Pam’s Pictorama Post: This was part of a much anticipated Instagram online auction that occurred last weekend. It was via a British dealer, @oldstockantiques, who had recently purchased a collection of cat related items belonging to a woman in her 90’s. (It wasn’t clear if this was an estate sale or just her divesting.)
So, after calculating the time difference, I set myself up with multiple devices for bidding. The terms of the auction required that you message the dealer for each item as it went up and this meant that I spent about an hour and 45 minutes to get through the listing of a dozen items or less. Even with my multiple devices and refreshing my feed constantly I have to report that I lost many more times than won. I can’t figure out if somehow my internet connection to England took longer or if my internet in general a tad slower than someone else’s because I will moving as fast as I could. (I’m sure you can imagine, knowing of my profound dedication to the Pictorama collection, my extraordinary frustration. However, @oldstockantiques remained patient with me and a shout out to him!)
The one that got away! Victorian cat mirror.Detail.
Nonetheless, I purchased one item (future post) and then at the end of the auction asked if there was anything unsold and I threw this lovely green cat pin dish in for good measure. Above I have shared a Victorian cat mirror that got away – alas! My bank account is happy but I am very sad.
Perhaps this little fellow didn’t sell because he has a large repair down his middle. There is nothing further to identify or edify on the back, although there are three small feet to secure it on a surface. The repair does not especially bother me and the green color is absolutely seductive. However, one of the most interesting things is that I posted about very similar dishes, cast in metal, in one of my nascent blog posts back in 2014 which can be found here. Those were purchased for a freakishly minimal amount on eBay while wandering through cat advertising items and reside on my dresser, bulging with rings, today.
Identified on the back as Corbin Lock Company, Canada. Pams-Pictorama.com collection.
While the metal duo are advertising Canadian Corbin Locks (the name is on the back), this little fellow belongs on the other side of the ocean where he boasted the virtue of Townsend & Co., New Castle. It took me a bit of time to sort through a number of companies and options before landing on Townsend & Co. Newcastle-on-Tyne, makers of fine china at the end of the 19th and into the early 20th century. (While references to it abound around items being sold, no history of the company is readily available.) I cannot be sure and I do not find another dish like this one, at least not attributable to them. (I haven’t found one advertising for anything of this vintage or precise style.) Feel free to poke holes in my theory!
Townsend & Co. did make advertising pin dishes like this one and Google tells me notably made them for a 1929 North East Coast Industries Exhibition in conjunction with a company called Mailing. The trail goes a bit cold at that point.
On sale at Etsy at the time of posting.This one has rhinestone eyes!
Meanwhile, there is now a fascination for me in the question of this mold. In casting around on the internet I saw it referred to as an old French mold, although I have yet to see specific evidence of that myself. I have seen the old metal ones both with other advertising and without any advertising – sometimes billed as ashtrays like the one on Etsy here. They are not identical – there is a slight morph – but surprisingly similar.
Below is an example of a similar mold in use by a Japanese ceramist currently. The persistence of the image is amazing across probably at least 100 years.
Contemporary, Japanese made version.
I believe this one is heading to New Jersey where it will likely reside in the bedroom or bathroom there. It’s cheerful green color and timeless kitty face will fit right in. And who knows where this cat will turn up next.
Pam’s Pictorama Post: Since cats, both real and cartoon, are more or less my gig I’m surprised that I am only now learning about Bunz, the hardware store tabby, who rules the roost a few blocks away here in our Yorkville neighborhood at a place simply called New York Paint and Hardware. However, it turns out that Bunz is quite the neighborhood celebrity and somehow I have missed him entirely. Kim has had a nodding acquaintance with him on his morning walks, but says that to date, Bunz is usually being petted while getting his morning air so Kim has not actually met to pet him either. Although this establishment is within my territory, I tend to walk by in the evening or run in late in the afternoon of a weekend, I have not seen him. I feel remiss.
The hardware store in question – there is a mural devoted to NYC on the side which is hard to see – more sincere than good. I do wonder if it is the same guy.
There is a strange quality about living in New York which we all accept, but rarely discuss and that is one generally has a set path from your apartment out into the world – an unofficial number of blocks where you shop and eat locally and often you are more devoted to one direction than the other. When running I would hit the tip of the eastern point of the neighborhood and then down the south side which I got to know and because of work, I spend a lot of time walking south on York and First and know it well, but we mostly don’t go south to eat, get take out or shop. (Having previously worked at the Metropolitan Museum I also know the path west intimately but oddly this is a north south thing, not an east west thing.) I speak to people who live on 85th and typically never go north of 86th and I don’t find that unusual.
