When you do research for a historic novel, few things put you in the period like the ads appearing in the media of the period. Advertisers understand us better sometimes than we understand ourselves–their livelihoods depend on it. They know what our buttons are and how to push them to get us to open our wallets and keep their clients in business. Most of the time, at least.
Because advertisers need to capture readers’ attention, they of necessity have to tap into the values and beliefs of the time. And so, by reading the ads, we get an idea of what people thought and believed at the time.
Over the coming months I will sprinkle a few of the more interesting ads I came across into the blog to give you an idea of the time in which Billy lived and operated. Enjoy (I did).
The first in the series is an ad in the New York Times of November 2, 1901.
Of course, this was not the mainstay of the Anheuser-Busch company. That was beer. But the company was innovative in many ways, including pasteurization to keep bottled beer fresh longer, their own fleet of refrigerated railcars to get their product to the whole nation, and, yes, advertising. Taking a cue from Currier and Ives, they distributed copies of Custer’s Last Fight, a lithograph print of a painting by a St. Louis artist. Reputedly, more than a million of these prints were made and given away. (Today, of course, you pay a pretty penny to get your grubby little hands on one.)
In case you’re too lazy to Google the painting, here it is (free bonus for Thanksgiving 🙂 )
