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 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 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.

Utilizing Trade Cards as a Key Advertising Technique

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Trade cards were a crucial tool in promoting medical products in the early 20th century. As the medical industry grew, companies sought new ways to stand out in a crowded marketplace. Trade cards provided an effective way to capture consumers' attention and promote their products. To ensure profitable sales, trade card makers utilized various advertising tactics, including leveraging maternal connections and portraying children to appeal to parents' natural instinct to protect their children. Emphasizing the product's "healing powers" and presenting visually appealing designs were also commonly used approaches to entice customers and build brand loyalty.

In the early 20th century, trade cards were a popular advertising tool for pharmaceutical companies trying to gain success. One effective strategy was to use images of maternal bonds, which were emotional and helped to sell all kinds of medicines. One such card was Ayer's Sarsaparilla, which used a picture of a child sitting on the mother's shoulders to convey the message that the remedy could improve one's quality of life. The card also provided details about the product and its availability for purchase. The success of these maternal bond images was due to the sense of trust and credibility they created, making parents believe that the medicines were safe and effective for their families' healthcare needs.

Another approach to advertising was the use of children. Youth brings with it a sense of purity and innocence, and therefore it sells the trade cards's products effectively. One of the main functions of trading cards was advertising and capturing the attention of people who were looking at the trading cards. There are many different approaches to gain attention. Throughout this course, we learned that some of the ways were through clothing, color, children, etc. One of the ways of capturing attention is by appealing to people's vulnerability and weak points. A main approach to capture people's attention is through the use of children. Children represent youth and innocence which is appealing to the masses. Many of the trading cards we examined and looked at this quarter incorporated this method of advertising. Looking at The Nerve Pencil, Allen's Root Beer Extract, and Dr. Radcliff's Great Remedy exemplify this advertising technique. 

The use of aestheticism is crucial for advertisements to achieve success. A perfect example of this is Bell-cap-sic, which incorporates art to depict its product and intended message.Bell-cap-sic has adopted an unconventional approach to advertising by using illustrations that are not directly related to the advertised product. This is a departure from the typical formula used by most trade cards. However, this approach serves a clear purpose - to capture the viewer's attention and draw them in.By leveraging aestheticism, Bell-cap-sic has created an effective marketing strategy. The striking visuals used in their trade cards captivate the viewer's attention and encourage them to explore the rest of the advertisement. In this way, the use of aestheticism has proved to be an invaluable tool for businesses looking to create brand recognition and increase sales.
 

With the emergence of new chemical treatments, there were conflicting views on natural, holistic remedies versus scientifically produced pills. However, the association of nature with healing properties and calming feelings was still prevalent.Trade card creators recognized this and incorporated images of nature to provide a comfortable environment for viewers, making them more inclined to use the pills advertised.The "Carter's Little Nerve Pills" trade card uses an image of a young girl and nature to appeal to consumers. The girl is shown in a peaceful countryside setting, interacting with a bird amidst bright pink flowers. This imagery taps into the natural association of nature with feelings of health and liveliness.The vibrant colors used in the image further enhance the ideal and picturesque portrayal of nature, making it more enticing to consumers. By associating the product with such a blissful experience, viewers are more likely to trust and buy the medication. In summary, the trade card's use of natural imagery and vibrant colors effectively convinces consumers to purchase the product.

This trade card is Carter's Little Liver Pills (girl +boy in blue). When observing this specific trade card, the contrast between the front and back stands out to me first. The front of the trading card involves much more imagery and color. We can see a young boy and girl surrounded by what seems to be in a garden. Flowers are a main part of the front of the image. The pills here are to help relieve headaches. 

Overall, Trade card manufacturers employed several marketing strategies to ensure profitable sales. These included tapping into maternal connections and using images of children to appeal to parents' instinctive desire to safeguard their offspring. They also highlighted the product's therapeutic properties and utilized visually captivating designs to attract customers and foster brand loyalty.

This page has paths:

  1. Student Projects Chien-Ling Liu Zeleny

Contents of this path:

  1. Maternal Bonds in Trade Cards
  2. Natural Scenery in Trade Cards
  3. Helpful Healing Handouts
  4. Aesthetic Advertisement
  5. Using Children as a Method of Advertising
  6. Marketers Deceptive Strategy Through means of Trade Cards

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