Whitehead & Hoag Celluloid Bookmarks

by

Laine Farley

The first time I bought a bookmark for an amount that made me think “That much? For a bookmark?”, it was made of celluloid in the shape of a pink carnation. Advertising the A. B. Chase piano, it punned that the pianos were the “pink of perfection and the incarnation of everything beautiful in Tone, Style and Finish.” Part of the flower was cut to form a page flap and there was even a 3-D effect of a pin holding the stem of the carnation to the card. The bright colors, slick feel of the thin material and slightly translucent effect of the background made it an especially appealing bookmark. 

As it happens, this design is fairly common and the price I paid was on the high side, but other rarer celluloid bookmarks by the same manufacturer still command prices that are two, even three times what I paid. Although celluloid bookmarks were produced by several companies, one of the best known and most prolific was the Whitehead & Hoag Company, based in Newark, NJ. 

The company was founded by Newark native son Benjamin S. Whitehead (1858-1940) who began learning the printing trade at age twelve. After studying at Cooper Union in New York, he exhibited printing samples at the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia and established a printing firm under the name of Whitehead and Clark. 

Chester R. Hoag (1860-1935) moved to Newark from Philadelphia in 1882 and began a paper and twine business that Whitehead patronized. The two businessmen formed a partnership in 1892 to establish Whitehead & Hoag. This company was most famous for manufacturing badges, celluloid buttons and other advertising novelties. Most of the interest by collectors focuses on these products, but their bookmarks are equally interesting, with many variations in design along with consistent quality. Indeed, Whitehead & Hoag was known for products that were “astronomical in their variety” and for “being by far more handsome and artistic than anything else which is offered in the line of personal advertising or appropriate souvenir work.”

Celluloid, the key ingredient for their products, was invented around 1869 by John Wesley Hyatt in Albany, NY.  Interestingly, he was also trained as a printer, but was responding to a challenge from a New York billiards company to invent a substitute for ivory that had been used for billiard balls. According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, John Wesley Hyatt didn’t win the billiard ball competition but was able to develop a compound used for checkers and dominoes. With further experimentation, he developed a substance that could be made into thin sheets. Hyatt filed the original patent, 105,338, in 1870, established his Celluloid Manufacturing Company thereafter and moved it to Newark in 1872. It’s not clear how Whitehead & Hoag decided to manufacture advertising novelties, although one source claims that Whitehead “imprinted silk ribbon and button novelties for souvenirs and began experimenting with imprinting on thin sheets of a new material called celluloid.” Certainly the proximity of the major celluloid producer made it easy to locate supplies for their burgeoning business. And maybe the fact that these two men had a connection with the printing trade had something to do with the eventual production of inexpensive but high quality bookmarks.
 
It is surprisingly difficult to find information about the company, especially given its success and popularity. The only publication that comes close to being a company history is also elusive. A book for collectors titled Price Guide to Collectible Pin-Back Buttons, 1896-1986 by Ted Hake and Russ King and published in 1991 contains an article on “The History of the Whitehead & Hoag Company” by Gary Patterson, but the book is not in libraries and copies are expensive for those not interested in pin-back buttons. An excerpt from the book, Newark, the Metropolis of New Jersey: At the Dawn of the Twentieth Century: the Progress of One Hundred Years, published by Progress Pub. Co., 1901, describes the Whitehead & Hoag’s location at Sussex Avenue and First Street, chronicling its rapid growth and noting that “The plant, though only eight years in existence, is the largest of its kind in the world, and the goods it produces are sold all over the civilized globe“ with offices in thirty leading cities. Thanks to a city directory for San Francisco-Oakland published by W. S.  Fry, Co. in 1907, p. 521, I learned that the company had a presence in San Francisco in the Monadnock Building, but their listing for “advertising novelties” doesn’t indicate whether it was a retail or wholesale enterprise.

Information about their bookmarks is even more elusive. According to a Whitehead & Hoag collector cited by Lois Densky-Wolff in her exhibition catalog “Mark Me Well: Bookmarks from the Lois Densky-Wolff Collection,” 1997, the company never illustrated bookmarks in its published catalogs of products. Unfortunately, when the company was bought in 1959, the records from the main office were destroyed although there is a collection of their products in the Newark Museum in Newark, NJ. The only ads I have seen are small without illustrations and never mention bookmarks. 

