The bulk of this collection consists of printed ephemera produced by exhibitors at the fair to promote their products. There are brochures, fliers, trade cards, advertising literature, and giveaways promoting a wide range of contemporary consumer, professional, and industrial products, including clothing, textiles, sewing equipment, jewelry, food and food services, storage equipment, fire extinguishers, laundry supplies, medicines, furniture, heating equipment, window shades, building materials, cooking and eating utensils, tool and machine manufacturing companies, restaurants, hotels, photography, lithography, art, writing materials, and merchants. One group of trade cards represents foreign businesses that exhibited at the fair. There are also transportation schedules for routes to Chicago, an album of train tickets for routes to the fair, and information promoting lodgings and attractions in Chicago itself. Forms that would have been used by fair exhibitors make up another segment of the collection. The collection includes nearly one hundred photographs of the exteriors of the fair's buildings, and four photographs from the 1889 Paris Exposition. The collection also contains such miscellaneous items as souvenir ribbons with illustrations of fair buildings woven in the fabric; postcards with depictions of fair buildings; a block print textile sample with a design that includes Columbus, the U.S. Capitol and stars representing individual states, a travelers notebook, and a photograph of a family at the midway. Finally, there are 2 standard decks of souvenir playing cards (52 cards plus joker). Each card is illustrated with views of different buildings. The king, queen, and jack of each suit have the same views, the other 40 cards have separate ones, giving 43 different pictures. In addition, the joker is a picture of Uncle Sam. Leather slip case legend reads "Souvenir, Winters Art Litho. Co., Chicago, Il."
