Twelve bindings of Christmas

Happy Holidays!  

This Christmas we'd like to offer you a selection of 12 seasonal bindings from the University of North Carolina Greensboro's American Trade Bindings Collection.  But before presenting them, we'd like to give a nod to our last holiday for Thanksgiving fans.  It's hard to believe that it was a month ago, and it's harder to believe that we're wrapping up 2021 in a week and a half!  But if you're lost in Thanksgiving nostalgia, we hope this helps.  Though we don't know who designed the binding, it's a turkey in the best sense.

Dickinson, Asa Don, ed. The children’s book of Thanksgiving stories. Garden City: Doubleday, Page, 1915.

Now on to our 12 bindings for Christmas.

1. Our first selection is an attractive little children's book, with printed paper over flexible boards and a color paper onlay reproducing a portion of an illustration by Gladys Hall for the lines:

"He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,

And filled all the stockings ..." 

Despite the title, this book is not "all about" anything, but rather is a version of the Clement Clarke Moore poem.

Clement Clarke Moore. All about the Night before Christmas. New York: Cupples & Leon, 1918.  

We're fortunate to also have the dust jacket for this book, which, as was common, reproduces the cover design as well as providing the publisher advertising space. Here you can see the 14 titles "of a high character" that you might want to purchase along with other titles issued by Cupples & Leon.  

2. Our second binding of Christmas features a cover design and illustrations by Amy M. Sacker.  If you're interested in her work you've no doubt visited our former colleague, Mark Schumacher's Amy Sacker Site.

Edith Robinson. A little puritan’s first Christmas. Boston: L.C. Page & Co., 1910, c1900.

This book was first published by L.C. Page in 1900.  Our copy is the sixth impression, Sept. 1910, in dust jacket. Although unsigned, Mark notes that the design is almost certainly Sacker's work, and the people and lettering bear strong resemblances to other Sacker designs.  Once again, the dust jacket front panel and spine reproduce the cover design and the back cover and flaps (not shown) include publisher advertisements.

This book is unusual in that Sacker also provided the illustrations.  Mark's site also provides a checklist and scans of Sacker's work as illustrator, from which the two images are taken.

3. Our third binding of Christmas is a Margaret Armstrong design for one of the three unsigned bindings out of five Henry Van Dyke titles not part of her famous dark blue Van Dyke series.  Our copy features gloss and matte gilt on olive green silk cloth.

Henry Van Dyke. The spirit of Christmas. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1905.

Charles Gullens and John Espey note in their checklist of Margaret Armstrong covers that this design also appears in two other states: gold on cream paper, and white on purple paper with a cream cloth spine, and are probably alternate bindings for a Christmas gift book.

4. The fourth binding for Christmas travels back another 50 years to 1848, and features gilt cherubs and a floral wreath with blindstamped ornaments on front and rear covers.

Catherine Grace Frances Gore. The snow storm: a Christmas story. Boston: Charles H. Peirce, 1848.

It is bound in a common cloth grain, very fine diagonal rib, as can be seen in this enlargement. 

What is far less common is the use of striped cloth, which was in vogue for a few years in the mid 19th century.  All of our few bindings with this feature were published between 1847 and 1850.

5. Our fifth binding for Christmas has an unsigned cover design which ticks off all the features one could wish for in a Christmas gift book: red cloth lettered in gilt, a background pattern of pine trees, snowy mountains under a bright blue sky, and to top it all off a border of holly leaves. Add a popular author and several illustrations by Frederick Remington to the pot and it looks like a sure winner.  Publishers' Weekly listed the book as published October 22nd (plenty of time to pick up a copy for the holidays) and, in an advertisement in the November 5th PW for "Harper's new gift books," the publisher notes that "Owen Wister has written nothing about the West more delightful, humorous and pathetic by turns than this Christmas tale."  

Owen Wister. A journey in search of Christmas. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1904.

The book also includes very attractive pictorial endpapers, and each page has border illustrations, all of which are unattributed. 

6.  The sixth binding for Christmas is another Christmas gift book.  The Publishers' Weekly for November 9, 1907 includes an advertisement for "Macmillan books for holiday gifts" and lists F. Marion Crawford's book The Little City of Hope as ready Nov. 20.  

