Trade Card for the Rock County Fair, 1892

In the late-nineteenth-century trade cards were used to promote events 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, speaking with stereotypical language and often involved in some comical mishap. These images dehumanized blacks and affirmed the discriminatory biases many white Americans -- consumers of these trade cards -- held.