Ephemera articles and stories that will
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Jay T. Last Interview Sadly, long-time Ephemera Society member Jay T. Last recently passed away. Diane DeBlois interviewed Mr. Last at the Ephemera Society’s Annual Event in Old Greenwich CT on March 19, 2017. Jay had been awarded the Maurice Rickards medal in 2005, and in February of 2009 the …

The Three M’s: Hollywood’s Platinum Blonde Bombshells of the 1950’s and 1960’s Marilyn Monroe Jayne Mansfield Mamie Van Doren In the 1950s and 60s, movie studios used the sex appeal of glamour girls to attract audiences to their motion pictures. In this era, a trio of peroxid…

Sometimes a single piece of ephemera can tell a complex story, and it also shows how things that happened 150 years ago are still relevant today. This is an envelope postmarked 1884 showing Anti-Vaccination propaganda in the illustration on the front of the envelope. The image is of a Vaccina…

Photo Credit: The Historic New Orleans Collection accession number 1996.14.1-69 Premiering on anchor.fm, a podcast reading from a handmade, 1906 photo-album. Quarantine Tour of Central America and Panama by Health Authorities as guests of The United Fruit Company was produced in response to t…

It’s August 1943 and war is raging in the Pacific. You’re aboard a U.S. Army Transport headed into action on the next island that has to be recaptured. So, you’re checking your equipment and your rifle, totally focused on the next battle, right? Wrong. On August 24, 1943 you’re being dunked b…

The worst inland waterways shipping accident in British history happened on September 3, 1878. On that evening some 650 unfortunate men, women and children drowned in sewage. The 700 people on board the paddlewheel steamboat Princess Alice had spent a pleasant day at the Sheerness seashore, a…

William E. Clarke of Providence, Rhode Island produced and marketed “Hunt’s Remedy”, a widely sold nostrum for kidney complaints, for decades. Research into Providence city directories provides insight into Clarke and his activities. Clarke was a grocer situated at College & Benefit Streets …

For a variety of reasons, St. Louis, Missouri became a leading center for aviation in the early 20th century.Back in 1859, balloonist John Wise set a long-standing record by flying some 1,150 miles from St. Louis to Henderson, NY. Captain John Berry and others experimented in St. Louis with …

Many items of historical ephemera bring fresh things to think about, new subjects to explore. An impulse buy at one ESA annual auction lead me down some interesting roads. The lot was an 1809 billhead/receipt with an unusual and interesting eagle-and-stars device at the top, surrounded by t…