Early Advertising Collection
Bryn Mawr
College
The Early Advertising Collection contains European and American printed advertisements dating from 1790 to 1910. The majority of the collection are trade cards of the late nineteenth century, when customized mass printing technologies were inexpensive and readily available, but just before color printing in magazines became commonplace.
The materials depicted in this collection are held at the Bryn Mawr College Special Collections Department. Bryn Mawr librarians and students have produced high-resolution scans and descriptive data in order to guide scholars and students of the histories of advertising and consumption, printing, and popular culture to items of interest. The provenance of much of the collection is unknown, and information about many of the products and businesses advertised is not readily available, so the dates given for each advertisement are supplied as general indications rather than as established facts.
This project was launched in January, 2005. To date, only a portion of the estimated 1000-item collection is available online, but new items will be added on an ongoing basis.
For information on reproducing the images in this collection, please visit our Rights & Reproductions webpage.
Suggestions for casual searching:
- Those interested in French language and culture may wish to browse the series of cards advertising Perles du Japon, a brand of pearl tapioca;
- Literary scholars might wish to search for the cards designed by a young Charlotte Perkins Gilman;
- Those interested in depictions of female sexuality and gender roles might wish to conduct a search restricted to the collection using the subject heading "Women";
- Those interested in depictions of foreign cultures or ethnic minorities might wish to explore using the search terms "Exoticism in advertising" or "Ethnic attitudes."
For advanced searching:
Products and services well represented in the collection include books and printing, chocolate, household supplies, home furnishings, and clothing and dress. To see a complete list of product or subject categories, please follow these steps:
- Choose "Advanced Search" from the title menu;
- Choose only the "Advertising Cards" collection;
- Choose the "Selected fields" tab;
- Select either the "Product/Service" or "Subject" field, then choose "show terms" to see a pop-up window with all of the terms currently used for the collection.
Links
To learn more about advertising and trade cards, please visit The Ephemera Society of America. There are numerous online sources related to trade cards, such as The Trade Card Place.
An excellent resource for finding other early advertisements is Duke University's Ad*Access project.
Print resources:
Heal, Ambrose. London Tradesmen's Cards of the Eighteenth Century. London: Curwen Press, 1925.
Jay, Robert. The Trade Card in Nineteenth-Century America. Columbia: U of MO P, 1987.
Landauer, Bella Clara. Early American Trade Cards from the Collection of Bella C. Landauer. New York: W. E. Rudge, 1927.
Wainwright, Nicholas B. Philadelphia in the Romantic Age of Lithography. Philadelphia: HSP, 1958.
Project staff:
Marianne Hansen, special collections librarian
Cheryl Klimaszewski, special collections
Special Thanks:
The students of Professor Elliott Shore's "History of Advertising" class, spring 2005
To former project staff:
Christa Williford, project designer and coordinator, 2004-2005
Molly Ribble, student assistant
Amanda Young, student assistant
Meghna Singh, student assistant
