Rock Island Fire Department, 1894-1895

This subseries contains papers related to businesses in the Quad Cities area other than agricultural implement manufacturers, banks, or photographers. Materials include advertisements, pamphlets, flyers, brochures, souvenir booklets, instruction manuals, catalogs, customer incentive gifts (usually calendars or notebooks), and, rarely, photographs or correspondence. Materials have been arranged alphabetically by company name. As a general rule, content related to individual companies is very slight- usually not more than 1-3 items. In some cases, content related to a specific company is substantial enough to have been separated into its own folder, which is indicated in this finding aid by an asterisk (*). Otherwise, items have been housed together in alphabetical order. Box 37 contains trade cards, small advertisements distributed to clients and potential customers by small businesses in the Quad Cities area looking to reach new customers. These are arranged alphabetically by company name.

Of note in this subseries is a folder of material related to the Newcombe Loom Company, 1902-1939 and undated, which includes several photographs of the West End Rug House and various textile artists (all women) alongside the fabrics they wove on their Newcombe Looms; two folders of material related to local railroads, including historical information on the Chicago, Rock Island, and Pacific Railroad (the Rock Island Line) and the Burlington Railroad, among others; a “Movie Stars” scrapbook containing clippings compiled by a young girl named Miss Merry as an entry for the Superior Dairy scrapbook prize; and a sample lantern slide issued by the Victor Animatograph Company depicting the ruined village of Peronne.