A Quiet Month

October was a pretty quiet month for the Gearhart Knitting Machine Company archives. I’ve been busy with another of my after-hours projects, which is a historically themed map of the Northern Neck of Virginia. Its pretty intensive as far as man-hours go. Here is my progress:

The map measures 40 inches by 30 inches, so it will be suitable for framing once completed. Hopefully, I’ll have things done by Christmas now that the initial push is completed. I think I can get back to the Gearhart Knitting Machine Company archives pretty soon.

The big decision was orientation. In colonial days, mapmakers oriented a chart so that the bottom was the approach from sea. In Captain John Smith’s map of Virginia, for example, the eastern coast of Virginia is positioned horizontally with East at the bottom of the map. The Northern Neck presents a different challenge. This area spans a long distance East-West, so I ended up tilting the latitude and longitude axis by 30 degrees to fit the dimension of a normal print. I included the latitude and longitude lines so that orientation would stand out. I think it looks pretty unique compared to modern-day charts, which almost always position North at 0 degrees.

I’ve built the map using Adobe Illustrator, so the detail is extremely good at full resolution. In fact, I’ve pushed the limits of my computer (2 GB memory) as well as Adobe Illustrator for volume and detail. There will likely be a point where I’ll have to construct two projects, one for the map and one for the illustrations, and overlay them during the print process.

The idea for the map came from my father, James Gearhart (1931-2005). He started putting together an inventory of indian trails and colonial sites for this areas of Virginia, which was first explored by Captain John Smith in 1609. He never got far enough to produce a rendering. One of my goals is see that his project is completed. If it turns out good, I’ll re-print it and see if people in the area might be interested in buying a copy.

I think it will turn out pretty good. I’ve got a local illustrator in mind out draw the cartouches. These will be engravings which depict scenes relevant to the time and location.

In fact, if it turns out excellent, I may ease up on my computer programming job and devote a larger portion of my time to the construction of themed maps of reproduction quality.

 

Bulgarians Have the Nicest Handwriting

Varna, Bulgaria

I’m going through a stack of letter from all over the world. The letters are all postmarked 1919 or 1920. This was just after WW-I ended, and it was a good time for the Gearhart Knitting Machine Company. They had been involved in the war effort by supplying machines to the war relief organizations, including the Red Cross, and were therefore becoming a well-known company outside the United States.

I suspect that Emory Gearhart, the General Manager of the Gearhart Knitting Machine Company, kept these hundreds of letters for their stamp value. He was a stamp collector who amassed volumes of stamps from all over the world, all the way up to his death in 1969.

Roustchouk, Bulgaria

As I go through the letters, I can’t help but notice that the quality of the handwriting increases the further away you get from the United States. In 1919, many people overseas used typewriters for their letters. But it looks like in many parts of the world back then, hand-written letters were also common. Even for corporations, it is not uncommon to run across a hand-written letter among the stack of letters. The Gearhart Knitting Machine Company would have received far more letters than I have in this stack, but Emory saved a particular set of letters which really do have some nice looking stamps – clipper ships, world leaders, airplanes, zepplins, all kinds of current events for the time.

The Bulgarians by far have the best handwriting. Here are two of the envelopes. One is from Varna, and the other is from Roustchouk (now called Rousse). Needless to say, many of the letters have the word Translate written on the front. This is especially true for the Latin-American countries and the Nordic-countries. The European countries, however, are almost always in English. Because of this consideration for the country of business, I’d say that in general it must have been easier doing business in Europe than in either Latin America or the Nordic countries.

Also, oddly enough, almost all the letters from Mexico had been opened and censored. I know this because they were taped shut with a piece of tape with the words Censored. So, what was going on in Mexico in 1919? There are a few censored letters from italy and some of the other mediterranean countries, but not to the same extent as Mexico.

 

Its 1915 and Mrs. Lazenby buys a Machine

In 1915, there were no credit cards. People could write a check if they wanted to purchase a machine, but I don’t see how that would work back then unless the banks were connected via interstate commerce. In the archives, I have a whole stack of canceled checks but they are all written by people who belonged to the Bank of Clearfield, which is the same bank that the Gearhart Knitting Machine Company had an account with. So, it would have been a pretty simple transfer of funds within the same bank. People could also send cash, but I don’t think anyone would really do that. The third option would be to give the Gearhart Knitting Machine Company access to the purchaser’s bank account, and let the Gearhart Knitting Machine Company send a telegram to the bank arranging for the transfer of money. I’m not sure how the bank would send the money – probably by rail as some sort of certified mail? I’d probably have to do some research on this…

The most common way to buy a machine back then was by C.O.D. (cash on delivery) or (collect on delivery). Payment was due on delivery by the recipient. In this case, since a Gearhart Knitting Machine was shipped by rail, the railroad freight agent collected payment when the machine was delivered, and forwarded the payment on to the Gearhart Knitting Machine Company.

I think C.O.D. is extinct. I’m in my 50’s and I can only remember once, back in the 1960’s that I paid C.O.D. for something.

I ran across a C.O.D. order in the archives. Mrs. Moroni Lazenby of Loa, Utah, purchased a 1914 Gearhart Knitting Machine outfit for $6.93. She also used a $3 Order Coupon from the company. The retail price of the machine was $10.00, so she got a pretty good discount. I notice from her correspondence that she is using a company envelope. This envelope usually came with a machine. My guess is that someone else, maybe a friend, bought a machine and she used the envelope from her friend’s machine to make a purchase for herself.

So, where is Loa, Utah? Wow!! It way out here in the middle of nowhere! The 2000 census shows a population of 525. In 1915, it must have been even smaller. There is no railroad going through Loa so it must have been a place for farms and ranches, and not much else. I did a google search on Mrs. Lazenby and found that the Lazenby family is quite settled in that area, so I bet there are some people out there who remember her. It looks like there is a lot of clean air and stars in the sky out there. I bet you can live a long life out there.

Anyone feeling adventurous? There is enough information below to track down this machine…