Flower Girl Perfume

I tried in vain to get this Flower Girl Perfume bottle at an estate
sale this morning but somebody beat me to it. Guessing by the lack of
advertisements for the product, the ones shown below are from between
July and October of 1907, I would suppose that this was a short-lived
venture by Edwin H. Lee of Detroit.

Detroit Free Press, August 28, 1907

Detroit Free Press, July 26, 1907

Detroit Free Press, July 28, 1907

Detroit Free Press, September 22, 1907

All local newspaper
advertisement ceased after 1910 so it's safe to assume that the product
did as well. Though there are mentions of a Flower Girl Perfume in other
cities but none directly tie back to
Detroit. Which could mean anything from it being a generic fragrance
that was sold to various druggists under that name which they would
self-bottle or it's the same product and they neglected to mention
Detroit in their ads. It makes sense from a regional standpoint that you
would localize the product. Either way, all advertising seemingly
stopped after 1912.

Bulletin of Pharmacy, 1908

In 1909
a Kewanee, Illinois druggist named E. D. Hirschy was selling a perfume
called "Flower Girl", and if the same, leads us to believe that it
smelled of:

"A rich bouquet odor of meadow and woodland. It
brings recollection of the shady lake with its flower-covered banks, its
dewy freshness, peace, and quiet.

This perfume we are selling at 50 cents an ounce.

If you have a favorite you will find it in our well-stocked perfume cabinet of American and Foreign odors."

The publication where it was posted, Bulletin of Pharmacy, came from a
Detroit firm named E. G. Swift, so that might be a credible connection
or a coincidence.

Commercial America Vol. 4

What isn't a coincidence and might be the worst
advertising ploy in the history of perfume manufacturing was their
offer of a free cash register with the purchase of the product. Then
again, I'm salivating over both so maybe it was actually a brilliant
strategy to get men interested in a win-win proposition.

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A Dudley Randall Poem in Milestone 2

I bought this Milestone 2 poetry Magazine at a Livonia estate sale this week. Milestone was the literary publication of Wayne (State) University and this second issue dates to 1949. While I don't recognize most of the names, Dudley Randall was both a nationally known poet and the librarian for the Wayne County General Hospital at Eloise via the Wayne County Library System. The poem featured is The Southern Road which was a revised version of the completed poem from 1948 that h as a handful or two of word differences between the two. I don't know if Randall edited the poem for later collected works editions or earlier but this link features it in its likely final form in 2009. Neither version particularly enchants me but the block print in the magazine is an added bonus.

A Cabinet Card of a Dead Man Lying in Repose From Wayne Photographer Susan Doolittle

The City of Wayne, Michigan was not a large village at the turn of the 20th century so it stands to reason that there wasn't a glut of photographers practicing their trade there. As such, the 3 cabinet cards and carte de visites that I own represents roughly a quarter of the early ones. Considering that the wives of Frank Hickok and William Corlett, first Village President of Wayne, took over after Frank's death in 1892 the list grows smaller beyond those two families. Had I snagged the Doolittle dead man cabinet card I'd be even that much more Wayne-rich in photographs. Speaking of Susan Doolittle, of whom I have learned very little about, it is interesting to note that Wayne had three women photographers in an era oft dominated by men in that very field. This photograph of a corpse is a startling example of her work.

Frederick Soop: Not An Equal Opportunity Restraunteer

Detroit Free Press , March 28, 1890 If you don't want to hear a racist tale of a suburban namesake then close your eyes now. As early as 1876 Frederick Soop had left his Belleville farm once again, having done a stint at the Hawkins House in Ypsilanti during the Civil War and the City Hotel in Detroit thereafter, and ventured off to Chatham, Ontario to run the Rutley Hotel , which was conducted as a Temperance House. Detroit Free Press , August 17, 1879 In 1879 he was searching for a good restaurant or small hotel to operate. Eventually he ended up on Washington Avenue near State Street running a dining hall which he ran until around 1890. Detroit Free Press , April 16, 1890 It was in 1888 when the aforementioned racial incident occurred at his dining establishment. It was then that William H. Haynes, a black doctor, sat down with his former classmate S. W. Barkwell for dinner. The men ordered but when the food was served none was placed before Mr. Haynes who, ironically, ha...

The Nankin Township Historical Society

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