America's Pastime: Patent Medicine Trade Cards on Pain Main Menu Introduction Student Projects The Power of Emotional Marketing: How Vintage Medical Trading Cards Used Children to Sell Their Products to Parents The late 19th and early 20th centuries saw the rise of patent trade medicine cards across the country. Prominent among the many marketing strategies employed were those involving child imagery. By exploring the historical juncture between child imagery and society, new insights are gained regarding the appeal of child imagery and its employment in various marketing approaches. - By Kevin Kerr, Curran Whitney-Vazquez, Chandler Warth, Samuel Sakowski, Eden Breslauer-Friedman Clothing as Tool of Expression: Utilizing Fashion in 19th Century Marketing In analyzing our group’s medicine trading cards, we were able to convey the significance of clothing throughout its relation to medicine. Various forms of clothing demonstrate symbolism towards an indvidual’s perception on medicine as well as foreshadowing the message in which the trading cards demonstrate. The various forms of clothing and stances the individuals and characters in the trading card portray indicate symbolize towards various forms of clothing and stances to highlight the social class and hierarchy of power with its purpose in medication trading cards. The way that every individual is dressed eludes to different perceptions of varying social classes as the medical epherma is not targeted to one specific group. This persuades individuals to buy the medicines and adapt to their encouraged medicine techniques. - By Brittney Abdi, Alan Torres, Jolene Matian, Zoe Rosenberg, Javier Perez Mejia Humanity, Animals, and Religion: The Metaphorical Sense of Rebirth and Apotheosis of Purity. In the late 19th and early 20th century, America saw a rise in Patent Medicine leading up to the civil war. It was a lucrative trade that encouraged individuals to cultivate their own brand and medicinal products. The rise in Patent Medicine could be explained by a multitude of factors, such as rapid increases in industry and manufacturing, urban living, the absence of drug regulation, and the lack of accessibility and distrust of contemporary medical practices. During this period, Patent medicine companies vigorously marketed their products through small, colorful cards that featured illustrations , along with information about the medicine's supposed benefits and ingredients. To persuade consumers to purchase their products, patent medicine companies utilized a variety of marketing techniques. Some of the most popular ones being the portrayal of humanity, animals, and religion to convey the notion of rebirth and purity. - By Dominic Castillo, Vanessa Jiang, Stephen Liu, Leo Martinez, Selena Quispe The Utilization of Youthful Figures, Both Humans and Animals, in Medical Trading Cards The UCLA Library Digital Collections consist of a diverse collection of Patent Medicine Trade Cards that depict historically meaningful and strategic methods of medical advertising, specifically focusing on irregular and alternative medicines. The following trade cards investigate the significance of youthful figures in medical advertisements, as seen in both humans and animals. - By India White Cloud, Shanya Rostami, Andreas Tunney, Noah Orshansky, Netaniel Daee, and Justin Vayakone The Appeal of Youth and Family in Patent Medicine Trading Cards Medical Ephemera has had a long history of using emotional tactics to appeal to its intended target audiences. One of the most prevalent motifs is that of youth and children. Through visual and written rhetoric, this theme appeals to many family oriented communities and their values. From reliability to rejuvenation, for many people children can represent what they want in a medicine. However, this era of trade cards was particularly deceitful towards audiences by using this rhetoric, yet had a significant impact on marketing tactics that are still seen and thriving today. - By Lauren Tanaka, Allison Bushong, Mollie Brown, and Garrison Hallum Innocent Imagery: A Technique of Patent Medical Trade Cards The evolution of curing pain and uplifting human welfare greatly interested the public. To help combat this suffering, medical corporations turned to advertising through Patent Medical Trade Cards. These small cards significantly helped sell medicines throughout the 19th and 20th centuries in the United States of America. Specific techniques and styles, such as Innocent Imagery, assisted in attracting the consumer to purchase the drug. For instance, harmless animals, delicate flowers, and emotional characters were critical sources of visualizing innocence. -By Lauren Heiberg, Sean Eshraghi, Bradley Reed, Camila Ramirez-Leng and Shayan Mansourian Youth as a Marketing Tactic to Relieve Pain Our group page dives into the way patent medicine trade cards have utilized youth and innocence as a marketing tactic to improve their advertisement. We have focused on UCLA library’s collection as a whole and chosen to individually select