury and they established the Asbury-Paine Manufacturing Company in Trenton, New Jersey.

Within a year, the November 9, 1895 edition of the “Philadelphia Times” announced that the company was set to move their headquarters to Philadelphia. The announcement was included under the heading “New Charters.”

The following foreign corporations have been licensed to do business in this State:…the Asbury Paine Manufacturing Company of Trenton, N.J., headquarters to be in Philadelphia.

The company remained  headquartered at Wayne Junction (Wayne and Berkley) in Philadelphia up through the turn of the century with Paine named vice president and Asbury, treasurer. During this time, in addition to advertising many of the former Paine Diehl products, they added some new ones as well. One, that was advertised quite heavily was called “Witch-Kloth.”

Ashley-Paine also continued to market the “Gem” Oiler as evidenced by the following advertisement that appeared in several 1896 editions of the “Trenton Evening News.”

   

Apparently, the Asbury-Paine Manufacturing Company came to an end in 1900, at which time the company name vanished from the Philadelphia directories. That being said, the “Gem” brand of oilers survived well into the 20th century.

On November 27, 1899, the Gem Manufacturing Company was established in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. An announcement to that effect appeared in the November 7, 1899 edition of “The Pittsburgh Press.”

An application for a charter for the incorporation of the Gem Manufacturing Company will be filed at Harrisburg, November 27. The company will locate its plant in the building formerly occupied by the Bradley Stove Company, Second Avenue and Wood Street. The larger stockholders of the new company are men conversant with the machinery business and have already purchased the hydraulic presses and the die machinery required for the manufacture of the steel specialties. The incorporators of the company are: William H. Frick, John A. Clark, Edwin S. Fonnes, D.A. McCaffrey and W. D. Forsythe.. The two first named are the secretary and vice-president of the Frick & Lindsey Company, Water Street.

The official organization of the company will take place when the charter is received, about December 1, and the company expects to have the plant in working order not later than January 1.

What connection they had with the former Asbuury-Paine Manufacturing Company or, how they obtained rights to the “Gem” name, is not clear but almost immediately after the Gem Manufacturing Company was established they introduced a newly designed “Gem” Oiler. This advertisement touting its benefits can be found in the June 18, 1900 edition of a publication called “The Daily Railway Age.”

According to another introductory item, this one published in the April, 1900 edition of a publication called “Railway Master Mechanic,” the new design replaced the glass jar with a steel base and bottom.

A New Oiler

The Gem Manufacturing Co., of Pittsburg, Pa., presents a new device in the Gem oiler. The can itself is a departure from methods now obtaining, yet it still preserves the fundamental principle of the old.

In this oiler the bottom is constructed from high carbon spring steel. The body is made from the best grade of basic low phosphorus steel, pressed and drop forged into shape, and flared and spun firmly against the bottom proper. To further strengthen the cans and insure against any leakage whatever, the oilers are brazed upon the inside…

This August, 1900 advertisement in “Steam Engineering” called it “The Best Oiler Made.”

This example of their early steel oiler recently appeared for sale on the internet.

 

Later the company added  the “Gem” Steel Tallow Pot and the”Gem” Engineer’s Set to the “Gem” family of oilers.

These additions, coupled with the company’s choice of publications in which to run their advertisements make it clear that the market for their oiler was expanding. Originally sold in local grocery, drug and hardware stores, Ashley-Paine simply targeted the customer who wanted to fix a squeaky door or oil his wheelbarrow. Under the Gem Manufacturing Company, much of their advertising was now directed toward the professional mechanic.

Another market for their oilers opened up with the proliferation of the automobile. According to this January 11, 1906 advertisement published in a magazine called “The Automobile:”

If you have a high-class car, you need a high-class Gem Oiler.

Not just oilers, in the early 1900’s the “Gem” name began to represent an entire line of products. As early as 1902, this May 26th advertisement in the “Birmingham (Alabama) News” referenced both a “Gem” flue scraper and a “Gem” flexible shaft in addition to the “Gem” oiler.

By 1925, this advertisement in “Hendrick’s Commercial Register” made it clear you needed a catalog to see the entire line of “Gem” Products.

In the 1930’s and 1940’s the company expanded into many other areas including the manufacture of automotive items such as mufflers. That being said, through it all they apparently continued to manufacture oil cans and oilers. As late as 1953 the company was included on a  U. S. government listing under the heading: “Manufacturers of  Lubricating Systems and Devices.”

In March, 1953 the company, still located in Pittsburgh, went into receivership. According to the March 6th edition of the “Pittsburgh Press:”

Uncle Sam today slapped a big tax lien on a Pittsburgh firm now in receivership.

The lien for $185,193 was filed against the Gem Manufacturing Co. Attorney J. Howard is the receiver…The lien covers income taxes for the years 1943 through 1946 which the Government claims the firm has failed to pay.

The business apparently reorganized and was still active in Pittsburgh in 1960 and possibly longer. Whether they were still manufacturing oil cans and oilers at this point is unknown.

Our subject jar held two ounces of oil. Embossing on the base includes the Asbury-Paine Mfg. Co. name dating it between 1895 and 1899 when they manufactured the oiler.

On a final note: Unlike most items presented on this site, this jar was not found in the Long Island bays. Instead it was found by one of my wife’s best friends while tending her beautiful northern Massachusetts garden. Thanks Di and HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Sparklene (Charles H. Smith & Co.)

`

“Sparklene” was the name of a polish manufactured from the late 1890’s up through the 1950’s by Charles H. Smith & Co. of Boston, Massachusettes and later by J. A. Wright & Co. of Keene, New Hampshire. Newspaper advertisements for the polish were still appearing as late as the mid-1980’s.

Although generally referred to as a “silver polish,” over the years it was advertised as a polish for anything from metals to marble to glass.

One early advertisement, found in the June 3, 1897 edition of Hartford Connecticut’s “Daily Morning Journal and Courier,” summed up Sparklene’s marketing pitch in one sentence.

SPARKLENE!

It will brighten anything which ought to be bright.

On Jul7 17, 1905, Charles H. Smith & Co. filed an Application (No. 10,468)  to register the “Sparklene” trademark in accordance with the then recently enacted Trademark Act of February 20, 1905.

There was no public opposition to their application and the trademark was ultimately registered on January 30, 1906 (No. 49,242).

The patent records indicated that the Sparklene trademark had been in use for ten years prior, likely establishing a start date for its manufacture sometime in the mid-1890’s. The prequel to the Sparklene story however begins several years earlier with the originating company’s namesake, Charles H. Smith.

