1860-1868
IT HAPPENED IN…1860-1868
Advertising began to appear in nationally
distributed monthly magazines during the 1860s.
The 1860 Census indicated 123 U.S. soft drink
bottling plants were in operation.
Per capita consumption was 2.2 bottles.
The U.S. Civil War raged from 1861-1865.
The Homestead Act of 1862 opened up millions of
acres (mostly west of the Mississippi River) to applicants at no
cost. Ultimately over
270 million acres of public land, almost 10% of the total area of
the U.S., was given away to 1.6 million homesteaders.
Nevada was the 36th state admitted to
the Union on October 31, 1864.
William James Carlton began selling advertising
space in newspapers during 1864, founding the agency that later
became the J. Walter Thompson Company, the oldest American
advertising agency in continuous existence.
President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated April
14, 1865 and Vice-President Andrew Johnson was sworn in as
President.
The 13th Amendment to the U.S.
Constitution passed in 1865, permanently outlawing slavery.
The Civil Rights Act of 1866, enacted April 9,
1866, was the first federal law defining citizenship and affirming
that all U.S. citizens are equally protected by the law.
The primary intent of the Act was to protect the civil rights
of African Americans.
President Johnson vetoed the legislation, but Congress overcame his
veto and the bill became law.
In 1866 Cantrell & Cochrane entered the U.S.
market with ginger ale bottled in Ireland.
The Territory of Alaska was purchased from Russia
in 1867.
Nebraska was the 37th state admitted
to the Union on March 1, 1867,
Newly introduced products and inventions included
vacuum cleaners (1860), Yale locks (1860), web rotary printing press
(1863), dynamite (1866), and baby formula (1867).
New magazines included
Harper’s Bazaar (1867),
and Vanity Fair (1868).
Ulysses S. Grant was elected President of the
United States in 1868.
CHARLES ELMER HIRES
On July 31, 1860 a census surveyor collected Hires
family data for the 1860 United States Census indicating John Dare and
Mary Williams Hires and their first five children were all born in
Cumberland County, New Jersey.
Cecelia Barcliff Hires, 20, was not listed as a member of the
household and had apparently already moved away.
The children residing on the farm included Rebecca Paget Hires,
18, Isaac Elmer Hires, 15, Mary Elizabeth Hires, 13, Anna Marie Hires,
10, Charles Elmer Hires, 9, and William Nelson Hires, 5.
Susan W. Hires wasn’t listed as she died in infancy in 1854.
The survey did not list either Benjamin Franklin Hires, 2, or
Sarah Williams Hires, the family’s tenth and last child.
Charles Elmer Hires, the Hires’ second son, was their
first child born on the new farm after the family had relocated to
Elsinborough Township, Salem County, New Jersey.
A full page article in Philadelphia’s
Public Ledger June 14, 1893
included this observation concerning Charles Elmer Hires’ “indefatigable
energy that…led him on to fortune and fame:”
Perhaps he inherited the qualities of success from his parents, for his
father was a prosperous Cumberland county farmer, who had been honored
by his fellow citizens with repeated elections as Assessor and School
Director. He was Treasurer
of the School Board for many years, handling all moneys and paying all
salaries, and was never a penny short.
He was also a Deacon in the Baptist Church.
Mrs. Hires was a member of the Society of Friends, and bequeathed
to her son all those qualities of firmness, gentleness and thrift for
which the Quakers are noted.
According to Cope and Ashmead (1904),
Charles Elmer Hires attended public schools until he was 12 years old at
which time:
He gained his first business experience while serving
an apprenticeship of four years in a drug establishment in his native
county, and after thoroughly learning the details of the various
branches of this profession he located in the city of Philadelphia.
The June 14, 1893
Public Ledger article provides
this insight into Charles E. Hires’ arrival in Philadelphia:
It was just after the close of the Civil War, in 1867, when a
16-year-old lad disembarked from a ferry boat at the foot of Arch street
to try his fortune in the great metropolis.
He was fortified with a complete knowledge of pharmacy, attained
in an arduous four years’ apprenticeship in his native New Jersey
village at $1 a week and his board.
In his pocket he had exactly 50 cents, but he had the energy of
youth and an abiding hope in the future.
A feeling of independence kept him from asking assistance from
his father, but, armed with his own resources, he went resolutely to
work. A good old Quakeress
then kept a boarding house on North Sixth street, and to her he went
with a letter of introduction.
Arrangements were made that the youth should board there at $4
per week, until he got something to do, paying his indebtedness out of
his first salary. A tiny
room in the attic was assigned him.
The next morning he was up betimes, and answered every
advertisement in the Public Ledger
in his search for suitable employment.
Not satisfied with this, the youngster tramped from one drug
store to another, leaving his name and reference at each.
Upon his return to his boarding house in the evening he found two
postal cards from druggists.
Posting off immediately, he secured employment with a Mr. Brown, who
then kept a drug store on Vine street, taking his place that evening
behind the counter. Nothing
was said of wages, but when Saturday came the youngster was given $10,
with the query if that was enough.
Disguising his surprise, at the largeness of the sum, the young
man modestly said he was satisfied if his employer thought his services
were worth that much. Mr.
Brown’s new clerk was Charles E. Hires…
After staying with Mr. Brown one year his former preceptor in New Jersey
took him into partnership, and young Hires stayed two years longer in
his native town. Sufficient
scope for his ambition was not apparent, however, and the partnership
was then dissolved, Mr. Hires, before he had attained his majority,
opening up a drug store at the corner of Sixth and Spruce streets.
This was in 1869.
Responding to an editor’s request for a description
of a “typical old fashioned Philadelphia drug store,” Charles E. Hires
penned an article entitled “Seeing Opportunities” for the October, 1913
issue of American Druggist and
Pharmaceutical Record.
The article described events that occurred over 40 years earlier and is,
of course, only as accurate as Charles E. Hires’ memory.
That said, it is a
first person account by the man who actually experienced these events
and it is the best available primary resource material concerning this
time period in Charles E. Hires’ life.
I was not a registered college of pharmacy student, but after serving my
apprenticeship of four years in a country store, from the time I was
twelve until I was sixteen, I came to Philadelphia and after obtaining a
situation as clerk here, I attended lecture occasionally at the
Philadelphia College of Pharmacy in the winters of '67, ‘68 and '69.
It was at the time customary to extend an invitation to drug
clerks whose preceptor were interested in the College of Pharmacy to
attend lectures during their nights off, and this was about the
extent of my attending the College of Pharmacy…
Note Charles E. Hires made no mention of returning to
New Jersey during 1868-1869.
This may have been an oversight, or perhaps an attempt to forget an
unsuccessful business venture.