One of my favorite months: Black History Month!

February! It's a miserable cold month here in Chicago, but it's one of my favorite times to write this here blog, because it's ... Black History Month! We love talking about this here at O'Gara and Wilson. After all, our neighborhood of Hyde Park is in fact the cradle of Barack Obama's career, and Barack Obama did indeed make history with his election, although opinions are divided in the store about who supports his candidacy. On a more neutral political note, we are within walking distance of the DuSable Museum of African-American History. And besides, given that we sell antiquarian books, we are more qualified to discuss history than current affars.

History such as, for example, this week's Favorite:



We have a number of issues of the "Negro History Bulletin" from 1940-1941; they have all been bound into a simple black volume, which has preserved the magazines in excellent shape. This periodical later became the "Black History Bulletin", whose website describes it as:

... dedicated to enhancing teaching and learning in the areas of history. Its aim is to publish, generate, and disseminate peer-reviewed information about African Americans in U.S. history, the African Diaspora generally, and the peoples of Africa. Its purpose is to inform the knowledge base for the professional praxis of secondary educators through articles that are grounded in theory, yet supported by practice.

Indeed, the "Black History Bulletin" is currently distributed by the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, which started Black History Month. So we have come full circle! But anyway, these old issues of the "Negro History Bulletin" are very interesting. We are charging $40.00 for nine of them bound together, and they give very interesting insights on goals of teaching Black History to children in the 1940s. Including, for example, these drawings intended for children to color in:



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Worth analyzing, to be sure.

This week's Affordable and Interesting item is from rather before 1940:



Like many older books, the title as written on the spine is different from the title on the cover:



We're selling this 1917 book for $12.50, and although it is mainly about general history of World War I, within the book it tells us that it is in particular "a thrilling account of the important part taken by the Negro in the tragic defeat of Germany." Recall that in our last blog entry, we also featured a book celebrating the history of Black soldiers. I have mixed feelings about wars -- well, actually, I just plain don't like wars. But it's important for us to acknowledge everyone's contributions to history!

Which is also what this week's Collector's Item, an even older book, aims to do!



We are asking $400.00 for this book because it is an original copy from 1929, in beautiful condition, and it's also the author's personal copy. He put his ownership signature in front:



Lorenzo D. Turner was an honored African-American linguist and literary scholar. He died in 1972, but first he did a lot to establish the field of African-American studies (somewhat like St. Clair Drake, who I just wrote about a few weeks ago). He also helped train a lot of Peace Corps Volunteers who were heading to Africa, which endears him to me because he doubtless influenced my own trip to Africa a few years ago. This was his first published book, and apparently it is still referenced by people who study the endlessly interesting field of pre-slavery abolitionist efforts today! Did you know that 1830s abolitionists sometimes used "woman-to-woman" appeals from slave women to free white women? As a feminist, I find this quite awesome.

So go forth and study for Black History Month, gentle readers. Perhaps drop by the DuSable Museum, and then come visit us! We assure you, we'll always keep the store warm in the face of the elements outside.

Bartenders, battles and buildings

Did you ever wonder how much alcoholic knowledge was driven underground during Prohibition? I hadn't, until today. Prohibition famously lasted 13 years and ended in 1933, and during that time, no alcohol was legally drunk in America. Of course, plenty of alcohol was illegally drunk. But the finer details of the bartender's profession was lost, and that's why this week's Affordable and Interesting item is so awesome:



This bartender's manual was first published in 1934, and it's amazing. For one thing, it's a 1949 edition with classic graphics and a nice shiny cover so you can freely spill your drink on it and clean up afterwards. For another, this is how the introduction begins:

It has seemed to us that since the return of legal liquor, there has been a very genuine and widely felt need for a standard book on drinks, a book that could be relied on in any bibulous contingency both by the ambitious amateur and by the seasoned professional bartender. It is not only that once again good liquor is available, but also various ingredients that have been merely myth and legend to the younger generation of celebrants, such as Chartreuse or Amer Picon, have returned to the enjoyment of that respect and appreciation which was formerly accorded to them by an unshackled public.

