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Branding trust: advertising, trademarks, and the problem of legitimacy in the United States, 1876-1920

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Branding trust: advertising, trademarks, and the problem of legitimacy in the United States, 1876-1920

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BRANDING TRUST:
ADVERTISING, TRADEMARKS, AND THE PROBLEM OF LEGITIMACY
IN THE UNITED STATES, 1876-1920

By

Jennifer M. Black

________________________________________________________________________

A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(HISTORY)

May 2013

Copyright 2013 Jennifer M. Black

For Anne Marie and Oliver

i
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

In many ways, though this dissertation has been defended and filed, it has taken
on a life of its own that will outlive the conclusion of the paper trail at USC. As I move
forward, I remember those individuals and institutions that helped me along the way. It
gives me great pleasure to thank them here.
First and foremost, this project would not have been possible without the financial
support of several institutions. The University of Southern California provided crucial
funding for my graduate studies, while the university’s History Department, the Visual
Studies Program, and the Dornsife College of Arts and Sciences each provided much
needed dissertation research and writing support at various junctures in this project.
Importantly, this project also benefited from generous fellowships granted by the Henry
Francis DuPont Winterthur Museum & Library, The Huntington Library, and the
Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History.
Archivists and librarians are an invaluable resource, and I am forever grateful for
the assistance of several individuals. Staff at the Library of Congress’ Prints and
Photographs Division and at Duke University’s John W. Hartman Center for Sales,
Advertising, and Marketing History, especially Lynn Eaton and Janie Morris, offered
helpful tips for navigating the vast collections at each institution. Cathy Cherbosque and
Alan Jutzi at the Huntington Library were instrumental in facilitating my research; while
Dave Mihaly offered important insights to the history of chromolithography as I sifted
through the massive Jay T. Last Collection of Graphic Arts. While studying at the
American Antiquarian Society, Georgia Barnhill, Lauren Hewes, Elizabeth Pope, and
Paul Erickson offered guidance and encouragement. A number of other repositories also
ii
offered hospitable places to work, and I’m therefore grateful for the assistance of Reina
Williams (University of Chicago Special Collections), Marge McNinch (Hagley Museum
and Library), Tom Whitehead (Temple University Special Collections), Terry Howard
(US Patent and Trademark Office Public Search Facility), and Marianne Hansen (Bryn
Mawr University Special Collections). Several individuals helped me obtain the
necessary permissions to use the images found in this dissertation. For their assistance I
thank Richard Buino (Kraft Foods), Kay Peterson (Archives Center, Smithsonian
Institution), Jeanne Solensky (Winterthur Library), Krystle Satrum (Huntington Library),
and Elizabeth Brake (Duke University).
Research gleaned from long fellowships at the Winterthur Library and the
Smithsonian’s Archives Center shaped the bulk of this project. At Winterthur, Helena
Richardson, Emily Guthrie, Laura Parrish, and Jeanne Solensky guided me through the
library’s collections and offered suggestions for further research. I’m deeply appreciative
to Ann Wagner for talking with me at length about counterfeit silver pieces; and to Rich
McKinstry and Greg Landry for introducing me to John and Carolyn Grossman, whose
collection of nineteenth-century chromolithography proved indispensible to this project.
Importantly, my experience was made more successful and memorable by Rosemary
Krill, whose care to ensure my intellectual and physical comfort earned her special
mention here. She is truly an asset to Winterthur’s fellowship program. While in
residence at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History I
benefited from conversations with Vanessa Broussard-Simmons, Helena Wright, Richard
Doty, Katherine Ott, and Deborra Richardson. Suzanne McLaughlin offered essential
administrative support for my Smithsonian fellowship.
iii
As a graduate student, I have been fortunate to receive advice and encouragement
from an exceptional group of scholars whose mentorship has been formative in my own
intellectual development. While a masters’ student at Western Michigan University,
Bruce Haight, Barbara Havira, Judith Stone, Dick Keaveny, Mary-Louise Totton, and the
late Nora Faires offered invaluable support and encouragement. At USC, Deb Harkness,
Daniella Bleichmar, Paul Lerner, Bill Deverell, and Peter Mancall gave critical
intellectual support during the project’s early phases; while Richard Fox and Leo Braudy
saw it through completion. Joe Styles, Laverne Hughes, Sandra Hopwood, and Lori
Rogers provided administrative help and have my deepest appreciation. Finally, this
project would not be where it is today without the intellectual guidance and mentorship of
Vanessa Schwartz and Karen Halttunen. My perspective as a scholar has benefited
greatly from conversations with them, and I am forever thankful for their support of this
project.
My intellectual development has also grown with the help of a number of
scholarly communities. This dissertation profited from conversations I had with other
students and fellows at the Smithsonian, American Antiquarian Society, the Huntington,
Winterthur, and USC, especially Kate LaPrad, Becca Bertrand, Sarah Anne Carter, Anne
Anderson, David and Helen LaCroix, Andrew Bozanic, Emily Pawley, Michael Block,
Justin Clark, Annie Johnson, Jason LaBau, and Matt Amato. Several experts offered
thoughtful and much appreciated insight to my project, including Michael Leja, Janet
Zapata, Ann Wagner, Dick Flint, Susan Strasser, Pete Daniel, Robert Rabe, Gigi Barnhill,
Steve Ross, and Andrew Bell. Finally, my work improved through the comments of
participants at various conferences and symposia, including the Annual Conference of the
iv
Popular and American Culture Associations (2009), The Eighth Annual Emergent
Scholars in Material Culture Symposium (2010), the Smithsonian Colloquium Series
(Spring 2010), the Annual Meeting of the Pacific Coast Branch of the American
Historical Association (2010), the summer CHAViC seminar held at the American
Antiquarian Society (2010), and the Before Madison Avenue Conference held at AAS
(2011).
Others have provided more tangible assistance through the course of my research
and writing. Friends and family provided generous lodging at various points in my
research, and I’m therefore thankful for the kindness of Cindy and Mike Domanowski,
Lesley and Wes Skinner, and especially to my brother Jonathon and his wife Kara. Jean
May and Olive and Jack Harkness generously shared their families’ albums and
ephemera with me, making my research experience more personal. Moreover, several
individuals read and re-read portions of this dissertation, offering invaluable commentary
that shaped my writing. I’m thankful for the help of Gigi Barnhill, Catherine Clark,
Karin Higa, Karin Huebner, Chera Kee, Sarah Keyes, Anca Lasc, Allison Lauterbach,
Ryan Linkof, Annie Manion, Leta Ming, Casey Riffel, Raphaelle Steinzig, Ericka
Swensson, Jia Tan, Ben Uchiyama, and Diana Williams. Sarah Fried-Gintis and Noelia
Saenz offered tremendous intellectual support and encouragement throughout the
duration of the entire project, and I’m deeply thankful for the gift of their friendship.
Finally, I have the very difficult task of thanking my family for their faith in my
abilities as a student and scholar. The members of the Black, Gauthier, and Petriches
families have my eternal gratitude for their support and patience as I finished this project.
To all my aunts, uncles, cousins, second cousins, brothers and sisters in law, and
v
especially my “family by choice”: thank you from the bottom of my heart. My mother-
in-law, Beverley Pare Black, generously gave her time for child care when we needed it
most. My grandmother, Patricia Gordon Petriches, has given immeasurable counseling
and encouragement even as she anxiously awaited my completion of this degree. My
father, Jeff Petriches, who always bolstered my academic pursuits, gave much-needed
strength and support in the project’s final stages. And to my husband and partner, Travis
Black, I owe everything. He listened thoughtfully as I talked through arguments,
evidence, and conclusions; and offered a sounding board for much of the material here.
His patience and encouragement sustained me each step of the way; and this project is as
much his as it is mine.
This dissertation is dedicated to my son, who was born just after I began writing
the first draft; and to my mother, who died just before my dissertation defense. My
mother was a treasured advisor, confidant, and friend. Her encouragement and faith in
my abilities pushed me to be a better person, and she will be deeply missed. She passed
on much of her sparkle and optimism to my son. It was my son’s inherent joy, even in
times of deep sorrow, which helped me to see this project’s completion. And so this
dissertation belongs to Oliver Benjamin and his “Grammy” Anne Marie. The beginning
and end of their lives will forever color the memory of this project in my mind.

vi
TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgments i
Illustrations vii
Abstract xiii

Introduction: Branding Trust 1
Chapter One: Exchange Cards 31
Chapter Two: Modes of Establishing Rapport,
or; the Letter and the Laugh 97
Chapter Three: Demonstrating Character, Visualizing Personality 164
Chapter Four: Annotating Trust in the Trademarked Logo 222
Epilogue: Making the Impersonal, Personal 282

List of Abbreviations 292
Bibliography 293

vii
ILLUSTRATIONS

Figure 1.1 L. Prang & Co., “Autumn Leaves,” and “Wildflowers,” album cards (c.
1864) compiled in a collector’s album, approx. 2 x 4in. each. Louis Prang
Papers, Jay T. Last Collection, The Huntington Library. These items are
reproduced by permission of The Huntington Library, San Marino,
California.
Figure 1.2 Trade card for T. B. Jansen & Co. booksellers and stationers, New York,
NY (c. 1800), approx. 2.5 x 3.5in. Col. 9. Courtesy, The Winterthur
Library: Joseph Downs Collection of Manuscripts and Printed Ephemera.
Figure 1.3 Trade card for Reynolds Bros. Shoes, reverse view (c. 1885), approx. 3 x
5in. Ephemera Collections, The Huntington Library. This item is
reproduced by permission of The Huntington Library, San Marino,
California.
Figure 1.4 Flowchart showing trade card distribution and use. Image copyright
Jennifer M. Black.
Figure 1.5 L. Prang & Co., stock cards (1878), approx. 2 x 4in. each. Louis Prang
Papers, Jay T. Last Collection, The Huntington Library. These items are
reproduced by permission of The Huntington Library, San Marino,
California.
Figure 1.6 Elaborate hidden-name calling card (c. 1870-1890), approx. 2 x 4in. In
Ohio Card Co., Agent’s Sample Book (Cadiz, OH), Doc. 286 p.18.
Courtesy, The Winterthur Library: Joseph Downs Collection of
Manuscripts and Printed Ephemera.
Stock card with epistle design (c. 1890), approx. 2 x 4in. Courtesy, The
Winterthur Library: The John and Carolyn Grossman Collection.
Figure 1.7 Hand-colored sentiment card inscribed “Adaline” (c. 1840), approx. 1 x
3in. Courtesy, The Winterthur Library: The John and Carolyn Grossman
Collection.
Figure 1.8 L. Prang & Co., stock cards showing multiple uses (1877), approx. 1 x
3in. each. Louis Prang Papers, Jay T. Last Collection, The Huntington
Library. These items are reproduced by permission of The Huntington
Library, San Marino, California.
Figure 1.9 Stock trade cards for Mitchell Platform Spring Wagons (c. 1890), approx.
2 x 4in. each. Ephemera Collections, The Huntington Library. These
items are reproduced by permission of The Huntington Library, San
Marino, California.

viii
Figure 1.10 “Daisy Series” calling card (1878), approx. 2 x 4in. In Card Mills, Agent
Sample Book (Northford, CT), Doc 218 p.18. Courtesy, The Winterthur
Library: Joseph Downs Collection of Manuscripts and Ephemera.
Trade card for Fleischmann’s Yeast, with reverse view (c. 1880), approx.
2 x 4in. Col. 669 album 26. Courtesy, The Winterthur Library: Joseph
Downs Collection of Manuscripts and Ephemera.
Figure 1.11 “Baby” scrapbook page (1876), approx. 10 x 12in. Col. 669 album 6.
Courtesy, The Winterthur Library: Joseph Downs Collection of
Manuscripts and Ephemera.
Figure 1.12 Entry signed G. J. Van DenCorput, with hand-drawn illustration in pencil
(1876), page approx. 8 x 10in. In Camille Block Album Souvenir (1875-
1887), Doc 35. Courtesy, The Winterthur Library: Joseph Downs
Collection of Manuscripts and Ephemera.
Figure 1.13 Entry from Bessie H. Sherk (1881), page approx. 7.5 x 4in. In Lizzie
Cadmus Autograph Album (1877-1882), Doc 447. Courtesy, The
Winterthur Library: Joseph Downs Collection of Manuscripts and
Ephemera.
Figure 1.14 Pencil drawing of a stock trade card, page approx. 8 x 10in. In Camille
Block Album (1875-87), Doc 35. Courtesy, The Winterthur Library:
Joseph Downs Collection of Manuscripts and Ephemera.
Albert Whitman’s signature, adorned with hand-drawn and colored
flowers and text box, ink and pencil on paper (1880), page approx. 7.5 x
4in. In Lizzie Cadmus album (1877-82), Doc. 447. Courtesy, The
Winterthur Library: Joseph Downs Collection of Manuscripts and
Ephemera.
Figure 1.15 L. Prang & Co., stock trade card (1878), approx. 2 x 4in. Ephemera
Collections, The Huntington Library. This item is reproduced by
permission of The Huntington Library, San Marino, California.
Figure 2.1 Trade card for John Wanamaker (c. 1876-1880), approx. 2.5 x 3in.
Courtesy, The Winterthur Library: The John and Carolyn Grossman
Collection.
Figure 2.2 Newspaper advertisement for Wanamaker’s, placed by N. W. Ayer & Son
Advertising Agency (1878-1880), approx. 3 x 3in. N. W. Ayer
Advertising Agency Records. Archives Center, National Museum of
American History, Smithsonian Institution.
Figure 2.3 Stock trade cards with handwritten customization, for C. J. Vanderhoof
(c.1880), approx. 3 x 4in. each. In Emma K. scrapbook (1884). Archives
Center Scrapbook Collection. Archives Center, National Museum of
American History, Smithsonian Institution.

ix
Figure 2.4 Newspaper advertisement for N. W. Ayer & Son Advertising Agency
(1893), approx. 1 x 5in. N. W. Ayer Advertising Agency Records.
Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian
Institution.
Figure 2.5 Forbes Co., trade card for Lydia Pinkham’s Vegetable Compound, with
reverse view (c. 1880), approx. 3 x 5in. Col. 669 album 31. Courtesy,
The Winterthur Library: Joseph Downs Collection of Manuscripts and
Ephemera.
Figure 2.6 J. Walter Thompson Advertising Agency, The Red Ear (New York: J.
Walter Thompson, 1887), 6, page approx. 5 x 8in. J. Walter Thompson
Company Publications Collection. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book &
Manuscript Library, Duke University.
Figure 2.7 Trade cards for Diamond Package Dyes, manufactured by Wells &
Richardson Co. (c. 1880-1890), approx. 3 x 4in. each. Ephemera
Collections, The Huntington Library. These items are reproduced by
permission of The Huntington Library, San Marino, California.
Figure 2.8 Ketterlinus Lithographic Co., blank stock trade cards (c. 1880), approx. 3
x 4in. each. Col. 9. Courtesy, The Winterthur Library: Joseph Downs
Collection of Manuscripts and Ephemera.
Figure 2.9 Krebs Litho Co., trade card for Magnolia Hams (c. 1880), approx. 3 x 4in.
Ephemera Collections, The Huntington Library. This item is reproduced
by permission of The Huntington Library, San Marino, California.
Trade card for Higgin’s German Laundry Soap (1880), approx. 3 x 4in.
Col. 669 album 27. Courtesy, The Winterthur Library: Joseph Downs
Collection of Manuscripts and Ephemera.
Figure 2.10 Krebs Litho Co., trade card for Magnolia Hams (c. 1878), approx. 3 x 4in.
Ephemera Collections, The Huntington Library. This item is reproduced
by permission of The Huntington Library, San Marino, California.
Figure 2.11 Trade card for Fairbank’s Soaps with reverse, showing the “Gold Dust
Twins” (c. 1880), approx. 3 x 5in. Warshaw Collection of Business
Americana—Soap. Archives Center, National Museum of American
History, Smithsonian Institution.
Figure 2.12 Advertising postcard for H. O. Cereal (1907), approx. 4 x 6in. Warshaw
Collection of Business Americana—Cereal. Archives Center, National
Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution.
Figure 2.13 American Bank Note Co., “Wooing,” “Wedding,” and “Return of the
Twins,” from the “Blackville” series, calendar trade cards for Clarence
Brooks & Co. Varnishes (1880), approx. 3 x 4in. each. Ephemera
Collections, The Huntington Library. These items are reproduced by
permission of The Huntington Library, San Marino, California.

x
Figure 2.14 Currier & Ives, “De Cake Walk” (1883), “A Darktown Lawn Party,
Music in the Air” (1888), and “A Darktown Lawn Party, A Bully Time”
(1888). Chromolithographs approx. 9 x 12in. each. Library of Congress,
Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, DC. Available online at
http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/90714150;
http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/91724506; and
http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/91724504.
Figure 2.15 Donaldson Bros., “Ceticism, my belobed bredren,” trade card for
Clarence Brooks & Co. (c.1885), approx. 3 x 5in. Ephemera Collections,
The Huntington Library. This item is reproduced by permission of The
Huntington Library, San Marino, California.
Figure 2.16 Krebs Litho Co., trade card for Magnolia Hams (c. 1870-1880), approx. 3
x 4in. Ephemera Collections, The Huntington Library. This item is
reproduced by permission of The Huntington Library, San Marino,
California.
Figure 3.1 Print advertisement for Franco-American Soups, produced by N. W. Ayer
& Son Advertising Agency (1907), approx. 6 x 6in. N. W. Ayer
Advertising Agency Records. Archives Center, National Museum of
American History, Smithsonian Institution.
Figure 3.2 Print advertisement for Lea & Perrin’s Sauce, produced by N. W. Ayer &
Son Advertising Agency (1917), approx. 3.5 x 7in. N. W. Ayer
Advertising Agency Records. Archives Center, National Museum of
American History, Smithsonian Institution.
Figure 3.3 J. C. Ayer & Co., Ayer’s American Almanac for 1880 and 1896 (Lowell,
MA: J. C. Ayer & Co.), n.p. Rare Books, The Huntington Library. This
item is reproduced by permission of The Huntington Library, San
Marino, California.
Figure 3.4 Portrait of Mrs. S. J. Watson (1899), in Treatise on the Diseases of
Women (Lynn, MA: Lydia E. Pinkham Medicine Co., 1901), 51.
Warshaw Collection of Business Americana—Patent Medicine. Archives
Center, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution.
Figure 3.5 Front cover for Pinkham’s Guide to Health (c. 1880). Warshaw
Collection of Business Americana—Patent Medicine. Archives Center,
National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution.
Figure 3.6 Newspaper advertisement for Mennen’s Toilet Powder (1898), box 7 fol.
2, Roy Lightner Collection of Antique Advertisements. David M.
Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University.
Figure 3.7 Smith Bros. pharmaceutical envelope showing trademark (c. 1870),
approx. 3 x 4in. Warshaw Collection of Business Americana—Patent
Medicine. Archives Center, National Museum of American History,
Smithsonian Institution.

xi
Figure 3.8 Newspaper advertisements for Fleischmann’s Yeast, featuring trade
character “John Dough,” produced by N. W. Ayer & Son Advertising
Agency. “The Sign of Good Bread” quarter-page ad (1916), “The World
Goes Round” half-page ad (1913), and “In Bread There is Strength”
quarter-page ad (1913). N. W. Ayer Advertising Agency Records.
Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian
Institution.
Figure 3.9 Newspaper advertisements for Quaker Oats, produced by N. W. Ayer &
Son Advertising Agency. “Children,” quarter-page ad (1902), and “You
know the Quaker,” quarter-page ad (1903). N. W. Ayer Advertising
Agency Records. Archives Center, National Museum of American
History, Smithsonian Institution.
Figure 4.1 Stock trade cards for J & P Coats’ Thread (c. 1885), approx. 2 x 4in.
each. Warshaw Collection of Business Americana—Thread. Archives
Center, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution.
L. Prang & Co., custom trade cards for Clark ONT thread (1878), approx
2 x 4in. each. Warshaw Collection of Business Americana—Thread.
Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian
Institution.
Figure 4.2 J. Walter Thompson Advertising Agency, “Wisdom Lighting the Globe,”
in J. Walter Thompson Advertising (New York: J. Walter Thompson,
1895), 4, page approx. 5 x 8in. J. Walter Thompson Company
Publications Collection. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript
Library, Duke University.
Figure 4.3 Custom trade card for Solar Tip Shoes (1880), approx. 3 x 5in., with
detail. Warshaw Collection of Business Americana—Shoes. Archives
Center, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution.
Figure 4.4 Custom trade card for Standard Tip Shoes (1884), approx. 3 x 5in., with
detail. Warshaw Collection of Business Americana—Shoes. Archives
Center, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution.
Figure 4.5 Custom trade cards for Solar Tip and Standard Tip Shoes (both 1884),
approx. 3 x 5in each. Warshaw Collection of Business Americana—
Shoes. Archives Center, National Museum of American History,
Smithsonian Institution.
Figure 4.6 Labels for Hood’s and Hodd’s Sarsaparilla (c.1890). Reprinted from “To
Punish Pirates,” Printers’ Ink 13, no. 3 (1895): 15.
Figure 4.7 National Biscuit Logo, as it appeared in 1900. N. W. Ayer Advertising
Agency Records. Archives Center, National Museum of American
History, Smithsonian Institution. Reproduced by permission from Kraft
Foods, Inc.

xii
Figure 4.8 Newspaper advertisements for National Biscuit Co., produced by N. W.
Ayer & Son Advertising Agency. “Behind the In-Er-Seal Package,”
quarter-page ad (1900), and “What does this mean?” quarter-page ad
(1900). N. W. Ayer Advertising Agency Records. Archives Center,
National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution.
Figure 4.9 “Bakers’ Marks” (1905), quarter-page magazine advertisement for
National Biscuit Co., produced by N. W. Ayer & Son Advertising
Agency. N. W. Ayer Advertising Agency Records. Archives Center,
National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution.
Figure 4.10 “O.K.” (1905), quarter-page newspaper advertisement for National
Biscuit Co., produced by N. W. Ayer & Son Advertising Agency. N. W.
Ayer Advertising Agency Records. Archives Center, National Museum
of American History, Smithsonian Institution.
Figure 4.11 “John Doe” (1905), quarter-page newspaper advertisement for National
Biscuit Co., produced by N. W. Ayer & Son Advertising Agency. N. W.
Ayer Advertising Agency Records. Archives Center, National Museum
of American History, Smithsonian Institution.
Figure 4.12 Uneeda Biscuit and Iwanta Biscuit packages, entered into evidence in
National Biscuit Co. v. Baker et. al 95 Fed. Rep. 135 (1899). Reprinted
from National Biscuit Co., Trade Mark Litigation, 5
th
ed. (priv. pub,
1915), 12.
Figure 4.13 In-Er-Seal logo and Swastika “Red-End-Seal,” for National Biscuit and
Pacific Biscuit Cos., respectively. Entered into evidence in National
Biscuit Co. v. Pacific Biscuit Co. et al. 83 NJ Eq. 369 (1914). Reprinted
from National Biscuit Co., Trade Mark Litigation, 5
th
ed. (priv. pub,
1915), 174.
Figure 4.14 Uneeda Biscuit and Abetta Biscuit cartons, entered into evidence in
National Biscuit Co. v. Pacific Biscuit Co. et al. 83 NJ Eq. 369 (1914).
Reprinted from National Biscuit Co., Trade Mark Litigation, 5
th
ed. (priv.
pub, 1915), 210.

xiii
ABSTRACT

Industrialization after the Civil War drove the expansion of the national market,
an explosion in new consumer goods, and the growth of the American advertising
industry. American consumers confronted a dizzying array of new goods available to
them, and as some brand-name goods gained popularity among the public, copycat
competitors threatened the reputations of the original products. Many advertisers
struggled to find ways to convince the public of their own legitimacy in the face of
competition from the manufacturers of counterfeit goods. Branding Trust traces the
strategies advertisers used to build goodwill and trust with the public between 1876 and
1920. It examines how cultural and business practices motivated the development of
trademark law and the legal protection of goodwill in the early twentieth century, and
finds that in these years advertising strategies came to increasingly rely upon images to
communicate with the public. This dissertation argues that, as American society
modernized and became more and more impersonal, advertisers personalized their
communications with the public in order to build goodwill—a cultural and legal concept
that included trustworthiness, integrity, and corporate reputation. Chapters one and two
examine the material, textual, and visual ways that advertisers re-situated their
commercial addresses to the public within a realm of friendship and intimacy. Chapter
three suggests that these strategies amounted to demonstrations of a persistent notion of
character and virtue in the Gilded Age, and traces the visualization of this virtue in trade
characters such as Lydia Pinkham and the Quaker Oats man. These demonstrations of
character helped advertisers build goodwill with the public. Chapter four examines the
history of trademark law alongside a case study of National Biscuit’s early branding
xiv
practices in order to demonstrate how trademarks became legal and cultural emblems of
trust and goodwill. Through a discussion of advertising images, texts, and objects, this
dissertation investigates the historical processes that turned brand-name trademarks into
icons of corporate reputation and responsibility.
1
INTRODUCTION:
Branding Trust

There is a popular feeling which roughly classes advertisements and misrepresentations
together.
1

In the early 1890s, writers in the advertising trade journal Printers’ Ink belabored
over the problem of illegitimate advertising that seemed to plague their industry.
Attempts to defraud the public by making false claims or advertising useless goods
preoccupied the industry’s leaders, who desperately wanted to legitimate their profession
in the eyes of the public. One writer in 1896 confided that the industry had fallen into
“disrepute because the field has been invaded by … men who promise impossible
things.”
2
He and other writers shamed any advertiser who intentionally lied to the public;
and recounted tales of city-slick con-men swindling honest, rural townspeople out of
hard-earned cash. In classified ads aimed to reel-in easy marks, through shocking
headlines that misled consumers, and with counterfeit goods that imitated genuine
products, swindlers and tricksters thrived on the anonymity of the printed word and the
naively trusting public to make their spurious profits. Each case smeared the public’s
view of the advertising industry writ large, in the eyes of industry experts. Their diatribes
against illegitimate advertising served as warnings to both consumers and irresponsible
newspaper editors who unwillingly allowed the fraudulent ads to be placed; and offered
suggestions for regulating newspaper advertising to prevent such travesties.
3

1
Will B. Willder, “Ethics and Advertising,” Printers’ Ink 5, no. 19 (Nov 1891): 546.
2
“Making it Plain,” Printers’ Ink 17, no. 6 (Nov 1896): 43.
3
Thomas Warwick, “The Devil’s Advertising,” Printers’ Ink 7, no. 5 (Aug 1892): 109-110; and John Z.
Rogers, “The Confidence Man in Advertising,” Printers’ Ink 6, no. 5 (Feb 1892): 151-152. See also John
2
What precipitated this problem of legitimacy that advertisers faced in the 1890s?
In many ways, this problem resulted from the rapid expansion of the national market as
the US industrialized in the decades following the Civil War. Improvements in
transportation and communication networks fostered the growth of consumption
throughout the second half of the century: as American industry boomed, the railroads,
telegraphs, and mass press soon connected the east and west coasts (and thousands of
towns between), and manufacturers in large urban centers began to seek new customers
in the recently integrated rural markets. Western resources, such as mines and lumber,
helped fuel big industry in the East and expand both the gross national product and per-
capita incomes. Immigrants flooded into northeastern cities, with many finding work in
the steel and manufacturing industries and ultimately expanding the American consumer
base in the process.
4

In the decades between 1870 and 1920, rising scales of industrial production and
the accompanying explosion in consumer goods also precipitated a boom in American
advertising. Advertising agencies grew out of the enterprises of agents who formerly
worked for newspapers placing ads; while advertisements become ubiquitous in everyday

S. Grey, “Deceptive Advertising,” Printers’ Ink 5, no. 25 (Dec 1891): 764-765; also Clifton S. Wady,
“Deception in Advertising,” Printers’ Ink 6, no. 14 (Apr 1891): 474-475; Willder, “Ethics and
Advertising,” 546-547; and R. G. Ray, “The Ethics of Advertising,” Printers’ Ink 11, no. 21 (Nov 1894):
904-906. David Henkin discusses the impersonal authority of print in City Reading: Written words and
Public spaces in Antebellum New York (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), 65.
4
These developments are outlined most efficiently by Rebecca Edwards New Spirits: Americans in the
Gilded Age 1865-1905 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), and James D. Norris, Advertising and
the Transformation of American Society, 1865-1920 (New York: Greenwood Press, 1990).
3
experience, especially in urban centers. As Edward Bellamy suggested in his 1887 novel
Looking Backward, urban consumers encountered a multitude of advertisements on a
daily basis: in trade cards, newspapers, magazines, billboards, posters, handbills, street
signs, and catalogues. The modern world of the Gilded Age, it would seem, became
riddled with salesmen hawking their wares and with advertisements attempting to catch
the consumer’s eye and open their pocketbooks.
5

Bellamy’s description of Boston in 1887 is useful to understand the chaotic visual
landscape urbanites encountered on the city streets. The building walls, windows,
newspapers and handbills were all covered with the solicitations of individuals for jobs,
patrons, audience, and ultimately, trust. Bellamy’s characterization of this morally
“repulsive spectacle” belittled the hucksters and advertisers to beggary. He generalized
their appeals in this way:
Help John Jones. Never mind the rest. They are frauds. I, John Jones, am
the right one. Buy of me. Employ me. Visit me. Hear me, John Jones.
Look at me. Make no mistake, John Jones is the man and nobody else. Let
the rest starve, but for God’s sake remember John Jones!
6

5
Edward Bellamy, Looking Backward: 2000-1887, 3
rd
ed. (New York: Houghton Mifflin & Co., 1889),
440-441. See also Ellen Gruber Garvey, The Adman in the Parlor: Magazines and the Gendering of
Consumer Culture, 1880s to 1910s (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996); William Leach, Land of
Desire: Merchants, Power, and the Rise of a New American Culture (New York: Pantheon Books, 1993);
and Henkin, City Reading, esp. chapters 3-4. Though it focuses primarily on the pre-Civil War years,
Henkin’s discussion nevertheless applies for the changing landscape in the immediate postwar period.
6
Bellamy, Looking Backward, 441. Emphasis added.
4
In his view, this “horrible Babel of shameless self-assertion..., conflicting boasts, appeals
and adjurations” provided crystal clear evidence that the American capitalist system was
doomed to turn decent gentlemen into conniving hucksters. In his diatribe Bellamy
underscored the emphasis upon fraud and authenticity that permeated contemporary
advertising discourse. Repeatedly in advertisements of all forms, consumers witnessed a
manufacturer’s assertions of his own genuineness over the fraudulence of his
competitors. Importantly, this phenomenon emerged precisely at the same moment that
the American national market expanded to both coasts, bringing consumers and
manufacturers from across the country together in the early 1870s. By the time Bellamy
wrote his novel in the mid-1880s, American consumers had already faced a problem of
legitimacy in the American market for over a decade.
The problem gained public currency when in 1880 Anthony Comstock alerted the
public to widely practiced confidence games and mail frauds, including the deceptive
activities of fraudulent bankers, currency counterfeiters, lottery administrators,
proprietary medicine “quacks,” impostors, and those advertisers he disapprovingly
referred to as “leeches.”
7
In appendices to his book, he provided a list of known
deceivers and frauds and cautioned readers to diligently police their own communities
with skepticism and a wary, watchful eye. Publicized frauds like these thus prompted
members of the public to “cultivate skills [such as skepticism] essential to coping with
modernity and its myriad deceptions.”
8
Comstock’s warning to the public struck down

7
Anthony Comstock, Frauds exposed; or, How the people are deceived and robbed, and youth corrupted
(New York: J. H. Brown, 1880), 8. “Leeches” provides the chapter title for the section dealing with
fraudulent advertisers in Comstock’s book.
8
Michael Leja, Looking Askance: Skepticism and American Art from Eakins to Duchamp (Berkeley:
5
the kind of advertisers that Bellamy mocked: advertisers whose competing claims of
genuineness confused and harmed the public. Honest advertisers thus faced a problem of
legitimacy in the wake of so many con men and frauds plaguing the American market.
This problem of legitimacy stemmed largely from the increasing distance between
consumers and producers that accompanied the expansion of the market itself.
While the expansion of the railroads brought more widespread economic
exchange and helped to create a national market for manufactured goods, it also created
an enlarged spatial distance between the place of production and the place of
consumption for goods on the market, thereby uprooting and displacing consumer goods
from their points of origin. As one of the “alienating forces of modernity” and the
primary nation-wide distribution method for manufactured goods following the Civil
War, the railroad contributed to this loss of local identity and the decline of face-to-face
interaction between producers and consumers.
9
Goods separated from their spaces of
production lost an element of “spatial presence” and identity. In this way, the
mechanization of the market destroyed the connection between the producer / consumer

University of California Press, 2004), 15.
9
Wolfgang Schivelbusch, The Railway Journey: The Industrialization of Time and Space in the Nineteenth
Century (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986 [1977]), 40. Modernity is a contested concept
among historians, with several factions asserting the prominence of different elements as the determining
factors in the periodization of “modernity,” including the emergence of the printing press in the fifteenth
century, the expansion of the railroad, and the emergence of mass consumer culture. For a general
overview of these intellectual debates, see Stuart Hall et al., eds., Modernity: An Introduction to Modern
Societies (Cambridge: Blackwell, 1996). For my purposes, Schivelbusch’s description of the modern
society brought by the railroad, that is, one characterized by abbreviation, speed, and de-personalized
isolation, is the most pertinent.
6
and the production process; while new retail channels transformed the appearance of
goods into anonymous commodities “stripped …of their former immediate, individual
presence.”
10

Once large-scale trade became possible across the vast expanse of the United
States at mid-century, manufacturers needed a way to establish and maintain their
reputations in the absence of face-to-face interaction with the consumer. In these
situations of exchange determined by enlarged distribution channels and new retail
opportunities, manufacturers struggled to maintain a presence among a buying public
unfamiliar with the product’s origins, manufacture, or character. Advertising offered a
solution to this problem, by providing a communication line that brought manufacturers’
sales pitches directly to consumers. Young women in South Bend, Indiana, for example,
could learn about the medicinal properties of Lydia Pinkham’s Vegetable Compound
(manufactured in Lynn, Massachusetts) through advertising pamphlets sent through the
mails to their local druggist’s shop; where they could also pick up advertising trade cards
for bicycles manufactured in Chicago and stove polish from St. Louis. These products

10
Schivelbusch, Railway Journey, 122, 190. See also Maureen A. Flanagan, America Reformed:
Progressives and Progressivisms, 1890s-1920s (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 102; and
Leach, Land of Desire, xv. Finally, in his discussion of the growth of the public relations industry in the
first half of the twentieth century, Richard Tedlow notes that “It is no accident that public relations began
with the railroads”—their policies affected localities removed from the central office, and they were the
first businesses in which ownership and management became separated. In his view, the growth of the
railroads in the Gilded Age prompted a turning point in American business relations with the public: public
acceptance would now have to be cultivated by dealing with a press not always favorably disposed to
absentee managers. See Richard S. Tedlow, Keeping the Corporate Image: Public Relations and Business,
1900-1950 (Greenwich, CT: JAI Press, 1979), 197.
7
arrived on rail cars and in teamsters’ wagons—their demand procured through a nation-
wide communication network that connected producers and consumers through printed
advertisements.
For rural consumers, the changing shape of the national market and its connection
of urban and rural manufacturing centers thus meant that the process of commercial
exchange took on a new appearance. Travelling salesmen employed by the
manufacturers of nationally-marketed products brought many newly available goods to
areas formerly excluded from such trade networks. The railroad thus moved salesmen
along with their products in these years, bringing commodities to local retail merchants
for sale to the public. In many ways, the local general store offered the best of both
worlds: a centralized location for purchasing a variety of newly available commodities
under the advisement of a trusted neighbor. Yet many local store owners derided
salesmen as shifty and morally questionable, and thereby contributed to an “ethos of rural
distrust” of advertisers and salesmen in the third quarter of the century.
11

Advertising techniques first developed in the 1870s attempted to alleviate this
distrust by personalizing commercial exchange transactions in order to build rapport with
the public. In media such as newspapers, handbills, pamphlets, almanacs, posters, and
trade cards, advertisers incorporated elements such as testimonials, trade characters, and
new branding strategies that emphasized product purity and aimed to cultivate consumer
trust and goodwill (the value placed on a corporation’s public reputation). Much of this
personalization effort was aimed at shortening the figurative distance between producers

11
Stuart Ewen and Elizabeth Ewen, Channels of Desire: Mass Images and the Shaping of American
Consciousness (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1992), 60-61.
8
and consumers by introducing surrogate communicative devices and images, which
blended the language of personal communication with defensive claims of legitimacy and
trustworthiness.
12

What was different in the nineteenth century, when distance increasingly became
a factor in commercial transactions, as opposed to the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries, which experienced similar increases in trade on a global scale? Massive
industrialization and mass production after the Civil War helped precipitate a climate
where it could be profitable to copy someone else’s goods and sell them as one’s own.
Mass communications through the press brought more and more consumers into the
scope of this trade, while the railroads connected more of the American heartland to the
coasts in a growing spider web of distribution channels. Advertisements facilitated the
growing cultural value of brand-name goods, which in turn made counterfeiting more
likely. To put it another way, for counterfeiting to be worthwhile to the criminal, the
brand itself (not necessarily the product) needed to have enough cultural value to present
a likely case for copying. Beginning the in 1870s, brand-name goods became

12
See, for example, Marlis Schweitzer and Marina Moskowitz, eds., Testimonial Advertising in the
American Marketplace: Emulation, Identity, Community (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 6-7;
Norris, Advertising, 108; Susan Strasser, Satisfaction Guaranteed: the Making of the American Mass
Market (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1989), 28; and Elysa Ream Engelman, “‘The face
that haunts me ever’: Consumers, Retailers, Critics, and the Branded Personality of Lydia E. Pinkham”
(PhD diss., Boston University, 2003). Engelman, in her examination of Pinkham’s patent medicine
company, suggests that patent medicine manufacturers contributed to a market revolution in consumerism
at the end of the nineteenth century—they convinced consumers to stop making their own home remedies
and instead urged “many Americans to trust packaged products made by a distant manufacturer using
unknown processes and secret ingredients” (4).
9
increasingly popular among American consumers, which made them a likely target for
counterfeiting. Likewise, before the 1870s, counterfeit goods occurred less frequently in
the American market because many brands did not have enough cultural value to entice
counterfeiters to make copies.
13
For example, a pharmacist who sold his own preparation
for dyspepsia in his local store might be displaced by the popularity of an advertised
brand-name good, such as Ayer’s Cherry Pectoral. But only after said pharmacist’s
clientele began purchasing the Ayer brand over his own might he consider copying the
label designs and passing off his own product as the Ayer brand. He did this in order to
earn back some of his lost profits: the primary motive for counterfeiting in this case is the
easy profit—the attempt to steal back some share of the market through imitation rather
than spending the money marketing one’s own preparation legitimately.
14
In the simplest
terms, it’s harder to build your own reputation and clientele than to steal someone
else’s—but there has to be enough of an existing reputation built up to make it worth
stealing. Advertisers are responsible for building and maintaining such reputations.

13
This generalization, of course, does not apply to counterfeit currency, which has had a long history in the
US. A good treatment of this problem of counterfeit currency is provided in Henkin, City Reading, chapter
6; and Stephen Mihm, A Nation of Counterfeiters: Capitalists, Con Men, and the Making of the United
States (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2007).
14
I would like to thank Ann Wagner and Janet Zapata for their insightful comments on the nature of
counterfeit collectible goods, and on the connection between cultural value and consumables. Ann Wagner
(curator of Silver, Winterthur Museum, Winterthur, DE), in discussion with the author, (28 Sept 2009); and
Janet Zapata, independent scholar of nineteenth-century silver and silversmiths, email conversation (6 Oct
2009).
10
Producers engaged in economic exchange across long distances after the Civil
War therefore required a means of differentiating their wares from others on the market.
In the US, this mode of differentiation came in the form of trademarks. As one turn-of-
the-century scholar suggested, once a maker “acquired a reputation outside of his
immediate locality, in order to visualize and perpetuate that reputation, he adopted and
used a mark to distinguish his product from others.”
15
The replacement of local exchange
with regional, national, and international exchange thus shifted the terms of commerce
for the middle and working classes after the Civil War, creating the need for a
placeholder—in this case, the trademark—which could stand in for the manufacturer’s
personal assurances of quality and his own responsibility for the product. Increasingly
toward the end of the century, advertisers came to view maintaining such a reputation
among the public in terms of building goodwill.
The legal concept of goodwill first arose in British Common Law in the sixteenth
century, and today consists of a company’s general reputation and potential for patronage
among the buying public. As an asset, it includes the value added by the skill, diligence,
fidelity, success, and reputation of the manufacturer, and yet it depends entirely upon the
public’s expectation of a certain level of service.
16
In the late-nineteenth century, US

15
Edward S. Rogers, “Some Historical Matter Relating to Trademarks,” Michigan Law Review 9, no. 1
(1910): 39. See also Munn & Co. Patent Attorneys, “Trademarks” in Patents and Trademarks (New York:
Munn & Co., 1924), 4, in Warshaw Series I Trademarks, box 1, AC NMAH.
16
John R. Commons, Legal Foundations of Capitalism (1924; repr. Madison: University of Wisconsin
Press, 1968), 199, 213, 263-265. Commons suggests that the cornerstones of the law of goodwill were laid
in British courts in 1580 and 1620. These cases separated business goodwill from personal goodwill and
legalized the voluntary restraint of trade in cases of infringement; while converting a “valueless personal
11
courts varied in their exact understanding of this concept, considering everything from
the “reasonable expectation of [a buyer’s] future patronage” to the manufacturer’s public
reputation. As early as 1877, the US Supreme Court recognized the economic advantage
that a certain public reputation or fame granted to one manufacturer over his competitors
and agreed that individuals should be entitled to “all the advantages of that celebrity.”
17

Thus, the growing distance between producers and consumers after 1870 prompted a
series of personalization efforts on the part of advertisers, who derided counterfeits with
the hope of building rapport and goodwill with the public. These efforts took an
increasingly visual form as the century closed, but goodwill remained central to their
concerns.
In many ways, historians have overlooked this challenge of distance, legitimacy,
and intimacy for advertisers in the years between 1870 and 1920, despite the breadth of
coverage in advertising histories that focus on institutional, social, and cultural topics.
18

right into a valuable property right. Thus the protection of goodwill is not the protection of property in
physical things, it is protection of power to control the supply of physical things against the price-exposure
of unlimited competition” (268-269). See also Strasser, Satisfaction Guaranteed, 43.
17
McLean v. Fleming (1877) 96 US 245, 24 L. Ed. 828, cited in Commons, Legal Foundations, 269. See
also Edward S. Rogers, Goodwill, Trade Marks, and Unfair Trading (New York: A. W. Shaw, 1914), 13,
cited in “The Imitation of Advertising,” Harvard Law Review 45, no. 3 (1932): 546.
18
However, instructive books written for and by advertising practitioners currently overwhelm the field.
These instruct the next generation of copyists, art directors, and executives as to the intricate workings of
the business itself: the structure of the agency, how to build client relationships, media research and buying,
techniques of persuasion (rhetorical and visual), design, market research, targeting particular consumers,
etc. This scholarship often theorizes particular rhetorical, visual, branding, or media strategies that led to
successful advertising campaigns and increased profits in the past. See, for example, Marc Gobé,
12
Institutional histories, such as Frank Presbrey’s oft-cited History and Development of
Advertising (1929), focus on the general professional development of the industry and its
agencies over time.
19
Presbrey’s thesis, that advertising professionalized and transformed
into the modern version of itself from the 1890s-1920s, has provided a foundation for the
work of later scholars such as Daniel Pope, James Norris, and Susan Strasser.
20
Social

Brandjam: Humanizing Brands through Emotional Design (New York: Allworth Press, 2007); and Douglas
B. Holt, How Brands Became Icons: The Principles of Cultural Branding (Boston: Harvard University
Press, 2004). Cultural studies (including the work of sociologists, communications scholars, literary
scholars and others) often focus on advertisements as reflections of broader culture in a particular place and
time. See Katherine Parkin’s Food is Love: Advertising and Gender Roles in Modern America
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006). Semiotic analyses form another important sub-set
of this literature, though the approach has lost some of its popularity in recent decades. See Varda
Langholz Leymore, Hidden Myth: Structure and Symbolism in Advertising (New York: Basic, 1975);
Judith Williamson, Decoding Advertisements: Ideology and Meaning in Advertising (Boston: Marion
Boyars, 1978); Erving Goffman, Gender Advertisements (New York: Harper & Row, 1979); and Gillian
Dyer, Advertising as Communication (New York: Methuen, 1982).
19
Frank Presbrey, The History and Development of Advertising (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1929).
Other noteworthy institutional histories include the “group biography” of advertising executives between
1900 and 1980 offered by Stephen Fox in The Mirror Makers: A History of American Advertising and its
Creators, 2
nd
ed. (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1997 [1984]). Fox’s primary contribution lies in
his observation that advertising strategies evolve in a cyclical fashion between the “hard sell” and “soft
sell,” and his stipulation that advertisements often “mirror” broader trends in society.
20
Pope’s examination of the growth of advertising agencies in the Gilded Age closely follows Presbrey’s
timeline, though Pope argues that manufacturers covertly used advertising to displace the authority of local
merchants. See Daniel Pope, The Making of Modern Advertising (New York: Basic, 1983). For Norris and
Strasser, advertising assisted in the creation of a national market in the decades between 1870 and 1920.
Creating a national market required constructing new consumer spending habits, standards of progress and
13
and economic histories of advertising generally look to the oppressive and manipulative
effects of advertising on the consumer in order to critique the industry and its practices.
21

In one case, Susan Strasser argues that as distribution methods changed after 1880,
brand-name goods and their advertisements displaced the authority of the local merchant,
solidified corporate price-fixing strategies, and diminished individual autonomy in the
purchasing process.
22
Roland Marchand’s cultural history of advertising in the 1920s
stands out, however, as a work that emphasizes advertisers’ attempts to tailor their
appeals to a public thirsty for a sense of individuation in the modern mechanized society
of the twentieth century. He shows how advertisers in the 1920s used “parable”-like
narratives to highlight the problems of modern life and position consumption as the

hygiene, and target audiences with products tailored to their needs. See Norris, Advertising; and Strasser,
Satisfaction Guaranteed. Presbrey’s influence can also be seen in Pamela Walker Laird’s Advertising
Progress: American Business and the Rise of Consumer Marketing (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University
Press, 1998); and Terri Lonier, “Alchemy in Eden: Entrepreneurialism, Branding, and Food Marketing in
the United States, 1880-1920” (PhD diss., New York University, 2009).
21
For example, see Stuart Ewen, Captains of Consciousness: Advertising and the Social Roots of the
Consumer Culture (New York: Basic, 2001 [1976]). Drawing upon theories of advertising’s manipulative
dimensions originally popularized by Vance Packard, Ewen argued that businesses exploited consumerism
and constructed false desires in order to maintain corporate profits and hegemony. See Packard, The
Hidden Persuaders (New York: David McKay Co., 1957). Ewen’s study had a profound impact on
scholarly work that would emerge in the 1980s, though several scholars argued against his findings.
Michael Schudson, in Advertising: The Uneasy Persuasion: Its Dubious Impact on American Society (New
York: Basic, 1984), instead suggests that advertising holds a “circumscribed” rather than all-encompassing
power over the American public. Likewise, Stephen Fox takes a similar position against Ewen and
suggests that advertisements often reflect (rather than create) social ills. See Mirror Makers, 6.
22
Strasser, Satisfaction Guaranteed, 15-23.
14
solution, while in the 1930s and 40s corporations relied on elaborate public relations
schemes to humanize their ventures and enlist the sympathy and loyalty of the public.
23

Later, cultural historians such as T. J. Jackson Lears and Pamela Walker Laird built upon
Marchand’s linking of modernity, legitimacy, and self-representation in their
investigations of the professionalization of the advertising industry and manufacturers’
promotion of consumption-as-progress between 1890 and 1930. These decades
witnessed advertisers’ attempts to rationalize and professionalize their trade in an effort
deeply motivated by Protestant liberalism and agendas of personal efficiency. In so
doing, as Laird points out, manufacturers’ promotion of consumption-as-progress helped
facilitate the growth of the national market and the transition from a production to a
consumption-oriented society in the Gilded Age, while solidifying the position of the
corporation as a harbinger of modernity.
24

Many advertising historians nod to the problem of the distance between producers
and consumers in the expanding market of the 1870s, suggesting that this point—the
growing physical separation between producers and consumers—helped precipitate the
growth of the advertising industry in the last quarter of the century.
25
However, on the

23
See Roland Marchand, Advertising the American Dream: Making Way for Modernity 1920-1940
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985); and Marchand, Creating the Corporate Soul: The Rise of
Public Relations and Corporate Imagery in American Big Business (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1998).
24
T. J. Jackson Lears, Fables of Abundance: A Cultural History of Advertising in America (New York:
Basic, 1994); and Laird, Advertising Progress.
25
See, for example, Norris, Advertising, 108; Engelman, “The Face that Haunts,” 4; Ewen and Ewen,
Channels of Desire, 60-61; and Susan Strasser, “Commodifying Lydia Pinkham: A Woman, A Medicine,
15
personalization strategies that advertisers developed to alleviate this problem of distance
in the 1870s and ‘80s—and the larger problem of anonymity and illegitimacy that
threatened advertisers on a daily basis—advertising historians are largely silent.
26
In
offering a corrective to this omission, Branding Trust historicizes the process through
which trademarks gained their iconographic and cultural meanings by pointing to the
ways that images offered a solution to advertisers’ growing problem of legitimacy and
distance.
Importantly, images, especially trademarks, became a central component of
advertisers’ personalization strategies. Visual representation in print became increasingly
important in the emergence of brand-name advertising as a mode of product

and A Company in A Developing Consumer Culture,” in Cultures of Consumption Working Paper Series,
no. 32 (London, 2007), 20. Available online at
http://www.consume.bbk.ac.uk/publications.html#workingpapers. Broadly, anxieties over inauthenticity in
the expanding consumer market at the end of the nineteenth century are dealt with in T. J. Jackson Lears,
No Place of Grace: American Anti-Modernism and the Transformation of American Culture 1880-1920,
(New York: Pantheon, 1981).
26
One notable exception is the edited anthology by Marlis Schweitzer and Marina Moskowitz on
testimonial advertising, and its introductory comments which note the problem of distance and the use of
testimonials as a viable advertising strategy for alleviating this problem. See Testimonial Advertising, 6-7.
It should also be noted, however, that cultural and art historians—notably Michael Leja and James Cook—
have shown recent interest in digesting the problem of legitimacy in the Gilded Age as it manifest in
photography, painting, and live performances. See Leja, Looking Askance, and James W. Cook, The Arts
of Deception: Playing with Fraud in the Age of Barnum (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001); who
both take cue from the quest for authenticity accompanying the “anti-modern” movement examined by T. J.
Jackson Lears in No Place of Grace.
16
differentiation, as a mode of appeal, and as a mode of educating the public; yet
advertising historians of this period have been particularly hesitant to deal with
advertising imagery as more than mere illustrations of products and practices.
27
The
connection between the emergence of trademark logos and the problem of counterfeits
and legitimacy that flourished amidst the expanding distance between producers and
consumers cannot be overlooked. Branding Trust therefore illuminates how visual
culture contributed to a new mode of interaction between producers and consumers
before the “modern” regime of the 1920s placed trademark advertising at the core of
commercial appeals. In so doing, this study foregrounds the technological and legal
developments which first shifted the appearance of commercial visual culture in trade
cards, magazines, newspapers, and almanacs between 1870 and 1920; and second,
concretized cultural maxims for business ethics into law. Ultimately, Branding Trust
examines how images, brand-names, and logos became increasingly important in
signifying authenticity to skeptical consumers.
A central ingredient in this signification of authenticity became the construction
of a sense of trust among consumers: trust in the producer in the 1870s, in the product in
the 1890s, and by the 1920s, trust in the corporation. The construction and maintenance
of trust in modern society has garnered a growing scholarly interest in the past decade,
especially in the fields of sociology and history.
28
Many of these works, such as Russell

27
Three notable exceptions include Laird, Advertising Progress; Lears, Fables of Abundance; and the work
of Roland Marchand; though the former two scholars only briefly use imagery to open up larger
discussions about the nature of American business culture.
28
An early influence in this field remains Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power (New York: John Wiley &
Sons, 1979 [1973]). See also the Sage Foundation series on the topic edited by Karen S. Cook, Russell
17
Hardin’s Trust & Trustworthiness (2002), use sociological methods to understand
cooperative behavior in different social, political, and economic contexts. One primary
contribution of this literature is the stipulation that personal and impersonal trust—that is,
trust built between individuals and rooted in prior experiences, and trust which might be
based upon a generalized faith in the positive behaviors of institutions, governments, and
society—each structure cooperative interaction in different ways.
While Hardin suggests that nearly all trusting relationships must be built upon
personalized experiences, this study argues that certain forms of impersonal trust (such as
the cooperative relationship between producers and consumers) worked historically by
mimicking aspects of face-to-face interactions in society. By appealing to consumers’
existing understandings of integrity and trustworthiness, advertisers added a quasi-
personal dimension to what was otherwise a very impersonal relationship of commercial
exchange. Reframing the history of late-nineteenth century advertising from the
perspectives of skepticism, intimacy, and the cultural production of trust thus illustrates

Hardin, and Margaret Levi. Books in the series, published between 2000 and 2009, include Trust in
Society, ed. Karen S. Cook (New York: Sage Foundation, 2001); Russell Hardin, Trust & Trustworthiness
(New York: Sage Foundation, 2002); and Trust & Governance, ed. Margaret Levi and Valerie Braithwaite
(New York: Sage Foundation, 2003), among others. A primary example of the intersection between the
theoretical foundations of trust and the practice of history can be found in Brett Sheehan, Trust in Troubled
Times: Money, Banks, and State-Society Relations in Republican Tianjin (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 2003). Sheehan examines various strategies used to promote trust in banks in China
between the two World Wars, suggesting that government officials, bankers, and local elites attempted to
create an impersonal sense of trust between individuals and these financial institutions that would replace
older models of personal interaction that had heretofore structured such transactions.
18
the ways in which culture influenced the economic decisions of individuals and the
growth of the commercial marketplace in these years.
Between 1876 and 1920, American advertising faced a crisis in legitimacy
brought first by the expanding distance between producers and consumers on the national
market, and second by a growing presence of counterfeit goods that damaged consumer
confidence in advertisers’ claims. Branding Trust examines this dichotomy between the
authentic and fraudulent in advertising, and traces the ways in which advertisers built
goodwill with the public. To establish rapport with consumers, advertisers borrowed and
reworked persistent cultural conventions regarding intimacy and virtue from an existing
culture of personal exchange and correspondence. Advertisers thereby constructed a
program of business ethics at the end of the nineteenth century that stressed the outward
demonstration of integrity and honesty in a self-conscious attempt to distance their
practice from the number of counterfeit goods circulating on the market. The visual and
rhetorical programs encoded in advertisements helped establish an imagined relationship
between producers and consumers separated by large distances, an action which
advertisers framed in terms of earning the public’s trust and goodwill. Advertisers’
strategies to re-personalize commercial exchange thus attempted to alleviate the
anonymity brought by the modern commercial market and cultivate trust among the
American buying public. Together, the logos, images, and rhetoric used in brand-name
advertising demonstrated messages of trustworthiness, authenticity, and accountability.
The crisis of legitimacy facing advertisers in the Gilded Age first appeared to me
as I sifted through admen’s expositions against imitation and fraud in trade journals such
as Printers’ Ink. Turning to advertisements, this problem became clearer as I examined
19
the strategies undertaken to self-consciously present genuine articles and personalities to
the public—for as a consumer in the Gilded Age, one not only bought the product but
bought into the manufacturer’s claims of authenticity, purity, and worth as well.
Understanding how the public received these claims, however, is not as easy as
illuminating the claims themselves. Thankfully, many advertisements from the 1870s,
‘80s, and ‘90s, ended up pasted into albums and otherwise collected and saved in some
fashion by the consuming middle classes. The process of looking through these albums
dictated much of the research path that would follow, and the sources that could explain
how individuals used and understood advertisements as objects within their own
contemporary culture.
The chapters that follow thus draw from an eclectic range of primary sources,
including portable ephemera objects and other materials that circulated in a reciprocal
culture of personal and commercial exchange in the nineteenth century. The portable
objects, which I call “exchange cards,” include trade cards, greeting cards, sentiment
cards, reward of merit cards, and calling cards. These cards and their repositories
(albums, diaries, and the like) form the largest group of source material used in this study,
and provide clues to the personalization strategies adopted by advertisers and the impact
of those strategies on consumers.
29
To supplement this archive, I rely heavily upon

29
Into this category I group albums of personal reflection and importance, such as scrapbooks, autograph
albums, commonplace books, photograph albums, “grangerized” books (albums with ephemera or
annotations added by their owners), and diaries. Scholarship in this area of material culture is growing, and
notable examples include Elizabeth White Nelson, Market Sentiments: Middle-Class Market Culture in
Nineteenth-Century America (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2004); Barry Shank, A
Token of My Affection: Greeting Cards and American Business Culture (New York: Columbia University
20
popular print culture (including gift books, print advertisements in magazines and
newspapers, prints and lithographs made for framing, almanacs and other advertising
pamphlets, and contemporary reference books and guidebooks), trade literature for
industry audiences, company records, and legal sources.
To adequately digest these sources, it is necessary to cast a wide methodological
net—and this dissertation thus draws from a variety of fields to understand the
construction, use, reception, and impact of advertisements between 1876 and 1920. In an
attempt to uncover their cultural meanings and reception, my reading of images, where
appropriate, is highly informed by the art historical methods of iconographic analysis,
such as those initially proposed by Erwin Panofsky.
30
Likewise, to understand the

Press, 2004); Robert Jay, The Trade Card in Nineteenth-Century America (Columbia: University of
Missouri Press, 1987); and Susan Tucker, Katherine Ott, and Patricia P. Buckler, eds., The Scrapbook in
American Life (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2006).
30
Erwin Panofsky’s reading of images depended upon an appropriate understanding of relevant
contemporary texts (literature, treatises, handbooks, etc.) that provide the key for decoding the symbolic
images contained within works of art. For example, Panofsky suggests that a lay observer would not
understand the iconographic portrayals of Christ’s life in Renaissance paintings without a working
knowledge of the Gospels. See Panofsky, “Iconography and Iconology,” in Studies in Iconography (1939),
republished as chapter 1 in Meaning in the Visual Arts (New York: Doubleday, 1955), 26-54. See also
Laurie Schneider Adams, The Methodologies of Art: An Introduction (Boulder, CO: Westview Press,
1996), 36-37; and E. H Gombrich, Symbolic Images (London: Phaidon, 1972), chapter 1. It is important to
note that Panofsky’s theories have been critiqued and reworked by semioticians, post-structuralists, and
scholars of the social history of art. In particular, these scholars find that Panofsky’s method is too rigidly
tied to an absolute meaning of an icon, without regard to changing cultural constructions of an image’s
meaning or interpretation over time. See Stephen Bann, “Meaning / Interpretation” in Critical Terms for
Art History 2
nd
ed., ed. Robert Nelson and Richard Schiff (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003),
21
function and meaning of advertisements and their vehicles for reception (magazines,
catalogues, almanacs, etc.), I turn to material culture studies, a field which suggests that
function helps to correct and transform an object’s meaning for contemporary users.
31

