I don’t know why I continue to be surprised at finding evidence, way back in the past, of ideas and sentiments that are supposedly so very 21st-century modern.

Take portability, for example. We tend to think of small, lightweight technology as a development of the last 10 or 20 years. After all, it’s our highly mobile culture and our “do anything anywhere” expectations that have both pushed the development of these technologies and embraced them. Isn’t it?

Umm, maybe not.

Take a look at this ad for a portable typewriter from 1890 — yeah, that’s right — 1890. There’s a well-dressed guy using some down time on the train to tap out a bit of writing on a teeny little keypad resting in his lap. (Little does he know that more than 100 years later, millions will be following his lead.)

In 1890, typewriters were still in their infancy. Multiple forms and designs of type machines abounded; many of them were quite small.

It wasn’t until about 1910 that the typewriter, as we know it to look today, was standardized. Then we moved into the kind of heavy typewriters that most of you will be familiar with, followed by room-sized computers, and then desk-bound PCs before emerging once again into unplugged handhelds.

La plus ça change….

Product: Derma-Royale
Date: 1895

So you have a freckle or two. Maybe a pimple or a blemish. A liver spot? A tan? Don’t pout. Your skin can be lily white again with the miraculous Derma-Royale!

Because like the ad says, “Nothing will cure, clear and whiten the skin so quickly as Derma-Royale.” Its “bleaching” and “brightening” properties (and who doesn’t want bleached skin?) are highly recommended by Physicians with a capital P — so you know it must be good.

And just in case you’re thinking that something so powerful must also be dangerous, never fear! Derma-Royale is “as harmless as dew,” so harmless that a “whole bottle may be drank without the least serious effect.” And since all you have to do is drink it, need it be said that the product is “so simple a child can use it”?

For all you hard-core doubters and nay-sayers, let’s dig into the guarantee. If Derma-Royale does not quickly remove and cure “any case of eczema, pimples, blotches, moth-patches, brown spots, liver spots, blackheads, ugly or muddy skin, unnatural redness, freckles, tan, or any other cutaneous discolorations or blemishes” the company will pay out $500.

What’s that? It must be the sound of a quack being run out of town.

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Product: Ice
Date: 1928

In our ultra-modern hyper-technological age, it’s hard to imagine a time when refrigeration was a novelty. And yet it wasn’t all that long ago, as this December 1928 ad for ice blocks attests.

Only 80 years ago, ice had copywriters gushing:

• Ice was “the life of the party”.
• Ice clinked merrily in time to music.
• Ice sparkled brightly.
• Ice added flavour and appeal to food and drink.
• Ice made out-of-season foods available all year round!
• Ice was good health insurance, keeping food pure and untainted.
• Ice was efficient and inexpensive.

You could even send away for a free booklet called Ice – the Life of the Party. Inside you would learn “modern ways of enjoying ice, including proper uses of ice in table settings.”

Cool.

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This ad reminds me of nothing so much as the Victorian equivalent of “SEX! ha ha. Now that we have your attention…”

Why else use those two strange words called out in large letters: approximately and hump. Does Approximately hump make any sense as a sentence? No. Does it speak of hook and eyes? No, not really. Does the sentence starting with approximately even make sense?

Approximately the cut below represents the DeLong Hooks and Eyes.

Nope, no sense at all.

But you’ve got hand it to the designer — it certainly is an attention grabber.

And I haven’t even mentioned the clean, uncrowded layout with lots of white space (this during a time when it was common practice to cram your ads with as much copy as possible) and the simple, yet elegant diagram demonstrating the Dramatic Difference of the product.

From the text, we can surmise that randomly popping hooks were quite a problem for well-dressed ladies of the day. Oh my.

Product: 7-Up
Date: 1950

It’s 1950. It’s Middle America. Here we have Mom (in her high heels and pearls), Dad, Freddie, Kay, and little brother on a swell outing to the zoo. Look at the polar bears! Look at the balloons!

Now let’s turn our attention to little brother, the cute baby in the stroller. How old is he? Eighteen months? Maybe two, tops? He’s having a good time at the zoo, as well. What’s that he’s drinking? A bottle of nourishing mama’s milk? A cup of apple juice?

No, sir! It’s cheerful, clean-tasting 7-Up. Just because you’re still in diapers doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy your very own glass bottle of fizzy sugar water. In fact, it’s good for you. It’s practically medicine. The ad says so.

Seven-Up is so pure — so good — so completely wholesome that even the very youngest can “fresh up” just as often as they want…and with as much as they want.

God bless America.

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Product: Zip codes, United States Postal Service
Date: 1969

Bet you thought the term “snail mail” was added to the popular lexicon when email went mainstream in the early 1990s and postal mail came to seem so old school. I know I did.

So imagine my surprise when I came across this 1969 ad from the United States Postal Service with a huge Snail Mail headline. The ad explains that mail without a zip code would move at a snail’s pace.

Zip codes became mandatory in the United States in 1963. Six years later, this ad shows there was still a problem with getting the public to use them.

Incidentally, though “zip” actually stands for Zone Improvement Plan, the acronym was chosen to underscore how much more quickly postal codes could move the mail.

Wikipedia dates the earliest known use of the term Snail Mail to a 1981 Strawberry Shortcake episode, of all things. Guess I better mosey on over there and update the entry.

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Sorry the enlarged ad — the one that comes up when you click on the thumbnail — isn’t bigger. Normally I try to scan the ads at a large enough size to read all the text. But I scanned this ad a couple of years ago and it’s a smaller size.

Product: New York Real Estate
Date: 1906

In the category of “Where’s a Good Time Machine When You Need One” comes this ad from 1906 selling land in New York City for $190.

Actually, the price was just $161 if you paid cash. The $190 was on the payment plan of $5 per month after a $10 deposit. Sounds like a sweet deal. And it was (don’t you know it!), if you had the money. But in 1906, the salary of a working man was somewhere in the range of $200 to $400 — so these lots cost about a year’s income for an Average Joe.

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What I love about this ad is its unrelenting sales pitch, and the sense of scarcity, urgency, and opportunity it creates.

These are positively the last cheap lots in New York City…Lots in the Bronx, farther away from the City Hall than these we now offer in Richmond at $190, are to-day selling for $2000.

and

The Borough of Richmond is to-day where Brooklyn was three years ago and those who invest with us now will get all the advance. It is the only undeveloped part of New York City, and it is in the direct line of growth…there is no other cheap land in Greater New York.

And my favorite piece of all:

Don’t wait to investigate now or you’ll be too late. Investigate later. These 100 lots will sell fast. Pin a $10 bill to the coupon at the bottom of this page and mail it to us at once–today if possible. We will save a lot for you–the best one unsold…

No need to do your homework, folks. Don’t think about it, just send your money. We’ll save YOU (just you) the very best.

You can practically hear the 100-year-old sound of coupons being ripped out of magazines everywhere.

Product: Universal Nebulizer
Date: 1907

The most disturbing thing about this ad is not the close-up of the vaguely obscene Nebulizer, the intimately detailed description of how to use it, or even the placid expression of the woman with one shoved up her nose.

No, the most disturbing thing about this ad is the offer to use the Nebulizer on trial for 10 days and then SEND IT BACK if you don’t like it.

Please tell me they didn’t re-sell the ones that were sent back. Or that they sterilized them. Or something. Please?

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