The collector cited by Densky-Wolff believes that at least 120 bookmark designs were produced, although there is no documentation to support this assertion. Thus, I have begun a database that includes Whitehead & Hoag bookmarks I own plus any other sightings. I have a total of fifty records with some designs duplicated. As with many advertising novelties, there were stock designs that could be imprinted with a company’s message, and in some cases with illustrations of their product or company logo. The most common designs seem to be my carnation as well as roses, pansies, and California poppies. Libby, McNeill & Libby used both the pansy and rose designs for souvenirs at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, NY in 1901. The reverse lists meat products from Melrose pate to “lunch tongues” and boneless chicken. I have another with the pansy design in slightly different colors that features a calendar to advertise Peerless Plymouth Coal in Hoboken, NJ. 

The rose was also popular with examples advertising shoes and chiropractic parlors, and one was used by Whitehead & Hoag promoting itself as “makers of low priced advertising novelties.” Another common design is a lovely die-cut butterfly with variations in the color and design of its wings. 

There are at least three designs featuring owls. The brown one is typically seen advertising Maltine, and another brown owl, often holding a book, was used by Coca-Cola. Because Coca-Cola is a popular collectible, these bookmarks often sell for hundreds of dollars.  Another delicate design features a white owl with piercing yellow eyes, holding an upright piano, labeled “The Wise Buy.” 

A small heart with a large heart-shaped page flap is common, often decorated with blue flowers and frequently advertising pianos also. There is one design with the top in the shape of an upright piano, the pedals cut to form a page flap. The most unusual piano marker features the head of Paderewski with a copy of his handwritten letter to the Huntington Piano Company requesting to purchase a piano. 

Apart from heads, Whitehead & Hoag featured other body parts including hands and feet, both bare and shod. The outline of a shoe cleverly guarantees that “Heel marks do not show white on Crockett’s waterproof floor finish.” The pointing hand is a popular design and my copy has an appropriate message: “A pointer! Always use genuine gramophone needles.” 

The company’s anonymous designers seemed to be especially fond of animals with many of the most intricate designs focused on detailed representations. I have cataloged two rabbit designs, one a bold brown bunny with his paws on top of the bookmark; another, a tiny white rabbit with pink nose, ears and eyes. There is a nice design of two blue birds, but the outstanding bird example features a baby chick emerging from its egg, with the page flap following the jagged outline of the broken egg.  A fairly common design is a cuddly brown teddy whose arms and legs are curiously facing sideways. 

A number of die-cut designs appear to be customized for specific businesses. The London office produced one featuring the front end of an auto complete with its crank for the Austin Motor Co., and another with the flag of the Pacific Line of Royal Mail Steamers. The Intercolonial Railway in Canada commissioned a moose peering through a window with antlers extending on all sides. The famous Waterman’s Fountain Pen appears on a simple die-cut of the pen extending above a pocket holder with a 3-D effect and the clip of the pen cut out for a page flap. This marker lists twenty-six U.S. Presidents on the back from Washington to Roosevelt in 1909. The Welsbach light helps a Victorian woman read and offers a 1901 calendar on the reverse. A bottle-shaped bookmark is appropriate for Erin Brew/Ehran Brau from the Standard Brewing Company Cleveland, but it’s not clear what a lady in a large hat, flouncy skirt and knee high boots has to do with Miller’s High Life beer. And a tiny marker featuring a handsome blue shield with gold crowns advertises Hazen’s Confectionery Company in Boston with a list of tantalizing sweets on the reverse such as Oxford Chocolates and Perfection Peppermints.

Themes found in many other celluloid markers of the period that are uncommon for Whitehead & Hoag include holidays and religious sentiments. I have found one with a holly design but no Christmas wish, a delicate angel with large wings, the brown rabbit who wishes Easter greetings, and one with the 23rd Psalm. Perhaps other manufacturers like David C. Cook had cornered the market for religious designs. Some of the Cook markers, often with Bible verses, use die-cut flower designs similar to Whitehead & Hoag’s. 

Whitehead & Hoag clearly didn’t lack for business and seem to have been called upon for special occasions. I have examples of a rally day at the First Presbyterian Church in Newark in 1906, the opening of the Cabanne Library in 1907, a Carnegie library in St. Louis, MO, and my favorite, a tiny Oakland, CA street fair and carnival in 1903 in the shape of Oakland’s namesake tree. 