These two primary modes of analysis—iconography and object function—structure much
of my discussion of trade cards and advertising imagery in the chapters that follow.
Literary analysis and understanding modes of readership also contribute to my
examinations of albums, ads, and testimonials, while intellectual history and legal history
round out my discussions of character and goodwill.
In particular, the sub-histories of readership and object-use that dwell within the
fields of literary and material culture studies provide highly useful models for
understanding the reception of advertising images. Individual response is one of the most
elusive topics in the study of history and visual studies, but one that is intimately related
to my questions regarding the perceived meanings and usage of advertisements between
1876 and 1920.
32
In the absence of specific expositions by nineteenth century individuals
on how they directly viewed and interpreted advertisements, the sub-fields of readership

128-142; and Keith P. F. Moxey, “Semiotics and the Social History of Art,” New Literary History 22, no. 4
(1991): 985-999.
31
See Jules David Prown, “Mind in Matter: An Introduction to Material Culture Theory and Method,”
Winterthur Portfolio 17, no. 1 (1982): 1–19; Prown, Art as Evidence: Writings on Art and Material Culture
(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2001); and Kenneth L. Ames, Death in the Dining Room and
Other Tales of Victorian Culture (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1992).
32
Michael Leja provides an example of scholarly attention to the historical reception of images in popular
visual culture and the modes of teasing out issues of response from historical documents. See Looking
Askance, chapter 1.
22
and object-use suggest that interpreting the ways in which individuals collected,
preserved, and ultimately used advertisements—especially their use in albums and
scrapbooks—can provide hints to reception.
33
Building from these perspectives, this

33
Particularly useful in understanding the ways in which individuals “read” advertisements are the works
of literary scholars Jennifer Wicke and Ellen Gruber Garvey. See Jennifer Wicke, Advertising Fictions:
Literature, Advertisement and Social Reading (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988); and Garvey,
Adman in the Parlor, esp. chapter 1. A related examination appears in Brandon Graydon, “Marketing
Fictions: Product Branding in American Literature and Culture, 1890-1915” (PhD diss., Vanderbilt
University, 2008); and in Henkin, City Reading, chapters 3-4. Several scholars suggest that using
scrapbooks and personal albums as autobiographical texts can be a productive mode of analysis. Many of
these scholars integrate the methods of material culture studies with literary analysis and theories of
readership, such as Ellen Gruber Garvey, in “Scrapbook, Wish-book, Prayer book,” in Tucker et al., eds.,
Scrapbook in American Life, 97-115. Other important contributions to this literature include Patricia P.
Buckler and C. Kay Leeper, “An Antebellum Woman’s Scrapbook as Autobiographical Composition,”
Journal of American Culture 14, no. 1 (1991): 1–8; Deborah A. Smith, “Consuming Passions: Scrapbooks
and American Play,” Ephemera Journal 6 (1993): 63–76; Starr Ockenga, On Women & Friendship (New
York: Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 1993); Raechel Elisabeth Guest, “Victorian Scrapbooks and the American
Middle Class” (Master’s Thesis, University of Delaware, 1996); Rodris Roth, “Scrapbook Houses: A late
nineteenth-century children’s view of the American home,” in The American Home: Material Culture,
Domestic Space, and Family Life, ed. Eleanor M. Thompson (Hanover, NH: University Press of New
England, 1998), 301–323; L. Rebecca Johnson Melvin, Self Works: Diaries, Scrapbooks, and Other
Autobiographical Efforts (Newark, DE: Special Collections, University of Delaware Library, 2001);
Tucker et al., Scrapbook in American Life; Beverly Gordon, “The Paper Doll House,” in The Saturated
World: Aesthetic Meaning, Intimate Objects, and Women’s Lives 1890-1940 (Chattanooga, TN: University
of Tennessee Press, 2006); Amelie Hastie, Cupboards of curiosity: Women, Recollection, and Film History
(Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2007); Jessica Helfand, Scrapbooks: An American History (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 2008); Elizabeth Siegel, Galleries of Friendship and Fame: The History of
23
dissertation questions how use and function can help us understand the ways in which
advertisements repositioned commercial communication within a realm of personal,
familiar address; and what impact these strategies had in attempting to reintroduce a
sense of intimacy in a society that grew more and more impersonal as the century closed.
Branding Trust moves thematically to tell its story. It begins in the 1870s with
the emergence of one of the earliest personalization strategies that would frame
advertising for the next twenty-five years: the use of chromolithographed trade cards as
both commercial advertisements and personally-communicative objects. These
colorfully illustrated cards fit in the palm of one’s hand, and though they contained
commercial messages intended to solicit business from the public, the objects’ size,
shape, portability, and images mirrored the calling cards and greeting cards that
circulated in a largely middle-class culture of personal exchange. Advertisers first
learned to personalize their appeals by adapting existing media—such as exchange
cards—to their commercial goals. Through this strategy, the power of images soon
emerged as one of the most enduring and lucrative adaptations the advertising industry
would undertake.
Chapter one explores the competitive market of the post-Reconstruction years and
the initial use of entertaining images in advertising. It builds an iconography of the
sentimental images advertisers used and examines how the cultural impact of the chromo

Nineteenth-Century American Photograph Albums (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010); Anna Rusk,
“Collecting the Confederacy: Wartime Souvenirs as Objects of Cultural Exchange,” paper presented at
Materials of Exchange: the Eighth Annual Material Culture Symposium for Emerging Scholars,
Winterthur, DE, 24 Apr 2010); and David Freund, “Personal Visual Albums,” Ephemera Journal 14, no. 2
(Jan 2012): 1, 4–10.
24
craze assisted advertisers in personalizing their commercial appeals to the public. The
formal, visual, and textual similarities between trade cards and other personalized objects
helped to validate advertisers’ claims of authenticity by situating their relationship to
consumers within the realm of friendship and neighborly trust.
Chapters two and three look at the specific tactics used by advertisers to establish
rapport with potential consumers in the 1880s and ‘90s, including the use of humor,
testimonials, and personal likenesses and signatures. These chapters suggest that
advertisers built upon and manipulated established cultural understandings of business
ethics, letter-writing, and honest self-presentation in the public sphere in order to earn the
favor of consumers. For advertisers in the 1870s, ‘80s, and ‘90s, the demonstration of
character proved crucial to winning the public’s trust. Admen’s self-conscious
demonstrations of integrity matured over these years through the strategic use of
personalized language and testimonials; and culminated in the introduction of trade
characters such as the Quaker Oats man, whose popularity soared in the first decade of
the twentieth century. Trade characters provided a visualization of the exposition of
character that admen offered rhetorically, thereby building upon the lessons learnt of the
power of images while paving the way for the infusion of trademarks with notions of
trustworthiness and integrity.
Chapter four traces the problems of frauds and illegitimate advertising that
motivated admen’s efforts to establish rapport and personalize their commercial appeals.
Examining the early branding strategies of National Biscuit (Nabisco) and other
manufacturers of household consumables between 1900 and 1918, this chapter chronicles
the emergence of trademark-centered advertising as a culmination of previous
25
personalization efforts. Changes to the trademark law in 1905 built upon established
understandings of legitimacy circulating in trade literature, and in turn shifted the ways
that advertisers presented themselves to the public. These shifts tied an otherwise
arbitrary graphic symbol to the intangible value of a company’s reputation (its
goodwill)—thereby linking the public’s trust of a particular product or company to the
logo itself. In the trademark, advertisers combined their learned importance of appealing
images, of demonstrations of integrity and character, and their personalization efforts into
a strategy centered upon building goodwill for the logo as a symbol of the corporation.
In other words, the logo became culturally invested with—that is, emblematic of—the
corporation’s real and constructed goodwill in the first decades of the twentieth century.
National Biscuit provides a unique case history both for its extensive litigation efforts
against trademark infringement and for the near-complete archive of advertising records
available for the 1890s through 1920. As a company that carved a niche for itself in a
cracker and cookie market previously dominated by bulk goods, Nabisco’s branding
efforts set the standard for corporate public relations in the early twentieth century.
Moreover, its vigilant litigation efforts against competitors helped ensure its emergence
as an internationally-recognized brand by the first decades of the twentieth century; and
placed it in the close company of other emergent blockbuster brands such as Coca-Cola.
By the 1920s, as this case-study demonstrates, advertisers’ personalization efforts had
succeeded in instilling constructions of trustworthiness in the abbreviated visual form of
the trademarked logo.
Branding Trust makes two major interventions into the field of advertising
history. First, it demonstrates that trade cards were not simple precursors to modern
26
magazine advertisements, as some scholars have suggested. By investigating trade cards
not as advertisements but as material culture, this dissertation instead argues that trade
cards functioned within a culture of personal expression even as they communicated
commercial messages to the public. This elision between personal and commercial was
integral to advertisers’ attempts to build goodwill in the decades before 1900, and in turn
structured the way they would conceptualize corporate branding strategies in the early
twentieth century. Importantly, Branding Trust also reworks traditional understandings
of the trademark as an economic and legal development by highlighting the intertwined
relationship between the development of trademark law, business practice among admen,
and cultural understandings of popular imagery. Cultural practices had a remarkable
influence upon the development of trademark law at the turn of the twentieth century.
The cultural and legal association between trademarks and goodwill that we now take for
granted was not obvious to individual consumers or even to advertising practitioners
before the turn of the twentieth century.
As nineteenth-century American society became more modern and more
impersonal, advertising, in its effort to keep up with a shifting focus toward consumers,
became more personal. Several advertising historians, including Roland Marchand, have
suggested that advertising emerged in its “modern” form in the 1920s—complete with
market research, psychologically-driven pitches, and individualized appeals tailored to
particular consumer groups. This dissertation challenges previous interpretations of the
relationship between advertising and modernity set forth by historians such as Roland
Marchand and Susan Strasser, who point to the 1920s as the decade that brought
advertising into its modern form. Rather, advertisers, in their efforts to alleviate the
27
challenges posed by distance and the loss of face-to-face interactions in the 1870s, ‘80s,
and ‘90s, pioneered a personalization effort that rivaled even the most successful
techniques used to build goodwill in the 1920s. In fact, many of the firms that built the
best campaigns of the 1920s—including Lord & Thomas, N.W. Ayer, and J. Walter
Thompson—were key players in the effort to expunge frauds from their industry in the
1890s and legitimate advertising once and for all. Their personalization efforts between
1870 and 1920 aimed at cultivating goodwill and trust among the American consuming
public, and instilled as much a sense of character into their appeals as they created a
feeling of personality around the goods they sold.
Finally, this dissertation revisits the work of Warren Susman on the intellectual
history of this period. In many ways, American advertisements produced between 1880
and 1910 illustrate a larger shift in American culture from a culture of character to one
centered upon personality. In his now famous examination of this change in cultural
ethos, Susman suggested that the two qualities helped substantiate the shift from the
nineteenth-century producerist to the twentieth-century consumer-oriented society.
34

34
Warren I. Susman, “Personality and the Making of Twentieth-Century Culture,” in New Trends in
Intellectual History, ed. John Higham and Paul K. Conklin (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press,
1979), reprinted in Culture as History: The Transformation of American Society in the Twentieth Century
(Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2003), 277. Page references are to the reprinted edition.
See also footnote 48. On formulations of the concept of character in the nineteenth century, see Ann
Douglas, The Feminization of American Culture (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1977); Karen
Halttunen, Confidence Men and Painted Women: A Study of Middle-Class Culture in America, 1830-1870
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982); John F. Kasson, Rudeness & Civility: Manners in Nineteenth-
Century Urban America (New York: Hill and Wang, 1990); C. Dallett Hemphill, Bowing to Necessities: A
History of Manners in America, 1620-1860 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002); and Judy Hilkey,
28
“Character,” in Susman’s view, defined a mode of self-presentation based upon high
standards of conduct, moral acumen, and self control. The most frequent terms used to
describe a person’s character in the mid-nineteenth century included a staunch work
ethic, a sense of duty and citizenship, and demonstrations of integrity and purity. In
contrast, the twentieth-century emphasis on “personality,” concerned a manner of self-
presentation that was less about conforming to known standards than it was about
standing out in a crowd. A person with good personality demonstrated attractiveness,
mastery of their surroundings and superiority over certain peers, and fascinated those
around him.
35
Whereas the old Victorian view emphasized self-control and sacrifice, the
new twentieth-century view stressed self-fulfillment and self-gratification in order to be
well-liked by others.
Susman’s formulation is useful for what it explains about the decline of a
producerist mentality in American culture which occurred simultaneously with the rise of
consumption in the early twentieth century—but in the world of advertising, the shift
from character to personality was a complicated process that began in the 1870s and was
still under tenuous negotiation in the 1920s. Advertisers reworked concepts of character
to fit the demands of consumer society; and drew upon the language of character even as
they formulated new ways to create corporate personality and product differentiation.
First, in their efforts to differentiate their products from competitors advertisers strived to
make the ads and the products memorable to the public. Creating memorability had an

Character is Capital: Success Manuals and Manhood in Gilded Age America (Chapel Hill: University of
North Carolina Press, 1997).
35
Susman, “Personality,” 273-277.
29
element of personality in it, as Susman points out: “we live now constantly in a crowd;
how can we distinguish from others in that crowd?”
36
Indeed, much of what practitioners
now refer to as branding—product differentiation and creating memorability and
distinctiveness through publicity—falls within Susman’s rubric of personality in the first
decades of the twentieth century.
37
Yet while advertisers strove to differentiate their
products from competitors on the market, they utilized the familiar tenets of character
precisely to help those products stand out; and to build positive public images for their
corporations. Advertisers built public relations campaigns by extolling the virtues of
their products, professing their own standards of purity, and emphasizing their sense of
responsibility to their customers—all formulations of character designed to differentiate
themselves and their products from competitors. In these ways, advertising experts used
the older Victorian language of character when describing how to best appeal to modern
consumers. Advertising campaigns between 1880 and 1910 constructed corporate
character through product reputation, public relations, and a continued media presence.
Through these tactics, advertisers adapted and reworked the qualities associated with the
nineteenth-century culture of character to fit to the goals of commerce and consumerism
as they gained momentum in the Gilded Age.
The sentimental images appearing on trade cards first invested a sense of virtue in
the appeal itself, and soon advertisers developed trade characters and other modes of
representing trustworthy corporate personalities to the public. Advertising became the
primary public relations vehicle through which corporate goodwill could be constructed

36
Ibid., 277.
37
Merriam-Webster Dictionary, “Brand,” http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/brand.
30
and maintained, and images became a primary mode through which advertisers
accomplished this goal. Indeed, the decades between 1870 and 1920 witnessed a
transformation in advertising practice whereby advertisers came to rely upon images to
symbolize constructions of trust and character to the public. The symbol that unified
these strategic shifts in advertising appeal was the trademark: simple, graphic,
memorable, and deeply invested with advertisers’ constructions of integrity and
responsibility to the public. As marks signifying the trust that advertisers sought to instill
within the public, trademarks came to be much more than legal emblems of ownership.
Trademarks—their use, their meaning, and their legal implications—became the
lynchpins in a new advertising strategy that would shape the consumer culture of the
twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Personalization efforts to build goodwill did not
begin in the 1920s—rather, they grew and developed over the previous half-century, out
of budding advertising efforts that took advantage of the then booming American
industry and the American middle classes’ fascination with hand-held
chromolithographed prints.
31
CHAPTER ONE:
Exchange Cards

On May 10, 1876, the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia opened its doors to
an excited and enthusiastic public. The Exposition marked the growth of large-scale
corporate capitalism and consumerism after the Civil War, and functioned as both a self-
congratulatory political event and a showcase for industrial capitalist progress. As part of
the commemoration of the Revolution, the fair featured various displays and departments
such as manufacturing, textiles, furniture, tools, transportation, engineering and public
works, graphic arts, and “intellectual, moral and physical improvement.”
38
The fair
introduced a host of new technologies and other developments that would have lasting
impacts on the lives of Americans, including the telephone and early refrigeration
processes.
Once inside, visitors encountered a cacophony of spectacular sights and sounds,
including the “steady whir and roll of the machinery” that reminded one fairgoer “of the
rhythm of winds and waves in a storm”.
39
Exhibitors had traveled from every corner of
the country and abroad to present their information and products to fairgoers, who moved
through the Exposition collecting colorful printed souvenirs. Elizabeth Vernon, a young
girl from Brooklyn, New York, was one such visitor. When she returned home from the

*An earlier version of this chapter was published as “Corporate Calling Cards: Advertising Trade Cards
and Logos in the US, 1876-1890,” in Journal of American Culture 32, no. 4 (2009): 291-306.
38
Robert W. Rydell, All the World’s a Fair: Visions of Empire at American International Expositions,
1876-1916 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984), 10-21.
39
Elizabeth Parsons Channing, Autobiography and Diary of Elizabeth Parsons Channing: Gleanings of a
Thoughtful Life (Boston: American Unitarian Association, 1907), 34.
32
Centennial Exposition, Elizabeth carefully arranged and pasted the pocket-sized
advertisements that she’d gathered in her scrapbook, which also contained pictures taken
from Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper. On a few pages, Elizabeth wrote inscriptions
describing the pavilions and scenes she created from scraps to memorialize what she saw
and heard there.
40
Elizabeth’s scrapbook demonstrates a sense of wonder and
achievement at the nation’s technological, economic, and social progress over its first one
hundred years; while her use of printed materials and colorful advertisements to construct
her scrapbook narrative points to a broader cultural fascination with chromolithographs
and albums that swept the nation in the second half of the nineteenth century.
These two elements—economic boom and cultural fads—came together in the
1870s as the nascent advertising industry struggled to meet the challenges of addressing
an increasingly skeptical public distanced from the point of production by new
distribution channels in the mass market. The strategies admen used to reinsert a sense of
intimacy and friendship into commodity exchange—especially in the media they chose to
deliver their messages—formed a crucial foundation for the emergent principles that
would structure advertising in the next three decades. By looking at the collection and
preservation of advertising trade cards in scrapbooks and albums, it becomes clear that
scrapbook-keepers received these cards as objects divorced from their commercial origins
and instead inherently connected to personal expression and reciprocal exchange. It was
the materiality—the appearance, imagery, and usage patterns—of advertising trade cards
that helped them fit within an existing culture of personal exchange; and in turn provided

40
Elizabeth Willis Vernon, “Centennial Scrapbook,” 1876, Last HL.
33
a means for advertisers to personalize their messages to the public by making the appeal
itself more intimate.
***
By the time the doors opened at the Centennial Exposition, the United States had
already witnessed a tremendous boom in industrial production and economic growth.
After the end of the Civil War, expanding transportation and communication networks
brought the country together in a thriving national market. As industry boomed and
consumption took hold, per-capita incomes and thus the spending ability of American
consumers rose.
41
Manufacturers competing in this expanding national market began
using brand-names to distinguish their products from competitors, to increase public
awareness of the product by making advertisements more consistent across various
media, and, some scholars argue, to potentially achieve larger profits through price
fixing.
42

Of course, these developments would not have been possible without the
expansion the country witnessed in the prewar years, which set in motion an elongated
process of incorporating rural areas into the country’s market infrastructure in an ever-
growing network of production outlets and distribution channels. Indeed, the Market
Revolution of the antebellum period put in place the underlying economic, industrial, and
social structures that would aid the immeasurable growth of the post-Civil War years: it
was the banks, canals, and railroads which emerged in the prewar years to build the

41
See footnote 4.
42
Susan Strasser argues that brand-name advertising was a coercive strategy to edge-out middlemen such
as wholesale distributors by fixing prices and minimizing the profits of distributors and retailers. See
Satisfaction Guaranteed, 272.
34
infrastructure of production and distribution that would take the United States into its
industrial boom of the 1870s, ‘80s, and ‘90s. More importantly, the work of wealthy
industrialists and the laborers they employed before1860 set the foundation for the
continued growth of the middle classes from the Jacksonian period through the end of the
century.
43
With the rise of these middle classes came the opportunity for increased
consumption, especially as out of this growing economy a national mass market erupted
and changed the scope of commodity exchange in the Gilded Age US.
Amidst all the changes brought by industrialization after the war, the emerging
mass market took on a different shape for consumers used to buying from local
producers. Prior to the 1870s, bulk goods traveled through wholesalers to local retail
stores, where merchants established their own pricing schemes and advised their
customers during the purchase process. Between 1870 and 1915 this structure shifted, as
manufacturers began shipping brand-name wares directly to merchants—cutting out
wholesalers in the process—and addressing consumers directly through brand-name
advertising. Expanding distribution networks brought more rural areas into the scope of
the national market, making mass-produced household consumables more available to the
nation’s interior.
44
In just a few short decades, the introduction of mail-order catalogs

43
On the Market and Transportation Revolutions, see Daniel Walker Howe, What Hath God Wrought: The
Transformation of America 1815-1848 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007); and Paul E. Johnson,
The Early American Republic: 1789-1829 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007). A general
discussion of the emergent middle class can be found in Stuart Blumin, “The Hypothesis of Middle Class
Formation in Nineteenth-Century America,” American Historical Review 90 (1985): 299-338.
44
See Norris, Advertising; and Strasser, Satisfaction Guaranteed. While Norris suggests that advertising’s
primary contribution in the Gilded Age was its use to “define the American dream in terms of a
35
such as Montgomery Ward (in the late 1870s) and Sears Roebuck (in the 1890s) would
further revolutionize commodity exchange by expanding the availability of goods to rural
families.
45
This larger distribution network meant a wider availability of goods to
consumers, but it also meant that consumers were further and further distanced from the
site of production as the decades progressed. In short, consumers became more reliant
upon manufacturers’ claims via advertising to make their purchase decisions—and less
reliant upon their own knowledge of product quality and a manufacturer’s local
reputation. Cultivating consumer trust thus became an essential and necessary goal for
manufacturers in the Gilded Age.
For American consumers, the growth of the mass market meant that
manufacturers would now be infringing upon the intimate, trusting relationships
consumers had previously built with local retailers. Instead of purchasing bulk goods,

consumption ethic” (xvii); Strasser argues that brand-name goods changed the relationship between
consumer and producer by changing the nature of production (mass-scale, location) and eliminating
wholesaler power in favor of giving manufacturers the power to eclipse competitors through price-fixing
strategies (28).
45
Succinct discussions of the influence of mail-order catalogs on American farmers and other consumers
can be found in William Cronon, Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West (New York: W.W.
Norton, 1992), 318-340; Alexandra Keller, “Disseminations of Modernity: Representation and Consumer
Desire in Early Mail-Order Catalogs,” in Cinema and the Invention of Modern Life, ed. Vanessa Schwartz
and Leo Charney (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), 156–182; and Strasser, Satisfaction
Guaranteed, 77, 212-222. The history and development of Sears Roebuck became a popular topic of
discussion in the mid-twentieth century, with several books devoted to its study. See, for example, Louis E
Asher, Send No Money (Chicago: Argus, 1942), and Boris Emmet et al., Catalogues and Counters; a
History of Sears, Roebuck and Company (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1950).
36
consumers now had a choice between a growing variety of branded items. At first
consumers relied upon the advice of local grocers or druggists to make their choices, but
throughout the 1870s, ‘80s, and ‘90s manufacturers attempted to bypass this relationship
by establishing their own connections directly with consumers through advertising.
Companies faced the task of converting a population accustomed to homemade products
and unbranded merchandise into a national market for standardized and advertised brand-
name goods.
46
For the consumer, shopping transformed from an experience rooted in
face-to-face interaction, conversation with the local retailer, and consumption of generic
local goods to one characterized by flashy packaging, colorful advertisements, and
appeals from often faceless manufacturers clamoring for the consumer’s attention and
trust.
Within the advertising industry, the growing distance between producers and
consumers in the US led to a culture of skepticism that structured business practices writ
large. Despite the mid-century popularity of entertainments such as Barnum’s public
frauds and other devices of trickery, in the business world adherence to the principles of
honesty, integrity, and transparency prevailed through the end of the Civil War. In
particular, success manuals in the 1870s and ‘80s reworked a Jeffersonian and Protestant
ethic of “honestly, frugality, industry, reliability, and loyalty, buttressed by the force of
character and true manhood” as a mode to achieve financial and professional success.
47

These attributes structured the professionalization efforts of businessmen, including

46
Strasser, Satisfaction Guaranteed, 6-7, 28. See also Leach, Land of Desire.
47
Hilkey, Character is Capital, 5. On the popularity of Barnum’s entertainments and a growing culture of
skepticism in the post-Reconstruction United States, see Neil Harris, Humbug; the Art of P. T. Barnum
(Boston: Little, Brown, 1973); Cook, The Arts of Deception; and Leja, Looking Askance.
37
advertisers; who founded “modern” agencies, established trade associations, and
systematized business practices in order to “justify their trade by reasserting familiar
moral claims of sincere self-made manhood.”
48
In articulating these virtuous qualities of
character as key components to individual success in the new corporate society, success
manuals and advertisers in the 1870s and ‘80s revamped the ideals of an older, middle-
class culture of sincerity in order to frame the principles of business ethics that would
structure professionalism.
Indeed, the ideals of integrity and honesty that permeated commercial exchange in
the 1870s, ‘80s, and ‘90s had their roots in the antebellum culture of sentimentalism and
sincere expression. The demographic and economic changes of the pre-Civil War years
had threatened traditional social orders and fostered anonymity among urbanites.
49
By
cultivating an ideal of transparent self-display, which historians have called “sincerity,” a
socially-mobile group of merchants and industrialists increasingly sought to differentiate
themselves from the lower classes by emulating the genteel manners of high society.
They institutionalized strict codes of dress, conduct, and correspondence to ensure

48
Lears, Fables of Abundance, 89. Lears’s work owes an intellectual debt to a body of scholarship
concerned with examining and defining the character of American society and culture. This literature
stems from David Potter’s People of Plenty: Economic Abundance and the American Character (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1954); and developed in 1979 through the work of Warren Susman, in
“Personality.”
49
On the problem of authority and anonymity in the antebellum city see Henkin, City Reading. Perhaps the
most widely-cited work on the anonymity of the “modern” city, which specifically references the visual
chaos of late-nineteenth century urban life is Georg Simmel’s essay “The Metropolis and Mental Life” of
1903, excerpted in Vanessa Schwartz and Jeannene M. Przyblyski, The Nineteenth-Century Visual Culture
Reader (New York: Routledge, 2004), 51-59.
38
complete transparency of character in personal and professional address.
50
Socialization
in this process and individuals’ faith in each others’ adherence to proper codes of conduct
helped to perpetuate this system. Individuals monitored each others’ behavior (and thus
status) by scrutinizing each others’ demonstration of sincerity and transparency of
character.
51
Many of these standards persisted through the end of the nineteenth century,

50
Several prominent scholars have examined the process of class formation in the United States, with
special attention to the modes through which the middle class came to differentiate itself at various
moments since the eighteenth century. Manners and etiquette provided a primary platform for class
differentiation, as C. Dallett Hemphill finds for the revolutionary period in Bowing to Necessities.
Hemphill’s periodization conflicts with earlier interpretations which stressed the importance of manners in
the antebellum years, as in Halttunen, Confidence Men, and Kasson, Rudeness & Civility. While Halttunen
finds the decline of sincerity in the Civil War years, Kasson’s treatment takes the persistence of the cult of
manners through the end of the century. Sven Beckert, however, points to the post-Civil War period and
suggests that proletarianization and the overthrow of slavery prompted the consolidation of the middle
classes in The Monied Metropolis: New York City and the Consolidation of the American Bourgeoisie,
1850-1896 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001). Like Beckert, Lawrence Levine finds the
middle decades of the century to be most important for middle-class consolidation when viewed through
the lens of the institutionalization of “highbrow” culture. See Highbrow/Lowbrow: The Emergence of
Cultural Hierarchy in America (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988).
51
Norbert Elias first explained the connection between manners and class standing in 1939 with his
Civilizing Process, which argued that an ever expanding “threshold of embarrassment” gradually defined
previously acceptable public behavior as inappropriate among the courtly aristocracy in the Early Modern
period. As the bourgeoisie (and later, the lower classes) sought to emulate these manners, a process of
socialization compelled adherence to “civil” behavior that characterized adult life as separate from the
untrained manners of children. This process worked differently among the various nations of Western
Europe depending on the social and political character of each region, but was generally completed in
successive movements across the whole of Western Europe between the late medieval period and the
39
with writers of advice and etiquette manuals instructing individuals on how to
demonstrate character in all modes of social interaction—structuring, with rigid
ceremony, everything from dinner invitations and formal greetings to business
transactions and even thoughtful notes between family members.
52
Though deliberate
and comical subversions often arose, the importance of sincerity endured through the
final decades of the nineteenth century, providing a framework for intimate expression
and gift-giving between friends and dictating a formal etiquette for personal and
professional correspondence.
53
Moreover, the principles of sincerity resonated loudly
with self-conscious advertisers seeking to professionalize their industry and win public
favor.
The expansion of journalism and the mass press during the Civil War helped
facilitate the growth of advertising in the last decades of the nineteenth century. The war
itself sparked an explosion in both advertising and journalism, as the public’s hunger for
news from the front enlarged both subscription lists and the size of daily newspapers
themselves. This increased demand for newspapers facilitated the introduction of wood-
pulp paper in the 1870s, which was cheaper to produce and helped lower the overall cost
of the printing process, thereby allowing their consumption by a larger segment of the

nineteenth century. See The Civilizing Process, vol. 1: The History of Manners (New York: Blackwell,
1978 [1939]).
52
In 1900, etiquette expert Charles E. Sargent outlined the modes of proper interaction between friends,
parents and children, acquaintances, and strangers in the manner of antebellum advice writers. See Our
Home, or Influences Emanating from the Hearthstone (Springfield, MA: King & Richardson, 1900), esp.
chapter 19.
53
See discussion of “Joker” cards in chapter 2; also footnote 233.
40
American public. Larger advertising sections also helped to pay for the bigger papers
and new Sunday editions, which in turn pushed the growth of the advertising industry in
the 1870s.
54
Agents such as George P. Rowell, who had formerly worked for the
newspapers, created their own agencies in the 1860s and ‘70s to sell advertising space in
a variety of trade journals and the popular press.
Located primarily in the urban centers of New York, Philadelphia, Boston, and
Chicago, these “admen” first appeared in the 1850s as intermediaries between
manufacturers (whom they called “advertisers”) and newspapers; and primarily served
the purpose of receiving and placing ads on behalf of their clients.
55
With the expansion

54
James Harvey Young, The Toadstool Millionaires; a Social History of Patent Medicines in America
Before Federal Regulation (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1961), 100; and Strasser,
Satisfaction Guaranteed, 90-93.
55
It is important to note that when writers in trade journals spoke of “advertisers,” they referred primarily
to individuals and corporations placing advertisements in public media that solicited customers for a
particular service or product. These “advertisers” could be salesmen, distributors, wholesalers, and
manufacturers. Generally, the term “advertiser” did not refer to men involved in the advertising industry
until the second quarter of the twentieth century, though as late as the 1920s advertising agents continued to
use this term to refer to their clients. In the 1880s and ‘90s, men involved in the advertising industry
generally referred to themselves and each other as “agents” (though this term could also refer to authorized
salesmen), “industry men,” or by particular role in the industry, such as “copyists,” “designers,”
“illustrators,” “editors,” and the like. In the following chapters, I have attempted to preserve the historical
variance of the terms used in the primary sources I consult—and therefore refer to individuals advertising
their own wares for sale as “advertisers” and “manufacturers” interchangeably, while utilizing the terms
“admen” (the industry’s own slang term), “advertising agents,” or simply “agents” to refer to the group of
professionals who acted on behalf of manufacturers and other clients to design, place, and distribute
published advertisements to the public.
41
of newspaper and magazine advertising in the 1870s and ‘80s, these agents formed their
own firms and gradually expanded their services to include layout design, text (or
“copy”) writing, and artwork creation; and began to bring in specialized employees
trained as writers, editors, artists, and graphic designers as the industry grew. As it was
for many emergent industries around the turn of the century, New York became the
epicenter of these developments: the number of agencies located there grew from roughly
forty in the late 1860s to nearly 300 by 1890. By the first decade of the twentieth
century, several prominent agencies counted multiple offices within the US and even
international branches: these included N. W. Ayer & Son (est. 1869); J. Walter
Thompson (est. 1871); Lord & Thomas, later Foote Cone & Belding (est. 1871); George
Batten Co., later BBDO (est. 1891); and the Bates Agency (est. 1893).
56

The dramatic rise of the magazine industry also contributed to the growth of
advertising in the Gilded Age. Improvements to the rotary press, the development of new
photographic printing technologies, and the passing of the 1879 Post Office Act (creating
bulk rates for second-class mail) made possible the expansion of mass-circulation
magazines in the 1880s and ‘90s. In 1860, there were 29.5 copies of daily, weekly, and
monthly periodicals issued for every person in the US. By 1900, that figure grew to
107.5 per person, marking an extremely large increase in the periodical press; especially
given the exponential growth in US population aided in part by increased immigration

56
Juliann Sivulka, Soap, Sex, and Cigarettes: A Cultural History of American Advertising (Belmont, CA:
Wadsworth, 1998), 34-36, 81. Useful discussions of the professionalization and growth of the advertising
industry can be found in Laird, Advertising Progress, chapter 5, esp. p. 157; Fox, Mirror Makers; Pope,
Making of Modern Advertising; and Lears, Fables of Abundance, chapter 3.
42
from southern and eastern Europe after 1865.
57
With these increased circulation figures,
magazines, whose new advertising sections had also grown, were now able to reach a
public with a widening consumer-consciousness.
As the advertising industry professionalized and grew, the nature and appearance
of advertisements also shifted. Before the Civil War, advertisements infrequently used
imagery to identify or explain products, as in farm-implement catalogs and handbills; and
the high cost of commissioning and printing engravings and woodcuts limited the
widespread use of images in advertisements.
58
In these years, advertisements circulated
widely as handbills, in newspapers, and as billboards and posters on walls and other
public spaces within the antebellum city. The result was a “verbal frenzy” that
confronted individuals on the street and precipitated a mode of public reading that was
unlike any experience of print culture in previous decades.
59
This intense reliance upon

57
Young, Toadstool Millionaires, 101-102; Norris, Advertising, 34; and Strasser, Satisfaction Guaranteed,
90-94.
58
Sivulka, Soap, Sex, and Cigarettes, 8-17; and Strasser, Satisfaction Guaranteed, 90. Carl Robert Keyes
provides a useful discussion of the development of advertising in Colonial America in “Early American
Advertising: Marketing and Consumer Culture in Eighteenth-Century Philadelphia” (PhD diss., Johns
Hopkins University, 2008); while Joanna Cohen does the same for the first half of the nineteenth century in
“‘Millions of Luxurious Citizens’: Consumption and Citizenship in the Urban Northeast, 1800-1865” (PhD
diss., University of Pennsylvania, 2009).
59
Henkin, City Reading, 48. While Henkin finds that the antebellum period witnessed a transition from a
symbolic visual regime of the eighteenth century to a more linguistic and text-based visual regime in the
early-nineteenth century—a culture marked by “city reading” and textual literacy; my research has
suggested that the Gilded Age witnessed a similar transformation in literacy towards a literacy of signs,
43
textual communication in the pre-Civil War years gave way to an increasingly visual
form of advertising after the war.
After 1870, developments in printing technologies, most notably the growth of
lithography, helped change the character of advertising by reducing the costs of printing
images and elevating their overall importance to the trade. Advertisers and printers
began including imagery in advertisements, not only for informational purposes, but to
heighten their initial appeal and to draw the attention of potential consumers.
Entertaining and familiar images from popular culture soon began appearing—often in
full color—in advertisements designed to be collected and saved by patrons. Far from
the cheaply printed handbills that littered the gutters of the antebellum city, the new and
colorful trade cards and posters of the 1870s, ‘80s, and ‘90s could be bought, traded, and
collected directly from manufacturers who offered them as premiums and gifts to loyal
patrons.
60
The new accessibility of color printing thus transformed advertising forever.
As one expert wrote, properly chosen images served to “hook” the viewer and draw not
only their attention, but favorable opinions which might then be transferred to the product
for sale.
61

symbols, and logos as the advertising industry moved trademarks to the forefront of public consciousness
and consumer culture.
60
Posters, as lithographed advertisements and collectible art objects, have a rich history in nineteenth-
century Europe and the US. See, for example, Mary Weaver Chapin, Posters of Paris: Toulouse-Lautrec
and His Contemporaries (New York: Prestel, 2012); and Jay T. Last, The Color Explosion: Nineteenth-
Century American Lithography (Santa Ana, CA: Hillcrest Press, 2005).
61
Thomas Donnelley, “The application of art, so called, to advertising,” Printers' Ink 5, no. 14 (Oct 1891):
364-5. See also Lewis Saxby, “The Genius of Pictorial Advertising,” Printers' Ink 11, no. 19 (Nov 1894):
44
America’s fascination with colorful pictures began several decades earlier,
however, with the introduction of color lithography to the US in the 1850s.
62
The initial
popularity of collecting lithographic prints rose in the 1850s and ‘60s, and grew to
dramatic proportions in the last quarter of the century when “chromos”—an abbreviation
of chromo-, or color-lithographs—became all the rage among middle- and lower-middle-
class consumers.
63
Large landscape and cityscape prints wowed consumers in these early
years, and the firm of Currier & Ives won popular favor with its documentary prints of
contemporary events and scenes of family life in the 1850s. Key developments in the
printing process allowed for more efficient and higher volume outputs in the 1850s, while
the public thirst for information during the war and falling price of paper in the 1870s
secured the potential for the large-scale distribution of cheap and free chromolithographs

804; and “The Picture Habit,” Printers' Ink 17, no. 13 (Dec 1896): 3-4. See also Last, Color Explosion;
and Strasser, Satisfaction Guaranteed, 91.
62
It should be noted, however, that imported chromos and chromo scraps were available in the US as early
as the 1830s, according to Tucker, et al., Scrapbook in American Life, 7. On the history of lithography in
the US, see Katharine Morrison McClinton, The Chromolithographs of Louis Prang (New York: C. N.
Potter, 1973), 59-60; Last, Color Explosion, 244; J. R. Burdick, The American Card Catalog: The Standard
Guide on all Collected Cards and their Values (New York: Nostalgia Press, 1967), 14-15; and Jay, Trade
Card, 1-3.
63
Georgia Barnhill and Lauren Hewes, “Early American Prints,” and “Chromolithography” (lectures,
Chavic summer seminar, American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, MA, June 2010). Barnhill and Hewes
note that curators distinguish between “color” lithography and “chromolithography” as an indication of the
level of expense and effort put into producing a print, whereby in color lithographs the inks are printed
side-by-side on the paper (a cheaper and faster process), and in chromolithography the inks overlap (a more
sophisticated and expensive process).
45
to the American public.
64
The absence of color-printing in the magazine industry at mid-
century allowed chromolithographic firms to become the primary suppliers of cheap,
colorful images to a public yearning for a colorful oasis from the newspapers, handbills,
magazines, and other black and white media circulating in American culture.
65

Reproductions of famous artworks and other large-scale chromolithographs
especially appealed to members of the middle class, who demonstrated their class identity
through the objects on display in their parlors.
66
According to cultural tastemakers,
carefully chosen hallstands, ornamented furnishings and fabrics, and pictures would
provide an uplifting space for the family while fortifying its quest for propriety and
gentility. In offering her advice on the subject in 1869, Harriet Beecher Stowe warned
individuals not to choose “high” art simply for its association with status, but rather to
seek pictures that would be pleasing and representative of the household. She continued:

64
The Civil War created a large market for chromolithographs as the public demanded information about
the war and war-related themes: several lithographers built their businesses in these years by producing
lithographs of military camps, battles, portraits of political and military leaders, and sheet music covers
with patriotic themes. Last, Color Explosion, 21, 66-67; and Young, Toadstool Millionaires, 100.
65
Last, Color Explosion, 22-26; Laura Anne Kalba, “Outside the Lines: The Production and Consumption
of Color in Nineteenth-Century France” (PhD diss., University of Southern California, 2008); and Peter C.
Marzio, The Democratic Art: Pictures for a 19th-Century America: Chromolithography, 1840-1900
(Boston: D.R. Godine, 1979).
66
The parlor was an important space for the display of middle-class identity, as Karen Halttunen, Kenneth
Ames, and Katherine Grier suggest. See Halttunen, Confidence Men, chapters 3-5; Ames, Death in the
Dining Room, chapter 1; and Katherine C. Grier, Culture & Comfort: Parlor Making and Middle-Class
Identity, 1850-1930 (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1997).
46
The great value of pictures for home should be, after all, in their
sentiment....We should try to cultivate our [own] taste… and not those of
others. …A respectable engraving that truly is felt by the family as an
artistic pleasure is a better thing for them than a much higher one that they
do not understand or care for.
67

Stowe explained that chromolithographed artworks by little-known artists could therefore
be of more worth in materializing a family’s sentiment and taste than many “high” art
pieces. With Stowe’s endorsement, the popularity of this new art grew exponentially.
68

The public’s unquenchable thirst for these colorful prints meant that there were plenty of
profits to be earned in the production and sale of chromolithographs. The enterprising
printer only needed to find his niche in the market before exploiting it—and that is just
what German-born lithographer Louis Prang did.
Prang, whose work had been publically praised by Stowe merely one year before
her exposition on the worthiness of chromos for the American home, found success
making reproductions of famous art works in the 1850s and ‘60s, and began printing
small-scale “album cards” during the Civil War.
69
These 2 x 4in. cards contained

67
Harriet Beecher Stowe, “What Pictures shall I hang on my walls?” in Atlantic Almanac for 1869 (Boston:
Ticknor & Fields, 1868), 41-44. Emphasis in original.
68
On the popularity of chromolithographs in the post-war period see McClintock, Louis Prang; Last, Color
Explosion; Mary Sittig, “L. Prang & Company, fine art publishers” (Master’s Thesis, George Washington
University, 1970); and Laura Groves Napolitano, “Nurturing change: Lilly Martin Spencer’s images of
children” (PhD diss., University of Maryland College Park, 2008), chapter 4.
69
Harriet Beecher Stowe to Louis Prang, 20 Jan 1867, reprinted in “Mrs. Stowe on Prang’s Chromos,”
Prang’s Chromo: A Journal of Popular Art 1, no. 1 (Jan 1868): 2; in LOC PP.
47
chromolithographed images of flowers, birds, leaves, and other plants, and were
commonly sold in sets of twelve (FIG 1.1). Introducing the cards in 1864, Prang
intended these for collection in the patented Prang’s American Album, a leather-bound
scrapbook with pre-cut slits to hold the cards.
70
Prang found almost immediate success
with the cards, selling, by his own estimation, several hundred thousand of the 12-packs
in the first four years. The most popular designs, according to Prang, were “Autumn
Leaves” and the various “Rose” cards, which could be viewed in “show windows of print
and fancy shops” throughout the US and in the UK.
71
In the album card, Prang
capitalized on the popularity of collecting chromos and combined an appeal to a culture
of exchange (as discussed below) and album-keeping. He astutely recognized the
potential profits to be earned by selling hand-held chromos for personal exchange and
album use.

Chromolithographed Exchange Cards
Out of the success of album cards grew a commercial adaptation: the
chromolithographed trade card. In the 1870s Prang adapted the album card for
commercial use when he used chromolithographed cards as professional calling cards for
his business, an act that earned him the honor of “inventor” of the trade card in the minds

70
Louis Prang, Prang's American Card Album (Boston: Louis Prang & Co., 1864), Louis Prang Papers, bk
2a, Last HL.
71
“On Prang’s American Chromos,” reprinted from Forney’s Philadelphia Press, in Prang’s Chromo: A
Journal of Popular Art 1, no. 1 (Jan 1868): 3; in LOC PP.
48
of many twentieth-century historians.
72
After winning an award at the 1873 Viennese
Exhibition, Prang copyrighted his designs in the US.
73
Whether he intended the cards as
samples of his work or as proper business cards is unknown. Despite his haste at
copyrighting his designs, there were several other lithographers distributing trade cards in
the early 1870s, including Bufford and Forbes (both in Boston).
74
These lithographers,
alongside Prang and others, independently marketed their chromolithographed cards to
stationers across the eastern seaboard; so that by opening of the Philadelphia Exposition
in 1876 the widespread use, distribution, and availability of chromolithographed trade
cards in the United States seemed to explode.
75

72
Although Prang had developed the framework for the emergence of the stock trade card in the decade
prior to the Centennial, he was not the inventor of the stock trade card in 1876, despite the popular belief
among many amateur collectors and some scholars that he was. See Ernest Dudley Chase, The Romance of
Greeting Cards (Detroit: Tower Books, 1971 [1927]); Marzio, The Democratic Art; McClinton, Louis
Prang; and Sittig, “L. Prang & Co.” Rather, evidence points to the gradual development of the stock trade
card, involving a group of printers (including Prang) in the northeastern US. See 1875 trade card for
Bufford & Sons, Col. 838, DCWL; Bufford and Forbes Co. advertisements (1885 and 1875), in Warshaw
Series I Printing, AC NMAH. This evidence supports the argument made by Robert Jay, who notes that
Prang adapted the album card for trade card use, citing the emergence of album cards in 1863 and noting
that the Centennial would have provided an excellent opportunity for publicizing these new trade cards.
See Jay, Trade Card, chapter 2.
73
Jay, Trade Card, chapter 2; verified in the Copyright Office card catalog, housed at the Library of
Congress, Washington, DC.
74
See Louis Prang Papers; 1876 materials; both in Last HL; Col. 838, DCWL; and Jay, Trade Card, 28-29.
75
Despite the few examples of pre-1876 stock cards found in the course of my research, the overwhelming
majority of trade cards housed in the largest public collections in the US date to 1876 and later, with the
median in the mid-1880s and with quantities declining in the years just before 1900. This research
49
As a commercial endeavor, however, trade cards had a longer history in the US.
Trade cards first came into use in North America in the eighteenth century, in the form of
engraved and letter-press printed cards containing contact information which were
distributed locally by tradesmen such as silversmiths and cabinetmakers (FIG 1.2). Each
card had to be individually designed, making the expensive product available only to
those selected businessmen with the means to afford such luxuries.
76
In the antebellum
period, trade cards circulated in an urban culture of “mobile texts” that included
handbills, posters, and other publicity materials. Compared to paper money by one
prominent historian, these trade cards often marked the “physical confrontation between
two people” through the simple fact that face-to-face contact was typically required for
the distribution or exchange of the card and its trade information. In many ways, the
trade card worked within the arenas of personal and commercial exchange at the same
time: registering a moment of personal contact as it passed from one person to the next
but addressing potential readers as “a group of largely undifferentiated consumers.”
77

The cards that Prang and other lithographers distributed in 1876 and the decades
that followed differed from these antecedents in both their appearance and function.
Measuring approximately three by five inches, these cheaply-printed and often colorful
cards typically featured an image and a retailer’s name and location on the front side,
while the reverse might contain additional product information, testimonials, or other

amounted to approximately 5,000 trade cards viewed in archival collections at HL, DCWL, and AC
NMAH.
76
Jay, Trade Card, 1-3. See also Philippa Hubbard, “The Art of Advertising: Trade Cards in Eighteenth-
Century Consumer Cultures” (PhD diss., University of Warwick, UK, 2009),
77
Henkin, City Reading, 73.
50
statements encouraging the viewer to purchase the goods for sale. In the 1870s and ‘80s
retailers could commission custom designs from printing firms or purchase “stock” cards
with generic designs and have their own name and location information added via
letterpress overprinting or ink-stamp (FIG 1.3).
78
While more expensive custom cards
utilized an idiosyncratic range of images to advertise the product, stock cards relied upon
a common set of images that included children, flowers, birds, and other small animals.
Lithographers typically produced stock cards in series—that is, a set of similar designs,
themes, and comics / narratives that could be purchased singularly or as a set.
79

Printing trade cards in series encouraged consumers to become invested in the
story and seek out other cards in the series itself—with the added benefit of increased
consumption. Consumers could obtain trade cards through a variety of outlets: retailers
and manufacturers often inserted the cards as free gifts in product packages, salesmen
distributed samples and cards along their routes, and consumers often sent in coupons or
premiums for additional trade cards. Moreover, consumers traded and gifted cards
amongst themselves, which added to the exchange value of the objects as gifts, rewards,
or tokens of friendship.
80
In many ways, however, the desire to receive additional trade

78
“Illuminated Business and Advertising Cards published by L. Prang & Company,” Price List (spring
1879), Louis Prang Papers, bk 16a, Last HL. See also Jay, Trade Card, chapters 2-3.
79
Jay, Trade Card, chapter 4; Last, Color Explosion, 244; Burdick, American Card Catalog, 14; and Louis
Prang Papers, Last HL. Of the approximately 5,000 cards viewed for this study (from AC NMAH, HL, and
DCWL), approximately 79% used stock images and overprinting; while 19% featured custom designs for
nationally-marketed products.
80
Meredith Eliassen, “In the Hands of Children: A Photographic Essay of Images from Children’s
Scrapbooks,” in Tucker et al., Scrapbook in American Life, 195; and Ellis A. Davidson, The Happy Nursery
51
cards could be an incentive to purchase more goods. If a series was available only by
collecting and sending in coupons or premiums, the consumer would be motivated to
purchase increased quantities of the appropriate goods in order to obtain the coupons /
premiums required to receive more trade cards.
81
In both of these cases, the consumer’s
desire to obtain a complete serial narrative printed on trade cards would facilitate her
increased consumption of the appropriate household goods, as middle-class Americans in
the nineteenth century were avid collectors and classifiers.
82

Manufacturers were inventive in creating a range of ways to get trade cards into
the hands of potential customers. In most cases, consumers received the cards from local
retailers, who packaged the advertisements with purchased goods or displayed the cards
at the sales counter. Consumers might also collect and mail coupons or box labels as
premiums for trade-card giveaways. One local retailer in Jackson, Michigan, promised
“elegant advertising material, FREE” when customers ordered products through his dry
goods store.
83
Wholesalers and traveling salesmen also carried trade cards and
distributed them to retailers as promotional material. As the chart in figure 1.4 illustrates,
the nineteenth-century trade card had two primary functions: one linked to economics

(London: Cassell, Petter, and Balpin, 1872), 65, quoted in idem. See also footnotes 84, and 98.
81
Trade card advertisement for Haddock’s Cards (1879), box F-9, scrapbook 2, p. 17, BTC HL.
82
Garvey, “Scrapbook, Wish Book, Prayer Book,” 107; and Simon J. Bronner, ed. Consuming Visions:
Accumulation and Display of Goods in America, 1880-1920 (New York: Norton, 1989).
83
See trade cards for Linden Bloom Perfume, box F-5 fol. 23; S. D. Sollers & Co., box F-5 fol. 32; and
Merrill & Mackintire’s Stationers (c.1885), box F-9, scrapbook 1, p. 13; all BTC HL. On contests and
coupons, see Garvey, Adman, chapter 2.
52
through manufacturers, retailers, and consumption; and the other linked to consumers and
entertainment through the use of these cards in scrapbooks.
84

Owing to the popularity of chromolithographs for collection by the middle
classes, the practice of using chromolithographed trade cards as advertisements expanded
in the mid-1870s; and by the 1880s the cards were used by small and large retailers, local
and national producers of goods, and well-to-do individuals. Local merchants used trade
cards to advertise their own goods and services, and distributed cards from large-scale
manufacturers marketing name-brand products. Such trade cards bore the names of a
diverse set of manufactured goods, including household consumables and foodstuffs such
as Clark ONT Thread, Pears’ Soap, and Magnolia Hams. Moreover, retailers such as
John Wanamaker, owner of Wanamaker’s department store in Philadelphia, found trade
cards instrumental in publicizing changing sale prices, and distributed the cards at the
shop counter and to passersby on the street. Between 1875 and 1895, retailers large and
small across the US distributed chromolithographed trade cards—making them the
dominant advertising medium of the day.
85
Importantly, the popularity of trade cards as
an advertising medium rested upon the objects’ material appeal—or, rather, the material
similarities between trade cards and other portable cards that circulated between
individuals in the 1870s, ‘80s, and ‘90s.

