Trade literature

Trade literature is a general term including advertising, customer technical communications, and catalogues.

The distinguished English cabinet maker, Thomas Chippendale published a book of his designs in 1754, entitled The Gentleman and Cabinet Maker's Director and regarded as the "first comprehensive trade catalogue of its kind".

[1] The designs were regarded as reflecting the current London fashion for furniture, and set the standard for his competitors in the market.

The Trade Literature Collection is internationally known as an extraordinary source for the history of American business, technology, marketing, consumption, and design.

Trade literature includes printed or handwritten documents, usually illustrated, of items offered for sale, ranging in size from small pamphlets to oversized folios of several hundred pages.