Series II. Religion Prints and Ephemera (large size) | Collections | The Huntington

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Visual Materials

Series II. Religion Prints and Ephemera (large size)

Description: The Jay T. Last collection of religion prints and ephemera contains approximately 60 printed items related to beliefs and practices usually involving devotional and ritual observances concerning God, creation of the universe, spirituality, and the moral conduct of human affairs. The materials were made and used in the United States from approximately 1828 to 1921, with the bulk of the content dating from 1850 to 1900. Certificates pertaining to biblical societies and other theological organizations are represented, as are items relating to baptism and other formal or ceremonial religious rites and initiations. Images of sacred scenes, verses, and parables; portraits of saints or spiritual leaders; and views of houses of worship are also found here. Especially noteworthy are eight woodcut and hand-colored Pennsylvania-German certificates of birth and baptism dating from 1837-1853 (priJLC_002917-002923 and priJLC_004970), mostly printed and/or handwritten in German. They relate to illuminated Fraktur drawings popular in Pennsylvania-German culture during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The collection supports various fields of research related to religion and Christianity in the United States in the 19th and early 20th centuries. This includes regional baptism records, places and patterns of worship, and Christian iconography. The images also provide a rich visual resource for studying American interpretations of Bible stories and figures 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.

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Series I. Religion Prints and Ephemera (small size)
Visual Materials
The Jay T. Last collection of religion prints and ephemera contains approximately 60 printed items related to beliefs and practices usually involving devotional and ritual observances concerning God, creation of the universe, spirituality, and the moral conduct of human affairs. The materials were made and used in the United States from approximately 1828 to 1921, with the bulk of the content dating from 1850 to 1900. Certificates pertaining to biblical societies and other theological organizations are represented, as are items relating to baptism and other formal or ceremonial religious rites and initiations. Images of sacred scenes, verses, and parables; portraits of saints or spiritual leaders; and views of houses of worship are also found here. Especially noteworthy are eight woodcut and hand-colored Pennsylvania-German certificates of birth and baptism dating from 1837-1853 (priJLC_002917-002923 and priJLC_004970), mostly printed and/or handwritten in German. They relate to illuminated Fraktur drawings popular in Pennsylvania-German culture during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The collection supports various fields of research related to religion and Christianity in the United States in the 19th and early 20th centuries. This includes regional baptism records, places and patterns of worship, and Christian iconography. The images also provide a rich visual resource for studying American interpretations of Bible stories and figures 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.
priJLC_REL
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Religion (8 x 10 inches or smaller in size)
Visual Materials
The Jay T. Last collection of religion prints and ephemera contains approximately 60 printed items related to beliefs and practices usually involving devotional and ritual observances concerning God, creation of the universe, spirituality, and the moral conduct of human affairs. The materials were made and used in the United States from approximately 1828 to 1921, with the bulk of the content dating from 1850 to 1900. Certificates pertaining to biblical societies and other theological organizations are represented, as are items relating to baptism and other formal or ceremonial religious rites and initiations. Images of sacred scenes, verses, and parables; portraits of saints or spiritual leaders; and views of houses of worship are also found here. Especially noteworthy are eight woodcut and hand-colored Pennsylvania-German certificates of birth and baptism dating from 1837-1853 (priJLC_002917-002923 and priJLC_004970), mostly printed and/or handwritten in German. They relate to illuminated Fraktur drawings popular in Pennsylvania-German culture during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The collection supports various fields of research related to religion and Christianity in the United States in the 19th and early 20th centuries. This includes regional baptism records, places and patterns of worship, and Christian iconography. The images also provide a rich visual resource for studying American interpretations of Bible stories and figures 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.
priJLC_REL
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Religion (between 8 x 10 inches and 11 x 14 inches in size)
Visual Materials
The Jay T. Last collection of religion prints and ephemera contains approximately 60 printed items related to beliefs and practices usually involving devotional and ritual observances concerning God, creation of the universe, spirituality, and the moral conduct of human affairs. The materials were made and used in the United States from approximately 1828 to 1921, with the bulk of the content dating from 1850 to 1900. Certificates pertaining to biblical societies and other theological organizations are represented, as are items relating to baptism and other formal or ceremonial religious rites and initiations. Images of sacred scenes, verses, and parables; portraits of saints or spiritual leaders; and views of houses of worship are also found here. Especially noteworthy are eight woodcut and hand-colored Pennsylvania-German certificates of birth and baptism dating from 1837-1853 (priJLC_002917-002923 and priJLC_004970), mostly printed and/or handwritten in German. They relate to illuminated Fraktur drawings popular in Pennsylvania-German culture during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The collection supports various fields of research related to religion and Christianity in the United States in the 19th and early 20th centuries. This includes regional baptism records, places and patterns of worship, and Christian iconography. The images also provide a rich visual resource for studying American interpretations of Bible stories and figures 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.
priJLC_REL
