Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from Bicknell & Co. Store, Clare, MI

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Students and 10-month faculty return to campus this week and classes begin next week. So far this week I had to re-add part of my HST 583 course materials to my Ultra Blackboard page. I also have a nasty drip in the processing room radiator which has twice soaked a chunk of carpet despite turning off the water valve and my putting a large plastic bowl beneath the drip. While processing a collection, I found this business advertising card with a weird image for Bicknell's, Clare. So I'm focusing on the positive today-the business advertising card. 

Small business advertising cards like this were common in the 19th-early 20th century. They advertised all kinds of businesses and goods. Most sported colorful images of cute children and pretty women so people would want to take and keep the card, increasing the possibilities of product sales.  

Bicknell's department store was still operating when we moved to Clare over 25 years ago. That building store is now a successful wedding venue, The Venue at Five o' One, 501 N. McEwan Street. The store was in Bicknell's block, a block of store buildings that filled one of Clare's downtown city blocks. Bicknell's also owned at least one other large store near Wenonah Park, Bay City, which is now apartments and several businesses. Learn more about Bicknell's history here https://cardinalnclover.com/history. 

I don't understand the image on this card, that of a duck sitting on a frog that swallowed the duck's egg, but it is a nicely rendered and colored image, likely a lithographic print. The text offers Christmas and New Year's greetings from the store with its address. Below the duck, frog, egg it says "Eggspatiation." The back of the card resembles a late 19th century to very early 20th century store advertisement published in a newspaper.

Business cards, catalogs, newspaper clippings, photographs, advertising, financial, customer, and employee records all document businesses, but they also document town history and development, local families, and changing American fashions, trends, diverse consumer goods, and inventions over time.

The Clarke also has the business records of the store, 1894-1916 in 51 volumes and 2 boxes.  Here are some images from a January 1927 catalog.






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