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Seattle travel and tourism guide collection

 Collection
Identifier: 1000-082

Scope and Contents

Pamphlets in the collection include general Seattle brochures and pamphlets as well as materials for specific places such as museums, historic sites and more. They provide details on popular sightseeing locations as well as the history and economic details. The Seattle Public Library collected the pamphlets over many decades. They range in date from the late 1800’s to the 2020’s.

Dates

  • Creation: circa 1894-2022

Creator

Conditions Governing Access

Collection is open and available for use.

Conditions Governing Use

Copyright restrictions apply.

Biographical / Historical

The pamphlets were created by a variety of entities including the Seattle Chamber of Commerce, railroad companies, local businesses, and other organizations in order to advertise and promote their attractions to visitors. Early pamphlets are designed to entice new residents to the area and advertise features such as good weather and bountiful resources. Later pamphlets cater towards the growing tourism industry.

Full Extent

6.66 Linear Feet (16 boxes)

Language of Materials

English

Metadata Rights Declarations

  • License: This record is made available under an Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International Creative Commons license.

Abstract

Tourism pamphlets and brochures featuring locales throughout Seattle.

Arrangement

Pamphlets are arranged chronologically.

Related Materials

Other collections of travel and promotional pamphlets can be found in the Mt. Rainier Travel and Tourism Guide Collection, the Washington State Travel and Tourism Guide Collection, the Oregon Travel and Tourism Guide Collection, the Alaska Travel and Tourism Guide Collection, the British Columbia Travel and Tourism Guide Collection, and the Pacific Northwest Travel and Tourism Guide Collection (containing pamphlets that cover broader areas throughout Oregon, Washington, Idaho and British Columbia).

Processing Information

This collection brings together pamphlets from several different collections at the library including items previously held in Pamphlet Volumes on Seattle, Washington. For preservation purposes, these volumes were disbound to prevent further damage to the pamphlets and rehoused in folders and boxes.

Pamphlets from the previous Seattle Visitor Guides Collection were split between this collection and the Washington State Travel and Tourism Guides Collection for the purposes of consolidating our travel ephemera. Some pamphlets were also pulled from our Northwest Uncatalogued Collection and Seattle Room Vertical File or added via acquisition by the Seattle Room curator. New materials will be added to this collection as acquired.

Acknowledgement of Harmful Content
The Seattle Public Library Special Collections Department is committed to creating an inclusive archive that documents the history of our diverse communities in a respectful manner. Our collections include historic materials that may contain images and outdated language which can be harmful due to issues such as racism, colonialism, sexism and homophobia. This content can provide important insight into the creator and context of the historic materials but can also reveal hurtful biases and prejudices.

We may decide to use or retain harmful language in our description when the terms have been used by the creator(s) of the materials to describe themselves or their community; when we have reused description created by the donor; when we have transcribed information directly from the materials; and when using national standards such as Library of Congress Subject Headings, which allow for standardized searching and retrieval of records. When including language from the original material in our finding aids or descriptions, we will indicate that this material comes directly from the original item by putting the language in quotes or prefacing it with a note that says the description is transcribed from the item or provided by the creator.

We will continually review our finding aids to identify harmful language and encourage you to contact us at specialcollections@spl.org if you find language that causes concern.

Title
Seattle travel and tourism guide collection, circa 1894-2022
Author
Finding aid prepared by Jade D’Addario
Date
January 2022
Description rules
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Language of description
English
Script of description
Latin

Revision Statements

  • September 2023: The finding aid was updated to reflect the addition of new materials.

Repository Details

Part of the Seattle Public Library, Special Collections Repository

Contact:
1000 4th Ave.
Seattle WA 98104 United States
206-386-4636