Guia

Ileana

Picture this: It's 1886, you're a restaurant owner in Aguascalientes, Mexico, and you need a new refrigerator. (Yes, they had them! Not your Frigidaire  or anything, but they had them.) You would especially like one of the latest, most efficient models, but can't find one anywhere. What do you do?

Wells Fargo has you covered.

We're currently celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month, and I found it the perfect time to share one of my favorite artifacts at our L.A. museum. We call it the Guia. The whole name is quite a mouthful: "The "Guide for the Department of Sales and Commissions of Wells Fargo: Where and How to Buy American-Manufactured Items." This Spanish-language guide was printed in 1886, and it's basically a guide Mexican consumers and business owners could use to purchase a variety of items from the U.S. Wells Fargo had many offices in Mexico and would ship all over the country. The company had guides like this handy for customers. Agents would have samples of products and prices, and they took orders.

The introduction to the guide states that gone are the days of "taking advantage of friends and acquaintances who travel" by asking them to get you so-and-so item during their visit abroad (I think many of us are occasionally guilty of this even today, though) or entrusting such orders to strangers.

Wells Fargo's Express was easier, faster and more reliable. You just placed your order at an office, and you could get American-made items delivered to you from hundreds of miles away!

The items offered in the Guia were ones that were difficult to find or not found at all in Mexican markets. Making it convenient for people to order all sorts of items certainly helped the development of modern commerce in Mexico.

This guide is definitely a fun "read." It has any kind of item you can think of: shoes, carriages, farming equipment, dentist tools, cookies, music boxes, dried coconut...you name it!

And yes, refrigerators.