Published monthly by The Ephemera Society of America, Inc. JUNE 2013 - June 1, Pleasanton CA: Past Tyme Pleasures Absentee Antique Advertising Auction, www.pasttyme1.com. - June 1, Denver PA: Morphy Auctions Advertising & Coin-Op Auction, www.morphyauctions.com. - June 1 & 2, Thomaston Place Auction of Ephemera. Catalog and absentee bids karen@kajev.com. - June 4, Fort Lee NJ: Archives International Auction of Security Printing Ephemera and other material. info@archivesinternational.com. - June 6, Lynbrook NY: Philip Weiss Auctions, Nautical, Rock n Roll, Hollywood, etc. Auction, www. weissauctions.com. - June 8, Dallas TX: Civil War & Militaria (including ephemera) www.ha.com. - June 8-16, London England: London Book Fair Week, 7 fairs in 9 days! (Ephemera, too, of course.) Rachel@rachelaked.co.uk. - June 11, Greenwich England: Ephemera Society visit to the National Maritime Museum d.sutherland@vam.ac.uk. - June 13-15, London England: in conjunction with the Book Fair at Olympia, an exhibit Books Not Books. www.olympiabookfair.com. - June 14& 15, Wichita KS: Kansas Historical Society (open to all) tour of historic buildings & Kansas aviation industry, membership@kshs.org. - June 15 & 16, Reno NV: Holabird s Western Americana live auction. andy@fhwac.com. - June 20, Portsmouth NH: opening talk on exhibit Ephemera: the Art of Everyday Printed Matter by Tom Mickey www.portsmouthathenaeum.org. Exhibit open June 14 to September 15. - June 21, Cincinnati OH: Cowan s American History Auction www.cowans.com.
- June 21, Philadelphia PA: seminar at The Library Company, African American Women in the Era of Emancipantion. To register: librarycompany.org/events. - June 22, Dallas TX: Heritage Americana & Poitical Auction, www.ha.com. - July 5-13, Brimfield MA: Post Card & Ephemera Center at Brimfield Acres North, cartophilians@sbcglobal.net. - July 11, Portsmouth NH: talk by Lorna Conden of Historic New England, www.portsmouthathenaeum. org. - July 7-12, Worcester MA: CHAViC Summer Seminar Domestic Impressions: The Visual & Material Culture of the American Family Home, 1750-1890. Nan Wolverton, Director of CHAViC nwolverton@mwa.org. - July 27, 28, Albany NY: 2 nd Northeast Postal History and Ephemera Show. www.nphes.com. - August 2,3, Denver CO: 29 th Annual Rocky Mountain Book and Paper Fair, bookfair2013@maba.org. - August 22-25, Baltimore MD: The Antiquarian Book Fair at the Baltimore Summer Antiques Show, with a strong ephemera component. www.baltimoresummerantiques.com. - August 23-25, Nassau NY: An Historical Workshop at Eastfield Village, Textile History To have or not: How available were interior furnishing fabrics in post-revolutionary rural America, 1790-1825? with sources from bills of lading, account books, fair premiums and other ephemera. rabbitgoodythw@gmail.com. - August 24-25, Hartford CT: Papermania Plus Antique Paper Show plus Advertising & Photography, www.papermaniaplus.com. - August 30-September 7, Brimfield MA: Post Card & Ephemera Center at Brimfield Acres North cartophilians@sbcglobal.net. - September 19 & 20, Philadelphia: Ephemera Society Tours (info@ephemerasociety.org), followed by Conference Unmediated History: The Scholarly Study of 19 th -Century Ephemera co-sponsored by the Library Company s Visual Culture Program and The Ephemera Society of America. Conference rates available at the downtown Holiday Inn Express: Library Company of Philadelphia. SCROLL to the END of this ENEWS for COMPLETE SCHEDULE. A CHALLENGE: The Ephemera Society must raise funds outside of its operating budget to sponsor an opening reception at this joint conference. Maurice Rickards Medalist William H. Helfand has offered $200 to be matched by at least ten other members. Eight have already responded. Please send your donation to the Society at PO Box 95, Cazenovia NY 13035. - September 28, Boxborough MA: Boxborough Paper Town. www.flamingoeventz.com. - October 13, Northampton MA: The Pioneer Valley Book & Ephemera Fair. www.flamingoeventz.com. - October 19-20, Wilmington MA: Book & Paper Row at the Boston Antiques and Design Show and Sale. mgetman@bostonbookshows.com.
