Ephemera exhibitions, catalogues and books (1)

There are currently several ephemera exhibitions, in this country and in the U.S.A.

This week, I went to The London Transport Museum's Poster Art 150: London Underground's Greatest Designs. Superb posters, with a public voting system to select the most popular poster. The exhibition is arranged into themes:: Finding your way, Brightest London, Capital culture, Away from it all , Keeps London going and Love your city.  There is a catalogue, reproducing the posters. The exhibition runs until 27 October.

The British Library has a major exhibition: Propaganda: Power and Persuasion (17 May to 17 September).

Propaganda: Power and Persuasion home page: (C) British Library Board

There are events, tours, a blog and a catalogue by Prof David Welch.

In the USA, the exhibition Ephemera: the art of everyday printed mattter has just opened at the Portsmouth Athenaeum and runs until  15 September.

(C) Portsmouth Athenaeum

The Library Company of Philadelphia (the subject of previous blog posts: 13 Feb 2012 and, guest post by Erika Piola, 29 June 2012) meanwhile has an exhibition Remnants of everyday life: historical ephemera in the workplace, street and home, which runs until 15 December 2013.

There is also a related ephemera conference: Unmediated history, the scholarly study of 19th century ephemera (Visual Culture Program of the Library Company of Philadelphia and Ephemera Society of America) at the LCP  from 19 to 20 September 2013.

While I could not find any links to exhibition catalogues for either USA exhibition, this is a good chance to promote the Library Company of Philadelphia's recent project: Philadelphia on Stone, which has an online exhibition, digital catalogue and a major publication: Philadelphia on Stone: Commercial Lithography in Philadelphia, 1828-1878, edited by Erika Piola.

Finally, a new, scholarly book on ephemera has just been published. Studies in Ephemera: text and image in eighteenth-century print, ed. by Kevin Murphy and Sally O'Driscoll, Lewisburg (Bucknell University Press) focuses mainly on ballads (including a chapter on ballad images by the Bodleian's Alexandra Franklin) and broadsides.  There are also chapters by Sally O'Driscoll on macaronis in print culture and  by Georgia Barnhill on Ephemera at the American Antiquarian Society: perspectives on commercial life in the long eighteenth century.  The superb ephemera in the AAS have been digitised and are available to subscribers only through Readex. Sadly, the Bodleian does not subscribe.

Studies in Ephemera is also widely available as an e-book

Jules Chéret and Alphonse Mucha

My recent work on Eugène Rimmel for a mini online exhibition on my other blog: The John Johnson Collection: Now and Then led me to explore his little-known collaboration with his countryman Jules Chéret.

It was Chéret who compiled Les Maitres de l'Affiche. Published by Imprimerie Chaix between 1895 and 1900, this monthly publication showcased international lithographic poster art, including works by Toulouse Lautrec, Chéret himself, Steinlen, and Dudley Hardy.


It is now very easy to gain an overview of the works of artists, especially poster artists, through commercial sites, usually showing reproductions which can be ordered as prints, mugs, T shirts, etc. Googling offers quick and easy ways to see the works of Jules Chéret, Toulouse Lautrec, Steinlen, Dudley Hardy and others. The commercial All posters site includes the facility to view international musuem holdings, e.g. from the Musée Toulouse Lautrec in Albi, as well as searching by artist.

The complete works - Jules Chéret is a site which, while it does not include Chéret's work on valentines or almanacs, does present the advertising posters (124 images) for which he is famous, in an attractive manner.   There is also a biography. This too is a commercial site, offering hand-painted reproductions of the works, but there is, nevertheless, some descriptive metadata.

For more academic sites, with metadata, however, Gallica again  reveals what a rich resource it is, with no fewer than 1,165 results for Chéret, Jules, many from the Médiathèque de Chaumont. There are many  hundreds for Mucha, Lautrec etc.

(C) Gallica

 The V&A site also has a weatlth of posters, with a supporting study guide, which includes a superb bibliography.

(C) V&A

(C) Mucha Foundation

My interest in Alphonse Mucha was rekindled by a visit to Prague last summer, where I visited both Mucha museums. The Mucha Foundation has a wonderful website, full of information and with over 300 images of Mucha's key works

Postcard exhibition in Boston

(C) Museum of Fine Arts, Boston www.mfa.org

 
Many thanks to John Sayers for alerting me to the exhibition The Postcard Age at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, which runs until April 14 2013. Although sadly I won't see the exhibition itself, there are screen shots of it online, and I am very much looking forward to reading the accompanying book The Postcard Age by Linda Klich and Benjamin Weiss, which we now have in the Bodleian Library.

