Скачать или смотреть 1920’s-50’s streetcar/bus advertising find-Hamm’s, Gluek’s and Minnesota signage

Advertisements used to be placed above the windows in slotted tracks within street cars and buses that ran throughout the Twin Cities. They were also applied to masonite or boards and installed on the exterior. These signs were from the archives of a transportation company that started in the 1920s. These signs were printed on cardboard, and when removed, would often disintegrate from the elements and being bent to conform to the curve of the ceiling.The former installer said that he was the only person skinny enough to squeeze between the buses because he was a teenager. And almost every sign would just fall apart upong being popped out of the metal tracks they were slid into.

Some of these signs would be installed for a season, others might be displayed for a month. What I find wonderful is that an employee penciled the date into the lower right corner of many of these examples. That really helps with pinpointing the date that they were installed.

This is truly a time capsule of Twin Cities and Minnesota history. I first saw a few examples posted on social media over a decade ago. I was fortunate enough to purchase and preserve a few examples and made this video to share them with folks to share my passion.