F. Marion Crawford. The little city of hope: a Christmas story. New York: Macmillan, 1907

The striking cover, with a cityscape above and a mass of brilliant green and red holly leaves and berries in a large central panel, is alluded to in the PW description: this "New Christmas story ... is distinctly seasonal, not merely in its decorative dress, its printing in two colors and its illustrations [by Wladyslaw Theodore Benda], but in the deeper spirit of the story itself."

7. The seventh binding for Christmas also features holly as a motif in its design, but to a much different effect.  

Theodore Ledyard Cuyler. Our Christmas tides. New York: Baker & Taylor Co., 1904.

Once again, this title was issued as a holiday book, but rather than a novel it is a non-fiction book by a minister, Dr. Theodore Ledyard Cuyler, discussing the history and meaning of the day throughout the world and in the author's own life. The unidentified cover artist has created a design in gilt and dark red and green resembling stained glass (which numerous artists, including Sarah Whitman and Margaret Armstrong, also worked in).  The dark holly, gothic lettering, stylized red and gilt cross at the center, and the candles topped with rayed stars all contribute to the effect.  The pictorial endpapers make an interesting contrast with the cover and are signed Geo. W. Hood.  George Washington Hood (1869-1949) was an illustrator and painter who also designed bindings, including one of my favorites, the fanciful The Helter Skelters (1)

8. Our eighth binding is quintessential Christmas featuring not only holly but gilt bells and a green and white mistletoe background on a fine diagonal rib cloth.  The binding is also signed with the designer's monogram, which we had identified as that of Florence Pearl England Nosworthy.  But when I rechecked our copy I was taken aback and wondered if we had misidentified the monogram which should be an overlapping F and P.  Instead what we seemed to have was an F and perhaps a stylized E.

Sylvestre, Joshua [i.e. John Camden Hotten]. Christmas carols, ancient and modern. New York: A. Wessels, 1902.

Fortunately, I went back to the scan and by zooming in on the monogram found that there was what seems to be a raised portion of the cloth where the missing part of the bowl of the P should be, which reassured me that our attribution was correct.  A scan of the copy held by the University of Wisconsin-Madison clearly showed how the monogram should appear.  Whether the monogram was improperly stamped or a portion of the monogram had flaked off at some time is a puzzle I can't answer, although the latter seems most likely considering the age of the book and the damage at the foot of the shared F/P stem.

UNCG copy

U Wisc Madison copy

Wessels reissued this title in 1905 with a new cover design by Theodore Brown Hapgood.(2)

9. The ninth binding for Christmas is a fine design by Amy Richards for William Locke's A Christmas Mystery: the Story of Three Wise Men. Her conjoined monogram can be seen on the left below "Christmas.'

William J. Locke. A Christmas mystery: the story of three wise men. New York: John Lane, 1910. 

Publishers' weekly (Oct. 22, 1910, p. 1636) describes the book as “… a real Christmas tale, which tells how three learned men, all crusty and averse to the Christmas spirit … find themselves forced to give help to a poor woman and a new-born baby, discover that they really have hearts, and are grateful for the discovery.” 

Frontispiece illustration of the three crusty gentlemen

In a John Lane advertisement from the same issue, "A State Commissioner of Education,” whose Christmas gift seems to have been overstatement, describes it as “[t]he most powerful Christmas story yet written. Deserves a place beside the ‘Christmas Carol’ by Dickens and ‘The Story of the Other Wise Man’ by [Henry] Van Dyke.”

There is a bit of a Christmas mystery about the cover of this book, as it was issued with two designs.  The publication information on both is identical, but the second seems to be for a less elegant presentation, perhaps a reprinting.   

Illustration from page 54

New York: John Lane, 1910.  From internet archive. 

From an advertisement in Publishers' Weekly for Nov. 26, 1910, we learn that the Amy Richards version was issued as a special gift book edition, and indicates it was the first version released to the public:

Gullans and Espey note that they have recorded around 85 designs by Amy Richards, and, other than her monogram and design work, we know only that she was active from 1896 to 1918 (3).

10. The tenth binding has another Amy Sacker design, this one a paper onlay on decorated cloth.

Frances Bent Dillingham. A Christmas tree scholar: and other stories. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1900.

