Trade Card for Domestic Sewing Machine Company, 1880-1900

Late-nineteenth-century manufacturers used trade cards to promote and sell products. These colorful advertisements also reflected the racial prejudices of the time. Card illustrators typically depicted African Americans with enlarged or distorted features, either wearing colorful clothes or dressed as servants, and often involved in some comical mishap. These depictions affirmed the discriminatory biases that many white Americans -- the consumers of these cards -- held.