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 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 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 Appeal of Youth and Family in Patent Medicine Trading Cards

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In many pieces of medical ephemera, the themes of youth and children are proven to be prevalent marketing techniques through both illustrations and in text. In the cards we examined, nude, cherub children are portrayed on the frontside of “Ayer’s Cathartic Pills,” a child in a pill basket advertises “Tarrant’s Seltzer,” a sleeping infant is shown in “Oil of Gladness,” and a young girl is displayed as the face of “Alexander’s Tonic Pills.” This motif is employed to increase the perceived safety of all of these products, as almost all of these cards place special emphasis on their safety for children.

Not only are children immediately observed in the illustrations of these trade cards, but a closer examination reveals that many products' entire marketing technique revolves around their relationship with children. This can be most clearly observed with the card "Oil of Gladness," which relies almost exclusively on the ploy of youth to advertise their product. In this card, "gladness" is equated to youth and the designation of this medication for children; when analyzing the backside of the trade card, it becomes evident that ingredients, instructions about usage, or any details regarding the product itself are excluded in favor of promoting the innate safety of the medicine as something which will make "Diseases of Children yield" to its "benign influence." It makes sure to mention that treatment is equally effective for mature adults, but this card is a stark example of utilizing children as a way to promote a product's safety and innocence.



In reality, many of the alternative medicine techniques being advertised were likely ineffective, or even unsafe. Taking “Alexander’s Tonic Pills” as an example, a common similarity in these advertisements is the promotion of treating a wide variety of ailments at once - ranging from indigestion to nervousness to “impure blood.” Today, using knowledge of modern medicine, we know that these symptoms are likely impossible to treat with a single medication, and attempting to address them all could even be detrimental to the patient. However, if a pill was deemed safe for children, using youth as a primary point of focus could have served as a deceptive marketing tool to promote safety that is not truly ensured.


In the selected patent medicine trade cards, children were represented in a variety of ways to best reflect the intentions of the manufacturers and how they hoped to influence their target market for their product. In “Tarrant’s Seltzer”, the card shows a child in a basket. This could be used by the manufacturer to show the safety of the medication as the basket looks to be a container for the marketed product. Putting the baby directly in a container labelled with the product demonstrates how the manufacturer is attempting to show that the product is so safe that it could be used by a baby. This theme of safety through the depiction of children is similarly seen in “Ayer’s Cathartic Pills” where multiple babies are seen assembling the pills. By representing the children in this way, the manufacturer is trying to show that the medication is safe enough to be handled by children and thus parents should think about purchasing the product.

Other patent medicine cards show the children as “poster children” to appeal to parents and the themes of youth. These images hope to show the consumers that this product should provide youth to the consumers and rejuvenate them. By presenting children as consuming the product in the cards, the consumer might be convinced that consuming the product will make them feel youthful or give them a youthful appearance.


One of the most prominent aspects of marketing medicine is highlighting the desired outcome, mainly through using words such as “healing”, “curing”, “magic”, or “sudden”.  Juxtaposing this verbiage with imagery of children isn’t a coincidence, and links the physical and personal ideas that these companies want to put in people’s heads regarding their products.  For instance, in the “Tarrant’s Apperient” ephemera, an infant is seen laying in a laundry basket, donning blushed cheeks while surrounded by assumedly fresh spring flowers.  The medicine claims to “cure biliousness…and indigestion”.  Not only are there youthful qualities in the infant depicted, but also in the colors and the laundry basket itself.  The depicted "freshness" of an infant, bright spring colors and flowers, and clean laundry are all working together to visually support the claims the ephemera is making regarding the effectiveness of the medicine itself.



Overall, the depiction of children and family in these cards are used as marketing techniques to capture the attention of the consumer and demonstrate that the products are safe and effective. The themes of youth and family continue to appear in patent medicine trading cards in order to market a goal of happiness, security, and vibrancy, which is seen to be achieved through safe and effective medicine.

This page has paths:

  1. Student Projects Chien-Ling Liu Zeleny

Contents of this path:

  1. Themes of Home and Usage of Appealing Imagery as Advertising Techniques
  2. Pleasantry and Domesticity in Medical Ephemera: Youthful Themes in Product Advertising
  3. Patent Medicine Trade Cards: Medical Ephemera Shedding Light on Past Marketing Strategies for Symptom Relief
  4. Patent Medicine Trade Cards: Revealing a Synthesized Marketing Strategy For Medical Application

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