Trade Card for Pearline Soap, James Pyle, 1870-1890

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, 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.