Dreaming of an Evergleam Christmas
My Evergleam.
MILWAUKEE, WI.—Aluminium was a foil for Midcentury America.
A section of the fantastic “Serious Play: Design in Midcentury America” exhibit at the Milwaukee Art Museum is devoted to the possibilities of aluminium (or aluminum.)
The late Chicago architect Henry P. Glass designed a collapsable aluminum and plastic trailer, a.k.a. the “Accordium Camp Trailer.” The proposed 700-foot camper folded up like an accordion and could be hauled behind a car. The mid-1950s project was commissioned by Alcoa Aluminum’s free-wheeling “Forecast” program.
Alcola promised, “There’s a world of aluminum in the wonderful world of tomorrow.”
About 90 miles north of Milwaukee, the town of Manitowoc, Wi.(32,700) was known as the “Aluminum Cooking Capital of the World.” An offshoot kitschy industry was the manufacturing of aluminum Christmas trees called the Evergleam. From 1959 through 1963 nearly 4 million aluminum trees were made in Manitowoc, mostly by Aluminum Specialty Company. Of course this was before tariffs on aluminum were placed in today’s wonderful world.
The prototype Accordium Camp Trailer. No actual Accordiums can be found. (Courtesy of the Milwaukee Art Museum.)
Production on the Evergleam ceased in 1971 when Aluminum Specialty decided to ramp up production on its year-round cookware sets. In 1984 the Foley-ASC company bought out Aluminum Specialtly. Mirro Aluminum was the other aluminum plant in town and in the summer of 1983 it was acquired by the Newell Company of Freeport, Ill, ending an 88 year run in Manitowoc. The Aluminum Specialty building on the outskirts of downtown Manitowoc is now vacant, a witness to many silent nights.
I had to fetch one of these shiny Evergleam trees for my first Christmas in my midcentury house in Westchester, Ill. My past year in the small house has at times been isolated, although I’m just 14 miles from downtown Chicago. I’m figuring out the distance between
being an observer and a participant.
Evergleam trees are hot items. It took a few swings on eBay before I landed one. I snagged a four-foot tall silver Evergleam from the late 1950s with 55 branches of sparkling silver. The tree arrived in its original Evergleam storage box, which is a big deal with collectors.
The branches can be fluffed up to look fuller, my new metaphor for socializing in the holiday season.
Last week I re-assembled the tree. I wondered about all the generations who previously enjoyed this toy tree. How many people smiled at its ingenious glory? How many complained about its fakeness? I moved forward and hung a few ornaments on the tree while listening to a tattered vinyl copy of “Merry Christmas From Brenda Lee” that contains a killer version of Ronnie Self’s “Strawberry Snow.”
The space-age trees weren’t designed as much for ornaments as they were to have light splashed on them. eBay is prompting me to buy a color spinning wheel to play off the tree. The seasons go round and round. And they could suddenly stop if someone tried to put lights on an aluminum tree. The tree might be charged with electricity from faulty lights and touching a live branch could lead to electrocution.
The rare pink Evergleam was a precursor to Melania Trump’s blood red Christmas forest. Only 20 per cent of the Evergleams were pink and now they fetch nearly $2,000 on eBay. Last week bidding on a seven foot pink Evergleam started at $2499 at the Washington Street Antique Mall in Manitowoc.
The pink Evergleam crossed over into crass commercialism in the 1965 television special “A Charlie Brown Christmas.” With his natural heart, Charlie Brown chose an authentic underdog Christmas tree over a flashy pink Evergleam. His gal pal Lucy Van Pelt conceded, “Charlie Brown is a blockhead. But he did get a nice Christmas tree.” Some aluminium tree fans think that the bad press marked the beginning of the end for the Evergleam. But shiny artificial Christmas trees are coming back in a big way. A Nov. 27 New York Times story reported that 80 per cent of American households display artificial Christmas trees. Ironically, most of today’s fake trees are made of PVC and steel in China.
“Serious Play: Design in Midcentury America” runs through Jan. 6, 2019 at the Milwaukee Art Museum (Image courtesy of the Milwaukee Art Museum.)
Cathy Karl is the Evergleam Queen of Manitowoc.
Karl is to aluminum trees what Jimmy Buffett is to palm trees. Last year she wrote the 18-page booklet book “Ever Gleaming (A small town story about a big idea!)” The booklet is available at her Heart & Homestead store, 909 S. Eighth St. in Manitowoc. She is also part of “The Gleaming Gals Trio” who organize the annual “Evergleams on Eighth” walking tour of more than 50 vintage Evergleams through storefront windows along downtown’s Eighth Street. The world’s largest collection of aluminum trees are on display in storefronts with the motto, “Prepare to be ALUMINIZED!”
