December Poems: Advertising

     This 1900 ad in the Coffeyville Daily Journal was used by Young's Groceries. The ad called him "Grandfather Santa Claus." 

 It’s not a surprise that businesses used poetry in their advertisements in the 1800s. We use jingles on the airwaves today, after all; they are catchy and memorable. Victorians loved poetry. It was memorized in school, recited on every occasion, and used to celebrate a marriage or anniversary, and to memorialize the dead. So why not be a little entertaining, to capture the reader? Limericks were especially popular and seemed to lend themselves to advertising. In this month when so many are frantically out shopping for Christmas, I present a selection of advertising poems. The first four are straightforward and include the name of the product in the poem.

Fort Wayne Daily Gazette, 29 Nov 1865, p. 3.

If I were a voice, a persuasive one,

I’d speed in the people’s ears —

I would fly all over this beautiful town

And speak of the Fresh Oysters,

Which can be bought at

J.M. Foelling’s Grocery at Phoenix Block. 

Cawker City Public Record (Cawker, Kansas), 31 May 1883, p. 4.

An old butcher way out in Missouri,

With neuralgia he suffered like fury,

St. Jacob’s Oil banished

The pain which all vanished –

And prevented a corner’s journey.

A cranky old man named Blake,

Said St. John’s Oil “takes the cake,”

He gave it one test,

And says it’s the best

Cure in the world for backache.

Frankfort Bee (Frankfort, Kansas), 20 March 1885, p. 5.

Buttons, coat and buttons, vest,

Buttons till you cannot rest.

Buttons, low and buttons, high,

Call, and you are sure to buy.

L.V. McKee’s.

Fort Wayne Daily Gazette, 2 Aug 1885, p. 5.

Oh give me teeth, sound, white and neat,

Oh give me breath that's pure and sweet,

Oh give me rosy, healthy gums,

And I will meet whatever comes;

Whatever trouble may befall,

With SOZODONT I'll meet the all.

Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette, 29 Dec 1888, p. 3

Here is a wonderful example of an advertising poem with an illustration.

     Years after the above poems ran in the newspaper, there is one in a category by itself. Charlie Patchett, my great-grandmother’s cousin, opened a lunchroom in Dearing, Kansas. I think he was very proud of this poem: 

The Dearing News (Dearing, Kansas), 22 May 1908, p. 4.

GOOD EATABLES

PATCHETT’S PLACE is a Lunch Room cannot be beat;

A place where you will always find good things to eat

Tidy and clean and everything neat.

Come here at any time that hunger you feel

Here you will get a nice Short Order meal.

Excellent lunches and coffee that’s hot,

The chilis that’s good and hits the right spot.

Try Patchett’s sandwiches, Hamburger too

Served quick and cooked right, sure to please you.

Pies that are sweet. Pop, cool and nice,

Light refreshments and drinks served right off the ice,

And ice cream delicacies all patrons entice

Cigars are here of the popular brand

Excellent smokes always on hand.

C.L. PATCHETT

     In spite of such a convincing poem, Charlie’s business was short-lived. Just two months later, the newspaper announced that another man opened a “fruit and cold drink stand at the place formerly occupied by Chas. Patchett.”

The next poems do not contain the product name in the stanzas. They are the kind of  homemade poems - albeit bad ones - that appeared in newspapers. The product was mentioned after the verses.

Indianapolis Journal, 24 Jun 1884, p. 4.

HOT!

‘Tis very hot in politics;

The weather’s up to its hot tricks;

It’s hot and sweltering all around

Right in the air and on the ground

Hot pavements heat us as we walk;

Hot words oft set on fire our talk.

We fan ourselves with cool desire,

And stop to sweat as if on fire.

We search in vain for an ice spot,

But ah! Alas, we find it not.

HOT!

The nearest approach to comfort is to be found in the THIN CLOTHING now selling so rapidly and at such low figures by the MODEL CLOTHING COMPANY. 

The Age (Melbourne, Victoria, Australia), 9 Oct 1893, p. 7. 

“Rev. Haweis on Tight Lacing”

[Note: Rev. Hugh Reginald Haweis (1838-1891) was a British minister who attracted crowds with his lively, unusual presentation style when giving sermons. He and his wife traveled extensively, coming to America where he spent a year as a guest lecturer in Boston. In 1879 he gave a sermon entitled “Criminal Ignorance and Thoughtlessness of Tight-lacing” to the congregation at St. James, Marylebone.]

“What is it makes a lady’s head

Feel as heavy as a lump of lead?

What makes her nose’s tip so red?

           Tight lacing!

“What makes her cheeks burn like coal,

Her feet as cold as Arctic pole?

What cramps her body and her soul?

          Tight lacing!

“What makes her temper short and sharp,

What causes her to fret and carp,

And on the smallest ills to harp?

          Tight lacing!

     The poem continues for a total of six stanzas, followed by an ad seeking women to sell two books, Advice of 100 Doctors on Tight Lacing and Book of Foolish and Sensible Fashions. “Each book tells a terrible tale of self-torture,” the copy promised. Rev. Haweis probably wasn’t aware that his name was being used to sell the books. 

