Five dollars in 1925

William Tait Baynard (1875-1946) worked in his family's business, Baynard Drug Store, in Alexandria, La.    His brother, Ludlow Buard Baynard (b. 1874) served as State Treasurer in the 1920s, and State Auditor 1929-1944.     

LaRC Manuscripts Collection 99 consists of the personal and business papers of W. T. Baynard, which he collected and kept over his lifetime.  His family donated the collection to Tulane University in 1955.  It includes handwritten and typed correspondence, biographical and genealogical information about family members, telegrams, financial documents, insurance papers, post cards, greeting cards, invitations, calling cards and other items of social ephemera, photographs, advertisements, prescriptions and other medical documents, Mexican lottery tickets, stamps, a printed advertising pin tray, a leather wallet, journal and newspaper clippings and other printed items. Correspondents include E. J. Hart & Co. in New Orleans, prospective employers of travelling salesmen, Buard Baynard and other family members, book publishers, and other vendors and business partners.  

Each individual is unique, and what they decide to retain reveals what is important to them.  The process of their selection may be a matter of practicality or a matter of sentiment, but the resulting collection supports our understanding of the people and their times.  Greeting cards are often among the items saved in personal papers.  A wide variety of the LaRC personal and family papers include greeting cards-- an advanced search of the library catalog, combining the keyword phrase "greeting cards" with type "archival material," you will presently retrieve a list of 74 LaRC archival collections which include original lovingly written, mailed, received, and saved, greeting cards.

Caption:  a Christmas card to W. T. Baynard in Alexandria from a friend in New Orleans, postmarked Dec. 20, 1925.   "This card and five dollars will buy you a wonderful present at any store."  William Tait Baynard papers, Manuscripts Collection 99, box 6, folder 2.   Images of items held in the Louisiana Research Collection may not be re-published without permission.


Posted by Susanna Powers