THE EPHEMERA OF BUSINESS

Livery stables were essential businesses in towns prior the combustion engine. They were places to rent a horse or board one. They offered delivery services for customers. A lot of livery owners got involved in the undertaking business as they traditionally moved the caskets. The livery was also a source of hay, grain, coal and wood. The stable attracted men and usually was the scene of nightlife which included gambling, animal fighting and other vices. Add to that the smell and varmin the stable attracted, and while an essential business, the stable wasn’t always welcome in certain parts of town.

While I love and collect billheads - I also really enjoy trade cards as well. I think of them as small artwork. That is, I can't afford the large lithographed ad signs and posters, but I can most some of the trade cards. Thought I would showcase some billheads with their trade cards - I did choose trade cards that were colorful and unique.

Soap making in the American colonies was largely a household art in the beginning. When the second ship sent out from England to the Jamestown colony arrived, there were landed a number of Germans and Poles, skilled craftsmen, among whom were several proficient in handling fat and soap- ashes. The candle and the tallow dip, then the ordinary means of illumination, have always constituted in their manufacture a branch of the soap maker's business, but in those days it was a far more important one than it is to-day. Newport , R. I., had a number of these establishments by the middle of the last century. Boston and all New England were likewise active in this trade, owing to the large whaling interests there, which furnished the sperm- oil. While there were small soap- boiling establishments in nearly all the large towns by 1795, it is safe to say that they did not produce a great deal over $300,000 annually. The bulk of the product consumed was, as has already been stated...