Selling Sentiment

by

Laine Farley

Dreamy images of “languid beauties” posing alongside pools with urns and exotic birds were common motifs in the 1920s-1930s. The little vignette in this bookmark perfectly captures those qualities that were favorite decorative elements of the time. Attached to a calendar for 1937, the bookmark also carries clues to a well-known company and a little known artist.

The inside cover contains a holiday and new year greeting from the Gerlach-Barklow Company of Joliet, IL. It was one of the most successful companies that produced calendars, framed mottoes, greeting cards, post cards, booklets, blotters, fans and other advertising items, including bookmarks. It began in 1907 when brothers Theodore R. and Kingsley H. Gerlach, who had experience selling calendars in Iowa, combined forced with Edward J. Barklow who knew about calendar production processes. They built a factory in Joliet where the company remained in some form until 1971. An article by H. Lee Mason in Monotype: a journal of composing room efficiency, July, 1919, p. 7, illustrates the factory building, describes the production processes, and lauds the company’s success as “the largest in the world devoted exclusively to the making of art calendars and direct-by-mail advertising media.”

According to Tim and Michelle Smith’s book, Joliet's Gerlach Barklow Calendar Company, the firm specialized in art calendars featuring hand-tinted illustrations. Unusual for the time, they employed many women in the area not only to do the tinting but also as artists. Two of the most well-known were Zula Kenyon and Adelaide Hiebel whose works the Smiths began to collect in the 1990s. Kenyon was hired in 1907 and even had a studio in the factory. After she became ill around 1918, she recommended her friend Adelaide be hired as her replacement. Adelaide worked there for thirty-five years and was quite a personality in her own right according to a sketch in Historic Impressions: The History and Architecture of Joliet Homes, by P. Seth Magosky. The two women had similar styles, painting women in rustic scenes, animals, and children. Kenyon was known for her “Bluebird Series” which featured women or children looking at a bluebird. At first, I thought my little calendar might have been painted by one of these women, but I was later surprised by what I discovered about the artist.

The company remained prosperous throughout the Depression. As the Smiths noted, “every household in American had a calendar advertising a local business attached to the wall or icebox.” Businesses would try to get customers to collect calendars every year, offering them as gifts. Tim Smith also observed that in lean times, “Instead of buying art, they would take the prints off the calendars and frame them for art to have around the house.”  Many of these framed prints, some of which might have been originally sold that way as inexpensive decorations, can still be found at flea markets and auctions.

As the company grew, it acquired other businesses including the Volland Company in 1924. Volland also produced greeting cards and bookmarks, but was most famous for its Raggedy Ann books. The Rust Craft Publishers was created as another division and became a well-known creator of greeting cards as well as bookmarks. In the Wall Street Journal, April 21, 1930, an article reported that the company netted “$569,758 for 1929 Year, Compared With $516,216 in 1928,” and that a special meeting of the stockholders would consider changing the name to “some other name more expressive of enlarged scope of company’s business.”  Soon it became United Printers and Publishers. In March, 1959, United Printers sold its Joliet-based Gerlach-Barklow division to the Shaw Barton Co. of Coshocton, OH.

The company’s building was eventually ten times its original size and covered nine acres. By the 1950s, more than 1,000 employees worked at the factory and there were 500 full time sales staff around the world. The brick building was destroyed by fire in 1992 and a few years later the site was used for low income housing. Jeff Huebner’s book, Murals: The Great Walls of Joliet, illustrates a commemorative mural titled “Selling Sentiment” that suggests  “a discovered cache of valued memorabilia” based on the collection of Gerlach-Barklow items owned by a couple of local antique dealers. The color scheme was based on one of the most popular calendar series that featured a gypsy lady and a parrot, also illustrated in the mural.

Theodore Gerlach’s home is another landmark in Joliet. Built in 1912, it was a combination of Italian Renaissance and Prairie styles. According to an article by Seth Magosky in the Joliet Herald News of April 24, 2005, “the best part is the bathroom. This room is completely covered in black and white glass tile which is etched in an Etruscan design. It is then finely hand painted. There is a separate stall for the shower and the toilet with the bath tub niche in the center. Above the bath tub is a engraved and painted nude figure with just a simple sheer scarf wrapped around her. Legend has it that the subject of the painting is Miss America Lois Delander.” Interestingly, one of  Adelaide Hiebel’s most famous works was a portrait of Lois Delander in her bathing suit (see City of Joliet’s Hall of  Fame entry for Hiebel). It would seem that Theodore also enjoyed the type of art his company produced. He married Charlotte D. Hill whose father was a congressman and attorney general. They had no children, and Theodore lived in the home until his death in 1933.

