Monday, March 5, 2012

Object of the Day: A Trade Card for Pyle’s Pearline

We are not given to enthusiasm over many of these new ideals, but a fair trial will convince the most skeptical of the merits of Pearline.



James Pyle, of English descent, in the Nineteenth Century, settled in New York City.  Towering at six feet, five inches tall, Pyle was always interested in fragrances and invented a granulated soap which he called “Pyle’s Pearline,” manufacturing out of a factory in New York’s Grenwhich Village.  The Pyle Family has a long and strange history ranging from being banished from the U.S. after being “loyalists” during the American Revolution to a curious association with “Padre Pio,”  the priest who became famous for his constantly-bleeding “stigmata.”

Here, we see a Victorian-era trade card for Pyle’s Pearline.  The obverse depicts a rosy-cheeked child draped in white.  The child is holding a wide-eyed cat adorned with a bright pink ribbon.  Above this image reads:  “HAIL—GREAT INVENTION, WOMAN’S KINDEST FRIEND, PEARLINE HAS BROUGHT THY DRUDGERY TO AN END.”

On the reverse—a series of words are connected to a giant letter “P.”  It reads:

PYLE’S
PEARLINE
POSSESSES
PECULIAR
PURIFYING
PROPERTIES.
 
PRESS AND
PUBLIC
PRONOUNCE
PEARLINE
PERFECT.
 
PRUDENT
PEOPLE
PURCHASE
PYLE’S
PEARLINE.
 
Sold by all grocers.
 
James Pyle, New York.
 
From the Christian Intelligencer, N.Y.
 
We take pleasure in recommending to our readers an article which has in the last five years done more than anything we recall at the present, to relieve the hardest of woman’s work of much of its toil and drudgery.  We refer to James Pyle’s Pearline Washing Compound.  The immense consumption of this article is sufficient proof of its utility, and experience has taught us that it is far superior to soap.  We are not given to enthusiasm over many of these new ideals, but a fair trial will convince the most skeptical of the merits of Pearline




My investigation as to a familial connection with Goober and Gomer Pyle is still ongoing.

4 comments:

Darcy said...

Love the trade cards. The art work and the copy give us a look at advertising methods of the past. This particular one reminds me of one you posted a day or two ago. The one with the little girl with the cat on her back. I contend that this boy is her brother and his wild eyed cat is the same cat that attacked her. I see COLLUSION on the part of the boy and the cat!

Joseph Crisalli said...

I concur. There is collusion. The Victorian cats were all plotting something! I had the same thought about the little girl being mauled the other day.

Dashwood said...

Pussycats
Posing
Prettily -
Primed to
Pounce on
Poor
Playmates
Perniciously.

Joseph Crisalli said...

Ha! That's wonderful!