Census records indicate that he was born in New Hampshire in 1854. Boston city directories suggest that he arrived in Boston sometime in the late 1880’s, where he was first listed with the occupation “agent for the “Dam’s Remedy Company.”

A patent medicine business run by a so called physician named Alvah Dam, in the late 1880’s and early 1890’s, the company manufactured and sold several patent medicines that prominently featured the Dam name. One, called Dr. Dam’s Nerve-Aid, was featured in this November 12, 1893 “Boston Globe advertisement.

The Boston directories continued to associate Smith with the “Dam Remedy Company” up through 1895 at which point Alvah Dam, in severe financial trouble, filed for bankruptcy. According to the December 1, 1895 edition of “Merck’s Market Report,” Smith was one of Dam’s two largest creditors.

Dr. Alvah M. F. Dam, 212 Columbus Avenue, Boston, well known through his connection with the Dam Remedy Company, whose insolvency petition was filed recently, has debts amounting to $69,814. Among the largest creditors are the National Traders’ Bank of Portland, Me., $10,000 and Charles H. Smith, who has $7,834 charged against him.

In fact, a notice published in the December 24, 1895 edition of the Boston Post, announced that Smith had actually been appointed as the “assignee” in the case.

Apparently, at the same time Smith was involved in the bankruptcy proceedings of his former boss, he was also establishing Charles H. Smith & Company. As early as November 24, 1895, he was running this want ad in the “Boston Globe” classifieds..

While there’s no way of knowing, it certainly makes sense that the “quick seller” mentioned in the above ad was Sparklene. This supposition is bolstered by the fact that department stores were stocking Sparklene and offering free demonstrations as early as 1897. One such department store was Hochschild, Kohn & Co., of Baltimore Md., who included this item in their April 22, 1899 advertisement published in the “Baltimore Sun.”

In their home town of Boston, the October 25, 1905 edition of the “Globe,” announced that the department store of Henry Siegel Co. had taken it a step further, actually maintaining a “demonstration booth” in their basement.

Charles H Smith & Co.remained listed in Boston up through 1957 listing several addresses over that period; 8 Bromfield (1896-1897), 10 Federal (1898), 79 Milk (1899-1904), 220 Devonshire (1905-1922), 85 Purchase (1923-1945) and 103 Broad (1948-1957). I suspect that each of these addresses referenced their office location. It’s likely that their manufacturing facilities were also situated in Boston but where is unknown.

Over the course of this roughly 60 year period the company was apparently closely held by the Smith family. The Boston directories named Charles as proprietor up through the time of his death on November 10, 1929, after which his wife, Annie, continued to be listed in that role. Annie went on to renew the Sparklene trademark (No. 49242) in 1946.

Charles H. Smith & Co. disappeared from the Boston directories sometime in the late 1950’s. Around that time it appears that Annie transferred control of the business to one of their competitors, J. A. Wright & Co. of Keene New Hampshire. Trademark renewal records from 1966 reveal that the transfer had certainly occurred by then.

J. A. Wright & Co. renewed the Sparklene trademark again in 1985 however, how long they continued to market the polish is not clear. The last mention of Sparklene polish that I can find appeared in the April 8, 1984 edition of the “Philadelphia Inquirer,” where it was included within a menu of items (2nd from the bottom) advertised by a company called “Shop-In-Bag.”

The trademark expired when it was not renewed in 2006.

The style of our subject bottle was utilized by the company throughout much of their history, as evidenced by the following two advertisements. The first was published in 1910 and the second in 1943.

   

Our subject bottle is machine made and certainly the 5-1/2 ounce size. The base of the bottle exhibits the Illinois Glass Co.’s maker’s mark of an I enclosed in a diamond shape, dating the bottle between 1915 and 1929.

Sparklene advertisements in later years suggest that sometime in the 1940’s they began to package the polish in jars with wider mouths and shorter necks. The first, exhibiting a 32 oz sized jar, was published in a 1944 edition of the Pittsburgh “Sun-Telegraph.” The second, a pint jar, was found in a 1964 edition of Allentown Pennsylvania’s “Morning Call.”

 

Armour and Company, Chicago (Armour Laboratories)

Established in the mid 1860’s by Phillip Danforth Armour and John Plankinton, Armour and Company was a meat packing business that by the turn of the century had grown into one of the largest companies in the United States. For many years its presence in Chicago’s Union Stock Yards contributed, in no small way, to that city’s reputation as the capital of the American meatpacking industry.

Not only a meat producer, the company was heavily involved in the manufacture of by-products utilizing materials that were typically wasted in the slaughtering process. According to an October 20, 1901 story in the Buffalo (N.Y.) Times:

It is a saying in Chicago that the house of Armour & Co., in the slaughter of hogs, “loses nothing but the squeal of the hogs” when they are led to the slaughter. Employing many thousands of men in the varied industries growing out of their vast slaughtering business, the firm has found it immensely profitable to utilize all portions of the raw material by the firm.

The story went on to provide this menu of  products manufactured under the Armour name at the turn of the century. The list would grow well into the hundreds by the 1920’s

The business got its start with John Plankinton, not in Chicago but further north in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. His biography, available on wisconsinhistory.org tells the story.

John Plankinton was a meat packer and businessman. In 1849 he began the packing of beef and hog products, and in 1852 formed a partnership with Frederick Layton under the firm name of Layton and Plankinton Packing Co. In 1861 Layton withdrew and Plankinton continued the business alone until 1863, when he was joined by Phillip D. Armour, and the firm became Plankinton, Armour and Co. (Plankinton & Armour)

Armour had arrived in Milwaukee by way of California where he had been lured by the gold rush.  Whether he made any money on the west coast is apparently open to speculation. According to his biography published in “A History of the City of Chicago,” published in 1900:

Mr Armour returned to the East in 1856, after having a varied experience in mining enterprises, and it was conjectured at the time that he brought back with him considerable of the golden dust, but the facts of this interesting matter are known only to himself.

Another biography, this one published in the January 7, 1901 edition of Chicago’s “Inter Ocean,” described Armour’s Milwaukee years leading up to his association with Plankinton.

Mr. Armour went to Milwaukee, where he had a friend, Frederick S. Miles, who was engaged in the wholesale grocery and commission business, and soon became his business partner, the style of the firm being Miles & Armour. The firm was prosperous, but in 1863 Mr. Armour withdrew from it to engage in the shipment of wheat, in which he saw more money. He purchased the largest grain elevator in the city, and was again as successful as could be desired.

