-
Open an account, get a . . . free wig?
•
Way back when, it was quite usual for banks to offer some kind of incentive for opening a new account. Premiums like toasters, golf umbrellas, pen and pencil sets were frequently offered. That’s less common now, as the incentives are more likely to be straight up cash or gift cards, but our little local…
-
A Meal at the Van Curler Hotel
•
By complete accident of algorithm, I recently discovered that the Hudson Valley’s Culinary Institute of America has a website featuring historic menus, and happily some of them are from local institutions. So here’s one, unfortunately without a specific date, from Schenectady’s Van Curler Hotel. When the Van Curler was opened in 1925, it was…
-
Beautiful Details from Schenectady, 1834
•
I was going through my ideas files when I ran across an 1834 map with details about the Erie Canal from various local communities. It turned out I had already written about the maps themselves for Albany, Watervliet, and Schenectady – but that’s okay, because what I really wanted to emphasize was the incredible, simple…
-
The Schenectady Gazette: Available Everywhere!
•
In 1925, Schenectady and the tri-cities area weren’t the only places you could pick up a copy of the Schenectady Gazette. It was available all over upstate New York, apparently, and even in such far-flung locations as Boston, New York City, Hartford, Philadelphia, Detroit, and even Miami. Though Miami was certainly a stretch, the…
-
Carl’s Peaches and Cream, and Radios
•
While we’re talking about Carl Company ephemera, I ran across a trademark issued to the Carl Company – for the mark “Peaches and Cream,” as applied to “cotton piece goods, linen piece goods, and toweling.” I mean, when I think “linen,” I think “peaches and cream,” right? Perhaps not. This isn’t anything I remember,…
-
The Carl Company
•
What started this new approach to Hoxsie was when I found this receipt from The Carl Company in one of my folders the other day, and just decided to share it on Instagram. No big back story, no comprehensive history of Schenectady’s most fondly remembered local department store – just a paper cash register…
-
Hope Eden To Do Her Shopping In Albany Stores
•
While working on the history of Albany’s airports, we were struck by the role celebrity played in bringing attention to the promise of air travel so early on. It wasn’t just the daring early aviators who captured the public’s attention – though many of them, with names largely now forgotten, figured in the early…
-
Schenectady’s Prize-Winning Student Photographer
•
Having devoted so much energy over the last few years to presenting something like History with a capital H, we’re getting back to presenting whatever catches my fancy. And after giving so much attention to Albany, it’s time to feature a wider swath of the Capital District. While browsing old comic books on the…
-
Scotia Plans Insane Fourth
•
From 1912, we ran across this article impugning the sanity of our original hometown and have just been waiting for it to be seasonal and/or timely again. So here we are. The article from the Schenectady Gazette is headed, “Scotia Plans Insane Fourth.” Schenectady is to have a safe and sane Fourth – in…
-
William H. Johnson Talks Emancipation
•
In honor of the sudden interest in Juneteenth, commemorating the day the belated word of emancipation reached slaves in Texas, I went off in search of whether there had been any sort of acknowledgements of that day or similar milestones in the Albany, Schenectady and Troy area. Not too surprisingly, that particular celebration, which…