I have on occasion documented aspects of Friday night take out stroll here at Deitch Studio. (See my pre-pandemic post which was an ode to local take out and a Mexican place we were fond of. Read it here.) This is our walk north most Fridays, often veering west to Second Avenue after a stroll up First. On First I generally like to stop and look in the window of the junk store there. (Some excellent finds from this store have been documented and can be found here and here.) Kim peers a bit at a newish thrift store nearby too. Sometimes the kitties need some food from the pet store on that block and we’ll pick it up on the way.
Me as model – thank you Kim for the pic!
We tend to fiercely embrace our corner of this Yorkville neighborhood. We mourn the tearing down of a brownstone building resulting in the loss of a nice plant store on the corner, the demise of a take out place. The pandemic made us hyper aware of our neighborhood since we rarely left it for a year, but since then and with the effects of the Q line which opened in 2017, the neighborhood has become more popular and shifted. However, generally speaking it is a good corner of the universe, these few blocks of Manhattan all the way over by the river.
Window of the nearby junk store from a prior post.
And, since cats are my thing, I like to think I know a bit about where they reside in the nabe – those who sit in apartment windows daily on my path (I’m talking about you Mr. Tuxedo on the first floor of this building), and a smattering of those felines we think of as bodega cats, the working kitties of the area. Interesting to note that, to my knowledge, the few I am thinking of are all tabbies. Perhaps the tiger stripe of cats is the unofficial mascot of the Yorkville working puss? The only one of the three I have met is a charming youngster on York Avenue who lives in a Deli. I’m not sure that his name is known but I did just find him on a Google search while looking for the cat who evidently patrols the Gristedes on York nightly. His pleasure includes a tree outside the deli where pigeons occasionally perch to tempt him.
I only know of the Gristedes cat because someone I used to work with walks his young lab pup there nightly and the dog became fascinated with the cat in the window after hours on late night strolls. They have a joyous spitty, barking, hissy moment nightly. Mark looked into it and evidently found evidence that the cat is identified as an employee on some paperwork he stumble across in a professional capacity (yes, odd, I agree), although when asked his existence is routinely denied. He is a mouser incognito if extraordinaire as technically he is not allowed to live there.
I came home to this corner on First and 86 being torn down a few months ago.
This past Friday night on our way to pick up dinner (from a new place with an extraordinarily large and diverse menu called Soup and Burger on Second), I noticed this t-shirt in the window of the hardware and paint store on the corner of 87th and First. I pointed it out to Kim and we agreed it is well done.
To backtrack a bit, I have lived in Yorkville long enough that I remember a few decades back (30 years evidently) when this store was the new kid on the block. Ostensibly a paint store with a bit of hardware it did not seem especially useful and I ignored it for a long time. It replaced, to my vague memory, an electronics store which repaired televisions and VCR’s and I had utilized that service. (Yep, seriously dating myself here although we actually still own a VCR/DVD player or two, or three.)
View of First Avenue from inside Taco Today, taken waiting for our Friday night order back in ’19.
Anyway, I don’t know that I darkened their door for years. Slowly however, the hardware aspect took over and it developed a less chain oriented more neighborhood vibe. They are now depended upon for our general local hardware needs (they are the last of several standing) and a look at their website earlier today reveals that I can get my knives sharpened there and I think I will pay them a visit for that. It is funny though how even a chain store can evolve into a neighborhood joint.
So evidently Bunz, this sprightly tabby, rules the roost over there. I suspect that hardware stores must keep some mouse friendly stock which requires the services of such a kitty – planting soil and whatnot. I know of a few Lowe’s and Home Depots that sport Instagram accounts for their flagship cat employees. (Notably there is Leo, another tabby, in a Home Depot in Mt. Laurel, NJ and Francine, a calico mix at a Lowe’s in North Carolina.) Garden supplies and a very old building in the case of our neighborhood store which probably makes it a mousy delight.
Francine, the Lowe’s catLeo, the Home Depot kitty
We didn’t stop on Friday night but I made a mental note to come back on the weekend so we went on Saturday and yes – they were selling the t-shirts and I realized that there was a big stack, organized by size, on a rack by the window. The Bunz tee cost $20 (Kim paid – thank you Kim!) and I got a large but they run a tad small. I asked about the artist and the young man waiting on me just said Shawn which makes me think maybe it is someone else who works there, a nascent illustrator.
