Food & Drink History Resources @Virginia Tech (and Beyond): Food Advertising & Ephemera

The Agricultural Ephemera Collection was established in 2015. The collection consists of materials in a variety of formats (advertisements, order forms and blanks, postcards, clippings, and more) that relate to agriculture, farming, livestock, and poultry & fowl, dating from the late 19th century to the present.

The Alice Ross Ephemera Collection includes more than 2,000 pieces of ephemera related to food & culinary history, advertising/marketing, food production, agriculture, holidays and celebrations, and domestic culture, dating from the mid-19th to the mid/late 20th century.

The Cocktail Ephemera Collection is a collection that was created in 2013. The collection consists of materials in a variety of formats (i.e., postcards, pamphlets, and adverstising ephemera) relating to the history of the cocktails, dating from the about the 1870s to the present.

The Culinary Ephemera Collection was established in 2013. The collection consists of materials in a variety of formats (postcards, menus, children's activities, advertising pamphlets, and more) that relate to food, nutrition, and medicine, dating from the early 19th century to the present.

The Food Advertisement Collection consists of single page advertisements for a variety of food products, largely pulled from magazines. Items dates from 1894 to 1962, with the majority from the 1910s-1940s. Ads included are for baby foods, dairy products, cooking/baking items, and peanuts/peanut butter.

Single-page advertising flyer for J. E. Cooley, merchant, New York, NY, dated 1863. Flyer lists prices for a wide range of grocery items, including cheese, butter, fruits, grains, poultry and "sundries." Prices are handwritten alongside item listings.

This collection includes coupons, displays, packaging, promotional materials and distribution materials for Mrs. Filbert's Margarine and Mrs. Filbert's salad spreads and mayonnaise. Some of the items are dated 1958, suggesting the remainder of the collection dates from the late 1950s.

The collection consists of an advertisement from the Lowenbach Brothers liquor distributors in Alexandria, Virginia, c.1910s. The flyer includes pricing for a range of liquors and spirits, apparently all mail order.

The collection contains a single package catalog for the National Biscuit Company. Although the catalog is not dated, one item is from June 1931, suggesting the catalog is from about that time. It includes labels for more than forty crackers, cookies, and other snack items, and the back pages include sample display racks for stores.

The collection consists of a single black and white photograph of a group of National Biscuit Company salesman and delivery drivers posed outside of a factory. Most of the men are carrying cracker display units and the trucks in the background are advertising Uneeda Biscuits. The photograph is not dated.

The National Biscuit Company Salesman's Collection consists of materials for the use of National Biscuit Company salesman, including blank order forms, a student's training guide, and a package catalog. Although none of the materials are dated, they may date from about the 1930s, possibly earlier. The order forms and student record book are empty, but a pasted in newspaper at the back of the packaging catalog suggests this may have been used by a salesman in Maine.

The collection contains a scrapbook of images from the liquor store window at the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco, California. The collection likely dates from about the 1950s, though none of the items are specifically dated. The scrapbook primarily consists of original photographs, mostly black and white 8x10s. They depict changing seasonal and product-based displays from the storefront. In addition, there are some smaller black and white and color photographs. The scrapbook also contains several pieces of ephemera: advertisements for products, newspaper ads, and resources on San Francisco (maps, tourist guides, and flyers). Oversize materials include hand-painted art and advertisements for the liquor store. Materials were collected by then-store-owner Philip B. Anson.

The collection includes promotional materials for two Cumberland Packing Corporation Products: Sweet 'N Low and Butter Buds.
The majority of the collection consists of materials relating to Sweet 'N Low, including advertisements (storyboards and paper campaigns), flyers, distribution and purchasing information, and recipes. There are four sets of promotion materials from 1979, 1980, 1981, and 1985. The collection also includes a 1979 display board for Butter Buds with pamphlets. Box 2 contains the original packaging materials.