Jay T. Last Collection of Medicine Prints and Ephemera

The Jay T. Last Collection of Medicine Prints and Ephemera contains over 4,000 printed items related to medical, dental, and vision products and services in the United States from approximately 1750 to 1929, with the bulk of the content dating from 1850 to 1910. Most items are lithographs, but engravings and woodcuts are also included. The collection deals with medical and drug-related advertising and practice including the tools, equipment, and supplies used by the medical field in the United States during the 19th and early 20th centuries. This includes products and services relating to human health care and the remedies to treat, relieve, and cure medical, dental, and vision conditions as prescribed or administered by doctors, pharmacists, dentists, and quack practitioners often affiliated with patent medicine manufacturers, drug companies, hospitals, asylums, institutes, and/or sanitariums.

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 with printers, artists, and publishers indexed by name. The collection includes 30 large-size items comprised mainly of advertising prints and leaflets. Small-size items number approximately 4,000 and contain a variety of materials, including trade cards, product labels, stationery, calendars, booklets, leaflets, periodicals, and printed billheads and letterheads (with and without manuscript text). Of note are over 150 product labels for remedies offered by Dr. A. De Fontaine of Boston, Massachusetts, circa 1840-1850, and approximately 100 items of advertising ephemera for products made by C. I. Hood & Co. of Lowell, Massachusetts.

The collection supports various fields of research relating to medical and drug-related merchandising, advertising, and practice in the United States in the 19th and early 20th centuries. This includes the wide and varied assortment of patent medicines that proliferated during this time. The images provide a rich visual resource for studying the history of American medical practitioners, methods, and materials, as well as a perspective on ailments and illnesses common during this period. As graphic materials, the collection highlights developing techniques and trends in printmaking while documenting the artists, engravers, lithographers, printers, and publishers involved in the creative process.