Archives Center, National Museum of American History

Guide to the Warshaw Collection of Business Americana Subject Categories: Oils and Lubricants

Summary

Collection ID:
NMAH.AC.0060.S01.01.Oils
Creators:
Warshaw, Isadore, 1900-1969
Dates:
1839-1956
Languages:
English
.
Physical Description:
0.47 Cubic feet
consisting of 1 box, 1 folder, plus digital images of some collection material.
Repository:
A New York bookseller, Warshaw assembled this collection over nearly fifty years. The Warshaw Collection of Business Americana: Oils and Lubricants 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 scattered correspondence on letterhead stationery, pamphlets, price lists, bills/receipts, printed advertisements from manufacturers and dealers of various kinds of oils and lubricants. There is a substantial amount of material from each company. The different kinds of oils include cylinder, machinery, bank, shore, dynamo, paraffine, rosin, wool, olive, ammonia cylinder, lard, sperm, whale, elephant, neats foot, solar, kerosene, black fish, miners', tanners', cod liver, seal, signal, metallic and linseed oils. Companies that tended to sell lard also sold meat products including pork, sausage, tripe and pig's feet. Occasionally they sold a few dairy products such as milk and cheese. The lubricants include coal oil grease, petroleum, benzene, French leather grease, friction belt grease, burning fluid, axle grease and railroad car grease. Most of the companies tended to sell other products including candles, soap, spermaceti, paints, varnishes, glue, cotton, starch, tallow, dyestuffs, chemicals, aniline colors, drugs, shellac and sandpaper. A few companies sold engine supplies. There is only one publication included among the material which is the farmers' bulletin no. 2133 from the U. S. Department of Agriculture titled Growing Safflower published in 1961. The material dates from 1839 - 1905, but the bulk is late nineteenth century. Materials are organized by name of company.

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
Oils and Lubricants 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.

Digital Content


Using the Collection

Preferred Citation note
Warshaw Collection of Business Americana Subject Categories: Oils and Lubricants, Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution
Conditions Governing Access note
Collection is open for research. Some items may be restricted due to fragile condition.
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
Ephemera Genre Form Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Business ephemera Genre Form Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Oils and fats Topical Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Lubrication and lubricants Topical Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid

Archives Center, National Museum of American History
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