Here is another item in the Strange Victorian Electrically-Named Product series, that has to be seen to be believed (and even then it is hard to) - presenting Dobbins' Electric Soap!This advertisement appeared in an 1878 book called The Shaker Manifesto, and includes many endorsements from Shaker and other ladies. The soap had also won prizes at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia (where it was made) in 1876.
An Ohio matron wrote (and the italics are hers) that "this soap not only purifies clothes as none other will, but robs washing-day of all unpleasant features and electrifies the whole household!" Now that's a ringing endorsement!
Another lady, Mrs. E. Morely of Buffalo, New York, was moved to write a little poem:
Riches why does God confer?
'Tis that they may minister
To the poor in their distress -
By sending DOBBINS' ELECTRIC SOAP.
Whatever was in this white laundry soap that electrified households and thrilled tranquil Shaker ladies?
Advertisement (1878) from The Shaker Manifesto, link here at Google Books.
This picture of a Dobbins' Electric Soap Wrapper thanks to GoAntiques.com; it is for sale, too, and the link is here.
4 comments:
People are always the same aren't they? Electricity is a newly harnessed invention and so products and services are named in its honor. Fifty years later atomic power gets the same treatment; fifty years after that everything is 'e this' and 'ethat'.
Slapinions - Yes, absolutely, there's always a trendy adjective used for lots of things.
!?!
What was so 'electric' about this soap? I don't get it. What are the brown bits in the soap? Things that have been zapped?
Bill - Nothing, really, I think- they just thought it sounded zippier, probably.
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