Author: Benjamin L. Clark

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Meeting 2: We’re growing! We had 6 in attendance! For those who missed the last after-action report, that is double what we had last time. At this rate, every human in Oklahoma will belong in about a year and a half! That is certainly exciting. If dues were only $1, we’d have a budget of over $3M! Three million dollars would buy a lot of book fun. Well, not for 3 million people though.

As long as I’m dishing out some reality, I’m also not being wholly honest. The 6 attendees includes my wife who just got off work and needed a bite. But it’s not like she’s a book *hater*, so she counts too.

The original 3 were joined by two more members. M collects modern firsts. From our chat I would classify him as a late-stage protocollector. Our other new member, JB, is a life long collector who collects books related to his record collection and antique audio equipment. He is perhaps an early-stage protocollector.

One thing I have learned trying to start a collector’s society is that many people are reluctant to refer to themselves as collectors. Why is that? It seems some believe book collectors have to spend thousands of dollars on every leather-bound purchase. Some collectors do, but for most of us, that just isn’t the case. I’ve started referring to people who accumulate books along with a general idea or nucleus as protocollectors. Can you tell I once pursued archaeology as a career? Perhaps I need to work up a scale, or evolutionary chart of progression… hmmmm. Stay tuned.

The meeting was fun and even a little productive. We hashed out some ideas to promote BoOK and also set dates for future meetings. So, if you’d care to join us, check out the website for details. The next two meetings will be 4/24 and 5/22, 7-9 pm. Those times are -ish.

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Someone save me. I don’t need this, but it’s almost too cool to let pass. Paper dolls? Sheesh…

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This little number is getting a bit of traffic on my flickr posts. I found this little fly-away in a book from 1899 at an FOL sale recently. I think it had been tucked in the back since it was new. A friend of mine saw it and has decided to reproduce it for his wife who seems to get a kick out of that cracking sound…

If you’re experiencing some deja vu, don’t be frightened. Book Patrol also posted on this exact thing not a couple weeks ago. This little paper sure wants some publicity!

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First, thank you to everyone who sent well-wishes and positive vibes for the inaugural meeting of the Bibliophiles of Oklahoma. We had a wonderful first meeting. We could have used some better luck though. By Thursday morning, we had 7 or 8 coming “for sure” and 3 or 4 “I’ll try or maybe”. So, potentially up to 12. I expected six and thought that was realistic. We actually only had… three. Including me. At the end of last week, an official flu epidemic was in its last throes in Oklahoma. That knocked out 2. After that, our luck ran downhill.

If three of anything is a collection, then three bibliophiles can make a society. You, dear reader, know my interests. I won’t bore you with more on that. The two other first members of BoOK are fascinating gents. Dr. RB collects books on archaeology related to his specialty. A born collector and one of the good guys. Dr. KH insists he is not a collector (RB argued “If you have a room just for books in your house, you’re a collector”) but has written 22 books with the latest due soon from Oxford Univ. Press. It is a literary biography of Thomas Jefferson. I wonder if I can score a review copy (hint, hint)? He has also published bibliographies of the libraries of two major American figures. We passed a wonderful evening with loads of bookly talk. No, bookly is not a word, but I’m not too uppity to use it. At one point I relished hearing “Now, did the 1787 Paris edition have the map…?” Amongst us, we had the answer. Well, the bibliographer did. Beautiful. I supplied the evening’s show-and-tell, but I may hold it in reserve and re-run it when we have more people. It is an object that has stumped me and the rest of the Bibliophiles of Oklahoma. Both of them.

So, come see this thing, and meet some delightful people, and me. Our next meeting will be 7 pm, Thursday March 27th. I appreciate it if you let me know if you can come, so we can plan ahead (chairs, tables, etc.), but it’s OK to just show up!

Photo found on flickr: Uploaded on July 9, 2006 by zen.

There are many beautiful bookplates. Ive seen scores of eloquent ex libris. You can enjoy many such ownership labels over at the Bookplate Junkie blog every Sunday. This label isn’t much to look at, but I love it. I don’t know ER Wyatt, but I think we have some things in common. I found this label in an obscure railroad title at that FOL sale a couple weeks ago. It was taped to the bottom of the front flap of the dust jacket. I almost didn’t notice it. I grinned, tucked it under my elbow to prowl some more.

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From the blog Rye Centennial, Courtesy of Janel: One of the funniest things I’ve seen in a while. I wondered where Milton from Office Space did after the fire. I’m sure he converted to stainless staples in the red Swingline stapler…

toothpastefordinner.com

If that strike doesn’t work, there is always the efforts of patrons. We do what we can.

Someone at Welch & Harris Book Binding had a knack for writing ad copy. Mining old city directories for ads related to the book trades for the American Book Trade Index, I have gone cross-eyed. Twice. I’m currently chasing a Civil War bookseller/ blockade runner/ preacher. In that hunt, I’ve come across what is to date, my favorite ad copy. Totally unrelated to the other gents I’m tracking, but interesting.

“Authors and Publishers of the South and West, take notice, that we are ready, with our armour on, to battle, MANFULLY, for SOUTHERN RIGHTS, by Binding editions of Books, in muslin, Plain or Gilt, from 1,000 copies, upwards.”

By the mid-1850s, people were talking quite a bit of Southern Rights and using all caps when they spoke of it too, meaning, of course, that they want to keep exploiting enslaved people. It’s not genteel to phrase it that way, but that *is* what “Southern Rights” meant.  

