1914-06-18tt Part 2

 

 

The first large newspaper advertisement in the two part promotional campaign had created considerable anticipation as to what be revealed in the second instalment.

The Home Outfitting Company had only indicated that an “important announcement” would be made regarding a “special offer “ in the following day’s paper.

 The final details of the offer to be made to a limited number of customers were still in need of approval by the company’s management, but it was promised that with “reasonable certainty’ that fifty Hamilton households would be sure to take advantage of the deal.

The second part of the unusual promotion appeared in a newspaper advertisement as large as the previous day’s offering.

What was being offered were a shipment of 50 McDougall Kitchen Cabinets which the Home Outfitting Company had managed to obtain. The cabinets would be put on sale, on a first come basis, at a special price of $35.00. The company would make the cabinets available to Hamilton women at a price of $1 Down and a commitment to pay $1 a week until the $35 price was met.

However, the special price and payment option would only be available to the first 50 women who joined the company’s Kitchen Club.

The McDougall Kitchen Cabinets were among the best available in 1914. The company provided the following description:

“The cabinet has sliding nickel-plated table top, is furnished in golden oak with dull copper-finished hardware, large china closet with extra shelf, glass doors, glass spice jars, glass removable sugar bin, aluminum flour bin, which is removable, sanitary leg base, legs copper ferruled, cupboard with sanitary shelf, large bread and cake drawer with sliding top.”

What made the purchase of a McDougall cabinet by Kitchen Club members was the addition of 13 free articles.

The ad listed the free articles available with each of the 50 cabinets to be sold:

1.   1 lb. Ladies’ Delight coffee.

2.   1 package McLaren’s Invincible Powdered Jelly.

3.   1 bottle McLaren’s Baking Powder.

4.   1 tin Red Feather Black Pepper.

5.   1 package Excelsior Salad Dressing

6.   1 tin Mechanics’ Friend, ‘Quick’ (a hand cleaner).

7.   1 bar N. P. soap.

8.   1 loaf Ewing’s Creamalt Bread.

9.   1 tin Black Knight Stove Polish.

10.        1 cake Mother’s Toilet Soap.

11.        1 package Dickenson’s Tea.

12.        2 lbs. Triumphant Flour.

13.        1 set Enamel Triple Nesters (enamelware)

14.        1 broom.

Each item to be included free with the purchase were given away by a partnership of the Home Outfitting Company and the article’s manufacturer. The large newspaper carried an illustration of each article, or in two cases, the bread and the flour, the company’s logo was used. An engraving of a McDougall cabinet was also included in the ad.

Needless to say there was considerable traffic at the Home Outfitting Company’s store on King street. The fifty cabinets were quickly sold, the elaborate promotion proving to be successful.

1914-06-18ii Part 1

In 1914, retail establishments in Hamilton were in heavy competition for the dollars to be spent on such items as clothing and furniture. A prolonged recession had negatively affected consumer spending. To that end, many businesses started providing credit to provide cash-poor Hamiltonians with the chance to purchase large-ticket items.

In addition, many business owners decided that promotion was critical and so purchased larger and more visually arresting advertisements in the local press. 

Finally, innovative contests were often added to the promotions, offering cash or other rewards for those patrons who bought items at their store.

A classic example of 1914 era promotional effort in the Hamilton press was made by the Home Outfitting Company. In this case the company had a contest, not one but two large ads running on consecutive days and each newspaper ad contained elaborate visual additions to the basic information provided.

The Home Outfitting Company was a large store, located at 170-178 King street east in Hamilton’s main retail district. The main business of the Home Outfitting Company Limited was the sale of home furnishings, many of which were displayed on an artistic basis in two big shop windows to entice pedestrians already downtown to come into the store.

To encourage potential buyers to come downtown and then go to the store, the company outdid its rivals on the occasion of sale of kitchen cabinets.

 

The ad contained the company name in a distinctive style, with its address located below, and below that two important pieces of information, the store was open for business during evenings, and that the store did not employ “collectors’ (men who in other stores would come down heavily on people who might fall behind in their monthly payments. Finally, this part of the ad contained a heart, within which were the words “The Heart of Hamilton” indicating both the location of the store and the warmth, and customer-friendly nature of its sales personnel.

