Business Advertisement Card: Alden's Fruit Vinegar

1972.21.0053

Thumbnail of Business Advertisement Card:  Alden

Detailed Images

Basic Information

Artifact Identification Business Advertisement Card: Alden's Fruit Vinegar   (1972.21.0053)
Classification/
Nomenclature
  1. Communication Artifacts
  2. :
  3. Advertising Media
  4. :
  5. N/A
Artist/Maker None
Geographic Location
Period/Date N/A
Culture Euro - American

Physical Analysis

Dimension 1 (Width) 17.6 cm
Dimension 2 (Length) 13.6 cm
Dimension 3 (N/A) N/A
Weight 7 g
Measuring Remarks None
Materials paper, pigment--ink
Manufacturing Processes Printed
Munsell Color Information waived

Research Remarks

Published Description N/A
Description

One of the ways trade card advertisers could compensate for the flat, mundane nature of their
paper products was by implementing natural imagery. If a feeling of “naturalness” and
“genuineness” was conveyed to the consumer successfully, then the advertised product was
more likely to be researched and purchased. Chromolithography, the process of printing color-
printed ephemera, allowed trade card authors to create colorful and appealing images which
helped to circulate the supposed benefits of their wares. In this card, Alden Fruit Vinegar is framed as a high quality product given that it is associated with an image of fresh fruit.

Comparanda N/A
Bibliography

“A Short History of Trade Cards,” Bulletin of the Business Historical Society 5, no. 3 (April 1931). Berg, Maxine and Clifford, Helen, Selling Consumption in the Eighteenth Century: Advertising and the Trade Card in Britain and France, The Journal of the Social History Society, (April 28, 2015). Chase, Ernest D., The Romance of Greeting Cards, Rust Craft Publishers, 1956. Jay, Robert, The Trade Card In Nineteenth-Century America, University of Missouri Press, 1987. Lewis, John, Printed Ephemera: The Changing Uses of Type and Letterforms in English and American Printing, W.S. Cowell Ltd., 1962. Mehaffy, Marilyn Maness, Advertising Race/Raceing Advertising: The Feminine Consumer(Nation), 1876-1900, Signs, 23, no. 1, The University of Chicago Press, 1997, 142- 143, https://www.jstor.org/stable/3175155. Oatman-Stanford, Hunter, “Extreme Shipping: When Express Delivery to California Meant 100 Grueling Days at Sea,” Collectors Weekly, (June 2, 2016), https://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/when-express-delivery-meant-100-days-at-sea/. Peterdi, Gabor, “Lithography” section of “Printmaking” article, Encyclopedia Britannica online, 2021, https://www.britannica.com/art/printmaking/Lithography.

Artifact History

Archaeological Data N/A
Credit Line/Dedication Gift of Natalia M. Belting
Reproduction no
Reproduction Information N/A

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