(Click for larger image)
by Paula Bosse
The height of comfort!
You know this photo was taken for promotional purposes, because none of the men has a reeking cigar clenched between his teeth.
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Texas Electric Railway Interurban ad reprinted in Texas Historian, Jan. 1981.
Interurbans were great. I wish we still had them. Read about what they were, here.
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Copyright © 2015 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.
A fleet of Cadillacs in front of 2533 McKinney Ave.
by Paula Bosse
The photo above shows a truly beautiful, Spanish-style building that was built in 1927 at the northwest corner of McKinney Avenue and Routh Street. The view shows the Routh Street side. The person who took this photograph would have been standing across the street on the property of the dearly-departed McKinney Avenue Baptist Church (most recently transformed into the Hard Rock Cafe). You might be surprised to learn that the building in this photo still stands, and it’s mostly recognizable almost 90 years later.
The Community Chapel Funeral Home (yes, a funeral home!) was designed by noted architect Clarence C. Bulger (whose father, C. W. Bulger, designed, among other things, the Praetorian Building downtown AND the just-mentioned McKinney Avenue Baptist Church which was right across the street).
City directory, 1929
In addition to the funeral home portion (reception area, business office, show rooms, “operating room” (!), chapel with seating for 100, and the euphemistically named “slumber room”), the building also contained a residence for the chief mortician and his embalmer wife, an apartment for the ambulance/hearse drivers, and a “pavilion for recreation of employees.” The building and its beautifully-appointed interior cost in excess of $100,000 (which the Inflation Calculator estimates is the equivalent of more than $13 million today!).
Also, an “oxygen plant” was somewhere on the grounds. I’ve never heard of an oxygen plant, but they seem to be a mortuary thing. Let’s hope recently-bereaved smokers were kept at a safe distance from all that highly flammable oxygen, because the company had a bunch of promotional matchbooks printed up, and I can only imagine they were readily available in tastefully-arranged candy dishes of every room of the establishment. And in those days, one didn’t necessarily step outside to smoke one’s anxiety away.
1937 Dallas directory
The funeral home at 2533 McKinney Avenue lasted almost thirty years. Sometime in the mid-’50s it was renovated into office and retail space (classified ads mentioned 2-, 3-, and 4-office suites). That lovely interior must have been hacked up pretty bad. An early tenant was the Bankers Securities Corporation, shown below in a newspaper ad from 1956 (someone made some poor choices on that renovation of the exterior). (This view shows an entrance from McKinney rather than Routh.)
Ad detail, Jan., 1956
For the next 40-odd years, 2533 McKinney Avenue was home to a variety of insurance agents, a fur salon, several companies that advertised in the classifieds for vague “salesmen” positions (one company did specify that it was looking for encyclopedia salesmen in 1963), art galleries, architect/design businesses, offices of “El Sol de Texas” (“the only Spanish-language newspaper in North Texas”), and antique shops.
It all turned around, though, when the long-suffering building was re-renovated and became a restaurant space. Since at least 1999 when Uptown began to explode, it’s been home to bistros, cafes, and upscale eateries. The photos below show some of the restaurants that have set up shop there, and if you know what you’re looking at, the place really does look very similar to C. C. Bulger’s design from almost 90 years ago.
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Le Paris Bistrot opened in 1999. The owner changed the name to Figaro Cafe in 2004 when the U.S. was going through an anti-French phase.
Urbano Paninoteca opened in 2007. Something called Split Peas Soup Cafe opened in 2009.
Then Sfuzzi opened with a big splash in 2010. (It had been a McKinney Avenue staple in the 1980s and ’90s, closed, and came back in 2010.) The first photo shows the Routh Street entrance, the second photo shows the McKinney entrance.
And now it’s the Fat Rabbit, which opened earlier this year. Let’s hope they get some landscaping in there STAT! (UPDATE: Fat Rabbit is now an ex-rabbit, and after spending some time of his own in the “slumber room,” he has joined the choir invisible. Next!)
And let’s hope that those tiled roofs and stuccoed walls remain a distinctive part of its future. I love the fact that it still looks a lot like it once did. And I actually like the fact that restaurants have been operating out of an old funeral home for over 15 years. Restaurateurs might be hesitant to publicize the building’s past (although I’m pretty sure most of them have been completely unaware of what the place used to be), but modern-day Harolds and Maudes might be giddy at the prospect of an unusual dining option and move this place right to the top of their date-night list.
