NY Times features Personals ads from the 1800s

The NY Times has just published a selection of personal ads, including missed connections, that were written in the 19th century.

Here is just one of the ads, from 1862:

If the young lady wearing the pink dress, spotted fur cape and muff, had light hair, light complexion and blue eyes, who was in company with a lady dressed in black, that I passed about 5 o’clock on Friday evening in South Seventh Street, between First and Second, Williamsburg, L.I., will address a line to Waldo, Williamsburg Post Office, she will make the acquaintance of a fine young man.

The NYT article was written by Pam Epstein who features many more of these ads on her Advertising for Love blog. Pam has been researching these ads as part of her dissertation on America’s transformation of love and marriage from the mid-19th to early-20th century. See all of Pam’s blog posts relating to missed connections from this period.

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Link to post | Posted by Eliot on February 15th, 2010 | Categorized as Fun