I strongly encourage everyone who is interested in this to carve out some time to read the old scanned newspapers at https://news.google.com/newspapers Pick a time range, then follow along reading the paper in a kind of "this day in history" fashion from a variety of papers from the west to midwest to east coast, not just to see what was important then, but how accounts changed.
It is fascinating to read accounts from 120-150 years ago. These kind of "classifieds" are cool too--"situation wanted" ads where single women are seeking domestic employment, and cases where men are looking for odd jobs. And then reading about the accidents--deaths from train incidents, boiler explosions, freak deaths. It's easy to get lost in a different time while seeing connections to media and what interested people then and now.
I second this. It's been a hobby of mine for a few years and there are many instances when I've caught myself losing track of time while doing it. The only difference is I do it with foreign 'Hemerotecas' (news libraries). In fact, I'm keen to write a book about my findings.
In India, these forms of advertisements are still a primary way by which millions of couples meet each other. The parents are often involved in pre-filtering alliances.
The electronic version of this (e.g. http://www.bharatmatrimony.com/ and the like) are the original e-commerce successes on the Indian Web, and are still going really strong.
It is interesting how up front they were about income. That seems much more efficient than trying to advertise wealth by buying "middle age crisis" style sports cars :)
This still happens in India. Parents of daughters are direct about income requirements. Women want men who earn more than them, down to the rupee. Men want women who are young, beautiful and homely. All this is blatantly specified in the ads in newspapers.
It is fascinating to read accounts from 120-150 years ago. These kind of "classifieds" are cool too--"situation wanted" ads where single women are seeking domestic employment, and cases where men are looking for odd jobs. And then reading about the accidents--deaths from train incidents, boiler explosions, freak deaths. It's easy to get lost in a different time while seeing connections to media and what interested people then and now.