Call Number:

GRA 0124

Repository:

University of Delaware Library Special Collections

Extent:

2 linear foot (8 boxes)

Language:

English

Preferred Citation:

GRA 0124, Gordon A. Pfeiffer nineteenth-century Delaware trade card collection, Special Collections, University of Delaware Library, Newark, Delaware.

Date:

approximately 1800-1900, 1974 (inclusive) and 1800-1900 (bulk)

Creator:

Pfeiffer, Gordon A.

Form:

Trade cards (advertising) and Chromolithographs

Abstract:

Gordon A. Pfeiffer is a Delaware book, postcard, book art, and ephemera collector and an original founder of the Delaware Bibliophiles. The Gordon Pfeiffer nineteenth-century Delaware trade card collection comprises over one thousand trade cards of Delaware suppliers and merchants.

Gordon A. Pfeiffer is a Delaware book, postcard, book art, and ephemera collector and an original founder of the Delaware Bibliophiles.

Pfeiffer received his bachelor's degree in business administration from the University of Delaware in 1956 and served in the U.S. Army Reserve from 1957 to 1963. He retired in 1996 as senior vice president of Mellon Bank after 40 years of service. Pfeiffer has served on the board and was an officer of numerous organizations including the Historical Society of Delaware and the University of Delaware Library Associates. He is a 1977 founder of the Delaware Bibliophiles, a group of book hobbyists and collectors, and has served as president and treasurer of the organization as well as editor of their semi-annual newsletter,

"Wall of Fame." UDaily. http://www.udel.edu/udaily/2012/jun/alumni-wall-fame-060412.html (accessed June 18, 2014)."Dedicated to Excellence." UDaily. http://www.udel.edu/udaily/2012/may/alumni-wall-of-fame-052112.html (accessed June 18, 2014).Gordon A. Pfeiffer, Nathaniel H. Puffer, comps., The Delaware Bibliophiles: 1977-2002: a history and anthology (New Castle: The Delaware Bibliophiles, 2002), ix.

The Gordon A. Pfeiffer nineteenth-century Delaware trade card collection comprises over one thousand trade cards (2 linear feet) of Delaware suppliers and merchants.

The collection of trade cards largely features merchants with addresses on or nearby Wilmington's Market Street and demonstrates an increased availability of Delaware goods and services, particularly in downtown city-centers. In addition, the highly decorative and colorful trade cards reveal an increasing complexity in advertising that targeted a burgeoning Delaware middle class. Some cards also depict commonly held social attitudes towards race gender and class. The trade card collection maintains Pfeiffer's original arrangement as two series, both arranged alphabetically: Merchants and Location.

Series I. consists of Delaware trade cards organized alphabetically by merchant name. Operating from Wilmington's Market Street or nearby locations, Wilmington merchants used trade cards to advertise goods such as soap, boots, oysters, produce, dry goods, notions, harnesses, java coffee, hosiery, standard cures, and watches. Trade cards in this series advertised Shakespeare and comedy shows at Wilmington's still operational Grand Opera House. Other trade cards sold train excursions from Wilmington to Atlantic City, offered advice on child-rearing, or marketed dyspepsia, worm, and other cure-alls. Some cards innovative designs suggest an increasingly sophisticated advertising industry. Decorative cards include those shaped as painter's palettes, oysters, fish, and flowers and also in "puzzle" trade cards: Cards posing questions that, when held against light, reveal a solution (often the name of the business).

Series II. comprises Delaware trade cards organized alphabetically by location. Trade cards from the towns of Camden, Delaware City, Dover, Laurel, Middletown, Milford, Smyrna, and St. Georges, among others, are included in this series. In addition, many trade cards in this series were created with chromolithographic processes and exhibit bold, vibrant colors.

The trade cards in the collection reflect Gordon A. Pfeiffer's original arrangement.