Giving People What They Want

Dr. Alfred Hargrove explains his Spirit Table to a patient. (AI composition by the author.)

“Yellow Journalism” dominated newspapers in the late 19th century using loud, shocking headlines and articles trumped up with exaggerated claims and falsehoods dressed as facts. It was a bunch of nonsense and sensationalism, but it sold papers. The newspapers claimed they were giving the people exactly what they wanted.

  Alfred Hargrove did the same thing. He had a talent for sensing what people longed to believe. When they looked to the stars for guidance, he promoted himself as an astrologer. When women hoped he could sense what was wrong in their lives, he became a clairvoyant. Soon thereafter, he transformed himself into a spirit medium, able to organize the spirits to ease their troubles and even claimed to have built a medicinal table by following instructions from the spirits. When men worried about their manhood or the consequences of their indiscretions, the so-called doctor reinvented himself as a specialist in men’s diseases.

Alfred Hargrove gave people exactly what they wanted. He was always a shameless fraud, but he sure could sell it. 

MEET THE HARGROVES

The story of the Hargrove family started off pleasantly enough. In the mid-19th century, William Hargrove was a successful assistant foreman at a foundry near Aston Manor, outside of Birmingham, England. He and his wife Maria Louisa were newly married and starting a family in the midst of a rapidly growing Victorian industrial center. Birmingham wasn’t dominated by massive mills and factories; instead, it earned the nickname “City of a Thousand Trades” because the large workforce were scattered among small workshops, backrooms, and attics to create their wares made of metal, glass, and bone. Even women and children made buttons and pins for poverty-line wages.

As an assistant shop foreman of a foundry (a senior, salaried position overseeing workshop floors) William and his family were better off than the throngs of low-wage workshop craftsmen and pieceworkers whose income was frequently disrupted by trade depressions and the vices of the alehouse. At 19 Walsall Road, the Hargroves lived comfortably, though daily life would have been dominated by the sights and sounds of industrial progress – the clanging of the nearby railways, horse-drawn wagons on the turnpike, and the smoke from local foundries drifting across the Aston sky.

The Hargroves had started their family shortly after their 1845 marriage; their first two children were fine, healthy boys: William Randolph, born in 1846, and Alfred Alonzo, in 1848. But then something went wrong; their first daughter, Maria Lavinia, was born in February 1850 and died just eight months later, in October. Shaken but undaunted, they had another boy, Sydney Bulwey, a few months after Maria Lavinia’s death, in March 1851.

 

THE FAMILY CRUMBLES

In July 1852 they had their fourth son, Christopher, but he died after a brief month of life. A year after Christopher’s birth, Maria Louise gave birth to their fifth son, Leopold Walter Albert Henry; he was born and baptized in England. Three months later, the Hargrove family had crossed the high seas with their new infant and settled in Montreal, Canada, where they had to bury baby Leopold within a few months of their arrival. Of their six children, only three survived infancy.

The loss of babies was brutally difficult, but the loss of their father during a cholera epidemic was a sudden, shattering blow. William Hargrove died in July 1854, when Montreal was at the height of a devastating cholera epidemic. He was only 30 years old. He was buried in the Mount Royal Cemetery in Montreal the day after his death – no wake, no open-casket viewing – speed was considered essential to avoid the spread of the cholera contagion.

Thousands of working-class laborers and Irish immigrants died rapidly and were buried in unmarked mass graves or chaotic city plots. For William Hargrove’s family to successfully arrange a proper, individual burial at the brand-new, manicured Mount Royal grounds meant the Hargroves had sufficient funds to shield his memory from the indignity suffered by the less fortunate during that terrifying summer. 

Maria Louisa Hargrove was unwillingly thrust into the role of widow and sole parent to three young boys, aged 8, 6, and 3 years. There they were, in a new land, an ocean away from everyone and everything they had called home.

 

GROWING UP QUICKLY

Instantly, Mary Louisa had to become a single parent and income-producer, and her three little boys would have to mature much more quickly than their bodies. Mrs. Hargrove was listed in Canada’s 1861 census as a grocer, 33, and a widow, which she would remain for the rest of her life. While their mother worked at the grocery store – William, 14, Alfred, 12, and Sydney, 10, were attending school. Mrs. Hargrove also rented out some rooms to two boarders for extra income. She and her boys moved to Brantford, Ontario, 400 miles southwest of Montreal, but just a little over 60 miles from Niagara Falls and the United States.

Their move so close to the U.S. may have been part of a long-term plan to move there, but when the Canadian census was being performed in mid-January 1861, it was quite clear that the U.S. was on the verge of war; South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, and Alabama had already seceded from the Union and three months later, the Civil War had begun.

At an age far too young, Alfred Hargrove crossed into the United States to join the Union army. At just 16 years old and standing 5 feet 3 inches, he presented himself as 19 and successfully enlisted at Brooklyn, New York, in the 15th NY Engineers in 1864. He may have left home with a teenager’s passion for adventure but it is more likely that he determined to help his mother, as many young men did, by sending her some of his pay, bonuses, and enlistment bounty.

His unit constructed earthworks, forts, and trenches around Petersburg, Virginia, as well as assembled pontoon bridges across the James and Appomattox rivers to move Union troops. The 15th NY Engineers were among the first troops dispatched into the burning Confederate capital of Richmond to extinguish fires, clear the streets, and repair infrastructure.

Union engineers digging fortifications during the Civil War. Haas & Peale photographer. (Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons.)

At sixteen years old and barely five feet three inches tall, Private Alfred Hargrove entered the Union Army not as a seasoned soldier but as a laborer in one of its most demanding units. Company M of the 15th New York Engineers spent the summer of 1864 carving the war into the earth, and Alfred’s days were defined by the weight of a shovel and the sting of raw blisters. He dug trenches that stretched for miles across the Virginia landscape, hauled dirt in wheelbarrows, and cut saplings for the timber revetments that held the earthworks in place. The older, stronger men handled the technical carpentry and bridge work; boys like Alfred supplied the endless muscle needed to keep the siege lines expanding. His world was mud, sweat, and the steady rhythm of digging—simple work, repetitive work, but absolutely essential to the Union’s slow advance on Petersburg.

Alfred mustered out in July 1865, which meant he would have marched with his regiment through the streets of Washington, D.C., in the historic Grand Review of the Armies on May 23-24, 1865, celebrating the end of the war. Alfred had survived the war and later moved to Massachusetts, carrying with him a remarkable story of survival that started with a lie to a recruiting officer in 1864.

