Cobb X Shinn was an artist who specialized in greeting cards. About 1914 Ford Motor Company hired him to pen a series of humorous cards that portrayed the Model T as iconic, inexpensive, yet superior to other cars of the day.
Shinn was a young man of 27 at the time. He went on to serve in the US Armed Forces in WWI, and lived in the Midwest until 1951 having a long career in illustrating mostly post cards and greeting cards.
This was a series of perhaps 50 cards, we don’t know for sure how many, but there are lots of them around that were given away by Ford dealers around the country in 1914.
A popular song of the day had a lyric where “The Little Ford Rambled Along” and of course Shinn incorporated it in his artwork.
Meanwhile the Dodge runabout owner is cursing his broke down car.
Eventually the word gets out – everyone needs a Ford.
