Frederick Stearns

Frederick Stearn and Co of Detroit, Michigan, also known as Stearns.


Frederick Stearns & Co. of  Jefferson Avenue, Detroit. Established 1855. Incorporated 1882.

• Frederick Kimball Stearns, President and General Manager 
• Frank C McLaughlin, Vice President and Treasurer 
• Thomas Bennett, Secretary 

Some of the early 1900s Stearns perfume labels were prefixed by the following words "American Girl Perfumes", which was a line.

 I have listed the perfume names I could find, but there may be more out there. Most of the Day Dreams perfume and related toiletries you can find on ebay look to date to the 1930s-1940s. It was a very popular line, probably the most popular lines were Sadira, American Beauty Rose, Amorita and Day Dreams.

First introduced in 1901, Suprema was a line of various single floral odors such as Trailing Arbutus, Lily of the Valley, White Rose, Locust Blossom, Jockey Club, Lilac, Violet, and others. In 1917, the Suprema line was given a facelift with new 1/2 oz size bottles with embossed gilded metal labels.

Pharmaceutical Record and Weekly Market Review, Volume 14, 1892:

"We illustrate herewith a new method which Frederick Stearns & Co. Detroit, Mich, have adopted in putting their American Beauty Rose on the market. This package, it will be observed, has a peculiar fitness for holiday display, being exceptionally neat and attractive. The bottle is oval in shape of the style known as "A" Special French Oval, and is inclosed in a handsomely embossed box of oblong octagonal design. The perfume itself sustains the reputation for excellence, which the products of this firm have established.  Frederick Stearns and Co. are also calling special attention prominently to their Amorita Perfume, which is to as an odor of rare and lingering sweetness evidently possessed of qualities of permanence is the true test of a really fine perfume. This perfume is put up in a tall square bottle with cut lapidary stopper, which is inclosed within a tight fitting box of chocolate colored paper."

The perfumes of Stearns:

• 1880 Cassie
• 1888 Jockey Club
• 1888 Heliotrope
• 1888 Clove Pink
• 1888 White Rose
• 1888 White Lilac
• 1888 Patchouly
• 1888 Frangipanni
• 1888 Musk
• 1888 Upper Ten
• 1888 Rose Geranium
• 1888 Tea Rose
• 1888 Opoponax
• 1888 New Mown Hay
• 1888 Lily of the Valley
• 1888 Moss Rose
• 1888 Wood Violet
• 1888 West End
• 1888 Ess Bouquet
• 1888 True English Violet
• 1888 Stephanotis
• 1888 Tonquin Musk
• 1888 White Pond Lily
• 1888 Rondeletia
• 1888 Ylang Ylang
• 1888 Amorita
• 1888 4 Roses 
• 1888 Olive Blossom 
• 1888 Erminie 
• 1888 Kalanthe 
• 1888 May Blossom 
• 1888 Euxenia 
• 1888 Luculia 
• 1888 Nadjy 
• 1888 Ideal Bouquet
• 1892 American Beauty Rose
• 1892 Crab Apple Blossom
• 1892 Cleopatra
• 1892 West India Bay Rum
• 1894 Purple Lilac
• 1896 Czarina, a line of perfumes
• 1896 Rosalys
• 1896 Czarina Violettes
• 1896 Czarina Roses
• 1896 Czarina Carnations
• 1898 Sweet Marie
• 1898 Country Club Bouquet
• 1892 Hesperia
• 1910 Honeysuckle
• 1901 Lorna
• 1901 Suprema (a line)
• 1902 Yolande
• 1903 Blush Roses
• 1903 Bouquet de Luxe
• 1903 Czarina Daisies
• 1903 Czarina Trefle
• 1903 Crystal Velvet
• 1903 Eudora
• 1903 Euxenia
• 1903 L'Aiglon
• 1903 Parma Pink
• 1903 Perlet
• 1903 Rosamond
• 1903 Thelma
• 1903 Winnie Davis
• 1903 Zymole
• 1905 Pompadour
• 1906 Zira
• 1906 American Girl 
• 1907 Fluffy Ruffles
• 1908 Lamballe
• 1910 Synthetol
• 1910 Concress
• 1914 Eterno
• 1916 Chin Chin
• 1917 Day Dreams/Day Dream
• 1919 Jazz
• 1919 L'Amusette
• 1920 Sadira
• 1928 Golden Dawn
• 1935 Desirez Moi

The girl's name Sadira is of Persian origin, and its meaning is "lotus tree". The lotus is of great significance in various Eastern religions.

