Warner’s Safe Cure: Artist’s Album (1888) – Part I

If you have been following this blog for even a short amount of time, you have undoubtedly come to the conclusion that collecting Warner’s Safe Cures extends beyond just the bottles. Warners collectors are blessed with an enormous array of advertising paper and other ephemera produced by one of the great proprietary medicine companies of  the late 19th and early 20th centuries. H. H. Warner missed few, if any, opportunities to plaster the reading public with his brand, whether by almanacs, newspaper ads, posters, cookbooks or puzzles and games. This list is extensive.

Having said that, the question becomes which examples of his advertising best informs us of the enterprise. By my way of thinking, his almanacs and other publications give us one of the most complete pictures of his pitch to an American public desperate to cope with disease in an age where real, medically competent physicians were indeed rare. Among his publications, one of the best has to be his Artist’s Albums. I say “albums,” because there were actually two. While one of the two is distinctly more rare than the other, both are terrific examples of his marketing. The version with Santa Claus going down the chimney (above) is the more common of the two, while the version with the boy sitting on the log (below) is rare.

Unlike other Warner’s Safe publications that were printed by Mensing & Stecher, the Artists’ Albums were printed by Cosack & Company of Buffalo, New York. The back cover of both albums featured a box of Log Cabin Sarsaparilla.

Apart from the terrific graphics, the Artists’ Albums feature the most comprehensive catalog of the Warner’s Safe Cure inventory as it existed in 1888. The featured products included Safe Cure, Rheumatic Cure, Diabetes Cure, Nervine, Tippecanoe – The Best, Asthma Cure, Safe Pills, Benton Hair Grower, Animal Cure, Log Cabin Sarsaparilla, Log Cabin Hops & Buchu Remedy, Log Cabin Cough & Consumption Remedy, Log Cabin Hair Tonic, Log Cabin Extract, Log Cabin Plaster, Log Cabin Rose Cream, Log Cabin Liver Pills and Safe Yeast.  Each of the products was discussed and a facsimile of the package was included. The next part of this post will feature some of those articles.

The Artists’ Albums were issued at about the time that Warner’s medicine empire reached its peak. Over the period of the next five years, Warner went from proprietary medicine mogul to financial collapse and public humiliation. These publications provide us with a glimpse of the types of products pitched to our great grandparents.

Special thanks to Jon Moran for reminding me of the uniqueness of the Artist’s Album and providing me with scans of its contents.

Warner’s Log Cabin Remedies: Rose Cream

Typically, when you think of Warner’s Log Cabin Remedies, it brings to mind the familiar amber panelled bottle with, in some cases, the colorful label.  There are, however, exceptions to this rule. Undoubtedly, the most frequent is the fairly common

Log Cabin Liver Pills that appear in the paper wrapped vial. There is, however, a much rarer exception, the Log Cabin Rose Cream. Never heard of it. Well, that’s not surprising given the fact that so few examples are known. Indeed, until recently, I had not seen an example.

The January, 1888 Metropolitan advertisement for Log Cabin Remedies listed the Rose Cream for “Catarrh, Etc. Elegant.” For those who don’t know, catarrh is a thick mucous discharge associated with the swelling of the mucous membranes. But I digress. I had not seen an example of this rare Warner nostrum until just recently. Enter Dan Cowman. Dan has one of the nicest collections of labelled Warners that I have ever seen. And it includes an example of the Log Cabin Rose Cream.

Pretty nice, huh. The label says, among other things ”A Superfine Perparation for Catarrh, Rose, Cold, Hay Fever, Influenza.”  All for a mere 50 cents a bottle. Needless to say, if you can find one of these babies today, it will set you back a little more that four bits. If anyone is sitting on an example of Log Cabin Plasters, that’s one I’d still like to see.

Warner’s Safe Advertising: The Metropolitan

For all of his extensive marketing efforts, H. H. Warner was not above simply advertising in newspapers. There is no telling how many advertisements for Warner’s Safe Remedies, Warner’s Safe Yeast and any number of Warner’s other products graced the pages of newspapers in the last 20 years of the 19th Century. We do, however, have at least one good example in The Metropolitan.

I am not sure about the circulation of The Metropolitan, but it clearly was published in New York City. This particular issue from 1888 included a full page advertisement for Log Cabin Remedies, which Warner’s ad men described as “Old Fashioned Simple Preparations of Roots and Herbs Our Great-Grand-Parents Used!” While great grandparents of that era may have used roots and herbs, one wonders whether they would have recognized the alcohol content, which undoubtedly was combined with those roots and herbs.

Nevertheless, The Metropolitan stands as a good example of newsprint advertising used by Warner in the late 19th Century. Even today, with access to broadcast and internet media, print advertising remains viable and lucrative over a century later.

Warner’s Log Cabin Remedies (Part II)

Warner’s Log Cabin Remedies consisted of an entire line of products designed to appeal to that portion of the American market that had embraced the nation’s pioneering spirit as a virtue. The Log Cabin Remedies only existed for five years and were phased out in 1892 when the company was sold to British investors.

