The wholesale and retail Jewelry establishment of Clemens Oskamp is situated at 175 Vine street; the manufactory at the corner of Harrison and Calvert Streets.  The former has a frontage of 20 feet, and a dept of 100 feet, and it five stories in height.  The later has a front of 25 feet and a depth of 100 feet,    and consists of three stories.  The business was established in the year 1844.  In the retail salesroom there is displayed the finest assortment of Watches, Diamonds, Silver Ware, Jewelry, Clocks, Bronzes, and other articles in the Jewelry line.

The manufactory, which has be en only recently fitted up, is a modern establishment in every sense of the word, and contains the newest and most perfect machinery and devices, by which the firm are enabled to turn out patterns of workmanship of the most exquisite and beautiful finish.  In Table Ware the firm excel, their productions being considered equal to the best made Table Ware manufactured in this country.  In elegant Jewelry, such as Cameo Sets, Roman Bracelets fin Lockets, and the like, the articles of their production are unrivaled.  Manufacturing and importing goods for the wholesale trade is the principal part of this firm’s business, and during the season dealers from all parts of the country can be seen in their wholesale department laying in supplies; and their traveling salesman reach all distant points at regular intervals with large stocks of goods.

The following remarks with regard to the general use of Jewelry are taken from British Report on Jewelry made at the late Vienna Exposition, and were published in the Freie Presse, of Vienna:

The love of personal decoration is a sentiment which man share with the animals, as a record of his connection with them in the chain of creation, which binds all organization being into one consistent whole.  In modern times the naturalist of the Darwinian school have first, in the history of natural science, turned their attention to the effects of the various brilliant decorations of animals upon their success in the ‘struggle of life,’ and have already arrived at most valuable conclusion concerning it.

“It is nothing against some of the ornaments worn at present by ladies of fashion that they resemble those worn by their barbarian ancestors.  Those who use them are not necessarily barbarians; but the fact only shows that the love of the ornament in inherent in human nature, while its manifestations take on the various phases of the increased culture of the time.

“A lady who wears bracelets and ear-rings would be shocked by the suggestion that she should add to her attractions by wearing also a nose-ring, a lip-ring, or anklets; or that she should tattoo her face in fanciful patterns with brilliantly colored dyes.  Yet many of her contemporary sisters still use all these appliances of ornament and from the same natural and inherent tendency for decoration.  The extent to which this has increased during the last decade justifies the estimate that, with the importations from abroad, there are consumed in the United States at least twenty millions of dollars’ worth of jewelry a year.  In modern times the improvement processes of the arts, arising from the application of science to their methods and the introduction of the use of machinery, has so cheapened and increased the production of jewelry as to place within the reach of every one the ability to gratify his taste for it, as can be easily verified by any one who takes a look through Oksamp’s retail jewelry houses.

“In the United States the greater equality of our political conditions, together with the freer circulation of the results of industry, and the activity of our social life, has lea to the almost universal of Jewelry.”
1875 Kenny's Illustrated Cincinnati page 210-211