Warner’s Safe Cure: Nothings Says “Merry Christmas” Like……

Every family’s got one, the person who is impossible to buy a gift for. You spend weeks before Christmas searching for just the right thing, but nothing seems to fit the bill. What’s worse, the person won’t give you any hints or suggestions of something they need or like. Consequently, you are left to roll the dice on a gift that will either be a hit or a complete dud.  For some lucky folks 120 years ago, the answer was easy. Pickup a couple bottles of Warner’s Safe Cure for that hard to please relative.

Warmest wishes for the holidays and for a prosperous 2012! 

Warner’s Safe Cure: Safe Nervine Banner

Warner's Safe Nervine Banner

Over the years, I have seen plenty of examples of Warner’s Safe advertising. Most of it was designed to instill brand loyalty and to help the 19th Century consumer associate the safety and security of an iron safe with the protection of a line of patent medicines.  Apparently, retailers of Warner’s Safe Remedies were encouraged to extend the branding into their establishments. Presumably, this  extension took the form of display advertising not unlike the displays that manufacturers use today to attract customers. Perhaps one of the best examples of this type of display advertising was the canvas banner. These banners heralded  the product, along with a concise statement of its benefits. One such example is the above banner of Warner’s Safe Nervine, Safe Pills and Safe Kidney & Liver Cure.

We don’t know much about this particular sign, except that it may have come from Northeastern Massachusetts, where it was auctioned. The very bottom of the sign bears the words “Murphy, Pine St., Jersey City.” We must assume that Murphy was the  producer of the sign, but that does not help much. Special thanks to Tom at Walnutt Antiques for use of his pictures. If you can shed any light on the unique piece of advertising or on “Murphy,” please let me know.

Warner’s Safe Cure: The Morning Telegram (1903)

I am always on the lookout for advertising from Warner Safe Remedies offices outside the United States. While print advertising inside the US was prolific, the same does not seem to be the case with the foreign offices. Below is a print ad from The Morning Telegram of November 11, 1903, which at first glance appears to be from the London Office. However, when you take a closer look at the text toward the end of the ad, it directs the buyer to the Toronto Office at 44 Lombard Street.

My favorite part of this ad is that it claims to cure “Weak Women” from “a life of suffering and an untimely end.” Wow, what more can you ask?

Warner’s Safe Cure: Closing the Deal

 

 

Warner’s Safe Remedies Envelope

For all of the money that Warner poured into advertising in its various forms, he was not unmindful of the impact of personal communication with potential and existing customers. In the 19th Century, much the same as in the 21st, people respond best to marketing on a personal level.  This may have been even more important in Warner’s time, because people actually sat down and wrote letters to one another. Consequently, receiving personal correspondence from a merchant might well help close the deal. The above picture is an example of what one might have received in response to a letter to the Warner’s Safe Remedies Company. As you can see, very little space is wasted and the envelope is emblazoned with the image of the Safe Remedies Building, perhaps second only to the “Safe” as Warner’s trademark.

Undoubtedly, this envelope contained  yet more information to entice the prospective purchaser. This flow of information was designed to establish a personal connection with the recipient. After all, you are more likely to buy something from someone you know and trust than from a complete stranger. Warner knew this and exploited it as well as any other patent medicine manufacturer of the era. He wanted his potential customers to see Warner’s Safe Remedies as a source of helpful information that might not be readily available to them otherwise. This explains why his annual almanacs were so popular. They were crammed full of information (some of it accurate, but a lot that was not) and offers of assistance.

One of the perenial  offers that appears in Warner’s Safe Remedies advertising was for a urine analysis. For example, in his 1890 Almanac entitled “Safe Points,” Warner again extended this offer to his customers:

1890 Warner’s Safe Remedies “Safe Points” Almanac

It is impossible to say whether a drop of the gallons of urine that showed up at the Safe Remedies Building was ever really analyzed. More likely, the recipient received a form in response to his or her submission that detailed the dire state of his or her health. Fortunately, a return to good health was within grasp provided the person promptly purchase and consume a bottle (or bottles) of Safe Kidney & Liver Cure or Diabetes Cure or whichever Warner’s Safe Cure pertained.

This offer of help and information required an investment of time and money on the part of the consumer, but, at the same time, helped Warner close the deal. In effect, he was saying “I will help you, provided you follow my advice.” Many thousands of consumers did just that, making Warner a very wealthy man.

Warner’s Safe Cure: Dr. Diocletian “Dio” Lewis (1888)

It seems like every time that I think I have seen all there is to see in Warner’s Safe Cure paper, another piece pops up that grabs my attention. This is particularly true of Warner’s Safe Cure almanacs. Beginning in 1879-80, the Warner’s Safe Remedies Company, like many of its competitors, issued almanacs that contained a wide variety of helpful material, intersperced with testimonials and ads for products. When I first began collecting these almanacs, I wrongly assumed that there would be one for each year. I soon found, however, that, like baseball cards, different almanacs surfaced for the same year. Accordingly, there was no way to know whether you had them all, because no one seemed to have a comprehensive list. This is a roundabout way of saying that I am no longer smug enough to think that I have seen all the paper Mr. Warner and his company had occasion to put into circulation.

