JB's Warehouse & Curio Emporium

The December 31, 1920 edition of the Pasadena Post spotlighted (mostly) grinning photos of the paper's staff and local businessmen. Given my penchant for going down research rabbit holes related to anything quirky I stumble upon, this series will look at some of the stories behind the smiling faces.  Pasadena Post, December 31, 1920. Unless you're going to a farmers' market, using "marketing" for grocery shopping seems charmingly antiquated. Tracing the Braden's Preserves story through old newspapers is a confusing mess, as it appears there were different firms with similar names. During the early 1920s, the FTC filed a complaint against A. Claude Braden and his Braden's California Products preserve company for imitating a competitor's name. This competitor was likely the A.C. Braden Quality Foods Company, which was also based in Pasadena. Though the complaint was dismissed in 1923, an A.C. Braden catalogue of the period notes that their products were

  New York Daily News, February 8, 1971. How many people wandered around North America with LoveBug corsages pinned to their heart on Valentine's Day half-a-century ago? If the answer was "not many," it wasn't for a lack of trying as FTD filled newspapers across the US and Canada with ads featuring the LoveBug and his LoveBundle. Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, February 7, 1971. I'm trying to figure out if the triangle sticking out of the LoveBug is part of the ribbon or is his tongue. It's possible that the LoveBug was a cousin of the Tim Horton's  Timbit character  and  Thing from TVO's  Readalong . Schematic diagram of the LoveBundle, Ottawa Citizen, February 4, 1971. In Ottawa, the Citizen offered two LoveBundles as prizes in a children's colouring contest. "Some 400 children got out their colouring materials, set their mouths just right and coloured the bouquet called a LoveBundle," Citizen women's editor Shirley Foley not

The December 31, 1920 edition of the Pasadena Post spotlighted (mostly) grinning photos of the paper's staff and local businessmen. Given my penchant for going down research rabbit holes related to anything quirky I stumble upon, this series will look at some of the stories behind the smiling faces.  Pasadena Post, December 31, 1920 . "That ponderous body of his simply shakes." There's descriptive language you just don't see any more.  From the accounts I've found, it seems William A. Haas was a classic old-time entertainment PR man, full of stories and tall tales to go along with his eternal smile. When he died in 1941, his obituary included many claims that might not hold up under scrutiny. He unsuccessfully ran for coroner (possibly in Iowa) against future president William Howard Taft. He suggested that William McKinley be promoted as the “Advance Agent of Prosperity” during the 1896 presidential campaign. He planted the idea of motion pictures in Thomas E