Conference & Fair, EPHEMERA 25, March 18-20, 2005

Schedule of Events

Thursday, March 17th

9 a.m. - 5 p.m.
Board of Directors’ meeting

6 p.m. - 8 p.m.
Board reception for early arrivals. Join us for an evening with old and new friends, and be fresh for the conference on Friday morning.

Friday, March 18th

Four morning conference sessions:

9 a.m.
Biography via Ephemera: Maurice Glauber & Globe Clothing Store of Cripple Creek, Colorado
Cal Otto
In 1893 the gold rush City of Cripple Creek was at its peak. The population had soared to more than 50,000 people making it one of the largest cities in Colorado. With the boom in gold mining came a rapid growth in commercial firms. This is the story of The Globe Men’s Clothing Store and its owner Moritz Glauber. Slides will tell the story with ephemera found in an abandoned building in Cripple Creek. A drawing will be held after the talk with gold nuggets as the prize!
Calvin Otto, who received the Rickards Award in 2002, was a founding director of both The Ephemera Society (UK) and The Ephemera Society of America. He resides in Colorado Springs, Colorado where he serves as President of the Pikes Peak Library District Foundation and as a trustee on the library board. He is an avid collector of ephemera relating to Colorado gold mining and related topics.

9:55 a.m.
The Secret Life of Victorian Cards
Barbara Rusch
The Victorians had a sense of occasion and even the most mundane aspects of daily life were ritualized with the aid of an appropriate card. From casual afternoon visits to formal balls, from the intimate conventions of the family circle to the culture of trade and commerce, cards helped create a sense of ceremony, defining social status and forming part of the grand narrative of the Victorian era.

Barbara Rusch has been a collector of 19th-century ephemera, both printed and handwritten, for 25 years. In 1987, she founded the Ephemera Society of Canada, and still serves as its president. She is the editor of its publication, Ephemera Canada, writes and lectures on ephemera-related subjects, and has organized exhibitions of ephemera at museums, galleries, universities, libraries, and synagogues in the Toronto area. Barbara is the recipient of the 1989 Maurice Rickards Award and the 1992 Samuel Pepys Award. She is listed as an ephemerist in Canadian Who’s Who and Who’s Who of Canadian Women.

10:50 a.m.
A Brief Survey of Early American Book Salesmen’s Sample Books
Marcus McCorison
Publications of all kinds have been sold by subscription for centuries. Marc’s talk on 19th century American book salesmen’s “dummies” will deal with one relatively brief aspect of this age-old practice. His presentation will be illustrated with examples of salesmen’s sample books found in the extensive collections of the American Antiquarian Society.

Marcus McCorison is the president emeritus of the American Antiquarian Society, having served that institution from 1960 until 1992. An enthusiastic, institutional collector of American ephemera of the 18th and 19th centuries, particularly relating to the printing and publishing trades, he was awarded the Samuel Pepys Medal by The Ephemera Society (London) in 1980 and the Maurice Rickards Award by The Ephemera Society of America in 2000.

11:45 a.m.
Benjamin Franklin: In Search of a Better World — Overview of an Exhibition
Barbara Charles & Robert Staples
"Benjamin Franklin: In Search of a Better World" is a major traveling exhibition, the centerpiece of the 300th anniversary celebration of Franklin's birth. It opened at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia December 15th. Staples & Charles are the designers of the exhibition. Robert Staples and Barbara Charles will give an overview of the exhibition and talk about how their interest in ephemera shaped their ideas for the exhibition. Titles of the exhibition’s six sections characterize and chronicle Franklin’s life: Character Matters; B. Franklin, Printer; Civic Visions; Useful Knowledge; World Stage; and Elder Statesman.

Robert Staples and Barbara Fahs Charles are partners in Staples & Charles, designers to the museum community for more than 30 years. They were the Rickards Award winner in 1986. In addition to the Franklin exhibition, current projects include the reinstallation of permanent collections at Yale University Art Gallery and the Detroit Institute of Arts. Past projects include The World of Coca-Cola in Atlanta, The Sixth Floor in Dallas, and The Toy Museum at Old Salem in North Carolina. Internationally Staples & Charles has designed the introduction to a historic armory in Austria, the World of Beer in South Africa, and a major exhibition on the Qing Dynasty in Singapore. Recently they have led workshops for museum professionals in Vietnam and Russia.

