Seed Company Letterheads: Mostly 19th & Early 20th Century

Old letterheads let you know what was going on.  I like that.  You can tell what the company sold back then.  Names and artwork worked together to fill you in on what the business was up to.  

I'm collecting images of the ones that include engravings of the seed buildings. The pride in accomplishment at that level is charming.  The nice thing about following flower seed companies is that global domination is not the ultimate goal, unlike field crop seed.  That is just my observation.  Besides,  in the early days of seed production in the US what we were trying to do was make a more reliable and desirable seed than the imported seed from France, England and others.

Here is a collection of seed letterheads that I accumulated off eBay. 

   To see them full size, check out this folder.

I smile every time I see the happy dude hugging his cabbage!  (It is a cabbage?) 

Download a paper by Robert Biggert giving a very good grounding in the art of letterheads and how they reflect the history of the country and the attitude of the people.
"The Robert Biggert Collection of Architectural Vignettes on Commercial Stationery was donated to the Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library by Robert Biggert in honor of Lisa Ann Riveaux. This unique collection of printed ephemera contains over 1,300 items with architectural imagery spanning the dates 1850 to 1920, in more than 350 cities and towns in forty-five states, as well as the District of Columbia and U.S. possessions. The collection's billheads, letterheads, envelopes, checks, and business cards document the rise of the United States as an industrial nation, in often elaborate vignettes of factories, warehouses, mines, offices, stores, banks, and hotels."