Rotograph Co.

Dog Show

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: Today’s card showed up while I was looking for holiday gifts for a few staffers – it was a gift fail so to speak. I never would have found it however, if I had not been searching around in dog photos on eBay, where I generally do not belong.

Some of you more longstanding readers might remember its sister card shown below which I wrote about all the way back in 2016. At the time it was a hotly contested card which I had lost and subsequently won as outlined in that post which you can read here. Obviously that one turned up in my feed because of the cat reference.

Pam’s Pictorama.com Collection. From a previous post.

While these two cards are definitely of a piece, the Dog Show sign is definitely the same, there are some differences. While I am fairly certain this is the same woman and dog (same Dog Show sign) she is wearing a different outfit in each. The Cat Show Next card is entitled Beastly Affairs.

However, most notably the Cat Show Next card has a different, patterned floor, the other one is a plain wood. A very careful look (lower right corner) shows that the copyright for these two cards is a year apart with the cat version being earlier by a year, 1907 although my copy of that card was mailed in 1909. So did it prove so popular they brought out this variation the next year? I wonder if there are more.

Today’s card is called Going to the Dogs. Unlike the earlier card, this one has writing on the back although no stamp or evidence of mailing so I don’t know when the writing, in pencil, was added. To the best of my ability to read it, it says, Bascom this is Ednice Jain. Look good & she has gone to the Dogs good – Ha Ha Ha. She is a Dog catcher & not 1/2 as good as one. An odd note, no name signing it.

I prefer the earlier card somewhat and it is more than the cat show reference. The composition with the additional sign is a bit better and somehow holding the dog, and even the patterned floor, make it more dynamic. She has a bit of a smile in the first shot and a hat full of flowers – the hat in today’s card notably appears to have a whole bird on it. She wears a different fur trimmed jacket in both.

Unidentified card online with a Pitbull and similar woman but not the same series.

The card was made here in New York City by the Rotograph Company but printed in England, oddly enough. A quick search online does not turn up more cards in the series, but neither does it tie these two cards out to each other. I don’t even find more copies of either of them online, however above I have shared one that turns up that could almost be in the series.

My colleague will now get a card from 1908 with a big footed puppy, vaguely reminiscent of his own recently acquired little fellow. I will dig out my copy of the other card and a find a place to install them side by side, either here or in New Jersey. They make too a good story together to break apart.

The Commanding Officer

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: Another in the long line of postcards from the show earlier this month. Although I am somewhat judicious in my acquisition of this avenue of cat photography they do slip in occasionally. Pictorama readers know I have a bit of a weak spot especially for kittens posing with the moon cards. (Read about one of those here.) Cats in clothes can be worthy of my notice, like this one.

Recent photo of Milty, senior cat of NJ.

This senior fellow of a puss in this picture is peeved at his human constructed accoutrements. Maybe his longstanding role at the photo studio was more mouser than model normally – he is an elder statesman of cats no doubt and I am sure claws in teeth sufficed for his real world duties. (He reminds me of my cat Milty whose age seems to hover in the early 20’s.)

Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.

Someone has given him a tiny sword to wear at his side and a homemade tri-corner hat with plume stuck in, but again he seems decidedly displeased with the decoration. He does have a battle weary mug and the aging physique of an old guy. His tail must be wrapped around him on the other side as no sign of it. His white paws are a bit grotty and the whites around his chin not quite white any longer either. His fur is that of an elderly cat.

The card has a copyright by the Rotograph Company from 1906 on the front. And this particular one was mailed in 1909, on August 13 from North Hackensack, NJ. It was mailed to Miss D. A. Brown, River Edge, NJ. I was not familiar with River Edge and it turns out to be near Paramus in northern Jersey.

The slightly illegible back of the card.

I have to say, although the handwriting on the face of it looks legible I am having trouble decoding the message address to Dolores. A card from Dolores seems to have arrived by a later train then it should have and there are plans here for the evening in question. It gives some thoughts about places they may go (Maeks? she has written clearly) and R.E. and ends with instruction to come in the surrey with your Dexter and it is signed Aunt Lila. Of course I can’t be sure but Aunt Lila probably didn’t care what card she grabbed for this purpose, however she too may have been aptly named The Commanding Officer. Just a guess.

