Object of the Day: James Pyle's Pearline

Click on image to have a busy day.

Ah, Pyle’s Pearline. This isn’t our first glimpse into the wonderful world of Pearline. The creation of James “Everybody loves a Stigmata” Pyle, Pearline purports to possess “peculiar purifying properties” and other claims of consonance aiming at alliteration.

It was soap. Washing soap. Washing soap created by a fellow with an vague association with chronic-bleeder Padre Pio. It claimed to be God’s gift to women—rather making it the Hasselhoff of soaps. I wonder if it worked on those pesky stigmata blood stains.

This nifty little trade card, copyrighted for 1892, features, on the obverse, a chromolithograph commissioned specifically for our pure pals at Pyle’s Pearline. A little girl clad in a bright scarlet gown carries cleaning implements which are clearly too large for her. Either this is another case of the famous Victorian tendency to ignore natural proportions in advertising imagery or she’s about three years old and has been hired as a scullery maid. Either option is likely. I’m not sure why she’s dressed so regally. A red dress was neither typical for maid nor toddler and her lovely head-wrap belies both her age and station. She looks miserable, and, clearly has rubella or some other type of disease which has made her cheeks flushed. The image attempts to make light of all of this by inscribing a fanciful title beneath her. “My Busy Day.”

The reverse shows us the rather sinister-looking package design.

It reminds us:

Front of every pack-
age of Pearline should
be exactly like this
cut, or it is an imita-
tion. 

We are further reminded that “Pearline Washing Compound, the Great Invention for Saving Toil & Expense Without Injury to the Texture, Color or Hands” was made in New York. And:

DON’T use an imitation of
anything, much less
an imitation of Pyle’s Pearline.
Peddlers and some unscrupulous
grocers will tell you the stuff they
offer is “Pearline,” “same as Pear-
line, “or as good as Pearline.” IT’S
FALSE; Pearline is the Original
Washing Compound—has no rival—
no equal—never peddled—given no
prizes—but stands on the foundation
on which it was reared—MERIT.

The card was printed by the Knapp Co. of New York. Their claims are rather comforting. As long as you use the REAL Pearline, your child labor will be just fine.