RSS
Formats - Broadsides & Ephemera
The Center for American History’s Printed Ephemera collection, dating from 1773 to the present, provides evidence of people, places, events, and ideas that helped shape American history and culture. Examples of printed ephemera include broadsides, invitations, advertisements, business cards, campaign posters, admission tickets, printed programs, and greeting cards. For historians and other researchers, ephemera has value because it has the characteristic of being "of the moment," thus serving as a mirror of our past.
The Center’s extensive collection of nineteenth- and twentieth-century broadsides includes the outstanding state paper in Texas, the Texas Declaration of Independence, which was printed in San Felipe de Austin in 1836. An additional 5,000 rare public notices document Texas history and culture, many of which were printed on Texas pioneer presses. In addition to discovering these wonderful primary sources within the Center’s Ephemera Collection and within the Center’s Broadside Collection, researchers may find fine examples of ephemera throughout the Center’s collections of personal papers or organizational records as well.