244 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



Store, and for the advertising that the local merchants got out of their 

 contributions to the store, they got a good many dollars' worth of free 

 premiums. And then they gave away some ten or fifteen articles of value 

 to somebody that was in the amphitheater every day of the fair. They 

 have a large amphitheater there and it holds a good many people. It 

 meant a stimulation of the sale of tickets for the amphitheater. In fact 

 all the seats were sold, and they sold standing room in the theater. 



Now in regard to the character of the articles they gave away and the 

 way they did it, it was like this: They would give away from ten to 

 fifteen articles each day, and I think they had thirty-five or thirty-eight 

 articles contributed. For instance, one merchant contributed ten sacks 

 of flour for the advertising value they would get out of that. Another 

 would contribute a sewing machine, and another a washing machine. 

 Then a box of cigars, and articles of different values, and of course some 

 jokers. Then these tickets that were sold for the amphitheater each 

 person got a coupon. They were perforated so that part of them went 

 into a box and part of it they retained to identify them as the holder 

 of that number. Then these numbers that were dropped into the box were 

 all stirred up and some child was selected to draw them, and the first one 

 that was drawn out, suppose it was 728, whoever held 728 got article num- 

 ber one, and these articles were all numbered. That might be ten sacks of 

 flour, or it might be a box of cigars, and so on until the ten numbers were 

 drawn. And in that way these goods from the country store were dis- 

 tributed. Sometimes it was a dress pattern; for instance some old bachelor 

 would get a dress pattern, some old lady might draw a box of cigars, or 

 some little child a washing machine, and so on. But these things could 

 be adjusted afterwards. In the main the articles went to very satisfactory 

 destinations, and it is an idea that a person could talk about a good deal 

 and enlarge upon, but to an audience of this character, a suggestion is all 

 that is necessary, and you can readily see the advertising benefit that a 

 scheme of this kind would be, and the drawing power it would have. 

 Anamosa has a fair that is well advertised. They follow circus methods 

 sometimes in their advertising, and do a good deal of spectacular adver- 

 tising. They use the bill board a good deal as well as the newspapers, 

 and they use the holder — that is, a hanger, something like this. Now, 

 as I say, some of these ideas were some that I had in mind trying out 

 myself, and I talked them over with Clifford Niles, I think that the one 

 point he worked out to great advantage was the making of these gifts — 

 this distribution to the people in the amphitheater. Of course, if they got 

 into the amphitheater they would have to be on the fair grounds, and 

 this was made a feature of the fair every day, and they have the crowd 

 every day. The last day of the fair they had a big crowd, and it was 

 a thing that paid them well in their advertising. 



Now right along this line I want to say that some of these methods 

 of distributing gifts are barred from the mails, and wherever they were 

 they took great care that they were distributed by hand — hung up in the 

 stores and distributed that way, so that it did not get into the mails at all. 



That is a brief outline of what Dr. Russell would tell you if he were 

 here, I think. 



