Business Advertisement Card: McLaughlin's XXXX Coffee

1972.21.0162

Object Image
Detailed Images

Basic Information

Artifact Identification Business Advertisement Card: McLaughlin's XXXX Coffee   (1972.21.0162)
Classification/
Nomenclature
  1. Communication Artifacts
  2. :
  3. Advertising Media
  4. :
  5. N/A
Artist/Maker The Milwaukee Litho. & Engr. Co.
Geographic Location
Period N/A
Date 19th – 20th century CE
Culture Euro - American
Location Not on Exhibit

Physical Analysis

Dimension 1 (Height) 12.7 cm
Dimension 2 (Width) 9.6 cm
Dimension 3 (Depth) <0.1 cm
Weight 3 g
Measuring Remarks N/A
Materials Paper, Pigment--Ink
Manufacturing Processes Printed

Research Remarks

Description

Many American advertising cards in the nineteenth century displayed a variety of visual and rhetorical themes to foster the attention of potential consumers. The appealing elements these cards displayed convinced the public that these easily disposable ephemera pieces were worthy of preservation. In this card for McLaughlin's XXXX Coffee, two advertising tropes which can be observed are derogatory scenes of American minority groups and the inclusion of animals.

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 demonstrates this trend because it features an “Alaska Indian” child paired with a baby seal and a spear, an image which helps white Americans classify Alaskan Native American culture as innately aggressive and primitive.

American advertisers often included animals in their trade cards to charm and increase consumer patronage. Producers were particularly incentivized to make their advertisements visually appealing to children since younger audiences tended to collect and disseminate trade cards to their parents. This card demonstrates this trend by showing a baby seal being held by a Native American child, a wholesome and curious image which helps to 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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