Sunday, October 21, 2012

More Bridgeport #6


Bill Crew departing for the show's opening in Madison Sq. Garden.
Seen at the extreme right is noted bill poster Ole Whitey.

Posted by Buckles at 10/21/2012 05:21:00 AM

15 comments:

Chic Silber said...


How far ahead of the date did they

go to NY & was this car attached to

some passenger or freight train

21 October, 2012 05:47
Chic Silber said...


The pride of Nashville

Son of the golden South

21 October, 2012 05:53
Buckles said...

I added this in jest.
I doubt it was taken in Bridgeport, too sunny and warm looking.
They may not have even taken the bill cars to NY due to the close proximity. They surely had offices there.
How about that lion portrait?

21 October, 2012 06:05
Chic Silber said...


I did get the respectful poke at

Dave & thought he might get even

Unlike some folks that can't take

any silliness I've gotten to know

him through this great institution

Still would like to know about how

the bill car traveled

21 October, 2012 06:20
Buckles said...

I'm sure others more knowledgeable on this subject will chime in.

21 October, 2012 07:36
Ole Whitey said...

Some shows had several bill cars that were spaced out, the first coming in three or four weeks ahead and the last just one week ahead. RBBB was the last show to use more than one car and dropped their second after 1940 I believe.

I had forgotten how tubby I was in those years until Buckles spotted me in this pic from my youth.

21 October, 2012 09:26
Ole Whitey said...

I thought I did everything right to send in a response but maybe I hit a wrong button.

Bigger shows had more than one advance car- the first came in three or four weeks ahead and the last just a week ahead.

RBBB was the last show to have more than one car and dropped their second one after 1940. In my day the Florida shows went two weeks ahead and the Hugo shows one week.

See how healthy I was as a youth?

21 October, 2012 10:09
Mike Naughton said...

How were the bill posting crews organized? Who was the main guy and how did he assign the bill posters to a specific area in town? Also, did the crew spend just one day in a town? This is a great series of photos and commentary.

21 October, 2012 11:38
Chris Berry said...

Whitey - it looks like you were definitely well-fed on the bill car...is it true that you wore a tie even when you were out posting on those country routes?

21 October, 2012 13:39
Ole Whitey said...

Each car would have a car manager, who laid out the routes, assigning each lithographer or posting team particular streets or neighborhoods to work.

He might have walked or driven through downtown the night before and decided how he wanted it billed, also noticing "naturals" meaning places the crew needed to make sure to post or lithograph since they had been hit frequently in past years and the owners of which would probably allow show bills again.

Or he might remember from billing the town in the past how it should be worked. Or he might sometimes hire a local man with billing experience to go with a team showing them all the town or country daubs.

Usually during the day while the guys were out working, the manager would be getting the hods together for the next day. Larger cars sometimes had a man whose job was to cook paste each day for use the following day.

As a rule the bill car would stay in a town the same number of days that the show would play there- a two day stand meant two days of billing etc.

A running gag was that the "town" billposters would always try to get a nice hit across from the lot. This was called the "owner's daub."

21 October, 2012 13:57
Dick Flint said...

Mike, for the last years of Bailey’s management after the European tour (1903-1906) as an example, the time period of many of the Bridgeport views, the show had three advertising cars in advance that traveled at various numbers of weeks in advance to each town, staying the same number of days the show would appear. About 20 men traveled and lived in each car. A car manager and a cook (in a couple of cases, his wife) would have been aboard but just over half the remainder would have been designated “bill posters.” They traveled specific outlaying routes, developed and recorded over the years, to paste the larger posters to barns, fences, etc. There would also have been 2-3 “lithographers” who placed one- or half-sheet posters in downtown windows. Pronounced lith-o-graphers, the term began half-a-century earlier when posters using the lithographic (li-thog-ra-phy) printing method first appeared. More expensive than the then the traditional wood engraved posters of the time, they were both smaller and finer (good for close-up viewing) and so were first used in downtown windows. At first referring to the printing process, the term stuck to men the downtown men when the lithographic printing method became the standard about 1880. In addition, each car would have a couple of “programmers” who distributed the handbills or heralds door to door. Finally, the later cars to arrive in town would have a “checker-up” who checked to see if the work of the previous crew was both properly placed and still standing—they wanted to make sure their own crews had done the job and the show didn’t want to honor the passes given out for the privilege of posting if the merchant had taken the bill down or the farmer had allowed someone else to paste over the posters before show day.

Beginning in the 1890s with the rise of local bill posting companies and, soon after, national trade organizations, it became difficult for traveling shows to post in many towns. It was sort of a combination of an attempt at a national bill posting “trust” and a unionizing effort, though not quite either, and show’s had considerable difficult in negotiating agreements with these new bill posting associations and costs began to rise as money now had to be paid to local companies who controlled all the billboards in town.
Dick Flint
Baltimore

21 October, 2012 14:56
Ole Whitey said...

To answer some of the questions above:

Chic: Billcars were required to be up to snuff and moved in passenger service, usually at the back of a passenger train

Buckles: Krancis Kitzman, who billed the Ringling show prior to the merger and the combined show thereafter through 1926, told me they had space in the Garden to use as a "bill room" from whence they went forth each day. He was there during the "Old Garden" days (i e the one actually at Madison Square) as well as those of the "New Garden" on 8th Avenue between 49th and 50th Streets, all of which is to say I assumed Kitz meant this was the case in both Gardens.

I imagine they stayed in a hotel during the New York billing.

The Beatty-Cole crew billed the holiday date at the Coliseum at Columbus Circle over the 1962-1963 holidays. The date didn't do well but I suspect this is the last time real circus lithographers walked the streets of Manhattan with hods under their arms.

And for Chris: There was a day when billers, especially lithographers, dressed up for the day's work. I have also heard of some billposters who could work in a suit and not get a drop of paste on themselves.

As you know, on the advance "billposter" means the guy with the brush and bucket and "lithographer" is the guy with the sticks and the hod under his arm.

21 October, 2012 15:57
Ole Whitey said...

To add to something Dick said: on the advance "lithograph" meant a window-size poster regardless of how printed- and a large "posting size" poster was not referred to as a lithograph even if printed by lithography. Go figure!

In modern times "lithography" came to apply to offset printing and of course many posters have been printed that way.

21 October, 2012 17:09
Harry Kingston said...

How about the human flies that tacked the cloth banners, a very important part of circus billing.
These were tacked on very highly sought after locations and many reserved tickets were given out for the choice locations.
And had to be pulled before the circus left town.
Or in case of strong opposition from another show came in to a town ahead of the other show to put up there WAIT FOR THE BIG ONE, banners
Harry in Texas

21 October, 2012 19:40
Mike Naughton said...

Thanks Whitey and Dick for the information.
I learn something every day.

21 October, 2012 20:05

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