Catvertising in the Library of Congress Collections

This post was written by Kelly Bennett, Business Reference and Research Specialist in the Science & Business Reading Room. 

Social media, particularly early social media, is almost synonymous with cat videos.  In the early 2000s and into the 2010s, cute and funny kitties were all over social media, and they seemed to be popular in advertising too. A new term emerged–“catvertising,” referring to the use of cats in advertising (particularly when the product advertised has nothing to do with cats).

But cats have long been a popular subject in advertising, and the Library of Congress holds many examples. Pictured above is an illustration of a cat named Tom, whose nap was “interrupted by International Baking Powder” way back in 1885. In 1899, the producers of Packer’s Tar Soap emphasized their product’s skin-softening properties with a photograph of a soft, fluffy kitten, published in The American Monthly Review of Reviews. And in 1908, Ostermoor Mattress featured two cats playing chess, insisting to Good Housekeeping readers that it was their “move.” The “move” in this case? Purchasing an Ostermoor mattress, of course.

One of the more popular advertising mascots from the twentieth century was Chessie the Railroad Kitten. In 1933, the Chesapeake and Ohio (C&O) Railroad introduced an etching of a sleepy kitty with the slogan, “sleep like a kitten and arrive fresh as a daisy in air-conditioned comfort.”

Another cat photographed in the 1930s has recently gained in popularity, having been featured in the Library of Congress exhibition, Not an Ostrich: & Other Images from America’s Library. “Brünnhilde” was a stray who chose Metropolitan Opera employee Arthur E. Weidhaas as her person. He photographed her in various operatic costumes, prints of which hung in the storefront window of a photographic print shop on West 40^th St. in New York City. The display was so popular, it caught the attention of the trade journal Advertising & Selling, which featured her in an August 13, 1936 article titled “Layout and Such.” “Is there an object whose picture will intrigue more humans to look and linger more than would any other object?” was the question that the article posed. The answer, it supplied, might just be cats (and dogs). As evidence, the article cited the large crowd gathered in front of the Snapshot Store, whose employees claimed that the display “coaxed more people inside than any other pictures they ever featured.” Perhaps “Brünnhilde” has coaxed more than a few new visitors to the Library as well!

To locate ads in the Library’s digital collections, you can search the Prints and Photographs Online Catalog for keywords such as “advertisement.” Chronicling America is a great source to browse for historical newspaper ads. To find ads in print, you can browse popular magazines or specialty publications in the Library’s collections onsite. Additional resources can be found in Marketing Industry: A Resource Guide: Brands and Advertisements. If you need more help, feel free to Ask A Librarian.

Do you know of any other brands or products — outside of cat products of course — that feature cats? Let us know in the comments!

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