Part 581: Deeds & Funk, the Ad Men
A number of studios specializing advertising curtains appeared during the first decade of the twentieth century. Many were short-lived, such as Deeds & Funk. Advertisements for available spaces were placed Deeds & Funk placed in local newspapers, noting various reasons to purchase an ad space. One included, “Because the rates are lower in proportion than any other advertising. It reaches more people than any other ad you can place.”
In 1904, the “Morning Register” included an interesting announcement by “Deeds & Funk, the Ad Men” (Eugene, Oregon, 3 July 1904, page 2):
“Two Classes of people who do not attend the theater. Those who do not believe in such a place of entertainment, and those who are physically incapacitated, aside from these two classes, upon some one occasion or another during the eighty times or more every year that this local opera house is used, nearly every man, woman, and child in this city, and surrounding community attend. At a cost of not exceeding 25 cents, nor less than 12 ½ cents each night, you can put an ad where they can not help but read it, namely on a new scenic ad curtain in a space of no less than eight and up to twenty square feet.
It is a straight, honest, publicity, recognized and used as such by leading merchants throughout the world. The curtains contain over six hundred square feet, and as two-fifths of it is devoted to scenery and draperies, it is a work of art as well as a splendid advertising medium.
There are about twenty-five spaces and each space is separate and by itself.
Ten of the leading business firms of Eugene have already engaged spaces, and their ads are now being artistically arranged and painted in their separated spaces.
Think it over. We’ll call on you if you don’t call on us.
It’s Good and it Catches the eye.
That’s the way it strikes us.
How does it strike you?
(signed) Deeds & Funk, the Ad Men”
Deeds & Funk of Los Angeles and Sacramento owned and operated over 40 advertising curtains in California and Oregon during 1904 (Rosenburg Review, 16 June 1904, page 2). In 1904, they created an advertising curtain for the theater in Eugene, Oregon. The Eugene “Morning Register” elaborated, “they have on their list 50 curtains they have designed between Eugene and their home city, the last one completed at Rosenburg” (Morning Register, Eugene, Oregon, 29 June 1904, page 8). The article’s heading noted that the new Eugene Theatre was “ready of the cards of Eugene business firms,” explaining “The curtain is now ready for the advertisements of representative business firms at a reasonable figure, putting the finishing to a drop curtain the equal for beauty of any found in the state.”
To be continued…