 

The top of the ad contained the reference that there were a certain number items useful for householders with their kitchen duties. It read as follows “We believe there are fifty Housewives in this city today who have been longing to profit by such an offer as we are preparing to make.”

Below that introductory statement was an engraving of someone in a kitchen who seemed to be in need of what was to be offered.

 

Below the image of the stressed woman in a kitchen was the following information:

Important Announcement

If you are tied hand and foot by the endless drudgery of unfinished kitchen work –

If you are simply worn out with the worry and strain of trying to ‘keep up’ appearances and your strength at the same time.

And if you have the slightest desire to overcome this condition, be sure and

See Our Special Offer in Tomorrow’s Paper

By a rare stroke of merchandising good fortune, we have concluded negotiations whereby we are enabled to make a limited number of our customers an unusual offer.

The details are now being worked out – and as this advance announcement is being written, they are being finally submitted to the management for approval.

We can say with reasonable certainty that complete details of this liberal offer will appear in this paper tomorrow. Read it carefully – then be prepared to act.

 

 

1914-07-24eff

Horses were an ever-present reality for Hamiltonians in 1914.

Whether pedestrians on city streets had to dodge wagons pulled by horses, or whether those same pedestrians, crossing city thoroughfares at intersections, had skirt around the plentiful “leavings” of horses, the creatures were a major factor in city life in many ways.

On July 24, 1914, the Hamilton Times reported an incident involving physician and a horse.

“A remarkably funny incident happened last evening on the Mountain top.

“A well-known professional man had occasion to be called in consultation. He was attired in seasonal clothing. He wore a straw hat which is the fashionable head gear for the dog days.

“Arriving at his destination, he left his aforesaid straw hat on the carriage seat, as he frequently goes without a hat when he motors or drives in the summer evenings.

“Having completed his mission, and discharged his duty in a highly creditable manner, the doctor, upon leaving the house of the suffering patient, searched in vain for his hat.

“Nowhere could it be found.

“Suddenly the thought occurred to him that he had left it in the carriage of the friend who had so kindly driven him to the home of the patient. He hurried there as quickly as possible.

“He found the carriage near the roadside, but on the seat where he left his one-fifty straw hat what do you suppose he found?

“In its place was a remnant of what had been his personal selection – only a few straws left to tell the tale.

“An inquisitive horse had made a meal of it, and would no doubt hae completely finished it but shied at the hat band.

“The doctor’s friends who know the joke say that it was the straw hat that got his goat.”¹

¹ “A Good Story : Told at the Expense of a City Doctor.”

Hamilton Times.  July 24, 1914

1914-07-25aff

In the summer of 1914, the star of zoo at Dundurn park was a lonely lion.

With the Ferari Shows in Hamilton, a relationship evolved between the City of Hamilton and the management of the circus :

“Geo. Wild, chairman of the Works Department of the Parks Board, is having troubles all his own these days in picking out of the Ferari menagerie on Barton street a suitable mate for Leo the Lion.

“The Parks Board has arranged to purchase a lioness, and has authorized Mr. Wild to select one of the four splendid beasts now on exhibition. Early next week he will take along some of the other members and endeavor to make a choice.

“The cost is expected to be about $300 or $400, although a good lioness costs as high as $1,500. However, Mr. Ferari, while not willing to give one away, is satisfied to sell one to the city at the amount he paid for it.

“The showman has also given the city valuable pointers in connection with the care of the big lion at the Dundurn zoo now, advising the board that it can use horseflesh  in feeding the beast as long as the horse is killed and dressed like ordinary cattle. This will be done in an effort to cut down the expenses of Leo. He now consumes daily meat worth several dollars.”¹

¹ “Leo’s Partner : Geo. Wild Trying to be Animal  Match Maker.”

Hamilton Herald.  July 25, 1914

1914-07-21gao

“Hamilton is to have another big week of fun and frolic, beginning Monday, July 20, when the Joseph Ferari Greater Exposition comes to Hamilton.”

