Firefighting Prints and Ephemera (8 x 10 inches or smaller in size) | Collections | The Huntington

Firefighting Prints and Ephemera (8 x 10 inches or smaller in size) | Collections | The Huntington

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Firefighting Prints and Ephemera (between 8 x 10 inches and 11 x 14 inches in size)
Visual Materials
The Jay T. Last collection of firefighting prints and ephemera contains more than 150 printed items that relate to firefighting and the activities and organizations of firemen in the United States from approximately 1820 to 1909. The collection consists of advertising and promotional materials, business records, and illustrations produced for or pertaining to firefighting organizations, related social or charitable events, and firefighting vehicles, equipment, and supplies. Large-size items consist of lithographic and engraved prints including fire department membership and discharge certificates; depictions of fires and firefighters working to extinguish blazes; builders prints of fire engines and similar vehicles, and images and advertisements pertaining to social and charitable events involving fire departments and related organizations. The small-size items consist mainly of business documents and advertising and promotional ephemera such as printed booklets, trade cards, small programs, menus, tickets and invitations for charitable and social events such balls, concerts, musters, and celebrations, business cards, lapel ribbons, book and periodical illustrations, membership certificates, and stationery with printed billheads and letterheads filled out in manuscript.
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Jay T. Last Collection of Firefighting Prints and Ephemera
Visual Materials
The Jay T. Last Collection of Firefighting Prints and Ephemera contains more than 200 printed items that relate to firefighting and the activities and organizations of firemen in the United States from approximately 1820 to 1909. The collection consists of advertising and promotional materials, business records, and illustrations produced for or pertaining to firefighting organizations, related social or charitable events, and firefighting vehicles, equipment, and supplies. 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 materials broadly at the series level; large-size items have been fully inventoried and all printers, artists, and publishers are indexed by name. The collection has 40 large-size items comprised mainly of lithographic and engraved prints that include: Fire department membership and discharge certificates Depictions of fires and firefighters working to extinguish blazes Builders prints of fire engines and similar vehicles Images and advertisements pertaining to social and charitable events involving fire departments and related organizations Small-size items in the collection number more than 160 and consist mainly of business documents and advertising and promotional ephemera such as printed booklets, trade cards, small programs, menus, tickets and invitations for charitable and social events such balls, concerts, musters, and celebrations, business cards, lapel ribbons, book and periodical illustrations, membership certificates, and stationery with printed billheads and letterheads filled out in manuscript.
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Series I. Firefighting Prints and Ephemera (small size)
Visual Materials
This series contains more than 160 small-size printed items that pertain to firefighting and the activities and organizations of firemen in the United States from approximately 1820 to 1909. The items consist of business records and advertising and promotional materials produced for or pertaining to firefighting organizations, related social or charitable events, and firefighting vehicles, equipment, and supplies. The entities represented in these materials include fire departments, engine and hose companies, relief funds, veterans' associations, and firefighting vehicle, equipment, and supply manufacturers such as engine works and pump and hose manufacturers. Item types consist of printed booklets, trade cards, small programs, menus, tickets and invitations for charitable and social events such balls, concerts, musters, and celebrations, business cards, lapel ribbons, book and periodical illustrations, membership certificates, and stationery with printed billheads and letterheads filled out in manuscript. Many of these items are decorated with images that include depictions of firefighters assembling for duty and responding to alarms, fighting fires, and rescuing victims; views of burning and damaged buildings, and ruins amid flames, rubble, and smoke; and images of firefighting vehicles and equipment including steam fire engines, manual fire engines, hook and ladder trucks, hose carriages, fire hydrants, hoses, ladders, preventers, axes, and speaking trumpets. While most of the materials date from the second half of the 19th century, among the earliest items in the collection is a circa 1820 engraving of a fire pumper that advertises the Philadelphia firm of Sellers & Pennock Patent River Hose, Fire Bucket and Hydraulion Manufacturers. Also of note are four small lithographs of parade floats carrying New York City firefighters and fire engines that were printed by Anthony Imbert of New York City and published in 1826 as part of an appendix to the 1825 Memoir by Cadwallader D. Colden commemorating the New York celebration of the opening of the Erie Canal. Later items include an 1886 booklet for the Veteran Firemen's Association annual ball held at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City, containing multiple pages of advertisements and illustrations for firefighting apparatus and related services interspersed with four images of historic New York City fires; and twelve color covers with images of "Young Wide Awake" in firefighting scenes from the Wide Awake Weekly dime-novel/penny-dreadful series that was published by Frank Tousey between 1906 and 1909.
