Chapter 14

Author: Virginia Westbrook

Title: Role of Trade Cards in Marketing Chocolate During the Late 19th Century.

Trade cards advertising chocolate shed light on both the distribution and consumption history of chocolate in America. As one of the earliest media for direct advertising, trade cards document the rising use of color printing for promotional purposes during the last third of the nineteenth century. The content of the cards offers a wealth of information about how chocolate was "pitched" and how it was to be used by consumers. Based on trade cards in the collection of the American Antiquarian Society in Worcester, Massachusetts, and the Grossman Collection in Point Richmond, California, this chapter outlines a richly-illustrated interpretive essay exploring the function of trade cards in the marketplace, the visual language of the imagery on the front and the import of instructional literature on the back of the cards.

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