Nineteenth-Century Product Labels

Tobacco package label
The Young Swell, ca. 1869 (204.5d)
[ Digital ID# ppmsca-05590 ]

Patent Medicine Label
Dewdrop Bitters (204.5a)
[ Digital ID# ppmsca-05586 ]

Soap label
Pure White Rock Potash (204.5e)
[ Digital ID# ppmsca-05589 ]

Patent medicine label
Get Fat on Lorings Fat-ten-U and Corpula Foods (204.5f)
[ Digital ID# ppmsca- 05583 ]

Patent medicine label
Thomspon's Vegetable Cattle Powder, for diseases of
Horses, Cattle, Hogs & Sheep (204.5c)
[ Digital ID# ppmsca-05587 ]

Early product labels served primarily to identify products and brand names. As later nineteenth-century color lithography developed, illustration and color were combined with text to produce eye-catching designs meant to attract consumers in an even more competitive market place. Advertising schemes ranged broadly and depictions of American Indians, animals, children, flowers, medicinal plants, mythological characters, celebrities, people taking or administering medications, sick and cured people, symbols, and women appeared on products as wide ranging as hair tonic, tobacco, and horse lineament.

Paint label
White Lead- Ground in Pure Linseed Oil (204.5h)
[ Digital ID# ppmsca-05584 ]

Patent medicine label
Messer's Inhaling Tube (204.5g)
Digital ID# ppmsca-05591

Coffee label
United States of America, Our Standard Coffee (204.5i)
[ Digital ID# ppmsca-05588 ]

Color lithographs
Prints & Photographs Division
Copyright deposits