"In Marketing the Blue and Gray, Kreiser shows that advertisers went to war with a mixture of patriotic fervor and commercial opportunism. Effectively integrating early forms of consumerism into the larger history and historiography of the political and military events of the war, Kreiser deftly shows how advertisements reflected wartime American values, politics, and popular culture. His vast research reveals that wartime ads not only moved product, but also helped Americans engage the war and understand their places in it." -- James Marten, Professor and Chair, History Department

"Newspapers figured prominently in how people in the United States and the Confederacy gained information about, and reacted to, the ebb and flow of the Civil War. This welcome book provides the first examination of advertisements that both sold products and promoted support for the respective causes. Kreiser's analysis yields welcome insights into the commingling of popular and material culture, commerce, politics, and ideology in the midst of a great national trauma." --Gary W. Gallagher, author of The Union War

"In Marketing the Blue and Gray, Lawrence A. Kreiser takes a novel and fascinating approach: showing how the Civil War influenced and was influenced by newspaper advertising. In his comprehensive analysis of the words and images in ads in 550 Union and Confederate newspapers, Kreiser documents the sheer diversity of American life and commerce, the creativity of merchants, and the belief that shopping signaled patriotism. Well researched, crisply written, and concise, Marketing the Blue and Gray uncovers the stunning ways in which advertising sold the war and the war sold products--from war bonds to patent medicines to fake limbs. Through this remarkable book, one sees the war from a different perspective and Abraham Lincoln not just as president, but as pitchman."--Kathy Merlock Jackson, coeditor of The Journal of American Culture