Newberry Library Case Wing ZC 27 .T763, cataloged under the title English Trade Cards, is a single volume of 217 English trade cards for merchants and manufacturers primarily in London between approximately 1780-1810. Individually, each card provides insight into the period’s exploration of advertising and print media; collectively, the handmade codex is a curious object that provokes larger questions about historical impulses of collection, preservation, the commercial intersections of upper and working classes, the purposes of data curation, and how in the midst of excess, fragmentary instances of print become personal and meaningful when the book form is invoked.
English Trade Cards: A Digital Companion serves as the online home for the bibliographic and sociohistorical research surrounding Newberry Library Case Wing ZC 27 .T763. With a searchable archive, project-specific metadata, and an interactive map, this digital space seeks to embrace the boundlessness of digital archival research and function as both a research tool and living publication.
Initial wireframe (Adobe XD)
