After 50 years of mail-order catalog sales Montgomery Ward, opened its first retail store in 1926, following the lead of Sears (who opened its first retail store in 1925). Under the direction of Ward’s president George Everett, the retailer opened hundreds of new stores throughout the country.
One such store was in Portland, Oregon (see picture below).
In this interesting photo (from 1930), a young woman is demonstrating the benefits of a new product, the Air-O-Auto. You read that right. She’s spray painting some wicker items using a spray-painting gun, powered by an air compressor. So what’s so special about that, you might ask? The air pressure for this device is generated by an automobile engine. According to a Popular Mechanics advertisement (September 1930, p. 132), the Air-O-Auto is “easy to install. Remove one spark plug from your engine and screw in the adapter.”
The action of the lone piston generated the air pressure which powered the “Air-O-Auto.”
The advertisement promises that – due to a special valve on the spray-paint canister, “no oil or gas will pass into the paint.” Better yet, the ad reassures suspicious customers, it probably won’t damage your car’s engine!
In the photo below, this Air-O-Auto is so easy to use that even a woman can do it! Yee-ha!
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The Air-O-Auto in use! Note the woman hard at work while six men sit and watch.