Jay T. Last Collection of Firefighting Prints and Ephemera: Finding Aid

Finding aid prepared by Diann Benti.

The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens.

Prints and Ephemera

The Huntington Library

1151 Oxford Road

San Marino, California 91108

Phone: (626) 405-2191

Email: reference@huntington.org

URL: http://www.huntington.org

Overview of the Collection

Title: Jay T. Last Collection of Firefighting Prints and Ephemera

Dates (inclusive): 1826-1907

Collection Number: priJLC_FIRE

Collector: Last, Jay T.

Extent: approximately 200 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 Firefighting Prints and Ephemera contains more than 200 printed items that relate to firefighting and the activities and organizations of firemen in the United States from approximately 1820 to 1909. The collection consists of advertising and promotional materials, business records, and illustrations produced for or pertaining to firefighting organizations, related social or charitable events, and firefighting vehicles, equipment, and supplies.

Language: English.

Note:

Finding aid last updated on December 17, 2018.

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 Firefighting 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 firefighting prints and ephemera were transferred to the Library between 2010 and 2012.

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 Firefighting Prints and Ephemera contains more than 200 printed items that relate to firefighting and the activities and organizations of firemen in the United States from approximately 1820 to 1909. The collection consists of advertising and promotional materials, business records, and illustrations produced for or pertaining to firefighting organizations, related social or charitable events, and firefighting vehicles, equipment, and supplies.

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 materials broadly at the series level; large-size items have been fully inventoried and all printers, artists, and publishers are indexed by name.

The collection has 40 large-size items comprised mainly of lithographic and engraved prints that include:

Fire department membership and discharge certificates
Depictions of fires and firefighters working to extinguish blazes
Builders prints of fire engines and similar vehicles
Images and advertisements pertaining to social and charitable events involving fire departments and related organizations

Small-size items in the collection number more than 160 and consist mainly of business documents and advertising and promotional ephemera such as printed booklets, trade cards, small programs, menus, tickets and invitations for charitable and social events such balls, concerts, musters, and celebrations, business cards, lapel ribbons, book and periodical illustrations, membership certificates, and stationery with printed billheads and letterheads filled out in manuscript.

Note

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

Related materials in the Huntington Library include:

The Huntington Library Historical Prints Collection contains six related items (priHHC_FIRE_0000008 - priHHC_FIRE_0000013) that are listed in the "Related Materials" section in Series II.

Arrangement

The collection is arranged broadly by size in two series:

Series I. Firefighting Prints and Ephemera (small size)
Series II. Firefighting Prints and Ephemera (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

Billheads.

Business cards.

Business records.

Business records -- United States -- 19th century.

Chromolithographs.

Engravings.

Ephemera.

Ephemera -- United States -- 19th century.

Intaglio prints.

Leaflets (printed works).

Letterheads.

Lithographs.

Printed ephemera.

Prints.

Prints -- United States -- 19th century.

Promotional materials.

Relief prints.

Trade cards.

Views.

Subjects

Fire departments.

Fire departments -- United States.

Fire engines -- Pictorial works.

Fire extinction -- Equipment and supplies -- Pictorial works.

Fire fighters -- Pictorial works.

Fire stations -- Pictorial works.

Fires -- Pictorial works.

Fires -- United States.

Steam-engines -- 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.

Amory, Thomas C. (Thomas Coffin), 1812-1889.

Armstrong, McLellan & Green.

Bachelder, John B. (John Badger), 1825-1894.

Bennett, W. J. (William James), 1787-1844.

Bloomfield, J. J.

Brooks Bank Note Co.

Bufford, John Henry, 1810-1870.

Calyo, Nicolino, 1799-1884.

Chas. H. Crosby & Co.

Clay, Cosack & Co.

Clover, Lewis Peter, 1790-

Crump Label Co.

Currier & Ives.

Disturnell, John, 1801-1877.

Dunston, G. H.

Eddy, Isaac, 1777-1847.

Endicott & Co. (New York, N.Y.)

F.M. Baker & Co.

Frizzell, S. S. (Samuel S.), 1843-1895.

