Item #5999 Samples of the Peter Adams Company’s American Art Papers made at the Company’s Waverly Mills, at Buckland, Conn. Peter Adams Company.
Samples of the Peter Adams Company’s American Art Papers made at the Company’s Waverly Mills, at Buckland, Conn.
Samples of the Peter Adams Company’s American Art Papers made at the Company’s Waverly Mills, at Buckland, Conn.
Samples of the Peter Adams Company’s American Art Papers made at the Company’s Waverly Mills, at Buckland, Conn.
Samples of the Peter Adams Company’s American Art Papers made at the Company’s Waverly Mills, at Buckland, Conn.
Samples of the Peter Adams Company’s American Art Papers made at the Company’s Waverly Mills, at Buckland, Conn.
Samples of the Peter Adams Company’s American Art Papers made at the Company’s Waverly Mills, at Buckland, Conn.

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Samples of the Peter Adams Company’s American Art Papers made at the Company’s Waverly Mills, at Buckland, Conn.

New York: Peter Adams Company, 1893. Oblong 4to (8” x 12”), chromolithographic wrappers, cord ties at spine. [6] pp. of text, 40 leaves of paper samples, numerous color and b&w illus.

A scarce and delightful catalogue of fine papers, a number of which serve as printing specimens as well (many of them in color), issued in striking chromolithographic wrappers by a high-grade paper manufacturer.

Peter Adams Co.’s fine-grade papers were used throughout the world for printing fine books, catalogues, charts and maps, sheet-music, labels and lithography. By the mid-1880s, Adams had become one of the most successful paper manufacturers in the U.S. The company’s paper was used for printing the official 1879 World's Fair catalogue, and Mark Twain is known to have written his books on Adams paper.

Consisting of five sections, this catalogue covers Plate Papers, Chromolithographic Plate Papers, Chart Papers, Map Papers, and Book Papers produced by the company. Among the printing specimens included are business logos and titles; excerpts from atlases; extracts from Wheeler’s Government Survey of the World; banners; illustrations of mailboys, children and cherubs; a striking photogravure of the Mayflower in Plymouth Harbor; an image of Seal Rocks (the southern entrance to the Golden Gate, California); a lovely illustration of a house-maid pouring milk for cats; an illustration of a fashionable upperclass woman in a winter scene; a gelatine plate reproducing a photograph of a woman (perhaps a gypsy), and so on. Notes on the different paper samples are featured throughout, such as the following for Banner Vellum: “The great difficulty of combining unusual toughness of fibre and fine printing surface and qualities has been overcome in the manufacture of this paper … Rolling for mailing does not injure it.” The weight of each sample is also given. The wrappers are identical, each featuring a painter’s palette set against American flag. Text on the flag’s stripes advertises the applications for which the company’s papers are suited: steel plates, half-tone plates, as well as bond charts, vellum maps, bond maps, vellum books, chromolithographic maps, superfine books, and more.

Peter Adams (1807–1889)—fondly called “Uncle Peter” in the trade—established Waverly Mills in the village of Buckland near the city of Hartford, Connecticut in 1863, and began manufacturing paper there in 1864. In time, Waverly Mills came to produce over four million pounds of high grade paper per year. After learning paper-making in Scotland where he was born, Adams emigrated to the U.S. in his early twenties. Along with three fellow Scotsmen, he established America’s first fourdrinier paper machine in Saugerties, NY. Adams spent seventy-five years in the business, finding great commercial success manufacturing high quality paper. Included in this catalogue is a fine lithographic portrait of Adams.

Sometime between 1889 and 1893, Henry H. Bowman (1849–1927) became President and Treasurer of Peter Adams Co. Bowman also served as treasurer of Springfield College for thirty years and on the college’s board of trustees. In 1867, he started his successful banking career with the Springfield Institution for Savings. Bowman was also instrumental in organizing the City National Bank in 1879, and in 1893 became president of the Springfield National Bank—a position he held until his death.

OCLC records only two copies, at the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center Library and Winterthur Museum Library.

A marvelous paper manufacturer’s trade catalog.

REFERENCES: King, Moses. King’s Photographic Views of New York, p. 318; Howard Lockwood, The American Stationer, Vol. 26 (New York, 1889), p. 1454; Adams Mill Restaurant – History of the Mill at manchesterhistory.org

CONDITION: Chipping to edges of covers; contents quite bright and clean, with some foxing.

Item #5999

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