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Brown Brothers, photog.

[Photo lot picturing the operation of Loft’s Candy in Long Island City, and more.]

Long Island City, New York, and other locales: 1482 Broadway; 220 West 42nd St., [1920–1924]. 90 silver print photographs (6.25” x 8.25” to 7.25” x 9.5” plus margins), including 2 duplicate images. 44 photos captioned on the verso in pencil. Brown Brothers’ ink stamp on verso of many photos. CONDITION: Very good, strong tonality, moderate wear to 7 photos, some chipping and minor losses to edges of a few photos.

A captivating lot of ninety photographs—nearly half of which are captioned on the verso— documenting the extensive manufacturing operation and workforce of America’s largest candy producer during the early twentieth century.

Established in 1860 as a small sweet shop in Manhattan by British immigrant William Loft, the candy manufacturer Loft Inc. expanded over the next sixty years into a confectionery empire under the guidance of Loft’s son, George W. Loft. By the Roaring ‘20s, Loft, Inc. dominated the candy industry. The company produced some 350 different sweets, which it distributed across fifteen states. The center of operations was in Long Island City, where ten huge factories worked round the clock. From this hub, Loft sent its products to company shops as well as a range of other retailers. In 1941, Loft was acquired by PepsiCo. While the arrangement lasted less than a year, “the merged Pepsi-Loft entity represented the first corporate mega-merger between food and beverage giants” (“The Rise & Fall”). Later in 1941, Loft Inc. was acquired by Philadelphia tycoon Albert Greenfield, who ran the massive City Stores Company (CSCo) chain. Under CSCo’s leadership, Loft Candy grew rapidly over the next twenty years, becoming once more a confectionery powerhouse. However, it failed to survive a stormy era of corporate restructuring from the 1960s to the ‘80s. After successive buy-outs by large conglomerates that valued profit over craft, the company began to decline. In 1994—after over 130 years—Loft stopped its operations entirely. 

The photos offered here show the creation of a variety of Loft candy products, including peanut brittle, molasses taffy, caramels, lemon drops, and bonbons. A range of machinery is also pictured, including pulverizers, taffy rollers, a caramel machine, boilers, conveyor belts, copper pots (that heated chocolate and candy by “live steam”), machines for cutting candy into squares, candy mixing tanks, cocoa bean grinders, chocolate mixing processors, vacuum pans for boiling white sugar, a “cold air engine,” an engine room and switchboard, and a high power press for “cocoa making.” Some of the captions are quite detailed, such as: “Starch moulds showing the moulds before and after filling [the] tank which is between. The moulds is [sic] filled with cream which automatically fills the moulds” and “Chocolate chip machine. The chips are placed on the belt by [the] girl on [the] right. The chips pass through the machine where they are chocolate coated & handled by the girls on the left who wrap them up.” Several shots, taken in the company’s tootsie roll factory, show a massive uncut tootsie roll and another still being twisted by a machine. A large uncut peppermint candy roll is also shown.

Three promotional shots picture a cherub-like young girl sucking on a Loft lollipop, and six images show the finished Loft products (candied nuts, chocolates, jelly beans, etc.) attractively placed in display platters. Male and female workers are shown in equal numbers, though the men are primarily pictured operating the machinery while the women typically do detail-oriented work. Laborers are shown sorting lollipops and nuts; processing cherries; mixing candy with powdered sugar (which is sometimes visible in their hair); packaging and labeling marshmallows; pouring chocolate on a table; cutting candy with rolling cutters; frosting candies; cutting candy molds; and shoveling ingredients into processors. Other activities include wrapping, boxing, mixing, and coating candies. Only two captions include dates: June 26th, 1920 and “9/24/[19]24.” At least one shot shows Loft candies for sale, filling display cases in half-pound bags (10 cents each). One particularly striking shot shows a store room full of tons of starch. 

Established in New York in 1904 by Arthur and Charles Brown, Brown Brothers is the oldest stock photo company in America, and has been continuously operated by the Brown family. During the early twentieth century, the firm’s staff expanded to embrace a dozen of New York City’s preeminent photographers. Their cameras captured “early New York, immigrants, royalty, slums, political movements, rural and urban life, wars, early technology, disasters, politicians, sports, inventors, science, American fads, and celebrities” (“Brown Brothers”).

An extensive portrait of the Loft, Inc. candy manufacturing complex in Long Island City during the company’s heyday in the 1920s.

REFERENCES: “The Rise & Fall of the Loft Candy Company” at History Oasis online; “Brown Brothers” at Brown Brothers USA online.

Item #9286

Price: $2,750.00

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