The Eastern Advertising Company installed and maintained advertising cards in streetcars in the major cities of New England, particularly on behalf of local merchants carrying national or regional brands. The report contains an analysis of sales of Laco castile soap versus competing brands in drugstores in New England cities.

Items with a specific and limited use, created with the intention of being discarded after serving their purpose, are called ephemera. This collection consists of mixed-format ephemera from various endeavors within American culture, primarily the manufacturing and selling of products or services.

The Exposicion Internacional del Centenario commemorated the centennial of the May Revolution in Argentina and its consequent independence from Spain. It was an international exhibition that was held in 1910 between May and November in the capital of Buenos Aires. The photographs in the album consist of views of France's exhibit and include the exterior and interior of the pavilion.

Soap traces its history all the way back to the Babylonians in 2800 BC. However, bar soap only dates back to the late eighteenth century. The use of bar soap became the norm in the mid-nineteenth century. By this time soap could be mass produced and mass marketed. Many of the large bar soap companies were established during this time. This collection consists of 155 hospitality soap wrappers that have been flattened. The soap wrappers generally contain the name of the hotel, city and state, as well as a logo or graphic of some kind. Most wrappers include the brand name and product name, though a few do not have any information about the soap listed on the wrapper. All of the hotels are in the United States, not all of the states are represented in the collection. This collection would be useful for those researching package design, logos, or the soap industry. Potentially the collection also indicates relationships between specific hotel companies and their personal hygiene vendors.

Irv Koons (1922-2017) was a graphic artist, designer, and illustrator who became one of the leading consumer package designers of the twentieth century. The photographic collection contains slides, negatives, color transparencies, and prints documenting all of Koons's major design projects over the course of his long career as a package designer.

Lanman & Kemp was a multi-generational family firm of wholesale druggists in New York City. Their records document the operations of the wholesale drug business in the years before the development of modern pharmaceuticals. They also show the importance of New York City as a center for the import, export and re-export business and of London bankers in financing international trade and extending credit.

Two nineteenth-century pharmacists formula books, one from William King (1823-1903), of Philadelphia, and one from Edward S. Townsend (1844-1913), of Philadelphia and Dover, Delaware. William King was a Philadelphia druggist and worked in the oil business, first as a jobber and then as a refiner. Edward S. Townsend was a druggist in Philadelphia and Delaware.

Owl Drug Company was a chain of apothecary retail stores that sold drugs and patent medicines at a reduced cost. The company also sold candy, soda, Kodak film, stationery, cosmetics, perfumes, and other toiletries. The first store opened in June 1892 at 1128 Market Street, San Francisco, California, advertised as the "Drug Palace of the Pacific Coast." The album consists of images of displays of items sold in the drug store, specifically the 5th and Broadway location in Los Angeles, which opened for business on January 2, 1904. The 5th and Broadway location was the fifth store of the company. The photographs are countertop and shop window merchandise displays. A few images consist of print advertisements and operational charts.

Philadelphia Quartz Company began as a family soap and candle business in 1831. It was founded in Philadelphia by Joseph Elkinton (1830-1905). It began producing and selling sodium silicate in 1861 as a builder to replace rosin in soap formulations. This image of office includes three male clerks and one visitor.

Founded in 1831 as the Elkinton Company and later renamed, Philadelphia Quartz Company became an important innovator during World War I by discovering that silica gels could be used as a base to manufacture catalysts for cracking crude oil molecules to make high-octane gasoline and developing potassium silicate which was adopted for use in cathode ray tubes. The company's records includes business records and the personal papers of the company's founding family.