In the meantime the pork-packing firm of Plankton & Layton was dissolved, and John Plankinton formed a new firm, in the same business with Mr. Armour, under the style of Plankton & Armour.

It appears that shortly after his association with Plankinton the financial foundation for the Armour business was laid. His “Inter Ocean” biography went on to say:

The firm was successful from the first, and suddenly amassed a great fortune, all through the brilliant management of Mr. Armour. This happened in the spring of 1863, when the war of the rebellion was drawing to a close. At that time pork was selling at $40 a barrel, and the New York operators were buying it recklessly under the impression that it would go to $60. Mr. Armour believed that the war would soon end, and that pork would decline to $20 or less. He laid his plans before his partners, who gave him their approval, and then went posthaste to New York, where he sold pork short for $40 as long as anybody would buy it. Sure enough, pork soon fell to $18, and Mr. Armour and his partners were made millionaires.

In the meantime Phillip’s brother, Herman O. Armour, had started a grain commission business in Chicago sometime in 1862 and by 1864 the two brothers along with Plankinton had joined together in that city under the name H. O. Armour & Co. In 1868 they began packing pork under the name Armour & Co. and by 1870 all the business transacted in Chicago was  done under the Armour & Co. name.

According to a story written years later in the December 2, 1951 edition of the Tribune, the Chicago operation moved to the Union Stock Yards in 1872 where it would remain until the late 1950’s.

The first Armour hog plant was the old Bell house in the Archer Avenue packing center which had been built up during the Civil War. About 1868 packers began to move south to the area just west of the stock yards and Armour followed in 1872.

As early as 1865 Herman left another brother, Joseph, in charge of the Chicago operation and opened an office in New York under the name Armour, Plankinton & Co. The office was first listed in the 1866/1867 New York City directory at 129 Broad Street in Manhattan.

By the end of the decade the Armours had also established another plant, this one in Kansas City run by a fourth brother, Simeone Armour, under the name Plankinton & Armours.

As early as the mid-1870’s a story in the Kansas City Times clearly viewed their operation as the leader in the country and world’s meat packing industry.

Thoroughly identified with the packing business of the whole country, there are no names in the United States more familiar to the trade than those of the Plankinton’s and the Armours, there being two of the former-father and son-and four of the latter-brothers. These six gentlemen stand at the head of beyond all comparisons the heaviest beef and pork packing business of the world…

A May 10, 1880 story published in the The (London) Times featured the American bacon and pork industry and included this description of the Armour business.

A few hogs are slaughtered and salted by the farmers, but the great bulk pass to the packers…

Messrs. Armour & Co. handle nearly 1,000,000 hogs annually at Chicago, and have similar establishments at Milwaukee and at Kansas City, at each of which upwards of 400,000 are slaughtered and packed. From small beginnings in 1860 their business has steadily increased; within six years it has doubled. At the Chicago works at the stock yards, 10,000 pigs are frequently killed daily in summer; 20,000 constitute a full day’s slaughtering in winter. Two thousand tons of meat are sometimes dispatched in a single day from the railway sidings which are conveniently brought into the premises. The work covers 14 acres; the buildings are four stories high, and are being constantly added to. There are six lifts, and hydrants and fire hose are fixed at convenient points on every story. A trained fire brigade is recruited from among the operatives. The premises are insured for a million dollars, the annual premium on different parts of the works varying from 1 to 1 3/4  percent. Two thousand men are employed in summer and 3,500 in winter.

The raw material which keeps this great establishment moving is conveniently found in the contiguous market where 60,000 hogs are sometimes pitched (sold) in a morning, and on one occasion last summer the number ran up to 80,000… Messrs. Armour have large pens and yards where their purchases are fed and watered until required. No fasting is practiced as in England. The grunter has his breakfast even if he is doomed before dinner time.

An advertisement published in the March 18, 1882 edition of the (New Orleans) Times-Democrat, for one of Armour’s agents, McCloskey & Henderson,  provided this list of canned meat products being  produced and shipped out of Chicago by Armour at the time. By this time the business included beef and even chicken soup, as well as pork.

Over the course of several years during the early 1880’s the Armours and Plankinton severed their various business relationships, apparently amicably. As the dust settled, the resultant situation was summarized in the October 26, 1884 edition of the Kansas City Times.

As appears from a dissolution notice published in the advertisement column of THE TIMES this morning, the partnership which has existed for twenty-five years between Mr P.D. Armour and Mr. John Plankinton, has been dissolved, Mr. Armour retiring from the Milwaukee house and Mr. Plankinton from the Kansas City house, which will in the future be known under the firm name of the Armour Packing Company.

The dissolution does not effect either the Chicago or New York houses, as Mr. Plankinton has not been connected with the former business for several years and a few weeks ago sold his interest in the New York house to Mr. H. O. Armour retaining an interest in but one establishment, that of Milwaukee, of which he is the chief owner.

It was during the remainder of the 1800’s that the Armours laid the foundation for much of the company’s expansion into industries related to their meat packing business, adding a glue factory, soap works and a pharmaceutical department among others to their operation.

A story in the January 1, 1886 edition of the Chicago Tribune announced the acquisition of the Wahl Bros. glue factory.

In a circular-letter to the trade, dated December 21, 1885, they announce the purchase of Wahl Bros’ extensive glue factory (which covers eight acres) in this city, together with the good will and all appurtenances. They will continue to produce glue in all it’s varieties, and all other products that their predecessors did, including gelatin, brewers’ isinglass, size for papermakers, bone-meal, neatsfoot oil, etc., etc. The regular packing business of the firm furnishes them with a fresh daily supply of materials, which is such an essential feature in securing superior qualities and perfect results… They employ 300 hands in the glue factory.

Ten years later, another item published in the Chicago Tribune, this one on May 5, 1896, announced the formation of their soap works.

Commencing this day the firm of Armour & Co. has added another feature to their business, to be known as the Armour Soap Works. The new building and plant are situated at Thirty-first and Benson Streets. With the inauguration of the soap works Armour & Co. now utilize everything in the way of raw material from the hog and steer.

An April 17, 1897 advertisement For Oshkosh Wisconsin’s “Kruschke’s” Department Store, confirmed that less than a year later the soap works was manufacturing at least three different soap brands.

Both the glue works and soap works were included in this May 28, 1897 advertisement in the Chicago Chronicle.

By the early 1890’s a pharmaceutical department had also been established  as evidenced by this excerpt from an April 10, 1892 Chicago Tribune article.

