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Children

Pictures of smiling children have always been enticing images in advertisements, even for products with which children have no possible connection, such as the Anti Nervous Dyspeptic Tobacco, "a cool sweet smoke and lasting chew". Images of children also graced the covers of almanacs, brochures and booklets as well as posters, trade cards and post cards. A series of six postcards of children playing doctor (one of which is shown), in which the physician was most often a small boy and the patient an infant girl, was popular early in the century. Another genre was the coloring book, puzzle book or collection of nursery rhymes which proprietary medicine manufacturers published for children's amusement; the prime target of such booklets was, of course, the mother who would be expected to at least glance at the recorded testimonials.