Attenzione! Si avvicinano i “liberatori” anglo-assassini…

(Propaganda - Fascist) Attenzione! Si avvicinano i “liberatori” anglo-assassini… [Milan?], nd., ca. 1943. Poster printed in black and red, approx. 22-¾ x 19-¼ in.; toned, creases from vertical and horizontal folds, splitting at center; edges a bit worn, some foxing verso.

Poster warning inhabitants in German-controlled northern Italy of the dangers of the advancing Allied forces. “Reds,” “Jews,” and “hyenas of the air,” are coming for Italian women and children, converting them to their side with sweets and cigarettes.

OCLC locates one holding, at the Hoover.

$225

Elezioni Politiche 1913. Noi Anarchici.

(Anarchism) Elezioni Politiche 1913. Noi Anarchici … Broadside, 13 x 18-½ in.; creased, bottom edge roughly trimmed, typographic irregularities. Np, nd [1912-1913].

Anarchist broadside protesting the quasi-universal male suffrage granted to Italian men over 30 by the “moderately progressive” government of Giovanni Giolitti in 1912. The enfranchisement extended the vote to the very poor and illiterate, with the dramatic impact of trebling the electorate (from 3 to almost 9 million voters) in advance of the 1913 elections. The far left parties (Estrema) did not support the franchise; here anarchists protest it as a bourgeois “swindle,” keeping intact economic tyranny and solidifying the power of the political elite.

Italian anarchists were influenced by Mikhail Bakunin, who wrote “the whole system of representative government is an immense fraud resting on this fiction [of political liberty in the popular vote] ... Political power means domination.” (In fact, the “democratized” 1913 elections resulted in no representative gains by the revolutionary or working class parties of Estrema.)

$175

Collection of Documents Regarding Post-Liberation Italian Governance and Elections

[Partito Liberale Italiano; Democrazia Cristiana; et al.]. Collection of Italian Political Pamphlets, Leaflets, and Documents Regarding Post-Liberation Governance, Elections, and the First Italian Republic, ca. 1945-1946.

Comprised of: three mimeographed documents issued in December 1945 in reference to a proclamation by Prime Minister Alcide de Gasperi shortly after his election, one the proclamation, and two from members of the Allied Commission; three Democrazia Cristiana leaflets, ca. 1945, one printed the day of Mussolini’s death; eight issues (with five duplicates) of the Quadrini del Partito Liberale, by Luigi Einaudi, Paolo Serini, Benedetto Croce, and Marcello Soleri, and others, some reissued by the PLI Sezione Piemontese, with two PLI leaflets, one printing the lyrics to the patriotic anthem “Arise Piedmonte.” Turin. Most 1945, a few 1943-1948.

Quadrini del Partito Liberale not found in OCLC.

$350

Group of Italian Resistance Bulletins and Handbills

(Clandestine Press) (Brigate Garibaldi) Group of Italian Resistance Bulletins and Handbills, and a Photograph, ca. 1943-45. [Rome, Turin, et al.]. Totaling thirteen items: two small handbills, printed recto and verso, the first “Ordine del Giorno N. 8 del Comando del distaccamenti e delle Brigate d’Assalto Garibaldi,” and the second, “Bollettino No. 12 Guerra Partigiana,” attributed to Il Comando delle Brigate d’Assalto Garibaldi del Piemonte, both ca. 1944, and a press? photograph of a fascist torture cell. Handbills lightly worn, good; photo center-creased and faded, with typed caption pasted recto, manuscript caption verso, fair. Together with ten mimeographed bulletins from wartime clandestine presses, most single sheet printed recto only, one example [4] pp., another [2] pp., stapled, all toned and fragile, most with creases from prior folds and edge wear, a few with small closed tears and chipping, two with manuscript annotations.

Texts discuss resistance operations in Turin and Northern Italy, the Brigate Garibaldi, partisan and labor actions, the activities of the Corpo volontari della libertà, the French resistance, and the Soviet Union/Eastern front. Some bulletins dated and attributed, including “Il Grido di Spartaco,” a clandestine Communist newspaper; “La Federazione Comunista Torinese”; “Il Costituendo Partito P.R.I.”; and “Il Comitato di Agitazione del Piemonte.”

OCLC locates no specific holdings of any of these items, though relevant archives exist at the Hoover and Library of Congress.