It is uncertain whether Sacker's contribution to this cover extends to the decorative frame and spine, which might be a series design.  Mark Schumacher gives this presentation as a variant to a quarter cloth version with the Sacker illustration on both the front and rear covers:

Scan from Amy Sacker Site by Mark Schumacher

An intriguing side-note on the glossy paper used on the cover:  although the binding cloth is a calico texture, the paper appears to have an unexpected sand grain that can be seen in this closeup of Sacker's monogram.  Another Christmas mystery?  

11. The eleventh binding for Christmas is a pleasing signed design from the Decorative Designers, in dust jacket.  The gloss and matte gold, gold tipped candlesticks, tiny Christmas tree perched on the top banner on the front cover and spine, and background of dark green and red holly leaves and berries on a dark yellowish-green open weave cloth make this a favorite.

Elva S. Smith and Alice I. Hazeltine. Christmas in legend and story: a book for boys and girls. Boston: Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co., 1915

As befits a Christmas gift title, the book also has a decorated title page, which, though unsigned, may also be the work of the Decorative Designers.

12. Our twelfth and final binding for Christmas-- Christmas stories by Aunt Laura, aka Aunt Fanny.

Aunt Fanny [i.e. Frances Elizabeth Barrow]. Christmas stories. Buffalo, N.Y.: Breed, Butler & Co., 1862.

When I first looked at our scan of this title, what immediately struck me was what seemed to be a very large hexagon grain cloth.  I wondered why this was used, as it caused difficulties with the lettering, leaves and other parts of the gilt stamping; but then I realized that it wasn't that the hexagons were overly large, it was that the book was overly small-- 2 1/8 inches (5.4 cm) to be exact!  Hexagon grained cloth was one of a number of grains that were popular in the middle of the 19th century, although they fell out of favor later in a similar manner to ribbon-embossed cloth and striped cloth earlier in the century.  Andrea Krupp found 17 examples between 1852 and 1865 (4), and in our own collection we have 3 examples, all from 1862 or 1863.

Rear cover with design in blind; without title

This miniature children's book by "Aunt Laura", (a pseudonym of  Frances Elizabeth (Mease) Barrow, 1822-1894) includes two stories, The old man of the mountain, and Christmas merry-making.

With its eye-catching cover and gilt edges, perfect for tiny hands, then and now this book would make an excellent stocking stuffer.  

And now with our tale of twelve bindings complete, we will end this post and this year.

Happy holidays from your friends Paul and Callie at American Trade Bindings and Beyond.

Wishing you a safe and joyous Christmas and a much improved New Year!

(And, of course, a turkey in a pear tree ...)

If you haven't visited recently, we've moved our digital collections to a new platform--Islandora.  Please take a look here and let us know what you think.

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(1)  

(2)

(3)  Charles Gullans and John Espey. "American trade bindings and their designers, 1880-1915." 

In Jean Peters, ed. Collectible books, some new paths. New York: Bowker, 1979, p. 58.

(4)  Andrea Krupp. Bookcloth in England and America, 1823-50. New Castle, Del.: Oak Knoll Press, 2008.

Happy Holidays from the Decorative Designers

It’s only a few days until Christmas and, as always at this time of year, our thoughts are turning to seasonal and wintry topics: decorating the house, seeing family, vacation, finding the perfect gift for that strange uncle, being stranded on a train by a blizzard …

To celebrate the season, our last post of 2016 is a fine wintry design from our friends the Decorative Designers. 

Will Carleton. Drifted in. New York: Every Where Publishing Company, 1908. 

The cover is a model of using space effectively, color, and suggestion. The effects are achieved using only two colors (light blue and black) and gilt on a grayish-blue cloth. The central image of the snow-bound train is enclosed in a rigid frame, with the front of the engine only one eighth of an inch from the left frame. 

Halloween with Lee Thayer

Happy Halloween from the American Trade Bindings Collection at UNCG!  After a very busy summer, we’re back with an October pick for you to enjoy as you surreptitiously pilfer candy from your child’s trick or treat bag.  Our featured title is The Scrimshaw Millions, by Lee Thayer (New York: Sears Publishing Company, 1932), and is a part of Special Collections’ large Robbie Emily Dunn Collection of American Detective Fiction.