It’s a bold design and has hardware cattitude going for it. Bunz sports workman’s overalls, hightops and shades – a cool cat. Both his overalls and his top (striped like him) have his name. Paws in pockets – he is all business. He appears to have a can of paint and brush in front of him and the sign for the store behind him – a decent rendition of the window looking in. Kim says he would personally have made more of the second color and I tend to agree, but these are artistic choices, right? I hoped that maybe their website or account would have his origin story and perhaps where his name came from but alas, currently not.
Bunz from their IG accountHis fame is growing.
So finally I share photos of the real Bunz. He’s clearly a beloved member of the team there and what he might lack in a typical home life seems to be largely made up for by being a working cat with an appreciative following here in Yorkville. Long may he remain at the helm of New York Paint and Hardware.
Pam’s Pictorama Post: I felt a bit hoodwinked on this card as I suspect that it was slightly enhanced on the listing where I purchased it. I share it with you slightly enhanced here as well – it is a bleached out, over exposed image on the top half where the puss is featured. This was probably due to the travails of indoor photography and the challenges of photographing Bum.
Having said that Bum does not give the appearance of being difficult, wishing to move quickly, or for that matter needing to relocate any time soon. He looks perfectly comfortable on his perch atop the scale which (in theory because we cannot really read it) is advertising his advanced girth. A careful look reveals that he is parked on a Miller High Life tray for the purpose of the weigh-in.
They are staging the photo with the little fellow on a scale in what seems to be the luncheonette type restaurant attached to the hotel, formica topped table with a metal edge to service a faux leather booth. We can spy a heat register under the table. Close examination reveals that a large ashtray and an advertisement for something called Irish Cream share the table. (The Irish Cream is advertised by a woman in a long dress, decorated with clover leaves.)
Bum is a fine specimen of enormous tabby. While he is certainly hefty he appears to carry it well and in all reality is also a really big kitty. He has a nice bloopy nose which I always like on a cat. His tail is curled around him. He does manage to look right at the camera, somehow intuiting the import of the moment. 25 pounds seems to be the general upper end for cats and I’m not sure I have had any that approached it – although our enormous orange stripe Persian mix, Pumpkin, may have gotten up there. I don’t remember weighing him in his prime, but maybe pushing 20 lbs.
Feathers, 40 lbs of kitty! See post link below. Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.
Fat cats and recording their enormity is a sub-genre of cat photos in its own right. I have two in my collection I have written about previously, A Cat Named Boy (with the post which can be read here) and Feathers about whom a 2016 post can be read here. Meanwhile, Feathers claimed to be world famous and weighed in at an amazing 40 lbs!
While this is an unarguably lousy photo, oddly enough I found it in the collection of the Penobscot, Marine Museum online. Same bum burned out photo, at least as bad as mine, no further information. It is the only reference to Bum I could find, his fame faded. Meanwhile, the Jackman Hotel appears to be gone, unless it has become the Jackman Motel with shingled, cottage-style buildings. The argument against that might be that it also appears to be contemporaneous with the writing of this postcard.
Verso of the postcard.
This postcard was send on June 8, 1954 to Beverly and Barbara Meyers whose address was quite simply Delta, Pa. We know it arrived the morning of June 10 as far as Delta as it is stamped there as well. It says, Mon. June 7th, Hi, We are having a beautiful trip. We drove through the mts today. We will be in Quebec around noon Tuesday. Bum, the kitty is a beautiful sight, we petted him or I wouldn’t believe he is a real cat. Isabel and Ralph. I am glad they recorded having giving him a few pets! As hotel mascot, and in deference to his weight, we’ll assume he lived a pretty good life as the feline denizen of the hotel.
Despite the quality of the photo postcard we are nonetheless honored to have Bum, another lovely fat cat, join the Pictorama archive of cat record and fame.
Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: One of the occupational hazards of being Pam of Pictorama fame is that researching a post occasionally leads you directly to purchasing something else and today’s card came into my possession while researching last week’s cat impersonators.
Like those two cards acquired from a single seller (those posts can be read here and here) today’s impersonator also hails from Great Britain. I don’t know if it is that animal impersonation as entertainment was better or more robust in England, but it did at a minimum produce more visual evidence which is jolly detritus for us to pick through a hundred or more years later.
Another fluffy version of kitty from a post last week. Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.
