From the late 1880s Ads Included More than Just Product Information

After 1880 advertising in newspapers and magazines meant more than simply information about a product for sale.  From that time advertising, through its illustrations, sought to motivate the buyer to make a purchase, and even to create a need for the product.

That of course was also the case in garden advertising as well.  Notice what the garden-related firms sold in these ads  on a back page in Harper’s Magazine of 1887. [Below]

The Peter Henderson Company ad included here showed a middle class woman dressed in the latest style, a suburban home, a garden fence, a weather vane, and,  of course, the hollyhocks that were an integral part of Victorian gardening at that time.

This ad sold status, style, fashion, and, in the process, seeds.

Thus modern advertising began to seduce us with its images that created needs we never  knew we had.

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