Advertising Capitalism: A Critical Analysis of Early 20th Century LEMCO Trading Cards

Abstract

In this paper, I analyze a set of six trading cards belonging to Liebig’s Extract of Meat Co. long-standing marketing campaign. The critical analysis of promotional texts produced at the turn of the 20^th century offer meaningful insights on the discursive mechanisms that contributed to the hegemonization of bourgeois capitalism. Unlike other forms of advertising, trading cards are not rapidly discarded and forgotten; on the contrary, they can detach themselves from the advertised products to become part of popular discourses of mass instruction. As both products and producers of capitalist ideologies, ads are a privileged site of inscription of capitalism, and thus lend themselves to a critical analysis. My analysis shows how the selected texts draws on and textures the discourses of progress, inculcated as colonialist beliefs and triggering an actional chain whereby, even before they actually obtained the cards, capitalist actions and beliefs are enacted.