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Strange Whims of Crest Fiends: Marketing Heraldry in the United States, 1880–1980

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 May 2015

FORREST D. PASS
FORREST D. PASS*
Affiliation:
Research Division, Canadian Museum of History, Gatineau, Quebec. Email: forrest.pass@historymuseum.ca.
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Abstract

The display of a “family crest” to signal family identity is prevalent in the contemporary United States. However, during the Gilded Age of the late nineteenth century, many American commentators perceived the widespread use of heraldry by the high bourgeoisie as at best a mark of social pretension and at worst a symptom of an un-American predilection for aristocracy. Over the course of a century, heraldic entrepreneurs sought to broaden the market for family crests, and in doing so Americanized heraldic practice. The early projects of Albert Welles, Frank Allaben and Frances M. Smith linked heraldry with new approaches to genealogical research and encouraged its use by a broad cross section of American society. In the late twentieth century, entrepreneur Gary Halbert sold millions of heraldic mementos that epitomized the modern commodification of history and identity. The result of a century of marketing is an American heraldry that is both more accessible than its European antecedents and less closely tied to verifiable genealogical relationships.

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Journal of American Studies , Volume 50 , Issue 3 , August 2016 , pp. 587 - 611
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press and British Association for American Studies 2015 

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36 For the byzantine relationship between the Frank Allaben Genealogical Company, the National Historical Society and the National Historical Company see NYPL, Allaben–Washburn Papers, Box 6, National Historical Society Minute Book, 16 Nov. 1915, 5 Jan. 1916, 15 Jan. 1921, 25 Feb. 1926, 21 May 1926.

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43 Reprinted from the Chicago Times in “A Coat of Arms,” Daily Tribune (Bismarck, ND), 20 Feb. 1887.

44 NYPL, Allaben–Washburn Papers, Box 2, “National Historical Society” File, Affidavit of Mabel T. R. Washburn, Feb. 1927.

45 Eleanor Lexington, “A Strawberry Party,” Morning Oregonian (Portland), 16 June 1895; “Guest-Room Verses,” Morning Oregonian (Portland), 26 May 1895; “Swimming Parties,” Weekly Miner (Butte, MT), 3 March 1898; Eleanor Lexington, “A Corner in Ancestors,” Times Dispatch (Richmond, VA), 7 June 1903; Frances M. Smith, “About Our Ancestors,” Cinncinati Enquirer, 12 June 1921. That Frances M. Smith and Eleanor Lexington were one and the same is attested in the byline of certain instalments of “A Corner in Ancestors” and in United States, Library of Congress, Catalogue of Copyright Entries: Part 1: Books (Group 2), new series, 6 (1909), 5229.

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49 Prices listed in the inside cover of Smith, Loomis Family.

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55 “Thank God Not Everything Printed by the U. S. Government Loses Its Value,” Barron's National Business and Financial Weekly, 29 Sept. 1975; Halbert, Gary, Killer Orgasms: How to Have the Best Sex Humanly Possible (Ocala, FL: privately printed, 2004)Google Scholar. For Halbert's persistent following see, for example, “The Secret Psychology Behind One of the Most Widely Mailed Sales Letters in History Even Today's Best Copywriters Don't See!”, online at http://garyhalbert.com/coatofarmsdetails, accessed 19 Jan. 2014; and “Joe Polish shares Gary Halbert Strategies at Dan Kennedy SuperConference,” online at http://ilovemarketing.com/very-rare-gary-halbert-consultation-recordings, accessed 19 Jan. 2014.

56 The business model was described succinctly in Gary C. Halbert and Nancy L. Halbert v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue (1978), T. C. Memo 1978–88; 1978 Tax Ct. Memo LEXIS 428; 37 T.C. M. (CCH) 408; T.C. M. (RIA) 780088.

57 Weil, Family Trees, 182, 190–91; Rangel, M. A., “Some Notes on the Future of American Heraldry,” Coat of Arms, 6, 47 (1961), 285–89Google Scholar.