 

MENIAL JOBS WITH NO PROSPECTS

 

With the war over, the 17-year-old veteran had to figure out what to make of himself and start earning money as a very young civilian. The only skill he had developed was the use of a shovel, but he had no interest in making that back-breaking and hand-stinging work a career. Instead, his first post-war employment was as a grocery clerk, work that he had likely done as a young boy back at his mother’s grocery store in Brantford, Ontario.

By at least 1870 and probably earlier, he was a grocery clerk, reunited with his mother and younger brother, Sydney, in Boston, Massachusetts. Maria Louisa Hargrove was running a boarding house; at the time of the census, her boarders included a druggist, a brass finisher, two dressmakers, a teamster, a steam engineer, and a cap maker. Much as it had been back in Aston, England, the Hargroves lived right in the midst of working folks and made their living from the people who passed through the doors of the Aston foundry, the Brantford grocery, and the Boston boarding house.  

 

Alfred’s older brother, William Randolph, had struck out on his own, never again living or working with his mother and brothers. In February 1865, at the tail end of the war, he had enlisted in the Union Navy at Buffalo, New York. In July 1867, long after the war’s end, he was injured in an altercation. A surgeon’s report from the U. S. Naval Hospital at Mound City, IL (on the Ohio River) wrote that William had "Received a contused wound of scalp about three inches in length, last night, while engaged in some row with a party of Negroes – no fracture of skull. Injury did not originate in the line of duty." He was 21 at the time of his admission to the hospital. William then disappeared into history until 1896 when he committed suicide in Brooklyn, New York; it was surmised that despondency led him to eat the arsenic-based vermin poison, Rough on Rats – a horrible, agonizing, but all-too-frequent method of suicide in the late 19th century.

In 1871 Alfred married Isabella Packard of Lynn, Massachusetts, a city nine miles northeast of Boston and renowned for its shoemaking industry. The marriage record shows that Alfred was still a clerk. The marriage was brief as Alfred remarried in Lawrence, Massachusetts to Frances Flora Bickmore in 1875; something seems a little fishy though, because the marriage record claimed it was Alfred’s first marriage. It also listed him with a new occupation – a “book agent” – someone who travelled door-to-door selling subscriptions and taking orders for books. His career as a book agent put him on the road, starting in Lawrence along the New Hampshire border, then to Providence, Rhode Island in 1876, where Flora gave birth to their first child. It was given no name however; their first child was stillborn.

ANSWERS FROM THE STARS

Something triggered Alfred to study the zodiac, planets, and stars for answers to life’s hard questions – or at least to claim he did. Perhaps he turned to astrology because of the staggering repetition of tragic family losses during his youth that were following him into his own new family. But then again, he may have been covertly targeting the blind faith of those who found comfort in astrological forecasts in order to exploit their gullibility.  His advertising claimed that he started the study of astrology back in 1870 when he was a grocery clerk and began offering his services as an astrologer in 1873 when he was actually selling subscriptions door to door. He may have developed his astrologer business gradually while keeping his day job, but more likely, such early dates padded his astrology credentials, making him sound very skilled, experienced, and other-worldly wise.

Advertisement for Dr. A. Hargrove, Physician and Astrologer, illustrated with a comet in the night sky. The Daily Item (Lynn, MA), 11 DEC 1882.

The newly minted astrologer took his wife on the road, traveling in 1879 to Framingham and Worcester, Massachusetts, in the center of the state. No longer knocking on doors to sell books,  he had transformed himself into an astrologer at the same time that his younger brother Sydney took over as the book agent of the family. In that year, Alfred’s wife Flora gave birth to their second child, a girl they named Maria Jenet. So hectic was their travel, their daughter’s birth was recorded in each town’s records, listing Alfred and Flora as residents of both towns. In Worcester’s birth register, Alfred was an astrologer; in the Framingham record he was listed for the first time as a physician. The boy-soldier and ditch digger who had stocked grocery shelves and sold books door to door had crafted himself into an astrologer and a physician, learning intimate details about people who entrusted him with their private problems and paid him for his vaunted expertise.

The young family had roamed down to Providence in 1880, but the traveling suitcase lifestyle no longer worked well with a baby included, so the Hargroves settled down in Boston in 1882, at 1243 Washington Street. As quickly as Alfred had refashioned himself into an astrologer and physician, he had transformed his rented apartment house into the “English Independent Medical Retreat.” The name used all the right words. “English” marked him as pleasantly distinct, familiar, and respectable, not someone with an awkward accent and of suspicious culture. “Independent” established him as practicing a form of medicine unlike the regular methods practiced by the often hated and distrusted medical establishment; and “Medical Retreat” conjured up a health sanctuary – a place of rest, cure, and safety.

Washington Street was on the south side of Boston. The neighborhood had breweries, a brick works, and a cemetery while the area to the south became devoted to maritime and manufacturing. It was part of the area that became known as an immigrant and tenement district as well as a place for theatres, penny arcades, and other amusements. Upper class Yankees officially avoided it even though many, including T.S. Eliot, were known to be there at night. It had attracted a large number of social service organizations including settlement houses and a bathhouse for the city’s poor. The water was kept lukewarm so that no one would take too long of a shower. The area housed immigrants including many Jewish, Italian, and Irish residents as well as Black Bostonians. Some of the neighborhood’s streets were lined with peddlers selling fruits and vegetables as well as other household necessities. It was Aston, England, and Brantford, Ontario, all over again. It was the place Alfred Hargrove could afford and these were the people that he knew and understood best. His medical retreat was an oasis in their midst, located for success. All he had to do was attract them into his retreat by giving them what they wanted.

Free private Clairvoyant Medical Examinations for Ladies ... Every ache and disagreeable feeling in the human body described with wonderful accuracy.

 

He started off right – free is always attractive – and a clairvoyant medical examination was intimate without awkward exposure. And in that one offer, Alfred Hargrove had promoted himself from astrologer and physician to medical clairvoyant – he was starting to carry more badges of honor than his officers in the war. The claim of clairvoyance meant he had the ability to see beyond what others could with their eyes; his internal vision transcended space and time; it was vision into the body and soul, the past and the future. In some ways it was far more convenient than astrology, since it didn’t require producing zodiac charts to explain things.

DRS. HARGROVE, HARGROVE & HARGROVE

His next business move was to have his wife Flora and brother Sydney introduced as fellow physicians. Flora became Mrs. Dr. Hargrove, providing medical treatments in the office for a hefty $3.00, usually a signal that women could come to her for some private and delicate assistance pertaining to their sex. Younger brother Sydney, whose only prior work experience was selling books door to door, was also anointed a physician; in fact, the two brothers called themselves “Intuitive Physicians,” implying they both possessed the gift of clairvoyance. One of their trade cards even spun the tale of their clairvoyant origin:

The remarkable powers claimed by the Doctors [Alfred & Sydney] was first noticeable, when in childhood, relatives of their family liv[ed] in different parts of England. If anything unusual occurred to them, the Doctors would describe and give full particulars of the event.

