The Development of the Advertising Trade Card
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From the early "tradesmen's cards" of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to the"business cards" of the early nineteenth century, advertising materials printed in one color on paper and pasteboard had been used to inform customers about goods and services. As industries developed and communication between regions increased in nineteenth-century America, a greater variety of merchants and manufacturers began to make use of advertising cards. Technological advances in printing and machine manufacture throughout the century resulted in the greater availability of printing presses and lower costs for printing. The development of the lithographic process permitted greater use of illustrations, and the introduction of chromolithography in the mid-nineteenth century led to the extensive use of color in commercial advertising. The 1876 Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia provided the first large-scale opportunity for commercial lithographers to display their products, as well as for a wide variety of businesses to hand out advertising cards promoting their goods and services. The popularity of color advertising cards spread rapidly, and by the early 1880s the chromolithographed trade card was being distributed widely by businesses ranging from small shops to large manufacturers.
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 Fuller, Warren & Co. Stove Manufacturers.
Troy, N.Y., New York, Chicago and Cleveland, Ohio. 1876.
The Hatch Lith. Co., New York, lithographers. 
Eighteenth Century tradesmen's card.
John Burton, Hatmaker.
Winchester, England.
Edward Kakas, Manufacturer of Furs. Boston. c1877.
L. Prang & Co., Boston, lithographers.
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