Joel Webb is the blogger behind the Ephemera Assemblyman site. He's doing great work on his blog, so I thought I'd talk shop with him. In the following interview, we discuss his interest in ephemera and how that translates into what he's doing online.
ephemera: I'm always fascinated by how people became interested in ephemera. How did you become interested in it?
Webb: I've had a vague interest in ephemera since I was a child. One of my favorite memories from growing up was spending hours in the nearest antique mall, looking through old magazines, photographs, clothing, postcards, etc. I found it all fascinating. Also, ephemera was something that my whole family was (and still very much is) interested in. My mother collects 1950s women magazines, and my father collects various pieces of Model A ephemera, all of which were around our house when I was growing up. They both have very impressive collections.
I became serious interested in ephemera about three years ago. I'm not sure exactly what it was that led me to this more serious interest, but I'm sure my interest in history had something to do with it. Reading a history textbook was one thing, but reading a magazine or pamphlet from a historic era was something much more real.
ephemera: How did your interest morph into the ephemera assemblyman blog?
Webb: One time, when I was back from college, my brother showed me his collection of prints that he downloaded from the Library of Congress website. They were just random photographs from newspapers, but I could look at them for hours—wondering about these people. Through that, I soon became semi-addicted to the Library of Congress site, and, eventually, discovered other digital collections and a whole world of digital ephemera opened up to me.
Although the blog was called ephemera assemblyman, I didn't make ephemera the main focus until a little over a year ago. I used the blog initially as a screening/reading log and link dump; later it became a place for me to post pictures of culture figures I admired. I wanted it to be If Charlie Parker Was a Gunslinger, There'd Be a Whole Lot of Dead Copycats. Eventually, I made the blog's name valid by consistently assembling collections of ephemera.
ephemera: It's a great blog, Joel. What challenges or obstacles do you encounter as a collector? How do you overcome these challenges?
Webb: Money. I'm still working my way through school so I don't have a lot of extra money to spend on collecting. I want to become a librarian or archivist--perfect for this interest. I will buy vintage magazines, photographs, postcards, or books when I can, but nothing more than that. Someday though. Right now I mostly collect and share images from various digital collections or books that I find interesting, but I don't own any of the originals. I think that the most interesting things on the internet are hidden from where most people look: in the digital collections of Universities and museums, so I like to go browsing in these places and post them on my blog with links to the different collections.
ephemera: What are your favorite items in the collection?
Webb: My posting of various maps of the "new world" was probably the post that took me the longest and the one that I am most proud of. I came across a few maps from the 16th century and became extremely interested in the evolution of the mapping of the new world, such as the always changing shape of South America, or the occasional mapping of California as an island. I spent a lot of time visiting different collections, map sites, and researching topography and topographers to put that one together.
Another favorite of mine is the "Dying Speeches" Execution Broadsides collection. They were basically penny programs sold at public executions, describing the crime and trial, and usually with an illustration. These fascinated me--many of the illustrations for these broadsides were surprisingly disturbing, and didn't try to hide the brutality of the crimes. It was also interesting to read the various positions that the publications took on some of these cases and executions. My favorite posts tend to be the ones that take the longest because I get so wrapped up learning about the various pieces of ephemera and the histories that produced them.
ephemera: What is the future of your blog; how do you see it evolving?
Webb: The main thing that I would like to do is to post less from digital collections and more from images of my own findings, ideally that were in my own collection. I would also like to post more frequently. Many of my favorite ephemera blogs, such as A Journey Round My Skull and Vintage Poster, have a new post almost every night, I would like to be as consistent with my postings and share as much great content as they do. There are so many amazing artifacts hiding in libraries, antique malls, garage sales, and corners of the internet, and I want to find and share much more of them.
ephemera: Thank you, Joel.
