The almanac cover was much too busy with small animals and jesters and big red and blue letters and a scene of three men chasing pigs.
It looked and felt like a circus, and perhaps that’s what it was meant to show since the title was “Barker’s Illustrated Almanac.” Everything on the cover shouted out at you like a carnival barker.
It was an almanac of sorts – a thin pamphlet with information about upcoming weather conditions, historical events and latitudes of the states for the year 1924. But this almanac had a decidedly different purpose than your usual farmer’s almanac. Barker’s was unabashedly pushing ointments, powders and liniments to cure ailing pigs, horses, chickens and other farm animals.
Since I don’t raise animals, I didn’t buy the almanac outright. It was among a group of vintage cookbooks that I bought at auction. Going through the box, I came upon this almanac and ventured inside.
What I found most amusing about the almanac were some humorous cartoons with illustrations of animals dressed up and acting like humans (two cartoons actually presented people). Beneath each was a long narrative about some product the company was peddling. On a page in the back were recipes for sugar, cocoa, spice, raisin and plain cakes.
All of the fun drained out of me when I continued digging into the company on the web. This almanac with its innocuous drawings didn’t seem so comical after I learned that some cartoons produced by the company – Barker, Moore & Mein Medicine Co. of Philadelphia – were extremely racist. Barker compiled all of the cartoons in a series of four 150-page books titled “Barker’s ‘Komic’ Picture Souvenir” around the same time as the almanac, the late 19th century.
The cartoon featured black people as the usual stereotypical figures, representing a portrayal that was commonplace at that time. While the illustrations of chickens, horses, pigs and people were drawn realistically, black folks were drawn not as they looked but as society wanted them to see themselves: less than human, lower than pigs and chickens.
The farm animals got more respect.
The souvenir books seem to have been published in the 1890s and reprinted in the early 1900s.
“Negroes, Indians, Germans, Farmers, City Slickers, Tramps, the Obese, and others are depicted in gross caricature, all for the glory of Barker’s Liniments, Powders, Bitters, and other ‘medicinal’ cure-alls,” according to one description from a rare book shop that was selling two volumes for $375. On the web, I saw several book covers but few inside pages. The almanac from the auction had two cartoons of humans: two women in bathing suits scampering from a stream out of the path of a raging bull and a drunken man accosting two women who appear to be prostitutes.
As for the company, Thomas Barker started peddling his nerve and bone liniment in 1859. His son took over the business in the 1860s with two partners whose surnames became part of the company’s name. The magazine seems to have been first published around 1879.
In addition to the animal products it manufactured, Barker sold everything from lead paint to hair oil to liver pills to syrups for cough and diarrhea to cologne. It was said to be a whiz at advertising and marketing its products for both “man and beast.”
Barker’s was apparently one of several almanacs peddling questionable products without oversight. Congress stemmed the practice with passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act in 1906 that prohibited mislabeled food and drug products, along with consequences for perpetrators.
Barker’s Bone Liniment for Man or Beast was found to be a petroleum product containing camphor and turpentine with small amounts of oil of tar and maybe oil of thyme, according to a 1917 book of “tried and tested” mother remedies. The book listed ingredients in various products, noting that some of the patented formulas were changed after the law was passed.
The company was cited for mislabeling its poultry powder in a filing by the U.S. Attorney General’s Office in New Jersey in 1944. The powder contained 19 minerals and 10 “vegetable materials,” and Barker claimed that it would keep the “body fighting fit” as well as “save chicks.” No way, the government stated, and confiscated the product.
I think it is interesting that false advertising is what caused the company to be reprimanded not for inaccurate and cruel depictions. Thanks for bringing this to light.