Sadly there are no easily found tracks about Julian and his cat act. As Kim pointed out and I must agree, there is something still very much of him even when he dons his cat costume. I find that he includes a photo of himself sort of interesting and he’s a rather intense looking young man here. Under his picture it says, Marvelous Cat Impersonator and Anatomical Puzzle. I really do wonder about the anatomical puzzle part – what could that mean? Was he able to execute uniquely cat like motions and poses? Amazing dislocation of joints? Did he perhaps sport a tail? (Now that would be something!)
Julian is a very long haired cat (impersonators seem to lean to the Persian type), and he sports a big bow. As I noted above, while his mask certainly covers his entire face there remains something of his affect even with it on. His cat eyes are set a bit close and I can’t say there is anything endearing about his cat. No wish to cuddle this puss – or even meet him really. Still, it might have been a very good show.
The back of the card reveals that this was actually a Christmas greeting and (in red) reads as follows: Christmas and New Year 1913-14/Wishing You The Compliments of the Season. from “Julian” Panto, 1913-14. The Grand Theater, Byker, Newcastle-on–Tyne. The card was never used and there is nothing written on it.
There is nary a snippet to be located about Julian and his cat act – not even the sort of listing in an old theatrical newspaper like sometimes turns up in my research. He has left no tracks. However, the Grand Theater has a traceable history. It was built in 1896 and closed its doors in 1954. The building remained standing if derelict until a fire in April of 1964 when it was then demolished. (I would share a photo of it, but none of the sites wish to let me today.)
In 1913 it seems it got its film license was just starting to commit to showing films in advance of the live shows, as many theaters were. 1913 and ’14 would have been rollicking years with numerous large theaters in this downtown area of Byker, an eastern district of Newcastle-on-Tyne. The Grand originally seated over 2,200 people, a number of seats which was reduced by more than 400 when the equipment for showing film was installed.
Pam’s Pictorama Post: Just coming off the Louis Wain Catland bio (I posted about that last week and it can be found here) I am self-consciously thoughtful suddenly about how the public sentiment about cats has shifted over the past 100+ years since humans just started finding their sea legs with them as domestic beloveds.
It wasn’t long after the Victorian period that cats were taken up in popular advertising at the dawn of the 20th century. This grinning black kit with the yellow bow was the longstanding spokes-cat for the Black Cat Hosiery company and was so popular for decades that the advertising items from it remain in high demand and often is quite pricey today. (This bit of an ad with thanks to Sandi Outland, via @curiositiesantique who sent it several months back – the the sea, my desk has spit it up from the depths for today’s consideration and helped inspire this post.)
I have written about the company on other occasions so if you want more info on the company you can find it in a post here – and more here. The above ad is from a July, 1907 McCalls magazine and other ads on the page are for, most fascinatingly, H&H Pneumatic Bust Forms (yes, like stuffing your bra – no one will know) and Modene hair removal for face, neck and arms – it cannot fail! Our black cat was in good company.
Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.
So in a mere few decades cats began to morph into the area they would command for many decades to come. However, I think it is fair to say that with the part of our lives that are now lived online some of us have taken our interest in cats to a much more highly developed level.
A photo of a young Betty Butler, holding our cat Snoopy back in the 1960’s from a Mother’s Day post this year.
Speaking for myself, my interest in cats began as a small child. Pictorama readers know that I have written numerous times about my childhood cat friends, Snoopy, a white cat with black cow spots with whom I shared many important childish conversations. But there was also Pumpkin who came to me as a tiny kitten ball of orange fluff and grew into an enormous faded-orange tabby who followed me around with dog-like devotion. As I got older my cat Winkie, a tiny tortie polydactyl with huge toed front paws like mitts, was my particular confidant. As a young adult Otto Dix (Miss Otto Dix), a tuxie from a corn farm in New Jersey, became my constant companion and closest friend, a very special cat especially smart cat who I still miss to this day.
However, until relatively recent years, my love and interest in cats (other than what I collect of course) was limited largely to those I knew – mostly my own or those of my mother. I suppose it started even before the pandemic, but certainly during those long days and nights that following cats online became a habit. First there was Maru the Japanese cat (to be precise, a Scottish Straight cat who lives in Japan) who can’t resist box and likes to get into boxes, some that are way too small for him. There was the somewhat neurotic French cat, Henri, a long haired tuxie who has Existential angst. The French also brought us cats playing Paddy Cake which never fails to make me laugh and for some reason is only funny to me in the French – there is an English version.