- February 1 & 2, 2014, San Francisco CA: Antiquarian Book Print & Paper Fair, at Fort Mason Center. info@nancyjohnsonevents.com. - Feburary 7, 8, 9, 2014, Pasadena CA: 47th California International Antiquarian Book Fair. - March 14, 15, 16, 2014, Old Greenwich CT: Ephemera 34 Conference and Fair. CALL for PAPERS The theme for the conference is Field to Table: The Ephemera of Food and Drink. Our essential connection to what the earth produces, and how these sustain us is at the core of our lives. Each step of the process from the field to the table represents a different aspect of our society and its values. The ephemera of food and drink illustrates the different points of view of that story, reflecting how our society has evolved. This narrative includes survival, culinary achievement, hard work, the aesthetics of food and table presentation, balance, culture, health, satisfaction and commerce. What drives us? Our needs and initiatives, the creativity of our inventions and discoveries, our passions and resources are all involved in getting things from the field to the table. Ephemera helps us follow and understand the evolution of these comestibles and potables. We invite you to submit ideas for presentations. Each presentation will last 30 minutes, followed by a brief Q&A. Please send presentation titles and abstracts, including the types of ephemera you propose to use to illustrate your topic, a one-paragraph bio including any affiliation, and your mailing address, phone number and e-mail address. Proposals should not exceed 250 words, and should be submitted by August 1, 2013 to Barbara Loe, Ephemera 34 Conference Chair by e-mail at bjloe@earthlink.net or by post to Barbara Loe, Ephemera Society of America, Inc., P.O. Box 95, Cazenovia, NY 13035-0095. Decisions and notification about proposals will be made by October. Funding is not available from ESA to support travel or presentation costs. Presentations must be in Microsoft Office Power Point or Apple Keynote, and final drafts of presentations must be submitted to the Conference Chair by February 15th, 2014.
Board of Directors). - RR Auction of Amherst NH on April 26 sold Truman Capote s 1958 typed manuscript of Breakfast at Tiffany s with manuscript edits for about $306,000 to Russian billionaire Igor Sosin. The significant handwritten change was in the heroine s name: Connie Gustafson to Holly Golightly. - Kestenbaum & Co. May 2 auction of Fine Judaica was very strong in rare books, including one with ephemera appeal: a hand-lettered Psalms of King David by the American Morris Weinberg, with a 1912 photograph of him holding the volume, that sold for $70,000. www. kestenbaum.net. - Burgersdijk & Niermans May 7 & 8 auction of prints and drawings included some ephemera. Item 1037 was a ca1822 French comic panorama toy published by Theophile Etienne Gide that sold for 1300 euros. auctions@b-n.nl. - Wm Morford s May 10 absentee auction of Antique Advertising, very strong in signs and packaging, included a fine stand-up display sign for Big Chief Cigars, that sold for $9,600. A print catalog is available, morf2bid@aol.com.
