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Jay T. Last Collection of Food Prints and Ephemera: Finding Aid
priJLC_Food  
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Collection Details
 
Table of contents What's This?
  • Overview of the Collection
  • Access
  • Administrative Information
  • Scope and Content
  • Related materials in the Huntington Library
  • Arrangement
  • Indexing Terms

  • Overview of the Collection

    Title: Jay T. Last Collection of Food Prints and Ephemera
    Dates (inclusive): approximately 1845-1964
    Bulk dates: approximately 1875-1950
    Collection Number: priJLC_Food
    Collector: Last, Jay T.
    Extent: approximately 4,950 items
    Repository: The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens. Prints and Ephemera
    1151 Oxford Road
    San Marino, California 91108
    Phone: (626) 405-2191
    Email: reference@huntington.org
    URL: http://www.huntington.org
    Abstract: The Jay T. Last Collection of Food Prints and Ephemera contains approximately 4,950 printed items advertising food products and related businesses from the 1840s to the 1960s, with the bulk of the items dating from 1875 to 1950. The collection consists largely of lithographed ephemera produced for American businesses affiliated with the growth, manufacture, packaging, distribution, and sale of food and food products.
    Language: English.
    Note:
    Finding aid last updated on September 22, 2017.

    Access

    Open to qualified researchers by prior application through the Reader Services Department. For more information, contact Reader Services.

    Administrative Information

    Publication Rights

    The Huntington Library does not require that researchers request permission to quote from or publish images of this material, nor does it charge fees for such activities. The responsibility for identifying the copyright holder, if there is one, and obtaining necessary permissions rests with the researcher.

    Preferred Citation

    [Item title, Call number]. Jay T. Last Collection of Food Prints and Ephemera, The Huntington Library, San Marino, California.

    Provenance

    This collection forms part of the Jay T. Last Collection of Graphic Arts and Social History, which was donated to the Huntington Library by Jay T. Last in 2005 as a gift in progress. The bulk of the food prints and ephemera were transferred to the Library between 2010 and 2013.

    Background

    The Jay T. Last Collection is an unparalleled archive of printed paper artifacts that documents American lithographic, social, and business history. The collection began in the early 1970s when physicist and Silicon Valley pioneer Jay Last moved to Southern California and started collecting citrus box labels he found at local flea markets and rummage sales. As his collection grew, Last realized that these labels conveyed important information about commercial printing, graphic design, and social history, and he expanded his collection to include other forms of American visual culture. Today this collection contains more than 200,000 lithographic prints, posters, and ephemera of mostly nineteenth- and early twentieth- century American origin and represents works by more than five hundred lithographic companies.

    Scope and Content

    The Jay T. Last Collection of Food Prints and Ephemera contains approximately 4,950 printed items advertising food products and related businesses in the United States from the 1840s to the 1960s, with the bulk of the items dating from 1875 to 1950. The collection consists largely of ephemera produced for American businesses affiliated with the growth, manufacture, packaging, distribution, and sale of food and food products. Most of these items are color lithographs, but hand-colored and uncolored engravings and woodcuts are also included.
    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 and all printers, artists, and publishers are indexed by name. The collection includes over 45 large-size items comprised mainly of lithographed advertising prints and product labels. Small-size items number approximately 4,900 and contain a variety of promotional materials, including trade cards, product labels, and printed billheads and letterheads with manuscript text.
    The collection highlights food production, merchandising, distribution, purveying, and consumption, and the images provide a rich resource for studying the history of such American industries as canning, packaging, and manufacturing along with the evolution of their advertising in the 19th and early 20th centuries. As graphic materials, the prints and ephemera offer evidence of developing techniques and trends in commercial printing, and of the artists, engravers, lithographers, printers, and publishers involved in the creative process.
    Please note that food starch can be found in the Jay T. Last Collection of Household Goods Prints and Ephemera (in process). Food starch and laundry starch are grouped together because both were often made or distributed by the same companies and advertised together.

    Note

    The Jay T. Last Collection is a gift in progress. Container numbers may change as the collection expands.

    Alternative Form of Materials Available

    Visit the Huntington Digital Library: Jay T. Last Collection   to view digitized items from this collection.

    Related materials in the Huntington Library

    Arrangement

    Items are arranged broadly by size in two series, which have been further arranged in subseries according to business and/or product type:
    • Series I. Food Prints and Ephemera (small size)
      • Subseries A. Baby Food (small size)
      • Subseries B. Confections (small size)
      • Subseries C. Fruit and Vegetable Products (small size)
      • Subseries D. Grain Products (small size)
      • Subseries E. Ingredients (small size)
      • Subseries F. Meat and Meat Products (small size)
      • Subseries G. Purveyors (small size)
      • Subseries H. Seafood (small size)
    • Series II. Food Prints and Ephemera (large size)
      • Subseries A. Confections (large size)
      • Subseries B. Fruit and Vegetable Products (large size)
      • Subseries C. Grain Products (large size)
      • Subseries D. Ingredients (large size)
      • Subseries E. Meat and Meat Products (large size)
      • Subseries F. Purveyors (large size)
      • Subseries G. Seafood (large size)

    Indexing Terms

    The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the Huntington Library's Online Catalog.  

    Genres

    Advertisements.
    Billheads.
    Business cards.
    Chromolithographs.
    Ephemera.
    Ephemera -- United States -- 19th century.
    Ephemera -- United States -- 20th century.
    Intaglio prints.
    Labels.
    Letterheads.
    Lithographs.
    Printed ephemera.
    Promotional materials.
    Relief prints.
    Trade cards.
    Views.

    Subjects

    Advertising -- Baked products.
    Advertising -- Farm produce.
    Advertising -- Food.
    Advertising -- Spice trade.
    Bread -- Pictorial works.
    Canning & preserving.
    Chewing gum industry.
    Cocoa.
    Condiments -- Pictorial works.
    Farms -- Pictorial works.
    Flour mills -- Pictorial works.
    Fruit -- Pictorial works.
    Grain -- Pictorial works.
    Grocers -- Pictorial works.
    Industrial buildings -- Pictorial works.
    Livestock -- Pictorial works.
    Meat industry and trade.
    Mills and mill-work -- Pictorial works.
    Orchards -- Pictorial works.
    Seafood industry.
    Storefronts -- Pictorial works.
    Vegetables -- Pictorial works.
    Vineyards -- Pictorial works.

    Printer, Publisher, Artist Index

    The following is a complete list of printers, publishers, and artists represented in the large-size items in this collection.
    A. Trochsler & Co.
    August Gast & Co.
    Bencke, Herman.
    Boston Bank Note Co.
    Campbell, James (Inspector of Provisions)
    Currier & Ives.
    Gunn, Bliss & Co.
    H. Gugler & Son.
    Hatch Lith. Co.
    Henderson-Achert-Krebs Lithographing Co.
    Herline & Co.
    J. Mayer & Co.
    J.H. Bufford's Sons Lith.
    Kilburn, Samuel Smith.
    Lakeside Press (Portland, Me.)
    Mayer & Stetfield.
    Morgan & Hamilton Co.
    Palmer, C.
    Rease, W. H.
    Richmond Lith. Co.
    Rochester Lith. & Print Co.
    Schmidt Label & Litho. Co.
    Shober & Carqueville.
    Skeen & Stuart Stationery Co.
    Stahl & Jaeger.
    Wagner & M’Guigan.
    Wells & Hope Co.
    Wilmanns Bros. Co.
    Wogram, Fred.