Omaha daily bee., 1897-08-01
THE NEW ADVERTISING.
Literary md Artistic of
Active business Men.

Active business Men.
Nowhere has there been given a more no.
table response to the spirit of modern i'm
provement than in the advertising pages OF
the current newspapers and maya
zines, says Harper's Weekly. Ad-
vertising Itself is not a new thing, but its
primitiveness OF style was, until very recent
times, a markedly persistent trait of it. In
colonial papers, copies of which survive. we
are struck with the limited space given up
10 business announcements, and the few
businesses represented. The chief ones were
the merchants, the book sellers, and those
of the losers of bound-out servants and
slaves. The proprietary medicine man had
not then arrived, and the wars of the sar-
saparillas and the baking powders were UNI
known.
Modern invention, too, had not in our
early time the thousand of things it now
hao to exploit-from pianos and bicycles to
a multitude, beyond the power to name, of
smaller things. There were no pictures on
the page to speak of, except those of the
runaway apprentice with a pack upon his
back, and a reduced house or ship, none of
which were larger than a postage stamp or
a small unrubricated initial.
How this paucity of features is now all
changed! And it has been largely done
within the memory of men, not yet old,
who are now living. A look at any modern
newspaper or magazine shows today that
the advertising pages bear quite a literary
anu artistic product. They were once a
barren, unattractive waste. They are now
a part of the humanities, a true mirror of
life, a sort of fossil history, from which the
future chronicler, If all other historical mon
uments were to be lost, might fully and
graphically rewrite the history of our time.
In the new poster development we nave
even set the wits Of the best artists at work,
while being true to their idealism and in
stincts, toward commercial ends.
There lis no knowing whara all tbjo uul
stop, or what new aids may yet be invoked
to make the attractions of the ADVERTISE
ment still more irresistible. But what is
most to be noted is the charm which has
come to the advertising pages. Once we
skipped them unless some pressing want
compelled US to read, while now we read to
find out what we really want.
Our nature" says a writer who has dis
covered the new interest in advertisements.
"everlastingly wants something" And II is
not simply what we think we want, but
1.-The great yearning, indefinite wants that
the advertising pages cater TO by offering
comforts, convenience ana elegance in pro-
team forms that create this interest. Added
to 1t, or reinforcing 1t. is the study OF
human nature that advertisements make
possible. Except a few that do not, per-
haps, deal quite frankly with the reader, or
trip him up with a story whose beginning
suggests something else than a deceptive
they are mostly as entertain
ing as the reading matter which Is adjacent
to them. You are impressed says the
writer we have quoted, with the genuine
ness and enthusiasm of these advertisers.
believe in their goods because they
are good. And one after another they say,
between pages: Here Is what you want;
II not my good thing, why. my brother ad-
vertiser's good thing on the next page. We
live just to give you what you want.
One passes over the advertisements In the
or well conducted paper as he
might through a series of Oriental bazars,
so much flashes there before the eye. To
have all the gifts or goods they offer would
be to live in the happy valley with Rasselas.
press the pages they cover, through the
postofiice, or by a personal call, Is the near
est modern analogue to Aladdin's lamp.