Sunday, February 7, 2016

The Owl–1908 (Part 1)

And now we’re on to 1908 at Fresno High School and another new logo.

Front Cover

Looks like Nelson Daniel was busy creating the new cover.

Table of Contents

From the looks of it, The Owl (later The Owlet) was anxiously awaited for each month.  And once it arrived, the world stopped while everyone read the latest edition.

Owl Out Today

Looking at this Editorial, it seems that getting people involved in High School life was beginning to take a toll.  Too bad the article had to start out with a negative tone – “this number of The Owl will be a disappoitnment”.  But we’ve all been involved in organizations, be it school or otherwise, where it seems that the same people do most of the work and others just sit around and complain.

Editorial

As usual, the advertisements provide us with quite a peek into life over 100 years ago.  And here we all thought this “coffee craze” just hit us with the influx of Starbucks.  Or maybe it’s just that I don’t drink coffee and live in a region known for it’s coffee.  But nevertheless, I do know that $1.00 for 3 pounds of coffee is a steal! 

H Graff and Co

Once again, the major emphasis seems to be on men’s clothing.  Where did the women shop for clothes?  And what in the heck does “rubber at our string of windows” mean?

SB Goodman

I think I know what The Toggery was trying to say but reading “wait for the new spring line” makes me think they really don’t want my business right now.

Toggery

On to February.  Same logo.

Front Cover

Maybe “Woozy” Becker took the challenge and decided to get involved with The Owl.  Either that or one of the young ladies had quite the crush on him.  I love the color that the artist added.

Woozy Becker

Still trying to get kids involved.  I know this Editorial is long but it is an interesting view of high school life in 1908.

Editorial
Editorial pg 2

And while I’ve seen advertisements for establishments that carried school pins, here we learn that a standard pin had not been adopted.  While Fresno High School seemed to have some trouble adopting a school pin, looks like the Class of 1908 took matters into their own hands and adopted a pin for their class.

Senior Class Pin

Here we are with coffee again.  Too bad whomever placed the ad didn’t know how to spell specialty.  (And now I sound exactly like my father – the guy who had to point out every typo!)

Fresno Coffee Store

Now S.B. Goodman is stalling – “not yet, but soon”?  And once again I ask – where do the women buy their clothing?

SB Goodman

So where would the high school boys and friends go if they didn’t want an up-to-date hair cut?

Brunswick Shaving Parlor

Come back soon for more from 1908!

4 comments:

  1. One reason that there are so many men's stores ads: the students selling the ads were probably all boys and they didn't fee comfortable going into the women's stores to ask for advertising. The ads had to pay for the Owl.

    I did find the piece about the Alumni Association to be of interest. I had never seen this before, so that makes the Alumni Association, which is still going strong, starting back in 1908. Pretty impressive.

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    1. Thanks for the comment. I didn't think about how many years the Alumni Association had been existence but you're right, impressive.

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  2. "rubber at our string of windows" - I would guess that rubber comes from the twisting of your head / neck as you turn to look at something (think of rubberneck when you want to look at an auto accident as you drive by), and string of windows means it was a store with a lot of windows along the sidewalk.

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    1. Oh, good thought on rubber at our string of windows. That makes sense. Thanks!

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