Vintage in the Zoo Market Events are BACK, and BIGGER than ever!!

Summer is here! If you Good News Paper readers are anything like us, you were so beyond ready for this weather change! It was a long and cold winter, but like every year as the days turn brighter, longer, and warmer, we can now look back and say “did it again.” Time to get back to outside activities (without a coat), enjoy some sunny fun at the beach, work in the garden, ride a bike (human-powered or motorized), and so many things! We here at Vintage in the Zoo know Spring for one main change: MARKET SEASON is here! We spent the past few months holding our series of pop-up vintage bar markets “Night Shop” with Louie’s Trophy House and planning for our biggest Spring-Summer market season yet: Vintage in the Zoo Market, Season 7!

We have a few seasons under our belt now in Downtown Kalamazoo which many would say “well you must be comfortable now” but for us comfort brings boredom plus the yearn to do more and grow again. So that is just what we did! After the huge success of our single 2022 event in Kzoo’s neighbor-city to the North, we have expanded our Grand Rapids Downtown Market partnership to three (3) Vintage and Handmake Market events in 2023- the first one kicked off back in April with 70 of the region’s best vintage and handmade vendors and a HUGE crowd! So, this year along with finding our Market events every 2nd Saturday in Downtown Kalamazoo (07/08, 08/12, 09/09, 10/14), you can also see how we do it in Grand Rapids on 07/23 and 10/01. It’s a quick trip up the GR, and if the eclectic mix of vendors we have there isn’t enough for you, make sure to stop inside the

Grand Rapids Downtown Market to experience all the amazing food vendors serving there daily- the selection is truly amazing.

Speaking of a truly amazing selection with eclectic taste, thismakes me think of one thing back in Kalamazoo… the music on Western Michigan University’s radio station: WIDR FM! We are so proud to share that we have partnered with WIDR FM, and they will be broadcasting live from our Vintage in the Zoo Presents: Mallmart + Zoo Flea Vintage and Handmade Marketplace events in Downtown Kalamazoo all Summer. You can expect a mix of on-air WIDR talent speaking with our Market guest around vintage and handmade, the live sounds of DJ Dan Steely spinning vinyl with special guest DJs, and some awesome surprises. As much as we hope to see your smiling faces in-person at our monthly 2nd Saturday events in Kalamazoo, if you cannot attend, be sure to listen on your radio or online (at widrfm.org)!

As always Vintage in the Zoo events are “free to all, come shop small!” Join us in supporting SECONDHAND and LOCAL monthly on the North Kalamazoo Walking Mall in Downtown Kalamazoo, and at Grand Rapids Downtown Market in GR! We are so appreciative to be in the position to bring you a rotating selection of small businesses in our vendor booths each month. Not everyone has all have the resources or connections required to rent (or own) a brick-and-mortar storefront... YET, BUT we can all start on an entrepreneurial journey in our own way today. The sky is truly the limit, the “rules” are irrelevant and made to be rewritten in a new, better way that includes ALL! The opportunities we provide each vendor is a small portion of this journey, and why our organization exists. We are so proud of you all for supporting these wonderful business owner’s dreams as we work to uplift and make safe spaces in which growth occurs. We can remember when Vintage in the Zoo Markets were just a far-off dream to us over seven years ago- it is possible friends, work hard and never give up!

With all this said- we CANNOT WAIT to share the even LARGER changes and EVOLUTION of our entrepreneurial dreams coming very soon to Kalamazoo and beyond!!

Enjoy your summer!

Patrick Turner | VintageintheZoo.com

Many Americans have closely followed the story of Theranos and the company’s founder, Elizabeth Holmes, who falsely claimed that her firm had created a compact device that could perform extensive diagnostic tests using a few drops of blood. She raised more than $700 million from investors, some of them well-known.

But Holmes wasn’t the first charismatic young “businesswoman” to defraud investors. In the 1880s, the American public latched onto the claims and subsequent trial of a young woman named Olive Friend. She and her husband, Henry, declared that they had developed a tabletop machine that could process large amounts of refined sugar from In Chicago they met the initiator of the Great Sugar Swindle, Henry Friend (sometimes spelled Freund). The mysterious Friend called himself “professor” and claimed to be a chemist from Germany, but he was probably born in New York State. Friend told William and Emily that he had devised a “wonderful machine” that used electricity to turn unrefined sugar into refined, edible sugar. Having some knowledge of the actual steps required, William immediately saw through Henry’s scam, but went along with it, confident that he would profit from his involvement.

Within the next year, Emily’s daughter, Olive, came to visit her mother and William in Chicago.

Olive, a “very large woman with attractive features,” had previously been married for about 10 years. Visiting Henry’s residence with Emily and William, Olive met Henry and a relationship began. The two were married on February 3, 1883 in Niles, Michigan. Olive was 31 years old, Henry was 41.

Almost immediately, the Friends and Howards started developing a scheme to make money with Henry’s non-existent sugar refining machine. Additional members of the clan would join them. But the group wouldn’t run the scam in Chicago; Henry had been arrested there for embezzlement, and folks there were openly skeptical of his claims. Instead, they would move to America’s business capital where they would all experience sudden but short-lived wealth.

In February 1884, Henry, Olive, and Olive’s mother and stepfather (Emily and William Howard) all relocated from Chicago to New York

City. They didn’t waste any time before they began to execute their scheme.

The four began giving demonstrations to potential investors at their home on East 108th Street in East Harlem. In July 1884, they formed the Electric Sugar Refining Company and issued 10,000 shares of company stock, selling 4,000 shares at $100 each with Henry retaining 6,000 shares. Interest was especially keen in England, and in 1885, Henry, Olive and Emily sailed to Liverpool to meet potential investors. (More stock would be sold in England than in the United States.) Henry and Olive received $530,000 in salary and to invest in buildings and equipment, the equivalent of $15.6 million today.

All of this for a process that never actually existed.

How did they do it?

It all started with those “demonstrations” they gave at their home, and later, at a former flour mill in Brooklyn they purchased. Potential investors would be brought into a room that contained various equipment including a barrel of unrefined sugar, an empty barrel, and the “electric sugar refining machine.” It was described as “about the size of two typewriters” which sat on a table hidden under a cloth. The visitors were told that the unrefined sugar would be fed into the machine where special manipulation of electric current would turn the sweet stuff into clean, refined sugar ready for consumption.

However, potential investors and even company officers were told that they could not be in the room while the machine did its work. Henry explained that if people could see the process, the big sugar companies would steal their secrets. He elaborated that he had similar concerns even if he were to patent the device.

After the visitors were escorted from the room, one of the schemers would dump the unrefined sugar down a chute where it ended up in the river or septic system. Then, another collaborator (probably Olive) one floor above the demonstration room poured refined sugar—which they had purchased from a local grocer—through an opening in the floor into the empty barrel. About two hours later, the visitors were readmitted to see and taste the electric miracle. Among them were ringers, placed there by the collaborators, who exclaimed how remarkable the machine was and proclaimed their confidence that it would make money for them.

Henry promised investors and company officers outside the family that his invention could eventually produce 4,000 barrels of refined sugar every 24 hours at a cost of 80 cents per ton, compared to the $75 per ton that it cost real refineries.

The Friends and Howards brought in additional family members from Milan who moved copper pipes, empty crates and crates containing refined sugar into the mill to make