Do you know what Chartreuse and Amer Picon are? I certainly didn't, and while you may not know this about me, gentle readers, I was once professionally trained as a bartender. It turns out that Amer Picon is an aperitif so rare that the first Google hit is a group of people talking about how they can't find it and discussing how to find substitutes. As for Chartreuse, it's more awesome than I ever imagined:

Chartreuse is an herbal liqueur produced by Carthusian monks in the French Alps. With almost 400 years of history, Chartreuse is one of the oldest and most mysterious spirits still available. Only three monks from the order know the secret recipe, each hold one third of that recipe and all have taken a vow of silence, so the secret recipe is kept safely. The liqueur was originally created as an "Elixir of Long Life" in 1605 by Peres Chartreux. The formula was perfected over the years and by 1737 the liqueur was released to the world in a form that is close to what we drink today.

Secret recipe held in three parts by specially trained monks with vows of silence?! I love it when I discover that things like that exist in real life. And this is only what I learned after reading the first paragraph of this book. It's also full of recipes that I've never remotely heard of before -- including plenty of "virgin" or non-alcoholic recipes, with names like "Temperance Punch". I can't even deal with how amazing this book is, and it's $6.50. Get it before the local hipsters do, folks. Unless you are a local hipster, in which case, you're looking to outrace your brethren.

The local hipsters of Hyde Park, Chicago, are presumably really into the architect Frank Lloyd Wright as well. Or at least I hope they are. Everyone should be at least a little bit into the ingenious Wright -- especially right now, because we have just received a bunch of Wright books, including this week's Favorite:



This is a nice, collectible, large book of Frank Lloyd Wright photos for $75.00. We have more where that come from -- some more affordable and some more beautiful. Hyde Parkers know that Wright designed a number of local buildings, including the lovely Robie House:

The Robie House on the University of Chicago campus is considered one of the most important buildings in American architecture. It was created by Frank Lloyd Wright for his client Frederick C. Robie, a forward-thinking businessman. Designed in Wright's Oak Park studio in 1908 and completed in 1910, the building is both a masterpiece of the Prairie style and renowned as a forerunner of modernism in architecture. Tours of the site offer both a first-hand experience of its amazingly contemporary spaces and the current restoration work that is returning the house to its original appearance.

I've taken the tour. It's great. Go do it and then come look at our Wright books!

This week's Collector's Item is also of local interest, in a wholly different and rather older way:



Published in 1899, this is a History of the 8th Illinois U.S. Volunteer Regiment, which was of particular historical import because:



... as you can see, it was part of our African-American history. In case the image is too small to read, the above page says:

To His Excellency, John R. Tanner, the able and fearless executive of the great State of Illinois, who believes and who has the courage of his convictions, that it is the heart, the brain, the soul, not the skin, that go to determine manhood; who, acting upon this belief and upon the fundamental principle of this government that "taxation without representation is tyranny", had the manhood to appoint colored officers to command a Colored Regiment, this book is affectionately dedicated by the authors.

The book is a group of profiles of the various people in the 8th Illinois U.S. Volunteer Regiment, with photos and text like this:



It's very rare to have a book like this in such good condition and available to the general public, which is why we are asking $395.00 for it. Help us remember the history of more than one epic battle -- the physical one, and the one for civil rights.

February is Black History Month, gentle readers, so I'm sure that we will have more where that came from! You can look forward to it in our next blog entry.

Ghosts of bygone days

Ahem. After getting all mushy when I wrote the last blog entry, I feel the need to be serious in this entry. We shall talk of serious things. Like the ghosts of ancient times.

Well, maybe it's a little hard for me to take this week's Affordable and Interesting item seriously:



But maybe I should! Because, according to the website devoted to his memory ...

Harry Price is one of the most controversial and famous psychic researchers and authors in the history of spiritualist studies. He is particularly famous for being maligned by many of his peers but simultaneously becoming extremely popular with the public due to his fascinating studies on haunted houses, psychic activity, mediumship and other supernormal phenomena.