Actually, I pulled this card out of the stack because I think I too am a bit weary from my roles and responsibilities right now as captain of this particular ship. Demands of work, taxes, wrapping up my mother’s estate and even the imperative to make soup on this rainy Saturday, seems like more than I should have taken on – however understanding that much of it arrived unbidden and of its own accord. Maybe it is just a case of the April blues, but this commanding officer (such as I am) is tired today and I too would prefer to lose the yoke of tiny sword and hat and romp freely for a bit.

D is for Deitch

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: Back in February I posted about my recent birthday trip downtown which included a brief foray at the flea market on 26th Street. (That post can be found here.) While there, I quietly picked up this rather splendid postcard to give Kim three days later for Valentine’s Day. It has never been used and there was no writing on it. There is some solarization I cannot quite get rid of when I photograph it. Mostly it has a wonderful and whacky sensibility which I thought would appeal to Kim’s taste.

The seller at the flea market had just a few random letters so I was fortunate to find a D among them, however it also turned out to be an especially good photo from this series. The lyrical looking woman holds apple (?) blossoms in front of this great scene of the two children (girls perhaps) having a photo shoot complete with box camera, tucked inside the letter if you will. We see nothing but the feet and back of one, and the other posing prettily, dressed up, primped, furbelowed and curled, with a flower in hand. A photo within a photo.

The D is painted, as is the scenery landscape beyond the children and somehow they have melded the photograph pieces together by a delicate operation of painted blooms and clouds. It is pretty seamless and I have a bit of a hard time deconstructing how this was put together. As one online source questioned – is it really a photo postcard? It is certainly a hybrid and the photo over painting and photo is delightfully many layered.

Letter P not in Pams-Pictorama.com collection.

I devoted part of the morning to looking for more of these and some information online. (A pleasant trip down a postcard rabbit hole I will say.)They were produced by the Rotograph Company and one source says this series is from 1914. The woman always poses, usually with a floral flourish, in front of the letter and the children appear in tableaus behind her, usually two but sometimes three as in the P I grabbed online below. I like the P, although not as much as the D. For me the two cheeky little girls, sort of up in the tree that makes the P really put it over.

The B isn’t in my collection either and I find it a tad disappointing.

In a continuing search for our initials, I found the B, but like it least of all. Despite the pup in front and a very sweet view of a home in the distance, I find the woman and children less interesting in this arrangement.

To my dismay and surprise, the K turns out to be a bit rarified and I was unable to find a photo of it to examine or snatch for my examination. Instead I offer you the letter E which I found a bit compelling along the way although it doesn’t do us much good. The woman is back in her floral mode and the two kids are hanging out in the middle of the E under an umbrella. I like the sort of marshy scene.

I just like the E, but also not in my collection. I’d grab it though.

There is a hand tinted version below, but I can’t say I think the tinting improves them really.

A hand colored version for comparison. Not in my collection.

Now the D is framed and has a place of pride on the wall, as you head into our kitchen – just across from a wall of Felix photos and under the Little Orphan Annie and Sandy wax cloth dolls.

Rags

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: As I mentioned yesterday, the scanner here at Deitch Studio has made a permanent exit. It didn’t really owe us much as it was acquired in 2007 according to our Amazon records and survived a couple of Deitch publications in their entirety – of course not just the finished products requiring huge files of high resolution scans, but the many stages of sketches, not to mention this blog and the daily demands made of any scanner. It died halfway through a scan of the back cover of Kim’s next book, almost but not quite making that final last gasp. RIP old friend.

Mr. Deitch’s requirements of size and resolution make replacing this piece of equipment a somewhat more complex matter than it would appear – as I understand it, the model we currently have (a direct descendent of the only kind we have ever owned) was designed for things like scanning x-rays than with cartoonists necessarily in mind. The scanner in question is no longer produced (of course!) but as I am in charge of technology here at Deitch Studio I have taken it under advisement and I am researching a replacement.

Meanwhile today, I present a recent acquisition via the photo the seller supplied. Rags, the Famous Rotograph Cat turns out to have been a hard working little fellow. From kittenhood he was dressed up and posed – in tiny men’s suits, baby clothes, a dunce cap and the like, or in juxtaposition with baby chicks, bunnies or other small animals that a cat like Rags was perhaps more interested in snacking on. Looking at this scrappy little tabby fellow, I have to assume that while he would have preferred a life of leisure, however despite certain indignities, his days as a photo model, (hopefully) complete with meals and a warm, dry place to live was preferable to what many of his cohorts could opt into.

