A Striking Example of Centuries of Progress!

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big news, chicago, chicago world's fair edition, dinosaur, Sinclair, Sinclair dinosaur, Sinclair Oil, Sinclair World's Fair Dinosaur, worlds fair

Today we’ll share with you a publication nearly a century old now: the Chicago World’s Fair Edition of Big News. Published by Sinclair Oil, it showcases their dinosaur exhibit at the World’s Fair in 1934.

Yes, we have shared with you some other Sinclair memorabilia in our Sinclair Archives, and specifically some things from this same World’s Fair. But this monstrous tome takes the prehistoric cake. Though our copy has damage, the images and text remain intact for the most part. Allow us to mention a few notes, or just scroll down to our gallery today and dive right in!

But first, a word from beauty and the beast:

Notes: We spliced a few things, but the front cover has a tear requiring more digital reconstruction than we care to do right now. To keep the file sizes at 1 MB or less, we reduced our original scans by 90%. You will find you can still enlarge them on your screen a great deal and retain clarity.

One image we did not bother to splice together in our restoration efforts: the silly Sinclair Minstrels musical act with members in blackface. Some parts of American history just don’t merit the pixels they are printed on. These embarrassing racist depictions stick out like a sore thumb among the dinosaur sculptures. But, they also remind us of the cultural attitudes of the dominant class in this time period.

We know there was a second edition of this magazine with different images, but we don’t have it… yet! We also know many of these dinosaur depictions have what we now consider gross scientific inaccuracies. We could point them out to you and play dino expert, but it’s really more fun finding them for yourself!

While Scaly Monsters Fought in Pennsylvania!

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ads, dinosaur, Saturday Evening Post, Sinclair, Sinclair Dinosaurs, Sinclair Oil

Look what we have here: Sinclair Oil ads from 1931 and 1932! These off-beat dinosaur illustrations ran in the Saturday Evening Post. You will see we included the ad copy, too, for completion. We confess that we don’t understand the pictures, really. Are they sculptures? Dioramas? Paintings? Pictures of sculptural dioramas developed and then painted over? If you have a clue, educate us with a comment, please!

The Transparent Man!

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1934, chicago daily news, dinosaur, Sinclair, Sinclair Dinosaurs, Sinclair World's Fair Dinosaur, transparent man, worlds fair

Dig this. We scanned a little piece of history for you: pages from the 1934 Chicago Daily News issues celebrating their World’s Fair that year. Sinclair Oil had a major exhibit at the World’s Fair, and you will find many dinosaurs here. They include a dimetrodon, which is not actually a dinosaur but a therapsid or something. And, you find a triceratops mis-labeled as “Mr. Brontosaurus.”

Some odd cultural artifacts populate this paper. You will find an ad for southern cooking that we might consider racist these days, ads for show girl revues, a town full of midgets, and proof that people were once very afraid their refrigerators might be unsafe. All that and more await you in our gallery here, so delve in!

And here is The Transparent Man! Hell yeah!

 

 

 

Insane Vintage Sinclair Dinosaur Memorabilia!

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dinosaur, Sinclair, Sinclair Dinosaurs, Sinclair Oil, Sinclair World's Fair Dinosaur

In the 1930s, dinosaurs became mascots for the most endearing propaganda advertising campaigns of all time. All that mining and drilling turned up some cool dinosaur finds, and Sinclair put them to work as poster boys for the oil revolution. Sinclair Oil built a dinosaur-land for the World’s Fair, ran dinosaur-themed ads in popular magazines like the Saturday Evening Post, dreamed up some most excellent collector dino stamp books, and even used that gnarly petroleum to make plastic toys for kids. Even though they stopped handing out awesome free dinosaur toys in the late 1970s, you can still see a brontosaurus on their signs. Of course, everyone knows we call it an apatosaurus now!

Feast your eyes on this cool dinosaur memorabilia from Sinclair. And then, go picket their service stations until they start handing out free dinos again!

