Ephemera! It belies its definition.

Senator H.A. Espy’s Souvenir Bookmark

When Curator Ed Nolan first introduced me to the archives at the Washington State History Research Center back in the mid-’80s, he spent most of our time showing me ephemera.  The term was new to me then… but never mind.  I loved it all –WPA  and World War II and silent movie posters; ball game and trolley tickets; sample ballots for the 19th century… drawer after drawer and file after file of the most wonderfully nostaligic items you could imagine.

According to Merriam-Webster ephemera is:
1: something of no lasting significance usually used in plural
2 ephemera plural : paper items (such as posters, broadsides, and tickets) that were originally meant to be discarded after use but have since become collectibles

In my mind, ephemera is all those bits and pieces that we may have put into a scrapbook once upon a time or something that might show up tucked between the pages of an old book.  Sometimes their discovery triggers questions about who and why of long ago and, most times, they tap right into the Nostalgia Gene.  Plus, of course, they give us all sorts of information about the past.  Hardly “of no lasting significance” — at least to me.

Medora’s keepsake from the Ford Assembly Line Exhibit, The Panama–Pacific International Exposition, 1915

Ed told me, for instance, that the Research Center now has “the definitive collection” of advertisements and information about early 19th century cream separators.  Apparently, among the thousands of Espy documents that Willard and I turned over to them — mostly 70-some bankers boxes containing four generations of family correspondence —  were scores (perhaps hundreds) of ads and articles and junk mail that my grandfather had saved concerning cream separators.  Papa was a dairy farmer, after all.  (Years later, Ed reported that he was able to help out a curator in another state who was looking for something specific in the cream separator line.  Who knew???)

So… save those throw-aways.  A century or more from now they may be more important than you can imagine!

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