Exhibits

The Ephemera Society's online exhibitions provide examples of ephemera both old and new. Some exhibits highlight a particular event; others will span a type of ephemera for decades or centuries depending on the subject matter.

	The Aftermath of 9/11 – Healing On September 11, 2001, Michael Ragsdale, a videographer at Columbia University’s Center for Biomedical Communications, realized he was in a unique position to document many of the responses of New Yorkers to that terrible day. Both on and off the job, he gathered flyers, posters, pamphlets and other ephemera covering the full range of the post 9-11 experience in New York City.
	Japanesque Trade Cards With the opening of Japan to trade in 1854, the American market was flooded with goods from the Far East. Later on, exhibits of Japanese goods at the Centennial Exhibition in 1876 in Philadelphia and the success of Gilbert and Sullivan’s operetta The Mikado as well as New York’s exhibit The Japanese Village, both in 1885, exposed more Americans to Japanese wares and design.
	Dolls as Advertising Gimmicks Dolls were one of the most common design motifs on 19th-century trade cards. In combination with attractively-dressed, winsome, children, they helped project a Victorian ideal of domestic beauty and tranquility to the consumer of the new Middle Class. Choosing such a design to promote a product all but guaranteed the trade card's inclusion in ubiquitous parlor scrapbooks.