Experts by Experience: Lay Users as Authorities in Slimming Remedy Advertisements, 1918–1939

Abstract

This article analyses Dutch newspaper advertisements for slimming remedies in the 1920s and 1930s in order to investigate which authorities patients relied on in the past when deciding which pharmaceuticals to take. I argue that lay users, not doctors, were the most prominent cultural authorities in these advertisements. My main sources are newspaper advertisements extracted from the digital newspaper database of the Dutch National Library. In addition to the historical analysis the article also offers a practical guide for extracting relevant sources from such large digital repositories.