A New York bookseller, Warshaw assembled this collection over nearly fifty years. The Warshaw Collection of Business Americana: Calendars forms part of the Warshaw Collection of Business Americana, Subseries 1.1: Subject Categories. The Subject Categories subseries is divided into 470 subject categories based on those created by Mr. Warshaw. These subject categories include topical subjects, types or forms of material, people, organizations, historical events, and other categories. An overview to the entire Warshaw collection is available here: Warshaw Collection of Business Americana
Scope and Contents:
This material consists primarily of calendars. There are various types including centennial, gorham, perpetual, religious, advertising and art calendars. Calendars were heavily used as an advertising medium for various businesses. Such companies included manufacturers and dealers of pianos, furniture, ladies' and men's furnishings, proprietary medicines, carpets, fertilizers, teas, meats, soaps, threads and stationery. Insurance companies also tended to use calendars as a form of advertising. A number of the calendars were supplements to newspapers and periodicals. A few have been cut off saving just the images. Visual images of society women, women in sports, children, the four seasons, romance, animals and war were often used.
The Swift Company which made a variety of products including soap, meat and oleomargine produced calendars for 1918 and 1919 with images of World War I on the front. The reverse side contained useful information about some aspect of the war. War images include soldiers leaving love ones, sailors, Red Cross nurses and military women. Information on war gardening, preserving food, garments made by red cross workers, U.S.Navy vessels and U. S. airplanes and insignia for army marine and navy men is included on the reverse of these images. Other calendars include useful information on childhood safety (1959), history of the railroads and progress of the nineteenth century (Grand Union Tea Company, 1901).
There are a number of calendars in foreign languages including Spanish, French and German. These calendars also contain useful information. For example, a calendar published in Munich, Germany (1914) included the German coat of arms and each day had either the name of a saint or a holiday.
Other materials include correspondence, bills/receipts, printed advertisements, articles, pamphlets and books. Publications discuss issues such as calendar reform, invention of calendars and comparisons of calendars with chronologies. The bulk of the material is late nineteenth century.
The material in boxes one through six consists of dated calendars and is organized chronologically. Box six also contains perpetual calendars, advertisements for calendars and calendar plates. Box seven includes foreign calendars, religious calendars and publications mostly relating to calendar reform. Check other subject categories for additional calendars.
Materials in the Archives Center:
Archives Center Collection of Business Americana (AC0404)
Forms Part Of:
Forms part of the Warshaw Collection of Business Americana.
Missing Title
Series 1: Business Ephemera
Series 2: Other Collection Divisions
Series 3: Isadore Warshaw Personal Papers
Series 4: Photographic Reference Material
Provenance:
Calendars is a portion of the Business Ephemera Series of the Warshaw Collection of Business Americana, Accession AC0060 purchased from Isadore Warshaw in 1967. Warshaw continued to accumulate similar material until his death, which was donated in 1971 by his widow, Augusta. For a period after acquisition, related materials from other sources (of mixed provenance) were added to the collection so there may be content produced or published after Warshaw's death in 1969. This practice has since ceased.
Restrictions:
Collection is open for research. Some items may be restricted due to fragile condition.
Rights:
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
Genre/Form:
Business ephemera
Ephemera
Citation:
Warshaw Collection of Business Americana, Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution
Sponsor:
Funding for partial processing of the collection was supported by a grant from the Smithsonian Institution's Collections Care and Preservation Fund (CCPF).
