As the Iowa Digital Library approaches the 100,000-item mark, we’re celebrating this milestonetemp by highlighting some of our favorite items from the collections.

Title: Children’s wonder book
Creator: Steinwender-Stoffregen Coffee Co.
Collection: Szathmary Recipe Pamphlets Digital Collection

 

This is a page from the “Children’s Wonder Book”, a 1905 advertising pamphlet for Yale Coffee containing puzzles and games for children. Despite the incongruity of a coffee advertisement aimed at children (or perhaps because of it), I like this object because of the creativity and simplicity of the various activities. In an age of video games and Toys ‘R Us, it’s a nice reminder that good old fashioned entertainment can be had with a lemon and some matchsticks.  

–Jane Monson
Digital Library Fellow, School of Library and Information Science