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 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 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.

Animals used In Medicine Trade cards

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Through the representation of 5 Trade cards, One can see the impact of using animals to catch an audience's attention to advertise a product. Advertisements use various ways to convince clients to buy their product and by having an animal as the focal point of a trade card capture's the eye of a viewer. 
In this trade card, the company used a depiction of a  horse, in the middle of a horse shoe. This medication was a remedy to many symptoms that animals at the time dealt with, and the depiction of the veins on the horse serve as a symbolic feature that pertains to the medication itself. As the veins symbolize the strength of the horse and its beauty, the marketers of this drug attempted to use this to claim how strong and effective this drug was not only for animals, but for humans as well. Then, the back of this trade card is seemingly a seperate advertisement for a shoe company that caters to women, men, and children alike. This was surprising because in the various trade cards I had studied, the front and back usually only consisted of one advertisement, specifically relating to the medication so one might wonder whether the company was not as renown as others or just tried to save as much money as possible


In Ayers Ague, one can certainly perceive of the way in which the creator uses frogs in the trading card to portray a certain element of the patent card in and of itself. The frogs displayed in the bottom right corner are used in place of actual human charachters. This is used to grab the attention of the card's view. The card is used to depict the Ayers cure for fever and other malarial disorders. It is important to note that the frogs are used to show that the cure got in the hands of the animals in that the frog is feeding the cure to the crocodile. The animals in this trading card present a unique aspect of the cures effect. Furthermore, the back of this card states that this cure "neutralizes and eradicates from the system these noxious poisons, and always cures the severest cases, leaving the patient as well as before the attack". According to the back of the card, this cure is great for curing mulitple diseases and sickness, which can be seen from the frog showing the bottle with the cure to the crocodile. Additionally, whats unique to this cure is that it doesnt contain anything dangerous or harmful and can be used for the weakest fo patients. The cure, however, should be taken occasionally. 

In Castoria (Inscribed), The animal depicted in the card is a mother elephant and a baby elephant. The slogan of the card is that from peasant nursesto high born lady, a mother knows what's best for its baby. It then says that the elephant's name is Jumbo and although it is not a human, it also knows what is best for its baby, the Castoria medicine. The mother is feeding its baby the medicine, and both the mother and the baby elephant are happy. The marketing behind this card grasps the attention of viewers and clients by adding an image of something unusual, an elephant with a colorful background, to explain the effective of its medicine. On the back of the card, it says that this medicine helps swelling, burns, and wounds. This card is is similar and has differences to the other cards. It is similar as all the other cards have very green and nature backgrounds, but is different in the way that there are no people in it and the elephants are the focal point of the card. 

In the trade card, “Wonder of the age”, the front portrays children, one small boy and one small girl, who seem like they are siblings playing together with a white lamb in the middle. It was published by Dr. Free's York Dental Parlors at some time in the 19th or 20th century. The girl is hugging the lamb and smiling in a great state of joy. The boy pets and lamb and also seems happy but also caring at the same time. They are on a farm and the scenery includes lots of grass and a light blue sky. The back of the card states why you should buy their “teeth”, meaning the crown. The back states that the teeth are durable, fitting, and most of all, look natural. The back also advertises their ‘Famous Viatilized Air” that can be used to painlessly extract teeth. I believe they are making the connection between ease and comfort during the extraction of teeth to the same bliss that the children are enjoying with the lamb. The embracement of the lamb provides a comforting image which implies that the entire process of teeth extraction will be one that is comfortable and even blissful with our new product just like the feeling the children have when embracing the lamb. 



Dr. Jayne’s Expectorant displays a girl tightly holding a dog by a leash and on the Botton of the card it says “He Wont Hurt You”. The primary message behind the card is that when there is danger or a cold present. For example if you have a cold, or pains and sore ness in the lungs among other forms of sicknesses and diseases, you need to take control over it and do what you can. And here they allude to Dr. Jayne’s Tonic Vermifuge. Which claims to solve the problems related to Nausea, Headache, Heartburn and other related problems. They claim that this medicine has been successful for over half a century to show the prospective buyer that it truly is a good medication. The medication is also able to have these effects in men, women and even children. The dog may also be seen as a sign of heeling the same way it has a representation of therapy, something like a therapy dog.

 

This page has paths:

  1. Student Projects Chien-Ling Liu Zeleny

Contents of this path:

  1. Aaron Kohanbash
  2. Animals in Trading Cards
  3. Patent Medicine Trade cards: Advertisements for various medications
  4. Marketing through Children’s Youthfulness

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