In the downtown office of Armour & Co. are several rows of shelves filled with bottles and at first sight a stranger would think the “old man,” as P.D. Armour is called by his employees among themselves, was running a drug store on the side to make both ends meet. In these bottles are a great and unique variety of preparations extracted from animals killed at the yards. The man who manages this department is a duly licensed druggist and physician, and the big packer’s hobby when receiving visitors is to invite them to sample his dried bullock’s blood or desiccated ox gail.

It’s likely that the above mentioned licensed druggist and his department were the very beginning of  Armour Laboratories. According to a November 13, 1949 Tribune story:

One of their earliest (products) was pepsin, a commercially valuable compound recovered from the stomach linings of hogs. For many rears the rudimentary laboratories at Armour’s were called the “pepsin department.”

On April 15, 1900 Phillip Armour formed a corporation that included most, though not all, of the Armour businesses. His reasoning was explained in a February 18, 1900 Chicago Tribune story.

The business of Armour & Co always has been carried on as a partnership. The recent death of Phillip D. Armour Jr., and the illness of Phillip D, Armour, the founder and head of the firm, are said to have supplied the reasons for deciding to put the business in a stock company. For several months the elder Armour has been ill, but it was not believed his illness was sufficiently grave to warrant any change in the management of the business. The death of his son was a severe blow, however, and is said to have determined the plan of incorporation.

The new corporation included the packing houses (excluding the Armour Packing House of Kansas City),  glue factory and soap factory, as well as a felt and hair factory and rail car shops.

The factories that will be taken into the stock company are large concerns. The glue factory is one of the largest in the country. The soap factory of Armour & Co., a more recent establishment, is also an important plant. The hair factory has an output which is said to be unequalled by that of any similar institution. The car factory is used to manufacture and keep in repair the hundreds of cars used in the transportation of the meat and other products of the various Armour industries.

In addition to the manufacturing plants, the packing house includes the large cattle interests of the firm. The agencies of Armour & Co. also will fall into the corporation. In every city of any size in the United States Armour & Co. has an agency for the distribution of dressed beef and the other packing house products of the firm. There are besides agencies in foreign countries. These are to be found in every port of consequence in Europe. In Asia and Africa the firm also carries on its widespread business.

The stockholders of the new corporation were Phillip D. Armour (50%), his son, J. Ogden Armour (25%) and the estate of his deceased son Phillip D. Armour, Jr. (25%). Shortly after the business incorporated, Phillip Sr. also passed away and J. Ogden Armour assumed the presidency. It was J. Ogden Armour who, according to an August 17, 1927 Chicago Tribune story, developed the business into a world wide organization.

Expansion in this country was followed by invasion in the South American field. In 1909 Armour & Co. acquired an interest in an Argentine packing plant. Now (1927) it has in that country five large plants whose products go to the world meat trade.

In the teens their food product menu extended well beyond the by-products of their meat packing business.  A product list published in 1919 bears this out.

According to the February, 1917 edition of a journal called “Advertising & Selling,” their food product line alone had reached over 300 items that were being distributed by 350 branch houses throughout the country. So it was out of necessity that around this time they unified much of their advertising under the “Armour Oval Label”

According to the 1917 story in “Advertising and Selling:”

About two years ago (1915) it was adopted as a permanent trademark for all Armour top grade products, and since then has appeared in all the advertising of these products; newspaper, poster, magazine, window display, booklet advertising, alike, all have the Oval Label as a prominent and permanent feature of the copy. (A label committee , composed of representatives from the selling, operative and executive departments, decides upon the eligibility of a product for the Oval Label, only the highest quality products being admitted to this class.)

Armour Laboratories had also grown significantly from the fledgling department of the early 1890’s.  An advertisement published in the 1919 edition of the “Modern Hospital Year Book,” included the laboratory’s pitch to the medical community.

We are headquarters for the organotherapeutic agents. Our abattoirs supply enormous quantities of glands and membranes from which digestive ferments and endocrine gland preparations are made. Raw material is selected with rigorous care. Nothing but healthy normal material is employed, and this is put into process before any deterioration has set in.

The laboratory is conveniently located. All desiccating is done in vacuum ovens at a low temperature, which prevents injury to active principles.

The advertisement went on to provide a descriptive list of their preparations.

The post World War I years brought pressures on the business that would ultimately, in the 1920’s, transition it from a company closely held by the Armour family to a publicly held company. A feature on J. Ogden Armour published at the time of his death in the August 17, 1927 edition of the Chicago Tribune described the influence of World War I on the corporation.

During the war American packers carried tremendous meat supplies, both for the American armies and for those of European allies. Prices of live stock and meat joined the wartime inflation.The business of Armour & Co. increased sales to around $1,000,000,000 a year…

With the abrupt ending of the war American packers and the allied governments alike had vast quantities of meat on hand. The wartime demand faded. Governments cancelled contracts and threw their surplus stocks on the market for whatever they would bring. Prices of live stock and meat dropped. With the post-war depression the currencies of Europe also plunged down in value.

The result of all this was that the large inventories of American meat packers lost tremendously in value. Their stocks in Europe were paid for in constantly depreciating currencies. It is estimated that Armour & Co. lost around $125,000,000 in two years.

Ultimately in 1923 a refinancing of the business was effected that ultimately resulted in J. Ogden Armour both relinquishing the presidency and selling the majority of his stock.

The Associated Press announced the organizational change on January 3, 1923.

Armour & Co. for the first time since it was organized in 1862, today operated without a member of the Armour family in the president’s chair.

Instead F. Edison White, a worker from the ranks, occupied the controlling station made vacant by the resignation of J. Ogden Armour yesterday, who became chairman of the board of directors.

However, members of the Armour family will retain important positions with the company. Phillip D. Armour III who has been a vice president of the company was designated first vice president, and Lester Armour was continued as a member of the board of directors.

A Chicago Tribune Story, dated February 14, 1925 revealed that the refinancing plan also included an option to purchase the bulk of Mr. Armour’s stock holdings within five years. The story went on to say that the purchase began at that time with a third of his holdings.

Armour & Co., largest of the packing concerns, will be owned by a large body of investors and will cease to be a family corporation with the working out of plans made known yesterday.

It is understood that about one third of the total stock holdings of J. Ogden Armour will be bought by the banking group, which conducted the financial reorganization of Armour & Co. two years ago, and then offered publicly to investors. Later on and as market conditions permit, further offerings of stock will be made.