58 “Judge Gives Man in Bicentennial Fraud 18 Months,” Los Angeles Times, 27 Sept. 1978; Gary C. Halbert and Nancy L. Halbert v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue (1978), T. C. Memo 1978–88; 1978 Tax Ct. Memo LEXIS 428; 37 T.C. M. (CCH) 408; T.C. M. (RIA) 780088.

59 “Action Express,” Chicago Tribune, 12 June 1974.

60 “Evidence taken in Provincial Court … R. v. Sovereign Seat Cover Manufacturing Co.,” unpublished typescript in the Library of the Canadian Heraldic Authority, Ottawa, 79–81.

61 R. A. Epperson, “Apperson or Epperson?”, Epperson Family Reference, c.2009, at http://bobepperson.com/epporapp.htm, accessed 19 Jan. 2014.

62 Robert A. Malseed, “Coat of Arms,” Malseed Genealogy and Family History, c.2007, online at www.malseed.com/malseeds/coat_of_arms/coat_of_arms.htm, accessed 19 Jan. 2014.

63 J. J. A. Welsman, “The Welsman Memorandums,” Welsman & Milloy Family Tree Pages, 1988, online at www.welsman.ca/histories/JAWelsman.php, accessed 19 Jan. 2014.

64 A prospectus for “Hall of Names” software, a proprietary heraldic production tool used by many shopping mall family crest kiosks and souvenir shops at heritage sites, promises that a sophisticated surname-matching algorithm ensures that “nobody should be turned away!” Swyrich Corporation, “Hall of Names Licensee Program” (2012), online at www.hallofnames.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/HallofNames_Licensee_Information.pdf, accessed 19 Jan. 2014, 16.

65 The coats of arms of Canada and of the United Kingdom are examples of quarterings. So too are the seals of the City and County of Los Angeles and the State of Wisconsin.

66 Tuininga.org, “Tuininga Family Crests,” n.d., online at www.tuininga.org/crests.html, accessed 19 Jan. 2014; the Gura Family, “Coat of Arms – Gura,” n.d., online at www.gura.name/coatofarms, accessed 19 Jan. 2014.

67 The Swetland Family Association, “Coat of Arms,” 2008, online at www.swetland.org/Subfolders/Misc/CoA.html, accessed 19 Jan. 2014.

68 Scott-Giles, C. Wilfrid, The Romance of Heraldry, rev. edn (London: J. M. Dent and Sons, 1965), 2Google Scholar; Cheesman, Clive, “Partridges: The History of a Prohibition,” Coat of Arms, 3rd series, 4, 215 (2008), 29–62 Google Scholar; “Some Aspects of the ‘Crisis of Heraldry’,” Coat of Arms, 3rd series, 6, 2 (2010), 67 Google Scholar.

69 On the assumed heritability of a wide range of character traits see Sweeney, “Ancestors, Avotaynu, Roots.”

70 The inflation corrections for Welles and Allaben's products are based on the 1880, 1910 and 2003 figures in the David-Solar Consumer Price Index Series, Historical Statistics of the United States, Volume III (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 158–9Google Scholar, Table Cc-2. Other price figures are derived using the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Price Index Inflation Calculator, online at www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm, accessed 19 Jan. 2014.

71 “Evidence taken in Provincial Court,” 11–12.

72 Lears, No Place of Grace, 302.

73 Weil, Family Trees, 182.

74 Witheridge, John, “Commercial Family History Publications,” Journal of One-Name Studies, 5, 6 (1995), 181–83Google Scholar; Richardson, J. A. C., “What Do Others Think of Us?”, Journal of One-Name Studies, 6, 6 (1998), 135–36Google Scholar. Lists of persons bearing the same surname, culled from telephone books and illustrated with coats of arms, were added to Halbert's offerings in the 1980s. Representative examples from the author's collection include Taylor, Sharon, The Amazing Story of the Valentines in Canada (Bath, OH: Halbert's, 1983)Google Scholar; The Burke's Peerage World Book of Garneaus (Bath, OH: Halbert's Family Heritage, 1994)Google Scholar; and The World Book of Adriaenssens (Bath, OH: Halbert's Family Heritage, 1995)Google Scholar.

75 Victor, Mrs. Rasher's Curtain Lectures, 269–70.