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WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM YESTERDAY'S STUFF? Exploring the Past Through Printed Ephemera

Historical printed ephemera tells us much about the issues, events, and ordinary people that have shaped our past. Produced in a variety of formats including advertisements, broadsides, leaflets, proclamations, and programs, printed ephemera is created to meet an array of immediate needs, usually transitory in nature, and not intended to be saved. Indeed, part of the delight of working with these elusive scraps of yesterday's "stuff" is due to the irony that they have survived to speak to us of the concerns and conditions of everyday living experienced by past generations of average people. Workshop participants will explore An American Time Capsule: Three Centuries of Broadsides and Other Printed Ephemera, currently numbering more than 7,000 items, sampling the variety of genres and subjects covered, and assessing the collection's strengths and limitations. Objectives At the end of this workshop participants will: know more about the nature and historical uses of printed ephemera become more familiar with a variety of subjects covered in An American Time Capsule: Three Centuries of Broadsides and Other Printed Ephemera become more aware of the significance and limitations of these primary sources Tasks in brief In this workshop, participants will: search the collection for material on a chosen topic select material from different genres on a specific topic analyze materials using key points for analysis of printed ephemera Resources An American Time Capsule: Three Centuries of Broadsides and Other Printed Ephemera NOTE: This workshop was developed by Rosemary Fry Plakas, Library of Congress   Top of Page

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Last updated 09/26/2002