The story of laundry day, seen though the colorful ephemera of the past! Using over 560 color photos, this engaging book illustrates a host of laundry products--from soaps, starches, and dyes to detergents, bleaches, and softeners--as well as the colorful packaging and advertising used to sell them. Included are store displays, signs, posters, trade cards, postcards, calendars, tin containers, boxes, and more, many beautifully designed and decorated. Some ads date from eras when it was common to depict laundry workers as stereotypes. Although considered inappropriate today, they are among the most highly collectible for their visual documentation of social history. Whether appreciated as social commentary or as fabulous country store decorating, the many items shown here offer a fascinating look at "those low down, Monday morning laundry blues." Values included with the captions.

The Salem Witch trials were one of the darkest chapters in American history. With absorbing historical narrative and 300 photographs, Pamela E. Apkarian-Russell recounts three hundred years of a city's past, from the trials themselves through the 1890s, when Daniel Low produced the first souvenir spoon, to years of memorabilia and collectibles. The historic sites in Salem are documented through their many changes. These tourist meccas are visited by tens of thousands of people each year, whose purchases have helped to create a photo album of printed images and a treasure trove of silver and china souvenirs showing both witches and the historic sites. Separate chapters in this book illustrate the witchcraft theme as depicted on jewelry, silverware, cups and saucers, assorted chinaware, bottled goods, and a host of other interesting items.

Turning these pages, the reader plunges deep into a fantastic and spooky world inhabited by all manner of lively, animated vegetables and fruit folk that caper and dance under the Halloween moon. These figures, led by the ever-popular jack o' lanterns, are shown in over 580 color photographs in their many collectible forms, including Halloween figural candy containers, lanterns, and postcards. Assorted noisemakers, wall decorations, hats, masks, and party decorations are also included in this thorough presentation. These collectibles span quite a range from the very old to the modern. Also included is sound advice about how to collect your favorite Halloween characters and prices for all of the items displayed. This wonderful romp through the woody underbrush of Halloween will bring back childhood memories of trick or treats past to all who read it!