The Great Sticker Campaign of 1909
Tacoma’s boosters are planning a massive, city-wide sticker campaign to promote the town to the world.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Tacoma may not be 'stuck up,' but everything that goes out of town in the next six months will be. There will be stadium stickers, booster stickers, A.V.P. stickers, and just plain Tacoma stickers. Everybody is to be armed with stickers which will be put on all mail, clapped on the baggage of all visitors, stuck on express packages and scattered over the wide world with a free hand. The California excursion went out this morning with 200 booster stickers. Commissioner Lachlen Macleay is preparing a postage stamp sticker with a picture of Mt. Tacoma and proper inscriptions, which all business men will use. Besides the sticker campaign, folders will be printed that will tell all about Tacoma and give all information about hotels, points of interest and data concerning the future metropolis of the Sound.
“Tacoma may not be 'stuck up,' but everything that goes out of town in the next six months will be.”
Early 20th-century 'boosterism' was the era's version of viral marketing. Before social media algorithms, civic leaders relied on physical ephemera to put their city on the map, reflecting the same anxiety about growth and relevance that modern cities face today.
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