From the accounts I can find of the Rotograph Company, it would appear that Rags was a fellow resident of Manhattan. Situated at 684 Broadway from 1904-1911, the Rotograph Company inhabited a handsome building near Fourth Street which, according to Google Earth photos, appears largely intact from that period today. For some reason Kim and I both got Rotograph and Rotography all mixed up with photogravure (a photo intalglio print making process) and instead it appears these folks just made this name up. In fact their line of photo postcards were indeed real photos (as per a tiny printed boast on the back bottom of the card) either produced directly for sale or made as commercial items for others. During their brief existence they coughed out more than 6,000 cards, many which are actively resold today. This particular card was mailed from Niagara Falls, NY on the afternoon of July 30, 1907 and arrived in North Sterling, Ohio on August 1 at 6 AM.

When I reflect on working animals I tend to think that dogs (at least many of them) enjoy having a job. It seems to me that a dog in films is having a glorious time of being put through his or her paces with a master or mistress lurking just behind the camera, rewards in hand. It is the same instinct that makes them herd sheep well. They like to hang out with the humans and be a part of something. It is difficult to imagine cats as anything but more diffident to such a role. However from what I read, evidently with enough of the right cat treats many cats are willing to sing for their supper as well and do so in films and performance venues. The question of if they enjoy it hangs unanswered. While I occasionally remind Cookie and Blackie that they have “jobs” this usually means curling up on the bed with me when I am under the weather or allowing me to pick them up and “kiss their little cat face” – which they hate of course, but it is after all, work.

On Instagram I follow a heavy set tabby with the moniker Larry the Security Cat who is a rescue living in a thriftstore called BLUvintage in Delaware. I only recently realized he has a broken paw which has healed quite crooked and is evidence that he had a rough early life on the street. It would appear that his duties these days are light – largely confined to pets, chin rubs and posing with strangers. He posts frequently and has over 7,200 followers. I found him via a mention in the New York Times. It seems like the right amount of genteel work for this fellow and a good trade-off to end a hard life on the street.

Meanwhile, our friend Rags appears to have gone onto star in his own book, Kittens and Cats in 1911. It is my hope the residuals were enough for him to retire on at that point.

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Cookie, posing in her best Rags imitation yesterday, and on Blackie’s cushion, which she stole.

 

Today a shout out to fellow feline blogger Historical Felines for their post on Rags which helped inform today’s post and can be found in its entirety at Aristocat!

 

Cat Show…Next

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cat-show

Pam’s Pictorama: Okay, so you might think this is sort of crazy, but I have wanted this photo for a very long time! The first time I lost it for a very high sum, outbid on eBay in a sniping dogfight. The second time, the card had some blue ink writing on it which was disappointing, but I did bid – and was again, outbid for a sizable sum. Strangely, almost immediately, this fairly pristine copy turned up…for very little. I bid…and won! It was a very good day to be a cat card collector.

I don’t know exactly why I kept going to war to get this card, but I am not disappointed. The pretty woman, holding this fine specimen of a dog, both posing for the camera, appear to be coming from the dog show. One wonders if Cat Show Next means this way or next week, for example.  Then, down at the bottom where I didn’t notice it for a long time, in tiny white drop out print Beastly Affairs. And apropos of nothing, can I just note how much I love this woman’s whacky hat? It is like a tiny, flowering garden perched on her head.

This card was mailed on September 9, 1909! It arrived in my mailbox almost exactly 107 years after it was originally postmarked in Winthrop, MA. In a not especially neat hand, written on the back is, I see Alic [sic] today and addressed simply, Mr. Gilford Martin, Amherst, New Hampshire. Also on the back the following is printed at the bottom, This card is a REAL PHOTOGRAPH on bromide paper. The Rotograph Co., N.Y. City, Printed in England.

For whatever reason, this photo also reminds me of one of my favorite Our Gang shorts, the one with Pete and the dog show, Pups is Pups which of course ends with dozens of dogs let loose and racing around in a wonderful doggy melee. The kind which is magnificent onscreen, but would of course, be quite something else in reality. Speaking of reality, while looking for the link to Pups is Pups above, I found this very nifty short of Pete with his trainer which I had never seen. Enjoy! Pete Rare Training Film, Little Rascals’ Pete the Pup