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 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 Emotional Side of Medical Marketing: A Historical Analysis of Trading Cards Depicting Younger Patients

40985
As humans, we naturally value those most innocent and valuable to us. In our society, those people are children. A parent could never imagine a tragedy happening to their child, as every parent would be willing to sacrifice their lives for their children to survive.  For my project, I chose three medical training cards; Anchor Pain Expeller, Perry Davis' Pain Killer, and David Nicholson's Liquid Bread. I decided on these three cards because they share a common ideal; it was not necessarily the type of pain killer or illness it cured. However, the marketing of the three images was the same. Furthermore, all my trading cards used the emotional side of marketing to acquire new customers. In two of my trading cards, they portray children; as stated above, children are our society's most innocent, and by marketing to adults, these producers triggered the parents' emotions. Often parents would do anything in their willpower to save their children; placing young children on medical trading cards created a psychological effect that possibly led to parents purchasing the product. In my last trading card, the power of emotional marketing was also used; it was not necessarily used to portray young children but a young adult in pain being cared for. The following three paragraphs will detail my three medical training cards.









In Anchor Pain Expeller, a blacksmith works extremely hard in his shop to produce tools; his surrounding environment indicates poor working conditions. For example, a hot fireplace in the background was needed for the blacksmith-shaped tools. However, this meant the room was likely sweltering when air conditions did not exist. Next, the photo has several extensive tools, such as hammers and axes. In both of the blacksmith's hands, he has heavy tools; by using these tools all day, he is generally expected to be in great pain and agony. Lastly, the younger girl was the first thing that stood out to me. She doesn't have a smile; she doesn't seem too happy as she holds a wooden tray with a glass bottle of ferrola for the blacksmith to take. The producer of this trade card wanted to point out that the girl was in the process of helping out the blacksmith, who very well could have been her father. Additionally, the younger girl seemed innocent and vulnerable to me, and this quickly struck a nerve in consumers.


The following image is Perry Davis' Pain Killer; this medical trading card again emphasizes the issue of exploiting children for medical marketing. As we see in the image, two young children appear to be looking at a chalkboard. The little girl is holding a doll which signals a happy and playful person. The older young boy has school books in his hands. This detail is significant because it emphasizes the importance of a young boy who is currently attending school and is healthy. Adding these props to the children in both cases portrayed innocent and healthy individuals. As they look at the chalkboard, they see "Perry Davis' Pain Killer" along with the phrase "summer & winter" and lastly, "for internal and external use." This product assures parents that with Perry Davis' Pain Killer, their children will be in a safe and suitable environment that is important for their success.


Lastly, we have David Nicholson's Liquid Bread, which is a pure extract of malt; according to the back of the trading card, it was used to treat disease, exhaustion, and insomnia. This medical trading card does not necessarily depict the youth for marketing; however, the core idea of using the younger children was to trigger emotions, sensitivity, and empathy. In this medical trading card, those three ideals are more than emphasized by showing a reasonably young adult woman who is a nun; caring for an ill gentleman. As we see in the trading, the environment looks more lavish than in the other two photos, especially Anchor Pain Expeller. The setting for this trading card features an elegant red chair and wood furniture with a unique finish. Furthermore, in the background, the windows are stained glass, which was expensive at the time. To me, the man is wealthy; however, emotions are still the selling point for David Nicholson's product as he looked to show the man's pain as his arm is in a socket, which no one should ever have to experience.

This page has paths:

  1. The Power of Emotional Marketing: How Vintage Medical Trading Cards Used Children to Sell Their Products to Parents Chien-Ling Liu Zeleny

This page references: