Alvah Edwards Simpson was born to Mary Alice Edwards and James Hugh Simpson on November 22, 1883 in Greigsville, New York, not far from Rochester. Simpson worked on the family farm until 1905 when he joined the Allen S. Olmstead Company of Le Roy, N.Y, selling over-the-counter home remedies such as Allen's Foot-Ease and Mother Gray's Sweet Powder for Children. During the first year and a half Simpson worked for Olmstead, he remained relatively close to home, selling products to general merchandise and drug stores in New York and Pennsylvania. Despite Simpson's travels, he frequently returned home to assist with the harvest and slaughter of hogs on his family's farm. Beginning in 1907 Simpson's work as a salesman took him to distant areas of the country, including Kansas City, Chicago, Des Moines, Omaha, Sioux City, and Denver. In Denver he met Jennie Davies, whom he married in the summer of 1908.
Soon after their marriage, the Simpsons bought a grocery store in Denver. The couple ran the store for six months before they sold it and moved to western New York in 1909. In New York Simpson began working for the O. F. Woodward Company, based in Le Roy, N.Y., which made Kemps Balsam cough syrup, Raccoon Corn Plasters, and Jell-O. Simpson spent his weekdays traveling to small towns in a horse-drawn wagon selling medicinal products and returned home for the weekends. His travels were limited to the Northeast, but took him as far as Maine and Maryland.
The following years were ones of great change for Simpson. On March 22, 1911, his son James Russell Simpson was born. Later that year the Simpson family moved to Carlisle, Pennsylvania, where Simpson formed the Guarantee Medicine Company with C. T. Baker and sold Alvah's Head-Ease, Baker's Kidney Beans, and other products. Baker and Simpson made their own products and Simpson divided his time between laboratory work and sales. When the company failed several years later, Simpson remained in Pennsylvania but resumed working for Woodward's. He focused on selling Raccoon Corn Plasters and acquired the pet raccoon "Dimples," who became known throughout the region. During this time, Simpson traveled throughout eastern New York, Pennsylvania and occasionally New England, but continued to return home to Carlisle on the weekends.
Despite his move to Pennsylvania and constant traveling, Simpson remained close to his family. Following the death in 1920 of his only sister, Ruth Simpson Bradford, Simpson actively participated in the lives of her three children. When his father died several years later, in 1927, his mother moved in with Jennie and him. Also during that year, Simpson made his final career switch and began working for the Dr. Miles Medicine Company, the maker of Alka-Seltzer. Simpson and his family returned to New York and settled first in Le Roy and finally in Batavia. His travels were focused on the New York region, but occasionally took him to nearby states.
The 1930s were a decade of change as the next generation of Simpsons matured. James Simpson went to college and eventually moved to Virginia. He married, as did his three cousins, and Alvah and Jennie frequently traveled to Virginia and New Jersey to visit the young families. Simpson began staying closer to home as his wife's health declined and she was hospitalized for several months in 1940 and again in 1941. In the spring of 1948, after a long battle with illness and several strokes, Jennie died at the age of 71. Simpson died several months later, on August 28th, at the age of 64.
This collection contains Alvah Simpson's forty-four journals, twenty-nine expense account books, and miscellaneous papers. These documents touch on both his professional and personal life, covering the years between 1905 and 1948.
Simpson used yearly, pre-printed volumes and wrote virtually daily entries beginning in 1905 until his wife's death in 1948. His expense accounts are less complete, beginning in 1917 and ending in 1947, with gaps for the years of 1919 and 1920. Within most volumes Simpson stored loose items he collected over the course of the year, such as newspaper clippings, business cards, and receipts. These items have been removed from the volumes and are stored in folders, with all the items from a single volume housed together and labeled with the date of the volume from which they were removed.
Simpson's journal entries are brief, but cover a variety of topics. He listed the towns and cities where he sold products and described visits with family members, family illnesses, current events, weather, entertainment activities, and other events he considered noteworthy. Simpson's expense accounts note total retail and wholesale sales, as well as expenses incurred while traveling, such as gas, oil, stamps, and hotels over the course of each week. The miscellaneous section contains newspaper articles, sales advertisements, legal documents, correspondence, and genealogical material.
In addition to the totals for retail and wholesale sales found in his expense accounts, the collection contains advertisements for the products Simpson sold. A free sample of Allen's Foot-Ease and a glass syringe serve as examples of products he carried with him on his travels. The cases Simpson used to carry his samples while he worked for O. F. Woodward are also part of the collection. Simpson's address book provides names and addresses of contacts he had in New York, Pennsylvania, and Indiana. Newspaper articles, such as those regarding Simpson's pet raccoon "Dimples," demonstrate how others viewed him, including one description of Simpson as "a man with a big soft hat and a large-sized raccoon" (
The pre-printed material in the journals and expense accounts demonstrates the type of information publishers and consumers believed should be at one's fingertips during the first half of the twentieth century: printed maps, postage rates, populations of American cities, lists of legal holidays, and tips for salesmen.
