Correction Sheets for Selected Publications

Related file: Higgins & Seiter Catalogs

Higgins & Seiter Catalog #13 has been incorrectly dated by Leigh Emmerson who assigns a date of 1899-1900 to this undated publication. The correct date is 1902-1903. The catalog, therefore, was written and published during the fall of 1902, not 1899. At a time when the public's acceptance of American cut glass was enthusiastic, spuring manufacturers to turn out ever more complex cut glass, this difference in dates is significant.

Apparently Emmerson was led astray by the following statement concerning Higgins & Seiter that is found on p. 6 of Catalog #13: "From its modest start twelve years ago . . ." He seems to have logically added these 12 years to the year given in the caption of one of the photographs in the catalog that states: "Where we started in 1887", thereby resulting in the year 1899. However, the first statement is incorrect. The previous year, in Catalog #12, "twelve years" again appears, this time in reference to a new H. & S. building, as follows: "The latest enlargement of our capacity -- the sixth that has taken place in the past twelve years . . ." (p. 12). It appears to this writer that whoever wrote the text in #13 incorrectly interpreted this statement to mean that the company was founded twelve years previously, when actually that was when the company began its "enlargement".

The following evidence supports a date of 1902-03 for Catalog #13, rather than Emmerson's 1899-1900:

Writing in Catalog #12, during the fall of 1901, H. & S. optimistically hoped that "the close of the first year of the new century [i. e., 1901] will find us occupying our new six-story building fronting on West 21st Street . . ." (p. 12). That was not to be, for "the latest enlargement", referred to above, was completed in 1902 according to another photo-caption in #13 (p. 14). Obviously, Catalog #13 could not have been written during the fall of 1899 unless the writer possessed truly remarkable foresight!

Reading the H. & S. catalogs that are available today (and there are several) it is clear that the company made no special effort to observe the beginning of the 20th century -- contrary to what Emmerson believes. He attaches great weight to his incorrectly assumed date of 1899-1900. While Catalog #13 is certainly handsome, it is not "outstanding", to use Emmerson's description, simply because, as he believes, it marks the start of a new century. The catalog's quality is a continuation of the care Higgins & Seiter had always given to its annual mail-order catalogs which, from the start, were intended primarily for the company's widely-dispersed customers, most of whom would never have had the opportunity to visit the company's store in lower Manhattan. Emmerson is also impressed by #13's 245 pp., although #6, an earlier catalog that is actually dated (1895-96), contains no less than 190 pp. Both are indications of the continuing success of H. & S.'s business. Although Emmerson considers it remarkable, Catalog #13 is not the first H. & S. catalog to use color; colored plates were in use at least as early as Catalog #11 (1900-01). All this indicates that no special treatment was given to Catalog #13 as a start-of-a-new-century publication which, of course, it was not!

Updated 14 Apr 2005