This collection consists of 11 chromolithograph trading and advertising cards dating to the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Images depict Native individuals and groups throughout North America, but tend to focus specifically on Northeast, Great Lakes, and Plains communities.
Scope and Contents:
The German Advertising Trade Cards collection consists of 11 chromolithograph trading and advertising cards dating to the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. These 11 cards were written in German, distributed by different manufacturers throughout Germany and Europe, and were used to advertise a number of products including pasta, meat extract, condensed milk, coffee, chocolate, cigarettes, and metal polish, among others. One of the better known companies included in this collection is the Liebig Company of Germany. In addition to advertising German manufactures, these cards feature romanticized images of Native Americans on the front of each card, and include sometimes fanciful or incorrect textual descriptions about Native life on the reverse. Images depict Native individuals and groups throughout North America, but tend to focus specifically on Northeast, Great Lakes, and Plains communities.
Arrangement:
This collection is arranged into folders.
Biographical / Historical:
Trade cards such as the 11 included in this collection were widely popular forms of advertising in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Not confined to Germany, many companies throughout Europe and the Americas utilized these illustrated cards to increase awareness of their products to a mass-market public.
Provenance:
This collection was donated by Robert Eurich in 2018.
Restrictions:
Access to NMAI Archive Center collections is by appointment only, Monday - Friday, 9:30 am - 4:30 pm. Please contact the archives to make an appointment (phone: 301-238-1400, email: nmaiarchives@si.edu).
Rights:
Permission to publish materials from the collection must be requested from National Museum of the American Indian Archive Center. Please submit a written request to nmaiphotos@si.edu. For personal or classroom use, users are invited to download, print, photocopy, and distribute the images that are available online without prior written permission, provided that the files are not modified in any way, the Smithsonian Institution copyright notice (where applicable) is included, and the source of the image is identified as the National Museum of the American Indian. For more information please see the Smithsonian's Terms of Use and NMAI Archive Center's Digital Image request website.
Identification of specific item; Date (if known); German Advertising Trade Cards collection, Box and Folder Number; National Museum of the American Indian Archive Center, Smithsonian Institution.