The book’s cover features a jaunty skull and crossbones wearing(!) spats and a rakishly tipped top hat.  Naturally enough, it’s also smoking a cigarette.  But what catches the binding lover’s eye as much as the cover is the name on the cover – Lee Thayer, aka Emma Redington Lee Thayer (1874-1973), one of the original two Decorative Designers.  For those who don’t know of the firm, they were founded in 1895 by Henry Thayer, who was trained as an architect.  He quickly hired Emma Redington Lee, trained in decorative arts at the Cooper Union, Pratt Institute, and Associated Artists.  Lee married Thayer in 1909, and was thereafter known as Lee Thayer.  What made the Decorative Designers unique for a design firm was that it included several artists and used division of labor to complete designs.  The firm also included (at various times and for varying lengths of time) Rome K. Richardson and Adam Empie who transferred and engraved designs, and Charles Buckles Falls and Jay Chambers who provided figures.  These artists also created cover designs on their own, sometimes using their own monograms (for example, "RR" by Rome Richardson and "F" by Charles Buckles Falls).  Henry Thayer did much of the lettering, and Lee Thayer, provided borders, and ornamental designs.  The firm dissolved in 1931, but was able to produce the astonishing output of over 25,000 design items, including thousands of book covers.  The American Trade Bindings Collection currently includes 120 covers by the Decorative Designers. (1)

But Lee Thayer had another career -- mystery novelist -- which began well before the dissolution of the Decorative Designers. 

Kenny's Choice: March Binding of the Month Club

Welcome to the March 2016 Binding of the Month Club!

Did you know that the University of North Carolina Greensboro digital projects website is not the only place to view our collection of American trade bindings?  If you haven’t discovered them yet, let me encourage you to visit the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) (1). Headquartered at the Boston Public Library, the DPLA was launched in April 2013 after years of planning.  Their website gives this summary of their purpose:

"The vision of a national digital library has been circulating among librarians, scholars, educators, and private industry representatives since the early 1990s.  Efforts led by a range of organizations, including the Library of Congress, HathiTrust, and the Internet Archive, have successfully built resources that provide books, images, historic records, and audiovisual materials to anyone with Internet access.  Many universities, public libraries and other public-spirited organizations have digitized materials, but these digital collections often exist in silos.  The DPLA brings these different viewpoints, experiences, and collections together in a single platform and portal, providing open and coherent access to our society's digitized cultural heritage." (2)

The UNCG Libraries are a contributing institution to DPLA through the North Carolina Digital Heritage Center, one of DPLA’s partners, and our American Publishers’ Trade Bindings (APTB) collection can be viewed in its entirety on DPLA.

Why bring up DPLA on American Trade Bindings and Beyond?  In addition to my personal respect for what they’re doing and the quality of the product (11,776,547 digital items as I write this), and that you can find our bindings on their site, and to celebrate their third anniversary, I was delighted to find that one of their staff is a big fan of APTB!  Let me introduce you to Kenny Whitebloom, Manager of Special Projects at DPLA.  According to his bio, Kenny “works to build DPLA’s network of users and supporters through events and programs, communications, partnerships, strategic initiatives, and other projects that promote growth and innovation. He previously worked at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. Kenny holds a MLIS from Simmons School of Library and Information Science and a BA in History and Italian from Vassar College. Kenny’s current favorite DPLA items are the bindings for A Kentucky Cardinal and Aftermath (1900), Like a Gallant Lady (1897), The Tent on the Beach (1899), and The Legatee (1903).”

In addition to his accomplishments, Kenny also has great taste in bindings.  The titles he lists have binding designs by Hugh Thomson, Will Bradley, Margaret Armstrong, and the Decorative Designers respectively--all very heavy hitters in the world of binding design, and innovators in illustration and design.  Hugh Thomson (1860-1920) was born in Coleraine, County Londonderry, Ireland and died in London.  He was known for his work in periodical and book illustration.  In our context, he illustrated a number of classic authors, including Shakespeare, Austen, Dickens, and Oliver Goldsmith, as well as contemporary authors such as James Barrie and James Lane Allen.  In the 1880s and 1890s he created binding designs (and illustrations) for a number of books for Macmillan and Kegan Paul.  These are instantly recognizable by their elaborate pictorial scenes, stamped in gilt, and usually on dark cloth (we have five of his covers in the collection).  

