Series I. Transportation Prints and Ephemera (small size)

This series contains more than 570 small-size printed items pertaining to land-based modes of transportation primarily in the United States in the late 19th and early 20th century. The series consists of miscellaneous business records and advertising and promotional materials produced for or related to the bicycle, carriage and wagon, railroad, and freight and passenger transport industries.

While most of the pieces date from the late 1870s through 1905, among the earliest items in the collection is an 1826 pamphlet printed for the American Tract Society entitled "All Right." A dialogue between a coach guard and a passenger. Items range in size from approximately 1 x 3 inches to 11 x 9 inches and though many of images depict transportation vehicles and related equipment, there is a wide variety of imagery including views of factories, buildings, and storefronts, images of children, young women, birds, animals, flowers, trees, and cartoons and caricatures.

The transportation-affiliated entities represented in this series include vehicle, part, equipment, and accessory manufacturers, dealers, and retailers such as wheel works, carriage, sleigh, and wagon builders, bicycle manufacturers, and locomotive and car machine shops. Item types include printed booklets, business cards, calendars, catalogs, envelopes, handbills, labels, leaflets, postcards, trade cards, and separated book and periodical illustrations, as well as stationery with printed billheads and letterheads filled out with manuscript or typewritten correspondence.