Books offered by JF Ptak Science Books LLC

Women Camouflage Corps, New York City, 1918

Item:  7x5-inch original photograph, "The Women's Camouflage Corps, New York City, dated 7/13/18, and issued by the Western Newspaper Union Photo Service.  Good condition with the following faults:  1.5-inch tear in top-middle, another quarter-inch tear nearby; old fold in later third of image.  Rare.  Includes the caption suggestion from the distributor, attached to the bottom of the image.  $250

I found this photograph of the "Womens Camouflage Corps of New York City", the photo lingering away in a collection of News Photo Service WWI images.  After a bit of looking, I've found nothing about the WCCNYC, though women were employed to this work in America and Britain in 1917 and 1918--it just seems as though there aren't images available online showing these workers working.

But: were their painting the entirety of large ocean-going transport ships in sharp geometric shapes and in dazzling colors to make the ship disappear, like, well, it was "camouflaged"?  No.  It wasn't like biological camouflage where all sorts of bits come into play to make an animal blend into its surrounding environment to protect it from predators, or conversely to make it a better predator by allowing the animal to stay completely hidden until their prey could do nothing but become their prize.  Nor was it really like thermoregulation, or sexual or warning signals (again drawing from the bio world)--it was simpler than that, though are there many relational examples in the biological world as well.

[The full image from which the detail was taken.]

The effect of using the geometrical shapes on the whole of a 600'-long vessel was to make it's speed and direction  more difficult for submarines to figure out and calculate so that the point-to-target launch of their torpedo would be far more complicated.  When the prolific maritime painter Norman Wilkinson figured out this approach for disguising the intentions of ships (around 1917) he instantly recognized its applicability in anti-submarine warfare:  not only would it be difficult to distinguish bow/stern properties of a ship, but also how long it was, and whether it was coming or going, and how big it was--all major factors in determining the launch of a torpedo.  Basically, dazzle camo made it difficult to produce a trajectory for the ship.

[The text accompanying the photo above, intended for use for whatever magazine or newspaper reprinted the work.]

An image of work completed:

And, it must be admitted, the coloring scheme is confusing--more so if you can image looking at it from periscope depth.

[Sir Norman Wilkinson, for all intents and purposes the discoverer of the dazzle effect in naval  warfare.]

In a Letter to the Editor ("Camouflage of Ships at War") in Nature (19 June 1919), Wilkinson explains his dazzle approach, saying that the whole point of this sort of camouflage was not necessarily "obliterative" as in biological camouflage, but rather was intended to "upset a submariner commander's estimate of a vessel's course, when carrying out an attack with torpedo", and stating further that it was not intended for "ships of the line" or to help deceive topside gunnery from another ship, especially at greater distances where the paint would simply not come into play.   [An often-used but never-cited quote from a Wilkinson "lecture"  runs as follows:  "The primary object of this scheme was not so much to cause the enemy to miss his shot when actually in firing position, but to mislead him, when the ship was first sighted, as to the correct position to take up. [Dazzle was a] method to produce an effect by paint in such a way that all accepted forms of a ship are broken up by masses of strongly contrasted colour, consequently making it a matter of difficulty for a submarine to decide on the exact course of the vessel to be attacked.... The colours mostly in use were black, white, blue and green.... When making a design for a vessel, vertical lines were largely avoided. Sloping lines, curves and stripes are by far the best and give greater distortion."]

 

[ RMS Empress of Russia]

The technology is still used, with more advanced applications, and appears on one of the world's stealthiest ships, Sweden's Visby Corvette.  Apart from having an exceptionally low magnetic signature, it also has geometric low-radar reflective gray dazzle paint. (It also has applications for land warfare use in the camouflage of armored vehicles against RPGs; see INSTITUTE OF PHYSICS; Steps towards warship invisibility
Obesity, Fitness & Wellness Week, March 15, 2008 and also the Economist, 6/11/2011, Vol. 399 Issue 8737, p83-83, ".) 2/3p "The Old Razzle Dazzle".)

RMW Mauretanis:

HMS Argus:

Edward Wadsworth, Painting of Dazzle-ships in Drydock, 1919.  There are well-known stories of great artists--like Villard and the questionable Picasso--who made contributions in this effort, from making designs to doing the actual painting.  But it was the estimable Wilkinson who made the major contribution and invention of dazzle-at-sea.

 

The First Woman to Fly in an Airplane Was When?