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Jay T. Last Collection of Religion Prints and Ephemera
Visual Materials
The Jay T. Last Collection of Religion Prints and Ephemera contains approximately 60 printed items related to beliefs and practices usually involving devotional and ritual observances concerning God, creation of the universe, spirituality, and the moral conduct of human affairs. The materials were made and used in the United States from approximately 1828 to 1921, with the bulk of the content dating from 1850 to 1900. Certificates pertaining to biblical societies and other theological organizations are represented, as are items relating to baptism and other formal or ceremonial religious rites and initiations. Images of sacred scenes, verses, and parables; portraits of saints or spiritual leaders; and views of houses of worship are also found here. 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 29 large-size items comprised mainly of baptismal certificates and lithographs of Christian scenes and imagery. Especially noteworthy are eight woodcut and hand-colored Pennsylvania-German certificates of birth and baptism dating from 1837-1853 (priJLC_002917-002923 and priJLC_004970), mostly printed and/or handwritten in German. They relate to illuminated Fraktur drawings popular in Pennsylvania-German culture during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Small-size items number approximately 30 and contain a variety of materials, including tickets, leaflets, certificates, and printed letterheads (with manuscript text). The collection supports various fields of research related to religion and Christianity in the United States in the 19th and early 20th centuries. This includes regional baptism records, places and patterns of worship, and Christian iconography. The images also provide a rich visual resource for studying American interpretations of Bible stories and figures 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.
priJLC_REL
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Series II. Circus Prints and Ephemera (large size)
Visual Materials
This series contains more than 200 printed 19th and 20th century circus posters. The posters date from 1846 to the 1980s, with the bulk of the items spanning from the 1890s to the 1960s. These prints were used as promotional materials and typically posted outdoors in advance of the circus coming to town. These posters, primarily color lithographs, were produced by American printers for American circuses, though there are approximately seven posters with French or German text that Barnum & Bailey used for shows in Europe in the late 1890s and early 1900s. The posters typically contain brightly colored images of featured circus acts, performers, or animals. Many of the items include depictions of clowns, gymnasts, aerialists, acrobats, jugglers, animal trainers, or equestrians, portraits of circus owners such as P. T. Barnum, J. A. Bailey, and the Ringling Brothers, or scenes of street parades, historical pageants, circus wagons and railroad cars, tents, arenas, spectators and crowds, zoo menageries, and animals including bears, elephants, giraffes, gorillas, horses, lions, monkeys, rhinoceroses, and tigers. The posters, primarily color lithographs, range in size from approximately 12 x 16 inches to 117 x 41 inches, and while outdoor circus posters might take up entire building walls, most of the items in the collection consist of "one-sheet" posters sized to approximately 28 x 42 inches. Approximately twenty American printing firms are represented in the collection, though the Strobridge Lithographing Company of Cincinnati, Ohio, printed more than sixty of the posters, and the Erie Litho. and Printing Company of Erie, Pennsylvania, printed nearly thirty. About a quarter of the posters have date sheets, which are small strips with printed text containing information about the date and location of a particular upcoming show, pasted to the bottom of the poster. Among the earliest items is an 1850s four-sheet poster for A. Turner & Co's Combined Menagerie and Circus, and one of the most recent is a 1980s poster for the Ford Bros. Circus. While over fifty circuses are represented, most have between one and ten posters; the circuses of Barnum and Bailey and the Ringling Brothers comprise the largest subset in the collection with more than eighty posters among them.
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Series II: Large size prints and ephemera
Visual Materials
The Jay T. Last collection of travel and exploration prints and ephemera contains about 1,190 printed materials related to the history of hotels, resorts, luggage companies, and maps in the United States. The materials date from approximately 1814 to approximately 1937, although the bulk of the materials date from the mid-19th to early 20th centuries. The collection consists of 50 large-sized items, and over a thousand smaller-sized items, including trade cards, postcards, booklets, billheads, and letterheads. Many of the prints include views and promotional maps created by hotel and resort proprietors from New York City, Boston, and Chicago. Images on some of the prints trace the history of vacation destinations in the United States, predominately of beaches near Coney Island, ranging from Locust Grove to Starin's Glen Island, Dreamland, Luna Park, and more. The prints also contain images of elevated street views, storefronts, pedestrians traveling to hotels, and people at their leisure at beaches and amusement parks. A few prints also include promotional information about amenities, services, medical treatments, and local excursions offered by the various establishments. A large portion of materials in this collection are printed maps, varying from ornamental pictorial maps about U.S history and western expansion, to pocket maps created by hotel proprietors, real estate agents, government departments, and local businesses. While predominantly mapping locations within New York and Massachusetts, many of the maps also cover regions in California, documenting land development, fire-safety plans, and real-estate advertisements in Fresno, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. Some of the maps in this collection also provide exploration routes and information on locating gold mines in California, Colorado, and Alaska. Information on the maps include topographic details, timetables for travel destinations, and document travel routes by rail or ferry. A smaller portion of this collection also consists of images of luggage, trunk, travel bag, and valise products advertised by manufacturers from Philadelphia, Boston, New York, Newark, and more.
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