American Druggist, Volumes 17-18, 1888:

It pays to push the best goods in the perfume line as a trade well established by selling the finest odors only is the trade which will be permanent and entirely satisfactory to the retailer and the customer. Fine goods can only be produced by liberally using the finest materials aided by skilled labor. We import all the French flower pomades used by us direct from Grasse also the finest and most expensive essential oils and we can thus guarantee the quality of the ingredients to be the best. Our bouquets are made from formulae of established superiority and are well aged before sending out thereby producing that softness of quality and blending together property so much admired in Lubin's and Atkinson's odors. 

POINTS ON PERFUMES
Fine perfumes must possess three distinguishing characteristics. First fragrance in abundance without being loud. Second delicacy with sweetness and freedom from sharpness. Third permanency and lasting qualities. Our odors possess all of the above good points and are extremely fragrant deliciously sweet and remain so. The use of good perfumes is always indicative of good taste. A lady of refinement may be picked out by the quality of odor she uses as surely as her style of dress or conversation as she will invariably eschew anything loud or common in dress conversation or perfumery. Consumers often are as good judges of perfumes as manufacturers are. A good clean nose and delicate sense of smell can distinguish a good fragrant sweet odor from a cheap and loud one and also whether it truly resembles the flower it pretends to. 

Fancy and elaborate labels on bottles do not add fragrance to their contents nor does the use of pretty names and flowery language prove that flowers themselves are used in the composition of the goods they speak for. Perfumes are like musical sounds, they bear certain relations to each other which may be harmonious or discordant according to the skill or taste of the composer. And it is the art of so combining and varying odors in new relations that once in a while we get such fine bouquet odors as White Rose, Jockey Club, Amorita, etc. The best class of retailers are beginning to find out that the way to build up a trade on perfumes is to adopt some prominent line of special odors and push them for all they are worth and where satisfaction is given in the first instance a customer will return again for the same article. We have for some time recommended to dealers the handling of our special odors and while no one can gainsay the excellence and good quality of the old favorites like Jockey Club, White Rose, Frangipanni, New Mown Hay, etc, at the same time all these odors are made by every manufacturer and no two are exactly the same.  

It was some four years ago we first called the attention of the trade to the following new and original bouquets which were then first introduced for popular favor viz: Ideal Bouquet, Olive Blossom, and Erminie, and still more recently to our new ones called Amorita, May Blossom, and 4 Roses. Add to the above our latest Nadjy, and we believe that the group will comprise the choicest perfumes ever made. The different characteristics of each special odor may be described as follows: 

Euxenia takes its name from Eu beautiful and Xenos a stranger and is the perfume of a pretty yellowed plant Euxenia grata of Chili South America. Its odor is peculiarly sweet and fascinating.

Luculia is from the sweet Luculia Swa Nepalese name of a rare and fragrant pink flowered tree of Nepal. Its botanical name is Luculia pinciana. This perfume is extremely fragrant and lasting.

 Kalanthe a name from the Greek Kalos and Anthos a beautiful flower the perfume of the Calanthe versicolor an orchid from Isle Mauritius East Indian Ocean. The perfume is intensely sweet and delicate.

Amorita is without question the most delightful bouquet ever devised. It has a peculiar springy refreshing character which is delightful never cloys or tires one as do too sweet things. To our mind it is finest bouquet we have.

May Blossom excels the imported May Bells. Its peculiar delicate yet lasting sweetness make it the favorite second only to Amorita.

Stearns 4 Roses combines in one bouquet the fragrance and sweetness of the perfumes of the White, Jacque, Marechal Niel, and Noisette roses which are respectively in color, white, deep red, yellow, and pink. It is the sweetest and most intense rose perfume on market surpassing in fragrance even White Rose.

 Erminie has gained many friends who choose it on account of fragrance and delicacy.

