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The Hatch Flexible Shoe
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We’d be remiss if we didn’t show this trade card for the Hatch Flexible Shoe, which as we’ve previously noted was manufactured by Thomas Fearey & Sons of Albany. The art is certainly of its time, and that was a time when a flexible shoe was something that amazed both onlookers and stray dogs.
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E.J. Larrabee Biscuits
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This trade postcard from the Boston Public Library collection is a grand advertisement for E.J. Larrabee & Co., manufacturers of biscuits. We’ve shown one of their elegant billheads before. The front is just a gorgeous script; the back is a listing of their extensive offerings. Howell’s “Bi-Centennial History of Albany,” part of our normal…
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State Street, Schenectady, Then and Then
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Again from the Boston Public Library collection, a wonderful postcard view looking east up State Street from the railroad overpass. Some genius of car-bonnet dating could probably narrow the age down for us, but the trolleys were still running. On the left was Jay Jewelry, and just across Broadway was Woolworth’s. You can’t really…
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Schenectady Rug and Carpet
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From the files of the Boston Public Library come these three postcard views of something less than a landmark, the Schenectady Rug and Carpet Store. It was at 789 State Street in Schenectady, about at the corner of Hulett, in a building that is now gone. Big on slogans, they were. “Home means more…
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What constituted “bicycle-friendly” in 1881
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“Bicycling, though so lately introduced to Albany, is fast becoming a popular sport among young business men. The Albany Bicycle club was organized Aug. 24, 1880, with thirteen members, and was soon added to the “League of American Wheelmen,” an organization numbering a thousand or more, its object to protect the interest of bicyclers…
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Medical Care for the Poor, 1914
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We’re all well aware, because angry people on the teevee tell us so, that it’s absolutely outrageous that anyone who can’t afford it should be getting medical treatment. Well, apparently they thought so a century ago, too because . . . oh, wait, Albany was actually awash in free medical care for the poor…
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Albany Fire Department, 1884
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From 1884, the “Albany Hand-book” described the current state of the Fire Department, which was established in its then-current form in 1867, overseen by the Mayor and five commissioners appointed by the Common Council. The head was called the Chief Engineer, who “has sole command at fires, makes daily examination of the affairs and…
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Albany Sparrows
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From 1884, a note on sparrows. While not considered quite as evil as the cottonwood tree, I’d venture to say they have not grown in appreciation in the past century and thirty.
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Horse Shoe Clothing House Slaughters Prices!
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In 1888, Albany’s Horse Shoe Clothing House was advertising a deluge of bargains, perhaps “the grandest bargains ever known in this city.” They offered “enough kinds and sizes to fit all and disappoint no one; got up in graceful sacks and elegant stylish 3 or 4 button cutaways, any one of them worth $20…
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Comedy History
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Historians of comedy, please take note. Hoxsie has found an important moment in the evolution of The Joke. The Altamont (N.Y.) Enterprise of July 21, 1888, featured on its front page what is clearly an early evolutionary form of one of the most important jokes of the 20th century (and beyond). Like most predecessors,…