I am
so pleased to guest post an update about the Library Company of Philadelphia’s ephemera collections first described on February 13, 2012. Thanks to the generosity of
the National Endowment for the Humanities, more of our printed and graphic
ephemera is now available online. Those with an interest in popular and visual
culture, history of women, German-Americana, and economics now have access to near
30, 000 pieces of ephemera as well as over 7,000 representative digital files
of these holdings in our catalog ImPAC.
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| (C) Library Company of Philadelphia |
Ranging
in date from circa 1720 to circa 1900,
and arranged by genre and/or provenance, our newly accessible materials include
early 18th-century bills of lading; amateur newspapers; postcards, stereographs, and trade cards documenting Philadelphia
cityscapes, businesses, and commercial customs; and a number of personal and
professional albums and scrapbooks. Within the latter, the works of early prominent
local photographers, specimens compiled by 19th-century Philadelphia printers
and engravers, as well as trade cards, souvenirs, and mementos collected by socialites
of the Progressive Era can be found. Other ephemera documents the Centennial Exhibition of 1876; the history of the Library Company; and the work of artist Peter Moran.
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| (C) Library Company of Philadelphia |
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| (C) Library Company of Philadelphia |
The grant
funding also facilitated the cataloging and digitization of materials given by contemporary
collectors and long-term donors. The Helen Beitler Collection contains items predominantly
related to 19th-century advertising, including billheads, blotters, calendars,
envelopes, and labels. The collections given by William H. Helfand, a Library Company trustee
emeritus and retired drug company executive, are a rich source for the history
of patent medicine. The Roughwood Collection given by folklore scholar
Don Yoder and William Woys Weaver document the lives of the Pennsylvania Dutch,
while the Michael Zinman collections shed light on international communities
through his World’s Fairs Collection, the blind community through
his raised letter publications, and the
legal community through his collection of pre-1801 blank forms, such as
subpoenas, deeds, and court summons.
More
esoteric materials are also represented. Patrons can peruse Philadelphia
amateur scientist Joseph Breintnall’s nature prints of leaves,
one of our earliest acquisitions of ephemera, given to the library in 1746; circa
1895 color-printed flash cards to teach foreign languages through the Berlitz
Method; as well as “Things Found in Books” from within our holdings.
Although
several of the collections noted above are viewable in the digital catalog,
additional and complementary records describing the materials can be further
discovered in our traditional catalog WolfPAC. Through search terms representing
the genre of the material, the collection or collector’s name, or the grant
funder “National Endowment for the Humanities,” catalog users have another method
in which to learn about the diversity of the Library Company’s ephemera
collections.
I
hope I have inspired a few more ephemera enthusiasts and scholars to visit our
collections online (and in person). And one final note - please do not assume
that a collection retrieved through a hyperlink is the only digital collection
represented by the text highlighted. Please explore ImPAC. More ephemera of
interest is sure to be found.
Erika
Piola
Associate
Curator, Prints and Photographs
The
Library Company of Philadelphia