During their short lifetime, the Log Cabin Remedies offered consumers relief from almost every known malady. All of the bottles are rated from Good to Rare by Warner’s collectors and those with labels add a premium to the value. By far, the most difficult to find is the Scalpine, which appeared with both a Scalpine label and a Hair Tonic label at various times. On the other end of the spectrum, the Extracts and the Sarsparillas are the most frequently found. The Log Cabin Remedies were as follows:

HOPS & BUCHU REMEDY – (Large Size)  – promised to cure dyspepsia (indigestion) and disorders of the stomach, flatulence, pain after eating, liver cough, constipation, vertigo, sick headache, dizziness, bad taste in the morning or coated tongue, hot and dry mouth, pain in the left breast, palpitation of the heart, irritability, vexation of the mind, lump like feeling in the throat after eating, belching wind, sore stomach, heartburn, irregularity of the bowels, etc.

SARSPARILLA – (Large Size) – promised to cure all blood disorders, scrofula, kings evil, salt rheum, erysipelas, humors of all kinds, scald head, general debility, malaria, ulcers, chronic catarrh, rheumatism, neuralgia, syphlitic and mercural boils, pimples, pain in the back, dizziness, constipation, congestion, liver torpidity, biliousness, tired feelings, skin eruptions, female irregularities, dyspepsia, indigestion, liver complaints, common kidney derangements, dropsy, etc.

SCALPINE – (Large Size) – would remedy all scalp disorders, dandruff, itching, humors, scald head, ring worms, checks the falling out of hair and increases growth, softens harsh brittle hair, restores gloss, stimulates hair growth, and prevents baldness, prevents premature grey hair.

[NOTE: Remember, Warner was also marketing Benton's Hair Grower, which would seem to be a product that offers similar hair-related promises.]

COUGH & CONSUMPTION - (Small & Large Size) – promised to cure consumption, coughs, colds, lung troubles, after effects of pneumonia, bronchitis, pleurisy, and all diseases leading up to consumption, dependent upon the congestion or inflamed condition of the mucuous membranes of the throat and air passages.

EXTRACT – (Small & Large Size) – was intended to remedy rheumatism, neuralgia, burns, scalds, sprains, bruises, insect bites, chapped hands, chilblains, pain in back, lungs, sides, and limbs, swollen or stiff joints, contracted tendons, inflamed breasts, corns, toothaches, sunburn, face aches, sore throat, mumps, frost bites, stings, curry sores, etc.

[NOTE: I had to find out what "chilblains" and "curry sores" were. Chilblains are defined as "inflammation of the hands and feet caused by exposure to cold and moisture." Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, the definition of curry sores is lost to history.]

ROSE CREAM – promised to cure catarrh, rose cold, hay fever, influenza, cold in head, sniffles, deafness, discharges from throat, nose and head.

PLASTERS – were intended for rheumatism, chronic aches and pains, backache, sore and tender bowels and congestion of the stomach, liver, lungs and kidneys.

With a line of products like the Log Cabin Remedies, it’s hard to imagine that you would need any other products. For H. H. Warner, however, the Log Cabin Remedies merely complimented his Safe Cure line. It’s impossible to say whether any of the Log Cabin Remedies attracted customers that would otherwise have purchased products in the Safe Cure line, but, given the fact that both income streams enriched Warner, the question is academic.

Warner’s Log Cabin Remedies (Part I)

By 1887, H. H. Warner was hitting his stride as his patent medicine empire was flourishing around the world. Grover Cleveland was in his first term in the White House and the coming Panic of 1893 was but a spectre on the distant horizon. In that year, Warner introduced a new major line of medicines that he dubbed “Log Cabin Remedies.”  Undoubtedly, these Log Cabin Remedies were designed to appeal to an American public smitten with westward expansion and the apparently limitless possiblities for America’s manifest destiny.

The Log Cabin Remedies came packaged in a colorful red, white, blue and yellow container and included Log Cabin Sarsparilla, Hops & Buchu Remedy, Cough & Consumption Remedy, Extract, Rose Cream, Hair Tonic, Scalpine, Plasters and  Liver Pills. The pills sold for 25 cents, the Rose Cream for 50 cents and the remaining large sized Remedies for $1.00. In addition, the Cough & Consumption Remedy and Extract came in a small size for 50 cents. The base of the amber bottles bore the embossing “PAT’D SEPT. 9 87″.

I have included two back covers from the 1890 and 1892 Warner’s Safe Almanacs that featured Log Cabin Remedies. It is interesting to note that Warner makes the explicit disclaimer that “We Do Not Cure All Diseases From One Bottle.” That would appear to suggest that the consumer should expect to invest in more than one bottle and perhaps more than one variety of Log Cabin Remedies. Also, take a close look at the detail of the Hops & Buchu Remedy label. It says:

The Most Radical Opponents of

Alcoholic Beverages

 Can Use This Remedy as it is a

 MEDICAL PREPARATION

NOT A BEVERAGE

Sounds like Warner was even making a play for those confirmed teetotalers in the market. He never missed an angle.