The Soap King of Commercial Street
A scrappy local manufacturer stakes his claim on the burgeoning Seattle market with a pitch for home-grown goods.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Puget Sound Soap Factory. O. M'Cormick & Co., Proprietors. Corner Main and Second Streets. The very best quality of Family Soap manufactured and for sale at San Francisco prices. Soap of all kinds made to order. Special: Men and women should not fail to examine our Soap; it is better than imported and much cheaper—only five cents a gallon.
“The very best quality of Family Soap manufactured and for sale at San Francisco prices.”
This 1870s advertisement captures a Seattle at the cusp of industrialization, when 'local versus imported' was the primary battleground for commerce. Today, the debate has shifted from soap to software and housing, but the impulse to support local production remains a constant in Seattle's civic identity.
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