84
This chart is based on data gathered from the BTC HL as well as from secondary source readings that
discuss advertising, trade cards, traveling salesmen, and product distribution channels in the nineteenth
century. See Strasser, Satisfaction Guaranteed; Jay, Trade Card; Last, Color Explosion; and Timothy B.
Spears, 100 Years on the Road: the Traveling Salesman in American Culture (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1995).
85
Jay, Trade Card, 99.
53
Trade cards were only one type of exchange card used in these years. In fact, the
historical origins of the trade card lay in various earlier types of cards used on formal
occasions or to express sentiment. In the mid- to late-nineteenth century, virtually no
distinction was made between trade cards, greeting cards, calling, and other cards in
contemporary speech.
86
Individuals nominally referred to all portable, exchangeable
cards as “cards,” or “chromos” if the cards were printed in color. Such cards were all
objects of exchange, with a range of designs and formats available for use. In fact,
lithographers such as Louis Prang designed and marketed certain cards for multiple
functions, which included visitation, advertising, greeting, and dinner-seating cards (FIG
1.5).
87
Among these, social acquaintances exchanged some as personal calling cards,
teachers gave some to students as “rewards” for merit, and friends exchanged some as
tokens of sentiment on holidays or other occasions. Other cards indicated commercial
information for prospective business partners or customers. The twenty-first century
archivist sorts these objects based on their known or presumed function: “sentiment”
cards expressed heartfelt emotions between friends; “trade” cards circulated as

86
Research conducted in the sales catalogs for trade cards, calling / visiting cards, and greeting cards at
DCWL has demonstrated that stationers and printers referred to all of these various objects as “cards,”
regardless of the intended purpose or audience. See, for example, Card Mills (Northford, CT), “Agent’s
Sample Book” (Wemple & Kronheim, NY, 1878), Doc 218; and King Card Co., “Agent’s sample book”
(North Haven, CT, c.1870), Doc 285, both DCWL. Moreover, etiquette guidebooks also elided distinctions
between the objects, whose format and appearance was often indistinguishable to contemporaries. See, for
example, Abby Buchanan Longstreet, Cards; Their Significance and Proper Uses, as Governed by the
Usages of New York Society (New York: F.A. Stokes & Bros., 1889).
87
Louis Prang to undisclosed client(s), 30 Nov 1876; Louis Prang Papers, bk 16a, Last HL; and Shank,
Token of My Affection, 96.
54
commercial advertisements; “calling” cards presented visitors to the host’s home, or
provided a handy reference for contact information; “reward of merit” cards awarded
students in recognition of special achievement; and “greeting” cards circulated in
celebration of certain holidays or special occasions (see FIGs 1.6, 1.7).
88
Yet these terms
are misnomers for how nineteenth-century individuals understood the function of these
material objects. For nineteenth-century individuals, these were all simply “cards”—
interchangeable objects that could be used, re-purposed or appropriated for a variety of
functions and occasions. Printers helped to create this media-flexibility by marketing
their cards for multiple purposes, while consumers reinforced this mutability when they
improvised and augmented various communications with exchange cards.
Though these exchange cards appeared in varying styles and designs, their size
and portability was standard. Most often professionally printed or engraved, exchange
cards could display black and white engravings, hand-painted details, calligraphy
drawings, or chromolithographed images, ranging from the simplest flower or ornament
to very elaborate narrative sequences. In some cases the bearer’s name and / or contact
information appeared on the face of the card; in other cases the cards included popular
verse and space for handwritten inscriptions of “to” and “from.” The cards often
circulated as part of a sentimental culture of gift exchange that persisted through the
1870s, and many individuals saved these cards in albums or keepsake boxes along with
other tokens of sentiment such as handicrafts, paper lacework, embroidery, locks of hair,

88
Maurice Rickards provides a thorough description of the appearance and uses of these and other material
objects in nineteenth-century US in The Encyclopedia of Ephemera: A Guide to the Fragmentary
Documents of Everyday Life for the Collector, Curator, and Historian (New York: Routledge, 2000).
55
ribbon work, and pressed flowers.
89
Moreover, while the reverse was left blank on
reward of merit cards, the reverses of trade cards, calling cards, greeting cards, and
sentiment cards often bore inscriptions to recipients, printed information from
manufacturers or retailers (in the case of trade cards), or even the occasional scribbled
grocery list or other hasty notation—an indication of the ubiquitous nature of these cards’
circulation in nineteenth century culture.
90

When they exploded in popularity and distribution in the 1870s,
chromolithographed trade cards borrowed heavily from the design and iconographies
popularized on various types of exchange cards circulating before the war, and which
continued to be used through the end of the century. First and foremost, trade cards’
appearance, format, size, and portability fit within the designs prevalent among other
exchange cards. Marketed by printing houses and stationers to both the public and other
retailers, the cards that circulated as advertisements could also be purchased and used by
individuals as personal calling cards, simple greeting cards, or other tokens of exchange
(FIG 1.8).
91
Such adaptation of chromolithographed cards provided the objects with a

89
See, for example, Camille Block’s Autograph Album (1875), Doc. 35, DCWL; Charles Swain Papers
(c.1840-65), Col. 798, box 11 fols. 13 and 19, DCWL; Henderson Pownall Family Papers (1788-1894),
Col. 48 fol. 7, DCWL; Charlotte Rose Commonplace Book (1825-1864), Doc. 170, DCWL; and Caroline
Cowles Richards, diary entry for 24 Dec 1863, in Village Life in America 1852-1872, intro. by Margaret E.
Sangster (New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1913), 161. Sentimental gift-giving and the reciprocal culture of
exchange among women in the nineteenth century are visually documented in Starr Ockenga, On Women &
Friendship.
90
For example, see sentiment cards in Col. 838, cab. 4 dr. 1 box 2, DCWL.
91
Literary scholar Ellen Gruber Garvey suggests that the formal similarities between trade cards and
religious ephemera helped socialize children to capitalistic consumer culture by making messages of
56
sort of blank-slate quality—making them suitable for both personal and commercial
purposes.
Primarily, trade cards acted as corporate calling cards in both their appearance
and function: as exchange cards that circulated between manufacturers, retailers, and
consumers, they communicated information about products and their sales. Aside from
sharing similar designs and appearances, both calling and trade cards shared similar
functions. Since the eighteenth century, calling cards had facilitated interpersonal
communication between visiting friends, while trade cards often bore the names and
addresses of retailers and / or manufacturers, and thereby provided important references
to facilitate communication within America’s commercial sector. In the nineteenth-
century culture of sentimentalism and sociability, the proper use of calling cards became
a material demonstration of one’s propriety, thereby facilitating the communication of
one’s true character to others.
92
Over time, trade cards came to act as similar references
for the character of the manufacturer—as they often provided testimonials from satisfied
customers and other validating information such as trademark or patent registrations. A
wealth of cultural conventions governed the leaving and exchanging of calling cards; and
dictated modes of presentation, appropriate times to call, and proper behaviors for
unmarried individuals and dependents.
93
Yet while it became courtesy to leave a card
when calling upon a friend or family member—an act which positioned the card as a

consumption coterminous with Protestant religious culture. See Garvey, “Scrapbook, Wish Book, Prayer
Book,” 97-115.
92
See for example, Halttunen, Confidence Men, chapters 2 and 4. The practice of exchanging calling cards
originated in continental Europe in the eighteenth century. See Rickards, Encyclopedia of Ephemera, 351.
93
Rickards, Encyclopedia of Ephemera, 351.
57
token or remembrance of the visit itself—when visiting a department store or other shop
the visitor would instead receive a trade card. In this way, the trade card became a
similar token and reminder of the visit—but instead of referencing an interpersonal visit,
relationship, or experience, it became a reference to commerce: to the store, the products,
the retailer, and to shopping itself. Passed from person to person, advertising media like
trade cards acted as representatives to the consumer on behalf of the manufacturer, and
were thought by advertisers to have as much impact on consumers as face-to-face
interactions with traveling salesmen.
94

Both calling cards and trade cards circulated between acquaintances and
facilitated communication in the Gilded Age, but advertising trade cards also bore
resemblance to other exchange cards that circulated in a reciprocal culture of gift-giving.
As early as the 1820s, young men and women exchanged small printed tokens as indices
of intimate attachment; while school-aged children received similar printed cards as
rewards for scholastic achievement from instructors. Sentiment and reward of merit
cards often bore a pictorial illustration and / or a short verse, and most surviving
examples include handwritten inscriptions from the giver to the receiver (see FIG 1.7).
95

Like the greeting cards that would become popular after 1875, these printed tokens were
important “expressive objects in the culture of sentimentalism,” an ideal of public

94
Jed Scarboro, “How to Make a Live Ad,” Printers' Ink 9, no. 21 (Nov 1893): 541-542; and Timothy B.
Spears, “‘All Things to All Men’: The Commercial Traveler and the Rise of Modern Salesmanship,”
American Quarterly 45, no. 4 (1993): 536.
95
Rickards, Encyclopedia of Ephemera, 288. See also sentiment cards and reward of merit cards, Col. 838,
cab. 6 dr. 1, DCWL.
58
manners that stressed sincerity and transparency of character at mid-century.
96
Greeting,
sentiment, and reward of merit cards facilitated personal relationship-building and
emotional expression in America’s modern, industrializing society. They gave material
weight to otherwise fleeting personal relationships and helped nineteenth-century
Americans feel more connected to the people around them.
97

Like these other exchange cards, chromolithographed trade cards became
important objects that circulated within the culture of personal exchange. Men, women,
and children in the 1870s, ‘80s, and ‘90s exchanged trade cards with letters between
friends, as prized awards, and as tokens of sentiment just as calling cards were enclosed
in letters, reward of merit cards were offered for achievement, and sentiment cards could
be tokens of emotional expression. Isabella Mayne, for example, recorded in her diary
her mother’s gift of “handsome” cards to a family friend in 1883; while other individuals
presented trade cards to friends as tokens of sentiment and achievement—marking their
exchange with inscriptions written on the reverse of such cards.
98
In these ways, trade

96
Shank, Token of My Affection, 41. Scholars differ in their periodization of the culture of sentimentalism,
with some finding its overall decline in the mid-nineteenth century, and others stressing that particular
elements persisted through the 1890s. My research has tended to support the latter periodization. See
footnote 50.
97
Shank, Token of My Affection, 56. Shank dates the establishment of a greeting card industry to the
1840s, though most other sources credit Louis Prang with the invention of the greeting card in 1873. For
example, see Eliassen, “In the Hands of Children,” 192; and McClinton, Louis Prang, chapters 1-3.
98
Isabella Maud Mayne, diary entry for 27 Dec 1883, in Maud, ed. Richard Lee Strout (New York:
Macmillian & Co., 1939), 262. One trade card for Standard Screw Fastened shoes (c.1880) bears the
inscription “For Leona” on its reverse, thereby suggesting that the card had been intended as a gift at one
point in its lifetime. See trade card advertisement for Standard Screw Fastened shoes (c. 1880), Warshaw
59
cards became both colorful collectibles and tokens of sentiment that commemorated
special occasions and relationships in nineteenth-century America. Consumers used
trade cards just as they used other exchange cards—a practice which helped to erase, in
some measure, the commercial character of these cards and make their transition between
commerce and personal circulation more seamless.
Advertisers were aware of the desirability of the trade card as a colorful
collectible object, and often presented each card as their own personal gift to the
consumer. Some advertisers mailed cards with correspondence to consumers, while
others included phrases like “Compliments of” on the card, thereby facilitating the
presumption that the card should be treasured just as a greeting card from a special
acquaintance might be.
99
Other manufacturers instructed consumers to save the cards for

Series I Shoes, box 12, AC NMAH; trade card advertisement for Standard Tip shoes (1884), with
inscription “For Abraham Sargent,” Warshaw Series I Shoes, box 12, AC NMAH; and Mayer, Merkel &
Ottmann, trade card advertisement for Bixby’s Mucilage (c.1880), with inscription “Nora, from Florence,”
Col. 9, box 1, DCWL. Shank discusses this practice of exchanging cards in Token of My Affection, 97.
99
An advice columnist for Christian Union by the name of “Aunt Patience” was known to send chromo
cards to correspondents in her responses to them, for which they wrote back and thanked her (such letters
subsequently appeared in the pages of the journal as indirect advertisements for the sort of advice one could
hope to receive upon writing). See “Letters to Aunt Patience,” Christian Union 22, no. 13 (29 Sept 1880):
263. Cards that contain the phrase “compliments of” include trade card advertisements for N. Peters, Bro.
& Son, Dry Goods, box F-5 fol. 37 BTC HL; E.J. Denning & Co., box F-5 fol. 37, BTC HL; Wanamaker’s,
box F-5 fol. 37, BTC HL; Preston Dry Goods Store, Box F-5, fol. 37, BTC HL; and trade cards for Lydia
Pinkham’s Vegetable Compound (c.1880), box F-5 fol. 38, BTC HL, and (c.1890) Warshaw Series I Patent
Medicine, box 35, AC NMAH. As Ellen Gruber Garvey asserts, trade cards were “gifts from the world of
commerce, even trophies for shopping.” See Adman, 49.
60
their albums, and promised to send additional cards as gifts to the consumer who
collected and mailed in specific premiums. In one case, the Missouri manufacturer of
Mokaska Coffee addressed children directly by instructing them to “ask your Aunties,
cousins, and neighbors to buy our coffee and help you save the wrappers,” which could
be sent in (with sixteen cents postage) for a large scrap album and a free set of cards.
100

Messages like these reinforced the notion that trade cards could be interchangeable with
other printed gifts—such as greeting or sentiment cards—and in so doing situated the
advertiser as a friend rather than an unfamiliar solicitor.
The shared imagery, size, and format between exchange cards thus helped to
situate trade cards within a familiar culture of sociability that including greeting cards,
calling cards, and other exchange cards. In copying the format of this material culture,
lithographers like Prang contributed to the success of trade cards as both collectibles and
advertisements. They ensured that consumers would be able to relate to the medium by
borrowing from the look and feel of other printed forms of emotional expression; and
thereby facilitated an elision between the advertiser-as-seller and advertiser-as-friend. In
this way, printers and advertisers borrowed and reworked previous lines of intimate and
social exchange—previous networks of connection between friends—to ultimately reach
their commercial goals.
Aside from format and appearance, the images displayed on trade cards became
an integral component of their appeal. In designing trade cards, printers borrowed much
of the same imagery that had appeared on the older exchange cards, and thus the images
were familiar to consumers. As such, children, flowers, and to a lesser extent, birds and

100
Trade card for Mokaska Coffee (c. 1890), Col. 9, box 1, DCWL.
61
small animals became the primary motifs utilized on stock trade cards. In many cases,
these images formed thematic narratives and comical stories that aided their visual appeal
to consumers.
One of the most dominant forms of imagery used on stock and custom cards was
children: at play, creating mischief, and in portrait with flowers (FIG 1.9).
101
Children
signified those ideal virtuous qualities that adults prized most, including innocence and
purity; and cards such as these overwhelmingly depicted white children, dressed and
posed according to the behavioral standards of the middle class. Since the antebellum
period, the middle-class had romanticized childhood as a period that was sheltered from
the harsh realities of modern urban life.
102
In the Gilded Age, childhood became an even
more important shelter as industry drew more and more working-class families into the
factories. Play became a luxury and marker of middle-class status, and representations of
children in popular culture replicated these ideas by conveying nostalgia, simplicity,
purity, and playfulness.
103
If, as Katherine Grier has argued, images of children in public
spaces served to domesticate and render the space suitable for middle-class, genteel

101
In the course of my research, I viewed approximately 5,000 trade cards in the collections of the AAS,
AC NMAH, HL, and DCWL. Of the cards catalogued, children composed the dominant theme in approx.
40% of trade cards, followed by flowers at 17% and birds or other animals at 10% (the remaining cards
drew upon a range of images that combined these icons with pastoral landscapes, shoes, or other themes).
See, for example, trade cards for Alexander’s Shoes (1881), box F-5 fol. 28; and FW Tuttle, Dry Goods
(1880), box F-5 fol. 37, both BTC HL.
102
Steven Mintz, Huck’s Raft: A History of American Childhood (Cambridge: Belknap Press, 2004); and
Claire Perry, Young America: Childhood in 19th-Century Art and Culture (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 2006).
103
Jay, Trade Card, 93.
62
audiences; then in advertisements, images of childhood innocence diverted attention
away from the commercial function of the trade card medium.
104
These images appealed
to viewers on a personal level by resituating the commercial message behind a playful
smirk on a cherubic face.
Aside from children, the second most popular image choice by lithographers of
trade cards included flowers—single blooms, large bouquets, and wreaths. In one
advertisement used by Fleischmann’s Yeast, the card depicted a woman’s bejeweled hand
delicately holding a single red rose. Like many other popular designs in the 1880s, this
card was marketed for personal use as a calling card or dinner card, and for commercial
use as a trade card (FIG 1.10).
105
The reverse of the Fleischmann card warns the reader
against counterfeit or imitation products that might defraud and confuse, and directs the
potential consumer to the Fleischmann signature appearing on all packaging, without
which “none other is genuine.”
106
The textual gesture to the problem of counterfeits and
legitimacy that plagued the advertising industry in these years is underscored by the
symbolism of the floral imagery on the front of the card, with which middle-class
contemporaries would have been intimately familiar.
Flowers were a popular commodity in the nineteenth century and held a crucial
role in the culture of emotional expression. From short expositions and treatises
published in popular magazines such as Godey’s Lady’s Book to popular literary annuals
known as gift books, flowers and their “language” became a cultural fascination from the

104
Grier, Culture & Comfort, 25-43, 59.
105
See, for example, calling card from a salesman’s sample book (1878), Card Mills Book, Doc 218 p. 18,
DCWL.
106
Trade card for Fleischmann’s Yeast (c. 1880), Col. 669 no. 26, DCWL.
63
1820s through 1900.
107
This codified set of expressions and emotions could be conveyed
through specific blossoms, their colors, and placement. The crocus, for example,
symbolized “youthful gladness,” while the coral honeysuckle displayed “fidelity” and the
primrose encouraged “confidence.”
108
Complicated rules regulated the use of flowers in
representation, and changing the placement of the floral image changed its meaning.
Tilting the flower to the left or right, for example, allowed the user to alter its meaning:
signifying “I or me” by inclining the flower to the right and “you” by inclining the flower

107
See H. T. Tuckerman, “Flowers,” Godey’s Lady’s Book (Jan 1850); G. H. Cramer, “Flowers,” Godey’s
Lady’s Book (May 1851); “The Monthly Bouquet,” Godey’s Lady’s Book (Jul 1849); and “The Language
of Flowers,” Godey’s Lady’s Book (Apr-Oct 1868). Gift books first made their appearance in the US in the
1820s and reached the height of their popularity in the 1840s and 1850s; but continued to be published
through the end of the century. Many of the examples surviving in archival collections bear inscriptions
indicating their gifting at the New Year and birthdays, as well as bequests upon death or other important
occasions. On gift books, see Frederick W. Faxon, Literary Annuals and Gift Books: A Bibliography,
1823-1903 (Pinner, UK: Private Libraries Association, 1973 [1923]), xii; and Ralph Thompson, American
Literary Annuals & Gift Books, 1825-1865 (New York: The H. W. Wilson company, 1936), 3-4. The
“Language of Flowers” and variations on this theme comprised the most popular gift-book titles sold in the
US. In the United States, the first English translation of the French original appeared in 1827 and by the
early 1830s the Language of Flowers found a wide audience for numerous reprints and adaptations
especially framed for American audiences. See Jack Goody, The Culture of Flowers (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1993), 235, 238. I’d like to express my thanks to Alison Klaum for sharing
her thoughts on gift books with me. See Klaum, “Pressing Flowers: Botanical Sights, Floral
Reproductions, and the Shaping of Early American Discourse,” dissertation in progress, University of
Delaware.
108
Ockenga, On Women & Friendship, 196-197; reprinted from Sarah J. Hale, Flora’s Interpreter (Boston:
Marsh, Capen & Lyon, 1832).
64
to the left.
109
In this way, flowers and their sentimental “language” provided an
iconography for communicating emotional expression through objects and images, and
became ready-reference material by 1880.
110

In the card for Fleischmann’s Yeast, then, the flower offered by the floating hand
can be read through its iconography. Robert Tyas, in his 1875 treatise on the Language
of Flowers, suggested that a rose bud shown with its thorns and leaves, tilted to the left
would say “you must neither fear nor hope.”
111
As an expression of purity and the
confidence inspired by the directive to neither fear nor hope, this particular card for
Fleischmann’s Yeast could thus be read as the advertiser’s expression of familiarity
toward the consumer and a reassurance of the integrity of the product and of the
Fleischmann name. Moreover, the delicate hand offering the single bloom not only
mimicked actual social practices in the reciprocal culture of gift-giving, but it provided a
surrogate for the giver’s physical presence, further personalizing the friendly gesture

109
Robert Tyas, The Language of Flowers: or, Floral emblems of thoughts, feelings, and sentiments
(London: George Routledge and Sons, 1875), x-xi.
110
Reference lists indexing the “Language of Flowers” and the terms for its use can be found in various
ephemera dating to the 1880s, ‘90s, and early 1900s, including trade cards and almanacs. See esp. Bristol’s
Illustrated Almanac (1875), Rare Books, HL. By 1900, the “Language of Flowers” was an important
enough topic to be included in the Pocket Webster’s Dictionary. See Goody, Culture of Flowers, 267-268.
111
Tyas, The language of flowers, x-xi; and Goody, Culture of Flowers, 235. Tyas’ interpretation might
have been challenged by other authors, however. In 1844 gift book author Sarah Mayo noted the rosebud
signaled a “confession of love,” while Mary Bacon later linked the rose to the virgin’s blush, as a symbol of
both her purity and passion. See Sarah Carter (Edgarton) Mayo, The Flower Vase; containing the language
of flowers and their poetic sentiments (Lowell, MA: Powers & Bagley, 1844), 156; and Mary A. Bacon and
Owen Jones, Flowers and their kindred thoughts ([London]: Longman, 1848), 7.
65
embodied in the card itself. Hands appeared frequently on calling and visiting cards,
especially toward the end of the century (see FIGs 1.6, 1.10). Cards including clasped or
extended hands in their iconographies signified a sort of union or joint-relationship, and
translated into gestures of partnership, cooperation, and fellowship.
112
As a gesture of
friendship, clasped hands amplified the existing messages of devotion or purity that
might occupy the faces of exchange cards, thereby reinforcing the overall iconographic
program that situated these cards firmly within the realm of personal exchange and
intimate address. When the card happened to be used for advertising, the intimate and
personal imagery transformed the commercial address of the advertisement. Intended to
solicit business, the now personalized exchange card did so in a much friendlier, more
intimate and informal fashion than textually-heavy newspaper advertisements.
113

Far from randomly chosen then, the images that appeared on exchange cards used
in trade, in visiting, and for the expression of certain sentiments and rewards mattered to
both the printers and the consumers of these cards. As personally-expressive objects,
exchange cards served as surrogates for the face-to-face interaction that could have taken
place between givers and recipients. The cards represented the giver to receiver—and
their imagery helped reinforce the outward persona that one desired to present to others.
In 1889, Abby B. Longstreet, the self-proclaimed expert on New York socialites and their
use of cards for personal exchange, suggested that choosing the appropriate card was as

112
Herman Roodenburg explores the cultural meanings behind images of clasped hands in his article “The
‘hand of friendship’: shaking hands and other gestures in the Dutch Republic,” in A Cultural History of
Gesture, ed. Jan N. Bremmer (Ithaca, N.Y: Cornell University Press, 1992), 152-189. See also Ames,
Death in the Dining Room, 135.
113
On newspaper advertising see Strasser, Satisfaction Guaranteed, 90-93.
66
important as choosing appropriate attire and behavior for public appearances.
Referencing the card’s look and feel, she noted that “It is a communication in cipher ...Its
fashioning, and the hour of its presentation, are an explanation of much of its owner’s
individuality.”
114
If Longstreet’s exposition can be taken as an indication of the common
understanding of the function and importance of exchange cards in the 1880s, then the
appearance of advertisers’ chosen representatives—trade cards—takes on much more
importance. As a surrogate for the owner’s presence, calling and other cards provided a
secondary mode of publically displaying oneself to others. Adopting images that
signified trustworthiness, loyalty, and devotion for personal calling cards made perfect
sense in a culture obsessed with the transparent display of oneself in public. Yet when
these images came into the service of advertising, their prevalence instead became a
demonstration of the advertisers’ outward attempt at displaying the same virtues
publically. In spite of the commercial intentions for the medium, trade cards that
borrowed the iconography of familiar exchange cards helped hide the very function of the
card itself behind the sentimental images, portable format, and collectability of the card.
As a reflection of the bearer, the exchange card (whether intended as a visiting
card, sentiment card, or even a trade card) thus provided a mode of communication that
rested wholly in the image and its iconographic and / or cultural significance to the
recipient. Regardless of whether the recipient might understand the meaning of the card
as loyalty, love, or confidence, the images communicated something to the reader. These
exchange cards provided shorthand for addressing others in the absence of face-to-face

114
Longstreet, Cards, 1-3. Emphasis added.
67
interaction; and their circulation, use, and subsequent preservation in albums
demonstrates the important role they had in connecting nineteenth century individuals.
Lithographers understood that trade cards primarily appealed to the public
because of the meaningful pictures they contained. Prang developed the album card as a
collectible object with familiar, often romanticized imagery to appeal to users on the
simple basis of entertainment. Chromolithographed trade cards, as an outgrowth of the
mid-century album card, built upon the known popularity of older exchange cards and the
practice of album or scrapbook-making. Prang and other lithographers thus melded the
album card with the tradesman’s card to create the stock trade card: a piece of advertising
material that would also hold appeal as a chromolithographed and entertaining object.
115

Importantly, scrapbook-keepers and other consumers didn’t seek out and collect these
cards for the advertisements; they sought them for the fun, colorful images printed on the
faces of the cards. Lithographers thus sought to take advantage of this public fascination
with chromolithographs while earning some publicity for advertisers as well. As the
Bufford’s firm in Boston noted of pictorial advertising in 1885:
Its great value is shown by the fact that …customers have been bribed to
buy by the offer of advertising cards… Imagine, if you can, people
begging a grocer for copies of a paper containing his advertisement! A

115
Susan Strasser also addresses (albeit briefly) the entertainment function of advertisements as part of the
new mass-culture of consumption in department stores and urban space; particularly in conjunction with
magazine culture and giveaway contests. See Satisfaction Guaranteed, 164-165; and Garvey, “Scrapbook,
Wish Book, Prayer Book,” 108-109.
68
handsome picture will be kept, talked over, asked for, and bring
customers.
116

The Bufford firm offered their cards at low prices and encouraged their “free”
distribution by retailers. This firm recognized the fact that the masses adored
chromolithographs, and that trade cards would be collected and saved by scrapbook-
keepers. Thus, the motive for using chromolithographed cards as advertisements was
their collectability. Lithographers capitalized on the chromo craze by suggesting local
and national merchants do the same—transform this fad for collecting chromo album
cards into a fad for collecting advertisements, and increase publicity for the product in the
process.
117

By the early 1880s—less than ten years after the introduction of
chromolithographed trade cards—writers in trade journals were already commenting
upon the “card mania” that had overtaken the American public.
118
First in New England,
and soon thereafter the Midwest and West, the chromo craze had prompted a widespread
collecting habit among American consumers, with collectors as varied as a poor black
janitor and Queen Victoria of England making trade journal headlines with their
mountainous collections.
119
The fad for collecting chromolithographed cards
incorporated children, businessmen, young women, and the elderly; and reached from

116
Trade card for Bufford’s Boston (1885), Warshaw, Series I Advertising Industry, box 7 fol. 9, AC
NMAH.
117
On the “chromo craze” see Last, The Color Explosion; and Kalba, “Outside the Lines.”
118
“The Power of Art on Paper,” The Paper World 5, no. 4 (Oct 1882): 12.
119
“The Great Scrap-Book Maker,” The Paper World 4, no. 4 (Apr 1882): 21; and “Queen Victoria’s
Scrap-Books,” The Paper World 32, no. 5 (May 1896): 185. See also footnote 82.
69
places as remote as the Adirondacks, to the bustling avenues of Chicago, to the growing
urban community in San Francisco. Amidst all the newsworthy curiosities that filled the
pages of trade journals—including one woman’s collection of over 50,000 cards—
authors repeatedly suggested that it was the charming pictures that made the collection of
these interesting little cards attractive to individuals.
120

Indeed, the appealing images depicted on trade and other exchange cards meant
that these objects would become prized collectibles for individuals’ albums and
scrapbooks. Scrapbook-keepers preserved chromolithographed trade cards alongside
other exchange cards in their albums, and copied the designs of these colorful objects
when composing sentimental remembrances to friends on the pages of autograph albums.
In the absence of autobiographical expositions detailing consumers’ thoughts and
responses to trade cards, mining the collection practices surrounding trade cards can
provide an important mode of understanding the reception of these objects.
121
Thus while
trade cards capitalized on the public fascination for colorful prints and adopted familiar
imagery from exchange cards, they also gained popularity because of a growing cultural
impulse among middle-class Americans to collect and save chromos and other objects in
personalized albums and scrapbooks.
The practice of album-keeping had a long and varied history in the United States,
with several overlapping traditions converging in the 1870s when chromolithographed

120
“The Advertising Card Business,” The Paper World 10, no. 4 (May 1885): 4-5; and “The Power of Art
on Paper,” 12-15.
121
Scholars working in the history of the book, and in particular readership, have been particularly
influential to historians of material culture seeking to understand reception and individual response. Some
notable works in this latter field include a sub-field in the history of the scrapbook. See footnote 33.
70
trade cards entered the scene. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, albums of
collected material were frequently kept by elites and aspiring elites, and included
engravings and clippings from the popular press, handwritten inscriptions, drawings,
collected quotes, and other pieces of printed ephemera in what are referred to today as
commonplace books.
122
Seventeenth and eighteenth-century albums form the direct
predecessor to the nineteenth century autograph book, a collection of signatures,
drawings, remembrances, and material objects (such as pressed flowers or handicrafts)
that flourished from the antebellum period through 1900.
123
Albums consisting primarily

122
Scrapbooking was not a practice that emerged in the late-nineteenth century; rather, its origins can be
traced to early modern practices of collecting verse and signatures in commonplace and autograph books,
and to James Granger’s development of the extra-illustrated (or “Grangerized”) book in the eighteenth
century. Scrapbooking experienced a resurgence in popularity in the US following the introduction of
mass-produced trade cards in the 1870s; and though trade-card collecting declined in the early twentieth
century, scrapbooking found new life with the growth of the cinema and fan culture in the 1920s and 30s.
See Jessica Helfand, Scrapbooks: An American History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008);
Tucker, et al., Scrapbook in American Life; and Georganne Scheiner, “The Deanna Durbin Devotees: Fan
Clubs and Spectatorship,” in Generations of Youth: Youth Cultures and History in Twentieth-Century
America, ed. Joe Austin and Michael Willard (New York: New York University Press, 1998).
123
In early modern Germany, elites and aristocrats collected names and signatures in albums frequently
referred to as album amicorum, or “friendship albums.” These books frequently contained a range of
entries, including signatures, mottos or quotations of varying length, and occasionally wax seals, emblems,
coats-of-arms, and ink drawings. In Britain in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, elite entrants
sometimes hired artists to draw coats of arms into the book in accompaniment of the signature. Some
owners of albums collected signatures as well as illustrations of the places they visited, costumes, etc.
Pages printed with faintly colored flowers, leaves, or other decorations were sometimes inserted as further
ornament. See Margaret Nickson, Early autograph albums in the British Museum (London: Trustees of the
71
of images and visual material are referred to as scrapbooks, which became popular
following the Civil War, and were almost entirely composed of chromolithographed
images and other printed visual material.
124
In each of these iterations, the quality of the
album often indicated the owner’s status and wealth: the simplest containing handmade
pages and the most lavish being expensively gilt albums with hand-tinted engravings. As
the practice of creating albums grew more popular with the emergence of commercial
chromolithography after the Civil War, stationers and publishers responded by marketing
blank, pre-bound albums to members of the growing middle class, who filled the pages
with collected exchange cards, clippings, scribbled notes, and other items.
125

Scrapbooks and collecting albums typically became the repositories of trade cards
and other colorful printed material in the Gilded Age. Scrapbook-makers often modified
the cards in various creative ways, including them with calling cards, greeting cards,
handwritten notes, and other printed ephemera in a variety of configurations that
functioned to educate, commemorate, display religious devotion, document personal

British Museum, 1970), 13; and Tucker, et al., Scrapbook in American Life, 6-7.
124
The term “scrap-book” derives from the practice of collecting printed scraps and compiling them in an
album from the late 1830s through the end of the nineteenth century. See Tucker et al., Scrapbook in
American Life, 7; and Oxford English Dictionary Online, s.v. “Scrap-Book,”
http://www.oed.com.libproxy.usc.edu/view/Entry/173320?rskey=xh7pq6&result=1&isAdvanced=false
(accessed 17 Jan 2013). In most cases, the “scrapbook” of the late-nineteenth century was more often an
album for the display of found lithographs and fancy pictures than a memory album of keepsakes,
photographs, and printed ephemera. This type of memory album, most akin to the modern “scrapbook” of
twenty-first century parlance, evolved out of the preservation practices demonstrated within nineteenth-
century autograph albums, diaries, and commonplace books.
125
Tucker et al., Scrapbook in American Life, 7-11.
72
experiences, and occasionally participate in fantasy play.
126
For each of these functions,
the practice of scrapbooking itself provided an entertaining mode of passing leisure time.
Collectors were primarily interested in the images depicted on the face of trade
cards, and proved willing to efface the product information on the reverse when
manipulating the object for inclusion in an album. On stock cards especially, the front
side carried minimal information (if any) about the product and services for sale. These
details were relegated to the backside of the card, thus facilitating the scrapbook-maker’s
privileging of image over text. Many users, including Robert Ahles and Ada Cocker,
clipped, trimmed, and cropped trade cards to fit narratives they’d created from the found
imagery in trade cards and other chromolithographed ephemera.
127
Cocker received her
album as a gift on her tenth birthday in 1881, while Ahles likely composed his album
during his childhood in the early 1880s. Both Ahles’ and Cocker’s albums group clipped
images together thematically, highlighting a central visual theme—such as sport or
flowers—with repetitive flanking images. The grouped images form stories and themes,
eschewing the intended meaning of the ads for the users’ own personal meanings—much
like another scrapbook-maker did with his / her depiction of babies in an album dated to

126
See Garvey, Adman, chapter 1. Additionally, some albums depict domestic scenes with home-made
paper dolls, images of furnishings and fabric swatches. See the collection of “Paper Doll” and “Collage”
scrapbooks in DCWL (Docs 1162 & 1478, Folios 36, 145, 288, 371); Roth, “Scrapbook Houses;” Gordon,
“The Paper Doll House;” and Smith, “Consuming Passions.”
127
Robert Ahles scrapbook (1883), Col. 669 no. 3; and Ada Cocker scrapbook (1881), Doc. 1335; both
DCWL. See also trade cards for St. Joachim Bazaar, and St. Botolph Fancy Goods, box F-5 fol. 37, BTC
HL; and Scrapbook 1 (c. 1880), box F-9, fol. 1, p. 17, BTC HL.
73
the mid-1870s (FIG 1.11).
128
In pasting the images into scrapbooks, these users showed
their disregard for the commercial function of the card in favor of using it for personal
narrative purposes.
This practice of appropriating found imagery from chromolithographs into the
service of memory-making in albums was widespread during the last quarter of the
nineteenth century. To illustrate, of 1000 trade cards in the Huntington Library
collections, 100% displayed marks of former album use: including adhesive residue on
the text side of the card, torn remnants of paper where the card had been affixed to album
pages, and cropped edges showing the user’s manipulation.
129
For many users then, once

128
Scrapbook (c. 1876), Col. 669 no. 6, DCWL.
129
Unfortunately, many of the trade cards in the collections I viewed had been damaged through either their
original scrapbook use or through subsequent collectors’ use. Remnants of adhesive on the backside of
trade cards, whether incurred through the original consumer’s use or subsequent collectors’ attempts to
archive and preserve these materials, makes it difficult for historians to analyze the commercial content
printed on the backside of these cards as well as understand their original or intended use by
contemporaries. Moreover, trade-card collecting has become popular among amateur historians and
ephemera connoisseurs since the 1970s; and many collectors along the way destroyed scrapbooks in order
to rescue individual cards for resale and / or inclusion in their own personal collections. Ironically, whether
these marks of use were incurred from the original user or from subsequent collectors, they still indicate
that the most important element of the trade card itself was in fact the image. Only a handful of the 5,000
cards I surveyed displayed marks of use (such as adhesive residue, etc.) on the face of the card (the front-
side containing the image). In all cases, the commercial content of the card (contained on the reverse side)
became subordinate to the image presented on its face. I am grateful to Huntington Curator Dave Mihaly
for sharing his insights on trade card collecting and preservation in private and public archives throughout
the US, as well as his knowledge of the printing process and lithography.
74
the commercial function of the trade card-as-advertisement had passed—that is, after the
point of sale—the trade card became a collectible object at the service of the individual.
Creating a “scrap-book” in the second half of the nineteenth century fell under the
rubric of wholesome activity for the genteel family, and the practice became a popular
pastime with the endorsement of public figures and the authors of domesticity
handbooks. Articles describing how to create and fill albums appeared in several popular
magazines, including The Youth’s Companion and Frank Leslie’s Popular Monthly, and
several articles advocated sending scrapbooks to overseas or poor children as part of
Christian service.
130
In 1878 Godey’s Lady’s Book instructed readers of the educational
value in creating scrapbooks, while writers in the 1880s such as Mary Blake encouraged
mothers to have their children gather “good and cheap pictures” from advertisements,
almanacs, magazines, newspapers and other printed sources. Blake suggested including
valentines, holiday cards, and reward of merit cards lest these items “get lost and spoiled,

130
On how to create an album, see “Home-made Christmas Gifts,” The Youth’s Companion 57, no. 51 (18
Dec 1884): 509; “Lace Albums,” Art Amateur (1 Sept 1879): 85; “Album with Raised Paper-Work,”
Harper’s Bazaar 2, no. 10 (6 Mar 1869): 148; “Album Picture,” Godey’s Lady’s Book 71 (Sept 1865): 260;
Harriet E. Banning, “Memory Album,” Frank Leslie’s Popular Monthly 153, no. 2 (Feb 1897): 233; Mrs.
M. R., “Paper Doll’s House,” in The Good Housekeeping Discovery Book no. 1 (New York: Phelps
Publishing Co., 1905), 78-79; and Mary Louise, “Making a Scrapbook,” The Youth’s Companion 100, no.
14 (8 Apr 1926): 280. Articles in the Christian Union and New York Evangelist advocated scrapbook-
making for children, who could then send the books to underprivileged youths in the American South,
India, and in hospitals. See for example, Mrs. Susan T. Perry, “One Way to Do Good,” New York
Evangelist 51, no. 25 (17 Jun 1880): 6; and “Another Call,” Christian Union 35, no. 8 (24 Feb 1887): 15.
Ellen Gruber Garvey discusses the practice of scrapbook-making for missionary work further in
“Scrapbook, Wish Book, Prayer Book.”
75
but if put into a book at once they make a very interesting and pretty picture-book” that
“will last a whole generation of children and be a never-failing delight.”
131
As an
important resource for education and amusement, the scrapbook became a central
component of middle-class life:
The scrap-book is absolutely invaluable in the nursery; from it the child
gains his first ideas of pictures, of form and color; then later on, the
growing boy has his book for quaint oddities and scraps, and the budding
girl preserves all sorts of sentimental poetry—shows her appreciation of
an author by copious extracts copied into her scrap-book.
132

As an educational tool therefore, the scrapbook socialized the child to understand what
pictures were tasteful and how to properly organize them; and was considered an
appropriate and valuable activity for both boys and girls. In fact, though historians have
typically understood this practice as one undertaken mainly by women, many young men
were known to keep scraps and remembrances in albums as they entered adulthood.
133

131
“Scrap-Book,” Godey’s Lady’s Book (Aug 1878), n.p.; and Mary Blake, in Twenty-Six Hours a Day
(Boston: D. Lothrop and company, 1883), 145-148. See also Eliassen, “In the Hands of Children,” 199.
132
Janet Emily (Meugens) Ruutz-Rees, Home Occupations (New York: D. Appleton and company, 1883),
97. See also Tucker et al., Scrapbook in American Life, 9; and Norman Brosterman, Inventing
Kindergarten (New York: Abrams, 1997), 22, 124, cited in Tucker et al., idem, 283 n.30.
133
Interestingly, recent research has illustrated a more widespread practice of scrapbooking and album-
making by young men at mid-century. See, for example, the tokens preserved in the Charles Swain /
Ruckman Family Papers, (Buck County, PA, c. 1850-1950), Col 798, box 11 fol. 19, DCWL; several
scrapbooks composed by men in Col. 669, DCWL; and Anna Rusk, “Collecting the Confederacy.”
Scholars whose interpretation of this practice highlights its gendered (and feminine) elements include
Ockenga, On Women & Friendship; and Garvey, Adman.
76
Later in life, the scrapbook became significant of mothering and childhood, and a
pleasurable object which held family memories. Blake suggested that children would
espouse a personal connection to the otherwise arbitrary printed ephemera collected in
scrapbooks: “The charm for [the children] lies in the details, in the figure of a woman that
represents mamma, or of the kitten that is the exact likeness to the little beholder of the
nursery pet.”
134
Blake intimated that images, even those intended for commercial
purposes, could be transformed into highly meaningful, personally-expressive icons in a
culture of memory-making and exchange through their use in scrapbooks.
135
Her
suggestion that trade cards could act as personal, communicative devices—via their
imagery—points to a blurring of the lines between personal and commercial
communication affected by the images used on trade cards. In Blake’s formulation, the
pasting of commercially-produced advertising trade cards into albums and scrapbooks
repurposed the hand-held chromos as personal exchange cards not unlike those already
familiar to nineteenth-century adults who had exchanged the sentiment, calling, and
greeting cards in their youth.
In 1903 the New York Sun declared that “This is an age of albums.”
136
By the
turn of the century, scrapbooking had become a highly individualized practice, with the
albums themselves betraying each user’s understandings of the pictures and objects
through the book’s organization. Scrapbook-keepers might choose to organize their
album pages thematically according to image (grouping flowers together, children

134
Ruutz-Rees, Home Occupations, 99.
135
On scrapbooks and memory, see Eliassen, “In the Hands of Children,” 204.
136
“Many Albums Kept by Women,” Current Literature 34, no. 6 (Jun 1903): 741; reprinted from the New
York Sun.
77
together etc.); according to series (grouping images that would have been issued in series
by a printer); with attention to pattern and symmetry; and in a linear fashion (lining up
images with no other apparent organizational structure). In some cases, such as in Robert
Ahles and Ada Cocker’s albums, users chose a central image (such as a child’s face, or a
bouquet of flowers on a greeting card) from which to build a framework of scraps and
other cards to complement it. Still other scrapbook-keepers grouped cards according to
purpose, separating reward of merit cards from trade cards, calling cards, greeting cards,
and religious cards—all in the same album.
137
In this way, users showed attention to the
types of media, while also displaying attention to the images and colors displayed in the
cards themselves.
Containing carefully selected colorful materials, scrapbooks became treasured
keepsakes that preserved memories for many individuals. Burt Carr’s album, for
example, contains materials dating between 1883 and 1924, suggesting that Carr
considered his album to be an important keeper of memorable objects over a nearly forty-
year span. The objects in his album—which include religious and commercial
chromolithographed cards, clipped scraps, pressed flowers, and other printed materials—
provide a loose chronological narrative of Carr’s life: at each interval the material objects
become signifiers for his interests and experiences.
138
Though Carr’s own voice is
largely absent from these pages—nowhere in the book does he annotate the objects he’s
included—other scrapbook-makers, including Elsie Abbot, jotted diary-like commentary

137
Burt Carr Album (1883-1924), Col. 669 no. 16, DCWL.
138
Ibid.
78
among the objects pasted on each page to narrate the memories preserved with cards,
programs, and letters.
139

Just as exchange cards became prized tokens of sentiment shared between friends
and family members, scrapbooks and like albums held a special place in the hearts of
many middle-class Americans. In the middle-class household, the albums often became
showpieces for visitors who entered the parlor—as objects that, like other parlor
furnishings, demonstrated the owner’s taste and gentility.
140
Young women and men
described their attachment to their albums with language that doted upon the prized
nature of these emotive objects. In her letters home during the Civil War, Cornelia
Hancock wrote to various family members over a three month period describing how
much she grieved over an album she had lost during travel from one encampment to
another. Hancock’s words place the album in her highest regard, and she noted that the
loss of the object occupied her thoughts frequently.
141
Moreover, several scrapbook-

139
Elsie Sargeant Abbot Scrapbook (1893-1899), Doc. 156, DCWL.
140
“The Family Album,” The Youth’s Companion 58, no. 42 (15 Oct 1885): 406; “May’s Scrapbook,”
Christian Advocate 68, no. 48 (30 Nov 1893): 774; and Elizabeth E. Siegel, “‘Miss Domestic’ and ‘Miss
Enterprise,’ or, How to Keep A Photograph Album,” in Tucker et al., Scrapbook in American Life, 253.
See also footnote 66.
141
Cornelia Oatis Hancock to her mother and sister, 31 May 1864, 15 Jun 1864, and 14 Jul 1864; in Letters
of a Civil War Nurse: Cornelia Hancock 1863-1865, ed. Henrietta Stratton Jaquette (Lincoln, NE:
University of Nebraska Press, 1998), 97, 105, and 127. Other women also prized their albums, see Jeanette
Hulme Platt to her cousin Bessie, 28 Jan 1877, in Life and Letters of Mrs. Jeanette H. Platt, ed. Cyrus Platt
(Philadelphia: E. Claxton & Co., 1882), 198; Anne Gorham Everett, Memoir of Anne Gorham Everett, ed.
Philippa C. Bush (Boston: Private pub., 1857), 57; Rachel Bowman Cormany, diary entry for 3 Apr 1862,
in Cormany Diaries: A Northern Family in the Civil War, ed. James C. Mohr and Richard E. Winslow
79
keepers held their albums in such high regard as to gift them to friends and family
members upon completion, upon special occasions, and upon death. Saved by
subsequent generations, these albums survive in both large and small archival collections
across the US.
142
For Ahles, Cocker, Carr, Hancock, and others, the “scraps” contained
in their albums—the chromolithographed bits of paper, engravings, newspaper clippings,
exchange cards, and other tokens they saved—existed as treasured objects in a culture of
friendship and gift-giving that materialized emotion through the object exchanged.
Moreover, the cultural fad for album making—which helped to fuel the public’s
fascination with chromolithographed trade cards—illustrates the importance that
consumers placed upon these small printed scraps of paper as they appropriated them for
their own personal use. Through the practice of scrapbooking, chromolithographed trade
cards transcended their original commercial origins and became objects that friends and
relatives used to communicate personal feelings, experiences, and ideas to others and to
themselves. Though many collectors disregarded the commercial information on the

(Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1982), 164; Clara Barton, diary entry for 5 Apr 1864, in The
Life of Clara Barton: Founder of the American Red Cross, vol. 1, ed. William E. Barton (Boston:
Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1922), 270; and Ellen Bancroft Lyman to Elizabeth C. Putnam, 21 Nov 1868, in
Arthur Theodore Lyman and Ella Lyman: Letters and Journals, vol. 2, ed. Ella Lyman Cabot (Menasha,
WI: George Banta Publishing Co., 1932), 230.
142
See for example, Mrs. W. F. Tracy Scrapbook (c.1890) no. 32; Millie Pickett Scrapbook (1877), no. 28;
and Clara Smith Scrapbook (1880), no. 18; all in Col. 669, DCWL. See also Ada Cocker Scrapbook
(1881), Doc 1335, DCWL; Laura Scherffius Scrapbook (c.1890), Col. 120, DCWL; Elsie Abbot
Scrapbook (1893-99), Doc 156, DCWL; Millie Cocker Scrapbook (c.1890), Doc 1220, DCWL; and
Robinson Family Scrapbooks, Col. 475 boxes 23 and 31, Robinson-Via Family Papers (1845-1994), AC
NMAH.
80
reverse of the cards, logos and other identifying information often remained on the front
adjacent to pictures. Even in cases where the user pruned nearly all traces of commerce
from the images pasted into their books, the user still knew where to find additional
chromo cards—at the store or from the manufacturer. Though seemingly unsuccessful in
their advertising intentions, chromolithographed trade cards in fact succeeded all too
well: they helped precipitate a cultural fad for collecting chromos and creating albums,
which had an indirect effect of boosting product sales and consumption (even if
individuals only purchased more products to obtain more cards).
While scrapbook-keepers such as Burt Carr and Elsie Abbot exchanged and
preserved trade cards in scrapbooks alongside other exchange cards, others copied trade
card imagery onto the pages of autograph albums when composing notes to friends and
family members. Here, the drawings illustrated and augmented the emotional
expressions conveyed in text. Users embellished their entries with ink-drawn and hand-
colored scrolls, flowers, and doves, inscribed initials along the stems of hand-drawn
flowers, and rendered graphite bouquets to adorn their verse (FIG 1.12).
143
Frequently,
inscriptions and drawings worked in tandem to communicate to the recipient. In Camille
Block’s album (1875-87), for example, one writer has asked Camille to look upon the
flowers she / he’s drawn and remember her / his friendship. Drawings of flowers such as
this are prevalent in autograph albums completed throughout the nineteenth century,
which suggests that the images themselves may have served to not only adorn or
embellish the written entries but may have been thought of as effective substitutes for the

143
Sarah Ruckman Album (1828-1831), Col. 798, DCWL; Album marked “Maria” (1862-64), Doc 175,
DCWL; and Camille Block Album (1875-1887), Doc 35, DCWL.
81
actual inclusion of pressed flowers (as appeared in Lizzie Cadmus’ album in an entry
dated 1881, see FIG 1.13).
144
Embellishments were not limited to users’ own drawings
and pasted items, however, and some albums could be purchased with engravings
depicting flowers, birds, and scenes in the life cycle.
145
In either case, for many writers
images were an integral part of emotional expression in autograph books, regardless of
whether they were pre-printed or hand-drawn.
Though hand-drawn and printed floral imagery appeared frequently in autograph
books throughout the nineteenth-century, in the 1870s users began including floral
imagery that mimicked the newly available chromolithographed trade cards. In both
Camille Block’s and Lizzie Cadmus’ albums, hand-drawn likenesses of stock trade cards
appear (FIG 1.14). In Block’s album, the flowers in the pencil drawing appear within a
demarcated space and a blank text-box overlaps the image. Here, the user has adapted
the entry in the book to the changing imagery of popular culture. Rather than a hand-
drawn bouquet, as would be found in writers’ entries from the 1850s, this writer chose to
sketch a blank stock card with floral imagery. Whether included as a surrogate gift for an
actual card or as an exercise in drawing, the image’s appearance in Camille’s album
reminds us of the sentimental importance that exchange cards held for many nineteenth-
century individuals.
Likewise, in Lizzie Cadmus’ album, someone has colored a text box and flowers
around a signature from Albert Whitman. Drawn with a careful eye, this image

144
Bessie Sherk entry (1881), in Lizzie Cadmus Album (1877-1882), Doc. 447, DCWL.
145
See, for example, Anne Hadley White Album (1880-1900), Col. 134 fol. 2, DCWL; and Camille Block
Album, Doc 35, DCWL.
82
represents a drawing lesson as the writer intentionally mimics the design format of
common stock trade cards marketed for advertising and calling-card use in the nineteenth
century (FIG 1.14, 1.15).
146
In the absence of explanatory text accompanying this image,
contemporary readers are left to speculate what importance an image of flowers or
exchange card might have had for the nineteenth-century reader. Yet what is clear is that
the image was important enough to merit inclusion in the album—itself a repository of
keepsakes, memorable messages, and ephemera. Whether Albert included this drawing
before returning the book to Lizzie, or she colored the blooms around his name after his
signing; it is clear that the image of the flowers served to demarcate and decorate the
page apart from the others in the book, in much the same way as the pressed flowers did
for Bessie Sherk’s note to Lizzie (see FIG 1.13). Moreover, the image may have been
considered a surrogate for the receipt of an actual exchange card bearing Whitman’s
name; or perhaps an even higher prize given its hand-drawn quality. Preserved within the
pages of Lizzie’s album, the image cannot fully explain why its contemporaries thought it
special, only that it mattered enough to merit saving.
Including facsimiles of trade cards in their autograph albums allowed individuals
such as these to substitute the image for the material object, and to embellish signatures
and verse in much the same way that pressed flowers and drawings did in earlier years.

146
Lizzie Cadmus Album (1877-1882), Doc. 447, DCWL. On amateur art education in the nineteenth-
century US, see Mary Ann Stankiewicz et al., “Questioning the Past: Contexts, Functions, and Stakeholders
in 19
th
-Century Art Education,” in Handbook of Research and Policy in Art Education, ed. Elliot W. Eisner
and Michael D. Day (New York: Routledge, 2004), 33-54. This practice was also widespread in Europe;
see for example, Ann Bermingham, Learning to Draw: Studies in the Cultural History of a Polite and
Useful Art (New Haven: Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art and Yale University Press, 2000).
83
Pressed flowers, locks of hair, or other sentimental tokens had adorned the album pages
of various members of the middle class from the 1820s through the turn of the twentieth
century. However, the penchant for including handmade or natural objects (such as sea
moss, pressed flowers, watercolors, and embroidery shifted following the Civil War to
the inclusion of found chromolithographs such as the exchange cards outlined above.
This practice suggests that the found imagery on chromolithographs (including hand-
drawn copies of these images) became an increasingly acceptable surrogate for real
objects—both when giving the gifts of flowers or the gifts of exchange cards. Arguably,
this substitution was only acceptable because of the prized status of chromolithographs as
culturally expressive yet readily and easily available objects in the last decades of the
nineteenth century.
Under close examination, the use of chromolithographed trade cards illustrates
their position in nineteenth-century society as exchange cards first and advertisements
second. The above writers in Block and Cadmus’ albums demonstrated the value of the
chromolithographed card as a collectible object, the widespread appeal of floral imagery
in chromolithograph designs for both commercial and personal purposes, and the
adaptability of the trade card medium to function according to individual needs. Thus
resituated within a culture of exchange, chromolithographs emerge as album surrogates
that acted as tokens of the writer’s feelings and regard for the receiver in the place of
actual pressed flowers, embroidery, and other sentimental handicrafts.
147

147
Sarah McNair Vosmeier discusses the surrogate quality assigned to objects of personal importance and
exchange, in “Picturing Love and Friendship: Photograph Albums and Networks of Affection in the
1860s,” in Tucker et al., Scrapbook in American Life, 209.
84
In this way, printers helped to destabilize the commercial intent for advertising
trade cards and fostered an elision between the advertiser-as-seller and the advertiser-as-
friend. Floral images on exchange cards continued to communicate sincerity and
friendship to the viewer, but the terms of this communication were altered when the
image was put to use for commercial rather than personal purposes. Instead of coming
from a friend or acquaintance, the message now came from a manufacturer. In these
ways, printers who appropriated floral imagery for stock trade cards helped to reposition
advertising communication within the realm of intimate address between friends.
For its mimicry of older established exchange card designs, its depiction of
sentimental imagery and texts, and its adaptation as an object of personal exchange, the
chromolithographed trade card of the 1870s, ‘80s, and ‘90s transgressed the boundaries
between commercial and personal communication. As gifts from merchants and
manufacturers to the public, chromolithographed trade cards circulated between friends
and relatives as treasured tokens of achievement and affection. The cards became prized
objects which consumers gifted and re-gifted, and preserved in albums and scrapbooks
(which they also gifted and re-gifted from generation to generation). Yet their original
texts and messages of commerce could never be completely erased, as the memory of the
card’s commercial origins and images of trademarks threatened to interrupt the personal
narratives composed from the cards’ found imagery.
In these ways, chromolithographed trade cards helped (or at least attempted to)
personalize commodity exchange. This personalization of exchange mattered in a society
that was increasingly becoming as impersonal as it was modern.
148
It mattered to

148
See footnote 9.
85
advertisers who sought to cultivate trust among potential consumers in order to increase
profits, and it mattered to consumers who looked more and more for a reason to trust the
unfamiliar products that bombarded the shelves of their local dry goods stores. As a
practice, sentimental gift exchange emerged in the early nineteenth century as an effort to
resist the commercialization of the Market Revolution—it was part of a feminized
domestic culture and haven from the public sphere.
149
In the 1870s, ‘80s, and ‘90s,
advertisers appropriated and reworked the media circulating in this reciprocal culture of
exchange in order to make commodity exchange more like friendship. Trade cards, as a
primary mode of advertising in these years, functioned as an expression of advertisers’
desire to close the gap between producers and consumers and make consumption an act
of intimacy. When printers and advertisers used old forms for new purposes, they
indirectly revealed this intent through the images and phrases they chose to print on trade
cards.
It is only by resituating trade cards alongside other exchange media—such as
calling cards and autograph albums—that we can begin to understand how trade cards
personalized commercial exchange by drawing upon a familiar iconographic language of
devotion, purity, and trustworthiness. Trade cards thus assisted advertisers in building
goodwill by placing advertising communications within the realm of friendship.
Resituating the trade card in this way sheds new light on the moment at which
chromolithography and advertising intersected, where the emotional imagery of

149
On sentimental culture see Nancy F. Cott, The Bonds of Womanhood: “Woman’s Sphere” in New
England, 1780-1835 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997); Douglas, Feminization of American
Culture; Halttunen, Confidence Men; and Kasson, Rudeness & Civility.
86
chromolithographs came into the service of commerce. The consequences of this
meeting of personal and commercial helped to reconfigure the relationship between
producers and consumers via advertising. Advertising histories that situate trade cards
along a progression of advertising media (i.e. tracing the history of advertising from trade
cards in 1880s and ‘90s, through magazines, to posters in the 1910s-20s, to radio, and
television in the post-WWII years) thus fail to understand the ways in which the trade
card acted as a material object for personal expression between individuals.
150
When
examining trade cards’ usage and reception through their collection and preservation in
albums, it becomes clear that the appearances, images and exchange patterns of trade
cards firmly placed them within the realm of personal and emotional exchange between
1876 and 1900.

Trade Cards’ Decline
Trade cards peaked in popularity in the 1880s, and by the mid-1890s the chromo
craze had all but dried up. Many factors contributed to the decline of trade card
production and distribution in the 1890s, including the promotion of magazine
advertising over trade cards by admen in trade journals, the wider distribution areas and
rising subscriptions for magazines, the new photographic reproduction techniques used in

150
Scholars such as Robert Jay and Pamela Walker Laird examine trade cards as early print advertisements
and trace their significance as proto-examples of the styles and language that would dominate later print
forms, such as magazine ads. See Jay, Trade Card; Laird, Advertising Progress; and Garvey, Adman.
Notably, historians of chromolithography situate trade cards not as elements along a development of
modern advertising but rather within the history of printing, which includes posters and postcards. See, for
example, Last, Color Explosion; and Marzio, Democratic Art.
87
magazines, and the perception of economy and efficiency with regard to magazine ads
(they could reach a wider audience with guaranteed coverage).
151
Yet as a scrapbook
collectible, the potential for chromo trade cards to illustrate the user’s experiences and
fantasy was eclipsed by two other rising media: postcards and photographs. The
consolidation of the lithographic industry around 1900 and the growing popularity of
illustrated post cards meant fewer producers of hand-held exchange cards and a shifting
demand toward the mailing variety.
152
Finally, the decline of trade card collecting for
scrapbooks coincided with a rise in snapshot photography and the collection of
photograph albums, especially following the introduction of the famous Kodak
“Brownie” camera in 1900.
153

151
Both Ellen Gruber Garvey and Pamela Walker Laird postulate that the rise of magazine advertising led
to the downfall of trade cards c.1900. See Garvey, Adman in the Parlor; and Laird, Advertising Progress.
I am also grateful to Dave Mihaly, curator at the Huntington Library, for sharing his insights on the
changes to chromolithography after 1890. On changing photographic reproduction techniques and their
effect on the public reception of visual culture and magazines, see Neil Harris, “Iconography and
Intellectual History: The Halftone Effect,” in Cultural Excursions: Marketing Appetites and Cultural
Tastes in Modern America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990), 304-317; and Joshua Brown,
Beyond the Lines: Pictorial Reporting, Everyday Life, and the Crisis of Gilded Age America (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 2002), 234-236.
152
Jay, Trade Card, 100-102.
153
Tucker et al., Scrapbook in American Life, 12. Archival evidence at the DCWL, HL, and AC NMAH
supports this assertion that the collection of photographs and photograph albums changed from a primarily
bourgeois pastime in the mid-nineteenth century into a more democratic pastime by 1900. In this way,
while chromo-filled albums were highly popular between 1860 and 1900, photograph albums supplant
albums filled with chromolithographs after 1900. On the growth of amateur photography and photograph
collecting, see Douglas Collins, The story of Kodak (New York: H.N. Abrams, 1990); Andrea L. Volpe,
88
From the standpoint of advertisers, trade cards were largely failures as
advertisements. Users’ willingness to reorient, trim, cut, and otherwise manipulate trade
cards in scrapbooks and albums demonstrated their outright disregard for the commercial
message as they privileged the image over text. Though trade cards’ collectability
provided a positive benefit, in the end this collectible appeal led to their downfall.
Despite their short-lived production, however, the format, images, and reception of
advertising trade cards in the 1870s and ‘80s helped reconfigure the feel of commodity
exchange at the turn of the century. Yet trade cards had help in this quest. In looking for
ways to build goodwill with an increasingly skeptical public, advertisers appropriated
enduring cultural tropes to construct textual appeals and establish rapport with potential
consumers. These strategies—which included borrowing from epistolary practices and
popular humor—helped to further personalize advertisers’ appeals to the public.

“Cheap pictures: Cartes de visite portrait photographs and visual culture in the United States, 1860-1877”
(PhD diss., Rutgers University, 1999); and Siegel, Galleries of friendship and fame.
89

Figure 1.1 L. Prang & Co., “Autumn Leaves,” and “Wildflowers,” album cards (c.
1864) compiled in a collector’s album, approx. 2 x 4in. each. Louis Prang Papers, Jay T.
Last Collection, The Huntington Library. These items are reproduced by permission of
The Huntington Library, San Marino, California.

Figure 1.2 Trade card for T. B. Jansen & Co. booksellers and stationers, New York,
NY (c. 1800), approx. 2.5 x 3.5in. Col. 9. Courtesy, The Winterthur Library: Joseph
Downs Collection of Manuscripts and Printed Ephemera.
90

Figure 1.3 Trade card for Reynolds Bros. Shoes, reverse view (c. 1885), showing
letter-press and ink-stamp addition of retailer information; approx. 3 x 5in. Ephemera
Collections, The Huntington Library. This item is reproduced by permission of The
Huntington Library, San Marino, California.

Figure 1.4 Flowchart showing trade card distribution and use. Image copyright
Jennifer M. Black and may not be reproduced without express permission from the
author.

91

Figure 1.5 L. Prang & Co., stock cards (1878), used for both a New Year’s greeting
card and a stock trade card; approx. 2 x 4in. each. Louis Prang Papers, Jay T. Last
Collection, The Huntington Library. These items are reproduced by permission of The
Huntington Library, San Marino, California.

Figure 1.6 Left: elaborate hidden-name calling card (c. 1870-1890), approx. 2 x 4in.
The top layer with the hands and flowers acts as a flap hiding the name from view—the
reader would be obliged to lift the flap in order to see the beholder’s name underneath. In
Ohio Card Co., Agent’s Sample Book (Cadiz, OH), Doc. 286 p.18. Courtesy, The
Winterthur Library: Joseph Downs Collection of Manuscripts and Printed Ephemera.

Right: stock card with epistle design (c. 1890), used as a Christmas greeting card, approx.
2 x 4in. Courtesy, The Winterthur Library: The John and Carolyn Grossman Collection.
92

Figure 1.7 Hand-colored sentiment card inscribed “Adaline” (c. 1840), approx. 1 x
3in. Courtesy, The Winterthur Library: The John and Carolyn Grossman Collection.

Figure 1.8 L. Prang & Co., stock cards (1877) used as a personal business card (left),
retail trade card (right), and New Year’s card (bottom, showing handwritten name and
slight variation in original design), approx. 1 x 3in. each. Louis Prang Papers, Jay T. Last
Collection, The Huntington Library. These items are reproduced by permission of The
Huntington Library, San Marino, California.

93

Figure 1.9 Stock trade cards for Mitchell Platform Spring Wagons (c. 1890), approx.
2 x 4in. each. Ephemera Collections, The Huntington Library. These items are
reproduced by permission of The Huntington Library, San Marino, California.

Figure 1.10 Left: “Daisy Series” calling card (1878), approx. 2 x 4in. In Card Mills,
Agent Sample Book (Northford, CT), Doc 218 p.18. Courtesy, The Winterthur Library:
Joseph Downs Collection of Manuscripts and Ephemera.

Right and below: trade card for Fleischmann’s Yeast, with reverse view (c. 1880),
approx. 2 x 4in. Col. 669 album 26. Courtesy, The Winterthur Library: Joseph Downs
Collection of Manuscripts and Ephemera.
94

Figure 1.11 “Baby” scrapbook page (1876), approx. 10 x 12in. Col. 669 album 6.
Courtesy, The Winterthur Library: Joseph Downs Collection of Manuscripts and
Ephemera.

Figure 1.12 Entry signed G. J. Van DenCorput, with hand-drawn illustration in pencil
(1876), page approx. 8 x 10in. In Camille Block Album Souvenir (1875-1887), Doc 35.
Courtesy, The Winterthur Library: Joseph Downs Collection of Manuscripts and
Ephemera.
95

Figure 1.13 Entry from Bessie H. Sherk (1881), with pressed flower, page approx. 7.5
x 4in. In Lizzie Cadmus Autograph Album (1877-1882), Doc 447. Courtesy, The
Winterthur Library: Joseph Downs Collection of Manuscripts and Ephemera.

Figure 1.14 Left: pencil drawing of a stock trade card, page approx. 8 x 10in. In
Camille Block Album (1875-87), Doc 35. Courtesy, The Winterthur Library: Joseph
Downs Collection of Manuscripts and Ephemera.

Right: Albert Whitman’s signature, adorned with hand-drawn and colored flowers and
text box, ink and pencil on paper (1880), page approx. 7.5 x 4in. In Lizzie Cadmus
album (1877-82), Doc. 447. Courtesy, The Winterthur Library: Joseph Downs Collection
of Manuscripts and Ephemera.
96

Figure 1.15 L. Prang & Co., stock trade card (1878), approx. 2 x 4in. Ephemera
Collections, The Huntington Library. This item is reproduced by permission of The
Huntington Library, San Marino, California.