SOLD

(Clandestine Press) (Women) Italian Women’s Resistance Leaflets and Serials

(Clandestine Press) (Women) Gruppi di difesa della donna e per l’assistenza ai combattenti della libertà. Three handbills and a clandestine issue of Noi Donne. [Turin?]: n.d., ca. 1944-45. Sizes vary, from 8-¾ x 6-½ in. to 4 x 9-⅛ in.; all sl. toned, one with chipped edges. Together with Le Donne e la resistenza: Un documentario Noi Donne da conservare, per non dimenticare. Rome: Noi Donne, n.d. [ca. 1946]. Large 4to, [48] pp.; profuse b/w illus. from photographs, newsprint toned with small dampstain affecting most pages, pages numbered 16-61; stapled illus. color wrapper with red star pasted to front cover, worn at corners and spine.

Rare examples from the clandestine Piedmont presses of the Italian women’s resistance movement, Gruppi di defesa della Donna (Gddd). Led in Turin by Ada Gobetti, Gddd’s partisans risked their lives to produce antifascist and feminist literature in the German-occupied Italian Social Republic. They collaborated with and supported the Corpo volontari della libertà (CVL) through mutual aid activities including propaganda, industrial sabotage, and first aid. Some joined the CVL’s armed resistance, in the Brigate Garibaldi.

The present group includes calls to action against “nazi-fascisti” and a previously unidentified? example of the women’s movement serial, Noi Donne, which originated in Paris in 1937 in the antifascist exile community, and was reborn during the Italian resistance as a clandestine paper allied with the Gddd. Regional editions varied widely; most groups did not have access to presses so they brought mimeograph machines to kitchens and women’s shops, and printed during the night; this example probably issued by the Turin section, edited by Dina Ermini

After liberation, the Noi Donne editorial office was located in Rome under the auspices of the feminist organization Unione Donne Italiane. In the present group is the large format Noi Donne supplement Le Donne e la resistenza. The special edition tells the story of Italian women’s participation in the resistance through texts and photographs solicited by the editors from the partigiane themselves.

Gddd documents and early issues of Noi Donne are virtually unknown outside of Italian archives. Scholars have noted that individual print runs might range from 500 to 10,000 copies, and that possession of an issue (let alone the dangers of printing) could lead to deportation, torture, or death.

Three Gddd flyers are included in the Library of Congress archive of wartime European underground publications. We are unable to confirm any physical copies of Noi Donne from the 1940s in North American institutional collections.

See Marisa Rodano. “Introduction.” Noi Donne, 1944-1945: Ristampa. Rome: Editrice Cooperative Libera Stamp, 1978.

SOLD

Conseils et soins à donner à la chevelure. Traité théorique et pratique

(Cosmetics) (Quackery) Sœur Haydée. Conseils et soins à donner à la chevelure. Traité théorique et pratique [title from front wrap]. [Toulouse]: [Impr. de Berthoumieu], n.d. [1930s]. 10 4-⅜ in x 2-½ in., 64 pp.; some pen annotations, illus. stapled wraps a bit worn.

Lengthy promotional treatise concerning a baldness cure developed by “Sister Haydée” and her ersatz convent.

$45

Grand Torneo Internazionale di Lotte Feminili al Salone Margherita

(Women) (Sport) Grand Torneo Internazionale di Lotte Feminili al Salone Margherita. Rome, 1912. Concertina booklet, closed: 5-½ x 3-⅜ in., illus. with ten portraits of the fighters, from England, Europe, Russia, and the US; some usual wear, esp. at folds.

Promotional booklet for a women’s wrestling tournament held an evening variety show at a well-known Roman theater. Photographs of each contestant are reproduced with captions identifying their last name, nationality, and weight. The earnest, athletic presentation of the “national champions” in this booklet was unusual for a sport regarded largely as entertainment. This style of presentation may have been related to contemporary interest in the international competition of the V Summer Olympiad, which opened the same month

We could not locate any other record of the tournament or the participants. Women’s wrestling was not included as an Olympic sport until 2004.

$900

Eight Jail and Prison Equipment Catalogues

(Trade Catalogues) (Prisons) Decatur Iron and Steel Co., Roanoke Iron and Bridge Works, Southern Steel Co., Van Dorn, and VANCO. Eight Jail and Prison Equipment Catalogues, ca. 1965-1975. All approx. 8-½ x 11 in., ranging from [4] to [12] pp.; profusely illus., each in orig. color wrappers with stab holes from earlier binding, rubbed at spine.

