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- Title
- Sanitary Fairs Collection, 1749-1867 (bulk 1864)
- Description
- The Sanitary Fairs Collection consists largely of ephemera and manuscripts documenting the efforts made by citizens to raise awareness and funds for the United States Sanitary Commission. Most of the material is from the Great Central Fair held in Philadelphia in June 1864, and includes circulars letters, forms, handbills, correspondence, and miscellaneous printed material generated by the various committees set up to collect objects and financial donations for the fair, and to arrange and staff the fair's sales booths and exhibits. Two additional folders of material for the Relics, Curiosities, and Autographs committee have examples of the autographs (dating 1749-1851) that were sold at their booth and remain in their special printed enclosures from the fair. The collection holds the correspondence files of one particular office, the Committee for Labor, Incomes and Revenues, whose chair and treasurer were, respectively, Philadelphia merchants L. Montgomery Bond and John W. Claghorn. The collection also contains limited ephemera from fairs in Albany, Baltimore, Brooklyn, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Elmira, Indianapolis, New York, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, and Muscatine, Iowa., The McAllister Collection's Ribbons and Textiles Collection (McA 100090.F) holds a box of ribbons and badges from the Great Central Fair. The Library Company's Anne Hampton Brewster Papers has an Abraham Lincoln manuscript, with attendant donor correspondence and certificate, which Brewster acquired at the Great Central Fair's New Jersey Department, Arms and Trophies Table. The Library Company and the Historical Society of Pennsylvania each have a full run of the Great Sanitary Fair's newspaper, Our daily fare, which was published from Wednesday, June 8, through Tuesday, June 21, 1864., John A. McAllister was an antiquarian collector living in Philadelphia.
- Creator
- McAllister, John A. (John Allister), 1822-1896, collector
- Date
- 1749
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts MSS McA 5781.F
- Title
- Ribbons & Textiles Collection. 1832-1880 (inclusive)
- Description
- Series I, Politics (1840-1880) holds campaign, commemorative, and mourning ribbons for a variety of politicians. Series II, Celebrations, Organizations, and People (1832-1862) is arranged in those three subseries, and holds printed and woven commemorative ribbons printed to be worn in honor of events, societies, and men. Series III, Civil War and Patriotic Themes (1860-1878) has a wider variety of formats and material, and includes dress fabrics printed with patriotic legends and iconography. Series IV, Relics (1861-1862), holds fabric fragments which purport to have historic significance: pieces of the Secession flag torn down by Col. E. E. Ellsworth at the start of the war; a fragment from a banner flown by a ship from Georgia that entered Boston Harbor in April 1861; and a small piece of a flag from the Battle of Fort Donelson, Tennessee. Series V, Great Central Fair (1864) contains a variety of ribbons and textile badges from Philadelphia's Sanitary Fair. They were worn by committee members who participated in planning the fair and staffing its exhibition booths., Some parts of this collection were previously assigned accession numbers 1322.F, 5741.F, 5750.F, 5755.F, 5786.F, 5792.F, 5793.F, 5795.F, P.2003.38 (Doret)., John A. McAllister was an antiquarian collector living in Philadelphia.
- Creator
- McAllister, John A. (John Allister), 1822-1896, collector
- Date
- 1832
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts MSS McA 10090.F (McAllister)
- Title
- [Civil War miscellanies]
- Description
- Collection of prints and ephemera, predominantly depicting Elmer Ellsworth, and originally part of a scrapbook of miscellaneous Civil War materials collected by John A. McAllister. Includes portrait prints, lettersheets, and illustrations depicting Ellsworth or his death, as well as a memorial work containing symbols of patriotism and mourning. Collection also contains lettersheets illustrated with the Union flag, and the song “America” bordered by state seals; a full-length portrait of General Nathaniel Lyon, the first Union general killed during the war; and memorial portrait of Sen. Edward D. Baker killed at the Battle of Ball’s Bluff., Various artists, engravers, and printers, including C. Y. Haynes, J. Magee, A. B. Walter, and Alonzo Chappel., Various publishers, including J. Dainty, Johnson, Fry & Co., and J. W. Barber., Originally part of a McAllister scrapbook of Civil War Miscellanies., Cataloging funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (PW-506-19-10), 2010-2012.
- Date
- 1861-1862
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department GC - Civil War -Miscellanies [5785.F]
- Title
- Civil War Volunteer Saloons and Hospitals Ephemera Collection. 1861-1868 (inclusive)
- Description
- The Civil War Volunteer Saloons and Hospitals Ephemera Collection holds ephemera and a few pieces of correspondence (including letters to and from Samuel Bradford Fales, William M. Cooper, and Arad Barrows) that illustrate and describe the workings of the Cooper Shop Volunteer Refreshment Saloon, the Union Volunteer Refreshment Saloon, and both of their hospitals. The ephemera is somewhat similar for each group, and consists primarily of donation acknowledgements, event tickets and programs, flyers, and circular letters that the committees used to raise funds., At the start of the American Civil War, thousands of enlisted men from the northeast arrived in Philadelphia on their way to fight in the South. No government or military agencies had made provisions for feeding or caring for these transients, so Philadelphians citizens founded the Cooper Shop Volunteer Refreshment Saloon and the Union Volunteer Refreshment Saloon. Both saloons opened for service in late May 1861. At no charge to the servicemen, they provided meals, newspapers, bathing facilities, changes of underwear and socks, and assistance in writing letters to families. Between them, the saloons operated twenty-four hours a day and depended solely on contributions of time and goods from neighborhood citizens and merchants. Those donations were supplemented by funds raised at a benefit fairs, concerts, and lectures held around the city, some of which benefited both organizations.
