Double labels on same garment for Serbin and Miss Serbin.
Side note: The Sanitone process appears in some dry cleaning web sites as having been adopted around 1951.
Hi Laura,
I have a British magazine clipping somewhere, 1948, extolling the virtues of the Sanitone Process.
I did some research into the Sanitone Process some 3 years ago as I have several vintage items, American, recommending the process.
Sanitone is a marketing gimmick name but the history behind the product/process spans 180 years. I have wondered if " Sanitone" is just a play on words of another fabric process that entered the American market in 1930 but I have no evidence of this.
By no means was it the first dry cleaning fluid/process on both sides of the pond but it was from it's earliest incarnation a more effective one and a safer one for both dry cleaners and consumers.
I first came across the Sanitone Process in use from American Adverts as early as 1931/32, from 1935 onwards, shed loads.
For those interested, it all started in 1832 when one Thomas Emery, a Bedford UK man shifted sticks to Kentucky and raised Silk Worms, that venture, as did the worms, died a death. By 1840, Mr Emery Sn went south in his thinking and to Cincinnati, after a while realising he might be on to a good thing having noticed, ( he could hardly escape the fact ) Cincinnati streets and the water front were amok with pigs going to slaughter, ( from the 1830s Cincinnati was a meat packing citadel and earned the unglamourous name of Porkopolis ).
Mr. Emery realized he could turn pig fat into dripless candles and other lubricants, thus was born Thomas Emery's Lard Oil company becoming later the Emery Candle Company.
That companies humble beginnings became one of the worlds largest conglomerates, Emery OleoChemicals, massive, from soap to jet oils and anything between.
To digress, in or around 1890s one Ernest Twichell became head of Emery's chemical research department, he was their first chemist and a brilliant,- brilliant chemist he was, the planet, at least the soapy, lubricant side of it owes this American big time and his endeavours, research and processes one of which, ( while working for Emery ), a bi-product, eventually evolved into the Sanitone Dry Cleaning Process.
Ernest Twitchell did form his own company, " Twitchell Process Company" and his process of splitting fats remained in use as late as the early 50s, born in 1863 he died in 1929.
( Ernest's Dad, Prof' Henry Twitchell, ( 1816-1875 ) wasn't that far behind either in tallent, inventing a superior Chronograph and successfully inventing and marketing a Hydrometer and by some accounts, not a bad astronomer either ).
My understanding is Fabritec International is the licenced supplier of Sanitone.
My thanks goes to newspaper and research archives around the world including the Library of Congress and their Digital Collections.