 

And from those precocious beginnings, miraculous powers developed to the astonishment and benefit of thousands, or so the familiar trope went:

So rapidly did these wonderful powers develop, that some thirteen years ago the Doctors were put to a thorough test in regard to the different diseases of the body, and to the astonishment of those present, diseases and their symptoms were described with wonderful correctness; and the vegetable remedies most suitable, selected and compounded, which have proven satisfactory in thousands of cases, and in no case a failure.

 

At least to modern ears, calling themselves “Intuitive Physicians” – discernment without conventional physical examination – sounds like an admission that their real skill was in figuring out what their patient needed to hear; not that they were, in fact, clairvoyant. But they were making all the promises that had made clairvoyant mediums such a fascination for so many:

... thousands have been surprised by their startling revelations and wonderful cures. Their advice in regard to all events of life is valuable and reliable.

    Questions of health, such as cause of illness ... and the best mode of treatment, critical periods, etc.; matters of business – gains, losses, speculations, lawsuits, buying selling, removals and the like. Matrimonial predictions, giving full explanation of time and condition of marriage, if any; what kind of a husband or wife, and the hindrances and objections to happiness therein; travels, wills, secret undertakings, divorces, enemies, etc. ...

 

There was no question that Alfred was the initiator and “lead physician” in what became a family medical practice. Some of his advertising in the 1880s and 90s continued to be focused on him alone and he was the only one of the three that ventured to neighboring communities to generate more business. For a while in late 1882, he stayed at Lynn’s landmark hotel, the Sagamore House, drumming up business and exposure in the nearby large city of laborers. He called the combination of his specialties “Astro-Physic”; it sounded like something out of a Jules Verne novel:

An astrological judgment wherein can be correctly ascertained the true cause of chronic diseases, either atmospheric or constitutional, by erecting a map or figure of the heaven, and by careful observation of the different positions of the planetary bodies ... at once see with wonderful accuracy the origin of the disease, the nature, symptoms, and the changes from one stage to another, together with full particulars in regard to the organs which are afflicted.

 

It sounded like so much more than medical society doctors offered. At a time when astronomy, comets, and the like were of increasing popular interest, the Hargroves were purveying astrology as a science of the stars to cure disease and assured that they had “treated thousands of cases by this method” and provided “purely vegetable remedies prepared by us.” Such specialized expertise cost more than the more mundane methods: ladies paid $1.00 and gentlemen $1.50. Advice by mail cost $2.00 and a stamp. While Dr. Hargrove could do a clairvoyant examination or an astrological chart for someone who visited him in the Sagamore House, he made it clear to all that they would have to come to his Medical Retreat in Boston to use the Table.

 

ANSWERS FROM THE SPIRITS

Any spiritual medium worth his salt had connected to a Spirit Band – a group of spirits, from Indians to kings, dedicated to communicating with him and giving him guidance for his customers. Alfred Hargrove’s spirit band were an especially high-spirited bunch, willing to give him directions to create a unique table that would cure people of their ills. “This wonderful invention,” one of his trade cards explained, “consists in disposing the medicinal substances,” wafting up through holes in the table upon which the patient placed her hands. A central chamber in the pedestal of the round table held the vegetable matter instructed by Dr. Hargrove’s Spirit Band, and the vapors “electro-magnetically” followed channels cut through the tabletop to the holes above.

When in use, the patients ... sit at the table, and two of the openings are uncovered for each sitter at the table, and the hands of the patient are placed over the openings, and the active medicinal properties of the vegetable substance which the disease of the patient requires are transmitted through passages to the system of the patient, and produce the desire effect ... Spirit forms are frequently seen and described by the medium and others at the table. Manifestations of a remarkable nature are continually occurring.

Astrologer, Physician, Medical Clairvoyant, and Spiritual Medium – Alfred Hargrove kept adding and changing according to what he perceived the customers wanted.

Cross-section and table top views of Hargrove's Spirit Table, generated by AI using the description on Dr. Hargrove's trade card (see the end of this blog post.)

Dr. Alfred Hargrove teaches and convinces a patient of the electro-magnetic properties infused in the plant substances and the table by his spirit band. (AI composition by the author.)

In the mid-1880s, it certainly seemed like the spirits were in harmony and the stars were aligned over Alfred Hargrove. His business seemed to be thriving, he was advertising heavily in Boston and Lynn newspapers and on trade cards. He seemed to be establishing his tenement as a veritable séance center and medical complex, renting out rooms to two spiritualists, “Mrs. L. F. Hancock, CLEAR-SEER. Test and Business Communications” and “Mrs. E. A. Cutting, “MAGNETIC and Developing Medium. Nervous Diseases and Female Weakness a specialty.” In May 1884, Alfred Hargrove’s wife gave birth to a son, Sydney G., and a few weeks later, his brother Sydney B., got married. The celebrations were short-lived.

In September 1884, the Hargrove curse had returned. Four-month old baby Sydney died of teething (as best as they understood). The following year 1885, Alfred’s cherished mother passed away, then in the next year, 1886, Alfred and Flora lost the one child who had lived beyond a few months: Maria Jenet, aged 7 years and 2 months, died of the croup. All of his intuition and spiritual guidance couldn’t stop the sable train of death.

FOR MEN ONLY  

Something different was afoot. Dr. Hargrove, who had been advertising as an astrologer through 1887, suddenly stopped advertising altogether in 1888. The silence was deafening; it almost seemed like the Hargroves had pulled up stakes and disappeared from the region, or had met with some terrible illness or tragedy that dragged them under the ground to join all the other Hargroves that had died untimely deaths.

He did return. When he re-emerged in 1889, he was a different doctor – in every sense. He and his brother focused exclusively on a new audience that they barely touched on in the previous decade – men. Gone were any mentions of astrology, Spirit Bands, clairvoyance, or the Spiritual, Medical and Developing Table. The new message, big, bold, and emphatic, was that they were specialists in the diseases of men. Same address. Consultation free.

Passing mentions were made that Mrs. Dr. F. Hargrove had a remarkable and successful method in the treatment of chronic diseases and the she had dedicate the past 15 years to the study of “Woman and her Diseases,” but the advertising saturation was devoted to Dr. A. & S. Hargrove, specialists in men’s diseases. Dr. Alfred Hargrove, an 1890 advertisement assured, had “20 years’ practice. 10 Years at the Same Office.” That would again mean that he started that specialty when he was still a grocery clerk, but fact-checking wasn’t pursued as rigorously as it is today.

