Limited Options, at First When everything is made and sold locally, attracting customers isn't usually a big issue. Word of mouth is often enough. Businesses located right in town can hang an attractive sign over the door, or arrange items in the window. Others might print a handbill to post in town, or place an ad in the local paper. A bold or provocative headline might attract attention. These options, however, will soon expand.

	Mainly Text At the time of the Civil War, photography is still an elaborate, time-consuming process. With patience, you can make single prints, but there's no way to print copies using a standard printing press. Engravings and etchings made on metal plates are the only options for producing printed graphics, if you can afford a trained craftsman with a good eye and steady hand. Outside the big cities, business owners are generally limited to using simple text to attract a customer's attention.
	Stunning Color Lithography allows printing high-quality images fairly quickly, but not on a standard press. Currier and Ives are famous for their lithographic series, which are printed in black and white, and then hand-colored by a team of women. Color lithographs (left) require a separate printing step for each color. Gradual color transitions in a single step are not yet feasible. Most of the color images in this gallery (but not the Currier & Ives, above) have been digitally enhanced to bring out the quality.
	Tobacco Ads For whatever reason, high-quality color graphics first begin to appear for tobacco products.
	Appliances and Tonics In an age before electric or gasoline motors, home products such as those shown above are among the first new designs to be advertised. Note that the lawn mower is offered for 'horse or hand power.' Health remedies predate almost everything else.
	More Marketing Ideas Delivery vehicles provide a convenient mode of advertising, visible to all as they make deliveries around town. Industrial equipment is also advertised, and one early business college in Minneapolis puts out its own ad, which is something of a rarity.