In nineteenth century America the trade card served as a business card for both the company and its product. A salesman would, for example, leave a trade card with a potential customer as a reminder of the product, illustrated on the…
It's hard to imagine a time when advertising did not drive media. Advertising, for example, provides revenue for radio, television, newspapers, and magazines to this very day. But at one time it was a novel idea. For most of the…
American gardener, writer, and poet Eben E. Rexford (1848-1916) wrote a book called Four Seasons in the Garden in 1907 [below]. This is only one of many books he wrote about gardening. In this volume Rexford mentioned the lawn and…
Advertising viewed as a modern science blossomed from the 1890s into the twentieth century. Every business to succeed needed advertising that appealed especially to the middle class. The garden industry was no exception. In 1901 economist Emily Fogg-Meade wrote an…
I continue to read garden magazines that I stored for a time when my work slowed a bit. What I learned from one magazine reminded me of what I had seen in the dozens of nineteenth century seed and nursery…