The American Sign Museum

It is fun, when we are traveling our mostly unplanned route, to find the odd museum.  While Cincinnati has many wonderful things to see, the American Sign Museum caught our attention.
These greeted us in the parking lot.

 The most important thing to do in this museum is to take a docent led tour.  Otherwise, it is just a display of lovely signs many of which we remember as kids.  The tour let us appreciate what an art sign making is and our guide, who worked in the industry, loves to share his knowledge.  Our docent's favorite sign was Connie the Pig from Pork City.  She also greeted us on our arrival.

Even the bathrooms have old signs.

Sign making goes back 5000 years to when merchants displayed pictures of their merchandise.

In the late 19th century when more people became literate, letters were added to the picture signs.  This is a British shoe repair shop.

Cincinnati has a hundred years of sign making history.  The Signs of the Times Magazine, a trade journal, has been published in Cincinnati since 1906.

Special lettering, both hand-carved and raised, were the characteristics of the first signs.  Then light bulbs were added, plastic used, neon tubing used, and now LED.

Many of us remember the Big Boy.  The Elias Brothers owned the franchise and have changed the “boy's” image with the times.  The burger is smaller, his pants are checkered, and the sling shot is gone.  This is an early version.

This is another memory shot from riding on the highway.

The oldest sign in the museum is this 1870 sales sample box.

This sign shows a Civil War soldier with two people leaning in mourning.

 These showcards were hand painted.  Some were permanently mounted and some for up for a short time.

In 1929 neon signs were presented at the World’s Fair in Chicago.  To get more colors, they went from using two gases to four to adding phosphorous.  Later argon was used for softer colors.  Argon contains mercury so if the sign is damaged it cannot be repaired but must be replaced.  Neon signs can last decades, what breaks is the transformer.

The PBS program Antique Roadshow visited the museum and valued some of their signs.  This Pure Gas sign is worth $10,000,

The Sky Vu Motel was estimated at $8000

and this H.C. Steiner sign worth $12,000.

Light bulbs increased in popularity as they could be easily replaced.

We would like you to join us in a trip through memory lane.  The signs below come from places many of you lived in.  Let us know if you remember...

This golfer was in a park in Rochester, NY.

Marshall Fields, Chicago

 This “Satellite” from Anaheim was hand built in 1962 from found items.

Go Gulf from North Bergen, NJ and Kona Lanes from Anaheim.

 Our docent took us on a private tour of their storage area.  The museum gets donated signs when buildings are being demolished and when someone finds one stored in their families garage.  Twenty thousand stored signs will go into an addition to the museum when it is fully funded.

This truck is from a San Bernardino sign company.  The crane is hand-cranked.

This sign made us smile.

This wall painting is trompe l’oiel.

They even said good-bye.

We do some travel writing for Family Motor Coach which is based in Cincinnati so we arranged to meet with editor Peggy Jordan. We enjoyed talking with her and taking a tour of FMCA’s offices.

FMCA has a lovely campground in suburban Cincinnati where members can stay two nights for free.  This gave us a good base from which to enjoy the town.

Cincinnati

Our visit was on a Monday and the Hebrew Union College and Skirball Museum were closed. 

 We turned to the building housing the American Jewish Archives and Kevin kindly gave us an opportunity to see this unique and important institution.

Our tour started with a video about Jacob Radar Marcus founder of the AJA in 1947.  His goal was to create a chronicle of American Jewish history.  He was raised in an Orthodox family but was influenced by Rabbi Levi of the Hebrew Union College.  After his rabbinic training, he served during WWI and then returned to Berlin to get a PhD at the University of Berlin.

After the video we had a private tour by Kevin who explain more about Marcus, whom he knew, and of the purpose of the AJA.  Marcus was a walking encyclopedia on the story of Jewish life in America. The archivists collect and preserve material on the life of Jews in the US. That history is of real people, not just the well-known.  It is of real life and not just historical events.

The Reading Room was built in 1912 as a Jewish Library. 

The AJA is a research and study center.  The storage area fills four floors with archival documents, newspapers, and magazines all showing the progress of American Jewish life.

Among the items Kevin showed us were:

A letter written to President Tyler after he had written asking the “Christian people of America to honor our fallen leader (Pres. Benjamin Harrison who had died after one month in office.)  A Mr. Ezekiel from Richmond, VA, took offense at Tyler’s language, saying that there were more than Christians in the US and that they too honored the deceased president.  Tyler hand-wrote back apologizing and saying he was aware that there were people other than Christians in the country.  This letter showed the courage of citizens to speak out. 

This telegram was intended for Rabbi Stephen Weiss in NY.  The Rieguer Telegram was sent in 1942 warning of “Hitler’s final solution to the Jewish problem” in Germany.  The telegram never arrived.  Another copy was sent to Sam Silverman in London.  No action was taken on the telegrams.

It is interesting to note that, after the war, the original telegrams to Rabbi Wise were found in the records of the U. S. State Department.

The menu from the “Trefe Banquet” was from a dinner presented by Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise founder of Hebrew Union College.  The menu includes foods such as clams and shrimp, foods forbidden to many Jews.

This Medal of Honor was presented during the Civil War to Ohio soldier David Orbansky.

The clock above the Archives was installed after 9/11.

The Citizens Motor Car Company

Planes, trains and automobiles.  We have shared our experiences with the first two (though there were few trains), now the third and least expected.  On our 2009 trip through Indiana, we had a great time at the Auburn, Cord, Duesenberg Automobile Museum north in Auburn and thought that was the ultimate in car museums.  Well, we can now add The Citizens Motorcar Company to the list of outstanding car museums and this one had a most enthusiastic docent who gave us background on these lovely cars.

This museum is in the Packard Dealership Building opened in 1917 and is, obviously, dedicated to the Packard which was founded in 1899.  In spite of the familiarity of those other car names, Packard sold 90% of the luxury cars of the early 20th century.  More than fifty cars await admiration in the Art Deco showroom, service department and adjacent pavilion.

Videos in the various restored offices tell of the history of the Packard, personal stories of current owners of these treasured cars and even how to train to be a Packard salesman.

Their slogan was “Ask a man who owns one,” touting that these cars were all about style and making celebrities like Al Jolson, Clark Gable, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks and Salvatore “Lucky” Luciano show their success.  Even the Japanese royal family owned 10 Packards in 1931.

The starting price in the 1920s was $2600, almost twice the price of standard American made cars.  It was the third “P” with the Pierce Arrow and Peerless in the American luxury car market.

Radiator/ hood ornaments hinted at speed and exuded style.   The Cormorant/Pelican came from the Packard family crest.

Goddess of Speed.

This cap opened to add water on an early car.

Steering wheels, interiors, grille, tail, and wheels all were stylized.

These cars looked like they were ready for the road, if you had the money to buy one.  This is a 1928 Touring Limo.

 A 1938 Super 8 Sport cost $3845 during the Depression.

 In contrast, a 1930 Boat Tail Speedster cost $5200.

Or in 1914 you could have a Model 48 Runabout for only $4750.

They also built trucks.

A Packard engineer was part of the design team that created the L12A Liberty airplane engine for WWII.  Packard was among the car manufacturers that turned to military manufacturing during the war.

Wouldn’t our grandson love the child’s car?

Poster art was also of the art deco era.

During the Depression Packard fought to stay alive by building more middle priced cars.  In the 1940's and '50s, Packard was losing the luxury market and having problems competing in the middle price market.  They ceased production in the late '50s.  This was the last Packard, a 1958 Hawk which was a prototype and never went into production.

Now we just have to upgrade the cars in our garage.