Modern marketing for prison cells and equipment depict the fantastical empty spaces of the architecture of control. Together the catalogues demonstrate the growing sophistication of marketing and design in the emergent prison-industrial complex.

Scarce. Some unrecorded in OCLC or held in fewer than 3 institutions.

$250

Dealers in Patent Rights, Look To Your Interests!

(Broadside) Dealers in Patent Rights, Look To Your Interests! Buy Lechner & Stump’s Celebrated Combination Patent Pie Rimmer, Crimper and Pastry Cutter, an article of absolute utility in every household. Patented Sept. 11, 1866. Sheridan, PA: Lechner & Stump, [1866?]. Single sheet, 13-⅞ x 7 in.; engraved illus. by “Crossoup-Phila.”

Rare post-Civil War broadside with striking illustration of women and children in the kitchen. Crimper manufactured by Lechner & Stump. Four institutional holdings identified: Emory, Harvard, Library Company Phila., and Winterthur.

$250

The Soldier Takes a Wife

(Family Planning) Planned Parenthood Federation of America. The Soldier Takes a Wife. New York, NY: Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Inc., [1946?]. 5-⅝ x 4-¾ in., [21] pp.; color illus.; stapled color illus. wrapper, very good.

Upbeat family planning for servicemen returning from the war. Encourages good soldiers and sailors to give up pin-ups and get married; offers advice for love and sex after marriage and family planning. Many aphoristic statements, sensitive for the modern man and appealing to the soldier. “Lovemaking among civilized peoples is a delicate art which can be attained only when the physical and emotional desires of both mates are realized.” “Getting married and having a family is like a military campaign. It takes forethought, preparation and [...] strategy.”

Published soon after Planned Parenthood was renamed.

$25

[O]n the illegality and inexpediency of segregating commercialized vice in St. Louis

(Antiprostitution) Committee of One-hundred for the Suppression of Commercialized Vice in St. Louis. Brief in support of citizens’ memorial to the Board of police commissioners of St. Louis, Missouri, on the illegality and inexpediency of segregating commercialized vice in St. Louis. St. Louis: n.p., 1914. 8vo, 32 pp.; stapled self-wrapper, sl. toned at edges, one small closed tear to front wrap, ex-library stamp and penciled shelf label, very good.

Report on the “fallacy of segregation” and in support of the red light abatement efforts of the St. Louis Police. With many reports from other cities nationwide.

$60

Report of the Commission for the Investigation of the White Slave Traffic, So Called

(White Slave Traffic) Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Commission for Investigation of White Slave Traffic. House - No. 2281: Report of the Commission for the Investigation of the White Slave Traffic, So Called. Boston: Wright & Potter, 1914. 8vo, 86 pp.; numerous charts and tables; stapled wrapper with ex-library stamp and penciled shelf label, otherwise very good.

Report on extensive investigation “to determine, so far as is possible, by what means and to what extent women and girls are induced or compelled by others to lead an immoral life …” “to endeavor to devise plans for preventing the evils it finds …” and a draft of bills “as may be necessary to carry its recommendations into effects.”

At the center of the report is a significant amount of sociological research conducted by the commission during interviews with known prostitutes and johns. While refuting entirely the “vague rumors” and myths of “white slavery,” fascinating details emerge about the early life of prostitutes in Massachusetts, and the commercial and penal systems they entered when they began their “immoral life.” With proposals for laws to address the “social evils” of dance halls, street solicitation, hotels, “call houses,” sexually transmitted disease, etc.

Rare in physical format.

$125

Dr. McIntosh’s Natural Uterine Supporter

Dr. McIntosh’s Natural Uterine Supporter Company. Dr. McIntosh’s Natural Uterine Supporter [title from front wrapper]. [Chicago]: Dr. McIntosh’s Natural Uterine Supporter Company, n.d., ca. 1876-1882. 8vo, [4] pp.; illus., edges soiled with chips and small closed tears, vertical and lateral creases where formerly folded, fair to good.

Promotional leaflet for a vaginal pessary designed to relieve uterine prolapse. Despite the seeming patent medicine hyperbole, the device is quite similar to modern pessaries.

OCLC finds one example? possibly located at Univ. of Rochester.

$90

Presenting tonight the Queen of Pantomime and Statuesque Grace and Beauty, Miss Cora Neilson [...]