Still, those were occasional and one-off entertainment. I believe for me that cats as a form of online entertainment and escapism was born of the darkest period of the pandemic, fueled by late nights of waking up and worrying about work. Unable to sleep, I would read Judy Bolton novels (the first in a lot of early series books I read and I wrote about Judy Bolton here) and take a spin through Instagram, sometimes buying the odd item, but also entering the world of cats online and sometimes following even their most daily routines.
I’m probably skipping ahead a bit but Sadie and Dottie (@sadieanddottie), a tuxie and a white kit with cow spots, and who appear to live in Queens, brightened many a dark day when I realized a new post or story had been posted. These largely consist of these two cats growing up, but mostly doing cat stuff like watching birds and napping. Yes, I can watch my own cats do that (although Deitch Studio is situated a little high for birds out the window) and I do, but it turns out I like to watch other cats do it too.
A screen grab of this little video of Sadie.
With almost 14,000 viewers cat mom Lauren Grummel and cat dad Chas Reynolds, Jr. appear to have their hands full supplying frequent doses of their kitties going through their daily paces. A favorite post is an imaginative one of Sadie (the tux) sailing away on a boat at night in search of parents who will give her more treats instead of telling her she’s had enough. (Find it here.)
There is @Fatfink (aka Devlin Thompson) who I first got to know on Facebook, but now is an Instagram constant. His record of the comings and goings of his small menagerie of four cats, (these days Clawford, Kookie, Mr. Biscuits and Miss Rupert), which includes some recent rescues and things like his daily fight over his dinner with them or other such tidbits, are interspersed with an aligned interest in comics – but it is really over the kits that we bond. He sends me great cat videos too which I often find first thing in the morning and cheer my day.
Newly acquired Clawford.Clawford recently introduced to this rather rarified Deitch portfolio!
A friend on the west coast started supplying me with both funny and moving video snippets of cats during the difficult period of caring for my mother although she continues to send them since I like them so much. These videos, many from The Dodo are chock-a-block full of cats paired with a myriad of other odd animals as friends (deer, dogs, cows) or doing un-catlike activities like motorcycle riding or boating. It is especially lovely and a real kindness as she herself isn’t especially fond of cats so she seeks them out just for me.
Most recently I have fallen hard for team Penny and Felix on Instagram. Penny (@pennythegingercat) is a somewhat sardonic and absolutely adorable orange tabby female (yes, a rarity) and Felix (@felixthepalegingercat) her younger brother, a lean and lanky light orange fellow. (Penny alone has upwards of 650,000 followers!)
The antics of these two (two accounts means twice the fun) include but are not limited to: Felix’s impatience over getting his breakfast in the morning, Penny’s preference of Dad over Mom, Penny sleeping as a face down loaf and the like. These have cheered me endlessly over the past year. Highlights have included Penny entering the Olympics this year as a gold medal winning cat loaf champion and I credit the duo for having invented the term skippity pap (or at least made it enter my personal lexicon) – which is accompanied by a sort of whoosh-smack sound effect that is especially satisfying. It is among the few accounts I turn my sound on for routinely.
The dynamic cat duo’s mom and dad (mom is the voice over for the most part) do a brilliant job of editing, voice over – they are top pros at it and I bless them daily for these inventive missives that come over my transom, brightening all days. Quite simply I cannot recommend them enough for a cat dopamine daily dose.
Four out of the NJ Five here – Gus missing.Blackie and Cookie peevishly sharing the bed with each other and of course Kim recently.
I have written before about social media and my belief that if content is carefully chosen and tended it can be a rabbit hole of blissful escapism. During the brutal hustle and full-on assault of our shifting political world I have found myself diving deeply into this somewhat alternate universe of cats. As the mother of the NYC duo Cookie and Blackie, and the Jersey Five (Beau, Milty, Gus, Peaches and Stormy) and the head of fundraising for a major emergency animal hospital – you’d think I would get enough daily dose of the kitty world, but simply, no – quite simply, I prefer even more.
I started subscribing to a daily newspaper in high school and have more or less read one daily every since, butI lately find my ability to read above the fold reduced to a nervous skittering across headlines as I head down the page to stories about things like a research study on puppy kindergarten – the super socializing of puppies to see if they make better service animals (NYT and can be found here). So today I pay tribute to those folks online who may not inform my politics, nor deliver my news, but who are vital community which cheers my daily existence.
Pam’s Pictorama Post: Today’s Pictorama tidbit comes via our good friend Bruce Simon. Bruce and his wife Jackie live on the other side of the country. My job used to bring me to their doorstep periodically and they have family this way and therefore not-quite-annual meet ups were possible. The Covid years resulted in several years where we were deprived of visits. This year we somehow managed a visit on each coast and we saw them earlier this summer and then a bonus round with Bruce a mere weeks later in San Diego when we flew in for Comic Con.
