Jay T. Last Collection of Entertainment: Performing Arts Prints and Ephemera, 1839-approximately 1940, bulk 1870-1900

Summary

Creators:

Last, Jay T.

Abstract:

The Jay T. Last Collection of Entertainment: Performing Arts Prints and Ephemera contains more than 2,300 printed items primarily advertising theatrical and musical entertainment and related performers in the United States from 1839 to the 1940s, with the majority of items dating from the 1870s to the 1890s. The collection consists of advertising and promotional materials, business records, and illustrations pertaining to a wide variety of performance genres that have been grouped broadly as music and theater (including theater, music, dance, burlesque, comedy, pantomime, and variety); minstrel (including minstrel shows, blackface entertainers, and female minstrels); and magic and miscellaneous (including magicians, motion pictures, and Wild West shows).

Extent:

approximately 2,300 items

Language:

English.

Background

Scope and content:

The Jay T. Last Collection of Entertainment: Performing Arts Prints and Ephemera contains more than 2,300 printed items primarily advertising theatrical and musical entertainment and related performers in the United States from 1839 to the 1940s, with the majority of items dating from the 1870s to the 1890s. The collection consists of advertising and promotional materials, business records, and illustrations pertaining to a wide variety of performance genres that have been grouped broadly as music and theater (including theater, music, dance, burlesque, comedy, pantomime, and variety); minstrel (including minstrel shows, blackface entertainers, and female minstrels); and magic and miscellaneous (including magicians, motion pictures, and Wild West shows).

Materials are arranged into two series: small-size items (11 x 14 inches or less) and large-size items (bigger than 11 x 14 inches). Small size items are described broadly at the series level; large-size items are fully inventoried and all printers, artists, and publishers are indexed by name.

The collection has 450 large-size items comprised mainly of lithographic theatrical and minstrel posters that were intended to advertise specific shows or performers.

Small-size items in the collection number approximately 1,850 and are comprised mainly of promotional ephemera and business documents such as trade cards, programs and playbills, souvenir booklets, tickets, die-cut cards, and printed billheads and letterheads with manuscript text.

The collection provides a resource for studying the history of the American theater and the evolution of advertising strategies for the performing arts in the United States in the late 19th century. As graphic materials, the items offer evidence of developing techniques and trends in printmaking, and of the artists, engravers, lithographers, printers, and publishers involved in the creation of these prints.

Acquisition information:

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 performing arts prints and ephemera were transferred to the Library between 2010 and 2013 .

Arrangement:

Items are arranged broadly by size in two series, which have been further arranged in subseries:

• Series I. Performing Arts Prints and Ephemera (small size)
  • Subseries A. Music and Theater (small size)
  • Subseries B. Minstrel (small size)
  • Subseries C. Magic and Miscellaneous (small size)
• Series II. Performing Arts Prints and Ephemera (large size)
  • Subseries A. Music and Theater (large size)
  • Subseries B. Minstrel (large size)
  • Subseries C. Magic and Miscellaneous (large size)

Rules or conventions:

Finding aid prepared using Describing Archives: A Content Standard

Note:

Finding aid last updated on August 30, 2018.

Related resources

Related material:

• Jay T. Last Collection of Entertainment: Balls and Carnivals Prints and Ephemera
• Jay T. Last Collection of Entertainment: Circus Prints and Ephemera
• Jay T. Last Collection of Entertainment: Theatrical Broadsides and Playbills

The Huntington Library Historical Prints Collection contains two related items (priHHC_ENT_0000002 and priHHC_ENT_0000003) that are listed in the "Related Materials" section at the beginning of the Music and Theater subseries in Series II of this finding aid.

Alternative form available:

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

Indexed terms

Subjects:

Actors -- Pictorial works.
Actors -- Portraits.
Actresses -- Pictorial works.
African Americans -- Pictorial works.
Bands (Music) -- Pictorial works.
Blackface entertainers -- Pictorial works.
Burlesque (Theater)
Caricatures and cartoons.
Comedians -- Portraits.
Comedies.
Dancers -- Pictorial works.
Magicians -- Pictorial works.
Marching bands -- Pictorial works.
Melodramas.
Minstrel shows.
Museums -- Pictorial works.
Parades -- Pictorial works.
Theater -- United States -- History -- 19th century -- Sources.
Theater -- United States -- History -- 20th century -- Sources.
Theatrical producers and directors -- Portraits.
Theatrical productions -- United States -- 19th century.
Vaudeville.
Advertisements.
Billheads.
Business records.
Business records -- United States -- 19th century.
Business records -- United States -- 20th century.
Caricatures.
Chromolithographs.
Ephemera.
Engravings.
Leaflets (printed works).
Letterheads.
Lithographs.
Portrait prints.
Posters.
Printed ephemera.
Prints.
Promotional materials.
Relief prints.
Theatrical posters.
Tickets.
Trade cards.
Views.

Restrictions:

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

Location of this collection:

Huntington Library, Prints and Ephemera Collections

1151 Oxford Road

San Marino, CA 91108, US

Contact:

(626) 405-2191

reference@huntington.org

Website