This site requires Javascript to be turned on. Please enable Javascript and reload the page.

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 Influence of Innocence and Purity in Patent Medicine Trade Cards This page will explore how themes of innocence and purity were primarily utilized in patent medicine trade cards in order to generate enticing advertisements to consumers at the time. Themes of purity, innocence, and femininity entwined with the audience's perception of an ideal person, and this page will dissect how these themes were utilized to create an impactful advertisement for medical ephemera. —By Lesley Sierra, Alejandro Haro, Taylor Sullivan, Karina Tairyan, Jennifer Lay, Parinaz Kyavar 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 Healing and Appealing Powers of Purity and Femininity

40985 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

Our anchor image is the Patent Medicine Trade Card for Antikamnia Tablets. The front side of the card shows the side profile of a woman sniffing lilies. This image is incredibly interesting when looking at the historical context of the various advertising strategies of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. We chose the Antikamnia Tablets card as our focal point in our scalar book because it directly shows our themes of purity and femininity in advertising. As the central image of the front side of the card, the woman depicted does not have any sort of connection to the advertised medication. Rather the woman is used as an advertising strategy to try and promote the product due to preconceived notions of purity and the appeal of women. As the centerpiece, this woman is conventionally beautiful and likely would draw the attention of consumers. This is relevant when examining the various visual rhetorical strategies present in medicinal advertisements of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The inclusion of the word “purity” to the right side of the woman is also very relevant to our theme of femininity and purity in advertising. Whether the word was intended to be immediately seen by consumers or play the role of some sort of subliminal message, the inclusion of the word is the most relevant detail of this card. Through the use of a woman as the center of attention in addition to the inclusion of the word “purity”, this card demonstrates our central themes of women and purity in advertising strategies present in patent medicine trade cards.

On the front of the trade card advertising Dalley's Magical Pain Extractor, a shepherd woman is depicted feeding goats. She is surrounded by nature, although you can see the front of an edifice, which looks like a church, in the background. This image is representative of the Romantic pastoral genre of literature, which glorifies the shepherd lifestyle. This genre, which experienced a resurgence of popularity that corresponded with the inception of Romanticism, was primarily popular among urban elites. It is understandable that city dwellers suffering from the various ailments that came with living in dirty urban environments would be attracted to an image of the tranquility of the natural world. The shepherd woman represents simplicity and vitality. Her image is nurturing – almost maternal – which evokes the likeness of mother nature. In essence, her femininity is intertwined with nature, which is tied to her image as a healer.

In the next image of a young girl, which serves as the front of an advertisement for a drug used to treat rheumatism and neuralgia, the themes of youth, femininity, and vitality are extremely apparent. The image portrayed is that of a young girl who has long flowing hair and is donning a white dress. Her long locks indicate health and youth, while her white dress is a symbol of purity. In both this image and the former, the women depicted are somewhat ethereal. The religious connotation of purity creates a subconscious association with the cleansing of illness. Thus, the women depicted symbolize health and youth, attributes which have been commodified in these advertisements to attract those who are sick and ailing.

The image to the right (Dr. Kermott's Mandrake Pills [inscribed]) is another example of femininity in advertisements to endorse medicinal products. In contrast to other patent medicine trading cards on this page, the centerpiece depicts a middle-aged woman who is not necessarily the standard ideal of beauty in the early 20th century. The older woman, with a lopsided face and non-proportional features, seems to be writing a letter to her love. At first glance, we wondered why this woman would be the focal point of this piece since she is not conventionally beautiful. While the depiction of this woman is pellicular, this patent medicine trading card still uses femininity in relation to healing. Using a woman with such stark characteristics as hers still attracts people to the card, even if it is not because they find the woman visually pleasing. People may glance at the card, see the woman, and want to look further out of pure curiosity. In turn, they inadvertently learn more about the product. Having a woman as the focal point of this advertisement acts as a way to allure the general audience to the trading card, resulting in more people learning about the medicine being advertised.

The Patent Medicine Trade Cards, Biliousine and Dr. Ingham’s Pain Extractors and Liver Pills, continue to present the common themes of illustrations towards the appeal of purity and femininity in their advertisements. The first image on the left (Dr. Ingham's Pain Extractors and Liver Pills) presents two young girls, youthfully cleaning around the house. It is a common perception that the youth are considered pure and uncontaminated by many of the negative elements of our world. This use of young girls in the advertisement, by the author, is an allusion to the youthful and pure revival the consumer will feel from taking this remedy. This desire, to feel like a kid again, is suggested through the artwork of the second card on the right (Biliousine). This card shows a crowd of classy women outside a storefront in a craze to purchase pain relieving remedies. This artwork suggests that there is a popular demand amongst women for the youthful and pure feelings that are highlighted in Dr. Ingham’s Pain Extractors and Liver Pills trading card. The use of women, and of femininity in a broader sense, is clear in the advertising practices of both Patent Medicine Trade Cards. We decided to compare these two cards because they both use femininity as a strategy of visual rhetoric, but there are differences. Whereas Dr. Ingham’s Pain Extractors and Liver Pills uses femininity to promote the purity of girlhood, Biliousine uses sexist ideas of womanhood and feminine consumer desire.

These patent medicine trade cards are just some of the many forms of advertisements that use the healing and appealing powers of purity and femininity. The use of these two concepts in advertising is a traditional marketing tactic that tries to appeal to a consumer’s aspirations and values. Advertisements that highlight images, words, or messages related to femininity and purity aim to induce positive connections and emotions, like comfort, trust, as well as beauty.

