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.

Warner’s Safe Cure: The Rochester “A” List (Part II)

Although the Warner’s Safe Cures manufactured by the Chambers Works are early examples of the Safe Cure bottles, they are not the earliest.  After Warner acquired  the rights to Dr. Craig’s Kidney Cure, one of his first bottles was the shoulder-embossed Safe Cure (pictured above). While I would not consider this bottle to be rare, they have become harder to get.  The same is true for the Rochester Safe Cure. Only in Rochester was Safe Cure called “Safe Kidney & Liver Cure”. In all the other foreign offices, it was simply referred to as “Safe Cure.” For a short period, the Rochester bottle was also embossed “Safe Cure”.

While neither the shoulder-embossed Safe Cure nor the Rochester Safe Cure make the “A” List, there are some that do. For example, this aqua Kidney & Liver Remedy. While the amber is relatively common and the clear would likely be considered more scarce, aqua is down right rare.

 The same might be said of two  other Rochester variants, both of which are considered mold errors. The first is the “No Safe” Safe Remedies Company. For whatever reason, the bottle manufacturer omitted the word “Safe” from the mold leaving the bottle embossed “Warner’s Remedies Co.”  While the unlabelled Warner’s Safe Remedies Co. bottles are considered common, the Warner’s Remedies Co. are rare. The second variant is made rare, not be the omission of embossing, but by the addition of it. It is the half pint Nervine with “8 OZ” embossed just below the neck. Here again, the half pint Nervine is considered fairly common, but in this case, the glassmaker probably used a half pint Safe Cure mold and slugged out the word “Cure,” replacing it with “Nervine.” The result is a fairly rare variant.

Another very difficult Rochester find is the Warner’s Safe Remedy sample. While the Safe Cure sample appears regularly, the Safe Remedy sample comes around far less often.  Find one that’s labelled and you have a real gem. This is also true of the labeled Safe Diabetes Remedy sample.

Most discriminating bottle collectors turn their noses up a screw top bottles. However, not all screw top medicines are considered equal. Take, for example, the Warner’s Compound bottles sold by the Warner’s Remedies Company. These very late Warner’s are highly prized by Warner’s collectors due to their rarity.

The other significant category of Rochester Warner’s are the Log Cabin Remedies. They are the subject of Part III of this series.

Warner’s Safe Cure: The Most Beautiful Woman in America

Although we are sometimes amazed when we look at advertising from the Victorian era, some things do not change. Certainly, if someone from that time was to look at today’s advertising they would be embarrassed and even appalled by what little is left to the imagination of the reader. Having said that, it is worth noting that some things never change. Beauty sells. It sold in the late 19th Century and it sells today. The models that strut the catwalks of the 21st Century are not so far removed from those whose pictures graced trade cards and alamancs in the Guilded Age. Witness a couple of examples from Warner’s advertising. In 1899, a Warner’s Safe Cure ad declared “The Most Beautiful Woman in America says…I was on the verge of collapse, when a friend advised me to take Warner’s Safe Cure.” The ad features the then famous Alberta Gallatin (1861-1948). I am not certain who declared her to be the most beautiful woman in America. It appeared in the Washington Evening Times on February 1, 1900:

The other Warner’s Safe ad that came to mind was the Free Sample card.

I’m not sure if the woman pictured on the Free Sample card is the same Ms. Gallatin or not. Nevertheless, the point is the same – attractive, talented people use Warner’s Safe Cure. Perhaps you should consider it.

Perhaps even more interesting is the small footnote that appears at the very bottom of the ad featuring Ms. Gallatin. It says “[a] thoroughly competent and regularly graduated woman physician will give medical advice free to any woman needing same. Address: Mrs. Alice McCulloch, MD (Personal), Warner’s Safe Cure Co., Rochester,  N.Y.”  In an era when standardized medical education was in its infancy, a female physician would have been a rare commodity. My search for additional information on Dr. McCullough was unavailing. It is  odd that the Warner Safe Cure Co. virtually hid this bit of information in the advertisement,  but not surprising given the state of women’s rights at the close of the 19th Century.  Makes you wonder how many women sought out her advice.

Warner’s Safe Cure: The London Samples

Warner successfully marketed his products through a variety of promotions, which flowed from his headquarters on St. Paul’s Street in Rochester. The volume of this promotional material is amazing and I have previously covered many of these materials, including his free samples. It would be impossible to say how many of the free samples were shipped out of the Rochester Office.

While the Rochester Office was undoubtedly the principal source of promotional materials for the Warner empire, free samples were distributed by at least one other Warner foreign office, London. However, unlike the amber cylindrical free samples from Rochester, the London Office distributed a minature version of the actual safe cure bottle. The London Samples appeared in two colors, light amber and a kelly green. Of the two, the green is the most rare, although the amber version is also considered rare. Unlike their American cousins, the London samples are difficult finds for Warner’s collectors and can command upwards of $1000 each.