This 1879 ad for a grocer store in a Vermont newspaper used a hit song. The ad copy says the girl in the song became so accomplished because her mother saved so much money shopping at W.H. Adams' Groceries that she could afford piano lessons for her daughter.

     The next two poems were entertaining and amusing, and meant to be. They had nothing to do with the product or business whatsoever. It was more like a company sponsoring a show today. 

Arkansas Valley Democrat (Arkansas City Democrat) 3 Oct 1882, p. 3.

Mary had a little pig,

His tail was short and crooked;

He managed in the dirt to dig,

With snout so long and hooked.

(Buy your dry goods at O.P. Houghton’s.)

One day into the garden green,

This piggy bold did wander;

And straight away with hoggish mien,

Cucumbers he did squander.

(Buy your Fresh Groceries at O.P. Houghton’s.)

Alas! Poor piggy ne'er had known

Of fierce cucumber colic;

He gave a loud terrific groan –

His pains were diabolic.

(Buy your clothing at O.P. Houghton’s.)

One hour later he was dead –

 A stiff and lifeless corpus;

He lay benumbed from tail to head,

Just like a frozen porpoise.

(Underwear at O.P. Houghton’s.)

Then Mary scooped a shallow grave

Quite near the railway station,

And piggy, who was once so brave,

Lies in that excavation.

(Buy your boots and shoes of O.P. Houghton.)

Now let all pigs this warning heed,

And ne’er in the garden frolic;

The end of such untimely greed

Is cold cucumber colic.

(For fresh groceries go to O.P. Houghton.)

     While readers were no doubt amused, it’s hard to see how anyone would want to rush out and buy fresh produce at Houghton’s after reading of the poor pig’s fatal cucumber colic. Houghton’s next poem is one completely unlike any I’ve seen in any of the other town and city newspapers, something quite risque. It sounds like the kind of poem that would’ve been shared by the congenial, entertaining “drummers” (wholesale salesmen) who traveled about. (Read my blog post “Drummers, or Knights of the Grip-sack” for more on this subject.)

There was in the state of Ohiah

A maiden named Helen Mariah,

Who ever would sail 

Down a bannister rail

When she thought there was nobody nighah.

Now her brother whose name was Josiah,

Fixed the rail with a piece of barbed wiah,

But it wouldn’t be best

To tell you the rest

For we’re blushing already like fiah. 

(For fresh groceries go to O.P. Houghton.) 

      I couldn’t resist looking up just who this O.P. Houghton was. Orrin Houghton (1831-1907) was a native of Weld, Maine, and a pillar of the community in Arkansas City. After the Civil War, he and two friends, A.A. Newman and T.H. McLaughlin, left Maine together and went to Tennessee. After a short time there they tried their fortunes in Emporia, Kansas. Orrin and Newman established a dry goods business together. In September 1869 the two traveled back to Maine where Newman married Orrin’s sister, and Orrin married Marie Bisbee. They brought their new brides to Kansas.

     After the Osage were forced off their land, Arkansas City was founded in 1870. Orrin and Newman dissolved their partnership and Orrin sold the Emporia store to the Presbyterian minister. He moved to the new town where he started a dry goods and grocery with T.H. McLaughlin as his partner. Orrin’s brothers Theron and Reuben settled in Arkansas City 1871. All three at various times engaged in Indian trading with the Ponca, Kaw and Osage tribes. Orrin was among the founders of First Presbyterian Church and a charter member of the Arkansas City Masons.

     In the 1880s his wife Marie became active in suffrage activities, hosting meetings at her home and attending the state suffrage convention in 1884. She was elected president of the Woman’s Suffrage Society of Arkansas City that year.

     Around 1892, Orrin and his wife moved to Texas. He died in Corpus Christi in 1907 and his daughter brought his body back to Kansas for burial beside Marie, who died a year earlier. 

     For the last two poems, we’ll let the newspaper editor get the last word. Both poems were reminders to pay up for the newspaper subscription. 

The Stromsburg News (Stromsburg, Nebraska), 24 Nov 1910, p. 1.

We are thankful, dear readers to greet 

All of you, and again we entreat

That you call on this pub.

And pay up for a sub.,

And we’ll thank you and write a receipt. 

Chanute Blade (Chanute, Kansas), 10 Jan 1895, p. 5. 

How dear to our heart is

Cash on subscription

When the generous subscriber

Presents it to view;

But  the man who don’t pay —

We refrain from description,

For perhaps, gentle reader,

That man might be you. 

(Originally published in the Catham (New York) Courier.)

Sources:

     “Tight Lacing,” The British Medical Journal, Vol. 1, No. 954, 12 April 1879, pp. 559-560. 

     “Death From Tight-Lacing,” Public Weekly Opinion (Chambersburg, Pennsylvania), 7 June 1879, p. 1. 

     “Tight-Lacing In the Pulpit,” Mendocino Coast Beacon (Mendocino, California), 12 July 1879, p. 1. 

"She's a Daisy," Essex County Herald (Island Pond, Vermont), 5 December 1879, p. 3.

Copyright Andrea Auclair  © 2023