Radio Script #875

Little Talks on Common Things
January 10, 1971

At the conclusion of the broadcast last week, I told you that today you should hear more about periodicals published in Waterville about 1900. Incredible as it may seem, the total number of those papers was fifteen. I told you about six of them last week. Now let’s have a bit about the others.

A concern called the Peoples Publishing Co. of Waterville put out a monthly called the Woman’s Journal at 50 cents a year. The company was located at 39 Temple Street, to which it announced its plant had just been moved from Chicago. They said the reason for the move was financial. It had become impossible to buy paper by the carload in Chicago for less than double the price in Maine. They also said the cost of help to address wrappers was here half the cost in Chicago. Titles of some of the articles in the issue of June, 1906 are interesting: “Women Will Be a Power in Politics”; “Hail to the Bride”; “The Wedding of King Alfonso”; “How Rockefeller Got His Oil”.

The best remembered publisher of monthly periodicals in Waterville 70 years ago was the Sawyer Publishing Co., with its plant on Chaplin Street. One of its publications was The American Home, subscription for which was at the absurdly low rate of 25 cents for two years. The editorial offices were located in New York City, but Sawyer’s was the publisher.

In the early 1900’s magazine subscription clubs became popular. Some of us remember how the Youth Companion thrived on that idea. Sawyer’s did the same for the American Home. Their announcement said: “Send for my complete outfit for getting up clubs of subscribers. My big premium list contains a complete assortment of furniture, jewelry, furs, wearing apparel, watches and clocks. Try my easy method of getting clubs of subscribers. No disagreeable features. I do the work for you. Write for particulars about my new plan.” While the statement does not identify that first person pronoun, it was probably the head of the Sawyer firm, who may indeed at that time have been George Fred Perry.

Except for ads, the contents of The American Home were entirely fictional stories, some of them serials. Among the ads was one that surprised me. I did not know that in 1908 Sears Roebuck advertised in such periodicals. I thought their advertising at that time was entirely by their own huge catalogue. But in this issue of The American Home Sears ran a big ad half a page deep and three columns wide. What it actually advertised was Sears’ big 1,100 page catalogue. The ad said: “This big book cost us a lot of money, and it requires 22 cents to mail every copy. You can have it for nothing.” But that free offer did have a gimmick to it. Just note what one had to do to get this Sears catalogue: “Send us an order taken from any catalogue of ours. If you haven’t one, borrow one from a neighbor. Select any item or items that total at least one dollar, and send the order to us. We will fill that order and send you free this enormous catalogue. In this way you get the catalogue for nothing and we pay the postage.”

Sears’ rival, Montgomery Ward, had an ad in that same issue of The American Home. It was, however, more restricted than the Sears ad, advertising only Ward’s garden seeds, featuring what they called a wonderful new tomato.

Another ad was for the New Edison Parlor Grand Phonograph with its long cornucopia-shaped horn. Nowhere in the ad is a price stated. In fact many other ads in the same paper, especially those for pianos and parlor organs, name no price. Some state only the initial amount to be paid down. Others say so much per month, but not for how many months. All that was said about paying for your Edison Phonograph was this: “Two dollars a month buys this genuine Edison, together with a dozen gold-moulded records.”

In 1906, the Sawyer firm brought out a magazine called simply “Sawyer’s”. Its rate was 15 cents a year. It too was a monthly. A sample of some of its trivial contents are the following verses:

“The hen that cackles loudest
Doesn’t lay the largest egg;
The mule that kicks the hardest
Hasn’t got the biggest leg;
The dog whose bark is fiercest
Doesn’t always bite the most;
And the man who is the bravest
Isn’t always one to boast.”

Vol. 1, No.3 of Sawyer’s appeared in May, 1906. It had a section called “News of the World”, of which three pages were devoted to the San Francisco earthquake and fire. The pictures included Burning of the Palace Hotel, The Call Building Catches Fire, View of the Fire from the Waterfront, Burning of the Grand Opera House, and Ruin of the Commission House District.

