The 1906/1907 Color Catalog
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The following article appeared in the January, 1907 Outlook magazine:
The C P Book.
"THE C P BOOK" is the title of our
new thirty-two page catalogue.
It is
illustrated in colors, and gives a correct and concise
description of every article in the list. In addition, it
contains valuable information for beautifying the complexion,
hands, teeth, etc., and the proper care of the body in general.
The C P BOOK is new in every
detail, and every progressive Depot Manager should have a copy
of the same. This new catalogue will be of valuable assistance
to you in your work, particularly if you will commit to memory
the descriptions of each article (which are brief, but
convincing) and the talks on beauty and health which it
contains.
As heretofore we shall
send these catalogues free with orders, when requested, to be
given to those of your customers who do not have one of our
catalogues.
If you want a copy of
The C P BOOK at once, drop us a line, and we will send same by
return post.
Extremely rare and equally as interesting, the California Perfume Company produced its first full-color catalog in October, 1906 to be used, and distributed to customers, by the Depot Managers during the 1907 product year! Thus far, only one copy is know to exist and is maintained in the Avon Archives at the Hagley Museum and Library.
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Before seeing this one extremely tattered catalog in the Avon Archives, I questioned it's very existence. Owning or having access to almost every catalog from 1896 through 1939, I developed what seemed be a very clear visual timeline of catalog development based on such things as expected catalog sizes, cover graphics (or lack thereof), quality and quantity of product illustrations/representations within the catalogs, etc. (see the Catalogs and Brochures section.) So, the 1906/1907 Color Catalog stands in a class all it's own! One interesting fact is that the next California Perfume Company catalog containing any color graphics was the 1914 CPC Book which contained four pages of color graphics at the catalog's center. The four page color section was again repeated (with different products of course) in the 1915 CPC Book. After which the California Perfume Company began production and use of the large Color Plate Catalogs that contained full color images of almost all of the standard-size CPC products of their time (late-1915 through 1929).
Back to the 1906/1907 Color Catalog: the specimen within the Hagley was very damaged in that the spine of the document was in such bad condition that even the individual leaves were completely separated. The entire catalog comprised 32 pages of hand-drawn colorized product illustrations, concise descriptions, extensive pricing information, and several articles about the company and topical information (e.g., The Bath and Toilet, see below.) The catalog measured 8 1/2 inches long by 4 1/4 inches wide. And the first page of the catalog is pictured to the above right.
When I first discovered this catalog in an archive file at Hagley, I could not determine if the catalog was missing its outer cover (as was present on all other CPC catalogs), or if I was truly seeing the entire 1906/1907 catalog as originally produced. A later discovery provided proof positive that the cover for this particular catalog was, in fact, missing. Seen to the immediate left is a black and white photo-copy image of the 1906/1907 Color Catalog front cover. Apparently, that cover is now lost to antiquity.
Focusing on the catalog's interior, there were many beautiful hand-drawn, colorized illustrations of the California Perfume Company's products (as seen below). Of note is the fact that this catalog contains about one half the number of total pages of the classic CPC catalogs of the time: typically 60 to 68 pages from 1897 through 1915. The verbiage about the company is decreased; the product descriptions are shorter, more concise; but the product pricing tables seem expanded--easy to understand. The page layouts and general feel of this catalog is very similar to the "For You and Your Home" customer catalogs of 1926-1928. The 1908 and 1909 versions of the CP Book then returned to the standard 64-68 page volume. I believe that the reason for the 1906/1907 Color Catalog's volume reduction was most probabaly due to price considerations--a plausible truth given the company's return to the black and white catalogs in the successive years.
Lastly, I think it is worthy to note that at the same time (1906) these catalogs were drafted and produced, McConnell was also engaged in a nation-wide advertising campaign: the California Perfume Company ran eight successive one quarter page ads in the March through December editions of the 1906 Good Housekeeping magazine (see the first CPC advertisement.)
If the production and distribution of the 1906/1907 Color Catalog was indeed synchronized with the national advertising campaign in Good Housekeeping magazine, it represented an extremely bold move for D. H. McConnell and the California Perfume Company--a bold move that eventually paid high dividends as company continued to expand across the territories of the continental United States and then into Canada. Mr. D. H. McConnell was a true entrepreneur! And with his close associate, Mr. Alexander Henderson, they forged a lasting and influential American business icon.
Pages From the 1906/1907 Color Catalog
Pages From the 1906/1907 Color Catalog
Note: Pictures used by permission of the Hagley Museum and Library
If you have ANY information about
the 1906/1907 California Perfume Company Color Catalog, please contact me at
russell (at) californiaperfumecompany.net.
