Old-timey spider-man signs

Keith Powell’s recent book Forgotten Moyie included a terrific photo showing a long line of now-long-lost buildings on Moyie’s Victoria Street (now Highway 3).

There’s also something odd: a dummy clings to the roof of R.A. Smith’s shoemaker shop. A sign on its back reads: “Climbing for/R.A. Smith’s/Hand made/Boots and/Shoes.”

(Columbia Basin Institute of Regional History/Fort Steele Heritage Town Archives 2560.0005)

I didn’t know what the heck to make of it. Then I noticed something similar on a postcard of Front Street in Revelstoke’s Lower Town. A dummy clings to the roof of H.B. Stonex’s machinist shop with a sign on its back, although I can’t read what it says. The dummy is in almost the exact same position as the one in Moyie.

(Greg Nesteroff collection)

So what are we to make of this?

Two dummies in two towns put up around the same time by two unrelated businesses. I’ll tentatively conclude that this was a common advertising gimmick around the turn of the 20th century.

But was it unique to this part of BC? Did a sign shop make these dummies? Or did Smith and Stonex read the same trade publication story titled “Build your own roof-clinging dummy and profit”? I have no idea. And I don’t know how to go about finding out either, partly because I don’t know what to call signs like this.

For now, I’m going with “spider-man signs.” I’d be interested if you can find any other images depicting them or have any other theories about them.  

The only possibly related thing I’ve found was in the Bergen (New Jersey) Evening Record of Nov. 25, 1939: “A dummy clinging perilously to a second story window ledge on a Main street building, pleading by sign to be taken to the Ridgefield Park Elks dance tonight, is symbolic of the pre-dance spirit of three celebrations scheduled tonight …”

Just coincidence, or a vestige of a forgotten tradition of spider-man signs?