Their World Wasn't Sepia

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

Quackery - without Question

All health products in days long past were promoted as promising cures; they only became known as “quack” medicines when they didn’t succeed. The apothecary who used the best wisdom science offered at the time; the grandmother who used handed-down recipes to make her family medicines; and the doctor with a bagful of medicinal ingredients, who had to diagnose and put together a medicine on the spot, at the bedside of his sick patient: each might end up being accused of quackery if their medicine didn’t work. My purpose in writing Promising Cures was not to pass judgment on our ancestors or to prove who was a quack and who was not, but rather to share the health challenges of their times and the choices that were made. Sometimes though, someone’s life story comes into view so vividly and completely, there can be no doubt that he or she was absolutely, unquestionably, blatantly, a quack. Meet Arthur Waite – the perfect example of 19th century quackery.

His career was a repeating pattern of success and failure, of saintly goodness and self-serving wickedness. He changed who he was as frequently as he changed locations, reinventing himself as often as he needed to hide his true identity and keep making money.

1870: Arthur Waite, cigar maker (St. Louis, Missouri) - Arthur Waite was the son of a portrait painter. At 21 he was a cigar maker, married to the daughter of an Advent preacher and medicine maker (H. K. Flagg, maker of the “Balm of Excellence”), and they already had a baby boy.

1873: Arthur Waite, sign painter (Tennessee) – He had a flair for art and became a sign painter. Second son was born.

1874:“Professor Bartino, the Devil’s Deacon” (Eastern U.S.?) – Attached to a travelling circus, his low-budget sideshow he performed as the magician, trick pony rider, and clown, and also entertained the crowds by exhibiting a big snake and an educated pig.

1874: “Arthur Waite, Chalk Talker” (eastern New York; Vermont; western Massachusetts) – He joined his father-in-law’s travelling tent revival show; Waite was presented as an evangelist, exposer of spiritualism, and “chalk-talker.” His experience as a scenic artist enabled him to sketch on chalkboards with great rapidity and captivate his audience as he taught from the Bible.

1880: “Rev. Arthur A. Waite, Artist Evangelist” (Lynn, Massachusetts) – As many as 2,000 attended his weekly Sunday services under a big tent in Lynn from the autumn of 1880 to the spring of 1881; he also performed baptisms in Flax Pond before an audience of 3,000 spectators. Some of his chalk talks were titled “Bad Birds of the Bible and Where They Roost” and “The House of Blackness and Darkness.”

1881: “Dr. Bundy,” medium (New Jersey) – Waite was being described in the press as a “seedy” medium; he had deserted his wife and youngest son and ran off with Lena, his 20-year-old stage assistant and niece, and they took his 8-year-old boy with them.

1881: Arthur A. Waite, “deadbeat evangelist” (Missouri) – Newspapers as far away as St. Joseph, Missouri were reporting how he had skipped town without paying his hotel bill.

1882: “Dr. McKean,” spiritualist medium and chalk talker (Stanstead, Quebec, Canada) – Performed a cabinet séance, the Floating Guitar Test, poetry recitation while in a trance, and a chalk talk titled, “The Powers That Win.” Unimpressed newspapers were calling him the “prince of quacks.”

1883: “Andrew Arthur, the Great Natural Shaker Healer” (Minnesota) – Was selling the Great Natural Shaker Remedy for $2/bottle.

1887: “Dr. Stacey” (Pennsylvania) – He was managing a traveling medicine show for the Oregon Indian Medicine Company, selling Ka-Ton-Ka and Modoc Oil; then he suddenly disappeared with the profits. He was one of the company’s most successful hucksters, however, so they hired him back to manage another troupe – and he disappeared with the profits again!

1888: Arthur Waite, fresco painter (Brockville, Ontario, Canada) – He showed up in Brockville, Canada, painting frescos in a church. He had previously married his niece in Connecticut and they had one daughter named “Lynn.”

1888: “Dr. Waite, Medicine Man” (Dallas, Texas) – He was in a performing troupe of Wichita Indians at an exposition in Dallas; “hundreds visited him daily for advice and medicine … his medicine was sold faster than it could be sent to him by the quacks who manufactured it …”

1894: “Elder A. A. Waite & Son,” mediums (Butte, Montana) – The father and grown-up son team held public seances, “exposed frauds” and performed their own “genuine manifestations.”

1897: “Luke Leslie” finder of secret treasures (Springfield, Illinois) – He was arrested and convicted for scamming women out of their money, promising to put them in touch with deceased loved ones and learning where they had hidden treasures for the women.

1898: Arthur Waite, prisoner, magician & painter (Springfield Illinois) In prison he was called upon by prison management to perform magic tricks for visiting committees from the state legislature. He also painted the ceiling of the prison hospital with images of flowers and birds.

1902: Arthur A. Waite, palm reader (Rock Island, Illinois) – He practiced palmistry in Rock Island, Illinois and ran a shooting range in the southern part of the state.Did he have any regrets about his life of deception? Here’s his candid response, in 1892:

Had I been true to my friends, … and adhered manfully to the principles I preached, there would have been no limit to the good I might have done to Lynn and to myself. But my evil genius has led me in the opposite direction, and what is done cannot be undone now.

For more on the life and career of Arthur A. Waite, see:

PROMISING CURES, Vol.4, Chapter 9: Ashen Complexion

Lynn Massachusetts history - History of medicine - 19th-Century Health Remedies - Vintage Medical Ephemera - 19th-century medicine