ITEM:  issue of the Illustrated London News with the story/report of the first woman to fly in an airplane.  25 July 1908.  The story occupies about a half-page of the 32-page issue, which is removed from a larger bound volume, though intact.  Nice condition.  $125

I wondered about how long after the Wright's first powered flight (17 December 1903) that it took for a woman fly in an airplane, either as passenger or pilot.  I was a little surprised--when I found my answer, my glasses weren't quite up to seeing the date on the top of the page very clearly, and on closer inspection I was a little taken aback to see how wrong my assumption was.  It didn't take five weeks or five months, but five years before this happened.

It seems as though this honor belongs to Therese Peltier, who on 8 July 1908 was a passenger in the aircraft of her significant other, Leon Delagrance, flying a distance of about 700 feet¹.  An earlier great name for the history of women in aviation, E. Lillian Todd, was the first to design and build an airplane, though she was not able to fly the unflyable aircraft.  A half-dozen or so women aviators appear in 1909, and by 1910 the course for women in aviation expands dramatically. (An interesting chronology of "firsts" for women in aviation can be found here; another site, Women in Aviation Web Magazine, can be found here.)

The image above, from the Illustrated London News for 25 July 1908 (the original issue of which is available at our blog bookstore), shows Ms. Peltier getting ready for the flight.  It is interesting to note that the picture and story occurs in a section of the magazine called "Chronicle of the Car"

which is where reporting on aeroplanes and flight occurred, the subject not quite at the point where aviation deserved its own category.  Of course the automobile was new, then, too, so it makes a little sense to have them lumped together...but not much.  The "Chronicles" part of the magazine was a half-page affair, the last page before the advertisements began, the last leaf before the rear cover. 

Notes:

1.  It seems as though there is debate on this, mostly over the Delagrance aircraft was indeed "modern" enough to be considered a modern heavier-than-air airplane, this over the way the control of the plane was handled.  I'd say we just left Ms. Peltier alone on this one.

From the Smithsonian Institution, National Air and Space Museum site

Medieval Clothing and Costume

The following hand-colored prints are fine mid-19th century reproductions of  illuminations from a German medieval manuscript, the Konstanz-Weingartner Liederhandschrift, the originals of which have been attributed to Heinrich von Klingenberg. 

"The name  is derived from the monastery of St. Martin in Weingarten, near Ravensburg in the south of Germany, a monestary founded in 1056. The monks acquired the manuscript in 1613, when it was given as a present from the then Schultheiß (mayor) of Konstanz, a rich southern German city near Lake Bodensee. The Weingartner Songbook contains mainly Minnelieder: that is, troubadour songs from the period of 1170 - 1230. It is closely related to the better-known Codex Manesse or Große Heidelberger Liederhandschrift. The Weingartner Songbook, however, is quite small, measuring only 15 cm high by 11.5 cm wide. The Codex Manesse, in comparison, is more than twice the size at 35.5 cm by 25 cm. The Weingarten Codex contains 156 foliae (312 pages) made from pergament, the text pages of which each contain 28 lines. Page numbering was added in a later period, probably during the 19th century. The manuscript consists of 33 text paragraphs, containing songs from well-known German authors. In two cases the authors could not be identified. 25 of these authors are depicted by separate illuminations, and each of these are presented on the following five pages in groups of five. The manuscript gives no direct information regarding the date it was made, who it was made for, or where it was produced. However, it's believed that the content was written by five different successive scribes, all of whom used the gothic book font Textualis. According to the paleographic evaluation, the book was compiled in the early 14th century. Supporting this assumption is the style of garments depicted: from the evidence in the pictures the work probably dates from between 1290 - 1320, with a tendency towards the 1320s. The codex was probably produced in Konstanz, because the style of the illustrations resembles the style of the Weberfresken (weaver frescoes) of the Haus zur Kunkel in Konstanz. These are also related to the style of stained glass windows in the adjacent Bodensee area. Songs of the following Minnesänger are also present in the Weingartner codex, but these authors are not illustrated. They are: Wolfram von Eschenbach (died ~ 1220), Neidhart von Reuenthal (died after 1237), Winsbecke (1st half of 13th century), Winsbeckin (1st half of 13th century), Marienpreis (~ 1300), Frauenlob (died 1318)."

