Call Number:

Ms. Coll. 1242

Repository:

University of Pennsylvania: Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts

Extent:

0.2 linear feet (1 box)

Language:

English

Preferred Citation:

Charles Frost correspondence relating to his Comprehensive Calendar, 1883-1896, Ms. Coll. 1242, Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, University of Pennsylvania

Date:

1883-1896 (inclusive)

Creator:

Frost, Charles W.

Form:

Financial records, Correspondence, and Advertisements

Abstract:

Charles W. Frost (1848-1939) was an advertising agent in Philadelphia who published a Comprehensive Calendar (a 250-year calendar beginning in 1753 and ending in 2002). This collection contains letters largely addressed to Frost relating almost exclusively to the perpetual calendar.

Charles W. Frost (1848-1939) was an advertising agent in Philadelphia. He was also the owner of the Frost Block Company, a firm that manufactured building blocks, toys and novelties. According to the 1884 U.S. Patent Office, Frost had the patent for both the 200-year comprehensive calendar and the toy building block. He published Frost's Comprehensive Calendar in order to sell advertising and also to gather potential customers for his advertisers' businesses. An advertisement for the calendar, itself, describes it as "a compact and useful perpetual calendar, giving the entire annual calendars for any year in the present century, and one hundred and fifty others."

He was married to Isabel Freeman Frost, a member of a prominent Philadelphia family.

This collection dates from 1883 to 1896 and includes 41 letters, two of which were sent by Frost. These letters, almost exclusively, concern Frost's Comprehensive Calendar, a 250-year calendar beginning in 1753 and ending in 2002. This calendar was used primarily for advertising purposes, but may also have been used to gather names and addresses of people requesting a calendar--all of whom became potential customers for his advertisers' businesses.

The numerous letters addressed to Frost place orders for calendars, make enquiries about them, or concern suggestions for improvements or the publishing of "decorative" or "artistic calendars." One correspondent, a journalist called Charles Marseilles of Exeter, New Hampshire, was a calendar collector and several letters relate to a competition in which contestants sent lists of names and addresses to Frost. Many letters reference advertisements in Ladies Home Journal and The Market Journal, and both letters written by Frost make reference to his correspondents being referred to him by the magazine publishing firm, Curtis Publishing Company, which employed Edward Bok as editor of Ladies Home Journal. Several letters are addressed directly to Curtis Publishing Company and/or Edward Bok and request the electrotype plates of the calendar. Other correspondents include the manager of the advertising department of The Medical Record and N.B. Kneass, Jr. of Philadelphia, "Publisher for the Blind."