Beinecke Library has extensive holdings of trade catalogs, as well as individual examples of other commercial catalogs in archives, papers, and subject-focused collections.
Trade catalogs are listed in a finding aid
Many related commercial catalogs are catalogued separately in ORBIS
A selection of catalogs can be found in the Beinecke digital library in their entirety.
Here are a pair of inventories of stock available from Candee, a manufacturer in New Haven, CT (not to be confused with the current maker, Candie’s). Candee innovated rubber soles, keeping our feet dry!
An 1891 catalog offered apparatuses and appliances from Carpenter Electric, the company that produced the first electric stove.
La Perle Fancy Rubber Goods, in New York City, offered items such as gloves, bibs, and bustles.
D.W. & J.D. Clark’s wholesale price list provided everything for fishing: silk fish lines, chark lines, mason lines, trot lines, fishing reels of every description …
For all your grocery and dry goods needs, contact B. Rockwell & Co. of Junction City, Kansas.
Or maybe you’d like to grow your own produce? Choose from the fruit trees, flowering trees and flowering shrubs offered by William Joyce of Gateshead (as described on this list in the papers of 18th century garden designer, Joseph Spence).
What else do we crave? Books!
You can peruse a number of book auction and sales catalogs in the Beinecke Digital Library, including the sale of the library of Mr. Thomas Ruddiman from 1758.
This 1914 catalog from the publisher Claire Marie …
… featured the latest work from Gertrude Stein, Tender Buttons.
Titles about film, as well as creative works from the Bryher-H.D.-MacPherson circle, can be found in the Pool catalog from 1929.