The exhibition is a taster of the 100,000 postcards which Leonard A. Lauder (son of Estée) is gradually giving to the Museum. The cards are arranged by themes such as urban life, the changing role of women, sports, celebrity, new technologies, art nouveau and WWI. 

There is an online slideshow of 10 cards from the exhibition and you can send a virtual postcard from the exhibition. I particularly like the moving images of the display (together with the other current exhibitions), which can be seen from the museum's home page.  Postcards, by virtue of their size, present challenges for display and it is good to see how the museum has approached these.


An online article from the New Yorker, The pleasures of postcards gives the background to Lauder's passion for postcards as miniature works of art.  Other online articles are Wild cards (New York Times), MFA exhibit showcases postcard marvels (Boston Post) and Cards to write home about (Wall Street Journal).

Japanese postcards from the MFA's website: www.mfa.org

Nearly 22,000 Japanese postcards from the Leonard A. Lauder Collection are already at the museum and can be seen online (most with images).

 This is a serious postcard collection, acquired over many years and representing the height of the postcard craze from the 1900s to the beginning of the First World War.  Leonard A. Lauder has collected the jewels of this age, internationally.  It is a pleasure to see these cards given the status of a museum collection, with a dedicated exhibition, and elucidated in a scholarly volume.

The National Fairground Archive

The National Fairground Archive at the University Library, University of Sheffield, under the leadership of Professor Vanessa Toulmin, has holdings which document fairs, circuses, menageries, magic, optical shows, etc. A subject list gives the scope of the collection, which includes 4,500 books, 250 journals titles, moving images, photographs, drawings, audio material, correspondence, diaries, cuttings, account books, maps, charts, plans, teaching materials, notebooks etc, as well as ephemera: postcards, trade and advertising material, programmes, calendars, almanacs, posters, proclamations, and 20,000 posters and handbills. There are word processed indexes (currently under revision) to each of these genres.

(C) NFA, University of Sheffield

The site includes articles, bibliographies and links to other websites and resources.

Researchers can visit in person, without an appointment Monday to Wednesday, with an appointment on Thursday.  Opening hours are posted online.

The National Fairground Archive has just launched NFA digital, with images added weekly. 19,720 images are currently online  and these can be browsed or searched by collection, period, subject, place and name. The Search tips, especially the explanations of themes and subject terms, are very helpful.

You can follow the National Fairground item on Twitter: @professorvaness


The subscription site: Victorian Popular Culture (Adam Matthew) which will be covered more thoroughly in my next post, includes material from the National Fairground Archive

(C) NFA, University of Sheffield

The Giochidelloca Website for Games based on the Game of Goose: Guest post by Prof Adrian Seville

We are privileged to have our first guest post, by Adrian Seville, whose joint website with Luigi Ciompi contains a wealth of scholarship about board games based on the Game of the Goose. 

The Giochi dell'Oca website established by Luigi Ciompi and Adrian Seville now contains over 1600 images of printed board games based on or allied to the Game of the Goose (Jeu de l’Oie, Gioco dell’Oca, etc). The database contains not only games from their collections but also games from other collections, both private and public. Images are accessible from the archivio (archive) page. They are of good quality and are free to download, though permission to publish them elsewhere is required. Detailed information about many of the games is also given. The storia page gives a list of publications that can be downloaded and there is comprehensive bibliographia page. The pdf Hints on how to use the site  is an invaluable introduction (in English) to searching.

(C) Dr Luigi Compi

Look and Learn: the collections of Peter Jackson, Valerie Jackson Harris and more

The collections of the late Peter Jackson and of Valerie Jackson Harris are among the very finest in private hands.  Peter Jackson collected ephemera relating to London: many of his items are not represented in any museum or library. Valerie, who trades as Quadrille and who is Chairman of The Ephemera Society, is a connoisseur of ephemera and collects only the finest, specialising in embossing, valentines, trade cards, dance and the unusual or exquisite.

Valerie is very aware that these are both museum-quality collections and that they deserve to be known and used by scholars and enthusiasts. Digitisation and the Look and Learn platform have enabled that to happen without compromising the condition and private nature of the collections. The results are a truly stunning resource, testament to Valerie's generosity of spirit and her wish to transform her late husband Peter's work and skill as a collector into a living resource for present scholars.  Work is still in progress to digitise and catalogue both collections, but there are already 19,919 images from The Peter Jackson London Collection and 629 from The Valerie Jackson Harris Collection with many thousands more to come. It is a serious and very exciting  resource for ephemerists and researchers.

Peter Jackson Collection  © 2005-2012 Look and Learn

Valerie Jackson Harris Collection  © 2005-2012 Look and Learn

I have to confess that I had never heard of the Look and Learn history picture library, which provides images for scholars and teachers but, quite apart from Valerie's and Peter's collections, it is a superb resource. Based on classic illustrated children's magazines, it has diversified to include 64,766 images from Bridgeman Education, 21,572 images from the Library of Congress and 2,161 images from IPC media.

