cat collection

Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Co.

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: This is the only Victorian trade card I own of this variety. It is a bit hard to see, but the top says, Ha! Tis Me. The Maltese Me Rival. I do not claim to understand it – I just liked the image of this great frowning striped kitty forced into this very flat perspective – look at his claw paws and an angry puffy tail! On the back, in tiny type, is an exhaustive list of The Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Co.’s Branch Houses in the U.S. – with almost a third of them in New York City – and a notation at the bottom that the Principal Warehouse, 35 and 37 Vesey Street, N.Y.  P.O. Box 4233. It is a tiny card, about the size of a playing card.

The Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company, founded in 1859 as The Great American Tea Company selling tea and spices at discounted prices in New York City, changed its name in 1869 to commemorate the first transcontinental railroad. Much to my surprise, the company morphed first into the A&P tea company and ultimately A&P supermarkets of today. (Kim seems to have known this all along – fascinating man my husband.) All I can say is, they sure would get more of my business if they had kept this ad campaign. They were generous in their distribution of Victorian trade cards and there seem to be more than you could imagine once you go looking. Scores for sale on eBay at any time – their survival rate a reflection of their popularity during their heyday.

Our friend the Internet supplies us with much information on the specifics of the cards and story. The folks over at http://www.thepethistorian.com have a nice little essay on the subject. The cards were printed by A.B. Seeley, copyrighted 1881. This one appears to be the second in a group of six and represents the story of a girl cat, romanced by the street cat, but who waits for an upperclass Tom to come along instead. He beats up poor Mr. Street kitty – who ends the series bloody, but not bowed and trying to convince us that he won this fight. (I am snatching just that final image for your entertainment below – wouldn’t mind adding that one to my collection.) The language on the cards seem to be references to poems and other things that would have been recognized by people of the day – but overall it is a recognizable cat tale of love and love lost that is pretty easy to follow and appreciate.

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April Fools?

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: I bought this because it is just a nicely jolly card. A rough Google translation of the saying on the bottom seems to be something about if you have a wriggling fish by April 1 you’ll have joy in your house. Seems logical – the cats would agree. Still, I had to suspect it had something to do with April Fools Day.

And I was right – somehow April Fools and fish blend together for the French. I found the following on Hoaxes.org:The theory goes like this: In 1564 France reformed its calendar, moving the start of the year from the end of March to January 1. Those who failed to keep up with the change, who stubbornly clung to the old calendar system and continued to celebrate the New Year during the week that fell between March 25th and April 1st, had jokes played on them. Pranksters would surreptitiously stick paper fish to their backs. The victims of this prank were thus called Poisson d’Avril, or April Fish — which, to this day, remains the French term for April Fools — and so the tradition was born. Here’s a fish on your back! Take that!

(While researching this I discovered another little known fact about April Fool in Britain. Evidently it was the tradition for the tricks to end by midday or you were considered a fool yourself. I will have to keep that in mind this spring.)

Jokes not withstanding, I like these happy and industrious looking kitties and their enormous fish. The interesting and rickety fish carrier car sums it up nicely. You can just see these fellows getting home and having a nice big fish feast – no fools these cats.

Living the Felix Life

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: This plate is the single piece of Felix china I own. Sometimes I fantasize that if I was very wealthy our daily dishes would be a full set of Felix china – perhaps switching off occasionally for Mickey on special occasions. The appealing image of drinking my coffee out of a Felix mug comes to me periodically and I have considered purchasing one for this purpose alone. However, we are a bit hard on the things we use daily around here – cats always leaping and knocking things over, stuffed cabinets where things collide, daily dishwasher wear and tear. Although admittedly the actual destruction of household dishware here is fairly low, the idea of worrying about it is more than I can deal with. Sadly, in such a small apartment, we have little room for displaying china as well so I remain reticent about investing in it.  That is too bad because there is a wealth of it available and the charm for me is seeing it in large quantity and with all the small variations.

My plate is unmarked and I have some question about its origin. I believe I have landed on Wellsville China of Wellsville, Ohio as the maker.  Wellsville China was founded in 1902 was in business until 1959. I believe it was then sold and was in existence in one form or another until the demolition of the building in 2004. Frankly though, the history of the company is a bit hard to piece together. A competitor in the Felix dishware race seems to have been Baltimore’s Bennett China – although the design very similar those dishes seem to be distinguished by an apricot colored edge to their plates whereas mine still has traces of gold around the edges. The Felix images and sayings seem to come from the postcard series – which is huge and I believe British in origin.

