Rockville Garage Hudson Motor Car Ads (1919-1920)
The advertisements in this post do more than just simply pitch a product, they capture a moment in history. A moment in history when Lewis Reed’s Rockville Garage represented several franchise nameplates along with Dodge, including Oldsmobile, Hudson, and Essex. The Hudson and Oldsmobile were sold at Reed Brothers from roughly 1917 through 1923.
Hudson introduced the Essex brand in 1919. The Essex was intended to compete with Ford and Chevrolet for budget-minded buyers. The Essex offered one of the first affordable sedans and by 1925 the combined Hudson and Essex sales made Hudson the third largest automobile manufacturer in the United States.
Prior to the advent of television and radio advertising, print media was the most popular form of advertising and most car ads were black and white. The following ads distributed by the Lambert Automobile Company in The Baltimore Sun newspaper advertises the Hudson and Essex automobiles.
In addition to franchise car dealers, there were also factory stores. In the early days, the factory stores did the national advertising. A factory store, also known as a branch store or branch dealer, was a dealership owned and run by the manufacturer. A list of area Dealers was placed in fine print at the bottom of the ads. Rockville Garage, Rockville, Md, is highlighted in yellow on each of these ads.
The Baltimore Sun 2 March 1919
By the 1920s, Hudson and Essex Motor Car advertisements featured elegant architectural borders with static drawings of their cars; some ads never pictured people during this period.
The Baltimore Sun 30 May 1920
The Baltimore Sun 29 Aug 1920
The Baltimore Sun 25 Jan 1920
The Baltimore Sun 24 Oct 1920
The Baltimore Sun 21 Nov 1920
The Baltimore Sun 17 Oct 1920
The Baltimore Sun 13 Jun 1920
The Baltimore Sun 10 Oct 1920
The Baltimore Sun 1 Feb 1920
The Baltimore Sun 3 Oct 1920
The Baltimore Sun 28 Mar 1920
The Baltimore Sun 30 Sep 1920
The Baltimore Sun 5 Mar 1922
A lot of old newspapers have found their way online and with digital archival, it’s easier to take a trip back through old newspapers than ever before. These ads were found on NewspaperARCHIVE.com, the largest historical newspaper database online.
Meet Grafton Reed
Grafton Reed, Mechanic
Lewis Reed’s Rockville Garage started Sales and Service operations in 1915 with a handful of key employees. The original Rockville Garage, located at the intersection of Veirs Mill Road and Rockville Pike, had a 15-car capacity as well as a single gas pump. Grafton Reed was a brother of Lewis Reed and a part of the dealership’s first work force. Grafton started working as a mechanic at the dealership in ca. 1918. According to his U.S. World War I Draft Registration Card, 1917-1918, his occupation at the time was listed as Garage Manager, Rockville Garage.
Grafton Reed (1885-1939)
Meet Phillip Reed
1916 – First Shop Force: Lewis Reed, (first name unknown) Long and Phillip Reed
Reed Brothers Dodge started Sales and Service operations in 1915 with a handful of key employees. Phillip Reed was a brother of Lewis Reed and a part of the dealership’s first work force. Phillip came to work for the dealership in 1916 as a mechanic until 1944. He was an original incorporator and charter member of the Rockville Volunteer Fire Department when the fire company was organized on March 9, 1921.
Phillip Reed
Tent Sales: What 90 Years of Change Looks Like
Pictured below are Reed Brothers tent sales 90 years apart, in 1918 and 2008. The black and white photograph below was taken by Lewis Reed in 1918 showing Rockville Garage displaying their new models at the Rockville Fair Grounds. The annual County Fair used to be held for four days in the month of August at the old Fairgrounds of Rockville, Maryland. Families came from every section of the Montgomery County in wagons and carriages, and stayed for the duration of the Fair. The Fair gave automobile dealers the opportunity to display their new models.
1918 Rockville Garage tent displaying Hudson Super Six, Oldsmobile, and Dodge Brothers Motor Cars at the Rockville Fair Grounds
The color photo below was taken some 90 years later in 2008, “Let’s Refuel America!” Tent Promo at Reed Brothers Dodge that let consumers lock in gas prices at $2.99 for three years. The novel Chrysler incentive offer was introduced at a time when high gas prices hammered sales of SUVs and trucks that dominated Chrysler’s line-up and was a way to help move the 2008 model gas guzzlers off the lot.
2008 Tent Promo at Reed Brothers Dodge
Dodge Car “Cathedral Lights”
1917 Rockville Garage
Until 1920, Dodge sported a set of six hexagonal windows in the back of each passenger cabin on both their Touring and Roaster models. These were called “cathedral lights” and became the first trademark feature to make Dodge vehicles stand out from the rest. This 1917 photo of Lewis Reed’s Rockville Garage shows an early Dodge Motor Car parked in front with the exclusive Dodge Brothers cathedral-style rear curtain windows.
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Copyright Notice
Reed Brothers Dodge History (1915-2012) by Jeanne Gartner is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.
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