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99 In an earlier chapter, we saw how disabled beggars finessed solicitation by offering begging cards and other petty items to would-be donors. In most cases, the goods were insignificant and provided merely the illusion of a real exchange. But in some transactions, such as those involving magazine subscriptions, what was transferred had real worth. Although the beggars were in one sense merchants, they exploited their disability to provoke sales via sympathy and were aided by photos that presented them as pitiful. In this chapter, I explore another dimension of people with disabilities as merchants. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, national and regional manufacturing companies proliferated, and aggressive advertising flourished. Businesses sent salespeople on the road to cities, towns, and villages to push their products. Some efforts involved advertising gimmicks. In addition , the forerunners of present print advertising campaigns, company ad departments, and later advertising agencies created graphic designs, slogans , trademarks, and other symbols to facilitate product identification. With the development of half-tone printing, photographs were transformed into printed images that could be widely distributed in brochures, newspapers, and magazines. In addition, photo postcards were distributed locally as part of advertising campaigns. I look at how companies employed photographs of people with disabilities to publicize and sell products. In some cases, the person with a disability made public appearances to lure the curious to venues where the product was sold. In others, the person with the disability was used as a product symbol, sometimes even as a trademark. I also look at images in which people with impairments 7 Advertising Photographs People with Disabilities Selling Products 7.1. Sunshine dwarf bakers, 1939. Printed postcard. 100  Picturing Disability are featured in ads selling products (i.e., prosthetic devices) or services (treatment or healing) designed specifically for people with disabilities. It has not been common to use people with disabilities to sell products, but I have included this genre here because it demonstrates yet another dimension of picturing disability that needs further exploration. People with Disabilities as Retailers The people featured in this section are people of short stature—also known as little people or dwarfs (illus. 7.1). All were self-sufficient and even prosperous. As in their work as sideshow attractions , they parlayed their difference into careers. According to official definitions, those people featured here would currently be considered to have a disability.1 Buster Brown Shoes is an interesting case of the merging of advertising and disability. The Brown Shoe Company was started in 1878 by George Brown in St. Louis, Missouri, long before the popular cartoon character Buster Brown was featured in newspapers. The company became a leading shoe manufacturer and presently has a global clientele. The newspaper cartoon character Buster Brown was created by pioneer cartoonist Richard Outcault and was popular during the first third of the twentieth century. Outcault’s most famous character, five-year-old Buster, his friends, and his 1. The generally accepted definition of the term dwarf is an adult who is less than four feet ten inches tall. Some might dispute the inclusion of little people in the disabled category. Disabled, handicapped, and other such designations are not objective categories that exist outside of human definitions and political wrangling. What conditions led someone to be labeled “disabled” vary from time to time and location to location. The use of the word disability to describe certain conditions is contentious. The American with Disabilities Act of 1990 states that dwarfism is a disability. dog, Tiger, delighted newspaper readers with their mischievous adventures. Until 1904, the Brown Shoe Company and Buster Brown had nothing to do with one another. In that year, a Brown Shoe executive purchased the use of the cartoon character Buster Brown for advertising purposes. The company launched the Buster Brown brand of shoes with a Buster Brown logo, a trademark that is still used today. What does all this have to do with disability? In addition to featuring Buster Brown and Tiger in its printed advertisements, the company made marketing history by launching a wildly popular advertising campaign. It sent troupes of actors, all dressed like Buster and his friends, on tour visiting towns across the country, and these actors were dwarfs, or midgets,2 as they were called then. Those who portrayed Buster wore short pants, a wide-brimmed child’s hat, and fancy shoes; they were accompanied by dogs resembling the one in the comic strip. These entourages toured the country from about 1904...

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