Trade Card
Put on your dancing shoes for Tiny Tuesday!
This late 19th century trade card features a lithograph of a pale pink rose and stem gently laid atop a lady’s shoe in vibrant red with ruffled details. The proprietor, Brown & Dodge Fine Shoes, offered other cards in this series with colorful illustrations of flowers nestled inside elegant ladies’ shoes. Trade cards not only provided advertisement for a business, but were also a form of collectable entertainment, as lithography allowed for the printing of vivid, almost life-like images. Customers would continue to visit a store, and ultimately buy their goods, to collect various trade cards that were often pasted into albums specifically designed for the purpose.
Brown & Dodge’s advertisement was quite fitting for their business. Herbert L. Brown (1846-1917) and Frederick O. Dodge (1855-1934) opened their shop in 1876 on Pleasant Street in Fall River. The store operated throughout the turn of the century and the proprietors involved would change as time progressed. Frederick left the business around 1886; he was later listed as a banker in the city directories. His father, John E. Dodge (1826-1898), worked alongside Herbert until his death in 1898. While the store retained the name Brown & Dodge, Herbert remained the sole proprietor until closing the shop in 1911.
The FRHS has an extensive collection of trade cards from various Fall River businesses.