The materials in the collection complement each other and help to form a fuller picture of Simpson's life. For example, Simpson's entries in the beginning of June 1934 describe his activities on a trip to Virginia to see his son James graduate from college. The expense accounts for the same period note that he spent $74.85 during his four-day trip. In addition to providing information about Simpson, the collection contains advertisements for the products he sold, which further nuance the researcher's understanding of early twentieth century marketing and consumerism.
Alvah Simpson's journals contain almost daily entries of his activities. Some of the journals provided a full page for each day, while others left room for two days on a page. All of the journals were pre-printed and frequently contained useful tips on the first twenty or last twenty pages of the volume, including legal holidays, population of major American cities, the time of sunrise and sunset, calendars, postage information, weather signs, lists of poisons and antidotes, lists of foreign nations and their capitals, business laws, and rules for calculating interest. There was often space provided in some of the journals for personal information and the 1905 volume provides Simpson's weight and height, as well as his hat, glove, collar, shoe, and shirt size.
Simpson frequently listed the various towns and cities he visited to sell products. Occasionally he noted the name of the hotel where he stayed and the cost of his stay. Simpson commented on unusual weather, such as severe storms, snow, ice, or especially beautiful weather. He noted illnesses, both his own and those of Jennie and James. Special events are recorded, such as weddings, births, and deaths, and more routine activities such as church attendance and visits with his family. Simpson also mentioned noteworthy leisure activities including the Barnum & Bailey Circus, movies, and visits to historical sites. There are some major gaps in Simpson's journals. Simpson occasionally went a month or two without writing a single entry. The first few years and last few years of his journals are especially sparse. The only entry regarding Jennie's death is a newspaper clipping pasted into the journal and there are virtually no entries in the months prior to and following her death. Simpson also rarely explicitly noted job changes or moves, though a reader can detect when these events occurred.
The items removed from the journals were originally placed between the flyleaves and covers of the volumes and consist mainly of business cards, newspaper clippings, receipts, scraps of paper with notes and arithmetic, blotters, car registrations, and hotel stationery. There are occasional references within the journals to events represented by these loose items. For example, there is a pamphlet for the floating museum the convict ship Success, which transported English debtors to Australia during the 19th century. A corresponding entry in Simpson's journal on July 18, 1928, mentions that he and James visited the boat.
Simpson's expense accounts are written in pre-printed volumes. Many of the volumes have printed information similar to that found in the journals. Several of the volumes are labeled as "Salesman's Data Books" and have advice for salesmen regarding the sale of products and dealing with customers. Most of the volumes contain several world maps in the middle. Simpson's accounts list wholesale and retail sales, and expenses for each week. Expenses include stamps, gas, oil, hotels, alcohol, and trolley fares. Many entries note the amount of cash Simpson had on hand and how much money he gave to Jennie or his niece Dorothy. It is difficult to determine Simpson's income from these accounts as there is no indication of his base salary or commission.
The items removed from expense accounts include newspaper clippings, business cards, receipts, scrap paper with notes, and other miscellaneous items.
Simpson's address book contains both personal and professional addresses. There are no dates in the volume and several addresses are crossed out and replaced with new ones, suggesting that Simpson used the volume for many years and updated it as needed.
The papers contain a variety of items relating to Simpson and the family that are not connected to any volume in particular. There are many fliers, advertisements, and letters that relate to the various companies Simpson worked for as well as an ad for the grocery story he owned in Denver. Also included are photocopies of newspaper articles that relate to Simpson's work, his raccoon "Dimples," or other family members mentioned in the media. Three certificates for membership in fraternal orders are part of this series but placed in flat file storage to accommodate their size. Various legal documents, including deeds to land, death certificates, and wills are also part of the series. James Simpson's correspondence regarding funeral arrangements after the death of his father is here. Miscellaneous items include a photograph of a truck, blank postcards, and a pogo stick ad.
This series also includes four artifacts: a glass syringe, a free sample of Allen's Foot-Ease, and two cases Simpson used while working for O. F. Woodward.
Upon arrival at HSP, the collection consisted of seventy-four volumes and a packet of papers housed in two leather cases. All loose items were removed from the volumes, unfolded and placed in folders. Papers from each volume remain together and each folder label states the volume from which they were removed. The packet of papers was arranged, with like items grouped together. The two smaller artifacts were originally housed in this packet. James Simpson's
The collection is open for research.
Gift of James R. Simpson, 2001.
Accession number: 010718.8
Cite as: [Indicate cited item or series here], Alvah E. Simpson Papers (Collection 3012), The Historical Society of Pennsylvania.