Trade catalogues in the Winterthur Museum Library

The Winterthur has contributed to the Internet Archive the printed catalogue: The trade catalogues at Winterthur: a guide to the literature of merchandising, 1750 to 1980 by E. Richard McKinstry, New York, 1984.  It can be read online, downloaded as a pdf, downloaded to Kindle, viewed as full text, etc. It is searchable (I found the pdf version easiest) and there are also excellent chronological, geographical and alphabetical indexes.  The catalogue is annotated with Winterthur shelfmarks.

Although predominantly American, there are many trade catalogues from other countries, notably c. 150 from  England, including many from the 18th and early 19th centuries starting with East India House, 1750.  Other countries represented are Austria, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Northern Ireland, Portugal, Russia, Scotland, Singapore, and Switzerland.


The catalogue is divided into subject areas: Agricultural implements and machiney, Architectural building plans and materials, Art supplies, Brass goods, Ceramics and glassware, Clothing and accessories, Department and dry goods stores and misc, Ecclesiastical and funerary supplies, Entertainment, leisure activities and recreational goods, Food and refrigeration, Furniture, Garden and lawn supplies and ornament, Hardware, cutlery, utensils and hand tools, Iron and steel goods, Jewellery and clocks and watches, Lighting fixtures and electrical supplies, Measuring implements, Medical and health supplies, Musical instruments and supplies, Paint and varnish, Paintings and prints, Photography, Plumbing, heating and cooling equipment, Printers' equipment and publications, Silver and silver-plated goods, Stationery and office supplies, Statuary, Stoves, Vehicles and equestrian supplies, and Wall and floor coverings.

(C) Internet Archive and Winterthur Musuem

Also in the Intenet Library is the Guide to the microfiche edition of Trade catalogues at the Winterthur Museum, part 2 by Eleanor McD Thompson (1991).

Entries can  also be found for the trade catalogues through the Winterthur Library online catalogue: Wintercat.

American Antiquarian Society

The American Antiquarian Society is a major repository for American ephemera, notably early material, outlined in the excellent online Guide to ephemera.  A major digitial resource is only available by subscription: American Broadsides and Ephemera, Series I, 1760-1900 (Readex Division of NewsBank).

There is much else to explore in the AAS website.

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(C) American Antiquarian Society

 
The Guide to the Collections gives an overview in two columns: one by subject grouping, the other alphabetical, with icons showing which have been digitised. Links lead to a series of web pages introducing the category and outlining the resources at the AAS.

There is a very useful genre listing, which gives the cataloguing and listing status of each category.  From this, those which are of most interest to ephemerists are: Almanacs, Billheads, Bookplates and booksellers' labels, Booksellers' catalogues, Broadsides, Calendars, Calling card, Canadiana, Cartes de visite, Civil war cartoons, Civil war envelopes, Clipper ship cards, Election ballots, Ephemera, Games, Invitations, Lottery tickets, Menus, Paul Revere Collection, Postcards, Printing and publishing history, Rewards of merit, Sentiment cards, Songsters, Textile printing, Trade cards, Trade catalogues, although there is clearly more ephemera kept under subject.   Of these, almanacs, booksellers' catalogues, broadsides, Canadiana, printing and publishing history, songsters, and trade catalogues are partially catalogued.  Priority has been given to early material.  The online catalogue, which includes many records for ephemera, can be searched by genre as well as keyword, subject, name, etc.

Some collections have been digitised and are available online in the form of Illustrated inventories. The important  Paul Revere Collection contains 18th century trade cards, certificates, masonic ephemera, prints and much else, all described and digitsed in an Illustrated Inventory.  There are also subject tags, a searchable pdf, list of resources and thumbnail gallery (shown in screen shot).

(C) American Antiquarian Society

The Charles Peirce Collection of Social and Political Caricatures and Ballads is also fully digitised and is also notable for its interractive view of the album before it was disassembled. These political cartoons are supplemented by The European Political Print Collection.  Ambrotypes and daguerrotypes also have fully illustrated inventories.

The AAS holds an important archive of McLoughlin Bros. catalogues, price lists and order forms, available as full-colour pdfs, and also some 50 volumes of Louis Prang's salesmen's books featuring greetings cards.

There is also an invaluable 19th century American Children's Book Trade Directory.

Online exhibitions include Big Business Food Production, Making Valentines, Visions of Christmas, and A Woman's Work is Never Done, all of which feature ephemera.

Online Advent Calendars

I really like the online 'advent' calendars launched today, especially those of the Geffrye Museum, Oxford University Computing Services Open Advent calendar (24 open educational resources free to use, not just for Christmas) and the Regional Support Centre South East 'Appy Christmas calendar, which introduces educational apps, gadgets and tips.

©Geffrye Museum

 

My favourite so far is the University of Glasgow House of Fraser Archive Advent Calendar, which reveals a new Christmas image from the archive each day in a countdown to the launch of the online catalogue after Christmas Day. A fun way to introduce a new resource which, judging from the first image, will contain a lot of ephemera.

© UofG

British Museum

The British Museum has superb collections of ephemera, mainly in the Dept of Prints and Drawings.

For bookplates and prints the BM catalogues are the standard reference works.

All three volumes of the Catalogue of the Franks Collection of British and American Bookplates in the British Museum Department of Prints and Drawings are now available online, thanks to a digitisation initiative by the University of Toronto.

The museum is putting increasing numbers of prints and ephemera online through its Collection database. At 21/11/11 there were 18,626 entries online under book plate.
 
There are 31,899 political prints online (which I found by entering satirical prints in the free text search).

© Trustees of the British Museum

The invaluable catalogue: Stephens, Frederic George; George, Mary Dorothy, Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires in the Department of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum, 11 vols, London, BMP, 1870 is also available online through the University of Toronto, together with a wealth of other reference works relating to prints at the museum.


The BM's collections of  British 18th and 19th century trade cards (the Heal and Banks collections) are unsurpassed. There are currently 14,754 trade cards online.

There is also a new online research catalogue of the museum's Paper Money (nearly 20% already online), with articles on banking history, security printing, etc.

© Trustees of the British Museum