Allons fair un tour Advertising - Vintage American Trade Card

Not a lot of people suffer from a debilitating phobia of clowns but a lot more people, however, just don’t like them, especially in the U.S.A. Some circuses have held workshops to help visitors get over their fear of clowns by letting them watch performers transform into their clown persona. In Sarasota, Florida, in 2006, communal loathing for clowns took a criminal turn when dozens of fiberglass clown statues—part of a public art exhibition called "Clowning Around Town" and a nod to the city’s history as a winter haven for traveling circuses—were defaced, broken, beheaded, spray-painted and abducted.

Trade cards were one of the most prevalent forms of advertising in the U.S. from around 1875 to 1900. They had their origin in England in the 1700s with tradesmen advertising their wares. The advent of lithography in the 1870s made it possible to mass-produce them in color. The Philadelphia 1876 Centennial Exhibition sparked the beginning, as many were passed out at that event.