Occupational portrait of sixteen men, two with "Little Minister" caps

Photograph 5 x 7 inches mounted on 7 x 9 embossed card. In Good condition, heavily soiled and worn around the board edges, small half-inch loss at the upper left corner of the photograph. No markings on verso. The men are possibly furnace workers, several with towels around their necks, and all six in the bottom row holding twin pipes. Each man wears a hat, two of which are visibly branded "Little Minister," utilizing the front panel as a billboard. B. F. Goodrich held a trademark for "Little Minister," recorded in the Pearson 1916 Rubber Trade Directory (p.412). The product was a small toy, one of very few manufactured by the Akron company better known for tires and sporting equipment. The hat may have been part of a promotion for the company—or perhaps it was related to the 1934 film adaptation of J. M. Barrie's starring Katharine Hepburn? Whatever the context, they're unusually early examples of the iconic American baseball cap used for advertising--a practice more associated with the rise of "trucker hats" in the 1970s.