Advertising columns give one of the best records of the prog ress of the temperance movement, even before the adoption
of the Eighteenth Amendment. Men sought work and stated
that they were sober, or total abstainers, and one of the leading demands in the “ help wanted ” column was for men who were
sober . Through the advertisement information is given in regard to legislating liquor out of Canada 21 and on the other hand the advertisement has been used to combat the further spread of the prohibition movement, - liquor firms increased the number and size of their advertisements in such papers as did not exclude liquor advertisements ; in covertly advertising beer as the best temperance drink , they recognized the progress made by the Anti-Saloon League ; and they used the advertise
ment as propaganda to promote in every way their private business interests . The newspaper is not necessary to reconstruct the books printed ,the works of art produced , the new music written , — these
presumably survive and the historian can examine them himself. But the newspaper records the impression made on the public by the appearance of new works of literature, art, and music .
It reflects even more perfectly than do statements of the number
of editions issued and copies sold to what extent the impression left has been purely ephemeral, how far it has been relatively
permanent, how far a work has at first apparently been a failure but later has come into its own . The press, considering all of its departments collectively, may
be used to reconstruct in a measure the daily life of different classes in society,22 though the lack of proportion in the conscious
description and the unconscious reflection of these classes must somewhat impair its usefulness in this direction, - the life of one class must seem to be filled with weddings, dances , dinners , charity balls, and of another with drunken brawls, murders , 21 Philadelphia Public Ledger, November , 1916 . 22 Suggestive articles on advertising of an earlier day are found in H .
Friedenwald , “ Some Newspaper Advertisements of the Eighteenth Cen tury, ” American Jewish Historical Society , Publications, 1897, 6 : 49- 59 ; W . P . Trent, “ Gleanings from an old Southern Newspaper," Atlantic
Monthly, September, 1900, 86 : 356 - 364; A . B . Slauson, “ Curious Customs of the Past as Gleaned from Early Issues of the Newspapers in the District of
Columbia ,” Records of the Columbia Historical Society, 1906 , 9 : 88 – 125.
