A Laundryman's Porcelain Occupational Shaving Mug Belonging to David Leff

Circa 1917

bearing the name and date Dave Leff / 1917 in gilt lettering, and depicting an engine-powered laundry truck reading Passaic Home Laundry.

underside marked J&C Bavaria.

Height 3 3/4 inches.

According to the genealogical record, David Leff (circa 1884-1937) was born around 1884 in Austria. He immigrated to the United States at the turn of the twentieth century and settled in New York with his wife, Rose. The United States Federal Census of 1910 records that Leff worked as the proprietor of a laundry, and throughout the 1910s, frequent advertisements for Passaic Home Laundry appeared in the Passaic Daily News. On March 23, 1916, the paper reports that a Mrs. Rose Goldblack won a suit for $46 against the laundry company, claiming that her clothes became discolored upon their return. Further, on February 20, 1917, The Morning Call of Paterson County covered an incident involving a coal wagon, in which a team of horses belonging to the Passaic Home Laundry and driven by a George Leff, became frightened by a passing freight train and crashed into the wagon.

Perhaps in light of these incidents, David Leff's professional endeavors had shifted by 1920, by which time he was working as a jeweler. Leff died of coronary thrombosis on March 25, 1937,

Property from the Collection of James Carpenter, Montague, New Jersey