AP Babcock

A. P. Babcock & Co. was a New York perfumery established by Alfred P. Babcock, apparently in the late nineteenth century—variously given as about 1880, with 1899 also appearing as an establishment date. The company was originally associated with 38 West 18th Street, New York City, and later maintained offices at 501 Fifth Avenue, while its manufacturing operation was moved to Rutherford, New Jersey, in February 1920. Babcock marketed perfumes and toilet preparations under its own name, while also supplying fragrance work for other firms; among these commissions was We Moderns, created for Saks Fifth Avenue in 1928. Its output seems to have ranged from perfume and cologne to talcum powder, dusting powder, bath crystals, and other decorative toilette goods.

Among its early branded offerings was Corylopsis of Japan, a line promoted by 1916 with advertising handled by the New York agency Hanff-Metzger, Inc. The name drew upon Corylopsis, an East Asian flowering shrub sometimes called winter hazel, admired for its pendent sprays of softly fragrant yellow flowers. “Of Japan” gave the products an appropriately exotic and refined character for the period, when Japanese-inspired decorative arts and floral imagery were highly fashionable. Although its precise formula is not known, the name suggests a delicately floral, perhaps powdery fragrance rather than a heavy oriental perfume—possibly evoking soft yellow blossoms, spring woods, and a restrained sweetness.

The company endured several important changes after the death of its founder, Alfred P. Babcock, in 1903. In 1909, his daughter Lena married Lewis E. K. White, who had joined the business as a salesman; that same year the enterprise was incorporated. H. Henry Bertram subsequently acquired an interest in the company and became secretary and treasurer, focusing on its finances and advertising, while White rose to vice-president and general manager. Richard C. Bultman, the company president, died in April 1919. The firm nevertheless expanded sufficiently that it transferred production to a new Rutherford factory in 1920, though delays in completing that plant reportedly disrupted output and led to cancellations of already-booked orders.

In 1922, the firm faced a serious financial crisis when creditors filed a bankruptcy petition against A. P. Babcock & Co., then described as a manufacturer of perfumery and talcum powder. Its liabilities were said to exceed $60,000, against assets of roughly $45,000, and a receiver was appointed. The trouble appears to have been temporary rather than fatal: later that year, Judge Augustus N. Hand dismissed the bankruptcy petition after creditors were paid in full, “100 cents on the dollar in cash.” That resolution allowed Babcock to continue under its established name, preserving a familiar identity in the increasingly competitive American perfume and cosmetics trade.

By the 1930s, Babcock still showed an eye for presentation. Its Ma Chérie line—“My Dear” or “My Darling”—was reported in 1936 to include cologne, dusting powder, bath crystals, and talcum powder. The goods were packaged in bottles and boxes covered in natural Japanese wood veneer, decorated with hand-applied reproductions of imported oil paintings, and finished with natural wooden ball stoppers. This combination of veneer, art reproductions, and plain wooden closures gave Ma Chérie a warm, artisanal appearance, markedly different from the sleek glass-and-chrome modernism then fashionable elsewhere. It also echoed the earlier Japanese association of Corylopsis of Japan, suggesting that Babcock continued to use decorative references to Asian craft and natural materials as part of its visual identity.

H. Henry Bertram’s resignation in 1933, when he left A. P. Babcock & Co. to head the toilet-goods department of Frederick Loeser & Co. in Brooklyn, marks another important transition. As Bertram had long been involved in the firm’s financial and advertising affairs, his departure may indicate that Babcock was by then a smaller or less vigorous concern than it had been during its earlier expansion. The company seems to have remained active into the mid-1940s, but appears to have disappeared around 1946. Thus, its long history spans the Victorian and Edwardian perfume trades, the lush commercial expansion of the 1910s, the financial instability of the early 1920s, and the decorative, gift-oriented toiletries of the 1930s and 1940s. I probably don't have every single fragrance listed, so if I missed one, please let me know.

The perfumes of AP Babcock:

• 1899 Queen Cologne
• 1903 Bouquet Acme 
• 1903 Coast Violets 
• 1903 Coast Violet Sachet 
• 1903 Cut Roses 
• 1903 Double Pink 
• 1903 Florabel 
• 1903 Golden Gate Rose 
• 1903 Hinoki 
• 1903 Purple Lilac 
• 1903 Sicilian Violet 
• 1903 Vogue 
• 1903 Vraie Violette 
• 1907 Violet Elice
• 1908 Black Prince
• 1908 Florabel
• 1908 Hinoki
• 1908 Mercedes
• 1908 Purple Lilac
• 1908 Stephanotis
• 1908 Hermosa
• 1908 Japanese Motiya
• 1908 Manhattan Violet
• 1908 Myosotis
• 1908 Pine Needle
• 1908 Rejane
• 1908 Ruby Hyacinth
• 1908 Santo Cutis
• 1908 Utilis Cologne
• 1908 Vogue
• 1910 Golden Gate Fresh Violets
• 1910 Golden Gate Japonica
• 1910 Golden Gate Rose
• 1920 Love Petals
• 1920 La Romance
• 1920 Butterfly
• 1922 Acme
• 1922 Honeysuckle
• 1922 Cut Roses
• 1922 Corylopsis of Japan
• 1922 Cho Cho San
• 1922 Flower of Savoy  
• 1922 Prettiest
• 1923 Tip Tap
• 1925 Cigarette
• 1925 Blue Jasmine
• 1925 Superfumes
• 1926 Lady Nicotine
• 1926 Black Bottom
• 1926 La Bud Parisienne
• 1928 We Moderns by Saks Fifth Avenue
• 1928 Romany 
• 1930 This
• 1930 Eventide
• 1930 Noon
• 1930 Morn
• 1930 Camille
• 1930 Eunedus
• 1930s Lore
• 1931 Numerology
• 1934 Ann Hathaway
• 1934 Gardenia
• 1934 Jasmin 
• 1936 Ma Cheri
• 1963 Lilac
• Boston Man