The Rise of Patent Medicine Advertising

The somewhat artificial postwar boom, coupled with productivity and communications expansion, manifested itself in some tentative use of advertising beyond the retail level. Certainly no group of products achieved the volume of advertising space, as did the patent medicines.

To be sure, patent medicines had been advertised prior to the Civil War. The newspapers of the first half of the century contained countless noticed for all manners of curatives manufactured in everything from a bathtub to a maintainer assembly line. But the so-called Great Patent Medicine Craze came into full flower following the war.

Aided by the postwar transportation expansion and the relative ease of production, these medical “practitioners” eagerly distributed their products far and wide, and followed their widening markets with intensive newspaper advertising that, in the long run, proved a strong influence in establishing literally thousands of American newspapers. Any reluctance on the part of retailers or other distributors to handle these “curse” was rapidly nullified by the strong voice of consumer demand stimulated by the heavy newspaper advertising. In effect, the patent medicine advertisers forced distribution by the use of newspaper advertising in much the same manner as national manufacturers would later wrest control from distributors through advertising in magazines.