AMADOR TRADE CATALOGS
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The Amador Trade Catalogs are wholesale and retail merchandise catalogs, brochures, announcements, and leaflets that arrived at the RGHC with the Amador Family papers (Ms 4). The catalogs come from the Amador's mercantile business in Las Cruces, and range in date from 1873-1942, with the majority dating from the 1880-1905. The catalogs came from companies located across the United States as well as in foreign countries such as Mexico, Canada, England and France. The majority of catalogs come from major U.S. cities such as Chicago, St. Louis, Kansas City, St. Joseph, New York City, Denver, El Paso, San Francisco, and Albuquerque. The merchandise in the catalogs ranges from general goods to specialty items. The collection contains some Spanish language catalogs, however, the majority are in English.
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A copy of the index to the Amador Trade Catalogs is available on diskette for research purposes for $10 plus shipping and handling . Please fill out the Researcher Request Form, making sure your complete mailing information is available. In the Service Requested section of the form, please type "Copy of Amador Trade Catalog Index".
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The database does not contain images of the catalogs. It is merely
an index to help patrons locate specific catalogs for research purposes.
Any in-depth study or handling of the catalogs must to be done on-site
in the RGHC Search
Room.
Catalogs can be found by searching several different
fields: Business Name, Catalog Description, Date, City, State, and
Merchandise. These fields are described in more detail below.
Spanish language catalogs can be found by typing "Spanish" in the Catalog
Description field. You can change the type of search that is done
by changing the default “contains” to “does not contain” in the Type scroll
menu. Using “does not contain” will not retrieve items that contain
the word or phrase entered in that field. This is the same as performing
a Boolean NOT search. For example, if you wanted only English
language catalogs, you could type "Spanish" in the Catalog Description
field and choose "does not contain" from the scroll menu.
To combine terms from different fields in
a search, choose whether you want the results to have all terms entered
(Boolean AND) or if you want the results to contain any of the terms entered
(Boolean OR). The default on the database is the Boolean AND search.
To search more than one term in the same field choose the "Match any search
term (Boolean OR)" button. Do not type "AND" or "OR" in the field,
the database will read these words as additional search terms. To
search for catalogs from Bloomingdale's and Sears type in the Business
name field "Bloomingdale Sears" and choose the "Match any search term (Boolean
OR)" button. To obtain the broadest possible number of hits, use
as few characters as possible. Typing "sea" into the Business
Name field will retrieve Sears, Roebuck and Company. Results for
all searches are listed in alphabetical order by the Business Name.
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Business Name | Catalog Description
| Date | City | State
| Merchandise
Business name- This refers to the company which published the catalog. Companies with proper names have been inverted, so the last name appears first. For example: Joseph Beifeld and Company appears in the database as Beifeld, Joseph and Company. Examples of stores and companies that appear in the database are: Abeles and Mahler, Bloomingdale Brothers, Marshall Field and Company, Montgomery Ward and Company, and Schweitzer and Beer.
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Catalog description- This field refers to the physical description of the catalog and not the merchandise it contains. The catalogs can be brochures, pamphlets, price lists, advertisements, etc. The merchandise contained in the catalog is described in the Merchandise field. The Catalog Description field can also be used to locate Spanish language catalogs. By inserting “Spanish” into this field, all Spanish language catalogs will be retrieved. This is the only way to find the Spanish language catalogs as all other search terms have been translated to English.
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Date- This refers to the date the catalog was published, if known. The dates of the catalogs range from 1873-1942 and there are several where no date is known. Specific dates, such as 1878, can be entered. To search a span of dates do not type 1904-1906. The database cannot read date spans. Instead type “1904 1905 1906” and click on the "Match any search term (Boolean OR)" button. This should bring up all catalogs from these years. If you wish to search a decade, type in the first three digits of that decade. For example, the 1890s would be searched by typing “189” into this field. If the date of a catalog is unknown, then “n.d.” has been entered into this field.
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City- This field represents the location of the company or store. Most of the cities are in the United States, for example: Chicago, St. Louis, El Paso, and San Francisco. There are also some foreign cities such as London and Paris. Companies that have several major locations may have more than one city listed in this field. Searching any one of the cities will find the record in the database.
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State- This field represents the state of origin of the company or store. Do not use abbreviations. Fully spell out all state names, such as Texas, to bring up all catalogs originating in that state. This field also contains foreign country names, for example, Mexico. No country needs to be listed when searching for a specific U.S. state.
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Merchandise- This field describes, in general terms, the content of the catalog. Only broad descriptions are used such as glass, braids, clothing, furniture, foods, and produce. Any part of a word entered will bring up several derivatives of that word. For example typing in the term “glass” will bring up entries for glass, glasses, glassware and items that contain the word glass such as field glasses.
There is an alphabetized list of terms used in the merchandise field.
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Please send questions and comments to:
archives@lib.nmsu.edu
Rio Grande Historical Collections
NMSU Library MSC 3475
P.O. Box 30006, Las Cruces, NM 88003-0006
Telephone: 505-646-3839