"I Like Ike": Collecting Political Ephemera
Faye Philips

Political ephemera in the United States appeared centuries earlier than the popular campaign slogan of Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1952.¹ Since the beginning of the colonial era, political ephemera existed to promote a political cause or belief.

"Extrait des Régistres, des Audiances du Conseil Superieur, de la Province de la Louisianne. Du7. May 1765. Entre L’Abbe de L’Isle Dieu, Vicaire General du Diocese de Quebec, & de cette Province, Demandeur en Requete, le Procureur General du Roi, joint" may be one of the first items of political ephemera printed in Louisiana. This reprint of a law passed by the Superior Council of the Province of Louisiana forbid any further printing of the "Catechisme pour la province de la Louisianne" which may have been printed in New Orleans.² Since the 1765 publication of this reprint, politicians and their supporters have inundated voters with handbills, offprints of speeches, broadsides, proclamations, and other types of political campaign and election ephemera. These materials are collected by libraries and museums because of their research and artifactual value. Researchers use the materials to prove or to disprove historical facts, to grasp the flavor of Louisiana at a particular time, or to illustrate other aspects of American culture.

Types of Political Ephemera

Printed political ephemera are varied in format and type, but all are "...materials which were produced to be used once and thrown away."³ Posters, proclamations, reprints of speeches and laws, forms for official appointments, convention and party platforms, and even automobile bumper stickers are examples of printed political ephemera. Political ephemera is created to advance a cause, and reprints of speeches furthered this purpose. Printed as early as 1817 in New Orleans was the "Speech of Julien Poydras, Esq. the Delegate From the Territory of Orleans, in Support of the Right of the Public to ‘The Batture’ in front of the Suburb St. Mary. Friday, February 2, 1810" (see Figure 1).⁴

Other items were printed to remove purported blemishes from the character of politicians. The third governor of Louisiana, Thomas Boiling Robertson, in 1820 had printed a letter to the people of Louisiana, "In consequence of a publication in the Orleans Gazette of the 8th inst. entitled ‘Extract of a Letter From Henry Johnson, Senator in Congress, to a Gentleman in Louisiana, Dated 19th April 1820,’ I find myself called upon to address my fellow citizens in relation to its subject. This I do with great reluctance, and solely to repel a strange & unmerited imputation" (signed & dated in type, p.2: Thos. B. Robertson. New-Orleans, 10th June, 1820).⁵

Since the eighteenth century many other varieties of political ephemera have been printed in Louisiana. Newspapers, which researchers do not think of as ephemeral, are just that. Newspapers are printed on very poor quality paper and are not meant by the publishers to be kept permanently. In the 1930s the American Progress was a newspaper printed to publish the political aims and views of Huey Long and his supporters. Today, because of the preservation of those newspapers, researchers have a valuable resource for studying Huey Long.

Purposes of Political Ephemera

Political pamphlets were also printed to promote diverse political attitudes regarding certain topics. Those who had political speeches and laws offprinted considered their opinions to be of great importance. The printed battle of the "Batture" did not begin in 1810 with the publication of Julien Poydras’s speech, but began several years earlier as a debate between Louisiana lawmaker Edward Livingston and President of the United States Thomas Jefferson. Perhaps neither Mr. Jefferson nor Mr. Livingston felt that the newspapers would give thorough coverage of their opinions. Therefore, Livingston and Jefferson wrote and had printed such items as Edward Livingston’s 1808 pamphlet, "Address to the People of the United States, on the Measures Pursued by the Executive with Respect to the Batture at New-Orleans."⁶ Only a few hundred copies were printed for private distribution by Livingston to present his viewpoints of Mr. Jefferson’s actions. Although such pamphlets begin existence as ephemeral items, their survival provides researchers insight into the questions of the ownership of alluvial land in the Mississippi River near New Orleans, and even more insight into the thought processes of Livingston and Jefferson.

Political ephemera items are as varied as the political views they present. Included in the Louisiana and Lower Mississippi Valley Collections of the Louisiana State University Libraries are an 1844 invitation to the national Whig Convention, election tickets from 1868 and other years (see Figure2), broadsides from 1874-1980, and a Whig Party campaign song.⁷ Each item was printed to promote the issues important to the Whig party or other parties or to make it possible for voters to cast their ballots. None were printed to become permanently preserved historical documents.

Preservation of Political Ephemera

Printed ephemera gave way to audio and video ephemera in the twentieth century. Beginning in the 1950s, political campaigns were conducted with the aid of television, and the trend continues today. Offprints of speeches have been replaced by videotaped campaign commercials. These are the political ephemera of today and present even more of a preservation problem than printed materials. Although seldom made available for libraries, when videotapes are acquired for archival preservation they are found to be made on low quality tape, poorly processed, and damaged from abuse by users.

Preservation of ephemera on substandard paper or other mediums is the major problem faced by collectors and libraries. As well as being printed on poor quality paper, ephemera is flimsy and insubstantial, has poor ink quality, sometimes is crumpled and torn. The items can also be stained with food or liquids. Ephemera may be printed on textiles instead of paper. Maurice Rickards, chairman of the British Ephemera Society, has defined ephemera as "Everything that would normally go into the waste paper basket..." if private collectors, librarians, and archivists did not preserve it.⁸

Librarians and archivists who collect those ephemeral items that were created to end up in the trash must be concerned with their preservation and conservation. Preservation requires proper storage containers in a temperature and humidity controlled environment with excellent security. Conservation consists of never doing anything to the item which further damages it. The old saying that "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing" is critically true in conservation of archival materials. Before attempting to repair items, librarians and archivists should refer to a conservation manual. Recommended is George and Dorothy Cunha’s Library and Archives Conservation: l980s and Beyond.⁹

