Clothing samples

The collection includes clothing samples manufactured in Whitehall, dating from 1988 at the time of the factory’s closing; newspaper, magazine, and catalog clippings of Thomas advertisements dating back to 1953; and photographs, including slides, used for said advertisements.

The clothing samples have been divided into three categories: boy's, girl's, and miscellaneous, this last category containing items either not sex-specific or that required special packaging. The printed materials also include an article about the company and a party invitation. All of the clippings have been kept in their original format.

A detailed inventory of this collection, found in the printed finding aid, gives each item a record number. The inventory, as written in 2003, does not include a record number 36. Since the short film about the company, made by Thomas Swartz, Jr., currently on a D.V.D. but apparently originally added to the collection as a V.H.S. tape, needed to be formally included in the collection, it has been given that number. Researchers can use an older version of the finding aid which lists the records as they are found in the boxes in order to make the process of perusing each box in succession more efficient. This approach is only necessary for the clothing samples. Apparently they were assigned record numbers before being boxed; in turn, the size of the items determined their placement within the boxes, thus not matching the record-number order. The items in Series II and III, in contrast, are arranged by record number. Please ask the Heritage Room staff for this document.