[Rarebooks] FS: Mitchell Vance & Co -New York Lighting, Metal Manufacture 1888 -Lot of Ephemera

[Joslin Hall Rare Books]

A Collection of 30+ Invoices and Billheads from February, 1888, to 
Mitchell, Vance & Co., Leading New York Lighting Manufacturer, and/or 
Its Receiver, Thomas F. Gilroy.

Mitchell, Vance & Co. was founded in 1854 and in the last decades of the 
19th century they were leading designers and manufacturers of lamps, 
light fixtures, clocks, bronzes and ornamental metal work. When the firm 
was forced into receivership in 1887, they employed more than 600 
workers at their Manhattan showroom and workshops. “New York’s Great 
Industries” reported that “Their showrooms, salesrooms and offices 
occupy the entire six-story double building, Nos. 836 and 838 Broadway… 
The amount of floor space in the establishment is thus enormous, and yet 
it is none too large for the immense stock here gathered together, and 
which forms the best exposition of their lines of goods ever presented 
to a discerning public. The showrooms make a most magnificent display, 
and which is a great attraction both to citizens and visitors to the 
city. No other house in the world has its equal, while in the qualities 
of modern adaptability and true art, the firm possesses facilities as 
regards designing and manufacture admittedly nowhere else to be found. 
Artists, native and foreign, are constantly employed in designing and 
modeling subjects to be produced in both real and imitation bronze.”

As electricity replaced gas, Mitchell, Vance & Co. pioneered the new 
field and worked with Thomas Edison to produce his first permanent 
lighting fixtures. “It is the leading house to enter the field of 
electric lighting, and plan and bring out multifarious and beautiful 
designs for electric light fixtures of every description,” noted “New 
York’s Great Industries.” The firm "illuminated the first private 
residence lit by electricity, the J. Hood Wright house; as well as the 
mansions of J. W. Doane of Chicago and Marshall Field; the Murray Hill 
Hotel and the Hoffman House; the Minneapolis Opera House and the “Dakota 
Flats” facing Central Park, among many others". On August 21, 1887 The 
New York Times reported of the firm “It heads the list of concerns 
manufacturing and dealing in gas fixtures and similar goods, and so 
great has been its volume of trade that, last night, it was said to have 
supplied three-fourths of the fine grade goods in its line used in the 
United States.”

Despite all this, by the summer of 1887 the firm's finances were in such 
disarray that the courts ordered a receiver, Thomas F. Gilroy, to take 
over, and his name appears on many of the financial documents and 
receipts of that period.

This series of documents are dated during the month of February, 1888, 
and are made out to Mitchell, Vance, Thomas F. Gilroy & Mitchell Vance, 
or Thomas F. Gilroy, Receiver. They consist of: American Graphic Company 
(for advertising "Reciever's Sale MV & Co"); Baeder, Adamson & Co. 
(hides, flint, emery wheels); Oscar Barnett (iron foundry and castings); 
Thomas Barrett (paper manufacturer); Bruce & Cook (tin plate, copper, 
wire); Jos. Cabus (wagon & truck builders); P . Crane, Cooperage (3 
separate billheads for casks); Dennison Manufacturing Co. (labels); J.D. 
Devoe of New York (7 billheads - "Glass Cutter - Toilet & Fancy Mirrors, 
Window Glass, Side lights for Vessels, Glass Shelving, Bevelling & 
Drilling of all kinds"); P.E. Guerin ("Bronze & Brass Goods"); Steele & 
Johnson Manufacturing Co. (2 invoices- brass goods); Marx & Rawolfe 
(glycerin, shellac, varnishes); Henry G. Webb (machinists' supplies); 
Welch, Holme & Clark (potash); Wessell Metal Company (4 invoices for 
brass, copper & bronze); Zucker & Levett Chemical Co. (2 billheads).

Some invoices come with monthly statements- about 32 pieces.

32 pieces, varying sizes. Folds, Some wear and soil.  $175

A Picture =>
<http://www.joslinhall.com/images400/th-41630-cover.jpg>


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