This website seeks to encourage researchers and collectors to discover and study obscure ephemera that document American culture and life.  Worldcat reveals that most of the items that I post cannot be found in more than a few research libraries–often none at all.  Alternately, research libraries do not bother to catalog ephemeral publications like these.  I believe, however, that because these were distributed free, or at nominal cost, to consumers, they were the publications most likely to make their way into homes and be read by large numbers of Americans.

I acquire pre-1960 examples of the kinds of publications that prove so useful when scholars study 19th-Century America.  The limited competition that I encounter for them suggests that libraries, which could easily outbid me, have little interest in post-Civil War and 20th-century ephemeral publications in general.

I try to anticipate what materials future historians will find useful.  Being an historian first and a collector second, I organized this website to encourage others to do this too—even if this means new competition for me. I am aware that I could be wrong in prizing particular ephemera or even whole classes of ephemera.  I may even be wrong to encourage scholars to study obscure ephemeral publications; these may be obscure for good reason.

Ephemerastudies.org will permit me to share with others the information and imagery that I am acquiring, and to benefit from the knowledge, intelligence and experience of other scholars and collectors.  Please contact me with your impressions of the site.

~ Saul Zalesch

Bringing History to Life

This site is devoted to the identification, preservation, publicizing, and study of ephemeral publications that provide more-nuanced pictures of American culture and life. Because intended to aid scholars as well as collectors, this site focuses on artifacts preserving obscure information and imagery. (It excludes already-familiar ephemera such as posters, labels, famous comic books, and most cards).

The main feature of this site is a gallery of images chosen for their aesthetic and/or documentary value. A different object will be spotlighted each week.   I post on the home page a new image around 4 times a week.  Please comment freely on the postings.  All items posted are in my collection–unless they have been donated to institutions–so feel free to borrow images from this site, so long as you use the credit line www.ephemerastudies.org.  Please let me know if you do use one of these images.  I will be glad to supply free high-resolution images for use in scholarly publications. I have many items not posted here.   Scholars seeking certain kinds of publications or images can email me at szalesch@latech.edu, and I may be able to help.

I AM DONATING MY COLLECTION TO THE WINTERTHUR LIBRARY AND AM ALREADY SENDING IT ITEMS WEEKLY.  NEVERTHELESS, I AM WILLING TO DONATE TO OTHER INSTITUTIONS ITEMS THAT THEY WISH TO ADD TO THEIR COLLECTIONS OR INCLUDE IN EXHIBITIONS.

If you would like to receive the emails I plan to send when I post items of exceptional interest, please email me your request at szalesch@latech.edu.  Thank you for your interest.

THIS WEEK, FOR THE FIRST TIME, EPHEMERASTUDIES REACHED THE TOP 30 ON GOOGLE FOR A SEARCH OF THE WORD EPHEMERA.  [OUT OF 22 MILLION PAGES] THANK YOU TO ALL THE VISITORS WHO MADE THIS HAPPEN.