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Explore the people, places, events, achievements, struggles and stories that shaped our journey.
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Katherine Johnson’s mathematical calculations helped guide some of America’s most important early space missions while she confronted the racial and gender barriers faced by Black women in twentieth-century America.
MORE →Reflects the personal views, recollections, and perspective of the author, Mike Davis.
This is a personal recollection on the Move fire on May 13, 1985
Hamlin's Wizard Oil was an American patent medicine sold as a cure-all under the slogan "There is no Sore it will Not Heal, No Pain it will not Subdue."
First produced in 1861 in Chicago[1] by former magician John Austin Hamlin and his brother Lysander Butler Hamlin, it was primarily sold and used as a liniment for rheumatic pain and sore muscles, but was advertised as a treatment for pneumonia, cancer, diphtheria, earache, toothache, headache, and hydrophobia.[1][2] It was made of 50–70% alcohol containing camphor, ammonia, chloroform, sassafras, cloves, and turpentine, and was said to be usable both internally and topically.[2]
Traveling performance troupes advertised the product in medicine shows across the Midwest,[3][4] with runs as long as six weeks in a town. They used horse-drawn wagons and dressed in silk top hats, frock coats, pinstriped trousers, and patent leather shoes—with spats.[5] They distributed song books at the shows and in pharmacies.[6][7] Performers included James Whitcomb Riley, singer and composer Paul Dresser from Indiana,[8] and southern gospel music progenitor Charles Davis Tillman.
At these gatherings, John Austin Hamlin delivered lectures replete with humor borrowed from the writings of Robert Jones Burdette.[9]
Grinnell College research points out that the Hamlins claimed efficacy for Wizard Oil on not only human beings but also horses and cattle, one poster displaying an elephant drinking the product by lifting the bottle with its trunk. Bottles came in 35¢ and 75¢ sizes.[10] Carl Sandburg inserted two versions of lyrics titled "Wizard Oil" together with a tune into his American Songbag (1927).[11]
John Austin Hamlin would use the profits of Hamlin's Wizard Oil to found and manage Chicago's Grand Opera House. [12]
In 1916, Lysander's son Lawrence B. Hamlin of Elgin, by then manager of the firm, was fined $200 under the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act for advertising that Hamlin's Wizard Oil could "check the growth and permanently kill cancer."[1]
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Source: Wikipedia. Article content is retrieved live through the MediaWiki API.
Hamlin's Wizard Oil was an American patent medicine sold as a cure-all under the slogan "There is no Sore it will Not Heal, No Pain it will not Subdue."
Paul Dresser (born Johann Paul Dreiser Jr.; April 22, 1858 – January 30, 1906) was an American singer, songwriter, and comedic actor of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Dresser performed in traveling minstrel and medicine-wagon shows and as a vaudeville entertainer for decades, before transitioning to music publishing later in life. His biggest hit, "On the Banks of the Wabash, Far Away" (1897), was the best selling song of its time. Although Dresser had no formal training in music composition, he wrote ballads that had wide appeal, including some of the most popular songs of the era. During a career that spanned nearly two decades, from 1886 to 1906, Dresser composed and published more than 150 songs. Following the success of "Wabash", many newspapers compared Dresser to popular composer Stephen Foster. "On the Banks of the Wabash, Far Away" became the official song of Indiana in 1913. The Paul Dresser Birthplace in Terre Haute is designated as a state shrine and memorial. Dresser was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970. Dresser grew up in a large family (including his brother, novelist Theodore Dreiser) and lived in Sullivan and Terre Haute, Indiana. He had a troubled childhood and spent time in jail. Dresser left home at age sixteen to join a traveling minstrel act and performed in several regional theaters before joining John Hamlin's Wizard Oil traveling medicine-wagon show in 1878. Dresser composed his first songs while working for Hamlin. He settled in Evansville, Indiana, for several years while continuing to work as a traveling performer and musician. Eventually, he became a nationally known talent and participated in several traveling acts, including The Two Johns, A Tin Soldier, and The Danger Signal. Dresser's songwriting talent developed during his years as a performer; he began by writing songs featured in his shows and later wrote and sold songs to others' acts. Dresser moved to New York City, and in 1893 Dresser joined Tin Pan Alley's Howley, Haviland and Company, a New York City sheet music publisher, as a silent partner. At the height of his success, Dresser was a nationally known entertainer, successful songwriter, and sheet music publisher. He was generous, especially to family and friends, and a lavish spender. The turn of the century brought him financial distress when his music fell out of style. In 1905 his music publishing business declared bankruptcy. He died the following year.
Charles Davis Tillman (March 20, 1861, Tallassee, Alabama – September 2, 1943, Atlanta, Georgia) —also known as Charlie D. Tillman, Charles Tillman, Charlie Tillman, and C. D. Tillman—was a popularizer of the gospel song. He had a knack for adopting material from eclectic sources and flowing it into the mix now known as southern gospel, becoming one of the formative influences on that genre. The youngest son of Baptist preacher James Lafayette Tillman and Mary (Davis) Tillman, for 14 years prior to 1887 he painted houses, sold sheet music for a company in Raleigh, North Carolina, and peddled Wizard Oil. In 1887 he focused his career more on his church and musical talents, singing first tenor in a church male quartet and establishing his own church-related music publishing company in Atlanta.
Lysander Butler Hamlin (26 January 1839 – 12 April 1910) was the maker of Hamlin's Wizard Oil, a patent medicine.
Before the 1921 destruction of Tulsa’s Greenwood District, Black residents had created a remarkable center of business and community life. The district included stores, professional offices, entertainment venues and homes owned by Black citizens. Understanding Greenwood means learning what was built—not only what was burned.
MORE →Joe Louis.