(Theater - Travesty). Broadside advertisement for Sunday afternoon and evening performances at Opera House in Amsterdam, NY, “Presenting tonight the Queen of Pantomime and Statuesque Grace and Beauty, Miss Cora Neilson, in her masterly Impersonation, in the Grand Spectacular Military Drama, French Spy, Or, The Siege of Constantini [...].” Amsterdam, NY: n.d. [1888]. Broadside, approx. 18-½ x 5-½ in.; a few small pinholes and central lateral crease from early fold, very good.

Featuring Cora Neilson in the cross-dressing, cross-ethnic, lead role of the colonial fantasy French Spy, by John Thomas Haines. Originated in London in 1831 by the famed French actress Madame Céleste, it was later popularized by Adah Isaacs Menken. The play follows the heroine Mathilde, disguised as both the mute French colonial soldier Henri and the “Arab boy” Hamet, as she attempts to rescue her father and the French army during the siege of “Constantini.” As Henri, Mathilde kisses a woman, has a “terrific broad-sword” fight with Mohammed, and outwits the Bey of Algiers to deliver the city to the French. The broadside illustrates the moment of combat between Mathilde/Henri and Mohammed, and highlights her gender reveal: “It is a woman.”

Related ads and reviews for the same tour in Arkansas, Ohio, and New Jersey allow us to offer a likely date of 1888.

No copies in WorldCat or the trade as of August 2019.

$275

Twelve Pamphlets, Offprints, and Reprints from the American Social Hygiene Association

(Antiprostitution) Twelve Pamphlets, Offprints, and Reprints from the American Social Hygiene Association and the Journal of Social Hygiene, 1917-1942. New York, NY: American Social Hygiene Association, 1917-1942. Various sizes, most octavo, 2-40 pp. each, most 8-10 pp.; condition varies, good to near fine, some illus. wrappers, some with ex-library stamps from the Jewish Welfare Board, Gainesville, TX, a few penciled shelf labels.

In 1913 several national antiprostitution and public health organizations united to form the American Social Hygiene Association (ASHA). Based in New York, their founders included reformers and philanthropists such as Jane Addams and John D. Rockefeller, Jr. The ASHA supported campaigns to end prostitution and redlight districts (and their attendant venereal diseases) through scientific inquiry, social reform, and community action. They cooperated with medical organizations, law enforcement, and social welfare groups to develop public information campaigns. The documents in the present collection represent the wide range of ASHA’s activities, with a particular focus on WWI and WWII when the health of enlisted men was used as political leverage against commercialized vice. Includes a pamphlet reprinting a speech by Fiorello LaGuardia that captures the somewhat comedic ambivalence of many politicians to “clean communities.”

$375

Includes:

American Social Hygiene Association. Why Let it Burn? [title from cover]. New York, NY: American Social Hygiene Association, 1941. Stapled leaflet, 15 pp.; in illus. color self-wrapper, very good.

“Prostitution must be recognized as a Fifth Columnist in our midst.” Although another pamphlet was issued by the ASHA under the same title in 1919, this edition appears updated with new research and arguments relating to America’s wartime concerns.

Six Offprints and Reprints from the Journal of Social Hygiene, 1918-1941. New York: The American Social Hygiene Association, 1918-1941. All octavo, 2-40 pp. each, most 8-10 pp.; some edgewear with small closed tears, ex-libris stamps, most from the Jewish Welfare board, Gainesville Texas, one with penciled shelf label.

The longest articles, from 1919 and 1920, offer a history of the antiprostitution movements in New York City (the “Committee of Fourteen”) and California (Redlight Abatement Act). Another article, 1936, addresses the issue of legalized prostitution

American Social Hygiene Association. The Case Against Prostitution. New York, NY: American Social Hygiene Association, 1940. Pamphlet, unfolded approx. 16-½ x 10-¾ in., [12] panels, recto an informational broadside suitable for posting; sl. toned at edges, front panel with ex-library stamp, Jewish Welfare Board, Gainesville, TX.

Rare ephemera intended to promote the “clean community environment in which prostitution cannot flourish.” Includes a “practical program” for community action.

Johnson, Bascom; LaGuardia, Fiorello; and Jean B. Pinney. Three American Social Hygiene Association Pamphlets, 1940-1942. 8vo, 8-24 pp. each; one illus., stapled wrappers, sl. toning and edgewear, good.