Ideal Bouquet is a delightful odor and well replaces the favorite Mary Stuart.

Olive Blossom has become very popular and is always good.

Nadjy our latest success though but lately introduced has already popular. It is the most persistent sweet odor we have.

In addition to the above special odors which we alone can manufacture we would call particular attention to our make of the following general favorites: White Rose, Lily of the Valley, Heliotrope, Opoponax, Jockey Club, Frangipanni, Stephanotis, English Violet, Ylang Ylang, and others which we believe are unsurpassed.

White Rose has a charm about it that fascinates everybody. Its peculiar freshness which it retains indefinitely and its mellow and rich sweetness make it always a favorite. In the composition of its bouquet are united with the fragrance of the rose the sweetness of the jasmine and the refinement of the violet.

Lily of the Valley is a bouquet which so truly reproduces the odor of the flower itself that connoisseurs cannot distinguish them. Our make of this has become extremely popular and recommended highly.

Heliotrope. Exquisitely delicate a universal favorite. In addition to its popularity in this country we export large quantities of this perfume to South America, the buyers being Spanish speaking people who prefer our make of this odor to any in the world.

Opoponax, rich fragrant lasting. Particularly admired among people of refinement on account of its peculiar characteristics being quiet and delicate in opposition to loud smelling.

Jockey Club hardly needs commenting on or recommending here. It is too well known and too firmly an established favorite but there are different makes and some are better than others so we may state we believe ours to be best of all. A trial is all that is necessary to convince anyone.

Frangipanni. This perfume so a famous writer states was the invention of one of the earliest of the Roman nobles whose name it bears and it has the merit of being the most lasting perfume made. On account of its popularity we do not list it at double the price of other odors as some do but believe ours to be equal to any made.

Ylang Ylang meaning flower of flowers is an extremely beautiful flower which grows abundantly in the Phillipine Islands in which place its precious otto is distilled and sent abroad. Its odor is peculiarly delightful and beyond imitation.

Stephanotis is an odor extremely popular in England and amongst people of good taste is a favorite here.

Violet owing to the extremely high price of the flowers which has prevailed for the past few years has been difficult to get good and substitutes and imitations of it have flooded the market. Our English Violet is pure true to name and unexcelled by any made.

Practical Druggist and Pharmaceutical Review of Reviews, Volume 40, 1922:

"One of the most interesting phases in the growth and progress of the City of Detroit is the development of the manufacture of pharmaceuticals. Twenty years ago the manufacture of pharmaceuticals was Detroit's most important industry. Today it has grown bigger and more important thạn ever and is overshadowed only by the automobile industry. Crude drugs gathered from the most remote and inaccessible parts of the globe pour into Detroit. From India, China, Africa, Guiana, Brazil, Cayenne, Java, Borneo, from every corner of the earth medicinal plants are drawn to Detroit. 

The foundation of this immense industry was laid in 1855, 66 years ago by Frederick Stearns in a small store on Jefferson Avenue. At that time there were only two or three pharmacists in America, most druggists making the pills and liquids, extracts and powders, in their own stores was an expensive, unsatisfiable factory and difficult process, and as Frederick Stearns had better apparatus and gave the matter more attention it was no difficult matter to gain the trade of surrounding druggists. Stearns Quality, or as the founder expressed it. The best in medicine is none too good stood for the same high standards of pharmaceutical excellence in those days as it does today. It is therefore no wonder that soon more room was needed for manufacturing and in 1871 after having suffered two losses of 80,000 by fire, Frederick Stearns decided to separate the wholesale and retail business from the manufacturing at Woodward Avenue and the Laboratory was moved to a new location on Woodbridge Street near Sixth. The House of Stearns showed great initiative inventive ability and love of research which is perhaps why the industry grew faster at Detroit than at any of the other cities which now made efforts to get this trade. Frederick Stearns himself made the first fluid extract produced in America. This fact may be of little significance to the layman, but to the doctor and pharmacist, it shows the forward impetus which this man the drug business for fluid extracts today are the most class of medicinal preparations in the pharmacopæia.