The two male specialists of men’s diseases said they had a “NEW METHOD” of curing kidney and urinary troubles, unhealthy discharges, seminal weakness, want of energy, and more. “Special attention given to Bright’s Disease and Diabetes.” In fact the 1890 ad assured that over 7,000 cases had been treated successfully in 3 years. In 1893, the number was increased exponentially: “25,000 bona fide cures in 10 years. No mercury used.” The ad poked at the use of mercury for venereal diseases by the regular medical establishment and to justify their own “independent” practice, as irregulars usually did. They also gave the regulars a hard time because  their medicines smelled and tasted so bad:

Many physicians in their practice employ medicines which are so thoroughly disgusting, both in smell and taste, that the patient would rather face death than to undertake such treatment. I can assure you that if such remedies poison the mind they must certainly poison the body; and how can you expect to be cured under such circumstances? ... Cut this [ad] Out [and save it]. ... N.B. Working people should take advantage of the Sunday Hours.

Ad for the Drs. Hargrove, English Specialists for the Diseases of Men. (The Boston Globe), 13 MAY 1894.

Urbanization and crowding in Boston increased infections: strep, tuberculosis, and other bacterial illnesses surged in cities often damaging kidneys. The industrialized work environment that men were faced with increased toxin exposure; factories, chemicals, and polluted water supplies contributed to chronic kidney injury. The profligate ways of many men also earned them one or another of the venereal diseases; even when committed years or decades earlier, some of the strains followed them to the grave. Repeated infections and poor nutrition meant chronic diseases like diabetes and nephritis advanced rapidly, making sick men desperately in need of medical care – and there they were, two amazingly successful specialists in men’s diseases – the Drs. Hargrove, in a busy part of town.

Alfred Hargrove may have had several reasons for leaving astrology, spiritualism, and clairvoyance behind, but bursting into the newspapers again in the form of specialists in men’s diseases was a reaction to opportunity more than a distaste for the  challenges of maintaining his former roles. Just call it intuition.

In 1893, Flora gave birth to their last child – another stillbirth. All five of their children failed to survive to adulthood – heck; none of them made it to 8 years old. In the 1900 census, Alfred, Flora, and Sydney were all listed as physicians; their wealth had allowed them the luxuries of a servant and a housekeeper in the house, but their home missed the joy of children.

In 1905, Alfred provide his testimonial for a proprietary medicine called X-Zalia. He had burned his arm with a cigar and the sore became red, inflamed, and very painful. As the story went, “he tried many remedies, but it grew worse and worse. Yesterday, Dr. Hargrove was treated at Putnam’s drug store, and in less than three hours the sore showed signs of healing; the inflammation had gone and the doctor was free from pain.” No zodiac or spirits were needed.

Mortality finally caught up with Drs. Hargrove, Hargrove, and Hargrove. Flora died in 1907 and Sydney died in 1909; both were in their 56th year.

During the 1910 census, Alfred Hargrove lived alone in his large house at 1243 Washington Street, a widower and the last of his family. In 1912 at 63 years old, still practicing as a specialist in men’s diseases, he finally succumbed to kidney disease and kidney stones, one of the “men’s diseases” that he had promised to cure. Maybe his star chart had revealed his end of days was near at hand; hopefully his spirit band welcomed him home.   

 

Dr. Hargrove's Independent Spiritual Retreat, 1243 Washington St., Boston. One of three trade cards in the Rapoza collection; this one gives the details to the construction of the Spirit Table. All three card have stock images on the front. The historical value, however, lies in the extraordinary amount of detail on the back side of each; all three have widely different content.

              

An Early Salute to America

My personal celebration of our country's 250th year of independence, told through the oldest trade card in my collection.

Author's Note: Yes, I told this story eight months ago, but it was different then. "Living the Dream" told the story of the card's owner, John E. Tyler. I was then asked by an important publication to rewrite and condense the article with focus on the trade card itself. The revised article became the page-one story in the next edition of that publication, but the editors had taken significant license to edit and revise what I had submitted for their purposes. I respect the right of editors (I used to be one) to do that to suit the needs of the publication, but the edits stripped out the soul of my submission - my personal feelings about this treasure in my collection. I have brooded about it ever since and finally decided that I would take it upon myself to publish the version I had submitted for publication because it's that important to me that this important little slice of history can be read as I wrote it. I am not embarrassed to admit that I take pride in my writing. I hope you will enjoy this retelling from my very personal perspective. Thanks for your grace in allowing me the privilege to pass it by your eyes a second time.

J. E. Tyler, Commission Merchant. Advertising Trade Card, ca.1801. John Tyler did not add a middle initial to his name until 7 March 1801, therefore this card was produced sometime during J. E. Tyler’s proprietorship at No.44 Long Wharf, between 1801-1803. While the card could have been produced in 1802 or 1803, it seems highly unlikely.  His business had fallen off precipitously subsequent to its inaugural year. Commissioning the trade card’s design, engraving, and printing at the start of the business was feeding an opportunity, but doing so in 1802 or even worse, in 1803, would have made it an unwelcome expense and represented much less of an opportunity, given the depression that was beginning to descend on the American economy and commerce because of Europe's ongoing Napoleanic Wars (1803-1815). Relocation of his business in 1804 and realigning it into a partnership for much-needed support were probably in the planning stages long before the end of his tenancy in 1803. Rapoza collection.

Holding a 225-year-old trade card in my hand is a humbling moment; it invokes a sacred bond through centuries of time. For reasons lost in a collision of fate and chance, I have been entrusted with the privilege of this card’s current stewardship, becoming its guardian, archivist, and curator for the rest of my shortening tenure on earth. Admiration of this treasure aside, researching its story has been transformative, the opaque paper card becoming a window to the past. It’s why I collect.

Most museum examples of early American trade cards display a rendering of the   shopkeeper’s trade sign or objects emblematic of the shop’s wares. This study, however, is of a card that conveys the spreading sentiment of post-Revolution patriotism and optimism in the same moment that it directly communicates key information about the business.

Deconstructing this artifact of American material culture into several component parts allows its reassembly into a richer, more complete story of the man, his business, and his design choice in commissioning a card so different from its antecedents. It has quite a story to tell.

Context

The person who sold me this card estimated it to be late 19th century. One look told me that was wrong and thus began my research journey of discovery.

Although he had already been alive for 35 years, J. E. Tyler didn’t exist until 1801. Until then, he had no middle name – he was just John Tyler, son of John Tyler, a wealthy farmer in Mendon, Massachusetts, 7 miles north of the Rhode Island border, 34 miles southwest of Boston.