Reprinted from the Journal for Social Hygiene: How Fares the Battle Against Prostitution (Pinney); Prostitution and Quackery in Relation to Syphyilis Control (Johnson); and “An Address” (LaGuardia).

LaGuardia pamphlet reprints a speech including a jokey intro in which the Mayor seems confused about why he is speaking at a conference about Commercialized Vice and not at a leather or furniture convention.

Kneeland, George J. Commercialized Prostitution and the Use of Property. New York, NY: New York Social Hygiene Society, 1917. 8vo, 8 pp.; ½ in. closed tear on upper edge goes through entire pamphlet; stapled printed wrapper, edges worn, with ex-library stamp and penciled shelf label, fair.

Excerpted from Social Hygiene, Vol. II, No. 4 (Oct. 1916).

How We are Defending the Health of Our Soldiers and Sailors: 309 Houses of Shame Closed

(Antiprostitution - California - Socialism) Hichborn, Franklin and L.D. Bohnett. Five Informational Leaflets: Redlight Abatement Acts Prove Effective in Other States; Segregation Does Not Segregate and Regulation Does Not Regulate; Source of the Opposition to the Redlight Abatement Act; State Government by Perjury and Forgery; The California Redlight Abatement Law: It’s Provisions and Purpose. San Francisco, CA: Campaign Committee for the Redlight Abatement Bill, 1914. Five leaflets, each approx. 6-⅜ in. x 3-⅜ in., 4, 6, 6, 8, and 8 pp. Together with Franklin Hichborn, Answers to Arguments … Against the Redlight Abatement Act, [California]: n.p., [1914] 8 pp. Most with small ex-libris stamp from the California Commonwealth Club and penciled shelf labels or scattered other marks or edgewear, a couple of small closed tears. Good.

Propagandist description of the controversy arising from California’s Red Light Abatement Act, a.k.a. the Bohnett-Grant Act. The Act was signed into law in April, 1913, but was contested by a statewide voter referendum held in November 1914, where it was affirmed. Like other Red Light Abatement laws, it ended segregated “redlight districts” and transformed public nuisance law to allow the government to take action against landlords whose property was used for brothels or “lewdness.” Importantly it also allowed for any resident citizen of the state to “maintain an action” against a specific property, empowering communities to act directly, without involving law enforcement.

Many high-profile supporters of the Act were Reformists and socialists. The leaflets here are mostly written by journalist Franklin Hichborn, an associate of prominent reformer John Randolph Haynes and his suffragist wife, Doris Haynes. Hichborn takes aim directly at prostitution’s profiteers and the link between capital and sex. One pull quote, from a municipal judge in Portland, OR, sounds almost contemporary in its appeal to move away from “criminal prosecutions, because [they] are usually directed at the pawn in the system while the real culprit, the man who knowingly permitted the use of his property for immoral purposes … is allowed to go unwhipped.”

Together with:

(Antiprostitution - California - WWI) State Law Enforcement and Protective League. How We are Defending the Health of Our Soldiers and Sailors: 309 Houses of Shame Closed. San Francisco: State Law Enforcement and Protective League, 1918. Trifold pamphlet [6] pp.; illus. from photos, two small closed tears, edges worn, one small repair?

Exemplary and rare document of the overheated rhetoric in the fight against prostitution and its special urgency during wartime. The League’s purpose is declared to be the protection of men in service and purity of home, primarily through “suppression of the vice exploiter” and “rehabilitation of the vice victim.” The pamphlet is primarily a report on legal actions brought under the Redlight Abatement Act. Seven recently closed “dens of vice” in the San Francisco Bay area are illustrated next to the descriptions of hundreds of others, and evidence of “white slave” trafficking. Not found in OCLC.

$550

Women’s Forum on Prostitution Rights: Program

Women’s Forum on Prostitution Rights. Program. San Francisco: Women’s Forum on Prostitution Rights, [1984]. Single pink sheet, 8-½ x 5-½ in., printed recto and verso, some wear, creases, good.

Verso supplies the four-day program for a conference on prostitution rights in July, 1984 (date from Hooker’s Ball advertisement). Speakers include many well-known advocates and activists for prostitutes’ rights, including Margaret Prescod, Margo St. James, Delores French, Gloria Lockett, et al. Recto advertises the infamous Hooker’s Ball and the Coyote Film Festival.