Kim and Bruce go way back to Kim’s west coast youth, but Bruce won my heart early on with splendid collections of early cartoons he sent. Krazy Kats, Aesop Fable cartoons – he has made a serious contribution to my cultural education. So it is a hats off to Bruce Simon for this post!
Much to my surprise Bruce brought me this splendid Felix tidbit found in his ramblings for the books he produces. (Some of those can be found on Amazon here and here.) This bit of a classified ad hails from The Muskogee Daily Phoenix and the Muskogee Times-Democrat. A quick look online reviews that this is an Oklahoma daily publication still in existence today. It was founded in 1888 so its had quite a run thus far.
This ad would appear to be an ad for the Classified Ad pages of the paper at the bottom while boasting this Kit Kat Klub Revue with the Krazy Kats of Rhythm. A nice swipe of Felix is chuckling in the lower left corner under On the Screen A Woman Rebels starring Katherine Hepburn. You could only see the Krazy Kats on Wednesdays and there is a balloon which informs us that this is A Wliburn Cushman Circuit Unit.
A replay of this pic of Bruce and Kim in San Diego where we had a lunch of waffles one day.
A snippet of another newspaper available online informs that this was a five piece band and Mr. Cholet was the singer and front man for the band. They played sweet hot and swing music. This was back in 1937 and 150 people had the opportunity to see it on a given Wednesday at the Ritz. If you read the fine print at the bottom it seems that putting an ad in the Classified Want Ad would get you one free ticket for the show.
Someone asked me recently how it felt to no longer work for an arts organization and I had to admit, I am missing the many hours of live music I have enjoyed in recent years. Radio Dismuke (I wrote about this rather wonderful online radio station as resource in a post here) helps fill the gap, but it is a big change, as was leaving the Met after many years of enjoying it – more or less like having all that art in your own living room.
Admittedly this ad puts me in the mood. However, it is an itch which is unlikely to get scratched soon as tomorrow I pack Kim and cats up and we head to the New Jersey camp for the remainder of the summer. So more on that annual bivouac tomorrow, stay tuned.
Pam’s Pictorama Post: These cat related bits wandered in together from Miss Molly (@missmollystlantiques) who said her mom found them. They are similar to a post I did a few months back with an interesting cat piece that Miss Molly sold me, but evidently not from the same point of origin. (That post, The Fish Eater can be found here.) My guess is that these did not relate to each other earlier in life either and the Burdock Blood Bitters and the cat head show evidence of having been hand trimmed. All show signs of having been pasted down so they came out of an album.
Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.
The Burdock piece was a trade card for a patent medicine. It still has some information about the product on the back, including that it hailed from the Foster, Milburn & Co., Buffalo, N.Y. Kittens seem like a benign if misleading representation of this particular stomach cure. These kittens also seem oddly placed in this basket – not really sitting on anything, floating. This piece is the heaviest, made of card stock. In a sort of sleepy state this morning (concert last night for work) I started down the rabbit hole of Burdock root and Burdock Blood Bitters online this morning.
Burdock, the real deal.
One entry tells me that an 1918 bottle of bitters that was tested contained zero burdock and excessive amounts of alcohol and lead. Although it was ostensibly most frequently used to settle stomach and digestive ailments (think constipation and liver and kidney problems), the company also claimed that it would work to purify your blood (whatever that means) and cure nervousness. The internet seems to be willing to grant that Burdock root is high in fiber and especially high antioxidant and something called pre-biotic qualities. Herbal remedies with it abound on the internet today.
Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.
The seated kitty is holding a rat under one paw and whatever his origin, he is on very light paper, slightly embossed. You probably can’t see it, but he has a couple of fangy teeth bared. It presumably hails from some sort of rodent killing product ad. Although is bow is untied he looks otherwise unruffled, almost surprised that he is holding that ratty fellow.
For the Hobo fans, I will pause and tell a recent tale. (For those who are just entering the story, Hobo is the tough old male stray who visits our backyard in New Jersey. I fed him and even tried to trap him at my mother’s behest, but he is wily and although he enjoys his handouts he will never get that close.)
A recent through the screen door pic of Hobo. King of outdoor cats.
