‘Immune from the germ-laden things’: Immunity and Irish Newspaper Advertising, 1890–1940

Abstract

Summary From 1890, as advertising in Irish newspapers grew in quantity and sophistication, a discourse of immunity began to circulate. Advertisers drew on advancements in bacteriology and immunology to present their goods as defensive strategies against a range of threats, from major infectious diseases to everyday coughs and colds. Consumers were urged to supplement their bodies’ vulnerabilities by purchasing pills and tonics, with medical products joined by immunity-assuring underwear, coats, cosmetics and cars. From a dataset of every immunity-focused advertisement in the Irish Newspaper Archives and The Irish Times archives between 1890 and 1940, I unpack the ways immunity was presented to the Irish public outside of medical institutions. I show how discourses of immunity intersected with influenza outbreaks, consider the implication of the non-national origins of many advertisements, and trace their rhetoric of protection and resistance across a range of product types.