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Top photo is a detail of the ad that appeared in the 1929 Dallas city directory. It shows four Cadillacs — a hearse, 5- and 7- passenger sedans, and an ambulance (“purchased from the Prather Cadillac Company”).
Matchbook artwork from Flickr, here.
The first Sfuzzi photo is from the food blog Scrumplicious Food, here. A GIGANTIC version of the photo can be seen here — you can look at all the details. Second photo of Sfuzzi from Yelp.
Fat Rabbit image from Google street view.
Sources of all other clippings and photos as noted.
Some images larger when clicked.
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Copyright © 2015 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.
“At your service, ma’am…” / AP Photo
by Paula Bosse
In 1940, Dallas was in a tizzy about the sudden fad of scantily-clad “girl carhops.” This scourge had made its way to Dallas from Houston (brought to Oak Cliff by the enterprising husband and wife team behind Sivils Drive-In), and in April of 1940, it was a newspaper story with, as it were … legs. For a good month or two, stories of sexy carhops were everywhere.
The girls started wearing uniforms with very short skirts — or midriff-baring costumes with cellophane hula skirts. Some of the women reported an increase in tips of $25 or more a week — a ton of money for the time.
The public’s reaction ranged from amusement to outrage. There were reports of community matrons who reported the “indecent” attire to the police department and demanded action. Other women were annoyed by the objectification of young womanhood. Lawmakers in Austin discussed whether the practice of waitresses exposing so much extra skin posed a health risk to consumers.
But it wasn’t until a woman from Oak Cliff piped up that something actually happened. She complained that she didn’t want to look at girls’ legs when she stopped in at her local drive-in — she wanted to look at men’s legs. Drive-in owners thought that was a GREAT idea, and the idea of the scantily-clad male carhop was born.
Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Apr. 28, 1940
One might think that the woman behind this “equal ogling” campaign was sort of proto-feminist, until you get to the part where she said that the whole girl carhop thing was “wrong socially and economically and should not be tolerated” (DMN, Apr. 27, 1940) — not because of the skin flashed, but because men needed jobs, not girls. And that also raised hackles. Two married women who had been carhops wrote to the Dallas News to speak up for these girls and women who were “at least coming nearer to making a living wage than at any other time of their existence. […] The girl carhops are either supporting their family or sharing the expenses. […] Why all the storm about a leg? It is nothing more than you see at a movie and a vaudeville” (DMN, May 5, 1940).
The photo at the top ran in newspapers around the country with the headline: “Adonis and Apollo of Roadside Bring Trade to Daring Stand.”
First large roadside stand Friday to bow to the demand of Dallas women and feature husky young male carhops in shorts was the Log Lodge Tavern at Lemmon and Midway where four six-footers found jobs. Above, in blue shorts, white sweatshirt and cowboy boots, Joe Wilcox serves Pauline Taylor who smiles her approval of the idea. Bound for another car is James Smith, at right.
April, 1940 must have been a slow news month, because this story really got around (click to see a larger image).
Corsicana Daily Sun, April 27, 1940
One intrepid reporter even tracked down a Texas Ranger (!) to ask his opinion, to which the Ranger replied, “…letting those roadside glamor boys wear boots is nothing more than a slam at the state. People think of booted Texans as men, not as fancy-panted carhops.” The whole article, below, is pretty amusing.
Anniston (AL) Star, April 28, 1940
There were other male carhops around town, some not quite so hunky. This guy — game as he was — really needed to reconsider his outfit.
Xenia (Ohio) Daily Gazette, May 3, 1940
But back to the female carhops and their siren-like hold over their male customers. This was, by far, the best story to hit the wires:
Waxahachie Daily Light, July 16, 1940
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Top image from the Associated Press, 1940.
The Log Lodge Tavern was located at 7334 Lemmon Avenue, which was across from Love Field and adjacent to the Log Lodge Tourist Court. It was located approximately where the red circle is below, on a page from the 1952 Mapsco (click for larger image).
Check out these related articles from The Dallas Morning News:
UPDATE: This has been a weirdly popular post — it’s gotten thousands and thousands of hits and even resulted in a short radio interview on Dallas’ public radio station, KERA. I don’t really add anything new to this story, but if you’d like to listen to the interview conducted by Justin Martin, it is here.
