Abstract

In the early twentieth century the Punta Arenas press was one of the most important media in the Magellanic area. An important part of its pages was covered with advertisements, which besides demostrating their significance as a financing source also shows the degree of development of economic activities in the area and the potential that importers, producers and traders saw on advertisement as a promoter of their activities. This article reconstructs the commercial scenario in which the inhabitants of the city of Punta Arenas lived and purchased between 1900 and 1917 using information about shops and consumer goods that emerges from advertisements published in El Comercio, La Union, Chile Austral, Eco de la Guerra and The Magellan Times. We also seek to show the wealth of advertising as source of information and to contribute to a theoretical and methodological discussion on the use of advertising as a historical source.