Trade card scrapbooks

Collection

Identifier: D.307

Staff Only

Biographical / Historical note

Trade cards were an early form of collectible advertising. The advent of lithography in the 1870s opened the possibilities for large-scale production of highly coloured, very detailed images, and companies and retailers took advantage of the eye-catching technique. Trade cards usually featured an image on one side and an advertisement on the other. Calling cards, religious sentiment cards, and greeting cards also featured colourful lithographic techniques, and many people collected these ephemera in scrapbooks. Popular themes printed on the cards took advantage of the colourful lithographic process, and featured tropical birds, flowers, animals, romantic imagery, and scenes from fable and fairy tale. Romantic, Orientalist, and racist themes are all also common.

Scope and Contents

The materials in this collection are scrapbooks of late nineteenth and early twentieth-century trade cards. The cards in volumes 1-3 are mainly for Rochester, New York manufacturers and merchants and in volume 4 for New York City businesses. These small cards advertise such products as soap, clothing, shoes, food, jewelry and medicines and are illustrated with idealized views of children engaged in various activities and stereotypical depictions of ethnic and racial groups. Other popular subjects are animals and nature. Volume 5 contains cards from the 1893 Chicago World's Fair.

Each trade card in Volume 1 has been listed in a database by name of company, address, product, and a brief description of the picture. Volume 2 has been partially listed. The database is currently only available on site in the Department of Rare Books and Special Collections.

The trade cards in Volumes 6-17 date from 1880-1889 and include greeting cards, calling cards, some samples of printed wallpaper, cards given as merit awards for schoolchildren, invitations, and some illustrations which may have been cut from larger posters or advertisements. The locations of most of the cards place them in Western New York (Oneida, Buffalo, Rochester, Oswego, Fulton, and others), or in New York City. Numerous families and names are included.

Box 1 contains loose cards which were collected by the donors but which were not part of the present bound scrapbooks.

Dates

Creation: circa 1880-1900

Language of Materials

English

Extent

17 volume(s)

Access

The Trade Card Scrapbooks is open for research use. Researchers are advised to contact the Rare Books, Special Collections & Preservation Department prior to visiting. Upon arrival, researchers will also be asked to fill out a registration form and provide photo identification.

Use

In consultation with a curator, reproductions may be made upon request. Permission to publish materials from the collection must be requested from a curator. Researchers are responsible for determining any copyright questions.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

Gifts of Walter Cassebeer (1931); Robert Baron (2009); Victor Markiewicz (1998), with additional purchases

Preferred Citation

[Item title, item date], Trade Card Scrapbooks, D.307, Rare Books, Special Collections, and Preservation, River Campus Libraries, University of Rochester