Ephemera
The graphic arts department houses many
additional collections
of what can be termed ephemera. Some of these collections, such as
bookplates,
clipper ship cards, and
currency, contain items of great
rarity.
Others are essentially accumulations of materials that librarians and
curators at the Society have assembled over the years.
In the summer of 2005, a team of students provided brief cataloging
records for the collections of bill heads, Civil War Envelopes, clipper
ship cards, invitations, menus, rewards of merit, stock certificates,
trade cards, as well as several thousand programs for theater, music,
circus, and other popular entertainments. Such materials now can be
searched through the online catalog. These collections in addition to
previously cataloged broadsides printed from 1821 through 1876 were also
digitized and are available through terminals at AAS and at libraries
subscribing to American Broadsides and Ephemera, Series I,
1760-1900,
an
Archive of Americana Collection issued by the Readex Division of
NewsBank.
A frequently used collection is that of eighteenth- and
nineteenth-century trade cards. Scholars
interested in the history
of American graphic arts consult them because many are engraved by
individuals such as Paul Revere and James Turner. Others refer to
the collection because of the interesting design of these small
advertisements. Many are illustrated with vignettes of shops or of
people working, depictions that are of interest to scholars in
several disciplines. There is also a separately filed collection
of small trade cards of the latter part of the nineteenth century.
These are mainly stock cards that were printed by large commercial
printing firms with blanks for the local firm's message. Many of
these are printed in color with comical or sentimental
illustrations. This collection is filed by type product advertised --
groceries, dry goods, medicines, etc.
Related to the trade cards is the collection of watch papers.
These ephemeral pieces were inserted into the backs of watches,
frequently with the date of the most recent servicing or repair.
The most elegant are engraved, and the figure of Father Time
appears with regularity. In 1951, the Society published a
checklist of the collection compiled by Dorothea N. Spear. About 100
examples
have been added to the collection since then, and an annotated copy of the
checklist is shelved in the Society's bibliography section.
Colonial currency is a collection of major significance. The
collection is mounted in twenty-two notebooks. The bibliography by
Eric P. Newman, The Early Paper Money of America (Racine, Wis.,
1976) is annotated to reflect the Society's holdings. Nineteenth-century
banknotes are filed by state.
The valentine collection features early examples made by
Esther Howland of Worcester, as well as examples printed later in
the nineteenth century. It is a representative collection and
incorporates some valentines printed in Europe. Related to these is
the collection of Louis Prang salesmen's books of that firm's
greeting cards. Arranged by function or by holiday, that collection
numbers some fifty volumes. Additional lithographs by the
Prang firm, which specialized in chromolithography, are cataloged
in the lithograph collection. There is also one box of
miscellaneous Christmas cards.
A large collection of rewards of merit is
often interesting
for the pictorial content of these nineteenth-century ephemeral
pieces. They were awarded to students for good behavior or
excellence in their studies. The collection is filed by iconography
or pictorial content. There is also a group of rewards filed by
printers' names.
The graphic arts department includes a number of other minor
collections, some of which were described in detail by Brigham.
They are national in scope and generally date before 1877. A partial
listing of them will indicate to the researcher the riches of
this department. In alphabetical order they are:
billheads, bills of lading, calendars,
calling cards,
copybook covers, nineteenth-century currency,
diplomas, election ballots,
labels, lottery tickets,
membership certificates, passports,
sentiment cards, silhouettes, stock
certificates, telegram forms, tickets (including railroad tickets and passes, dance cards, and lectures tickets),
type-and-banknote-engraving specimen sheets, and wrappers for reams of
paper.
Other collections include the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition Collection and the William Allen Collection.
- Georgia B. Barnhill, Andrew W. Mellon Curator of Graphic Arts
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The trade card collection includes many views of retail spaces, including
this charming view of the interior of Ebenezer Larkin's bookstore in
Boston
that flourished in the late eighteenth century.
Watch papers protected the insides of pocket watches from dust. The AAS
collection contains many rarities including this example engraved for
Aaron Willard, a member of the famous family of clockmakers, by Paul
Revere about 1781. This came to AAS as the gift of Mark Bortman in 1948.
This example of colonial currency was issued by the Georgia government on
June 8, 1777. Many of the pieces of currency were ornamented with emblems
and other pictorial designs. Printing in more than one color and the
hand-written signatures aided in the prevention of counterfeiting.
The Civil War Envelope Collection features
several bird's-eye views of
Civil War forts. Other envelopes feature caricatures and portraits of
military and political leaders.
For current information on the cataloging status of this and
other AAS collections, choose "Collection Access" below.
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