Dopp kit

Posted by ESC on March 08, 2005

Someone asked about where to buy "Save the Baby," a medicine. I found it was sold at The Vermont County Store and, after visiting the site, ordered a catalog. I found this:

DOPP KIT - "A Dopp kit once was standard issue upon a boy's entrance into manhood. It's still the best way to keep a man's grooming tools conveniently organized. First designed by Charles Doppelt in 1919 to withstand the rigors of traveling." From The Vermont Country Store "Voice of the Mountains" catalog, Winter 2005. Page 81.

A google of Mr. Doppelt's name lead to this: "According to newspaper accounts unearthed by Merriam-Webster's Jim Rader, the Dopp Kit was first produced by Charles Doppelt, a leather goods designer who immigrated to the U.S. from Germany in the early 1900s. Although it may have been Doppelt's nephew and employee, Jerome Harris, who actually invented the snazzy leather toiletries case, Doppelt was the boss and so the finished product bore a cropped form of his name, giving us the 'Dopp Kit.' Dopp Kits were manufactured by the Charles Doppelt Company until the firm was purchased by Samsonite in the 1970s, and Dopp Kits today are made by Buxton. The popularity of Dopp Kits was evidently boosted considerably by World War II, in the course of which the U.S. Army issued them to recruits by the millions." From the Word Detective online, October 30, 2001, column. www.word-detective.com/ 103001.html Accessed March 7, 2005.