If you like what you’ve seen on Flashback Dallas, please consider supporting me on Patreon, where for as little as $5 a month, you can receive all-new updates several times a week (if not daily!). More information can be found at Patreon, here.
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Copyright © 2015 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.
Elm Street rush hour
by Paula Bosse
Automobiles would be rolling down Elm Street very soon, but even when the traffic was still mostly horse-related, there’s a lot going on here: horses, buggies, barrels, saloons, a bored kid on a wagon, a street car, and the Wilson Building.
(click for larger images)
And what was The Mint? The Mint was a saloon. I’m not sure when it first set up shop in Dallas, but it was listed in an 1877 directory, one of the city’s earliest.
Speaking of 1877, read about a typical frontier day at The Mint in two accounts of a stabbing, from The Dallas Herald in April, 1877, here, and the follow-up, here.
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Photo is from a stereograph titled “Everyday Life, Elm Street, Dallas, Tex.” from the Keystone-Mast Collection, UCR/California Museum of Photography, University of California at Riverside; it can be accessed here.
Images larger when clicked.
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Copyright © 2015 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.
When cotton was Rex (click for much larger image)
by Paula Bosse
In the 1870s, if a Dallas resident wanted to celebrate the glitzy revelry of Mardi Gras with a parade and balls and didn’t want to travel all the way to New Orleans, the place to go was Galveston. Galveston had a lock on Texas Mardi Gras galas. But Dallas being Dallas, there were soon plans to stage a massive Carnival right here. The day-long celebration debuted on February 24, 1876, which, oddly, was on a Thursday. (Mardi Gras that year was actually on Tuesday, Feb. 29, and it was probably celebrated early in Dallas so as not to interfere with the hey-we-got-here-first celebrations in New Orleans and Galveston.)
It was estimated that the festivities cost the city more than $20,000 (which, if the Inflation Calculator is to be believed, would be the equivalent of almost $450,000 in today’s money). The city was cleaned up in preparation for the anticipated onslaught of visitors and was decorated with flags and bunting along the lengthy parade route of Main, Elm, and Commerce streets. Revelers had elaborate costumes made for the processions and the grand masked balls, some with fabric imported for the occasion from France
Dallas Herald, Feb. 18, 1876 (not 1676!)
The Dallas Herald and The Dallas Commercial were incessant in their whipping up of excitement for the big day. And it worked. People streamed into town from all over Texas. Hotels were packed, and it was estimated that over 20,000 spectators watched one or both of the day’s parades.
The following day, The Dallas Herald apparently devoted their entire front page to coverage of the event, under this wordy headline:
A Day in Dallas, Our First Attempt at a Carnival Fete. The City Aglow with Enthusiasm and Wild with Rollicking Revelry. Visit of King Momus — His Cordial Reception by the People — The Procession in His Honor. The Season of Merry-Making Brought to a Happy Close with Balls and Bouts — Well Done, Dallas!
(Sadly, this issue is not available online, perhaps because there were none found to scan as it sold out more than five editions and was probably the paper’s best-selling edition to-date.)
Dallas’ first Mardi Gras had been an unqualified triumph, and newspaper editors and city leaders were beside themselves with joy. The parade — and the city — had been covered enthusiastically and favorably by newspapers around the country, and the success of the huge celebration was seen as having been better advertising for the exuberant and growing city than could ever have been hoped.
Galveston? Pffft!
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A few tidbits from that first Mardi Gras.
There were very few “incidents” reported surrounding the festivities. That’s not to say there weren’t a lot of incidents that occurred that day, just that not a lot of them found their way into the newspapers (apparently whiskey was free-flowing all day long, and one suspects there were “incidents” aplenty connected with that). Among the very few non-“jolly” things that happened on Carnival Day and the day following included the following:
Also, there was some sort of “fireball discharged from a rocket” which caused some consternation:
Dallas Herald, Feb. 26, 1876
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All residences and businesses along the parade route during the evening procession were “commanded” to be illuminated. Even if gasoline-fueled bonfires were raging along the parade route, the elaborate procession was probably poorly lit.
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My favorite “float” was the huge wagon of lumber meant to draw attention to East Texas timber and the thriving lumber industry in Dallas. One report said “the immense moving forest of pine” was drawn by “32 yoke of oxen” — another said “nearly 100 Texan steers.” Whatever it was, that must have been spectacular to see.