Collecting Political Ephemera

The overriding problem with political ephemera, however, is collecting it. "Ephemeral items are usually difficult to acquire after an event, and the librarian must be prepared to seek them at the event or immediately thereafter.¹⁰ Political pamphlets and reprints of laws often can be found in college and university libraries. Other printed materials such as posters, broadsides (see Figure 3), and handbills as well as campaign buttons and bumper stickers may be found in museums such as the Smithsonian. Serendipitous collecting is acceptable but donors do not always appear to give the library political ephemera items. The librarian must attend functions at which ephemeral items are handed out, request other colleagues and friends to acquire materials for the collection, contact politicians and political organizations to request copies of their printed brochures and flyers, and seek to be placed on mailing lists of those publishing ephemeral materials. Collection development policies of libraries and archives should include plans for collecting ephemeral and gray literature.

Another difficulty incurred while collecting political ephemera is natural political bias. Librarians and archivists hold personal preferences for political persons and organizations, as do all citizens. Collecting ephemera of third party candidates or fringe organizations is not, however, condoning their beliefs; it is instead maintaining comprehensive coverage of American life.

Today more universities are developing popular culture libraries and collections to preserve all types of ephemera. One of the earliest, Bowling Green (Ohio) State University’s Popular Culture Library, founded in 1969, holds within its varied collections numerous printed and non-print political ephemera items.¹¹ Other items of political ephemera found in popular culture libraries and other types of libraries and archives include voting ballots, political convention handouts, bumper stickers, campaign buttons (see Figure 4), and other artifacts.

Research Uses of Political Ephemera

Although printed only for limited use, those political ephemera items which survive provide researchers with extensive knowledge about political issues and activities throughout Louisiana history. "Ephemera is often of marginal research value while a collection is small, but it can illuminate other materials in a larger collection."¹² The Louisiana and Lower Mississippi Valley Collections contain numerous collections of political manuscripts. Within these manuscript collections are a variety of all types of political ephemera. The Seymour Weiss Collection, for example, is comprised of political ephemera referring to Huey Long. Included are handbills and broadsides, and cartoons drawn by Trist Wood (see Figure 5), whom Huey Long hired to work for the Louisiana Progress. The items are, unfortunately, printed on very poor quality newsprint which presents a continuing preservation problem. Researchers using these cartoons in conjunction with other records in the Huey Long Papers, the T. Harry Williams Papers, or the Russell B. Long Papers have a varied and more nearly complete body of primary source material to study.

Historians use ephemera to tell the story of political campaigns as well. "Louisiana’s 1959-60 gubernatorial elections occurred against a backdrop of sensationalism and intrigue"¹³ Five major candidates entered the first democratic primary. Most had printed handbills and posters distributed throughout die state. Using these ephemera, a historian was able to show campaign attacks and counter attacks. Gubernatorial contender New Orleans Mayor deLesseps S. "Chep" Morrison was criticized as a supporter of Teamster racketeers in handbills circulated by supporters of former governor Jimmie Davis, also a candidate. Morrison defended himself in another round of ephemera printed for the campaign. Whatever the research use of political ephemera, printed and non-print, it is the responsibility of librarians and archivists to collect and to preserve the material and to make it available to the public. Political ephemera represents a unique slice of American life.

References

¹ See Hudson River Museum, Yonkers (New York), Packaging Presidents:

Memorabilia from Campaigns Past (Yonkers, NY: The Museum, 1984); Roger A.

Fischer, Tippecanoe and Trinkets Too: The Material Culture of American Presidential Campaigns, 1828-1984 (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1988).

²Florence M. Jumonville, Bibliography of New Orleans Imprints, 1764-1864 (New

Orleans: Historic New Orleans Collection, 1989), 1-2.

³Enid T. Thompson, Local History Collections: A Manual for Librarians (Nashville, TN: American Association for State and Local History, 1978), 30.

⁴ (Printed in the City of Washington, 1810 and Re-printed by J.C. de St. Romes, New-Orleans, 1817). Jumonville, New Orleans Imprints, 78.

⁵ lbid., 89-90.

⁶ (New-Orleans: Printed by Bradford & Anderson, 1808). Copies of Livingston’s pamphlet can be found at the Historic New Orleans Collection, the Library of Congress, the Howard-Tilton Memorial Library at Tulane University, and the Louisiana and Lower Mississippi Valley Collections of the Louisiana State University Libraries.

⁷See the Hursey Family Papers, the Benson Family Papers, the Thomas Butler Papers, the deClouet Family Papers, Miscellaneous Manuscripts, the Huey P. Long Papers, and the Russell B. Long Papers.

⁸ Quoted by Chris E. Makepeace, Ephemera: A Book on Its Collection, Conservation, and Use (Brookfield, VT: Gower Publishing Co., 1985), 7.

⁹ (Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1983).

¹⁰ North Carolina Libraries 46 (Summer 1988): 76.

¹¹Fannie Weinstein, "At Bowling Green State University, PC Stands for Popular Culture," American Libraries 20 (June 1989): 578-582.

¹² Thompson, Local History Collections, 14.

¹³ Glen Jeansonne, "Racism and Longism in Louisiana: The 1959-60 Gubernatorial Elections," Louisiana History 11 (Summer 1970): 259.

Faye Phillips heads the Louisiana and Lower Mississippi Valley Collections at Louisiana State University Libraries in Baton Rouge.

The Ephemera Society acknowledges with thanks the editor of Louisiana Libraries for granting permission to reproduce this article from Volume 53, Number 2, published in Fall 1990.