a few of the cards that best match our theme all together. This project has allowed us to study the advertisement techniques of medical cures and solutions of its time as a group. We hope our findings are as insightful to you as they are to us - By Tara Kahrobaie, Rebeca Daee, Talia Fouladian, Ashley Kohen, Nathan Darougar, Saman Khalifian The Children of Medicine: An Appeal to Consumer Emotions Our group page explores the intricacies of 19th century marketing strategies that heavily revolved around depictions of children and the youth in an attempt to psychologically appeal to the emotions of consumers in hopes of converting sales. However, we also discuss how problematic this can be, especially when the product advertisement itself is deceiving and may even pose a threat to the lives of consumers. Though effective, using the youth to advertise products can be unethical and as a result, there were different legislations enacted to combat this and different marketing strategies have evolved in conjunction with it. - By Johnny Thai, Margarita Balbuena, Ryan Nelson, Chuntao Qiu How Depictions of Women and Children Sell Medication In this page, we examine the usage of women and children portrayed on patent medicine trade cards to advertise and sell medication. Throughout this page, we employ the collection of patent medicine trade cards from the UCLA Library Digital Collections, analyzing the images and text to gain a deeper understanding of this form of advertising. - By: Jacquelyn Bakshian, Abby Kim, Tyler Maghen, David Sagizadeh, Shana Simanian, Mia Tumbaga The Healing and Appealing Powers of Purity and Femininity Our group page focuses on the use of femininity and purity in advertising as a means to demonstrate the efficacy of the advertised medications. Through close inspection of various Patent Medicine Trade Cards from the UCLA Biomedical Library Special Collections, our group has gained an understanding of advertising strategies and the use of cultural norms to demonstrate medicinal efficacy. Women, ideas of femininity, and purity found in nature are the central themes of our scalar book and reveal advertising strategies of medications in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. These cards as well as our own individual pages will explore the complex and historically relevant themes of femininity and purity through the lens of advertising strategies of medications and medicinal products in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. - By Stephanie Zager, Ella Kitt, Megan Sparrow, Corey Gear, Neda Afsharian Parental Protective Instincts: Child Imagery in Patent Medicine Trade Cards In the late nineteenth century to early twentieth century, pharmaceutical companies established marketing strategies in which they value child imagery upon the medical trade cards. By evaluating and uncovering new insights regarding the appeal of child imagery, the selection of six cards from the UCLA’s Patent Medical Trading Card collection will elucidate its marketing values and how it appeals to buyers. By Chelsie, Adrian, Micaiah, Princess Animals used In Medicine Trade cards Our presentation focuses on the use of animals in Patent Medicine trade cards, as advertisements , essentially animals are used are marketing tools. By using animals as the main focus on the image, the companies are able to grasp the attention of the viewers. - By Aaron Kohanbash, Aaron Ezra Kohanbash, Elan Amona, Samuel Kohanteb, and Avner Shamtoub The Usage of Various Species in Advertising Medicinal Products The UCLA Patent Medicine Trade Cards expounds on medicine under a variety of labels and names through its collection of 247 patent medicine trade cards. With the variety of medical products on the market, companies utilized artwork to advertise their products to the general public. Specifically, various species and the attributes associated with them were one common theme among patent medicine trading cards. - By Hoyeol Lee, Fady Tawfik, Daniel Rabkin, Mia Kubal, Sarkis Vartanyan, and Daniel Pirian Utilizing Trade Cards as a Key Advertising Technique Trade card makers employed them as a medium to promote medical products, utilizing various advertising tactics to entice consumers and guarantee profitable sales. These marketing approaches included leveraging maternal connections, portraying children, emphasizing the product's "healing powers," and presenting visually appealing designs. By- Hannah Shaye, Yaelle Shaye, Leah Tabibi, Odelia Safadel, Ely Gabbaypour, and Arya Afgham 19th Century Remedies for Women's Daily Troubles During the 19th century, patent medicine trade cards often were marketed to women. These cards advertised products that intended to relieve ordinary women of troubles that they faced on a daily basis. Many of these products included cure-alls, medicine for mothers, and medicinal makeup, which addressed the frequent concerns women experienced regarding bodily health, motherhood, and femininity. – By Omotola Adesina, Gengjia Lin, Renateh Moradian, Grant Pate, and Brooke Vallone.