97
CHAPTER TWO:
Modes of Establishing Rapport, or; the Letter and the Laugh

Building from the popularity of trade cards as scrapbook collectibles, advertisers
in the 1880s and ‘90s strategized additional layers of appeal to make advertising a more
intimate form of address. If the materiality and format of trade cards provided one mode
of personalizing the commercial message, advertisers soon learned that textual strategies
could be used to establish rapport with the consumer through a personalized voice. They
developed distinct modes of establishing rapport—modeled on correspondence etiquette
and popular humor—to create an intimate, insider appeal in terms that were already
familiar to many members of the white middle-class. Borrowing from established
literary, rhetorical, and cultural traditions, advertisers appropriated conventional
epistolary mechanics into their ads, including proper language and tone, and printed
humorous narratives modeled on popular culture. Creating this sense of rapport—an
imagined and impersonal relationship that ironically evoked familiarity and intimacy—
became instrumental in structuring advertisers’ appeals to the public after 1870.
***
“Speaking by the Pen”
Letters are the life of trade, the fuel of love, the pleasure of friendship, the
food of the politician, and the entertainment of the curious. To speak to
those we love or esteem, is the greatest satisfaction we are capable of
knowing, and the next is, being able to converse with them by letter.
154

In the decades after the Civil War, letters continued to be an important mode of
communication between friends, families, acquaintances, and business partners just as

154
American Fashionable Letter Writer (Boston: G. W. Cottrell, c.1856), 12, emphasis in original.
98
they had been for centuries. As surrogates for face-to-face contact, letters allowed
nineteenth-century Americans the ability to communicate with others in neighboring
towns and distant lands. Advertisements, in these years, worked in many of the same
ways. As one advertising professional would later comment, advertisements acted as
printed demonstrations of the firm’s “reputation and character,” and placed the store in
“wireless contact” with members of the public. As the “voice of the store,” he concluded,
the “advertising word is as good as the store’s bond.”
155
Their product (advertisements)
thus situated as a form of correspondence, advertisers stood to gain a lot from the art of
letter-writing.
The art of letter-writing, in advertising terms, evolved between 1870 and 1930
from a formalized approach rooted in proper business etiquette to one that consciously
built upon the intimate appeal of a personal letter in order to win additional sales. In the
1870s, advertisers in the retail trades invited potential customers to visit their stores; and
appropriated epistolary mechanics in trade cards modeled after formal dinner invitations
and calling cards.
156
At the same time, the publishers of patent medicine almanacs
solicited business from consumers through the mails with seemingly personalized letters
signed by the manufacturers themselves. Moreover, in the 1880s epistolary advertising
flourished in the advice correspondence distributed to information-hungry customers by
companies such as the Lydia E. Pinkham Co., manufacturer of Pinkham’s Vegetable

155
Joseph Herbert Appel et al., Golden Book of the Wanamaker Stores: Jubilee Year, 1861-1911
(Philadelphia: John Wanamaker, 1911), 214-222.
156
Trade card advertisement for John Wanamaker & Co., Col. 838, cab. 8 dr. 4 box 2, DCWL; and Wemple
& Kronheim, NY, trade card for John Wanamaker & Co. (1879), Warshaw Series I Dry Goods, box 35 fol.
3, AC NMAH.
99
Compound. By the 1890s, the practice of composing generalized letters to potential
consumers had been taken up by mail-order houses such as Sears Roebuck (Chicago),
and manufacturers such as Simmons mattresses, and was championed by industry moguls
such as J. Walter Thompson. Moreover, the appropriation of letter-writing techniques
became part of the advertising industry’s regular bag of tricks when developments in
printing technologies around the turn of the century made possible the mass reproduction
of hand-signed form letters. These new processes promised to modernize advertising
practice while keeping its intention of personalized, intimate address to each individual
consumer; and proved instrumental in the development of business-to-business
advertising in the early twentieth century. In short, whether the message came from a
retailer, mail-order house, patent-medicine manufacturer, advertising agency, or printing
firm, epistolary advertising allowed advertisers to adopt a sense of intimacy and build
goodwill through the construction of a generalized, yet seemingly personal address.
To nineteenth-century middle-class Americans, letter-writing was an important
mode of intellectual development, relationship-building, and personal expression.
157

157
Correspondence, as both a communicative device and a practice of reflection and interiority, has become
an increasingly popular topic for historical study. Notable examples in this literature include William
Merrill Decker, Epistolary Practices: Letter Writing in America Before Telecommunications (Chapel Hill:
University of North Carolina Press, 1998); Bruce S. Elliott et al., eds., Letters across Borders: the
Epistolary Practices of International Migrants (New York: Macmillan, 2006); Carol Poster and Linda C.
Mitchell, eds., Letter-Writing Manuals and Instruction from Antiquity to the Present: Historical and
Bibliographic Studies (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 2007); and Shank, A Token of
My Affection, esp. chapter 1. A related field examines the circulation of letters through the mails. See
Richard John, Spreading the News: the American Postal System from Franklin to Morse (Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1995); and David Henkin, The Postal Age: the Emergence of Modern
100
Letter-writing manuals in the 1870s and ‘80s provided clear guidelines for composing
letters for all occasions, just as they had for over half a century. Part of a middle-class
culture of etiquette and self-education, letter-writing manuals provided readers with a
mode of refining one’s social skills by learning the necessary codes that structured
middle-class behavior and interaction.
158
These books ranged from pocket-sized codices
to large encyclopedias, and promised to cultivate the skill of proper letter-writing in the
reader while offering detailed examples on topics ranging from dinner invitations, to
bereavement notes, to business transactions. In-text examples illustrated proper form,
grammar, and “phraseology” while providing models of rhetorical excellence for study
and imitation.
159

Stressing the importance of adherence to form, letter-writing manuals instructed
individuals on the proper salutations, tone, and closings for a range of personal and
business letters. Depending upon one’s purpose, for example, one might address a
correspondent with respectful formality, as in “Dear Sir,” or with due devotion, as in “My
Dearest Emmeline.” Likewise, closings mirrored the relationship of the correspondents:
“I remain in your service” characterized typical business correspondence versus “All my

Communications in Nineteenth-Century America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006).
158
Henkin, Postal Age, 95, 117. See also footnote 149.
159
For more information about letter-writing manuals in the nineteenth century, see Deidre M. Mahony,
“Bibliography of Nineteenth-Century Letter-writing Manuals,” in Poster and Mitchell, Letter-writing
manuals and instruction, 317-326. Many of the manuals viewed for this study borrowed liberally from
each other when establishing the guidelines for proper correspondence. See, for example, a passage citing
the importance of writing and receiving letters, using proper “phraseology” in Sargent, Our Home, 217;
reprinted from Orville J. Victor, Beadle's Dime Letter-writer (New York: Beadle & Co., 1863), 20.
101
love and affection,” which would be more common for personal letters between friends
and family members.
160
Above all, letter-writing manuals stressed that the tone of the
letter was meant to transparently convey both the relationship of the correspondents and
the character of the writer. Whereas reference to friendship and devotion appeared
frequently in personal letters, business correspondence was to remain devoid of such
flowery language—instead maintaining a tone of unemotional respectfulness in their
straightforward, transparent prose.
161

As a mode of personal communication, as a cultural practice, and as a means of
demonstrating one’s character to others, letter-writing was an important skill to learn. As
a process that was undertaken weekly by Americans across the country, one writer noted
that “young people should learn early to consider [letter-writing] a pleasant way of
communicating thoughts and feelings to their friends,” and that a few simple rules could
ensure that “anyone” could communicate through the medium appropriately. These rules
included demonstrating a neat and legible hand, responding promptly to epistles received,
organizing paragraphs carefully, and writing with transparency to convey one’s true
thoughts.
162
Etiquette authors treasured letter-writing as a conversational tool. In fact,

160
See, for example, Sargent, Our Home, 225; and Arthur Martine, Martine’s sensible letter-writer... (New
York: Dick & Fitzgerald, 1866), 25-40.
161
Ibid.
162
Brown, Home Topics, 123-125. For the year 1880, the US Post Office reported having delivered over
one billion letters; or approximately 21 letters for every inhabitant of the country. This figure suggests that,
on average, individuals exchanged letters on bi-weekly basis during these years. For letter circulation
figures, see “A Nation of Letter Writers,” The Paper World 3, no. 1 (Jul 1881): 21. See also Henkin,
Postal Age, 31.
102
“speaking by the pen” became secondary only to personal interaction with friends,
family, and acquaintances; whereby one would write “only those very sentiments to an
absent person, clothed in the same, or nearly the same language, in which you would
deliver them if he were present.”
163
As “indices of taste,” letters were thought to provide
windows to the soul: the writer demonstrated his or her own education, refinement,
culture, and “inborn nobility” through his or her personal correspondence.
164

Moreover, as part of a material culture of expression that included the exchange
of sentimental objects and writing in autograph albums, personal letters often
demonstrated strategies of relating experience and preserving bonds. Friends and family
members maintained personal ties and relationships through letters, which became
exchange objects that served as mementoes and keepsakes carrying the same material
weight as pressed flowers and other tokens such as calling cards, greeting cards, and
handmade paper gifts. Preserved in albums, cases, and envelopes, personal letters and
other ephemeral objects became signifiers for past relationships and tools of memory-
making in nineteenth century American culture.
165
Charlotte Rose, a young woman

163
Martine, Letter-writer, 15; The letter writer (Boston: Charles Gaylord, 1831), 3; and The American
Letter-writer (Lewistown, PA: Charles Bell & Sons, 1832), 6.
164
Victor, Beadle’s, 20; and Sargent, Our Home, 216-17, 220.
165
See, for example, Martha Townshend’s material collections in the Robinson-Via Family Papers (1845-
1944), Series II.2, boxes 2, 23, and 30-31, AC NMAH. Evidence of the material importance of letters as
keepsakes and memory-aiding objects can also be witnessed in the collections of personal papers, albums,
and scrapbooks held at the Special Collections Department of the Bryn Mawr College Library, the
Manuscripts Department of the American Antiquarian Society, and DCWL. Research collected in these
archives demonstrated that individuals collected, organized, and preserved letters, pictorial scraps,
exchange cards, pressed flowers, invitations, programs, ribbons, bits of fabric, and other ephemera in
103
living in what is now Madison, Connecticut, saved several romantic letters in her
personal album that she exchanged with Colonel Dwight W. Pierce before and during the
Civil War.
166
The album contained various transcriptions of popular and sacred verse,
personal notes from treasured friends, and other sentimental tokens such as needlepoint.
Rose’s album, which was compiled between 1825 and 1864, provides telling evidence of
the importance of certain letters in the memory of nineteenth-century individuals. That
she saved Col. Pierce’s letters with these other tokens attests to the importance the letters
held as physical reminders of Rose’s romantic relationship with him.
Indeed, letters provided a primary mode of cultivating relationships between
individuals separated by geographic distance in the nineteenth century, with the letter
itself acting as a material signifier for the bodily presence of the writer.
167
Letters carried
with them “affection, love, and remembrance most comforting and satisfying to the
otherwise aching and longing soul of man,” in much the same way that photographs of
loved ones inspired passionate emotions in the hearts of beholders.
168
Often in situations
where the correspondents were separated by geography, writers expressed their own
emotional attachments to letters as material objects and reminders of friendship, familial

albums and keepsake boxes. The abundance of materials in these collections suggests that the practice of
collecting, organizing, and preserving material objects and hand-written or printed ephemera is a much
longer one originating in the early-modern period and continuing through the present day. On the history
of scrapbooks and the like, see footnote 33.
166
Charlotte Rose Commonplace Book (1825-1864), Doc 170, DCWL.
167
Decker, Epistolary Practices, 88-91.
168
“About Letters and Letter-Writing,” The Paper World 1, no. 2 (Feb 1880): 13; and Chesterfield's Art of
Letter-Writing Simplified (New York: Dick & Fitzgerald, 1857), 6-7.
104
ties, and love. Though the United States institutionalized mail delivery early in its youth,
the reduction of rates and expansion of delivery for letters in the 1840s and 1850s
ushered in a cultural transformation whereby individuals came to expect a certain level of
communication with those at a distance (and within this new postal “network”).
169
As
one author noted, “it is only through letters that widely separated friends can keep pace
with each other’s mental and spiritual growth.”
170
Throughout the nineteenth century,
hand-written letters became both important communicative tools and treasured objects
that reflected the writer’s personality and provided a surrogate for the material body of
the writer.
Advertisers from 1870 through 1890 smartly adapted the formalized conventions
of epistolary practice when crafting advertisements, which regularly borrowed
conventional epistolary salutations, tone, and closings.
171
Importantly, varying levels of
sophistication in these appeals persisted from the 1870s through the 1920s: as some
larger businesses utilized professional agents, smaller and emergent companies relied on
in-house advertising departments—betraying their own lack of resources and at times,
expertise. These nuances demonstrate the widespread appeal of epistolary advertising
throughout these years as a practice that would establish rapport and goodwill with

169
Henkin, Postal Age, 22.
170
Brown, Home topics, 129.
171
Importantly, before a series of postal reforms gave most Americans access to the exchange of letters
through the mails, letter-writing was an act primarily undertaken by businessmen, bankers, clerks, and
merchants. In this way, David Henkin notes, letters and commerce were inextricably linked at mid-century,
which may have contributed to the strong epistolary style with which advertisers molded their addresses to
the public. See Henkin, Postal Age, 95.
105
potential customers through personalized language and a demonstration of a certain level
of refinement and manners.
Many advertisers followed formal etiquette guidelines to present each address in a
personal manner that provided a material surrogate for physical interaction with the
consumer. In the late 1870s, for example, department store mogul John Wanamaker in
Philadelphia issued personal invitations to potential customers by borrowing language
that echoed formal dinner invitations: in trade cards, he “cordially” invited individuals to
“call upon” his store (FIG 2.1).
172
Inviting members of the public to visit his store in this
particular language invoked a culture of social calling that reframed his commercial space
as an extension of the domestic parlor.
173
According to one store biographer, John
Wanamaker himself frequently stood at the entrance to his store personally welcoming
individuals into his space, much like the host of a dinner party would upon receiving
important guests.
174

Whereas Wanamaker constructed an imagined personal relationship to the
consumer by inviting her to call as if she were visiting a friend for tea, both retailers and
manufacturers in the 1870s and 1880s drew upon the formalized salutations and closings
of epistolary etiquette to demonstrate refinement and knowledge of proper social codes.

172
See footnote 156; and trade card advertisements for Pursell, New York, and H. W. Robinson & Co., box
F-5 fol. 37, BTC HL; and L. Prang & Co., trade card for Frear’s Troy Bazaar (1878), bk 14, Louis Prang
Papers, Last HL.
173
Grier, Culture & Comfort, chapter 1. Grier investigates the tactic of domesticating certain public spaces,
such as railroad cars, photography studios, and hotels in the nineteenth century, making them suitable for
women and children.
174
Appel et al., Wanamaker stores, 218.
106
One retailer “respectfully” requested the consumer’s patronage, while trade cards for
Levering Coffee (Baltimore, Maryland) included friendly notes that closed with the
phrase “Respectfully Yours.”
175
Borrowing the mechanics of proper business
correspondence, these advertisers nevertheless attempted a more personal appeal to their
consumer base through the appropriation of the epistolary closing itself. The closings
structure these advertising trade cards as a form of correspondence, and in so doing help
mask the commercial messages contained in the cards. Instead, the reader is drawn to the
epistolary closings and personalized tone, which together imply the cards were reviewed,
if not signed, by the manufacturers themselves in direct communication with the
consumer.
Significantly, manufacturers often used the same language and tone in
corresponding with potential clients and other business partners that they used in their
own advertisements. Correspondence ranging from the late 1850s through 1900 for the
patent medicine manufacturer J.C. Ayer & Co. (Lowell, Massachusetts), manufacturers
of Ayer’s Sarsaparilla, demonstrates the etiquette expected in business transactions. In
response to inquiries and orders, Ayer and his representatives often signed notes to clients
using one of the following closings: “Very truly, your faithful servant,” “Your faithful

175
Trade card advertisements for Partridge & Co., Dry Goods, box F-5 fol. 37, BTC HL; and Levering
Coffee (c.1880), Col. 9, box 1, DCWL. Levering Coffee was in business in Baltimore, MD from
approximately 1870 through 1904 when it declared bankruptcy. See “Big Coffee Firm Suspends,” New
York Times, April 5, 1904. Common in the business culture of the mid-nineteenth century, this type of
closing proliferated in the patent medicine trades, where public confidence in the manufacturer’s claims
was crucial to earning the sale. See Ayer’s American Almanac (1854-1893), Rare Books, HL.
107
friends,” or “Your friend and servant, James C. Ayer.”
176
In almanacs distributed to the
public, Ayer adopted a similar tone of friendly address in his “publisher’s notes” that
appeared in several editions.
177
Ayer’s attention to etiquette is significant not just
because it was what was required of him as a well-mannered, middle-class businessman,
but because he addressed potential consumers with the same respect accorded to business
associates. Ayer placed his readers within a sphere of familiar, intimate address: his
readers were not just potential customers, but potential associates and therefore peers.
While the personal tone pervading these letters of business correspondence
followed etiquette guidelines for formal letter-writing, it also demonstrated Ayer’s
indebtedness to his consumer with the phrasing of respectful servitude. Letter-writing
manuals from the 1850s onward were clear on the proper etiquette for business
correspondence: straightforward, “flowerless” salutations and closings that emphasized
the writer’s respectful servitude, such as “I remain, yours respectfully,” “We are, yours
obediently,” or “Yours Faithfully.”
178
Ayer partially followed these rules by including a
message of servitude and faithfulness, but his insertion of the word “friend” into his
closing brings a personal flavor to the note. While gaining the favor of his clients would
no doubt boost his business, by adopting similar tones and language in all correspondence
Ayer blurred the distinction between personal and commercial communication. His
adherence to etiquette codes for formal letter-writing paralleled the polite language used
in closings on trade cards for Wanamaker. It is significant that the same rules of conduct

176
J. C. Ayer to various clients, 1852-1858, Warshaw Series I Patent Medicine, box 3 fols. 22-24, AC
NMAH.
177
Ayer’s American Almanac (1854), Rare Books, HL.
178
Martine, Letter-writer, 35-37.
108
applied to the producer-consumer relationship whether in dialogue with potential clients
through trade cards or in dialogue with actual clients through written correspondence.
Both letters and advertisements functioned as communicative devices designed to address
the client as an individual.
In the 1880s and ‘90s, advertisers built upon the appropriation of formalized
epistolary etiquette by including signatures and facsimile hand-written notes in their trade
cards, business-to-business advertisements, newspaper listings, and other spaces.
Signatures appeared in ads for a range of products and services, including stationers, ad
agencies, retail merchants, and the manufacturers of shoes, baking sodas, threads, and
patent medicines (see FIGs 1.3, 2.2).
179
Like the epistolary closings borrowed by
Levering Coffee, printed signatures provided a surrogate mark for the writer’s physical
presence. Moreover, trade cards with printed fonts that looked liked handwriting

179
See, for example, trade cards for W.H. Stiegerwalt Shoes (1878), Col. 838, cab. 8 dr. 4 box 7, DCWL;
Reynolds Bros. Fine Shoes, box F-5 fol. 31, BTC HL; Arm & Hammer (c.1870), Warshaw Series I Baking
Soda, box 1 fol. 4, AC NMAH; Willimantic thread, Col. 9 box 5, DCWL; Croft, Wilbur & Co., Col. 838,
cab. 8 dr. 4 box 2, DCWL; “For coughs” (c.1889), Col. 468, box 4 fol. 2, p. 13v, AC NMAH; Andrews T.
Witherby, stationers, in Anne L. H. White Scrapbook, Col. 134, p. 29, DCWL; Dundas Dick & Co.
medicines (1876), in Col. 548, DCWL; and N. W. Ayer house ads, “Brakes are off”(1894) and “See the
Point” (1894), Ayer Series XIV, box 2 fol. 1, AC NMAH. While skilled engravers could replicate a
person’s signature in print in the eighteenth century, the appearance of facsimile signatures in print did not
become commonplace until after the 1820s, when lithography became a more efficient and cost-effective
printing method. See Last, Color Explosion, 17. Moreover, in many cases the signatures were in fact
facsimiles of the signatory’s actual signature. See footnote 191. I would like to express my thanks to
Georgia Barnhill, Curator Emerita at the American Antiquarian Society, for her thoughtful insights on
printing in the antebellum years.
109
appeared eerily similar to handwritten trade cards circulating on the market. It is
important to remember that not all cards were printed before distribution in the 1870s and
‘80s. Rather, retailers and other individuals could purchase blank cards at stationery and
dry goods stores and write-in their own notes or solicitations as needed. Merchants,
salesmen, and others purchased these blank trade cards for their own purposes—in some
cases handwriting their own notes of personal expression, their names and contact
information for recipients, and even the occasional trade message or advertisement
marketing products or services (FIG 2.3). Printed cards that included script-like fonts,
because of their visual similarity to these handwritten cards, confused the boundaries of
personal communication by giving the appearance that the card had been written by hand
especially for the recipient.
In so doing, advertisements that utilized script-like fonts mimicked the
appearance of personal correspondence in order to catch the consumer’s attention.
Especially when placed in newspaper columns, advertisements like the one for
Wanamaker’s Grand Depot department store, which ran from 1878-1880 (FIG 2.2),
would have stood out against the straight, uniform columns of text on the newspaper
page. Not only did the ad provide a personal touch by impersonating the appearance of a
handwritten note, the ad’s promise to fulfill each request to the dollar, yard, and
satisfaction of the customer seemed to come directly from the pen of Wanamaker
himself.
180
The appearance of his signature at the bottom of the ad lent to the
construction of the advertisement as a personal note, and solidified the interest and power
of this particular appeal. In an advertisement like this one, a facsimile signature

180
Print ad for Wanamaker’s (1878-1880), Ayer Series I, box 1, p. 207, AC NMAH.
110
authenticated the ad’s text by providing an endorsement of the printed message and a
substitute for the physical presence of the signatory.
On a label however, a signature authenticated the product: manufacturers in the
Northeast in particular included signatures on their product labels as validating marks that
would distinguish the genuine object from counterfeits or imitations. In advertisements,
representations of these labels figured highly in directing the consumer to the appropriate
packaging when searching for a brand-name product. For example, between 1870 and
1890 the Fleischmann Company (Cincinnati, Ohio) repeatedly insisted that consumers
only buy the product bearing “our fac-simile [sic] signature” on the label. Ads reminded
the public that the signature marked a genuine product, and thereby asserted a personal
guarantee of product worth (see FIG 1.10, reverse view).
181
Yet Fleischmann was not
alone in his use of the signature. Authenticating signatures became a central component
in ads for soaps, tonics, meat products, cereals, shoes, and condensed milk in the 1880s
and ‘90s.
182

181
Stock trade card for the Fleischmann Co., Col. 669 no. 26, DCWL.
182
See, for example, trade cards for JD Larkin & Co. Fine Soaps (1882), Col. 548, box 1, DCWL; Brown’s
Bronchial Troches (1887), Col. 9, box 3, DCWL; Fleischmann & Co. (c.1880), Col. 669 no. 26, DCWL;
Fleischmann & Co. (c.1900), Col. 838, cab. 8 dr. 4 box 2, DCWL; Van Beil’s Rye & Rock, Col. 669 no.
30, DCWL; Lydia Pinkham’s Vegetable Compound (c. 1875-1890), Col. 669 no. 31, DCWL; Liebig & Co.
meat extract, Col. 838, cab. 8 dr. 4 box 7, DCWL; Nestlé’s Milk Food, Col. 838, cab. 8 dr. 4 box 7,
DCWL; and Laird, Schrober, & Mitchell Fine Shoes, box F-5 fol. 30, BTC HL; and print ads for Kellogg’s
(1921), Ayer Series II, box 53 fol. 1, AC NMAH; Kellogg’s (1924-26), Ayer Series II, boxes 54-55, fols. 3,
AC NMAH; and Dr. Hand’s Condensed Milk (1901), Ayer Series II, box 40 fol. 1, AC NMAH.
111
Evaluated both for their appearance and authenticity, these signatures became
validation stamps that signaled genuineness to buyers. Indeed, handwriting could an
important symbol of the individual: graphologists (handwriting analysts) in the 1880s and
‘90s held that deceptive intentions would be revealed in one’s handwriting, and marketed
their services as a mode of warding against deceptive business partners, employees, or
even spouses.
183
Like bank marks on paper money, signatures on product labels
legitimated the goods bearing the mark against fakes circulating in the market. In many
ways, such signatures could become “registers of personal absence and accountability”
by linking the object upon which the signature appeared with an official owner,
distributor, or otherwise responsible party.
184

Moreover, handwriting (and fonts made to look like it) in advertisements had
much to reveal in terms of style. Penmanship was an important area of middle-class
education in the nineteenth century. As an indication of taste and character, etiquette
experts stressed the importance of adhering to convention when composing personal or
business-related correspondence, including or omitting personality (such as flourishes) as
the occasion necessitated.
185
Thus, as a corollary to proper letter composition, good

183
Tamara Plakins Thornton, Handwriting in America: A Cultural History (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1996), xi-xiii, 95.
184
Henkin, City Reading, 144. See also Henkin, Postal Age, 117; and Shank, Token of My Affection, 35.
185
Ray Nash, American Penmanship, 1800-1850; a History of Writing and a Bibliography of Copybooks
from Jenkins to Spencer (Worcester, MA: American Antiquarian Society, 1969), 24-25; and Albertine
Gaur, A History of Calligraphy (New York: Cross River Press, 1994), 199. On the rules of penmanship in
correspondence, see, for example, James French, Gentlemen’s’ Writing Book (Boston: James French,
1845), quoted in Thornton, Handwriting, 43. The primary exception to this rule was in the gendered
112
penmanship could be a direct reflection of one’s personal character, refinement, and
education.
186

After they found success in appropriating formalized appeals and facsimile
signatures, advertisers in the 1890s experimented with the language of sociability and
friendship found in contemporary autograph albums. One ad for the N.W. Ayer & Son
Advertising Agency (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) expressed the agency’s desire “to sign
ourselves right here; yours for better trade next year” (FIG 2.4).
187
The little note from
Ayer & Son appeared in newspapers across the US in 1893, and closed with a facsimile
signature from the firm itself. The rhythm and meter of the verse mimicked
contemporary verses designed for album-writing—a practice that included well-wishing
and personal expression from one individual to another via the album.
188
Despite its
brevity, the phrase made several important inferences about the relationship between the

distinctions made late in the nineteenth century between the clean and simple penmanship of men writing
under the Palmer method and the “fancy” script adopted by women skilled in ornamental pen work. See
Thornton, Handwriting, 63-69.
186
On penmanship’s relation to character see Brown, Home Topics, 122-125; Daniel Ames, Ames' guide to
self instruction in practical and artistic penmanship, 3rd ed. (New York: Daniel T. Ames, 1884), 9;
Longstreet, Cards, 3; and Victor, Beadle's, 21. Thornton traces the historical belief in the connection
between good handwriting and transparent, truthful representations of the self to the late eighteenth
century—see Handwriting, 35, 41; and for the nineteenth century, Handwriting, 52.
187
“Yours for Trade Next Year” (1893), print advertisement for N. W. Ayer & Son Advertising Agency,
Ayer Series XIV, box 5, AC NMAH.
188
See footnote 123. Just as experts published etiquette guides for written correspondence, published
“album writers” offered suggestions and style guides for composing memorable inscriptions for autograph
albums. See, for example, J. Ogilvie, The Album Writer’s Friend (New York: J.S. Ogilvie & Co., 1881).
113
advertising agent and potential clients. Signing one’s name in an autograph book was a
treasured exchange in the nineteenth century, and expressing the desire to be included in
one’s book pointed to the care and respect that Ayer & Son held for its clients. The
phrase also worked as a pledge to potential clientele: “yours for trade next year” implied
that the company would work to its fullest to ensure the success of their clients, while
again framing the pledge within a code of personal expression. The facsimile signature
included in the ad finalized the address as a personal one from the Ayer Agency to
potential clients.
Despite its aim for intimacy, however, ads like this one reflect the tension in late-
nineteenth century advertising surrounding such an attempt at personalization within an
inherently impersonal medium. Placed in newspapers and trade magazines and intended
to be read by hundreds of thousands of individuals, this Ayer & Son ad challenged the
impersonality of the media with its intensely personal address. Though attempting to
address the client individually, the ad had to be impersonal enough to appeal to a broad
constituency. This collapse of the personal into the commercial came to characterize
advertisements in the last decades of the nineteenth century as advertisers struggled with
the conundrum of how to appeal to customers on a personal level while crafting their
messages broadly to appeal to as many potential consumers as possible. Ads had to be
both individualized and universal, both personal and commercial all at once. In this way,
advertisements could foster interpersonal communication despite their seemingly
impersonal nature.
189

189
The potential for items circulating through the mails to facilitate interpersonal communication is
discussed in Henkin, Postal Age, 153.
114
While advertisers such as Fleischmann, Wanamaker, and N. W. Ayer found
success in appropriating epistolary conventions for their advertisements, many other
producers adapted letter-writing as a type of ancillary advertising. As a practical means
of communicating order information, letters greased the wheels of business before
telephone communication became common in the early twentieth century. Letters also
helped producers announce new products and services, and accompanied catalogs mailed
to prospective new clients. In each of these ways, letters assisted advertising goals by
connecting producers to consumers.
When not discussing specific transactions, orders, or accounts, advertisers often
used letters to announce new designs or products for sale.
190
In these situations, the
letters acted as both private correspondence and advertisements—they arrived in
personally addressed envelopes with formal salutations and signatures, but their content
was entirely commercial in character. Boston lithographer Louis Prang was a frequent
user of such letters to appeal to the retail stationery trade in the 1870s and ‘80s; and relied
on the look of hand-written correspondence to add a personal touch to his product
announcements and trade circulars. These often took the form of reproducible form-
letters, printed in a script-like font with a facsimile of Prang’s signature at the close.
191

Keeping efficiency and economy in mind, Prang’s company printed the letters with blank
spaces that would allow for later customization depending upon the season, products, and
prices at issue. Prang sent the letters to a variety of booksellers, stationers, and other

190
See, for example, North Western Wire Mattress Co., Catalog (1896): 1, The Simmons Company
Records (1900-1997), box 53 fol. 1, AC NMAH.
191
Handwritten correspondence authenticates Prang’s signature. See Louis Prang Papers, box 1b, Temple
University Libraries Special Collections Department.
115
retail store owners that carried his products, but he may have also used them to
communicate with wholesalers and the press.
192
Prang’s interest in keeping up ties with
clients and stationers also included a periodical issued under the title “Weekly Letter,”
which Prang distributed to his customers in the 1880s and ‘90s. These brief pamphlets
described new designs and products for each season, and gave Prang an outlet for
discussing issues pertinent to his industry. Whereas Prang often signed official business
correspondence with closings such as “Truly Yours,” “Yours Respectfully,” and
“Sincerely Yours,” each “Weekly Letter” ended with the closing “Your Friends, L. Prang
& Co.”
193
Again, insertion of the word “friend” into the closing of the letter
corresponded more to the etiquette of letters between close friends rather than formal
business transactions. Here, Prang framed his relationship to clients as a friendship; and
the “weekly” distribution of these circulars, in letter form, helped construct the fiction of

192
L. Prang & Co. to undisclosed recipients, 30 Nov 1879; H. Maringin, Attorney for L. Prang & Co., to
undisclosed recipients, Fall 1884; and L. Prang & Co. “Notices to the Press,” Nov 1883, Dec 1884, and
Nov 1887, in Louis Prang Papers, bk 16a, Last HL. Prang sent samples of his work to east coast newspaper
editors in the hopes of obtaining free publicity and endorsements. After sending samples of his work to
area editors and celebrities, Prang printed the letters and notes he received as endorsements in his short-
lived journal, Prang's Chromo: A Journal of Popular Art, 5 vols. (Boston: Louis Prang & Co., 1868-69).
This practice of soliciting testimonials from locally- and nationally-known figures will be discussed further
in chapter 3.
193
An incomplete set of Prang’s “Weekly Letters” dating between 1885 and 1895 is available in the Louis
Prang Papers at the American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, MA. See also Louis Prang to various
recipients, 1877-1898, Louis Prang Papers, bk 17, Last HL; and Luna Francis Lambert, “The Seasonal
Trade: Gift Cards and Chromolithography in America, 1874-1910” (PhD diss., The George Washington
University, 1980), 157-158.
116
a personal relationship with his clients maintained by regular, friendly correspondence;
even though such language betrayed the rules of professional business correspondence
put forth by letter-writing experts.
194

Just as Prang adopted a familiar, even friendly closing for his letters to clients, the
Lydia E. Pinkham Company, manufacturers of Lydia Pinkham’s Vegetable Compound,
adopted a familiar tone in both client correspondence and epistolary advertising in the
1880s and ‘90s.
195
From the late 1870s, the Pinkham Company (Lynn, Massachusetts)
regularly invited potential customers to correspond with the company’s figurehead, Mrs.
Lydia E. Pinkham, for “womanly” medical advice.
196
One pamphlet suggested that
women “Let Mrs. Pinkham be a mother to you. …Confide in me. Tell me your troubles,
frankly and without reservation. … ‘A woman best understands a woman’s ills.’”
197

194
Arthur Martine was careful to note the differences between the cordial and friendly language of personal
correspondence and the formal, subservient language of business correspondence when outlining guidelines
for proper letter-writing. See Martine’s Sensible Letter-Writer, 142. Like Prang, many other advertisers
used representations of signatures in their communications with the public, including J. Walter Thompson,
N. W. Ayer, and R. R. Donnelley & Sons. See J. Walter Thompson, The Red Ear (1887), box DG1,
JWTPC; N. W. Ayer & Sons, “What Class of Things?” print advertisement for N. W. Ayer & Sons (1904),
Ayer Series XIV, box 1 fol. 14, AC NMAH; and R. R. Donnelley & Sons, “Company Advertising,” box
156, RRD.
195
Interestingly, Pinkham remained the iconic public image of the company long after she died in 1883—
her portrait having been trademarked as the logo for its line of medicinal products. On Pinkham’s history,
see Sarah Stage, Female Complaints: Lydia Pinkham and the Business of Women’s Medicine, (New York:
Norton, 1979). On the Pinkham brand, see Engelman, “‘The face that haunts me ever.’”
196
Stage, Female Complaints, chapter 1.
197
Lydia E. Pinkham Co., “To the Women of America” (c.1900): 2-3, Warshaw Series I Patent Medicine,
117
Appealing to potential consumers on the basis of gender, this letter solicited both the trust
and purchasing power of other women by leaning on the image of a wise, grandmotherly
woman willing to bestow her age-acquired knowledge on younger generations. The
friendly note, complete with signature and engraved likeness of Mrs. Pinkham (FIG 2.5),
worked within codes of letter-writing to pursue the consumer’s confidence. The personal
assurances from this friendly stranger, offering to ease a woman’s troubles and her mind,
helped to brand the company as one that cared about its consumers because only a
woman could understand another woman’s troubles.
198

In another pamphlet, the Pinkham Company documented its mail room where a
team of female employees received these letters, researched women’s symptoms and
sicknesses, and authored responses to such requests for help.
199
Women who wrote to the
company would likely receive a detailed response written by a member of Pinkham’s all-
female research team rather than by Pinkham herself. Opening with an informal
salutation, such as “Dear Friend,” such letters included homeopathic remedies for painful
menstruation and other maladies, and often (but not always) pointed women toward a
Pinkham product. Letters were written on Pinkham letterhead, mailed from the

box 35 fol. 6, AC NMAH.
198
Lydia E. Pinkham Co., Treatise on the Diseases of Women (Lynn, MA: Lydia E. Pinkham Medicine
Co., 1901), 34, in Warshaw Series I Patent Medicine, box 35 fol. 1, AC NMAH. On the specific
“womanly” expertise of Lydia Pinkham and other female herbalists in the nineteenth century, see Strasser,
“Commodifying Lydia Pinkham.” My thanks to Susan Strasser for sharing her thoughts on Pinkham and
testimonial advertising.
199
Lydia E. Pinkham Co., Treatise on the Diseases of Women (Lynn, MA: Lydia E. Pinkham Medicine
Co., 1901), in Warshaw Series I Patent Medicine, box 35 fol. 1, AC NMAH
118
company’s home address in Lynn, Massachusetts, and were typically signed “Yours for
Health, Lydia E. Pinkham” in the staff writer’s hand, which provided a close parallel to
Pinkham’s own published signature as it appeared in advertising materials.
200
In this
way, Pinkham’s circulation of advice letters served to both build a return consumer base
and advertise other Pinkham products; and thereby foreshadowed General Mills’ creation
of the fictional character Betty Crocker to fill a similar advisory role toward customers in
the 1920s and 30s.
201

Soliciting letters from its customers and promising advice in return provided the
Pinkham Co. with a reciprocal mode of staying in touch with its consumer base, but it
also provided a constant stream of quotable material from which to cull convincing
advertising copy. Letters received by the company typically appeared in advertising
pamphlets devoted to praising Pinkham remedies, which was a common practice
undertaken by patent medicine manufacturers in the 1880s and ‘90s. Yet Pinkham’s fan
letters also appeared in full-page advertisements for Pinkham products printed in popular
magazines such as The Delineator.
202
The company’s use of letters from its customers as

200
Lydia E. Pinkham Co. to Mrs. E. R. Holden, 11 Dec 1897, Warshaw Series I Patent Medicine, box 35
fol. 6, AC NMAH.
201
Pinkham’s business of soliciting letters and returning advice was a common practice followed by later
advertisers of household products, typified in the 1920s and 30s by General Mill’s character “Betty
Crocker.” Advice columns first appeared in the US around the turn of the twentieth century. See David
Gudelunas, Confidential to America: Newspaper Advice Columns and Sexual Education (New York:
Transaction, 2008), 47. W. Clark Hendley traces the practice of asking and answering queries in the media
to the late seventeenth century. See “Dear Abby, Miss Lonelyhearts, and the Eighteenth Century: The
Origins of the Newspaper Advice Column,” Journal of Popular Culture 11, no. 2 (1977): 345-352.
202
Print ads for Pinkham products, (1896-1898), in Warshaw I Patent Medicine, box 35 fols. 2-4, AC
119
advertisements reinforces the notion that advertisements worked much in the same way
as correspondence. Like Prang, Pinkham’s use of letters as advertisements suggests that
in some ways, the two forms of address offered parallel modes of communication. While
personal letters allowed two individuals to communicate through written correspondence,
advertisements offered a similar form of communication, albeit mostly one-sided,
between advertisers and consumers. Advertisers such as Louis Prang and the Lydia E.
Pinkham Co. used their letters to offer advice to potential clients and consumers in much
the same way that correspondents might exchange advice in response to a problem.
Therefore, as parallel forms of communication, letters could be advertisements, and
advertisements were, in turn, letters of some sort to the public.
That the Pinkham Company invited correspondence from many consumers
provided another level of personalization in this otherwise commercial communication.
The Pinkham company succeeded in achieving this personalization by addressing
pamphlets directly to consumers as women, by depicting Mrs. Pinkham on each of the
materials distributed by the company, by including her facsimile signature and by
inviting correspondence and replying to letters from consumers. Regardless of whether
customers actually believed that Mrs. Pinkham herself would respond to their letters; the
system of letters circulating to and from the imagined “Mrs. Pinkham”—the personality
that became emblematic for the company itself—attests to the company’s success in
cultivating a positive public reputation for the Pinkham brand.
Letters additionally provided a mode of introduction for retailers and
manufacturers trying to solicit attention through the mail. By the 1880s, the relatively

NMAH.
120
wide delivery area of the postal service and its increasingly cheap rates made possible the
widespread use of circulars by advertisers, social and political organizations, charities,
and other local groups.
203
Catalog producers in the 1890s, such as Sears Roebuck
(Chicago, Illinois) and patent medicine dealers, used letters addressed to potential
customers to introduce the company and its products. These letters often accompanied a
complimentary copy of the firm’s retail catalog, and through their language and solicitous
tone worked as advertisements to the public. Adopting a polite language and tone of
acquaintance, such letters often implied that a friendly relationship already existed
between the manufacturer and the reader. A diverse range of company owners, including
those in the patent medicine, retail, and furnace trades, greeted readers and potential
consumers as “friends,” and included facsimile signatures in closings that lent a measure
of authenticity as well as personal interaction to the letter itself.
204
In the case of patent
medicine advertisers, writers often took an advisory tone toward the reader—cautioning
him or her against potential imposters and appearing to have the reader’s best interests at
heart. This over-emphasis on honest intentions became a standard in media that
circulated through the mails including catalogs, almanacs, and circulars. In this way,

203
Henkin, Postal Age, 154. In particular, the 1879 Postal Act lowered bulk rates and facilitated the
expansion of direct mail industries and the circulation of magazines, almanacs, and the like through the
mails. See Norris, Advertising, 34; and Frank Luther Mott, A History of American Magazines, vol. 3
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1938), 5.
204
See, for example, H.H. Warner & Co, Warner’s Safe Cure Almanac (Rochester, N.Y: H.H. Warner,
1890), 2, Rare Books, HL; Sears Roebuck & Co. to undisclosed recipients, 17 Oct 1897, mailed with Shoe
Catalog no. 105, RBWL; and A. L. Blakeslee to undisclosed recipients, in Kalamazoo Furnace Co. Spring
Catalog (1926), 1, box 228 fol. 10, RRD.
121
such letters arguably helped counteract the anonymity that came with these highly
depersonalized media.
Emphasizing the personal attention, loyalty, and devotion a client could expect to
receive was a common tactic employed by advertisers looking to establish rapport and
goodwill at the turn of the century. In each of his publications and rate guides published
between 1880 and 1920, advertising agent J. Walter Thompson (New York) included a
personal letter to the reader that echoed familiar letter-writing conventions. He expressed
his desire to meet clients personally before accepting their business, and reiterated his
commitment to providing profitable services to his clients in each of these letters.
205
In
one guide from 1887, the letter closed with the words “Yours Very Truly, J. Walter
Thompson” scrawled at the bottom of the page in handwritten script (FIG 2.6).
206
Later
publications replicated this form of intimate address, including a letter signed by
Thompson with alternate closings: “Very Truly Yours,” “I remain, at your command,”
and “I remain, at your service.”
207
In 1911, Thompson explained his tactics for
personally addressing the reader in this fashion. First and foremost, Thompson suggested
that it was necessary to keep in contact with customers so that communications became
habitual and familiar. If communications came too infrequently, he cautioned, customers
might get into the habit of “thinking of you as someone they ‘used to know’” rather than

205
Other agents followed the same strategy. See Charles A. Bates, “Picture Bargains,” advertisement in
Printers’ Ink 16, no. 5 (Jul 1896): 26; and George P. Rowell, “Ad Space has a market value,” advertisement
in Printers’ Ink 22, no. 9 (Mar 1896): 7.
206
J. Walter Thompson Advertising Agency, The Red Ear (1887), 8, box DG1, JWTPC.
207
J. Walter Thompson Advertising Agency, The Religious Press (1887), 1-5; and Thompson’s Battery
(New York 1889), 11, both box DG1, JWTPC.
122
as a trusted friend and business partner.
208
Here, Thompson offered advice that he knew
was proven to work. He stressed that other advertisers keep in personal contact with
customers because he himself had used intimate styles of address to maintain
communication with his own clients. Addressing clients in this familiar way helped
Thompson maintain a reputation for personal care, attentiveness, and integrity that added
to the air of legitimacy and respectability he constructed about his business.
209

In the 1890s, many advertisers and printers turned to direct-mail campaigns
(printed advertisements mailed directly to individuals) to augment their consumer base.
The benefits of this advertising strategy increased with cheaper bulk mail rates after 1879
and the growing availability of mimeograph technology in the 1890s. “Autograph”
(a.k.a. “Mimeograph”) technology made the mass-production of typewritten letters with
personalized signatures and other hand-written elements more accessible to smaller firms.
The process became popular and cheaper than traditional printing because no typesetting
or skilled labor was involved, and the process could yield around 300 copies per run.
210

208
J. Walter Thompson Advertising Agency, J. Walter Thompson’s Blue Book on Advertising (1911), 8,
box DG7, JWTPC.
209
J. Walter Thompson will be discussed in more detail in the next chapter of this dissertation.
210
See footnote 203. Mimeographic printing is a low-cost process that works by wrapping a stencil around
an ink-filled drum positioned on a turn crank above another roller, then feeding the paper between the two
rollers, thereby forcing the ink through the holes in the stencil on to the paper. The “autographic printing”
process was first patented by Thomas Edison in 1876 and later licensed for manufacture by the A.B. Dick
Company in Chicago in the mid-1880s, who coined the term “mimeograph.” See David John Cole et al.,
Encyclopedia of Modern Everyday Inventions (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2003), 83; and William
Kennedy-Laurie Dickson and Antonia Dickson, The Life and Inventions of Thomas Alva Edison (New
York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1894), 183-185.
123
It is important to note, however, that direct mail campaigns, at least in principle, were not
new in the 1890s. Patent-medicine manufacturers had been using similar techniques in
the regular distribution of their catalogs, pamphlets, and almanacs since the mid-
nineteenth century. This distribution took place primarily through travelling salesmen,
however, who often hand-delivered the circulars to individual addressees in addition to
dropping bulk quantities at retail locations. What changed in the 1890s, once postal rates
for bulk mail had dropped dramatically, was the substitution of the travelling salesman
with the postal service. In effect, postal carriers became the surrogate travelling salesmen
for many more companies looking to profit from direct mail campaigns but who could
not afford the massive army of salesmen typically utilized by larger concerns earlier in
the century.
211
These developments—cheap bulk mail rates, and mimeograph printing
technologies—expanded the profitability of direct mail campaigns, making it a cheaper
undertaking that was more accessible to a wider range of advertisers and manufacturers
after 1900.
Pointing to the growing success of mail-order houses such as Sears Roebuck,
executives and experts wrote of the benefits that could be gained by advertising “through
the mails,” and suggested that the letters added a personal touch to any adman’s
message.
212
They noted that form-letter writing could be made to produce greater profits
if advertisers followed simple rules for addressing the potential consumer. These
included using appropriate and personalized salutations that addressed individuals by
name, and tailoring the content to fit the customer’s potential needs and desires.

211
On traveling salesmen, see Spears, 100 Years on the Road.
212
Mail-order trade,” Printers' Ink 20, no. 9 (Sept 1897): 16-17.
124
Trade journals published between 1900 and 1920 thus brimmed with
advertisements for ventures like the Chicago-based “Imitation Typewriting and
Addressing Co.,” which reproduced form letters on demand for a range of trades. In
1906, the company suggested that it could secure the reader’s attention by personalizing
form letters with “fill-in” blanks using its “imitation typewriter” method, thus saving the
advertiser time and money from hiring clerks or typists to personalize mass-mailing
letters individually with recipients’ names. Moreover, the company suggested that “a
personal letter to a live working list is next to the personal interview, the best possible
method for securing new business.”
213
Just as letter-writing manuals had likened personal
correspondence to face-to-face interaction, ITA pointed to written correspondence as a
surrogate for personal interaction and relationship-building. The company even offered
its own mailing lists “suited for all lines of business” to which the client could choose to
have his letters mailed.
214

213
“Imitation Typewriting & Addressing Co.,” Ad Sense 21, no. 2 (1906): rear cover, and Ad Sense 20, no.
1 (1906): 2, both Warshaw Series I Advertising Industry, box 5 fols. 5-8, AC NMAH. The company
praised the efforts of its multi-graph printing style, which involved using a combination of mimeograph,
“addressograph” (a label printer) and other printing styles to compose and address letters and envelopes for
mass-mailing campaigns.
214
These names were compiled from customer lists by patent medicine advertisers, also compiled by
individuals looking through the newspaper for specified information that might lead to a sale (i.e.
obituaries, births, marriages, etc.) and copying the individual information down and / or getting addresses
from local directories. See Strasser, Satisfaction Guaranteed, 215; Henkin, Postal Age, 156; advertisement
for the Rapid Addressing Machine Co., American Grocer (13 Jan 1892), 29; and C. M. Lemperly,
“Avoiding Form Letter Pitfalls,” Layman Printer 4, no. 5 (Feb 1914): 2.
125
Thinking about the letter as an inexpensive salesman, writers in the trade journal
The Layman Printer suggested that the key to achieving higher profits in advertising
resulted from re-integrating a personal touch back into communications between
producer and consumer. According to advertising manager Tim Thrift, greater profits
could be found in using a direct-mail approach to the buyer. He outlined a program of
tailoring form letters to suit the individual consumer, such as using customized
salutations and signatures to lend a hand-written, personal feel to what was otherwise a
mass-produced advertisement. Thrift stressed the importance of making each letter feel
as if it were individually composed in order to secure the consumer’s confidence and
establish rapport. Personalizing communication between producer and consumer, in his
view, provided the best method of building goodwill by securing the consumer’s interest,
desire, and purchasing commitment.
215

Thrift’s advice that form letters could efficiently re-personalize advertising
adapted earlier strategies that had appropriated the conventions of letter-writing. His
advice reflected a growing trend in advertising in the 1910s and 20s towards economizing
practices proven to win clientele (such as personalized modes of address). Indeed, by the
1920s direct mail advertising had become such a popular venture that an entire support
industry developed to produce and distribute mass-mailing letters for advertisers. This
direct-mail approach built upon the strategies popularized by catalog retailers like Sears
Roebuck and Montgomery Ward, whose addresses to “friends” rather than customers

215
Tim Thrift, “Using Direct Mail Advertising to Make Good-will pay bigger dividends,” Layman Printer
7, no. 12 (Dec 1923): 1-5. See also H.C. Goodwin, “How to make the letter produce,” Layman Printer 3,
no. 12-13 (July-Aug 1913): 161-165; Lemperly, “Avoiding Form Letter Pitfalls,” 1-5; and Leonard W.
Smith, “Common Sense makes Letter Writing Simple,” Layman Printer 8, no. 10 (May 1927): 1, 4.
126
provided the missing personal link that helped secure additional sales. In 1927, The
Layman Printer featured an article by advertising professional Leonard Smith, who
suggested that advertising managers learn the “art of letter writing” to more effectively
communicate with customers and earn sales. In his view, “letter salesmanship” became a
highly effective advertising approach when the proper words, phrasing, and format were
used.
216

In the early twentieth century, the R. R. Donnelley & Sons printing firm in
Chicago endorsed letter salesmanship when it utilized direct mail campaigns to solicit the
business of potential clients for its catalog-printing division.
217
Between 1910 and 1940,
Donnelley & Sons sent industry-specific letters addressed to various members of the
plumbing, electrical, and manufacturing professions across the country along with sample
catalogs and informational literature designed to acquire new business for the firm.
These mailings often circulated to a list of several hundred potential clients, each of
whom received the same form letter that appeared to be addressed, tailored, and signed

216
Smith, “Common Sense,” 1, 4.
217
From the 1860s through the 1890s, the company thrived on printing city directories, books, and
periodicals before expanding its operation to include catalog work, encyclopedia publishing, and
commercial graphic design in the early twentieth century. In 1908 the company established one of the first
apprenticeship training schools for the printing industry in the country, and won the role of official printer
for the Century of Progress Exhibition held in Chicago in 1933. Expanding its operation to include
regional production facilities throughout the country in the 1940s and 50s, R. R. Donnelley & Sons became
a cornerstone of the printing industry in the twentieth century and remains a Fortune 500 company today.
See Maija Anderson and Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library, “Historical
Note,” Online Finding Aid for R. R. Donnelley & Sons Company Archive, available online:
http://ead.lib.uchicago.edu/uncap_rs3.php?eadid=ICU.SPCL.DONNELLEY&q=Donnelley.
127
by a member of the Donnelley team. In addition to including a personalized salutation,
letters addressed the ways in which Donnelley & Sons could augment a firm’s business
with attractive catalogs and promotional materials. As a primary introduction between
Donnelley & Sons and its potential clients, the letters established Donnelley’s personal
commitment to each client: one typical letter closed by noting that “A Donnelley layout
man is ready to go over the matter with you without obligation.” This letter included a
signature from the manager of the catalog department, C. F. Beezley Jr., and the warm
closing “Very truly yours.”
218
Donnelley’s letters from the 1920s solicited business in
the same way that Wanamaker’s advertisements did in the 1870s—with quasi-
personalized language that adhered to the appropriate tones and conventions of business
correspondence. In this way, Donnelley’s actions point to the lasting currency of letter-
writing as a viable advertising strategy following World War I, especially in business-to-
business transactions where personal interaction remained a key component in winning a
sale.
219

Significantly, Donnelley’s assertion of this high-level of personal service
reinforced the familiar appeal of the individualized letter to the prospective client. The

218
R. R. Donnelley & Sons to 556 Jobbers of Mill Supplies, 26 Apr 1922, Series III box 156, RRD.
219
My research has shown a persistence of these more personal modes of communication within
advertising agencies’ own ads to prospective clients through the 1920s, suggesting that business to business
(B-B) advertising required an older, more traditional approach that rested upon the demonstration of
integrity and respect for the client. This persisted despite the informal and suggestive (some would even
say manipulative) modes of addressing the mainstream public in the 1920s and ‘30s, when the ad industry
created social problems that could only be solved by the consumption of particular products. See, for
example, Marchand, Advertising the American Dream.
128
letter’s suggestion that a “Donnelley man” would be waiting for the client’s response
reiterated the firm’s promise (which appeared throughout Donnelley ads and brochures)
of personalized, expert, and professional service at a level that no other competitor could
match.
220
Moreover, the letter showed acute attention to the expectations and demands of
his audience. While the Pinkham Co. had been quick to note the all-female team of
readers and correspondents working in the Pinkham mail room, Donnelley was sure to
emphasize that it would be one of his trained “Donnelley Men” that answered the
customer’s request. Gender, in each of these cases, mattered to the audience: a female
correspondent was essential to Pinkham’s appeal, which worked specifically in
opposition to the male world of doctors and husbands. In Donnelley’s case, professionals
were assumed to be men—a client would expect that a professional man would be the
primary account representative / contact, rather than a female secretary. To have clients
correspond with women would, in this case, show a lack of seriousness and commitment
on the printer’s part.
221

220
Donnelley also advertised its training program as part of the construction of its sophistication and worth
as a company. A “Donnelley Man” was a very specific, highly trained professional whose expertise and
personal attention would attract / appeal to clients. This solicitation, built upon the reputation and prestige
of its employees, helped Donnelley emphasize the personal touch his company provided over other printing
houses. See Series V RRD; and Michelle Bogart, Artists, Advertising and the Borders of Art (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1995), chapters 1, 3, and 6.
221
The drive toward professionalization in American business that took place in the Gilded Age coincided
with the growth of a corporate economy and the rising service sector in the United States. In this emergent
professional culture, men rose to executive importance while women were relegated to secretarial and
menial clerical work. More importantly, the ideal professional became gendered male. On women’s role
in the printing industry, see Ellen Mazur Thomson, The Origins of Graphic Design in America, 1870-1920
129
Touting personalized customer service in this way also helped Donnelley
counteract growing popular resentments against large corporations for being impersonal
monoliths. Denunciations of the “soulless” big business corporation surfaced during the
merger movement of the 1890s and 1900s and persisted through the 1940s with the
onslaught of the Depression and rising unemployment.
222
Working against such
perceptions, Donnelley emphasized the special care with which each order was taken and
each shop man trained, the attention paid to each client in meeting its needs, and the
personal touch given to each letter mailed on company stationery. In this way, the firm
achieved the façade of personal attention to the clients’ needs while economizing its
approach to advertising with a direct mail campaign.
Using the intimate address found in conventions of letter-writing, advertisers thus
attempted to build rapport with potential consumers between 1870 and 1930. Advertisers
borrowed the formats, salutations, and closings recommended by etiquette and epistolary
guide books, and relied upon expressive vocabularies of friendship to lend a sense of
intimacy to their otherwise commercial words. They included facsimile signatures and

(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), chapter 6. On men as ideal professionals, see Hilkey,
Character is Capital, chapter 7.
222
The perception that workers became mere “cogs” in the great machine of the corporation, the growing
physical and economic distance between owner-manufacturers and their workers, and fears of corporate
hegemony and secrecy each contributed to the resentment of large corporations in the public eye.

To
combat these criticisms, corporations focused their advertising on creating positive public relations
campaigns that displayed the civic responsibility, humanitarianism, and moral legitimacy of the corporation
itself. See Marchand, Creating the Corporate Soul; and Tedlow, Keeping the Corporate Image.
Marchand’s invocation of the “soulless” corporation borrows from contemporary expressions in print both
for and against corporate power between 1905 and 1940. See Creating the Corporate Soul, 7, and 340 n. 3.
130
used scripted fonts to further personalize these letters and phrases. In so doing,
advertisers like John Wanamaker, J.C. Ayer, Louis Prang, and Lydia Pinkham attempted
to frame their relationships to consumers within the realm of friendship, and thereby
blurred the distinction between personal and commercial communication. These
strategies would later frame the business-to-business communications of firms like N.W.
Ayer, J. Walter Thompson, and R. R. Donnelley, who consciously and overtly adopted
respectfully intimate tones when addressing potential clientele. The terms that had
structured intimate correspondence in letters, like the terms of personal exchange that
governed the use and circulation of exchange cards, now came into the service of
commercial advertising in the decades after 1870. With this, advertisements acted as a
form of correspondence between producers and consumers—however one-sided and
commercial that correspondence truly was.

