Marketing and Advertising (1880s-1920s)

            The topic I focused on was marketing and advertising in the late 19^th to the early 20^th century. Marketing and advertising was connected to industrialization because of the rise of the mass production of goods. Since so many goods were in demand companies needed to show why their goods were better than another company’s goods. During this time period, advertisements went from being on handbills to being in newspapers and magazines.

This is a black and white Baking 
Powder ad from the 1880s.

            In the 1880s, advertising was just starting to develop. People were interested in how to market to specific groups of people and how to do their advertisements. Should they use business cards, handbills, or posters? In an article on the Harvard Business School website, a man named Nathaniel C. Fowler said, “advertising is a distinct art, as much so as the art of coal mining or of engine building.” In other words, he is arguing that advertising is just as important as any other job. The main point of advertising is to persuade people to buy a product they don’t need. In this article, another man states, “Within this emerging national market, it fell to the advertiser to encourage consumers to buy goods not necessarily produced locally and to convince them of the superiority of one product over another.” This statement means that another goal of advertisements in this time period was to show how one brand is better than another even though it is the same product. Once people started to figure out what marketing really was, they could develop advertisements based on what they thought would sell more of their product.

            With the rise of the industry of marketing there came many jobs to go along with it. In the late 19^th century advertising became a true profession. Volney B. Palmer was one of the earliest advertising agent. He set up a shop in Philadelphia for salesman to come to. He would do everything to market a product from a-z. He would find the “crowd” that the product was advertised to, he would find the best medium for the product, and then he would come up with a creative design/slogan for the product. This helped businesses become slightly less stressed because they did not have to worry about advertising and selling the product. They placed that responsibility in the agents hands.

This is a Gold Medal Flour Advertisement with 
some color on it from the 1900s.

            The “modern ad industry” started in the early 20^th century. Businesses were starting to advertise cars, cigarettes, and other products directed to “homemakers.” These businesses published their ads in sections of the local newspapers, on flyers, and in various local magazines. Paul Nathan in 1900 wrote a book called “How to Make Money in the Printing Business.” In this book he said, “the intelligent job printer will never permit himself to forget that printing is allied to advertising, and that almost all of the printing he does depends in some way upon its success as an advertisement or as an advertising medium.” In other words, Paul is saying that in this time period whatever a printer was printing was for advertisement purposes. Advertising promoted the production of mass-produced goods and the only way to advertise was through the printer.

            Towards the end of the early 20^th century, radio and television ads became more popular. All the other “printed” ads had less words and more pictures to appeal to a larger group of people. Advertisements also used more color and less black and white. Food advertisements especially used color as the main focus of an ad. For example, a company out of California that sold oranges used a hand tinted orange to persuade people about how juicy and ripe the fruit looked. This specific ad was published in 1908 as a section in a newspaper.

            Many ads during the late 19^th century to the early 20^th century have made history. A Rolls-Royce ad said “To a man who is afraid to let his dream come true.” This specific advertisement had many paragraphs describing the car and all of its features. Whereas, in 1910 an ad for the new Cadillac came out with the slogan, “A car literally without competition.” This ad had one picture and this slogan across the top of it. Listerine came out with a spectacular ad in 1913. Their catch phrase was, “Often a Bridesmaid, but never a Bride.” In 1915, Tiffany finally put their name on their building. For the longest time, they had gone without the name on their building. They were relying on the local customers for all of their revenue. Now, people who hear the name will want to go to the store and see what they have. Therefore, their company’s profit raises. (other various ads that were considered "the best" of this time period are pictured at the end)

             In conclusion, if the world in the late 19^th century to the early 20^th century was not mass producing goods, there would not have been a need for marketing and advertising. 

This is a food chopper ad from the 1890s.

This is a Cream O' Wheat ad from the 1910s.

This is a Campbell's Soup ad from the 1920s.

This is a Whitman's Chocolate Sampler ad from the 1930s.

Hyperlinked Sources:

Britannica High School
I used this source to find out general information about the advertisements during this time period.

Ad Age
I used this source to find out that advertising was considered a profession. 

Gale Power Search
I used this source to find out the biggest car ad in the 1900s which was a Cadillac advertisement.

Calisphere (University of California)
I used this source to find out that color was important in early 20th century advertisements.

Duke University Libraries
I used this source to find out that people wrote books about the various techniques of marketing and how to advertise effectively.

Boundless
I used this source to find out that people "rented" spaces in newspapers. 

Vintage Ad Browser
I used this source to find all of my pictures. All of the picture I used were primary sources from this website. 

Business Insider
I used this source to find out information about advertising in the late 20th century, just to see how it changed.

Harvard Business School
I used this source to find quotes from books that people wrote in this time period to use as primary sources. 

The 100 Greatest Advertisements 1852-1958
I used this book to find lots of advertisements during this time period that I used as primary sources. I found ads from Coca-Cola, Tiffany, Pillsbury, etc.

People on the Planet

I learned today that so many people have migrated to and from countries. I liked looking at the circle map that showed how many people how come and left the country and where they went to or came from. I also learned that it is hard to tell a person's race by how they look. I took the race quiz and I only got a few right. I was assuming that people were a certain race based on the "stereotypes" we have put on them. Overall, I think the most interesting thing that I realized today was that people can be a certain race even if they don't look like it. I think the matching race quiz was a great activity to make me realize and understand this concept.

This was the circle map that showed where people were migrating to

Philanthropy

I learned today that charities provide the basic needs for a society and philanthropy is used to enhance the society. Philanthropy is used to help people become more educated. If I was a philanthropist I would donate money to curing diseases and to the development of many countries. I think that curing diseases would help the local economy and help people with the diseases get better. Overall, I learned that for a society to become better we need philanthropists all around the world.

