Fawn: An Excellent Sparkling Beverage

by Erin Doane, Curator

Many who grew up in this area remember Fawn sodas. Fawn Beverages operated as a company in Elmira Heights for forty years, producing a wide variety of fizzy soft drinks in bottles with the distinctive little deer on the front.

32 oz. bottle of Fawn, 1950s

Fawn Beverages advertisement, February 2, 1949,

Elmira Star-Gazette from fultonhistory.com

In 1934, John Woyak filed a business certificate to operate Fawn Beverages at 184 Sheridan Avenue in Elmira Heights. He was just 30 years old at the time but he already had experience running a bottling works. He had been working as proprietor of the Orange Crush Bottling Works on 11^th Street since 1929. Woyak ran Fawn Beverages for forty years. In 1947, he expanded the plant on Sheridan Avenue and in the late 1950s, his son Donald came on as a partner in the enterprise. The last listing for the company in the city directories appeared in the 1973-74 edition. Woyak moved to Florida in 1981 and lived out the rest of his years there.

Fawn bottles (left to right): 12 oz., 1 qt., 6 oz.

Prices for Fawn soda:

1940 – 25 cents for 6 12 oz. bottles

1944 – 29 cents for 3 1 qt. bottles

1956 – 89 cents for case of 24 6 oz. bottles

 While running his beverage company, Woyak was also an active member of the community. He was a member of the Elmira Heights Rotary Club and served for several years on the soft drinks committee for the club’s annual children’s Halloween party. In 1944, when El-Hi-Inn, a new organization for young people ages 13-19 in the Heights, was throwing a party, he donated a beverage cooler and 20 cases of soda for the event. He was also a generous supporter of the Chemung County Community Chest and in 1943, he served on the Elmira Heights village board. 

Wooden crate that held 1 dozen 32 oz. bottles, 1950s

Fawn Beverages advertisement, February 11, 1953,

Elmira Star-Gazette from fultonhistory.com

Fawn produced a wide selection of sodas. In the late 1930s, eight flavors were available – ginger ale, lime and lithia, club soda, birch beer, root beer, strawberry, cherry, and orange. By the 1950s, Fawn was available in 12 different flavors. Orange was particularly popular and was advertised as a “special flavor thrill.” It was made from real California oranges and oil imported from Messina in sunny Italy. All the varieties were made in Elmira’s largest bottling plant with scientifically treated and purified water that brought out the delicious fruit flavors, locked in carbonation, and added zest to the beverages, according to ad copy from the 1950s.

Fawn Beverages advertisement, July 2, 1950,

Elmira Star-Gazette from fultonhistory.com

 In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Fawn Beverages seems to have made a major newspaper adverting push. Half a dozen new print advertisements appeared in 1949 alone. The carry home carton that held six 12-ounce bottles was a major selling point. Fawn advertised on the radio as well. In 1950, the company sponsored the radio show Boston Blackie starring Richard Kollmar on WENY. The radio series, produced between 1945 and 1950, followed the adventures of Boston Blackie, a jewel thief and safecracker turned detective. From the 1930s through the 1960s, the company also sponsored a bowling team.

Fawn Beverages advertisement, September 23, 1949,

Elmira Star-Gazette from fultonhistory.com

Fawn Beverages advertisement, August 1, 1950,

Elmira Star-Gazette from fultonhistory.com

Read All About It: The Elmira Newsboys Club

You probably know that September 4 is Labor Day this year, but did you know that it is also Newspaper Carrier Day? No? Well, now you do! This fact made me recall this great photograph in our collection, showing the Elmira Newsboys Club. This got me wondering what I could find out about their organization.

The Newsboys in their clubhouse. The image below is from the newspaper, so the quality isn't as good (except for the rip in the original above), but it does include their names.

  In the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries, Elmira’s newspapers, the Advertiser, Daily Gazette and Free Press (later the Star-Gazette), and the Telegram, used newsboys to sell their daily papers. Newsboys were seen as entrepreneuring young men, but who could also be prone to a bit of mischief. There was an issue with newsboys hopping on trains without paying in order to move faster through their routes and to sell to passengers onboard. Still, many people were fond of the boys and they usually got generous tips and gifts around holidays.

Christmas and New Years' appeals like these were common. This one features a picture of my favorite Elmiran of all time, Colonel

In 1907, an official Elmira Newsboys Club formed. They met weekly at the YMCA, where they had a variety of guest speakers and visitors, who spoke on everything from health and hygiene to leadership to adventure travel. At each meeting, local women’s charitable groups served the boys dinner. Afterwards, the boys played in the YMCA’s gym and pool. The newsboys, who were mostly between 13 and 14 years old, were given clubhouse furnishings by local businessmen, some of whom had delivered papers in their own youth. By the second meeting, they had almost 20 dues-paying members. 

In that first year, an April banquet got pretty raucous. It involved thrown food, boys falling out of their chairs, confusing cheese and butter, and more questionable table manners. They were a spirited group!

In August 1907, the Elmira Newsboys Club took that energy on their first annual outing. The boys, who governed their own club, raised enough funds to pay for a trip to Watkins Glen. None of the boys had ever been to Watkins before. They took a steamer boat ride on Seneca Lake, which was offered to the club at a discounted rate. 

Invoice showing a Telegram newsboy, 1892

The first president of the Elmira Newsboys Club was “Joe the Newsboy.” Joe was an Armenian immigrant who was well-known and liked and most likely a good deal older than the rest of the boys. Joe’s full name is a little hard to discern. In the newspapers, his name was spelled in the following ways: Hosep Kumrou, Joseph Kroumrou, Housep Kmorou, Housep Koumrou, Joseph Komrouian, and Housef Koumrouryan. For simplicity’s sake in this post, I’ll just stick with “Joe.” Joe, with his ambition, out-going personality, and broken English, was sometimes the butt of local jokes. He wrote a letter to the newspaper after he was satirically called “Joe the Nuisance” in an article.