Father John became a widower when his daughter and son were just 8 and 6 years old, respectively. Despite the loss of his wife and the challenge of suddenly becoming the single parent of two small children, John Tyler senior risked everything by participating on a committee of six Mendon men who drafted a formal protest to the various acts of Parliament that trampled colonial rights and privileges, imposing duties or taxation on the Massachusetts Bay Colony. At a town meeting in March 1773, the committee of six drafted nineteen resolutions, starting with “…all Men have naturally an equal Right to Life, Liberty, and Property”; it was one of the earliest instances that such sentiments had been put in writing in the American Colonies. Despite placing themselves at great personal risk, John Tyler and the other signers voted

… that the foregoing Resolves be entered in the Town Book that our Children, in years to come, may know the sentiments of their Fathers in Regard to our Invaluable Rights and Liberties. [emphasis added]

When war broke out, John Tyler senior became a captain in the town’s militia, participating in the 1775-1776 siege of Boston and in the winter of 1777-1778 with General Washington at Valley Forge. In 1785, after almost a decade of hazarding his life for his country, he was killed in a moment of cruel irony by the falling of a large limb off a tree he was in the process of cutting down. This left John, his eldest son and namesake, to carry on his father’s legacies of pride in his estate, his family, and his new country.

John Tyler the scion had started his own career in 1791 at age 25 as a Harvard-educated physician, but after just three years he left the medical profession and moved to Boston in 1794 where he listed himself as a merchant. In 1800 he located his business at No.44 Long Wharf, the shipping hub of the city. The fact that the busy city of 25,000 had other men also being identified in the newspapers as John Tyler may have contributed to the reason that the 35-year-old merchant sought out a legal change of name on 7 March 1801:

John Tyler, of Boston, in the county of Suffolk, son of John Tyler, late of Mendon, in the county of Worcester, deceased, shall be allowed to take the name of John Eugene Tyler.

As soon as the court approved his request, he immediately began using his new middle name and initial to single himself out to his customers. It was a simple but important change: John Tyler (no middle name) was selling goods at No.44 Long Wharf from 1800 to March 1801, but starting in April 1801, newspaper advertisements were identifying the proprietor as John E. Tyler, J. E. Tyler, and John Eugene Tyler – every possible version other than just his given name and surname.

Since he did not add a middle name until March 1801, this card was produced sometime during J. E. Tyler’s proprietorship at No.44 Long Wharf, between April 1801 – December 1803. While the card could have been produced in 1802 or 1803, it seems highly unlikely.  His business had fallen off precipitously subsequent to its inaugural year. Commissioning the trade card’s design, engraving, and printing at the start of the business was probably seen as a justifiable expense that fed an opportunity, but doing so in 1802 or even worse, in 1803, would have made it an increasingly burdensome expense for much less of an opportunity, compounded by the depression that was beginning to descend on the American economy and commerce because of Europe's ongoing Napoleanic Wars. Relocation of his business away from Long Wharf in 1804 and realigning it into a partnership for much-needed financial support were probably in the planning stages long before the end of his Long Wharf tenancy in 1803.

 

Physical Description

The J. E. Tyler, Commission Merchant card is quite different; falling between its paper-thin 18th century progenitors and its mass-produced, chromolithographed descendants, it is something of a missing link in trade card literature. It is a rectangular piece of semi-rigid cardstock – Ricky Jay could have easily flung it into the side of a watermelon. It was designed for a longer life and use than a newspaper page, but it is ephemeral, nonetheless.

The card is printed on just one side and exclusively in black ink. It has toned like a pot of old cream with a soupçon of specks and smears peppered lightly across its surface. Its French line borders are incomplete on the card’s right side; the thicker line suffered from too-close trimming but looks very much like that minor crime was committed as soon as the printed card had dried. Coincidentally, its unusual size – 3 5/8” x 2 5/8” – is almost identical to the modern baseball card, roughly its second cousin eight times removed on the trade card family tree.

The message on the surface communicated the name, business, and location of the printer’s customer, J. E. Tyler, Commission Merchant. His newspaper advertisements served as newsprint fanfare to announce that he was selling whatever was coming to Boston in ships. He sold cotton and cheese, glassware and anchors, bushels of beans and boxes of spermaceti candles; German Steel and Swedish Iron; coffee from Port au Prince and Trinidad; a bunch of sugar from Hispaniola and St. Croix and lots of rum from Jamaica and Tobago; superfine flour from Baltimore and Philadelphia; and coarse salt from Lisbon and Liverpool. While he sold to families, shopkeepers, and country traders, his focus was selling in large lots to businesses, even trying to advance-sell cargo. One of the newspapers in which he chose to advertise also promoted the use of its press for the printing of “Merchants’ Address Cards,” a perfect description of Tyler’s card.

1801 printing services advertisement for the Columbian Centinel office in Boston, just a few blocks down the street from J. E. Tyler's business on Long Wharf. Columbian Centinel, 12 August 1801.

Function

In August 1801, Boston’s Columbian Centinel newspaper ran an advertisement for other printing services it could provide from its office just a few blocks down the street from J. E. Tyler's business on Long Wharf. The first product in its list printed matter was "Merchant's Address CARDS" (emphasis in original), referring to the type of card J. E. Tyler had commissioned. The printer is not listed on Tyler's card but it is interesting to note that he advertised in the Centinel in the same year that the ad ran; it was certainly possible that he had them print up his "Merchants' Address Cards" as well.

The card was almost certainly produced in a small print run, perhaps about 100 cards, and therefore strategically intended for the most preferred clients – the big-quantity and repeat-purchasing business customer. It was not a mass-produced piece of ephemera arbitrarily handed out to any man, woman, or child who happened to stroll by No.44 Long Wharf – that's what trade cards would become after the American Civil War, but John Tyler's world was long before the dramatic improvements in printing technology that allowed for much larger and cheaper print runs.

It's possible but unlikely that the image on John E. Tyler's trade card was a copy of a sign over his business. The various shops and warehouses on Long Wharf during the first decade of the 1800s were identified by a street number – like John E. Tyler's No.44 Long Wharf location – and none, including Tyler, identified their location additionally as "at the Sign of ...". When Tyler was starting his business on Long Wharf, building numbers were just beginning to replace expensive building signs as business locators and the “merchants’ address” form of trade cards were increasingly becoming the preferred means to promote the business and impress the customers.

