Ink blotters, a relic of the age before ballpoint pens, epitomize the fleeting nature of the ephemera collections being cataloged through the Library Company’s current grant project. Essentially produced to become trash after their repeated use by fountain pen wielders to prevent ink smudges on paper, blotters also served as a medium for advertisements in the decades following their introduction to America in the 1850s.

The Helen Beitler Graphic Ephemera Collection contains a number of these “collectibles” from the late 19th and early 20th centuries promoting all manner of merchandise, including children’s shoes, delivery wagons, and salt. Unlike trade cards often tucked into a scrapbook, blotters were meant to be used and reused. In more continual view, these fuzzy-textured printed papers contained succinct advertising mottoes and iconography symbolic of the popular culture of their period of production. The long forgotten colloquialism “Commercial Traveler” used for a traveling salesman appears on this circa 1890 promotional blotter for children’s shoes. Another from that period includes a portrait of the premier race horse Sunol . Prize horses had often been depicted in nineteenth-century prints meant for framing. In this instance, Sunol served as a celebrity endorsement for salt.

People also “recycled” the blotters as in the case of these pieces, from 1913 and originally bound as a calendar, advertising Philadelphia wagon manufacturer Rech-Marbaker. Early nineteenth-century female fashion figure cut-outs have been pasted on the verso with typed captions commenting on their demeanor and dress, including “Most Bountiful.”  Attired in an elegant, pink, high-waisted party dress with button details and lace trim, the label seems fitting for the exuberant young lady portrayed. Perhaps these repurposed blotters served as whimsical favors for a women’s luncheon or to amuse the young lady of the house as paper dolls.

Long out of use, blotters are often not recognized as such by contemporary generations. Easily mistaken as just advertisements, these practical and whimsical devices deserve a second glance for their unique historical research value.

Erika Piola
Associate Curator, Print and Photograph Department