Manfully bound or no, it seems the business grew. By the beginning of the Civil War, the enterprise became Welch, Harris & Co. According to this 1861 Census, Welch, Harris & Co. was in a wood building at 63 Broad St. in 1861. Too bad no square footages are used to tell us if 63 Broad St. is bigger than 59 Broad St. They are both wood structures. Broad St. is defined as “Runs West from Cooper River to Ashley River, through Wards Nos. 1 and 2.”

Tossing my penny searches into the Google wishing well, I found at ww.bartlebysbooks.com a few pages for sale, so apparently Welch and Harris did some printing as well:

[CONFEDERATE IMPRINT]. Piano Music……
Charleston, SC: Welch, Harris & Co., premium bookbinders, 1862. Title-page and index leaf only, printed to be used in binding a volume of sheet music. 4to. (4) pp. Title-page printed in brown, red, green, and blue, and with a wide triple ornamental border; index leaf printed in blue and black. Not in Parrish & Willingham (cf. P&W 6719 for an 1861 issue of the same title page). Disbound; index leaf with 26 manuscript titles, soiled, a little edgewear, but a good example. (Book ID 50500) $250.00

Also via Google books I found Charles Newcomb Baxter. Confederate Literature: A List of Books and Newspapers, Maps, Music. Boston Athenaeum, 1917. In this digital xerox we find an Almanac for 1864 which mentions another logical sideline for Welch & Harris: bookselling.

Miller’s Planters’ & Merchants’ State Rights Almanac for 1864 by AE Miller. Printed, Published and Sold Wholesale & Retail by A.E. Miller, No. 351 King Street. Also sold by Welch & Harris, same place and by Booksellers generally throughout the state.

About the Author: Benjamin L. Clark writes and works as a museum curator.

Thomas Rauschenberger & Co.
Stationery and Cylinder Book Cases

Not exactly book trade related, but I’d love to have one. I wonder what they look like? Does anyone out there have a Rauschenberger Cylinder bookcase?

My personal collection of book trade ephemera is *supposed* to focus on the book trades of the frontier. I have to remind myself of that every once in a while. Am I the only one who gets sucked down tangents? I doubt it.

Anyway, I’ve had a business card for a while for one FR Aldrich, an agent for Advance Steam Printing Co. in Norman, Oklahoma Territory. Now, Norman was founded and occupied the night of the initial land run into the Unassigned Lands April 22, 1889. Oklahoma became a state in November 1907. That date range was the closest I could get to FR Aldrich and his business. An 18-year gap is a little too big for me for someone really not all that long ago or far away.

I tried Googling the name F.R. Aldrich, thinking Aldrich would be an uncommon enough name to locate easily. I did find lots of Fr. Aldriches, as in Father Aldrich, and I did find a couple of FR Aldriches. One was a female college student in the 1940s on the east coast, others had too little info for a positive ID. But one suspect turned up in Kansas in 1913 and 1916 and was a school district superintendent. He (?) could be the same person. Not much difference in time and location, but a little bit of a career shift. Then again, we’ve already uncovered more than one barber bookseller. I could see how connections to publishing and printing could be useful as a school superintendent.

I turned my attention to identifying the font used for the main text. I had hoped the font would help me date the card. Printers like to use new hip typefaces in their advertisements, an opportunity to show off new faces and technical capabilities. If I can get the actual name of the face, maybe I can track down a date and get closer to figuring out FR Aldrich’s story. Today, thanks to the charter member from Michigan of the American Book Trade Index, I found another example of this cool, but odd font in a directory ad for a newspaper in Ann Arbor Michigan from 1892.

The 1892 date of the directory is spot on for the range I already had. I’ve run through the resources of the Oklahoma Historical Society for FR Aldrich and the Advance Steam Printing Co. without any luck. I ran the FR Aldrich card through What the Font , a website you can upload .jpg files, and the website searches out the closest match for your font. The first time I ran the card through none of the “matches” were even close. Admittedly, the image of the card isn’t very sharp, and there just aren’t that many letters to work with, especially letters that would be totally unique to this typeface. I ran the Ann Arbor Democrat ad through, and What The Font matched it very close to a face called Trapeze Normal. Very cool. Almost.

The problem is that there are other computer fonts called Trapeze, and I can’t seem to find the historic typeface’s name it is based on. It’s a lead and perhaps one more piece of the puzzle. Maybe just a piece of a piece.

But, Emma E. Bower caught my eye. Now, it really was not uncommon for women to be editor/ publishers of newspapers in the U.S. In fact, women had been in charge of presses from the very earliest presses in North America in 1639. However, in many cases, these women were widows taking full control over the family printing business. They would often operate under their husband’s name, or under initials.

Googling Ms. Bower reveals some tempting tangents. First of all, she is Dr. Emma E. Bower, M.D., of Port Huron, St. Clair County, Michigan. Not only a Democrat but a Delegate to Democratic National Convention from Michigan, in 1920. She served as Secretary of the Ladies of the Maccabees, an insurance/ fraternal organization for women only, from 1893 until at least 1919. The Knights of the Maccabees claim them as an auxiliary organization at least well into the 1920s. The Ladies of the Maccabees said they started out as such, but had become “wholly independent” after a couple of short years. Her name also appears with some mentions of the suffrage and temperance movements, but I couldn’t find any specifics or print sources I could access for more info. She certainly sounds interesting!

So, from the Land Run in Oklahoma to a suffragette in Michigan. Stupid tangents…

 

About the Author: Benjamin L. Clark writes and works as a museum curator.