Original Trade Card - "With Compliments of the New Home Sewing Machine Co., 30 Union Square, New York and Orange, Mass.; For Sale by Gaul & Wilber, Morrisville, N. Y."

Original trade card with a black-and-white illustration of a celebrity, Maude Branscombe. Branscombe was a model, actress, and singer. The 1870s-1880s marked the heyday of her career. No date, circa 1870s-1880s. 2 1/2" x 4 1/2." Trade card is very clean and intact except for age toning on front and back. A Near Fine copy. Trade card for the New Home Sewing Machine Company in New York and Orange, Massachusetts. The agents, Gaul & Wilber of Morrisville, NY, are named in the bottom margin on front. The history of the New Home Sewing Machine first began in1860 when William Barker and Andrew J. Clark produced the New England Single Thread and Hand Sewing Machine in Orange, MA. Barker and Clark also released the Home Shuttle sewing machine. In 1882, the names of these two highly successful products were combined into the New Home Sewing Machine. The company also changed its name to match its new central product. The New Home Sewing Machine Company enjoyed many decades of success until1960 when the company and the "New Home" brand name were purchased by the Janome Sewing Machine Company of Tokyo, Japan. Trade cards are antique business cards that first became popular during the late seventeenth century in Paris and Lyon, France and London, England. Trade cards were often given by business owners and proprietors to patrons and customers as a way to promote their businesses. Prior to the use of street addresses, some trade cards had maps so clients could locate the associated business. Many of these cards also incorporated elaborate designs, illustrations, and other decorative features. Trade cards became popular in the United States during the nineteenth century in the period after the Civil War. The late nineteenth century also saw the advent of trade card collecting as a hobby. While they are no longer in use, trade cards influenced the formation of trading cards and were the predecessors of modern-day business cards.…