Print, Photographic

Black and white photographic print of the Collector's Corner Exhibit which features items from turn of the nineteenth century drug stores, displayed inside the Detroit Historical Museum, September - November 1967. Signage affixed to the left side of the exhibit board reads, "1895 - 1905 Drug Store, This next summer the Museum's Collector's Corner Exhibit features an array of stock items for the Kresge and Wilson 5 & 10¢ Store which is under construction in the turn-of-the-century section of the 'Streets of Detroit." Our sites for 5 & 10¢ variety-store items of this period were met with many offers and donations for which we are most grateful. Our greatest Collector's Corner Exhibit has a similar display of items needed for the turn-of-the-century Drug Stores, apothecary jars, potent medications, advertisements, soda fountain accessories, counter artifacts, toiletries, sundries, and pharmaceutical supplies. Again, if you can help us stock the shelves or have any twisted-wire ice-cream chairs and tables, please call the Museum. In the 1870s Streets, people worked themselves with patent medicines purchased in the General Store. The advertisements for such products made extravagant claims, everything from growing hair that would reach to your ankles to curing ailments of the heart, liver, kidneys, and skin disease. The turn-of-the-century Drug Store with its white-bulb electric sign and show globe of colored water was revolutionary by comparison. Staffed by a professional pharmacist, stacked in rows of glass-bottled compounds with mysterious Latin names, the Drug Store was a modern delight - and such broad appeal! A gentleman could purchase an imported 5¢ cigar, purchase prescription liquors for medicinal purposes, or select a pair of tined spectacles for bicycling or automobiling. A lady coming in for headache powder invariably went out with a few irresistibles such as a container for tooth powder or eau de fleur toilet water. When the youngsters through about the Drug Store, they pictured the soda fountain, Vernor's Ginger Ale and ice-cream in half-a-dozen flavors, insisting 'don't care' about what odds and ends mixture of all the others. We invite you to visit the Museum's ground floor, and see what is intended the construction of the turn-of-the-century 'Streets' which will be completed for the opening of the new addition, July 14, 1968."