Essex County Advertising Ephemera Collection, 1700-2000

Collection

Identifier: EPH 1

Staff Only
Not requestable

Scope and Contents

Notable for its rarity (over 90% of the ephemera processed is unique to the Phillips Library) and its diversity, the Essex County Advertising Ephemera Collection represents over 300 years of design, printing, advertising, and social history. The bulk of the ephemera dates from the mid-nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century, with particular strength in late nineteenth-century materials. The majority of the materials originated in Salem, but the collection includes ephemera from about forty distinct cities and towns in Essex County, Massachusetts. The material types vary greatly. Though the collection is largely constituted of more traditional advertising ephemera, such as billheads, trade cards, and trade catalogs, there are many other items that are not readily sorted into more traditional advertising ephemera types.

The collection is arranged into forty-seven topical series. Each series is further divided into two geographic subseries, “Salem” and “Other Essex County.” Much of the original order of the collection has been preserved, though adjustments for clarity, including the consolidation or creation of topical series, have been made. Included alongside the collection’s finding aid is an appendix that provide a fully-searchable, item-level inventory of the collection, divided by size and organized by topic (see Appendix I). Please note that the dates included in the finding aid are bulk rather than inclusive, and individual items’ dates can be found in Appendix I. Appendix II contains a list of topics represented in the collection of Essex County trade cards.

The Essex County Advertising Ephemera Collection makes up just part of the Phillips Library’s broader Ephemera Collection, which includes other advertising materials, social ephemera, and cultural ephemera from Essex County and beyond. The rest of this collection is still in the process of being made accessible; to request materials, please contact the library by email at research@pem.org.

Dates

Creation: Majority of material found in 1700-2000

Language of Materials

These materials are in English.

Conditions Governing Access

This collection is open for research use.

Biographical / Historical

Broadly defined, ephemera are materials (printed or manuscript, paper or otherwise) that were intended to be discarded, the flotsam and jetsam of disposable goods that accumulate in a society. Advertising ephemera specifically are the printed matter produced by businesses and intended for customers or members of the trade. Advertising ephemera are often visually arresting, using bright colors and bold typefaces to attract consumers. They are unified only by their purpose; the material types are as varied as the imagination of the advertisers permits.

Printed ephemera proliferated especially during and after the 1870s, given the improvements in chromolithograph technology in the 1860s and the development of fully-mechanized lithographic presses in the 1870s (Piola and D’Agostino). Most notably, many historians mark the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia as the turning point for the printing and distribution of American printed ephemera broadly, and lithographed trade cards specifically (Mihaly). Given their inherently transient nature, ephemera are both integral to the historian’s reconstruction of daily life and, often, quite rare. Unlike much of the published material that survives today, ephemera often provide material evidence of the working class. Ephemera were not meant to last, meaning they were generally cheaper and more widely available, and reflected the shifting popular culture of their time in a way that books were not and did not. Similarly, micro-trends in design, typography, manufacturing, or culture that may not be represented anywhere else can be reflected in a single extant ephemeron. Ephemera can also provide the modern scholar with images of manufactories or commercial packaging that may not have otherwise survived to the present day.

Extent

10.25 Linear Feet (17 boxes, 2 flat files)

Additional Description

Abstract

Series List

I. Advertising

A. Salem Mass.

B. Other Essex County

II. Agriculture and Gardening

A. Salem, Mass.

B. Other Essex County

III. Antiques

IV. Architectural Supplies

A. Salem, Mass.

B. Other Essex County

V. Artists' Materials and Supplies

VI. Automobiles

A. Salem, Mass.

B. Other Essex County

VII. Barbers' Supplies

VIII. Boats

IX. Books and Booksellers

A. Salem, Mass.

B. Other Essex County

X. Carriages

XI. China and Pottery

XII. Clothes, Hats and Shoes

A. Salem, Mass.

B. Other Essex County

XIII. Dentistry

XIV. Department and Dry Goods Stores

A. Salem, Mass.

B. Other Essex County

XV. Drugs and Pharmaceuticals

A. Salem, Mass.

B. Other Essex County

XVI. Electrical Appliances

A. Salem, Mass.

B. Other Essex County

XVII. Finance, Law and Insurance

A. Salem, Mass.

B. Other Essex County

XVIII. Food and Drink

A. Salem, Mass.

B. Other Essex County

XIX. Fuel

A. Salem, Mass.

B. Other Essex County

XX. Hardware and Hand Tools

XXI. Horse Goods

A. Salem, Mass.

B. Other Essex County

XXII. House Furnishings

A. Salem, Mass.

B. Other Essex County

XXIII. Jewelry

XXIV. Laundry

XXV. Leather and Shoe-Making

A. Salem, Mass.

B. Other Essex County

XXVI. Livestock

A. Salem, Mass.

B. Other Essex County

XXVII. Machinery

XXVIII. Medical Professionals

A. Salem, Mass.

B. Other Essex County

XXIX. Mill Products

XXX. Mortuaries and Funerary Goods

XXXI. Music and Musical Instruments

A. Salem, Mass.

B. Other Essex County

XXXII. Newspapers

A. Salem, Mass.

XXXIII. Office, School Supplies, and Stationery

A. Salem, Mass.

B. Other Essex County

XXXIV. Optometry

A. Salem, Mass.

B. Other Essex County

XXXV. Paint

XXXVI. Photographic Equipment and Supplies

A. Salem, Mass.

B. Other Essex County

XXXVII. Plumbing

A. Salem, Mass.

B. Other Essex County

XXXVIII. Printers and Printing

A. Salem, Mass.

B. Other Essex County

XXXIX. Real Estate

A. Salem, Mass.

B. Other Essex County

XL. Services

XLI. Sewing Machines

XLII. Stoves and Heaters

XLIII. Telephones

XLIV. Tobacconists

XLV. Toys, Games, and Entertainment

A. Salem, Mass.

B. Other Essex County

XLVI. Travel

A. Salem, Mass.

B. Other Essex County

XLVII. Trade Cards

Physical Location

Phillips Library Stacks

Provenance

This material was found in the collection, 2021.

Bibliography and Related Collections

Hudson, Graham S. The Design and Printing of Ephemera in Britain and America, 1720-1920. New Castle, Delaware: Oak Knoll Press, 2008.

Jay, Robert. The Trade Card in Nineteenth-Century America. Columbia, Missouri: University of Missouri Press, 1987.

Lewis, John. Printed Ephemera: The Changing Uses of Type and Letterforms in English and American Printing. Woodbridge, Suffolk: Antique Collectors’ Club, 1990.

Piola, Erika and Rachel D’Agostino. “Remnants of Everyday Life: Mass Production for Mass Consumption.” Ephemera Online. The Library Company of Philadelphia, 2014. https://ephemeraonline.librarycompany.org/remnants-3/

McKinstry, E. Richard. Trade Catalogues at Winterthur: A Guide to the Literature of Merchandising, 1750 to 1980. Bethesda, Maryland: University Publications of America, 1993.

Mihaly, Dave. “The Flowering of Color Printing.” The Ephemera Society of America, 2015. https://www.ephemerasociety.org/the-flowering-of-color-printing/

Rickards, Maurice. The Encyclopedia of Ephemera. New York: Routledge, 2000.

The Advertising Trade Card Quarterly. Marlton, New Jersey: Trade Card Collectors’ Association, 1994.

Samples of printed crepe paper napkins, 1900s. EPH 3

COVID-19 Ephemera Collection. EPH 4

Sailing Ship Card Collection. MSS 470