{"id":256,"date":"2021-09-18T16:00:48","date_gmt":"2021-09-18T16:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mupages.marshall.edu\/sites\/masscommhistorybibliography\/?page_id=256"},"modified":"2025-07-25T21:07:47","modified_gmt":"2025-07-25T21:07:47","slug":"advertising-before-the-civil-war","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/mupages.marshall.edu\/masscommhistorybibliography\/advertising-before-the-civil-war\/","title":{"rendered":"Advertising Before the Civil War"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Advertising Index Page<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Axtell, James.  “The First Consumer Revolution.” In Consumer Society in American History: A Reader<\/em>, Lawrence B. Glickman, ed.  Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bailyn, Bernard.  The New England Merchants of the Seventeenth Century<\/em>.  Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1955.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Barrow, Robert M.  “Newspaper Advertising in Colonial America, 1704-1775.” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Virginia, 1967.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Baumgarten, Linda.  What Clothes Reveal: The Language of Clothing in Colonial and Federal America<\/em>.  New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Berg, Maxine.  \u201cIn Pursuit of Luxury: Global History and British Consumer Goods in the Eighteenth Century.\u201d Past and Present<\/em> 182 (February 2004): 85-142.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Breen, T.H.  “Baubles of Britain: The American and Consumer Revolutions of the Eighteenth Century.” Past and Present<\/em> 119 (1988): 73-104.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Breen, T.H.  “Narrative of Commercial Life: Consumption, Ideology, and Community on the Eve of the Revolution.” The William and Mary Quarterly<\/em> 50:3 (July 1993): 471-501.  Also reprinted in Consumer Society in American History: A Reader<\/em>, edited by Lawrence Glickman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Breen, T.H.  The Marketplace Revolution: How Consumer Politics Shaped American Independence<\/em>.  New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brekke, Linzy A.  \u201cThe Scourge of Fashion: Political Economy and the Politics of Consumption in the Early Republic.\u201d  Early American Studies<\/em> (Spring 2005): 106-139.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brekke, Linzy A.  \u201cFashioning America: Clothing, Consumerism, and the Politics of Appearance in the Early Republic.\u201d  PhD dissertation, Harvard University, 2007.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brekke-Aloise, Linzy. \u201c\u2018A Very Pretty Business\u2019: Fashion and Consumer Culture in Antebellum American Prints.\u201d Winterthur Portfolio<\/em> 48 (Summer\u2013Autumn 2014): 191\u2013212.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Busse, Michele Conrady. \u201cGot Silk? Buying, Selling, and Advertising British Luxury Imports During the Stamp Act Crisis.\u201d PhD dissertation, University of North Texas, 2007.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Byrne, Frank J.  Becoming Bourgeois: Merchant Culture in the South, 1820\u20131865<\/em>.  Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2006. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Carson, Cary, et al., eds. Of Consuming Interest: The Style of Life in the Eighteenth Century. <\/em>Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1994.*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

       <\/strong> A collection of essays on American material culture in the colonial and revolutionary periods.  The collection provides a good overview of various strands of research in early consumer behavior and the study of material objects as evidence of how and what Americans purchased.  Although most of the essays do not specifically deal with advertising, a great deal can be learned about early consumption patterns based on store’s records, inventories, estate and tax data, and probate records.  Consumption patterns in colonial America were determined to a large degree on the availability of goods and early advertising tended to announce the type of goods for sale rather than to promote the purchase of an individual brand (branded products being extremely rare in any case at this time) Also examined here are changing styles and fashions and the way in which they influenced purchasing habits and trends, even in this early period.  See annotations for individual essays elsewhere in this bibliography.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Carson, Cary.  Face Value: The Consumer Revolution and the Colonizing of America<\/em>.  Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2017.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Church, Roy.  “New Perspectives on the History of Products, Firms, Marketing, and Consumers in Britain and the United States Since the mid-Nineteenth Century.”  Economic History Review<\/em> 52 (August 1999): 405-435.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Clemens, Paul G. E. \u201cThe Consumer Culture of the Middle Atlantic, 1760\u20131820.\u201d  William and Mary Quarterly<\/em> 62 (October 2005): 577\u2013624.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cohen, Daniel A. \u201cThe Murder of Maria Bickford: Fashion, Passion, and the Birth of Consumer Culture.\u201d American Studies<\/em> 31:2 (Fall 1990): 5-30.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cohen, Joanna. \u201cPromoting Pleasure as Political Economy: The Transformation of American Advertising, 1800 to 1850.\u201d\u00a0Winterthur Portfolio<\/em>\u00a048, no. 2\/3 (2014): 163\u2013190.

