Vintage Ads That Promoted Dangerous & Unhealthy Products

Du Pont cellophane, 1950s

image via v.valenti

Collectors Weekly recently ran an article called What Were We Thinking? The Top 10 Most Dangerous Ads which featured some very bad-for-your-health vintage advertisements. For example, there’s a 1950s Du Pont magazine ad that shows a stork carrying a baby in a clear cellophane bag with the copy, “The best things in life come in Cellophane”. In another, from a 1923 Dutch Boy brochure, children are encouraged to play with Dutch Boy Paints’ ‘Lead Family’, an anthropomorphic cast of toxic characters. There’s more of these ads at Collectors Weekly, including a sad gem from 1947 that claims that DDT is good for a wide variety of things. Oh, the good ol’ days.

The Dutch Boy’s Lead Party, 1923

DDT ad by Killing Salt Chemicals, 1947