The Ghost Story

I really love the deep colors of this old illustration and the detail of the room. The image was used to sell cough syrup around 1860. Hard to believe this is around 150 years old and it still looks so rich and not faded.

It came to me torn, but from this blog I found what it says at the top:

The Ghost Story - "The moral of this, the Sixteenth Card of our Series, is that, if young ladies would avoid creating a scene, similar to the one of the artist, Mr. R. W. Buss, gives us in this admirable picture, they had better forego reading ghost stories at bed-time."

Turns out Mr R.W. Buss is a pretty big deal in London history. He illustrated some Dicken books. Here is more info on Robert William Buss.

The medicine that this illustration was for Dr. Jayne's Tonic Vermifuge. Dr Jayne's Family Medicine was a long lived and very successful company. It was around from 1843-1930 and they spared no expense getting the best illustrators for their products.

Wonderful illustrations for packagaing and advertising insured that people would be more likely to remember the product, even people who couldn't read and it also meant people would keep your illustrations for a long time - which is why we still have them now. People tucked them away and really valued them - even torn. I like that this is torn - it adds something to it.

I often don't know when I start these posts where they will lead. It is so neat to be able to learn more about these items instantly. Thanks, internet. I love you.

Oh and speaking of love. I've added some new vintage Valentine finds to The Cedar Chest shop. More to come soon.

Etsy thecedarchest

Who We Were : a book review

This weekend I finally got a chance to really spend some time with the book, Who We Were, which is compiled by at least one person behind the website Square America.

I actually won this on the blog Retro Thing. I enter blog giveaways all the time and I never win. I was really happy that this was the one I won.

This book is really great. There are some very unique photos in here and the editors did a great job of writing for them and presenting them. I like the way the book was organized. Often there was information about the photo taken from the person who took it or was in it. So, you got to hear their comments many years later.

I also liked how they didn't give you too much info so that the photo is most of the page. I like having lots of space around the image.

I was rather absorbed in this book for hours. Since the creators are in the Chicago area, many of the images are from Chicago and other towns nearby. That would be especially neat for someone from that area, but it in no way made it less fascinating to me.

My only complaint about the book is that there wasn't enough of it. Although it is a hefty book, I felt like there wasn't enough of the color film years. I think the most recent photo was in 1971 or something. Where were all the 70's and 80's images? What about Polaroids?

Perhaps they are saving that for another book. That would be something to look forward to.