Literature: Staufischer Minnesang. Die Konstanz-Weingartner Liederhandschrift. Wolfgang Irtenkauf. Beuroner Kunstverlag, Beuron, 1983. (all illustrations are taken from this book) • Gotische Buchmalerei. Minnesänger. Alle 25 Miniaturen der "Weingartner Liederhandschrift" in Originalgröße. Mit Einführung von I.F. Walther. München, 1978 Print ID# 800179

 

Der Weingarten Codex Printed ca. 1840-1850 Hand colored engraving 5" x 7.5" Excellent condition.  This is a very fine mid-19th century reproduction of an illustration from a German medieval manuscript. Print ID# 800180 $175.00

Liutolt von Savene Printed ca. 1840-1850 Hand colored engraving 5" x 7.5" Excellent condition.  This is a very fine mid-19th century reproduction of an illustration from a German medieval manuscript. Print ID# 800174 $175.00

A Map of the Kingdom of Corsets, 1939

ITEM: Merchandising Manual for the Corset Department. New York University School of Retailing, 1939.  9x6 inches, 75pp. Lovely copy.   $75.00

Ref: JF Ptak Science Books  Post 1319

This finely produced, 75-page pamphlet lists all you need to know about marketing and maintaining a corset department in 1939--all except how to actually get back to 1939 to utilize this font of knowledge.  It was published with great seriousness for a serious business by the School of Retailing at New York University, a serious object for serious people.   Among the many things I’ve never thought of before thinking with this pamphlet were corset maps--and one of these happens to appear in this publication,  a map of an idealized corset department, which to me looks to be large, sanitized and medicinal, an oddly institutionalized presentation of an intimate something, something more of artistry and chance and possibility than an orthotic. 

I should think that I would like to make a Kingdom Map for his image, some day.  It looks to me ready to accept the responsibilities of landforms or ideas or statistics or changes or comparisons in place of its plain nature of counters and countertops and display cases, empty boxes waiting for something a little more invigorating to depict.  Or maybe not, maybe the chance of display of transformations is enough to suit its peculiar, perhaps singular, needs.

Or maybe on the Corset Map  instead of  substituting land and sea for corsets and boxes, one could substitute the noises of a quiet house at night, or the sound of heavy boots in a brittle-dry snow in the deep cold.  Or maybe a map of the discovery of children's laughter, or inconvenient pauses in conversations through the history of human speaking...or a map of lost ways.

The other surprise is how expensive these undergarments were.  For example, the Lily of France and Mme. Irene Corset Company (NYC) sold a girdle “for the heavy figure” (liberally sprinkling the word “heavy” throughout the description of the product like, well, sprinkles) for $132. The $132 corset is equal to about $2000 in today’s currency, or roughly a 15:1 increase. There were girdles and etc. in all price ranges, but the (1939) $30-$60 range seems to have been the most common; even still, the $30/low-medium quality item is about $430 in today's dollars, and the cheapest of them all at 5 bucks goes in today’s economy at 75 dollars or so.  I’m not familiar with the value of undies today, but this sure sounds like a whole hell of a lot of money. 

$132 for underwear in 1939 was a tremendous amount of money for the average person—even for the upper-middle class, it was a bunch, considering that you could buy a decent new car for $700.  It would also be equal to a half year’s worth of an average house rent ($28/month) and 1320 gallons of gasoline. 

 

It sounds like it was very expensive to keep the up with the idea of an ideal figure, which of course was partially create by this same sort of company, creating both need and demand for its product. 

1939 Price Comparisons:

Wages per year, average:  $1,730.00
Minimum wage: 30 cents/hour
Milk, by the gallon: 35 cents
Postage stamp, 1st class: 3 cents
Dow Jones: 131
Gas, average price of a gallon:  10 cents
Bread, by the loaf:  8 cents
Hamburger Meat, by the pound: 14 cents
Automobile, new, average:  $700.00
House, new, average: $3,800.00
House rent, average: $28.00/month

 

Reverse Autopsies of Stick Women--Blank and Empty Art Anatomy, 1941

ITEM: A Dynamic Home Study Course in Fashion, Drawing and Dress Design, Series One.  American Hme Studies, Washington D.C, 1941.  11x8 inches, 54pp.  Printed wrappers. FIne condition.  Scarce.  $45

ref:  JF Ptak Science Books   Post 1304

Part of our Blank, Missing and Empty series.

Coming on the heels of my posts of autopsies of snowmen and donuts comes this semi-remarkable thing, published by  American Home Studies (of 1700 Eye Street, NW, Washington D.C.¹), displaying very restricted instructions on anatomy for art students.  The drawings really work better in reverse, I think, because you really can't get to the final product from the illustrated series in its how-to sequencing unless you already were finished.

