Here are three intriguing little classified ads, from Popular Mechanics, February 1909:1. Joseph Goulet would like us all to know that he can cure malaria, fever and ague in only one day! But he isn't telling any more than that. You will just have to write to him - when you're feeling better. By which time you won't really need his help.
2. My favorite of the three: help from the splendidly-named U.S. Bureau of Advice! Well, speak up! What's on your mind today? Any doubts about anything at all? The mysterious pundits of the Bureau can advise you.
3. Wiley Sanderson doesn't need any advice. He has some of his own, in the form of 3,000 formulas. And he's put them all in a book that is exactly 368 pages long. That fact alone will make you want to buy it. It is only 40 cents to buy a copy, though it is "worth dollars." How many dollars? Don't ask, because satisfaction is guaranteed. You can have extra fun working out how many formulas you get for each penny, and how many on average fit on one page.
If you get stuck with the math, you know where to go for help.
10 comments:
Dude! I think it would be awesome to work for the U.S. Bureau of Advice. Maybe I'm nosy, but I'd love to know the things people want advice about. And I just love giving advice, though I usually refrain, since that's not too polite. I've found my dream job. :D
You have to admire the confidence and lack of humility! I wonder how many people actually responded to these ads. www.satisfiedsole.com
Do you read Carolyn Hart's Death On Demand series? That second ad sounds sort of like the one Annie's husband Max used to have for his business. *g*
I love old ads like this. They are so funny yet I am sure at the time they had no idea it would cause such a chuckle in the future. I used to do an article in our local paper on our towns history and one of the things that entertained me most was those articles describing who had a tea party at whose house that weekend. Quite literally there was so much personal things like that. I always got a kick out of it.
Bethany - Oh, me too. I really wish it was still around (maybe Yahoo Answers is sort of like this).
Pam - I wish that there was some way to find the letters that these places actually got. Which is why I like the testimonials in Victorian medicine ads. Maybe I can find a good one for tomorrow - as I am still on true-crime break! :)
Tori - I am making a note of that, thanks - I love reading mysteries. At the moment I'm reading Tess Gerritsen and am so impressed I can hardly stand to work on my own.
Sandi - That must have been really fun! I did that for a little paper out west when we lived in Alberta, it was really fun. And actually in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle they have the same thing, who went on vacation and who went to tea. Which is so great! :)
LOL love those ads!
LMAO!! Bureau of Advice!!
That advise service seems like a front for blackmail to me. But that's the writer in me talking. ;)
I love these old ads and your commentary on them. My parents have a bathroom wallpapered with replicas of vintage ads from the same era. I can't tell you how much time I've spent in there just reading the walls!
Evangeline - It might have been! And I'm always thinking of writing, too. I tend to be most interested in the everyday lives of ordinary people in the past, revealed through offbeat primary sources. Which is ideal for making up fictional characters.
pussreboots - What a great idea! I love old ads.
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