Heiss, Geo. G.

Imbert’s Lithographic Office.

J.H. Bufford's Lith.

Jones, J. R.

Kellogg, Jarvis Griggs, 1805-1873.

Ketterlinus, Eugene, 1824-1886.

L.H. Bradford & Co.

Mayer & Stetfield.

Mayer, Merkel & Ottmann.

Miller, Fred. J.

Miller, W. G. (Artist)

Morgan, William P., active 1811-1872.

N. Currier (Firm)

New York (N.Y.). Common Council.

P.S. Duval & Co.

P.S. Duval & Son.

Pendleton’s Lithography.

Queen, Jas. (James), 1824-approximately 1877.

Richardson, W. J. (Engraver)

Rogers, E. (Edward), 1831 or 1832-

Rowland, H. E., 1848?-1911.

Salmon, Robert, 1775- approximately 1848.

Sarony, Major & Knapp Lith.

Schmidt Label & Litho. Co.

Searle, Frederick A.

Smith, John Rubens, 1775-1849.

Tappan, Ebenezer, 1815-1854.

Tuthill, William H.

Wagner & M’Guigan.

Series I. Firefighting Prints and Ephemera (small size) approximately 1820-1909

Physical Description: approximately 160 items in 1 binder and 1 flat-top box

Scope and Content

This series contains more than 160 small-size printed items that pertain to firefighting and the activities and organizations of firemen in the United States from approximately 1820 to 1909. The items consist of business records and advertising and promotional materials produced for or pertaining to firefighting organizations, related social or charitable events, and firefighting vehicles, equipment, and supplies.

The entities represented in these materials include fire departments, engine and hose companies, relief funds, veterans' associations, and firefighting vehicle, equipment, and supply manufacturers such as engine works and pump and hose manufacturers. Item types consist of printed booklets, trade cards, small programs, menus, tickets and invitations for charitable and social events such balls, concerts, musters, and celebrations, business cards, lapel ribbons, book and periodical illustrations, membership certificates, and stationery with printed billheads and letterheads filled out in manuscript. Many of these items are decorated with images that include depictions of firefighters assembling for duty and responding to alarms, fighting fires, and rescuing victims; views of burning and damaged buildings, and ruins amid flames, rubble, and smoke; and images of firefighting vehicles and equipment including steam fire engines, manual fire engines, hook and ladder trucks, hose carriages, fire hydrants, hoses, ladders, preventers, axes, and speaking trumpets.

While most of the materials date from the second half of the 19th century, among the earliest items in the collection is a circa 1820 engraving of a fire pumper that advertises the Philadelphia firm of Sellers & Pennock Patent River Hose, Fire Bucket and Hydraulion Manufacturers. Also of note are four small lithographs of parade floats carrying New York City firefighters and fire engines that were printed by Anthony Imbert of New York City and published in 1826 as part of an appendix to the 1825 Memoir by Cadwallader D. Colden commemorating the New York celebration of the opening of the Erie Canal. Later items include an 1886 booklet for the Veteran Firemen’s Association annual ball held at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City, containing multiple pages of advertisements and illustrations for firefighting apparatus and related services interspersed with four images of historic New York City fires; and twelve color covers with images of "Young Wide Awake" in firefighting scenes from the Wide Awake Weekly dime-novel/penny-dreadful series that was published by Frank Tousey between 1906 and 1909.

Arrangement

Items smaller than 8 x 10 inches are housed in one binder.

Items that are between 8 x 10 inches and 11 x 14 inches in size are sleeved and arranged numerically by call number in one box, and select items have been fully cataloged. These items are described in the following format:

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

Binder 1

Firefighting Prints and Ephemera (8 x 10 inches or smaller in size)

Physical Description: approximately 140 items

Box 1

Firefighting Prints and Ephemera (between 8 x 10 inches and 11 x 14 inches in size)

Physical Description: approximately 20 items

Note

Select items in this box have been fully cataloged and are listed below.

priJLC_FIRE_001465 Ruins of the Merchant's Exchange N.Y. After the destructive conflagration of Decbr.. 16 & 17, 1835. approximately 1835