Humor
Epistolary advertising, in its many forms, was only one strategy emerging in the
1880s that advertisers would find profitable in making a more intimate appeal to the
public. In a distinct yet related mode of establishing rapport, admen adopted conventions
of humor to attract consumers. In trade cards and other media, advertisers copied and
reworked popular parodies of courtship, politics, and caricature, and drew from other
popular culture references such as Gilbert and Sullivan. As theorist Arthur Asa Berger
notes, humor functions as a means of social integration, helping groups establish identity
and a sense of solidarity, by helping individuals relate to each other and identify with
each other. Those who understand and laugh at a particular joke thus become a group of
131
insiders, in relation to those who miss the punch-line or who are the butt of the joke itself
(outsiders).
223
Like a joke given at the beginning of a speech, humor in advertising
served two goals: it warmed up an intended audience of insiders to the message
presented, but more importantly, it made the message itself more memorable. In trade
cards especially, humor (and particularly serialized humorous cards) augmented the
collectible appeal of the medium and ensured that commercial messages would be viewed
and re-viewed as consumers pasted and gazed upon cards in scrapbooks and albums.
Humorous trade cards, which were often serialized, worked on multiple levels to
attract consumers and heighten the advertisement’s appeal. First, these cards drew upon
a popular literary form—the serial—to encourage the consumer’s investment with the
narrative presented. Serialized trade cards ensured repeat exposure for the product as
consumers would search out and acquire additional cards (which often required repeat
purchases of the product) in order to complete the series. Second, the narratives
presented on these cards typically relied upon humorous representations and / or parodies
of popular culture, including melodrama and caricature. When used in advertising, these
humorous serials assisted advertisers by constructing an imaginary group of insiders to
which the ideal consumers would belong.
Issuing cards in series provided one way for printers to maximize their trade card
output without the added cost of designing additional plates to print cards individually.
Printers typically issued serial cards in series of six to eight cards using similar designs,
layouts, colors, fonts, and images for each of the cards in the set. Some of these were

223
See Arthur Asa Berger, Blind Men and Elephants: Perspectives on Humor (New Brunswick, NJ:
Transaction, 2010), 95-96.
132
strictly visual, containing no texts, while others included anecdotes, bits of conversation,
jokes, and commentary. Many printing houses, in fact, issued all their stock cards and
even many of their custom cards in serial form.
224
Printers also encouraged retailers and
advertisers to purchase cards in series by offering discounts when clients purchased them
as a set, and additional discounts when buying series in bulk. Many printers even threw
in the customization (i.e. the printing of the advertiser’s name, contact information,
product descriptions, etc.) for free with large orders.
225

Serialized trade cards in the 1870s and ‘80s borrowed from familiar media
structures—such as serialized narratives—found in contemporary literary magazines.
226

224
In a series, six or eight cards might contain similar designs but would always be printed in the same
color scheme—this allowed the printer to save money by running a single large plate through his press to
yield multiple cards. The process lent a measure of variety in a cost-reducing way by allowing the
manufacturer to produce cards in batches, rather than individually. Research conducted in the ephemera
collections of the American Antiquarian Society, HL, DCWL, and Warshaw AC NMAH demonstrates the
preponderance of stock cards over custom creations for the years 1870-1900. Catalogs produced by
printers such as Prang demonstrate the typical issue of stock cards in series of four to eight designs and sold
in sets of ten to twelve. See, for example, Louis Prang Co., “Price List” (Boston: Prang, 1879), Louis
Prang Papers, Last HL. See also Lambert, “The Seasonal Trade,” chapter 5.
225
See, for example, Caxton Printing Co. Sample Card Book (1883), Doc 403, DCWL; advertisement for
Bufford & Sons Printing Co. (1885), Warshaw Series I Advertising Industry, box 7 fol. 9, AC NMAH; and
sales fliers for Louis Prang & Co. (1870-1900), Louis Prang Papers, bk 16a, Last HL. Many printing
houses only sold cards in series. For example, see the ordering instructions in Agent’s Calling-Card
Sample Book for Card Mills (Northford CT), pub. by Wemple & Kronheim, NY (1878), Doc 218, DCWL.
226
Though not all serialized narratives were humorous in the nineteenth century, most serialized trade cards
were. In my research of over 5,000 trade cards in the collections of HL, AC NMAH, DCWL, and the
American Antiquarian Society, I found few examples of trade cards engaging with melodrama or somber
133
Fiction published in serial form first emerged in the US in the 1840s, and grew in
popularity in the last decades of the nineteenth century. With the availability of cheaply-
produced paper and advancements in printing technologies that made mass-production
more affordable, serial fiction was dominant in many of the “family” weeklies and
monthlies between the years 1865 and 1885. When the typical subscription costs for
popular and literary magazines declined between 1865 and 1900, serials became
increasingly available to an ever-growing middle-class audience with the leisure time and
money available to spend on such pleasurable reading.
227

Reading the serialized narratives on trade cards adapted the same skills that
individuals developed in reading serialized fiction. Home management guides
throughout the nineteenth century advocated reading as an activity that was suitable for
wholesome family leisure time, much like listening to the radio or watching television

themes. Forming less than 1% of my study, these included trade cards for insurance agencies depicting the
various disasters which they could protect you against; and cards delineating the downfall of otherwise
genteel individuals who fell victim to vices such as alcoholism. See, for example, trade card for Fidelity &
Casualty Ins. Co. (1877), Col. 838, cab. 8 dr. 4, box 3, DCWL. These exceptions notwithstanding, my
research indicated that most trade cards—designed for their collectability and visual appeal—contained
positive themes that would entertain.
227
Typically, one serial novel was published at a time in most magazines, though Harper’s and Atlantic
Monthly might contain occasionally include multiple serials at a time. At mid-century, English novelists
furnished many of the serials published in American magazines, though American authors (including
Holmes, Howells, James, and others) soon provided their own work for inclusion in the popular genre. The
public fancy for serials continued through the 1870s into the 1880s, but was eclipsed by the popularity of
short stories in the late 1880s and 1890s, and the rise of dime novels between 1870 and 1910. See Mott,
History of American Magazines, vol. 1 p. 547; vol. 3 p. 223-224, 399; and vol. 4 p. 118.
134
would be considered by experts in the early and mid-twentieth century.
228
Serialized
trade cards—both humorous and not—thus combined the wholesome activity of reading,
which nurtured personal character, and scrapbooking, which helped to visually educate
children and adults in matters of taste. Moreover, many advertisers acknowledged the
collectible appeal of serialized trade cards by encouraging individuals to “Save this card
until you have a full set.”
229
In such cases, the narratives worked to augment the visual
attractiveness of the card’s design and imagery and heighted the appeal of trade cards as
scrapbook collectibles.
In a set of cards advertising Diamond Package Dyes, the humorous appeal of the
serial narrative in trade-card form worked on both visual and literary levels. The viewer
enters a scene where two women fight over one man’s love. They both entreat him with
promises of devotion, but while one woman pretends to kill herself by jumping into the
ocean in order to win the man’s sympathy, the other threatens to kill herself (or him) in
the absence of his love. The penultimate scene sees the younger of the women pointing
two guns, one at herself and one at the man. He’s holding the weakened older woman in
the moment after she’s been pulled from the sea, though she’s still forlorn and holds a

228
Lynn Spigel digests the connection between broadcast amusements (i.e. radio and television),
domesticity, and the family ideal after 1920 in Make Room for TV: Television and the Family Ideal in
Postwar America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 26-35. The importance of reading within
the family unit, especially as a mode of nurturing personal character, was a common topic engaged by
home management guidebooks in the second half of the nineteenth century. See, for example, Blake,
Twenty-Six Hours a Day, 43-46, 64, 74-77.
229
Trade cards for F.R. Harris & Co., box F-5 fol. 27, BTC HL; Burt & Packard’s Fine Shoes (series of 8),
box F-5 fol. 29, BTC HL; and serial cards in box F-9 fol. 2, p. 7-10, BTC HL.
135
bottle of poison to her lips. This scene promises a depressing and dramatic conclusion,
but in the final vignette the threesome decides to move to Utah, and “live and dye happy”
(FIG 2.7).
230
In its depiction of attempted suicide by poison, murder, and romance, this
narrative draws upon themes popularized by Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and
Leoncavallo’s opera Pagliacci.
231
Yet this series of trade cards inverted the melodrama
of Shakespeare and Leoncavallo with parody when it adapted contemporary debates
surrounding polygamy and its practice in the West. The satiric twist at the conclusion of
this short tale lies in the threesome’s decision to move to Utah (as an alternative to
suicide and murder), thus resulting in a humorous conclusion to what otherwise appeared
to be a very dire situation.
232
Familiarity with these contemporary cultural themes and
debates would ensure that certain individuals would understand the transgressive humor

230
Trade cards for Diamond Package Dyes (c. 1881-1900), box F-9 fol. 2, p. 35, BTC HL. These same
images were used in stock advertisements for retail stores. See trade cards for Peabody’s, Col. 548, box 1,
DCWL. Evidence of cards collected as a series also appears in the Cols. 669 and 838, DCWL; scrapbooks
in BTC HL; and Warshaw AC NMAH.
231
Pagliacci premiered in the US in 1893 and told the story of a jealous actor who killed his adulterous
wife and her lover on stage while dressed as a clown. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pagliacci#Performance_history.
232
Brigham Young first declared polygamy part of Mormon official practice in 1852. As early as 1856 the
issue reached national attention when the nascent Republican Party made it part of its dual platform against
“barbarism” (the other issue being slavery). Debates over the issue continued after the Civil War, until the
Church of Latter Day Saints banned polygamy as a sanctioned practice in 1890. Utah was admitted as a
state in 1896. See Sarah Barringer Gordon, The Mormon Question: Polygamy and Constitutional Conflict
in Nineteenth-Century America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002).
136
of this narrative. Such referencing of contemporary themes aided advertisers in their
attempts to re-imagine their practice with a feeling of intimacy.
Throughout this mini-narrative the viewer is reminded of the product for sale—
Diamond Package Dyes—as the text continually uses misspellings and puns to include
the product (clothing dyes) in the text itself (substituting it for the word “die”). The
weird little characters and their interesting costumes contribute to the humor (however
dark) of this card, poking fun at the treatments of love and devotion that filled
sentimental greeting cards and calling cards of the 1880s and 1890s (see FIGs 1.6, 1.7).
Humor and narrative thus worked together, appealing to the viewer to enter the story in
progress and enjoy the cards as something other than advertisements. The coherence of
this narrative depends upon the individual having all four cards to view as a set, and thus
the individual collector would have been encouraged to seek out missing cards in order to
complete the narrative at hand.
The comic aspects of this narrative, poking fun at conventional expressions of
devotion and passion in popular ephemera (such as greeting cards and calling cards),
became a common trope in exchange cards during the Gilded Age. For example, one
popular printing house advertised “Joker” calling cards, which openly alluded to
inappropriate sexual activity between acquaintances. Though the cards were not used as
advertisements proper, they help to illustrate the type of intimate connection constructed
through humor on exchange cards like the humorous serials described above. Perhaps
best described as prank business cards, Joker cards typically appealed to male audiences
as prospective buyers and provided casual mottos such as “Not married,” “out for a good
137
time” and “Gentleman Jollier.”
233
These Joker cards put in high relief the cultural
construction of sincerity by the antebellum middle-class and its display by self-
reflexively poking fun at the ideal of transparency. Moreover, the cards subvert the terms
of propriety with crass language that openly proposes illicit sexual encounters. Invoking
a style of chauvinist bachelor humor characteristic of the mid-twentieth century, many
cards implied that the owner wished to shed the emotional baggage that came with
courting a woman and instead reduce such relationships to purely sexual liaisons. Such a
display of crass humor on a calling card, the object considered one of the most important
material signifiers of a person’s character and station, can best be thought of as a
deliberate subversion of the codes of genteel performance and an invocation of humor
and parody on a personal communicative level.
234
Individuals could only present the
Joker card to friends who would understand the jest rather than take offense. In this way,
the humor on these cards reinforced the intimacy of the existing personal relationship
between the bearer of the Joker card and the intended recipient.
Like Joker cards, many serialized trade cards depicted visual narratives that
subverted societal norms of courtship and proper relations between men and women, and

233
Columbus Card Co., OH, “Agent’s Sample Book [calling cards]” (c. 1870-1900), p. 18-20, Doc 356,
DCWL. See also Rickards, Encyclopedia of Ephemera, 186. A similar category existed in the “mock”
valentine; see Henkin, Postal Age, 150; Shank, Token of My Affection, 41-53; and Elizabeth M. Jones,
“What’s Love got to do with it? The social life of comic valentines, 1870-1920” (Master’s Thesis,
University of Delaware, 2009).
234
Karen Halttunen discusses deliberate subversions of genteel performance in “American Tintype Portraits
and the Decline of Victorian Middle-Class Propriety,” in America and the Tintype, ed. Steven Kasher (New
York: Thames & Hudson, 2008), 29-32.
138
relied upon the reader’s implicit understanding of these insider codes for the humor to be
successful. In one such set, a charming young man approaches a bashful young woman
in the presence of a chaperone, who promptly sends the man away (much to the young
lady’s dismay) (FIG 2.8).
235
The young couple then finds a tramp nearby, and solicits
him to sweet-talk the chaperone so that the young couple can be alone. The final card
shows the young couple smiling as they walk away from the blushing chaperone and the
doting tramp. This set worked on several levels to subvert the normative codes of
courtship and social relations in the late-nineteenth century, and thereby prompt a
humorous response from viewers familiar with these codes. The chaperone serves as a
visual reminder of the strict codes of the pre-war years, which prevented young people
from socializing in order to adhere to codes of propriety. Despite this enforcement of
middle-class rules of conduct, the chaperone herself bends the rules when she is taken by
the tramp, whose compliments flatter and cause her to blush. Poking fun at the
prescribed framework for proper courtship, this set of cards, like those for Diamond
Package Dyes, creates a visual parody of proper middle-class behavior in the late-
nineteenth century. The humor of these cards lies in the couple’s subversion of
prescribed behavior in diverting the chaperone, and in the chaperone’s own eschewal of
class boundaries by fraternizing with a man below her own station. Depicting humor like
this became a successful advertising technique in the 1880s and ‘90s, especially in trade
cards where the humor would aid the collectible appeal of the cards themselves. This

235
Blank serial cards depicting lovers, Col. 9, box 10, DCWL.
139
success is evidenced by the appearance of the same serialized trade cards in multiple
individuals’ scrapbooks dating to the 1890s.
236

Readers accustomed to following a segmented literary narrative in a series of
installments in magazines could thus easily transfer this skill and familiarity with a serial
medium to trade cards.
237
Just as readers could collect magazine installments to complete
a serialized literary narrative, scrapbook-makers collected serialized trade cards to create
cohesive narratives on the pages of their albums. As serials, trade cards such as those
rendered for Diamond Package Dyes thus appealed to an existing cultural literacy that
reinforced consumers’ impulse to collect and preserve objects in scrapbooks.

236
The cards for Diamond Package Dyes above appeared, as a full set, pasted into the scrapbooks of two
separate individuals’ albums housed in the collections of DCWL, and one at HL. In comparison, I found
few other duplicate examples of other serialized sets throughout the course of my research. This indicates
that, while the Diamond Package Dyes series was certainly visually appealing to these collectors, the
narrative appealed enough to motivate these separate individuals to pursue and obtain the remaining cards
in the series to complete the narrative. From the collection practices, therefore, I can infer that a) the cards
must have been appealing, for either their visual appearance, their humor, or both; and b) at least three
individuals found these cards appealing enough to want the remaining cards.
237
Wicke, Advertising Fictions, 173. Wicke argues that advertising and literature emerged concurrently
and often times competed for full attention under the reader’s gaze. She suggests that, over time, the type
of interaction required with advertising shifted away from literary reading practices (built upon personal
and intimate interaction with the text) toward “social reading” (in public spaces and less intimate formats).
As she suggests, this “social reading” proceeded out of a close imitation and modulation of the “reading”
required by literature. That is, advertisers constructed advertisements within the genre of literature by
appropriating familiar conventions and tropes so that readers could apply similar tactics to each genre.

140
Like the parody of sentimental courtship depicted on the cards for Diamond
Package Dyes, printers in the 1870s, ‘80s, and ‘90s were often keen to adopt themes from
popular culture for inclusion on serialized stock trade cards, particularly through
caricature. In particular, many printers ridiculed immigrant groups from the perspective
of white middle-class hegemony. These images, through their belittling satire, created a
culture of insiders and outsiders, which reinforced social hierarchies already emerging in
American culture.
In one such example, the musicals of Gilbert & Sullivan, and their intense
popularity in the Gilded Age, provided frequent fodder for printers aiming to capture a
broad public audience.
238
In a card picturing a rotund Buttercup from HMS Pinafore
(1878) (FIG 2.9), the printer offers a markedly different representation of Buttercup from
other contemporaries—depicting a squat, bow-legged woman instead of the rosy-cheeked
beauty described in the score.
239
The image echoes racial caricatures of brutish Irish and
German women from earlier in the nineteenth century, yet the caption “They call me
Buttercup with Magnolia Hams” suggests that the product could transform her in the eyes

238
Printers appropriated both the characters and the dialogue from popular Gilbert & Sullivan works such
as the HMS Pinafore (1878), Patience (1881), and The Mikado (1885). These popular operettas lent to
easy serialization in trade cards and promised to bring steady profits as individuals collected the cards one-
by-one to include in their scrapbooks. See, for example, Col 669 no. 5 (c.1883) p. 37, DCWL. Bella Clara
Landauer also provides a brief discussion of the preponderance of Gilbert and Sullivan themes on trade
cards. See Gilbert and Sullivan Influence on American Tradecards (New York: Priv. print, 1936).
239
Trade card for Magnolia Hams, featuring character from Pinafore (c.1880), box F-9, bk 2 p. 22, BTC
HL; Trade card for Higgin’s German Laundry Soap (1880), Col. 669 bk 27, DCWL; and Sir Arthur
Sullivan and William S. Gilbert, H. M. S. Pinafore, vocal score, ed. Ephraim Hammett Jones and Carl
Simpson (London: Courier Dover, 2002 [1878]), 16.
141
of potential suitors—from an unattractive, masculine character to a sweet and dainty
maiden. Calling to mind the life-enhancing properties of consumption that would be
touted by advertisers several decades later, this card nevertheless parodies such claims to
curative metamorphosis by rendering the change unfathomable and absurd in this case.
240

In drawing an incongruous (and thus humorous) connection between the character of
Buttercup and attractiveness, the card marks the rotund woman as an outsider—the butt
of a joke—and seemingly hopeless in her attempt at daintiness. The humor in this trade
card satirizes ethnic otherness in order to construct its appeal to the (presumably non-
Irish white) group of insiders.
Like Pinafore, the popularity of Gilbert & Sullivan’s The Mikado (1885)
contributed to an avalanche of cards borrowing Japanese themes and characters from the
play. Many trade cards featured borders and designs culled from Japanese architecture,
while Gilbert & Sullivan characters such as the Mikado’s “three little maids” became a
common appropriation, appearing in trade cards to sell corsets, thread, watches, elixirs,
and other household products.
241
Moreover, caricatures of all things Japanese and
Chinese persisted in the wake of immigration reform in the 1880s and rising Nativism

240
Roland Marchand discusses at length the transformative properties of consumption as constructed by
advertisers in the 1920s. See Advertising the American Dream.
241
See esp. Col. 108, DCWL. The timing of the musical coincided with a nation-wide fascination for all
things Japanese, resulting in a flourishing of Japanese-themed furniture, interior designs, and ornamentation
for books and other printed ephemera. Ulysses Grant Dietz, “From Romanticism to the Gilded Age: Home
interiors 1840-1880” (lecture presented at the Winterthur Fall Institute, Winterthur, DE, 30 Sept 2009).
142
against Asian immigrant workers in the American West.
242
In cards for products as
diverse as soap, sewing machines, millinery, perfumes, and dry goods, Asiatic characters
assisted advertisers with cartoony smiles and satirical gestures. In another card for
Magnolia Hams, for example, a strong and masculine Ulysses S. Grant travels to China,
where he is greeted by locals offering their plumpest rats for his lunch. Declining, Grant
gestures to his servant wielding a large cured ham on his shoulder (FIG 2.10). Though
the advertiser probably intended the card to emphasize the suitability of his product for
long-term travel, the caricature in this card depicting rats as haute cuisine—an idea meant
to disgust many middle-class readers—invokes the poor taste of Grant’s hosts to satirize
their cultural difference and backwardness. Whether or not these men actually ate rats,
the American perception that they did reinforced the immigrants’ subordination in
domestic popular culture. This card participates in this separation of insiders from
outsiders through satire, and in its appeal to potential consumers evokes a mean-spirited
humor of exclusion to cultivate a more intimate relationship with its intended white
middle-class audience.

The Humor of Exclusion
Like other caricatured outsider groups, racial caricatures of African Americans
held a prominent place in the body of trade cards circulating throughout the nation in the
post-Reconstruction years. These representations were part of a cultural moment in
which popular sentiment retreated from the emancipationist view of the early

242
On Nativism in California, see Alexander Saxton, The Indispensable Enemy (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1995).
143
Reconstruction years, whereby society gradually reduced the civil rights of blacks as Jim
Crow took hold and solidified with the Plessy v. Fergusson decision in 1896. Such
caricatures, through the nature of their humorous representations of comical, clumsy, and
inappropriate behavior, dismissed African Americans’ attempts at achieving middle-class
status.
243
This humor of exclusion found a ready audience among printers aiming to
exploit popular trends to sell prints. Their favor for such caricatures influenced the
themes found on trade cards, and advertisers quickly responded by adapting the humor of
exclusion into ad copy that paralleled these demeaning images.
In advertisements, a popular trope depicted blacks using soaps, cleansers, shoe
and stove polishes, and the like in a frank linkage between their colored skin and the
application (or removal) of blackening.
244
For example, the “Gold Dust” twins (FIG
2.11), the trade characters used to advertise N. K. Fairbank’s soaps and cleansers in the
1880s and ‘90s, are a typical example of the use of blacks to demonstrate the cleansing
and removal of “dirt” and more generally, blackness.
245
More than a general cleanser,

243
These caricatures had their origins in the blackface minstrelsy of the antebellum period. See footnotes
248 and 255.
244
See, for example, trade cards for Rising Sun Stove Polish (c.1890), Col. 9, box 6, DCWL; Miller,
Wagner & Lindenstock, trade cards for Marsh’s Fine Soaps (c.1880), Col. 838, cab. 8 dr. 4 box 4, DCWL;
and Wemple & Co., trade cards for St. Louis Beef Canning Co. (c. 1890), Col. 9, box 2, DCWL.
245
In the British Empire, such images represented Victorian needs to pacify the threat of colonial others
and “cleanse” them in preparation for participation in the imperial citizenry (however limited that
participation may have actually been). See Ann McClintock, “Soft-Soaping Empire,” in Imperial Leather:
Race, Gender, and Sexuality in the Colonial Contest (New York: Routledge, 1995), 130-143. On other
representations of blacks in advertising, see Marilyn Kern-Foxworth, Aunt Jemima, Uncle Ben, and Rastus:
Blacks in Advertising Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1994); and Jan
144
ads for soaps like this purported to be whitening agents—helping individuals adhere to
new standards of hygiene and cleanliness prescribed by middle-class Progressives.
246

The depiction also worked as a literal testament to the soap’s strength: so strong it could
clean the black right off an African’s skin. In the United States, these images pointed to
class and racial anxieties over the position of blacks in a post-emancipation society. Such
anxieties over black encroachment upon middle-class culture and the preservation of
white propriety in both the North and the South precipitated a host of critiques about
African American life, behavior, and their suitability for inclusion in mainstream (white)
society. Images such as these, including the character “Kornelia Kinks” who became the
spokesperson for H. O. Cereal in the early twentieth century (FIG 2.12), persisted in
American advertising well into the twentieth century.
247

The caricatured portrayal found in these prints had its roots in the origins of
blackface minstrelsy dating to the 1830s; and popular prints that parodied the behavior of
free blacks in the Northeast through caricatures such as “Zip Coon,” a black urban dandy
whose attempts at middle-class propriety revealed his uncultured inadequateness.
248

Nederveen Pieterse, White on Black: Images of Africa and Blacks in Western Popular Culture (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1992), chapter 13.
246
On the role of advertising in cultivating new hygienic standards in the US, see Juliann Sivulka, Stronger
than Dirt: A Cultural History of Advertising Personal Hygiene in America, 1875-1940 (Amherst, NY:
Humanity Books, 2001).
247
Advertising postcard for H. O. Cereal (1907), Warshaw Series I Cereal, box 1 fol. 21, AC NMAH.
248
Joshua Brown dates the origins of blackface minstrelsy to 1831 in his visual essay, “True Likenesses,”
in Eric Foner, Forever Free: the Story of Emancipation and Reconstruction (New York: Alfred A. Knopf,
2005), 37. In the antebellum years, the culture of southern slavery, the abolitionist movement, and popular
cultural elements such as Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin each had a role in shaping the servile, loyal, and
145
Following the Civil War, representations of African Americans shifted as Republican
sentiment in the North turned away from the emancipationist view of Reconstruction and
against the plight of the newly freed blacks. Visions of a romanticized past emerged that
pacified black attempts to gain full citizenship and civil equality under Reconstruction
legislature and relegated African-American identities to perpetual servitude. Such servile
images, which included advertising icons such as Aunt Jemima, helped to alleviate white
anxieties over the new position of blacks as wage-laborers and citizens in US society.
249

In the varnish trades especially, African Americans quickly became commonplace
in caricatured representations that built upon satirizing black behavior, language, and
dress in the 1880s. The case of one advertiser in New York City is especially illustrative:
it demonstrates the variety with which humorous serials of African Americans appeared
in trade card advertisements. Between 1880 and 1888, New York varnish manufacturer
Clarence Brooks & Co. utilized over 30 different trade card designs to advertise his
products—each of which depicted African Americans in satirical and caricatured
portrayals. Brooks’s cards circulated widely, reaching Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin in
addition to towns along the eastern seaboard and in the Midwest, and offer a slice of the
types of advertising portrayals that were typical of African Americans in the 1880s.

Christianized representations of African Americans. At the same time, pro-slavery pundits critiqued the
abolitionist movement with representations of bumbling free blacks in the North and improper
amalgamation of the races. See “True Likenesses,” 38-39.
249
Jo-Ann Morgan, “Mammy and the Huckster: Selling the Old South for the New Century,” American Art
9, no. 1 (1995): 86-109; and Eric Foner, Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877
(New York: Perennial Classics, 2002 [1988]), image captions facing p. 387.
146
One set utilized by Brooks included the “Blackville” series, a set of lifestyle
parodies produced in the 1880s and ‘90s by the American Bank Note Lithographic Co.
and published in Harper’s Weekly between 1874 and 1880.
250
Scenes depicted African
Americans’ ill-fated attempts at middle-class life, including picnics ruined by wild
animals, outfits boasting garish colors and mismatched prints, and the individuals’ lack of
taste and refinement. Brooks used these prints to issue a calendar that would advertise
his varnishes, dividing the images into monthly installments that consumers could obtain
through repeat purchase. One prominent sub-set within the series ridiculed a set of twins
as they pursued courtships with men, married, and honeymooned in Europe (FIG 2.13).
251

While these images present decidedly fairer representations of black life, the same
brightly-printed frocks and waistcoats appear to denote the individuals’ lack of taste for
appropriate dress and finery. Their relationships seem doomed from the start when a
black cat presides over their dual wedding, and upon their return to Blackville “after
doing Paris and the rest of Europe,” the couples’ bourgeois display of their station
includes toting a Mammy figure behind them to tend to two infants. This ultimate mark

250
This series was published in Harper’s Weekly from 1874-1880, and later reproduced as trade cards and
calendar images by the American Bank Note Co. See Michael D. Harris, “Memories and memorabilia, art
and identity,” Third Text 12, no. 44 (1998): 28; and Francis Martin, “To Ignore Is to Deny: E. W. Kemble’s
Racial Caricature as Popular Art,” The Journal of Popular Culture 40, no. 4 (2007): 662.
251
It is unclear whether these trade cards referred to actual events. Regardless, the courtship, marriage, and
European honeymoon of two sets of African American twins was a popular theme also caricatured by the
lithographic company Miller, Wagner & Lindenstock, Chicago. The resulting trade cards were then used to
advertise “Marsh’s Fine Soaps” in the 1880s. See trade cards for Marsh’s Fine Soaps, Col. 838, cab. 8 dr.
4, DCWL.
147
of middle-class gentility—the use of a black maid to care for one’s children—could have
appeared as a slap in the face to white viewers intent on excluding blacks, regardless of
their wealth or public status, from inclusion in the genteel middle class.
In larger print culture, African Americans’ attempts to participate in the middle-
class genteel culture were a frequent topic for critique, including their dress, public
behavior, and oration skills, as in another card utilized by Brooks entitled “Ceticism”
(FIG 2.15). Some advertising images even derided blacks’ propensity for equal
participation in the newly reconstructed Union by suggesting their political alliances
might be bought with foodstuffs (FIG 2.16).
252
Aside from mocking language skills and
taste for fashion, images like these exaggerated the stereotypical facial features thought to
characterize African Americans, including a pronounced and sloping forehead, frizzy or
unruly hair, large and flat noses, and thick pink lips. Such features stood in marked
contrast to the dainty appearances of white figures in popular print culture (see FIGs 2.7,
2.8), and served to underscore the differences that marked blacks as blacks and whites as
whites in visual representations.
253

The Blackville prints took their cue from the popularity of a series of lithographs
designed by artist Thomas Worth and issued by Currier & Ives, known as the
“Darktown” prints. The firm issued the prints from the mid-1870s to the early 1890s in
various sizes, including trade cards, with many large prints sold for framing and
household decoration. The series depicted newly-freed African Americans engaging in—
or attempting to engage in—everyday middle-class activity and popular sport, usually

252
Krebs Litho Co., trade card for Magnolia Hams (c. 1870-1880), box F-9, scrapbook 2, p. 21v, BTC HL.
253
See also trade cards for Marsh’s Fine Soaps (c.1880), Col. 838, cab. 8 dr. 4 box 3, DCWL.
148
with disastrously clumsy consequences that foreshadowed the slapstick parodies that
would occur later in newspaper comics.
254
The caricatures demonstrated African
Americans’ supposed inability to conform to white middle-class standards of behavior,
social etiquette, and public life. Each installment of the series sold in the tens of
thousands—a sales record which suggests that many white viewers found these prints to
be comical and grossly amusing, despite (or perhaps because of) their obvious belittling
of African American life (FIG 2.14).
255

In the Darktown and Blackville serials, scene after scene depicted blacks engaged
in lawn parties, leisure sports, and social situations that inevitably led to chaos. Children
got into trouble and disrespected the elderly, sporting events ended in accidents, and men
became helpless cowards in the face of danger.
256
The comics represented blacks as
social outcasts who fumbled traditional codes of propriety and transgressed familiar
gender norms. In one print titled the Darktown “Cake Walk” (1883) (FIG 2.14), the
women are shown displaying their attempt at fashionable dress while men ogle their
awkward gate and curvy figures.
257
Their choice of loud patterns and garish colors points
to their attempt to imitate the fashionable styles found in popular women’s magazines
such as Godey’s Lady’s Book, but highlights the black women’s miserable failure at

254
Brown, “Jim Crow,” in Forever Free, 219-221.
255
Brown, “Countersigns,” in Forever Free, 182; and Brian F. Le Beau, “African Americans in Currier and
Ives’s America: The Darktown Series,” Journal of American and Comparative Cultures 23, no. 1 (2000):
74.
256
Le Beau, “Darktown,” 78-80.
257
Currier & Ives, “De Cake Walk” (1883), Prints & Photographs Division, Library of Congress,
Washington, DC (hereafter LOC PP).
149
achieving such a stylish appearance. The women display anything but “beauty, grace,
and style” and thus directly contradict the caption for the print. The incongruities pointed
out in this scene—the absence of beauty, grace, or style, the feeble attempt at imitation of
middle-class fashion, and the women’s outward display of their sexuality for the ogling
men—provide the key humorous elements in the scene and point to blacks’ failure at
imitating white middle-class standards of dress and behavior.
The Darktown and Blackville prints circulated as trade cards in the last decades of
the century. Used as advertisements, distributed in series, given away as premiums, and
printed with calendars, these images became collectible objects just like the other trade
cards discussed in this study. The caricature prints appealed to consumers interested in
serialized prints, to the culture of insiders who would understand their humor, and to
album makers who would seek out, collect, and save these prints in their albums and
scrapbooks.
The humor of exclusion found within the Blackville and Darktown caricatures
marked both the inferiority of blacks and reinforced the solidarity of whites by pointing
out the incongruities of blacks’ ill-fated attempts at adhering to codes of proper etiquette
and behavior as laid out by the white middle class. Laughter, as a “social gesture of
mockery” works in these prints to create a sense of superiority among the insider
audience over the ridiculed subject.
258
Here, humor arises out of an incongruous

258
In the mid-seventeenth century, Thomas Hobbes argued for a “superiority theory” of humor, which,
once elaborated by Henri Bergson in the nineteenth century, held that laughter can often be a “social
gesture of mockery” extending from the realization of one’s superiority over another person and resulting
in a supposition of power over the ridiculed subject. See John Morreall, ed., The Philosophy of Humor
(New York: State University of New York Press, 1987), 19, and 117. Thomas Hobbes, The Elements of
150
relationship between social norms and expected behaviors and actual activities or
statements. As a social gesture, laughter can act as a “corrective” against social deviance
and eccentricity by singling out those behaviors that deviate from the experiences and
awareness of the majority group (in this case, white middle-class Americans). In this
way, ridicule has historically helped to police deviant behavior by adding the stigma of
public humiliation; and thus worked in much the same way as Foucault’s theory of
normative sexual behaviors in the Victorian period.
259
Caricatures of black Americans in
this period depicted childish, unrestrained, and ill-mannered innocents whose frequent
outbursts and irresponsibility marked them as eternally unfit for middle-class status.
When the Darktown or Blackville figures attempted to demonstrate their middle-class
propriety through dress, manners, and garden parties, white viewers would immediately
recognize the incongruous elements between such depictions and the prescribed norms in
order to find the scenes humorous.
260
Blacks’ clumsy attempts at dressing fashionably to

Law, Natural and Politic (London: 1650-51), chapter 9 part 13, available online at
http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/Hob2Ele.html.
259
Morreall, Humor, 188; Joseph Boskin, “The Complicity of Humor: The Life and Death of Sambo,” in
idem, 254-259; and Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality, vol. 1: An Introduction (New York: Vintage,
1990 [1978]).
260
Martin Berger, in his discussion of whiteness in American visual culture, suggests that in the late-
nineteenth century the “one drop” rule destabilized the primacy of the visual for determining race in public
space and representations began to attach conduct and behavior to racial depictions to aid the distinctions
between whites, blacks, and other minorities. See Sight Unseen: Whiteness and American Visual Culture
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), 135. Importantly, recent theorists have argued that ethnic
and racial humor can be a mode of demonstrating one’s racial or ethnic pride by reclaiming traditionally
derisive stereotypes as self-consciously self-critical humor or as a self-defensive mode of brushing off
151
demonstrate taste, speaking appropriately to demonstrate eloquence, and interacting
honorably to demonstrate genteel status all fail miserably in the Blackville and Darktown
caricatures. The images specifically represent black failures in opposition to the white
middle-class sensibilities depicted in popular magazines and other prints.
261

Using the humor of exclusion in this way, white advertisers presented
assumptions about the racial and class status of their patrons. By reinforcing existing
boundaries between insiders and outsiders, these prints could provide another mode of
establishing rapport between white manufacturers and their (presumed) white clientele.
262

In advertising, belittling representations of African Americans exempted them from
participation in the middle class both as genteel individuals and as consumers. In

racist remarks. See Leon Rappoport, Punchlines: The Case for Racial, Ethnic, and Gender Humor
(Westport, CT: Praeger, 2005).
261
Representing the social deviancy of black Americans in this fashion reiterated the already implicit racial
component of middle-class identity as constructed through advice literature and other cultural
manifestations. Linda Frost examines the racialization of social deviants in popular representations
between 1850 and 1877, in Never One Nation: Freaks, Savages, and Whiteness in US Popular Culture
1850-1877 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005), chapter 5.
262
Arthur Asa Berger suggests that humor works to solidify identities and dominance by marginalizing
deviance. See Blind Men and Elephants, 95. This solidification coincided with shifting ideals of an
individual’s fitness for citizenship, which increasingly replaced categories of class with race. See Matthew
Frye Jacobson, Whiteness of a Different Color: European Immigration and the Alchemy of Race
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998); and Nell Irvin Painter, The History of White People (New
York: Norton, 2010). The historical effect of such derisive caricatures has been, according to some
theorists, to teach African Americans to internalize racist constructions of their own inferiority and enact a
form of psychological oppression. See bell hooks, Black Looks: Race and Representation (Boston: South
End Press, 1992), 7; and Kern-Foxworth, Aunt Jemima, xviii.
152
excluding blacks from their vision of an ideal audience, manufacturers implicitly denied
blacks the opportunity to participate in the kind of middle-class consumption undertaken
by other viewers of these cards.
263
For the ads to be effective, an assumption about the
reader’s insider identity was necessary—that is, advertisers assumed that much of their
audience would be white. By drawing upon their audience’s understanding of the codes
of white middle-class behavior, advertisers created humorous inversions of these codes to
divide American consumers between insiders and outsiders.
In 1923, Direct Advertising journal editor Brad Stephens moderated a discussion
on the merits of using humor in a direct-mail campaign to sell trucks to farmers. The
campaign utilized humorous letters addressed to individual farmers, and though it was
ultimately successful in augmenting sales the forum contributors remained divided over
the usefulness of the strategy for other markets. One writer cautioned that, despite the
success of this particular case, other advertisers would be wise to use humor only
sparingly, when “conditions are exactly right,” lest they inadvertently offend their
audiences.
264
Another writer retorted that any strategy was worth trying once, and argued
that humor could “establish a more intimate relationship between buyer and seller” when

263
African Americans sought to rectify such exclusions with consumer products made especially for black
audiences in the early twentieth century. See Michelle Mitchell, Righteous Propagation: African
Americans and the Politics of Racial Destiny after Reconstruction (Chapel Hill: University of North
Carolina Press, 2004), chapter 6; and for the mid-twentieth century see Kern-Foxworth, Aunt Jemima,
chapter 5.
264
Brad Stephens, forum ed., “Humor Sells Motor Trucks to Farmers—More Replies on Humor in
Advertising,” Direct Advertising 9, no. 4 (1923): 14.
153
used properly.
265
As a mode of appeal, the letters in the cited campaign worked by
providing the initial hook that grabbed the audience’s attention, while the “meat” of the
campaign was buried later in the letter. The usefulness of humor, for this and other
authors, was its emotional appeal rooted in popular culture.
266
By the 1920s, admen had
publically recognized the benefits of such emotional appeals, and realized that when
combined with intimate forms of address, such as direct mail letters, the results could be
highly profitable.
This overt acceptance, if not endorsement, of the use of humor and letter-writing
in advertising strategies came after nearly fifty years of trial-and-error testing of these
methods in advertising practice. As early as the 1870s, advertisers had moved toward
more intimate forms of address that would speak to the public in ways that eschewed the
commerciality of the media that carried the message. Building from the success found in
using advertising trade cards, whose format, images, and reception helped reconfigure the
feel of commodity exchange in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, advertisers
established additional textual modes of appeal rooted in the letter and the laugh. Their
epistolary appeals, which borrowed the mechanics and tone of personal letter-writing,
worked in much the same way as collectible trade cards to build goodwill by masking the
commercial messages of the ads themselves. Moreover, like the visual appeals made on
trade cards, epistolary advertising helped situate advertisers within a sphere of friendship.
Yet where these appeals worked by creating a more personalized, intimate feel to the
relationships between advertisers and consumers—positioning the ad itself as a piece of

265
F. R. Feland, at ibid., 16. Feland was an executive at the George Batten Advertising Co. (byline credit).
266
Ibid., 18.
154
correspondence—humorous serialized trade cards helped admen establish rapport
through insider appeals and the humor of exclusion. What these various modes of appeal
provided was a nascent foundation for advertisers’ attempts to structure appeals to
particular segments of society. Advertisers would hone these skills in adapting their
messages further and reworking an older genre of letter-writing—the recommendation /
testimonial—in an attempt to provide objective, scientific, and yet somehow still
personalized, evidence of product worth.

155

Figure 2.1 Trade card for John Wanamaker (c. 1876-1880), approx. 2.5 x 3in.
Courtesy, The Winterthur Library: The John and Carolyn Grossman Collection.

Figure 2.2 Newspaper advertisement for Wanamaker’s, placed by N. W. Ayer & Son
Advertising Agency (1878-1880), approx. 3 x 3in. N. W. Ayer Advertising Agency
Records. Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian
Institution.
156

Figure 2.3 Stock trade cards with handwritten customization, for C. J. Vanderhoof
(c.1880), approx. 3 x 4in. each. In Emma K. scrapbook (1884). Archives Center
Scrapbook Collection. Archives Center, National Museum of American History,
Smithsonian Institution.

Figure 2.4 Newspaper advertisement for N. W. Ayer & Son Advertising Agency
(1893), approx. 1 x 5in. N. W. Ayer Advertising Agency Records. Archives Center,
National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution.

157

Figure 2.5 Forbes Co., trade card for Lydia Pinkham’s Vegetable Compound, with
reverse view (c. 1880), approx. 3 x 5in. Col. 669 album 31. Courtesy, The Winterthur
Library: Joseph Downs Collection of Manuscripts and Ephemera.

Figure 2.6 J. Walter Thompson Advertising Agency, The Red Ear (New York: J.
Walter Thompson, 1887), 6, page approx. 5 x 8in. J. Walter Thompson Company
Publications Collection. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke
University.
158

Figure 2.7 Trade cards for Diamond Package Dyes, manufactured by Wells &
Richardson Co. (c. 1880-1890), approx. 3 x 4in. each. Ephemera Collections, The
Huntington Library. These items are reproduced by permission of The Huntington
Library, San Marino, California.

Figure 2.8 Ketterlinus Lithographic Co., blank stock trade cards (c. 1880), approx. 3
x 4in. each. Col. 9. Courtesy, The Winterthur Library: Joseph Downs Collection of
Manuscripts and Ephemera.
159

Figure 2.9 Left: Krebs Litho Co., trade card for Magnolia Hams (c. 1880), approx. 3
x 4in. Ephemera Collections, The Huntington Library. This item is reproduced by
permission of The Huntington Library, San Marino, California.

Right: trade card for Higgin’s German Laundry Soap (1880), approx. 3 x 4in. Col. 669
album 27. Courtesy, The Winterthur Library: Joseph Downs Collection of Manuscripts
and Ephemera.

Figure 2.10 Krebs Litho Co., trade card for Magnolia Hams (c. 1878), approx. 3 x 4in.
Ephemera Collections, The Huntington Library. This item is reproduced by permission
of The Huntington Library, San Marino, California.
160

Figure 2.11 Trade card for Fairbank’s Soaps with reverse, showing the “Gold Dust
Twins” (c. 1880), approx. 3 x 5in. Warshaw Collection of Business Americana—Soap.
Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution.

Figure 2.12 Advertising postcard for H. O. Cereal (1907), with reverse, approx. 4 x
6in. Warshaw Collection of Business Americana—Cereal. Archives Center, National
Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution.

161

Figure 2.13 American Bank Note Co., “Wooing,” “Wedding,” and “Return of the
Twins,” from the “Blackville” series, calendar trade cards for Clarence Brooks & Co.
Varnishes (1880), approx. 3 x 4in. each. Ephemera Collections, The Huntington Library.
These items reproduced by permission of The Huntington Library, San Marino,
California.
162

Figure 2.14 Currier & Ives, “De Cake Walk” (1883); “A Darktown Lawn Party, Music
in the Air” (1888); and “A Darktown Lawn Party, A Bully Time” (1888); from the
“Darktown” series. Chromolithographs on paper, approx. 9 x 12in. each. Library of
Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, DC. Available online at
http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/90714150; http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/91724506;
and http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/91724504.

163

Figure 2.15 Donaldson Bros., “Ceticism, my belobed bredren,” trade card for Clarence
Brooks & Co. (c.1885), approx. 3 x 5in. Ephemera Collections, The Huntington Library.
This item is reproduced by permission of The Huntington Library, San Marino,
California.

Figure 2.16 Krebs Litho Co., trade card for Magnolia Hams (c. 1870-1880), approx. 3
x 4in. Ephemera Collections, The Huntington Library. This item is reproduced by
permission of The Huntington Library, San Marino, California.

164
CHAPTER THREE:
Demonstrating Character, Visualizing Personality

Advertising trade cards, epistolary advertising, and humor each provided
advertisers with a mode of establishing rapport and helped make advertising more
intimate and personal. In each of these modes, advertisers focused their energy on the
outward demonstration of friendliness, of respectful language and tone, and of informal
relations. The advertiser’s tone was respectful yet friendly, and his language paired with
an adapted personable appeal that attracted the reader through sentimental, appealing
images and the occasional humorous anecdote. Here advertisers demonstrated their own
virtue and character, to use their own terms; though advertisers from the 1870s forward
understood character a bit differently than their Victorian predecessors—finding no
contradiction between the tenets of character and the demands of commerce.
As the century came to a close, advertisers sought additional ways to demonstrate
their individual and corporate character to the public: they provided lists of references,
enumerated their longstanding reputations in the local communities, invited the public to
visit the factory, and printed testimonials from satisfied customers. Yet these textual
references to character became bulky and cumbersome to print, and advertisers in turn
searched for ways to convey the same character references in a more streamlined fashion.
In the 1870s individual and corporate character typically remained distinct from each
other; yet in the 1880s they collapsed into one and the same entity, as was the case with
the persistence of the portrait trademark for the Lydia E. Pinkham Co. despite the
figurehead’s death in 1883. Pinkham’s case represents a turning point in this story: by
1900 constructed trademark personalities, whose fictional presence helped to visually
165
represent corporate character, increasingly came into use. Between 1870 and 1905 then,
the advertisements in this chapter trace a shift from textual references to the advertisers’
character to visual representations of corporate personality.
In 1979, Warren Susman first postulated that the turn of the twentieth century
witnessed a shift in the American intellectual ethos from a culture of character to one of
personality.
267
Susman’s formulation of this shift from the Victorian emphasis on moral
acumen and conformity to the twentieth-century emphasis on celebrity and attractiveness
is useful for understanding the shedding of a producerist ethic in favor of the consumerist
one; yet it fails to take into account the ways in which older notions of character persisted
in business rhetoric through the 1920s. While advertising professionals asserted their
own sense of duty and integrity—key concepts to Victorian notions of good character—
they did so in an attempt to differentiate their products and corporations from
competitors. In other words, advertising professionals adapted many of the traditional
components of character, such as responsibility and purity, in order to create attractive
and memorable corporate personalities that would appeal to American consumers and
build goodwill. Advertisers thus reworked Victorian concepts of character to fit the
demands of consumer society. In their view, demonstrating virtue and character provided
the best mode of developing a corporate personality—and importantly, goodwill—in the
public eye.
***
In the world of American business in the 1880s and ‘90s, open demonstrations of
character—whether of an individual or a firm—remained central to cultivating successful

267
Susman, “Personality,” 277. See also footnote 34.
166
business relationships, including those built through advertisements. In success manuals
and etiquette literature published in these years, good character came to be defined
through a person’s high standards of honesty, integrity, and propriety. As one educator
noted, integrity was paramount to achieving business success: “A man’s integrity must be
above suspicion. His word must be as good as his bond; and honor, as well as honesty,
sanction [sic] all his dealings.”
268
In his view, honesty and integrity structured nearly all
interactions, communications, and exchanges occurring between merchants, customers,
and producers. Without integrity and trust, according to this author, the American
commercial system of business transactions would fail.
These maxims had persisted throughout the nineteenth century, appearing in self-
help literature such as letter-writing compendiums, success manuals, and general
etiquette treatises published from the antebellum years through 1900.
269
Indeed,
demonstrating character and one’s true self remained highly important from the early
republican and antebellum years, especially as a mode of identifying members of the
emergent middle classes.
270
Yet character was not only important to nascent class
relations in the antebellum US, it was essential to the developing business community.

268
G. A. Gaskell, Gaskell’s Compendium of Forms, Educational, Social, Legal and Commercial (New
York: Fairbanks & Palmer Publishing Co, 1882), 272.
269
See, for example, D. H. Jacques, How to Write: A Pocket Manual of Composition and Letter-Writing ...
To Which Are Added Forms for Letters of Introduction, Notes, Cards, Etc., and a Collection of Poetical
Quotations (New York: Fowler and Wells, 1857); Hand-Books for Home Improvement: Comprising, How
to Write, How to Talk, How to Behave, How to Do Business (New York: Fowler and Wells, 1857); Gaskell,
Gaskell’s Compendium of Forms; Victor, Beadle’s Dime Letter-writer.
270
See, for example, Hilkey, Character is Capital; and footnote 50.
167
As a mode of establishing a reputation among one’s peers and cultivating successful
business relationships with current and prospective clients, open demonstration of
character became a key component in an emerging business etiquette literature that taught
readers how to be successful in the newly industrializing US. A successful demonstration
of character in the years before the Civil War included honest self-representation, a clear
understanding of responsibility toward and respect for one’s customers and business
partners, and displaying integrity, which meant standing behind one’s claims, refunding
customers when necessary, and upholding the letter of the law as required by a diligent
citizen.
271

Continuing in this tradition, success manuals printed in the 1870s underscored the
importance of cultivating and demonstrating integrity, hard work, and character in order
to achieve success in American industry. In an address to business students in 1885,
Andrew Carnegie stressed the importance of honesty and virtue as central ingredients for
professional success. In his view, character—which included dedication, a strong work
ethic, frugality, and honesty—helped to determine a man’s opportunities in business.
272

Though his words smacked of the Social Darwinist themes that prevailed among many
contemporaries, Carnegie’s suggestion that maintaining personal virtue ensured one’s
professional advancement became a model for success in the emerging corporate culture
of the 1880s, especially given his own rags to riches story. Yet Carnegie’s words are not
so important for what they suggest about the American Dream—that it was attainable by

271
Kasson, Rudeness & Civility, 3-7.
272
Andrew Carnegie, “The Road to Business Success: A Talk to Young Men,” from an address to Curry
Commercial College, Pittsburgh, 23 Jun 1885; in Carnegie, The Empire of Business (New York:
Doubleday, Page, and Co., 1902), 3-18.
168
anyone with the right drive and character—but rather for how these words illustrate the
nature of American professionalism at the end of the century. As Carnegie points out,
honesty and integrity formed the foundation for American business transactions in these
years—at least in outward appearances, and among legitimate businesses. For even if
Carnegie and his peers ruthlessly lied to each other behind closed doors, they each
expected that the other would maintain honesty and fair dealings in public. Indeed, the
writers of success manuals published throughout the 1880s and ‘90s echoed his same
prescriptions for professional success, pointing to the importance of showing one’s
character and integrity at all times.
273

Advertisers in the 1870s and ‘80s discovered that such demonstrations of proper
character could be incredibly useful both in structuring successful appeals to the public
and in rehabilitating the image of advertisers in the public mind. Long-associated with
the publicity endeavors of P.T. Barnum, late-nineteenth century advertisers sought to
separate themselves from their antebellum roots in the practices of transient street
peddlers, quack patent medicine dealers and confidence men.
274
In the freewheeling
commercial environment that persisted from the antebellum years through the 1870s,
counterfeiters and con men thrived. Distinctions of legitimate and illegitimate blurred as
men who appeared to be honest, upstanding businessmen scammed and tricked

273
Hilkey, Character is Capital, 127-128. Hilkey examines the popularity of Carnegie’s and other writers’
prescriptions for achieving professional success in the 1870s, ‘80s, and ‘90s. She finds that writers of
success manuals adapted the antebellum notion that good character led to personal advancement by
suggesting that virtue helped one avoid the pitfalls of modern industry en route to success.
274
Lears, Fables of Abundance, 62-65.
169
unsuspecting individuals into investing in sham business ventures and other schemes.
275

Indeed, articles published in trade journals in the 1880s and ‘90s often recounted stories
of small-town consumers being duped and defrauded by confidence men posing as valid
salesmen by placing too-good-to-be-true deals and advertisements in local newspapers.
276

These issues, which contributed to the problem of legitimacy that advertisers faced
between 1870 and 1920, pushed advertisers toward open proclamations of character in an
attempt to persuade potential customers. Integrity was a difficult virtue to evidence, yet
this didn’t stop advertisers at the end of the nineteenth century from trying—they claimed
to have a clear sense of responsibility to their clientele, and offered money-back
guarantees and testimonials as evidence that such claims were genuine.
Initially, many merchants attempted to distance themselves from deceptive con-
men by offering money-back guarantees to unsatisfied customers. For example, in 1875
the mail-order house Montgomery Ward offered to provide a full refund of “all expenses”
to any customer dissatisfied with the goods procured from the Ward warehouses: “We
guarantee all of our goods. If any of them are not satisfactory after due inspection, we
will take them back.”
277
This pronunciation of corporate responsibility gave Ward the
opportunity to publically demonstrate a quality of its corporate character—its integrity
and respect for customer satisfaction—and in turn would contribute positively to Ward’s
public goodwill. Through the money-back guarantee, Ward promised customers that
mail-order shopping came with all the same benefits of retail stores. Placing the onus of

275
Mihm, A Nation of Counterfeiters.
276
See esp. Grey, “Deceptive Advertising,” 764-765.
277
Montgomery Ward & Co., “Catalogue no. 13, Spring & Summer 1875” (Chicago: Montgomery Ward &
Co., 1875), RBWL.
170
“due inspection” on the consumer, the mail-order house demonstrated its mutual respect
for the responsible consumer whose honest dissatisfaction would prompt the return of a
purchase for reimbursement. Importantly, Ward’s money-back guarantee worked upon
the mutual trust between the firm and customer—trust on behalf of the customer that the
firm would honor its pledge and trust on behalf of the firm that the customer wouldn’t
take advantage of it. As a demonstration of the integrity of the firm, the guarantee
nevertheless assisted Ward in growing its business, which weathered economic slumps in
the 1890s and persisted heartily into the twentieth century.
278

Aside from guarantees, firms attempted to visually win the customer’s confidence
by depicting factory interiors and inviting the public inside for inspections. Illustrating
the interior of the factory and inviting the public to inspect it was a mode of
demonstrating the cleanliness, order, and above all, transparency of the manufacturing
process and the company. Such demonstrations figured highly in the American business
community’s emerging understandings of corporate character as directly descending from
personal character in the 1880s and ‘90s. Beginning in the 1870s, manufacturers and
other advertisers began illustrating the interiors of their factories and inviting potential
and current customers to visit for personal inspections of the manufacturing processes.
Such an outward demonstration of transparency spoke to rising public skepticism over
the origins of particular manufactured goods and fears of impurities or filth dirtying the

278
The growth of Montgomery Ward & Co. between its beginnings in the early 1870s and its boom in the
1890s is illustrated by the number of items offered by its catalogs, which more than doubled between 1884
and 1893. See Boris Emmet and John E. Jeuck et al., Catalogues and Counters; a History of Sears,
Roebuck and Company (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1950), 20-21; cited in Strasser, Satisfaction
Guaranteed, 213.
171
finished product.
279
Patent medicine makers such as Lydia Pinkham and G. G. Green
published illustrations of their laboratories showing the manufacturing process, while
adman N.W. Ayer invited potential clients to visit his offices and personally witness the
orderliness of his operation. One printer even invited potential clients to examine his
financial records for evidence of his honest business practices and proven results with the
statement “Books open to all.”
280
With this, advertisers and printers challenged public
skepticism through proclamations of honesty and transparency. Whether customers
arrived to inspect offices and books hardly mattered—the public invitation itself
demonstrated the advertiser’s openness to the public and became a popular tool for
building goodwill in the early twentieth century.

