Velocipede hair oil - highly perfumed by T.P. Spencer & Co., New York – Historic Reproduction
(Originally scanned by the Library of Congress. Each image is professionally and digitally cleaned of artifacts such as color bars and extra borders prior to printing.)
Description
A window into the past: Velocipede hair oil - highly perfumed by T.P. Spencer & Co., New York, preserved in this antique lithograph. The original is held by the Library of Congress, so what you hang is a true record of its time.
Choose the framed print, ready to hang the day it arrives, or the unframed print for a frame of your own. A conversation-starting piece for home, office, or as a meaningful gift. Free shipping in the lower 48 states. Snapshots of the Past, founded in 2001, has served tens of thousands of customers worldwide.
Velocipede hair oil - highly perfumed by T.P. Spencer & Co., New York
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The product name points straight to the picture's hook: the velocipede, the pedal-driven two-wheeler that swept American cities in 1868 and 1869. T.P. Spencer & Co. of New York borrowed that craze to sell a perfumed hair oil, a common tactic among toilet makers of the period who tied their goods to whatever was fashionable. The subject tags also include women's health and welfare, which suggests the advertiser hoped to reach female riders as well as men. The combination is worth noticing, since it folds a bicycle-era fad into the language of the toilet trade well before cycling became a mainstream pastime.
| Created / published | c1869. |
|---|---|
| Medium | 1 print : lithograph, color. |
| Genre | Advertisements 1860-1870.Lithographs Color 1860-1870. |
| Notes | Title from item. Copyright 1869 by T.P. Spencer & Co. |
| Subjects | Hair preparations--1860-1870. Cosmetics--1860-1870. Grooming--1860-1870. Bicycles & tricycles--1860-1870. Women--Health & welfare--1860-1870. |
| Source | Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division |
| Original scan | 749 × 1,536 px · prints to 2 × 5 in at 300 dpi |
| Reference | AMZ-SOTP-HPA-127363 |
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