According to the Smiths, little is known about Theodore’s brother King; both are pictured in their book on  p. 11 featuring the first officers and directors of the company. I was able to locate quite a bit of information about King who actually went by his full name of Kingsley. In 1900 and 1910 he lived with his mother Mary and sister Lydia in Chicago and Joliet. In the 1920s, he traveled abroad and in 1930 he was in Polk Co., FL with wife Ruth and son Kingsley, Jr. It’s not clear what took him to Florida since he was listed in the Census as having no occupation, yet his household included a cook and a nursemaid. In 1931 he and Ruth had divorced, and by 1945, he was listed in the Florida state census as King Gerlack, a grower, living with son “K., Jr.” who was a student. In 1958 he and his son were in a legal dispute with the manager of United Printers over acquisition of Canadian companies (Volland, Rust Craft, Friendship House) that gave the manager an unusual degree of control. It’s difficult to sort out the legalese, but the document refers to an arrangement with the manager that originated in the 1930s. Perhaps there was some long-standing disagreement that precipitated Kingsley’s departure from the company in the late 1920s that resurfaced at this time.  Kingsley died in Pinellas, Co., FL in 1961 and his son apparently continued to live in the same area until his death in 1974. Kingsley H. Gerlach III also lived in Pinellas Co. in the cities of Indian Rocks Beach, Bellaire, and Clearwater.

As I was scanning the bookmark for this article, I noticed some faint lettering at the bottom of the image.  Upon closer examination, I saw that it was the title, “Once in a Lovely Garden.” A search revealed that it was produced by Chester K. Van Nortwick, one of Gerlach-Bartlow’s artists. Fortunately, a blog entry by Jenn Thorson titled “Who in the art world is Chester K. Van Nortwick” provided a great deal of information, saying that it was like “research into absence” to find anything about him.  Her post also includes a photograph of the complete image from which the bookmark is taken.  According to the book Vintage illustration: Discovering America's Calendar Artists by Rick Martin, “Van Nortwick’s earlier works seem to display many of Parrish's stock-in-trade images: urns, fountains, mountains, and languid beauties reposing in lush romantic landscapes.” He was more versatile than this description might suggest—he was also known for a series of nursery rhymes and fairy tales. He was born in Provincetown, RI and many of his works feature nautical and beach scenes. According to information provided by a family member at Askart.com, “he had a studio in Provincetown and also one in Brewster where he lived. He also had a studio in Clearwater, FL and exhibited extensively with the Clearwater Art Club and in St. Petersburg.” Sadly, this art club eventually became the Gulf Coast Museum which was absorbed into the Florida International Museum. It closed this past December with little information about the fate of the remaining collections. At first I wondered whether Van Nortwick and Kingsley Gerlach might have come into contact in Florida since they both had associations with Clearwater, but Van Nortwick died in 1944 while Gerlach was still in Polk Co. It’s unlikely Gerlach’s descendents ever knew that some of Van Nortwick’s work was nearby. In another irony, I lived in the same area in a town next to Clearwater for a short time, and my parents were there until 2006. Perhaps it was fate that I should come across this particular artist’s image on a bookmark.

Regardless, the bookmark carries not only a lovely period image but also the histories of its company and its founders and artists. That’s a lot of significance for such a little sentiment.

Bookmark specifications: Once In a Lovely Garden
Dimensions: 2 1/2" x 2 5 3/4"
Material: Paper
Manufacturer: Gerlach-Barklow Co.
Date: 1936
Acquired: eBay

Laine Farley is a digital librarian who misses being around the look, feel and smell of real books.  Her collection of over 3,000 bookmarks began with a serendipitous find while reviewing books donated to the library. Fortunately, her complementary collection of articles and books about bookmarks provides an excuse for her to get back to libraries and try her hand at writing about bookmarks. Contact Laine.