J. Ogden Armour’s 1927 Chicago Tribune obituary mentioned that Armour’s stock holdings at the time of his death were not large, so it appears much of his remaining stock was sold over the next two years. Four years later in January, 1931 P. D. Armour, the grandson and namesake of the founder, resigned as first vice president. He would be the last member of the Armour family to hold an executive position in the corporation.

Overall the company had its ups and downs but continued to grow through the 1930’s and early 1940’s as evidenced by this financial snapshot included in the Chicago Tribune’s January 23, 1943 edition.

Stockholders were given a glimpse of company progress as indicated by a comparison of balance sheets of last year and of 1923, after a reorganization. Funded debt was reduced from 144 million to 62 million dollars during the 20 years, and sales increased from slightly more than 800 millions to 1 billion 300 millions.

Around this time they were contributing significantly to the World War II effort, so much so that an April 11, 1943 Chicago Tribune story announced that 90 to 95 per cent of Armour’s total production was devoted to war production. As a result, the army and navy awarded their E flag to company officials.

Notice that Armour & Co. had been elected to the award came in a letter from Robert P. Patterson, Undersecretary of War. The letter read in part; “You men and women of Armour & Co. are making an outstanding contribution to victory. You have every reason to be proud of the record you have set, and your practical patriotism stands as an example to all Americans.

Among the company’s specific accomplishments in aiding the war, (Armour)President Eastwood cited the following: “The development of wood veneer drums to replace metal drums, such as are used in the shipment of lard; a new method of smoking ham and bacon for army use which takes 96 hours instead of seven days; the telescoping of lambs to save shipping space.”

He also pointed to a new product “Tushonka,” a canned pork popular with Russians; to a new style of “stuffing horn” for packaging of ground beef; and, finally to the formula for “Pemmican,” an emergency ration carried by airplanes and ships.

The award also recognized the achievements of Armour Laboratories.

Brig. Gen. C. C. Hillman, acting Surgeon General, Washington D. C., said in his statement of the award to Armour Laboratories that they had “given a rich endowment, not only to the war effort but to the entire field of medicine. Listed on the chart of Armour’s achievements will be their production of ligatures, insulin, and other medical supplies for the military service. In addition to this, your conversion of facilities for the absorption of great production loads all shall be listed on the war chart victory.”

After the war the company continued to introduce new products and innovations. In 1948 the company introduced their famous brand, DIAL deodorant soap.

An August 11, 1948 Chicago Tribune advertisement bragged that the soap was so popular that after being introduced, it immediately sold out.

In the mid-1950’s Armour became the first company to vacuum package their bacon as well as other meats. A May 5, 1956 Chicago Tribune feature provided the details.

Armour was the very first to discover how to keep bacon slicer-fresh from packing house to your pan. Old style packages of bacon usually lost freshness after a week or 10 days, so Armour research set about developing a package that would maintain freshness for three weeks.

Since air was known to be the villain that made bacon lose flavor, the obvious solution was to remove the air and pack bacon in a vacuum.

Obvious? Well not exactly. While vacuum packed jars and cans have been used for years, the requirement that a bacon package be both flexible and transparent gave the problem new complexity.

Several hundred kinds of materials, and nearly as many different shapes and types of packages were tried and discarded.

Finally, a new plastic was tested and found to have just the right combination of strength and pliability for use in newly developed vacuum packaging machines.

Subsequent taste tests revealed that bacon packaged the new way keeps fresh much longer than was once thought possible. This fundamental research on bacon packaging was so successful that it soon led to vacuum packaging of many other products.

Armour Laboratories was also making significant advances during the late late 1940’s and 1950’s. Some were enumerated in a December 2, 1951 story.

Recently the science of animal utilization has reached its highest point at Armour & Co., which is now headed by Frederick Specht. The company views its laboratory accomplishments primarily from a humanitarian, rather than a money making angle.

The outstanding achievement was development of the pituitary hormone , ACTH, which was ordered into production in the early summer of 1949. It has been used in treating arthritis and 20 other diseases. A later development is trypsin, which has the ability to turn dead flesh into liquid without damaging live tissue. Trypsin, like the insulin used by diabetics, come from a meat animal’s pancreas.

Hormones are not the only medical products of meat packing. Liver extracts are used in treating anemia, many products are made from animal blood, and a stomach lining substance is used for ulcer.

As the 1960’s approached the overall corporate picture was apparently beginning to lose some shine. In 1959 Armour discontinued all slaughtering operations in Chicago. A story dated June 9, 1959 in the Chicago Tribune detailed the facts and reasoning behind the decision.

Armour & Co. announced Monday that it will discontinue all slaughtering operations at six plants, including the one at Chicago…

Approximately 5,000 employees will be affected at all plants, including 2,000 in Chicago. Armour employs nearly 3,000 persons in its Chicago unit, but not all of them work in slaughtering operations. Such Chicago operations as refining of fats and oils, wool pulling, soap manufacturer, and sales and distribution will be continued. In addition, Armour will continue to buy cattle on the Chicago market for its eastern plants…

The company said there were several basic causes for its inability to reverse substantial losses encountered at these plants. These include obsolescence of buildings, many of which were constructed more than 50 years ago; shifts in live stock numbers sectionally; declining receipts of live stock at some markets; and a general and widely recognized condition of excess production capacity in the meat packing industry.

Ultimately Armour was acquired by the Greyhound Corporation in 1970. This strange marriage is explained by company histories.com.

The country’s leader in the motor coach industry since 1930, Greyhound under chairperson and CEO Gerald H. Trautman had begun to diversify its operations in the 1960’s in response to declining bus ticket sales. As automobiles and airline tickets became less expensive and bus line profits dwindled, Greyhound acquired small companies in the fields of automobile leasing, money orders, insurance, and catering. Greyhound board members were approached by Armour in the late 1960’s when General Host threatened Armour with a hostile takeover, and Greyhound was persuaded to add Armour to its subsidiaries. The 1970 $400 million purchase was Greyhound’s first major acquisition. To reduce its investment, Greyhound immediately sold $225 million of Armour assets, retaining only the meatpacking and consumer products subsidiaries. The meatpacking operation was renamed Armour Foods, while the consumer products operation was renamed Armour-Dial.

Less than a year later, and after more than 100 years, the Arizona Republic announced that, now a subsidiary of Greyhound, the Armour headquarters was leaving Chicago for Phoenix Arizona.

Greyhound Corp. the nation’s 29th largest firm, and its big subsidiary, Armour and Co., are moving from Chicago to Phoenix.

