Collection of One Hundred and Eight Silent Film-Era Hand-Drawn Advertisement Text Cards

Brooklyn, New York, Hicksville, etc., 1929. Very Good. Brooklyn, New York, Hicksville, etc: ca. 1920s. One hundred and eight (108) movie advertisement text cards, nearly all hand-painted in white on stiff black card stock and measuring ca. 17.5x18cm to ca. 20x20.5cm.; many with painted pictorial elements or color printed paste-ons. General wear to margins, some placards suffering shallow losses at extremities not affecting text or illustration while a few have larger pieces missing, though the vast majority in Very Good condition. Date based on the lone dated advertisement (1929).

A remarkable time capsule from the early days of blending film-going with advertisement, one placard even promoting this form, promising that "This novel advertising medium brings results to the merchant." Not only did it bring results, it was also cheap for the movie house to produce: at least sixteen of the examples here are painted on the versos of trimmed silent film text cards. The ad for Frankel's Men's Shop, offering holiday suggestions of silk scarfs, neckties, bath robes, and hosiery, when flipped, tantalizingly reads "The bath after the ceremony." Chas. Friedopfer Furniture, on the other hand, is painted on the verso of the text placard "Then followed rank houses, headquarters for the half-bred gauchos who herd cattle over the vast estates," possibly text to accompany a jingoistic newsreel or Western film.

Of special note, however, is the breadth and diversity of the businesses that made use of this advertising novelty, many of them first- and second-generation immigrant-owned family businesses catering to their fellow countrymen and countrywomen, the collection including six advertisements in Italian, two in Chinese, and one in Czech.

Businesses range from the garment industry (Army & Navy Store, Self-Acting Shoe Store, Father & Son Clothes Shop, "Pants to match your coat!"); to pastry and ice cream parlors; florists; garages and bodyshops; movers; pharmacists; optometrists and dentists ("at the subway station"); radio repair; electricians; beauty salons (our favorite: Joe's Beauty Parlor); furniture stores and auction houses; banks; cleaners and laundromats; department stores; jewelers; haberdashers; malt and hops stores; a Chevrolet dealership out in Hicksville; a taxi company ("polite and courteous drivers"); quality meats; hotels and boarding houses; Singer sewing machines; and finally, a coal company located inside a pet shop.