Isaac & Seth Adams, Manufacturers, printed billhead with annotations, Boston, 1843. Catalog record
Billheads document trade, economics, and the production of goods in the United States. National in scope, the Society's collection includes firms involved in a variety of trades, such as transportation, printing, manufacturing, and agriculture.
With their often elaborate designs, billheads are of interest to scholars of both visual culture and general history. The graphic arts collection contains examples ranging from the 1760s to 1900. Many more may be found in the AAS manuscript collection.
The collection is particularly strong in booksellers' and printers' billheads, which record everything from purchases of ink and presses to delivery of bound volumes.
Usually ordered by merchants in bulk as blanks from job printers, billheads include rich documentation of specific business transactions. When used in tandem with other ephemera collections such as trade cards and stock certificates, billheads amplify business history in the United States.
Access
A portion of the collection is fully digitized and cataloged in the General Catalog. Select the "scanned image available here" link available in each catalog record to view and download images.