Gravestone & Monument Design and Sales Archive of F.J. Scholz & Son, Evansville, Indiana, 1880s-1890s

Very good. Small archive consisting of: a 7.5" x 9.5" sketchbook titled "F.J. Scholz's Own Design Book," containing 38 hand-drawn designs for gravestones on 12 pages; a single 11" x 13 sheet with 9 hand-drawn monument designs by Charles Scholz dated 1885; two original photographs of monuments; six sales cards with mounted engravings of gravestone designs, each with handwritten prices and notations in German; and an 1891 business card for the Scholzs' company, Evansville Steam Marble and Granite Works. All materials in good condition, with soiling, abrasion, and other signs of use. Frederick J. Scholz (1848-1936) was born in Nashville, Illinois to German (truncated) immigrants. He attended Concordia Theological Seminary in Fort Wayne, then served as a clerk on a Mississippi River steamboat before moving in 1866 to Evansville, where he founded Evansville Steam Marble and Granite Works the same year. His son Charles joined the business in the 1880s, and in 1895 the firm name was changed to F.J. Scholz and Son. It was still operational as late as 1952. While running his business. Frederick Scholz also served as Census Commissioner for Southern Indiana in 1890 and was elected Indiana State Treasurer in 1894, serving two terms. The work in Scholz's design book and on the engraved sample cards is representative of a time when gravestones were becoming more elaborate and personal. Designs incorporate a range of religious and mourning symbols, including crosses, doves, an anchor and bible, a lamb nestled in a seashell, a hand pointing upward, hands grasped in friendship, a weeping willow, wreaths, roses, lilies, and other flowers. One monument includes a complex carving of tasseled cloth draped over the stone, another has detailed stalks of ripened corn running the length of one side. Makers of these stones--which were offered in both domestic and imported marble and granite--needed a way to showcase the breadth of their offerings. Often that was done through showrooms, but this book appears to have have been used to help solicit business from customers far from Evansville. "Henry Knackstedt, Inman, McPherson Co., Kansas" is handwritten on the front pastedown, and the same name is written at the bottom of the business card. An 1891 Kansas newspaper notes that "Henry Knackstedt, representative of the Evansville Steam Marble and Granite Works of Evansville, Ind., was in Haven Tuesday soliciting orders for the firm." That, coupled with the fact that this collection of materials came to us from Kansas, leads us to believe that these were essentially a salesman's kit, of interest not only for the design elements, but for what it shows about the scope and sale methods of the American funerary monument business in the late 19th century. (Inventory #: 22730)