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    Hamilton
    Hamilton
    Hamilton
    Ebook183 pages59 minutes

    Hamilton

    By Brian Smith

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Though not incorporated as a city until 1857, Hamilton can trace its roots back to the founding of Fort Hamilton by Gen. Arthur St. Clair in 1791.Throughout its history, Hamilton has been "The Greatest Little City of its Kind in the World," "The Postmark of Distinctive Trademarks," and "Known in the World's Markets." In the time between the close of the Civil War and the beginning of World War II, the city thrived. Led by steadfast pioneers and industrious immigrants, Hamilton developed into a community where anything seemed possible along the banks of the Great Miami River. The images herein detail Hamilton from 1900 to the 1950s. From a bustling county seat and the hub of Midwestern industry to leisurely endeavors, from distinctive neighborhoods to the people who lived in them, and from local education to individual worship, the life of the city is captured by over 200 postcards of the day, most from the author's private collection.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArcadia Publishing
    Release dateMar 14, 2016
    ISBN9781439655115
    Hamilton
    Author

    Brian Smith

    Brian Smith was born in Australia, where he developed his love of surfing. A chartered accountant, he studied at the UCLA Graduate School of Management, and with $500 of start-up money, he founded UGG Imports to bring sheepskin footwear to America. After seventeen years, as sales reached $15 million, he sold the business to Deckers Outdoor Corporation. The UGG brand has since exceeded $1 billion of international sales several times over. A passionate innovator and entrepreneur, Brian is one of the most sought after business leaders in the country today. As a media guest and inspiring speaker, he is committed to teaching his breakthrough business strategies to entrepreneurs and translating personal vision and spirituality into company culture. Brian spends his time with family and friends in Southern California, still surfs, plays golf, and attempts to improve the planet a little every day.

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      Book preview

      Hamilton - Brian Smith

      collection.

      INTRODUCTION

      The front-page headlines of publisher Homer Gard’s Butler County Democrat for May 19, 1898, blared out in large letters, Cuban Waters Will Soon Witness the Greatest Naval Battle of History—Spain’s Fleet is to be Crushed. Numerous columns were dedicated to reporting on the war with Spain, both in Cuba and in the Philippines. Elsewhere in the paper, the Cincinnati and Hamilton Street Railway Company announced its offices would be located in the Lohmann Building in downtown Hamilton and that the interurban trip from Hamilton to Fountain Square in Cincinnati would take an hour and 20 minutes. The Detroit and Cleveland Navigation Company’s Coast Line advertised summer cruises from Toledo or Cleveland to Mackinac Island for $24 per week, and Krebs & Company, located on Third and High Streets, advertised men’s spring and summer suits from $7.50 to $12.50 during their war sale. A story that did not make the news that Thursday, yet would prove to have a profound effect on American society, was that Congress had approved a new special rate for mailed cards, dropping the price from 2¢ to 1¢. The 1898 Congressional act also specified that the words Private Mailing Card appear on the address side of the card. Private citizens could now send printed cards at the same reduced rate as businesses. The postcard, as most know it, was essentially born, and soon the country would be wild over collecting the images found on them.

      The private mailing card of 1898 had an older cousin, known as the government-issued postal card of 1873. This simple card had a 1¢ stamp illustration in the upper right corner, while the opposite side of the card was blank. The cards were initially to be used for commercial and business posts; however, countless individuals used the cards to send personal messages. When spotted by postal personnel, such cards were returned to the sender citing misuse of the card for personal messages. A new development in 1893 added to the growing postal card dilemma. At the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, numerous publishers added printed images and views of the event onto the postal cards and sold them as souvenirs. These cards are considered the forefathers to the postcard of the early 20th century, but at the time, they added to the public confusion concerning the use of government postal cards in non-business uses. The confusion was costly and time-consuming. The general public and the postal service demanded a fix to the situation, and in 1898 Congress obliged with the private mailing card. By 1901, the postmaster ordered the private mailing card text be altered to simply postcard.

      From 1902 to 1907, a sender’s written message was required to be on the image side of a picture postcard. In order to accommodate this writing, most cards of this era had a white margin along the bottom or sides of the card, which reduced the overall image size. The back side of the card was used entirely for the address, but in March 1907, the address side of cards was split, allowing for a larger message to be written on the back of the card. Images could now be enlarged to cover the entire front of the card, and the divided-back era began.

      The first decade and a half of the 20th century is considered to be the golden age of postcards. Several factors led to the interest of postcards in the United States. Cost was certainly a factor. During this time, a letter cost 3¢ to mail, but a postcard cost only 1¢ and did not need an envelope. The creation of Rural Free Delivery (RFD) opened up large new expanses of postal customers and created an ease for folks outside of large cities to receive and send mail. The Eastman Kodak Company also added to the postcard craze. In 1902, Kodak created a special paper for the printing of postcards and in 1903, the company introduced the No. 3A Folding Pocket Camera, which utilized postcard-sized film and allowed the general public to take photographs and then have those images printed onto postcard backs. Kodak went a step further in 1907 and introduced the real-photo postcard developing service, which let customers make a postcard out of any photograph taken from any model camera. By 1910, thanks to inexpensive quality equipment and simple developing methods, both professionals and amateurs were turning out real-photo postcards for commercial, civic, and informational purposes as well as personal use. Prominent Hamilton photographers of this era, including C. Stanford Jacobi, Lucian C. Overpeck, Edward W. Seegmueller, C.M. Young, and others, regularly photographed local scenes, events, and landmarks for postcard sales. The 1913 flood is a prime example of such an event. After the water receded, C.S. Jacobi reportedly published and sold 15 different books and collections of his flood images in addition to estimated sales of 13,000–15,000 postcards.

      Postcards became a sign of civic pride and advertisement. Publishing houses, including the Rotograph Company of New York, Curt Teich & Company of Chicago, and the Kraemer Art Company of Cincinnati, sent photographers throughout Southwest Ohio and beyond to capture images of any and every small village, large city, and midsize town in between. Hamilton architects such as Max Reutti, George W. Barkman, and Frederick G. Mueller had their structures and designs splashed on the fronts of cards sold locally at drugstores and stationery shops. Large national retailers, including S.H. Knox and Company, and even small local store owners like Frank M. Heck actually published their own series of cards. Consequently, images of Hamilton’s industrial might, its religious, civic, and educational edifices, and its quaint tree-lined residential streets were mailed across the nation and around the globe.

      By 1915, the postcard phenomenon had reached its peak, but it was not to last. Due to Germany’s advanced lithographic processes and techniques, many of the top postcard publishers had their images printed

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