Cronin & Company

Fandom in the early days

With the hot weather, I sometimes resort to a retro-tech method for keeping cool. The folding fan is said to have been a Japanese invention, the idea being taken from the wing of a bat. The fan was introduced to Europeans by Catherine de Medici. During the reign of Henry VIII, fans were introduced into England from Italy. In Elizabethan days, the aristocracy sported fans made from ostrich feathers with handles of gold or ivory.

The 18th century was the heyday of the fan. It was an essential accessory in a stuffy, crowded ballroom. Fans were made in every medium: ivory, painted silk and paper, lace, even chicken skin (a very fine kid). There were fans for every occasion, and they were one of the earliest tourist souvenirs.

A lady would not be considered elegant unless she knew how to use her fan, and proper training was part of the well-bred young woman’s upbringing. Matthew Towle's Young Gentleman and Lady's Private Tutor devoted several pages to the subject, and portraits of the period show ladies holding their fans in one or other of Towle's recommended positions.

The fan became part of a lady’s body language. A number of sources even cite a language of the fan whereby ladies could send messages across a room without saying a word. Some of the most common:

• Touching right cheek: yes
• Touching left cheek: no
• Carrying closed and hanging from left hand: I am engaged
• Carrying closed and hanging from right hand: I want to be engaged
• With handle to lips: kiss me
• Drawing through the hand: I hate you
• Fan placed near the heart: I love you
• Fanning slowly: I am not interested
• Carrying the open fan in the left hand: come and talk to me

Whether this language was ever used is open to speculation. Even if a man were to learn the language of fans, how would he know whether the lady across the room was communicating with him or simply cooling herself? And if she was sending him a message, all the other ladies would be able to decode it before he would. Texting may not be as decorative, but it is so much more reliable.

Too hot

Too hot to sleep, too hot to lie,
Too hot to laugh, too hot to cry,
Too hot to stand, too hot to sit,
Too hot to sew, too hot to knit,
Too hot to ride, too hot to walk,
Too hot to read, too hot to talk,
Too hot to eat, too hot to drink,
Too hot to write, too hot to think,
Too hot to scold, too hot to tease,
Too hot to cough, too hot to sneeze,
Too hot to play, too hot to sing,
Too hot, too hot for anything.

Selected, from Weather Opinions for All Seasons, compiled by Jennie Day Haines, 1907

And to all a good night

Clement Clark Moore was born in New York on July 15, 1779. He was a professor of Oriental and Greek literature at Columbia College, now Columbia University. However he is best known for his poem, "A Visit from Saint Nicholas" ('Twas the night before Christmas. . .). The poem was first published anonymously and without Moore's knowledge in a newspaper on December 12, 1823.

Leapin' Lizards! Little Orphan Annie Appears

On August 5, 1924, Little Orphan Annie, a comic strip created by Harold Gray, made its debut in The Chicago Tribune. Annie had a mop of curly red hair, a red dress and vacant ovals for eyes. Her only friends were her doll Emily Marie and her dog Sandy. Her famous catch phrases were "Gee Whiskers!" and "Leapin' Lizards!" She attributed her lasting youthfulness to being born on Leap Day, February 29 so that she aged one year for every four years that passed.

Annie had escaped from an orphanage, making her way in the world through pluck and a cheerful disposition. In 1925, she was taken in on trial by Oliver Warbucks and his wife. When Annie could not get along with the spoiled Mrs. Warbucks, she ran away from home rather than cause trouble. However, Oliver Warbucks had grown fond of Annie, insisting that she call him Daddy Warbucks. He found her and they were reunited, starting a pattern of adventure and return that would characterize the strip. (Mrs. Warbucks was eventually written out of the story.)

 At first the series was aimed at children, but became more adventurous and political throughout the 1920s and 1930s. After Harold Gray's death in 1968, the strip continued under other cartoonists but gradually declined in popularity. In its final year, Little Orphan Annie was carried by only 20 newspapers. The final installment was published on Sunday, June 13, 2010.

