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Visual Materials

Series I. Beverage Prints and Ephemera (small size)


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    Series II. Beverage Prints and Ephemera (large size)

    Visual Materials

    This series contains approximately 65 large-size advertising and promotional items related to beverage industries in the United States from approximately 1841 to the 1940s, with the majority of items spanning from 1850 to 1912. The series is comprised mainly of lithographed advertising prints produced for beverage distilleries, manufacturers, and distributors. Genres represented include advertising prints, views of factories and storefronts, and product labels for tea, coffee, and spirits. The prints are mostly color-printed lithographs, but the series also includes uncolored and hand-colored images. Among the earliest items is an uncolored depiction of the four-story storefront of tea and coffee merchants Hawthorn & Company from after 1841 (BEV_001209). The most recent item is a die-cut circular product label for Radio Food Corp. roller process skim milk powder from circa the 1940s (BEV_001859).

    priJLC_BEV

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    Jay T. Last Collection of Beverage Prints and Ephemera

    Visual Materials

    The Jay T. Last Collection of Beverage Prints and Ephemera contains approximately 3,240 printed items advertising beverage products and related businesses in the United States from the 1840s to the 1940s, with the bulk of the items spanning from 1850 to 1915. The collection consists largely of lithographed ephemeral items produced for American businesses affiliated with the manufacture, distribution, and sale of beverages such as coffee, tea, juice, milk, carbonated beverages, and alcoholic drinks including beer, wine, whiskey, and other liquors. Materials are arranged in two series: small-size items (11 x 14 inches or less) and large-size items (more 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 and all printers, artists, and publishers are indexed by name. The collection includes approximately 65 large-size items comprised mainly of lithographed advertising prints and product labels for tea, coffee, and spirits. Small-size items number nearly 3,200 and contain a variety of promotional materials including trade cards, calendars, die-cut scraps, booklets, and printed billheads and letterheads with manuscript text. The collection deals with beverage production, merchandising, advertising, and consumption -- including depictions of families and other groups drinking together -- and the images provide a resource for studying the history of American beer, liquor, coffee, tea, and carbonated beverage industries along with the evolution of their advertising in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Materials in the collection produced for manufacturers and distributors of alcoholic beverages also provide a perspective on their advertising strategies in the face of a growing temperance movement in the United States leading up to Prohibition. 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.

    priJLC_BEV

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    Subseries D. Milk (small size)

    Visual Materials

    The Jay T. Last collection of beverage prints and ephemera contains approximately 2,650 printed items advertising beverage products and related businesses in the United States from the 1840s to the 1940s, with the bulk of the items spanning from 1850 to 1915. The collection consists largely of lithographed ephemeral items produced for American businesses affiliated with the manufacture, distribution, and sale of beverages such as coffee, tea, juice, milk, carbonated beverages, and alcoholic drinks including beer, wine, whiskey, and other liquors. The collection includes approximately 40 large-size items comprised mainly of lithographed advertising prints and product labels for tea, coffee, and spirits. Small-size items number approximately 2,600 and contain a variety of promotional materials including trade cards, calendars, die-cut scraps, booklets, and printed billheads and letterheads with manuscript text. The collection deals with beverage production, merchandising, advertising, and consumption -- including depictions of families and other groups drinking together -- and the images provide a resource for studying the history of American beer, liquor, coffee, tea, and carbonated beverage industries along with the evolution of their advertising in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Materials in the collection produced for manufacturers and distributors of alcoholic beverages also provide a perspective on their advertising strategies in the face of a growing temperance movement in the United States leading up to Prohibition. 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.

    priJLC_BEV

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    Subseries B. Coffee and Tea (small size)

    Visual Materials

    The Jay T. Last collection of beverage prints and ephemera contains approximately 2,650 printed items advertising beverage products and related businesses in the United States from the 1840s to the 1940s, with the bulk of the items spanning from 1850 to 1915. The collection consists largely of lithographed ephemeral items produced for American businesses affiliated with the manufacture, distribution, and sale of beverages such as coffee, tea, juice, milk, carbonated beverages, and alcoholic drinks including beer, wine, whiskey, and other liquors. The collection includes approximately 40 large-size items comprised mainly of lithographed advertising prints and product labels for tea, coffee, and spirits. Small-size items number approximately 2,600 and contain a variety of promotional materials including trade cards, calendars, die-cut scraps, booklets, and printed billheads and letterheads with manuscript text. The collection deals with beverage production, merchandising, advertising, and consumption -- including depictions of families and other groups drinking together -- and the images provide a resource for studying the history of American beer, liquor, coffee, tea, and carbonated beverage industries along with the evolution of their advertising in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Materials in the collection produced for manufacturers and distributors of alcoholic beverages also provide a perspective on their advertising strategies in the face of a growing temperance movement in the United States leading up to Prohibition. 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.

    priJLC_BEV

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    Subseries A. Beer, Liquor, and Wine (small size)

    Visual Materials

    The Jay T. Last collection of beverage prints and ephemera contains approximately 2,650 printed items advertising beverage products and related businesses in the United States from the 1840s to the 1940s, with the bulk of the items spanning from 1850 to 1915. The collection consists largely of lithographed ephemeral items produced for American businesses affiliated with the manufacture, distribution, and sale of beverages such as coffee, tea, juice, milk, carbonated beverages, and alcoholic drinks including beer, wine, whiskey, and other liquors. The collection includes approximately 40 large-size items comprised mainly of lithographed advertising prints and product labels for tea, coffee, and spirits. Small-size items number approximately 2,600 and contain a variety of promotional materials including trade cards, calendars, die-cut scraps, booklets, and printed billheads and letterheads with manuscript text. The collection deals with beverage production, merchandising, advertising, and consumption -- including depictions of families and other groups drinking together -- and the images provide a resource for studying the history of American beer, liquor, coffee, tea, and carbonated beverage industries along with the evolution of their advertising in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Materials in the collection produced for manufacturers and distributors of alcoholic beverages also provide a perspective on their advertising strategies in the face of a growing temperance movement in the United States leading up to Prohibition. 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.

    priJLC_BEV

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    Series I. Maritime Prints and Ephemera (small size)

    Visual Materials

    This series contains approximately 1,090 small-size printed items that pertain to travel, shipping, and other maritime-related activities and businesses in the United States from 1704 to 1939. The materials consist of advertising and promotional ephemera, illustrations, and business records relevant to steamship companies, sailing vessels, shipping entities, passenger lines, and related businesses and publications. The vast majority of these items are bills of lading and steamship passes, but the collection also has trade cards, timetables, booklets, directory ads, menus, passenger lists, postcards, handbills, and printed billheads and letterheads with manuscript text. Items smaller than 8 x 10 inches are housed in binders, while items that are between 8 x 10 inches and 11 x 14 inches in size are individually sleeved and arranged in folders in one box.

    priJLC_MAR