279
Facing increasing public scrutiny around the product information circulating in the public arena on
product labels and in advertisements, many corporations attempted to earn the public’s trust by insisting
their products adhered to strict standards of purity. In the wake of the Truth in Advertising movement and
the passing of the Pure Food & Drug Act in 1906, patent medicine manufacturers and especially foodstuff
manufacturers including Quaker Oats, Cream of Wheat, Hires, Franco-American Soups, Kellogg’s, and the
National Biscuit Company each vehemently proclaimed their products to be free from adulterations,
additives, and “unnatural” ingredients, including alcohol. See Ayer Series II, AC NMAH; and J.C. Ayer
Almanacs in Warshaw Series I Patent Medicine, box 3 fol. 18, AC NMAH.
280
The Record Publishing Co. (Philadelphia), “Valuable Testimony,” advertisement in Printers’ Ink 23, no.
13 (Jun 1898): 1; Lydia E. Pinkham Co., Treatise on the Diseases of Women (Lynn, MA: Lydia E. Pinkham
Medicine Co., 1901), in Warshaw Series I Patent Medicine, box 35 fol. 1, AC NMAH; Green’s August
Flower Almanac (1878), box E-4, Ephemera Collections, HL; N. W. Ayer, advertising pamphlet (1908),
Ayer Series XIV, box 1 fol. 19, AC NMAH; and R. R. Donnelley & Sons, “Company Advertising” Series
III, RRD. In a similar investigation, Pamela Walker Laird suggests that illustrating the exterior of the
factory was a demonstration of wealth and technological progress in the 1880s and ‘90s. See Advertising
Progress, 94-150.
172
A frequent invitation came from the makers of Franco-American soups, who in
the first decade of the twentieth century invited and received hundreds of visitors each
year—many of them later testifying to the cleanliness and high-standards of quality
upheld by the company. Beginning in 1906, Franco-American’s trade character, the child
chef, “cordially invited” customers to visit his “kitchen” for inspections and tours of the
company’s New Jersey facilities.
281
Often ads quoted from satisfied visitors and
customers, in a circular publicity scheme that used positive feedback from previous
visitors to entice future customers to buy the products and visit the factory themselves.
As a corollary, ad copy highlighted the efforts taken by the manufacturer to ensure
product purity. Here the trademark child chef assumed a narrative voice, speaking
directly to the consumer to explain how he checked all of the ingredients on the way in to
the kettles and the products on the way out of the factory (FIG 3.1). In this way, ad copy,
representations of the factory interior, testimonials from previous visitors, and invitations
for future visitors worked hand-in-hand to create a corporate image founded upon
openness and cleanliness.
The company’s adoption of a child as its trademark—itself a symbol of purity and
innocence—underscored the self-conscious transparency demonstrated in its regular
invitation to visitors. In this way, the notion of transparency took on new meaning in the
Progressive context: Franco-American’s invitation to visit its kitchens signaled an
attention to cleanliness, but also underscored what that cleanliness demonstrated—

281
Print ads for Franco-American Soups (1906-1910), Ayer Series II, box 35 fol. 1, AC NMAH. Factory
tours were a popular pastime between 1880 and 1950, as Allison C. Marsh notes in “The Ultimate
Vacation: Watching other people work, a history of factory tours in America, 1880-1950,” (PhD diss.,
Johns Hopkins University, 2008).
173
attention to order, an appreciation and pride in doing things the right way, and through
these, a strong corporate character. Moreover, Franco-American adopted the
colloquialism that its factory was just a simple kitchen—akin to the consumer’s own
private space of domestic production, though a much grander space than many
Americans could afford to be sure—with an advertising strategy that humbled the
corporate identity of the company into a relatable child personality. In an era that
witnessed the massive growth of national corporations and monopolies, Franco-American
adopted a smaller, non-threatening identity (both figuratively and literally) that was
accessible to all visitors, on any day of operation throughout the year. If you wished to
visit the factory but couldn’t travel to New Jersey, the company offered to provide a
detailed booklet illustrating its step-by-step process with photographs aimed at showing
the company’s strict adherence to the highest standards of quality and purity.
282
In this
way, the company professed a self-image of transparency that succeeded in its public
portrayal of corporate character regardless of whether individuals actually visited the
factory or not. The invitation to visit, as a demonstration of the company’s openness and
self-confidence, appealed to consumers through its advertisements and became the
standing proof of Franco-American’s honesty and integrity.
By the early twentieth century, many companies sought to emphasize their history
in both local and national communities as evidence of the company’s reputation and
worth. For example, ads published in the 1910s for Smith Bros. cough drops implied that
the company’s long-standing presence in the national community resulted in an appeal to

282
“A revelation to visitors,” print ad for Franco-American Soups (1906), Ayer Series II, box 35 fol. 1, AC
NMAH.
174
multiple generations of trusting consumers. The slogan “Your Grandpa Knows Us”
became a popular phrase in ads for the medicine during WWI. A long-standing factory, a
history of success in the local community, and annual sales to over 700-million
Americans gave the reader statistical and subjective evidence that the product was a
trustworthy one. But the implication that it was a brand one’s grandfather knew and
trusted—one that he used when he “took Grandma skating”—not only played upon
Americans’ nostalgia for a simpler past; but implicated consumers’ respect for the older
generation and its collective wisdom.
283
Knowing a product was a reputable one, backed
by millions in annual sales might convince an unfamiliar consumer to buy the product—
but suggesting that his / her grandparents trusted the product created a personal
connection that spoke to consumers’ emotional core. This creative slogan, when coupled
with the traditional portraits of the Smith Bros. themselves gazing back at consumers
from the product’s label resulted in an appeal that re-personalized the wholly impersonal
aspects of commercial exchange in the early twentieth century.
Likewise, Lea & Perrin’s Sauce and Hires Root Beer asserted their own
longstanding histories (however fictional) in the national community as part of
advertising campaigns aimed at building consumer confidence. During the First World
War, Lea & Perrin’s Sauce—“the original Worcestershire”—appropriated a fictionalized
colonial history in ads that mimicked eighteenth-century newspaper and handbill styles
through slightly maligned fonts and old-fashioned woodblock images (FIG 3.2). Though
the company originated in the UK in 1838, Lea & Perrin’s implicated their own

283
“Your Grandpa Knows Us,” print ads for Smith Bros. Cough Drops (1917), Ayer Series II, box 8 fol. 6,
AC NMAH.
175
participation in America’s colonial past by appearing to reprint actual eighteenth century
advertisements in 1917; and thus drew upon both the colonial revival of the late
nineteenth-century as well as official government directives to drum up American
patriotism in support of the war. Deliberately obscuring its own British origins, the
company cultivated the public’s assumption that the product had been an original
American commodity, and established a sense of reputation and tradition by drawing
upon this imagined history.
284
In a similar, yet less creative assertion, Hires’ Root Beer
suggested in 1926 that consumers could have “confidence” in the product because it had
been popular for more than fifty years.
285
Hires’ noted that consumer confidence in its
products was evidenced in its own profitability for half a century; and gestured to a long
list of unnamed customers who repeatedly purchased the product over the past five
decades. Marking longevity as an indicator of reputation and corporate virtue, Hires and
others persuaded customers that theirs was the product worth trusting. In so doing, they
combined persistent notions of character—including integrity—when constructing their
own corporate personality in the public eye.
While Hires’ presented an implied list of satisfied customers in its assertion of
longevity, since the Reconstruction years other advertisers had taken the tactic more
literally, publishing client lists and references aimed at quantifying the company’s
reputation among satisfied customers. For example, in 1868 lithographer Louis Prang
relied on the endorsements of prominent members of genteel society—including authors
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Harriet Beecher Stowe—in promoting his

284
Print ads for Lea & Perrin’s Sauce (1917), Ayer Series II, box 35 fol. 1, AC NMAH.
285
Print ad for Hires Root Beer Extract (1926), Ayer Series II, box 84 fol. 2, AC NMAH.
176
chromolithographs for home decoration purposes.
286
In this case, Longfellow and Stowe
added crucial cultural value and status to the pictures produced by Prang. The authors’
admiration for the accuracy and “true to nature” quality of Prang’s prints encouraged
sales by situating the objects as worthy of inclusion in the middle-class parlor.
287
At the
turn of the century advertising agencies continued in this vein with published client lists
in their own publicity materials; hoping that the well-known campaigns for nationally-
marketed companies would attract new clientele. Such client lists acted as portfolios for
the agency, which it embellished with testimonials from successful clients who could
attest to the profits earned in using the agency’s services.
288
In this way, printers and
advertising agents capitalized upon the well-known reputations of prominent individuals
and other businesses in representing their own virtues to the public.
Likewise, many companies appropriated the reputations of local officials or
institutions to legitimate their ventures. One proprietary medicine merchant produced
testimonial letters which included “witness” names—those who notarized the sworn
authenticity of the written statements. In this way, the truth of the testimony rested upon
the trustworthiness of the witness: if the witness was a Justice of the Peace, as in one
testimony, the truth of the claims made by the testifier gain added weight and

286
Prang’s Chromo: A Journal of Popular Art 1, no. 1 (1868): 2-4, LOC PP.
287
Ibid.
288
J. Walter Thompson, Portfolio of Advertisements (1906), and J. Walter Thompson Blue Book on
Advertising (New York, 1901), 7, boxes DG4-6, JWTPC; Duke; Lord & Thomas Agency, “Unasked-for
Praise,” advertisement in Printers’ Ink 14, no. 7 (Feb 1896): 82; and N. W. Ayer & Son Advertising
Agency, “Our Advertising,” trade paper advertisement (1901), Ayer Series XIV, box 1 fol. 11, AC NMAH.
177
believability.
289
Likewise, Sears Roebuck and other catalog retailers attempted to win
consumer confidence by demonstrating financial solvency. Though the Sears catalog had
grown in popularity over the first decade of its publication, by 1898 the company
continued to print the recommendation letters of local bankers attesting to the character
of the company’s proprietors, its local reputation, and the extensive lines of credit held by
Sears Roebuck in Chicago and other major cities.
290
Lending his name and pen to assist
the retail endeavors of a client, chief cashiers such as H. H. Hitchcock at Metropolitan
National Bank, Chicago, strengthened Sears’ reputation by institutionalizing the firm’s
goodwill, which was symbolized by its credit and assets.
291
Effectively, the bank helped
to materialize Sears’ public reputation: by referencing lines of credit and assets held, the
bank provided material evidence of the firm’s cultural capital with the consuming public.
These testaments to the financial solvency and integrity of the corporation provided a
foundation for the consumer’s confidence that his / her order would be treated and filled
with care and accuracy. Lastly, Sears shored up its own reputation by referencing the
reputation of the bank; and demonstrated its character vis-à-vis the regional clout of
financial institutions willing to testify to its assets and trustworthiness. Yet money-back

289
Bristol’s Illustrated Almanac for California (1866), 13, Rare Books, HL.
290
Sears Roebuck & Co., “Consumer’s Guide no. 107” (Chicago: Sears, Roebuck & Co., 1898), RBWL.
Such credit verification letters appeared in subsequent editions of the catalog into the first decade of the
twentieth century. Other catalog retailers echoed Sears’ strategy in printing verification letters from local
bankers: see Boston Store, “Catalog no. 70” (Chicago: Boston Store, 1905), RBWL; and Butler Bros., “Our
Drummer no. 455” (New York: Butler Bros., 1903), RBWL.
291
H. H. Hitchcock to unnamed Sears patrons, 27 Jan 1898, printed in Sears Roebuck & Co., “Consumer’s
Guide no. 107” (Chicago: Sears Roebuck & Co., 1898), 6, RBWL.
178
guarantees and the corroboration of bank managers could only get the advertiser so far—
what really spoke to potential consumers were the voices of clients just like them.
292

Testimonials
Like the endorsements of bank managers and notable public figures, testimonial
letters from ordinary consumers provided advertisers with a useful mode of
demonstrating their own virtue and that of their products. Broadly defined, testimonial
advertisements provided letters or phrases of endorsement from satisfied customers in
order to convince future clientele that the product / service was worthy of patronage.
Testimonials in the Gilded Age adapted an older form of reference letter, whereby the
writer vouched for an individual’s character, to the new demands of consumer society by
combining this older practice with customer reviews for products and services. In the
1880s, the terms recommendation, “indorsement [sic]”, and testimonial interchangeably
referred to the practice of providing written endorsement of a particular person, product,
or service.
293
One epistolary manual defined recommendations as letters “in which the

292
Young, Toadstool Millionaires, 188.
293
For example, letter writers such as Gaskell’s Compendium (1882) referred to the practice of writing a
recommendation for a person seeking employment, seeking an introduction to a trade, or otherwise needing
assistance in gaining credibility among individuals unfamiliar with the bearer’s character. In this way,
letters of recommendation acted in a similar fashion to letters of introduction. See Gaskell, Gaskell’s
Compendium, 230. Yet Andrew Carnegie (in 1885) referred to the practice of “indorsement,” whereby he
cautioned individuals against lending their recommendation lest they fall prey to the bearer’s creditors. See
Carnegie, “Road to Success,” 3-18.
179
writer, for the purpose of promoting the interest, happiness, or benefit of another,
commends, or favorably represents his character and abilities.”
294

Just as an individual presented the recommendations of former employers
vouching for his employability when looking for work, a merchant or manufacturer
presented the testimonials of satisfied clients when soliciting new business from
prospective customers. Before 1900 these letters typically came from ordinary
individuals, public officials, and celebrities—often with little distinction made in the
writers’ status in the publication; though in the 1920s celebrity testimonials became
popularly known as endorsements, for the fact that celebrities were often paid for such
endorsing.
295
Testimonials printed in Gilded Age advertisements typically provided
evidence of personal experience with a tone of gratitude and praise, and blended these
with a format borrowed from the formal letter of recommendation. In this way, late-
nineteenth century testimonial advertisements stemmed from two distinct yet related
cultural practices: a tradition of writing letters of recommendation in the business sector
and the popular revivalist practice of religious testimony or “witnessing.”
296

294
Gaskell’s Compendium, 230.
295
It should be noted however that the practice of providing benefits for a celebrity’s endorsement of a
product stemmed from the 1860s, when printer Louis Prang sent “free” samples of his chromolithographs
to prominent public intellectuals with the hopes of obtaining endorsement letters in return. See footnote
286.
296
Rosemary Skinner Keller et al. use the term “witnessing” interchangeably with “testimony” and
“testify” to refer to the physical displays of religious conversion (often by women) in the evangelical and
revivalist traditions from the eighteenth century through the mid-twentieth century. See Encyclopedia of
Women and Religion in North America (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006), 227.
180
First, the practice of lending written support for products stemmed from the
conventions of nineteenth-century business correspondence, which included writing
recommendations (also referred to as “testimonials”) for former employees or associates
seeking to cultivate future business relationships and / or obtain work. The codes of
business etiquette at mid-century structured the form and language appropriate for
writing such recommendations through the 1880s and ‘90s. Viewed as a cornerstone to
cultivating and maintaining good business relationships, letters of recommendation
provided insight to both the character of the bearer and the writer in the eyes of etiquette
experts. As one Gilded Age manual noted, individuals should compose
recommendations letters with care, and without “false kindness.” The author continued
It is a guarantee… for the party recommended… These testimonials are
often received, and the bearer of them taken into service or confidence
upon the representations contained in them—without further questions as
to antecedents, etc., therefore never recommend an unworthy person. It
may be hard to refuse a testimonial, but it is dishonorable to give a false
one.
297

Here, the author suggested that the writers of testimonials and recommendations provided
written guarantees of the bearer’s talents and worth, and that a recipient or reader of such
a letter would place full trust in the writer’s honesty in representing the person or
business in question. The recommendation itself became the credentials qualifying the
candidate for hire. Moreover, in vouching for the character and abilities of another
human being meant putting one’s own reputation and character on the line: the letter

297
Gaskell, Gaskell's Compendium of Forms, 230.
181
itself became a symbol of the trust between those individuals, and the trust that the bearer
of the recommendation would perform at the standard attested by the recommender. The
successful future business relationship between the bearer of the letter and the future
employer depended upon both the bearer’s transparent display of good character to his
current and future employer and the truthfulness of the person writing the letter. This
assumption of trust was important to the efficacy of testimonials, as objects that ensured
the employability of individuals and the reputations of businesses in the business world;
and as evidence of customer satisfaction in the world of advertising.
Second, testimonials in nineteenth-century advertising adopted the tone of
religious witnessing in the revivalist and evangelical traditions. In Christian practice, to
“bear witness” meant experiencing God’s message or presence in a personal way, and
individuals often “testified” to these revelations by regaling fellow parishioners of the
conversion experience. As a mode of sharing and developing individual and community
faiths, religious testifying became a prominent component of Protestant worship,
especially in baptisms and evangelical events. Though present during the eighteenth
century First Great Awakening, the practice became particularly common in the Second
and Third Awakenings of the nineteenth century, especially as these later movements
became more focused on the individual conversion experience as shared during large-
scale revivals.
298
Mirroring similar tales of woe that colored the pages of patent medicine

298
“Testimony,” in Global Dictionary of Theology: A Resource for the Worldwide Church, ed. William
Dyrness et al. (Downer’s Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2008), 875-879. The practice of religious
witnessing stems from the public displays of “New Birth” (often by female parishioners) in Puritan and
Baptist congregations during the Great Awakening of the 1730s and ‘40s. See Keller et al., Encyclopedia
of Women and Religion, 227, 247. Conversely, in the Quaker tradition, “testimony” refers both to written
182
almanacs, converted individuals typically shared stories of their lives wrecked by vice
and desperation, and their changed experiences in finding a personal relationship with
God. Moreover, the preacher at mid-century, presumably working through the power of
the Holy Spirit, became an integral tool in affecting the individual’s conversion and later,
in the testimony of the conversion experience.
299
As a regular component of large
religious gatherings, testifying individuals became walking proof for the power of faith
and of the preacher’s sermons. In this way, preachers buttressed their own reputations
among the revivalist community by presenting converted individuals whose salvation
stories were particularly powerful and emotional. Just as preachers gained notoriety by
presenting converted constituents, advertisers gained public favor and patronage by
presenting satisfied customers.
Advertisers throughout the American Northeast and Midwest broadly relied on
testaments of praise in ads for products as diverse as household foodstuffs, farm
implements and supplies, cosmetics, and even for advertising agencies themselves.
300

traditions and to individual daily practice. See, for example, Society of Friends, The Ancient Testimony of
the Religious Society of Friends: commonly called Quakers, respecting some of their Christian doctrines
and practices (Philadelphia: Society of Friends, 1870). At mid-century testifying was common among
Methodist and Baptist groups, while towards the end of the nineteenth century Pentecostal and Holiness
groups took prominence in the revivalist movement. See George M. Thomas, Revivalism and Cultural
Change: Christianity, Nation Building, and the Market in the Nineteenth-Century United States (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1989), esp. chapter 4.
299
Thomas, Revivalism, 74.
300
Handbill for N. W. Ayer Agency (1871), Ayer Series I, box 3 fol. 2, AC NMAH; Print ads for Just’s
Food (1896), Ayer Series II, box 40 fol. 1, AC NMAH; Print ads for Cook’s Flaked Rice (1902), Ayer
Series II, box 7 fol. 2, AC NMAH. See also Schweitzer and Moskowitz, Testimonial Advertising, 1-22.
183
Testimonials appeared frequently in particular service lines—such as the advertising
industry—where customer satisfaction was crucial to building and maintaining a return
client base. In the early 1870s, for example, the advertising firm of N. W. Ayer & Son
(Philadelphia) utilized endorsements from its clients on handbills designed to publicize
the firm’s services and reputation among prominent local businesses. As a portfolio of
successful advertising campaigns, the firm’s lists of satisfied customers provided
prospective clients with qualified references and examples of the firm’s work. This
practice of presenting one’s own clients as a mode of advertising the quality of one’s
work became common in the advertising and printing industries among agents such as J.
Walter Thompson (New York) and R. R. Donnelley (Chicago) in the 1890s and 1900s.
301

In other industries, testimonials helped advertisers introduce new products and formulas
that may have been unfamiliar to the public. In the line of infant foods, for example,
manufacturers frequently boasted the endorsements of well-known doctors who could
verify the nutritional benefits of the products. As such, the words of “eminent
physicians” were used to underscore the value of Just’s Foods (Syracuse, New York), an
infant dietary supplement marketed nationally in the 1890s.
302
Though customers could
choose whether to believe such endorsements, the testaments of both satisfied customers
and respected authorities (such as doctors) provided advertisers with a means of
validating their products and earning a measure of consumer confidence.

301
J. Walter Thompson Agency, The Thompson Blue Book on Advertising (1901), box DG4, JWTPC; and
“Lakeside Press” (1921), brochure for R. R. Donnelley & Sons, “Company Advertising” Series III, box 114
vol. 1 no. 2, RRD.
302
Handbill for N. W. Ayer & Son Advertising Agency (1871), Ayer Series I, box 3 fol. 2, AC NMAH; and
“Eminent Physicians,” print ad for Just’s Food (1896), Ayer Series II, box 40 fol. 1, AC NMAH.
184
In the patent medicine industry in particular, testimonials became the primary
outlet for communicating trustworthiness and virtue to potential customers in the decades
following the Civil War.
303
Testimonials often dictated the tone for advertising in the
patent medicine industry, whose pamphlets and almanacs typically took a self-
consciously transparent form in the plain presentation of letters from supporters and
clinical discussion of ailments and cures. Advertisers in this field relied heavily upon the
words of celebrity endorsers, including clergymen, local and national public officials, and
other well-known individuals. More importantly, patent medicine advertisers used the
testaments of presumed “average” men and women to illustrate the commonalities
between a constructed community of users, whose shared experiences with ailments and
cures offered a point of identification that could help cultivate trust in the manufacturer
and product.
304

303
Though I use the terms “patent medicine” and “proprietary medicine” interchangeably to refer to the
over-the-counter drug trade in the nineteenth century, the term “patent medicine” is actually a misnomer
(despite its popularity among nineteenth-century historians). Many of these nostrum manufacturers did not
register their formulae with the US Patent Office, because doing so would require divulging secret
ingredients and their exact measurements. This would have undermined the manufacturer’s success by
allowing potential competitors to copy such formulae and market the potions under a different brand name.
Since the industry was marked by a wealth of competitors claiming to cure many of the same ailments with
many of the same ingredients, keeping formulae secret provided one mode of product differentiation and
protection from imitators. I am grateful to Susan Strasser for her comments on the proprietary medicine
industry in the nineteenth-century.
304
Likewise, in her examination of agricultural and seed advertisements from the 1880s through the turn of
the century, Marina Moskowitz finds that testimonial advertising helped to re-personalize commercial
exchange by creating a community of users among the readers and writers of testimonials. See Moskowitz,
185
The history of the patent medicine trade in the United States is a checkered one.
In the colonial period, British merchants exported their proprietary medicines to the
American colonies before a domestic industry took shape in the early nineteenth century.
Critiques of these medicines grew almost simultaneously with the industry from the very
start, with the primary critiques lodged against what appeared to be fraudulent
testimonials included in the nostrum advertising literature. Arguing that many of these
medicines caused addiction, critics such as Oliver Wendell Holmes condemned
proprietary medicine dealers as quacks who “pretended to be trained physicians, ...
fabricated testimonials... created diseases, ... gave his nostrums foreign names and said
they were imported... used the poor as decoys for the rich... faked statistical evidence”
and exaggerated both the success rate and speed of the curative potions.
305
Competition
in the proprietary medicine field was extensive in the years following the Civil War as
industrialization, immigration, and urbanization helped to expand the market for
consumable goods and a host of new soldier’s ailments created demand for the “cures”
offered by proprietary medicines, which claimed to help everything from dyspepsia to
prolapsed uterus.
306

Testimonials appeared regularly in patent medicine almanacs as well as in other
advertising materials including handbills, catalogues, and trade cards. In almanacs,
which were typically distributed free to the public by druggists and through the mails,

“‘After a Season of War’: Sharing Horticultural Success in the Reconstruction-Era Landscape,” in
Testimonial advertising, 79-94.
305
Young, Toadstool Millionaires, 67-68; paraphrased from Oliver Wendell Holmes, Medical Essays 1842-
1882 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1892).
306
Young, Toadstool Millionaires, 95-98.
186
pages featured testimonials alongside astronomical data, household tips, cartoons and
jokes, and advertising material from the sponsor. Families kept these ready-references
handy in their kitchens, cupboards, and side tables for regular consultation throughout the
year, making the repeat exposure to the advertising material unavoidable.
307
Visually,
patent-medicine testimonials appeared as formal letters with standard salutations and
closings, as blurb-like snippets with short by-lines, and as full-page expositions featuring
the writer’s engraved portrait and / or other illustrations.
Descriptive of the symptoms and problems associated with particular ailments,
testimonials for patent medicines from the 1860s through 1900 offered textual evidence
for the uses and cures offered by the product advertised aside from the manufacturer’s
own instructions. Testimonial writers outlined their tales of desperation and stressed
their feelings of hopelessness before trying the product at hand. Letters closed by
underscoring the writers’ belief in being completely cured by this miraculous potion, and
offered his / her sincerest thanks to the manufacturer for restoring health and
happiness.
308
Though the words of experts and public figures often provided
authoritative evidence for the successful use of these nostrums, the testaments of so-

307
Ibid., 139-140. Young explains that advertising almanacs emerged first in the 1820s and took shape in
the 1840s, capitalizing on the popular interest in seasonal cycles and light reading material. However,
developments in printing and distribution technologies following the Civil War made the larger circulation
of advertising almanacs possible. Druggists received almanacs at the end of each year and distributed them
free to their customers for use in the upcoming seasons.
308
See, for example, testimonials printed in Warner’s Safe Cure Almanac (1890-1896), Rare Books, HL;
Ayer’s American Almanac (1854-1896), Rare Books, HL; and Bristol’s Illustrated Almanac, (1866-1881),
Rare Books, HL.
187
called average men and women provided emotional proof of the famed life-saving
properties of the medicines. Often these supportive words from experts and everyone
else could be purchased by the manufacturer, as muckrakers would discover in the early
twentieth century. Even still, many individuals genuinely believed they’d been cured, as
one author notes, although their written statements may have come more from a wish for
local fame than an honest desire to help others.
309

The appeal of testimonials in proprietary medicine advertising in the 1870s and
‘80s hinged upon several factors that ensured the believability of the testaments.
Illustrating character—both of the manufacturer and of the testifiers they quoted—
became a key component: manufacturers stressed their own sense of duty in wanting to
help the general public just as they underlined the selfless intentions of testifiers.
Testimonial writers emphasized their own virtuous character in the language they used, in
their adherence to proper epistolary form, and in their outspoken altruism. Moreover,
choosing the experts to endorse one’s product was as important as what the endorser said
in any given advertisement. If the individual was well known in the local community as
an upstanding, honest citizen or merchant, the endorsement could be considered
successful. Likewise, if the individual’s reputation was less than savory, it would have
been prudent to avoid printing his / her endorsement lest the reader develop a negative
association with the product. This may seem like an obvious point, but it is one that
advertisers implicitly stressed in their appropriation of the character of testifiers.

309
Young, Toadstool Millionaires, 187-189. Young cites a Toronto Star article that advised “If your brains
won't get you into the papers, sign a ‘patent medicine’ testimonial. Maybe your kidneys will” (cited from
the archival collections of the Department of Investigation at the American Medical Association, Chicago,
“Nostrums & Quackery” volume III, p. 197 [1936]).
188
Celebrity, expertise, and above all, character contributed to the making of a reliable
commercial witness—in fact, the individual’s public persona, including perceptions of his
/ her moral character, provided the foundation that ensured the believability of the
endorsements he / she provided.
310
The weight of a testimonial provided by a local
official would only be boosted by public perception of his / her moral character, as the
myriad of testaments written by Rev. Henry Ward Beecher despite the attacks on his
moral countenance in the mid-1870s.
311

Several strategies thus emerged to help advertisers ensure the reliability of the
testimonials they printed, which became an indirect reflection upon the manufacturer’s
character. One such strategy was to suggest that the testimonial came unsolicited from an
individual who only wanted to share his / her good fortune with the public. By stressing
the unsolicited nature of these testimonies, advertisers painted each testifier as an
upstanding individual whose honesty and goodwill provided the only motivation for his /
her statements. For example, the Ayer’s American Almanac suggested that the “sincere
convictions of men who testify without interest and without bias” alone demonstrated the

310
Michael Pettit argues that the testimonials of local celebrities helped ensure the success of P. T.
Barnum’s various exhibitions initially, and when certain hoaxes crumbled the reputations of local endorsers
fell dramatically. See “The Testifying Subject: Reliability in Marketing, Science, and the Law at the end of
the Age of Barnum,” in Testimonial Advertising, 55-59.
311
Clifford Edward Clark, Henry Ward Beecher: Spokesman for a Middle-Class America (Chicago:
University of Illinois Press, 1978), 103, 225, 229, 243. Clark argues that, as a public symbol of Victorian
morality, Beecher’s reputation remained strong despite accusations of adultery in 1874. In Clark’s view,
many Americans refused to accept Beecher’s possible guilt because to do so would have meant questioning
their own moral perspectives on life.
189
virtues of the Ayer formula. To emphasize this point, the publisher noted that “many
[writers] give as their motive in writing, the humane wish that others in distress may be
benefited like themselves.”
312
Stressing the honesty and do-gooder attitude of the writers
who vouched for his product, Dr. J. C. Ayer, the manufacturer of Ayer’s Cherry Pectoral,
aligned his own good intentions in spreading the virtues of his formula with the good
intentions of thousands of citizens whose un-coerced praise provided more free (and
arguably, successful) advertising fodder than the so-called certified statements of
professional chemists, druggists, and doctors. Moreover, when especially powerful
testimonials appeared on their desks, manufacturers did not hesitate to reprint them in
multiple almanacs, brochures, and other advertisements.
313

Manufacturers coupled this suggestion that testimonials came unsolicited with the
image of praise-filled letters flooding their mailboxes on a weekly basis. The 1878
edition of Green’s Pictorial Almanac for the August Flower and German Syrup published
only a few testimonial excerpts but offered to provide one-thousand letters from
“prominent men… anxious to tell us of the wonderful cures and great merits of German
syrup and August flower” in a separate pamphlet available on request.
314
With this, the

312
Ayer’s American Almanac (1854), Rare Books, HL.
313
Manufacturers often printed the same testimonial in subsequent editions if the words were powerful
enough. For example, the letters from Henry P. Marshall, Andrew O. Smith, Charles R. La Porte, and
James P. Rodgers appeared in the 1866, 1869, and 1875 volumes of Bristol’s Illustrated Almanac, Rare
Books, HL. Moreover, as James Young notes, some manufacturers were known to reprint testimonials
even after the writer had deceased. See Toadstool Millionaires, 189.
314
G. G Green, August Flower and German Syrup Almanac (1878), 16, box E-34, Ephemera Collections,
HL.
190
manufacturer suggested that this large bulk of mail itself provided evidence of the
product’s worth and trustworthiness: there were simply too many letters to print. This
manufacturer displayed great confidence, and illustrated the power behind the practice of
giving testimony in support of a product. By offering to send additional testimonials in a
supplement the manufacturer received many of the benefits of displaying the letters
without having to distribute them en masse: the individual might feel reassured of his /
her purchase and gain new faith in the product simply by knowing that those testimonials
exist, without having to actually see them.
Some manufacturers employed rhetorical techniques coupled with the image of
overflowing mailboxes to highlight the validity and unbiased nature of the testaments
they received. Importantly, one of the “unsolicited testimonials” offered in Green’s 1878
Almanac is an excerpt from a letter written by a newspaper man, who noted that
“notwithstanding our inability to agree upon a plan for advertising, I will do your
medicine justice… our druggist persuaded me to try a bottle of your German syrup in
which I found immediate relief. I am fully convinced it is the best medicine.”
315
Despite
their differences as businessmen, this author confides his positive opinion in the quality
of the product. Noting his business disagreement bolsters the validity of his testament by
suggesting that he might have had nothing to gain by helping the manufacturer. His
implicit disavowal of the potential for personal gain acted as a rhetorical mechanism for
strengthening the impact of his written support of the product. Even a man who had a
personal or business quarrel with the manufacturer could endorse the product because the
product itself was indeed that high in quality and worthy of praise. Using this

315
Ibid.
191
testimonial, Green augmented his corporate reputation by emphasizing the virtue of his
product as told through a demonstrably impartial third-party. His tactic worked as a
subtle public relations strategy to build goodwill by offering verifiable evidence of his
product’s worth.
In a similar strategy, some manufacturers provided readers with the opportunity to
personally verify the testaments appearing in print. Several manufacturers published the
full name and location of the testifiers, so that readers could presumably validate the
testaments themselves by contacting testifiers directly. In a publisher’s note to the 1854
edition of Ayer’s American Almanac, the manufacturer suggests that even the “humblest
yeomanry” and those in the “proudest stations on earth” can testify to the worth of his
remedy. Moreover, he intimates that he chose which testimonials to print based upon the
identities and residences of the writers themselves: “the statements …are purposefully
taken from different sections of the country, in order … to give every man a reference
somewhere within his own neighborhood. ...How loudly they speak is seen [here], but
how sincerely can only be appreciated by a personal interview with a patient.”
316
Here,
the publisher suggests that unsolicited testimonials arrived so abundantly that the he had
the option to choose the widest geographic representation possible, thereby illustrating
the enumerable examples from which he could choose for publication. He also implied
that the reader’s relatives and neighbors might number among those honest writers who
speak “without interest or bias.”
317
Challenging the reader to seek out those testifiers in
his / her own town and verify their statements, the manufacturer indirectly proclaimed

316
Publisher’s note, Ayer’s American Almanac (1854), Rare Books, HL.
317
Ibid.
192
that his testimonials were honest and sincere. Emphasizing the honesty of the testifiers
allowed this manufacturer to underscore the veracity of the testaments he printed.
Placing the onus of verification on the reader became a common tactic for self-
conscious patent medicine manufacturers attempting to prove the reliability of the
testimonials they printed, and several manufacturers defied the public to uncover false
testimonials. One prominent example includes a regular challenge issued by the Lydia E.
Pinkham Company, manufacturers of Lydia Pinkham’s Vegetable Compound. Boldly,
the company offered a $5,000 reward in 1901 for “any person who can show that any of
the testimonial letters in this book are not genuine, or were published before obtaining
each writer’s special permission.”
318
Foreshadowing a major FTC investigation in the
1930s into the use of false, fabricated, and purchased testimonials in advertising, this
company’s outward claim of transparency suggests that allegations of testimonial
falsehood threatened to undermine the reputation and financial success of the
company.
319

Moreover, manufacturers emphasized the regional affiliation, gender, and social
standing of testifiers as points through which readers might identify. In this way,
manufacturers painted testimonial writers as potential neighbors or friends, and helped
create a community of users whose experiences together formed an authoritative voice in
support of the product. In the West in particular, publishing the testaments of locals

318
Lydia E. Pinkham Co., Treatise on the Diseases of Women (Lynn, MA: Lydia E. Pinkham Medicine
Co., 1901), 43, in Warshaw Series I Patent Medicine, box 35 fol. 1, AC NMAH.
319
In the 1930s, the FTC famously investigated the J. Walter Thompson Company for regularly using
fabricated statements and paying prominent individuals for their endorsements of products. See Moskowitz
and Schweitzer, eds., Testimonial Advertising, 9.
193
became an important tactic to appeal to potential consumers. The maker of Bristol’s
Sarsaparilla regularly printed almanacs for residents in California, and highlighted
writers’ residential and social status in the testimonial pages for these booklets. These
“Voices from California” construct a regional community around the familiar plight of
Californians—neighbors and westerners who understood each other and who could
confide in one another.
320
This regional appeal may have especially worked in California
in the last decades of the century when Nativists protested the increased immigration of
workers from China and Japan to the western US.
321

In attempting to create a more personal appeal to consumers, manufacturers thus
created a democratization of authority that placed the statements of the presumed average
consumer on equal footing with the professional endorsements of doctors, druggists and
other experts. Printing the words of ordinary men and women alongside those of experts
provided a visual leveling of the speakers’ status while it reinforced the democratic ways
in which both groups fell ill and experienced salvation with the product at hand. In fact,
part of the personalized appeal found in testimonial advertising was the construction of a
community of users based upon the indiscriminate ways in which illness afflicted
individuals. As public figures were equally affected by the ailments, they could be
equally cured and thus testify in support of the product. Through their shared personal
experiences as formerly suffering individuals, non-expert users were thus placed on equal
footing with the expert or celebrity. Testimonials provided individual readers, many of
whom suffered from the same afflictions, a point of reference and identification—a

320
Bristol’s Illustrated Almanac (1875), Rare Books, HL.
321
On Nativism in California, see Saxton, The Indispensable Enemy.
194
means of relating to the speaker on the basis of shared experience. When the reader
recognized other shared elements—such as class, marital status, religion, gender,
occupation, or regional affiliation, the testimonial became even more effective in
persuading the reader to relate and trust the writer’s testament. For these reasons, the
testaments of presumed average individuals became just as, if not more effective than
those of experts and other celebrities.

The discursive exchange created in proprietary
medicine almanacs points to a leveling of authority where any user’s personal experience
could be as, if not more important for validating the product than the professional
recommendation of doctors or other experts. As one New Orleans newspaper editor
remarked of testimonials in 1901, “personal statements of that kind have a tremendous
influence in small communities, and those signed by plain, everyday working people are
at present regarded as more valuable than the indorsement [sic] of celebrities.”
322

Yet the words of average individuals never appeared in proprietary medicine
advertisements without the added professional endorsements of druggists, doctors, and
other public figures—suggesting that authority lay in the dual presentation of both

322
New Orleans Time-Democrat (1901), reprinted in Druggists' Circular 45, p. xi, cited in Young,
Toadstool Millionaires, 188. The notion that every man could be an expert directly contradicts a trend
toward professionalism and bureaucratization in the Gilded Age explored by scholars such as Robert
Wiebe, in The Search for Order, 1877-1920 (New York: Hill and Wang, 1967); Alan Trachtenberg, in The
Incorporation of America (New York: Hill and Wang, 1982); and Alfred Chandler, Jr., The Visible Hand
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1977); and speaks to the debates on Populism and anti-modernism
as discussed by Richard Hofstadter, in The Age of Reform (New York: Vintage, 1995 [1955]); and T. J.
Jackson Lears, in No Place of Grace and Fables of Abundance. Also pertinent to this literature on the
democratization of authority is Neil Harris’ Humbug.
195
experts and everymen agreeing upon the product’s worth, rather than in the sole authority
of one group over the other. Expert “certifications” augmented the accountability and
reputation of the manufacturer by providing a list of qualified references, including the
names of local and national celebrities, postmasters, newspaper editors, university
presidents, clergymen, and even the occasional foreign leader.
323
An 1873 edition of
Bristol’s Illustrated Almanac for California included a page highlighting the
endorsements of women of “high social position,” including a “noble Spanish lady in
Madrid,” and a “New York belle of great beauty and refinement.”
324
Clearly, in listing
the status of these ladies, but not their names, the manufacturers hope to build upon the
weight of their class (rather than the celebrity of an individual) as credit to the firm. They
appropriate the high-status of these women and their respectability and notoriety for the
product.
Listing the names of professionals and public figures who supposedly endorsed
the product provided a convenient way to leach the reputation and goodwill of these
public figures with very little chance of recourse. Regardless of whether the
manufacturer actually had permission to use the celebrity’s name, the average reader
would have little opportunity to meet the celebrity and verify his / her endorsement, and
the celebrity might have slim chances of discovering the misuse of his / her name. While
testimonies from presumed average individuals appealed to manufacturers when they
could establish a common ground between the testifier and the individual reader, such as

323
Ayer’s American Almanac (1854), Rare Books, HL.
324
Bristol’s Illustrated Almanac (1873), Rare Books, HL; and Green, Green’s Diary Almanac (1882-83),
box E-3, Ephemera Collections, HL.
196
mutual residence in the sparse territory of California or shared female ailments; the
testimonies of well-known public figures added simple volume to the community of users
who shared certain afflictions.
Finally, advertisers attempted to authenticate and (in some ways) personalize the
testimonials they presented by printing what appeared to be the faces and signatures of
the testifiers themselves. In the 1880s, Ayer’s American Almanac printed illustrations of
individuals suffering from various ailments alongside particular testimonials that
discussed these sicknesses. In later editions, the almanac printed illustrations of healthy
individuals beside testimonials, with the implication that the cuts depicted the writers
themselves.
325
This almanac sets up a pattern whereby the illustration should seem to
represent the speaker—in earlier issues illustrations depict suffering individuals, in the
later issue the speakers appear cured, proper, and well-dressed (FIG 3.3). Other patent
medicine almanacs followed suit, printing the apparent faces of testifiers and even the
facsimile signatures of those testifying.
326
In a Pinkham booklet for 1901 for example,
one testifier appears with an engraved portrait, identified as Mrs. S. J. Watson. Her initial
correspondence and testimonial letter are printed “by her special permission” (FIG
3.4).
327
Likewise, in various editions of Warner’s Safe Cure Almanac, the publishers
printed facsimile signatures and portraits alongside the statements of prominent
individuals, including the president of Harvard University and the editor of Century

325
Ayer’s American Almanac (1880, 1896), Rare Books, HL.
326
Apparent, because it is virtually impossible to verify whether these portraits and signatures depict the
actual speakers and / or their signatures.
327
Lydia E. Pinkham Co., Treatise on the Diseases of Women (Lynn, MA: Lydia E. Pinkham Medicine
Co., 1901), 51, in Warshaw Series I Patent Medicine, box 35 fol. 1, AC NMAH.
197
Magazine.
328
Printing the signatures and portraits of testifiers added both personality and
authenticity to the statements published: just as a notary’s signature would authenticate
the testaments made, including the signatures of testifiers provided seemingly verifiable
evidence that the statements were authentic. To put it another way, signatures and
portraits gave the illusion of veracity by suggesting that the statements came from real
customers and couldn’t have been fabricated.
It is very difficult to know how individuals may have responded to testimonials—
did they view them with skepticism? Did anyone ever seek out the individuals noted in
these pamphlets to verify their statements? The historical record largely omits the
answers to these questions. Regardless, the printing of testimonials in proprietary
medicine advertising was a widespread practice that maintained its currency throughout
the profession from mid-century well into the twentieth century. From its roots as a
practice almost entirely reliant upon the endorsements of prominent scientists, doctors,
and other experts in the 1830s and 40s, patent-medicine advertising increasingly relied
upon the testaments of otherwise ordinary individuals in the 1880s and ‘90s. Yet while
we can trace the growing use of the words of the common man in the last quarter of the
century, advertisers never completely abandoned the testaments of experts and other
public figures. Statements from professionals and experts increasingly appeared
alongside those from average individuals across the country, references from national
public figures, and letters from local authorities. Appropriating the character and

328
Warner’s Safe Cure (1892, 1896), Rare Books, HL. This pamphlet also includes testimonials from
individuals, including lawyers, the president of Harvard University, bankers, ministers, pharmacists,
judges, etc. Underneath each of these testimonies, the signature of the writer is reprinted.
198
reputations of the experts and everymen whose testimonials appeared in advertising,
proprietary medicine advertisers created an increasingly outspoken community of users
through the circular dialogue in almanacs and advertising pamphlets.

Visualizing Corporate Personality
In a move not unlike printing the faces of testifiers to add personality to
advertising appeals in the 1880s, the Lydia E. Pinkham Co. constructed a fictional Mrs.
Pinkham (which grew out of the actual image of the company’s original figurehead) as a
public representative, trademark, and commercial personality.
329
Using a portrait of the
deceased Lydia Pinkham as its trademark, the Pinkham Company shifted its advertising
campaigns toward building brand identity around this commercial personality in the
1880s. Though previous companies had utilized their founders’ faces as trademarks
earlier in the nineteenth century, Pinkham’s portrait became a corporate personality—a
symbol for the company’s reputation and goodwill—through advertising campaigns that
fictionalized her presence and image following her death in 1883. As the company’s
initial figurehead and the visual emblem of the company’s products and goodwill, the
image of Lydia Pinkham became a prominent element in American commerce well into
the twentieth century and in turn laid the foundations for the rise of trade characters such
as the Quaker Oats man and others after 1900.

329
According to trademark registrations, Pinkham’s portrait and signature were first used in commerce in
1881, though historians have dated the icon’s use to the 1870s (Stage, Female Complaints). The earliest
trademark registrations available in the USPTO are dated 1905. See Lydia Pinkham Co. trademark reg. 45,
785, filed 19 Apr 1905 (reg. 29 Aug 1905), USPTO.
199
The construction of Mrs. Pinkham as the company’s corporate personality
stemmed from advertising campaigns that positioned Lydia Pinkham as a willing
correspondent for customers seeking advice. From its founding in 1875, the Pinkham
Company regularly solicited women to write directly to Mrs. Pinkham with their queries
and problems. When printing these solicited letters in advertising pamphlets, the
company often included the statement that “All letters are published by special
permission.”
330
This disclaimer legitimized the testimonials by implying the company
obtained legal permission to publish from every writer, though often the letters
specifically granted permission to publish in so many words. Before and after letters also
frequently appeared in Pinkham publications, and demonstrated the loyalty of returning
satisfied customers to future Pinkham buyers. Finally, the company encouraged users to
reciprocate the company’s goodwill by writing back: that an individual might read a
testament, try the product, and write her own songs of praise to the company in thanks.
One such letter said as much in between exclamations of gratitude for Pinkham’s
humanitarianism. The writer, Mrs. I. C. Dale, complained that “I doctored with several
doctors, but received no permanent help.” According to her story, she happened upon a
letter in a newspaper describing similar conditions as hers, and she thought, “If she could
be cured, I surely could be helped… I am so thankful now that I did [try your
medicine].”
331
The guise of legal permission, the before and after letter, and the circular
power of testimonials each quietly underscored the altruistic intentions of the Pinkham

330
Lydia E. Pinkham Co., Treatise on the Diseases of Women (Lynn, MA: Lydia E. Pinkham Medicine
Co., 1901), 53, in Warshaw Series I Patent Medicine, box 35 fol. 1, AC NMAH.
331
Mrs. I. C. Dale, Claremont, VA to Lydia e. Pinkham Co., 4 Apr 1900; printed in ibid., 47.
200
Co. and the quality of life restored to its users. These demonstrations of corporate
character placed the Pinkham Co. at the center of a community of users who needed and
benefited from Pinkham’s Vegetable Compound.
Indeed, much of Pinkham’s appeal was to create a community of women—
women who advised other women, who shared stories with other women, and who had
particular knowledge of women’s problems—in order to promote the sales of the
products.
332
Part of Pinkham’s authority rested upon the intimate knowledge of women’s
problems that only a woman could understand. Throughout publications the company
derided the male-dominated world of doctors and pharmacists that misguided and judged
female patients whose propriety and embarrassment limited their discussion of intimate
medical issues. Ad copy often implicated husbands, doctors, and employers in causing
women’s troubles. Have no fear, the company encouraged: “in addressing Mrs. Pinkham
you are confiding your private ills to a woman... you can talk freely to a woman.” Mrs.
Pinkham’s “standing invitation” to “women suffering from any form of female
weakness” was to write with their concerns. Of these writers, Mrs. Pinkham asked
nothing in return, “except their good will,”—a subtle suggestion to the relieved sufferer
that she should share her story with friends and add her own testament to the pile of
praise in favor of Pinkham’s remedies.
333

332
Pinkham’s community of women is a theme pursued in detail by Elysa Ream Engelman in “‘The face
that haunts me ever.’”
333
Lydia E. Pinkham Co., Treatise on the Diseases of Women (Lynn, MA: Lydia E. Pinkham Medicine
Co., 1901), 34, in Warshaw Series I Patent Medicine, box 35 fol. 1, AC NMAH. See also Stage, Female
Complaints, 108.
201
Pinkham’s gendered appeal to female consumers grew from the image of Lydia
Pinkham as an “untitled” grandmotherly woman whose personal experience as an
herbalist provided a commercial personality which other women might trust (see FIGs
2.5 and 3.5).
334
Not only did her mature image and personal signature appear on product
packaging and on all advertising matter, the implication that Lydia Pinkham herself
would respond to any and all written queries continued to fill the pages of these
pamphlets well into the 1890s. Indeed, the phrase “Many thanks to Mrs. Pinkham,”
became an ubiquitous closing in testimonial letters written to the company.
335
Lydia
Pinkham’s personality seemed to saturate the female-oriented rhetoric and grandmotherly
advice printed in Pinkham advertising literature, which in turn lent an air of authenticity
that readers could visualize in the sage eyes and compassionate expression of that
trademarked image of Lydia herself.
Yet Lydia Pinkham’s wasn’t the only face trademarked in service of the
consumable product at the end of the century—in the 1890s, as the advertising industry
grew to accompany the booming market for consumable goods, a host of other products
found success in adopting similar portraits of their proprietors as logos on packaging and
in advertisements. For example, the Mennen Company, makers of various men’s hygiene
products, first adopted a portrait of Gerhard Mennen as its trademark in 1889 (FIG 3.6).
It used the image on packaging and in print advertisements until the 1910s, when it
introduced a more streamlined trademark consisting of only the name itself; yet the

334
Stage, Female Complaints, 105; Strasser, “Commodifying Lydia Pinkham,” 6; and Engelman, “‘The
face that haunts me ever,’” chapter 1.
335
Lydia E. Pinkham Co., Treatise on the Diseases of Women (Lynn, MA: Lydia E. Pinkham Medicine
Co., 1901), 43-53, in Warshaw Series I Patent Medicine, box 35 fol. 1, AC NMAH.
202
company continued to maintain the trademark registrations for the portrait trademark
until the 1930s.
336
Maintaining the trademark’s registration meant continued ownership
over use of the mark—and protected the company from unwanted imitation despite the
fact that Mennen itself gradually discontinued use of the portrait trademark in the first
half of the twentieth century. In a related example, the makers of Smith Bros. cough
drops continue to use the portraits of Andrew and William Smith on its packages of
lozenges in the twenty-first century (FIG 3.7).
337
Though the company changed hands
several times in the twentieth century, its trademark registration continued to be
maintained in 2010 as a brand in and of itself, which points to the contemporary
perceived value of this mark as a brand with a reputation independent of its current
ownership.
The currency that these portrait-marks held at the end of the nineteenth century,
and the subsequent success their companies enjoyed, suggests that the brands capitalized
upon a public identification with the portraits themselves. In humanizing their
corporations, these faces seemed to vouch for the integrity of the product and implied a
sense of responsibility on the part of the manufacturer. Representing the factory owner
provided a literal face to which consumers could relate when thinking about the

336
Trademark registrations for Mennen Co., no. 121,288 filed 7 Dec 1917 (reg. 23 Apr 1918); and no.
123,623 filed 7 Dec 1917 (reg. 19 Nov 1918); USPTO.
337
While some sources suggest the company dates back to 1847, trademark records indicate that the dual
portraits of the Smith brothers were first used in commerce in 1877, and the mark remains a legally
protected symbol today. See Lehner, American Symbols, 41; and “Business & Finance: Cough Drops’
Part” Time magazine, September 24, 1934; and trademark reg. no. 50,947 filed 16 May 1905 (reg. 3 Apr
1906), USPTO.
203
product—particularly in the case of Lydia Pinkham, whose personality not only saturated
print advertising and product labels but whose “advice” emanated throughout domestic
female culture in letters and word-of-mouth campaigns.
338
In this way, the Pinkham Co.,
Mennen, and Smith Bros. provided visual surrogates that would replace lost face-to-face
interaction in commercial exchange in the 1880s and ‘90s. More than simply
reintroducing a personal element to advertising, these trade characters helped build public
goodwill by providing an icon that would symbolize the virtue of their products and the
corporations as constructed in advertising campaigns.
The demonstration of character initiated by patent medicine advertisers and
typified in the trademarked icon of Lydia Pinkham and Smith Bros. ushered in an era
overwhelmed by “trade characters” whose presence had heretofore been virtually
unknown in American advertising. Like Lydia Pinkham, these trade characters became
the faces of the products and corporations they advertised, and thus humanized corporate
reputations by providing a “comforting substitute for the familiar face of the local
merchant.”
339
When in the 1890s public opinion for the “soulless” corporation dropped
as Taylorist scientific management threatened to make all workers mere cogs in the
factory machine, corporate public relations efforts centered on boosting public opinion

338
Laird, Advertising Progress; Strasser, “Commodifying Lydia Pinkham;” Marchand, Creating the
Corporate Soul; and Engelman, “The Face that Haunts Me Forever.”
339
In his book on advertising characters, Warren Dotz suggests that the trade character emerged at the turn
of the twentieth century, citing the Quaker Oats man (which he dates to 1877, though my research has
shown the Quaker’s trademark was only registered in 1895, see note 349) as the first trade character in
American advertising. See Dotz, Meet Mr. Product: The Art of the Advertising Character (San Francisco:
Chronicle Books, 2003), 10-14.
204
and overall goodwill towards the corporation by personalizing the corporation, owners,
and even the factory.
340
De-corporatizing household consumables in the age of
incorporation meant creating likeable personalities that could appeal to a wide range of
consumers through an “everyman” construction that was not unlike the emphasis on the
words of presumed average individuals in patent medicine testimonials. Indeed, the
Quaker Oats man, Fleischmann’s “John Dough,” the Franco-American chef, and other
characters exemplified a generalized, ideal “type” of American that was Anglicized, not
too wealthy, and in many cases embodied an old-fashioned protestant work ethic and
determination that contemporary success manual writers touted as the key ingredients to
upward mobility. Idealized and entirely fictional, trade characters provided
manufacturers with an opportunity to create seemingly perfect corporate personalities—
perfect in virtue, reputation, and appearance—to represent their companies in advertising
and other public media.
341

Though not the first trade character imagined through advertising, Fleischmann’s
“John Dough” is perhaps one of the most rhetorically democratic inventions of
advertising in this period. Brothers Charles and Max Fleischmann first introduced
packaged yeast in the 1870s as an aid for alcohol distillation and bread making. Door-to-
door sales in Cincinnati, where their first company was based, and special exhibits at
international fairs helped to popularize the product; and by the early 1880s the company

340
Ibid.; Marchand, Creating the Corporate Soul, chapter 1; Laird, Advertising Progress; and Chandler,
Visible Hand.
341
It is important to note that similar trade characters also emerged in Europe at the end of the nineteenth
century. See, for example, Stephen L. Harp, Marketing Michelin: Advertising & Cultural Identity in
Twentieth-Century France (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001).
205
counted well over 1,000 regional bakeries among its clients. By the 1890s the
introduction of refrigerated railroad cars and an investment in advertising helped to make
the product nationally-known.
342
In the second decade of the twentieth century, the
company’s advertising featured a trade character they called “John Dough.” In an all too
clever play on words, the fictional character was formed from loaves of bread, wore
baker’s attire, and claimed to be “raised” on Fleischmann’s Yeast (FIG 3.8).
343
The
character emerged as part of Fleischmann’s campaign to market its packaged yeast as a
staple in the American diet. Many of the ads touted the “healthful” qualities of bread, its
economic value compared to meat and potatoes, and its benefits to growing children.
One ad even conjured history in suggesting that yeast had benefited the Pilgrims when
they first arrived in New England. In these and other print ads that proclaimed the bread
man and Fleischmann’s Yeast as part of the “sign of good bread,” the company
constructed a set of attributes they wished to be associated with their product:
healthfulness, quality, economy, and long-standing benefits to the community.
344
John
Dough not only signified these attributes, but he personified them through his robust form
and smiling face. Though his limbs might only be constructed from loaves of bread, the
character’s animated humanism lent a personable quality to the product that contributed
to the success enjoyed by the Fleischmann Company in the first decades of the twentieth
century.
345

342
P. Christiaan Klieger, Images of America: The Fleischmann Yeast Family (Chicago: Arcadia, 2004), 16-
17, 54.
343
Print ads for Fleischmann’s Yeast (1913-1916), Ayer Series II, box 51 fols. 1-2, AC NMAH.
344
Ibid.
345
Evidence of the company’s growth is shown by its sales between 1900 and 1925: by 1925 the
206
The Fleischmann Company created “John Dough” with the specific pun toward
the everyman in American culture. Cultivated from old-stock American ingredients and
displaying a direct connection to the nation’s first mythical founders, the Pilgrims, the
character John Dough espoused a universalism that betrayed contemporary debates about
immigration and assimilation.
346
Since the eighteenth century, the moniker “John Doe”
had signified an “ordinary, typical citizen,” especially in legal proceedings.
347
By
paraphrasing their own fictitious everyman, the Fleischmann Company appropriated a
cultural familiarity with the moniker “John Doe” and provided their own yeast-based
twist, creating the implication that the bread-man espoused some connection to each and
every individual in the US. Using the pseudonym John Dough, the company constructed
a blank face through which American consumers could envision their own childhood

company’s annual sales had jumped to an average of 2.45 lbs per capita annually. See Klieger,
Fleischmann, 54.
346
On assimilation debates at the turn of the century, see John Higham, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of
American Nativism, 1860-1925 (New Brunswick: Rutgers Univ. Press, 1955); Russell A. Kazal,
“Revisiting Assimilation: The Rise, Fall, and Reappraisal of a Concept in American Ethnic History,”
American Historical Review 100, no. 2 (1995): 437-471; Matthew Frye Jacobson, Barbarian Virtues: The
United States Encounters Foreign Peoples at Home and Abroad, 1876-1919 (New York: Hill and Wang,
2000); and David R. Roediger, The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working
Class (New York: Verso, 2007).
347
Oxford English Dictionary cites 1768 as the first use of this name, to signify an anonymous plaintiff in
legal proceedings (with “Richard Roe” signifying a like defendant). By 1942, the term came to signify any
“typical” man or unidentified male. Oxford English Dictionary Online, s.v. “John Doe,”
http://www.oed.com.libproxy.usc.edu/view/Entry/101505?redirectedFrom=John%20Doe#eid40416766
(accessed 17 Jan 2013).
207
upbringing on healthy bread, their imagined American past through the constructed link
to the Pilgrims, and the future of their own children growing up with wholesome
nutrition. John Dough provided a relatable fictional icon whose constructed qualities
helped project the character of the Fleischmann Co. to the public, however real or
imagined that character might be. Yet the Fleischmann Co.’s John Dough had a
truncated existence—by the end of the 1920s his image had largely faded from print
advertisements in the US, in favor of a new “Yeast for Health” campaign that touted the
versatile uses of Fleischmann’s Yeast more directly.
348
Corporate appropriation of an
idealized, culturally-constructed persona would come to fruition more fully and famously
through the older personality of the Quaker Oats man.
Trademarked in 1895, the Quaker Oats man (the trade character for the Quaker
Oats Co. of Ravenna, Ohio) grew out of a visual and cultural association between Quaker
culture and the religious group’s quest toward purity and “sterling honesty” in everyday
life (FIG 3.9).
349
Early print ads for the Quaker Oats Co. depicted the package of oats

348
Under the new “Yeast for Health” campaign, the company utilized more photography in their
advertisements than previously. However, this campaign came under fire in 1931, when a major FTC
investigation accused the company of making unsupported and dishonest claims and forced the company to
confine its appeals to the bakery-related benefits of the product. See Klieger, Fleischmann, 11, 50-54;
Inger L. Stole, Advertising on Trial: Consumer Activism and Corporate Public Relations in the 1930s
(Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2006), 90; and Ayer Series II box 51, AC NMAH.
349
“News Behind the Ads,” Changing Times: The Kiplinger Magazine (Dec 1959): 38. The Quaker Mill
Co. was founded in 1877 in Ravenna, OH. The original business failed and was resold in 1881, merged
with other mills in 1885 and 1888, and finally reorganized in 1891 to form the American Cereal Company
(renamed The Quaker Oats Company in 1901). See “Quaker Oats Oatmeal,” in Encyclopedia of Consumer
Brands vol. 1, ed. Janice Jorgensen (Detroit: St. James Press, 1994), 472-473; Harrison John Thornton, The
208
with the Quaker figure prominently featured, and always highlighted the so-called pure
quality of the food (a nod to the Quaker’s emergence during a period of growing
Progressive concern). A railroad tour in the 1890s brought samples and in-person visits
from an actor in costume to small towns between Cedar Rapids, Iowa and Portland,
Oregon, while advertising in magazines, newspapers, and other media followed with
printed support.
350
By the early twentieth century, ads tended to use the Quaker as more
than just a spokesman for oats, but as a sponsor of children’s healthy growth and adults’
renewed energy. He promised that his oats were free from impurities, hulls, and “black
specks”—which spoke to public concerns over the quality of packaged foods in the years
leading up to the Pure Food & Drug Act (1906). In 1902 and 1903, the Quaker also told
parents that children fed on his oats would “play better, study better, sleep better, [and]
live better” than other children. More nutritious than meat, according to the ads, Quaker
Oats promised to make “big men and fine women” out of little boys and girls.
351
The
claims made by the Quaker Oats company did not end there. One ad promised not only
to enrich the appetites of its consumers, but their lives as well:

History of the Quaker Oats Company (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1933), 45-70; and Arthur F.
Marquette, Brands, Trademarks, and Good Will; the Story of the Quaker Oats Company (New York:
McGraw-Hill, 1967), 31. Though Marquette cites the first trademark registration for the Quaker Oats man
in 1877, records at the USPTO offer conflicting information suggesting the first commercial use of the
Quaker Oats man occurred either in 1867 or 1877. See trademark reg. 26, 254, filed 22 Jan 1895 (reg. 19
Mar 1895), USPTO; and trademark reg. 768, 464, filed 13 May 1963 (reg. 21 Apr 1964), USPTO.
350
Jennifer Connerley, “Friendly Americans: Representing Quakers in the United States, 1850-1920” (PhD
diss., University of North Carolina, 2006), 210-211.
351
Print ad for Quaker Oats (1902), Ayer Series II, box 7 fol. 2, AC NMAH.
209
Here’s strength for good work, light hearts for play, good bone and strong
muscle, pure blood and steady nerve, growth for your children, rosy
cheeks and bright eyes for your lassies, vigor and self-reliance for your
sons, young hearts for your wives, strength for your brain and for your
hands, good digestion …economy for your purse, health, wealth, and a
good breakfast.
352

The company’s promises of zest, vigor, and self-reliance stemmed from its own
constructed notion that breakfast provided the most important foundation for the day’s
work, and from then-emergent trends in advertising which involved creating new social
and cultural problems that could best be solved through the consumption of particular
products. According to this ad, the economical Quaker Oats provided not only the crucial
breakfast for children’s growth, but eased the digestion of elderly consumers and
energized adults for the day. Regardless of whether the product lived up to such boastful
claims, it is important to understand the ways in which the Quaker’s message may have
been made more believable simply by his appearance.
In many ways, the Quaker Oats man evoked an “honest, healthful, pure, [and]
pastoral moment in American history,” through the appropriation of a late-nineteenth
century stereotype of the eighteenth-century Society of Friends (Quakers).
353
As a
referent to the Friends’ reliability, honesty, and plainness, the image of the Quaker Oats
man joined these perceived characteristics with his product-sponsor. Early
advertisements placed in newspapers and distributed as pocket trade cards showed the

352
“The Food that Tells,” advertisement for Quaker Oats (1902), Ayer Series II, box 7 fol. 2, AC NMAH.
353
Connerley, “Friendly Americans,” 208-209.
210
man holding a scroll inscribed with the word “Pure,” and gesturing to his product as an
emblem of this written message. His eighteenth-century dress harkened to the age of
Benjamin Franklin and William Penn (who, according to one company history, inspired
the creation of the now famous Quaker), and cleverly signified the Friends’ culturally-
constructed attributes: goodness, purity, honesty, and implicitly, trustworthiness.
354

Gesturing to a simpler, purer past gave the Quaker Oats man a way to suggest to
consumers that his product conformed to those pastorally honest ideals that seemed to be
diminishing rapidly as American industry grew exponentially in the 1890s. By 1905, the
character had gained enough currency in American culture and popular consciousness
that adman Earnest Elmo Calkins, in his widely-published manual for advertising
executives, commented on the success of the Quaker brand as part of a new trend toward
creating trademarked personalities.
355

By the 1930s, the Quaker Oats man had transformed from his origins as a
relatively marginal trade character in the 1890s to a household icon in American
consumer culture, complete with a deceptively real existence.
356
In his 1933 history of
the company, Harrison Thornton refers to “The Quaker” as if he is a real person and the
figurehead of the company. As someone who grew up with the character circulating in
national media, Thornton’s personalization of the company through the Quaker character
demonstrates the success of the brand by the 1930s. He personifies the advertising
campaigns in this way:

354
“News Behind the Ads,” 38.
355
Earnest Elmo Calkins, Modern advertising (New York: Garland, 1905), 317-322.
356
Terri Lonier traces the process of creating the iconic Quaker through what she terms “aspirational
branding,” in “Alchemy in Eden,” chapter 4.
211
The Quaker, as a matter of fact, was too manly a person long to continue
commending his wares in sentimental and melodramatic fashion. While
still the nineties ruled, he was using crisper tones and firmer logic. ... This
became more true [sic] as the new century advanced. ... ‘The one
overwhelmingly important thing in this life is health,’ the Quaker was
preaching in 1905.
357

For Thornton, the character had not only become the emblem for the brand and the
product, but the personification of all the company’s actions, its goodwill, and its
business practices and relations with the public. His words indicate the depth to which
the Quaker figure had penetrated American consumer and popular culture—to the level
where the fictional character himself came to embody the company’s goodwill—and the
power to be won when constructing a positive, successful personality for one’s product.
In the Quaker Oats man, the company found a treasure. Appropriating existing
qualities associated with a well-known religious group in American culture, the Quaker
Co. cleverly sutured these qualities to their product through a successful branding
strategy. Their sales and longevity over the course of the twentieth century forms a
testament to the currency of the Quaker figure himself as a spokesperson for oatmeal.
More importantly, it speaks to the willingness of many American consumers to believe in
the Quaker Oats man and all he stood for—honesty, plainness, goodness, and purity.
America’s trust of this Quaker’s sermon has been concretized in the dollars and cents
earned by the Quaker Oats Company over the last 120 years.