A very desirable variation is the Royal Rudolstadt design. I pulled this one off the internet – for sale on Rubylane’s site as I write this – as an example.  (Maybe I need to buy this as a birthday gift to myself…but I digress.) I like this Felix design – squarely between the earliest bony-looking Felix and the later rounded one.

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The reality is that we actually do eat off of historic plates – heavy blue and white wear sectioned plates, made in Britain – hard even for us to break. I love them. They came to me through my mother’s family. My great-grandfather owned a bar at the Jersey shore throughout my mother’s childhood and those plates were used to serve the daily blue plate special. Oddly, our other dishes are decorated with a series of New Yorker cartoons and fell into our hands via my father who purchased them, in the box, for under five dollars – his purchase limit on most things. And the tradition of novelty china continues.

Willow plate, our daily china

Willow plate, our daily china

 

Comfort in Our Shoes

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: This one has been nagging at me for quite a while. I saw it immediately after it went up for sale on eBay, but it was just too expensive. I made an offer – it was refused. I sulked and waited. Luckily my brother in-law, Seth Deitch, saved me by sending me an eBay gift certificate for Christmas and I decided I would apply it to the card which was available and I still had a yen for. Yay! Thank you Seth!

This fellow who manages to hang onto his cat dignity while tucked in this comfy shoe just delights me. My goodness, he’s a real little fussbudget, yes? He would give Cookie a run for her money, I think. He looks so very comfortable and at home in that shoe – I like to believe he really liked sleeping there and they captured him doing it. As cat owners know, for some kitties there is simply nothing like a smelly old shoe.  Mine are still kittenish enough to go for the laces first and foremost – you can barely tie a shoe in this house without tussling, mostly with Blackie.

This card was never used and I was unable to trace the photographer, Mr. or Ms. Porter. No date to be found and we do wish the photographer had managed a slightly higher contrast in either the taking or the printing. I was able to find evidence of the Boston Shoe Store in Maine from the 1910’s.  In a 1913 issue of the Boot and Shoe Recorder (yep, an early shoe store trade mag now digitized online) there is reference to it in Calais, Maine. At the time it was under the proprietorship of N. A. Olsen and was noted to be a good up to date shoe store with a modern front. It continues, Lewis, the shoe man, is a great believer in advertising. He uses a number of novel methods of advertising successfully.

Since this card is undated it is a bit hard to put the picture together, but on the same page you can read about our friend, A. T. Smith, when this photo was taken and he had just returned from a trip to California according to the shoe pub. He is mentioned under a section devoted to the shoe business in Houlton, Maine. Seems he was the then shoe man for something called McGary’s Co. the only significant competitor to a larger farmer owned corporation (and department store) called The Grange – and they seemed to have most of the local shoe business sewn up. After noting that only high shoes, in tan and black, sold well in Houlton (I take this to mean high on the leg, not high-heeled) the author goes on to say about the other local shoe stores, All they need is a little time, and they will be satisfied to quit the shoe game. 

Assuming our card is post 1913, his prediction was wrong and A. T. Smith was ultimately the proprietor of Boston Shoes in Houlton. (I will spare you the details but there is further evidence that Mr. Smith and his wife were prominent citizens in Houlton, ME and were active in city policy, etc.) Or this is earlier and the Boston Shoe Store did indeed migrate to Calais. Either way, I wonder if this great card is the work of the snappy advertising guy Lewis!

Houlton, Maine, a farm community, was noted to have a population of 5,845 in 1913 and said to be located in the potato belt. It has grown modestly in all these years and only boasted a population of 6,123 in the 2010 census. A map shows it sticking way out on the furthermost edge of the state, surrounded by water. I include an early postcard of the business district pulled from the town’s online historical site. Sadly, no other cat images were to be found in association with the town or the shoe stores – I believe that is a dog in the photo below.

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Bonne Annee!

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: Happy New Year! Featured here is a small clutch of New Year’s cards that I purchased last year while contemplating the then New Year ahead. The ever sensible French have a cultural preference for New Year cards over Christmas cards – thus allowing themselves more time to enjoy the holidays. I have two examples from France above and two are British. Evidently dancing black cats were all the craze for ringing in the New Year in the 20’s which is the period of these cards, ’29 (black and white cat) and ’25 (three black kitties) are the postmark dates on those that were used.

