School is back in session. Summer vacations are over. However, if you lived in 1892 and had the means to afford it, your vacation might have just started. And it might have lasted 72 days!
Author: Alexia MacClain
What do you imagine a vacation might have been like over a hundred years ago? This brochure from the Trade Literature Collection gives us a glimpse into what some people might have done on their summer vacation in 1909.
With the arrival of warmer days, images such as the lawn and porch swings found in this trade catalog might look inviting. Imagine you are relaxing on a porch swing looking out over the water, just like in one of the images in this 1913 trade catalog.
Every once in a while, we come across a trade catalog in the Trade Literature Collection that has a label on the front cover. Recorded on that label is date and location information, such as drawer number. We do not use labels such as that to shelve catalogs at the National Museum of American History Library, but I have often wondered if that label played a role in the way that particular catalog was filed in its past life, perhaps before coming to the Trade Literature Collection.
Do you remember visiting your school library as a child? How did you check out a book? Was it by using a computer or on paper? Most libraries of today still have bookshelves but other things at libraries have changed over the years. In honor of National Library Week (April 8-14, 2018), we’re taking a look back. This trade catalog gives us an idea of what we might have seen if we stepped into a library in 1918.
As might be expected, firefighting equipment from the late 19th Century was a bit different from what we are used to seeing today. This trade catalog takes us back in time for a glimpse of the uniforms, trucks, and other equipment firefighters might have used in that time period.
Trade catalogs might include products sold by stores, but those stores also need fixtures to display the products. Some of the catalogs in the Trade Literature Collection illustrate retail display fixtures, like this one from 1894.