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The Ephemera Society News

The Ephemera Society AGM

The 2008 AGM was a notable occasion. This one was doubly so by the announcement of a new chairman and the presentation of The Pepys Medal.

The members welcomed the news of the appointment of Valerie Jackson-Harris as the new chairman. Sally de Beaumont, the Society's retiring chairman had undertook the job for seven years in which she successfully steered the Society through its most recent growth phase and provided a solid foundation for the future.

During her stewardship Sally's remarkable energy enabled her to get the Society back on an even keel and it's thanks to her efforts that the Ephemera Society is today internationally recognised and respected in the field of ephemera.

The presentation of The Ephemera Society’s Pepys Medal for outstanding contributions to ephemera studies was presented to founding member Amoret Tanner by Professor Michael Twyman.

From left: Sally de Beaumont, Michael Twyman, Amoret Tanner,
Valerie Jackson-Harris, Graham Hudson

In her acceptance speech Amoret praised the dealers at the Society's fairs and bazaars for their tremendous effort in keeping ephemera coming on to the market which enabled established collectors to add to their collections and for newcomers to start one.

She affirmed that the future for ephemera is very exciting by citing the University of Reading’s offering of a module on Ephemera to second year MA students and observed that what had started out as an eccentric collectable has now been promoted to an academic discipline.

E stipula ventum: From the straw, the wind

Ephemera Society Motto

In Maurice Rickards Collecting Printed Ephemera, first published in 1988, he tells of the origin of the motto. John Selden (1584-1654), whose collection of ballads Samuel Pepys built upon, commented of the role of ephemera as “straws in the wind”.

Engraving of John Selden by W. Hall

Shortly before his death Selden’s secretary recorded the following passage under the heading Libells - the name given to transient matter of all kinds:
Though some may make slight of Libells, yet you may see by them how the wind sits; as take a straw and throw it up into the air, you shall see by that which way the wind is. What you shall not do by casting up a stone - More solid things do not show the complexion of the times so well as ballads and libells.

History At Your Fingertips

The Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (ncse)

A new online edition of 19th century newspapers and periodicals provides a rich digital resource of Victorian politics, philosophy and life as seen through the eyes of contemporary journalists.

Free, easily accessible and fully searchable for users based anywhere in the world, the titles range from an early feminist paper to a radical social reformist broadsheet and satirical illustrated weekly.

• Tomahawk: a satirical illustrated contemporary of Punch
  with elaborate, full-page cartoons
• English Woman's Journal: an early women's magazine published and set by women
• Northern Star: a social reformist newspaper, which gave
  away portraits of notable Chartists and at its height had
  nine editions on a single day
• Publishers' Circular: a trade magazine from the
  publishing industry with lavish illustrations
• Leader: a mid-century political weekly, which began
  by printing Town and Country editions
• Monthly Repository: a long-lived theological and
  philosophical monthly.

The Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (ncse), funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, is a unique digital resource, which gives the user an informative, accessible and authentic experience of 19th century newspapers. The collection illustrates the phenomenal growth and transformation of the press in the 19th century and brings to life a society and century in flux.

http://www.ncse.kcl.ac.uk/

The Design and Printing of Ephemera in Britain
and America 1720-1920

Graham Hudson

This new book discusses ephemera as an aspect of design history, showing how function, process and period have affected the changing appearance of leaflets, tickets, posters, trade cards and other ephemera.

Richly illustrated with letterforms, engravings, drawings and the reproduction in colour of 200 items of ephemera, this is a book for collectors, students, design historians and all those with an interest in the visual arts.

Graham Hudson is secretary and founding member of the Ephemera Society. His published articles on aspects of ephemeral printing include contributions to the Journal of the Printing Historical Society, Art Libraries Journal, the Journal of the Writing Equipment Society, Industrial Archaeology and numerous articles in The Ephemerist.

• Price £30.00
• Published Date:February 2008
• Publisher:British Library Publishing
• Bibliographic Details:160 pages, 276 x 219mm, 200 colour illustrations
• British Library online shop: http://shop.bl.uk/

Workers’ War: Home Front Recalled

This website holds an exhibition of hundreds of digitised images and documents - photographs, posters, flyers - about the War and the Home Front effort.

