Jay T. Last Collection of Food: California Citrus Box Labels: Finding Aid, 1880-1960, bulk 1890-1940
Collection context
Summary
- Creators:
- Last, Jay T.
- Abstract:
- The California Citrus Box Labels, a subset within the Jay T. Last Collection of Food, contains more than 1000 lithographed labels that relate to the California citrus industry in the United States from 1880 to 1960, with the bulk of the collection dating from 1910 through 1930. The collection consists largely of lithographed labels produced for Southern Californian growers, packers and distributors to identify brand names and packing locations on wooden crates of oranges, lemons and grapefruits. The majority of labels were printed by Los Angeles and San Francisco lithographers, such as the Western Lithograph Company and the Schmidt Lithograph Company.
- Extent:
- approximately 1030 items in 9 boxes
- Language:
- English.
Background
- Scope and content:
-
The California Citrus Box Labels, a subset within the Jay T. Last Collection of Food, contains more than 1000 lithographed labels that relate to the California citrus industry in the United States from 1880 to 1960, with the bulk of the collection dating from 1910 through 1930. The collection consists largely of lithographed labels produced for Southern Californian companies to identify brand names and packing locations on wooden crates of oranges, lemons and grapefruits.
The majority of labels are printed by Los Angeles and San Francisco lithographers for growers, packers and distributors in Southern California. Labels from the Western Lithograph Company and the Schmidt Lithograph Company account for over half of the labels in this collection. In addition, there are three examples, CIT_001013, CIT_001014, and CIT_001015, of original paintings from which lithographic label designs were created.
The collection touches on topics of commerce, manufacturing, travel, and tourism, as well as the promotion of the western United States. The images are primarily promotional in nature and provide information about the history of the American food industry, the citrus industry in particular, and the evolution of their advertising strategies in the late 19th and first half of the 20th centuries. As graphic materials, the labels offer evidence of the development of printmaking techniques and trends, and of the artists, lithographers, printers, and publishers involved in the creation of these labels. Many of the labels depict orange groves, scenic views or flowers, though the collection also includes a wide variety of imagery beyond these themes. Additional imagery includes animals, modes of transport, and portraits of famous or fictional people.
- Biographical / historical:
-
The Jay T. Last Collection is an unparalleled archive of printed paper artifacts that documents American lithographic, social, and business history. The collection began in the early 1970s when physicist and Silicon Valley pioneer Jay Last moved to Southern California and started collecting citrus box labels he found at local flea markets and rummage sales. As his collection grew, Last realized that these labels conveyed important information about commercial printing, graphic design, and social history, and he expanded his collection to include other forms of American visual culture. Today this collection contains more than 200,000 lithographic prints, posters, and ephemera of mostly nineteenth and early twentieth century American origin and represents works by more than five hundred lithographic companies.
- Acquisition information:
- This collection forms part of the Jay T. Last Collection of Graphic Arts and Social History, which was donated to the Huntington Library by Jay T. Last in 2005 as a gift in progress. The bulk of the California citrus box labels were transferred to the Library in 2010 .
- Arrangement:
-
The collection is arranged alphabetically by title, with blank stock labels arranged alphabetically by lithographer and then numerically by call number, in the following nine boxes:
- Box 1: 1-9 and A-B, by title
- Box 2: C-D, by title
- Box 3: E-G, by title
- Box 4: H-L, by title
- Box 5: M-O, by title
- Box 6: P-R, by title
- Box 7: S, by title
- Box 8: T-Z, by title
- Box 9: Blank stock labels, by lithographer
Items are described in the following format:
- Title of label. Date.
- Printer(s). Company. Company location.
- Rules or conventions:
- Finding Aid prepared using Describing Archives: A Content Standard
- Note:
-
Finding aid last updated on June 16, 2015.
Access and use
- Restrictions:
-
Open to qualified researchers by prior application through the Reader Services Department. For more information, contact Reader Services.
- Location of this collection:
-
1151 Oxford RoadSan Marino, CA 91108, US
- Contact:
- (626) 405-2191