Television Suits You

In the second half of the twentieth century, the Botany 500 name for the wardrobe ending credits of many television programs was as common as Gunsmoke. The brand's association with television personalities helped it become a household name. Throughout the 1970s, Botany 500 provided menswear for many game show hosts and countless television stars. That list can be found online. Botany 500 often paid for the clothes of television celebrities and did not always provide the clothes themselves. They were sometimes custom-made by other tailors.

Botany 500 was a brand name owned by the Botany 500 Group of New York. Beginning in 1889, their men's suits and sport coats were manufactured in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, by H. Daroff and Sons, who were contracted with Botany Mills of Passaic, New Jersey, to produce products and later bought the firm outright. Given the exaggerated proportions of the 1949 illustrated man above, one could assume he was once the center of an NBA team. His forty-inch inseam would not be a challenge for Daroff.

Daroff and Sons and the Botany group went bankrupt in the summer of 1973. An attempt was made to turn the company over to another company, still operating profitably. Because of resistance by the company's employees, they backed out of the deal. By the winter of 1973, Cohen and Sons bought the Botany 500 name and assets for $4 million. They planned to keep the labels, marketing, sales, and distribution of Botany as a separate Botany 500 line produced in Philadelphia.
The Botany 500 name lives on as a licensed property of several foreign clothing manufacturers, ending the exclusivity of Botany 500's glory days. In 2021, the Botany 500 name resurfaced as a brand name sold by the mail-order company Haband. 

Getting Your Bearings

The above 1940s Timken promotional advertisement showcases a futuristic design for the truck of the future, a concept created by NYC industrial designer Lurelle Guild (1898-1985). He was quite optimistic about manufacturers bringing his truck concept to reality. Only with Timken axles, of course. Among his designs displayed in art museums was his iconic cylindrical design of the 1937 Electrolux vacuum cleaner. A modified model even became a laser weapon prop in the movie, Superman and the Mole Men (1951).

 
The German-born Henry Timken (1831-1909) could not possibly have imagined such fantastic transportation in 1888. But one cannot move a wheel without bearings. He obtained a patent for an improved tapered roller bearing, and in 1899, incorporated The Timken Roller Bearing Axle Company in St. Louis. The company moved to Canton, Ohio, in 1901 as the automobile industry began to overtake the carriage industry. 

Timken entered international markets in the early 1900s, initially in Great Britain, France, and Germany. The performance of Timken bearings in the First World War made an impression on the European bearing market. Timken production increased dramatically during the Second World War to keep up with wartime demand. Every U.S. Jeep was built using 24 Timken bearings. It resulted in delivering more than 15.8 million bearings for those vehicles over the course of the war.

Starting in the 1960s, Timken saw greater worldwide expansion. With the purchase of a major competitor, the company doubled in size in the early twenty-first century. Today, the Timken Company is a global manufacturer of bearings and power transmission products operating in forty-two countries. Apparently, Guild's "future truck" is yet to come.

Nebraska's Official Soft Drink

Kool-Aid was invented by Edwin Perkins (1889-1961) in Hastings, Nebraska in 1927. As a boy working in his family’s general store, Perkins became interested in a new powdered dessert mix named Jell-O and persuaded his father to carry it in the store. Kool-Aid's predecessor was called Fruit Smack, a bottled soft drink concentrate in six flavors. All of Perkin's experiments took place in his mother's kitchen. To reduce shipping costs, Perkins discovered a way to remove the liquid from Fruit Smack, leaving only a powder. Perkins moved his production to Chicago in 1931 and Kool-Aid was sold to General Foods in 1953. A yearly summer festival in Hastings celebrates with Kool-Aid Days on the second weekend in August in honor of their city's claim to fame. It is Nebraska's official soft drink.

Additional Kool-Aid details can be found here.