Advertisements from the Duluth Public Library Nostalgic Newsstand Sale: Sealex Linoleum Floors
The Duluth Public Library’s Nostalgic Newsstand Sale was a source of many things to write about. Here is another advert from my collection of now-recycled magazines.
This advert for Linoleum got me Googling. Apparently, Linoleum, at the time this ad was printed, in the 1930s I think, is made from chemical extracted from flaxseed. Duluth was, in the 1920s, a major transit spot for Flaxseed.
According to this senate report, flaxseed went from farms on the rails to Duluth or Minneapolis. Some processing happened in Minneapolis; Duluth loaded the flaxseed onto boats.
Honestly, I would have imagined linoleum to be a product made from oil. Maybe it is now. So interesting to think that the product in this advert might have been born in a crop that passed through Duluth.
Nice connection! What I grew up calling “linoleum” in the 1970s/80s and “no wax floors” is actually vinyl, which is pretty darn toxic in its manufacturing and disposal (but ubiquitous in building materials). Linoleum is indeed made out of flax and other natural substances. I had the modern version, Marmoleum, installed in my kitchen years ago, and quickly learned why housewives of the ’70s were so excited about “no wax floors” — linoleum needs to be regularly waxed to maintain its surface, and I really don’t have time for that.
Praise from the master! Thank you!
Additional tidbit regarding flax and the Zenith City: Duluth’s Klearflax used flax straw to manufacture linen rugs and employed three hundred people before WWII; a larger competitor bought the company in 1953 and shuttered the Duluth facility.
Klearflax, by the way, was the subject of a PDD post in 2015 when its former warehouse was torn down to make way for the Kwik Trip that currently sits on the corner of Raleigh Street and Grand Avenue. The factory was two blocks east of the warehouse and was imploded in 1987.
The downtown Duluth Public Library has an extensive file on Klearflax, with many original brochures from the 1930s-50s. Alas, no actual rugs.
Nice colors!
