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.
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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.
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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.
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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. |