He lived from 1881-1948. And this book, "Confessions of a Ghost Hunter", is his autobiography. (It was originally published in 1936; our copy is from 1974.) According to the dust jacket:

In this delightful book he has set down some of the most extraordinary cases of mediumship, haunting, and other paranormal phenomena he encountered during a long lifetime of ghost hunting. He also writes about the fakes and phoneys he found. Here he describes some of his outstanding investigations. These include poltergeists, hauntings, revelations from the planet Mars, automatic writing, spirit photography, mentalism, fire-walking, eyeless sight, the Indian Rope Trick. His chapter on "How To Test a Medium" is an excellent guide for all would-be investigators, and his exposure of "spirit" photography is a warning to the gullible.

You saw it here first, folks. Well, maybe you saw it elsewhere first, but you saw it here ... today. And you could see a lot more of it if you buy this book for $9.00! Maybe I should buy it myself. It could make a believer of me.

Now on to a different kind of ghosts. An actual serious topic, like I promised. Much more important ghosts: the terrible things that can haunt us forever. A simple white cover encloses this week's Favorite, and it contains mostly pictures:



The Nazi Drawings are a 1966 collection of works by the artist Mauricio Lasansky. They're disturbing, as one might anticipate, but I also find them beautiful. Here's a close-up from another:



I don't even know how to begin analyzing this imagery, aside from knowing it hurts me to look at it. I think I know that there's something terribly unnerving about teeth in the place of eyes, especially when the teeth are strung along the page, over from a darkened skull. But there's so much more to this than mere description.

Mauricio Lasansky was in charge of the Printmaking Department at University of Iowa when he created these pictures; born in 1914, he has been resident in USA since 1943. The Nazi Drawings were released in 1966 after years of work. This book, likewise published in 1966, is a compilation of both those images and an essay by the writer Edwin Honig, who notes:

Lasansky is a survivor who is still there, in the Nazi camps, so that we view his works as a continuing rehearsal of the drama of what it means to have that experience. We see it with him in the demonic halflight between living and dying -- and this is the central condition in all the drawings -- where there is little difference between being alive and being dead.

Honig also has his own analysis of each picture, which is helpful for me, since I find them strongly affecting but difficult to interpret. For this slender volume of both images and essay, we ask $30.00.

This week's Collector's Item may be haunted, or may not be. It is certainly antique:



A lovely bell-and-chain -- and, in fact, a delicate belt. Witness:



The metal looks bright in that picture, illuminated with a blazing flash, but more often the belt looks to be a quieter kind of silver. I've seen some attractive chain belts in my time, but this one takes the cake and I'm sure it's worth every penny of $125.00. I would wear it ghost-hunting, personally. I've read that bells have ritual ghost-hunting associations; one website notes that you might want to test for breezes, perhaps by using a small flame, before using bells to seek ghosts. (Hence one medieval spirit-seeking mantra was "Bell, book and candle.")

The long nights of winter lend themselves to a fear of hauntings, and I'm thinking of that as we emerge into a freezing dim morning. Keep the lights on, gentle readers, and we'll talk again soon.

Happy New Year! Let's talk about (historical) politics.

Happy New Year, gentle readers. I've been thinking that I've been involved here at O'Gara & Wilson for a long time now. I don't work behind the counter anymore, but I'm so glad to stay involved by writing the blog that I started. It helps me keep in touch with our awesome staff and, of course, the Wilson family -- especially the gentle Doug Wilson, a bookstore owner with an artist's soul. And I also get to occasionally talk to our customers, too: you are all such an excellent lot of people. There is nothing like the book trade, and there are no people like people who love books.

Anyways, I just needed a moment to get out all that mushy stuff. I, Lydia, hereby declare my undying love for O'Gara & Wilson. Hearts for everyone!

Now on to the fun stuff. Like Heidegger. Heidegger is fun, right? Here in Hyde Park, home to the nerdvana University of Chicago, nothing is more fun than Heidegger. So you all are going to love this week's Collector's Item:



This is a genuine 1933 first edition of the philosopher Martin Heidegger's controversial "Rectorship Address" (in German). It was delivered after Heidegger officially joined the Nazi party and assumed the rectorship of Freiburg University. Our resident philosopher-employee Rory tells me that, "People still publish books about that rectorship address today."

As this biography of Heidegger tells us: "Although he never claimed that his philosophy was concerned with politics, political considerations have come to overshadow his philosophical work." And the Nazi party was obviously reprehensible. But at the very least, this slim volume is valuable because Heidegger was a brilliant man who made significant contributions to the field of philosophy. And as a side note, I really like how German books print their text in awesomely gothic calligraphy-like type. $125.00 for calligraphy, philosophy, and controversy all in one small package!