- Creator
- McAllister, John A. (John Allister), 1822-1896, collector
- Date
- 1861
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts MSS McA 5778.F (McAllister)
- Title
- Confederate States of America Ephemera Collection, 1861-1865 (inclusive)
- Description
- The collection contains financial instruments, forms, and ephemera that emanated from the South during the Civil War. The material was once kept in a folio album, and some of the documents, particularly the currency and newspaper clippings, remain attached to their album pages., Folder 1 holds bonds and certificates, many uncut with coupons attached, and one album page with receipts for bonds. Folder 2 holds sixteen album pages of Confederate currency and a folder with fourteen loose dollar bills in various denominations, a few of which are labeled as facsimile notes (as part of their engraved design) and were printed in Philadelphia. There is also one page with Treasurer's bank checks, and a sheet of white paper with CSA watermarks, which is inscribed “Bank note paper manufactured for the Confederate States of America. Part of the cargo of the Blockage runner Bermuda captured 27 April 1862 & brot into the Port of Philadelphia.” Folder 3 holds clippings cut from unidentified newspapers, most of which contain announcements of regiment activities, bonds sales, defense loans, etc. Folder 4 holds ephemera printed with “Southern rights” and other secessionist slogans. Folder 5 holds miscellaneous material printed in the South, primarily government and military forms. There is also a blank sheet of light brown paper inscribed “Rebel writing paper from North Carolina.”, Confederate correspondence is filed in Series III of the McAllister Collection's Civil War Manuscripts (McA MSS 024)., Includes counterfeit currency that was featured on the program "Mysteries at the Museum" (Season 12, Episode 31, in the segment entitled "Civil War Counterfeiter"), which aired 2 February 2017., John A. McAllister was an antiquarian collector living in Philadelphia.
- Creator
- McAllister, John A. (John Allister), 1822-1896
- Date
- 1861
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts MSS McA 5795.F (McAllister)
- Title
- Civil War Illustrations. 1859-1865 (inclusive)
- Description
- The collection consists of illustrations, primarily wood and line engravings, which were cut from serials published in Philadelphia and New York, such as Harper's Weekly, Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, the New York Picayune, and The Phunny Phellow; very few of the pieces have dates, source citations or explanatory text beyond the published captions. Included are camp and battle scenes, basic maps meant to help readers understand military strategies, and caricature portraits of generals and politicians. The material was formerly housed in two folio scrapbooks (one for each of the existing series) but was not arranged in any chronological or subject order within the albums. Most of the illustrations remain fixed to the album pages, which have been disbound, foldered and boxed. Material absent from the pages has been incorporated into the Library Company's print department and cataloged separately., Some parts of this collection were previously assigned accession numbers 5779.F and 5780.F., John A. McAllister was an antiquarian collector living in Philadelphia.
- Creator
- McAllister, John A. (John Allister), 1822-1896, collector
- Date
- 1880
- Location
- Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts MSS McA 5779.F
- Title
- Civil War Broadsides
- Title
- Civil War Sheet Music
- Title
- Civil War Playbills
- Title
- Civil War Photographs
- Description
- The Civil War photographs primarily contain stereograph and cartes-de-visite series issued by the prominent Civil War photographers Mathew Brady, Barnard & Gibson, Alexander Gardner, and Levy & Cohen. The over 150 views principally depict the aftermath of Union campaigns in the South, including the fall of Richmond. Other significant series of Civil War-era photographs include images photographed by A. Watson of the Great Central Fair in Philadelphia, and interior views of the Union Volunteer Refreshment Saloon taken by Robert Newell. Cartes-de-visite caricatures satirizing military figures, battles, the home front, camp life, the Confederacy and African Americans are also a significant portion of the Civil War photographs.
- Title
- McAllister Civil War Prints, Ephemera, and Scrapbooks
- Description
- The McAllister Graphics Collection of prints, ephemera, and scrapbooks reflect the collecting efforts of Philadelphia antiquarian John A. McAllister (1822-1896) during the Civil War. The Civil War graphics include prints and photographs of camps, forts and battlefields; political cartoons; portraiture; certificates; architectural and engineering plans; textiles and ephemera. A large segment of the prints are lithographic views of camps and battle scenes, with over 100 printed by the Philadelphia printer L.N. Rosenthal and New York firm Currier & Ives as well as a small number printed on textiles by Boston Chemical Printing Company. Also significant is the Civil War ephemera, which includes envelopes, stationery, and paper novelties such as toy soldiers. The Civil War Envelope and Stationery collections contain over 7,000 items illustrated with patriotic designs and slogans. Several envelopes by prolific publishers King & Baird and Charles Magnus are included in this collection. A smaller ephemera collection is the Civil War paper soldiers. The paper toys, a small number published by McLoughlin Bros. and G. Heerbrandt, depict soldiers from over a dozen different New York regiments. Three scrapbooks of Civil War envelopes and portrait prints and photographs of prominent military and political figures also comprise collection.