Object of the Day: A Trade Card for Singer Sewing Machines

In the late Nineteenth Century, Singer Sewing Machines launched an ad campaign featuring images of American song birds.  Get it?  Singers. 

During this period, domestic sewing machine technology had advanced so much as to make personal sewing machines affordable for most middle class households.  There were many machines on the market and Singer wanted something to help them stand out.  This attractive series of ads translated well into periodicals and posters and also made for very handsome and collectible trade cards.

Here’s one of them.

The front of the card depicts an oriole perched on a twig.  An inset (natural size) of the bird’s egg is below the little flyer.  The illustrations were created by J.L. Ridgway.  This is number 3 of 5.

Above the seal of the Singer Manufacturing Co., we see the words, in pale blue:

The American Singer Series

At the bottom, it reads:

Orchard Oriole

Copyright 1898, BY THE SINGER MFG. CO., N.Y.

The reverse of the card reads, with a wee picture of the machine being sold:

ORCHARD ORIOLE

AN EXCEEDINGLY active, sprightly and restless bird (Nuttall) is the Orchard Oriole, a near relative of the Baltimore Oriole.  Although not so gaily dressed, he far surpasses his cousin as a songster, his tone being far richer and his song more finished.

     His small branch of the family is scattered, after the first of May, through the Eastern United States from the Gulf of Mexico to Massachusetts.  Although protected by his less noticeable coloring, he shuns the open fields and highways, preferring the orchards, where the nest of freshly dried grasses, carefully woven, is like that of the cousin in orange and black, hung from a branch. 

     When people are returning from seaside and country places, the Orchard Orioles are flying toward their Winter quarters in Central America to remain until the following May.

THE SINGER

“20”

A Practical Machine

For either Little Girls

Or Grown-ups

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Price only $3.00

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Sold only at Singer Shops or by Singer Salesmen.  

Object of the Day: A Vintage Motorola Radio and Turntable

Motorola began in 1928 in Chicago, Illinois as the Galvin Manufacturing Corporation with the production of Battery Eliminators, transitioning into building radios in 1930. Since then, Motorola has been a leader in technology, manufacturing everything from televisions to cell phones.


This standing radio and turntable dates to the mid-to-late 1940’s. The turntable is tucked away inside the unit above an alcove designed to hold record albums. The radio still functions. Oddly enough, when I purchased this and plugged it in, I had this vague, nonsensical notion that I’d be picking up radio signals from the past. Of course, that didn’t happen, but it was a nice, romantic thought.

Today, though it’s still perfectly functional, it serves a different purpose—acting as a smart, little cabinet and handsomely supporting my printer. It just goes to show that no matter how functional we may be, as we get older, our purpose in life changes.