c1890s? LOT 20 HOOD’S PHOTOS OF THE WORLD EUROPE ADVG CARDS CI HOOD LOWELL MASS

Description

Up for auction is a lot of twenty (20) circa 1890s-1900s advertising cards from C. I. Hood & Co., of Lowell, Massachusetts, that were part of the cures, medicines, liniments, and elixirs company's collectible series of "Hood's Photos of the World." Also included in this auction is an envelope in which the cards were sent; it’s printed in red and black ink and lists the contents of all ten sets within the first series: Sets No. 1, 2, and 3 on the front side (which has a red ink border and subtitle), and the remaining seven sets on the other side.
The postcard-like collectible images, all of them sepia-toned photographs printed on glossy stock, have on the reverse detailed text, including health advice or advertising from the Hood company; the backs are not glossy and are printed on more matte paper.
The cards all measure 6-1/4 inches by 4-1/4 inches, with 19 of them oblong / horizontal and just 1, showing Nelson's Column in London, vertical.
All but two of the cards are in great condition (nos. 37 and 59 are damaged; see below for details).
Hood's cards were issued in a number of series, but all of the cards in this lot are from the First Series except for one, which is a "specimen picture" with an image of the Colosseum in Rome. The information about the cards that appears at the top of the text side of this card -- the lower half has a detailed description of the ancient Roman structure in very small print, which I won't transcribe -- reads in full:
THIS IS A SPECIMEN PICTURE FROM
Hood’s Photos of the World.
The love of pictures is inherent in mankind. And the pictures themselves more than repay that love by their refining, instructive and educational influence. There are very few people who possess the means to gratify their love of art. Therefore, it is with sincere pleasure we announce beautiful reproductions of famous scenes, both American and foreign, to be known as HOOD’S PHOTOS OF THE WORLD, at such low prices that everyone may possess them. They will be unmounted, just like the photographs sold at high prices in the art stores, and of size, style and finish shown by this specimen. They are issued in sets of ten each and sent out in serviceable envelopes, perfectly suitable in every respect to be examined in any library or parlor, or if framed, fine enough to decorate any home, however beautiful. Series No. 1, which is now ready, comprises one hundred views in sets of ten each, as follows:
Set No. 1, United States / Set. No. 4, Great Britain / No. 8, Italy.
Set No. 2, United States / Set No. 5, France / No. 9, Turkey, Greece, Egypt
Set No. 3, United States / Set No. 6, Germany, Austria / No. 10, India
Set No. 7, Switzerland
We will send one set of ten views to any address, postpaid, on receipt of three two-cent stamps, or two sets for five two-cent stamps; or the entire series, comprising ten sets, 100 pictures, for 25 two-cent stamps.
We know Hood’s Photos will completely satisfy everyone who sees them. You have to pay for a single photograph in the stores three or four times as much as we ask for a set of ten. As soon as you see a set you will wish to possess them all. Write your address plainly and send stamps to Photo Department,
C. I. HOOD & CO., Lowell, Mass.
Here’s a list of the cards – all of them depicting European buildings or sites --  in the lot of 20 I’m selling, in chronological order:
No. 31, St. Paul’s Cathedral, London; with information on Hood’s Pills, Hood’s Paper Dolls, and Hood’s Sarsaparilla printed on the bottom half.
No. 32, Nelson’s Mon’t, Trafalgar Sq., London; with information on Hood’s Book of Parlor Games, Hood’s Book of Home-Made Candies, and Hood’s Sarsaparilla printed on the bottom half.
No. 33, Tower Bridge, London; with information on Hood’s Animal Statuettes, a book called “Left Overs,” and Hood’s Sarsaparilla printed on the bottom half.
No. 35, Windsor Castle, England; with information on Hood’s Rainy Day Puzzle, TusSano Pain-Killing Plasters, and Hood’s Sarsaparilla as a cure for rheumatism printed on the bottom half.
No. 36, Edinburgh Castle, Scotland; with information on Hood’s pills for “Ladies and Children,” and Hood’s Sarsaparilla printed on the bottom half.
