Warner’s Safe Cure: Rochester Cityscapes (1904)

In my ongoing research of all things Safe Cure, I have had occasion to stumble upon some interesting material. Frequently, that material deals with the city where H. H. Warner chose to build his empire – Rochester.  He certainly made his mark on the city in a number of ways: the Warner’s Safe Remedies Building on St. Paul’s Avenue was opened in 1884, the Warner Observatory in 1883 and the Warner Mansion on East Avenue was finished in 1879. By 1887, Warner reached the apex of his success as the first president of the Rochester Chamber of Commerce and by 1893, his empire was in ruins.

In 1904, the Rochester Chamber of Commerce published a book with the not so remarkable title “Rochester in 1904.”  As one might expect, the book is a profile of the city, its history and flourishing business community.

 

Two things caught my attention in this book. The first was a series of wonderful skyline views of the city. The second was the almost complete absence of any reference to H. H. Warner or Warner’s Safe Cure. In the decade that followed the Panic of 1893 and the financial collapse of Warner, his previously indelible mark on the commercial face of Rochester had faded to nothing. The only mention of him in the book was the listing of his name as a signatory of the original Chamber of Commerce Certificate of Incorporation in June, 1888.  What a difference a decade makes. Here are a few of the Rochester cityscapes as they appeared in 1904.

Warner’s Safe Cure: Victorian Newspaper Ads

 

In many of my posts,  I’ve talked about the various forms of advertising used by H. H. Warner to sell his miraculous cures. Warner clearly knew the power of advertising and rarely missed an opportunity to get his brand before the public. From trade cards to almanacs to a wide variety of premium items like his dominoes or his prize map, Warner bombarded the Victorian public with his brand and was rewarded by an ever-swelling demand.  I’m sure that if radio and television had existed at that time, he would have run commercials touting the value of his Safe Cures.

I’m certain that in the back of my mind, I expected that he must have engaged in extensive newspaper advertising and,  from time to time, I had seen a copy of the occasional Warner’s Safe Cure ad. However,  access to that genre of advertising seemed virtually impossible absent a willingness to sit in front of a microfilm reader and scroll randomly through newspapers of the day in hopes of finding the occasional Safe Cure ad.

Recently, and almost by accident, I stumbled across the access that had, for so long, eluded me. I was engaging in my other passion, genealogical research, when I learned about online access to vintage newspapers. More important though than just access was the ability to search them by names and subjects. Holy cow, I thought, if this will work for family surnames, I wonder if it will work for advertising?  To my delight, it did. My searches for Warner’s Safe Cure yielded enumerable results. While my searches turned up every mention of Safe Cure, many of which were included in countless testimonials (a topic for another day), a significant number of hits were ads taken out by Warner hawking his Safe Cure and Tippecanoe.

In this and future posts, I hope to unveil some of these ads as yet another facet of the Warner Safe Cure empire. Before doing so, I would be remiss if I did not credit the folks at Footnote.  Footnote is a web based search engine that allows you to access original documents through partnerships with the National Archives and the Library of Congress among others.  There is a membership fee, but it is modest considering the time and effort that is saved by searching document collections from the comfort of your home rather than planted in front of a microfilm viewer in the library. Let me also give the disclaimer that most, if not all, of the newspaper images I will be posting are long out of copyright and are subject to fair use. Now, having said all that, let me throw a few gems your way. First, this ad appeared in the Chicago Tribune on December 7, 1902:

This is a great ad and vintage Safe Cure. Like most all of Warner’s advertising for Safe Cure, it attributes all bodily problems to the malfunction of the kidneys. It also incorporates a tried and true device of Warner and other advertisers of the period, the testimonial.  If Safe Cure can help 92-year old Rebecca Smith, it will do wonders for you. It also offers the reader a free trial bottle. How can you lose?  Let me throw another your way as a teaser. In future post, I will talk more about these wonderful tidbits of Warner history. This ad appeared in the Fort Wayne Sentinel on February 16, 1883:

This ad resembles text that appears in some of Warner’s Safe Cure almanacs and strikes a familiar Warner theme – “Beware of Fraud.” The wonderful thing about these ads is that they appear, even now, among the news items that people of that era were reading. Indeed, many of the ads I came across were designed to look like news stories to enhance their credibility. I hope you will enjoy these ads as much as I have.

Tippecanoe: Unique By Design

When you’re talking uniqueness of shape in the realm of antique bottle collecting, it is hard to imagine that the discussion would not turn to figural bitters. Now, before everyone who doesn’t collect figural bitters jumps on me for my gross overgeneralization, I’m not saying that figural bitters are best bottles or the most valuable, although some examples can lay claim to those titles. What I am saying is that figural bitters represent some of the most unique shapes among bottles. A quick stroll through any major show will reveal indian queens, ears of corn, log cabins, pineapples, and the list goes on. Among proprietors of bitters in the 19th Century, shape was seemingly as important as name to consumers.  And a good thing too, because it has given bottle collectors an amazing array of shape to collect.

Although H. H. Warner was, perhaps, one of the top marketers of patent medicines, including bitters. He staked his brand to the image of the safe and reinforced that claim through constant advertising and promotions bearing that trademark.  Within the Warner empire, there were several notable exceptions to this branding. Among them were his Tippecanoe and the Log Cabin Remedies line. Putting aside Log Cabin Remedies, his Tippecanoe bitters replaced his Warner’s Safe Bitter, Tonic and Tonic Bitters. He clearly wanted to make a clean break and decided to use unique packaging. So unique, in fact, that he registered it with the U.S. Patent Office.

Fortunately, we are the beneficiaries of his efforts.  While his Tippecanoe bottles are not considered rare among collectors (unless they have full labels or an olive color),  they are an excellent addition to a figural bitters collection. Warner was out of business by 1893, although the company continued to exist and the Tippecanoe remained part of the inventory of products until 1895 or so. It is unclear why it was retired, but retired it was and Warner’s experiment in figural bitters faded into history.

Special thanks to Glass Works Auctions for the photograph of the labelled Tippecanoe.