- Leslie Hindman s May 12 auction of artist Grant Wood s sketchbook (that included sketches for the Veterans Memorial stained glass window in Cedar Rapids Iowa) was postponed as the Figge Art Museum in Davenport IA claims ownership of the item. - May 13, Swann Auction Galleries Modernist Poster auction realized almost a half million dollars, with 65% sold. Top images were the 1925 Turmac, La Cigarette Turque by A.M. Cassandre at $66,000 and the 1965 Tadanori Yokoo image we ran in last month s enews, Having Reached a Climax at the Age of 29, I was dead at $52,800. Catalog: www.swanngalleries.com. - Amongst the many items of Breweriana sold on May 14 by Paige Auction of Portland OR (and most were modestly priced) was a trade card for a brewer operating from 1892 until 1916 at $100 one of the higher realizations. www.paigeauction.com. - Swann s Autograph Auction of May 23 included an Andy Warhol 60th birthday card for David Mahoney on his studio letterhead which sold for $6,500, over twice the high estimate, and an Emily Dickinson letter for $24,000, two and a half times the high estimate. - Profiles in History May 30 auction The Property of a Distinguished American Private Collector included a 1786 George Washington letter, a 1787 John Adams, an 1822 Thomas Jefferson and a 1881 sheet of drawings by Edison of his incandescent lamp. - Holabird-Kagin Americana is accepting consignments for their next auction scheduled for August 23 and 24, deadline June 25. admin@holabirdamericana.com. Ephemera Obituary - Dale Roylance, from 1979 to 1995 curator of graphic arts at the Princeton University Library, died May 19, aged 89. In 1992, Dale curated a major exhibition at Princeton, Graphic Americana, the art and technique of printed ephemera from abecedaires to zoetropes with a fine illustrated catalog and poster produced with The Ephemera Society of America and designed by Greg Smart, Jack Golden and Allen Scheuch.
Ephemera Award for National History Day: - As part of CT State National History Day, Colm Doherty won our Outstanding Entry That Best Incorporates Ephemera as a Primary Source for his Junior Individual Website Jacjie Robinson: The Black Man Who Believed. Check it out at http://66573872.nhd.weebly.com/slideshow.html Ephemera Request: - David Hochfelder, a Professor of History at SUNY Albany, together with his wife Anne Pfau, is searching for letters, or other ephemera, about American shortwave radio listeners during WWII who were hoping for news of POWs. He has located some radio logs about listening activities in private hands. dhochfelder@albany.edu. - How does the definition of ephemera change when talking about electronic files. What types of digital stuff should be considered ephemera? Michelle R. Combs is interested in your thoughts. mrrothen@syr.edu. - Paul Emberton, a member in the UK, wishes to duscover information about the printers and illustrators of bridge or whist score pads and tallies. paulembleton@btconnect.com. Ephemera in Institutions: - At The Library Company of Philadelphia, Remnants of Everyday Life: Historical Ephemera in the Workplace, Street, and Home opened on May 21. This major exhibition, highlight of our joint conference in September 2013, shows how the stylistic evolution of ephemera, intrinsically tied to changes in mass production technologies, corresponded with shifts in cultural values and priorities. The exhibition examines the history of graphic design, the changing nature of 19th-century leisure activities, and the impact of popular print media and fads on Victorian-era consumerism. Displayed items include one of the few known silhouettes of an African American, the manumitted slave and profile cutter Moses Williams; the ground-breaking 1870 commercial graphic design manual Typographia; and one of the first illustrated circus posters, issued in 1828 as well as a range of posters and broadsides, business forms and stationery, novelty postcards, parlor games, and pop-up trade cards.
- The National Museum of American Illustration, Newport RI, debuted on May 24 a new exhibition, The American Muse with images of women by illustrators Harrison Fisher, Charles Dana Gibson, McClelland Barclay, Philip Boileau, etc. www. americanillustration.org. - An interesting article on the new breed of institutional archivists, 500 strong, who make up the Archivists Round Table of New York appeared recently: http://nyti.ms/11vplae - The Portsmouth Athenaeum in New Hampshire has a collection of over 2000 ephemeral items and mounts an exhibit, Ephemera: The Art of Everyday Printed Matter, June 14 to September 15. (For example: Reminiscent of a time when everyone owned a Schaeffer s fountain pen, blotters were popular handouts, as we see here in one advertising both the product, Carter s ink, and the local store where it could be found, Chauncey B. Hoyt s on Market Street. Hoyt s is one of the few businesses which has survived to modern times under the same family name. ) The opening lecture is by Tom Mickey, June 20 at 7 pm, whose book American s