|
Jay Last Earns the 2005 Maurice Rickards Award
Jay T. Last has been earning the 2005 Maurice Rickards
Award for three decades. This year in Greenwich, he'll receive
it.
Last, a "voracious" collector whose interests span
many areas of 19th-century American ephemera, has spread
the word about ephemera through writing and exhibits. His books
on California orange and fruit crate labels with co-author Gordon
McClellan, first appeared in the early 1980s and continue to interest
new and existing collectors.
Last, the physicist who led the research team that
developed the world's first integrated circuit, has almost completed
a study of 700 American chromolithographers and their work, 100
of them in detail. It will be published later this year.
Besides his public scholarship and writing, Last
has served on the Society's board of directors and has sustained
the Society in difficult times. The Rickards Award is the highest
honor the Society bestows and it will be presented during the
Ephemera 25 banquet on Saturday night, March 19th.
For a more detailed look at Last and his accomplishments,
read the profile that appears in the Ephemera News winter
issue, Vol. 23, No. 2.
Awards
The Ephemera Society of America also has designed
special awards for its three living founders, William Frost Mobley,
Emily Davis, and Calvin P. Otto. All three were involved in World
Ephemera Year in 1980 sponsored by The Ephemera Society in England,
and proposed a conference and paper fair in the United States to
complement the London-based activities. The Ephemera Society of
America blossomed from that original event in 1980. Jack Golden,
the fourth founder, was honored before his death. The elegantly
bound documents, reportedly being produced in Spencerian script,
a home-grown American form of ornamental penmanship, will be unveiled
during the Saturday night banquet.
|
