Welcome to the spookiest time of the year, earth mortals! This week, the Hagley Vault is offering the black arts, mesmerism, and witchcraft at a low, low price, courtesy of the ca. 1902 Descriptive Catalogue of Standard Works, Treating on Occultism, Theosophy, Astrology, Mesmerism, Mind-cure, Spiritualism, Psychology, Physiology, Hygiene, Etc.
The catalog was issued by the Prospectors' and Miners' Agency of Palmyra, Pennsylvania. The company, run by Abram Gingrich Stauffer (1862-1928) and his son Oscar (1883-1943), as well as the apparently unrelated Abraham Schopp Stauffer (1887-1951), was a distributor and manufacturer of inexpensive publications, novelties, and various nostrums and elixers. The Stauffers also operated multiple similar companies, including the Electric Motor Company, Gem Novelty Company, Diamond Publishing Company, Franklin Drug Company, Smith Remedy Company, Stauffer and Company, and Hall and Company.
The Stauffers were arrested for mail fraud in 1910, accused of selling "obscene and suggestive books" as well as instruments that they claimed to locate gold, silver, oil, and hidden treasures underground. Abram G., then president of the town's board of trade, was fined $900 and sentenced to two months in jail. The other two proprietors were fined $400 and sentenced to one month in jail.
Local papers reported that business had been good for the Stauffers, though. Being among the wealthier families in town, the "divining rod trio" traveled to the jail "in style" via a taxicab to serve their sentences, during which their meals were catered by Lebanon County's best restaurants. The elder Stauffer was also granted permission to recieve visitors on Wednesdays, it being necessary to oversee his real estate operations and conduct ongoing business for the Palmyra Board of Trade. Black arts indeed!
This publication is part of Hagley Library's collection of trade catalogs. To view it in full in our Digital Archives now, just click here.