Hamilton Times.  July 11, 1914

A circus was coming to Hamilton, as announced in the local press on July 11, 1914. Not just any circus, not another of the second-rate shows which occasionally had passed through the city over the years.

The Ferai Exposition was to be brought to Hamilton under the auspices of the Theatrical Mechanic Employees’ Association and as boasted in the Times, “the promoters promise Hamilton the best week of clean and wholesome fun that it has had this season.”¹

¹ “Ferari Shows : Will Furnish a Week of Solid Fun and Frolic.”

Hamilton Times.   July 11, 1914.

Three days later, the Times provided its readers with more details about the upcoming Ferari Shows:

“The people of Hamilton will be given something out of the ordinary in the way of clean productions and well-lighted amusement palaces.

“At a cost of $35,000, the Ferari Shows have been newly equipped, everything repainted and regilded and many of the world’s leading artists procured.”¹

¹ “Ferari Shows : Will Open on Barton Street Grounds Next Monday”

Hamilton Times.   June 14, 1914

In anticipation of the Ferari circus coming to Hamilton, many things had to be put in place :

“Manager Dobyns arrived yesterday to make the necessary arrangements for the reception of the show. During yesterday afternoon, Mr. Dobyns visited the circus grounds, Barton street east, and arranged for the erection of a number of poles, the stringing of many wires and for the equivalent of 2,000 sixteen-candle-power globes and 16 arc lights, the plan of lighting being designed to make the Ferari exposition as bright as day.”¹

The amount of lighting to be put in place for the Ferari Shows was an important symbol that the upcoming shows would not be like many of the disreputable circuses which had come to Hamilton in the past:

“It is a show built on an extraordinary high basis for entertainment purposes, is cleanly conducted and will have no features of any kind to which the public can take exceptions.”¹

The Ferari show, it was noted “has been one of the leading attractions at Coney Island, the world’s playground, for many years past”:

“The Ferari trained animals, dogs, ponies, monkeys, lions, tigers, leopards and jaguars, are declared to be almost human in their respective portrayals of intelligence.

“The freaks of nature with the show are also of the highest type.

“The Ferari Exposition company carries its own Parisienne orchestrians and an Italian band, both of which furnish music, afternoon and evening.”¹

On July 18, 1914, the Hamilton Times announced that Ferari Greater Exposition “with its glittering wagons of red, green and gold, its big wild animal show and a score of novel amusement enterprises and riding devices, will arrive in Hamilton from Buffalo late tomorrow and before the break of dawn on Monday the work of pitching the tented city on the circus grounds, Barton street east, will be underway.”²

² “Ferari Shows : Big Exposition Arrives Here Sunday and Opens Monday”

Hamilton Times.   July 18, 1914.

Joseph G. Ferari, the head of the enterprise, was himself a circus performer, his specialty being a tamer and breeder of wild animals. Ferari and Captian Wilson, would share duties in supervising the animals of the show while in Hamilton.

One big cat in particular would be the subject of intense scrutiny:

“Interest centers large in Nero, the man-killing lion, who just last month added another victim to his list when he killed one of his trainers, Captain Cardona, at Binghamton, in the presence of hundreds of people.”²

After listing a number of the attractions to be provided at the Ferari show, the Times promised readers that “the grounds will be a blaze of light on Monday night, and the street railway company is arranging a rapid service.”²

Finally, Monday July 20, 1914 arrived. A Times reporter was sent to the site of the circus to provide readers with a sense of the intense activity taking place to set up everything for the first day of the Ferari shows’ run in Hamilton:

“There was a busy scene early this morning on the circus grounds, Barton street east, when the large staff of workmen began erecting the tents and amusement palaces in preparation for the grand opening tonight.

“The show looks all that was claimed for it in advance. The equipment is new and there were order and neatness about the grounds this morning that bear out the company’s assurance that there will be nothing objectionable in any part of the exposition.

“Thousands of incandescent lights have been strung and the grounds will be a blaze of brilliance when the fun festival opens tonight.”²

Opening night at the Ferari  show received positive reviews in both the Hamilton Times and the Hamilton Spectator.