Dallas Herald, Feb. 26, 1876
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The massive amount of publicity and praise that Dallas received quite clearly irked other cities. Austin seemed especially perturbed. There had been a small outbreak of smallpox in McKinney preceding the big day, and several digs at Dallas (like the one below) appeared in newspapers around Texas, accusing the city’s leaders of knowingly endangering the welfare of the entire state just so they could put on their little parade. The exaggerated furor passed fairly quickly, and the het-up schadenfreude expressed by rival cities was amusing.
Austin Weekly Standard, Mar. 16, 1876
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An invitation issued by the Mystic Revellers:
Colton Greene Collection, Memphis Public Libraries
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The photo at the top shows the parade wagons representing the brand new Dallas Cotton Exchange (which seems to have been organized the previous month). As described in The Galveston Daily News, the Cotton Exchange’s offering “represent[ed] King Cotton enthroned on six bales of cotton, with numerous subjects appropriately costumed, and occupying two cars” (Feb. 25, 1876). Below are a couple of magnified details of the photo. I’m not sure, but it looks as if the horse and rider in the foreground are covered with cotton. Like tarring and feathering … but fun … and with cotton. The King of Cotton is surrounded by what look like henchmen. The masked man on the right in the elaborate costume is both cool and kind of creepy. (Click both photos for larger images.)
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Top photo appeared in the book Historic Photos of Dallas by Michael V. Hazel (Nashville: Turner Publishing Co., 2006); photo from the Dallas Historical Society.
Newspaper clippings as noted.
To read the coverage of Dallas’ Mardi Gras parades and balls — “a grand pageant and general jollification” — see the front page of The Galveston Daily News (Feb. 25, 1876), here (third column, top of page — zoom controls are on the left side of page).
I wrote a previous post called “Mardi Gras Parade in Dallas — ca. 1876” which features a photograph which might be from this first Mardi Gras. That post and photo can be seen here.
Happy Mardi Gras!
Dallas Herald, Feb. 24, 1876
Photos larger when clicked.
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Copyright © 2015 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.
The Roseland Theater, 1613 Main St. (click for larger image)
by Paula Bosse
Despite its grainy quality, I really like this photo. It shows people walking past the Roseland Theater at 1613 Main Street, a theater I’d never heard of. I couldn’t find out much about it other than that it doesn’t seem to have lasted very long (from at least 1914 until at least 1916). It was owned/managed by P. G. Cameron, who ran several theaters and was in the general “amusements” business around town (he had run the Fair Grounds Skating Rink back in the aughts for a short while, until the place was shut down because of the discovery of a prostitution operation being conducted there … on city-owned property).
Dallas Morning News, May 9, 1914
In 1916, the north side of Main Street contained three theaters: the Nickelodeon (1607 Main), the Roseland (1613 Main), and the Best (1615 Main). This is the much-beleaguered (and now mostly demolished) block of Main, which in 1916 was anchored by the dazzling Praetorian and Wilson buildings. The Roseland occupied part of what was once the Everts Jewelers building. Below, another view of this block in 1916, with the theater(s) on the right, about halfway between the tall white Praetorian Building and the stately rounded Wilson Building.
Another grainy photo, Main looking west
I like this Roseland photo because it’s a candid shot taken by a teenager on the sidewalk of a lively downtown Dallas who had happened upon his teacher away from school. And the sign is cool. Too bad it’s so hard to see.
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Photo from the 1916 Terrillian, the Terrill School yearbook. (The caption for the photo of one of the school’s teachers: “Passing by or coming out, Mr. F.?”)
Photo of Main Street, looking west, from the 1916 Rotunda, the yearbook of SMU.
See what the 1600 block of Main looked like in 1909, here. Much of the block has been demolished.
See the 1921 Sanborn map showing this block, here.
Below, a recent (2015) Google Street View of the building that housed the Roseland: the really lovely shorter white building. This building may already have been razed. What a shame. (UPDATE — 2018: Yep, demolished.) The current view (as I assume this block is ever-changing) can be seen on Google Street View here.
2015, not long for this world….
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Copyright © 2015 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.
Pacific, looking west toward Bryan, 1902 (click for larger image)
by Paula Bosse
Franklin Davenport Edmunds (1874-1948) was a Philadelphia architect whose hobbies were travel and photography. A 1902 train trip to Mexico took him through Texas, during which there as a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it stop in Dallas.
