Business Advertisement Card: "Dr. Seth Arnold's Cough Killer"

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 Dr. Seth Arnold's Cough Killer, two advertising tropes which can be observed are the inclusion of animals and the imagery medical advertisers used to make their remedial products seem more trustworthy.

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 girl hugging a dog, a
wholesome image which helps to facilitate favorable attention from consumers.

As many Americans practiced self-medication and distrusted medical professionals, patent
medicine companies were the largest distributors of domestic trade cards. Public ignorance of
healthy habits and a lack of advertising regulations on trade cards allowed medical advertisers
to make exaggerated and untruthful claims on the beneficial qualities of their products. This
marketing approach resulted in great profits for the sellers, but also fostered the prevalence of
disease and other illnesses. This card is an example of this trend because it includes the appealing imagery of a young girl hugging a dog to convince
consumers that this supposedly remedial item advertised produces effects which are, overall,
positive and healing.

“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.