357
Thornton, Quaker Oats, 106-108.
212
Lifelike characters, such as the Quaker, proved to be more appealing and
profitable than real-life existing endorsers in many ways, even when actors appeared as
the trade characters in real-life (as in the Quaker’s famous train tour, and in Aunt
Jemima’s booth at the 1893 Exposition).
358
Though companies would continue to rely
upon both celebrity and lay testimonials to endorse products, trade characters provided
benefits that real-life endorsers could not. Companies who created fictional trade
characters did not have to worry about paying the high wages of celebrity spokespersons,
obtaining permission for using spokespersons’ names and images in print, or performing
public relations clean-up when the spokesperson died (as in the case of Lydia Pinkham)
or became involved in a scandal (as in the case of Henry Ward Beecher). Fictionalized in
personality and appearance, trade characters were born to be perfect in the public eye—
conforming to whatever qualities and character the manufacturer and its admen desired
for the public representative of the company.
Why did these characters have such currency in American culture in the first
decades of the twentieth century? In 1929, historian Frank Presbrey suggested that
technological improvements in the printing process ensured their success: in place of the
outline figure came the photographic cartoon, an evolution in the 1890s “from the
conventional and relatively lifeless trade-mark in outline to the naturalness and greater

358
Connerley, “Friendly Americans,” 210-211. On Aunt Jemima see Kern-Foxworth, Aunt Jemima, 61-
114; Isabell Cserno, “Race and Mass Consumption in Consumer Culture National Trademark Advertising
Campaigns in the United States and Germany, 1890-1930” (PhD diss., University of Maryland College
Park, 2008), chapter 3; and Micki McElya, Clinging to Mammy: The Faithful Slave in Twentieth-Century
America (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2007), chapter 1.
213
emotiveness of the half-tone reproduction of human in action.”
359
While technology
certainly played a part in structuring the success of these trade characters, mere
photographic depiction cannot provide the only cause. In the archived files of advertising
agencies lay the remains of a host of campaigns gone wrong, including unsuccessful trade
characters and their failed slogans.
360
Certainly the humanizing effect of these characters
fortified their lasting impressions with the American public—an effort aided by
significant advertising expenditures and media blitzes. Yet it was more than their
humanistic traits that made trade characters such as the Quaker Oats man memorable: in a
word, it was their virtue—their character—that appealed to American consumers in these
years. According to Presbrey, these characters became “as familiar as the faces of
national heroes.”
361
His statement is significant in that it elevates commercial
personalities to the status of national legend, and is representative of the shift to the
consumer society ushered in by the twentieth century. This new society, which prized
both character and personality—both virtue and distinction—in its commercial
trademarks, would intensely rely upon trade characters in national advertising campaigns
through the 1960s.
362
These characters made a permanent impression upon the American

359
Presbrey, History of Advertising, 382. See also Harris, “Halftone Effect.”
360
See, for example, print ads for Zephyr Flour (1913), Ayer Series II, box 46 fol. 2, AC NMAH; “Josh
Slinger,” print ads for Hires Root Beer (1915), Ayer Series II, box 83 fol. 2, AC NMAH; and print ads for
Lifesavers candies (1919), Ayer Series II, box 8 fol. 2, ACNMAH.
361
Presbrey, History of Advertising, 384.
362
As Dotz explains, advertising trade characters declined in the 1970s with the rising popularity of
abstract trademarks that grew out of shifting artistic and graphic design styles emerging in the new post-
modern movement of the 1970s. See Dotz, Meet Mr. Product, 32.
214
public because of the nature and character of the appeal itself, or rather, because of the
virtues that these trade characters represented.
And so, in their quest to profess the best possible public reputation for their
companies, manufacturers learned that textual demonstrations—such as those contained
in testimonials—could only win so much rapport from the public. Instead, visual
representations, and especially trade characters, emerged as a more effective means of
demonstrating corporate character. Advertisers reworked Victorian notions of character
and virtue to fit the goals of commerce and consumerism at the end of the nineteenth
century, finding that demonstrating character could be a successful mode of achieving
distinction and memorability among consumers. In this way, much of American
advertising underwent a shift between 1870 and the 1920s, from textual references to
individual and corporate character to visual representations (both literal and figural) of
corporate personality.
363

In 1920, the N.W. Ayer & Son Advertising Agency proclaimed the lasting
importance of character to the advertising industry and American business writ large.
Suggesting that the “secrets of the soul are published by the face,” the agency’s business-
to-business advertisement outlined the necessity of publicizing a firm’s character to the
public in order to reap success—and the central role of advertising in precipitating that
success.
364
Through text and image, the agency borrowed the likenesses of prominent
historical figures to illustrate the strong leadership role it named for itself among the

363
See footnotes 34 and 59.
364
N. W. Ayer & Son Advertising Agency advertisement, published in Saturday Evening Post Literary
Digest (1920), Ayer Series XIV, box 13 fol. 1, AC NMAH.
215
advertising community. In nearly half a century of business, the Ayer Agency learned
the value of constructing a public personality with which potential consumers could
identify. When in 1920 it preached the importance of establishing a visible public
presence through advertising, backed by sound character and reputation, the agency had
proven the success of such strategies in its campaigns for Quaker Oats, Franco-American
Soups, Fleischmann’s Yeast, and other companies. Each of these companies utilized a
trade character in its advertising. More than just friendly faces enticing the consumer to
buy the product, these characters embodied the purity, quality, and reputation constructed
for the client—they became not only the faces of the corporations, but a symbolic version
of all the company had created for itself in the public sphere: namely, its goodwill.
The constructed attributes around these trade characters—the quality of their
character—gave distinction to their appeals to American consumers and in turn ensured
the success and continued goodwill of the brands. Advertisers had already established
winning modes of appeal in the 1870s and ‘80s—including trade cards, epistolary
advertising, and humor—that referenced the manufacturer’s character and built its public
reputation. Textual references to character continued to frame advertising strategies
throughout the 1880s, as the appeals of testimonials and other tactics demonstrate. Yet
these textual demonstrations of character soon gave way to more visual representations of
both personality and character by the 1890s. The faces of Lydia Pinkham, G. Mennen,
and the Smith Bros. provided their products with friendly images that communicated
responsibility to potential consumers by suggesting the proprietors’ willingness to stand
by their products. In the Quaker Oats man, John Dough, and other trade characters,
manufacturers found fictionalized commercial personalities whose constructed attributes
216
provided a perfect visual mode of communicating character and building reputation.
Appeals from the Quaker, from Lydia, from G. Mennen, Andrew and William Smith,
John Dough, the Franco-American chef, and others resonated because these characters
took on lifelike personalities that proliferated in the media. Their appeals reintroduced a
personal element (quite literally) into a commercial network of exchange that had all but
lost its personal touch.
Tracing this development—from memorable appeals on trade cards, to Pinkham’s
portrait trademark, to trade characters—demonstrates only part of the process through
which trademarks became invested with virtue and distinction. In the first decade of the
twentieth century, advertisers would continue to stress the importance of displaying good
character and integrity through public media. Their forays into symbolic visual elements
in advertising would take them into the world of trademarks and graphic logos, into the
legal arenas regulating the use and display of such marks, and into more direct
expositions of goodwill and trust. Yet the world of trademarks and regulation had always
intertwined with the world of counterfeits and piracy, and as advertisers would note in the
1890s, piracy had become a major problem in American commerce. Little did they know
that trademarks could provide the solution to this problem.

217

Figure 3.1 Print advertisement for Franco-American Soups, produced by N. W. Ayer
& Son Advertising Agency (1907), approx. 6 x 6in. N. W. Ayer Advertising Agency
Records. Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian
Institution.

Figure 3.2 Print advertisement for Lea & Perrin’s
Sauce, produced by N. W. Ayer & Son Advertising
Agency (1917), approx. 3.5 x 7in. N. W. Ayer
Advertising Agency Records. Archives Center, National
Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution.
218

Figure 3.3 J. C. Ayer & Co., Ayer’s American Almanac for 1880 (left) and 1896
(right), showing supposed portraits of testifiers (Lowell, MA: J. C. Ayer & Co.), n.p.
Rare Books, The Huntington Library. This item is reproduced by permission of The
Huntington Library, San Marino, California.

Figure 3.4 Portrait of Mrs. S. J. Watson (1899), in Treatise on the Diseases of Women
(Lynn, MA: Lydia E. Pinkham Medicine Co., 1901), 51. Warshaw Collection of
Business Americana—Patent Medicine. Archives Center, National Museum of American
History, Smithsonian Institution.
219

Figure 3.5 Pinkham’s portrait as it appeared in advertising literature, on front cover
for Pinkham’s Guide to Health (c. 1880), page approx. 5 x 8in. Warshaw Collection of
Business Americana—Patent Medicine. Archives Center, National Museum of American
History, Smithsonian Institution.

Figure 3.6 Newspaper advertisement for Mennen’s Toilet Powder (1898), box 7 fol.
2, Roy Lightner Collection of Antique Advertisements. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book
& Manuscript Library, Duke University.

220

Figure 3.7 Smith Bros. pharmaceutical envelope showing trademark (c. 1870),
approx. 3 x 4in. Warshaw Collection of Business Americana—Patent Medicine.
Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution.

Figure 3.8 Newspaper advertisements for Fleischmann’s Yeast, featuring trade
character “John Dough,” produced by N. W. Ayer & Son Advertising Agency. Left:
“The Sign of Good Bread” quarter-page ad (1916); middle: “The World Goes Round”
half-page ad (1913); and right: “In Bread There is Strength” quarter-page ad (1913). N.
W. Ayer Advertising Agency Records. Archives Center, National Museum of American
History, Smithsonian Institution.

221

Figure 3.9 Newspaper advertisements for Quaker Oats, produced by N. W. Ayer &
Son Advertising Agency. Left: “Children,” quarter-page ad (1902); and right: “You
know the Quaker,” quarter-page ad (1903). N. W. Ayer Advertising Agency Records.
Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution.

222
CHAPTER FOUR:
Locating Trust in the Trademarked Logo

The more the manufacturer advertises his trade-mark goods, the more the
imitator fattens and flourishes.
365

As he assessed the state of his industry in 1893, adman J. M. Battle complained
about the frequency of unlawful imitation in the American marketplace. Battle outlined
an increasing problem of imitation and piracy (of trade names, labels, and goods) in the
1870s, ‘80s, and ‘90s: as advertising campaigns successfully drummed up brand-loyal
business for particular goods, the manufacturers of counterfeit and imitation goods saw
the opportunity for piracy and profit.
366
Battle suggested that trademarks, if regulated
properly, could act as protections against fraud. Linking honesty and integrity to
legitimate business practice, he pointed his finger at dishonest counterfeiters who
intentionally endangered the public through their “nefarious” work. In the 1890s, he and
many other manufacturers and advertising agents campaigned for federal trademark
regulations that would legally protect a company’s advertising investments, reputation,
and goodwill from “disrespectful” imitators, in Battle’s words. The lessons learned from
efforts to establish a corporate reputation through trade characters in the 1870s and ‘80s,
through the use of Lydia Pinkham and the Quaker, informed how advertisers would talk
about trademarks in the 1890s and early 1900s. The successes won in these earlier
campaigns made cultivating distinction and goodwill even more important as the century

365
J. M. Battle, “The Present Condition of the Trade-Mark Law in the United States,” Iron Age (26 Oct
1893): 760.
366
Ibid.
223
neared its end, when the success of ventures like Quaker Oats drew unlawful imitation
from competitors. For advertising agents and other experts, cheap imitations damaged
the brand identity of the product (in their words, its “good will” value) by eroding public
trust in the product’s quality and more importantly, in the integrity of the manufacturer.
This problem of piracy and trademark infringement plagued the advertising
industry between 1870 and 1905, as evident in the words and diatribes of admen and
other industry experts writing in trade journals and publishing advertising manuals,
textbooks, and other related print material. Diligent self-policing became one reliable
method of deterring imitation and counterfeits in the eyes of these writers, yet by the end
of the century, regulating trademarks and instilling them with cultural value emerged as
the single-most important component of successful advertising strategies. Admen
advocated using the marks to distinguish products and prove genuineness, and lobbied for
federal legislation that would protect the marks from infringement. Their continued
efforts to police their own field from counterfeiters mirrored corporate anxieties over
trademark infringement, which pushed both admen and corporate executives to pursue
legal measures that would protect one’s advertising investment and trademark rights.
These efforts culminated in the passing of the 1905 trademark statute—a legal measure
which built upon the precedents set in cases of trademark infringement over the previous
two decades, the conversations and policies of advertising experts in trade journals
regarding the need for honesty and integrity in their industry, and a developing
understanding of the monetary value (the profit potential inherent) in cultivating public
goodwill. Importantly, both admen and the courts linked a business’s goodwill value to
potential profits. They argued that goodwill was best earned through transparent
224
behavior and honest claims, which had been central components of advertisers’
personalization efforts since the 1870s. The case of National Biscuit provides a crucial
link connecting advertisers’ earlier attempts to demonstrate their integrity and character
in the 1870s, ‘80s, and ‘90s to the streamlined, logo-centered campaigns of the 1920s
which distilled these prior discourses of trustworthiness into one meaning-packed
symbol: the trademarked logo.
***

Admen, Branding, and Trademark Law
The practice of using identifying marks to establish ownership, manufacture, or
association has a long and varied tradition in Western history. From artisans’ initials
stamped on their wares in Antiquity, to personal crests worn by medieval knights into
battle, to “brands” burned onto property, individuals throughout history have used such
marks to distinguish their wares from other like objects.
367
In the early modern world,
artisanal guilds regulated the use of such marks (in the interest of the public) in order to
locate responsibility for inferior material or workmanship, especially in the case of
British silversmiths. Used in this way, “trade-marks” established a liability for the
product, and because guilds regulated the use of these marks, the liability “tended to
secure honest and efficient workmanship.”
368
In British common law, the “trade-mark”

367
Per Mollerup, Marks of Excellence (London: Phaidon, 1998), 17-40; Edward S. Rogers, “Some
Historical Matter Concerning Trade-Marks,” Michigan Law Review 9, no. 1 (1910): 29-43; and Clayton
Lindsay Smith, The History of Trade-Marks (New York: Priv. Pub., 1923), 9-16.
368
Munroe Smith, foreword to The Historical Foundations of the Law Relating to Trade-Marks, by Frank I.
Schechter (New York: Columbia University Press, 1925), x.
225
thus became an assurance of quality that customers would recognize. In these ways,
seals, brands, monograms, crests, marks, and logos all functioned to identify and
distinguish something from other “things” in possible situations of confusion, and
importantly, gained their cultural meanings through repeated social use.
In the US, the use of trademarks expanded from a relatively small number of
goods employing the marks in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, such as artisanal
goods like furniture and silver, to almost all nationally-distributed household
consumables and foodstuffs in the second half of the nineteenth century. Some of the
earliest users of identifying marks and designs on product packaging included the
manufacturers of farm implements, tobacco, alcohol products and patent medicines.
369

Mass-production and distribution on a national scale after the Civil War facilitated the
availability of multiple goods within a single product line, such as soap or shoes, and
product labels with distinct marks appeared more frequently than before among
household consumable goods. In the expanding market of the 1870s, these distinct marks
and labels became increasingly necessary to distinguish one manufacturer’s goods from
his competitors.
370
As the century came to a close the marks moved to the center of
advertisers’ personalization efforts to build goodwill.

369
Ephemera Collections, HL. Manufacturers in these industries used unique marks to distinguish their
goods from like products on the market, however these marks and names appeared only in printed matter
directed at other members from the same trade and did not, on the whole, circulate among the public. See
Smith, History of Trademarks, chapter 1.
370
In contrast, Susan Strasser argues that brand-names developed in part to fix retail prices and squeeze out
wholesaler middlemen who marked up merchandise to make a profit. See Strasser, Satisfaction
Guaranteed, chapter 3. On the rise of mass consumption after the Civil War, see Edwards, New Spirits;
226
Between 1875 and 1915, goodwill became intimately associated with the
trademark, whose symbolism helped to define the profit potential of the product by
signifying the reputation and integrity of the manufacturer, and his responsibility towards
the public. As the embodiment of goodwill, the courts came to define trademark
protection (and thus the protection of goodwill) as a form of property protection. Though
an intangible asset, goodwill was a highly valuable one.
The problem of imitation and counterfeiting which flourished after the Civil War
resulted from the initial tentativeness with which legislators approached trademark
protections.
371
In the years before the first US trademark statute (1870), manufacturers
utilized a range of available channels under common law to protect their advertising
investments and to distinguish their products from others on the market. They patented
and copyrighted label designs and product names under existing legislation, and pursued
legal action against competitors who imitated those designs and names too closely. In
many ways, simply printing the word “copyright” on a label provided manufacturers with
a host of benefits: it provided legal protection against unauthorized imitation and

and Norris, Advertising.
371
In the colonial period, the guidelines for trademark protections grew out of British Common Law. The
first case of trade name infringement in the US was brought in 1844 by an English thread manufacturer
against a US manufacturer for imitation and fraud. See Mira Wilkins, “The Neglected Intangible Asset: the
Influence of the Trade Mark on the Rise of the Modern Corporation,” Business History 34, no. 1 (1992):
74-77. This case, Taylor v. Carpenter (1844) is discussed further by Roland Cox in American Trade Mark
Cases (Cincinnati: Robert Clark & Co., 1871), 14. While many twentieth-century sources cite Taylor as
the first case on trademarks in the US, it should be noted that Cox cites several cases before Taylor that
created precedents for trademark regulation in the US. These include Snowden v. Noah (1825) and
Thomson v. Winchester (1837). See Cox, Trade Mark Cases, 1, 7.
227
copying, but also added a measure of legitimacy through the simple association with
federal regulation and the law.
372
When legislators enacted trademark protections in
1870, the business community immediately set to work at putting it to good use: the first
decade after passing saw approximately 8,000 trademarks registered by the patent office
and over 160 cases of infringement heard in US courts.
373
Despite this success, the US
Supreme Court declared the initial Act unconstitutional in 1879, prompting Congress to
pass new laws in the 1880s. The constitutionality of these laws remained contested
however, while their effectiveness dwindled until the passage of more comprehensive
protections in 1905.
374

372
Lambert, “The Seasonal Trade,” 94. On copyrighting label designs and pictures, see Oscar E. Binner,
“Does Copyright Law Protect Advertisers?” Profitable Advertising 8, no. 8 (15 Jan 1898): 292-295; and
“Copyrighted Pictures for Advertisers,” Printers’ Ink 14, no. 12 (Mar 1896): 38.
373
Laird, Advertising Progress, 189. Laird also notes that competition on the American market was so
fierce that by 1875, the US Patent Office had registered 1,138 brand-name goods, with the registration rate
steadily increasing each year. See Statistical History of the United States from Colonial Times to the
Present, intro. Ben J. Wattenberg (New York: Basic, 1976), 956-959; cited in Laird, Advertising Progress,
414 n. 13. See also Rowland Cox, A Manual of Trade Mark Cases, 2
nd
ed. (New York: Houghton Mifflin,
1892); and Strasser, Satisfaction Guaranteed, 44-52.
374
The unconstitutionality of the law stemmed from its framing under the Intellectual Property clause of the
Constitution, the same clause that governed patent and copyright protections. In their decision, the judges
intimated that while they had denied “intellectual property” status to trademarks, legal protections for
trademarks could theoretically exist under Congress’ right to govern interstate and foreign commerce under
the Constitution. See Edward S. Rogers, “The Expensive Futility of the United States Trade-Mark Statute,”
Michigan Law Review 12, no. 8 (1914): 661; and Strasser, Satisfaction Guaranteed, 45.
228
The development of trademark-centered advertising (what practitioners would
today refer to as “brand advertising,” or simply, “branding”) began with the 1870s in
admen’s expositions in trade journals on the nature of their business, the road to success,
and the illegitimate practices that threatened the integrity of the industry as a whole. The
problem of counterfeiting had emerged simultaneously with the growth of the advertising
industry and the growing brand recognition of products on the market in the 1870s and
‘80s. Once a brand’s reputation and popularity was fairly well established, it became a
target for counterfeits. In the growing advertising industry, policing the boundaries of
illegitimate practice became an obsession among influential advertising agents and other
professionals.
Advertising strategists molded the principles of branding by first pointing to the
importance of a consistent advertising presence in public media and an appealing visual
campaign. Building off the public’s fascination with chromos and trade cards, writers in
trade journals such as Printers’ Ink from the mid-1880s onward acknowledged the merit
of the visual in appealing to potential buyers and “catching” the customer’s eye; and they
stressed the importance of effective advertising designs that balanced image and text and
the value of a well-placed image.
375
Writer Lewis Saxby claimed that the power of
images would outweigh any persuasion written in the ad’s text. Suggesting that images
had the power to stand alone in the advertising world, Saxby highlighted the image-

375
George P. Rowell Agency, “To Catch the Eye,” advertisement in Printers’ Ink 4, no. 12 (Mar 1891):
418; and Binner, “Does Copyright,” 292. See also “Don’ts for Advertisers,” Printers’ Ink 3, no. 14 (Oct
1890): 311; Charles L. Benjamin, “Every Advertiser his own Architect,” Printers’ Ink 6, no. 7 (Feb 1892):
230-232; and George E. B. Putnam, “Mistakes of Small Advertisers,” Printers’ Ink 7, no. 9 (Aug 1892):
243.
229
centered approach that came to define the industry by the early twentieth century.
376

Increasingly, writers favored unique, appealing images with the trademarks that would
eventually become central icons in American advertising design. They suggested that
trademarks, when selected and used properly, could be far more valuable than
salesmen.
377
In their view, images and especially trademarks held the power to build
goodwill (and in turn increase profits) by appealing personally to consumers; and could
therefore alleviate the problem of intimacy and depersonalization brewing in the
American mass market.
Thread manufacturers in the 1880s, for example, recognized the importance of
creating a consistent visual program in advertising. The manufacturers of J & P Coats’
and Clark ONT threads both used their respective label designs as the central elements in
their advertising campaigns. Inserting the round label itself into wheels, balls, rattles, and
other like shapes in the advertising imagery allowed these manufacturers to create a
custom look to otherwise generic images while reinforcing the familiarity of the
consumer with the label design itself (FIG 4.1).
378
When marketing a product as

376
Lewis Saxby, “The Genius of Pictorial Advertising,” Printers’ Ink 11, no. 19 (Nov 1894): 804. See also
S. Roland Hall, “Advertising Illustration,” Ad Sense 20, no. 5 (1906): 452-453; and M. H. Schumann,
“Pictures in Ads,” Advertising World 8, no. 7 (1903): 25.
377
“American Trade-Marks,” Printers’ Ink 23, no. 6 (May 1898): 37; “Importance of Trade-Marks,”
Printers’ Ink 20, no. 4 (Jul 1896): 6.
378
See, for example, Forbes Co., “Two dogs,” trade card advertisement for Clark’s Thread (c.1876-84),
Col. 134, box 1 fol. 1, p. 9, DCWL; “Boy and button,” trade card advertisement for Clark’s Thread
(c.1880), Col. 134, box 1 fol. 1, p. 47r, DCWL; stock logo trade cards for J&P Coats’ Thread (c.1890),
Doc. 394, box 1 fol. 1, p. 43-44, DCWL; Major & Knapp Co., “Child and basket,” trade card advertisement
for Clark’s Thread (before 1888), Col. 548, box 1, DCWL; Donaldson Bros., logo trade cards for Clark’s
230
interchangeable as thread, product differentiation and, more specifically, the creation of
brand identity through the repetition of visually-distinct logos and labels became an
important means of achieving a successful share of the market.
Just as illustrations could be used to cultivate the consumer’s attention, respect,
and interest in a particular advertisement, symbols and trademarks helped ensure that the
campaign benefited not only from repeat exposure but that the consumer also learned to
associate the trademark with a particular product, manufacturer, and in turn, product
quality and corporate reputation.
379
Such repetition was thought to help facilitate the
consumer’s memory at the point of purchase, thereby ensuring that the advertiser’s
investment in branding would lead to an initial (and potentially repeat) purchase of the
name-brand product. As advertising guru J. Walter Thompson noted, the icon itself
provided one of the most effective and efficient modes of communicating his own
business model (and personal mission) with current and prospective clients. In his view,
a trademark had the symbolic power to stand alone as “a whole story by itself… no
descriptive words are necessary.”
380

Thread (c.1885), Col. 9, box 5, DCWL; Ketterlinus Litho Co., logo trade cards for J & P Coats’ Thread
(c.1880), Col. 9, box 5, DCWL; Schumacher & Ettlinger, logo trade cards for J & P Coats’ Thread (1890),
Col. 669 no. 33, DCWL; and L. Prang & Co., logo trade cards for Clark’s Thread (1878-1880), Col. 669
no. 33, DCWL.
379
James H. Collins, “The Economy of Symbolism,” Printers’ Ink 34, no. 12 (Mar 1901): 3-4; and Hall,
“Advertising Illustration,” 452. See also “Designing and Designs,” Profitable Advertising 12, no. 2 (1902):
121-125; “The Value of the Repeated Ad,” Ad Sense 21, no. 1 (1906): 59; and W. Stanley Britton, “Views
of Prominent Advertisers on Illustration,” Ad Sense 20, no. 6 (1906): 483-487.
380
Collins, “Economy of Symbolism,” 3-4.
231
Trademarks also appealed to admen for their economic use of ad space and funds:
the trademark could ensure the persistence of the message without the tedious repetition
of a descriptive text or story. Echoing efficiency models and the principles of Taylorism
which flourished in managerial circles in the 1890s, adman James H. Collins suggested
that executives reduce ad copy in favor of trademarks and symbols. In his view, trade
symbols lent continuity and allowed words to be “compressed into ideas.” “Readily
recognized” by readers, appropriate and strategically-chosen symbols could cheaply
communicate an entire advertising campaign by distilling the message into a singular
icon.
381

However, simple reiteration of the logo was not enough to ensure a future sale:
while it helped cultivate familiarity with the brand, advertising experts carefully warned
that the success of the sale depended as much upon the distinction of the trademark as
upon the “positive qualities” associated with product. As one adman mused, the
trademark acted as a “commercial signature” of the manufacturer—but its value as an
authenticating mark depended entirely upon its singularity and uniqueness; for, as he put
it, if “Jay Gould had a new signature for every day in the month, his checks would not
pass very freely.”
382
A public opinion survey in the early 1910s showed that symbols and

381
Ibid. Like other early twentieth-century intellectuals, Collins suggested that modern life was ridden
with symbols and signs; and that communication through symbols was one of the most natural modes of
communicating ideas. See Vachel Lindsay, in The Art of the Moving Picture (New York: Liveright, 1970
[1915]), who suggested that modern society was increasingly becoming a “hieroglyphic civilization.”
382
Col. F. A. Seely, “Some Hints on Selecting a Trade-Mark,” Printers’ Ink 1, no. 14 (Feb 1889): 340-341.
Jason “Jay” Gould (1836-1892) was a railroad developer and speculator in the post-Civil War years, and
was often vilified as a robber baron by Progressive reformers at the end of the century. See Maury Klein,
232
pictures triumphed over words and syllables in public memory recall when it came to
trademarks.
383
To ensure success, experts urged clients to choose trademarks and trade
names that were easy to speak, remember and spell, simplistic in design, attractive in
sound and appearance, suggestive of the “good qualities of the merchandise,” and unique
from other marks in the same class of goods.
384
In this way, experts noted that
trademarks needed virtue as much as distinction—character as much as personality—to
be successful. As a “guarantee of faith and quality on the part of the manufacturer,” the
trademark won the “good will and favor of the consumer” by providing a constant
reference point for an individual’s personal experience with the product, word-of-mouth
knowledge, and advertising claims about product quality, worth, and the manufacturer’s
reputation.
385
The trademark became the link that connected the consumer with the
manufacturer. Its selling power lay in its symbolism and its ability to create and maintain
desire (to purchase) within the consumer.
386
By the end of the nineteenth century, the

The Life and Legend of Jay Gould (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997).
383
Harry Tipper et al., Advertising, its Principles and Practice (New York: Garland, 1915), 133. The
authors cite a “general opinion survey” that tested the recognizable qualities of a range of trademarks. The
results showed that, among the general public, pictures and “forms” or symbols held the highest memory
value, followed by words, and lastly syllables.
384
Munn & Co., “Trademarks,” 28; Herbert F. de Bower, Advertising Principles (New York: Alexander
Hamilton Institute, 1919), chapter 9; Luther L. Miller, “The Name of a Patented Article as a Trade-Mark,”
Ad Sense 14, no. 6 (1903): 461-462; and Ferdinand Goss, “Trade Marks and Unfair Competition,” Ad Sense
21, no. 1 (July 1906): 17.
385
“To Have, or Not to Have, A Trademark,” The Layman Printer 3, no. 4-5 (1912): 52.
386
de Bower, Advertising Principles, 286; Schechter, “Rational Basis,” 831; and Munn & Co.,
“Trademarks,” 2.
233
trademark had transformed from a passive mark that designated ownership in the
eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, to an active emblem whose cultural work
cultivated loyalty through its symbolism of merit and reputation.
Advertising agencies led the way to trademark development by creating and using
logos in conjunction with their own business-to-business advertisements.
387
In the late
1880s the J. Walter Thompson Agency of New York began using an image of an owl
holding a lantern in its promotional publications and correspondence (FIG 4.2). The owl
appeared infrequently in advertising rate guides, newsletters, booklets, and other official
agency correspondence until the mid-1890s, when the image became used regularly as a
logo for the firm. In an 1897 essay, Thompson suggested that appropriating the owl
showed that “wisdom, combined with the proper and true light of science and knowledge,
is the conqueror of fortune.”
388
Using light as a symbol for the scientific rationality he
self-consciously endowed in his company, Thompson equated his position in American
industry with the owl’s mythical wisdom. The association with science lent credibility,
making his company appear more “modern” in his view.
389

387
Business-to-business transactions occur when one business sells a particular service or product to
another business. B-B advertising facilitates these transactions. The audience for a B-B ad is always
another member of the business or trade community, rather than the general public. For example,
advertising agencies placed B-B ads in trade journals to attract other businesses as clients. See Sean
Brierley, The Advertising Handbook, 2
nd
ed. (New York: Routledge, 2002 [1995]), 16-17.
388
J. Walter Thompson, J. Walter Thompson Advertising (1897), 11, box DG3, JWTPC.
389
Pamela Walker Laird suggests that advertisers included images of factories, industry, science, and
technology provided a visual association between the company advertised and modernity, and would thus
appeal to patrons who appreciated such demonstrations of and commitment to “progress.” See Laird,
Advertising Progress, 6, 310-321.
234
In this way, Thompson constructed a leadership role for himself in the advertising
industry and suggested that his contribution included the “illumination” of the rightful
path dictated by science and rationality. As Thompson developed the idea of the owl
illuminating the globe in subsequent publications, light and wisdom became metaphors
for the principles of honesty and integrity that were part of his mission statement.
390

Moreover, Thompson’s passion for integrity pushed him to join an internal crusade
against fraudulent advertisers in the industry, and his efforts to police advertising practice
began in his own agency. As early as 1887, Thompson stressed that he refused to
participate in the deceptive endeavors of fraudulent advertisers. In his words, he only
solicited the business of men from the “solid, mercantile class,” whose efforts to
introduce “meritorious” articles to the public he would gladly aid.
391

Admen’s insistence on the positive symbolic value of the trademark permeated
contemporaneous diatribes in trade journals against the deplorable and deceitful actions
of fraudulent advertisers and the products they sold. In the early 1890s, writers in
Printers’ Ink suggested that illegitimate advertising—that is, making false claims and / or
advertising useless or potentially harmful goods in an attempt to defraud the public—was
a continuous problem warranting higher ethical standards from the industry writ large.

390
Following Thompson’s example, other agencies also included images of light in their business-to-
business advertisements. Lord & Thomas of Chicago led the charge in 1895 with their trademark logo
“Advertise Judiciously,” which also represented a lighted torch illuminating the globe. See Lord &
Thomas advertisement in Printers’ Ink 13, no. 19 (Nov 1895): 57. In the 1910s, Thompson’s advertising
program shifted away from the visual emphasis on the owl as a trademark or symbol for the corporation,
toward a more text-based construction of the company’s legitimacy and worth as a “modern” agency.
391
J. Walter Thompson, The Red Ear (1887), 7, box DG1, JWTPC.
235
According to this logic, advertisers who hawked such spurious goods were no better than
the manufacturers who made the counterfeit goods. Writers shamed any advertiser who
would make false claims; and recounted tales of city-slick con-men swindling honest,
rural townspeople out of hard-earned cash. These stories served as warnings to both
consumers and irresponsible newspaper editors who unwillingly allowed the fraudulent
ads to be placed, and offered suggestions for regulating newspaper advertising in order to
prevent such travesties.
392
Like J. Walter Thompson, many agents and publishers even
refused to take on clients whose reputations could not be validated by known reputable
firms or patrons. Most famously, between 1904 and 1906 Ladies’ Home Journal
published a series of editorials explaining its intent to refuse to publish notices for known
illegitimate advertisers as well as for all patent medicine advertising for its cultural
associations with puffery and quacks.
393

Indeed, the dictums of integrity and honesty structured nearly every aspect of
advertising practice in the years after the Civil War, and therefore mirrored a broader
trend in corporate culture that emphasized the espousal of character and good ethics to

392
Warwick, “The Devil’s Advertising,” 109-110; and Rogers, “The Confidence Man in Advertising,” 151-
152. See also “Making it Plain,” Printers’ Ink 17, no. 6 (Nov 1896): 43; Grey, “Deceptive Advertising,”
764-765; Wady, “Deception in Advertising,” 474-475; Willder, “Ethics and Advertising,” 546-547; and
Ray, “The Ethics of Advertising,” 904-906.
393
As early as 1889, LHJ publically prided itself on its discriminating eye when it came to publishing
advertisements from potentially deceitful advertisers. See Marietta Holley, “Confidence in our Columns,”
Ladies’ Home Journal (May 1889): 10. Agents, such as J. Walter Thompson, also publically announced
their intent to refuse to work with fraudulent or deceitful clients. See for example, J. Walter Thompson,
Catalogue of Advertising (1889), 14, box DG1, JWTPC. See also footnote 420.
236
achieve success. In particular, success manuals in the 1880s and ‘90s articulated a
Jeffersonian and Protestant ethic of “honestly, frugality, industry, reliability, and loyalty,
buttressed by the force of character and true manhood” as a mode to achieve financial
and professional success.
394
In articulating these virtuous qualities of character as key
components to individual success in the new corporate society, success manuals in this
period reworked antebellum understandings of sincerity to frame business ethics.
According to these manuals, integrity, honesty, and hard work paved the road to
professional and financial achievement. These attributes also structured the
professionalization efforts of businessmen, including advertisers. In effect, professionals
defined legitimate practice by codifying ethical behavior within their respective
industries—and in the process, they marked clandestine or illegitimate practitioners by
the behavior that increasingly became viewed as dishonest, deceitful, and unworthy of
inclusion under the rubric of professionalism.
Many admen attributed the problem of counterfeit products to the achievements
of the ads themselves. Successful ad campaigns raised public awareness for the name-
brand goods and brought foot traffic to retail stores in search of these goods.
Counterfeiters thrived under nascent federal trademark laws because enforcement
agencies struggled to keep up with the large number of fraudulent (and unregistered)
products circulating on the market. Counterfeiters often priced their goods lower than the
genuine products, which meant wider profit margins for the “immoral” and “unethical”
retailers selling such spurious goods.
395

394
Hilkey, Character is Capital, 5.
395
Battle, “Trade-Mark Law,” 761; and “To Punish Pirates,” Printers’ Ink 13, no. 3 (Jul 1895): 15.
237
Intense competition between manufacturers in the shoe industry illustrates this
problem of confusion and imitation. John Mundell & Co. of Philadelphia, the maker of
Solar Tip shoes, registered his trademark in 1877 and 1878. The mark consisted of a sun
rising over a mountainous horizon framed by an oval ring of text that read “The Best Sole
Leather Tip Made,” and indicated Mundell’s name as proprietor with the date of
registration in the patent office (FIG 4.3).
396
This logo appeared consistently on trade
cards and in other advertisements for the company, which frequently featured children at
play to demonstrate the durability and strength of his product. In the 1880s, a local
competitor of Mundell’s named Thomas Harris created the brand Standard Tip Shoes in
direct imitation of the Solar Tip line. Harris also used advertisements featuring children
at play, and created a trademark that depicted a flag piercing a globe floating in water and
framed by a circle with the words “Our Sole Leather Tip Best in the World” (FIG 4.4).
Harris registered this logo in 1882 and 1884.
397
The design and text of this mark parallel
the one created for Mundell’s product, as each consists of a round shape with a black
frame showing a central vignette with a light-colored sphere and water. The parallel in
the choice of texts for these marks is also clear, right down to the placement of the words
“Sole Leather Tip” at the apex of each trademark.
398

396
Trade card for Solar Tip shoes, with patented trademark dated 1878, in Warshaw I Shoes, box 9; AC
NMAH. See also trademark reg. nos. 4,457, filed 1 Dec 1878 (reg. 25 Dec 1877); and 5,970, filed 22 Apr
1878 (reg. 30 Apr 1878); USPTO.
397
Standard Tip Shoes trade card, with patented trademark dated 1882 and 1884. Warshaw I Shoes, box 5;
AC NMAH. See also trademark reg. nos. 9,620, filed 19 Jun 1882 (reg. 22 Aug 1882); and 11,466, filed 5
Jul 1884 (reg. 9 Sept 1884); USPTO.
398
While printing plate technology certainly would have made it easier to replicate a competitor’s logo,
238
By copying the general design, colors, and text of the Solar Tip logo, Harris
demonstrated the ease with which certain competitors could develop and release imitation
products that would capitalize upon the hard-earned reputation and popularity of genuine
goods. Regardless of whether a consumer might actually confuse one pair of shoes for
the other, the images used on trade cards and other ads pictured the black leather button-
up boots with scalloped seams as virtually identical products (FIG 4.5). Such
representations (intentional or not) surely confused potential buyers. Moreover, each
manufacturer’s insistence that customers look for logos stamped on the sole of each shoe
suggests that the shoes appeared in a retail situation without clearly-marked packaging or
product labels. Advertisements focused much more heavily on the representation (and

professional print shops self-consciously presented themselves as honest, reputable firms that would have
no interaction with fraudulent advertisers or counterfeiters. Moreover, printers were often bound by
contract to adhere to copyright, patent, and trademark law in refusing to reproduce printed material without
the necessary legal permissions. Criminal courts upheld the rights of trademark and copyright holders
when printers attempted to unlawfully reproduce registered images. In De Kuyper v. Wittemann (1885), for
example, the court held that printers could be held responsible when “printing and selling labels in
imitation of the complainants’… with the obvious purpose of enabling others by the use of the labels to
palm off their goods upon the public as the goods of the complainants.”

See De Kuyper v. Wittemann 28
Fed Rep. 871 (1885), in Cox, Manual of Trade-Mark Cases, 441-442; and Carson v. Ury 39 Fed Rep. 777
(1889), in idem., 471-473. On integrity in the printing industry, see “Our Aim and Name,” Prang’s
Chromo 1, no. 1 (Jan 1868): 4; Louis Prang, untitled speech (Dinner of the New England Tariff Reform
League, Boston, 9 Mar 1894), in Louis Prang Papers, box 1a, Temple University Libraries Special
Collections Department; and Lambert, “Seasonal Trade,” 94-96. On printers and copyright see Michael
Winship, “Printing with Plates in the Nineteenth Century United States,” Printing History 10, no. 2 (1983):
25-26.
239
encouraged recognition) of the trademark logo than on representations of the shoes
themselves.
399
Customers urged to look for the Solar Tip trademark on shoe soles might
have been confused when confronted with the Standard Tip product given the similarity
between the logos and trade-names, and could have mistakenly purchased this imitation
good when actually intending to purchase Solar Tip shoes. This situation of confusion
and mistaken brand identity is exactly what advertising experts feared in their diatribes
against imitation goods and substitution. In copying the Solar Tip logo just so, Harris
provided consumers with the opportunity to purchase his goods over Mundell’s
product—and thus “stole” Mundell’s investment in advertising by slyly creating the
possibility of brand confusion and substitution.
400

399
In approximately 85 trade card and newspaper advertisements found for Solar Tip shoes in the archives
of the HL, DCWL, and Warshaw AC NMAH, only 13 (or 15%) included close-up images of the shoes
themselves, while nearly every ad included an imprint of the trademarked logo (in some cases, the logo
appeared on both the front and reverse of the trade card advertisement. See trade cards for Solar Tip Shoes,
in box F-5, fols. 31-32, BTC HL; in Cols. 669 and 838, DCWL; and in Warshaw I Shoes, box 9, AC
NMAH. In the course of my research, I found multiple examples of trade cards for both the Solar Tip and
Standard Tip brands yet no photographs for the products. In the absence of representations of the actual
products aside from the images appearing in advertisements, it is difficult to ascertain whether the two shoe
brands would have appeared virtually identical to the uninformed customer. Moreover, the shoes depicted
in these advertisements closely parallel the representations of shoes produced by other manufacturers, such
as Edwin C. Burt Shoes; while the practice of stamping one’s logo or name on the sole of the shoe was
commonplace and frequently pointed out to consumers in trade-card advertising. See trade card for Burt’s
Shoes, box F-5, fols. 27-32, BTC HL.
400
Stolen investments are discussed more deeply in “To Punish Pirates,” 15-16. It is unclear whether
Mundell ever brought suit against Harris for infringement. An initial search of legal decisions in Lexis-
Nexus returned no cases, though the parties may have settled out of court without entering into the public
240
The most egregious offense, according to admen writing in the trade and popular
presses, was this sort of piracy by imitation products on the market. Describing such
“pirates” as villains and common thieves, trade journal articles frequently displayed
imitation packages adjacent to the rightful brand-name goods in an effort to shame the
deceivers into retreat.
401
In one editorial, for example, the publisher reprinted labels from
a prominent patent medicine manufacturer (Hood’s) and his fraudulent competitor
(Hodd’s) (FIG 4.6). As in the case of Solar Tip and Standard Tip Shoes, the untrained
consumer might be confused by the similarities between the two labels and
unintentionally purchase the imitation brand instead of the name-brand. The obviousness
with which Hodd’s copied the genuine product angered many admen, who viewed such
spurious imitation as stealing: advertising was a business investment, and the potential
profits brought by advertising akin to property. Any manufacturer imitating or misusing
another’s trademark was thought to be stealing property by deceptively capitalizing on
the first manufacturer’s efforts to build goodwill.
402
Implicit in these diatribes was the
assumed superior quality of the genuine good over the imitation. Most trade journal
writers assumed that if the good warranted copying, its top-notch quality was responsible
for cultivating a loyal clientele that was vulnerable to counterfeits.
403
Trademark

record. In the absence of existing business records for these companies, their legal actions and other details
remain undeterminable.
401
Ibid. See also “Sidelights on Substitution,” Printers’ Ink 21, no. 4 (Oct 1897): 17-19; Thomas Gibson,
“Fake Financial Advertising,” Ad Sense 20, no. 2 (1906): 122-125; and Ray, “Ethics of Advertising.”
402
“To Punish Pirates,” 16; Floyd A. Wright, “The Nature and Basis of Legal Goodwill,” Illinois Law
Review 24 (1929-1930): 21-25; and Munn & Co., “Trademarks,” 1.
403
Battle, “Trade-marks,” 760; “The Value of a trade name,” Iron Age (26 Jan 1893):183; Goss,
241
regulation was thus necessary to protect the property of the legitimate businessman from
imitators’ deliberate attempts to defraud the public and, in the eyes of many admen,
tarnish the reputation of American commerce.
Tellingly, the intent of these deceitful manufacturers became a key component in
dismissing their actions as immoral. According to many admen writing in trade journals,
counterfeit manufacturers recognized the reputation and acclaim of the genuine product
and purposefully copied label designs in order to steer customers toward the cheaper
fakes. Some of the most frequently discussed cases of imitation occurred in the patent
medicine trades, where counterfeit manufacturers copied labels and trade-names to
confuse buyers at the point of purchase (FIG 4.6).
404
Experts differentiated this type of
falsity from fair competition (a constitutionally given right) by pointing to the sneaky,
back-handed way that such imitators represented their goods in a (supposedly) deliberate
attempt to confuse and betray the public. Damning a counterfeiter was therefore as much
a condemnation of his moral character as of his illegal actions—a sign that the
importance of character, at least in business transactions, remained key to the ethical
success of any given businessman and his reputation among his peers. Business was still

“Trademarks,” 17-20; and Gibson, “Fake Financial Advertising,” 122-125.
404
“To Punish Pirates,” 15. In the case of products existing before the first trademark statute, goodwill was
built up before the existence of trademarks—trademarks are then an afterthought: they merely arose to
protect what manufacturers had already achieved in most cases. In the case of new products, trademarks
are introduced from the beginning and help to build goodwill simultaneously through advertising, label
designs, and product exposure in retail stores. Later, federal judges often commented upon the immoral
character and deceitful intentions of counterfeiters in deciding upon cases of trademark infringement. See,
for example, National Biscuit Co. v. Swick 121 Fed. 1007 (1903).
242
a gentleman’s game, at least in the eyes of these prominent admen—making legitimacy
not just a legal distinction, but a class distinction as well.
Good moral character and the intent of the imitator also came to figure highly in
the minds of the state and federal judges determining cases of infringement in the 1880s
and ‘90s. Though they claimed to bear concern for the potential for public confusion of
the falsified with the genuine goods, many judges passed judgment on the character of
the imitator as much as on his / her illegal actions. Legal experts thus enjoined the
principles of “genuineness” with “fair competition” in establishing precedents that would
later define trademark law. Ensuring fair competition meant “preventing one man from
acquiring the reputation of another by fraudulent means,” preventing “fraud upon the
public” and enforcing “broad principles of equity.”
405
The prevention of fraud—
especially that which would result in public deception or in the unnecessary loss of one
manufacturer’s profits—was central in determining cases of trademark infringement and
in establishing a sense of “commercial morality” and “commercial honesty” among the
growing manufacturing sector in the US.
406
While admen stressed integrity and honesty
in advertising, the courts reinforced these ideals in connecting morality, honesty, and
genuineness to commercial practice. Moralizing commercial exchange and
communication in this way reinforced the notion that “honesty is the best policy” when it
comes to the presentation of the individual, manufacturer, or corporation. Importantly, it
also pointed to the persistence of mid-century cultural ideals of integrity, honesty, and

405
Grafton Dulany Cushing, “On Certain Cases Analogous to Trade-Marks,” Harvard Law Review 4, no. 7
(1891): 321, 332.
406
Rowland Cox, “The Prevention of Unfair Competition in Business,” Harvard Law Review 5, no. 3
(1891): 140, 145.
243
character through the turn of the century in business practice and legal standards for
commercial communication.
407

Advertising agents, printers, and other experts from the 1870s onward thus
warned manufacturers and clients that to protect one’s advertising investment, it was
necessary to ward off imitations at whatever cost. This included encouraging consumers
to ask for products by name, warning consumers that imitations were not genuine and
could be harmful, and pursuing legal actions to protect manufacturers’ trade identities.
Repeated claims that “none” were “genuine” without the unique trademark, signature,
likeness, or other symbol of the brand-name manufacturer filled the ad copy appearing on
trade cards, posters, billboards, and magazine ads in the years before the 1905 Trademark
statute.
408
Admen’s efforts to police their industry included the creation of dedicated
associations, such as the National Society for the Investigation and Suppression of

407
Prevailing interpretations of the antebellum culture of sentiment suggest that the ideals associated with
this culture ceased to be salient to many members of the middle class after the Civil War, though my
research has demonstrated otherwise, at least in the business sector. Likewise, Elizabeth White Nelson
suggests that the fundamental ideals of antebellum sentimentality—honesty, transparency, and sincere
expression—influenced the ways in which the urban middle classes understood market relations in the mid-
nineteenth century. In her view, these Americans developed a “sentimental pragmatism” to reconcile the
relationship between Christian morality and profit; and generated a vocabulary and code of behavior that
defined the market relations of both production and consumption in moral terms. See Market Sentiments,
6. See also Hilkey, Character is Capital.
408
See, for example, “A Fresh Egg,” trade card advertisement for Fleischmann’s Yeast (c.1900), and “None
Genuine,” trade card advertisements for Leibig Extract of Meat Co. (c.1885), both Col. 838, cab. 8 dr. 4
boxes 2-3, DCWL; and trade cards for Solar Tip Shoes, Col. 669 no. 32, DCWL.
244
Fraudulent Advertising (est. 1902), and culminated in the Truth-in-Advertising
movement of the 1910s.
409

The currency of marks like Solar Tip, coupled with the strong recommendations
by admen to create and register such trademarks led to increasing work for the US Patent
Office, who managed registrations before 1905. Between 1881 and 1904 trademark
registrations averaged approximately 1,500 annually.
410
In the interim, the growth of
trademark use and registration in these years and the growing legal concerns over the
limited scope of the law prompted a Congressional survey between 1900 and 1902. The
more comprehensive 1905 Trademark Act solidified the goodwill value of the trademark
into law and provided for broad protections against infringement and misuse. The law
was so appealing to the business community that in its first year, the Patent Office
recorded almost 4,500 trademarks. This success continued with over 10,000 registrations
for 1906 and more than 28,000 registrations by 1909.
411
The statute provided for the
codification of trademark use and registration; including defining valid designs for marks,
situating trademark litigation under the jurisdiction of the Federal Courts, and making
registrations available under public record.
412
Importantly, registrations could be

409
Laird, Advertising Progress, 241.
410
Ibid., 189. A thorough history of trademark law in the US is provided in Cox, American Trade-Mark
Cases.
411
Trademark registrations for the years 1881-1904 totaled over 36,000. See Statistical History, 956 and
959, cited in Laird, Advertising Progress, 414 n. 13. See also Strasser, Satisfaction Guaranteed, 44-52.
412
The 1905 Act, framed under the commerce clause of the Constitution, expanded protections to include
interstate trade, whereas under the 1881 law only foreign / tribal trade qualified a mark for registration and
protection—though courts readily extended these protections under common law precedent to firms
245
nullified by the trademark office if proven to infringe upon the use and rights of another
trademark holder or if legally shown to be “deceptive or misleading.” This included the
false representation of patent registrations (when none existed) and the use of a trademark
in association with a product different in character, composition, or origin from that with
which it was registered.
413

Importantly, legislators encoded the 1905 law with the cultural terms of ethical
business practice—honesty and integrity—and in so doing situated the trademark as a
communicative device that connected these values to legitimate commercial activity as
endorsed by the law. Under the 1905 Act, trademarks functioned to denote the “origin
and genuineness of an article with which [the trademark] has become associated” in
addition to annotating the reputation or goodwill value of the manufacturer. Trademark
protection, according to the law, meant the legal protection of one’s goodwill—an asset
that gradually became more and more tangible. Legislators and the courts acknowledged
that this ensured fair competition in trade and protected the public against fraud and

engaged in domestic trade who experienced infringement. See National Biscuit Co. v. Ohio Baking Co. et
al. 127 Fed. 160 (1900). Qualified marks included those unique names, designs, or portraits that did not
pose the potential to be confused with that of a direct (registered) competitor, and marks or names which
did not draw upon descriptive or commonly used words, such as “Best Shoe Polish” or “Yellow Threads.”
It should be noted that if the proprietor’s name was “Best,” than he might be able to argue his case for
using the term just as any other manufacturer might use his name.
413
Clowry Chapman, “Why Register a Trademark?” Ad Sense 20, no. 1 (Jan 1906): 55; and Munn & Co.,
“Trademarks,” 8-25. Though legally, trademarks could only be tied to actual products under the 1905
statute. The ability to create a trademark associated with a particular corporation came under the extended
protections offered by the 1946 Lanham Act. See US Patent and Trademark Office, “Trademark Laws and
Regulations,” http://www.uspto.gov/trademarks/law/index.jsp
246
deception, thereby echoing the statements of admen in trade journals a decade earlier.
Trademarks thus served to both protect the owner (by ensuring fair competition) and the
public (from deception caused by would-be trademark infringers).
414

Accordingly, admen from 1905 through the 1920s postulated that goodwill was
most successfully obtained through “tactful, prompt, honest dealings” that cultivated the
public’s confidence in the manufacturer.
415
This reflected a general assumption by legal
minds at the turn of the twentieth century that manufacturers had a vested economic
interest in maintaining their reputations with integrity by ensuring the distribution of a
consistent, high-quality product. Implicitly, this association between goodwill and
confidence transferred to the trademark—as the emblem of goodwill, it in turn became
emblematic of confidence. The courts’ assumptions that the trademark acted as a symbol
of goodwill, as a guarantee of quality, or as a mark of one’s (positive) reputation, thus
went hand-in-hand with their presumption of the ideal manufacturer’s general

414
Wilkins, “Intangible Asset,” 74-77; Schechter, “The Rational Basis of Trademark Protection,” 813-815;
“To Have, or Not,” 49-50; Goss, “Trade Marks and Unfair Competition,” 17-20; and “Trade-Marks and
Trade-Names, Protection Apart from Statute, Use of Trade-Mark on Genuine Goods,” Harvard Law
Review 35, no. 5 (1922): 625.
415
Wright, “Goodwill,” 27, emphasis added. See also Charles A. Bates, “Some of America’s Advertisers,”
Printers' Ink 12, no. 1 (Jan 1895): 27-35; Henry P. Williams, “Truthfulness as a Force in Business,” Ad
Sense 14, no. 6 (1903): 462-464; W. Stanley Britton, “The Aim of the Advertising Man,” Ad Sense 20, no.
4 (1906): 378-379; Britton, “Individuality in Advertising,” Ad Sense 20, no. 5 (1906): 433-434; Gibson,
“Fake Financial Advertising;” de Bower, Advertising Principles, 286; Munn & Co., “Trademarks,” 6; and
William M. Landes and Richard A. Posner, “Trademark Law: An Economic Perspective,” Journal of Law
and Economics 30, no. 2 (1987): 269.
247
integrity.
416
In this oppositional relationship, honest manufacturers of superior products
stood out against to dishonest, deceptive, and immoral counterfeiters, imitators, and
pirates seeking to steal the honest manufacturer’s goodwill and indirectly damage his
reputation. Likewise, judges and experts agreed that dishonesty negated a manufacturer’s
trademark rights because it overturned the inherently positive relationship between the
trademark and goodwill.
417

Public response to the passing of the 1905 trademark statute shrank in comparison
to the media presence of manufacturers, retailers, and producers who had agitated for the
expanded legislation. Though the consumer movement gained speed and popularity after
the formation of the National Consumers League in 1899, public attention remained
focused on sanitary conditions in food production and fair labor practices rather than
regulating American industry practices with regard to advertising.
418
From 1903-1908

416
“Imitation and Substitution,” 314-316; “To Have, or Not,” 52; and J. Walter Thompson, Things to Know
about Trademarks (1911), 52, box DG7, JWTPC.
417
Rogers, Goodwill, chapter 9; Goss, “Trade Marks,” 18; and Frank S. Moore, Legal Protection of
Goodwill (New York: Ronald Press, 1936), chapter 16.
418
On the consumer movement at the end of the nineteenth century, see Clayton A Coppin and Jack C
High, The Politics of Purity: Harvey Washington Wiley and the Origins of Federal Food Policy (Ann
Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1999); Helen Laura Sorenson and Institute for Consumer Education,
The Consumer Movement: What it Is and What it Means (New York: Harper & Bros., 1941), chapter 1;
Lawrence B. Glickman, Buying power: a History of Consumer Activism in America (Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 2009); chapter 5; Charles McGovern, Sold American: Consumption and Citizenship,
1890-1945 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006), part II; and “History of the National
Consumers League,” http://www.nclnet.org/about-ncl/history. Inger L. Stole takes this story into the
248
however, major national newspapers such as The New York Times and The Washington
Post reported on legal cases that expanded or contracted existing trademark protections
and the accompanying lobbyist efforts on the part of businesses who would profit from a
revised statute. In the first few years after the passing of the 1905 act, The Washington
Post suggested that general public interest in the statute remained minor despite the 500
percent growth in registrations that demanded a larger staff commitment from the Patent
Office.
419
Though the Pure Food and Drug Act (1906) drew much more publicity in the
popular press, the 1905 Trademark Act nevertheless remains part of a regulatory agenda
of reform in this period which included the Sherman Anti-Trust Act (1890), the Meat
Inspection Act (1904), the Elkins and Hepburn Acts (1903 and 1906), and Teddy
Roosevelt’s trust-busting activities in the early 1900s. Like the contemporaneous
consumer and Truth-in-Advertising movements, these laws aimed to protect the
consumer and enforce honest, fair competition in American industry.
420

1930s, addressing the specific relationship between consumer activism and advertising in Advertising on
Trial.
419
“Trade-Marks Registered,” Washington Post, Sept 15, 1907; “Trade-Mark Office Busy,” Washington
Post, Sept 23, 1905; and “More Space for Patents,” Washington Post, Oct 20, 1906. It is important to note
that the 1905 trademark act, while generally well-received among the manufacturing and advertising
communities in the US, did garner some criticism. One of the most vocal outcries came from Edward S.
Rogers, a leading legal specialist on the subject and prominent author. Rogers felt that the law’s language
was too vague, awkward, and confusing to be adequately applied in the courts. He proposed the
institutionalization of trademark law in a separate bureau housed in the Commerce Department, and for
more stringent (and criminal) punishments for infringers. See “The Unwary Purchaser,” Michigan Law
Review 8, no. 8 (1910): 613-622; and “The Expensive Futility,” 660-676.
420
On the 1905 trademark statute as part of a regulatory and Progressive reform agenda, historians have
249
By the early twentieth century legal precedents surrounding trademark protections
came to reflect the ways in which admen had theorized trademarks and goodwill in trade
journals since the 1890s. In the 1910s the Federal courts defined the right to a trademark
as a property right: as the embodiment of goodwill, the trademark carried with it the
value of a manufacturer’s reputation and profit potential. Infringement or “piracy” of
trademarks thus surmounted to “piracy of goodwill,” and the courts often awarded
injunctions and damages (“recovery of profits”) in cases where the defendant was found
to have made a profit through the fraudulent use of another’s trademark.
421
Some legal
minds even postulated that “dilution” equaled a form of trademark infringement, and
sought to extend protections to firms whose trade-names and marks might suffer the
“gradual whittling away or dispersion of the identity and hold upon the public mind… by
its use upon non-competing goods” (such as the attempted sale of bicycles under the

been largely silent. Notable exceptions include Susan Strasser, in Satisfaction Guaranteed, 268; Sivulka,
Soap, Sex, and Cigarettes, 118; and Prof. Robert Rabe, in his unpublished essays on the Truth in
Advertising movement (http://mupfc.marshall.edu/~rabe/research.htm). Edward Bok (editor) acquired Will
Irwin to author the articles that appeared in LHJ between May 1904 and February 1906. Collier’s joined
LHJ in its crusade to reform advertising in periodicals, and together the two publications were instrumental
in cultivating public caution around patent medicines and bringing the enactment of the Pure Food and
Drug Act of 1906. See Mott, History of American Magazines, vol. 4, 245; and Robert A. Rabe, “The
Origins of Federal Regulation of Advertising: A Bibliographic Essay,” unpublished paper, available online
at http://mupfc.marshall.edu/~rabe/810bib.htm. I would like to thank Prof. Rabe for sharing this work and
his thoughts on the Truth-in-Advertising movement.
421
“The Relation of the Technical Trade-Mark to the Law of Unfair Competition,” Harvard Law Review
29, no. 7 (1916): 765. See also Rogers, Goodwill, 127.
250
name “Kodak”).
422
When the courts refused to uphold protections for marks used to
deceive by misrepresenting origins of manufacture, ingredients, cures, and purity, admen
responded by praising the legal system for upholding the principles of honesty and
integrity that they themselves appeared to hold so dear.
423