Who’s Who in Philadelphia, 1920
On the way to Mexico, he stopped in St. Louis for a while (where he took several photos on Feb. 12), passed through Arkansas (on Feb. 13), apparently saw very little of Dallas as he rolled through, and then took a lot of photos when he reached San Antonio (by Feb. 14). He then continued on to a vacation of at least two or three weeks in Mexico, where his camera was never far from his side.
The two photos that were taken as he passed through Dallas (which I’m assuming were snapped from the train) were probably taken on Feb. 13 or 14, 1902.
The location of the photo above is not noted, but it appears to be Pacific Avenue looking west. Peter S. Borich’s sign-painting business was on the northeast “corner” of Bryan and Pacific (at the point of the diagonal intersection). The photo shows the back and side of his building. It’s hard to see them, but there is a wagon with a team of horses at the Bryan St. intersection. Behind Borich’s is a blacksmith shop, and across the street, there are several furniture stores. Straight ahead is an almost mirage-like smoke-spewing locomotive heading toward the camera. (Unless Edmunds was standing in the middle of Pacific, I’m guessing he was taking the photo from the rear of the train.)
Seconds later, the train would have pulled into the old Union Depot (located about where Pacific would cross present-day Central Expressway).
(click for larger image)
Even though not identified in the photo description, the distinctive old Union Depot is instantly recognizable (an unrelated photo taken from about the same spot can be seen in this one from the George W. Cook collection at SMU’s DeGolyer Library). Again, the photo appears to have been taken from the train.
Edmunds took a ton of photos on this trip, but, sadly, he seems to have merely passed through Dallas without wandering around to explore its streets (which I would think would be interesting — if not downright exotic — to a Philadelphia architect) — I’m not sure he even got off the train to stretch his legs! But I’ve never seen these two photos, and they’re pretty cool. So, thanks, Frank — you should have hung around a little longer.
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Both photos by Franklin Davenport Edmunds are from the Free Library of Philadelphia. The Pacific Avenue photo can be accessed here; the Union Depot photo, here. Other photos he took in Texas during the 1902 trip (and a few from a previous 1899 trip) can be viewed here.
A biography of Edmunds can be read at PhiladelphiaBuildings.org here.
A detail from the 1905 Sanborn map showing the businesses located at Pacific and Bryan, with Borich’s business circled in red and the camera’s vantage point in blue, can be seen here.
Below, a detail from a map (circa 1890-1900), showing the locations of the two photos, with the Pacific Ave. location circled in green and the Union Depot location in yellow.
(click for larger image)
And, lastly, a present-day image showing the same view as the top photo (from Google Street View).
My previous post, “The Old Union Depot in East Dallas: 1897-1935” — a history of the station with several photos — can be found here.
Images larger when clicked.
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Copyright © 2015 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.
Carl Anderson & friends (John Dominis, Time-Life Pictures/Getty Image)
by Paula Bosse
Carl Axel Anderson (1892-1983) was a mild-mannered internal revenue executive by day and a mild-mannered Monarch butterfly expert by night (and weekend … and probably every waking second). Anderson had been interested in insects and butterflies from an early age, and he studied entomology at the University of Minnesota and Columbia. When he was away from the office, he was raising, tagging, tracking, and, perhaps, training Monarch butterflies at his University Park home on Centenary Avenue, which writer Frank X. Tolbert dubbed “the Butterfly Ranch.” Even the neighborhood children — who called themselves The Centenary Monarchs — joined in and learned all about Monarchs from Anderson, their butterfly mentor.
Anderson’s primary interest was studying the migration patterns of the Monarch butterfly, and, conveniently, Dallas was on their pathway, twice a year, so he had a front-row seat. Not only did he observe them passing overhead, he also raised them from eggs laid on the underside of his milkweed plants, enjoyed them as caterpillars, and when they became butterflies, he “branded” their wings painlessly (see below) and released them into the wild, hoping to be able to track their migration from fellow butterfly spotters around the country. He wrote letters to newspapers around the country and mailed hundreds of postcards to groups and individuals, hoping to get his message out. His message, in part:
Monarch butterflies raised from the egg are being released. A number is placed on their wings before they are released. Members of the public are invited to join the observers on the magic carpet of these wings to see where it will take us. Invite your friends and associates to come along, too…. Examine the wings of the Monarch…for numbers or other marks. Allow the butterfly to go on its way after your observation. Please report any observation where marked wings are found….”
