There are an absolute ton of online archives and digitized university collections online, from the NY Public Library to just about every university you can name. One of my favorites has been the Duke collection, which houses a manageable amount of stuff while spreading its holdings across an interesting range of categories. Sure, historical insight is always interesting, but what I’m really after are some nice, big JPEGs that really let you explore old design up-close. Part of it could be some kind of image-hoarding complex, with the idea that one day I’ll start making one-off t-shirts for myself, with all the best images I’ve found online (unlikely), but probalby it’s just because this stuff is plain rich, and speaks volumes if you give it some time and thought.
Finding a smaller university collection like Duke’s can be a goldmine for inspiration or just good old interesting stuff to see, so let’s take a look at some favorite selections.
Songbook: I’m Going Back to California
Here’s one of my favorites: American Sheet Music from the 1850s right up to the 1920s. If you want to see a concise history of American illustration (or a little history of illustrated racism), look here. Not only do you get overwhelmed with lots of old-time song titles and obscure music hall singers long since forgotten, but the art continuously attempted to match the subject matter in a myraid of interesting ways. Endlessly worthwhile.
There are over 800 transportation related ads in the Duke holdings, and there’s something about seeing how the American public viewed (or was sold) the experience of travelling to Europe in the 1940s that’s endlessly evocative to me. This idea of getting on a bouncy plane and heading across the ocean to find a Spain or Italy where English was surely non-existent and American money was still worth a lot more than the local currency is fascinating, especially when beheld through the lens of advertising.
Now You’ll Like Yeast!
Another fantastic thing about old collections is the text used in promoting the products, especially medical ones. Here’s one from Duke’s “Medicine and Madison Avenue” series. Remember that Simpsons episode where Grandpa tried to figure out what was wrong with Maggie and pulled out “Dr. Washburn’s” medical book, naming off such old-timey ailments as scofula, the ‘vapors’, jugnle rot, dandy fever, poor man’s gout, the staggers, and dum-dum feveer? If you enjoyed that in any way, old medical ads can hold your interest for about 6 straight hours.
Kellogg’s Corn Flakes Ad, 1915
This classic Kellogg’s advertising card is taken from Duke’s wonderful collection of advertising “ephemera“, made up of cards and inserts and hundreds of other little unmissable things that came along with standard advertising, from 1850-1920. An fount of styles and inspiration.
Photo from “The Urban Landscape”
Here’s an unidentified photo from an otherwise so/so “Urban Landscape” series I couldn’t help but include. I love it because of the overblown vignetting that obscures everything but the monument, the flag (see the full view), and whatever the protagonists of the photo are looking at off to the left. I’d surely buy this if it was artfully converted to a vector graphic and screen printed on a shirt.
Within these categories you can find some of the best old advertising, design, and illustration around. Whether you’re writing copy for an “old-fashioned” ad campaign, trying to get a retro look for a client, or simply interested in some vintage American advertising and photography, you’ll stumble upon something useful in the collection.
