In a seemingly never-ending bid to garner the
attention and interest of farmers everywhere, the storied Aultman
& Taylor Co. of Mansfield, Ohio, produced some of the finest
farm ads of its day, including spectacular
watercolor farm paintings — produced, it’s assumed, for its many
catalogs.
Reader Calvin Whitaker,
who’s particularly interested in material from the old threshing
and agricultural steam engine manufacturers, shared a number of pieces in his collection with us.
Calvin has little information on the material, but an educated
guess would date those he sent to the mid-1880s, a period in which
Aultman & Taylor was especially active with colorful promotions
of its products. In January 1892, Aultman & Taylor mailed out
540,000 pieces of mail, the largest quantity of material ever sent
out by one firm in Mansfield. FC