For example, the cards on this page share a common theme of portraying children, motherly figures, and women in their imagery. Advertisers are implying that using their product will help the consumer achieve the traits associated with these themes, such as femininity, purity, and youth. Using these messages in medicinal advertising suggests that their product could help you feel young again by treating your ailments, be a useful household medication, or purify you of your illnesses.

Although these patent medicine trade cards originated from the Victorian era, marketing companies today still use the same tactics associated with purity and femininity. While these advertisements may be successful in selling their goods, they can facilitate very damaging gender stereotypes. Moreover, the use of these strategies can contribute to exceedingly unrealistic standards and outcomes.

This page has paths:

Student Projects Chien-Ling Liu Zeleny
Contents of this path:
1. 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
2. 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
3. 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
4. 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
5. 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
6. 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
7. 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
8. 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
9. 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
10. The Influence of Innocence and Purity in Patent Medicine Trade Cards This page will explore how themes of innocence and purity were primarily utilized in patent medicine trade cards in order to generate enticing advertisements to consumers at the time. Themes of purity, innocence, and femininity entwined with the audience's perception of an ideal person, and this page will dissect how these themes were utilized to create an impactful advertisement for medical ephemera. —By Lesley Sierra, Alejandro Haro, Taylor Sullivan, Karina Tairyan, Jennifer Lay, Parinaz Kyavar
11. 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
12. 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
13. Animals used In Medicine Trade cards
14. 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
15. 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
16. 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.

Contents of this path:

Advertising Medicinal Efficacy Through Biblical Notions of Femininity and Nature My three featured Patent medicine Trade Cards encompass the themes of nature and femininity as advertising strategies in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. These three cards either separately or simultaneously illustrate how nature and femininity were used to advertise medications. Due to certain sociocultural perceptions of biblical purity present in motherhood and nature, it is clear that these themes were used in order to prove efficacy of the advertised medications. Through commonly held values within Christianity, women and nature were successful in advertising because they looked back to the pureness of feminine care and the powers of nature. These three cards will explore how advertisers used the ideas of nature and femininity to try and market medications and their efficacy. - By Stephanie Zager
Ethereal Imagery and Phrasing in Medical Advertisements of the 20th Century Based on my research on patent medicine trading cards from Louise M. Darling Biomedical Library at UCLA, I discovered a connection between select cards and the advertisement tools used in the late 19th century to early 20th century. I found that many medical companies attempted to use ethereal imagery or phrases to bolster their product's effectiveness. In turn, the general audience may feel a growing sense of trust in the products on these trading cards due to the portrayal of the product being perfect or whimsical. In the next few photos below, we can examine the use of ethereal rhetoric.- By Megan Sparrow
The Promise of Happiness in Visual and Verbal Rhetoric of Patent Medicine Trade Cards These three patent medicine trade cards, though on their face quite different, all employ various rhetorical appeals to advertise to the chronically ailing, people who want nothing more than to end their suffering and find tranquility. Images of youth and nature both appear in patent medicine trade cards to incite desire in the target demographic of these doctors — people who are suffering from chronic pain. Verbal rhetoric, such as personal anecdotes and fear mongering, is also used to unite customers with doctors against the common enemy of disease. These rhetorical strategies work in tandem to increase the ethos of doctors and create a mirage of happiness which elicits desire from potential patients. - By Ella Kitt
The Depiction of Motherly Care and Return to Purity in 20th Century Medical Advertisements Based only own analyzation of patient medicine trade cards from the Louise M. Darling Biomedical Library at UCLA, I recognized that their was a common correlation between the cards I selected. Medical advertisers seemed to look to appeal to the emotions of their consumers, and portray their product as something that a loving mother would use to take care of their family. This depiction of motherly care and protection helps the consumer view the product as safe and responsible to use. - By Corey Gear
Youth and Purity in Victorian Era Medical Advertising In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, patent medicine trade cards were a very common form of advertising used to promote certain health remedies and medications. These trade cards often portrayed images and depictions of young women and children who represented youth and femininity. The three cards I have chosen from UCLA's Patent Medicine Trade Card Collection share this popular theme associated with purity. This marketing tactic played into societal ideals of women and the youth by evoking a sense of trust and reliability in the product, as children and women were seen ad innocent and virtuous. In addition, by using these images in advertisements, companies were able to target female consumers, who were often responsible for purchasing household goods. In this page, I will dissect these three cards to show the tactics companies in the past used to persuade people to buy specific goods and medications, and show how their advertising strategies were not that different than the ones we see in our modern age.

This page references:

Dr. Ingham's Nervine Pain Extractor, and Vegetable Liver Pills [front] Front of card depicts a boy wiping a broom with a cloth. A girl waits behind him next to a brick hearth holding a wooden bucket. Behind and to the left of the boy, a copper kettle and a silver pot hang near a pair of fireplace tongs resting against a wall. On the floor behind the girl lie a scrub brush and a bar of soap. Reverse side is text only. Original trade card forms part of: Collection no. 311, History & Special Collections for the Sciences, Louise M. Darling Biomedical Library, UCLA.
Rheumatism and Neuralgia [inscribed] - Front
Biliousine (front) Front of card depicts a crowd of men and women entering a store and looking at a window display. The display is labled Biliousine with a hanging sign that reads, "For sale here." There are bottles of Billiousine in the window. A sign hanging outside of the store reads, "Biliousine is a sure cure for sick headache, dyspepsia, constipation, indigestion, sour stomach, heartburn & c."Back of card contains a list of people who will "testify from actual experience." Original trade card forms part of: Collection no. 311, History & Special Collections for the Sciences, Louise M. Darling Biomedical Library, UCLA.
Dalley's Magical Pain Extractor (front) - SZ
Antikamnia Tablets [inscribed] - Anchor
Dr. Kermott's Mandrake Pills [inscribed] (front)