JF Ptak Science Books
I found this item today out in thye warehouse, mixed in for some reason with Hitler Jugend pamphlets and many issues of the 19th century Archiv fuer Anthropologie, just completely out of place. It is an accordion fold multiple panel oversize postcard, I suppose, an advertisement for a meeting of the Rotary Club of Birmingham, Alabama, and probably for 1917/1918.
Which is a detail of the image (below):
Unfolded the obect is 25 inches long and about 9 inches wide, divided by five panels, seven of which have photographic images, one is for the contact information, and one for the addressing and mailing part. It all folds nicely into a somewhat-larger-than-pocket-size object, printed on pretty thick, very thick stock. (The original is available at our blog bookstore, here.)
There are internal clues for the date, not the least of which is the last year for some census information (1917) and a 19123 Irving Berlin song, "When the Midnight Choo-Choo Leaves for Alabama". The "card" was addressed to "The President/White House/Washington, D..C.". It evidently got to Mr. Wilson's house because there is a very faint rubber stamp on the back that reads "by Transfer/White House" , sent by the Executive Office workers to the Library of Congress, and after 80 years or so purchased by me when I brought home the so-called "Pamphlet Collection" from the L.C. surplus. (Those days are over.)
The other images relate mostly to the iron/steel industry, long a staple of the Birmingham economy. Five of the photos relate to the iron mining, blast furnaces, and loading steel rails; the other two are cityscapes of the city. In all of this, why two of the total of seven photos showed Black miners doing some body-breaking work in the mines is a mystery. The two men holding massive rocks in the picture detail is an exceptional thing--my guess is that the rocks weight 75-100 pounds, easy.. And if this is what these men were doing every day, they must've been exceptionally strong in a steel-bar sort of way, with enormously powerful hands. It just a mystery to me.
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