The Spectator reporter was laudatory in his opinion of the hugely-attended first night of the circus:

“All that the advance notices claimed for the show is shown and a little bit more. There is the usual life and fun that goes with every carnival and the attractions are all above average in the matter of quality.”³

³ “Fine Amusement : Opening of T.M.A.’s Fun Festival a Big Success”

Hamilton Spectator.   July 21, 1914.

The Ferari Show involved a number of different places for Hamiltonians to visit when on the grounds, most required a paid admission, but some were free. Attractions, notably the animals performances within the big tents required tickets, as did the girl shows, the races in the motordom, and others. Rides on the big Ferris Wheel or on the merry-go-ground were affordable for most.

For those without much money to spare, there was a midway where music from a magnificent organ could be heard, plus some live comedy performances. In the afternoon and at the end of the evening, stuntman Lefty Rochette would thrill the crowd by diving from a platform 110 feet high, into a tank of water only six feet deep.

The midway was very popular, according to the Times reporter :

“Neatly lined up on the east and west sides of a central driveway, which opens on Barton street from Scott Park, there were lined last night booths of every description, where seekers of pleasure and goo things in general might purchase ice cream cones, sugar stick candies, take pops at Aunt Sallies, shoot at swimming ducks and galloping steeds and play at hoop-la, and for each and everyone there was awaiting a gaudy gew-gaw as a prize.”⁴

⁴ “Ferari’s Shows Are High Class : Opened Last Night and Pleased an Exceptionally Large Crowd : Management Promises Good Entertainment All Week”

Hamilton Times.  July 21, 1914. Of the performances requiring paid admissions, the large animals predominated:

“The main show is the animal performance in which trainers perform wonderful feats with denizens of the forest.

“Princess Anita is the first to enter the wild beasts’ cag, and, as with fearless mien, she stepped into the cage last night and took her life once again in her hands, she was heartily applauded for her bravery and splendid appearance.

“She sternly commanded the leopards and jaguars, which were under her charge, to do various stunts, such as standing in pyramid form and on stools and tables.

“The animals, though by no means tame, but rather enraged at the treatment accorded them instead of being free to wander unfettered around their native lands, know that they had met one who was their mistress, and they were forced to comply with her requests.”⁴

In addition to the large cats, the show included trained dog, monkeys and a particularly intelligent pony:

“Especially clever was an educated pony which answered the questions put to him by his trainer. He told the time, pointed out to the audience the girl among the audience who was most deeply in love, told the number of her beaux, much to her embarrassment, and finally pointed out the man who preferred a hogshead of beer on a Sunday to going to church.”⁴

A sideshow which also required a paid ticket to see was the show where people could gaze at some very unusual people:

“There was Minnie Ha-Ha, the member of the Australian bush races, which are now almost extinct, and which gave to Darwin one of his greatest arguments in favor of the doctrine of evolution.

“There was the thirty-inch lady, with her son of the same height, she being 29 years of age and weighing 30 pounds and he being 17 years of age and weighing twenty-five pounds.

“There was Captain George who stands 7 feet 3 inches, takes an eighteen-size boot and weighs 315 pounds.

“There was the lady who is now unassailable to the influence of electricity through being struck by lightning when she was ten years old and could carry a charge of this powerful juice that she could light an oil lamp with a pen knife or a bunch of keys besides performing other marvelous feats.”⁴

The Times reporter eventually ran of steam, and copy room, to describe all the attractions at the Ferari show:

“There were other side shows of the same high quality and anyone desirous of passing an entertaining evening should not fail to take in Ferari’s Show on at least one occasion during the remaining nine days on which they will perform here.

“The show is clean in every phase, is well-arranged and the employees are the essence of courtesy and willing to give any information which is desired by the patrons.

“There is no indication of anything that savors of what is not absolutely presentable to the most critical of audiences and there is heard from none of the employees any language which is not permitted in the best of society.”⁴

 

1914-07-15aak

 

    “During the past week many complaints have been made about motorists speeding along the Beach at night, and, unless steps are taken to put a strop to the practice, it is feared that an accident will result.”