12:30 - 1:30
Lunch Break

Three afternoon conference sessions:

1:30 p.m.
Labeling America: The popular printed art produced by four generations of the George Schlegel Lithographic Company, New York, 1870-1963
John Grossman
This important early lithographic firm continuously chronicled American life over a 90-year period by the labels - primarily for cigars, one of the important products for men of the period - which it produced in the course of its daily business life. The labels also form a visual record of the evolution of graphic art styles over those years. Beginning with that used by unknown artists employing the crayon or stipple dot method on stones in the 1880s, and culminating in the modern work of the well-known graphic designer Paul Rand in the 1950s, reproduced by the photo mechanical process and printed on the company's newest large offset presses. The majority of the material that has survived from the Schlegel company archives now forms a Special Collection within The John Grossman Collection of Antique Images. It comprises a wide variety of office and shop file copies of labels, posters, business letterheads, business cards, and trade cards, as well as the working materials of the trade: original watercolor paintings, proofs, keylines, progressives, and litho stones. John's presentation will feature a selection of the most striking and important material, through both digital and slide projection images.

In addition to being the founder and director of The John Grossman Collection of Antique Images, comprising some 250,000 ephemera images assembled over 30 years, John is a graphic designer, author, lecturer, and accomplished painter. He was president and art director of The Gifted Line, a Victorian gift paper products company that he and his wife Carolyn Grossman co-founded in 1985. John and Carolyn now own and operate The John Grossman Collection, an image and design licensing company in Point Richmond, California. John has been a member of The Ephemera Society of America since 1981 and received the Society's Maurice Rickards Award in 1990. A member of The Ephemera Society of the UK since 1980, he gave that Society's Maurice Rickards Memorial Lecture in 2000.

2:25 p.m.
Ephemera of the Civil War
Georgia B. Barnhill
In the past several years, the National Endowment for the Humanities has funded a project at the American Antiquarian Society (AAS) to catalog single sheet broadsides of the second half of the 19th century. Georgia B. Barnhill will speak about ephemera of the Civil War in the AAS collection. This collection includes song sheets, elegies, cartoon envelopes, and related materials.
Georgia Barnhill is the Andrew W. Mellon Curator of Graphic Arts at the American Antiquarian Society where she has worked since l968. Among the collections at AAS is the very large and diverse collection of ephemera that is part of the graphic arts department. Georgia has always assisted scholars and collectors who have an interest in these collections. She has lectured internationally and published many articles and books on American prints and book illustrations. In addition to serving on the Society's board of directors, she has served the boards of the American Printing History Association and the American Historical Print Collectors Society. Georgia received the Maurice Rickards medal in 1987.

3:20 p.m.
Sensationalism in a Revealing Pink Dress: The Police Gazette in the Richard K. Fox Years, 1876 - 1933
John C. Dann
As Director of the Clements Library, John takes particular pride in having acquired the largely complete publisher’s file of The National Police Gazette. The parent of today’s supermarket tabloid, it was also, for a time, one of the most popular, brilliant, and innovative periodicals in American journalistic history. It was and is, John maintains, misunderstood by detractors and fans alike. Because it was intentionally sensational, no respectable library would subscribe. And therefore, except for scattered issues, it is quite scarce today, despite a readership of more than 200,000 in its heyday. In a well-illustrated talk, the speaker will bring this delightfully provocative publication back to life in all its sinful glory!

John Dann, former member of board of The Ephemera Society of America and Rickards Award winner in 2004, has been Director of the Clements Library of the University of Michigan since 1977. He was curator of manuscripts at the library from 1971 to 1977. Born in Delaware, John is a graduate of Dickinson College (B.A.) and William and Mary (M.A., Ph.D. in History). He has published award-winning books on the American Revolution and 18th century naval history. Having grown up in a world of Americana, he has a well-earned reputation as an exceptional and imaginative collector — with particular enthusiasm for ephemera. An article that he wrote for Antiquarian Bookman appears on the Society Web site: www.ephemerasociety.org

After 4 p.m.
Dealer Set-up

7 p.m.
Opening of Exhibition in Winthrop

7:30 p.m.
Collectors’ Forum in Winthrop—Experienced collectors share their enthusiasm & knowledge.

