Commercial art -- History -- Sources

Scope and Contents Consists of 160 trade cards showing Japanese influences in their design. Most are chromolithographs. Major American printers--Prang and Bufford among them--are represented along with relatively obscure firms. A few are actual Japanese woodcuts, overprinted in the United States. Some are stock cards, while others were produced for specific businesses. Several cards take the form of round fans with handles. A full range of products are advertised through the cards: thread, clothing, food, tea,...

Scope and Contents

Cards depict convertible furniture, chiefly objects that could be transformed into beds. Cards are unique to individual manufactures. Such items at the "Celebrated Windsor Folding Bed," Albee's National Upright Parlor Bed," Boyington's Automatic Folding Bed," "Ham's Convertible Chair and Wash-Bench," and desks and mantels that are actually beds are featured. One of the cards--from Paine's Furniture Store in Boston--shows a room setting with a youngster pulling down a bed from a corner.