“The whole retro and vintage thing is so popular now,” Karl said earlier this week in a phone conversation from her store. “Everyone is going midcentury. And these trees are so unique.”
Karl grew up in Kewaunee, Wi., about an hour north of Manitowoc. “I was a poor country girl so I knew nothing about aluminum trees,” she said. “My first exposure was in 2015 was when Steve the Tree Guy came in. He said, ‘You’re my last resort. I’ve talked to 15 people in town and nobody wants to work with me. You’re the president of the downtown association and everyone told me to talk to you.”
Steve the Tree guy is a former Manitowoc businessman who does not want his last name published. He had a collection of more than 200 Evergleam trees and he wanted to share them with the public.
That gave birth to Evergleams on Eighth.
Random Evergleam lady with a weird hose. (File photo.)
“This is our third year of doing this,” Karl said. “These things sparkle. This guy revitalizes every one of them needle by needle. We won’t put anything in the window that isn’t perfect. Then you kind of get the bug. The first year, it was, ‘Yeah, they’re aluminum trees, whatever.’ People came into my store to ask questions. Then I started amassing my own. It turned out every time I bought a tree it was different than the trees I already had because they made promotional and deluxe models with different branch styles like straight needle and pom-pom. They also made them in colors. It can go totally awry.”
Karl now owns 11 Evergleam Christmas trees.
She networks with another collector who lives in Appleton, Wis. The Appleton tree lady keeps her Evergleams up all year long in her house. “We were there in mid-April and she had about eight fully decorated trees up,” Karl said. “She also collects midcentury ornaments. She had stuff from National Tinsel (the metallic strips that hang from trees), another company that was in Manitowoc. She tries to collect everything from this area. She has a north woods antlers collection. ” National Tinsel was founded by Manitowoc’s socialist mayor Henry Stolze.
You gotta love Wisconsin.
My midcentury holiday mix.
Chicago plays a role in the birth of the Evergleam.
“The tree was introduced to the wholesale market at the Chicago Toy Show,” Karl said. “It was actually part of the toy line that Aluminum Specialty was presenting. They were well known for children’s cookware. They dabbled around with Christmas trees in plastic which were called Evergreens. They’re not pretty at all. They saw this aluminum tree made by Modern Coatings out of Chicago at a Ben Franklin in downtown Chicago. The tree was a space-age prop and not for sale. It was too expensive. Modern Coatings actually have the (1957) patent for the aluminum tree.”
Modern Coatings, Inc. was innovative, but they did not have a distribution network or manufacturing source like Aluminum Specialty. Karl explained, “Aluminum Specialty did a lot in ammunition shell casings during World War II and the Korean War. They also made the chaff that was dropped from planes so (enemy radar) signals could be intercepted. It was aluminum shreds that flew through the air. That’s why they had these cutters.” Tom Gannon, Aluminum Specialty’s vice- president in charge of toys was trying to figure out another way to deploy the company’s cutter.
During the late 1950s and early 1960s Manitowoc high school girls and housewives worked in the aluminum Christmas tree factories to make ends meet, so to speak. “By Christmas of 1959 Aluminum Specialty produced 250,000 of those trees,” Karl said. “They did a million in 1961 and ‘62 and maybe ‘63. Aluminum Specialty stayed in the middle of the line, they weren’t the best or the worst. But they were the industry leader with about 65 per cent of the market share. About 40 other aluminum companies followed suit and did the same thing.
My box of Everdreams.
“That’s why you see so many different names on the boxes. We think 1962 was the peak. That’s when they introduced the color wheels and rotating stands. And yes, after Charlie Brown and Lucy people said, ‘Let’s get back to natural.’ The aluminum tree wasn’t so cool anymore.
“But now when people come to Manitowoc at Christmas, they’re mesmerized. They cannot believe there is so much history behind these trees.” Of course. And my hope for this holiday season is to make sparkling new history in my old house.
i have 6 7′ trees and 4 4′ trees
Excellent Bruce!
Thanks and Happy Holidays, from the staff at Davehoekstra.com.
We found an Evergleam 7 footer in our garage rafters. We just bought my dream home, a 1962 ranch, in July. Looking forward to putting it together!
Thanks Deb! Merry Christmas.