Alan Mays' photos with the keyword: booklets

"Gas on Stomach for 20 Years. Exercies to help constipation (page 8). What to eat (page 12)." Constipated? Bloated? Nauseated by ads that discuss such topics? Then this small 1930s advertising booklet is for you! It discusses the benefits of Adlerika, a patent medicine that contained Epson salts and other ingredients with laxative properties. Do you suffer from other afflictions that you'd rather not discuss in mixed company? Then you only have to flip this reversible booklet over to read about the vitality of Vinol (see the cover on the other side below).

"No Man Loves a Tired Nervous Woman! Nor does a woman love a pepless man. How to get friends (page 9). How to hold your husband's love (page 12)." Are you tired, nervous, or--ahem!--pepless? If so, then you would surely benefit from reading this small 1930s advertising booklet. It extols the virtues of Vinol, a patent medicine that contained ingredients such as cod liver oil and beef peptones, plus alcohol (as much as 15 percent). Do you suffer from other unpleasant afflictions instead? Then you merely need to flip over this reversible booklet (similar to an upside-down book or a tête-bêche binding) to read about the wonders of Adlerika (see the cover on the other side below).

"Die elft yairlich Fersommling uns Fesht fon da Grundsow Lodsch Nummer Neina on Da Deef Runn. Mittwuch ovet der sivve un zwanzichscht Chanevari om halver siwwa owets im Nei Hilltown Schuulhause, Hilltown, Pa." Rough translation: "The eleventh yearly gathering and feast of the Groundhog Lodge Number Nine on the Deep Run, Wednesday evening, January 27, at 6:30 in the evening in the New Hilltown Schoolhouse, Hilltown, Pa." A groundhog adorns the cover of this 1965 booklet containing the program for a gathering of the all-male members of Grundsow Lodsch Nummer Neina (Groundhog Lodge Number Nine). The lodge is one of several groups that meet to promote the Pennsylvania Dutch language, and get-togethers often take place on or near Groundhog Day (February 2) each year. For another Grundsow Lodsch item, see Groundhog Lodge No. 12, Gathering, Shartlesville, Pa., May 4, 1990 (below). For further information, track down a copy of William W. Donner's book, Serious Nonsense: Groundhog Lodges, Versammlinge, and Pennsylvania German Heritage (Pennsylvania State University Press, 2016). By the way, the Pennsylvania German Groundhog Lodges and their gatherings, which began in the 1930s, are distinct from the celebrations featuring the nationally known Punxsutawney Phil , who's been prognosticating the weather for the Punxsutawney, Pa., Groundhog Club since 1886, and other local groundhog celebrities, including Octoraro Orphie, who's the weather forecaster for the Slumbering Groundhog Lodge of Quarryville, Pa. (see below), which has been in existence since 1908.

Cover of a small booklet containing information about the set of miniature presidential figures that was issued by toy manufacturer Louis Marx and Company in the 1950s and 1960s.

Cover of the booklet Men from the Moon in America: Did They Come in a Russian Satellite? , by the evangelist Walter V. Grant, first published sometime in the 1950s. For another out-of-this-world booklet from the 1950s, see We Met the Space People: The Story of the Mitchell Sisters :

For more information, see the full cover of this booklet:

"Campfire. The original food. Marshmallow and creme recipes. Campfire makes so many things just perfect! Campfire Marshmallow Creme. The Campfire Company. Campfire Marshmallows. The original food. Family package. Guaranteed fresh." The front and back covers of a small recipe booklet. To see the entire booklet, including the inside pages, take a look at Campfire marshmallow and creme recipes, ca. 1910s , which is part of the Szathmary Recipe Pamphlets collection at the Iowa Digital Library .

"Transfer Picture Book. Made in Japan." Cover of a small booklet containing a few pages of decals or stamps. The creature on the cover is Mogera , a robot with laser beam eyes that first appeared in Earth Defense Force , a 1957 Japanese science fiction film that was released two years later in the United States as The Mysterians (yes, that's where the music group Question Mark and the Mysterians got its name). The Mysterian Space Station, a ringed planet, a Sputnik -like satellite, and a couple of rockets are visible in the sky above Mogera (did his laser beams miss that rocket or are they going right through it?).

Advertisement on the back cover of this small children's tracing/coloring book: "The U.S. Fleet goes first through the Big Ditch. Red Rose of Lancaster brand coffee stands first in flavor with all coffee users. It's as 'Fragrant as Its Name.' Roasted, blended, and packed by M. S. Miller Co., Lancaster, Pa....1914, Kaufmann & Strauss Co." This booklet is an advertising giveaway that commemorated the opening of the Panama Canal (also referred to as the "Big Ditch") in 1914. See also Santa in an Airship High Over the Panama Canal :

The cover of this small die-cut cookbook, Old Pennsylvania Recipes , by Mrs. T. Roberts Appel and Mrs. Calvin N. Wenrich, published in 1933, shows an Amish girl standing in front of a gate.

"Herb Shriner's New Easy Method to Harmonica Playing. Herb Shriner, Hoosier Boy. 35¢." Cover of a 1955 instructional booklet by comedian Herb Shriner (1918-1970).

The cover of a booklet advertising Witchal, a witch-hazel extract manufactured by the E. E. Dickinson Co. and used medicinally as an astringent.

"Fun with Dry Batteries. Price 10¢. For the Amateur Electrician. " Title page: Fun with Dry Batteries: A Handbook of Things to Make and Things to Do with Dry Batteries . Published by the manufacturers of Eveready Long Life Batteries. From an ad for the book in Popular Mechanics , Dec. 1933, advertising section, p. 6A: "Electricity. Get this 96-page book. Boys--and grown-ups, too--will find 'Fun with Dry Batteries' a most instructive and entertaining little book. Make electro-magnets, bells, buzzers, signals, lights, secret locks, electro-plating outfits, telegraph instruments, and numerous amusing electric toys. Has simple, illustrated description of principles of electricity--and of dry batteries in particular."

Booklet published by the National Live Stock and Meat Board, Chicago, Ill., 1936-37, and distributed by the National Wool Growers Association.

"How to Use Your Atomic Espresso Coffee Maker. British Made." Cover of the instruction booklet for an Atomic coffee machine , which was designed by Giordano Robbiati of Milan, Italy, in 1946. The title of this booklet sounds like a question to me: "How to use your Atomic Espresso Coffee Maker?" My answer would be the same for any kind of atomic device: "Very carefully, of course!"

"Scotch 'n Soda presents Molecule Man: An Atomic-Zany Musical Satire, 1949, 7th annual production." Cover of a wonderfully illustrated program for a college musical staged in 1949 by the Scotch 'n Soda Club , a student theatrical organization that's still in existence at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The ticket order form (see below) for the show described the production as "a witty satire on comic book writers, [set] against a background of sparkling music."

Evidently these partygoers have just exchanged gifts. The woman directly in the middle of the photo is holding a copy of How to Make Love , a circa 1930s booklet whose suggestive title promised more than its contents could actually deliver (it was innocuous enough that Archie McPhee sold a reprinted version).

Cover of a short booklet: We Met the Space People: The Story of the Mitchell Sisters , by Helen and Betty Mitchell. Clarksburg, W.Va.: Saucerian Publications. Mouse over the image above to see a close-up of part of the illustration . Two sisters encounter space aliens in a coffee shop in the 1950s! Read all about it at the Internet Archive: We Met The Space People (1959) .