$30

Opal Correspondence Club Ephemera

(Marriage) Reasoner, Walter E. [and Opal N. Reasoner]. Opal Correspondence Club Ephemera. Rosiere, New York: Opal Correspondence Club, [1919]. Six items: two personal ad directories, [16] and [8] pp., one dated membership offer, one blank “Gentleman’s Application,” an introductory letter, and a trade card. Overall very good, minor wear at directory spines.

Items presumed to constitute a man’s introductory package to the Opal Correspondence Club, a matrimonial agency. The Club was named after the wife of its president and manager, Walter; Opal Reasoner is also listed as the Manager of the Ladies Department.

The blank application and the personal ads capture the pragmatic aspect, for both men and women, of many lower-middle-class and middle-class marriages in the first quarter of the 20th-century. Emphasis is given to income, inheritance, real estate holdings, children, hereditary disease, and religion. Personal questions somewhat limited: “Are you of good morals?” “Do you prefer city, town, or country life?” The Reasoner’s club was strictly limited to white applicants. The “updated” directory includes the new rule “No Colored People Accepted.”

Walter and Opal were entrepreneurial in other fields. The directory includes advertisements for their “Minette” correspondence photo service and two different pocket multi-tools.

We are unable to locate other references to this agency.

$275

(Trade Card) McDonnell’s Matrimonial Association.

(Trade Card) (Correspondence Marriage) McDonnell’s Matrimonial Association. [Lady Member]. Chicago: n.p., n.d, ca. 1900. 5-⅛ x 3 in., printed recto and verso; soiled with creases, older cellophane holding top corner with small loss.

Advertising a free directory of 2000+ ladies in the US and Canada with a “view to amusement, mutual improvement [and] matrimony.” Including photographs. “Would you like a rich girl, a poor girl, a beautiful woman, a buxom widow, a pretty maiden, a well-educated young lady, a farmer’s daughter, or a good housekeeper? We have them all …”

We are unable to identify other references to Walter McDonnell’s Chicago service.

$125

Radioactivo: Poderoso Fertilizador y Estimulante Para La Vegetación

Banco del Radium [Banque du Radium, Paris]. Radioactivo: Poderoso Fertilizador y Estimulante Para La Vegetación [title from wrapper]. Barcelona: [Banque du Radium] and [R. Cumellas], [1915]. 8vo, 8 pp.; in Spanish, some translated from French, printed in green, with historiated initials, near fine.

Attractive art nouveau promotional booklet for radium soil enrichment, from a period of explosive popular interest in radium. The text compares the “therapeutic” action of radium in agricultural applications to those in human medical treatments—combating unknown “infirmities” and cultivating new vigor.

Published by a Spanish representative for the radio-agricultural firm Banque du Radium, Paris. BDR was established by a friend and sponsor of Marie Curie, the French industrialist Emile Armet de Lisle. Armet de Lisle also published the journal Le Radium.

Uncommon, we locate no other examples of Banque du Radium or Banco del Radium promotional materials in OCLC or the trade.

$225

Tercer Salon Italo: La energia en las artes visuals

Compañía Italo Argentina de Electricidad and Museo de Arte Moderno, Buenos Aires, Argentina. Tercer Salon Italo: La energia en las artes visuals. Exh. Cat. [Buenos Aires]: [La Compañía], 1971. Oblong 8vo, [36] pp.; b/w pls., wrappers lightly worn at extremities.

Catalogue an exhibition of painting and sculpture by Argentinian artists, on the theme of energy.

OCLC locates five copies in North America: Getty, Lib. of Congress, MoMA, Univ. of Texas, and Trenton.

$50

Poem 1 and Poem 2. From Penny Poems, No. 31

Oldenburg, Claes. Poem 1 and Poem 2. Penny Poems, No. 31. New Haven, CT: Penny Poems, 1959. Single-sided sheet, 8-1/2 x 11 in., toned with losses at two corners; typed-signed at bottom, Claes Oldenberg [sic].

Scarce issue of Penny Poems, the daily broadside poetry series founded by Yale grad students in 1959. It was sold at various bookstores for 1¢ and published early work by a number of famous language poets and Beats including Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones), Diane di Prima, and Ron Padgett.

This would appear to be the first published writing by Claes Oldenburg, whose poetry based on found imagery was the subject of a 2012 exhibition by at the Menil Collection, Houston, entitled Strange Eggs: Poems and Cutouts, 1956-1958. The exhibition focused on a transitional period in his artwork, shortly before he made his first iconic Pop sculptures. The humor and absurdity of the “collage-like” poems are evident in these examples.

