Jay T. Last Collection of Fashion Prints and Ephemera, approximately 1577-1943, bulk 1825-1900

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Summary

Creators:
Last, Jay T.
Abstract:
The Jay T. Last collection of fashion prints and ephemera contains approximately 7,500 items dating from the 1570s to the 1940s, with the bulk of the items spanning from 1825 to 1900. This collection consists of fashion plates, advertising prints, broadsides, and promotional ephemera produced for clothiers and tailors, dry goods suppliers, garment manufacturers, fashion publications, and textile companies affiliated with the design, production, and/or sale of clothing, accessories, and dry goods. While most of the materials are American, there are also notable quantities of foreign items in the collection, including French fashion plates and foreign textile labels.
Extent:
74.07 Linear Feet (5 flat-file drawers, 52 binders, and 5 flat-boxes)
Language:
Materials are in English and French.
Preferred citation:

[Identification of item]. Jay T. Last collection of fashion prints and ephemera, The Huntington Library, San Marino, California.

Background

Scope and content:

The Jay T. Last collection of fashion prints and ephemera contains approximately 7,500 items dating from the 1570s to the early 1900s, with the bulk of the items spanning from 1825 to 1900. This collection consists of fashion plates, advertising prints, broadsides, and promotional ephemera produced for clothiers and tailors, dry goods suppliers, garment manufacturers, fashion publications, and textile companies affiliated with the design, production, and/or sale of clothing, accessories, and dry goods. While most of the materials are American, there are also notable quantities of foreign items in the collection, including French fashion plates, fez labels in several languages, and foreign textile labels. Labels affixed to textile samples of various sizes are also included.

Materials are broadly divided into two series: small-size items (11 x 14 inches or smaller) and large-size items (typically larger 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 250 large-size items comprised mainly of lithographic advertising prints and fashion plates. Small-size items number approximately 7,250 and contain a variety of promotional materials including trade cards, calendars, booklets, product labels, fashion plates, periodicals, clippings, and printed billheads and letterheads with manuscript text. Each series is divided into subseries according to the kind of business, service, or trade sponsoring the advertisement. Types of businesses have been identified according to the principal type of product(s) manufactured or sold by the business. These subseries are arranged as follows: Accessories; Clothiers, Tailors, and Dry Goods; Fashion Plates And Periodicals; Footwear; Garments; Headwear; Sewing Supplies; and Textiles.

This collection contains many American and European printed illustrations, commonly known as "fashion plates," that typically depict men, women, or children modeling current clothing and dress styles. Small plates (usually 14 x 10 inches or less in this collection) illustrated the pages of magazines and bound volumes that were marketed specifically for women. Larger plates, primarily intended for display, advertised the products and services of fashion designers, tailors, and pattern makers.

The collection provides a resource for studying clothing and dress, sales and merchandise, textiles, and sewing, as well as changing fashion trends in the United States and Europe in the 19th century. The images are primarily promotional in nature and provide information about the history of the American fashion, clothing, dry-goods, and textile industries and the evolution of their advertising strategies in the 19th and early 20th centuries. As graphic materials, the prints offer evidence of developing techniques and trends in printmaking, and of the artists, engravers, lithographers, printers, and publishers involved in the creative process.

Biographical / historical:

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.

Acquisition information:
Gift of Jay T. Last, 2005.
Custodial history:

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 Fashion Prints and Ephemera were transferred to the Library between 2010 and 2013.

Processing information:

Processed by Charla DelaCuadra in 2015.

Arrangement:

The collection is arranged in the following series and subseries:

  • Series I. Fashion Prints and Ephemera (small size), approximately 1577-1943, bulk 1825-1900
  • Subseries A. Accessories (small size)
  • Subseries B. Clothiers, Tailors, and Dry Goods (small size)
  • Subseries C. Fashion Plates and Periodicals (small size)
  • Subseries D. Footwear (small size)
  • Subseries E. Garments (small size)
  • Subseries F. Headwear (small size)
  • Subseries G. Sewing Supplies (small size)
  • Subseries H. Textiles (small size)
  • Series II. Fashion Prints and Ephemera (large size)
  • Subseries A. Accessories (large size)
  • Subseries B. Clothiers, Tailors, and Dry Goods (large size)
  • Subseries C. Fashion Plates and Periodicals (large size)
  • Subseries D. Footwear (large size)
  • Subseries E. Garments (large size)
  • Subseries F. Headwear (large size)
  • Subseries G. Sewing Supplies (large size)
  • Subseries H. Textiles (large size)

Items are arranged numerically by call number and described in the following format:

Title of print. Date. Artist(s) (when known). Printer(s). Publisher(s)

