What’s Your Type?

Recently the Print Department acquired three Centennial Cabinets, sets of quirky souvenir cards printed in color on site at the Centennial Exhibition of 1876. Manufacturers Empire Press Co., Degener & Weiller, and Greenwood & Batley used the promotional “post cards” to promote their platen printing presses, presses geared toward job work, such as cards and handbills.

Although produced to showcase the superiority of the press on display, most of the cards, which primarily depict exhibition building exteriors, are not fine specimens. Captions are missing letters, names of buildings are misspelled, and layers of colors are misaligned for the sake of unmonitored mass production.

Ironically, the prints are most engaging to the modern-day viewer for just these reasons. Despite the flaws, the cards surely also brought a smile to the fair visitors who purchased them, as they did me.

Erika Piola

Associate Curator, Prints and Photographs

The Library Company of Philadelphia
1314 Locust St., Philadelphia, PA 19107
TEL 215-546-3181 FAX 215-546-5167
http://www.librarycompany.org