Anyway, after mom died we continue to feed him and the other day the caretaker of cats and house, Winsome, because to her horror she stumbled across Hobo behind the bushes in the front yard munching (and crunching – she sent a video) on a rat. (Evidently he had left a mouse for her earlier in the day so she shouldn’t have felt so bad!) I told her he deserved a promotion.
Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.
Lastly there is a cat head, slightly embossed, which appears to be the only one that was constructed for pasting down. Hard to see but even the whiskers and the hairs are defined and it is professionally finished although it seems to fit all of a piece with these two more recycled bits.
I’m sorry the original page of this Victorian album arrangement no longer exists, but happy to welcome these small bits to the Pictorama collection.
Pam’s Pictorama Post: While I try never to get political here at Pictorama (we get enough of that in the world without my two cents), I have been known to occasional opine on the importance of voting in general. Therefore, the women’s suffrage movement and the right of women to vote both in this country and others, has long interested me. In particular the struggle of the women of Britain is an interesting parallel to the one in this country, bolder and bloodier with brutal hunger strikes and violence done to the protesting women.
Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.
While reading the juvenile series, The Ranch Girls, I realized for the first time that here in the United States women gained the right to vote ad hoc one state at a time in the beginning. (Find that 2021 post about The Ranch Girls here.) The west, where the strictures of society in general were less in evidence, enabled it first. Eventually, in 1920, it became a federal mandate when the 19th amendment was passed.
Of course any good movement needs ways to get its point across and to identify its participants, declared through political buttons and pins. Those, which I find endlessly fascinating in general, seem to go back to the very beginning of politics and voting in this country. I was just looking at a Hake’s catalogue which boasted buttons having to do with George Washington! Today we are handed stickers that declare that we have voted as a way of reminding others that they should do the same.
Washington inaugural buttonsLater Washington items, these for curtains.
The Women’s Suffrage movement produced some distinctive items. Again, mostly in Britain, there were pieces of jewelry with telltale stones of green, purple and white. Wealthy women adopted brooches of emerald or peridot, amethyst, and pearl or diamond in a sly form of support, but in addition to those rarified items, paste stone versions also survive aplenty today.
On my last trip to the London markets, before Covid, there was an abundance of these items available at all levels – also some discussion around which were truly a part of this history. Of course inexpensive and vibrant ribbons and buttons were also boasted, but nothing demur about those. This country favored those buttons (yellow for pro) and also the wearing of a yellow rose in favor of the vote or a red against it. Another perhaps sly symbol was the wearing of all white by women to support the movement.
In learning about this I was of course interested to find that cats, often black cats, were the face of the movement. I wrote about this at some length in another 2021 post when I acquired my first ceramic, I Want My Vote black cat statue. Purchased from a Hake’s auction, I stumbled upon it and its history. (That post can be found here.) There was a double edge sword to the symbolism – those against suffrage meaning if you let women vote men will be stuck home with the home with the family cat, that women would wear the pants in the family.
Not in my collection but I wouldn’t mind finding it!
However, women took back the symbol of the cat in 1916 and made it their own, often turning this symbol of the domestic to a meowing sometimes even snarling feline. The cat might be beat up and bedraggled to show the wear and tear of the fight over time, or it might, like mine today mew in obstinate favor.
Driving across country (employing the still nascent automobile) Nell Richardson and Alice Burke, campaigned for women’s rights. Along the way they adopted a black kitten, dubbed him Saxon after the maker of the car, and made him their mascot. He became a living incarnation of the movement.
My item came via a Hake’s auction. It was another occasion when I put in a lowball bid and discovered weeks later that I had won it. I knew about this statue from my prior post and was pleased to add it to my collection. I keep an eye on suffrage items, although often they are a bit rarified and go quite high.
Alas, poor men will be left home with the kids and kits.
She’s about three inches high and Votes for Women is across the bottom. Some entries seem to find the mewing expression as a negative although in general she seems to be accepted as a pro-vote item. I have seen her in two colors, this blue and a brown. (I will note that on Worthpoint there was a two color version, the brown, but with green eyes and the mouth and ribbon in red!)
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It was made commercially by cast ceramic mold. There are vague numbers on the bottom, but I cannot transcribe them and no other maker’s information. I cannot find maker’s information online, although this is not an uncommon item both in Britain and the US and I assume was sold in both places.
All this to remind us of the sacrifice and struggle women (and others) made in gaining the vote. So regardless of the size or contention of the elections in your area on Tuesday exercise that right and cast your vote.
