Insurance company advertising signs depict the logos and emblems of various insurance companies, and were distributed for display in branch and agent insurance offices. Many of the signs in this collection, dating from 1850-1940, are displayed at the Davis Library.
To view items from this collection, contact the Davis Library Insurance Archives.
Fire marks, invented in London in 1680, were used by fire insurance companies to distinguish the properties they insured from the properties insured by others. They were metal plates posted on the outside of buildings and were popular until the late 19th century when municipal fire departments replaced most private fire brigades. Today, fire marks are valuable collectors’ items with clubs such as the Fire Mark Circle (FMC) and the Fire Mark Circle of the Americas (FMCA) devoted to the hobby. This collection consists of fire mark specimens and related materials, such as books, pamphlets, and clippings on fire mark history and collecting, and materials from the FMC and FMCA.
Automatic Fire Sprinkler Heads were one of the most important inventions in the history of fire prevention and of great importance to the fire insurance industry. This collection of sprinkler heads includes examples dating back to the earliest models invented in the late 1800’s, to more recent models dating to the 1950’s.
The Davis Library’s collection of memorabilia and artifacts of the College of Insurance/School of Risk Management is now available to view on our digital collections site!
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Insurance Archives of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Library 