Advertisement, Peter Henderson & Co., horse lawn mower

Color lithographic seed catalogue cover for the Peter Henderson & Co. seed company. The cover features “The ‘Henderson’ Lawn Grass being trimmed by “The ‘Henderson’ Horse Lawn Mower” with Riverside Drive, Grant's Tomb, and the Hudson River in the background. The cover is mounted on cardboard within a decorative red, yellow, and gold printed frame.

Over the course of the nineteenth century, the establishment of many successful businesses in America was met with new technologies that opened opportunities for companies to expand their markets. This was stimulated by the consumer-driven way of life espoused by the growing middle class with more money to spend. Competition increased, and many companies turned to advertising to increase sales and win over customers. As industrialization increased supply and the economy grew during the nineteenth century, advertising and the development of mass marketing strategies expanded alongside it. Advertising was a means to market products or services that was communicated through various media such as newspapers, magazines, catalogs, trade cards, and printed ephemera. Effective advertising employed “branding” which used targeted slogans, images, phrases that created associations with a product name or image with certain qualities in consumers’ minds. Companies continually reevaluated changing tastes, needs, and fashions in order to stay up-to-date with the desires of the consumers, and new advertisements were constantly being released to appeal to them. By 1900, the advertising agency was an established profession at the forefront of creative planning and mass marketing.

Mounted on cardboard