Vintage Catalogues 1875 – 1946

5,100 Pages of Vintage Store Catalogs (1875–1946)
Here at the Clarinet Institute, we love history almost as much as we love archiving. And what better way to experience history than by flipping through actual advertisements from actual catalogs printed by actual companies—and read by real people of the time?

Thanks to the generosity of the Palisades Art Foundation, we’ve assembled a captivating collection of 17 original store catalogs, spanning 71 years, from 1875 to 1946. You’ll see how fashion evolved, how products were marketed, and how consumer life unfolded through the decades.

This is the kind of archive you can get completely lost in.
Ever wonder what they used for toothpaste in 1912? Or what a toy store looked like in 1898? It’s all here—hats, dresses, patent medicines, toys, tools, and thousands of other everyday products reaching across time to capture your curiosity.

Of course, owning all these catalogs in print would be incredible—but you’d also need a closet to store them. With this archive, you get all 5,100+ pages in one convenient collection, ready to browse on your Mac or PC.

This archive is available exclusively as a digital download.