A brief history of advertising with promotional calendars

Calendar advertising has a rich history dating back to the 1850s, when The Ketterlinus Lithographic Manufacturing Co. of Philadelphia began printing calendars containing advertising. Promotional wall calendars became even more popular as printing technology improved. In 1878, Andrew and Jacob Geiger opened a printing shop in Newark, New Jersey, and began printing advertising calendars, fans, posters, and other ephemera on paper.

Calendar advertising became increasingly popular in the late 1880s, thanks to the efforts of two enterprising Ohio journalists, Jasper Freemont Meek and his competitor, Henry Beach. They were fierce competitors, and between them they figured out how to place ads on a wide variety of items, from aprons, hats, and a wide variety of household items. They even invented the classic metal cola advertising trays, which are now prized by antique collectors.

Two other journalists, Thomas Murphy and Edward Burke Osborne, both of Red Oak, IA, are credited with inventing artistic calendars that became immensely popular in the late 1880s. Like Jasper Meek and Henry Beach, they needed new business to keep your print shops busy and generate additional sales. Osborne printed a watercolor of the new Red Oak courthouse on cardboard, printed advertising around the painting, and added a calendar pad. It was a huge success.

Until then, it hadn’t occurred to anyone to put cool art on calendars. The two men purchased excellent photographs and paintings from a variety of artists and upgraded their printing capabilities to include 3-color printing. By 1894, Murphy and Osborne were employing a total of 94 people, including 14 traveling salesmen, and printing approximately three million calendars.

In late 1894, Murphy sold his interest in the business to Osborne, who moved the company to Newark, New Jersey, to be closer to the art and business centers in the New York metropolitan areas. Osborne then took advantage of a new printing technology, letterpress printing, to produce calendars of the highest quality. The resulting success of those calendars allowed him to establish printing plants in Toronto, London, and Sydney, Australia.

Since then, promotional calendars have continued to grow in popularity as a promotional product. Today, printed promotional calendars continue to rank among the top three product groups in the promotional products industry.