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Book Finally Available On Streetcar Advertising In America

March 28th, 2016

Book Finally Available On Streetcar Advertising In America

Woodson Savage has been collecting streetcar advertising cards and researching their history. They first appeared in 1875, but the business really took off when the first car card advertising contractor began selling space in multiple transit systems. Savage lives in Memphis, which happens to have been the home of Barron Collier, whose Street Railways Advertising Company came to dominate car cards like Pullman dominated sleeping cars. By 1905 Collier’s company sold ads inside 21,000 streetcars in 35 states. While 85 percent of the ads were in streetcars, they also appeared in subway cars and some commuter railroad coaches.

After relating the history of car cards, the majority of the book is devoted to a colorful gallery of the cards themselves. The color and reproduction on coated paper are excellent. Most of them are national brands, many of which survive today. The galleries are divided into product types, with histories of these ad campaigns.

Savage’s personal...