ARCHIVE: AMERICAN/JAPANESE SILK TRADE C 1890-1910 EPHEMERA, PHOTOS & BOOKLETS -- INCLUDING RAW SILK SAMPLES

Item Details

[SILK TRADE – JAPAN & UNITED STATES]
New York Silk Conditioning Company. Archive Relating to the American/Japanese Raw Silk Trade, ca. 1890s.

An archive of booklets, photographs, printed ephemera, and raw silk sample materials documenting the technical and commercial aspects of the late 19th- to early 20th-century silk trade between Japan and the United States. Centered on the operations and promotional activities of the New York Silk Conditioning Company, the collection offers insight into international textile commerce, scientific conditioning practices, and cross-cultural exchange.

Includes thirteen (13) printed booklets and pamphlets, among them:
• Imperial Japanese Silk Conditioning House (Yokohama: The Yokohama Bunsha, 1896);
• What is Conditioning? 23 pp., in original printed wrappers;
• an illustrated booklet with manuscript annotations and marginalia;
• and L. Muzard’s Treatise on the Conditioning of Silk following a Project for the Creation of a Stock Company (New York, n.d., ca. 1881).

Together with:
• (1) broadside titled "Nibs as Seen Under the Microscope", with halftone photographic illustrations;
• (16) chromolithographic silk wrapper labels for Japanese raw silk, variously sized and vividly designed; some duplicates
• (9) silver print photographs (5 different images, some duplicates), personnel, facilities, or equipment;
• (3) envelopes from the New York Silk Conditioning Company, each labeled “Sample of Raw Silk,” with printed descriptive blurbs (“With the compliments of…”).

Some edgewear and age toning; expected handling wear to ephemeral pieces. Overall well preserved.   

Keywords: silk conditioning, raw silk, Yokohama, Japanese silk trade, New York Silk Conditioning Company, textile science, chromolithography, silk wrappers, Japanese-American trade, industrial ephemera, 19th-century photography, silk microscopy, L. Muzard