Albany Awakens to the Benefits of Exploitation

Donna in Albany, NY, at the Clinton Theater – Sep 20-26, 1920

Albany Awakens to the Benefits of Exploitation

I was watching the live stream from RootsTech Friday.  Lisa Louise Cooke gave an awesome presentation on “Proven Methodology for Using Google for Genealogy.” I use Google all the time and use many advanced techniques, but Lisa’s talk reminded me of some ways to use Google I haven’t used in ages, and should.

I went back to my current research topic, my grandmother’s vaudeville career. Based upon Lisa’s suggestions, I thought about Donna’s 1920 show,  “The California Bathing Girls in a Beach Promenade.” I searched using both phrases and the year of interest, 1920. Also, I eliminated my blog site from the results Googling this:

“California Bathing Girls” “beach promenade” 1920
-site:https://blog.dtaylorgenealogy.com

Amazingly, the search returned 5 results. Two of the results I had seen before. One was to a missing/parked domain. But two of them went to magazines that referenced Donna’s show. One of the articles was an absolute gem in the “Motion Picture News” about how Albany, NY was awakening to a multi-focused advertising campaign.[i] The movie “Up in Mary’s Attic” was the foundation of the advertising, which promoted the “California Bathing Girls.”  The ‘Girls were used to promote going to California. And a great way to get to California and see the girls was to enlist in the Army. They had large displays of the Attic with silhouettes of the girls in bathing suits, motor cycles cruising the streets advertising both the movie and joining the Army. Last, but not least, they used aeroplanes to drop advertisements of the show over the city. Say what?  Yes, the Army dropped flyers about the movie, the girls, and joining the Army. With Donna’s experience back in 1915 dropping flyers about “Birth of a Nation,” I wonder if she was involved with the idea of using air-drops as a means of advertising.  I would like to think she was.

Finally, I set up a Google Alert of that query to learn if anything new is added to the Internet in the future. Thanks again to Lisa Louise Cooke and RootsTech for reminding me of ways to better utilize Google and find genealogical gems. (pun intended).