Advertising Art of Coshocton, displayed from September 13 through January 4 2004, features specialty-advertising items made in Coshocton from the 1890s through the 1950s.  Like the perfect vacation, the show will delight viewers on many levels, offering beauty, history, enchantment, and unexpected amusement.  The city of Coshocton, for many years the leading producer of advertising art in the nation, shipped their objects worldwide.  Lithographs on tin and paper, signs of every description, calendars, celluloid novelties and trays were made for breweries, soft drink manufacturers, ice cream factories, tobacco companies and so forth.  The art is sentimental, sexy, Victorian, funny, and quirky. In the early 1900s, Coshocton was second only to New York City in the size of its artist colony.  Displayed along with the advertising art will be historical documents such as proof books, catalogs, lithograph stones, and photographs of the artists and factories.

The specialty advertising industry was born in Coshocton on January 5, 1884, when a small ad was placed in the Coshocton Age.  The newspaper announced that W.W. Shaw & Co. was opening an advertising novelty business in the Forbes Building.  The success of Mr. Shaw’s venture caught the attention of two competing newspapermen, Jasper Meek and Henry Beach, who formed competing

companies.  The history of advertising art reads like a Peyton Place genealogy—as new companies were born, old ones dissolved or merged.  Only one of these original entrepreneurs still has family in the business today.  Jamie Beach, owner of The Beach Company and a sponsor of the exhibit, is the 5^th generation of Beachs in specialty advertising. 

Curators of the exhibit, William Carlisle (Cleveland area) and Joe Kreitzer (Coshocton), have been researching and collecting advertising art from Coshocton for 20 years.  They found that what started in 1886 with just three employees grew into an industry of about twelve companies in business for over five hundred years, collectively.  Nearly every family in Coshocton had a relative that worked in one of the plants.  The legacy of the industry can be seen throughout the city today.  Henry Beach donated the land for the city hospital.  Charles Frederickson (American Art Work’s president) was a founder of the country club and donated and maintained the land for the Boy Scout camp at Wills Creek.  Jay Shaw (Shaw-Barton Company), along with Edward Montgomery, established Lake Park.

The exhibition includes pieces from the following companies:  Tuscarora Advertising Co., Standard Advertising Co., The Novelty Advertising Co., Meek & Beach Co., The H.D. Beach Co., The Meek Company, Marshall Mfg., The American Art Works, W.F. Smith Co., Beach Enameling Company, Beach Leather and Beach Art Display.

Advertising Art of Coshocton is sponsored by the Beach Company and curators, William Carlisle and Joe Kreitzer.  The Ohio Arts Council helped fund this program or organization with state tax dollars to encourage economic growth, educational excellence and cultural enrichment for all Ohioans.