Romance with the English Garden emphasizes the effect of chromolithographed seed catalogs and packets upon American gardening. Lorna Conden, Senior Curator of Library and Archives at Historic New England will speak on July 11. www.portsmouthatheneum.org. Ephemera in Print: - Patrick dewitt s 2011 novel, The Sisters Brothers, was published with a cover illustration of a 1/6 plate Daguerreotype from Society member Matthew R. Isenburg s collection, Portrait of two young men, ca1852. This is a great example of ephemera being the perfect marker for a time, a place, and even, in this case, a psychology (these teenagers in their brand new finery with their swaggering props of pistol, knife and whiskey). - Bradford Smith, a collector in Schenectady self-published a delightful little picture book that reproduces photographs of his family s 1922 automobile trip (in a 1920 Willys-Knight) from a dairy farm in Galway NY to Florida, with images of his mother s diary entries, and commentary by Ellen Kostroff. $20, PO Box 222, Schenectady NY 12308. - Nicholson Baker s 1988 novel The Mezzanine (that dissects each moment, with all its associations, of a bureaucrat s ascent on his office escalator) is referenced by Jason Pontin in an article How Authors Write in MIT Techology Review Vol. 116 No. 6. His point is that new technological media has not created new literary forms but rather technologies of composition like Baker s delight in inserting footnotes thanks to early software, or Jack Kerouac s ability to continuously type his manuscript of On the Road on a taped together roll of tracing paper. W.B. Sebald s predilection for inserting photographs, newspaper clippings and other ephemera into his text was enhanced by adjusting size and contrast via photocopying.
- Great Stuff an article by Mike Antonucci in Stanford May/June, quotes Michael Shanks, a professor of classical archaeology on the idea of collecting. If we think of collecting as a way of making sense of things of handling the mess of the world then a collector is the core of who you are. Since the 1970s, Shanks says, there has been a marked upswing in people who call themselves collectors. To drill down and know something intimately is a very contemporary aspiration. Among the collectors showcased was a hand surgeon who collects anything that depicts hands, a retired high school baseball coach who collects baseball cards, and a retired orthodontist who has devoted a whole room to Wizard of Oz books, objects and ephemera. Ephemera on Line, and on Video: - Canada is the only country in the world to officially celebrate the May 24, 1819 birthday of Queen Victoria, who was known to the world s first and foremost nineteenth-century consulting detective, Sherlock Holmes, as a certain gracious lady. The federal public holiday in her name takes place each year on the last Monday before May 25th. Observed since 1845, twentytwo years before Canadian Confederation, the holiday (known as Fête de la Reine, in the French-speaking province of Quebec) has always enjoyed a distinctly Canadian observance, including midnight gun salutes, pre-dawn serenades, day-long festivals, picnics, athletic competitions, torch-light processions and illumination displays. On Victoria Day, May 20th, ESA member and a certain twenty-first century gracious lady, Barbara Rusch, whose ephemera collection includes both Victoriana and Sherlockiana, was interviewed on Canadian Broadcast Corporation (CBC) Radio [similar to NPR in the U.S.] on its Metro (Toronto) Morning show by guest host Jane Hawtin, about her passion for Britain s longest-reigning monarch. Barbara talked about her collection of Victorian ephemera and commemoratives, including Her Majesty s chemise and knickers, which are dated and embroidered with her royal cypher. Asked about her fascination with the Queen, Barbara responded: Queen Victoria was the centrepiece of a changing age when technology and science and the arts were changing so rapidly... She is such a fascinating woman and in a way was the linchpin and symbol of the nineteenth century...sherlock Holmes once called Dr. Watson the one fixed point in a changing age and I think that that description applies equally to Queen Victoria..., [who] oversaw all of the technological changes and scientific advances [of her time]. For anyone interested in the full seven minute interview, the radio podcast is online at http://www.cbc. ca/metromorning/episodes/2013/05/20/queen-victorias-knickers/#. To start, simply click on Listen. - www.theruckerarchive.com announces among their new arrivals, a series of abolitionist trade cards, registered in Pennsylvania in the early 1860s, but recently purchased out of New Zealand. - The Hillwood Museum of Washington DC presently is exhibiting a lavish Pageant of the Tsars, The Romanov Coronation Albums and has arranged with the New York Public Library to have these extraordinary commemorative albums (with reproductions of coronation menus, etc.) digitized and available for free at the Apple ibook store.