Thinking About Success

1. Luck
2. Hard Work
3. Skill
4. Opportunity

I think luck is the number one factor because even if you have a high skill set you still have to have luck to get somewhere in life. Hard work is number two because in order to have a good skill set you have to work hard. Number three is skill because if you do not have any skills then you are not going to get anywhere in life. Opportunity is number four because I think that without luck, hard work, and skill there will be no opportunity.

Above is a picture of a four leaf clover because it represents what I think is most important, luck.

Clothing Industry (Zara and H&M)

The biggest thing I learned today was that Zara and H&M "change" their inventory out every week. Other stores including Target, Forever 21, and Topshop participate in this "fast fashion" technique too. The fast fashion industry is really nice because it allows for not everyone to have the same kinds of clothing in an specific area. But it is controversial because usually the clothing is not quality material. Therefore it is cheaper and will be easier to "ruin." This causes the buyer to only be able to wear the shirt a couple of times before having to throw it away. I also learned that there are people who predict fashion trends. One girl in particular is named, Nina Stotler, she travels the world hunting for the next big fashion trend. She goes to different fashion shows, retail stores, and conventions in hope of finding a new trend. I think this job would be difficult because there is always uncertainty about knowing whether or not the trend will actually become popular. In an article I read, she said that the hardest part of her job was traveling. I thought this would be the best part being able to go to different parts of the world and meet different types of people. But, she claims that all the traveling becomes time consuming and difficult after a while. In conclusion, I learned about trend forecasting and about a variety of stores fast fashion approach to business.

This is a picture of some companies who participate in "fast fashion." 

Indians in a School Textbook Research

Textbook Archive

In this activity, we looked up the definitions of savage and savagery and we looked at a textbook archive. In this archive we read pages 18-19 about Indians and then we searched "savages" in the whole textbook. After those results came up we read the excerpts from which they were from. The definitions I found according to google for savagery is, "the quality of being fierce or cruel" and "the condition of being primitive or uncivilized." Savage is defined as, "fierce, violent, and uncontrolled" and "a member of a people regarded as primitive and uncivilized."

"If you were an American student reading this text as part of your schoolwork, how would that shape the way you viewed Native Americans?"

If I was an American student reading this I would think that Indians basically lived in the wilderness and that they could hold themselves up. The author in the textbook says, "For their food they depended, for the most part, upon the wild beasts they killed and the fish they caught." In other words Indians were good at finding resources for themselves and sharing them with their tribe members. I would also think that Indians, according to this, are not necessarily "bad," they are just not up to date with the white civilization. Indians are also defined as looking a specific way. The author says, "They had long, black, coarse hair, a scant beard, and high cheek-bones." This shows how white people saw Indians only in one way and how it was difficult to tell the difference between them. Overall, I would think that Indians are basically described as savages.

News about Indians

I found a newspaper in California that was written on September 14, 1887. It was called the Los Angeles Herald. There was a section about Indians written by John Ward, a United States Indian Agent. In this section John said, "Clothe the Indian with the insignia of citizenship, and invest him with title to land, in fee simple, and still it does not make him a man, without he has been taught the arts of industry and has solved the problems of self-support." In other words, he is fighting for Indians to become citizens and for them to farm to have more money. He also paraphrased that in the past year Indians farms have failed because of the dryness from the winter and because there is no irrigation system. Therefore it was hard for the plants to stay alive. On the other hand, he believes that the government has helped Indians become more educated with the building of some schools throughout reservations. But the problem with these schools is that the teachers are not professionally trained and disease spreads easily throughout the schools. Sanitation was a big problem for Indians during this time period (1887). Whooping cough and measles was spreading in the reservation and there was no way to stop it because of the lack of hospitals. Many indians died because there was no where for them to go to receive treatment. So John Ward is urging for the government to build hospitals on the reservations for them now. In conclusion, John Ward is trying to raise awareness about all of the problems that Indians are suffering through.

I am a white man living in Los Angeles and it is September 14, 1887. I have just finished reading the Los Angeles Herald that was published for today.  Todays newspaper was very interesting, lots of things were brought to my attention. In particular, 7 seven things caught my eye.

1. I did not know that Indians did not have hospitals on the reservations. This is horrible! How do they receive treatment when they are sick? How do they have surgeries if they need them?

2. Disease is spreading through the reservation schools so the school population is dropping. This means less Indians are getting educated.

3. There is no irrigation systems on the Indian farms. How can they grow food if there is not enough water for the plants? It is crazy because sometimes the us white people buy their products. But, if there is no water, how do we purchase the products?

4. There is a new medicine out called Hamburg Tea. This medicine apparently prevents and cures lots of sicknesses including, kidney disease, headaches, skin disease, nausea, and constipation. It also cleans the blood and purifies the whole body.

5. Recently, a lot of land has been put on the market. One ad in particular caught my eye. It said, "A Beautiful $10,000 Home Free!" This is interesting because who is selling their home for free. But then I read at the bottom and it said that you pay a lot less than 10,000 so it is considered free but it's really not.

6. There is going to be an auction sale on Friday! This is the first auction sale of the fall season! I will take my family there if I can remember.

7. Lastly, I found that a new railroad will be working for just a few days this week. It is called "The Electric Railroad." Sometime this week I will go look at the railroad to see how technology has advanced.

Overall, this newspaper taught me more than any other newspaper has before. I am looking forward to all the events coming up! And I am going to try to help out the Indians so that they can receive, somewhat, the kind of resources that we receive.

Below is a picture of Hamburg Tea, a cure for many diseases: