When was it made? How was it used? Who made it? Where was it made?
It will be the goal of this new series to try and shed some light on items that might get overshadowed by the gestalt picture of the museum. We have amidst our collections some very cool and interesting artifacts that I believe deserve their fair due. I will do my best to provide an in depth history of some of the more intriguing items the Kregel Windmill Factory Museum has to offer.
Due to recent inquiry by a visitor, the first artifact spotlight in this series will be the advertising projection slides that were found here at the museum a few months back.
These slides were originally produced for use by projectionists in cinemas to advertise local businesses during breaks between films or changing reels. Arthur Kregel's brother, Robert, owned an auto repair shop here in Nebraska City from 1910 to 1948. The photo slides that were found in the museum are advertisements for Kregel Brothers Auto Repair, originally viewed during film screenings throughout 1923.
In attempting to find more information regarding slides like these, and where these slides came from, I hit quite a brick wall. The company that produced these slides was the Wheel-Sheridan Corporation out of Los Angeles. As it states on the slides the company was operating under the name American Photo-Slide Company. When I tried to do some research on the American Photo-Slide Company, or Wheeler-Sheridan, I came up with almost nothing. That's an extremely odd occurrence in the age of technology. The only reference to the company that I found came from a listing in the Southwest Builder and Contractor, a widely distributed industry magazine of the time. The magazine shows that the company had "changes on permit #580" on June 25th, 1920. However there is no other mention of the company or its history anywhere that I could find.
I know that this is a fairly short introduction to this new blogpost series but I will continue to look for more information on these slides. There isn't a lot out there about this form of advertisement in general, let alone these specific pieces. Hopefully I can dig something else up on these and give an update in a little while. In the mean time, here are some more pictures of the slides we have here at the KWFM. Thanks for stopping by and may your blades always catch the wind!
