To get you through the home stretch of a tough week, we're using this #ThrowbackThursday to remember a time when ginger ale advertisements were bold in both design and claims.
This ca. 1890 trade card for Sachs-Prudens & Co. ginger ale encouraged buyers to bring home one (or a dozen) bottles to "please the wife and children". The soft drink was also marketed as a dyspepsia remedy, promising to be "[a] pleasant Cordial Medicine and Stimulant, of great value to Lawyers, Preachers, Writers, and Business Men, who are troubled with the loss of Nerve Power. It makes the languid and debilitated feel bright and cheerful. Indispensable to restore patient after Alcoholic Excess."Sounds good to me!
Sachs-Pruden & Co. was a Dayton, Ohio wholesale, and retail business founded by chemists Edward Sachs (1851-1901) and David Pruden (1854-1910) in 1874. In addition to ginger ale, they sold other tonics and patent medicines, including Saline Lemonade and Sach-Pruden's A. T. 8 Agaric Tonic.
By 1888, the company had expanded to include a brewery for lager beer and reincorporated as the Sachs-Pruden Ale & Co. By 1895, however, Edward Sachs had left the company to found the Sachs-Pruden Ginger Ale & Co.and the brewery was sold to the Dayton Brewing Company when the Sachs-Pruden Brewing and Ale Company failed and filed for bankruptcy.
This trade card is from Hagley Library's Advertising cards and calendar collection (Accession t1992.229) in our Audiovisual Collections.