Paul Revere, "A view of part of the town of Boston in New-England and Brittish [sic] ships of war landing their troops! 1768." In the left foreground is Long Wharf, starting in the city and extending out into the harbor a half mile at one point in its history, but this image shows landfill and Boston's buildings already surrounding some of the wharf. The wharf is surmounted by a long row of buildings that were the merchants' shops and warehouses, counting houses, chandleries, etc. When John E. Tyler was proprietor at No.44, where Long Wharf still jutted into the harbor, ships docked on the opposite side of the wharf from his building, so his location was not yet surrounded by land. Courtesy, American Antiquarian Society.

Culture

It also comes as no surprise that Tyler’s card is not festooned with images of his wares; as a commission merchant, his list of merchandise often changed with every arriving shipload. Instead of having his card filled with images of glassware, candles, lumber, and all sorts of food products he may or may not have in inventory at any given time, the two images he included – a bald eagle and palm fronds – were clearly not trade emblems but symbols with personal meaning.

The pride J. E. Tyler felt in his new country, the legacy of his patriotic father, and his new business were all illustrated symbolically by the bald eagle – bold, strong, majestic, independent, and free; its broad wings stretched out into spread-eagle position, ready to soar at any moment of its choosing, yet controlled enough to display the commission merchant’s business banner. The eagle’s head is haloed by glory rays, classic symbols of a divine origin, suggesting the sacred nature of its mission. When the J. E. Tyler trade card was created in 1801, it must have felt like Heaven was in his corner.

Palm fronds tied to the bottom of the eagle’s oval perch were also likely chosen for their historic symbolism: the fronds from the common desert palm tree have been used for centuries to symbolize Messianic triumph over life's most severe obstacles – sin and death – and they worked equally well to symbolize America’s emergence as a victorious country. Patriotism and Christianity had become twin beacons in John Tyler’s life (upon his public profession of religion in 1793, at age 27, he was baptized, “it not having been done for him in his infancy”). The overall card design may also have intended to subliminally project the eagle in the role of a phoenix, resurrected as Jesus had been and as the former doctor was trying to become in his new occupation and city.

One thing that is quite clear from 18th and early 19th century advertising trade cards is that the designs were purposeful, symbolic, and well planned to communicate a lot and make a strong, memorable impression about the business in a small space. There was nothing haphazard and accidental in the symbolism and design of the J. E. Tyler trade card; it was left to the viewer of 1801 and 2025 to intuitively figure out what those messages were. But the bald eagle was the new symbol of America and as such would have resonated strongly in Boston at the beginning of the 19th century. Having the fairly thick and durable trade card at home or tucked in a pocket made it an ideal memory aid to find Tyler’s business for the first time or to remember where it was when standing among the clatter and clamor of people, horses, carriages, oxen, and cargo-mounded wagons on the docks in busy Boston. The back of the card was blank, as most early cards were, so that the proprietor could record notes of pending or completed sales before handing it to the customer. This example has no writing on the reverse; it remains blank, still waiting to record a sale that, unfortunately, became increasingly infrequent.

Interpretation

In 1801, J. E. Tyler was caught up on the same breezes of optimism and patriotic nationalism that floated through Boston at the dawn of the new century, especially among the docks of the merchant trade. They vividly remembered the economic suffocation of the blockade during the Revolution and were determined to reverse the pains of the past into a future full of promise. The city-wide exuberance was reflected in Boston’s 1801 Independence Day festivities. The jubilant and patriotic celebration was marked by church bells ringing throughout the city, the red, white, and blue Stars and Stripes waving everywhere, and salutes being fired from the frigates Constitution and Boston in the harbor. An orator exhorted a large gathering of his fellow citizens “to feel, and to be AMERICANS,” and many toasts were offered to the new nation; the American eagle finding its way into several:

May every savage beast and bird of prey that shall dare to infest this happy country, or to attempt any depredations either by sea or land, be caught and held fast in the talons of the American Eagle.

May it bring the Barbarians to a sense of their duty … and make them crouch to the American Eagle.

Boston's shop and tavern signs often echoed their owners' newfound postwar patriotism, such as the Golden Eagle Tavern (1784) on Brattle Street and the Eagle Tavern (1798) on Fore Street, the crew recruiting location for the Frigate Constitution. Massachusetts copper cents were the first of many U.S. coins to bear the eagle motif.

(left) Charles Thomson's design for the Great Seal of the United States, 1782. Reports of Committees of Congress; Records of the Continental and Confederation Congresses and the Constitutional Convention, 1774-1789, Record Group 360; National Archives. (right) Massachusetts Copper Cent, 1787. Photo: courtesy of Eric P. Newman Numismatic Education Society https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/ImageDetail/587640 .

The challenge for 21st century viewers of the J. E. Tyler trade card is to overlook the physiologically inaccurate, almost cartoonish rendering of the bald eagle and the palm branches. The bird’s “bald” head is depicted as little more than an eye mask; the secondary feathers are entirely missing from most of both wings; and the head seems too large for a body that is far too short. Even the palm branches were likely created from the imagination rather than a Bostonian engraver's first-hand observation of Middle Eastern palms. The engraver was not trying to reproduce museum-worthy, ornithologically and botanically accurate illustrations.

What the card illustration lacked in scientific accuracy, it made up for in engraved elegance. Calligraphic flourishes and embellishments framed and highlighted the proprietor’s new name and the all-important address of his business, No.44 Long Wharf, Boston. The engraver’s linework was rendered in great detail, giving curving depth to the palm fronds, motion to the banner, scales on the feet, and finesse to the shafts and vanes of each feather. The high-quality paper stock was stiffer and smoother than the era's standard rag writing paper and, combined with the finely engraved linework printed on it by copperplate, the result intentionally conveyed the quality of the card, the new business, and the esteemed customer.

Having contemplated his entire life, I feel that his trade card reflects the high point of his life – at least the business portion of it. Newly married, moved to the state capitol, and ready to do business with the world in one of the busiest locations on Boston’s docks, he commissioned the card – probably the only artwork he ever commissioned – to reflect his optimism, ambition, and excitement as a new Boston merchant in the new United States. It was a bold, proud, and free expression of his dream. His subsequent business and personal life do not seem to have lived up to this apex frozen in time, but we see it now, 224 years later, and are humbled at the thought that this country we enjoy so much was built on the backs of people who weren’t afraid to dream.

 

Lynn Massachusetts History – History of Medicine – 19th-Century Health Remedies – Vintage Medical Ephemera – 19th-century Medicine

Magic Cures for a Painful World

Pain Attacks. The first of a two-part “before-and-after” advertisement for Wolcott's Instant Pain Annihilator aka Wolcott’s Pain Paint. Created by: W. Endicott & Co., about 1863. Library of Congress; Museum No. LC-USZC2-36.