OCLC records only one holding: Brown; a copy may also be held at Yale.

$750

An essay on the Arbutus Uva Ursi and Pyrola Umbellata …

(Medicine – Botanic) (Sexuality) Mitchell, John. An essay on the Arbutus Uva Ursi and Pyrola Umbellata … An inaugural dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Medicine … [University of Pennsylvania]. Philadelphia: Printed for the author by Eaken & Mecum, 1803. 8vo, unbound pamphlet, stitched, [i, 35] pp.; text preceded by engraving drawn by Univ. of Penn. Professor William Bartram, leaves foxed, rough edges worn with chips and staining, two leaves unopened, fair; faint early ownership inscription on title page, “Mrs.(?) Woods.”

Uva Ursi (Bear-berry) was known from indigenous medicine, it is still used in limited applications such as cystitis. The text details preparation, chemical analysis, and experiments on patients from the Philadelphia Alms House who were suffering from gonorrhea. It was found to be efficacious.

$225

Las Juventudes Libertarias de Artes Gráficas protestan [...]

[Federación Ibérica de Juventudes Libertarias (FIJL) and Federación Anarquista Ibérica (FAI)] and Comisión pro-Cultura Juventudes Libertarias de Artes Gráficas. Las Juventudes Libertarias de Artes Gráficas protestan del torpedeamiento de que es objeto la Banda Municipal, y piden a las demás Juventudes y amantes de la cultura, que hagan otro tanto. [Barcelona]: n.d. (ca. 1936-38). Broadside, 8-1/2 x 6-1/4 in.; toned and creased.

Impassioned and cheeky defense of the Municipal Band of Barcelona by a youth graphic arts and cultural commission associated with the socialist and anarchist federations during the Civil War. The band was directed by Joan Lamote de Grignon. Lamote was fired after Franco took the city in 1939 and fled to Valencia.

$175

Carteleras. Año I, No.1 - Año 1, No.3 (all published?)

Comite Ejecutivo de Espectaculos Publicos de U.G.T.-C.N.T. Carteleras. Año I, Núm. 1 (24 Enero 1937) to Año I, Núm. 3 (7 Febrero 1937) (all published?). Valencia, Spain: N.p., 1937. Three issues, each a single-sheet 4to, [8] pp.; some wear at edges and creases.

Weekly pamphlet advertising upcoming films and theater schedules in Valencia, published by the UGT-CNT whose unions controlled the theaters and film selection. Uncommon ephemera from the cultural revolution of the Spanish Civil War.

Unrecorded in OCLC.

$175

Comitè Econòmic d’Espectacles Públics

(Cinema) Comitè Econòmic d’Espectacles Públics. [Theater Broadside]. Girona, Spain: [CNT/AIT: Comitè Econòmic d’Espectacles Públics], 1936. 8-3/4 x 12-3/4 in.; toned as expected with a few ink notations, partially backed with paper, good.

Broadside advertising the weekend schedule (Aug. 27-30, 1936) of three Catalonian theaters collectivized by the CNT/AIT during the first month of the Spanish Civil War. The schedule included three class-conscious Hollywood movies: Vivamos de Nuevo (We Live Again, 1934; based on Tolstoy’s Resurrection); El Payaso del Circo (Circus Clown, 1934); and Duro y La Cabeza (St. Louis Kid, 1934).

Unrecorded in OCLC.

$175

Teatre del Poble: La música a través del poeta

Comissió de Cultura de l’Ajuntament de Terrassa. Teatre del Poble: La Música a través del poeta. Terrassa, Spain: Salvatella, 1937. Tri-fold, single sheet program, folded: 8-1/2 x 6 in., [6] pp.; approx. 1/2 in. neat closed tear at bottom edge, else very good; signed in ink by soloists Matilde Viver and A. Pons I Guitart.

A concert of “sublime” music probably prepared or sponsored by the Republican Teatro del Pueblo which organized performances in Catalonia during the Civil War. Representative of a brief avant-garde uprising in a conservative suburb of Barcelona, where some traditionalist artists were imprisoned (including Salvador Salvatella, founder of the press which issued this program?).

$95

On the Question of Homosexuals and the Party

(New Communist Movement – Homosexuality) On the Question of Homosexuals and the Party. N.p., n.d., [1973?]. (2) 8-1/2 x 14 in. sheets, [4] pp.; staple neatly removed, second sheet with minor stains verso.

