Wm. Radam's Microbe Killer registered trademark (Wikimedia Commons)

period print · 1887

type:period print

year:1887

citation:'Wm. Radam's Microbe Killer' registered trademark device (a man clubbing a skeleton whose scythe lies broken). Wikimedia Commons, File:Radam's Microbe Killer.png. Public domain. Institutional provenance: registered as a US trademark and held by the Library of Congress, item 2023668939 (https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2023668939/ ; '[Trademark registration by William Radam for Wm Radam's Microbe Killer. brand A Remedy Known as Microbe Killer]', registered 1893 July 25, rights statement 'No known restrictions on publication'); the trademark itself was secured December 13, 1887 (Barnett).

LINK

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Radam%27s_Microbe_Killer.png

SUMMARY

Wikimedia Commons archival record for the registered trademark device of Wm. Radam's Microbe Killer. Commons imageinfo read 2026-06-11: LicenseShortName and UsageTerms 'Public domain'; native size 468 x 524 px. A vision inspection of the downloaded file confirmed a shield-shaped badge lettered 'Wm RADAM'S MICROBE KILLER' across the top and 'TRADE-MARK' at the bottom, enclosing a man in a suit swinging a club at a skeleton (Death) whose scythe lies broken at its feet; this matches the device that the National Library of Medicine and Barnett both describe as appearing on the jugs and newspaper advertisements. The same trademark is held institutionally by the Library of Congress (trademark-registration item 2023668939, registered 1893 July 25), recorded here for provenance; the Commons file is used as the media asset because its public-domain status is machine-verifiable. Source for the artifact-role media entity radam-microbe-killer-trademark. The caption follows the device's own lettering and the archive description and asserts no identification beyond 'a man' and 'a skeleton'.

NOTES

This Wikimedia Commons record is the archival source for the Microbe Killer trademark, the case’s artifact-role image. The device is the visual core of Radam’s marketing: a man in a business suit clubbing a skeleton whose scythe already lies in pieces, ringed by the lettering “Wm RADAM’S MICROBE KILLER” and “TRADE-MARK.” The same registered mark is documented institutionally in the Library of Congress trademark-registration collection (item 2023668939, registered 1893 July 25); the Commons copy is used as the asset because Commons states its public-domain status explicitly, which the media-rights gate can verify. The caption follows the device’s own lettering and names no individual.