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| Centennial Cabinet, Eureka Press, Empire Press Co., N.Y. |
Recently the Print Department acquired three Centennial Cabinets, sets of quirky
souvenir cards printed in color on site at the Centennial Exhibition of 1876. Manufacturers
Empire Press Co., Degener & Weiller, and Greenwood & Batley used the promotional
“post cards” to promote their platen printing presses, presses geared toward
job work, such as cards and handbills.
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| Interior of Machinery Hall |
Although produced to showcase the
superiority of the press on display, most of the cards, which primarily depict exhibition
building exteriors, are not fine specimens. Captions are missing letters, names
of buildings are misspelled, and layers of colors are misaligned for the sake
of unmonitored mass production.
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| New Hampshire State Building |
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| English Government Building |
Ironically, the prints are most engaging to the
modern-day viewer for just these reasons. Despite the flaws, the cards surely also
brought a smile to the fair visitors who purchased them, as they did me.
Erika Piola
Associate Curator, Prints and Photographs
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