The Bonne Annee card is dated December 27, 1929 and is addressed to Mademoiselle Dora Cordova, L’rue Guy-Patini, Paris, X. The brief message, as closely as I can read it, is Meilleurs voeux et vous (?) souvenirs, Yoorssie (?) Lehmann. The other, in English, is dated 4:45 PM, December, ’25 but the day is obscured.  It says, From your Loving Sister in Law and Family with best wishes for the new year and better Luck. From Ada xxxxxx. It is addressed to Mrs. Thornton 22 St. James Street, Walthamstow.

I love the tubby black kittens – especially that party trio! But my favorite is the very mischievous brown and white fellow. He has a sort of Devil-may-care Maurice Chevalier charm about him. Quite a New Year’s bash at his house! Something makes him just short of cute. While I don’t think I am capable of tossing my habits aside and moving to New Year’s cards, I like the thought. Non-denominational well wishes for the coming year make more sense and cards arriving during the brief lull between Christmas and New Year’s or just beyond seems nice. As a small child I was always quite serious about the changeover in years – solemnly writing down resolutions, something I no longer do. Somehow I approach the whole affair with some trepidation as an adult. So, crossing my fingers and hoping for the best, here’s to 2015 to one and all!

Flying Dutch Kitties

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: There are endless examples of early images of kittens dressed up and doing cute human-type things. However, I have never purchased one until this one hit my radar recently. It just cracks me up! As you can see by the writing, it is Dutch. A very rough translation gratis Google tells me that this is a bit of advertising and the back informs the recipient (this one not used) that the vendors hope to see them this week and that they offer high value for their orders – whatever those might be. The front makes reference to “our kitties which will soon be in the air!” (Any readers who speak Dutch please reply below!) What were these kitties selling? I’m buying!

I am always threatening to dress the cats up and take their photo – Kim begs me not to injure their dignity that way and I am brought to my senses. This image strikes me as a perfect marriage of low tech and professional – like those glorious ‘homemade’ cars and machines the Little Rascals used to have. I especially love the balloon!

I gather the key mover behind the cats-dressed-as-people movement was Harry Whittier Frees (1879-1953) – sort of a Louis Wain of early photography. I snatched the quote below from Wikipedia and it come from his own book, Animal Land on the Air, discussing the superiority of kittens as models,

Rabbits are the easiest to photograph in costume, but incapable of taking many ‘human’ parts. Puppies are tractable when rightly understood, but the kitten is the most versatile animal actor, and possesses the greatest variety of appeal. Yay kittens!

The practice spread widely beyond Whittier Frees – as we can assume this card was made by someone else. For a healthy serving of these I suggest this site on littlethings.com. I have stolen a single image from it, shown below by an unidentified photographer.

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Felix for a Cause

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: Let us return once again to Felix, one of my favorite subjects. These two outstandingly unusual and interesting photo postcards capitalized on Felix’s appeal to attract an audience for their respective hospital fundraisers (Something in my role as a professional fundraiser I can really get behind.) One can only imagine they did brilliantly – after all, who could resist Felix?

The top card, and the first I acquired, was postally used, but has lost its stamp and postmark. The following (some writing faded or rubbed away) was written on the back in pencil, addressed to Mrs. J. W. Stoodley, Folly Farm, Crewkerne, Som (which appears to be short for Somerset):

Dear Mother, ….. am glad it is much cooler now but our place is cooler inside than out. The children had their carnival yesterday, but this is the one. Will

One can’t help but wonder if you got to ride with Felix in that nifty sidecar motorcycle if you attended?  I cannot answer that question, but much to my great surprise, I found a few minutes of footage of this very Carnival in June of 1925 to support Coventry Hospital and I offer it here:

 

While it is minus Felix, if you watched you did see that motorcycles seem to play an interesting role. The other pressing question – is that an enormous stuffed Felix (like someday I might find for sale on eBay and mortgage my house to purchase?) or a rather excellent Felix costume? (Which I would, of course, also be willing to go into hock to acquire.)

Then, just when I thought I would never see another postcard that was comparable, the second one showed up on eBay. While it is hard to see, if you look carefully you find out that each Felix is a tiny photo of a stuffed Felix toy, collaged on. I have supplied a photo of one of my beloved Felixes of the same type, an early addition to my collection, below. I adore this particular style of Felix and much to my surprise I came across someone with an entire basket of them at the Atlantic City antique toy show. That person told me that they were prizes at fairs in the twenties and thirties. They seem too well made for that, and I remain curious but have never heard anything more on the subject.

