{"title":"“For Sale by All Druggists”: Patent Medicine and National Market Access in Springfield, Illinois","authors":"Emma L. Verstraete","doi":"10.5406/23274271.47.1.01","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"\n Examination of newspaper ads and store records of available products combined with data generated from the archaeological record provide insight into how individuals and communities kept pace with national and global trends in medicine and advertising. Decades of archaeological investigation in Springfield, Illinois, by Fever River Research have yielded a rich data set that provides diverse insights into the community. The goal of this case study is to apply a commodity access model to the Springfield, Illinois, data to examine the accuracy of modern researchers’ ideas about the impact of market access on consumer choice. The combination of archaeological artifacts and archival data forms a compelling picture of a community that took advantage of unprecedented access to medicine and commodities during the rise of America's Gilded Age. In contrast to the original results of the commodity model, the results of this analysis indicate that the expansion of trade networks and interaction spheres may not have been the critical factor in consumer choice. Instead, social structures on a local level—between neighborhoods, competing stores, and the consumer—become more important in areas with diverse product access.","PeriodicalId":43225,"journal":{"name":"Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4000,"publicationDate":"2022-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.5406/23274271.47.1.01","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"Arts and Humanities","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Examination of newspaper ads and store records of available products combined with data generated from the archaeological record provide insight into how individuals and communities kept pace with national and global trends in medicine and advertising. Decades of archaeological investigation in Springfield, Illinois, by Fever River Research have yielded a rich data set that provides diverse insights into the community. The goal of this case study is to apply a commodity access model to the Springfield, Illinois, data to examine the accuracy of modern researchers’ ideas about the impact of market access on consumer choice. The combination of archaeological artifacts and archival data forms a compelling picture of a community that took advantage of unprecedented access to medicine and commodities during the rise of America's Gilded Age. In contrast to the original results of the commodity model, the results of this analysis indicate that the expansion of trade networks and interaction spheres may not have been the critical factor in consumer choice. Instead, social structures on a local level—between neighborhoods, competing stores, and the consumer—become more important in areas with diverse product access.
对报纸广告和现有产品的存储记录的检查,结合从考古记录中产生的数据,可以深入了解个人和社区如何跟上国家和全球医学和广告的趋势。在伊利诺斯州的斯普林菲尔德,由Fever River Research进行的数十年的考古调查已经产生了丰富的数据集,为社区提供了不同的见解。本案例研究的目的是将商品准入模型应用于伊利诺伊州斯普林菲尔德的数据,以检验现代研究人员关于市场准入对消费者选择影响的观点的准确性。考古文物和档案资料的结合形成了一幅令人信服的画面,展示了一个在美国镀金时代崛起期间利用前所未有的药品和商品获取机会的社区。与商品模型的原始结果相反,这一分析的结果表明,贸易网络和互动领域的扩大可能不是消费者选择的关键因素。相反,在拥有多样化产品渠道的地区,本地层面的社会结构——社区、相互竞争的商店和消费者——变得更加重要。