The Influence of Innocence and Purity in Patent Medicine Trade Cards

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In the nineteenth and twentieth century, various medical ephemera were developed in order to bring attention and incitement to the growing pharmaceutical products that were being developed. Thus, with many competing brands on the market, these companies specialized in producing alluring advertisements, which were later deemed as Patent Medicine Trade Cards, that would draw the consumer’s attention. These advertisements were primarily generated for at-home medicine, where the products would be utilized for various common illnesses and accidents, like headaches, sore throats, cough, bruises, and cuts. Essentially, in order to draw the audience’s attention, creative marketing strategies were utilized in order to ensure that these advertisements were individualized and stood out in the realm of pharmaceutical medication. Numerous patent trade cards utilized the notion of purity and interest in order to establish relatability and interest towards the products being advertised. Thus, these cards would utilize women, children, and small animals in order to accentuate and exemplify the theme of innocence in order to emphasize that their products were suitable for the entire household. Essentially, these six cards we chase will explore how these patent medicine trade cards creatively expressed themes of innocence and purity in order to exert successful advertisements, ultimately regarding them as medical ephemera.  




 

Hood’s Sarsaparilla, is a patent medicine trade card curated from the UCLA library collection. The card displays an adult dog in the process of killing a rat, as three puppies watch with profound facial expressions. The medication being advertised in this card is one that essentially purifies the blood and cures heart disease. When thinking of themes and symbolism in this card, we see purity and innocence. The dog holding down the rat with its paw symbolizes the diminishing of the disease; The rat is the disease, the dog’s paw is the Hood’s Sarsaparilla. This card includes a theme of innocence in advertising. If we focus on the facial expressions of the puppies, they are depicted with big eyes and their facial expressions are that of newness, innocence, and curiosity. Big, rounded, doe eyes are big representations of these themes, and people are drawn to them. The card portrays puppies as their subjects instead of children or adults. This was done to most likely draw more attention to the advertisement. Who can resist puppies? 





 

Within all of the chosen trade cards, there exists the recurring theme of the use of children and femininity in order to depict safety in usage and draw attention to the advertisements. The anchor image, Perry Davis’ Pain Killer, clearly establishes the use of children as it is two children, who appear to be siblings, that are the focus of the front cover. A mid-sized boy is seen curing his younger sister. The use of light colors, such as in the dress of the young girl, evoke a sense of purity. Their bare feet further reinforce this theme of innocence. While the young girl appears to feel fear, the older brother’s reassurance evokes a sense of security to the consumer. The satellite images deeper instill the recurring theme. St. Jacobs’ Oil works with the theme of femininity in order to captivate the attention of the consumer. The woman depicted in the front cover of the card is young. Her age, long hair, and revealing dress further evoke the theme of femininity in order to captivate attention. Ultimately, Perry Davis’ Pain Killer deeply illustrates the theme of innocence and purity through the portrayal of two young children. The young boy and toddler girl’s dress captivates the innocence of the advertisement and what the painkiller can do to children. The toddler girl’s toy further reinstills this sense of innocence as the pure children learn more about the medication. 





These patent medicine trade cards in our collection encapsulates the perception of purity and feminitny utilized in medical advertisments during the nineteenth century. These cards share commonalities in regard to their marketing toward pain and alleviation of pain. The cards from this collection also exemplifies the perception of purity and innocence within children and women in advertisements. Essentially, the nature of these cards encompass the perception of purity, femininity, childhood, and innocence. Representations of feminity are exemplified in both the Perry Davis and St. Jacob's Oil patent medicine trading cards. Specifically, the St. Jacob's patent trading card displays a young woman dressed in a pastel blue dress with a red bonnet tied around her head. This imagery represents broader themes of purity and innocence. The clothing of the woman indicates subordination and feminity. Symbols of women's headpieces and bonnets have also had religious implications.

Some minor differences that are common among our trade cards is the attire of the figures, in particular children. For example, the child in Dalley’s Magical Pain Extractor is wearing a robe. This is significant because robes are symbolic of religious affiliation and imply the nature of purity. What strengthens this argument is that the backside of the trade card references the Ten Commandments, except it is explaining ten reasons why the customer should buy the medicine. In all, this trade card connects the idea of religious symbolism with innocence and more importantly, how these affiliations validate the medicine they are selling. On the other hand, the girl in Perry Davis’ Pain Killer, the boy is dressed in a school uniform . This evokes a sense of purity and innocence, implying that being educated on medicine leads to making the right choice in medication.

This page has paths:

  1. Student Projects Chien-Ling Liu Zeleny

Contents of this path:

  1. The Application of Children Imagery as an Advertising Technique Geared Towards Families
  2. The Utilization of Color and Art to Advertise Various At-Home Medication
  3. Need to Combat the Excruciating Pain? Quick Take this Cure!
  4. The Perception of Purity
  5. The Power of Purity and Innocence in Medicine Trade Cards
  6. Behind the Scenes: The Significance To The Back Sides of Trade Cards

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