This resource is a partnership initiative between London Metropolitan University, the Trades Union Congress and the National Pensioners’ Convention to record and commemorate the role played by trade unions and workers on the Home Front during the Second World War.

http://www.unionhistory.info/workerswar/

Entertaining Á La Carte

Edward Bawden and Fortnum & Mason

Fortnum and Mason celebrated its tercentenary in 2007. This new book from The Mainstone Press brings together the advertising material that Bawden illustrated for the firm in the years before and after World War II. Full of joie de vivre, this stunning body of work includes catalogues, brochures, order forms and envelopes, all of which are now highly prized by collectors of Bawden’s work and Fortnum’s ephemera.

To set the illustrations in context, the book begins with an engaging essay by Peyton Skipwith, a former Director of The Fine Art Society and a good friend of the artist. Peyton discusses the relationship between Fortnum & Mason and its most famous artistic champion, exploring both the history of the firm and the artist’s career.

Limited to 1000 copies.

• Book Specifications
• 340 x 245mm
• Hardback - Fill cloth - 128 Pages, 170 gsm stock
• RRP £90.00
•  
• http://www.themainstonepress.com/

Circus Museum

Online Exhibition

The ultimate image bank with posters, photos and prints from the collection of Jaap Best (1912-2002), the Dutch circus-lover, which now forms the Netherlands’ largest collection of circus memorabilia.

Online are nearly eight thousand circus posters from 1880 to the present, from the Netherlands to America, A2 format to several square metres. At the heart of the collection, and dating from 1880-1930, are nearly 3,500 colour lithographs by the Hamburg printer Adolph Friedländer, a specialist in the production of circus posters, who introduced extremely high-quality colour lithographs to the market.

http://www.circusmuseum.nl/eng/

Bear Ye One Another's Burdens

Online Exhibition

Explore the history of the Girls’ Friendly Society (GFS) in this new online exhibition by Vivienne Richmond based on the archive of the GFS, held at The Women’s Library.

A pioneering youth organisation, yet largely neglected by historians, the GFS was formed in 1875 for the preservation of chastity among working-class girls. At its peak, on the eve of World War One, it had nearly 200,000 members and claimed to be the largest girls’ society of the day. Though much smaller, the GFS still exists today, working principally with young mothers.

Bear Ye One Another’s Burdens traces the Society’s varied history through the archive’s rich collection of visual and material sources, including banners, certificates, magazines, needlework, photographs, posters and souvenirs.

http://www.londonmet.ac.uk/thewomenslibrary/gfs/contents.cfm

The Waddesdon Manor Trade Cards

Online Resource

This year sees the culmination of a three year research project, funded by the Leverhulme Trust and a collaboration with the University of Warwick to catalogue Waddesdon Manor’s important collection of 18th-century trade cards.

These humble documents, regarded as printed ephemera, which were produced by shop keepers, craftsmen and tradesmen to advertise their shops and wares, give an astonishingly detailed glimpse into the consumer world of the 1700s.

http://www.waddesdon.org.uk/plan_your_visit/trade_cards.html

Sweet Sixties

8 September - 31 May 2009

This exhibition is the ultimate nostalgia trip for sweet lovers everywhere, where visitors can rekindle their chocolate memories from the 1960s. The period pack designs will recall those forgotten favourites, nostalgic tastes and temptations from forty years ago.

• Museum of Brands, Packaging and Advertising
• 2 Colville Mews
• Lonsdale Road
• Notting Hill
• London, W11 2AR
• United Kingdom
•  
• http://www.museumofbrands.com/

The Performance on Stage & Screen Fair

Saturday 11 October 2008   10.30 - 19.30   Admission free

Performance on Stage & Screen Fair is the new banner heading for the Performing Arts Fair, still running after 26 successful years.

Fifteen specialist dealers will display for sale books and ephemera including playbills, posters, autographs, programmes, prints and photographs, at prices ranging from a few to several hundred pounds. Items will feature personalities from the world of entertainment, especially those from cinema, music and theatre, and on the history and technique of all performing arts.

The Performance on Stage & Screen Fair is unique and attracts collectors from all over the UK and is a bonus feature for those attending performances at the National Theatre. The fair is organised by the Provincial Booksellers Fairs Association and the Ephemera Society.

• Olivier Stalls Foyer
• Royal National Theatre
• Southbank
• London
• United Kingdom
•  
• Enquiries: Peter Wood   +44 (0)1954 251056