Newspapers: Advertising the good old days

By JIM BRADSHAW
I pore through a lot of old newspapers doing research for this column and other projects, and one of the things I enjoy most is reading the ads that are sometimes a better mirror of the times than the news articles and editorials next to them.
Looking through some papers published 100 years ago, in October 1914, one of the first things you notice is the grocery prices. C.F. Grimmer’s store in Abbeville was typical of the time. He sold fresh spare ribs or pickled corn beef for 15 cents a pound, fresh pig’s feet at a nickel each, smoked sausage or hogs head cheese for 20 cents a pound. For a single dollar you could get 10 pounds of homemade lard or 11 pounds of coffee or 14 pounds of sugar or 22 pounds of flour.
Housewives in Welsh could “simply call Phone No. 20” on “disagreeable days or wash days” and Planters’ Market would send an order of “quality groceries” to the home. The Welsh City Dairy delivered twice daily, and guaranteed 2½ inches of cream rising to the top of every quart bottle. St. Martinville residents just had to dial 96 to get the “best bread made with the best flour” delivered to their door from Eugene Guirard’s bakery.
Miller Hardware in Welsh issued the reminder that cold weather was just around the corner and that the store had heating and cooking stoves, complete with stovepipes, coal buckets, and shovels.
The Welsh Carrier and Implement Company advertised a complete stock of Webber and John Deere wagons, “and the price is right.” In Opelousas, J. B. Sandoz promised that the Studebaker wagons he sold “will last a lifetime.” F. L. Sandoz sold “the celebrated Babcock Buggies,” claimed to be “the best riding vehicle made.” The Sandoz boys had new competition, though. At J. B. McClelland’s Opelousas Motor Car Co. you could find Overland and Ford cars that were “the most durable, scientific, easy going cars on the market,” with “all the modern accessories which go to make up a first-class car.”
In Abbeville, H.J. Hollier offered a “Rubber Tire Filler” to be “used in place of air in auto tires” and that was “a money saver for your business and a pleasure producer for your family.” I’ve puzzled over that one. How could replacing free air with store-bought rubber tire filler be a money saver? What was the tire filler made of?
Bodemuller the Printer offered free delivery in and around Opelousas on orders over $5. Shute’s Drug Store guaranteed “exact compounding” of any prescription sent by your doctor. Both of those stores (and Sandoz hardware) are still around.
Telephones were still relatively new. A Cumberland Telephone Company ad that appeared in several papers said a phone in the home could be a lifesaver in an emergency, telling the story of how a mother saved her child because she could call a doctor who was six miles away.
Railroads were the only way to travel in those days. In a number of papers, Southern Pacific promoted “four trains daily to Texas” and “two trains daily to California,” with “best in the world” dining car service, all powered by “clean, safe, oil burning locomotives.” Kansas City Southern said its trains assured “a pleasant journey north” with observation cars to view the Ozark Mountains, and “unexcelled Pullman service.”
I think the patent medicine ads are my favorites.
“Coughs kill if you let them,” an ad in the St. Martinville paper warns. That’s why everyone should keep a supply of Dr. King’s New Discovery to soothe throat and lung irritations. It appears, however, that the new discovery wasn’t so new — “thousands” had used it
The makers of Zona Pomade said their product guaranteed a good complexion or you could exchange it at your local drug store for 50 cents worth of other goods. Oxidine was the miracle drug to use for laGrippe, colds, headaches, constipation, malaria, chills, or fever — and only fifty cents a bottle.
The Cooper Drug Store in Welsh offered Rexall Remedies — “one for every human ill.” (I don’t think they’d invented as many ills in those days, but even so, that’s a powerful promise.)
Bucklen’s Arnica Salve was the treatment of choice for bruises, sores, wounds, and piles.
And then an ad in the St. Landry Clarion tells us to be sure to ask the druggist for Chichester’s Diamond Brand Pills, the ones in the red and gold metallic boxes sealed with a blue ribbon. According to the ad, the pills had come to be regarded over 25 years as “best, safest, and always reliable” — but nowhere in the ad does it tell us what the pills are for.
Does that remind you of some of the TV ads we see today?
You can contact Jim Bradshaw at jimbradshaw4321@gmail.com or P.O. Box 1121, Washington LA 70589.