While I was at Julie's a couple of weeks ago, we took a trip down Memory Lane and had a wonderful time remembering when while looking through her parents' collection of matchbooks (I wish I had the large glass fish my parents used to store their matchbooks. I miss all we discarded throughout the years).
A little history... Although paper matches were patented in the 1880s, an early paper match "folder" was patented in September 1892 by Philadelphia patent attorney Joshua Pusey. However, the matchbook, as we know it, was patented a few weeks later by Charles Bowman.Matchbooks reached their golden age in the 1940s and 1950s, with fine artwork and a dazzling variety of types and sizes. In the mid-1980s, the American match industry collapsed, a victim of high labor costs and overseas competition, and with the current anti-smoking campaigns and disposable lighters, the easy availability of the matchbook has been on the decline since the early 1990s.Many of Julie's treasures were ones I would have found in my own collection and many are ones I wish I had today.The California Driving School is one of the largest Professional Driving Schools in America today, and one of the largest in the world. It started decades ago in Los Angeles, and has spread throughout the state. Interestingly, it taught Julie's mom when she came to California as a non-driver.Even Army Recruiting used this type of free advertising. Wild.The Space Age was depicted in matchbook art in the form of a set of 4 different designs for the NASA Lunar Missions. The Space Age is a period encompassing the activities related to the Space Race, space exploration, space technology, and the cultural developments influenced by these events, beginning with the launch of Sputnik 1 during 1957, and continuing to the present.So much evidence of 'what once was' was found including several souvenirs from casinos in Las Vegas. Imperial Palace was an Asian-themed hotel and casino that operated from 1979 to 2011.This brought back a flood of memories. My Mom and I dined at The Magic Pan and being as my Mom was a smoker, we probably had many of these around our house. The Magic Pan was a chain of full-service restaurants that specialized in crêpes, popular in the early 1970s through early 1990s. The first Magic Pan was a small place in San Francisco established by Hungarian immigrants Lazlo and Paulette Fono. The Quaker Oats Company acquired The Magic Pan in 1970, and it became the company's primary restaurant chain. I loved their split pea soup, with a dollop of sour cream (or sherry if you preferred). Wow.Jojos Restaurants was a chain from 1971-2003. I worked there for a few years until is was taken over by Coco's. Waitressing paid for my college and Jojos was a great place to work.I began in 1978 as a hostess.When I turned 18, I a transitioned to food service (where the real money was). This photo was taken in the men's room with two coworkers (I'm on the left). I'm not quite sure why this photoshoot happened but the memories the matchbook and photos evoked are good ones.Oh man, Pompeii's Nightclub in Cathedral City (Palm Springs)! This was certainly Julie's contribution to her parents' collection.Built in 1957, the building was originally a dining club called Romanoff's on the Rocks. After a number of changes in owners, it became Pompeii's Nightclub in 1983 (ten years later is was closed due to an arson fire). Everyone our age made the drive to party in this new club. Both Steve and I went separately. What a crack up.Whether the matchbook will eventually disappear all together in the future is anyone's guess. Because of its American origins, the matchbook has always been basically a phenomenon of the Western World. The rest of the world has always mainly stayed with the matchbox. One would think, at least domestically, that the matchbook would stay alive for its advertising advantages alone...we'll see. I know vintage ones are costly so maybe the powers that be will bring them back!
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