150th Anniversary of the Pony Express

Today marks the 150th anniversary of the Pony Express. Beginning on April 3, 1860, the mail relay covered a 2,000 mile route from St. Joseph, Missouri to Sacramento, California, traveling through present day Kansas, Nebraska, northeastern Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada and California.

The Pony Express ran day and night, summer and winter; riders departed each week from both the east and west. Each rider covered 75-100 miles per day, changing horses every 10 to 15 miles at one of the 163 stations. Four hundred horses were purchased to stock the route; 183 men are known to have ridden for the Pony Express, earning $100 per month. The ad for riders in a California newspaper read:

"Wanted. Young, skinny, wiry fellows. Not over 18. Must be expert riders. Willing to risk death daily. Orphans preferred."

The Pony Express riders covered their route in about 10 days during the summer months and 12-16 days during the winter. It was a dramatic improvement in the communications between east and west, but it was a financial failure for its owners. Hoping to receive a million dollar government mail contract, they spent about $700,000 on the service, ultimately losing $200,000. The company failed to get the contract because of political pressures and the outbreak of the Civil War. When the telegraph was completed on October 24, 1861, the Pony Express closed and the owners declared bankruptcy.

Most of the 163 Pony Express stations fell into ruins, but the Hollenberg Station near Hanover, Kansas survived. It is now historical site and home to a museum and visitor's center. According to some visitors and staff members, it is also home to ghosts from the Pony Express. Many still report hearing the sounds of thundering hooves and the voices of young men calling out as they near the station.

The dime store

On February 22, 1879, F. W. Woolworth opened his first store in Utica, NY. That store failed, but his second store in Lancaster, PA, succeeded. His five-and-ten-cent store copied the department store concept of a wide variety of merchandise, but lowered the prices for housewares, toys, sewing notions, china, glassware, stationery, candy and toiletries. Woolworth's remained a dimestore until 1932, when the top price was raised to 20 cents.

Other dime store chains included Kresge (later to become K-Mart), J.G. McCrory and McClellan and Ben Franklin (where Sam Walton, founder of Wal-Mart got his start). Not only did the stores offer low prices, they allowed shoppers to select their own merchandies, rather than having a clerk behind a counter pick the goods. Woolworth's critics included people who were dismayed by "the chain store menace" of the 1930s. They complained that he was creating a monopoly, going so far as to introduce legislation that would have broken the company up.

During the first half of the twentieth century, the dime store was a central part of virtually every main street in America. My own small town had a Woolworth's, complete with screeching parakeets, tanks of goldfish, huge candy counter, endless knick-knacks and Evening in Paris perfume. It was the first stop for lots of everyday stuff.

Before fast food, the dime store lunch counter was a popular place for an inexpensive meal, making Woolworth the largest seller of restaurant food in the country. Its lunch counter in Greensboro, NC, became famous in 1960 as the site of the first civil-rights sit-in to demand service. A portion of that counter is in the Smithsonian Museum.

As the malls and discount stores grew, and the downtown shopping districts faded, the fortunes of the dime store declined. Woolworth closed its last North American store in 1998. In its place, for now, are the dollar stores and the big box retailers.

“The greatest thing since sliced bread”

On January 18, 1943, Federal officials imposed a short-lived ban on sliced bread. Intended as a measure to save waxed paper (the sliced bread supposedly required heavier paper than an unsliced loaf), the measure proved immensely unpopular and was rescinded on March 8.

The first sliced bread was offered for sale by the Chillicothe Baking Company of Chillicothe, Missouri. The town bills itself as the home of sliced bread, and marks the official date of the first sale as July 7, 1928. Otto Frederick Rohwedder of Davenport Iowa invented the machine that made sliced bread possible.

 

The phrase, “the greatest thing since sliced bread,” resulted from a 1930s campaign touting the invenetion. The campaign was produced by the Wonder Bread company, the first mass marketer of sliced bread as a product.

