Cat Made Me Buy It!

"The Cat Made Me Buy It!: A Collection of Cats Who Sold Yesterday's Products" contains some funny, cute, charming, annoying, ridiculous, spooky, and lovely ads, all featuring cats to sell products. "The Black Cat" magazine was started in 1895 by Herman D. Umbstaetter to publish short fiction by amateur writers. His wife Nelly created the Art Nouveau covers featuring black cats and sold each as a print for one dollar. The publication ceased in 1923. The cover of this book is one of those magazine covers. How about a gray kitten with a pink nose asleep in a downy bed surrounded by lace and advertising "Sleep like a kitten on Chesapeake and Ohio Lines." The cat was named Chessie, who acquired a husband who also posed for ads for the train line. "Carter's Kittens" helped sell Carter's nine shades of ink from 1941 to 1957. In one ad a fluffy white Mother Cat hangs her nine kitties in socks. Each kitty is the same color as one of the inks. The ad states that Carter's Ink is as gentle as a kitten in your pen! How about the Black Cat Fortune Telling Game? Parker Brothers used the black cat, known for its reputation for good luck and/or superstition, to sell this general advice game. Another seller was the "Wedding in Catland," a puzzle that advertised Hood's Sarsaparilla and Hood's Pills. The Sarsaparilla was made from root, barks, and herbs and was "taken" to purify the blood. Another famous ad shows a group of cats singing, talking, playing and advertising Clark's thread, or spool cotton thread on white spools. But the one that is my favorite is Black Cat Enamel Stove Polish that "outshines 'em all." Stove polish? Yes, in the late 1800's and early 1900's pot-bellied stoves were made of iron and had to be polished for protection from water, grease, and rust. The White Cat advertised the White-Cat Cigar and the Tabby advertised the Tabby Cigar. The Persian Cat advertised Northwest Apples from Washington State. A blonde, curly-haired toddler holding a black cat powdered heavily with talc advertised Vivaudou's Mavis Talc. There are Black Cat Stockings, White Cat brand underwear, and the Pussy Cat Rag was a ragtime, pre-World War I song. Just for cat alone was the Catnip Ball made and advertised for his "health and exercise." Well, there it is. I would say, Who'd have thunk it? Well, of course, it had to be thunk--cats in advertising.

Lots of color reproductions of cats on labels and in advertising from the nineteenth and early twentieth century, with discussions of what happened to the companies behind each image. This book would be a delight for any cat-enthused graphical-arts type person. What's it doing out of print?