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I cannot find any reference to this event – no idea what the ladder is about or what the 250 (bps) refers to – a prize of some sort.  This one is unused postally and there is nothing to indicate a date. The person I bought it from said he had no idea what it referred to nor had he ever seen anything like it. (He was entertained by the image of the other one I emailed him however.) All this to say, call in Felix when you want to attract a crowd.

 

 

Felix – Here He Is Again

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: I had completely forgotten that I owned this when it found its way to the top of the pile earlier today. Evidently the successor to Felix Kept on Walking (1923) in Great Britain, and cooked up by Ed. E. Bryant and Hubert W. David in 1924 to capitalize on the success of the previous year. The full title, the grammatically curious, Here He is Again Being More Adventures of Felix. He seems to be popping out of a stage door with a rather apologetic look on his face. I gather that these songs were never used in the cartoons, but creating dance songs was a way of opening promotion on a separate front. As I mentioned recently in Musical Meow we know that a few years later in 1928 Felix was making big bucks with Fred Waring introducing a Felix the Cat Fox Trot in France.

The Felix Kept on Walking sheet music entered my collection very early on after a trip to London years ago, and I had it in my early post, Me-ow Kitty Sing A-Long. Kim is not a fan of the art of either of these pieces of sheet music, but I like having them around. (In my possession is a third which he likes more – future post.)  While I cannot offer you the tune of Here He Is Again I have two jolly Youtube versions of Felix Kept on Walking. (Full disclosure – there are several more on Youtube if you love it!) This was such a hit that the title spawned other products and further promotion, and ultimately it became something of a catch phrase. Shown here is the single Felix Keep on Walking plate from my collection. Yes, full services do exist and one of my fantasies is to replace all of our dishes with period Felix plates, bowls and mugs!

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Beeeep!

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Pam’s Pictorama Toy Post: I bought this earlier this week on eBay. I must say, I don’t exactly know what I was thinking, but no one was bidding on it and it was very original. Now that I have it I love it! It makes a loud beep that annoys the cats – as shown with Cookie below, which is always entertaining. I particularly like the sort of hand painted, not-quite-Felix on it.

The wood inside is interesting and have shown you so you can get a sense of it. This was a time when a cheap toy was really made of something! I assume it has seen some high old times – halloween parties, maybe the occasional New Year’s celebration. I intend to keep it handy for any celebration that comes along.

Mad Jenny

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: Facebook followers may remember this unusual acquisition. The jest of what is written on the back, in French but somewhat obscured, seems to be Souvenir of … and … of Madame Jenny Bell Theatre 8. Oct. 1910. Jenny, looking quite mad indeed, poses with collaged cats and a monkey – what is that strange swing the one cat is on? (Photo collage is prized in my collection – see also Cat Photo Collage.)

A quick bit of sleuthing (and some good luck) reveals a notice in the October 9, 1910 issue of the  San Francisco Call announcing Jennie and Her Trained Angora Cats and Performing Dogs featured at the Wigwam. Dogs! And no mention of the monkey! This means that our French owner of the card must have been visiting San Francisco – since we know Jenny and her cats were there that week – evidently at the Bell  immediately followed by the Wigwam. I found a rather excellent photo of the Bell Theater which I share here from the Cinema Treasure website. While it seems likely to be the one in question I mostly see listings that say it didn’t open until 1911. Hmmm. October is late 1910.

Bell Theatre, San Francisco, CA

Back in 2005 I read a New York Times article about the Russian cat circus visiting Manhattan and I purchased tickets and dragged ever-patient Kim off before he knew what hit him. I can see online now that there is a fair amount of controversy about Yuri Kuklachev and his cat troupe. (Russians have an especially deep history of training animals – I remember being taken to see performing animals in Moscow one night when I was on a tour there in 1994.  Cats, dogs and much to my surprise, ducks and goats.) All I can say is, it takes a whole lot of cat treats to make a cat circus run. Speaking as someone who has trouble asking the cats to move so I can rollover in bed, I probably don’t have a future career in cat on-command trick training. I am shown with Yuri and furry performer below. Cookie and Blackie take note – this is a working kitty.

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