Visual Materials

Subseries A. Bicycle (large size)

Description: This subseries contains six prints related to bicycles that date from the early 1880s to 1897. The prints include four posters and broadsides advertising bicycles and bicycle tires, as well as an image of recreational bicyclists riding in a park (priJLC_TRAN_001196) and a view of the 1883 Springfield, Massachusetts, Bicycle Club cycling tournament (priJLC_TRAN_001382).
Type: Visual Materials(Opens in new tab)
Date: approximately 1881-1897
Call number: priJLC_TRAN
Creator: Last, Jay T(Opens in new tab)
Provenance: Gift of Jay T. Last, 2005.
Restrictions

Springfield Bicycle Club. : Bicycle camp-exhibition & tournament. Springfield, Mass. U.S.A. Sept. 18.19.20.1883

Visual Materials

Image of an elevated landscape view of the Hampden Park Race Track in Springfield, Massachusetts, with a crowded scene of participants and spectators for the September 1883 Springfield Bicycle Club cycling tournament with ticket booth and a steam locomotive and railroad tracks in the foreground, and the race track with tents, cyclists on high-wheel bicycles circling a course, and a grandstand in the background; the Connecticut River with boats including a steamboat, and the surrounding hillsides are in the distance.

priJLC_TRAN_001382

Columbia bicycle : the Pope Mfg. Co. Boston Mass

Visual Materials

Image of a man riding a high-wheel bicycle on a park path next to a pond, with other bicyclists and a horse-drawn carriage in the background; image is centered in an advertisement for the Columbia Bicycle, with printed text in the borders listing seven cycling records and images of bicycle accessories decorating the lower part of the sheet.

priJLC_TRAN_001357

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Subseries A. Bicycle (small size)

Visual Materials

This collection contains more than 730 printed items that relate to land-based modes of transportation primarily in the United States from the 1820s to the early 1900s. The bulk of the collection dates from 1840 to 1905 and consists largely of advertising and promotional materials, business records, and illustrations produced for or pertaining to the bicycle, carriage and wagon, railroad, and freight and passenger transport industries. The collection has 167 large-size items consisting of advertising cards, posters, broadsides, system maps, timetables, views, and other visual materials primarily produced for railroad companies, with additional items concerning vehicle and part manufacturers such as wheel works, carriage builders, bicycle manufacturers, and locomotive machine shops. Small-size items in the collection number more than 570 and are comprised mainly of advertising and promotional ephemera and business documents such as 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. The collection touches on topics of transportation, commerce and manufacturing, technology and engineering, travel and tourism, and geography. The images are primarily promotional in nature and provide information about the history of the American railroad, bicycle, and horse-drawn vehicle industries and the evolution of their advertising strategies in the 19th and early 20th centuries. As graphic materials, the prints offer 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.

priJLC_TRAN

Victor bicycles

Visual Materials

Image of an advertisement for Victor Bicycles featuring a man looking admiringly over his shoulder at a woman riding a bicycle; flowers in background.

priJLC_ART_003048

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Subseries C. Railroad (large size)

Visual Materials

This subseries contains 150 prints pertaining to railroads primarily in North America that date from the 1830s to the early 1910s. The images and texts of these items focus on varying aspects of railroads related to car and locomotive manufacturing, travel, administration, and geography. The items include maps; folding brochures; timetables; broadsides and posters; locomotive builder's prints (depicting the side elevation of locomotive exteriors), and view prints depicting landscapes and street scenes that feature trains, factory buildings, and passenger stations. The majority of materials in this series were produced primarily for railroad companies to advertise their routes and train schedules to potential passengers, but the collection also includes over thirty locomotive builder's prints issued by machine shops to advertise the design and construction of their locomotives, as well as five posters advertising railroad land for sale; two broadsides promoting the train-based shipping services of the Adams & Company Express in 1844 and 1850 (priJLC_TRAN_001193 and priJLC_TRAN_001194); a March 10, 1849, issue of Horn's Railroad Gazette (priJLC_TRAN_001085); a circa 1860 portrait print of New York Central Railroad mechanic Edward H. Jones (priJLC_TRAN_001164); an 1863 broadside with freight tariff rates of the Tioga, and Blossburg & Corning railroads (priJLC_TRAN_001144); the front page of the November 27, 1874, Daily Graphic newspaper containing a cartoon depicting rival railroad company presidents (priJLC_TRAN_001132); and an 1883 broadside listing the road repair foremen of the Boston and Albany Railroad Company (priJLC_TRAN_001165).

priJLC_TRAN

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Bicycle (8 x 10 inches or smaller in size)

Visual Materials

priJLC_TRAN

Subseries A. Bicycle (large size)

Opening Hours

Admission Info and Tickets

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Springfield Bicycle Club. : Bicycle camp-exhibition & tournament. Springfield, Mass. U.S.A. Sept. 18.19.20.1883

Columbia bicycle : the Pope Mfg. Co. Boston Mass

Subseries A. Bicycle (small size)

Victor bicycles

Subseries C. Railroad (large size)

Bicycle (8 x 10 inches or smaller in size)