Cohen, Joanna.\u00a0\u00a0Luxurious Citizens: The Politics of Consumption in Nineteenth-Century America<\/em>.\u00a0\u00a0Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dierks, Konstantin. \u201cLetters Writing, Stationery Supplies, and Consumer Modernity in the Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World.\u201d  Early American Literature<\/em> 41 (Nov. 2006): 473\u2013494.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Doerflinger, Thomas.  A Vigorous Spirit of Enterprise: Merchants and Economic Development in Revolutionary Philadelphia.<\/em>  Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1986.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Duguid, Paul.  “Developing the Brand: The Case of Alcohol, 1800-1880.”  Enterprise and Society<\/em> 4:3 (2003): 405-441.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dupey, James.  \u201cSelling the Necessities of Life: Alexander Campbell and Consumerist Christianity in the Early Republic.\u201d Early American Studies<\/em> 23:2 (Spring 2025): 215-243.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

DuPlessis, Robert S.  The Material Atlantic: Clothing, Commerce, and Colonization in the Atlantic World, 1650-1800<\/em>.  New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Foutch, Ellery E.  \u201cMoving Pictures: Magic Lanterns, Portable Projections, and Urban Advertising in the 19th<\/sup> Century.\u201d  Modernism\/Modernity<\/em> 23:4 (November 2016): 733-769.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Glickman, Lawrence.  \u201cBuy For the Sake of the Slave: Abolitionism and the Rise of American Consumer Activism.\u201d American Quarterly<\/em> 56:4 (2004): 889-912.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gibb, James G.  The Archeology of Wealth: Consumer Behavior in English America<\/em>.  New York: Plenum Press, 1996.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Goodman, Dena, and Kathryn Norberg.  Furnishing the 18th Century<\/em>.  New York: Routledge, 2006.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hancock, David.  Citizens of the World: London Merchants and the Integration of the British Atlantic Community, 1735-1785<\/em>. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hart, Emma. \u201cA British Atlantic World of Advertising? Colonial American \u2018For Sale\u2019 Notices in Comparative Context.\u201d American Periodicals<\/em> 24, no. 2 (2014): 110\u2013127.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hartigan-O\u2019Connor, Ellen.  The Ties That Buy: Women and Commerce in Revolutionary America<\/em>.  Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Haulman, Kate.  The Politics of Fashion in the Eighteenth Century<\/em>.  Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2013.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jaffee, David.  “Peddles of Progress and the Transformation of the Rural North, 1760-1860.”  Journal of American History<\/em> 78:2 (September 1991): 511-535.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Johnson, Laura E.  \u201cGood to Clothe Themselves: Native Consumers and Native Images on the Pennsylvania Trading Frontier, 1712-1760.\u201d Winterthur Portfolio<\/em> 43:1 (Spring 2009): 115-140.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Keyes, Carl Robert. \u201cEarly American Advertising: Marketing and Consumer Culture in Eighteenth-Century Philadelphia.\u201d  PhD dissertation, Johns Hopkins University, 2008.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Keyes, Carl Robert. \u201cHistory Prints, Newspaper Advertisements, and Cultivating Citizen Consumers: Patriotism and Partisanship in Marketing Campaigns in the Era of the Revolution.\u201d American Periodicals<\/em> 24, no. 2 (2014): 145\u2013185.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kowaleski-Wallace, Elizabeth.  Consuming Subjects: Women, Shopping, and Business in the Eighteenth Century<\/em>.  New York: Columbia University Press, 1983.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Larson, Jon Lauritz.  The Market Revolution in America: Liberty, Ambition, and the Eclipse of the Common Good<\/em>.  New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lawson, Cedric.  “Patent Medicine Advertising and the Early American Press.” Journalism Quarterly<\/em> 14 (December 1937): 333-341.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

LeBeau, Bryan F.  \u201cArt in the Parlor: Consumer Culture and Currier and Ives.\u201d  Journal of American Culture<\/em> 30:1 (March 2007): 18-37.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Matson, Cathy.  Merchants and Empire: Trading in Colonial New York<\/em>.  Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Matson, Cathy, ed.  The Economy of Early America: Historical Perspectives and New Directions<\/em>.  University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2006.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

