Thursday, September 18, 2014
Partly sunny and unseasonal cold weather
Ms. Jacobs was born on December 22, 1918 was a very intelligent woman who even while at George Washington University worked part time at the Washington-Times Herald writing film reviews. She eventually dropped out of University to write for the paper, became the fashion editor,and later moved on to become a reporter on women's fashion for the Washington Post. In the later 1940's she left this excellent newspaper to write a book about dollhouses, even though she had never owned one. I'll stop here, and not give away the whole story!
Partly sunny and unseasonal cold weather
A Great Story
Behind A Great Story
Yesterday, I received a reproduction copy of a Toys catalogue that had been printed by a printing company on behalf of the Washington Dolls' House & Toy Museum. The owner of the museum was Flora Gill Jacobs. I've been busy lately, so I couldn't research either the Museum or Flora Gill Jacobs. When I just did earlier, before I started to write was just that - find out about the Museum and Ms. Jacobs. The story is unbelievable. I'm not going to write the story, because I'd prefer you, my readers to visit the links that I've added below. I've added a précis (A brief summary) in the next paragraph, but this post most assuredly is "A Great Story Behind a Great Story"!
Ms. Jacobs was born on December 22, 1918 was a very intelligent woman who even while at George Washington University worked part time at the Washington-Times Herald writing film reviews. She eventually dropped out of University to write for the paper, became the fashion editor,and later moved on to become a reporter on women's fashion for the Washington Post. In the later 1940's she left this excellent newspaper to write a book about dollhouses, even though she had never owned one. I'll stop here, and not give away the whole story!
The "story within the story" is today's post. Ms. Jacobs decided to reprint the catalogue that I am posting today. It is the L.H.Mace & Co. (New York). The reprint was made in 1977 and copyright for the Washington Dolls' House & Toy Museum. I've purchased toy catalogue reproductions recently and before because they provide a great resource for any collector or writer. Also, it's very hard and very expensive to find the originals.
What makes this story so interesting is that Mr. Jacobs chose to bring back the catalogue through the reprint to share with everyone what is truly a most interesting catalogue, as well as a "piece of American History". I'm writing from a personal perspective. Toys offer the reader an opportunity to see what "real" items were like at the time of the toys. Clothing, furniture, horse carts, fire wagons, cars and so forth.
What's most interesting in the catalogue is to see some pages that offered so many choices as to the size of toys, especially dolls. I was just mentioning to one of my Tim Horton's (A Coffee shop) friends about the real lack of selections and choices in hardware stores anymore. Lumber is from but a few saw mills, acres are all from 1 company, and so on, and so forth.
I couldn't find must history as to what happened to the L.H.Mace & Company company, but when I have the time, I shall purse the story! I'm always interested in details, and this story certainly is a great story!
I like when publishers reprint old catalogues with yellowed and browned paper stock, as well as a front cover page (grey) that symbolizes "old". When I received the catalogue yesterday, and looked at the photos, I was very excited. So much so, that I though that the ebay seller had sold me an original 1907 catalogue and not a reprint. Of course, when I then read Ms. Jacob's introduction above and saw 1977, I returned to reality!
What I seem to be noticing in old toy catalogues is that the catalogue seldom identity the manufacturer of the toys. I recent mention this is an earlier post this week. It's the same with this L.H.Mace & Co. catalogue.
It's not a "big deal",but it makes my job all the more harder, when I want to cross-reference "real toys' with illustrations or photos in toy catalogues of department stores catalogue merchandise company's
I'm sure by now, you're wondering where the scanned pages are for dollhouses, since this story
is in fact about dollhouses! I forgot about 100 words ago. I did just check and there is only 1 page of dollhouses for sale. Of course, there are plenty of dolls, toy furniture, real children;s furniture, and many other things.
For sure "I shall return" (General Douglas MacAuthor - March 21, 1942), and "I'll be back"
(Arnold Schwaezennegger-The terminator Movie-1984).
I'm surge any book reviewer or blog reviewer would criticize the previous sentence as being bad writing, and I agree, but sometimes I just like to be "funny" or think that I'm funny!
Thanks for dropping by to visit,
and as always,
have a great part of the day or night,
wherever you may be,
Stacey
toysearcher@gmail.com
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