Let us have just a small section of the story, lest you have forgotten what occurred in San Francisco 64 years ago: “The earthquake moved an entire mountain chain, locally known as the Sierra Santa Cruz. It rises 3,500 feet in a peak called Lorna Prieta. Along the base of this mountain for forty miles extends a narrow valley. This marks an old fault of geologic times. When it was made, the rocks on the east side fell some 2,000 feet below those on the west. The violent shock of April 18 was due to an abrupt and deep readjustment along the line of the fault. The old fault reopened, breaking the surface for a distance of more than forty miles. The mountain on the west side slipped to the north for six feet. Waves of intense violence shook the earth, starting fires all over the city.”

Other papers that appeared in Waterville briefly in the early 1900’s, none of them for more than a few months, were The American Nation, also put out by Sawyer’s, The New Century, The Home Queen, Clifton’s Monthly, The Friend Gem, and Questions.

Some of them had Waterville ads. One read: “S.A. Dickson, city harness store. For the next 30 days I shall make greatly reduced prices on my stocks of harness, robes, whips, trunks, bags, rubber goods, and dog collars.”

“Tailor Ed cuts over women’s jackets and makes them to order. Would you bring me some wool for a woolen coat?”

“H.F. Burgess, Fairfield, Jeweler and Optician. My many Waterville customers tell me I have a better stock than can be found in their own city. Open every evening from December 15 until Christmas.”

“Mrs. Healey, 122 Main St., Waterville. Christmas Candles. The finest broken candles in the city — 3 lbs. for 25 cents. I can also furnish cut flowers on short notice.”

Now let us turn back a bit to some items in the more localized papers that we mentioned last week — items we did not have time for in that broadcast. Here’s one from McCone’s Iconoclast: “A corporation was formed a few years ago to put a suspension bridge across the Kennebec at the foot of Temple Street. The bridge would be a great convenience to workmen in the Winslow pulp mill who reside on this side of the river. The city ought to build and own that proposed bridge. A private corporation will put it up for profit. Aren’t toll bridges a thing of the past?”

How surprised that editor of 70 years ago would be to learn that the suspension foot bridge still stands in 1970, is still privately owned, is still used, and is still a toll bridge.

In Pattangall’s Maine Democrat Otten’s bakery covered the entire back cover with an ad. It said: “Do you know why you should buy your bread, cakes and pastry at Otten’s? Does not your health depend on the quality of your nourishment? Mr. Otten gives this business his personal supervision, and he employs none but expert workmen who are neat and clean. No other bakery in the state carries a larger assortment. Have you tried our ladies fingers, annis drops, and cocoanut diamonds? Remember we won first prize at the Johnson Bread Exhibition in Boston. Baked kidney beans every Wednesday. Pea beans and brown bread on Saturday.”

Now as we close, let us come nearer to our own time by a quarter of a century, to the year 1926. In that year appeared a state publication called Sun-Up, and its February issue had some good words for Waterville. It called our town a city of diversified industry, and said of us: “Though Waterville is one of the state’s younger cities, its growth in industry and population has been remarkable. It is now second only to Portland in its importance as a railroad center. Modern industry came to Waterville in 1875, more than ten years before the change from town to city, and it came in the form of the Lockwood cotton mills. But the city’s industrial development owes much also to one individual. As one approaches Waterville from Fairfield, he sees a sizable industry about a mile from the Waterville business center. It is the Lombard Traction Engine Co. The Lombard lag bed tractor was the first in the world. Lombard water wheel regulators are found wherever water is used for power, and Lombard pulp machinery is standard in the pulp and paper industry. As to other Waterville industries, Lockwood cotton goods are known in the world’s market. Hollingsworth and Whitney paper products go to all parts of the globe.”

A few Waterville persons mentioned in that issue of Sun-Up were Charles Atchley, judge of the municipal court; Leon Tebbetts, president of the Waterville Rotary Club and of the Federal Trust Co.; Paul Baird, the mayor of that year and Mrs. Florence Wallace, secretary of the Waterville Chamber of Commerce, the only woman in Maine to hold such a position.

In 1926, Waterville had a Chinese restaurant, and its ad appeared in that issue of Sun-Up: “American and Chinese Restaurant, formerly Harmon’s Cafe. In addition to the main dining room, there is a private dining room, an exclusive, restful retreat, a charming place for private parties and small banquets. All food is prepared in a sanitary kitchen by an experienced chef. Our 50 cents luncheon is a noonday attraction. Both Chinese and American foods every day. George W. Song, Manager.”

Year: 1971