I’m not even sure where I spotted this little booklet for Faultless Starch, but I couldn’t resist buying it and bring it home. You can tell that I’m a true daughter of Gail Lee Martin who had a penchant for accumulating vintage pieces like this.
I think our interest in history and in the way that people lived in earlier generations is shared by many of my sisters too. This has Kansas City on the cover, so likely I discovered it at a yard sale on one of my visits back home.
I wondered if the little booklet might have been included in a box of starch back in the early 1900s or maybe it was a premium that you sent in a box top and a dime to get. I found an 1899 advertisement in the Emporia Democrat telling that the small book was free from the merchant upon request.
It includes some advertising text and then turns to some stories to amuse the kids.
No Sticking Irons
“Housewives who use Faultless Starch are never troubled with irons sticking and burning or scorching their clothes or linens.
It is not necessary to use any preventive for sticky irons with Faultless. It is already in the starch — so is everything else that is necessary to make it a first-class starch.
Try it just once. Learn what housewives in millions of homes have learned in the last 35 years — that it is a “Faultless” Starch.”
Faultless Starch Company, Kansas City
The booklet includes a poem, some riddles (called conundrums), and some games.
The list of state flowers gives us a hint for the date of this booklet. Arizona is not listed and it became a state in 1912. I researched the company history and found this:
I’m not much for ironing and haven’t used starch for years but couldn’t resist checking to see if Faultless Starch was still around. It is, but in a spray can now! Our grandmothers would have loved that convenience.
Discovering Mom 
How laundering our clothes has changed. Some people don’t even iron, they just fold. I’m in the group that waits until the ironing baskets are overflowing and then spend an afternoon listening to podcasts or watching TV until it’s done. It’s a long time since I used spray on starch.
LikeLike
I remember getting off the schoolbus and smelling that starchy smell when we came in the door. Mom would be ironing and listening to Sergeant Preston of the Yukon!
LikeLike
What a great post! In junior high, one of my side jobs was ironing men’s shirts ($3 a basket for clients who were housewife friends of my mom). It was cheaper for them than sending them to the laundry and I got to know a lot about starch!
LikeLike
Pingback: Cheryl’s Homemade Alphabet Soup ~ A Mixture Of Random Blogging Posts From The A to Z Challenge (2020) – ~Plucking Of My Heartstrings~
Pingback: A Is For Ads | Discovering Mom