Featured 1930s USA handkerchiefs

We recently bought about 50 handkerchiefs, which appear to be mementos of people and places in the States in the 1930s.

We have done no research at all on these, many are folded and tacked.

I've darkened some slightly to highlight the signatures.

Here are the first 12

1:


2:


3:

4:

5:

6:

7:

8:

9:


10:

11:

12:

 

Am I right in reading the last signature as "Alf M Landon"?

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alf_Landon

 

Bakers, that is how I read the signature.

And I think another is Carrie Jacobs-Bond, the singer, pianist and songwriter

 

Ann Harding was an actress.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ann_Harding

Debora

 

i like the Cobb one !!

 

Lawrence Tibbett (I thought at first it was Tillett) was a famous opera singer and radio personality.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Tibbett

 

Have nothing to add other than these are tremendously interesting! Someone in the 1930s--guessing a woman? socialite? must have asked for a handkerchief from all these people (many famous) and gotten a signature during travels. The handkerchiefs are so varied, in style and wear, some pressed, some not, that they almost certainly came from the people who signed them. My mind just is spinning at the story behind this. If only they could talk!

You mentioned 50, are most of them signed?

 

Lucille, I'll be taking photos of the rest and adding them to the thread. Will take a few days though!

 

At first I thought "Why'd she write on them?" but now those signatures make them very cool !

 

Here's 5 more:
13:

14:

15:

16:

17:

 

Here's your last guy - "Major" Edward Bowes - another radio personality.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bowes

 

You're on a roll Bakers

 

You're welcome! It certainly helps to have been born in the US at a time that some of these people will still "alive," either literally or in the general cultural consciousness.

 

Gladys Swarthout was another opera singer.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gladys_Swarthout

I'm beginning to wonder whether there's a pattern here.

 

Here's the only "notable" George Ade I could find. Given his fame as an author, playwright and newspaper columnist, he's at least possible.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Ade

 

Yet another musical entertainment character, Wayne King.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayne_King

 

Definitely a pattern.

Though who was Lucile Biggerstaff

 

I couldn't narrow down anything about "Harry G Mills, organist, Hammond organ" but it turns out that Frank W. Asper was organist for the Mormon Tabernacle in Salt Lake (as well as organist for the First Methodist Church in Salt Lake.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_W._Asper

If the "collector" actually got these while on trips, the Mills and Slaton ones might relate to Frank Asper.

I was starting to wonder whether the hankies had been mailed over here as "fan mail" since so many of the signers were on the radio. Now I'm not so sure.

 

That's an interesting question. The line below says Flood of 1937, and there was a huge storm/hurricane devastating many parts of the eastern US that year. The only thing that might relate to her is a link I saw to a probate case (1947) that listed a Lucille Biggerstaff as (apparently) an owner of a hotel. Perhaps your "collector" was over here at that time and was staying in the hotel. I'll go back to look later (on my way out for a while.)