Ephemeral is not generally a word that comes to mind when thinking about G. Fox & Co.; afterall the store was in operation until a few months after its 145 anniversary! Fox’s was a Hartford institution. And yet, despite the fact that the store was a fixture in downtown Hartford for such a long time (or perhaps for that very reason), there aspects of G. Fox & Co. that were very short-lived.
Advertisements, gift certificates, charge cards, shopping bags, shoe and hat boxes, stationery, envelopes, bills and receipts, even matchbooks. All of these items, and many others with the G. Fox logo, are represented to some extent within the collection. Generally speaking, materials like those listed here are classified as ephemera, or items designed to be useful for only short periods of time. Because of the very nature of the material, ephemera is often discarded once the objects are no longer of use. For that reason, our collection doesn’t contain large amounts of G. Fox ephemera and most of the items we do have are from the later periods of the store’s operation.
Pictured below are some examples of the ephemera in our collection. Click on the image to see an enlarged version.
inside the CHS 