Antique 1930s Penn Treaty Can Label 🤝 from Philadelphia

Who Packed Penn Treaty Lima Beans? 🤝 Penn Treaty Tiny Green Lima Beans

Size: 11" x 4 1/2"

William Penn himself, long hair and lace collar, on a can of lima beans from Philadelphia, with the words "Unbroken Faith" in the middle. This is an antique 1930s Penn Treaty can label, 11" x 4 1/2", with slight to minor wear. A few of mine show a little more age than others, so look over the pictures.

🔍 What's on it

The label wraps the whole can, so the brand appears twice. On one side, PENN TREATY in red over a portrait of a young William Penn with long brown hair and a white lace cravat, and TINY GREEN LIMA BEANS underneath. On the other, PENN TREATY BRAND, CONTENTS 1 LB. 4 OZ., and a glass bowl heaped with bright green lima beans. In the middle panel, a scroll reading "Unbroken Faith" with a bundle of feathers, a peace pipe and a quill pen, and in gold, PACKED FOR QUAKER CITY WHOLESALE GROCERY CO. INC., PHILA., PENNA. Gold chain borders run along the top and bottom, and down at the foot, the printer: CALVERT LITH. CO. DETROIT. The back is plain.

🌳 The treaty under the elm

The name comes from Philadelphia's favorite founding story. In 1682, the story goes, William Penn met Tamanend and the Lenape under a great elm at Shackamaxon, on the Delaware River in what's now Fishtown, and they promised each other lasting friendship. It's called the Treaty of Shackamaxon, the Great Treaty or just Penn's Treaty. No original document of the meeting survives and historians still argue over the details, but the legend has stuck for more than three hundred years. The old elm blew down in a storm in 1810, and the spot is Penn Treaty Park today.

That "Unbroken Faith" on the label comes straight out of the legend. In 1733 the French writer Voltaire praised Penn's treaty as the only one between the Native peoples and the Christians that was never sworn to and never broken. The feathers, the peace pipe and the quill tell the same story in pictures: the Lenape, the pipe of peace and Penn's pen. The most famous picture of the scene is Benjamin West's painting Penn's Treaty with the Indians (1771–72), which West meant as an allegory more than a record: Penn was only 38 when he arrived, a lot younger than the stout gentleman West painted. The young Penn on this label is a lot closer.

🖨️ Calvert of Detroit and the Quaker City grocers

Calvert Lithographing Company was founded in Detroit in 1864 by Thomas Calvert, an Englishman, and by 1866 it was printing in color: portraits, maps, posters and labels. It grew into one of the best-known lithographers in the country, printing for tobacco companies and the Michigan seed trade, and it kept going for a century, sold to Chicago investors in 1950 and folded into the Canadian printer Lawson & Jones in 1970. The beans were packed for the Quaker City Wholesale Grocery Co. of Philadelphia, "Quaker City" being the town's old nickname, from Penn and his Quakers, which is why a Philadelphia grocer put Penn on the can.

🏡 Display

This one is a great piece of Philadelphia history for the wall, framed long so you can see both sides of the wrap, and a perfect gift for anyone from Philly or with Pennsylvania roots.

Old labels like this are a reminder of a bygone era, and the lithography on them is unparalleled even to this day, in my opinion. Museums have galleries of them, and more and more collectors are seeking them out to preserve their history. They aren't making any more vintage labels, obviously, so once the limited supply for sale is gone and on display with collectors or in galleries, they will be very difficult to acquire.