You might also like our scans of the complete promotional booklet, Sinclair and the Exciting World of Dinosaurs!

Sinclair and the Exciting World of Dinosaurs!

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ankylosaurus, brontosaurus, corythosaurus, Dinoland, dinosaur, Matthew Kalmenoff, ornitholestes, Sinclair, Sinclair and the Exciting World of Dinosaurs, Sinclair Dinosaurs, Sinclair Oil, Smilodon, stegosaurus, struthiomimus, trachodon, Triceratops, tyrannosaurus

Today’s gallery showcases the complete 1967 booklet “Sinclair and the Exciting World of Dinosaurs.” Another one of Sinclair‘s famous free dinosaur promos, this one’s packed with great paintings on every page.

Since 1967, paleontology has updated our vision of these magnificent creatures. In 2005, for example, we found evidence of feathers on the tail of a tyrannosaur. William Stout included this incredible update in his tyrannosaur mural at the San Diego Natural History Museum. Now we conceive of their tails not dragging heavily on the ground, but in far more alert and active poses. Still, these 1960s paintings are a lot of fun.

Thank you to reader Edward Dietrich who, in 2017, told me of an earlier printing of this booklet dated 1964, released for the Sinclair Dinoland exhibit at the New York World’s Fair, 1964-1965. He sent the following three images, which are that edition’s cover and two additional pages illustrating the exhibit.

Sinclair Dinoland Edition – cover

Have you seen my scans of photos from Sinclair at the 1934 Chicago World’s Fair?

Thank you to reader Mark Menendez who, in 2012, used the power of enlargement to find the artist’s signature in these images and identify him: Matthew Kalmenoff. The American Museum of Natural History says:

Matthew Kalmenoff (1905-1986)

“Kal,” as he was known to his fellow artists, was employed at the AMNH from the 1950s through the early 1970s. His work can be found in the Hall of North American Forests, the renovated Hall of North American Birds, and in the Small Mammal Corridor of the Hall of North American Mammals.

Reader Edward Dietrich adds that Kalmenoff also contributed color illustrations to a wonderful Golden Stamp Book book I loved when I was a kid: Animals of the Past. Thank you for reminding me off this forgotten treasure, and revealing its connection to the Sinclair booklet! Collectors and prehistoric animal enthusiasts can sometimes find this book on eBay and Amazon.

cover art by Charles McVicker

Smilodon! by Matthew Kalmenoff

Kalmenoff’s paintings from this 1970s book, along with black and white line drawings by Robert Gartland, appear to be recycled from a 1950s edition called The Golden Play Book of Animals from the Past Stamps. You can find scans of many of that edition’s interior pages and stamps at the blog Love in the Time of Chasmosaurs.

a page of Kalmenoff’s stamps from the 1950s edition

a page from the 1950s edition

Kalmenoff’s painted mosasaur stamp rocks my world. I want a wall-sized version. And how can you not love the Skull of Uinta Beast? It’s a doom metal album cover! This is a charming book even if it makes numerous outdated statements about dinosaur biology, such as depicting brontosaurs spending all their time in water. For a more current take on brontos, you’ll need Ted Rechlin’s awesome graphic novel, Jurassic.

And now, without further ado, please enjoy the complete 1967 edition of “Sinclair and the Exciting World of Dinosaurs!” Featuring brontosaurus, struthiomimus, trachodon, tyrannosaurus, triceratops, ankylosaurus, corythosaurus, ornitholestes, and stegosaurus.

WOW! If, after all that, you are dying to see more paleoart from Matthew Kalmenoff, you’ll dig his black-and-white drawings from the 1956 book, All About Strange Beasts from the Past (written by Roy Chapman Andrews). Yes, you can find it on Amazon. But for samples of the interior, visit DinosaurHome, where we got the following images. If you thought Kalmenoff’s “Skull of Uinta Beast” stamp was doom metal, then check these out!