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The illustration on this late 19th
century trade card clearly has nothing to do with Dr E P Miller's Turkish Baths which
it advertises.
According to an article in
The Encyclopedia of ephemera,1
'the American trade card became radically different from the British in
the 19th century'. Whereas in Britain such cards tended to be rather formal
in appearance, often only a typograhical design,
and designed individually for each individual trader, in America 'it was a
brightly coloured picture' designed to be collected.
'American chromolithographic
printers supplied "sets" of cards ready-printed with the tradesman's name
or [as in the case of the Miller card above] for overprinting locally.'
A number of Turkish bath
establishments in the United States used trade cards of this type and,
unlike this one, some gave additional information (such as opening hours
or charges) on the reverse.
Footnote
1.
'Trade card' In:
The
Encyclopedia of ephemera: a guide to the fragmentary documents of everyday
life for the collector, curator, and historian / Maurice Rickards.
— London: British library, 2000. — pp.334-6
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