Hamilton Times.  July 15, 1914.

As the Beach became a popular summer resort in the late 19^th and early twentieth centuries, access from the city to the cottages, the swimming areas, popular hotels and amusement centers was by horse and carriage or by railroad, either the steam railway or the radial electric railway. Automobiles were few and far between.

However, the summer of 1914 saw more and more automobiles appearing on the Beach strip, both during the daytime and nighttime hours.

On July 15, 1914, the Hamilton Times contained a report about automobile drivers causing problems:

“Every evening about 11:30, a heavy touring car shoots across the sand strip, blowing a death-disturbing siren and waking most of the residents.

“The Beach constable has seen it on two occasions, but has, owing to the fact that the rear light was invisible, has been unable to ascertain the license number.

“Last evening, it passed the canal about 11:45, and failed to slow up until making the turn north of the canal.

“This is not the only car that is complained of. Several other motorists have breezed along at a clip of from forty to fifty miles an hour.”¹

¹ “Auto Mystery : Police After Joyriders Shooting Across the Beach at Night.”

Hamilton Times. July 15, 1914.

Five days later, the Hamilton Times carried an article an article about the ever-increasing popularity of the Beach and the danger of automobiles in the area:

“Despite the cry of hard times, the Beach is more popular this year than ever before, both from a residential and pleasure-seeking standpoint.

“With half a dozen exceptions, the Beach is occupied, from the tumble-down shacks on the lake shore to the finer residences on the roadway.

“The fine weather of the past two weeks has made it a mecca for the seekers of cool air, and each afternoon, the pavilion and park at the canal are crowded with happy throngs of men and women and boys and girls.

“The extremely pleasant bathing has been a feature also this year, for never for several years back, have the residents known the bathing to be as good for such a length of time.

“Desirous that all motorists should keep within the limit of twelve miles an hour, the Beach Commission has arranged a number of large signs at intervals of two or three stations.

“This has been done in view of the many narrow escapes experienced by small children. They are in the habit of playing in front of their homes and are constantly in danger of being hit.”²

² “Boat Owners Now Complain”

Hamilton Times.   July 20, 1914

1914-07-20agag

Horses were very much a presence in Hamilton, particularly downtown Hamilton, in the summer of 1914.

On July 20, 1914, two horse-related new items appeared in the afternoon edition of the Hamilton Times. One story concerned a horse very familiar to the general public, the other horse was less well-known.

The first story was actually a City of Hamilton employee:

“Among the city’s live stock is a much-petted horse – in fact it has a pedigree and a record.

“Charles Lowe generally gee haws when the beast is placed in harness and made to draw the surveyors and their instruments to places of interest.

“This morning, the animal was christened ‘Piecatus,’ on account of its liking of table pie.

“Eight bells had just chimed. A weight held Piecatus in a secluded nook behind the City Hall.

“Suddenly to his nostrils was wafted the sweet perfume of lemon pie. With head on high, the trail was followed, across sidewalks, behind the butter market, until a table behind a restaurant was reached.

“There he was rewarded, and eight beautiful specimens of the pastry cook’s art met with approval, much to the dismay of the owner and his customers, who loudly clamored in front for their favorite desert.”¹

¹  “A Pie Eater : So City’s Horse Has Been Christened Piecatus”

Hamilton Times.  July 20, 1914 .

The send horse story to appear in the Hamilton Times concerned an incident which took place an hour later, a few blocks to the east of the City Hall:

“About ten minutes after nine o’clock this morning, one of the horses belonging to the Canadian Transfer Co., and employed by the post office for carrying parcel post, ran away down John street.

“The horse, which was standing on John street while the wagon was being loaded with parcels, without any apparent reason, broke away and in its wild run narrowly missing several pedestrians who were crossing the street.

“When it got nearly down to King William street, a man darted out from the sidewalk, and after being dragged a few yards, was able to bring the animal to a standstill.

“As soon as the driver of the rig appeared, the other man disappeared, and the horse was safely taken back to the post office.”²

² “A Good Stop : Of Runaway Horse Attached to Parcel Post Wagon”

Hamilton Times.    July 20, 1914