Trade Card for McCormick Harvesting Machine Company, 1885

Summary

In the last third of the nineteenth century, an unprecedented variety of consumer goods and services flooded the American market. Advertisers, armed with new methods of color printing, bombarded potential customers with trade cards. Americans enjoyed and often saved the vibrant little advertisements found in product packages or distributed by local merchants. Many survive as historical records of commercialism in the United States.

In the last third of the nineteenth century, an unprecedented variety of consumer goods and services flooded the American market. Advertisers, armed with new methods of color printing, bombarded potential customers with trade cards. Americans enjoyed and often saved the vibrant little advertisements found in product packages or distributed by local merchants. Many survive as historical records of commercialism in the United States.

Artifact

Trade card

Date Made

1885

Creators

McCormick Harvesting Machine Company 

Cosack & Co. 

Place of Creation

United States, New York, Buffalo 

Creator Notes

Lithographed by Cosack & Co. in Buffalo, New York for McCormick Harvesting Machine Company.

 On Exhibit

By Request in the Benson Ford Research Center

Object ID

00.1430.39

Credit

From the Collections of The Henry Ford. Gift of Mrs. James R. Murphy

Material

Paper (Fiber product)

Color

Multicolored

Dimensions

Height: 6.25 in

Width: 4 in

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