Skip to main navigation menu Skip to main content Skip to site footer

Rozprawy — analizy — studia przypadków

Vol. 15 (2023): Efemery — ulotne i trwałe

The discreet charm of everyday life: Commercial labels of the food manufacturers in Toruń and the region from the interwar period (based on the collection of the University Library in Toruń)

  • Anna Klugowska
DOI
https://doi.org/10.19195/2083-5345.15.8
Submitted
15 April 2024
Published
17-04-2024

Abstract

This article presents everyday life in the pictorial and textual messages inscribed in commercial labels from the food industry. The basic research material consists of the collection of labels used by the food producers from Toruń and the region in the interwar period, collected in the Department of Social Life Documents of the University Library in Toruń. Labels of 12 producers from nine towns of the present Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship were subjected to a descriptive analysis. In the Second Polish Republic, this region included two voivodeships: the Pomeranian Voivodeship with its capital in Toruń (Bydgoszcz since 1938, Chełmno, Chojnice, Grudziądz, Sępólno Krajeńskie, Toruń, Wąbrzeźno) and the Poznań Voivodeship (Bydgoszcz until 1938, Inowrocław, Żnin). The labels tell a story about people from the interwar period. They constitute a rich iconographic material, which provides the attentive viewer with many possibilities of interpretation. In documentary research, label text information can be used as a complementary source for archival and press materials.