I'm getting to know the physical collection very well, having spent hours browsing and noting materials that look like good candidates for digitization. It will be hard to narrow the list down to no more than 100 pamphlets, as there are many I'd like to include, but I think keeping the online collection small is a good thing. Most pamphlets within a given era are similar in style and theme, so choosing a subset of representative ones will give the viewer a pretty good idea of what the rest are like.
I've also been revising my ideas about organization. As I look through the pamphlets, it becomes increasingly clear that using any sort of chronological structure will only create problems. This is because of the publication date/copyright paradox I mentioned in my other posts. I've learned through my research into copyright law that pre-1923 works are public domain, as are those published without notice between 1923 and 1978. Unfortunately, most companies during the latter period made sure to include a copyright notice in their publications, so there are fewer post-1923 pamphlets I'll able to use. The opposite is true of the pre-1923 pamphlets: fewer of them are dated at all. This leaves me working mainly with undated materials.
It's a little confusing, but the upshot is that I've shifted my focus to a more thematic approach. I'm thinking about dividing it into categories along the lines of "food", "appliances and kitchenware", "medicine", and "miscellaneous". Within those categories, the pamphlets would be grouped loosely by time period, but not specifically as such. Other possible themes are pamphlets that relate to manufacturers' health and nutrition claims, or those that demonstrate women's roles and gender stereotypes. However, these would eliminate a lot of pamphlets that aren't necessarily relevant to a specific theme, and I like the idea of being able to include a broader range of materials.
In my last post, I also mentioned the historical research I've been doing. My sources include the books Revolution at the Table by Harvey Levenstein and The Oxford Companion to Food and Drink in America, as well as various online sources such as The Food Timeline. In the Levenstein book, I read about two women -- a cookbook author and a home economist, who were influential figures in the early 20th-century food world -- immediately after having found documents written by both of them among the pamphlets. That was an interesting coincidence, and hit home for me the historical value of the collection. The pamphlets might seem to some like trivial bits of ephemera, but they really do reflect the evolution of American culture in many ways, which is why I think they will be of interest to a wide audience. If nothing else, it's fun to look at the advertising.