First singing telegram

On July 28, 1933, Western Union operator Lucille Lipps sang Happy Birthday to star vocalist Rudy Vallee. The idea was the brainchild of Western Union director of public relations George P. Olin, who wanted to convince people that Western Union messages could be fun. At the time, telegrams were associated with bad news because they had been used to report servicemen’s deaths during World War I. Other Western Union executives told Olin he would make the company a laughingstock. But when newspaper columnist Walter Winchell wrote a story about the singing telegram, it started a new (and profitable) craze.

Route 66 decommissioned

On June 27, 1985, the last of the familiar highway markers came down as Route 66 was officially decommissioned as a U.S. Highway. The 2448 miles of road between Chicago and Los Angeles had been commissioned on November 11, 1926, and formed one of the nation's principal east-west arteries. Nicknamed "Main Street of America," Route 66 stretched across Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California.

In the 1930s, the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl forced many families to leave their farms in Oklahoma and head to California on Route 66. This migration of more than 200,000 people was immortalized in John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath, where he referred to Route 66 as "The Mother Road."

With the end of World War II in the late 1940s, Americans began traveling more for leisure. Bobby Troup composed "Get Your Kicks on Route 66," a lyrical road map of the now-famous road. During the 1950s, a new phenomenon, the family vacation, helped turn Route 66 into a destination in itself. Its scenic canyons, deserts and mountains were augmented by trading posts, gas stations, restaurants, motor courts, festivals and every type of tourist trap imaginable.

In the 1960s, the popular television series, "Route 66," starring Martin Milner and George Maharis, further established the highway in the popular imagination, but the road's days were numbered. In 1957, President Eisenhower had signed legislation authorizing the National Interstate Highway System.

By 1970, nearly all of the original segments of the road had been replaced by Interstates 55, 44, 40, 15 and 10. On October 13, 1984, the last sections of the poorly maintained original road were bypassed by Interstate 40 in Williams, Arizona.

In 1987, the Historic Route 66 Association of Arizona was formed, and other preservation efforts followed in Illinois and Missouri. In 1999, Congress passed legislation to create the Route 66 Corridor Preservation Program, administered by the National Park Service. The road remains a part of the American imagination. The 2006 animated film, Cars draws heavily on Route 66 history. In fact the film's working title was Route 66, but the name was changed before the release to avoid confusion with the television series. 

The verse by the side of the road

Many of us of a certain age still remember the Burma-Shave signs from the era of two-lane roads and speeds slow enough for reading litte red-and-white signs. The innovative advertising approach was created by Clinton Odell for his family company's brand of brushless shaving cream. The signs appeared along highways from 1925 until 1966 in all of the lower 48 states except Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada and Massachusetts.

Four or five signs with short, rhymed messages would be lined up along the roadside so they could be read sequentially. They became of mix of advertising, humor and road safety messages:

• Our fortune/Is your/Shaven face/It's our best/Advertising space/Burma-Shave

• Shaving brushes/You'll soon see 'em/On the shelf/In some museum/Burma-Shave

• Keep well/To the right/Of the oncoming car/Get your close shaves/From the half pound jar/Burma-Shave

• If you dislike/Big traffic signs/Slow down/Till you/Can read these signs/Burma-Shave

• If you/Don't know/Whose signs/These are/You can't have/Driven very far/Burma-Shave

At the height of their popularity, there were 7,000 Burma-Shave signs across the U.S. Burma-Shave became the number two brand of brushless shaving cream with sales of $6 million at its peak in 1947. But with the bigger and faster highways of the Interstate System, the small signs became obsolete. Sales dwindled and Burma-Shave was eventually sold to Gillette, which in turn became part of an even larger corporate conglomerate.

The complete list of the 600 Burma-Shave sets of signs is in The Verse by the Side of the Road by Frank Rowsome Jr. The book's illustrator, Carl Rose, has his own farewell:

• Farewell, O verse/Along the road/How sad to/Know you're/Out of mode/Burma-Shave