Doctrinaire “Marxist Leninist defense of the line of the Continuations Committee on homosexuality,” arguing there is a “material basis for the exclusion of homosexuals from the party building movement.” The paper condemns the mores and metaphysics of the “depraved liberal bourgeoisie” and provides a materialistic, dialectical argument against homosexuality. Homosexuality is not a private question, it is a “social relation” that “replaces love and comradeship between the sexes with antagonism and hatred […] There is no way that such degenerates and exploiters can be admitted to […] the revolutionary party.”

The National Continuations Committee was part of the New Communist Movement: it emerged from a 1973 national party-building conference intended to create consensus between a number of Marxist-Leninist organizations. Its stated purpose was “a defense of the science of Marxism-Leninism and […] an all out assault on the CPUSA and all forms of revisionism.” Regional groups were formed to provide issue papers to the Continuations Committee, and this appears to be one of them. Its vehement argument against sexual freedom and the factionalism that undermines class unity is an overwhelming repudiation of progressive politics and the American left.

Primary source document of the mixed history of communism and LGBTQ rights. No copies found in OCLC.

Ref. National Continuations Committee Newsletter No. 1 (January 1974).

$225

65th Commemoration, Paris Commune, at Webster Hall

(Humphrey, Doris) [International Labor Defense, N.Y. District]. 65th Commemoration, Paris Commune at Webster Hall. New York: International Labor Defense, 1936. Flyer, 8-1/4 x 5-3/4; torn and chipped, missing top right corner.

Advertising a March concert commemorating the Paris Commune, with performances by modern dance pioneer Doris Humphrey and her partner Charles Weidman, and a lecture by Robert Minor, political cartoonist and a leader of the American Communist Party.

$65

Recueil des instruments de chirurgie orthopédie et mobiliers

[Trade Catalogue]. [Medicine]. Maison Mathieu. Recueil des instruments de chirurgie orthopédie et mobiliers: nouvellement construits ou perfectionnés. Année 3, No. 2 (Sept. 1908). Paris: 1908. 8vo, 16 pp.; illus. with photographic reproductions and technical drawings; orig. printed wrapper, contents neatly removed from staples, wrapper toned with light wear at extremities; additional plate and advertisement laid in.

Instruments of surgery, predominantly for amputation, and prosthetics. Add’l plate with 2 graphic images of an amputation.

OCLC locates no holdings with this issue statement.

$45

Books from the estate of Mark Tobey

[Tobey, Mark.] Glover/Hayes. Books from the estate of Mark Tobey. Seattle: 1982. 4to, 12 pp.; stapled mimeographed sales list of 143 books “signed by, or inscribed to, Mark Tobey,” dated in pen, minor creases from folds, good condition.

We can find no other record of this sale of books from the American abstract painter’s estate. The annotated list describes signatures and inscriptions.

$75

Dara Birnbaum: Video

Birnbaum, Dara and Erkki Huhlama. Dara Birnbaum: Video. Catalogue for an exhibition held at Norrtälje Konsthall, April 8-June 10, 1995. Norrtälje, Sweden: Norrtälje Konsthall, 1995.

Folded single sheet exh. cat. with color illus., opens to poster, folded: 6-1/2 x 6-1/2 in. open: 26 x 39 in.; outside panels sl. wear, else very good.

$25

Publicité Divers

Publicité Divers [title from spine]. [Bordeaux, France]: 1939.

4to (10 x 12.5 in.), [112] pp.; cloth, spine with gilt title and date.

Professional? scrapbook album with approximately 90 vintage examples of graphic design mounted on 39 leaves, including menus; packaging for luxury goods and comestibles; personal calling cards; advertisements for automobiles and auto parts, textile, and machine companies; coupon books and stamps; and events, most for companies and brands in Bordeaux, many in color, all exemplifying French Art Deco design’s integration of bold geometries, angular composition, and modern typography. A majority of the examples are numbered consecutively from 162-244 with a discreet stamp. Gilt letters “C-L” on spine—contents loosely alphabetical, by product, not proper name (e.g., café, charbon de bois, chocolat, fromage, lessive). Many folding examples, most very good, some with areas of discoloration or wrinkled from paste. Album date is handwritten on first leaf in pencil, though some of the advertisements refer specifically to 1938.

More photographs available on request.

$450