Subseries D. Advertisements, catalogs, and price lists

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  Catalogs and price lists

  Visual Materials

  The Nancy and Henry Rosin collection of valentine, friendship, and devotional ephemera contains materials from Europe and North America dating from 1493 to the late 2010s. The bulk of the collection consists of greeting cards exchanged on Valentine’s Day, dating from approximately 1840 to 1930. Early handcrafted valentine cards found within the greeting cards subseries demonstrate folk art methods of pinpricking, paper cutting, paper folding, painting, puzzle making, and illustration. Other cards dating from the Victorian era include comic or “vinegar” valentines, paper lace valentines, cobweb valentines, and cards created by various printing, embossing, and assemblage techniques. Many of the late 19th-century cards are dimensional and mechanical paper constructions, made with a combination of die-cut scraps, honeycomb tissue paper, and levers, strings, or wheels that enable the cards to pop-up or move. Also included in the collection are greeting cards exchanged for other holidays and events, friendship cards dating from the Biedermeier era, friendship albums with locks of hair, language of flowers almanacs and booklets, matrimonial documents, sachets, verse writers, religious devotional items, mourning cards, scrapbook albums, and correspondence relating to love and courtship. The collection also contains artifacts and three-dimensional items such as fans, jewelry boxes, shadow boxes, and additional items, some of which include fragile, glass components. Smaller portions of the collection include educational ephemera, such as rewards of merit and bookmarks, and American Civil War ephemera, such as greeting cards and song sheets. Additional materials include artist and organizational files relating to illustrator Catherine “Kate” Greenaway, printer Louis Prang, and 20th-century greeting card companies Rust Craft and Norcross. The last series of this collection contains research materials compiled by valentine scholar Charles Albert Reed and by Nancy Rosin. The materials consist largely of secondary sources, notes, and newspaper clippings.

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  Subseries A. Kate Greenaway

  Visual Materials

  The Kate Greenaway subseries includes original artwork, calendars, trade cards, and advertisements relating to the illustrator. Greenaway's Valentine's Day cards are housed in the Valentine's Day series, and her other holiday greeting cards are found in the Manners and customs series. This subseries pertains primarily to her original art and promotional material.

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  Subseries B. Louis Prang

  Visual Materials

  This subseries contains promotional, instructional and internal files relating to Louis Prang. Included are art course books, trade cards, advertisements, newspaper clippings, and correspondence. Louis Prang's Valentine's Day cards are housed in the Valentine's Day series, and his other holiday greeting cards are found in the Manners and customs series.

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  Series I. Valentine's Day

  Visual Materials

  The Valentine's Day series contains greeting cards, booklets, verse writers, periodicals, pictorials, scrapbooks, albums, sheet music and other ephemera relating to the holiday. This series is the largest in the collection and includes paper lace valentines, printed valentines, handmade valentines, comic valentines, and dimensional and mechanical cards. Many valentine stationers, makers, and distributors such as McLoughlin Bros., Raphael Tuck & Sons, and T.W. Strong also published valentine letter writers, greeting card booklets, price lists, and promotional materials found throughout the series.

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  Subseries A. Charles Albert Reed

  Visual Materials

  This subseries contains research notes compiled by Charles Albert Reed, a Valentine scholar. More materials by Charles Albert Reed include Valentine's Day scrapbooks and albums that are housed in boxes 77-79, listed within the Valentine's Day, scrapbook and album subseries.

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  Subseries C. Verse writers

  Visual Materials

  This subseries consists of Valentine's Day verse or letter writers, which are booklets with samples of text to use as guides when writing valentine correspondence. Some of the writers are satirical in nature and were likely used for creating comic valentines. Also of note are the writers published by stationer S.A. Howland, the father of valentine stationer Esther Howland.

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