Will H. Bradley (1868-1962) was an artist, book, magazine and graphic designer, illustrator, typographer, writer, and was considered one of the pre-eminent poster artists in the United States.  He started his own publishing firm, the Wayside Press, in Springfield, Massachusetts in 1895.  He designed covers for both small presses (H.S. Stone and Way & Williams of Chicago, R.H. Russell of New York) and large publishing firms (Frederick A. Stokes, John Lane, Dodd, Mead and Company (3)).  We've met Margaret Armstrong (1867-1944) in several earlier posts and her work will be featured again; many consider her among the best, if not the best, of the binding designers.  For this post, however, my choice from Kenny's favorites is The Legatee, by Alice Prescott Smith (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1903), with a binding by the Decorative Designers--I'm an unrepentant fan of designs on black or charcoal gray cloth...

The dramatic pictorial cover shows a forest in flames.  The somber black cloth becomes silhouetted pines against a background of swirling multicolored flames reaching (by implication) far up into the sky.  This cover is a good example of the switching of foreground image (the only inked portion of the design) into background, with the illusion of background black cloth becoming the foreground image.  The extremely restrained lettering in the center of the cover completes the design.  At first glance the darkened portion of the flames in the upper right might be mistaken as intentional, representing smoke among the flames.  After a more careful look at our copy and comparing it to the copy at the University of California, this “effect” turns out to be nothing more than the result of aging and the thousand natural shocks that cloth is heir to.

UNCG copy





                          University of California copy

The Legatee is a story of the lumber districts and lumber trade in the northeastern peninsula of Wisconsin in the early 1870s.  With references to Lake Michigan and the beaches and bluffs around the town of Wilsonport, the location must be the southern coast of the Door Peninsula, though this is not specifically mentioned.  A young Virginian comes to the area after inheriting a lumber mill from his deceased uncle.  There is an immediate clash between the rural, isolated upper Midwest villagers and young Robert Proctor, our hero, who until the Civil War had been a slave owner.  Neither understands the other and hostility grows.  He comes to love Katherine Edminster, the daughter of the local doctor, and her initial animosity gradually turns to affection.  The novel culminates with an account of the Great Peshtigo Fire (though not called this in the book) of October 8-10th, 1871 which devastates the entire region.  A very favorable review in the San Francisco Call of April 26, 1903, draws particular attention to the creation of original characters and the relationships among them, and that the “The catastrophe is worked up with dramatic skill and is described with a genuine intensity of feeling and vividness of pictorial effect.” (4)  

From the November 25, 1871 issue of Harper's Weekly magazine

The fire which climaxes The Legatee was “the worst recorded forest fire in North American history.” Coincidentally (or is it?  There are theories, including aliens …), a much more famous fire broke out the same night, October 8th, in Chicago.  Although the Great Chicago Fire is now part of our shared culture, the Peshtigo fire, which killed between 1500 and 2500 people (the devastation was so great that local records were destroyed and an accurate count was impossible), and burned 1.2 million acres, is little known today.  The fires were caused by a prolonged drought coupled with high temperatures and sudden cyclonic western winds which turned small fires, set to clear forest land, into a firestorm, with “fire tornadoes,” winds over 100 miles per hour, and temperatures of 2,000 degrees. (5)

Little information about the author is readily available.  Alice Prescott Smith wrote four novels in the early part of the twentieth century, The Legatee (1903) being her first.  The next two, Off the Highway (1904) and Montlivet (1906), followed quickly, with her final book, Kindred, appearing in 1925.  The first three novels were published by Houghton, Mifflin and Company and the last by Houghton Mifflin Company, which took this new form of name after incorporating in 1908.   A “List of United States citizens (for the immigration authorities)” dated Dec. 14, 1927 (6), gives her name as a passenger on the S.S. “President Van Buren”, sailing from Marseilles, France, Nov. 30, 1927 and arriving at the port of New York, Dec. 14, 1927.  The same source gives her age as 58 years, 1 month, and her place and date of birth as St. Paul, Minn., Nov. 1, 1859.  Her U.S. address was at 992 Green St., San Francisco, Calif.  The review of The Legatee mentioned above tells us further that Alice grew up among the people and scenes she described.  Her father, a Congregational missionary, had a large parish of widely scattered farms and villages, and Alice accompanied her father on his many long drives from farm to farm and “there was not a village she did not know.”  During these visits she heard many stories of the great fire of October 1871.  The review further states that before The Legatee, she had been “content to write short stories,” and that she had been a resident of San Francisco for the past thirteen years (i.e. since 1890, so she arrived in California at roughly age 31).

