Archives Center, National Museum of American History

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

Summary

Collection ID:
NMAH.AC.0060.S01.01.Weather
Creators:
Warshaw, Isadore, 1900-1969
Dates:
1854-1879
Languages:
English
.
Physical Description:
0.94 Cubic feet
consisting of 2 boxes, 1 folder, 1 oversize folder.
Repository:
A New York bookseller, Warshaw assembled this collection over nearly fifty years. The Warshaw Collection of Business Americana: Weather 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 subject category- Weather consists primarily of receipts, invoices, postcards with images of weather conditions, weather reports, articles, and advertisements relating to tobacco, clothing and other various stores.
Series 1, Manufacturers and Distributors of Weather Instruments: circa 1866-1926; undated, includes bills, receipts, printed advertisements, catalogs and invoices from manufacturers and distributors of weather vanes, weather stripping, thermometers, weather forecasters, barometers and various other instruments. Such businesses were located in the Northeastern United States, primarily New York, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania, with several from other areas in the United States and a few from England, France, Germany, and Canada. These materials indicate that the businesses were often family owned and operated. The materials also reflect the changing ownerships/partnerships in many of the businesses. Materials in this series are arranged in alphabetical order by business name. The foreign company is Askania, which was located in Berlin, Germany. Its printed catalog dating to 1887 contains various meteorological instruments.
Series 2, Weather Reporting Agencies and Organizations, circa 1873-1959; undated, includes pamphlets, reports, correspondences, protection guidelines, explanations of storm warnings, weather maps, crop bulletins and weather reports from weather agencies and organizations. The majority of them are United States federal agencies located in New York City and Washington DC. Others are privately owned and located in London, France, Japan and other areas of the United States, such as Ohio and Massachusetts. One foreign agency is the Imperial Meteorological Observatory in Tokyo, Japan, which compiled several weather maps into one work in 1884. The other is a French agency called Meteorographe Universel that created a small work in 1874.The materials indicate that governments played a central role in providing information about the various aspects of reporting weather and promoting warning systems. The materials are arranged in alphabetical order according to the agencies and organizations.
Series 3, Publications, 1797-1966; undated, contains almanacs, short publications describing various weather phenomenon, magazine articles, whole magazines and reports regarding different aspects of weather such as the temperature, storms, tornadoes and hurricanes. Some go into detail about how forecasting is done and about meteorologists in general. The miscellaneous folder contains an advertisement from Weather Trends, Incorporated located in New York, New York soliciting a subscription from the Warshaw Collection of Business. The materials are arranged in alphabetical order by subject.
Series 4, Related Materials, 1783-1954; undated, contains advertising cards, postcards, photographs, pictures from magazines and newspapers, short publications, pamphlets and weather reports. The photographs of the flood that occurred in March 1913 devastated parts of Ohio, Iowa, Indiana and Illinois in the Upper Mississippi and Ohio River Valleys. There was state wide flooding in Ohio with Dayton being the hardest hit area. The United States Storm and Weather Signals show the flags and their meanings on one side and on the other side advertisements from various types of companies, such as tobacco, pharmacies, clothing, electrical supplies and restaurants. Unk and I is a short caricatured pamphlet from 1954 regarding forecasting and various aspects of the weather in New York. The materials in this series are arranged in alphabetical order by subject of title.

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
Weather 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.

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 Subject Categories: Weather, 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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