Ephemera

Ephemera Collection

The Ephemera Collection of the Sheldon Museum’s Stewart-Swift Research Center comprises over 8,000 items of various topics and formats. By their very nature, these items were not meant to last, but their enduring historical research qualities make this remarkable collection rare and culturally relevant today. The majority were assembled by Henry L. Sheldon during the mid-to-late 19th century and later continued by the museum staff. Most are from Middlebury, Vermont; many more are from Vermont in general, and others are from the New England region and beyond. The collection dates from the 1810s to 2020s, with the bulk of items dating from 1870s to 1910s.  

How to Find It

Access the Ephemera Collection through an in-depth folder-level inventory here.

Formats in Collection

Collection includes advertisements, almanacs, paper bags, ballots, banknotes, billheads, letterheads, blotters, booklets, bookmarks, bookplates, broadsides, brochures, business cards, calendars, calling cards, carrier addresses, certificates, checklists, church bulletins, cigarette cards, circulars, cookbooks, dance cards, envelopes, forms, friendship cards, greeting cards, invitations, masks, matchboxes, menus, playbills, postcards, posters, prints, programs, receipts, rewards of merit, samples, song sheets, songsters, tickets, trade cards, trade catalogs, Victorian scraps, and more.