Stepping across the threshold of the old brick hotel building, the visitor is instantly transported back in time. The cool, high-ceilinged rooms, their wood floors creaking under the weight of years, offer a proper backdrop for the collection of apothecary bottles and the wood filing cabinets filled with yellowing file folders. A faded 1929 calendar seems almost modern given its surrounding. Massive back-to-back roll top desks dominate one room. Faces from the past, staring out from stiffly posed black and white portraits, keep a mute watch over present day activities in this handsome old building.
Originally lit by gaslights, the three-story, red brick building on Main Street has the air of a museum, a place that time forgot. Yet, far from being a museum, it houses a thriving, much respected business in the little town of Woodsboro. The building comes to life each weekday morning with the sound of feminine voices calling to one another from room to room as orders are sorted and boxes packed for shipment to various destinations.
Most people, upon first hearing of the Rosebud Perfume Company, express surprise that its business is international in scope. Lux Limited, London, was the first far flung client, followed by orders from the Netherlands, Australia, and Canada. Negotiations are currently underway to supply Bon Marche in Paris with Rosebud Products. Even more surprising is finding that the family-owned business, founded in 1895 by pharmacist George F. Smith, operates without the use of a single computer. This decidedly low-tech enterprise relies instead on a typewriter, telephone, fax machine, and dedicated, family-connected workers. Former schoolteacher Vivian Smith Clipp, part owner and active participant in the business founded by her grandfather, concedes a computer system may someday become necessary, but for now that are doing just fine, thank you.
Attesting to the reputation of Rosebud is a display of colorful, slick-cover magazines that make note in their beauty columns of one or more of the Woodsboro company’s products. “We’re mentioned in Allure [a glitzy fashion magazine] this month,” say Ms. Clipp, ”and we’ve been in Vogue, Glamour, Cosmopolitan, Teen Magazine, YM, you name it. We also won an award from Self magazine two years straight for top products in the beauty line” Leaf through the pages of Vogue and see pictured among other salves and lip glosses the distinctive small, round tins of Smith’s salves. The article’s first sentence informs Vogue readers that Manhattan’s chic C.O. Bigelow Apothecaries each year sells more than $11,000 of Rosebud Salve in mail orders alone.
Working with Ms. Clipp today is her daughter, Linda Pruitt Michielli, and a cousin, Jeanne Cutshall Smith, formerly a registered nurse in Baltimore. Ida Lee, known as “Sis,” is busy with paperwork at her desk. Ms. Lee’s mother, Ethel Cutshall, is helping to fill and pack the day’s outgoing orders. Mrs. Cutshall, a sprightly 94 year-old, has the distinction of having been with the Rosebud Perfume Company for 81 years, beginning work there as a teenager.
There is precious little time for conversation. Airborne Express will arrive within the hour to pick up a large carton earmarked for Nordstrom; another order is being readied for Anthropologie on Rockville Pike. UPS makes a daily stop, and some smaller orders are sent parcel post. All must be ready for pick-up by a specified time. It soon becomes clear that Ethel Cutshall is no mere figurehead kept on out of respect; she works rapidly, moving back and forth while answering questions about the orders. She is also a source of information concerning old clients. “She’s had these names forever,” says Ms. Clipp, gesturing toward the well-worn filing cards in the old wood case. “When people write in, it’s almost like she has the names in her head. She knows their credit is good and that they will pay us.”
How did Mrs. Cutshall, who also has Smith Family connections, juggle work, marriage, and two children in an era when it was uncommon for women to work outside the home? “Well, my mother kept my son John [now a Frederick Stockbroker], and he was three years-old before I had Sis [daughter Ida Lee]. I had a babysitter next door who kept her. And I lived right close … I could walk to work.” Today she lives with her daughter, who brings her to work.
Dr. George F. Smith, founder of the Rosebud Salve Company, was born in 1865. By all accounts, he was a remarkable man of many interests. Once a Frederick County schoolteacher, he was registered in 1902 by the Maryland Board of Pharmacy. At the time he formulated the salve known originally as “Smith’s Balsam of Rosebuds,” his drugstore was located in a small building across the street from Woodsboro’s three-story Smith Hotel. Some years later, he purchased the hotel building, constructed in 1886, to house his thriving business. Through the years, the old hotel has become known as the Rosebud Building. Dr. Smith served nineteen years as Woodsboro’s mayor and held many other civic positions in the community. He is remembered for his support of the Woodsboro Concert Band, whose performances were staged on the upper porch of his office building. His passion for motorcars led him to own some eighty automobiles during his lifetime. He also enjoyed music and was an agent for Columbia Records for several years.
Based on the success his salve received locally, Dr. Smith organized a vast network of mail order and door-to-door sales. At its peak, the business utilized more than 70,000 agents throughout the United States, all working for premiums or cash payments. Many of these agents were young people; some were older folks who were otherwise unemployed. According to a Time magazine article, former White House Press Secretary Liz Carpenter sold Rosebud products as a youngster in rural Texas. Maryland’s Louis Goldstein was also an agent for the company. A number of such agents still sell Rosebud products, but orders from large commercial concerns make up the bulk of sales today.
“Back then, they [independent agents] ordered the products, and they were sent out free,” recalls Jeanne Smith, “and they sold door-to-door. They could keep a portion of the money, or else they could get prizes. We had these rooms crammed full of premiums. We sent out everything… lace curtains, doll babies, jewelry, bicycles, anything and everything.”
Although the company remains true to its beginnings, there have been changes through the years. No longer are the saves made and packaged on the premises in Woodsboro; a chemist in Joppa, near Baltimore, is responsible for that aspect of the operation. Production methods have also been refined. The petrolatum-based mixture, originally painstakingly conveyed to the open tin via hand-held spatula, is now subject to an exacting procedure which automatically fills each tin and imparts a pleasingly glossy surface to the salve.
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