The formula is simple. Anyone can browse free of charge.  Downloads (apart from the Library of Congress, which is free) cost £2 per image for personal or educational use.  A licence must be obtained before any usage.  There are also fees and licences for commercial use and items from the Original artwork collection may be ordered as cards (including e-Cards), posters, prints, etc.

The Peter Jackson Collection was also the subject of a beautiful and informative book, which he co-authored with Felix Barker: The pleasures of London (London, London Topographical Society, 2008).

Seed catalogues 1: Oregon State University Libraries

It is National Gardening Week, and this seems a very good time to focus on seed catalogues.

Oregon State University Libraries Special Collections has a very useful and well presented online exhibit on early seed catalogues, based on the collection assembled by the former agricultural librarian, Laura Kelts. There are over 2,000 items in the collection, from 1832 to 1966, which include seed catalogues from Great Britain, Holland and other European and Asian countries, as well as (predominantly) North America. The holdings are particularly strong in North American catalogues of the 1940s.

The website gives the history of both British and American seed catalogues. It is divided into pages on the Earliest European seed and nursery catalogues, Early 19th century catalogues (with separate pages for British and American catalogues, Mid 19th century,  Late 19th and early 20th century, World War I, 1920s, 1930s, World War II and 1945-1960.  The appendices are devoted to Art and photography in seed catalogues and, perhaps most useful of all, there is an excellent page of links to other collections and exhibits, mostly in the USA, but also in Britain, Holland and Canada and introducing the Lindley Library (Royal Horticultural Society) project to locate all European seed catalogues, and a separate Bibliography.  Which is why I have called this Seed catalogues I: there is much more to explore!

Magic Lanterns

One of  the John Johnson Collection volunteers (Ian Matzen) is cataloguing early Cinema at the moment and has blogged about lantern slides of Robinson Crusoe, and another (Kevin Varty) is an magic lanternist who has drawn to my attention excellent resources in the subject.

The Magic Lantern Society website can only be fully used by members, but has a lot of freely-accessible information on its website, including the history of magic lanterns,  lists of slide readings (the readings themselves can be seen by members) and publications on magic lanterns.

“© The Magic Lantern Society 2007. All rights reserved

The Lucerna site (a collaborative site hosted by the University of Trier) includes 'details of slide sets, slide images, readings and other texts related to slide sets, lantern hardware, people and organisations involved in lantern history, and much more.'  The site is read-only but encourages participation for which a log-in is needed.

Searching can be restricted to results with images, and to country, manufacturer, characters in title, subject, type of image, format, production process, stockist, series title, keyword, date, etc.  A typical record will be divided into two tabs: Set details (with an impressive number of links to related resources) and Slide listing.

By no means all sets have images, but many do and provide a fascinating insight into the realm of the magic lantern lecture.

(C) Lucerna

Medical ephemera in the US National Library of Medicine

(C) U.S. National Library of Medicine, History of Medicine Division

 
Images from the History of Medicine (IHM) contains 69,271 images, including 7,763 posters and 4,445 postcards.These can be searched (including advanced searching) or browsed by an impressive range of categories under What, where and who. Although predominantly from the USA, these images are international with hundreds from the UK, France, China (notably Chinese anti-malaria and anti tuberculosis posters) and Switzerland.
Here today, here tomorrow: varieties of medical ephemera is the online version of a1995 exhibition of medical ephemera from the collections of William H. Helfand and the National Library of Medicine. It is arranged by theme: Addiction, Aids, Bookplates, Children, Medical education, Medical show, Public health, Tuberculosis and Women. The online version contains 140 of the original 400 items. The site also hosts separate online exhibitions of  Aids ephemera (based on an exhibition held in 2002) and Public health posters.

Ephemera and books on ephemera in the NLM collections can be found through Locator Plus.

(C) US National Library of Medicine and William H. Helfand

 

Reports on ephemera in libraries: CILIP, Clinton, Makepeace and Pemberton

In January 2003, CILIP (Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals, formerly the Library Association) held a meeting in London (chaired by Prof Michael Twyman) under the auspices of re:source (the Council for Museums, Archives and Libraries) to examine library and museum issues relating to ephemera (significance, acquisitions, collection management, cataloguing, digitisation, etc.). The report and its recommendations: Ephemera: the stuff of history are on CILIP's website.