No. 37, Giant’s Causeway, Ireland; with information on “Good Bread,” “Good Pie,” and Hood’s Sarsaparilla printed on the bottom half. NOTE THAT THIS IS THE CARD WITH A DIAGONAL TEAR AT THE LEFT OF THE IMAGE.
No. 38, Houses of Parliament, London; with information on “Hood’s Cook Books” (No. 1, No. 2, No. 3, Hood’s High-Street Cook Book, and Hood’s Combined Cook Book) and Hood’s Sarsaparilla printed on the bottom half.
No. 39, Rotten Row, London; with information on Hood’s Painting Book and how to obtain it as well as on Hood’s Sarsaparilla printed on the bottom half.
No. 40, The Tower of London, England; with information on Hood’s Tooth Powder, Hood’s Spelling School, and Hood’s Sarsaparilla printed on the bottom half.
No. 51, On the Rhine, Germany; with information on Hood’s Tooth Powder, Hood’s Spelling School, and Hood’s Sarsaparilla printed on the bottom half.
No. 52, Heidelburg [stet] Castle, Germany; with information on “Good Bread,” “Good Pie,” and Hood’s Sarsaparilla printed on the bottom half.
No. 53, Ortler Mount, Austria; with information on Hood’s Olive Ointment, Hood’s Our Country Puzzle, and Hood’s Sarsaparilla printed on the bottom half.
No. 54, Elizabeth Bridge, Vienna, Austria; with information on Hood’s Animal Statuettes, a book called “Left Overs,” and Hood’s Sarsaparilla printed on the bottom half.
No. 55, Corenno on Lake of Como, Tyrol; with information on “Hood’s Cook Books” (No. 1, No. 2, No. 3, Hood’s High-Street Cook Book, and Hood’s Combined Cook Book) and Hood’s Sarsaparilla printed on the bottom half.
No. 56, Cadore Valley, Tyrol; with information on Hood’s Parlor Games, Hood’s Book of Home-Made Candies, and Hood’s Sarsaparilla printed on the bottom half.
No. 57, The Cathedral, Cologne, Germany; with information on Hood’s Rainy Day Puzzle, TusSano Pain-Killing Plasters, Hood’s Sarsaparilla as a cure for rheumatism printed on the bottom half.
No. 58, National Gallery, Berlin; with information on Hood’s pills for “Ladies and Children,” and Hood’s Sarsaparilla printed on the bottom half.
No. 59, Royal Palace, Stuttgart, Germany; with information on Hood’s Pills, Hood’s Paper Dolls, and Hood’s Sarsaparilla printed on the bottom half. NOTE THAT THIS IS A CARD WITH WRITING SCRIBBLED ON THE BACK OF THE CARD, OVER THE LOWER-HALF SECTION on Hood’s Pills and Hood’s Sarsaparilla.
No. 60, Cartino and Mount Tofana, Austria; with information on Hood’s Painting Book and how to obtain it as well as on Hood’s Sarsaparilla printed on the bottom half.
Here's some biographical information on Charles Ira Hood (1845-1922), from Richard Howe's Lowell Politics and History website:
Charles Ira Hood was born in 1845 in Chelsea, a small Vermont town, where his father had an apothecary shop. After finishing his schooling at age fifteen he came to Lowell with hardly a penny to his name to apprentice in Samuel Kidder’s drugstore, where he remained five years. At age twenty he went to Boston to work as a prescription clerk for Theodore Metcalf & Company, 39 Tremont Street, where he learned the mail order business. At age 25, he returned to Lowell and opened his own drugstore at the corner of Merrimack and Central streets. James C. Ayer was his landlord. Hood became ill in 1920 and died in Lowell on February 4, 1922, age seventy-seven years. His patent medicine company did not long survive his death.
In 1876, Charles followed the lead of J. C. Ayer & Company and began to compound his own sarsaparilla medicine. In addition to sarsaparilla root, he mixed in dandelion, gentian, juniper berries and 18% alcohol. He claimed great success in curing a variety of disorders including “purifying the blood”, heart diseases, dropsy, rheumatism and scrofula. Within two years of launching his product he was on his way to great success. Charles Hood added to his success with Hood’s Tooth Powder, Vegetable Pills, Oil Ointment, Medicated Soap, Dyspeplets (for dyspepsia), TusSamo (for cough) and Hood’s Lotion.
