American Trade Card Collection [finding aid PDF]
Collection consists of illustrated 19th century trade cards; early 20th century advertising cards; and a small number of collecting cards. The majority of the cards were produced in the United States by shopkeepers and manufacturers to be disseminated to customers. The colorful illustrations, often unrelated to the product advertised, depict scenes of city and rural life; celebrities; animals; flowers; household products; and numerous other subjects. The cards reflect the social, economic, political, and cultural climate of the periods during which they were produced.

Fritz Kredel Collection [finding aid HTML]
Fritz Kredel (1900-1973) began his graphic education as an art student. In the early 1920s he studied with Rudolf Koch, a type designer for Gebr. Klingspor in Offenbach, becoming Koch's assistant both at the foundry and at the Offenbach technical school, where he taught graphic design and developed his skills as a woodcut artist. The Klingspor foundry provided Kredel with pearwood for his craft, the same they stocked for making wooden type. After Koch's death in 1934, Kredel moved to Frankfurt and set up a studio in the Stadel Museum, surrounded by a circle of artists interested in typography, illustration and graphic design. In 1936, the same year he won a gold medal for his work at the Paris salon, Fritz Kredel fled Germany, moving with his family first to rural Austria, and then, with the help of Melbert Cary, to New York in 1938. In America, Kredel illustrated a number of volumes for George Macy's Limited Editions Club and established himself as an illustrator, teacher and active typophile.

The Arts of the Book Collection houses the personal and artistic archives of Fritz Kredel, including over one hundred original wood blocks, proofs and published work, sketch books and drawings, project files, and correspondence with other German expatriate artists such as Victor Hammer, and typographers Bruce Rogers and Tom Clelland. Kredel's work tools, realia, toys and military figures made by Kredel, as well as a nearly complete collection of works illustrated by the artist are also included in the collection.

Carl Purington Rollins Papers [finding aid PDF]
The Carl Purington Rollins papers document Rollins's career as a master printer, graphic designer, author, and educator. The collection consists of personal and business correspondence; writings by Rollins and others; materials designed and/or printed by Rollins and others; and research files and notebooks. The materials document Rollins's design and printing work at the community of New Clairvaux (New Clairvaux Press), Dyke Mill (Montague Press), and the Yale Press, as well as his own hand press, At the Sign of the Chorobates. This preliminary inventory first lists the larger group of material that was given to Yale by the Rollins family in the early 1980s, and preliminarily processed in 1998, and then lists material acquired by purchase in 2002. Rollins's library of books related to printing and printing history was given to the Arts of the Book Collection in 1981, and has been cataloged in Orbis, Yale's online catalog.

Volvelle Collection [finding aid PDF]
Jessica Helfand, a graduate of the Yale School of Art Graphic Design Program (MFA '89) and a respected critic of visual culture, collected hundreds of examples of the volvelle format. In December of 2004, Helfand donated the collection to the Arts Library. Helfand's book, Reinventing the Wheel, which was published by Princeton Architectural Press in 2002, served as the catalogue for an exhibition of the same title at The Grolier Club in New York City in the spring of 2004. The volume contains many of the volvelles that are now a part of this collection. The collection consists of 371 volvelles (or graphic wheels) and related material. Subjects of the volvelles range from astronomy to pop culture and fashion. The volvelles are made of a variety of materials including many forms of paper and card stock, plastic, metal, and leather. In addition to the volvelles, the collection contains one box of Helfand's files relating to her book and to her Grolier Club exhibit.