On a totally different political note, we have this week's Affordable and Interesting item:



According to its website, "Dissent" is

a quarterly magazine of politics and culture edited by Michael Kazin and Michael Walzer. A magazine of the left, 'Dissent' is also one of independent minds and strong opinions. "A pillar of leftist intellectual provocation," writes the 'New York Times', Dissent is "devoted to slaying orthodoxies on the right and on the left." Adds historian John Patrick Diggins, "Dissent is kind of an anomaly... a magazine that's all heart and good hope."

Founded in 1954 by a group of independent-minded radicals, the magazine set out to "dissent from the bleak atmosphere of conformism that pervades the political and intellectual life of the United States ...The accent of 'Dissent' will be radical. Its tradition will be the tradition of democratic socialism." Inspired by their opposition to both McCarthyism and communism, its early editors "wanted to speak for the spirit of democratic utopianism that runs like a bright thread through America's intellectual life."

So this is a 1970 copy of the magazine, and what a copy it is. From the disclaimer at the table of contents:



... to the sympathetic-but-analytical article about Cuba's failing economy, this is very much an icon of its time and culture. And only $10.00 to boot!

This week's Favorite isn't quite an icon of anything; it's too unusual.



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This is a small antique silk jacket embroidered with dragons, an American flag, the Chinese flag as of 1946, and more dragons. I sniffed around the Internet to see what was going on with China and the USA in 1946, and I discovered that 1946 was the year that the Chinese War Brides Act was passed:

This Act amended previous Acts controlling Chinese immigration, in particular the Magnuson Act passed on December 17, 1943, which repealed the Chinese Exclusion Act and allowed Chinese immigration under the quota system established in the 1924 Immigration Act. After the rewording it states, “With the exception of Chinese alien wives of American citizens and those Chinese aliens coming under subsections (b), (d), (e) and (f) of section 4, Immigration Act of 1924, all Chinese persons entering the United States annually as immigrants shall be allocated to the quota for the Chinese computed under the provisions of section 11 of the said Act.”

So basically, Chinese wives of American soldiers had many fewer problems getting into the country. This was right after the end of World War II, of course, and presumably soldiers were still steadily trickling home. This jacket probably came with one of them, and is probably unique -- a bargain for $75.00.

Thanks again for reading, folks. I'll try not to get too mushy, and wind up this entry in a calm manner. But seriously, I love this bookstore more than I can say! Happy New Year to everyone!

Aaand now for the real holiday post!

I kind of tried to avoid talking about the holidays in our last entry, gentle readers. But by now, we are too close to Christmas for me to evade it. Let's start this week's entry with one of the coolest Affordable and Interesting items in the store right now:



For only $12.50, you can obtain this classic 1950s photo album cover! There is script in the background spelling out names from "Lee" to "Marilyn" to "Beverly", and as you can see, the graphics recall 1950s tropes from malt shops to radio technology. If you're hard up for a gift that would suit someone who was around in the 1950s, then might I suggest that you locate a bunch of their life photos and then enclose them in this amazing album cover? A homemade book or scrapbook: now that would be a pretty amazingly thoughtful gift.

Since it's the holidays, I'll give you another Affordable and Interesting option:



Tis the season for ornaments. And these are such perfect ornaments that I just had to post about them! They're tiny, antique Russian dolls that we're selling for only $3.00 apiece. We've got a whole box of them: you could put hooks on them and hang them from a tree, or you could arrange them on a mantel.

But now that I've posted two Affordable and Interesting things, you're probably jonesing for this week's Collector's Item. And I am happy to oblige!



Beautifully painted on a piece of wood, this $350.00 image is about a foot high. The background color is a really pretty deep gold, and I love the way it's painted, though I'm not sure what it portrays. Obviously it shows a woman in the street holding an apple, and there's Garden of Eden imagery every which way! But I really wonder what else the painter intended. This was apparently created in 2003 by an artist named Sasha Williams; I thought about trying to find the artist, but the closest result on Google was for a painter who created this blog (click here), and the art looks very different. So by purchasing this piece, you gain both beauty and mystery.