What happens throughout this pamphlet is what we see below--draw a circle, then divide it by drawing lines over imaginary bones, pop in some eyes and lips, and then fill in the rest.  Not too very helpful.  This is especially so when we look at the image above, which the student was supposed to simply cover with clothing after having added the head.  If this was an animated figure, I think I  would find it disturbingly creepy.

Things become clear by the time you reach the end of the pamphlet, when you are told that you can detach any page from the work and send it to the D.C. address for correction and advice, for a dollar a page.  That's when the real education occurs. (Many others have done this--the two guys responsible for creating Superman started out selling their services in just this how-to way.)

 

 

But I guess as a sort-of artist one would need to have something else going on for themselves so far as business goes, because its painfully clear that the maker of this pamphlet had special but very limited talent. I think that the faces given to these women are drawn by someone who does not like them, given their emotional range and all:  peevish, dull, bored, haughty, disinterested and, well, dead. 

Notes

1.  The building at 1700 I is gone now, replaced by another building of the many nameless buildings that create the corridors of I and K streets.  1700 I is basically right across the street from Farragut Square, and only a few blocks from Lafayette, which is across the street from the White House. Nice location.

Keeping 1935's Secretaries Unmarried

ITEM: the Private Secretary, 1935.  Printed on fine paper, stiff wrappers, 8x5 inches, 30pp.  No illustrations.  Fine condition.  $35

Ref:  JF Ptak Science Books  Post 1261    Part of the History of Women series

.

It good to remind ourselves of how we got so comfortable here in the present by looking at the uncomfortable parts of the past, and remembering those people who made the sacrifices necessary to ameliorate those differences.  Sometimes that spiked memory looks small but isn’t so, sometimes it’s a tidy and explosive nugget nestled in decent surroundings, but explosive nonetheless.

That’s what I found looking through this very considered, nicely designed and well written vocational pamphlet for the Katherine Gibbs School (of New York, Providence, Boston and Bermuda).  The Private Secretary, Qualifications and Requirements (1935) laid out all of the necessaries for the better-placed secretary, many of which no doubt were the teaching specialty of Ms. Gibb.

The pamphlet described plenty of excellent qualities for anyone seeking any sort of employment–then or now–all of which could be supplied to any student of Ms. Gibb–I kept climbing over them looking and waiting for the now-severely-dated practices to appear.  Mainly they didn’t appear in whole so much as in bits and pieces, sprinkled well throughout the work. But on the last page came this nugget, which I think pulls all of the disparate pieces together in a general statement about the position of women in the workplace in 1935:



And there you have it. A key to understanding the status of women in 1935.  You'll notice that the "company policy" is generic, which means that the practice was wide-spread.  And remember too that this is just for marriage--not pregnancy, which is implied in the company's dissociation with the married secretary, cutting their ties now before any pregnancy begins.

[This pamphlet is available for purchase from our blog bookstore.]

Determining the Particular and Peculiar for Ladies, 1941

ITEM (1):  Tables for Ladies, 1936, 4pp. $45. 

ITEM (2):  How Ya Doin'? 1941. 4pp. $45

I must admit that I like the first of these two “lady tests” (separate publications from The Ladies Home Journal), cautionary tales as they are, like being able to select your own villainous wardrobe for a creepy (or loud or not) 1940's version of a Brother’s Grimm fairy tale--instructive, occasionally delightful, often wincing.  It seems that the dividing line between being particular and being peculiar displays its fair share of the miracle of capilary action. 

 

For example,  in Tables for Ladies (1936), the failing grades (minuses) actually look mostly like, well, problematic personality quirks.  I get the “too made up”, “late all the time” and “gold digger” parts–also the character who has a forced laugh, agrees all the time, and is endlessly flattering while putting on makeup and pulling up stockings and monopolizes the conversation (simultaneously?)–and then wants to “go steady” right away while complaining about her (and his) former dates, does not make for an interesting time out.


I’m not sure what “too darned good to be human” and “occasionally have an idea”  mean, nor the failing grade for having too much stuff in your pocket.  A lot of the other stuff looks okay to me: intelligent, honest, friendly, genuine, good natured–basic things that translate just fine into 2010.  But then there are those servile, squinty-eyed parts that just give you a coppery feeling in your mouth for how restrictive they are.