Business was so brisk that Charles Hood needed a larger space. In 1882, he built the four-story Hood’s Laboratories on Thorndike Street, close to the Boston & Lowell railroad depot. He enlarged the laboratories in 1892 and 1897, giving him 175,000 square feet devoted to the manufacture and sale of patent medicines. The first floor was used for storage and freight shipments. The railroad station was easily reached through the back door. The second floor had the advertising and printing offices. All advertising was done on the premises. Here Hood’s printed its calendars, lithographic trade cards and cookbooks. In 1879, seventy million pieces were printed and delivered from these offices. C.I. Hood was the largest single user of the U.S. Mail in Lowell. In addition, C.I. Hood advertisements regularly appeared in newspapers coast to coast. The third floor had the counting room, boiling area and the automatic bottle filler, capable in 1884, of filling 10, 000 bottles a day, and more in later years. The fourth floor held the giant tanks, capable of filling 240,000 bottles. The garden in front of the building was beautifully maintained with 2-3,000 tulips.
And here's even more data on the company, taken from a profusely illustrated website, created by Linda and Cliff Hoyt and full of dozens of mostly color photos of bottles, boxes, calendars, counter displays, advertising flyers and signs, and trade cards:
Do you suffer from torpid liver, scald head, pimples, rheumatism, gout, barber's itch, or That Tired Feeling? If you do, Hood's family of medicines would have had something for you. C.I. Hood & Co. turned out an amazing variety of medicines, but the standard bearer, and mainstay of the company for over half a century, was Hood's Sarsaparilla.
In 1917, Mr. Hood reminisced about the beginnings of his company:
"Forty-two years ago, after ten years of apprenticeship and ownership in an apothecary store, it occurred to me that there was a great opportunity for a business introducing a blood-purifying medicine with efficiency and economy as its base.
"With the ambition and exuberance of young manhood I earnestly determined to make this idea a livewire.
"Fortunately, just at this time, a patient ... brought to my drug store a prescription of unusual ingredients, which produced a remarkable cure for this customer, who had been a great sufferer from blood and nerve troubles ... for several years...
"I took this prescription as a base and perfected a formula for Hood's Sarsaparilla. The sale of this medicine surpassed all my expectations and made the name of Hood known in every city, town, and village in this country and also widely abroad."
Mr. Hood felt that the success of his medicine was due to his care in analysis and experiments conducted with "all the knowledge which modern research in medical science had developed." Taking the successful prescription, he added other well-known vegetable remedies. The result included the following ingredients:
●          SARSAPARILLA ROOT--of great service for skin disorders, rheumatism, dropsy, and diseases of a scrofulous origin. (Scrofula is an enlargement of the lymph glands, with abscesses. It originates from tuberculosis. Many problems were due to a scrofulous condition of the blood.)
●          UVA URSI--much needed by sufferers from kidney complaints, inflammation of the bladder, chronic diarrhea, diabetes, and troubles of a more delicate nature in either sex.
●          BLUE FLAG--especially recommended for scrofula, syphilis, glandular tumors, rheumatism, dyspepsia, constipation, and certain private diseases.
●          YELLOW DOCK--remarkable in its effect against scorbutic, cutaneous, scrofulous scirrhous, and syphilitic affections.
●          DANDELION--A sign of hope for torpid liver, jaundice, depression, and melancholia.
●          GENTIAN--useful for dyspepsia, loss of appetite, exhaustion, gout, and hysteria.
●          MANDRAKE--without equal for constipation, scrofula, and skin diseases.
●          JUNIPER BERRIES--relieve suffering due to catarrh of the bladder, kidney complaint, and diseases of the urinary organs.
●          PIPSISSEWA (Wintergreen)--eminently useful for diseases of the blood, eczema, eruptions, rheumatism, gout, dropsy, and catarrh of the bladder.
●          STILLINGIA--eradicates pimples, boils, abscesses, ulcers, syphilis, and chronic bronchitis.
●          ALCOHOL (18%)--If the other ingredients didn't cure you, at least you wouldn't feel any pain.