The rareness of the London samples begs the question of the quantity that were distributed from the London Office. Although it is entirely my supposition, I wonder whether the London Samples were not mailed out to prospective customers, but rather were used by Warner’s sales agents who visited potential retailers. It is a question that will not be answered absent the discovery of some, yet unknown, documentation from the London Office. For now, it is better to relish these very desirable Warner’s Safe Cures.

Thanks to Jack Stecher and Ed Ojea for the photos of the Free Samples.

Warner’s Safe Cure: It’s All in the Lips

Since I began this blog back in March, I have spent considerable time talking about the history of the Warner empire, the products marketed by Warner and the all important bottles that contained his wonderous elixirs. I have talked about the colors of those bottles, their labels and even some of the mistakes. I have, however, neglected one important feature those bottles….their lips. Now, that sounds like a relatively minor omission, but an important one nevertheless.

Over the course of its history, the Warner Safe Cure Company used a variety of lips on its bottles. The lips vary depending one when a particular bottle was manufactured and where it came from. Let me correct my omission, but illustrating some of the lips that graced Warner’s Safe Remedies over the years.

DOUBLE COLLAR – the double collar lip is distinct among the early Warner’s Safe Cures that came from Rochester: Safe Kidney & Liver Cure, Safe Nervine, Safe Diabetes Cure, Safe Rheumatic Cure, Safe Bitters, Safe Tonic and Safe Tonic Bitters. They also appear on the 3-City Cures sold from the Toronto Office and the early 4-Cities bottles from the Dundein Office (which were likely made in the United States).

MEDICINE COLLAR – this lip is noticeably present on some of the half pint varieties of the early Warner’s Safe Cures, such as the Safe Bitters and Safe Tonic, but not the Safe Tonic Bitters.

BLOB COLLAR – The blob collar is perhaps the most extensively used lip among Warner’s Safe Remedies. It effectively replaced the double collar and medicine collar lips and appeared in all variety of Safe Cures from almost all of the foreign offices, with the exception of Toronto. It was also used in the Log Cabin Remedies bottles.

FLARED OR TIPPECANOE – this lip is fairly unique among antique bottles and Warner even took out a patent on the Tippecanoe bottle design to protect it from imitators. Its mushroom lip is attached to the familiar log shaped bottle embossed with a canoe.

SMALL SQUARE LIP – the small square lip was less common than its large brother, but appeared in several Warner bottles, namely the sample bottles both from Rochester and London.

LARGE SQUARE LIP – the large square lip or collar graced later Warner bottles, most notably the Warner’s Safe Remedies Co. bottles in their various colors.

These represent the principal types of lips found on Warner’s Safe bottles. You will undoubtedly find some examples that are exagerated or diminished versions of these styles. Many thanks to Ed Ojea for assistance with the photos and for being the first to categorize Warner bottles based on lip type in his Warner’s Reference Guide. Watch those lips!

Warner’s Safe Cure: Free Samples!

The power of distributing free samples of your product was not lost on Warner. Few patent medicine proprietors did a better job of getting their product into the homes of potential consumers. When Warner opened his new headquarters building at 72-78 St. Paul Street in Rochester, he devoted an entire floor of it to advertising and marketing his product. (See The Warner’s Safe Cure Building).

The free sample bottles you most often see ar the cylindrical bottles embossed “Free Sample/Warner’s Safe Cure Co./Rochester, N.Y.” The much rarer variety are those embossed “Free Sample/Warner’s Safe Remedy Co./Rochester, N.Y.” and those with labels or mailing containers are almost unheard of. I have attached the free sample card distributed by Warner to potential customers. As you can see, this card, which was probably obtained from druggists or grocers, allowed a customer to send off for a free sample and provided a list of the Warner’s Safe product line on the reverse of the card. Because the card required that the customer fill out, cut off and mail the bottom portion, they often show up with the bottom missing. The complete cards are much scarcer.

If you look at the reverse of the card with the list of the warner product line, you will see that the free sample promised was not the small cylindrical bottle, but rather an 8 oz (1/2 pint) size. As many times as I have looked at these cards,  I had missed that detail. I would assume that the cylindrical bottles were simply distributed to druggists and grocers for in-store distribution.

There are also free samples of Safe Cure from the London office. These are pretty rare (especially the green). They are intriguing because they are miniature versions of the Safe Cure bottle. He also gave away free samples of the Safe Yeast. Looks like free stuff paid dividends for Mr. Warner.

Thanks to Ed Ojea and Jack Stecher for the last photo.