Gerald H. Trautman of Paradise Valley, chairman and chief executive said the move will affect ” a few hundred”employees of the headquarters staffs of the Greyhound Corp. and of these subsidiaries:

Armour and Co., Greyhound Bus Lines, Greyhound Leasing and Financial Corp., and Greyhound Computer Corp., except its service center personnel.

The largest of Greyhound’s subsidiaries is Armour and Co., acquired in 1970. From its start in meat packing, that firm has diversified into a modern industrial complex.

Today Armour meat products continue to be sold by Smithfield Foods and are still marketed under an oval label.

Over the years I’ve found two Armour bottles, both small and mouth blown. One embossed “Armour Laboratories,” is colored brown and approximately one ounce in size. The Armour Laboratory Pharmaceutical List, published in the 1919 “Modern Hospital Yearbook” included a one ounce bottle size for both pepsin and pancreatin powders.

The second bottle is approximately two ounces in size and embossed “Armour and Company,” not “Armour Laboratories,” which leads me to believe its not a pharmaceutical bottle. Armour produced lemon, orange and vanilla flavoring extracts in several size bottles, including two ounces, so I’m leaning in that direction.

 

Kellogg’s Tasteless Castor Oil

The above bottle is simply embossed Kellogg’s on its base which leaves several turn of the century products that it could possibly have contained.

One was “Kellogg’s Whiskey,” but the size and shape of the bottle certainly say medicine, not whiskey flask. Another, Kellogg’s Ant Paste, also fits the time frame but was sold in what was marketed as “the jar with the rattle cap,” not in a bottle

         

The fact that both businesses were located on the west coast and focused their advertising in that area further raised doubt that they hit the mark.

That left the linseed oil manufacturing company of Spencer Kellogg & Sons who in the mid-teens began manufacturing a product called “Tasteless Castor Oil,” whose bottles best fit the bill. In fact, the subject bottle looks quite similar to the bottle illustrated in this 1913 advertisement.

The business of Spencer Kellogg & Sons incorporated in Buffalo, New York in 1912 but the Kellogg family had been in the business of crushing and recovering products from various oil bearing seeds for two generations prior. The family’s start in the business was described years later in the December 31, 1939 edition of the Decatur, Illinois “Herald and Review.”

History records the erection of the first linseed oil mill by a member of the Kellogg family in 1824. It was in that year that Supplina Kellogg, grandfather of the founder of the present company, great grandfather of a present president, made the decision at the age of 35 to embark in the linseed oil business.

The first linseed mill erected on the Chactanunda Creek, West Galway in the Mohawk Valley near Amsterdam, N.Y., was a modest affair with a capacity of two barrels daily. In a few years, its production expanded to six barrels daily.

The first motive power at this “plant” was furnished by a blind mule. The maximum output was obtained when the mule was good and fresh.

According to the “Genealogical and Family History of Western New York,” by William Richard Cutter, published in 1912, Supplina passed away in 1845 and subsequently the business, operated by his two sons, Lauren and John, moved to Amsterdam, New York  in 1852. A year later Lauren Kellogg passed away and his place in the firm was taken by his wife’s brother, James A. Miller, changing the firm to Kellogg and Miller.

The “Genealogical and Family History of Western New York” goes on to say that in 1868 Spencer Kellogg entered the picture.

Spencer Kellogg, at the age of seventeen, began working for the firm and displayed so much business ability that four years later, in 1872, on his coming of legal age, was admitted to the firm…

Spencer remained with the firm for another five years. Then, in 1877 sold his interest in the business and relocated to Des Moines, Iowa before ultimately settling in Buffalo, New York. The reasoning behind his move from Des Moines to Buffalo was explained in “A history of the City of Buffalo Its Men and Institutions,” published in 1908.

…he entered into a partnership to erect a linseed oil mill in that town, which was to compete with one already established there. One day Mr. Kellogg was struck with the idea that the flax crop which had progressed steadily in a northwesterly direction, and from having originally been chiefly grown in the vicinity of Philadelphia, had moved through Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, and was now largely located in Iowa, must almost of necessity proceed further westward, and would, therefore, eventually leave Des Moines, out of its radius, as it had already left Amsterdam.

Further investigation convinced him that the flaxseed which was the raw material of his proposed mill, would in the end be grown principally in the Dakotas. But the principal markets for linseed oil were in the East. Hence the question arose, How will the flaxseed be brought to the Eastern mills? and putting his finger on the map where Buffalo was marked, he said to his partner, “That will be the great distributing point, and that is the place for our mill.

Acting on this theory, the Des Moines project was abandoned and in 1879 Kellogg, in partnership with Sidney McDougall, erected a mill in Buffalo, New York. Located on an island in Buffalo Harbor, a February 22, 1881 story in the “Buffalo Commercial” described their location as “the south side of the creek, opposite the foot of Illinois Street.” The 1880 Buffalo Directory simply used the address, “on island.”

The early history of the business included a building collapse and two fires but the company survived and grew steadily during their first decade  ultimately incorporating in 1887 under the name  of the Kellogg & McDougall Linseed Oil Company. The incorporation notice was published in the January 14, 1887 edition of the “Buffalo Times.”

A feature on the business published in the October 2, 1892 edition of the “Buffalo Sunday Morning News” provided this snapshot of their oil manufacturing works as the business entered the 1890’s.

The office of the works is at 351 Main Street, while the works on the island at the foot of Main Street occupy a two story building 50 x 130 feet, a six story building 40 x 150 feet, and an elevator of 100,000 bushels capacity. Twenty presses are operated, crushing 750,000 barrels annually, the daily capacity being for 120 barrels of oil and 57 tons of oil cake, the latter being exported, while the oil is sold through New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio.

As early as 1884 the company was not only producing oil from the crushed flaxseed but, based on this May 3, 1884 news item, was growing a portion of the flaxseed crop as well, not surprisingly, in the Dakotas.

The enterprising firm of Kellogg & McDougall of Buffalo have 2000 acres of land in Dakota now under cultivation for flaxseed. This is the greatest number of acres ever sown to flaxseed by any one firm in the United States. The farm is under the management of Lauren K. Lee, a cousin of Spencer Kellogg. He has 180 head of horses and from 80 to 100 men employed by the undertaking. The land is located around Valley Springs, is very rich and will yield a handsome crop.

In addition to expanding their oil works the company was also branching out during their first decade. The 1892 “Buffalo Morning News”  feature went on to enumerate several other companies/businesses established under Kellogg and McDougall during that period. One was the Kellogg Oil, Paint and Varnish Company.

