Ads, articles, and filler from old Toronto newspapers
Here’s an ad from the February 20 1934 edition of the Toronto Daily Star that caught my attention:
I know that this is made up for the ad, but I am kind of hoping that there was a real person named Laxative Sam. Though I wouldn’t want to know how he got his name.
This ad introduced the concept of “laxative staleness”, and the idea of a “thorough, muscular movement of the bowels”. Yikes.
The front page of the February 20 1934 edition of the Toronto Daily Star contained this photograph of a young member of the Belgian royal family:
Princess Joséphine Charlotte of Belgium (1927-2005) wound up going from one royal family to another: in 1953, she married Jean, the Hereditary Grand Duke of Luxembourg, who became the Grand Duke himself in 1964. Princess Joséphine seems to have led an uneventful life, except for the part when she was put under house arrest by the Nazis after the Allies landed in Normandy.
Her full name was Joséphine Charlotte Stéphanie Ingeborg Elisabeth Marie-José Marguerite Astrid, which is quite a handle.
The February 18 1932 edition of the Toronto Daily Star included this photo of a girl who was a champion revolver shot at the age of 15.
Ms. Brown went on to tour with the Ringling Brothers & Barnum & Bailey Combined Wild West Circus. A Google search turned up a photo of her at the age of 12 and her entry in the Find a Grave website, which indicated that she passed away in 1961 at the age of 44.
Here’s a brief article from the February 18 1932 edition of the Toronto Daily Star about a British woman who was arrested for being a disciple of Mohandas Gandhi:
Madeleine Slade (1892-1982) was actually known as Mirabehn or Meera Behn. As part of her work for India’s independence, she met David Lloyd George and Winston Churchill, and was imprisoned again in 1942. She lived in India until 1959, and moved to Austria in 1960, living in the Vienna Woods until she passed away.
It’s interesting to note that the article refers to Ms. Slade as a “British girl”, even though she was nearly forty years old at the time of her arrest.
Here’s an ad from the February 18 1932 edition of the Toronto Daily Star for a hotel in New York:
This page has a complete history of the Hotel Governor Clinton, including a photo showing the faded sign for the hotel.
The Museum of the City of New York has a postcard photo of the hotel.
The hotel still stands – a recent Google Street View photo indicates that it is now called the Stewart Hotel.
The February 4 1933 edition of the Toronto Daily Star contained two photographs of young men: one whose life had just ended, and one whose career had started to take off.
The first photo was of Carlyle Graham-Browne, who had just been killed in a car crash:
The accompanying article described a horrific single-vehicle crash:
The 1932 and 1933 city directories list Carlyle Graham-Browne as working as a general agent at the National Surety Company.
(By the way: the “Margot” in the neighbouring article was Margot Asquith, then the widow of a former Prime Minister of Britain. She is probably best known these days for being the target of a famous Dorothy Parker quotation: “The affair between Margot Asquith and Margot Asquith will live as one of the prettiest love stories in all literature.”)
The other man whose photograph I found had just been appointed as advertising manager at Holt, Renfrew and Company:
I traced Mr. Petersen, at least partially, in the city directories. He stayed at Holt, Renfrew for less than three years, as the 1936 directory lists him as the advertising manager for Langleys (the dry cleaning firm). Amusingly, the 1935 directory lists him as the advertising manager for the “Hotel Renfrew”.
He is missing from a few directories at the time of the Second World War, which suggests that he went off to fight. After the war, he gradually worked his way up to forming his own advertising partnerships; he appears in the 1969 directory as part of one, which is the last year that I can access online.
The February 7 1934 edition of the Toronto Daily Star contained two bits of filler that originated in Philadelphia.
The first was an objection to “Dumb Doras”:
The original Dumb Dora was a comic strip created by Chic Young, who later went on to create Blondie.
The second was a statement about automobile speed:
Captain Ruch might be right about this.
Here’s a series of photographs from the February 7 1934 Toronto Daily Star, featuring speed skaters who were competing in an event at Maple Leaf Gardens.
A couple of the athletes mentioned in the caption for these photos have Wikipedia entries:
The February 12 1931 edition of the Toronto Daily Star contained this ad for apartments for rent:
Google Street View reveals that both apartment buildings are still standing:
Both buildings appear to have remained unchanged through the years.
Here’s a publicity photograph from the February 4 1933 edition of the Toronto Daily Star:
As it happened, both Joel McCrea and Dorothy Jordan embarked on long-lasting marriages that year:
Toronto Old News 