Taking Coffee with
Mrs. Cleveland by Alan Borer
Presidential trivia buffs will
probably not hesitate over the question of who was the first, and so far only, president
married in the White House. The answer
is the lady shown on the trade card above, On June 2, 1886, Frances Folsom, age
21, married the rotund, bachelor president Grover Cleveland, who was 49 at the
time. Despite the differences in their
age, the Clevelands had a happy marriage.
Frances Cleveland enjoyed her role as First Lady during the second half
of her husband’s first term and the entirety of his (nonconsecutive) second
term. Mrs. Cleveland had six children.
The marriage of the president causer
a media frenzy in the days when such a thing was just becoming possible. Color printing, telegraph used to spread news
(and gossip), and newspaper photography made of the attractive young first lady
an international media celebrity. Pipes,
candy, sheet music,, and pamphlets were printed bearing her image. Her hairstyle was imitated and young girls
copied her daring, uncovered shoulders.
What was a “trade card?”
Long before commercials and
pop-up Internet annoyances, advertisers spread the word on their products via
small cardboard pictures packed with
their product. Now as then, a pretty
face sells:
“More commercial but not entirely
exploitive were the “trade cards” of the era; these were small cards that all
ranges of business and stores used to advertise their goods, and which usually
carried some pleasant scenic image and the name and address of the store below
it. In this form, Frances Cleveland’s face appeared on calendars, ashtrays, and
greeting cards for small businesses. These items were given away for free to
customers as a form of advertising.”
The card illustrated here was
distributed by Toledo’s Woolson Spice Company to advertise one of their
principal brands, Lion Coffee. The
Woolson Spice Company was created by one Alvin Woolson (1841-1925). Woolson, a Civil War veteran who served as an
artillery sergeant, arrived in Toledo in 1875.
A hard worker, he set out to stake his claim in the wholesale grocery
business. He founded the spice company
in 1882, taking over the assets (and
recipes) of the older Warren and Bidwell Co. on Huron Street.
Lion Coffee became a success
partly because of its advertising. “The Woolson Spice Co. was credited, during
this period, with spending unheard of sums in the promotion of
Lion brand coffee in new market areas in the East. The eastern newspaper
display ads alone exceeded anything ever attempted in the way of advertising.
It was the first mass campaign to persuade the public to a particular product
brand. And those sums unheard went to “ [t]rading
cards accompanied packages and toys could be sent for. There was something for
everyone in the way of a Lion brand premium from bicycles and jackknifes to
lace curtains.”
Woolson Spice survived into the
twentieth century, but by 1905, a hostile takeover effort brought the company
to the brink of bankruptcy. Alvin Woolson
himself lived on as a Toledo benefactor, with interest in several banks, the
Toledo Country Club, the Art Museum, and the Newsboys. Lion Coffee also survived, or perhaps
reincarnated. The Hawaii Coffee Company
in Honolulu now owns the trademark and recipes of Lion Coffee, and still sells
and markets Lion Coffee worldwide
[http://www.hawaiicoffeecompany.com/].
We started at a wedding in the
White House, moved to a Toledo advertising genius, and ended in a Hawaii coffee
factory. Some trips are stranger than
others!
[In addition to the trade card
itself, these websites were consulted:
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/The+Lion+Coffee+saga.-a08943605.]
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