But I heard somewhere that we're a bookstore. And you know what my Favorite thing is? Books! Such as:



At $5.00, this is a typically awesome book from the O'Gara and Wilson inventory. Who doesn't love books for holiday gifts? We've got gifts in all shapes and sizes, but books are the greatest. And this Benjamin Franklin book in particular includes a wonderful Christmas quote:

"How many observe Christ's birthday; how few His precepts! O 'tis easier to keep a Holiday, than Commandments!"

Truer words were never spoken. I hope everyone is keeping faith and honor this holiday season, whether you observe Christmas or some other holiday or none at all. Stay warm and enjoy, gentle readers. We'll talk more in the New Year.

Incipient midwinter holidays, but I refuse to celebrate yet ... mostly.

Midwinter holidays are on the horizon, and with them all the crass commercialism you could possibly expect! I guess I should be more excited about crass commercialism given that I am currently writing a blog post for a retail establishment, but I always feel somewhat resistant. So I won't mention midwinter holidays. Much. Yet.

Our last dragon-shaped brass candle-holder was sold in record time, but we've got more where that came from! For Collectors:



Lovely, right? And in fact, this is a two-candleholder set! Here are both of them together, lit by an excessively bright light:



Normally their shininess is more muted, as per the first picture. But the bright light in the second picture shows us every tiny and detailed scale! If you missed the first dragon candleholder, then these can be yours for $135.00. They might also make lovely romantic lighting for your holiday dinner. Wait, I said I wouldn't talk overmuch about the holidays.

Okay, you know what's not about the holidays? These Affordable and Interesting antique 1920s-1930s chapbooks from the "Chicago Tribune":



At first I was somewhat puzzled by these little pamphlets, and thought they might be a magazine-ish thing like I highlighted in our last blog entry. But then I read inside the front cover of one, and lo, all my questions were answered!

The first Linebook was published in 1924 and since then it has become a yearly event, looked forward to by a steadily increasing number of people whose mornings would not be complete without reading the famous Richard Henry Little's "A Line o' Type or Two" in the "Chicago Tribune". The gay and impish tone of the column, made up of unregenerate laughter at the foibles of men, acid thrust at their follies, philosophy masked in humor, and the steady reminder that few things are to be taken seriously, pervades these small anthologies.

The pamphlet also asserts that they always went quickly out of print due to demand, and remained treasured possessions of those who purchased them. This may or may not be true, but I can attest that they are definitely really cool, if only for the covers:



This one too!



They are even cool on the inside, notwithstanding the fact that ... as it turns out ... I couldn't get away from the holidays even here:



That's an image from the inside of one pamphlet. Here's the text, retyped for your reading convenience:

Christmas Suggestions For the man who hasn't got a shirt: A shirt. For a man who wants an automobile: An automobile. For the girl who wants a skunk skin coat: A skunk skin coat. For a lady who wants a new set of false teeth: A new set of false teeth. For a boy who wants a fine set of skates: A fine set of skates. For a young man who wants a saxophone: A swift kick in the pants.

We sell Linebooks at prices ranging from $4.50 to a bit over $20.00. I won't comment about what kind of gift they would make.

Finally, this week's Favorite cannot possibly have anything to do with midwinter holidays:



Anansi is an African folk hero: a spider, clever and sly, who is always getting into hijinx and tricking the other jungle animals. If you Google for Anansi then you'll come up with tons of websites devoted to his adorable and brilliant exploits. This 1954 book is an especially great Anansi item, however. Firstly, because it's got neat illustrations:



Secondly, because it belonged to the pioneering African-American sociologist St. Clair Drake! Drake was a force to be reckoned with; he developed some of America's first African-American Studies departments, and was an advisor to the first prime minister of Ghana. Also, he wrote an awful lot. Drake's name is written on the inside front cover of this little Anansi book, and you can purchase it for $20.00.

See? No midwinter holidays when I covered Anansi. Our next blog post will have to be all about midwinter holidays, I suppose. But I guess it's okay if it's only one entry! Stay warm, gentle readers ....

Thanksgiving is upon us! Let's talk America.

