The poster that started it all
Poster from the June 18, 1890 Strawberry Festival
This blog, I mean.
Early on in my stint in the Needham Congregational Church archives, I came across this wonderful poster advertising the church’s 1890 Strawberry Festival. Some years ago the crumbling original had been glued onto a piece of pink poster board in an effort to stabilize it against the ravages of time.
This wonderful document prompts so many questions.
- What was the price of ice in 1890, and why was it so high that it put the entire festival in jeopardy?
- How could this festival have been hosted by the Friendly Society in 1890, when the church’s Friendly Society didn’t get going until the mid-1930s?
- Who are the Peak Sisters? And why would they travel (without their mother no less) all the way from Alaska just to come to Needham, Massachusetts for a festival?
- And what’s up with that texting shorthand, some 100 years before texting would take off in earnest?
I just had to know. So I started this blog, so I would have an excuse to find out.
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