THE EPHEMERA OF BUSINESS

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...

A very popular billhead collecting area is billheads related to the whaling industry in America. In the 19th century, the whaling industry was one of the most prominent businesses in the U.S. Oil obtained from a whales blubber has been used for both lighting and lubricating purposes, and the bones of the whale were used to make a variety of useful products. In the early 19th century, a typical American household might contain several items manufactured from whale products, such as candles or corsets made with whalebone stays. In the 1700s, American colonists began developing their own whale fishery. Islanders from Nantucket, who had taken to whaling because their soil was too poor for farming, killed their first sperm whale in 1712. By the early 1800s, whaling ships from New England were setting out on very long voyages to the Pacific Ocean in search of sperm whales. Some of these voyages could literally last for years. A number of seaports in New England supported the whaling industry...