As mentioned, the company made bookmarks to promote the bookmarks and their other products. I have seen one of the rose designs with a blank front and the following on the reverse: “Your ad in this space and distributed to the individuals you desire to reach will keep your name before them as a continual reminder of your product.” An especially whimsical design was created for the meeting of the Associated Advertising Clubs of the World in St. Louis in 1917. It features a businessman in a plaid suit holding a brief case and shaking hands with Uncle Sam. However, the poor businessman’s head has been replaced by a circle with the organization’s name and “TRUTH” in the middle. Another design is a combined bookmark and ruler with a handsome ornate masthead featuring the company name. The reverse asks if you are in need of “organizational badges, banners, emblems, jewels, celluloid buttons . . .” and other products that are not readable in the scanned image. Presumably bookmarks are not at the top of the list. 

Although Whitehead & Hoag remained in business until 1959 when it was sold to Bastian Brothers of Rochester, NY, the production of celluloid items tapered off after World War II when other durable plastic materials became available and had the advantage of not being as highly flammable as celluloid. Dating the period of the company’s bookmarks production is imprecise but most seemed to have dates from 1901-1917. Densky-Wolff said that only one bookmark dated 1898 has been seen and was probably the earliest they made. She also claims that they made bookmarks until the company was sold in 1959, especially those designed as salesmen’s business cards.

Many bookmarks are marked with a patent date of June 6, 1905. The only patent I can locate with that date is numbered 791,503 and was filed by Richard E. Roehm, assignor to the Whitehead & Hoag Company, for a “Process of Printing on Pyroxelin Materials.” It describes the problem of impermanency of printing on these materials without protection, leaving the printing to quickly wear off with use. His process forced the ink into the material through a steam press.  The success of this process would help explain why so many of the bookmarks remain vibrant today. 

Whitehead & Hoag was associated with another patent filed by A.G. Bauer and assigned number 727,572 on May 12, 1903.  He says the “object of my invention is to provide an improved construction of book-mark wherein are combined superior means for engaging the book-mark body with a leaf of a book and indicating the particular line on the page where the reading is discontinued.” Bauer must have trusted Whitehead & Hoag to produce his design even though it was not the style they typically manufactured. 

I want to thank Howie Schecter for providing so much information about his collection of Whitehead & Hoag bookmarks as part of his wonderful Silver Bookmarks site. I hope other collectors will notify me of their celluloid bookmarks so that I can continue to document the work of Whitehead & Hoag. 

Bookmark specifications: The A. B. Chase Piano is the Pink of Perfection
Dimensions: 2" x 5"
Material: celluloid
Manufacturer: Whitehead & Hoag
Date: 1902
Acquired: Whistlestop Antiques, Santa Rosa, CA

Bookmark specifications: Souvenir Pan American Exposition 1901
Dimensions: 1 7/8" x 5 1/4"
Material: Celluloid
Manufacturer: Whitehead & Hoag
Date: 1901
Acquired: eBay

Bookmark specifications: Souvenir Pan American Exposition 1901 Buffalo NY [rose]
Dimensions: 2 1/4" x 5"
Material: Celluloid
Manufacturer: Whitehead & Hoag
Date: 1901
Acquired: eBay

Bookmark specifications: Crown Piano The Wise Buy
Dimensions: 1 1/4" x 2 3/4"
Material: Celluloid
Manufacturer: Whitehead & Hoag
Date: Early 1900s?
Acquired: eBay

Bookmark specifications: The Marvelous Autopiano Standard of the World
Dimensions: 1 1/4" x 3 7/8"
Material: Celluloid
Manufacturer: Whitehead & Hoag
Date: 1905
Acquired: eBay

Bookmark specifications: Compliments of Darling & Company Poultry Foods
Dimensions: Unknown
Material: Celluloid
Manufacturer: Whitehead & Hoag
Date: 1905
Acquired: N/A

Bookmark specifications: Hazen’s Oxford Chocolates
Dimensions: 5/8" x 2 3/4"
Material: celluloid
Manufacturer: Whitehead & Hoag
Date: 1905
Acquired: eBay

Bookmark specifications: Oakland Street Fair and Carnival
Dimensions: 1 1/2" x 2 1/8"
Material: celluloid
Manufacturer: Whitehead & Hoag
Date: 1903
Acquired: Gift from Lauren

Bookmark specifications: Book Mark [slider]
Dimensions: 1 1/2" x 6 1/2"
Material: celluloid
Manufacturer: Whitehead & Hoag
Date: 1903
Acquired: eBay


Laine Farley is a digital librarian who misses being around the look, feel and smell of real books.  Her collection of over 3,000 bookmarks began with a serendipitous find while reviewing books donated to the library. Fortunately, her complementary collection of articles and books about bookmarks provides an excuse for her to get back to libraries and try her hand at writing about bookmarks. Contact Laine.