Case in point, an 1888 almanac featuring the countenance of Dr. Diocletian “Dio” Lewis (1823-1886), an apparently acclaimed temperance leader of the time. The contents of the almanac are the same as most Warner almanacs, a collection of testimonials and descriptions of various disease for which one or another of Warner’s Safe Cures can provide relief. The only mention of Dr. Lewis that I can see is on the front cover and it consists of the reproduction of a letter from Dr. Lewis endorsing Safe Cure. Amazingly, Dr. Lewis, who practiced homeopathy and states in his letter “…years ago I gave up the use of medicines…”, apparently suspended his convictions and downed a dose of Safe Cure that was “three times the prescribed quantity” in response to a serious kidney trouble. Go figure.

I think that the significance of the 1888 Dio Lewis Warner’s almanac is that it sounds a theme common to Warner’s Safe Cure advertising. The product is endorsed by noted physicians, so it must be beneficial. In the case of Dr. Lewis, he was no longer alive to argue the point. As if to drive the point home, the back cover of this almanac bears another testimonial letter from 1883 from R[obert] A. Gunn, MD.  The letter is subtitled “A High Endorsement.” Dr. Gunn claims to have been the Dean and Professor of Surgery of the United States Medical College and author of “Gunn’s New and Improved Hand-Book of Hygiene and Domestic Medicine.” While I was not able to confirm the existence of the United States Medical College, I was able to confirm the publication of Gunn’s Hand-Book, which appears to have been a self-help medical book of the day. As with Dr. Lewis, the strategy is the same, if Safe Cure is good enough for trained physicians, it must be good enough for you.

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

The Artist’s Album features some terrific graphics of both the Warner product line and its spurious claims. It is perhaps appropriate to start at the beginning with Safe Cure. It harkens back to the business that made Warner his first millions, the fireproof safe business. He modestly proclaims that he was “formerly the largest Safe dealer in the world” and provides the reader with a list of his available products.

Warner then moves on to another one of his original line of cures, his Diabetes Cure.  He distinguishes the two types of diabetes, insipid and sweet and notes the symtoms. However, he noted that the Diabetes Cure should not be used for kidney ailments, use only Safe Cure.

Next was the Rheumatic Cure, which also was supposed to be taken in concert with Safe Cure and Safe Pills. The claim promises that the “most obstinate rheumatic disorders disappear” if the treatment is maintained long enough to produce effects. I am not sure how long, “long enough” is, but I would venture a guess that it is more than one bottle. It is also worth noting that one of the testimonials accompanying this portion of the Album is from Mrs. Carrie D. T. Swift of East Avenue in Rochester.  One might surmise that she was the wife of Warner’s chief astronomer, Lewis Swift. Nothing like a little family support.

The next featured standard cure was the Nervine, which Warner sold to those whose nerves were too frayed to produce a good night’s sleep.

This represents the first portion of the Artist’s Album and the bulk of Warner’s original line of cures. The remainder of the Album deals with other Warner remedies including his Log Cabin Remedies and his Tippecanoe Bitters. I will feature the remaining portions in a future post. Thanks again to Jon Moran for the images.

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 Safe Cure: Yellow Fever

When you and I think about patent medicine from the 19th Century, most of us shake our heads and think what a bunch of dopes people were to believe the claims made by the likes of Warner’s Safe Cure. After all, who would think that a couple of bottles of anything could cure you of diabetes or kidney disease. What you have to keep in mind is that the state of medical education was in its infancy. Most Americans did not have a family doctor or access to a doctor at all and were on their own when it came to dealing with disease. A perfect atmosphere for selling patent medicine.

The enormous downside to the whole patent medicine industry, which takes it out of the realm of quaint history, was that genuinely ill people undoubtely purchased this stuff and relied upon it to their detriment. One recent example that I found dealt with the various serious Yellow Fever virus. This virus sickened and killed thousands, until it was isolated and a vaccine was developed through the efforts of Carlos Finlay (above right) and Walter Reed (above left), among others. Although we usually associate it with tropical regions, Yellow Fever cropped up in places like Philadelphia and the District of Columbia. A Warner’s Safe Cure ad running in the National Republican in 1880 actually claimed to prevent Yellow Fever:

 The ad asserts the widely believed notion that viruses like Yellow Fever were the result of breathing bad air (mal-aria) and not the result of transmission by insect bite. This notion dated back centuries and was ultimately laid to rest by the study of infectious diseases. The ad makes a second, and equally false, leap of faith that bad air poisons the blood. This claim flows directly into Warner’s tried and true theme that almost all disease was the result of  impurities in the blood.

For those who actually contracted Yellow Fever in 1880 and  had consumed Warner’s Safe Kidney & Liver Cure in hopes that it would prevent their suffering, one can only hope that they recovered notwithstanding the medicine. It was claims like this one, to cure Yellow Fever, that justifiably gave rise to the  Pure Food & Drug Act and ultimately, what we know today as the Food & Drug Administration.

 

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.