Ephemera Collection
Our ephemera collection supplements the Society’s other holdings, with a strong emphasis on mid-to-late 19th-century items. Materials cover a wide variety of topics, from civic and religious to social and entertainment.
Included are advertising pieces, fashion plates, maps, posters and broadsides, prints, and the most comprehensive collection of Fall River postcards extant.
The body of Sarah Maria Cornell (1803-1832), a “mill girl” employed at the Fall River Manufactory, was discovered on December 21, 1832, hanging in a stack-yard on the farm of John Durfee in Tiverton, Rhode Island (now Fall River, Massachusetts); an autopsy revealed that the victim was pregnant. The Reverend Ephraim Kingsbury Avery (1799-1869), a Methodist minister, was accused of the crime due to incriminating evidence left by the victim. Following a sensational trial, considered a cause célèbre of the era, he was acquitted on June 2, 1833. The perpetrator of the crime was never brought to justice.
The smudged ink may be evidence of the rain that occurred on the day of the funeral, which was described by contemporary diarist Roann R. (Sanford) Freelove as “cloudy and wet.”
The racial stereotypes of the era are evident in the artwork illustrating this piece.
