When Everything Hung By A Thread

The business boom in the post-Civil War decades spawned an arresting advertising device fully as charming as it was effective—the trade or premium card. Given away by merchants, usually to the children of customers, they were welcomed into the American home for their bright lithographed color and their depictions of the newest developments in an age of rapid change. Many families even saved their favorites in scrapbooks. These thread industry cards are from the collection of Samuel Rosenberg.