It's Thanksgiving time! Thanksgiving, the most all-American of American holidays. We put a pilgrim hat on our resident waxwork monk, as he labors away upon some manuscripts:



And this week's Affordable and Interesting item features what is perhaps the most hilarious pilgrim picture I've ever seen:



The pilgrim on the cover of this 1931 pamphlet appears quite startled. But he's not as startled as the publisher must have been when he saw the pamphlet cover ... complete with that "Ovember" typo. (Presumably, it was supposed to be November, but maybe I'm wrong about that.) This appears to be one copy of the small magazine "Friendly Chat", which was composed mainly of jokes and ads. Here's a sample page:



Don't you want a skimming machine? Not to mention new window casements. But the skimming machine is way more exciting, if you ask me. (Skimming machines back then were designed to separate cream from milk; you can learn more about that whole process by clicking here. Today, skimming machines are unfortunately associated with credit card fraud, but let's not discuss that.)

The text is very small in the scanned image I'm showing you, so I'll transcribe some of it for ya. There's a great joke on that page. It goes like this:

The president of the local gas company was making a stirring address. "Think of the good the gas company has done," he cried. "If I were permitted a pun, I should say, 'Honor the Light Brigade.'" And a customer immediately shouted, "Oh, what a charge they made!"

Teehee. Don't you want lots of 1931 jokes and ads? Yours for $4.00.

Since Thanskgiving is all about American history, I decided that my Favorite item this week ought to highlight an all-American art movement:



As it happens, I myself grew up in New York in the stomping grounds of the good old Hudson River School. The website for the Metropolitan Museum of Art has this to say about the School:

The Hudson River School was America's first true artistic fraternity. Its name was coined to identify a group of New York City-based landscape painters that emerged about 1850 under the influence of the English émigré Thomas Cole (1801–1848) and flourished until about the time of the Centennial. Because of the inspiration exerted by his work, Cole is usually regarded as the "father" or "founder" of the school, though he himself played no special organizational or fostering role except that he was the teacher of Frederic Edwin Church (1826–1900). Along with Albert Bierstadt (1830–1902), Church was the most successful painter of the school until its decline.

You can learn a little more about the school by clicking here -- or you can learn a lot if you purchase this beautiful thick tome for $75.00. It's long and detailed. Plus, it's full of both art history and lovely color reproductions of Hudson River School paintings. Here's an incredible sunset painting by Frederic Church:



And a pretty sun-dappled tree by Albert Bierstadt:



Now, if you want a later American artist, we can look at this week's Collector's Item:



This is a truly exquisite 1910 compilation of antique classical tales retold by Nathaniel Hawthorne -- another all-American historic figure: the 1800s author of the famous novel The Scarlet Letter. In this book, Hawthorne is not just retelling classical tales; he also frames them in an all-American context. Here's the first couple sentences from his introduction to the tale of the mythological gorgon:

Beneath the porch of the country-seat called Tanglewood, one fine autumnal morning, was assembled a merry party of little folks, with a tall youth in the midst of them. They had planned a nutting expedition, and were impatiently waiting for the mists to roll up the hill-slopes, and for the sun to pour the warmth of the Indian summer over the fields and pastures, and into the nooks of the many-colored woods.

According to Hawthorne, these kids are running about telling each other these stories while on their nutting expeditions! So charming! Almost as charming as the gorgeous pictures by Maxfield Parrish, who was the most popular American illustrator of the early 1900s. Here's how Parrish illustrated the tale of a man sowing dragon's teeth in the earth:



Those dragon's teeth took root and grew into soldiers ... or so they say.

This book is not just gorgeous; it's also in pristine condition. Notice that the pages are what we in the book trade call "uncut":



When books emerge from the printer, the pages look like that -- but the pages are usually cut before the book is sold. In older books, they were sometimes sold with "uncut" pages, and the new owners could (carefully!) cut the pages themselves. A book with uncut pages has, accordingly, been subjected to extremely light usage. We're charging $350.00 for this beautiful 1910 book, and we can show you how to cut the pages at home if that's what you want to do!

Enjoy Thanksgiving, gentle readers! I am personally very grateful for this wonderful bookstore, my brilliant coworkers, and my gentleman boss. And I'm grateful to you for reading. Take care and we'll talk in a couple weeks.