Thursday, May 2, 2013

1937 Brookside Yearbook Ads

I bought this 1937 Brookside High School yearbook – officially called The Leader – on Ebay a few years ago from a seller in Michigan.

While flipping through the book, I found an old black and white photo of some very young children, imprinted with a Christmas greeting and a family name. What was unusual was that I recognized the family's name on the photo, as well as one of the kids as a girl that I had gone to school with in Lorain.

From there it was easy to find the girl's parents in the city directories (I was happy they were still around, and in the same house) and send them back the Christmas card they had mailed about 50 years earlier.

Needless to say they were very surprised and grateful, and sent a very nice thank-you card to me.

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Anyway, also in that same yearbook were a variety of interesting ads in the back. (I continue to find that old yearbooks provide a great snapshot of local businesses at the time of their publication.)

Whoever was in charge of selling ads did a good job. This book is loaded with ads of well-known Lorain businesses, including The Lorain Journal, Heilman's, the William Seher Company, the Wickens Memorial, Kutza's Pharmacy, Dusky Brothers and H.P. Nielsen. Some have nice little pieces of artwork accompanying their ad copy.

I particularly like the beautiful line art of the Central Bank Company. Does anyone do that sort of rendering today? I doubt it.

Click on each of these for a larger view.





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