Once again as I wander the Internet, I have found yet another wonderful site dedicated to our favorite topic… “transitory written and printed matter not intended to be retained or preserved”
This site comes to us compliments of a graphic and publication designer named “Dick Sheaff”. Dick does not tell us much about himself, except perhaps that he is a member of The Ephemera Society and of his profession. He does tell us a lot … in both photo and text form … about the various forms of ephemera that he has collected over the years.
His website has some 28 tabs each related to a different area of Ephemera. Tabs such as
- Artistic Printing
- Gaslight Style
- Real Photo Postcards
- People Holding Fish (??)
- Carte de Visite
- Photo Ad Cards
- Cork Cancellers
- Militia Notices
- Early Billheads
I picked out a few that really caught my eye:
Perhaps the section that I found most interesting was the one entitled “Womens Home Guard”. Dick point out to us that “For a variety of reasons, St. Louis, Missouri became a leading center for aviation in the early 20th century”.In 1917, a Captain John Berry set out to establish a corps of woman warriors, offering training in “aviation, ballooning and automobiling” to be known as the Woman’s National Aviation Home Guard. His website show this interesting blotter/business card which was used to recruit women into a Balloon Corps:
Despite the line that reads “Patriotism Commands You to Enroll”, Sheaff points out that “the whole program seems to have somewhat disappeared from view. Thus far I have been able to find virtually no additional information, and no other items of ephemera.”
It’s an interesting site.. and Sheaff appears to have spent a great deal of time collecting, scanning and researching. I am making an effort to contact him.. and perhaps have him be a guest blogger on this site.. stay tuned. In the meantime, have a visit to his site… you’ll find it a rewarding use of your time.
I’m Tom Murphy and thanks for helping me give Ephemera the Encore it deserves.
Tom
Have a look at my eBay Ephemera site
or have a look at my eBay Auction sites
Technorati tags: Encore Ephemera, Ephemera, Dick Sheaff, Women’s Home Guard
About Tom Murphy
Hi Tom. Your Dick Sheaff post was picked up by Google. Better expect a lot of visitors today!
Dick was also involved with the production process of the early hologram stamps (1980′s space shuttle docking with the space station, etc).