The Kellogg Oil, Paint and Varnish Company was incorporated in 1887, the officers being Spencer Kellogg, president; Sidney McDougall, treasurer and Robert M. Walker, manager, with office at 351 Main Street and their four story factory with warehouse adjoining is on Elk Street and the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railway, South Buffalo.They manufacture ready-mixed paints, colors ground in oil, shingle stains and buggy and floor paints, all of superior quality and largely sold throughout the country.

Their incorporation notice was published in the June 11, 1887 edition of the “Buffalo Commercial.”

1889 newspaper advertisements for their paints indicate that the company may have had a retail location at 609 Main Street as well as their 351 Main Street office.

The 1892 feature went on to say:

Mr. Kellogg in 1888 established a large business as a dealer in linseed oil, making a specialty of aging these oils to give them a superior body, adapting them for use for varnish, grinding, patent leather, printers’ ink and other purposes, this business also occupying commodious premises on Elk Street, South Buffalo.

Another of these enterprises is that of the Spencer Kellogg Company, organized in the present year with Spencer Kellogg, president, and Sidney McDougall secretary, this company opened for business Aug 1, 1892, an elevator of 600,000 bushels capacity on Ganson Street, the canal, the river and the Buffalo Creek Railway.

The Spencer Kellogg Company’s incorporation notice, published in the February 5, 1892 edition of the “Buffalo morning Express,” provided the following description of the elevator business.

The Spencer Kellogg Company is the name of an organization the certificate of incorporation of which was filed with the County Clerk yesterday. The object of the company is the purchase of cereals, grain and seeds and grinding and milling the same, manufacture of flour and meal, the receiving, elevating, storing and transporting of grain….

The capital stock is $100,000, all of which shall be common stock, and the company of 50 years duration. There are five directors as follows: Spencer Kellogg, Sidney McDougall, Robert M. Walker, Albert J. Warwick and Charles S. Wright.

An anecdote published in the August 9, 1892 edition of the “Buffalo Morning Express” provided an idea of the elevator’s size without mentioning a single dimension.

“I’m glad that stack is finished,” said contractor James Boland yesterday as he looked at the big brick smokestack of the new Kellogg & McDougall elevator. “It was intended to make it round, but that was so expensive and would take so much time that a square stack was decided on instead. It’s rather an expensive job. The men went up in the morning and did not come down until night, because I found it much cheaper to feed them at the top. An hour’s nooning would take a man two hours away from his work. I guess he could go to Black Rock in the time it would take him to go up and come down the stack.”

This construction photograph of the elevator appeared in the June 12 1892 edition of the Buffalo Morning Express.

If that wasn’t enough, Kellogg & McDougall also established a broom factory as part of their operation. According to the 1892 “Buffalo Sunday Morning News” feature:

Under the firm name of Kellogg & McDougall, these gentlemen conduct on Elk Street and the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railway in South Buffalo an extensive broom manufactory which they established in 1886. They produce 200 dozen brooms daily, making a specialty of the best grades.

Well respected in their own right, the brooms were exhibited in the Paris Exposition in 1889. In fact, not only were they included in the U. S. exhibit  but, according to a June 30, 1889 item in the Buffalo Morning Express, they also kept the floors of the entire U. S. portion of the exposition swept clean..

Opposite the exhibit of Buffalo tools, on the wall, is a big palm-leaf fan, projecting high above everything. It is made entirely of brooms, as are also the two pyramids in front of it, and the whole is placarded, in big labels, “These brooms are from the works of Kellogg & McDougall, Buffalo, N.Y., U.S.A.” This firm supplies all the brooms used by the United States Commission in keeping clean its 80,000 square feet of floor space. An exhibit of linseed oil cake, in a prominent place near by, is also from the firm.

That being said, the manufacture of raw linseed oil was their primary business, operating independently until sometime in 1889 or 1890. At that time it appears that the business joined a linseed oil trust, reorganizing as a branch of the National Linseed Oil Company of Chicago Illinois. A feature on the business in the October 2, 1892 edition of the “Buffalo Sunday Morning News” described the reorganization.

One of the most interesting groups of important industries is that of which Spencer Kellogg and Sidney McDougall are the controlling heads. In 1879 they became associated under firm name of Kellogg & McDougall to manufacture pure linseed oil, carrying on the business thus until two years ago, when a reorganization was effected, the business since then being conducted as a branch of the National Linseed Oil Company of Chicago, Ill., under the direction of the original proprietors, Mr. Kellogg being manager and Mr. McDougall assistant manager, and the establishment being known as the Kellogg & McDougall Linseed Oil Works

Spencer Kellogg’s association with the Trust was short lived and in 1894 the April 26 edition of the “Buffalo Morning Express” announced that he was leaving the trust with plans to construct a new plant and proceed independently.

Spencer Kellogg who has been connected with the National Linseed Oil Company of Chicago for more than a year, or since the Trust assumed control of the different plants of that kind in the country is about to sever his connection with the Trust and to engage in the manufacture of these products on his own account. He was the owner of the plant in this city until the time when it went into the hands of the Trust and since that time has managed the concern…

The new plant will be a model one of the kind, it is promised. It will be located on the lot adjoining the Kellogg Elevator and will be one of the most modern and best equipped in the country. It will have a capacity for crushing 4,600 bushels of flaxseed a day and 1,400,000 a year, which makes  a very large output at the present price of flaxseed…

The mill will contain 36 presses and the machinery will be of the latest design. At the beginning there will be in the vicinity of 40 men employed and this number will probably be increased after a short time…

Over the next six years Kellogg’s new plant was almost continuously being enlarged. An October 4, 1900 story in the “Buffalo Morning Express” documented the additions.

The Kellogg plant originally had 36 presses. Twenty-four more were added in March, 1899. The work of intstalling 30 more was begun about July, 1900.

The story went on to call it the largest linseed oil plant in the world and they weren’t done. Three years later, in 1903, another addition increased the number of presses to 138.

The business incorporated in 1904 as the Spencer Kellogg Company. The incorporation notice was published in the May 7, 1904 edition of the “Buffalo Courier.”

The Spencer Kellogg Company capitalized at a million dollars has been incorporated according to papers filed yesterday. The concern deals in and refines oil in Buffalo. The directors are Spencer Kellogg, Spencer Kellogg, Jr., and Howard Kellogg.

Later, in August, 1912, they would reincorporate as Spencer Kellogg & Sons, with $6,000,000 capital.

