This is one of the more unusual postcards that I have added
to my collection. It is a folding
postcard that would be sealed and addressed on the outside. This one was mailed in 1913 after a visit to
the Larkin Soap Company. The
Buffalo-based company is largely forgotten today, but, in it’s day, the Larkin
Soap Company was a well known company for soap, dry goods other groceries and
household products, even furniture.
Adjacent to the factory was a state-of-the-art company headquarters
designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. A little
more history is at this link.
The Larkin Soap Company also plays a major role in the
upcoming book Helen’s Postcards. Helen worked at the factory in 1915 packing
and fulfilling orders of soap and men’s shaving kits. She and her coworkers would slip in little
pieces of paper with their names and addresses on them. Imagine instead of finding a piece of paper
that read Inspected by #17, you found
a young lady’s address! This lead to a
number of pen pals and plenty of postcards arriving in her mailbox from all
over the country. One of her coworkers
eventually met her husband this way.
Details from these stories and plenty of the postcards will
be included in Helen’s Postcards. To guarantee you receive a copy of the book,
be sure to support the Kickstarter
project and preorder a book before February 28th.
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