*Menu
Search
Submit
Newsletters
E-Edition
Southeast Missourian
*
From the Morgue
Sharon Sanders
The Southeast Missourian's resident historian Sharon K. Sanders blogs about interesting pieces of local history pulled from the newspaper's morgue -- the place where our old editions are kept.
Recent posts
Archives

A few 1913 ads

Posted Thursday, December 26, 2013, at 12:00 AM

In this blog a year ago, I featured a collection of Christmas ads that ran many years ago in the Southeast Missourian and its predecessor, The Daily Republican.

I thought I'd do something along those same lines this year. Although not all of the advertisements that follow are Christmas-themed, they all date from November and December 1913. First up is an ad from Missouri Public Utilities Co. urging readers to be thankful for electricity.

If Mom didn't want to slave over a hot stove for Thanksgiving in 1913, she might have asked to be taken to Scott's Restaurant. Here's P.A. Scott's menu for the holiday:

One day last month, while sitting here at my desk, I heard something SNAP and my chair began to list to starboard. A close examination of the offending piece of office furniture revealed a weld had snapped, no doubt from age and not from bearing my weight all these years. As the old chair was wheeled out and a new one took its place, I remarked that it was too bad we didn't know someone who did spot welding. The chair could have been easily fixed. This advertisement illustrates my point:

Christmas ads in the Republican were diverse. What follows are a few that caught my eye.

And finally, this ad from Siebert's Shoe Store reflects how I feel about all of you.

Comments

View 4 comments or respond
Community discussion is important, and we encourage you to participate as a reader and commenter. Click here to see our Guidelines. We also encourage registered users to let us know if they see something inappropriate on our site. You can do that by clicking "Report Comment" below.

  • I love the bank ads, so true back then, now of course we have our various social safety nets...(this is sarcasm).

    -- Posted by ssnkemp on Thu, Dec 26, 2013, at 11:09 AM

  • Any bank that would offer 4% interest on savings and 1% on checking nowadays would certainly get my business!

    -- Posted by fxpwt on Thu, Dec 26, 2013, at 7:50 PM

  • I'm doing a project on what I call The Last Generation, the last generation of east Perry County folks who spoke German as their primary language.

    When I've asked people in their late 60s to past 100 what was the biggest change they've seen in their lives, every one of them has said "electricity."

    -- Posted by ksteinhoff on Sat, Dec 28, 2013, at 1:32 PM

  • ksteinhoff - suggest if you look into the Missouri REA archives, those same sentiments will be echoed, as one of the primary drivers to bring electric to the farms was to help the wives with their chores - washing, cooking, lighting, etc.

    Somewhat humbling, in that perusal of Missouri Utilities' (predecessor to Ameren in this area) rate structure from 1913 dealt in rates starting in watts, instead of kilowatts...

    -- Posted by fxpwt on Sat, Dec 28, 2013, at 7:46 PM

Respond to this blog