1876 City Argus Broadside Advertisement for Francis, Valentine, and Co. Printer

A scarce promotional piece that appeared in the San Francisco newspaper The City Argus c. 1879, advertising the services of Francis, Valentine, and Co., an engraver and print shop in the city.

A Closer Look

This sheet advertises the services of Francis, Valentine, and Co., including printing, binding, engraving, and paper ruling. The advertisement employs various fonts, font sizes, patterns, borders, and illustrations (influenced by literature and fairy tales) to demonstrate the capabilities of the firm and its presses. The advantages of the firm in terms of both price and quality compared to its 'Eastern' competitors are emphasized to convince potential clients (especially investors and 'Managers' from the East) to print locally rather than bother transporting printed material cross-country. The firm's addresses at 517 Clay Street and 510-516 Commercial Street are not two separate locations but a building covering the better part of a city block between Clay and Commercial Streets, intersecting with Sansome Street.

The verso includes unrelated advertisements and poetry published by the newspaper. Some of the advertisements are rather curious or amusing, such as one for the 'Pacific Gold Cure Clinic' offering 'treatment for the Liquor, Morphine and Cocaine Habits,' by which 'patients lose all desire for stimulants and narcotics in less than a week.'

Francis, Valentine, and Co.

The origins of Francis, Valentine, and Co. (often as Francis-Valentine Co.) lie with Monson, Haswell and Co., also known as the Commercial Job Printing Office or the Commercial Power Presses in its early years, one of the earliest printers active in San Francisco. Founded by Burdett H. Monson c. 1852, the firm went through a dizzying array of name changes as partners were added or dropped out, typical of the heady and even chaotic atmosphere of San Francisco in the wake of the Gold Rush. In 1854, Monson took on Thomas B. Valentine as a partner, who appears to be the same man of that name who was involved in a decades-long dispute over the Rancho Arroyo de San Antonio, the basis for the later town of Petaluma. More name changes came, with Valentine's name being maintained in some fashion and Monson's dropping off in 1858, though he appears to have retained a stake in the business (though also printing under his own name again in the late 1870s). As can be seen here, the firm was led by Valentine, David B. Francis, and E. W. Goggin at the time of printing. At any rate, these printers and the various iterations of their firm(s) were important for introducing steam-powered lithographic press printing to the burgeoning city. This method allowed for a faster rate of printing, increasing distribution. The firm, printing as 'Francis-Valentine Co.', continued to operate until around 1918.

Publication History and Census

This advertisement appeared in the San Francisco newspaper The City Argus, which was published between roughly 1871 and 1900. The sheet is undated, but the inclusion of E. W. Goggin among the firm's partners indicates a date of 1879 or later. We are unaware of any other examples of this work in institutional collections or on the market. Several institutions (the Library of Congress, the University of California Berkeley, Stanford University, the California Historical Society, the State Library of California, the San Francisco Public Library, and the Huntington Library) hold partial runs of The City Argus.