1888 Kuh, Nathan & Fischer (Men's Fashion Broadside)
DESCRIPTION
This is a large and rare chromolithograph trade broadside that advertises the Chicago clothiers Kuh, Nathan & Fischer for the Spring & Summer 1888 season. Printed by Shober & Carqueville Lith. Co., Chicago (credit lower right), it promotes the firm as both manufacturer and retailer, giving a proud view of its multi-story red-brick headquarters and the range of men’s fashions available at its Franklin Street address.
The design is arranged in three registers. At the top and bottom, well-dressed models present current styles; sacks, cutaways, frock coats, topcoats, evening dress, and stout sizes; each carefully labeled to guide the buyer. The dramatic centerpiece is a panoramic interior of the company’s workrooms: rows of cutters at large tables, teams of seamstresses at machines, foremen circulating, and modern overhead lighting suspended from the high trussed ceiling. Together the scenes make a visual argument for scale, efficiency, and up-to-date production.
Historically, the broadside captures a pivotal moment in American menswear when Chicago rose as a national hub for ready-made clothing. Standardized sizing, factory sewing, and aggressive advertising allowed firms like Kuh, Nathan & Fischer to compete with bespoke tailors while still operating a “custom department,” a dual model that reassured customers about fit and quality. The image of the factory floor also records period labor practices and the division of work between cutters and machine operators, offering a candid look at the garment industry only seventeen years after the Great Chicago Fire.
As advertising art, the sheet showcases the richness of late-19th-century chromolithography with subtle flesh tones, fabric textures, and architectural detail rendered in multiple stones. Surviving examples are highly uncommon, and this broadside serves fashion historians, Chicago collectors, and students of early American marketing as a vivid document of style, industry, and urban ambition in the Gilded Age.
CONDITION
1200 W. 35th Street #425 Chicago, IL 60609 | P: (312) 496 - 3622