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page 54 -- E.F. Judson & Co., Wm. H. Abel & Co., F.O. Pierce & Co., R.P. Hall & Co., Dry Tonic Bitters, The Original Norfolk Jubilee Singers

updated 25 April 2018
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Seymour Block, 144 Main St., Bristol CT
another Judson trade card is on page 85 of the Earl J. Arnold Collection


After the death of William H. Abel, the American Machinest via Google Books reports on the sale of company assets:


By 1884, the Abel firm's new management was advertising:



The reverse of an F.O. Pierce trade card from Digital Commonwealth:

This location is now part of the World Trade Center memorial.
A company history for F.O. Pierce & Co. is available from Illustrated New York and Google Books, which makes a downloadable PDF available, too:


For a colorful treat, open the pages of the book below, courtesy Archive.org


Below is a partial plate from the work above. Four alternatives are presented for each of 5 styles of Victorian architecture. Those who restore Victorian homes or who wish to impart a Victorian touch to contemporary architecture will find nothing more authentic than this well-illustrated paint sales brochure designed to catch the eye of the 1890 homeowner with twenty beautiful plates!

good source of Victorian color design ideas
Internet Archive is a non-profit library consisting of millions of free books, movies, software, music, & more--almost any format you can imagine.







From Digital Commonwealth comes the back of a Buchingham's Dye card:


More before & after from Buckingham and R.P. Hall.
The back of the card was the same as the previous card.
For the story of Reuben P. Hall, as well as the formulas for his potions, there is no better resource than Hair Raising Stories. Don Fadely's site is well-researched and as of 2015 also offers bottles for sale (price list printed 2013).

Originally from the Surgeon General's Office Library, no less,
"Treatise on the Hair"

makes for some interesting reading.
Here's a quote from page 6 of the Treatise:
"I have not particularly adverted to the loosening of the hair, which frequently occurs in young persons or those of middle period of life, but particularly of persons of nervous temperament, or by excessive mental labor and activity of mind, which produces a febrile affection of the head."
From page 10 we learn:
"Again, excessive perspiration of the scalp will not only produce gray hair, but baldness." 
On page 13 appears a cautionary tale:
"But excess of long hair in woman is often a dangerous ornament. A case came under my observation of a young woman who had a very heavy head of hair, and was subject to constant headaches. Physicians to whom she had applied for relief, after pursuing the ordinary treatment wihout a cure, advised her to cut part of her hair off to relieve her head of the weight, but pride forbade the sacrifice: low spirits, melancholy, and loss of sleep followed, and now, at the time of writing, she is an inmate of a lunatic asylum. The first course pursued by the faculty there was to cut her hair off close to her head; but the remedy came too late."
How about some social commentary? Here's a sample from page 17:
"The dark-haired races are physically the strongest, but less endowed intellectually than the fair-haired. The first are more inclined to manual labor and active exercise, and the last to mental exertion. Black hair indicates strength and a predominance of the bilious temperament, as in the Spaniards, Mexicans, the Indian, and the negro. Red hair is a sign of ardor, passion, intensity of feeling, and purity of character, and goes with the sanguine temperament, as in the Scotch, Irish, the Swede and the Dane. Auburn hair is found most frequently in connexion with the lympahatic temperament, and indicates delicacy and refinement of taste, and, if the mind be cultivated, fine moral and intellectual powers. It is common amongst the Germans and Anglo-Saxons. Dark-brown hair combines the strength of the black with the exquisite susceptibilities of the light hair, and, is, perhaps, all things considered, the most desirable color."
One wonders what color hair author R.P. Hall might have had. Lest we develop "febrile affection of the head," perhaps we should not give this too much thought!

 What's in this stuff? From the resource below, via Google Books, comes an ad that lists at least some of the ingredients and their claimed benefits.


"Glycerin. Has marked healing and soothing properties;
especially indicated for rashes, eruptions and itching of the
scalp. Also has great food value, aiding nature in producing
a more luxurient growth of hair.
Capsicum. Stimulant, tonic. Increases activity of all the
glands and tissues of the scalp.
Tea. Rosemary Leaves. Bay Rum. Especially valuable
in falling hair.
Sulphur. Absolutely essential for the prompt and total de-
struction of the "falling hair germ" and the "dandruff germ."
Boroglycerin. An antiseptic of high merit.
Alcohol. Stimulant. Antiseptic. Preservative.
Water. Perfume."
According to Hair Raising Stories,
"Both Chase's Recipe's and The Era Formulary had recipes for Hall's Hair Renewer. The formula had changed at least once. The early formula contained about 60% water, 36% glycerine, 2% sugar of lead, and small amounts of lac sulphur, sage, raspberry leaves, tea, and oil of citronella. The later formula was about 52% water, 26% glycerine, 13% Jamaica rum, 7% bay rum, and small amounts of lead, sulphur, and salt. The lead content had been reduced from about 2% down to around 0.4%. The formula for Buckingham Whisker Dye was listed in Bradbury' Memory Work of Pharmacy. He said it contained 1 ounce of silver nitrate, 1 drachm of copper nitrate, 8 oz. of distilled water, and ammonia water Q.S."
Just what we all need--a little lead in our hair! Note that lead was not listed on the "Complete Formula" in the ad above. Nonetheless, Masschusetts' State Assayer's Office gave its approval:


As of October 2016, the card below was added to the Arnold Collection. It did not appear in Emma Jane Arnold's original scrapbook.



added to Arnold Collections 25 April 2018


Good for him, but I couldn't find any information on this product. Can you? Perhaps the answer can be found in one of the resources featured on The Trade Card Place. Please comment or email me if you find anything. Testimonials also accepted, of course;-)




We are living in a world carefully designed to distract our attention from systemic social problems of poverty and social injustice worldwide, particularly racism. It took almost seventy years before I first heard of  "ole zip coon"! To begin to understand the significance of this omission, see Deconstructing The Caricature of Zip Coon & Other Minstrel Black Dandies by Azizi Powell, "an African American mother, grandmother, & retired human services administrator." But in the meantime, there's ISIS and sea level rise and various nitwits running for elected office in the U.S. and football games and the new Apple iPhone and new cars and Americans shooting their fellow citizens just for the sport of it and scary new diseases and....well, lots of other things going on as usual.

Reviews of the Original Norfolk Jubilee Singers were enthusiastic, as described in this Google Books reference:




As noted above, once slavery supposedly had been dealt with in America, the issue of the day in the late nineteenth century became temperance--the movement to ban the sale of alcohol in the United States. Remarkable are the parallels between the temperance agitations and the right-to-life movement of the late twentieth and twenty-first centuries. They might have similar results.

Information on George V. Hecker & Co. is on
page 55 of the Earl J. Arnold Advertising Card Collection.


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