The Somerset reporter. [volume] (Skowhegan, Me.) 1868-1909, 1895-10-03
ADVERTISING INCARS
A NEW BUSINESS WHICH AMOUNTS
TO 100000 A YEAR.

The Reason Why 1t Has Its Limitations.
All Grown Up Within Very Few Years.
Bostons Serious View of the AID. Writ
er's Attempts at Humor.
The annual expenditure for street car
advertising i'll the United States has in
five years grown from 1900, 600 to 49,
600, 600, and is constantly increasing
Although it is yet small in comparison
with the enormous amount Of money
paid for newspaper advertising, it is,
for various reasons, peculiarly inter
esting development Of modern business
methods. 1t is an outgrowth Of impor-
tant social betterments, new field for
the display Of artistic and literary tai
ent, and not inconsiderable element Of
entertainment as we'll as practical in
formation for the quick witted Ameri-
can public. 1t is also field curiously
liable to be cornered. Newspapers may
add on columns and pages to accommo-
date advertisers, magazines be made
few ounces or pounds heavier to the
same end new publications without
number be set going and billboards en-
larged indefinitely. In fact, every other
vehicle Of advertising has quality Of
elasticity that is entirely lacking i'll the
street car method. New lines will not be
started or even more cars put on to give
opportunities to advertisers. Those
things are determined by the require
ments # local travel. And when the 6
advertising spaces IN ear are filled the
seventeenth advertiser who comes along
will have to wait his chance for some
one else to drop out.
Not infrequently the limit of accom-
mediation has been reached in Boston
and other New England cities peculiar
| " favored by advertisers, and appli
cants for space have had to wait for the
expiration Of running contracts before
! they could gain entrance. Already half
a dozen firms ara spending from so, 900
To 500, 900 year each i'll this way, at
least % concerns each eXpend from So,
geo to go. 600, and from % to 30 may
be counted who put out from $40, 600 to
SIC, 600 each These sums, IL Is under
stood, are paid for the actual rental Of
spaces i'll the street cars the placing of
the cards in them and the watching nee
essary 10 see that the ears are run &C
cording to contract. The cost of getting
up the cards, which is very considerable
is outside this estimate. To make up
! the remainder of the estimated 50 600,
600 Of total annual expenditure an ar
my of smaller advertisers, generally To-
cal only, lend their aid.
The growth of street ear advertising
/ has been to very marked degree de-
| pendent upon and synchronous with
marked improvements in street car serv-
ice. 1t was very insignificant interest
in the old days of the horse cars prior to
1878. The low ceiled, dingy, i'll lighted
vehicles then i'll use carried IA few plain
unattractive cards, half obscured by
dust and covered by glass, the refrac-
! lions from which made them difficult
to decipher. Only local advertisers occu-
pied spaces and did so rather to help a
struggling enterprise or get rid of a per
sistent solicitor than through any hope
of profit from the investment Then, in
San Francisco primarily, cable traction
began to take the place Of horses, ena-
bling the employment of roomier, loft
Ter cars handsomer in every detail of
materials, form and color than the old
! ones, and some genius evolved the hap
py idea of combining the advertising
cards by holdings III concave spaces and
without glass. A once the cards were
made to conform to their improved sur
roundings. They We're moro handsome
/ l., 4 oil IL, hi, :
i've colors and sometimes illustrated
1t was not until 1888, when electric
propulsion had been clearly demon
strated to be commercially practicable
and trolley lines We're put i'll operation
! all over the country, that street car nd
vertising began to assume its present
character. As before the improvement
in it was in keeping with the better
ment of the vehicles, which We're now
no longer simply comfortable, but be-
came luxurious. The amount of interest
! taken i'll the advertising cards, as we'll as
the vigilance Of critical observation, is
sometimes demonstrated by protests
against some novelty within the first
hour of its appearance. That is particu
/ Abh - AihS'J W iHPl''h III A'CotOlia hiiNiO
the committee for regulating the uni
verse is largely represented. That com
mittee is always i'll session. one of its
members constitutes a quorum, and it
seldom lacks things to kick at One day,
some months ago it was moved to turn
itself loose ON the subject of a new card
| that flashed ont at once in all the cars
The man who lets a lady stand
Where others push and crowd her
Deserves to have the strongest brand
OF IS baking powder
To raise him
! The Boston newspapers received let
tiers of indignant protest against the ad
yertiser s audacity IN presuming to teach
Bostonians courtesy under the guise Of
advertising his baking powder. Finally
the row got into the courts over the
question whether the car companies
could compel the removal of the OBJ
hoxious card The squabble was com
promised, but not until that baking
powder had been advertised as it never