The incorporation notices included Kellogg’s two sons but made no mention of  Sidney McDougall  who apparently ended his business relationship with Kellogg in 1898. At that time, it appears he left the manufacture of linseed oil to Kellogg and took complete control of the “Kellogg Oil, Paint and Varnish Company,” changing its name to the “Buffalo Oil, Paint and Varnish Company,” on December 27, 1898. According to his May 18, 1919 obituary in the “Buffalo Courier,” he remained president of that firm until his death.

In 1907 Kellogg announced plans for a second plant in Minneapolis Minnesota that would double their output. Later, in 1909, a December 27 story in the “Buffalo Evening News” announced that the Spencer Kellogg Company was in the process of establishing still another plant; this one in the New York City area. The story quoted Spencer Kellogg, Jr.

The Spencer Kellogg Company has a mill in Minneapolis, and we are now building another plant in New York, consisting of a mill, concrete elevators, refineries, etc., which will cost $500,000, exclusive of the site. The purpose of this plant at New York is to crush and treat the seed that is imported.

The plant was actually located directly across the Hudson River from Manhattan, in Edgewater, New Jersey. The following aerial and river views of the facility that date to the late 1940’s are courtesy of the Library of Congress.

According to “The Chemical Industry of Shadyside (Edgewater) New Jersey – A History” by Robert J. Baptista, (December 16, 2012 update):

The deepwater dock allowed ocean going ships from India and Argentina to come directly to the plant to discharge cargoes of flaxseed, which was pressed into Linseed Oil. In 1913 the plant started crushing castor beans from India. The castor oil was used in the textile industry to soften fibers and impart luster to synthetic dyes.

It was at the New Jersey location that their “Tasteless Castor Oil” was manufactured. It apparently hit the market sometime in 1913 with newspaper advertisements first appearing in August of that year. Several ads, disguised as newspaper articles, appeared that year that were certainly introductory in nature.

BUFFALO FIRM PERFECTS THE FINEST LAXATIVE IN 3,000 YEARS

Kellogg’s Tasteless Castor Oil is Pure Castor Oil Without Taste or Smell

For 3,000 years castor oil has been the world’s best laxative, but until now an offensive, sickening taste has limited its use.

For 3,000 years chemists have tried to remove the taste.

It remained for Spencer Kellogg & Sons of Buffalo to solve the problem.

Kellogg’s Tasteless Castor oil is just what the name means – a pure, clear, refined oil without any taste. Doctors are prescribing it already.

Anybody can disguise the taste of castor oil by mixing it with alcohol, wintergreen, peppermint, or other flavors, but it required real genius to keep the oil pure and make it tasteless. Kellogg’s Tasteless Castor Oil works even better than the old evil dose, without pain or griping.

Your dealer has Kellogg’s Tasteless Oil, or can get it quickly. 25c and 50c. Ask for Kellogg’s and look for the trade mark on the label – the Kellogg signature over a green castor leaf. Spencer Kellogg & Sons, Inc., Buffalo N.Y.

At the same time the company was reaching the general public with newspaper advertisements they were also pitching the medical profession through a series of 1914 advertisements in the New York State Journal of Medicine.

The advertisements said, in part:

The attending physician can now prescribe pure castor oil in cases of temporary indisposition, with the feeling that he will not be working a hardship upon his patient – whether man, woman or child – because it is now made in absolutely tasteless form and no cathartic is quite so meritorious.

Realizing the great demand for an absolutely TASTELESS Castor Oil –  without the unpleasant flavor and odor of castor – we experimented with and finally announce the complete perfection of Kellogg’s Tasteless Castor Oil.

Its simply good old-fashioned Castor Oil without the unpleasantness. Absolutely nothing added – nothing taken away except the odor and taste. Not to be confused with so-called “palatable” or “aromatic flavored” Oils which are heavily adulterated with strong flavoring which greatly compromises the properties of the Oil.

You can now prescribe KELLOGG’S TASTELESS CASTOR OIL freely for children and fastidious adult patients without working a hardship on them. You’ll find they welcome this king of all cathartics – if you see that they get Kellogg’s.

Their oil continued to be included in advertised drug store  price listings as late as the early 1970’s and over the years their message remained quite consistent. Advertisements from 1926 and 1939 bear this out, although by 1939 it was called Kellogg’s “Perfected” Tasteless Castor Oil.

 

Spencer Kellogg passed away in 1922. That left his son Howard as president ushering in a fourth generation of Kellogg’s to a leadership position. Later a fifth generation, in the person of Howard Kellogg Jr., would serve as president. By 1957, according to a March 20 story in the ‘Binghamton (New York) Press and Sun-Bulletin,” the company employed about 1,200 persons at 15 plants in the country. Over the years their plant locations included Superior, Wisconsin, Chicago and Decatur, Illinois, Des Moines, Iowa, Bellevue, Ohio, Long Beach California, as well as Rotterdam Holland and Manilla in the Philippines.

The Kellogg business also maintained sales offices at various locations across the country, with one in New York City listed consistently from 1886 up until 1960. Initially located at 102 Barclay Street, they remained in lower Manhattan, at 59 Maiden Lane and later 100 William Street, until sometime around 1920 when they moved to midtown where they occupied several different locations in the East 40’s over the next 40 years.

In 1961 Spencer Kellogg & Sons merged with Textron Inc. The merger was reported in the July 28, 1961 edition of the “Decatur (Illinois) Daily Review.”

Spencer Kellogg & Sons, Inc. is now a part of Textron, Inc.

Textron a diversified company supplying industrial, consumer and defense products is based in Providence R. I.

Spencer Kellogg is a producer of vegetable oils and meal, special chemical products and animal feed.

Textron will acquire Spencer Kellogg’s assets, properties and business by swapping six-sevenths of a share of its stock for a share of Spencer Kellogg.

Last year Spencer Kellogg had assets of $52,459,000 dropping it to 465th place from 446th place in the national rankings of Forbes Magazine.

Spencer Kellogg employs 1,772 persons making it 487th in size.

The bottle I found is machine made with Kellogg’s (in script) embossed on the base. It likely dates as early as 1913 when their Tasteless Castor Oil was introduced up through the late 1920’s when they likely transitioned to a screw top finish.

During this period the company offered both a three ounce and seven ounce size as evidenced by this 1915 advertisement.

The subject bottle is certainly the three ounce version.

A 1924 advertisement in a publication called “The Public Health Nurse,”demonstrated that the company was also offering a sample size around that time.