Earlier works on library issues are, notably:

• Pemberton, John E. The national provision of printed ephemera in the social sciences: a report prepared for the Social Science and Government Committee of the Social Science Research Council. Coventry, 1971

• Clinton, Alan.  Printed ephemera: collection, organisation, and access. London, 1981

• Makepeace, Chris E. Ephemera: a book on its collection, conservation, and use. Aldershot and Brookfield, Vt., c. 1985

Bibliography of books on ephemera on the Ephemera Society of America website

Although referred to in my general post on the Ephemera Society of America website the excellent ephemera bibliography deserves a post on its own as a very impressive starting point for one of the aims of this blog: to list and discuss books on ephemera.  It includes general ephemera, paper and conservation, as well as books on specific genres of ephemera, from air transport labels to visiting cards.  British as well as American books are included, although, of course, books published both in America and England will be cited in their American editions.

(C) 2011 Ephemera Society of America

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Encyclopedia of Ephemera

The Encyclopedia of Ephemera is the fruit of Maurice Rickards' lifetime's work in establishing a collection which would illustrate all types or genres of ephemera.  He sadly died (in 1998) before finishing the encyclopedia and the work was completed and edited by Prof Michael Twyman, aided by Sally du Boscq de Beaumont and Amoret Tanner, all of the Centre for Ephemera Studies in the Dept of Typography, University of Reading, where the Rickards Collection is now housed.  It was published in 2000 by the British Library.

Copiously illustrated and with substantial entries on each category of ephemera from ABC primer to zoetrope strip/disc, the encyclopedia is an essential reference work for anyone interested in ephemera per se or in subjects represented by ephemera. There are two editions, one British, one American. Although there is not officially an electronic version of the encyclopedia, substantial snippet views appear through Google books.

The work of defining categories and genres of ephemera continues at the Centre for Ephemera Studies where a thesaurus of genre terms for ephemera is in preparation.

Museum of Brands

Although you cannot browse the Museum of Brands online, a personal visit to the Museum is a very rewarding experience. 12,000 items of packaging and advertising, arranged mainly by decade, convey a strong sense of period.  Robert Opie, the founder and curator of the Museum, has written many books on packaging, most of which are still available.

Copyright © 2009 Museum of Brands, Packaging and Advertising

Pantomimes in the V&A Collections

The V&A have several web articles dedicated to Pantomimes drawing on the resources of the Theatre and performance collections (formerly Theatre Museum): notably Early pantomime,  The origin of popular pantomime stories, Victorian pantomime and Principal boys, dames and animal impersonators in pantomime. These are linked through the Pantomime hub, which includes further essays and a reading list. Search the collections reveals a wealth of images from across the collections, but for dedicated ephemerists the simple search for pantomime can be combined with poster, playbill, etc. to narrow the results appropriately.

(C) V&A

(C) V&A

Trade catalogues at the V&A and Manchester Metropolitan University Library

The Victoria and Albert Museum is one of the few British institutions to have collected (and to continue to collect) trade catalogues. Often falling between books and ephemera, these fascinating documents are rare.  The trade catalogues, which date from the 1760s to the present, are split between the National Art Library (Jobbing Printing and EKCO collections) and the Archive of Art and Design (Liberty, Heal and others from within archive collections). These collections are not digitised. Readers' tickets and appointments are required.

Another major British collection of trade catalogues is held at Manchester Metropolitan University Library, where an exhibition was held in 1992 with a catalogue by Gaye Smith: Trade Catalogues: A Hundred Years, 1850-1949  (Manchester: Manchester Metropolitan University Library, 1992).

(C) V&A

The Ephemera Society of America

The Ephemera Society of America was founded in 1980.  Its focus is an annual convention which combines a conference and fair, usually in March. The society publishes The Ephemera Journal three times a year, communicates with its members through eNews, ( a monthly electronic journal) and has published some major reference works on ephemera. It has an excellent and informative web presence, including illustrated sections defining types of ephemera, articles, links, and bibliographies.  It is also on Facebook and Twitter: @EphemeraSociety

© 2011 The Ephemera Society of America

Vieux papiers, vieilles images

Vieux papiers, vieilles images is the seminal work by John Grand-Carteret, which introduced the Francophone world to the concept of ephemera. It dates from 1896.

Title	Vieux papiers: vieilles images : carton d'un collectionneur
Author	John Grand-Carteret
Publisher	A. Le Vasseur, 1896
Length	543 pages

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.

Book-jackets

It is a moot point whether book or dust jackets count as ephemera. When taken from the book, perhaps. We have a collection of Jackets in the John Johnson Collection, which are catalogued but not digitised. The Bodeian's jackets are also sent to us to process, but that is another story.
The New York Public Library has 2,511 jackets online, from American and European books.

(c) New York Public Library

And, while on the subject, G. Thomas Tanselle's long-awaited book, Book-jackets: their history, form, and use, has just been published by Oak Knoll (available in December).

(c) Oak Knoll