Trade Card for "Cyco" Ball Bearing Carpet Sweepers, Bissell Carpet Sweeper Co., circa 1905

In the last third of the nineteenth century, an unprecedented variety of consumer goods flooded the American market. Some enterprising advertisers sought to distinguish their products from the competition, distributing trade cards that doubled as a bookmark. Americans enjoyed and often saved the popular little advertisements, which survive as historical records of consumerism in the United States.