Yet these concepts were not new to the early twentieth century—advertisers in the
1870s, ‘80s, and ‘90s knew and recognized the importance of distinguishing “trade-
marks” for their products, and as the century came to a close they learned the value of
establishing and maintaining a high standard of public goodwill. Though these two
factors had existed in cultural and legal parlance for centuries, they came to the forefront
of business practice in the 1890s with the rise of mass production, advertising, and the
problem of counterfeit goods. In response to these issues, advertisers placed trademarks

422
Schechter, “Trademark Protection,” 821, 825, esp. n.37 and 40. Schechter refers primarily to Eastman
Kodak Co. v. Kodak Cycle Co,. 15 Rep. Pat. Cas. 105 (1898); and to Ainsworth v. Walmsley, Wood, VC—
14 W.R. 363 (1866), cited in Edward C. Lukens, “The Application of the Principles of Unfair Competition
to Cases of Dissimilar Products,” University of Pennsylvania Law Review 75 (1927): 197-198. See also
Cox, Manual of Trademark Cases, 146-147; Rogers, “Expensive Futility,” 669-670; and Cushing “Cases
Analogous to Trade-Marks,” 321-332. For a discussion of how dilution fits into current trademark statutes,
see Landes and Posner, “Trademark Law,” 306. This concept of dilution is reminiscent of Walter
Benjamin’s concept of the “aura,” which he postulated was lost from the mechanically-reproduced work of
art (such as photography) in comparison to original artworks. Trademark regulators in the early twentieth
century feared that consistent repetition of a trade-name by a competitor might cause some of the
constructed meaning (“goodwill” for these experts, “aura” for Benjamin) to fade. See Benjamin, “The
Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” in Illuminations, ed. Hannah Arendt (New York:
Schocken, 1969 [1955]), 217-251.
423
Goss, “Trademarks and Unfair Competition,” 18.
251
and goodwill at the center of their understandings for strategizing their practice,
communicating with the public, and understanding public response to brand-name goods.
These elements of strategy, communication, and public response converged in the early
branding practices of National Biscuit.
National Biscuit provides a unique case history both for its extensive litigation
efforts against trademark infringement and for the near-complete archive of advertising
records available for this period of study. Breaking into a market previously dominated
by bulk goods in the 1890s, the company reoriented consumer purchases of cookies and
crackers toward packaged goods by extolling the virtues of their more sanitary product.
At the same time, the company embarked on a corporate branding campaign centered on
the In-Er-Seal logo—a campaign that prefigured the way trademarks would be used later
in the twentieth century. Moreover, National Biscuit took a vigilant legal stance against
trademark infringement and other unlawful competitors; thereby helping to ensure its
emergence as an internationally-recognized brand by the first decades of the twentieth
century. While its international presence and legal activity place National Biscuit in the
close company of other emergent blockbuster brands such as Coca-Cola, the company
stands out for its branding strategies that focused on publicizing an otherwise arbitrary
graphic symbol as the “mark of excellence” that consumers could trust.
424

424
“O. K.,” print advertisement for National Biscuit (1905), produced by N. W. Ayer & Son Advertising
Agency, Ayer Series II, box 153 fol. 1, AC NMAH.
252
A Revolution in Crackers, Brought to You by National Biscuit
In the decades before National Biscuit incorporated in 1898, local and regional
bakeries distributed cookies and crackers (collectively referred to as “biscuit” at the time)
in bulk for purchase at neighborhood dry goods stores. The processes of buying raw
materials, baking, and selling were completed by local bakers on a relatively small scale
in the 1870s and ‘80s, since the baked goods were perishable and necessitated quick
delivery after baking. Freshness and quality varied greatly, especially in areas dependent
upon large urban bakeries for distribution. Cookies and crackers arrived in wooden
barrels at local dry goods stores, which merchants stored on the floor of the shop and
shipped back to the baker when empty in an endless cycle of reuse. In open-air
containers often protected only by a cheese-cloth, the products became vulnerable to
changes in weather, dust and dirt particles circulating in the air, and the various smells
and odors of the shop, and spoiled easily. Merchants scooped and weighed the products
at the point of purchase—packaging the goods in paper bags which customers carried
home in cloth sacks or baskets with other purchased items. According to one source, one
of the most common complaints about biscuit in the 1870s was the lack of freshness and
the odd frequency of bringing home biscuits that smelt of kerosene. One housewife is
even said to have complained to her local grocer of finding mice in the cracker barrel, to
which he replied: “That’s impossible. Mice couldn’t be living in that barrel—my cat
sleeps there every night.”
425

425
William Cahn, Out of the Cracker Barrel; the Nabisco Story, from Animal Crackers to Zuzus (New
York, Simon and Schuster, 1969), 25, 30-32. See also Calkins, Modern advertising, 9.
253
According to a company history, this was the situation that National Biscuit
hoped to change when it incorporated in 1898. Economic instability and labor strikes in
the 1870s and ‘80s had pushed several industries to move toward consolidation at the end
of the century, while technological developments made the mechanization of the baking
process an affordable and economic choice.
426
The National Biscuit Company formed in
1898 as a product of multiple mergers between regional bakeries in and around Chicago
and New York.
427
Chicago lawyer Adolphus W. Green became the first chairman and
immediately set to work developing a product that would bear the name of the newly-
formed giant. What resulted was “Uneeda Biscuit,” a soda cracker whose name and
branding was developed with the help of the N.W. Ayer & Son Advertising Agency in
Philadelphia. As the National Biscuit Company developed the recipe and packaging for
the product, which consisted of octagonal crackers wrapped in a wax-paper sleeve and
packed in a cardboard box, Ayer’s representative, Henry McKinney, designed a
marketing campaign that centered on the packaging’s ability to keep crackers dry, clean,
and odor-free.
428

426
Cahn, Nabisco Story, 29-30.
427
In 1889, eight Eastern bakeries were brought together by a Chicago lawyer, William H. Moore, to form
the New York Biscuit Company. The following year, forty Midwestern bakeries consolidated to form the
American Biscuit & Manufacturing Company under the guidance of Chicago lawyer Adolphus W. Green.
Fierce competition between the two conglomerates ensued until 1898 when Green, Moore, and the
executives of the two new companies strategized another merger, this time with the United States Baking
Company, to form the National Biscuit Company, whose home offices would be in Chicago. See Melvin J.
Grayson, 42 Million a Day: The Story of Nabisco Brands (East Hanover, NJ: Nabisco Brands, 1986), 20-
21; and Cahn, Nabisco Story, 32.
428
Cahn, Nabisco Story, 69-71.
254
National Biscuit’s self-conscious claims to purity spoke to growing public
concerns regarding sanitation in food production in the 1890s. Progressive reformers
agitated for the regulation of the unsanitary production conditions in certain industries
and adulterated foods, stirring public sentiment in much the same manner as the outcry
that accompanied the release of Upton Sinclair’s fictional exposé of the meatpacking
industry in 1906.
429
Given the barrel-based mode of distribution for cookies and
crackers, quality and purity became a valid concern. Touting the triumph of their
mechanized production and the ultimate “absence” of human hands, National Biscuit
suggested that their new packages were more sanitary, clean, and protective of the
products.
National Biscuit launched the Uneeda brand in national media in the spring of
1899 in a campaign focused on getting as much print exposure as possible. Ads asked
customers “Do you know Uneeda Biscuit?” and educated potential customers on the
benefits of the new patented packaging. One early ad depicted a young boy standing in
the rain holding a box of the crackers, suggesting that “wet weather won’t harm” the new
biscuit, which remained fresh due to its new moisture-proof package.
430
In the first few
years after its introduction, Uneeda biscuit skyrocketed in popularity—with sales for

429
Strasser, Satisfaction Guaranteed, 254-260.
430
Print ad for National Biscuit (1899), Ayer Series II, box 207, fol. 1, AC NMAH. A survey of New York
Times advertisements for 1898 and 1899 indicates that advertising for the Uneeda brand (in this paper) did
not commence until March 13, 1899. The “Uneeda” name was first registered as a trademark in Dec 1898,
though this registration notes that it was first used in commerce on 6 Sept 1898 I have not been able to find
advertisements to this effect. See trademark reg. 32, 301, filed 18 Nov 1898 (reg. 27 Dec 1898), USPTO.
255
1900 topping ten million packages per month—at a time when it was estimated that all
other packaged crackers combined would only sell approximately 500,000 annually.
431

Advertisements for the Uneeda brand and later, for all National Biscuit products,
varied widely both in their appearance and in publication. Initially, the company placed a
large variety of ads for Uneeda Biscuit in daily, weekly, and monthly newspapers across
the US—including smaller, regional papers, such as the Detroit Free Press, and national
publications such as the New York Times. At first, the ad copy varied by month and
sometimes consisted of up to fifteen different advertisements being sent to each paper at a
time, indicating a large variety compared to the more consistent and repetitive ads placed
only a few years later.
432
As the company expanded with new products after 1900, the
number of unique ads placed fell to approximately six to eight per year by 1905. This
meant that the advertisements themselves appeared more consistent throughout that year,
with more repetition of the same ads than in previous years. Between 1900 and 1920 ads
continued to appear in national and regional newspapers, but increasingly appeared in
popular magazines and journals such as Ladies’ Home Journal, Outlook, Collier’s,
Saturday Evening Post, and The Christian Science Monitor, as well as several foreign

431
Cahn, Nabisco Story, 92.
432
Advertisements for Uneeda Biscuit in 1899 were placed in daily newspapers, not just weekly and
monthlies, and were much more varied than the copy that would appear several years later in major
newspapers and magazines. Whereas in later years the agency would place only 6-8 different ads
throughout the year, in 1899 they placed almost only unique ads for the product, with very few repetitions
of the same ad copy or design throughout the year or between regions. See Ayer Series II, box 207, AC
NMAH.
256
language presses in some cities.
433
Though the targeted audience varied by product—
Nabisco Sugar Wafers for example were marketed as fancy treats for middle-class
entertaining, while Uneeda Biscuit appeared as both hearty working-class meals and
childhood snacks—the broad placement of the ads suggests their approach aimed at
appealing to as many different consumers as possible in an attempt to win the largest
market share.
434

Over the next few years McKinney, the Ayer representative assigned to the
National Biscuit account, developed ideas for a trademark.
435
By 1905, the company’s
logo for the “In-Er seal” packaging came to distinguish its products from other biscuit on
the market.
436
Supposedly, company president Adolphus Green discovered the symbol

433
Several ads for Uneeda biscuit and later, the In-Er-Seal logo appeared in Hebrew and German papers
issued in the urban Northeast, though the Ayer agency did not note which specific presses they targeted.
See Ayer Series II, boxes 207-209, 211-214, 236, AC NMAH.
434
Ayer Series II, boxes 93, 152-160, AC NMAH.
435
One of the earliest images used was a child carrying the product in the rain. The Uneeda Biscuit boy
appeared in 1901, supposedly modeled after a copywriter’s nephew. The choice of the child harkened back
to Gilded Age obsessions with depicting childhood innocence, and subtly reinforced the association
between the product and its purity as constructed in the ad copy. The Uneeda boy appeared in
advertisements through the 1920s for the company. See Cahn, Nabisco Story, 91. See also footnote 102.
436
According to the trademark registration for Nabisco dated 15 Mar 1960, the cross and oval logo was
first used in commerce on 1 Mar 1900. See trademark reg. 694, 645, filed 27 May 1959 (reg. 15 Mar
1960), USPTO. The logo associated with the specific “In-Er-Seal” packaging continued to be used
throughout the twentieth century (a form of which continues to mark Nabisco products) despite the
company’s loss of the patent on the packaging design itself in 1900 following a US Circuit Court decision
that the package design was not unique enough to warrant patent protection. See Cahn, Nabisco Story,
116-117.
257
“late one night [in 1898] while leafing through a book that contained medieval Italian
printers’ marks. …It was an oval surmounted by a cross with two horizontal lines instead
of one …[and] was said to represent the triumph of the moral and spiritual over the evil
and worldly” (FIG 4.7).
437
The logo appeared on Uneeda packaging and the Ayer
Agency soon began placing ads that focused solely on this logo as a mark for the
National Biscuit Company itself. In an interview conducted in 1906, Adolphus Green
explained his attraction to the symbol:
[It] is an old printers’ mark that was used in Venice. The printers took it
from ecclesiastical sources, probably, for it is a symbol. The circle
represents the world, and the cross symbolizes our redemption. The whole
epitomizes the triumph of the spiritual over the material.
438

While the lay viewer may not have immediately recognized the connection made between
this spiritual logo and religious piety, Green’s disclosure of his own interpretation of the
symbol is highly suggestive of the image he aimed to create for his nascent company.
The symbol set up a dichotomy of good vs. evil that implicitly aligned National Biscuit
with the honorable and virtuous group of advertisers, in opposition to the dishonest frauds
and counterfeiters that fueled critiques of the advertising industry in the 1890s. Choosing
a symbol of the “triumph” of the spiritual over the material world suggested that the

437
Grayson, 42 Million, 21; Cahn, Nabisco Story, 82. Cahn appears to quote from an interview with Green
published in 1906 in Printers’ Ink. See James H. Collins, “National Biscuit.” Printers’ Ink 55, no. 3 (Apr
1906): 6. The cultural, iconographic meanings associated with this logo were also entered into the legal
record in National Biscuit Co. v. Pacific Biscuit Co. et al. 83 NJ Eq. 369, 374-375, 91 A. 126 (1914).
438
Collins, “National Biscuit,” 6. Per Mollerup offers evidence of this logo as a printer’s mark and suggests
that it symbolized the world and the Christian faith; see Marks of Excellence, 36.
258
product itself adhered to a higher standard than those set by common local and federal
regulations. Like another famously spiritual trademark, the Quaker Oats man, the
National Biscuit orb and cross hinted (perhaps more subtly) that the product rose above
simple man-made goods in its eradication of foreign particles, smells, and impurities
made possible by its mechanized process.
Ads published at the turn of the century established National Biscuit’s ownership
over the logo and directed consumers to be sure they purchased products bearing this
mark.
439
The ads forged a connection between National Biscuit and the “best bakers” in
the country, and pointed to the logo’s text to explain the packaging’s ability to protect
crackers from dampness, odors, and dust (FIG 4.8).
440
In these ads, the logo became the
symbol of supremacy, and the sign of security. While some ads reminded viewers that
Uneeda was “the name that signifies the very best of baking,” other ads focused on the
logo as a modern “sign language” that symbolized quality, cleanliness, and freshness.
441

As the decade progressed however, ads increasingly conflated the brand identity of
National Biscuit with the Uneeda name. Moving beyond the visualizations of character
offered by Pinkham’s portrait mark and the Quaker, National Biscuit pointed to the
abstract In-Er Seal logo as a symbol of goodwill.

439
Print ads for National Biscuit (1900), Ayer Series II, box 93 fol. 1, AC NMAH. Because this was not a
trend generally adopted by other biscuit producers at the time, National Biscuit stood out from similar
products on the market. See Ayer Files, Series II, boxes 104 and 108, AC NMAH.
440
Print ads for National Biscuit (1900), Ayer Series II, box 93 fol. 1, AC NMAH.
441
Print ads for National Biscuit (1900-1904), Ayer Series II, box 93 fols. 1-2; box 152 fol. 1; and box 153
fol. 2; AC NMAH.
259
In a critical departure from their earlier strategies to increase market share,
National Biscuit moved to develop brand loyalty and public goodwill after 1904. From
1904-1906, the Ayer Agency adopted an aggressive campaign for National Biscuit’s
brand identity through a direct focus on the trademark logo and a careful explanation of
what the trademark represented. Their construction of National Biscuit’s brand identity
worked to associate the ideal of purity with the symbol of the In-Er Seal logo apart from
the company’s products. The company re-imagined the function of the trademark as not
just a mark of distinction, but as a mark that symbolized reputation—a mark that
consumers could seek out with confidence in the company’s promises. The trademark
thus signaled, in a strictly visual way, corporate responsibility and integrity—in short, its
character. In this way, Nabisco’s early branding strategies can be seen as a culmination
of the personalization efforts undertaken by advertisers in the 1870s, ‘80s, and ‘90s.
Though the 1905 Trademark Act required that the mark be connected to an actual
product, in these ads for National Biscuit the logo alone came to stand as both a marker
of the company’s products and a symbol of its reputation as a legitimate enterprise by
visualizing the guaranteed goodness in each box that left the factory.
In each ad, the trademark became more than a mark that distinguished one
bakery’s products from another. As one 1905 ad explained, “the baker’s marks on the
ordinary run of bakery products are of little value… but here is a trade mark that really
identifies … [it] guarantees the contents to be of highest quality—pure, clean and fresh”
(FIG 4.9).
442
Though many ads placed at the turn of the century ask the reader to look for

442
“Bakers’ Marks,” quarter-page print ad for National Biscuit (1905), Ayer Series II, box 153 fol. 1, AC
NMAH.
260
the logo stamped on the package, this one for National Biscuit specifically tells the reader
that it is a symbol with meaning. Stating the importance of the trademark in this way
marked a departure from earlier advertising strategies that concentrated on a product’s
difference from competitors, as in the case of Clark ONT thread. By focusing on the
trademark itself as a symbol invested with the trust of the public, this ad reflected the
explicit legal connection between goodwill and the trademark now concretized in the new
trademark law of 1905. Though the connection had been culturally-accepted (at least
among the business community) since the 1880s, dwelling on the trademark’s
embodiment of goodwill here suggests that the association between trademarks and
goodwill had moved from a relatively obscure business concept to a strategic mode of
cultivating brand loyalty among the general public in the first decade of the twentieth
century.
The National Biscuit ad “Bakers’ Marks” (1905) (FIG 4.9) followed in a tradition
which gestured to the trademark as a mark of the genuine product in distinguishing the
real against imitations or substitutions, as in the above examples from the shoe industry,
but it diverged from this tradition when it frankly pointed to the trademark itself as a
symbol of purity and genuineness. Moreover, the visual pun in the ad surrounding the
initials “TM” suggested that National Biscuit’s particular logo stood out from other
simple uses of “TM” on products. As a symbol of the quality of the product, of
reputation, and of goodwill, the In-Er Seal logo held more meaning than competitors’
trademarks. In fact, the ad seemed to suggest that the legal distinction “TM” was
meaningless without the important symbolism of goodwill and reputation standing behind
it, as in the case of National Biscuit. Here, the ad blends legal discourses on trademark
261
protections and goodwill with cultural constructions of the trademark as a mark of
authenticity, and reiterated the trademark’s relationship to the public as a protection
against fraud. Like a “turnpike guide post” pointing “the way to the food of quality” the
trademark protected and guided the consumer to buy the “most perfect of bakery
products.”
443

Other ads addressed the reader directly with text that appeared to come straight
from the head of National Biscuit himself: a man willing and ready to stand by this
trademark as his personal “ok” that the product was “correct and as it should be” (FIG
4.10).
444
This explicit guarantee, made in visual form, harkened back to the era of face-
to-face interactions between producer and consumer (an era not so long forgotten in the
minds of some consumers). This ad suggests that seeing the trademark was akin to
hearing a personal assurance from the producer himself. In a gesture toward previous
modes of face-to-face interaction that structured commercial exchange in the US prior to
the Civil War, this ad reinforced the notion that the advertisement—and by extension, the
trademark—could be a surrogate salesman and reference point for consumer personal
experience. By 1905, the trademark, at least in National Biscuit’s formulation, had come
to embody the worth of the testimonial, the personal guarantee, and the personal
relationship between the consumer and the manufacturer. Pointing to the trademark as an
emblem of all these goodwill attributes became the next logical step in advertisers’

443
Ibid.
444
“O. K.,” quarter-page print ad for National Biscuit (1905), Ayer Series II, box 153 fol. 1, AC NMAH;
and “What the National Biscuit Co. Stands For,” quarter-page print ad for National Biscuit (1906), Ayer
Series II, box 154 fol. 1, AC NMAH.
262
attempts to reintroduce a personal element to commercial exchange transactions at the
turn of the twentieth century.
One ad in particular spelled out the goodwill value of the trade mark even more
explicitly, and is worth quoting in detail (FIG 4.11):
A man’s Mark is his honor. It stands for him and he stands for it. It’s the
Old Saxon way of signifying good intentions. The government puts its
mark on a bond to give it value. The National Biscuit Company puts its
trade mark in red and white on each end of a package... to distinguish
these products and to guarantee the quality, and it does.
445

Likening their trademark to a tradition of artisan production and governmental regulation
of currency, this ad suggests that the trademark itself is what gives value to the products
sold by the National Biscuit Company. Here, the company positions itself as an
honorable firm with “good intentions.” The ad connects trademarks to an older
gentlemen’s code of honor governing the use of a man’s word, IOU, or “mark,” and
intentionally places National Biscuit as part of a modern manifestation of English
aristocratic tradition.
446
Without that mark—that symbolic signature of National
Biscuit—a consumer could not be sure that she would receive the “superior” product that
she most certainly wanted and needed. According to the ad, this “mark of honor”
signified the company’s trustworthiness and accountability. Like an unwritten contract,
the trademark became a symbol of the agreement between the producer and consumer.

445
“John Doe,” quarter-page print ad for National Biscuit (1905), Ayer Series II, box 153 fol. 1, AC
NMAH.
446
On the honor and codes of gentility, see Elias, Civilizing Process.
263
Upheld by common law precedents and legal doctrine, the trademark was a mark of the
consumer’s trust in the producer’s claims and a symbol of the producer’s guarantee to
honor those claims.
Advertising up to the 1890s had generally focused on advertising products rather
than companies.
447
These ads thus mark a departure from previous advertising traditions
as they aim to build company reputation apart from the product itself, thereby
circumventing 1905 regulations that the trademark must be connected to the product
while reiterating the law’s connection between trademarks, goodwill, and a
manufacturer’s integrity.
448
Together, the ads point to a strategy to develop a brand
identity for Nabisco while advertising the company and its products simultaneously under
the “In-Er-seal” logo. The Ayer Agency constructed Nabisco’s brand identity through
visual repetition of the logo to achieve recognition, and combined this tactic with
established advertising modes of appeal, such as enumerating the company’s scientific
and hygienic production process and attempting to establish a personal connection to
potential consumers. While Mundell told consumers that none was genuine without the
Solar Tip seal, National Biscuit told consumers that the trademark was a mark they could
trust, not only for its appearance on the genuine product, but for all the integrity and
goodwill the corporation had achieved by 1905.
These efforts to establish the corporate identity of National Biscuit through the
Uneeda brand and the In-Er-Seal logo prefigure the public relations activities of large
corporations in the 1930s and ‘40s, which focused on cultivating goodwill through direct

447
Sivulka, Soap, Sex, and Cigarettes, chapter 2.
448
See footnote 412.
264
expositions of corporate character and responsibility apart from product quality.
449
In
1906, the Ayer Agency was already telling consumers “What the National Biscuit
Company stands for:” scientific baking, quality, protection, and purity; all embodied in
the trademark.
450
The scientific approach to baking meant a mechanized process that was
free from human hands and thus free from potential impurities. More modern because of
its technologically-progressive methods, the National Biscuit Company promised to offer
a purer product than its implicitly less-modern competitors—though it is ironic that the
company’s personalization efforts to build goodwill resulted in its praise of a mechanized
and inherently impersonal production process. When the company offered long
expositions on the progressiveness of its bakeries, the high standards of its staff, and the
lengths to which it went to ensure the well-being of the consumer and the integrity of the
product, they printed and reprinted their logo each step of the way. Consistent repetition,
combined with these insistences on purity, integrity, and responsibility tied these
discursive meanings to the trademarked logo. It was only through the consistent and
repetitious pairing of these two elements—descriptive, positive texts and the trademarked
logo—that the National Biscuit orb and cross came to signify first the company itself, and
second, its self-constructed reputation. To put it more simply, it was this strategic use of

449
Marchand, Creating the Corporate Soul, 2-3. Marchand argues that, motivated by a “crisis in
legitimacy” in the 1890s and first decade of the twentieth century, corporations through the 1940s gradually
learned to validate their public and social presence through public relations campaigns aimed at using
advertising and imagery to display moral legitimacy, civic responsibility, and the humanity of the
corporation.
450
Print ad for National Biscuit (1906), Ayer Series II, box 154 fol. 1, AC NMAH.
265
the logo and text together that promoted National Biscuit’s goodwill among American
consumers, at least those who bought into the program.
In fact, the National Biscuit campaign gained national recognition and the
attention of industry figureheads in several trade journals. In one article for Printers’ Ink
published in 1906, writer James Collins praised the branding efforts of National Biscuit
and pointed to the In-Er-Seal logo as a household name.
451
Valued at $55 million in
1906, National Biscuit had risen to one of the largest national producers of household
foodstuffs in only eight years—selling approximately 80 million packages annually at the
time.
452
Importantly, Collins pointed to the goodwill value of the In-Er-Seal logo and the
Uneeda name as the primary factors contributing to the growth of the corporation’s

451
Though Collins doesn’t specifically say that Uneeda is “a household name,” he does suggest that the
brand and products made by National Biscuit are known to nearly every household in the United States
through the massive teams of traveling salesmen and “squadrons” publicizing the products. Collins,
“National Biscuit,” 5. Oxford English Dictionary notes that the term “household name” emerged as early
as 1804, with the modern definition (“a well-known person or thing”) coming into use after Tennyson’s
description of Prince Albert in 1862. Oxford English Dictionary Online, s.v. “Household Name,”
http://www.oed.com.libproxy.usc.edu/view/Entry/88908?redirectedFrom=%22household%20name%22#ei
d1357409 (accessed 17 Jan 2013). Becoming a household name was already a goal for advertisers in the
1890s, evidenced by the Quaker Oat publicity train that traversed the country in that decade. Connerley,
“Friendly Americans,” 210-211.
452
Collins, “National Biscuit,” 6. This article was considered in high regard by the Ayer agency, which
sent an excerpt to several trade journals and newspapers late in 1906 as evidence of their successful
strategizing and campaign skills for clients. See “To the Editor” (1906), Ayer Series XIV, box 1 fol. 16,
AC NMAH. According to the US Census, the population of the United States in 1900 was approximately
76 million. US Bureau of the Census, “Table 16: Population 1790-1990,”
http://www.census.gov/population/www/censusdata/files/table-16.pdf.
266
assets. His interview with the company’s president, Adolphus Green, divulged the
strategy of creating something “that the public could identify with our business” in order
to obtain goodwill.
453
According to Green, National Biscuit’s goodwill was built upon
the quality and worth of their products, for which the trademark logo became a shorthand
symbol that aided the public in purchase decisions and memory recall. As the graphic
embodiment of the corporation’s positive reputation and relationship with the buying
public, the In-Er-Seal logo was the most valuable (though intangible) asset that National
Biscuit could claim. In fact, sales of Uneeda Biscuit packaged under the In-Er-Seal logo
were so successful that by the 1920s, one writer praised the company for having
revolutionized the baking industry and touching nearly every household in the nation: “in
less than a generation even the farmer’s household became a buyer of the wrapped and
sealed article.”
454

The aggressiveness of Nabisco’s logo-based campaign in the first decade of the
twentieth century stands out in advertising history as one of the earliest such
demonstrations of logo-based advertising (what advertising historians would today call
“branding”).
455
One of the factors contributing to this campaign must have been the
frequency of imitation and trademark infringement that National Biscuit faced in the first
decade of its business. The company found great success initially, grossing

453
Collins, “National Biscuit,” 4.
454
Presbrey, History of Advertising, 409.
455
Any number of factors could have influenced this campaign, including changing personnel at both Ayer
and National Biscuit, or trends in the advertising industry itself. In either case, it is difficult to know the
real reason for Nabisco’s logo-based campaign, given the absence of records detailing advertising decisions
from either Ayer or National Biscuit.
267
approximately $4 million in annual profits by 1902.
456
Yet this tremendous success
meant that National Biscuit would be a prime target of imitators and copy-cat
manufacturers. In the early years of its existence, the company brought suits against
imitators with names that suspiciously reminded judges of the Uneeda brand, including
“Uwanta,” “Iwanta,” and “Ulika” biscuits (FIG 4.12). While many of these imitations
hinged upon their similarity to the Uneeda name, the company also brought several suits
against rival bakeries whose labels copied the colors, placement, and design of the red
and white In-Er-Seal logo. By 1906, National Biscuit had won approximately 250 cases
forcing competitors to abandon products, names, symbols, and labels that infringed upon
the its trademarked logo, packaging, or the Uneeda brand. Though it won several
injunctions against competitors who infringed upon the Nabisco trademark, the company
achieved many more “abandonments” through intimidation: by threatening legal action,
many would-be defendants abandoned use of their spurious marks to avoid prosecution.
By 1914, National Biscuit had won approximately 830 cases against copyright and
trademark infringement (with or without suit), with 145 of those violations involving
infringement upon the In-Er Seal logo alone.
457

456
Cahn, Nabisco Story, 111.
457
See, for example, National Biscuit Company v. Thomas and Clarke (1899), National Biscuit Co. v.
Baker et al. 95 Fed. Rep. 135 (1899); Ohio Baking Co. v. National Biscuit Co. 195 US 630 (1904);
National Biscuit Co. v. Punchard (1904); and National Biscuit Co. v. Pacific Biscuit Co. et al. 83 NJ Eq.
369 (1914); in National Biscuit Co., Trade Mark Litigation: Opinions, Orders, Injunctions and Decrees
relating to Unfair Competition and Infringement of Trade Marks, 5
th
ed. (priv. pub, 1915). See also Cahn,
Nabisco Story, 111-115; and “Unfair Competition, Preliminary Injunctions,” Yale Law Journal 9, no. 1
(1899): 71.
268
Maintaining and protecting brand identity meant continued diligence against
imitation and counterfeit products. In 1914 National Biscuit won a five-year lawsuit
against a competitor for trademark and other infringements, including unlawful use of
trade names, label designs, and patented packaging. The case of National Biscuit Co. v.
Pacific Biscuit Co. et al. hinged upon the defendants’ deliberate attempt to “palm off his
goods as the goods of a rival and thereby cheat the purchasing public and injure the
business of the rival.”
458
Testimony brought into the record the history of each company,
their decisions to choose particular logos for their products (FIG 4.13), and the
iconographic meanings associated with these logos. Interestingly, both companies chose
signs with historical and spiritual connotations: the In-Er-Seal utilizing the orb and cross
motif of spirituality over worldliness, and the Swastika seal symbolizing “a beneficent
deity, eternal life, benediction and blessing, good wishes and good augury,” which came
from a tradition of “prehistoric” spiritual use by Navajo Indians and Southeast Asians.
459

The evidence presented by both sides attempted to create a legitimate timeline for the use
of these symbols, with each side arguing they had established precedent by first using the
red and white logos just so. Sales figures, trademark registrations, and advertising
expenditures also entered into the record as the lawyers argued for the validity of their
clients’ products.
In the judges’ eyes, however, testimony failed to support the timeline constructed
by Pacific Biscuit, whose branding and advertising strategy shifted between 1905 and
1907—precisely when National Biscuit gained public favor. The new strategy adopted

458
National Biscuit Co. v. Pacific Biscuit Co. et al. (1914) 83 NJ Eq. 369.
459
Ibid., 375.
269
by Pacific Biscuit appeared to deliberately “simulate” the marks, cartons, and trade-
names of several National Biscuit products “for no other purpose than to mislead the
public” (FIG 4.14).
460
The court continued,
The deadly parallel between the entire line of …[goods] is so conspicuous
that it requires no great perspicuity to observe that the defendant’s
methods …are not attributable to any desire on its part to honestly build
up a trade of its own, but rather that they are the culmination of a
premeditated and single purpose of dealing under the cover of the good
will of a successful rival. It is unnecessary, in these passing-off cases …to
[show] that anyone has been actually deceived…
461

Here, the court issued an opinion on both the integrity of the defendant as well as the
potential for deception by the public. The obvious similarities between these goods
sealed, in the eyes of the court, the defendant’s devious intentions to steal Nabisco
goodwill. There need not be any substantial proof that the deception was successful—
that an individual intending to purchase a National Biscuit product confusingly purchased
a Pacific Biscuit product—rather the evidentiary intent to deceive solidified the judges’
decision in this case. It was the manufacturer’s moral character, verified through intent,
upon which the judges based their decision.
While this case decimated an unlawful competitor / imitation good in accordance
with trademark law, it also shored up National Biscuit’s own self-conscious claims of
purity and integrity to the public, as symbolized by the In-Er-Seal logo. To be

460
Ibid., 380.
461
Ibid.
270
championed as the true and legitimate producer of biscuit in open court must have been a
boost to Nabisco sales and its ego. The court’s decision reified Nabisco’s outward claims
of legitimacy by striking down the actions of a competitor as illegitimate. Doing this, the
court implicitly validated the character of National Biscuit as a corporation—its
straightforward voice via ads, its production methods, its factories and even its
products—over that of Pacific Biscuit. In this way, producers like Nabisco not only used
the specter of trademark law and registration as a validating force, but employed the law
and courts to invalidate competitors who deviated from the now lawful ideal producer as
first postulated in trade literature. Importantly, self-policing in the advertising industry
led to actual policing by the state after 1905, which reinforced the admen’s old ideals of
character, integrity, responsibility, and trustworthiness. Cultural maxims ingrained in the
minds of businessmen now became legal guidelines for separating the honest
manufacturer from dishonest conmen seeking to steal profits and defraud the public.
This unethical manufacture of a counterfeit product, without genuine desire to
cultivate one’s own clientele, sealed the fate of the Pacific Biscuit Company. The
injunction against the sixteen products in question took effect in January of 1915, and
while the court awarded no monetary damages for lost sales, Pacific Biscuit did not
survive the economic crash of 1929 despite having recorded profit gains throughout the
1920s.
462
While National Biscuit may have strategized suing particular competitors to
put them out of business (the evidence of blatant trademark infringement in this case
notwithstanding), the company succeeded in decimating whatever competition Pacific

462
“Pacific Biscuit Earnings Gain,” Los Angeles Times, Aug 2, 1928; and “Pacific Biscuit Votes Extra
Disbursement,” Los Angeles Times, May 3, 1929.
271
Biscuit had left when it negotiated the purchase of the west coast company’s assets in
June of 1930.
463
The merger helped National Biscuit earn an extra million dollars in net
profits over the previous year—in spite of the stock market crash and the onslaught of
depression.
464

The early branding practice of National Biscuit can be considered a culmination
of the advertising strategies developed in the 1880s and ‘90s that focused on cultivating
positive public reputations (goodwill), enforcing legal boundaries by policing fraud, and
displaying the principles of integrity and virtue that advertisers raised up as the
guideposts for their industry. Nabisco’s strategies combined both legal and advertising
maxims; and stemmed from the 1880s and ‘90s use of the trademark in trade card
advertising, when advertisers like Solar Tip shoes and others told consumers to “look for
our trademark” and “beware of substitutions.” Combining the traditional advertising
practices of claiming authenticity and differentiating products, the strategy evolved over
the next fifteen years, so that by 1904 the Ayer Agency could tell consumers that the
trademark was the true badge of authenticity, and the “mark of honor.”
465
At the same
time, admen’s developing understanding of brand identity as it could be cultivated
through trademarks and goodwill, and legal developments in trademark law formed a
mutually-influential partnership that had profound effects on both the strategies of
branding and the appearance of advertisements in the early twentieth century. Agencies

463
“Pacific Biscuit Approves Merger,” The Baltimore Sun, Jun 10, 1930.
464
“National Biscuit Co. Nets $6,732,017 for September Quarter Against $5,791,645 Year Ago,” Wall
Street Journal, Oct 24, 1930.
465
“John Doe,” quarter-page print advertisement for National Biscuit (1905), Ayer Series II, box 153 fol. 1,
AC NMAH.
272
like J. Walter Thompson and N.W. Ayer & Son devised ways to increase public
awareness of the brand and cultivate goodwill by focusing on the trademark’s symbolism
of the manufacturer’s reputation and integrity. These strategies materialized in the 1904-
1906 branding campaign for National Biscuit, which illustrates the process of infusing
the trademark with goodwill: the construction of the positive qualities in advertising,
backed by a good product, good public relations for the corporation, good moral
character, and honest self-representation.
Of course, the rise of multi-million dollar corporations like Nabisco cannot be
solely attributed to the success of its advertising. Economic crisis in the 1890s
precipitated the merger and consolidation of many industries (including large-scale
bakeries) at the turn of the century. Infringement lawsuits provided another mode of
decimating the competition and indirectly consolidating industries. Yet what is important
here is the ways in which the law ultimately mirrored the cultural importance that admen
placed upon intent, integrity, and character. To put it another way, the strategies that
admen devised for personalizing exchange in the 1870s, ‘80s, and ‘90s (using appealing
images, displaying integrity and character, and adhering to proper behavioral codes)
informed the guidelines for ethical business practice developed in trade literature that in
turn became the model for the 1905 US Trademark Law. Importantly, Nabisco’s self-
conscious, straightforward, and honest approach—evident in the streamlined designs and
simple, transparent text of the ads—suggests that trust could be constructed and
communicated visually through graphic symbols. While this was not the first attempt by
a manufacturer to cultivate brand loyalty, it was possibly the first use of a trademark as
273
an annotation of goodwill (and not just a mark distinguishing one product from others on
the market).
By the 1910s, the trademark became an embodiment of goodwill. In trademark
history, National Biscuit was one of the first companies to tell consumers that the
trademark had meaning—a moment which coincided with the changing law and the
incorporation of goodwill into legal definitions of fair competition and counterfeiting.
Though advertising historians predominantly point to the 1920s as the origin of the
highly-branded world of the twentieth century, this case study pushes that point of origin
backward to 1905; highlighting in the process the intersection of legal definitions and
cultural practices that coalesced in the passing of the 1905 trademark statute and the
branding of National Biscuit. Admen’s repetitive constructions of trust, embedded in the
symbolic logo, created the association of trademarks with goodwill in American culture.
These agents built upon the strategies that had proved successful in the 1870s, ‘80s, and
‘90s—upon sentimental media and iconographies, upon epistolary forms and humor, and
upon shifting cultural understandings of character and personality—that endured into the
early twentieth century. Trademarks helped to visualize these previous textual and
iconographic references to character and thus further personalized advertising appeals in
the early twentieth century. These symbolic graphic marks formed the capstone to
advertisers’ efforts to build goodwill by reintroducing intimacy into the increasingly
impersonal world of American commerce at the turn of the twentieth century.

274

Figure 4.1 Left: stock trade cards for J & P Coats’ Thread (c. 1885), approx. 2 x 4in.
each. Warshaw Collection of Business Americana—Thread. Archives Center, National
Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution.

Right: L. Prang & Co., custom trade cards for Clark ONT thread (1878), approx 2 x 4in.
each. Warshaw Collection of Business Americana—Thread. Archives Center, National
Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution.

275

Figure 4.2 J. Walter Thompson Advertising Agency, “Wisdom Lighting the Globe,”
in J. Walter Thompson Advertising (New York: J. Walter Thompson, 1895), 4, page
approx. 5 x 8in. J. Walter Thompson Company Publications Collection. David M.
Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University.

276

Figure 4.3 Custom trade card for Solar Tip Shoes (1880), approx. 3 x 5in., with
detail. Warshaw Collection of Business Americana—Shoes. Archives Center, National
Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution.

Figure 4.4 Custom trade card for Standard Tip Shoes (1884), approx. 3 x 5in., with
detail. Warshaw Collection of Business Americana—Shoes. Archives Center, National
Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution.

277

Figure 4.5 Custom trade cards for Solar Tip (left) and Standard Tip Shoes (right)
(both 1884), showing similar appearance of shoes, approx. 3 x 5in each. Warshaw
Collection of Business Americana—Shoes. Archives Center, National Museum of
American History, Smithsonian Institution.

Figure 4.6 Labels for Hood’s
(genuine) and Hodd’s (imitation)
Sarsaparilla (c.1890). Reprinted
from “To Punish Pirates,” Printers’
Ink 13, no. 3 (1895): 15.

278

Figure 4.7 National Biscuit Logo, as it appeared in 1900. N. W. Ayer Advertising
Agency Records. Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian
Institution. Reproduced by permission from Kraft Foods, Inc.

Figure 4.8 Newspaper advertisements for National Biscuit Co., produced by N. W.
Ayer & Son Advertising Agency. Left: “Behind the In-Er-Seal Package,” quarter-page
ad (1900); and right: “What does this mean?” quarter-page ad (1900). N. W. Ayer
Advertising Agency Records. Archives Center, National Museum of American History,
Smithsonian Institution.

279

Figure 4.9 “Bakers’ Marks” (1905), quarter-page magazine advertisement for
National Biscuit Co., produced by N. W. Ayer & Son Advertising Agency. N. W. Ayer
Advertising Agency Records. Archives Center, National Museum of American History,
Smithsonian Institution.

Figure 4.10 “O. K.” (1905), quarter-page newspaper advertisement for National
Biscuit Co., produced by N. W. Ayer & Son Advertising Agency. N. W. Ayer
Advertising Agency Records. Archives Center, National Museum of American History,
Smithsonian Institution.
280

Figure 4.11 “John Doe” (1905), quarter-page newspaper advertisement for National
Biscuit Co., produced by N. W. Ayer & Son Advertising Agency. N. W. Ayer
Advertising Agency Records. Archives Center, National Museum of American History,
Smithsonian Institution.

Figure 4.12 Uneeda Biscuit and Iwanta Biscuit packages, entered into evidence in
National Biscuit Co. v. Baker et. al 95 Fed. Rep. 135 (1899). Reprinted from National
Biscuit Co., Trade Mark Litigation, 5
th
ed. (priv. pub, 1915), 12.

281

Figure 4.13 In-Er-Seal logo and Swastika “Red-End-Seal,”
for National Biscuit and Pacific Biscuit Cos., respectively.
Entered into evidence in National Biscuit Co. v. Pacific Biscuit
Co. et al. 83 NJ Eq. 369 (1914). Reprinted from National
Biscuit Co., Trade Mark Litigation, 5
th
ed. (priv. pub, 1915),
174.

Figure 4.14 Uneeda Biscuit and Abetta Biscuit cartons, entered into evidence in
National Biscuit Co. v. Pacific Biscuit Co. et al. 83 NJ Eq. 369 (1914). Reprinted from
National Biscuit Co., Trade Mark Litigation, 5
th
ed. (priv. pub, 1915), 210.

282
EPILOGUE:
Making the Impersonal, Personal

Trust the Midas Touch.
--Current advertising slogan for Midas Muffler shops
466

In March 2004, Midas Inc., the parent company for Midas Muffler shops, revived
an advertising campaign it first used in the 1980s. Centered on the above slogan, the
campaign featured a catchy jingle and television commercials that showed a customer
playfully questioning a repair technician using a polygraph machine. President and CEO
Alan Feldman explained the appeal of the campaign as follows:
Trust is the essence of any brand and a differentiating and enduring legacy
of the Midas brand. … [This] is more than a marketing campaign. It is a
way of doing business that becomes the foundation of our brand as the
trusted provider of automotive services. …The campaign assures
customers that they can expect professional and trustworthy service
provided at great value. …This campaign focuses on the importance of

466
Midas.com, www.midas.com. This slogan, first used in the 1980s, was a product of collaboration
between two agencies: DDB Chicago and Ogilvy & Mather Toronto. See The Auto Channel, “New
Campaign Returns to Heritage of ‘Trust the Midas Touch,’”
http://www.theautochannel.com/news/2004/03/04/183456.html. Ironically, in Greek mythology the
“Midas touch” was a curse—finding everything he touched turned to gold became a horrifying experience
for King Midas. Nathanial Hawthorne popularized the tale in his A Wonder Book for Girls and Boys
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1892 [1851]).
283
building trust and reinforces Midas as the trusted source for reliable and
responsive automotive services.
467

Feldman’s passionate description of his company and its reputation illustrate his own
devotion to the company and the importance, in his mind, of building a corporate image
that instills confidence in its customers. Using the keywords “value,” “professional,”
“trustworthy,” “reliable,” and “responsive;” Feldman constructed a brand identity for his
company that would, in his hope, reassure consumers that they could trust and rely upon
his repair shops and the technicians employed there. The commercial’s depiction of a
customer administering a lie detector test against the repairman intended to illustrate,
according to the creative director in charge of the campaign, “just how far [Midas]
mechanics will go to back up their work and their word.”
468
Trust—in the company, the
repair technician, and everything they stand for—lies at the center of this campaign. At
the dawn of the twenty-first century, this campaign illustrates the perceived importance
of establishing an emotional connection to the consumer through advertising.
The Midas campaign points to a broader trend in twentieth-century advertising
that focused on growing consumer confidence and trust through outward proclamations
of integrity and trustworthiness. One of the top 100 slogans of the twentieth century was
the 1940s slogan for Texaco Fuel, “You can trust your car to the man who wears the
star.”
469
Contemporary readers may also remember “Cooks who know, trust Crisco,”

467
Alan Feldman, quoted in The Auto Channel, “New Campaign.”
468
Don Pogany, DDB agency senior vice president and group creative director, quoted in Ibid.
469
This slogan, created by the Benton & Bowles agency in the 1940s, was ranked number 85 in the top 100
advertising campaigns of the twentieth century by the well-respected trade journal Advertising Age. See
Bob Garfield, “Advertising Age Ad Century: Top 100 Campaigns,”
284
from the 1990s.
470
These campaigns, like the Midas one, aimed to build a sense of trust
within the consumer in order to win their favor, build public reputation, and ultimately to
earn higher profits. This approach to building brand identity, a sense of personality
associated with the corporation and its products, has become a central component of
advertising strategies in contemporary business practice. To put it more simply, branding
in the twenty-first century is about cultivating and building goodwill—that is, trust—
among consumers. Yet building trust, at least through advertising, has been a highly
sought after goal for advertisers since the late nineteenth century.
Many important elements of twentieth-century advertising—including a
concentration on brand development, cultivating public goodwill, and growing brand
loyalty—emerged in the 1870s, ‘80s, and ‘90s as advertisers wrestled with the
increasingly impersonal commercial marketplace and drew upon their own
understandings of and respect for the middle-class culture of social interaction, intimacy,
and character. As society modernized in the last decades of the nineteenth century, it
became more impersonal. In a shrewd move to counteract public perceptions of
depersonalization, the advertising industry sought to build goodwill by personalizing its
appeals to consumers.
In the 1870s and ‘80s, advertisers aimed to close the geographic distance between
producers and consumers by making their appeals more personal. To do so, they turned
to the framework of an existing culture of personal exchange, they adopted familiar

http://adage.com/century/campaigns.html. A similar slogan remains, “The more you know, the more you
trust Bayer” (Bayer Aspirin), Advertising slogans database, “Drug advertising slogans,”
http://www.textart.ru/database/slogan/drugs-advertising-slogans.html.
470
Winspiration.com, “Advertising Slogans,” http://www.winspiration.co.uk/slogans.htm.
285
conventions of letter-writing and humorous anecdotes, and they provided the public with
working testaments to the character of their goods and themselves. The lessons learned
from these strategies facilitated the growth and development of advertising methods
throughout the Gilded Age. As portable media, advertising trade cards worked within the
culture of personal exchange to reframe commercial messages to the public as personal
appeals. Yet the message was as important as the medium: using epistolary forms and
humor as distinct modes of appeal, advertisers in the 1880s learned to establish rapport
with a skeptical American public. Just as individuals viewed correspondence as a proxy
for personal and physical communication, advertisements became proxy salesmen—
substitutes for face-to-face commerce in the decades after the Civil War.
Like these colloquial, intimate appeals, the faces of Lydia Pinkham and the
Quaker Oats man provided their products with friendly personalities that communicated
responsibility to potential consumers. Appeals from the Quaker and others resonated
because they visualized character and distinction; and reintroduced a personal element
(quite literally) into a commercial network of exchange that had all but lost its personal
touch. Advertisers’ insistence on good character persisted through the trade literatures in
the 1880s and ‘90s, and informed the ways that advertisers began to use trademarks as
surrogates for these constructed public personalities that circulated through
advertisements, trade cards, testimonials, and trade characters. Advertisers since the
early 1880s had theorized that a particular reputation (i.e. corporate goodwill) followed
the trademark wherever it went—whether this reputation grew from positive
demonstrations of the manufacturer’s integrity and character, or negative demonstrations
of deceit and trickery. The 1905 Trademark Act solidified this relationship between
286
reputation / goodwill and the logo into law, making goodwill an attribute uniquely
communicated in visual form.
It was the visual appeal of trade cards in the 1870s that shifted the ways that
advertisers would think about their industry in the following decades and the ways that
they proposed to interact with the public. More than just communicative devices relaying
information or soliciting sales, advertisements after trade cards became attractive modes
of capturing the attention and emotion of the viewer. Advertisers learned and reworked
their strategies of appeal—which increasingly centered on making the advertisement
more personal—throughout the 1880s and into the 1920s. The lessons of the Gilded Age
provided a crucial foundation for advertising’s development in the twentieth century,
particularly in its understanding of the importance of emotional, personal appeals to the
consumer and the central role that visual symbols and especially trademarks would have
to twentieth-century admen and consumers.
The brand of consumerism that rapidly expanded after the turn of the century
stemmed from various economic and cultural developments, including industrialization,
immigration, and the expansion of credit. In particular, growth in the manufacturing
sector in the United States, particularly the steel industry, precipitated an abundance of
available consumer goods in the 1920s. Between 1922 and 1929, the national gross
domestic product and per capita income rose in these years—this time by almost 30
percent—while protective tariffs against foreign goods helped manufacturing output
expand. High employment rates, low inflation, and the expansion of consumer credit
enhanced the spending power of skilled workers and the middle-class in the 1920s.
471

471
James A. Henretta et al., America’s History, 5
th
edition (New York: Bedford / St. Martin’s, 2004), 668.
287
This explosive growth of consumption in the “Roaring Twenties” also signaled an
exponential rise in advertising expenditures. Increased spending among manufacturers
and retailers fueled innovations in the advertising industry, while giving agencies a
reason to expand their domestic and international operations. Advertising historians have
described this decade as the birth of “modern” advertising, as it witnessed the expansion
of market research techniques, the emergence of a more sophisticated form of graphic
design, and the full-scale development of branding strategies aimed at cultivating
goodwill for not just the product, but for the corporation itself.
472
New theories of
economics and psychology structured the messages of advertisements, while professional
training programs for executives, writers, and artists helped them excel in its delivery.
473

In the historiography of American business and advertising in particular, the
1920s remains a turning point in the development toward a “modern,” consumer-oriented
society. Different authors point to various factors as indicative of this shift, including
economic integration of the national market, the emergence of brand-name advertising, a
turn away from producerism as an organizing ethos, and the increasing use of new
psychological methods in advertising appeals.
474
In his still influential book on
advertising in the 1920s, Roland Marchand suggests that the “new” advertising responded

472
This interpretation stems from Presbrey’s History of Advertising, and thrives in Norris, Advertising;
Pope, Making of Modern Advertising; and Strasser, Satisfaction Guaranteed.
473
Such training programs included those referred to by Michelle Bogart, in Artists, Advertising; and
archived in RRD, Series V. For a general history of the advertising industry from 1850 through 1930, see
Sivulka, Soap, Sex, chapters 1-4.
474
See footnote 472; and Laird, Advertising Progress; Lears, Fables of Abundance; and Marchand,
Advertising the American Dream.
288
to the public’s “hunger… to be addressed as individuals, in personal tones.”
475
Modern
society had become by the 1920s entirely too impersonal in its mechanized production
lines and shiny packaged goods. Demanding to be addressed on an individual scale, the
American public searched for “intimate confidences and advice,” which prompted the
introduction of fictional experts such as Betty Crocker into popular media. The use of
celebrity endorsements and testimonials expanded by the early 1930s, as advertisers
gradually developed tactics to simulate “one-to-one personal conversation between
personalized emissaries of the corporations and individual consumers.”
476

Yet as this dissertation has shown, the seeds of this modern—and importantly,
personalized—advertising regime were already taking shape in the last decades of the
nineteenth century. In Marchand’s view, advertisers’ “re-personalization” of their
strategies stemmed from the public’s “craving for reassurance… no matter how
transparent the pretense of intimacy.”
477
Rather, in the Gilded Age advertisers seemed to
anticipate public anxieties over the depersonalization of modern society and the loss of
face-to-face interaction with producers. Advertising tactics such as the use of specific
sentimentalized iconographies, the trade character, and the testimonial preemptively
addressed such anxieties by proposing alternate schemas for a re-personalized
commercial communication. Adopting private tones familiar to middle-class consumers
through their experiences with the culture of personal exchange, many advertisers called
upon consumers as friends when soliciting their business. The language of familiar

475
Marchand, Advertising the American Dream, 353.
476
Ibid., 356. See also footnote 201.
477
Ibid., 358.
289
sociability, of friendship, and of trust aided advertisers in pursuing their goal to reach
consumers on a more personal level in order to cultivate goodwill. Advertisers’ trust-
building between 1876 and 1920 thus changed American consumer society by blurring
the lines between personal and commercial, public and private in these years. It
introduced a new visual element to consumerism—the trademarked logo—and promised
to reorient American lives around the variable and often intense meanings associated with
these little symbols, which eventually included not only goodwill, but status, personal
worth, and cultural capital. Though “keeping up with the Jones’” may have originated in
the 1920s, the status associated with brands and their trademarks originated in the Gilded
Age adoption of the concept of goodwill, when advertisers branded trust as something
they could sell.
***
At the turn of the twenty-first century, advertising practice remains intrinsically
tied to strategies that build emotional connections between the consumer and the brand.
Earning public goodwill and establishing “brand identity” have become intertwined in the
eyes of many practitioners. As one industry professional put it, emotional branding “is
what we strive for as an agency every day. If you don’t make an emotional connection
with the consumer, they won’t remember you. That’s how you make a brand relevant,
and stand out from the competition.” His goal, he explained is “identifying the brand’s
true point of differentiation [from like competitors] and delivering it in an emotional way
that will connect with your target consumer.”
478
As an entry point to understanding and

478
I would like to thank my good friend Andrew Ronald Bell II, an executive at Upshot Advertising
Agency in Chicago for his thoughtful response to my inquiries about current advertising practice. This
290
knowing a brand on a personal level, contemporary advertisers thus focus on introducing
the trademark logo as the prime embodiment of all the product and corporation stand for.
Trademarks have become central in public relations efforts, while their financial value
has extended beyond the tangible assets of a corporation and into the realm of prospective
sales as calculated by a measurement of goodwill. Trademark legislation has developed
and evolved to protect these increasingly broad understandings of the meanings behind
the brand, and to restrict new forms of infringement that counterfeiters have developed
since the 1920s. As practitioners strive to make deeper emotional connections to
consumers on a personal level, legislation has evolved to reinforce the legal legitimacy of
the relationship between trademarks and genuine products. In this way, practice has
informed the law, which has evolved to protect the maturing strategies of practitioners.
Current practitioners thus follow in the footsteps of advertising pioneers in the
Gilded Age, who looked for ways to personalize their solicitations to consumers in a
culture of commerce that was becoming increasingly impersonal. Personal appeal,
relevance, difference from the competition, and making the brand memorable—these
goals structure advertising practice today in much the same way that they framed the
emergent strategies of advertisers between 1870 and 1920. For example, in his 2007
treatise on emotional branding, advertising expert Marc Gobé suggests that properly
designed logos invoke a particular sensory experience in the viewer that links vision to
memory recall, emotion, and through these, the consuming impulse. He argues that the

direction toward “emotional branding” has been recently explained by industry experts, including Kevin
Roberts in Lovemarks: The Future Beyond Brands (Brooklyn, NY: powerHouse Books, 2006), and the
works of Marc Gobé: Brandjam; and Emotional Branding: the New Paradigm for Connecting Brands to
People, 2
nd
ed. (New York: Allworth Press, 2009).
291
way to a consumer’s heart is through his / her eye; and thereby links the goal of building
brand loyalty—a subset of goodwill—with meaningful visual images.
479
Yet Gobé’s
vision to cultivate goodwill through symbolic logos is not far adrift from the efforts of the
advertisers in this study. Using familiar, appealing images, advertisers such as N. W.
Ayer, J. Walter Thompson, and others strategized ways to reach out to their audience.
These strategies evolved over time, and incorporated lessons learned from the use of
trade cards, letter-writing, humor, testimonials, and experimentation with trade
characters. In time, advertisers found that trademarks held the key to the symbolic
personal connections they’d searched for. American advertising at the end of the
nineteenth century worked toward a style of emotional branding that centered on building
goodwill in an increasingly visual and symbolic way, and in so doing set the foundation
for the brand- and logo-centered visual consumer culture of the twentieth and twenty-first
centuries.

479
Gobé, Brandjam, xiii.
292
ABBREVIATIONS

AC NMAH Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian
Institution, Washington, DC
Ayer N. W. Ayer Advertising Agency Records, Archives Center, National
Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC
(Formerly: N. W. Ayer ABH International Collection 59, Archives Center,
National Museum of American History)
BTC HL Business Trade Cards, Ephemera Collections, The Huntington Library, San
Marino, CA
DCWL The Joseph Downs Collection of Manuscripts and Printed Ephemera,
Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum, Winterthur, DE
HL The Huntington Library, San Marino, CA
JWTPC J. Walter Thompson Company, Publications Collection, David M.
Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Duke University, Durham,
NC
Last HL Jay T. Last Collection, The Huntington Library, San Marino, CA
LOC PP Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, Washington, DC
RBWL Rare Books Collection, Winterthur Library, Winterthur, DE
RRD R. R. Donnelley & Sons Company Archive, Special Collections Research
Center, University of Chicago Library, Chicago, IL
Warshaw Warshaw Collection of Business Americana, Archives Center, National
Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC

293
BIBLIOGRAPHY

Archival Repositories

American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, MA
Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC
Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution,
Washington, DC
Bryn Mawr College Library Special Collections Department, Bryn Mawr, PA
University of Chicago Library Special Collections Research Center, Chicago, IL
Henry Francis DuPont Winterthur Museum and Library, Winterthur, DE
Hagley Museum and Library, Wilmington, DE
The Huntington Library, San Marino, CA
John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising & Marketing History, Duke University
Libraries, Durham, NC
National Museum of American History Graphic Arts Collection, Smithsonian Institution,
Washington, DC
Numismatics Department, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC
Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, Washington, DC
Temple University Libraries Special Collections Department, Philadelphia, PA
US Copyright Office, Library of Congress, Washington, DC
US Patent and Trademark Office Public Search Facility, Alexandria, VA

Newspapers, Magazines, and Trade Journals

Ad Sense
Advertising Age
Advertising Experience
Advertising World
Art Amateur
Christian Union
Current Literature
Direct Advertising
Frank Leslie’s Popular Monthly
Godey’s Lady’s Book
Good Housekeeping
Harper’s Bazaar
Harper’s Weekly
Iron Age
The Layman Printer
Los Angeles Times
The Mailbag
The Nation
The New York Times
294
New York Evangelist
Paper World
Prang’s Chromo
Printers’ Ink
Profitable Advertising
Time Magazine
The Wall Street Journal
The Washington Post
The Youth’s Companion

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Creator Black, Jennifer M. (author)

Core Title Branding trust: advertising, trademarks, and the problem of legitimacy in the United States, 1876-1920

School College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program History

Publication Date 02/13/2015

Defense Date 01/15/2013

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag Albums,consumption,counterfeit goods,emotional branding,Fleischmann's Yeast,gender,goodwill,humor,J. Walter Thompson,letter writing,letters,Lydia Pinkham,middle class,Nabisco,OAI-PMH Harvest,patent medicine,Quaker Oats,Race,Scrapbooks,sentimental culture,sincerity,testimonials,trade cards,trademark law,Virtue,visual culture

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Halttunen, Karen (committee chair), Braudy, Leo (committee member), Fox, Richard W. (committee member), Schwartz, Vanessa R. (committee member)

Creator Email jenblack1@gmail.com

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c3-220037

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Dmrecord 220037

Document Type Dissertation

Rights Black, Jennifer M.

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

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