Browse Items (124 total)

Please click on the Excel spreadsheet link (.xslx) above to see the full report of artifacts.

1869-1889
Tarrant & Co. was established in 1834 and formed a partnership with Johann Hoff in 1869. Johann Hoff’s Malt Extract had been marketed as a medicinal tonic since its invention in 1847; Tarrant & Co. became the sole agent for the product…

1859-early 20th century
Roswell van Buskirk created his popular Sozodont (from the Greek “save” and “teeth”) in 1859, advertising its power to improve teeth, gum, and breath (as in the ad below, c. 1900). As early as 1880, dentists began…

1868-?
John Eliot Jeffords started his pottery in 1868, quickly gaining a reputation for Rockingham, yellowware, and majolica. An 1888 advertisement for Jeffords Porous Cells is below. The company was around until at least 1904, but it is unclear…

1890-?
Frank Baum developed Eskay’s Albumenized Food for babies needing to gain weight in the last quarter of the 19th-century; in 1890, he was commissioned by the pharmaceutical firm Smith, Kline & French to manufacture the product. An 1899…

1885-1904
Edward Everett started in the glass industry by buying Newark Star Glass, which he renamed after himself in 1885; he sold the company to the Ohio Bottle Company (a corporation he also led) in 1904.
RRH

1888-1904
Boyd’s Genuine Porcelain Liners were patented in 1869, originally in colorless glass, then milk glass in 1871. Marion Fruit Jar and Bottle Company was one of many glass manufacturers to produce these; the company specialized in fruit…

1891-?
The Dinet & Delfosse drugstore appears in directories as early as 1891, just three years after its founders, Joseph Delfosse and Henry Dinet, graduated from the University of Illinois. The store spent much of its life in the Columbus Memorial…

1871-1935
Gale and Blocki was established in 1871, a reorganization of Gale Brothers wholesale and retail drug enterprise. The druggists also sold White Rock Ginger Ale produced by the White Rock Mineral Spring Company; an early advertisement for…

1887-1922
John Alfred Lomax consolidated his own soda bottling factory with fifteen others in 1887 to form the Chicago Consolidated Bottling Company; an early letterhead of Lomax’s is below. The name of the firm was changed to the Lomax Company in…

1902-1940(?)
Otto W. Tanke took over Emil Dorner’s drug store at 557 N. Clark St. in 1902, just four years after passing the Board of Pharmacy. In the early 1900s, Tanke established the Lavox Company, manufacturing chemicals, drugs, and toilet…

1895-1902
Emil A. Dorner’s drug store first appears in Chicago records in 1895, located at 557 N. Clark Street; in 1902, Otto W. Tanke took over the store. A bottle from this business was found at the Charnley-Persky House in 2010.
RRH

1866-?
David R. Dyche took over his deceased brother’s drug store in 1866; after the 1871 Fire, the store moved to the corner of State & Randolph (pictured below in 1904). After Dyche’s 1893 death, his heirs incorporated the company as D. R.…

1893-present
Wilder Pickard established his china company in 1893 in Edgerton, Wisconsin; by 1900, the company had moved to Chicago. The company specialized in hand-painted china, as advertised in the 1907 image below. A piece of a porcelain plate…

Canton porcelain refers to a wide range of Chinese export porcelain produced in the Chinese port of Canton (now known as Guangzhou). Generally, Canton porcelain refers to 18th-century to early 20th-century blue and white Chinese porcelains created…

1880-1949
Founded in 1880, Zeh, Scherzer & Co. produced a wide range of products, including an exclusive series for Geo. Borgeldt & Co. (advertised in the 1921 image below). In 1949, they began using the name and backmark Scherzer & Co. or Scherzer…

1823-present
Louis Toussaint Piver took over Michel Adam’s perfume company in 1813, renaming the company after himself ten years later. The company was the official purveyor to the court of Louis XVI and to many royal families of Europe and…

1830-present
Edouard Pinaud opened his first perfume shop in 1839 in Paris, and the company first appeared in Parisian registered in 1841. The company grew swiftly and was the perfume supplier for Napoleon III and Queen Victoria of England by the…

1891-present
Theodore Haviland split from his family company, Haviland & Co., and formed his own china business in 1891. Haviland produced a wide range of china, even expanding into sculpture, advertising in 1916 animal sculptures made by Swiss…

1769-present
Alexander Gordon built his gin distillery in London in 1769; Gordon & Company quickly spread throughout the British Empire (starting 1800), reaching the U.S. and Canada in 1902. The iconic square-faced bottle was introduced in 1904, and…

1882-present
Founded in 1882, Johnson Brothers was a leader in English earthenware production; in 1896, the company expanded to the U.S., which would become one of their largest markets (as exhibited in the 1922 advertisement from one of their…

1857-1937
Kilner Brothers Glass Company was established in 1857 after James Kilner & Sons split in two, following the death of James Kilner Sr. in the same year. Kilner Brothers produced medical, dispensing, drug, soda water, mineral water, and beer…

1797-present
First produced in 1797, Keiller marmalade became one of the largest confectioners in the UK. The company first used the name James Keiller & Son in 1827, and the product grew worldwide by 1857. Keiller marmalade is still available…

1860-1976
In 1860, William Carter traded his paper wholesale business for an ink-selling business; at the outbreak of the Civil War, Carter snagged the recipe for ink and glue from his supplier, allowing him to manufacture their own ink. In 1872,…

1812-present
Waterbury Button Company was established in 1812 during the United States’ war against the U.K. of the same year, producing stamped metal buttons for the armed forces. During the Civil War, both sides wore Waterbury buttons on their…

1873-present
Patented in 1873, Phillips’ Milk of Magnesia is still a popular over-the-counter antacid today. Charles Henry Phillips quickly began marketing his combination of hydrate of magnesia with water to create the product, emphasising its…

1865-1920s
Samuel Merrill Bixby began manufacturing and selling shoe blacking in 1860, selling his short-lived shoe store to focus full-time on the venture in 1865. Soon after, S. M. Bixby & Company was formed, producing a wide range of dye-related…

1867-present
Still in production today, Gulden’s Mustard was one of the first brown mustards introduced to the American public. Sources disagree on the start date for this company;ConAgra (the conglomerate that now owns Gulden’s) boasts 1862 as…

1873-1886
Keasbey & Mattison Company was established 1873 as a pharmaceutical company, mostly selling patent medicines and curatives; one of their most popular products was Bromo Caffeine. See the 1890 advertisement for this product and a bottle…

1876-present
Charles E. Hires Root Beer was initially developed as a medicinal syrup or tonic, but the soft drink quickly became an international hit. While on his honeymoon in 1875, Hires was served a root tea similar to that Native Americans…