Partial List of Wrappers, Manufactured by Merchants Publishing Company, Chicago, Illinois.

Chicago: Merchants Publishing Company, 33, 35 and 37 Clark St., [ca. 1890]. Oblong 4to (9.5” x 12”), self-wrappers. 22 sample labels, many printed in color or on colored paper (2.5” x 7.5” to 9.5” x 12”).

An unrecorded specimen book of twenty-two delightful labels for patent medicines and other commodities, printed by this Chicago label printing firm.

Merchants Publishing Co. manufactured druggists’ stationary and produced a diverse high-grade line of labels, pill and powder boxes, folding boxes, prescription blanks, and containers. As noted on the front wrapper, this catalogue is intended to “show specimens of the most useful and practical wrappers.” The labels included were made for the following products: Genuine Persian Insect Powder (“warranted to exterminate”), Carbolic Ointment, Improved Compound Cathartic Pills, Liver Pills, Compound Cough Syrup, Essence of Jamaica Ginger, Vegetable Liver Pills, Toothache Drops, Baking Powder, Seidlitz Powders, Hog and Chicken Cholera Remedy (“a never failing remedy”), Sarsaparilla Compound Blood and Liver Cleanser (“Purify the Blood”), Condition Powders (for horses, cattle, sheep and hogs), Bird Seed, as well as other products. These commodities were manufactured by a range of apothecaries and druggists in South Carolina, Alabama, Nebraska, Chicago, Kansas, Michigan, Texas, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, San Francisco, New Hampshire, and so forth. Many of these wrappers feature fine ornate designs, as well as illustrations of cattle herders, animals, birds, insects being sprayed with insecticide, etc. Production sizes, prices and specifications accompany all of the samples. Listed on the front wrapper are a number of other products for which the company made labels, including Itch Cure, Iron Tonic Bitters, Syrup Tar and Wild Cherry, Horse Liniment, Worm Syrup, Santonine Worm Lozenges, etc.

Merchants Publishing Co. began business in Chicago in 1882, and in 1903 relocated to Kalamazoo, Michigan where it continues to operate today. In 1921, the company employed more than 100 people in addition to some seventy-five traveling salesmen. During this time the company’s business was widespread, extending as far as the Hawaiian Islands, South American republics, Cuba and Bermuda.

No copies recorded in OCLC.

REFERENCES: Michigan Dept. of Labor. Report Vol. 22 (1921), p. 489.

CONDITION: Good, some wear to covers, contents clean and bright, one specimen excised.