(4) Library & Ephemera Archive of      Bread Culture   

11/03/2019

The National Bread  Museum Library

As far as it's known, all historical baking/cooking/food ephemera (cookbooks & other paper items) collections of significant value, which have been donated to institutes, are under lock & key, not available to the general public except by special request & reason.  One of the goals of the National Bread Museum is to have as much historical data available to the general public as possible . . . at least visually to expand one's mind that these books & the subject matter exist.  Only by exposure to this history, does or will anyone know of it.                    

 Bread Culture Ephemera Archive (Preserving OUR History) Paper Advertising

There are probably 100s/1000s of "paper" items of Bread Culture history of the 1900s going into the garbage every day as people clean out Mom's or Grandma's house!  If you want to join in saving this history beginning now, please set aside a "keeping box" of any size for what you'll be able to collect and donate for this historical preservation project.  Some of the best opportunities are having the chance to go through drawers, boxes, closets, attics, etc. of a family or other person's home (& the older the better), & having the opportunity to preserve anything related to the world of Bread Culture:  Ag/Grain-Milling-Flour-Bread/Baking.  Even current packaging of products have graphics, colors, history, etc. that tell of our times, but the older, the better!  

The following are just a minute % of examples of items related to the world of Bread Culture . . . interesting treasures & documentation.    

a poster at the National Festival of Breads - 2019 - Manhattan, Kansas
a poster at the National Festival of Breads - 2019 - Manhattan, Kansas
Paper hats worn by employees at the Peter Pan Company.
Paper hats worn by employees at the Peter Pan Company.
a storybook (c) 1963, a Whitman Book
a storybook (c) 1963, a Whitman Book
an ink blotter; July 1933
an ink blotter; July 1933

 Our Changing Times  - - - Ephemera is the term for paper items not meant to have a long "shelf life":  pamphlets, booklets, handouts, wrappings for products (very old paper bags for  bread, flour, sugar, rice, butter, & more), ads & signs, posters, postcards, magazines, labels (think jars & cans), containers (cereal - rice - grains - crackers - pizza & bakery boxes, snacks, ingredients), what we call "bills" & receipts, carry bags (grocery bags or the old, paper "shopping bag"), and the list goes on.  Such collections become historical encyclopedias through time.  Keep your eye open for these kinds of items "long gone by the wayside," and you could help contribute to the historical preservation & education endeavor. Here are some more examples: 

"Iten's Handy Helper" booklet to use its cracker & Iten's Snow White Bakeries Cereal products -- Iten-Barmettler Biscuit Co. (i.e. crackers), Omaha, NE; 1908-1928; merged w/NABISCO 1932; then Merchants/United Biscuit Co. 1940-62 (Keeblers, "Nebraskit") & (Feb. 1949, 1st Girl Scout Cookies made here).
"Iten's Handy Helper" booklet to use its cracker & Iten's Snow White Bakeries Cereal products -- Iten-Barmettler Biscuit Co. (i.e. crackers), Omaha, NE; 1908-1928; merged w/NABISCO 1932; then Merchants/United Biscuit Co. 1940-62 (Keeblers, "Nebraskit") & (Feb. 1949, 1st Girl Scout Cookies made here).
Morocco 2018, bread flour
Morocco 2018, bread flour

 

                                 We all can do more than we have done,  And not be one whit the worse;                                                       It never was loving that emptied the heart,  Nor giving that emptied the purse. 
                                                   * * * * * * * * * *

            Human beings, like chickens, thrive best when they scratch for what they get.  We believe             the financial goal to create the National Bread Museum complex is achievable in a year's time once we get the legal foundation completed and can begin fund raising.  The significance of this component of our country's cultural history needs our preservation.  Your help is dearly needed.  

To GIVE A DONATION.