Canada in the First and Second World Wars

A new (bliingual) site: Wartime Canada uses ephemera as a 'window into the Canadian experience during the world wars'. This collaborative project states that the 'emphasis is on the kind of material that is usually regarded as disposable – the very material that was omnipresent in the lives of Canadians in wartime'.

Each of the main subjects (Eating, Fighting, Learning, Relaxing, Remembering, Returning, Shopping, Volunteering, Working, and Worshipping) is broken down into sub-themes, with illustrations and metadata. Only ten per cent of the content is yet online, with approximately 5,000 items still to be uploaded, so this is a site to keep re-visiting.

Lesson plans are provided for a range of themes, such as War effort, Government & economy, Identity & culture, and Society.

Wartime Canada can be followed on Twitter: @WartimeCA

© 2012 · Wartime Canada

Posters in the Imperial War Museum

© IWM 2011

Searching the Imperial War Museum Collections and Research web pages for 'poster' returns 13,557 hits. Divided into themes, these can be viewed and shared.  Themes include Evacuation, Defence of the Realm Act, Women's Services in the First World War, Breakthrough, Great Britain 1939-1945 (black and white), First World War Propaganda Posters (black and white),South Vietnam, and Ministry of Food. Results can be narrowed too by creators, subject period, places, events, associated person, materials, subjects, themes and keywords. All have drop-down lists.

For other ephemera, the Museum has a category 'Souvenirs and ephemera'. Featured this February is a sweetheart heart pin cushion..

Over 7,000 of The Imperial War Museum's Posters of Conflict are available throught the VADS website, where they are cross-searchable with other collections (including Political prints and Trades and professions prints in the John Johnson Collection).

(C) IWM, VADS

The National Archive Image Library

The National Archive Image Library is a commercial image service, but also offers a glimpse of ephemera and other images from the National Archive's vast collections. The images are divided into the following categories: Buildings and factories, Colonial and empire, Crime, Design, Entertainment and theatre, Events and exhibitions, First World War, Mamuscripts, Maps, Medical, Military, Mining, People, Piracy, Places, Politics, Second World War, Slavery, Transport and Travel, and Victoriana.

(C) National Archives

There are also Monthly showcases which take a seasonal or topical theme, to date:  New Year, Winter, War and National Savings, Queens and Crowns, London, Seaside, Sports, Titanic, Creative Images, and Festival of Britain.

(C) The National Archives

Further images, mainly photographic but including some ephemera, are available copyright-free through The National Archives UK's Photostream on Flickr.  These have been tagged. The screen shot shows images relating to Christmas.

Duke University Libraries: John W. Hartman Center

Still on the American theme, Duke University Libraries' Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising & Marketing History in the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library has seven major projects, one an encyclopedia, the other six digital, all aiming to promote "understanding of the social, cultural, and historical impact of advertising, marketing, and sales".  This is a major initiative, focussing mainly on magazines and newspapers (rather than ephemera), television commercials, billboards, and outdoor advertisiing.

The Emergence of Advertising in America: 1850-1920 has over 2,800 advertisements, mostly from magazines, searchable by company, product, date, format, publication, etc.

(C) Duke University

But there is more!
Ad*Access contains 7,000 American and Canadian advertisements, divided into Beauty & Hygiene (1911-56), Radio (1922-56), Television (1939-57), Transportation (1938-57), and World War II (1942-45).

(C) Duke University

... and more
 AdViews is a "digital archive of thousands of vintage television commercials dating from the 1950s through the 1980s, and created or collected by the D'Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles advertising agency"

...and more
Medicine and Madison Avenue has 600 advertisements relating to health.

Road: Resource of Outdoor Advertising Descriptions (no images) and Road 2.0 (20,000 images) document bill boards and other outdoor advertising.

There are online exhibitions, supplementary information, a blog, RSS feeds, comment boxes, twitter - a multitude of web 2.0 functionality, and it is fun! Thank you Duke University.