"All that's very well--and who doesn't want to know about a huge fire--but what about the binding designer?"  That’s a fair question.  I apologize for treating the main course like dessert, but when it’s the Decorative Designers you really have both in one.  Much is known about the firm, in large part because of the pioneering work of Charles Gullans and John Espey (7) who had the good fortune to interview one of the co-founders of the firm, Lee Thayer, in the early 1970s.  UCLA’s Special Collections holds a substantial “Collection of Materials by and Relating to the Decorative Designers” donated by Gullans and Espey (8). 

 The firm was unique in several ways, first of all because it was a firm.  It was founded in 1895 by the architect Henry Thayer (1867-1940) who quickly hired Emma Reddington Lee (1874-1973), who was trained in the decorative arts.  Emma later married Thayer (1909) and changed her name to Mrs. Lee Thayer.  Two other artists were hired, Rome K. Richardson, (born 1877) and Adam Empie.  Later Charles Buckles Falls (1874-1960) and Jay Chambers (1877-1929) were added.  Most binding designers worked as individuals, whether by contract or commission by publishers, or as art directors for the publishers.  

Another unique feature of the firm was division of labor.  Henry Thayer, trained as an architect, was responsible for a great deal of the lettering on book covers or other work (the firm also did illustration, dust jacket design, advertising, and other design work).  Lee Thayer was responsible for decorative designs and borders.  Richardson, who was with the Decorative Designers from 1896-1901, and Adam Empie transferred the designs to brass plates and engraved them.  Charles Buckles Falls and Jay Chambers, the latter working for the firm from 1902-1913, provided the figurative drawings used for “narrative” designs.  Although work for the firm was either unsigned or signed with their distinctive interlocked DD monogram, with the second “D” reversed, all of the artists working for the firm produced covers that were largely or completely by the single artist.  Falls, Richardson and Empie also signed these solo efforts with distinctive monograms.  Examples of these single designer bindings and monograms are given below (except Empie, as we have no examples of his solo work).  In all, the firm produced an astonishing output of around 25,000 pieces of design work, an unknown number of which were book covers, though they were certainly in the thousands.  The firm was dissolved in 1931 and Lee and Henry Thayer’s marriage ended in divorce the next year.  Our digital collection includes 120 covers by the Decorative Designers at this time.  Only somewhere between 10 and 100 times that number to go!

Cover designs by Lee Thayer (left) and Henry Thayer (right) and Jay Chambers (below)(9)

Cover designs by Rome Richardson (below left) and Charles Buckles Falls (below right)

And their monograms

Thanks again, Kenny, for your interest in the American Publishers’ Trade Bindings digital collection, and for a fine selection of favorites.  And to our visitors, don’t forget that your’s could be the next selection for Binding of the Month.  Just drop us a comment.

(1) Wikipedia article, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Public_Library_of_America for a brief overview.

(2) http://dp.la/info/about/history/ viewed March 30, 2016.

 (3) A nice site with brief biography, checklists of his artistic output and writings, timeline, etc. is at http://willbradley.com/

(4)  “Tale of ‘The Legatee,’ by Alice Prescott Smith, Is Strong in its Types.” Review:  San Francisco Call, Volume 93, Number 147, 26 April 1903.  http://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=SFC19030426.2.54

(5) Deana C. Hipke. The Great Peshtigo Fire of 1871. http://www.peshtigofire.info/  Also see “The Peshtigo Fire” (http://www.weather.gov/grb/peshtigofire ) and “The Great Midwest Wildfires of 1871” (http://www.weather.gov/grb/peshtigofire2)

(6) “New York, New York Passenger and Crew Lists, 1909, 1925-1957," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-1942-21741-32740-69?cc=1923888), 4184 - vol 9331, Dec 14, 1927 > image 184 of 486; citing NARA microfilm publication T715 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.).

(7) For a useful short account of the firm, see:  Gullans, Charles and John Espey. “American Trade Bindings and Their Designers, 1880-1915.” In Peters, Jean, ed. Collectible Books: Some New Paths. New York: Bowker, 1979, p. 32-67.

(8) Online finding aid at: http://pdf.oac.cdlib.org/pdf/ucla/mss/deco1182.pdf
(9) Attributions by Lee Thayer as reported by Gullans and Espey in Collectible Books.  The image for The Yellow Van is from the invaluable website Publishers Bindings Online (PBO) with my thanks.  We have a copy in our collection but it's in poor condition.