Pam’s Pictorama Post: The brilliant advertising of the Black Cat Hosiery Company, brought to us by the fine folks in Kenosha, Wisconsin, is sort of a square one for the kind of cat collecting I do. While this is only one of several pieces I have managed to acquired (you can find a post about the first one here), given the opportunity (and unlimited funds – I am not alone in my affection for it and it is generally pricey) I would collect deeply in this area and more or less surround myself with it.
In another prior post (which can be found here) I briefly cover the history of this company and its cat committed advertising campaign. Better known for its smiling black cats and stockings, the white kitty takes over (appropriately) for the union suits.
Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.
I have opined on how the smiling black cat in their advertising looks remarkably like our fine feline fellow, Blackie. This white cat reminds me of a little white rescue cat my mom had many years ago named Kitsy. An all white cat, she was not deaf like many, and she was a bit neurotic. I don’t actually remember her origin story, nor much about her tenure – there was a wealth of cats at that time – but she was most remarkable and memorable for being extremely petit, almost miniature.
This hand mirror crossed my path a few weeks ago and I snatched it up. Here our smiling white kitty sits atop a cushion that reminds us it is a trade mark. While a black cat was employed to implore us to purchase black stockings and socks, this feline urges us to Buy White Cat Union Suits. He or she smiles benignly over a big black bow. Comically somehow the all white kit does bring a union suit to mind. For a less than sexy item, this cat does a pretty good come hither appeal.
Back of damaged mirror.
Sadly the image is a bit damaged on the front of the mirror and the back no longer has enough detailed reflective space for most folks to apply lipstick. (Over many years I have developed a talent for applying lipstick without a mirror. Is this a good idea? I don’t know, but I have done it for years. Of course I would want a nifty little mirror like this to pull out if I needed one.)
Do people still wear union suits? A Google search offers you choices to buy (mostly red!), but also tells us these were mostly popular in the late 19th and early 20th century. I guess houses were colder. As someone who has rejected the jumpsuit craze for women repeatedly over the years (having to disrobe every time I go to the bathroom is just too much work for me) I cannot see embracing the all-in-one to wear – cat advertising notwithstanding.
Pam’s Pictorama Post: Continuing with my weekend theme of cardboard kitties, I present this splendid and unusual Felix as cardboard cat advertisement which comes to me from a friend north of the border with whom I exchange Felix pleasantries on an ongoing basis. He sells me the occasional item as well and this one came into the house a month or so ago.
I find this big footed slightly off-model fellow endearing. He is neither exactly the very round later designed Felix we are familiar with, nor the squared off early version, but somehow between and both. His claw paws are a bit more pronounced than I think is generally the order of Felix. Sort of like Felix’s kissing cousin.
He is from South America, Uruguay evidently. Latin America seemed to be fond of Felix and I think one could put together an interesting collection of off-model toys and advertisements hailing from this part of the world. (I don’t have many but posts with two other examples can be found here and here.)
This one advertises a child’s laxative! Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.
And as evidenced by this card, Felix was employed to hawk a wide variety of disparate things. Here he is shilling for girdles. All my translations are owing to Google and on the front it seems he says, Ma’am, do you know Robert’s Girdles?
And on the back, Surely yes, but if it were not so, all you have to do is grant me the honor of a visit to the Orthopedics Section where you will find any type of girdle either to dress or to correct the various topsis of the stomach. Always demand the Robert Antonio Rebollo (Casa Quadri) Avda. 18 de Julio 929 Rio Branco 1377. And on his feet: Imprinta German Urugaya Poisindu 756 m Bavio Maeso Prapanganda. (I don’t know where topsis of the stomach came from, but it is so descriptive I decided to leave it. Seems to me topsis of the stomach is something you have after you put the girdle on and I know I have experienced it.) Someone has written Felix in faded pencil at the top.
Back of the card – some of you folks might do a better translation. Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.
There is no way to know the age of the card. Girdles went largely out of fashion in the late 1960’s in this country. (They have returned in the form of shape wear now, a girdle by a different name and with contemporary fabrics. For those of you who have not experienced it, this is still an act of forcing your body like a round peg into a square hole of fabric.) The card could be from any period when Felix was popular enough to press into service.
He’s about eight inches high and made of a medium weight cardboard. There are no marks or indications that he would have hung somewhere, nor a way for him to stand so I guess these were just hand outs. He is a bit large as calling cards go though, but despite some fold marks on his legs he survives in good condition. Someone tucked him away safely and we will assume it was his Felix-y charm, not the need to remember where to get a good girdle.
Pam's Pictorama 