Visual Materials

Subseries A. Music and Theater (large size)

Description

This subseries contains 372 large-size items that pertain to theatrical and musical entertainment in the United States from 1838 to 1928. The majority of items consist of posters related to the theater, dance and musical spectacles, musicians and concerts, and burlesque, comedy, pantomime, and variety troupes and shows.

Many of the posters advertise dramatic productions of plays, and related stage actors and actresses, in genres such as Shakespearian dramas, melodramas, romance, comedy, crime, mystery, and Westerns. Images typically depict scenes from plays and shows or contain portraits of entertainers.

Type

Visual Materials(Opens in new tab)

Date

1839-approximately 1928

Call number

priJLC_ENT

Creator

Last, Jay T

Subseries A. Music and Theater (small size)

Visual Materials

The Jay T. Last Collection of Entertainment: Performing Arts Prints and Ephemera contains more than 2,600 printed items primarily advertising theatrical and musical entertainment and related performers in the United States from 1839 to the 1940s, with the majority of items dating from the 1870s to the 1890s. The collection consists of advertising and promotional materials, business records, and illustrations pertaining to a wide variety of performance genres that have been grouped broadly as music and theater (including theater, music, dance, burlesque, comedy, pantomime, and variety); minstrel (including minstrel shows, blackface entertainers, and female minstrels); and magic and miscellaneous (including magicians, motion pictures, and Wild West shows). The collection has 442 large-size items comprised mainly of lithographic theatrical and minstrel posters that were intended to advertise specific shows or performers. Small-size items in the collection number approximately 2,130 and are comprised mainly of promotional ephemera and business documents such as trade cards, programs and playbills, souvenir booklets, die-cut cards, and printed billheads and letterheads with manuscript text. The collection provides a resource for studying the history of the American theater and the evolution of advertising strategies for the performing arts in the United States in the late 19th century. As graphic materials, the items offer evidence of developing techniques and trends in printmaking, and of the artists, engravers, lithographers, printers, and publishers involved in the creation of these prints.

priJLC_ENT

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Series II. Performing Arts Prints and Ephemera (large size)

Visual Materials

This series contains nearly 450 large-size printed items that pertain to theatrical and musical entertainment primarily in the United States from the second half of the 19th century, with the majority of items dating from the 1870s to the 1890s. The series is comprised mainly of lithographed posters advertising upcoming shows and performers in a wide variety of performance genres grouped broadly as music and theater (including theater, music, dance, burlesque, comedy, pantomime, and variety); minstrel (including minstrel shows, blackface entertainers, and female minstrels); and magic and miscellaneous (including magicians, motion pictures, and Wild West shows). The images primarily contain depictions of scenes or acts from plays and shows, portraits of performers in formal dress and in character, or group portraits of members of burlesque troupes, theatrical companies, and traveling shows. While a few items in the series were intended to take up an entire wall, most of the items consist of "one-sheet" and "half-sheet" posters (a sheet was sized to approximately 28 x 42 inches) that were intended for smaller dipslay spaces. Pasted to the bottom of some posters are date sheets--small strips of printed text containing the date and location of a future performance. Among the most commonly credited printers in the collection are show printers including Strobridge & Company of Cincinnati, Ohio, and New York City; H.A. Thomas and various partners of New York City; W. J. Morgan & Co. of Cleveland, Ohio; and Forbes Co. of Boston, Massachusetts.

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Subseries B. Minstrel (large size)

Visual Materials

This subseries contains 61 large-size items that pertain to minstrel show entertainment primarily in the United States from the 1850s to the 1920s. The majority of items consist of lithographic posters related to minstrel dance, comedic, and musical acts, often with caricatured depictions of African Americans; blackface entertainers both in costume and in formal dress; and female minstrels.

priJLC_ENT

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Subseries C. Magic and Miscellaneous (large size)

Visual Materials

This subseries contains 15 primarily lithographic posters that pertain to magicians, motion pictures, and wild west shows in the United States from the late 1890s to approximately 1940.

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Subseries B. Minstrel (small size)

Visual Materials

priJLC_ENT

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Subseries C. Magic and Miscellaneous (small size)

Visual Materials

priJLC_ENT

Subseries A. Music and Theater (large size)

Opening Hours

Admission Info and Tickets

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Subseries A. Music and Theater (small size)

Series II. Performing Arts Prints and Ephemera (large size)

Subseries B. Minstrel (large size)

Subseries C. Magic and Miscellaneous (large size)

Subseries B. Minstrel (small size)

Subseries C. Magic and Miscellaneous (small size)