The business soon outgrew these quarters, and in 1881, was moved to a new laboratory at 21st and Marquette Streets which afforded more adequate facilities for taking care of the increasing demands. In 1882, the business was incorporated under the name of Frederick Stearns & Company, with Frederick Stearns as President. The Windsor Branch Laboratory was established in 1884 to handle the Canadian business and later another branch, a laboratory was established at Sydney, Australia to manufacture and supply the demand for products under the Stearns label throughout Australia and New Zealand. Frederick Stearns & Company also have branches in New York, San Francisco, Calcutta India, and Cape Town South Africa. Frederick Stearns seemingly not content with the medicines then known to mankind, sent out scientific explorers to all parts of the world to discover new drugs and plants that might be utilized for medicinal purposes. The men sent out on these expeditions were among the first to penetrate the upper reaches of the Amazon, to cross the Andes in South America, and to make their way into Africa. Their expeditions would form one of the great romances of the development and advance of have never been written, these intrepid men accomplished their purpose and through their efforts many valuable facts have been added to our knowledge of the materia medica. 

Frederick Stearns on retiring from the presidency of the company in 1887, being succeeded by his son Frederick Kimball Stearns, devoted a great deal of time to travel and study and soon won an enviable reputation for his research knowledge and collection of rare drugs. The National Dispensatory and American Dispensatory, the text book and guide book of the pharmacist, quoted him upon various subjects of materia medica.

In 1896, Frederick Stearns & Company founded the Stearns Fellowship at the College of Pharmacy of the University of as a memorial to the founder of the House. All this time the House of Stearns was developing and growing Detroit was becoming an important city. To keep pace with this development Frederick Stearns & Company with characteristic faith in the future greatness of Detroit that had ever marked the progress of the House of Stearns decided to erect an extensive and thoroughly modern plant at Jefferson and Bellevue Avenues sufficient to meet the needs of the business for a century as was supposed at the time. This mammoth new laboratory one of the most modern and completely equipped institutions of its kind in the world was occupied in 1900 would think that the manufacture of pharmaceuticals difficult and complicated as it is would occupy the attention of even the largest laboratory yet through the efforts of a corps of trained chemists who devote their entire time to experimental and research work other lines have been added from time to time such as digestive ferments, fine soaps, pharmaceutical and chemical specialties and perfumes. The art of making perfumes and toilet preparations is so closely allied that a steady growth of this industry was inevitable. closely allied that a steady growth of this industry was inevitble.

France for years had been looked upon as the perfume center of the world. When the war came, America was thrown upon her own resources and produced better and more successful goods than ever before, and for the first time in American perfumes were found in the foreign markets. American quality and American creations were approved, commented on and copied by Europeans during and following the close of the war. Here is a remarkable change in the current of the perfume industry.

Stearns Day Dream originated and produced in Detroit is now sold throughout North America, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Orient. Detroit made toilet articles pharmaceuticals are now powerful factors in the world markets. During the World War, Frederick Stearns & Company made enormous quantities of pills, tablets, foot powder, etc. for the Army, Navy, and Red Cross, and its officers actively assisted in carrying on the work of the Council of National Defense. In 1919, the House of Stearns arranged to support financially at the University of Michigan, a medicinal plants garden for the purpose of investigating the culture and development here in Michigan of many medicinal plants imported from foreign countries. Educational exhibits of medicinal plants actually grown in this garden have been shown both in the Horticultural Building at the Michigan State Fair and at the Washtenaw County Fair.

Again in 1919, to meet the ever increasing demand for the more than five thousand Stearns Quality products that are now manufactured in the Stearns Laboratories, it was necessary to erect an additional eight story laboratory. From the modest beginning in the little drug store on Jefferson Avenue, the House of Stearns has grown to where the parent plant and home office in Detroit alone covers ten acres of floor space and its products are shipped to all parts of the globe. White, brown, black, red, and yellow men the world over recognize Detroit as an important center in the world's pharmaceutical advancement. To look at the Jefferson Avenue Laboratory with its dark brick walls covered with ivy, one would hardly suspect the glorious romance of business, the wonderful record of achievement and the thrilling tales of adventure and heroism that lie recorded in the dark vaults of Frederick Stearns & Company."