Of course there’s stuff there indicative of the time, just like the awful racism that creeps into Babar or Bugs Bunny from th 1940's, or the rank use of racial epithets that populate some regional maps of the south (I can easily attest to the very broad use of the n-word in more than a dozen places in a large 1932 map of my own Buncombe County, all gone today), or the portrayal of subservient women in 1950's common culture–but for the most part, the overall reach of this little pamphlet seems not-terrible.

The second little test, How Ya Doin’ (1941), verges more on the need for the mass produced Stepford woman, only this one comes from an earlier period, the mother of Stepford.  Some number of the questions seem less significant but more important, many feeling annoying and trite--many of the graded areas are so unexpected (here in 2010) but were in 1941 thought of as being socially important and, well, marketable. 

It was important to say "yes" to the questions "do you scrub your back conscientiously?", "do you walk as if you had a vase on your head?", "does your make up blend with your dress color?", "are your stocking seams always straight?", "can you talk about three sports that boys like?", "do you breathe way down in your diaphragm?", "does anything ever happen to you?", "can you play three sports?", "do you know all the songs the crowd likes?", "is it your responsibility to be entertaining?", and so on.

Not all of the questions feel so sharp and stinging--there are many good qualities (or good qualities from the 2010 mind) that are listed here as well--not to abandon your friends, believing in yourself, inspecting and supporting your opinions, knowing how to decline graciously, feeling good about where you live, being kind, expressing concern, and the like. 

The quizzes are not without quality.

In the same vein you might also enjoy these earlier posts in this blog

What Goes into Making Human Robot Girls 

First Thing to Do is to Find Some Men:  How to Get a Boy-Date, 1941

How to Look Smart, or Pretty, but Not Both

 Maintaining Women as a Subclass: Major Reinforcements from Minor Non-sequitors

Missing Pieces of Women: Pope Joan and the Proper Girl of the Ladies Home Journal

How FDR Made Women (1) Nervous and thus (2) Older. An Appeal to Vote Republican, 1936

The Coming Sex War of 1919

New "Peacetime" Housing, 1945: Bookshelf Needs and Sex Beds.

ITEM: Let's Plan a Peacetime Home, for Comfort, Convenience, Modernity.  1945.  10x8 inches, 110pp, folding plan in pocket at rear. Plastic comb binding.  Excellent condition.  $50

Let's Plan a  "Peacetime" Home was published in 1945 by a home gas heaing company to try to answer and capitalize on a severe housing shortage being accentuated by returning WWII vets--I'm not sure why "Peacetime" is placed in quotation marks in the cover copy; perhaps it was just sloppy editing.  But the planning was real, and the ideas were sort of fresh for the time, including a number of new and innovative ideas regarding heating/leat retention and cooling services.  It is a slick, bright, shining publication filled with simple luxuries for the middle class--roomy kitchens, playrooms in the basement, extra bathrooms, storage for baby carriages in the garage, and other pieces of happiness that were still relatively new to the Depression-recovering working folks of the United States.

I can see a lot of interest in the archaeology of comfort in the many plans and pictures in this brochure, but that's not why I'm presenting it here today.  There's more than a heavy helping of bulbous Bauhaus design, and lots of small rooms surrounding large big main rooms with enormous windows.  But the thing that seems to bookend all of this development are women-in-aprons.  There are men sitting and leaning around plans, smoking pipes, sleeves rolled up, and looking very earnest; at their elbow or across the table is the woman, usually in an apron, looking on in appreciation.

The secondary basis for this Peacetime Home onslaught is a McCall's magazine contest in which "50,000 women" responded to a what-they-hate-most about their house(s).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is an interesting check list for house planning, and as a bookseller, I was very pleased to notice that one of the lines for calculating your family's needs in a new house was for books. Not onl;y was it a call for determining the number of shelf feet of books that the family has now, but also the nbeed for future book shelf feet (!)  Not only that, but there was a special consideration large volumes and their sizes; that, and the distribution of books in the house, and how much shelving is needed per room.  I've never seen anything like that in the many brochures and pamphlets like this that are in the architecture collection here, and it is only too-happy a thing to see. 

 

And then I cam across this curious part of the check list, asking about furniture and bedroom needs, and then getting down to the real brass tacks of the sleeping or not-sleeping issue--the type of bed wanted.  The questionnaire asks describes with checkboxes the types of beds available:  twin, double, nursery, number and sex.  I have no dobut that what was being asked for was the sex of the person going to use the bed--I'm not sure why that is necessary--and not whether they were interested in outfitting their houses with "sex beds".  But you never know.