Business Advertisement Card: Fairbank's Cottolene

Many trade cards in the United States included racialized scenes to propagate white perceptions of civilization. The purpose of these messages was to generate reactions from a majority-white audience using familiar imagery from the traditional American mythos, which often included the stereotypical and demeaning perceptions of American minority groups. This marketing trend legitimized calls to Americanize cultures which were considered uncivilized. This card for Fairbank’s Cottolene demonstrates this trend because it features a black woman holding cotton in her apron, a stereotypical image of black labor and servitude in the South.

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