Updated: Jan 15
We tend to get nostalgic when we look at old-time photographs. The world of our ancestors is almost always seen in sepia tones - faces, clothing, buildings, trees, pets - all in shades of brown and white; even old papers fade to varying degrees of tan. I probably even chose it as the predominant color of the background of my website because, subconsiously, it seemed to set the tone for all the old stuff I want to write about and show. The brown family defines the antique world for us because it seems so ubiquitous - but it wasn't to them.
I have read many accounts in old newspapers about new delivery wagons and trucks looking so fine in their green, purple, and other daring paint colors, with vivid trim and lettering boldy advertising the company's products or services. Victorian lives were full of color, just like ours; ladies eagerly anticipated each issue of Godey's Lady's Book to see the next color plate inserts of the newest fashions, and children pestered local merchants for colorful advertising trade cards to paste in their scrapbooks. So when my very talented son digitally colorized my antique real photo postcard (RPPC to collectors) of the Crompton's Zat-Zit mobile, I felt some of that same joy over the glimpse of Victorian color before me. I was blown away at how the addition of color changed my perceptions of the old scene so completely.
The first image is the original, sepia-tone postcard; following it are several colorized versions. I haven't found any description yet that indicates what the truck's colors were, but based on these versions, almost any colors would have been just amazing!





Charles Crompton and his son, Edward, stand proudly in front of their delivery truck in 1910. This photograph was taken when it was brand new, ready for use as a delivery truck at the high point of the company’s success; father and son resplendent in their new delivery uniforms, which included “ZAT-ZIT” stitched into their driving caps. Two months later the truck was hit by an automobile and Charles Crompton, foreground, had some injuries, but the medicine bottles in the truck were destroyed.
This RPPC is a treasure in my collection; a special jewel that, when held to digital light, lets the Crompton's new truck sparkle in the radiant beauty that made impressed bystanders take notice.
Don't make the mistake of seeing the past in shades of brown - make it come alive in your mind with color, just the way it really was.
For more on the career and medicines of Charles Crompton, see:
PROMISING CURES, Vol.4, Epilogue: City of the Dead, Land of the Living
Lynn Massachusetts history - History of medicine - 19th-Century Health Remedies - Vintage Medical Ephemera - 19th-century medicine
Updated: Jan 15
One thing you have to give to the patent medicine makers of the 19th century - they were definitely creative. Since each was positioning their remedy as unique in a very crowded marketplace, there were many that were determined to come up with a unique message - a never-before heard, unforgettable backstory to their discovery of the ultimate, unquestionable king of all medicines. Mrs. M. G. Brown's Metaphysical Discovery has to be counted among the most memorable concepts: medicines made of dew drops, rain drops, snow flakes, and frost crystals.
Mrs. Brown declared with no false humility whatsoever, that her medicine was "the greatest discovery ever made since the creation" and that "it has never failed in a single case to cure and prevent disease ...." It's hard to imagine why anybody else even tried to sell other medicines!
photo courtesy of AntiqueAdvertising.com
The stunning box pictured above is a treasure I would love to have in my collection. It's just made of wood and paper, but the story it tells is so much more. Printed somewhere between 1863 (the date on the label) and 1871, the label design is glorious in its Victorian effusiveness, telling in four different languages (one on each side), the curative joy found inside. The box contained three 18-ounce bottles, one each of the three remedies constituting the METAPHYSICAL DISCOVERY. To cure ANY disease, all three of her remedies had to be used together, "as they work in conjunction." They were:
No. 1 - Dew-Drops, entering in at the eyes ... correspond[ing] with the tear.
No. 2 - Rain, entering in at the ears
No. 3 - Frost and Snow, entering in at the Scalp
Mrs. Brown had published a pamphlet that explained the master plan behind her three medicines were really the plan of the Master "... I did not make the principles," she said humbly, "I discovered them":
... the sea is taken up by the water-spout into the clouds, the laboratory of the earth, and there prepared by Divine skill into moisture of a three-fold character ; the dew-drops, which God's industrious hand supplies every night, preparing the earth for the bursting forth of the sun ; the rain, which penetrates the heart of the earth, clearing obstructions ; the frost and snow, which act as a tonic, producing immediate circulation, bidding the dead earth leap into life.