McKendrick, Neil, John Brewer, and J. H. Plumb, The Birth of Consumer Society: The Commercialization of Eighteenth-Century England. <\/em>Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, 1982.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nash, R. C.  \u201cDomestic Material Culture and Consumer Demand in the British Atlantic World: Colonial South Carolina, 1670\u20131770,\u201d in Material Culture in Anglo-America: Regional Identity and Urbanity in the Tidewater, Lowcountry, and Caribbean<\/em>, ed. David S. Shields. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2009.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Olasky, Marvin. “Advertising Abortion During the 1830s and 1840s: Madame Restell  Builds a Business.” Journalism History<\/em> 13 (1986): 49-55.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     A brief study of the career and influence of one of antebellum America’s most notorious advertisers.  Madame Restell advertised her abortion products in New York newspapers in the 1830s and 1840s, carefully avoiding using the actual word abortion since performing abortions or selling abortifacients  was illegal.  Instead she marketed products for “removing female blockages” or “restoring menstrual stoppages” that typically induced a miscarriage and ended pregnancy.  One ad from the New York Sun<\/em> warned “must not be taken during p*******y, as they would produce a******n.  This clever warning fooled no one and undoubtedly caught the eye of many women in need of just such a product.  Restell found herself harassed by the police and physicians and was the target of anti-vice reformers.  She spent time in prison in the 1840s, but managed to stay in business until 1878.  In that year she was again arrested and ended up apparently committing suicide rather than going to prison again at age 65.  As Olasky makes clear, newspapers found themselves in a moral dilemma because at the same time they accepted Restell’s ads, they engaged in various anti-vice crusades.  According to Olasky, however, abortion was not one of the issues that generated angry editorials.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rose, Anne C.  Voices of the Marketplace: American Thought and Culture, 1830-1860<\/em>.  New York: Twayne, 1995.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sellers, Charles Coleman.  The Market Revolution: Jacksonian America, 1815-1846<\/em>.  New York: Oxford University Press, 1991.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shammas, Carole.  The Pre-industrial Consumer in England and America<\/em>.  New York: Oxford University Press, 1990.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shaw, Steven J. \u201cColonial Newspaper Advertising: A Step Toward Freedom of the Press.\u201d  Business History Review<\/em> 33:3 (Autumn 1959): 409-420. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Smart Martin, Ann.  Buying Into the World of Goods: Early Consumers in Backcountry Virginia<\/em>.  Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Smith, Woodruff.  Consumption and the Making of Respectability, 1600-1800.<\/em>  New York: Routledge, 2002.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Styles, John, and Amanda Vickery, eds.  Gender, Taste, and Material Culture in Britain and North America, 1700-1830<\/em>. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stymeist, David.  “Strange Wives: Pocahontas in Early Modern Colonial Advertisements.”  Mosaic<\/em> 35:3 (September 2002): 109.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Valeri, Mark.  Heavenly Merchandise: How Religion Shaped Commerce in Puritan America<\/em>.  Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vos, Tim P., and You Li.  \u201cThe Ad Agency and Ad Content in the 1840s.\u201d Journalism History<\/em> 50:3 (2024): 203-226.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Walsh, Lorena S.  “Urban Amenities and Rural Sufficiency: Living Standards and Consumer Behavior in Colonial Chesapeake 1643-1777.” Journal of Economic History<\/em> 43 (March 1983): 108-117.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Windley, Lathan A.  Runaway Slave Advertisements: A Documentary History from the 1730s to 1790, <\/em>4 vols.  Westport: Greenwood, 1983.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Woloson, Wendy A.  \u201cWishful Thinking: Retail Premiums in Mid-nineteenth-century America.\u201d Enterprise and Society<\/em> 13 (September 2012): 790\u2013831.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wright, Richardson.  Hawkers and Walkers in Early America<\/em>.  Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1927.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Young, James Harvey.  The Toadstool Millionaires. <\/em>Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1961.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Zieger, Susan Marjorie.  The Mediated Mind: Affect, Ephemera, and Consumerism in the Nineteenth Century<\/em>.  New York: Fordham University Press, 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Advertising Index Page<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Advertising Index Page Axtell, James.  “The First Consumer Revolution.” In Consumer Society in American History: A Reader, Lawrence B. Glickman, ed.  Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999. Bailyn, Bernard.  The New England Merchants of the Seventeenth Century.  Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1955. Barrow, Robert M.  “Newspaper Advertising in Colonial America, 1704-1775.” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Virginia, 1967. Baumgarten, Linda.  What […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":48,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-256","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mupages.marshall.edu\/masscommhistorybibliography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mupages.marshall.edu\/masscommhistorybibliography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mupages.marshall.edu\/masscommhistorybibliography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mupages.marshall.edu\/masscommhistorybibliography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/48"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mupages.marshall.edu\/masscommhistorybibliography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=256"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/mupages.marshall.edu\/masscommhistorybibliography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/256\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2089,"href":"https:\/\/mupages.marshall.edu\/masscommhistorybibliography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/256\/revisions\/2089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mupages.marshall.edu\/masscommhistorybibliography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}