Even though these herbs aren't the great cure-alls they were thought to be, they are being rediscovered by modern scientists In their search for new cures.
When the new medicine was placed on the market in 1876, Hood planned to go ahead carefully, not wanting to make extra and improbable claims." However, his new discovery proved so popular that the business soon outgrew his apothecary store. The company moved to larger quarters in 1879. Finally, in 1882-1883, the company constructed a five-story building, known as Hood's Laboratory. It was enlarged in 1886, 1892, and 1897. The final building had a total floor area of 175,000 square feet, making it the largest building in the world dedicated to the manufacture and sale of patent medicine. This building contained an automatic bottling machine capable of filling 10,000 bottles a day. It also included eighteen tanks, in which sarsaparilla was prepared, which had a capacity of 420,000 bottles.
Sarsaparilla was not the only product produced in the Laboratory--C.I. Hood sold a family of medicines promising to cure most of the illnesses plaguing the human race. Other popular Hood's products were: C. I. Hood Tooth Powder, Vegetable Pills, Olive Ointment, Medicated Soap, "Tus Sano" (for cold and coughs), Peptiron, Monaid Tablets, Dysdeplets, Sarsatabs, Sarsaparilla, and Lotion.
Not all of Hood's products were as popular as Sarsaparilla and Tooth Powder. Some of the lesser lights included Maltobeef, Quinine Hair Tonic, and Oak Tooth Wash. Maltobeef was a delicious emulsion of cod liver oil, extract of malt, and extract of beef. It would cure paleness, thinness, and defects of the bones. Quinine Hair Tonic removed dandruff, crusts, and scurf from the scalp. Oak Tooth Wash was an astringent wash for spongy bleeding gums, and the cure and prevention of canker.
By 1892, the rapid expansion of his business caused Mr. Hood to seek a diversion from his duties. He began Hood's Farm, located three miles from Lowell, and covering 1,200 acres. He began with fifteen head of Jersey cattle, and by 1893 they were winning prizes at the Chicago World's Fair. One winner was Merry Maiden, pictured in many Hood's advertisements, including the Animal Statuettes. Other residents of the farm were repeated winners at state fairs, world's fairs, and the Columbian Exposition. Hood also raised prize-winning hogs, as well as feed crops, fruits, and vegetables. He took pride in his modern farming methods, and the high yield of his crops.
In addition to winning prizes, the farm was also profitable. At one auction held on the farm in 1916, Hood sold 73 cows for a total of ,705, including one Jersey which brought ,000. He also developed a set of Farm Remedies, which were advertised in the back of many of his booklets (one was an abortion-preventing remedy for cows, mares, and eyes). They must have been fairly successful, as they were advertised over quite a long period of time.
Hood's Farm also produced dairy products. From the reported productivity of his cows, this must have been a thriving business, but the bottles are fairly rare. A final auction was held In 1923, shortly after Mr. Hood's death, and all the stock was sold. We know of no relationship between C.I. Hood's farm and H.P. Hood's Dairy, which still operates in Boston.
Like his farm and his medicines, Hood wanted only the best from his advertising. Like many advertisers of his day, he found the development of color lithography to be a boon, and it filled a need in the life of the common man. The average laborer of the late 1880's led a drab life compared to our existence today. There was no television, radio, or motion pictures, and transportation was slow and difficult. The average worker was hard put to make ends meet and could rarely afford color pictures for his walls. The invention of an inexpensive color printing method changed all this. Families were soon caught up in collecting color prints to decorate their homes, and putting smaller prints in scrapbooks where they could be enjoyed night after night in front of the fireplace.
The advertisers of the day were quick to capitalize on this situation by distributing free color pictures of children, animals, young ladies, and country scenes. These pictures had advertising combined with the design, and text on the back of the extolled the merits of the product. The use of printed advertising developed markets in all parts of the country, and the world. This deluge of printed matter was the first stop taken in the development of name brand products.
Hood's dedication to good patent medicines was equalled by his dedication to good advertising. The Hood Laboratory contained a large, and prolific, advertising department which took almost half of the building. At its height, the printing room contained eighteen cylinder printing presses, two newspaper presses, and a color printing press which was the largest in the world at that time. These presses produced a stream of trade cards, posters, jigsaw puzzles, games, cookbooks, and hundreds of different pamphlets and newspapers.