9 - 10 p.m.
Auction Preview in the Roundhill Room

Saturday, March 19th

8:15 a.m.
Memberships will be sold at the Ephemera Society desk.

9 a.m.
Members-only show preview ($10) for the Society’s 25th Annual Paper Show. Please have your membership card available.

9 - 10 a.m.
Auction Preview in Roundhill Room

10 a.m.
General public admission entry is $10. ($1 off with any Ephemera 25 ad.)

10 a.m. - 5 p.m.
Exhibits open in Winthrop

Noon - 2 p.m.
Appraisals; get the expert’s estimate on your special piece (near Society desk in foyer).

2 - 3 p.m.
Auction Preview in Roundhill Room

3 - 4 p.m.
Collectors’ Forum in Winthrop

5:15 p.m.
Cash Bar and Silent Auction, Roundhill Room

6 p.m.
Live Auction in Roundhill Room; Cash Bar continues.

7:30 p.m.
Banquet—The Conference registration and Banquet reservation form has been mailed under separate cover. Please return the form by March 1, 2005. Join us for a puzzling presentation by NPR Puzzle Master Will Shortz, and the presentation of the Maurice Rickards Award.

Sunday, March 20th

7:45 a.m.
Society Annual Meeting in Roundhill Room. All members urged to attend.

Two morning conference sessions:

8:30 a.m.
Pump and Circumstance: Gas Stations
John Margolies
This slide lecture is a rich and lively celebration of that icon of American roadside culture: the gas station. John traces the significant and evolutionary tradition of gas station design, history and lore — from the horse-drawn pumps of the early 1900s to the convenience stores of today. Particular attention is given to “the golden age” from 1920 to 1940, when humble outlets evolved into palaces of petroleum.

John Margolies is an author, photographer, and historian on American commercial architecture and design. In 2004, John illustrated with ephemera a state-by-state cookbook (in collaboration with Georgia Orcutt) published by Chronicle Books — Cooking USA. For the past 25 years he has explored the highways and byways of America, searching for both unique and typical examples of roadside, main street, and resort architecture. He completed an Alicia Patterson Foundation fellowship to study and prepare a series of articles on “the sterility of today’s corporate built environment.” His travels have been the source of many books including ones on miniature golf, movie theaters, motels, and roadside attractions.

9:40 a.m.
Ephemera and Other Items of the California Gold Rush
Matthew R. Isenburg
This long-awaited presentation will include letters, letterheads, maps, books, newspapers, lithographs, artifacts, ambrotypes, daguerreotypes, crockery, guns, knives, picks, pans, bottles, scales, gold rush jewelry, and much more.

Matthew R. Isenburg is busy helping his wife and associate, Elizabeth, and his son, Steven, catalog his collections of almost 30,000 daguerreotypes and other early images, cameras, and equipment, one of the largest in private hands. Matthew minored in American History in college and became a life-long devotee to the subject. He co-authored a book in 1978 titled Photographica that chronicled the development of the camera. He and John Wood founded The Daguerreian Society in 1989.

11 a.m. - 4 p.m.
Paper Show hours in the Hyatt ballroom

11 a.m. - 4 p.m.
Exhibits open in Winthrop.

2 - 2:50 p.m.
Workshop in Winthrop — Christopher Sokolowski, Assistant Paper Conservator at Northeast Document Conservation Center (NEDCC) will conduct a one hour roundtable forum: "Ask the Conservator." Bring your paper conservation questions, examples of damaged paper or collectibles for advice on best conservation care.

3 - 3:50 p.m.
Collectors’ Forum in Winthrop.

4 p.m.
Ephemera 25 closes.

EPHEMERA 25 Participating Dealers