Selling Servitude, Captivating Consumers

Abstract

After the abolition of Russian serfdom and American slavery in 1861 and 1865, respectively, businesses played an important role in molding popular attitudes about post-emancipation integration processes in Russia and the United States through visual representations of serfs, peasants, slaves, and freedpeople in advertisements. Both American and Russian companies developed parallel marketing strategies by constructing advertisements that depicted African Americans and peasants in positions of servitude, which appealed to consumers who were nostalgic for an idealized rural, pre-industrial and pre-emancipation era during an age of rapid industrialization, urbanization, and geographic expansion. But Russian and American companies also pursued divergent marketing tactics that beg further consideration. While US businesses predominantly disparaged African Americans in racialized caricatures, Russian businesses sometimes depicted peasants in positions of equality relative to other citizens. What accounts for this disparity? This article examines newspaper ads, posters, broadsides, and ephemera from collections at Russian and American archives, and argues that apart from perceived racial differences in the case of US ads, dissimilarities between Russian and American population compositions, urban migration patterns, and distinct notions of national identity also explain this important distinction.