PAIN. Throbbing, stabbing, aching, distracting, excruciating, agonizing, unbearable PAIN.

Hannibal Lecter and S&M enthusiasts aside, most people don’t like pain. We’ll do just about anything we can to avoid it and when it does happen to us, we’ll do everything we can think of to get rid of it, as quickly as possible.

A toothache; a hangnail; a sprained ankle; a leg cramp; a migraine headache – every pain is one we want to have go away. You, me, and every one of our ancestors have tried almost everything to get rid of pain quickly. Sometimes what we try defies logic – and almost certainly flies in the face of science – but for thousands of years, in moments of excruciating pain, we have turned to methods and cures that win our praise if the pain goes away. That has often been the sole measure, whether it’s with two Advil pills today or a teaspoon of Wolcott’s Pain Paint over a century ago. When pain hits, our animal instinct just wants it to stop and the method, be it scientific or magical, really doesn’t matter. Be honest with yourself – you probably couldn’t explain the chemistry and active ingredients of Tylenol any better than your Victorian forebears could with Dr. William’s Pink Pills for Pale People.

      The image above shows a Victorian era man plagued by a legion of demons in full attack mode, causing his headaches, sinus pain, toothaches, neuralgia, and more. To his right, the Grim Reaper emerges from his fog-shrouded netherworld, looking pleased at the pain being inflicted by his minions. In the same primal way that such imagery symbolically described their pain, Victorians also wrapped their aching heads around the idea that pain could be cured by magic.

Bartmann Bottle, about 1650. At its base is a modern recreation of typical “witch bottle” contents: nails, a fabric heart pierced by bent pins, and human hair with fingernail clippings. Rapoza collection.

      Such a belief was likely passed down to them by old-timers in their lives who insisted that a special home-made medicine had to be swallowed during the waning of the moon or who still hung a horseshoe on their door. My own grandmother winced as she told me how her grandfather made his own medicinal tea from rat droppings because he distrusted doctors so much; he may have thought it was a magical brew but my grandmother thought he was full of crap.

      America has a long history of reliance on magic and superstition to influence our behavior. Today’s post offers just a few examples for you to steep in your cauldron of possibilities for the next time your body screams at you, “I’M IN PAIN!”

     

Colonial Magic

As I shared with you in my post, “Weaponized Witch Bottles” (10 AUG 2024), colonists in North America relied on biblical passages that warned against the evils of witchcraft. They turned their empty wine and beer jugs into weapons to protect against the attacks of witches and their familiars, especially to protect the sick in their families. They further strengthened their defenses by hanging a horseshoe outside their door and making ritual protection marks around their doors, windows, and fireplaces – all the possible entry points for evil spirits to enter the home. Even biblically-inspired numerology was taken seriously: a braid of 12 garlic bulbs (symbolic of the 12 apostles) hanging behind the door was believed to prevent witches from entering the house; just 11 bulbs was nothing more than a bunch of smelly vegetables hanging on the door.

It was a time when magic was medicine and superstition dominated in the absence of science.

 

Victorian Magic

      Two hundred years after the Salem witch trials, well after the colonies had merged into the United States of America, the country had survived its Civil War and two wars with England, and it leapfrogged into an era of electricity, telephones, x-rays, anesthesia, vaccines, blood transfusions, and the discovery that germs cause disease. Amid all this growth, modernization, and sophistication, it might seem like there was no longer a need for superstition and magic.

Magical Medicine from the Mystical Kingdom. The Egyptian theme of Colwell's medicine tied in perfectly with its promise of magic. The eye-catching trademark featured the bizarre Sphinx above and baffling Egyptian heiroglyphics flanking the word MAGIC. The Egyptian-inspired trademark hinted at the mysterious origins of the magical cure. There was absolutely no effort to ensure scientific efficacy. (Library of Congress: Trade Mark No. 10,302, registered 22 MAY 1883)

If that’s what you’d choose to believe, you have chosen … poorly.

      Pain and disease had not been eliminated and science and medicine still had a long way to go. People were still having headaches and toothaches, rheumatism and sprains, and a bottle or box of medicine still offered low-cost, high-promise alternatives to doctors and dentists. 

      The absence of regulation in the medical marketplace meant medicine makers didn’t have to reveal the contents of their products and it’s fascinating how often they chose to claim their cure was  MAGIC – far too many to list them all here, but a few examples were:

• Bennet’s Magic Cure

• Dr. Colwell’s Magic Egyptian Oil

• Fink’s Magic Oil

• Van’s Magic Oil – None other than a customer named Mrs. A. Pain wrote to the manufacturer, “We will never employ a doctor for cold or diphtheria while we can get your Magic Oil.”

• Dr. Horbson's Magic Oil

• Dalley’s Magical Pain Extractor

• Dr. Hardy’s Magical Pain Destroyer

 

Dr. Hardy's Magical Pain Destroyer (box & bottle), about 1885. It's hard to believe that Dr. Hardy's brooding face could encourage any confidence in the success of his medicine. It was likely a rendering from some early form of photography that required expressionless faces so the result of the slow shutter speed would not be fuzzy. But come on, Dr. Hardy - crack a smile! It's not magic! Courtesy of Sheaff-Ephemera.com

Dr. Hardy's Magical Pain Destroyer (label on interior counter display box lid), about 1885. Courtesy of Sheaff-Ephemera.com

      One look below at the Victorian poster for Renne’s Pain Killing Magic Oil vividly reminds us of how much we hate to hurt. His puffy eyes are almost squeezed shut; a large tear streams out of the corner; his lips look aquiver in misery. The head bandage under his jaw was usually a symbol of tooth pain, but this pathetic soul is also holding his stomach, apparently yet another locus of pain. We empathize with our young friend – we feel his pain.

      Miserable in pain and apparent low on funds with a patched and tattered jacket, the young chap stands dumfounded in front of a drug store full of Renne’s Pain Killing Magic Oil; it’s frankly hard to tell if we are supposed to be witnessing that magical moment when he realized he had just found the cure for his woes or if his tear is because he couldn’t afford to buy the magical painkiller. Either way, he clearly wants some magic in his hard-luck life.