Rules or conventions:
Describing Archives: A Content Standard

Indexed terms

Subjects:
Advertising -- Clothing and dress.
Advertising -- Fashion.
Children's clothing -- Pictorial works
Children's shoes -- Pictorial works
Clothing and dress -- Pictorial works
Clothing trade.
Commerce -- Pictorial works
Corsets -- Pictorial works
Dress accessories -- Pictorial works
Dresses -- Pictorial works
Dressmaking -- Patterns
Dry-goods.
Fashion -- Pictorial works
Footwear.
Fur garments -- Pictorial works
Hat trade.
Hats -- Pictorial works
Manufacturing industries.
Men's clothing -- Pictorial works
Military uniforms -- Pictorial works
Notions (Merchandise).
Rubber industry and trade.
Shoe industry.
Shoes -- Pictorial works
Storefronts -- Pictorial works
Textiles.
Thread.
Umbrellas -- Pictorial works
Women's clothing -- Pictorial works
Billheads
Broadsides
Business cards
Business records
Business records -- United States -- 19th century
Business records -- United States -- 20th century
Clippings
Ephemera.
Engravings.
Fashion plates
Fashion prints
Intaglio prints
Leaflets (printed works)
Labels
Letterheads
Lithographs.
Newspapers
Periodical illustrations
Periodicals
Printed ephemera
Promotional materials.
Relief prints
Sample books
Samples
Textiles
Trade cards
Views
Names:
A. Brett & Co.
A.E. Baker's Lithog'hy.
Augte. Godchaux & Cie.
B.W. Thayer & Co.
Baker & Godwin.
Baker, Godwin & Co.
C.L. Crapper & Bro. Lith.
Calvert Lithographing Co. (Detroit, Mich.)
Capewell & Kimmel (Firm)
Duross Bros.
Duval & Hunter.
E. Wells Sackett & Rankin.
Elite Styles Company
Elsas Paper Co.
Ferd. Mayer & Sons.
Forbes Lithograph Manufacturing Company
Fournier (Firm)
Frazer & Denis.
G.W. & W.H. Dobbins.
Geddes Sons.
Geo. H. Walker & Co.
Gilquin Fils. Imp.
Grant & Co.
Graphic Company
Gray Lith. Co.
Harper & Brothers.
Hatch & Co.
Heffron & Phelps.
Heppenheimer & Maurer.
Imp. Falconer.
Imp. Leroy.
J. Ottman Lithographic Company
J.C. Kneeland & Co.
J.H. Bufford's Lith.
J.J. Little & Co.
Julius Bien & Co.
Ketterlinus Lithographic Manufacturing Company
King & Baird.
Lindner, Eddy & Clauss.
Major & Knapp Engraving, Manufacturing & Lithographic Co.
Major, Knapp & Co.
Mayer, Merkel & Ottmann.
Men's Outfitter.
New York Times Company
O.H. Bailey & Co.
P.S. Duval & Co.
Pictorial Advertising Co.
Pictorial Printing Co.
Rogowski & Co.
S.T. Taylor Co.
Sackett & Wilhelms Litho. & Prt. Co.
Sackett, Wilhelms & Betzig.
Seringe Freres (Firm)
Shober & Carqueville.
Stahl & Jaeger.
Standard Print.
Tappan & Bradford.
Times Print (Cincinnati, Ohio)
W.H.H. Rogers & Co.
Wagner & M'Guigan.
Ward & Biddulph.
Wex & Irish.
Ackermann, Emil F., 1840-
Baillie, James S., fl. 1838-1855
Baker, Joseph E., approximately 1837-1914
Beard, Albin, 1808-1862
Bonnard, J.
Bufford, John Henry, 1810-1870
Cameron, John, approximately 1828-
Chanson (Engraver)
Cosine, W. S.
Crawford, C. G.
Croker, H., Jr.
Currier, Charles, 1818-1887
Deferneville, P.
Desgrange, Isabelle.
Dupuy (Printer)
Endicott, George, 1802-1848
Esnault, A.
Farwell, F. F.
Feder, Joel.
Godchaux, Alp.
Gray, L. (Lithographer)
Harris, George S.
Holland, A. (Printer)
Mayes (Engraver)
Michelin, Francis, 1809 or 1810-1878
Moras, Ferdinand, 1821-1908
Morse, W.J. (Willis J.)
Noel, Laure, 1827-1878
Oliver, John Wise, 1815-1908
Parker, Gray.
Rabouille, Charles.
Rau, J., approximately 1821-
Rease, W. H.
Schuller, Jno.
Toudouze, Anaïs Colin, 1822-1899
Valois, Ed.
Van Ingen, William H., approximately 1831-

Access and use

Restrictions:

Open for use by qualified researchers and by appointment. Please contact Reader Services at the Huntington Library for more information.

Terms of access:

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:

[Identification of item]. Jay T. Last collection of fashion prints and ephemera, The Huntington Library, San Marino, California.

Location of this collection:
1151 Oxford Road
San Marino, CA 91108, US
Contact:
(626) 405-2191
reference@huntington.org
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