Series of illustrated trade cards for B.T. Babbitt's Best products. Illustrations depict children engaged in various activities, including playing with a dog and a cat, washing laundry, fishing, and painting; children attired in adult Colonial dress with wigs; a boy dressed in a soldier's uniform surrounded by patriotic symbols, including a sword, drum, horn, cannon, cannon balls, and an American flag; boys chivalrously offering girls bars of soap; and vignettes of people from various nations surrounding a bird's eye view of B.T. Babbitt's manufactory complex bounded by Washington, West, Rector, and Morris Streets in New York City. Babbitt was purportedly the first company to manufacture and market soap in individual bars in 1851., Title supplied by cataloger., Printers include the Hatch Lith. Co. and Major & Knapp Engraving, Manufacturing & Lithographic Co., Prints contain advertising text on versos for B.T. Babbitt's Best products, including soap, baby soap, medicinal yeast, and laundry powder. Within the illustrations, seven prints depict a box labeled "B.T. Babbitt's 1776 trademark. New York City," and six include the motto, "Soap for all nations. Cleanliness is the scale of civilization.", Cataloging funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (PW-506-19-10), 2010-2012., Digitized.
Date
[ca. 1880]
Location
Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department trade card - Babbitt [1975.F.57; 1975.F.59; 1975.F.63; 1975.F.87;1975.F.89; 1975.F.91; 1975.F.92; 1975.F.100; P.8666.3e; P.8666.3f; P.8666.3g; P.8666.3h]