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“Cures after Doctors Fail”: Marketing Pain Relief in 1900s Washington, D.C.

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Abstract

The turn of the century was a pivotal moment in American medicine advertising, at the confluence of the beginnings of governmental regulation of medicine, the development of mass production, and increasing social pressures against alcohol and other drugs that led to nationwide prohibition. Patent medicines, non-doctor-prescribed remedies whose ingredients were unlisted and often highly alcoholic, led the rush to brand and market medicinal products. In this article, I examine two products sold as pain relievers, McElree’s Wine of Cardui and Mexican Mustang Liniment. I incorporate the concepts of multimodality and language materiality from linguistic anthropology to understand the ways imagery, text, bottles, and bottle contents worked together as a material commodity tied to a brand identity and an associated set of semiotic referents, encouraging consumer trust in the product. I argue that the physical properties of these bottles are tied to a particular brand identity that brought together icons, material objects, and texts that generated a set of associations with the product. Analyzing these products and their associated advertising materials provides insights into idealized narratives of health and healing, and practices of racialized and gendered marketing, which began to develop during that era.

Resumen

El cambio de siglo fue un momento crucial en la publicidad de medicamentos estadounidenses, en la confluencia de los inicios de la regulación gubernamental de la medicina, el desarrollo de la producción en masa y las crecientes presiones sociales contra el alcohol y otras drogas que llevaron a la prohibición a nivel nacional. Los medicamentos patentados, que eran remedios no prescritos por médicos y sin indicaciones de sus ingredientes, los cuales a menudo eran muy alcohólicos, impulsaron la carrera por establecer marcas y comercializar productos medicinales. En este artículo, examino dos productos que se vendían como analgésicos, McElree’s Wine of Cardui y Mexican Mustang Liniment. Incorporo los conceptos de multimodalidad y materialidad del lenguaje de la antropología lingüística para comprender las formas en que las imágenes, el texto, las botellas y el contenido de las botellas se combinaban como un producto material vinculado a una identidad de marca y un conjunto asociado de referentes semióticos, fomentando la confianza del consumidor en el producto. Argumento que las propiedades físicas de estas botellas están ligadas a una identidad de marca particular que reunió íconos, objetos materiales y textos que generaban un conjunto de asociaciones con el producto. El análisis de estos productos y sus materiales publicitarios asociados proporciona información sobre narrativas idealizadas de salud y curación, y prácticas de marketing racial y de género, que comenzaron a desarrollarse durante esa época.

Résumé

Le début du siècle a représenté un moment charnière pour la publicité des médicaments américains, se situant à la convergence des débuts d'une réglementation gouvernementale des médicaments, du développement de la production de masse et des pressions sociales accrues en faveur d'une lutte contre la consommation d'alcool et d'autres produits stupéfiants ayant conduit à une prohibition à l'échelle nationale. Les potions médicinales, à savoir les remèdes non prescrits par un médecin dont les ingrédients n'étaient pas indiqués et qui étaient souvent fortement alcoolisés, ont initié la ruée vers la création de marques pour les produits médicamenteux et la commercialisation de ces derniers. J'examine dans cet article deux produits vendus comme anti-douleurs, le McElree Wine of Cardui et le Mexican Mustang Liniment. J'intègre les concepts de multimodalité et de matérialité du langage issus de l'anthropologie linguistique pour comprendre les manières dont les images, le texte, les flacons et leur contenu se sont combinés en tant que marchandise matérielle liée à une identité de marque et à un ensemble associé de référents sémiotiques, suscitant la confiance du consommateur dans le produit. Je postule que les propriétés physiques de ces flacons sont liées à une identité de marque particulière ayant rassemblé des icônes, des objets matériaux et des textes ayant généré un ensemble d'associations avec le produit. L'analyse de ces produits et de leurs supports publicitaires connexes fournit un éclairage sur les narrations idéalisées de la santé et de la guérison, ainsi que les pratiques de marketing racialisé et genré, dont le développement a commencé durant cette ère.

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Notes

  1. Each case study is composed of the materials from patent-medicine marketing campaigns published in Washington, D.C., newspapers between 1890 and 1920. I chose to focus on all the materials for a product published within a single city in order to analyze the materials consumers might come across in their daily or weekly copy of the newspaper. Restricting the analysis to advertisements from Washington, D.C., also eliminates the variation based on geographical location and more realistically represents how a consumer might interact with the materials from a product. I selected advertisements for two products, McElree’s Wine of Cardui and Mexican Mustang Liniment, because they were featured in larger and more eye-catching advertisements as compared to other products and epitomized the extended, cohesive advertising strategy beginning to develop in that era. I selected these products through a randomized sampling technique in which I surveyed the medicine advertisements appearing in Washington, D.C., newspapers from various years, months, and publications using the Library of Congress’s online database. I then selected several potential case studies of products that (1) appeared in multiple and different ads over time, (2) were presented prominently on the page, and (3) were promoting products that claimed to have pain-relieving properties. Once I had decided on my final case studies, Mexican Mustang Liniment and Wine of Cardui, I then searched for and collected any advertisement for this product that ran in a Washington, D.C., newspaper during the study time period.

  2. For example, an advertisement from 1902 provides a testimonial from a “Miss Rose Owens” of “720 Seventeenth Street, Washington, DC” (Evening Star 1902) and includes a hand-drawn picture of a woman who is supposedly Rose Owens. However, there is no one named Rose Owens in the 1903 city directory, nor is there any Owens who lives on 17th Street (Boyd 1903). Further, at this time, Sanborn maps indicate that 720 17th Street was used as a doctor’s office and seems to have had no residents (Sanborn Map Company 1903). Another such case is Ida A. Thomas, a name that appears in one testimonial as a minister’s wife from Hamburg, Mississippi (Evening Star 1900b), and in another the same year as a testimonial from Rangely, Virginia (Evening Star 1900c). While there could have been two different women named “Ida A. Thomas” who both wrote in during the same year, no census records exist for an Ida Thomas in either city at this time.

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Acknowledgments:

I am extremely grateful to the many mentors and peers who helped inspire, develop, and refine this article. In particular, thank you to my professors and mentors, Rachel Watkins, Matthew Johnson, Shalini Shankar, Mark Hauser, Rebecca Seligman, William Leonard, and Diane Wendt, who read and commented on previous versions of this article. Thank you to Suzanne Spencer-Wood, who commented on this article and provided valuable feedback during the 2019 SHA conference, where this was first presented. Thank you to Madeline Ryan for co-organizing this thematic collection, and to all of the contributors. Finally, my sincere thanks to my colleagues and friends who helped me prepare this article, including Aja Lans, Tiffany Freyer, Chardè Reid, Jennifer Saunders, Zachary Nissen, and Benjamin Zender.

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  1. Northwestern University, 1810 Hinman Avenue, Evanston, IL, 60208, U.S.A.

    Jennifer A. Lupu

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Lupu, J.A. “Cures after Doctors Fail”: Marketing Pain Relief in 1900s Washington, D.C.. Hist Arch 56, 703–721 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41636-022-00370-3

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