- Maine s Memory Network celebrated the high school prom season with an exhibit of ephemera from the John Bapst school, including a 1953 dance card designed for the wrist (remember those wrist corsages? Things could get crowded.) www.mainememorynet.org. - The Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West presents an innovative web-based digital exhibition with more than a dozen authors, critics, and scholars curating photographs from the 70,000 strong Southern California Edison archive at The Huntington. Form and Landscape: Southern California Edison and the Los Angeles Basin, 1940-1990 link at www. huntington.org. - High School history taught from original sources is promoted with an online tool called Reading Like an Historian, designed by the Stanford History Education Group under Professor Sam Wineburg, offering 87 flexible lesson plans featuring documents from the Library of Congress. sheg.standford.edu/rlh. Ephemera Dealers: - Dan Wyman announces a new catalog 167: Large Jewish and Israeli Posters. www.danwymanbooks. com. Ephemera Everywhere: Professor of Art, and sculptor, Abe Ferraro of Albany NY recently displayed his 40-piece installation, each piece having been sent to the Troy NY gallery through the mail and then assembled. The pieces are restricted by the USPS dimension rule, but are otherwise not protected. Made of recycled cardboard and completely covered in different stickers (many with the admonition to handle with care) the pieces have survived many mailings unscathed. Send the editor an image of your discovery of ephemera in unusual places. diane@ephemerasociety.org
TRADING POST This service is available to members of The Ephemera Society only. Short descriptions of a single item (or collection) with an email as contact, will be accepted (diane@ephemerasociety.org) up to the 25 th of the month. The Ephemera Society of America, Inc. is not responsible for the accuracy of a description, nor for any aspect of a subsequent transaction. (1) One of our members living in the UK has a box of Coca Cola memorabilia who wishes to pass it on to asomeone who could appreciate it. Peter Charlton peter.charlton@zen.co.uk. SCHEDULE for PHILADELPHIA AREA TOURS & CONFERENCE, SEPTEMBER 18 & 19 Hotel: Holiday Inn Express Philadelphia-Midtown, 1305-11 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA 19107 1-215-7359, Library Company of Philadelphia rate of $129. Thursday 10:00am Rosenbach Museum and Library- private tour 2008 Delancey Pl., Philadelphia; limit of 35 visitors, registration required info@ephemerasociety.org. 12:00am depart for lunch, location to be determined 2:00pm Conservation Center for Art & Historic Artifacts, Ingrid Bogel viewing some of the current preservation work with a focus on ephemera - 264 South 23rd Street, Philadelphia, PA 4:00pm 5:30pm End of public day Opening Reception for conference registrants sponsored by the Library Company s Visual Culture Program and The Ephemera Society of America; exhibition tour by curators Rachel D Agostino and Erika Piola, Friday 10:00 Registration for Unmediated History: The Scholarly Study of 19th-Century Ephemera 10:30-11:00 Opening Remarks: John C. Van Horne, Director, Library Company of Philadelphia; Rachel D Agostino, Co-director, VCP at LCP, Library Company of Philadelphia; Nancy Rosin, President, The Ephemera Society of America 11:00-12:30 Session 1: Building and Promoting Institutional Collections of Ephemera: Patent Medicine at UCLA & World s Fairs at Hagley Museum and Library Chair: Rachel D Agostino Russell Johnson, University of California - Los Angeles Terry Snyder, Haverford College 12:30-2:00 Lunch (On your Own) 2:00-3:30 Session 2: The Impact of Photography on the 19th-Century Viewscape: Stereographs & Postcards Chair: Diane DeBlois Jeremy Rowe, Arizona State University Chris Pyle, Curt Teich Postcard Archives, Lake County Discovery Museum, Wauconda, Illinois 3:30-4:00 Break 4:00-5:30 Session 3: Artistry in 19th-Century Ephemera Production and Collection: Trade Cards & Scrapbooks Chair: Erika Piola Richard Sheaff, R. Dana Sheaff & Company Ellen Gruber Garvey, New Jersey City University 6:00-8:00 Reception The Print Center, 1614 Latimer Street