Advertising & Marketing

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Sturges, Lillian. The Runaway Toys. Rand McNally & Company, 1920.

Proclaiming that art and advertising have similar aims is nothing new. Both intend to make an emotional impact of some sort on the reader or viewer. Poetry and advertisements use rhyme, rhythm, and word choice to advance connotative impact: the ubiquitous jingle. Today, technology imposes relentless advertising on our everyday lives. In 2013 award-winning slam poet Hollie McNish created a body positivity poem, “Smile,” for Dove Skincare that garnered over 140,000 views on YouTube.

Marketing to youngsters (and their grownups) has historical precedent. Admired for his commercial prowess, John Newbery’s A Pretty Little Pocket-Book (1744) came with a ball for boys and a pincushion for girls. By the nineteenth century targeted advertising appeared regularly in newspapers and periodicals. Intended for the pocketbooks of adults who read to children, magazines such as Juvenile Miscellany and St. Nicholas advertised everything from sensible clothing to educational toys.

Commercial poetry bundled as a packaged gift is challenging to trace due to its ephemeral nature and short-lived purpose. We are pleased to have a rare example in our collection from the Chicago Journal. In 1886, the newspaper distributed a “happy new year” poem to their evening subscribers. Titled “Greeting of the Carrier,” it extolled the dedication of newsboys and romanticized what was at the time a brutal and hazardous job.

Literary marketing to young people took a giant leap forward in 1903, when Beatrix Potter patented a Peter Rabbit plush toy, wallpaper, and game. That same year in the United States, the pharmacy retailer Rexall wasted no time in following Potter’s lead. The Prelutsky Collection includes Rexall Nursery Rhymes (1905), with their logo prominently displayed on the first page. Suggesting a sibling relationship, Captain Rexall is a young woman with a side-kick younger brother, Sergeant Chub. “Brave Captain / Rexall, trim / and smart, / To Sergeant / Chub out – / spoke, / Says she, ‘Oh, listen while I impart / The cutest little joke.” Considering the combined convenience of a retail store, child-size booklet, and display racks, these must have sold like hotcakes.

A textbook and map publisher, Rand McNally & Company was established in the late 1800s, growing into a million-dollar business by the 1920s. An early example of Rand McNally’s diversification into children’s books can be found in the Prelutsky Collection. The Runaway Toys (1920) is part of a series set in Nuremberg, Bavaria. Always involving travel, in this book the children follow the runaway toys out of the town but return when their mothers promise to give them toys of their own. The Jolly Adventures of Billy Van and Betty Camp (1923), published by Van Camp’s Pork & Beans, is “Dedicated to the children of America.” Aladdin presents his lamp to the title characters, sending them on adventures to Mother Goose Land and the Good Fairy’s Castle. “When they hungered for food, they just rubbed / on the Lamp / And the food that was brought them was / labeled ‘Van Camp.’”

Lyrical slogans and jingles are easy to memorize. Commodifying Mother Goose, the Kellogg’s Company employed cartoonist Vernon Grant to create a companion book for their popular 1930s Singing Lady radio program. Illustrated throughout with Snap, Crackle and Pop, the last page of Kellogg’s Mother Goose (1933) informs the consumer that “Additional copies of this book will be sent upon receipt of one package top from Kellogg’s Rice Krispies or any other Kellogg’s Cereal.”

In the late 1940s, with memories of the Great Depression and wartime shortages fresh in everyone’s mind, American banks published savings books for children. School savings banks had been created as far back as the 1860s in Europe and caught on in America by the early 1900s. “Thrift education,” a national effort led by the Treasury Department, thrived in the 1940s and 50s. The Prelutsky Collection includes a savings book titled It is Fun to Save (1946). “So much money saved by us / Does it not seem marvelous / Now let us take this large amount / And open up a thrift account.”

The advertising industry has long harvested children’s literature content and repurposed it. The Prelutsky Collection offers many examples to explore the relationship between advertising, marketing, and poetry.

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Wicker, Ireene. Mother Goose. Illustrated by Vernon Grant. Kellogg Company, 1933.