2jakes
I'll Lock Up
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- Alamo Heights ☀️ Texas
And always fun to see the gas station attendant - working around cars, oil, grease, gasoline, etc. - in his perfectly unmarked white uniform.
Reconstructions or exhibits of some kind?
Lizzie, in 2Jakes's Sinclair picture, do you have any idea what exactly the dinosaur (you see its head and neck) next to the gas pump is? I know its promotional / branding, but was that normal? Is it some sort of figure they usually put next to the pumps?
2Jakes - great find on the "Sanitary" Ice-Cream."
Any one familiar with "Ward's Soft Bun Bread" and its admonition to "eat three slices three times a day?"
Sinclair went in big for the dinosaur figures in the postwar era -- in addition to the giant rooftop models, there were smaller ones that were just the right size for kids to climb around on. The pump island was not the usual place to display such a figure -- usually they'd be on the cement walkway surrounding the building.
Here's a random photo snagged from ebay --
Although it looks like it ought to be fiberglas, these were actually made from cast aluminum to deter vandalism. Note the seams at the head and the tail, which made these parts easily replaceable if broken.
As for "Gasolene," Cities Service for some reason insisted on that spelling well into the 1930s, in the same contrarian way that the proprietors of Iodent toothpaste promised their product would "bryten" teeth. Such idiosyncratic spellings were a bit of psychological manipulation by the Boys -- they knew that a familiar word spelled in an odd way would grab the attention of the reader and prevent the ad from disappearing into its surroundings.
Ward's bread was an institution in New York city in the Era -- the Ward Baking Company was based in Brooklyn, and its products were probably the best-selling bread in the city from the 1890s to the 1940s. "Tip Top" was its flagship brand, but "Bun Soft" was a secondary line developed to compete with balloon-bread products like Wonder. Ward buns were also very well known, and were the standard hot dog roll served in all three of the city's major league ballparks. Ward Baking even sponsored a team in the short-lived Federal League, the "Brooklyn Tip-Tops."