In 1950, big news was made when one of his butterflies — one with the number “9” on its wing — was reported to have been seen in California by a 10-year old boy named Ben Harris in Santa Monica, California. That must have been one of the happiest moments of Anderson’s life.
Every year during Monarch migration over Texas, Mr. Anderson was a reliable go-to story for the local media. Particularly fascinated by Anderson and his “butterfly ranch” was Dallas Morning News writer Frank X Tolbert, who wrote about him numerous times. A very early profile by Tolbert rhapsodized about Anderson’s “pet” butterfly Pete which set the tone for all his very sweet subsequent articles about Anderson that appeared over the years. (Next time you’re wandering around in the Dallas News archives, check out Tolbert’s story “An Affectionate Fellow Was Pete the Butterfly” published on May 16, 1948 — but if you like happy endings, beware of the last two paragraphs of the story: personally, I’d advise readers to stop reading when Pete sets off on his journey.)
Anderson was the subject of newspaper and magazine articles all over the country, but the high point was, undoubtedly, his appearance in the pages of Life magazine in 1954, accompanied by the striking photo of him with several of his butterfly pals resting on his face.
The caption for this photo reads: “Mottled with Monarchs, butterfly breeder Carl Anderson stares serenely ahead as the domesticated insects swarm all over his face.” (That is NOT a “swarm,” Life!)
The two-page photo spread was titled “Monarch Man: Texan Breeds Bushels of Them To Help Map Butterfly Migration.”
Each spring Mr. Anderson raises hundreds of Monarchs in cages. If released, they flutter about him, looking for a sip of sugar water. When the Monarchs mature, he brands them and turns them out, alerting friends across the U.S. to watch for them. One of Anderson’s butterflies turned up 1,200 miles away. But instead of clarifying the northward migration it added another enigma by flying cross-country and winding up almost directly west of Dallas. (Life, May 24, 1954)
Anderson died at the age of 91, having spent the bulk of his long life engrossed in the study of his beloved Monarch butterflies. This excerpt from a 1955 interview shows a glimpse of the wonder and enthusiasm that kept him fascinated by the butterflies his entire life:
“Just at dusk on Oct. 26, the wind shifted to the north with a velocity of 15 MPH. It brought in a huge cloud of Monarchs riding ahead of the cool front. The cloud changed into the shape of a tremendous, brown, moving carpet of unusual surging design. A signal from some leader or leaders in the great flight designated a grove of our hackberry trees as the resting place for the night. Down came the flying carpet of thousands of butterflies. And in a few minutes every twig was bent by the weight of Monarchs. They took off in small groups the next morning, leaving our Dallas hackberries bare of leaves.” (DMN, May 3, 1955)
Thanks, Carl. I wish I’d known you.
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Below, a short clip from Oct. 1973 featuring an interview with Carl Anderson by Arch Campbell of Channel 8 News (Campbell mistakenly refers to the park as being Tenison Park — it is Lake Cliff Park).
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Color photo of Carl Anderson by John Dominis (Time & Life Pictures/Getty Image). It is from the same session that produced the slightly different black and white image featured in Life magazine.
The profile of Anderson (which includes the text and photos reproduced above) appeared in the May 24, 1954 issue of Life; it can be accessed here.
The Channel 8 film clip is from the WFAA Collection, G. William Jones Film & Video Collection, Hamon Arts Library, SMU; the direct YouTube link is here.
Read another profile of Anderson from the Bakersfield Californian, “Lepidopterist Traces Branded Butterflies” (July 11, 1949), here.
A bunch of Monarch butterfly sources:
Keep your eyes peeled — they’ll be on their way soon
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Copyright © 2015 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.
Food, fashion, & the unmistakable whiff of Old Money (click for larger image)
by Paula Bosse
Two cool and sophisticated postcards from the cool and sophisticated Neiman-Marcus (although it’s debatable whether the truly cool and sophisticated N-M shopper would, in fact, mail anyone something as bourgeois as a postcard of a department store, Neiman-Marcus or not). Perhaps these were done up for the sizable tourist trade. I love these cards. Commercial art of this period is wonderful.
The description on the back reads: “One of the great dining spots of the Southwest … N-M’s famed ZODIAC ROOM. The superlative food specialties of Director Helen Corbitt and her staff are enjoyed during modeling of fashions a la Neiman-Marcus at luncheon and dinner. Also, tea served daily.”