The glory of the company's advertising style was its calendars. About 150 printers, pressmen, and binders were employed exclusively in the production of the calendars for over five months each year. The artwork was of the highest quality, most of it done especially for these calendars. Not an inch of space was wasted. Each page was filled with almanac information, testimonials, symptoms of diseases, descriptions of products, and coupons for games, puzzles, and other gifts. And with all that, they still managed to squeeze in the days of the month.
The advertising was very effective, and worked something like this: The reader was flooded with an impressive list of symptoms, some of which all healthy people have from time to time. If the reader wasn't already sick, the literature could usually find something that needed fixing or preventing. Hood's, of course had a product that would do it. To a reader now, a hundred years later, and supposedly a little wiser, this literature can
still
give the feeling that a good belt of sarsaparilla is all he needs for what ails him.
Whatever the curative powers of the Hood's medicines, they must have been doing something right. The number of sarsaparilla bottles still around suggests that the medicine must have done an admirable job of meeting a need felt by a great many people. Mr. Hood took great pride in the quality of everything he did. His advertising certainly deserved this pride, so perhaps his many medicines were equally deserving of the motto:
IF MADE BY HOOD IT'S GOOD
The overall condition of these twenty (20) C. I. Hood & Co. advertising cards is good to very good, but the envelope in which they came (when I sourced them) is poor to fair, with browning, chipping, tears, wrinkles, creases, missing paper, etc. Two of the cards have flaws / damage (a diagonal tear on No. 37, Giant’s Causeway, Ireland, and writing on the back of No. 59, Royal Palace, Stuttgart), but the 18 other cards look great, though they all have some age-toning / browning / darkening but no annotations, marginalia, underlining, scribbles, etc., nor any major damage or flaws in the way of clipped or missing sections, tape repairs, water or other liquid damage, large tears, etc. The cards and envelope have neither a musty nor smoky odor.
This lot of 20 Hood’s Photos of the World, all showing European building and sites, is being sold AS IS, AS DESCRIBED ABOVE AND PICTURED WITHIN. I am setting what I feel is a reasonable starting price for the auction, and there is NO RESERVE. I am also including a Buy It Now price.
Shipping and handling for the cards: to U.S. addresses (via Media Mail).
If you want these Hood’s Photos of the World cards sent more quickly to you (e.g., via Priority Mail in the U.S.), you must request this asap after winning or purchasing them (or beforehand, if possible), and I will adjust the amount accordingly.
I will do my best to send these Hood’s Photos of the World to you no more than 2-3 business days following receipt of payment (that is, when eBay informs me that your payment has been posted to or otherwise cleared in my account).
If you are the winner or buyer of this lot of topographical cards from the C. I. Hood & Co., PAYMENT IS EXPECTED WITHIN TWO WEEKS (14 DAYS) FROM THE PURCHASE DATE. If you cannot pay within this time frame, PLEASE contact me asap so we can work something out. I'm very flexible and understanding, but I would appreciate communication from you one way or another.
PLEASE NOTE THAT RETURNS WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED NOR REFUNDS MADE FOR THIS LOT OF 20 HOOD’S PHOTOS OF THE WORLD, SO PLEASE READ MY DESCRIPTIONS CAREFULLY, LOOK CLOSELY AT THE PHOTOGRAPHS I’VE UPLOADED, AND ASK ME ANY QUESTIONS YOU MAY HAVE ABOUT THE ITEMS, AND I'LL DO MY BEST TO ANSWER YOU. THANKS FOR YOUR UNDERSTANDING!
Thanks for looking, and please don't hesitate to email me if you have any questions about this lot of 20 Hood’s Photos of the World, all showing places in Europe, which come in a much-battered original envelope.
PLEASE NOTE THAT I WILL HAPPILY ADJUST SHIPPING CHARGES FOR MULTIPLE PURCHASES!!!
ALSO, PLEASE NOTE THAT, IF APPLICABLE, eBAY WILL ADD ANY APPROPRIATE STATE SALES TAX TO THE INVOICE.