Monday, September 18, 2017

American Can Company: "Miracle of the Can" Booklet Drawings by Barney Tobey




From the American Can Company, here is the complete "Miracle of the Can" brochure with drawings by New Yorker cartoonist Barney Tobey. This small (5" x 7") publication tells you all about canning in this undated, but most likely post-war, informational booklet. The fact that so much of it is in color, tells me that there was a sizable budget for the project. There are drawings and a couple of cartoons about cans by Mr. Tobey.

The American Can Company came to be in 1901, and was around for a good part of the century in Manhattan, and then in Connecticut. It was bought by Primerica and then Primerica was bought by Citigroup. The American Can Company is no more, as the holding companies having divested themselves from manufacturing.

The fun thing here is to imagine Mr. Tobey being asked to draw all this and to come up with some cartoons about cans. The one rule, being, of course, you CAN NOT make fun of cans.  And it is no joke! Polar history aficionados know that it was poor canning that doomed the 1845 John Franklin expedition! 

























More Barney Tobey:


B. TOBEY OF THE NEW YORKER

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