Visual Materials

Tailor

Description: Image of a tailor's workshop with several men and women working on cutting, sewing, and pressing garments; a salesman assists a male customer in a retail area full of bolts of cloth and boxes of sewing notions in background at left.
Type: Visual Materials(Opens in new tab)
Date: ©1874
Call number: priJLC_PRG_002133
Creator: Last, Jay T(Opens in new tab)
Provenance: Gift of Jay T. Last, 2005. This collection forms part of the Jay T. Last Collection of graphic arts and social history, which was donated to the Huntington Library by Jay T. Last in 2005 as a gift in progress. The bulk of the Louis Prang archive was transferred to the Library between 2010 and 2012.

Tinsmith

Visual Materials

Image of a pair of tinsmiths working in a workshop; a salesman surrounded by kettles, pans, birdcages, and stoves shows a female customer a stove the storefront in background at right.

priJLC_PRG_002138

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Subseries G. Sewing Supplies (large size)

Visual Materials

Includes printed materials advertising sellers and manufacturers of sewing supplies and trimmings and notions. Commonly advertised products include trims, thread and yarn.

priJLC_FASH

Shoemaker

Visual Materials

Image of a shoemaker working on a boot sitting on a bench surrounded by lasts and tools; a salesman assists a female customer with buying a pair of shoes in a storefront at left.

priJLC_PRG_002132

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Subseries G. Sewing Supplies (small size)

Visual Materials

Includes printed materials advertising sellers and manufacturers of sewing supplies and trimmings and notions. Commonly advertised products include buttons, braids, dress linings, ribbons, hooks, and patterns (Binder 28); and thread and yarn (Binders 30-37). Items between 8 x 10 inches and 11 x 14 inches in size are housed in a folder listed at the end of this subseries (Box 1, Folder 6).

priJLC_FASH

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Clothiers, Tailors, and Dry Goods, A-D by company (8 x 10 inches or smaller in size)

Visual Materials

The Jay T. Last collection of fashion prints and ephemera contains approximately 7,500 items dating from the 1570s to the early 1900s, with the bulk of the items spanning from 1825 to 1900. This collection consists of fashion plates, advertising prints, broadsides, and promotional ephemera produced for clothiers and tailors, dry goods suppliers, garment manufacturers, fashion publications, and textile companies affiliated with the design, production, and/or sale of clothing, accessories, and dry goods. While most of the materials are American, there are also notable quantities of foreign items in the collection, including French fashion plates, fez labels in several languages, and foreign textile labels. Labels affixed to textile samples of various sizes are also included. Materials are broadly divided into two series: small-size items (11 x 14 inches or smaller) and large-size items (typically larger than 11 x 14 inches). Small-size items are described broadly at the series level; large-size items and select small-size items are fully inventoried with printers, artists, and publishers indexed by name. The collection includes 250 large-size items comprised mainly of lithographic advertising prints and fashion plates. Small-size items number approximately 7,250 and contain a variety of promotional materials including trade cards, calendars, booklets, product labels, fashion plates, periodicals, clippings, and printed billheads and letterheads with manuscript text. Each series is divided into subseries according to the kind of business, service, or trade sponsoring the advertisement. Types of businesses have been identified according to the principal type of product(s) manufactured or sold by the business. These subseries are arranged as follows: Accessories; Clothiers, Tailors, and Dry Goods; Fashion Plates And Periodicals; Footwear; Garments; Headwear; Sewing Supplies; and Textiles. This collection contains many American and European printed illustrations, commonly known as "fashion plates," that typically depict men, women, or children modeling current clothing and dress styles. Small plates (usually 14 x 10 inches or less in this collection) illustrated the pages of magazines and bound volumes that were marketed specifically for women. Larger plates, primarily intended for display, advertised the products and services of fashion designers, tailors, and pattern makers. The collection provides a resource for studying clothing and dress, sales and merchandise, textiles, and sewing, as well as changing fashion trends in the United States and Europe in the 19th century. The images are primarily promotional in nature and provide information about the history of the American fashion, clothing, dry-goods, and textile industries and the evolution of their advertising strategies in the 19th and early 20th centuries. As graphic materials, the prints offer evidence of developing techniques and trends in printmaking, and of the artists, engravers, lithographers, printers, and publishers involved in the creative process.

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Clothiers, Tailors, and Dry Goods, John Wanamaker (8 x 10 inches or smaller in size)

Visual Materials

Tailor

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Tinsmith

Subseries G. Sewing Supplies (large size)

Shoemaker

Subseries G. Sewing Supplies (small size)

Clothiers, Tailors, and Dry Goods, A-D by company (8 x 10 inches or smaller in size)

Clothiers, Tailors, and Dry Goods, John Wanamaker (8 x 10 inches or smaller in size)