Business Advertisement Card: "Buy Uncle Sam's Sodas"

1972.21.0062

Thumbnail of Business Advertisement Card: "Buy Uncle Sam

Detailed Images

Basic Information

Artifact Identification Business Advertisement Card: "Buy Uncle Sam's Sodas"   (1972.21.0062)
Classification/
Nomenclature
  1. Communication Artifacts
  2. :
  3. Advertising Media
  4. :
  5. N/A
Artist/Maker Unknown
Geographic Location
Period N/A
Date 19th century CE
Culture Euro - American
Location Not on Exhibit

Physical Analysis

Dimension 1 (Height) 14.1 cm
Dimension 2 (Width) 9.4 cm
Dimension 3 (Depth) 0.1 cm
Weight 3 g
Measuring Remarks N/A
Materials Paper, Pigment--Ink
Manufacturing Processes Printed

Research Remarks

Description

Children were terrific advertising tools in American trade cards, with producers often using charming images of young people to increase consumer sentiments and facilitate a positive reputation for their brands. Also, these children were often depicted as engaging in consumer lifestyles, a trend that their peers found inspiring. Additionally, some advertisers used sympathy for children–often depicting them as downtrodden or impoverished–to advertise the negative issues of industrialized society. This card for Uncle Sam’s Sodas demonstrates this trend by presenting an elaborately dressed child to help facilitate favorable attention from consumers.

Published Description 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

Credit Line/Dedication Gift of Natalia M. Belting
Reproduction no

Contact

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