ABSTRACT
This chapter examines illustrated advertising to revisit precisely that debate; that is, what can the study of advertising suggest about the extent to which imperialism left an imprint on British popular and visual culture? Porter MacKenzie recognizes that, from the 1880s, 'the empire appeared in advertisements' at a frequency and 'intensity' that was new. This is certainly the case: opportunities afforded by technological improvements to printing images gave advertisers more scope to illustrate the exotic. The most detailed investigations into late-Victorian and Edwardian advertising situates research within the context of debates about the influence of racial and imperial ideologies on consumer culture. The chapter explores key marketing hooks of 'health' and 'nutrition' since these dominates the context of advertising. Closer scrutiny of products that extolled the health and nutritional qualities of mundane medicines, albeit a discourse of domestic imperialism significantly less overt than one that traded on clears visual demarcations of race and the newsworthiness of military conflict.
