America's dog, vintage ads & pop culture

"This was the all american dog, for a long time, um, our world war two, one of our world war two dog heroes was Stubby, an old pit bull. Was his name Stubby Tim, do I have that right? I think it was Stubby, yeah. And it was just kind of everyone's dog that they had. You know, laying on the front porch, hanging out. They'd show up in a lot of advertisements, um, Buster Brown's dog, the shoe advertisement of the dog was supposed to be a pit bull. So they used to be just you know, commonplace."
Donna Reynolds, Badrap

(Stubby was in WW1)

Pit nutters love to point to old war posters of pit bulls and Buster Brown as proof that they were once cherished normal family dogs, then blame the 1987 Sports Illustrated magazine for ruining their "good" reputation. But I'd say their reputation was tarnished right from the start. Here are a few uses of the pit bulls' image that capitalize on his gripper talents in ads, comics etc. in the 1880's.







Yep, Buster Brown's dog is a pit bull!













Victim "What does your confounded dog see in me that he is always attacking me?"
Nutter: "Well, I suppose... bones."