Archives Center, National Museum of American History

Guide to the Warshaw Collection of Business Americana Subject Categories: Calendars

Summary

Collection ID:
NMAH.AC.0060.S01.01.Calendars
Creators:
Warshaw, Isadore, 1900-1969
Dates:
circa 1841-1976
Languages:
English
.
Physical Description:
4.06 Cubic feet
consisting of 7 boxes, 1 folder, 57 oversized folders, 1 flat box (partial).
Repository:
A New York bookseller, Warshaw assembled this collection over nearly fifty years. The Warshaw Collection of Business Americana: Calendars forms part of the Warshaw Collection of Business Americana, Subseries 1.1: Subject Categories. The Subject Categories subseries is divided into 470 subject categories based on those created by Mr. Warshaw. These subject categories include topical subjects, types or forms of material, people, organizations, historical events, and other categories. An overview to the entire Warshaw collection is available here: Warshaw Collection of Business Americana

Scope and Contents

Scope and Contents
This material consists primarily of calendars. There are various types including centennial, gorham, perpetual, religious, advertising and art calendars. Calendars were heavily used as an advertising medium for various businesses. Such companies included manufacturers and dealers of pianos, furniture, ladies' and men's furnishings, proprietary medicines, carpets, fertilizers, teas, meats, soaps, threads and stationery. Insurance companies also tended to use calendars as a form of advertising. A number of the calendars were supplements to newspapers and periodicals. A few have been cut off saving just the images. Visual images of society women, women in sports, children, the four seasons, romance, animals and war were often used.
The Swift Company which made a variety of products including soap, meat and oleomargine produced calendars for 1918 and 1919 with images of World War I on the front. The reverse side contained useful information about some aspect of the war. War images include soldiers leaving love ones, sailors, Red Cross nurses and military women. Information on war gardening, preserving food, garments made by red cross workers, U.S.Navy vessels and U. S. airplanes and insignia for army marine and navy men is included on the reverse of these images. Other calendars include useful information on childhood safety (1959), history of the railroads and progress of the nineteenth century (Grand Union Tea Company, 1901).
There are a number of calendars in foreign languages including Spanish, French and German. These calendars also contain useful information. For example, a calendar published in Munich, Germany (1914) included the German coat of arms and each day had either the name of a saint or a holiday.
Other materials include correspondence, bills/receipts, printed advertisements, articles, pamphlets and books. Publications discuss issues such as calendar reform, invention of calendars and comparisons of calendars with chronologies. The bulk of the material is late nineteenth century.
The material in boxes one through six consists of dated calendars and is organized chronologically. Box six also contains perpetual calendars, advertisements for calendars and calendar plates. Box seven includes foreign calendars, religious calendars and publications mostly relating to calendar reform. Check other subject categories for additional calendars.

Administration

Author
Vanessa Broussard-Simmons and Nicole Blechynden
Sponsor
Funding for partial processing of the collection was supported by a grant from the Smithsonian Institution's Collections Care and Preservation Fund (CCPF).
Immediate Source of Acquisition note
Calendars is a portion of the Business Ephemera Series of the Warshaw Collection of Business Americana, Accession AC0060 purchased from Isadore Warshaw in 1967. Warshaw continued to accumulate similar material until his death, which was donated in 1971 by his widow, Augusta. For a period after acquisition, related materials from other sources (of mixed provenance) were added to the collection so there may be content produced or published after Warshaw's death in 1969. This practice has since ceased.
Processing Information
In 2016, with funding provided by the Smithsonian Institution's Collections Care and Preservation Fund, the Archives Center at the National Museum of American History implemented the use of minimal level processing standards to increase information about and facilitate access to more of our collections. A large portion of stored material from the original acquisition received minimal level processing, which resulted in additions to this Subject category. This effort included basic arrangement and replacement of non-archival housing for long-term stability, but staples and other fasteners have not all been removed. Revisions to the encoded finding aid were made to reflect the added content in context to the previously processed material.
Minimal level processing and enhancement of the machine-readable finding aid completed by Nicole Blechynden, September 2017.

Using the Collection

Conditions Governing Access note
Collection is open for research. Some items may be restricted due to fragile condition.
Preferred Citation note
Warshaw Collection of Business Americana, Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution
Conditions Governing Use note
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.

Materials in the Archives Center

Materials in the Archives Center
Archives Center Collection of Business Americana (AC0404)

Forms Part Of


Keywords

Keywords table of terms and types.
Keyword Terms Keyword Types
Business ephemera Genre Form Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Ephemera Genre Form Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid

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