Collection of Seventeen Soapine Trade Cards
- Providence, RI: Kendall Mfg. Co, 1880
Providence, RI: Kendall Mfg. Co, 1880. Very Good. Providence, RI: Kendall Mfg. Co., ca. 1880-1884. Collection of seventeen (17) chromolithographed trade cards (7.5x11cm or the inverse), some printed on verso, others blank. Stock uniformly toned, a few with faint paper residue or tiny abrasions from having been previously mounted, else a Very Good, bright and sound collection.
Brilliant collection of seventeen unique designs produced for the Kendall Mfg. Co. by the American author and feminist Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860-1935). Though never interested in pursuing an artistic career, as a young unmarried woman Gilman had successfully supported herself through a series of artistic ventures, including working for a marble works company, painting and selling floral stationery, and sewing curtains. In 1880 her cousin Robert Brown recruited her to draw what would become a series of attractive trade cards, a craze that had gripped many household manufacturers since the introduction of chromolithography a decade earlier.
The cards' topics are wide-ranging and usually feature a catch phrase ("Best of All"; "Leader Soap"; "Universal Family"), though what they have to do with soap is up for serious conjecture. A woman archer in fabulous attire hits the bullseye through the word "Dirt" in one, while a man in the stocks looks anxiously up at a spider making its way from the tree branch above down towards his nose. In one a dapper fellow sits atop a telegraph pole, the seagulls flying about his head spelling out the word "Soapine." In another, a beached whale gets a scrub job by two diminutive sailors, the clean white portion of his hide bearing the words "Soapine Did It."
N.B. The card titled "Universal Family" employs racist imagery.
References: Cynthia Davis. "Charlotte Perkins Gilman: A Biography" (2010), p. 44.
Brilliant collection of seventeen unique designs produced for the Kendall Mfg. Co. by the American author and feminist Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860-1935). Though never interested in pursuing an artistic career, as a young unmarried woman Gilman had successfully supported herself through a series of artistic ventures, including working for a marble works company, painting and selling floral stationery, and sewing curtains. In 1880 her cousin Robert Brown recruited her to draw what would become a series of attractive trade cards, a craze that had gripped many household manufacturers since the introduction of chromolithography a decade earlier.
The cards' topics are wide-ranging and usually feature a catch phrase ("Best of All"; "Leader Soap"; "Universal Family"), though what they have to do with soap is up for serious conjecture. A woman archer in fabulous attire hits the bullseye through the word "Dirt" in one, while a man in the stocks looks anxiously up at a spider making its way from the tree branch above down towards his nose. In one a dapper fellow sits atop a telegraph pole, the seagulls flying about his head spelling out the word "Soapine." In another, a beached whale gets a scrub job by two diminutive sailors, the clean white portion of his hide bearing the words "Soapine Did It."
N.B. The card titled "Universal Family" employs racist imagery.
References: Cynthia Davis. "Charlotte Perkins Gilman: A Biography" (2010), p. 44.