History Walk: Historical Direct Mail Pieces
Read the newest installment of 'Lurid Tales From Junk Mail America: 4: The Pirates of Park Row'
The Right Stuff: A Tribute to Tom Foster
When asked how he was doing on March 19, 1996, Tom Foster answered, “Well, I’m still here.” The comment had double meaning. Foster & Gallagher, his $350 million catalog company, was indeed alive at a time when Sunset House, Spencer gifts and other mail order houses started in the years after World War II had long since gone out of business. ...
Chapter 6, Dear Friend: Lurid Tales of Junk Mail America
New Yorkers were awakened at dawn on Friday, March 9, 1877 by the sounds of a severe gale. The 60 mile-per-hour wind broke windows and tore signs from their moorings. Nate Read, knowing that there would be few lottery customers that day, put his staff to work addressing envelopes for a mailing. ...
Chapter 5, Dear Friend: Lurid Tales of Junk Mail America
Anthony Comstock had two things in common with J.M. Pattee. One that he was brought up on a farm, the other that he left it. But they emerged with entirely different world views....
Chapter 4, Dear Friend: Lurid Tales of Junk Mail America
By this time, Pattee had returned to New York, where there was less danger of getting shot. The wary 53 year-old now worked only through partners or designated criminals who would take the fall if there was trouble—and they had to be reliable. ...
Chapter 3: Dear Friend: Lurid Tales of Junk Mail America
Known for their beauty and even more for their vast ore deposits, the hills around Laramie were in 1868 the scene of almost daily knifings. But things calmed down when the Union Pacific arrived—by1875, passengers were rushing off trains to dine on dishes like minced liver on toast and calves tongue with tomato sauce, and there was one other element of civilization: A lottery run by a man billed as “Pattee, J.M., capitalist.” ...
Chapter 2: Dear Friend: Lurid Tales From Junk Mail America
Lotteries had once been “quiet affairs, of no very great general interest.” George Washington ran one, so did Ben Franklin, and even the clergy played them...
Chapter 1: Dear Friend: Lurid Tales From Junk Mail America
Chapter 1: Scheme to Defraud. As if he didn’t know it, J.M. Pattee learned again in June of 1873 just how hard it is to do good in the world...
The Historic H. O'Neill & Co.
A Lifelong New Yorker, I often admired the large, cast-iron building on Sixth Ave. and 20th St. But I never had a clue as to its origin, or to what the...
Over There: Direct Mail in World War I
Early in the afternoon on Oct. 4, 1918, the lobby of Chicago’s Sherman Hotel was crowded with businessmen about to attend a trade convention. The men were the proud members of a one-year-old trade group called the Direct Mail Advertising Association. And they were about to face their first crisis...
Gifts From Foreign Lands: A 1954 Campaign
Return with us now to that ever more remote year of 1954. Eisenhower was president, the Tonight Show was about to start and mailings were going out for the Around the World Shoppers Club...
