What’s Your Type?

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Paper envelope. Centennial Cabinet, Eureka Press, Empire Press Co., N.Y.

Centennial Cabinet, Eureka Press, Empire Press Co., N.Y.

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.
Print depicting the Interior of Machinery Hall in pastel colors.

Interior of Machinery Hall

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.

Print depicting the New Hampshire State Building in pastel colors.

New Hampshire State Building


Print depicting the English Government Building in pastel colors.

English Government Building

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
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