Renne's Pain Killing Magic Oil (bottle & poster, about 1885). Bottle courtesy of Library of Congress. Poster courtesy of Wm Morford Antiques, AntiqueAdvertising.com

      Notice that on the bottle, above the picture of Mr. Renne, was the magical medicine’s slogan, “IT WORKS LIKE A CHARM”; some newspaper ads for assured that its effect was “very magical.” It was, of course, a great word to hide behind, since the public were not invited to know the ingredients and proportions being used in the medicine. Medicines not promising magical results hid behind other fanciful names, such as Dr. Kilmer’s Swamp Root Kidney, Liver, & Bladder Cure, Pocahontas Barrel Bitters, and Smith’s Bile Beans. But “Magic” was more than a just camouflage; it was also a promise of potency and results even though sick customers had no idea why it would work for them. Subconsciously, people who enjoy magic shows want to be deceived. It fills us with wonder and awe and lets us believe that the world is full of unexplainable things. Magic gives us hope there are answers for problems and pains we could not solve ourselves.

      Anyone who collects antique medicines knows that patent medicines had all sorts of names; those promising to stop pain weren’t limited to names implying magical ingredients. Perhaps the biggest selling pain cure of the century was the magic-free Perry Davis’ Pain Killer. Another example is from my own collection, Thurston’s XXX Death to Pain. Not only did its name promise to be the death of pain, but the triple “X” meant triple-strength – no indication of what, but it certainly sounded powerful!

Thurston's XXX Death to Pain (box & bottle, about 1890). Rapoza collection

      Similar to the magic cures was a smaller subset of medicines called “mystic”. The name of Dr. I. A. Detchon’s Mystic Cure made it clear that the contents transcended human understanding and were somehow connected to ancient and perhaps occult mysteries. One of its ads explained that “Its action upon the system is remarkable and mysterious.” - take it, just don’t try to understand it.

      Note that the bottle label explains that the Mystic Cure should only be used in combination with the Mystic Life Renewer.

Detchon's Mystic Cure (box & bottle, about 1885). Rapoza collection.

Newspaper advertisement for Mrs. Wilson's Mystic Pills by the Gray Medicine Co., Toronto, Canada.The Daily Expositor (Brantford, Ontario), 2 OCT 1880.

      Mrs. Wilson’s Mystic Pills from Toronto, Canada, was the perfect name for a medicine designed for the many diseases and disfunctions of the mysterious female reproductive system. The title implied secrecy, the dark closet in which many high-strung Victorians wanted to have the subject hidden. The trademark shows the female angel holding a box of the medicine in her right hand and her left hand pointing to the banner that displayed the “Mystic Pills” part of the name. An enlargement of the knuckles actually suggests the angel may be using the middle finger, but let’s just say it's the index finger!

      For at least some of the many late-19th century remedies, the evocative words “Magic,” “Magical,” “Mystic,” or “Mystical,” in their name were used as more than just convenient marketing adjectives; they were designed to attract those customers who continued to harbor the centuries-old beliefs in magical potions, hoodoo, astrology, charms, and promises of good luck and fortune. The reason so many medicines seemed magical in their result was most likely due to the active ingredient (besides alcohol): opium, morphine, cocaine, or cannabis - they were each dangerous in excess but truly potent and successful in temporarily diminishing or eliminating pain.

Columbia believes in Magic. This Civil War-era newspaper advertisement for Weeks' Magic Compound invokes the patriotism of Columbia herself. The manufacturer was E. B. Magoon & Co. of North Troy, VT, 1862.

      Of course each era has also had its critics. Just like there were colonists who insisted there was no such thing as witchcraft, magic and mysticism had its detractors in the Victoria era. In 1900, Missouri’s Joplin News-Herald complained bitterly that “Americans are still believers in magic …” The newspaper pointed to a single factory of “magical devices” and found that it produced crystal balls and “not less than 5,000 divining rods and many other similar contrivances which are supposed to have the virtue of locating gold mines or hidden treasure.” – and the newspaper was disgusted that gullible fools would spend their money on things supposedly imbued with magic:

For one of these treasure indicators a farmer will pay from $15 to $35, and then, neglecting his toil, firm in the conviction that he has a truly magical device that will bring him untold wealth, he will tramp for days and even weeks over the old fields he had farmed since boyhood, seeking the gold mines and buried treasure the “magician” has assured him is there.

      Medicines made in the name of “Magic” were another clear evidence of a portion of the population still hanging on to remedies emanating from the occult universe. In fact, even as the new Food and Drug Administration clamped down on specious patent medicines, magic oils and the like lingered, defiantly, deep into the 20th century.

     

Digital Magic

      So now, dear readers, we sit in front of the screens of our cell phones and computers, reflecting a little smugly at the centuries of Americans who have believed in and resorted to magic, luck, and the mystical. But while our country may have continued its forward march in medicine, science, and technology, we are clearly far from giving up our superstitions and symbolic acts for warding off evil, eliminating physical and emotional pain, and encouraging good “mojo.”

      Many doctors still administer placebos and patients often believe those harmless pills have made them feel better. Copper bracelets have never been proven to improve health, but many swear by them, nonetheless. (No offense intended to the placebo or copper bracelet manufacturers.) Family, friends, co-workers, and sometimes even strangers will say “bless you” after you sneeze, to ward off illness. And lots of Americans still act out in similarly irrational behavior today to improve, protect, and bring comfort to other areas of their lives in the midst of an often harsh and painful world:

• Since 1952, fans of the NHL hockey team, the Detroit Red Wings, have thrown a dead octopus on the ice for “good luck” in the playoffs, despite the fact that the team has won only 7 Stanley Cups in the 73 years that octopi carcasses have slid across the Detroit ice. Oh, and catfish are similarly tossed onto the ice to invoke good luck for the Nashville team, and plastic rats keep getting flung into a hockey rink just north of Miami after a player killed a rat in the locker room with his hockey stick before the game and then scored two goals with that stick.

  
  

• After you eat your Chinese food, do you throw away the fortune cookie or do you open it to see what the fortune says? (… And does the rare fortune that promises, “Great wealth is coming your way,” get quietly tucked into your pocket?)

  
  

• Do you save the turkey wishbone to engage in a little post-Thanksgiving tugging match for luck?

  
  

• Have you noticed that tall buildings usually have no 13th floor selection in the elevator? The architects and engineers didn’t forget how to count.

  
  

• For the last 51 years, Lucky Charms cereal has featured marshmallow bits in the shape of such luck-laden symbols as blue moons, four-leaf clovers, and horseshoes. (My guess is that witches can’t eat that cereal.)

      We may not have been comfortable living in Colonial or Victorian America, but they would probably feel right at home in home here. Our modern world might be full of advanced knowledge but pain still haunts us all and hope for magical improvements still ripple through our souls.

Pain Vanquished. This is the second of a two-part “before-and-after” advertisement for Wolcott's Instant Pain Annihilator aka Wolcott’s Pain Paint. Created by: W. Endicott & Co., about 1863. Courtesy Library of Congress; Museum No. LC-USZC2-36.