Joe the Newsboy

Joe the Newsboy represented the club at the Jamestown Exposition, a world’s fair held in Virginia in 1907. He sold papers there and by all accounts had a great time. He sent letters to the club members. Once, Joe sent back a phonograph record of his voice. This gift was well-received: “The newsboys have been doing little else today except listening to Joe’s voice on the record as he makes his greeting to them over and over again.”

In September 1907, Joe returned from the Jamestown Exposition. He was in poor health and decided to move to Los Angeles, California for the better weather. When he left Elmira, the newsboys accompanied him to the train station and saw him off. It was said that “no one has been more faithful and more persistent in speaking well of Elmira than he.” Joe died in Los Angeles on April 28, 1916 after a long illness. He was buried in Los Angeles. 

The Elmira Newsboys Club continued on. They still had weekly meetings through the 1920s at least. They had a baseball team through the 1910s. The club reorganized in 1923 and seemed to meet more sporadically through the 1930s and 1940s. 

Elmira Star-Gazette carrier route book belonging to newsboy T. Clair Perkin, ca. 1930s (above and below).

Elmira Star-Gazette carrier route book belonging to newsboy T. Clair Perkin, ca. 1930s (above and below).

Birth of a Nation

By Rachel Dworkin, Archivist

D.W. Griffith’s film The Birth of a Nation (1915) played an important role in the rise of the Ku Klux Klan during the 1910s and 20s. Based off of the 1905 novel The Clansman: An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan, the film portrayed the Klan, not as the anti-Black terrorist organization that it was, but as the valiant defenders of the Reconstruction-era South. It was seen by over 4 million people in its initial run and approximately 200 million more before World War II thanks subsequent re-releases in 1921, 1922 and 1930. At this same time, the Klan expanded from practically nothing in 1915 to 4 million members at its peak in the mid-1920s.

Even at the time, people recognized that the racially charged film posed a threat to Blacks. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) tried to organize a national boycott out of fear the film would be dangerous. And it was. Not only were Klan recruiters operating just outside the in some towns, in Lafayette, Indiana a white man murdered a black teenager after seeing the movie and there were reports of assaults by gangs of armed white men in other cities. Blacks and their allies organized mass demonstrations against the film in Boston and Philadelphia. The film was banned in Ohio, Colorado, and twelve mid-Western cities on the grounds that it was too inflammatory.

Lyceum Theatre

There was a movement in Elmira to ban the movie here. It was scheduled to open at the Lyceum Theatre on evening of January 3, 1916. On the evening of January 2^nd, a group of concerned Black citizens met at the Temperance Hall on Dickinson Street to organize a protest. Like the national NAACP, they were appalled both by the film’s depiction of blacks and its capacity to incite inter-racial conflict.  After some discussion, they formed a committee to draft and present the following petition to the mayor calling for the film to be banned in the city:  

“We, the colored citizens of the city of Elmira, N.Y., protest against the D.W. Griffith photoplay…known as The Birth of a Nation on the grounds that it will embitter and disorganize society, because it has reactionary effects on the political life of the community.  Because it is a travesty on history – a breeder of racial antipathy, magnifying the fault of the colored race, while glorifying the lawlessness of the whites.   Because the producer seems to have followed the principal of gathering together the most vicious and grotesque individuals he could find among the colored people and showing them as representatives of the entire race.  Because it is shown to humiliate and embarrass the blacks and misrepresent a cause to northern whites.  Last but not least, it is contrary to our Lord and Savior, who said “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

The committee represented a wide cross section of Elmira’s Black community.  It was chaired by Peter White, a pressman for the Elmira Advertiser newspaper.  From the wealthier end of the spectrum it included Rev. William Coffey, the pastor of Bethel A.M.E. Zion Church, and small business owners Don Cameron (barber) and Walter F. Steward (housepainter).  Other members included James Armstrong, an unskilled laborer; Guy Powell, a railroad porter; and Joseph Thompson, a chauffeur. They hired white attorney Michael O’Connor to help them present their case to Mayor Harry N. Hoffman. 

James Armstrong, unskilled laborer and activist

On January 3^rd, every paper in the city ran the petition.  Mayor Hoffman arranged for a special review of the film by City officials in order to evaluate the film.  After careful review, Mayor Hoffman decided to allow the Lyceum to show the film, but demanded that several particularly offensive scenes be cut, including the attempted rape of a white girl by a man in black face.  During the ensuing lawsuit brought by the theater, the attorneys for the city successfully argued the mayor’s right to censor such a morally dangerous film. 

 An unknown number of Chemung County residents saw the film, but it was probably a lot. It ran twice a day for a week and the local trolley lines offered discounted rides to out-of-town movie goers. The reviews in local newspapers were mixed. The Elmira Herald said that the Blacks had just cause to be upset, but warned viewers not to take the movie too seriously. The Elmira Star-Gazette described it as “the most stupendous motion picture spectacle ever attempted,” but conceded the faults of Blacks may have been exaggerated. Only the Elmira Advertiser was unequivocal in its condemnation saying: “as a great spectacular production this photoplay is a success.  As a historical representation of the times and period it is supposed to depict, it is worse than a failure: it is rank libel.”

Program for the Birth of a Nation, shown at Lyceum Theatre, week of January 3, 1916