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Series II. Firefighting Prints and Ephemera (large size)
Visual Materials
This series contains 40 large-size printed items related to firefighting and the activities and organizations of firemen in the United States between 1826 and 1907. The series is comprised mainly of lithographic and engraved prints including fire department membership and discharge certificates, depictions of fires and firefighters working to extinguish blazes, builder's prints of fire engines and similar vehicles, and images and advertisements pertaining to social and charitable events involving fire departments and related organizations. These items were produced for a variety of purposes including as illustrations in books, as promotional materials, as documentary and commemorative prints, and as certificates attesting to the service of firemen. They consist mainly of color-printed, hand-colored, and uncolored lithographs and engravings by American artists, printers, and publishers. Many of these prints contain scenes of firefighters assembling for duty and responding to alarms, fighting fires, and rescuing victims; views of burning and damaged buildings and ruins; and images of firefighting vehicles and equipment including steam fire engines, manual fire engines, hook and ladder trucks, hose carriages, fire hydrants, hoses, ladders, preventers, axes, and speaking trumpets. The items primarily pertain to the Northeastern United States, though the materials do include certificates for fire companies in Gold Hill, Nevada (1867), Albany, Oregon (1874), and Alameda, California (1893); a print of a manual fire engine used by the Pacific Engine Company of San Francisco, California (1851); and a view of the June 20, 1877, fire in St. John, New Brunswick, Canada. The series features: Certificates that document membership in fire companies or benevolent societies, or the exemption or discharge of firemen from service. Most of these certificates are decorated with multiple vignettes including images of recent or historic fires fought by the company, as well as more generic scenes of firemen and equipment. Prints produced for firefighting vehicle builders and manufacturers, similar to railroad locomotive builder's prints, that prominently feature views of steam and manual fire engines and often include the name of the fire company that purchased the engine. Items pertaining to parades, balls, and celebrations involving firefighters.
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Views Prints and Ephemera (8 x 10 inches or smaller in size)
Visual Materials
The Jay T. Last collection of views prints and ephemera contains over 190 mostly lithographic prints depicting physical locales primarily in the United States. These images date from 1824 to 1913 and include town and city views; pictorial maps and plans; landscapes and waterscapes; scenes of rural and wilderness areas; commercial and residential streets and individual buildings and structures; parks, bridges, and monuments; and a small number of interior views. The images often include depictions of people, animals, street traffic, and structures but share a focus on place, as opposed to genre scenes of everyday life or company- or product-based advertisements. The prints are organized geographically by region, and approximately 115 prints depict locales in the Northeastearn United States, twenty-eight in the American West, twenty-five in the Midwest, twenty-one in the South, and five of the prints depict places outside of the United States. The view prints provide rich resources for the study of nineteenth and early twentieth century American printing history, visual culture, and social history. The collection offers evidence of the development of printmaking techniques and trends, and of the artists, engravers, lithographers, printers, and publishers involved in the creation of these prints. As a visual historical record, this collection provides documentary evidence of the interplay between individuals and their environments, and their perceptions and interpretations of their surroundings. Prints in the collection document the topography, development, and promotion of towns and cities; the impact of settlement, transportation, and infrastructure on both rural and urban environments; the architectural history of business and retail centers, civic buildings, private residences, churches, and education buildings; and perceptions towards wilderness and frontier areas. As well, information about social history emerges through the depictions of individuals and street scenes in many of these prints, including modes of transportation, fashion, tourism, and leisure and commercial activities.
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General ephemera, 1868-1880 (8 x 10 inches or smaller in size)
Visual Materials
The Jay T. Last collection of education prints and ephemera contains over 1,800 printed items related to education in the United States from 1788 to approximately 1930, with the bulk of the items dating from 1850 to 1910. Most of these items are lithographs, but engravings and woodcuts are also included. The collection includes over 30 large-size items comprised mainly of lithographed views of colleges and universities, diplomas and other certificates, penmanship examples, and uncut sheets of rewards of merit. Small-size items number approximately 1,800 and contain a variety of materials, including copy and writing books (composition books), arithmetic and ciphering books, tuition bills, programs and tickets to graduations and other school events, certificates, trade cards, student identification cards, postcards, ribbons, and printed billheads and letterheads (with and without manuscript text). The collection highlights institutions, products, and services relating to personal knowledge, understanding, character building, and moral and social qualities including the tools, equipment, supplies, and structures used for learning and teaching these disciplines in the United States in the 19th and early 20th centuries. This includes items associated with academic achievement, exhibits, lectures, and institutions of learning.
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