Business Advertisement Card: King's Flours

1972.21.0103

Thumbnail of Business Advertisement Card: King

Detailed Images

Basic Information

Artifact Identification Business Advertisement Card: King's Flours   (1972.21.0103)
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) 11.0 cm
Dimension 2 (Width) 7.1 cm
Dimension 3 (Depth) <0.1 cm
Weight 2 g
Measuring Remarks N/A
Materials Paper, Pigment--Ink
Manufacturing Processes Printed

Research Remarks

Description

Printed trade cards which featured appealing designs and imagery were more likely to be
recognized by the American public and, therefore, generate brand recognition for the
producing company. Scenes with exotic, eye-catching, and even fantastical qualities were often implemented into these cards. This portrayal was meant to suggest that the advertised product, as opposed to similar items from other brands, was of high quality and perhaps even supernatural in its effectiveness. In this card for King’s Flour, two fairies are perched on a floral branch while cooking in a suspended stove. This suggests that the food created from the advertised flour is fitting for magical beings and, therefore, demonstrates that King’s Flour is of high quality.

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

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