Below, the Carriage Entrance:
(click for larger image)
The description: “‘The Carriage Entrance’ — famous passageway into one of the world’s great specialty stores.”
And another (I’d love to see the whole series of these postcards.) Sadly, no description on this one, featuring a fashionable escalator.
I fear I shall never reach the level of swan-like sophistication needed to become an habitué of The Zodiac Room. Tant pis.
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I have no idea where these postcards came from. I’m not sure of the date, either, but … “1950s”? Maybe very early 1960s? Let’s go with “Mid-Century” — everyone loves that! Whenever this was, this was a period when fashion was chic and fabulous. As was Neiman-Marcus. (I still miss that hypen!)
Need to make a reservation at The Zodiac? Info is here.
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Copyright © 2015 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.
SMU football star Doak Walker in an ad from Boys’ Life, Oct. 1955
by Paula Bosse
Dr. Thomas M. Marietta (1910-1995), a Dallas dentist, devised a startlingly new invention in 1947: a specially-made facemask. Initially, the mask was created to protect the face of a Dallas hockey player who had recently sustained a broken nose and would have been unable to play without a mask for fear of further injury. Marietta’s creation was a success — not only did the player get back on the ice, but tentative inquiries from other sports teams began to trickle in. But what changed everything were the masks he made for TCU’s star quarterback Lindy Berry, who had suffered a broken jaw, and Texas A&M’s fullback Bob Smith, who had a badly broken nose. Without the odd-looking masks that protected their entire faces, they would not have been able to play out the seasons. The masks were an unqualified success, and the doc went commercial.
Dr. Marietta (Marion Ohio Star, Nov. 22, 1951 — full article is here)
In 1951, football players did not generally wear facemasks. It was commonplace for players to rack up a dizzyingly large number of injuries such as broken and dislocated jaws and noses, knocked-out teeth, facial lacerations, major bruising, concussions, etc. An article appeared in The Dallas Morning News on Aug. 31, 1951 describing what this whole facemask thing was about and how the Texas Aggies were about to try a revolutionary experiment by equipping “possibly half of the A&M team” with Dr. Marietta’s newfangled masks. Coach Ray George approved a trial test of the masks, saying that his primary concerns were reduction of facial injuries, elimination of head injuries, and improvement of athletic performance. A&M’s trainer, Bill Dayton, predicted that the wearing of facemasks would become universal among players in the coming years.
Many head injuries happen as the result of a player ducking his head. We believe that by the use of this face gear we can eliminate head ducking, and our players will see where they are going. When they watch their opponents, they are able, by reflective action, to keep their heads out of the way. (A&M trainer Bill Dayton, DMN, Aug. 31, 1951)
The various incarnations of the Marietta Mask over the next couple of decades were used in various sports by children, by college athletes, and by professionals. Dr. Marietta patented several designs for masks and helmets and had a lucrative manufacturing business for many years. In 1977 the business was sold, and the Marietta Corp. became Maxpro, a respected name in helmets.
Football and hockey will always be extremely physical sports with the very real possibility of injury, and though there’s need for further improvement, Dr. Marietta’s invention helped lower the danger-level quite a bit. Thanks to a mild-mannered dentist from Dallas, a lot of athletes over the years managed to avoid all sorts of nasty head and facial injuries. Thanks, doc.
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Oct. 1954 (©Bettmann/CORBIS)
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Photo ©Bettmann/CORBIS; the original caption: “An outer-space look is given by this all-plastic mask lined with foam rubber. It was designed by Dr. M. T. Marietta, a Dallas, Texas dentist.”
Joe Perry photo from HelmetHut. To see some pretty wacky versions of early masks from a Marietta catalog, see images from HelmetHut.com, here.
Read the following newspaper articles:
To see several of Marietta’s patents (including abstracts and drawings), see them on Google Patents, here.
And to read an interesting and entertaining history of the football facemask (and I say that as someone who isn’t really a sports person), check out Paul Lukas’ GREAT piece “The Rich History of Helmets,” here. (If nothing else, it’s worth it to see the cool-but-kind-of-weird-and-scary, crudely-fashioned, one-of-a-kind facemask made out of barbed wire wrapped in electrical tape!)
And because a day without Wikipedia is like a day without sunshine, the facemask/face mask wiki is here.
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Copyright © 2015 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.
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