Hardcover. NY, Harper & Row, 1st, 1985, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 306 pages, b&w photographs. Light edge wear to dust jacket. Previous price sticker on front fly leaf. In this memoir, Morris chronicles the development of his craft, allowing the reader to look inside the man as the creative process takes place. Never forgetting his Midwestern roots, Morris traveled extensively in this country and around the world photographing as he went. This volume is illustrated with many of those photographs and serves as a travelogue that takes us to places like the plains of Nebraska, sultry Mexico, and romantic Venice; Covers slightly bowed. Else a clean, tight copy.
Hardcover. NY, W W Norton & Co., 1st, 1988, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover in a bright, price-clipped dust jacket with light edgewear, 158 pages. SIGNED BY PLOWDEN on the half title page. Midwestern rural America is captured in photographs of the farmhouses, furnishings, barns, and grain elevators, as well as the men and women who live and work in the region. Clean copy.
Hardcover. Chicago, The Lakeside Press, 1st, 1919, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, dark green cloth stamped in gilt, top edge gilt, 137 pages. Tight, attractive copy of this early "Lakeside Classic," the annual keepsake presented by this printer/publisher to friends and clients starting in 1903. Illustrated with two portraits of the author. So many pioneer stories were written at the request of a child or grandchild. What makes Christiana Tillson's humorous memoir different was her background. Tillson's story records the reactions produced upon a refined New England woman by an environment at once predominantly southern and wholly frontier. Her youth in 1822 and her parting from all that she had known in the East were common of many later Western migrants. But when she and her husband went out to try their fortunes, the "West" was what we today call the Midwest. It was still a wild, dangerous, and uncertain place to try to make a future. Clean, bright copy.
Hardcover. NY, The Artist Book Foundation, 1st, 2017, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket. Adolf Dehn (1895-1968), an American lithographer and watercolorist, left his hometown in Minnesota after formal training at the Minneapolis Art Institute to study at the Art Students League in New York. In the early 1920s, he traveled to the cosmopolitan cities of Paris, Vienna, and Berlin, where he focused on lithography and printmaking, and soon found success as a magazine illustrator. As he toured Europe, Dehn quickly acclimated to the continental lifestyle and was adept at depicting its nuances and idiosyncrasies through his prolific lithographs and sketches. His critical and satirical renderings of the political movements, social conventions, and governmental policies in pre-World War II Europe gave the Midwestern artist ample material for his growing body of work. Returning to the United States in 1930, Dehn exhibited his prints in several solo shows at the Weyhe Gallery in New York, starting in 1935. As an artist during the era of the Great Depression, Dehn did commercial artwork and contributed to popular magazines such as The New Yorker, Vogue, and Vanity Fair. In fact, his clever drawings that reflected the culture and fashionable society during the Jazz Age, made Dehn a favourite of Frank Crowninshield, Vanity Fair's renowned editor. 182 pages, clean, still in publisher's shrinkwrap.
Softcover. Iowa City, University of Iowa Press, 1st, 1993, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 325 pages with index, b&w illustrations. Sarah Gillespie Huftalen led an unconventional life for a rural midwestern woman of her time. Born in 1865 near Manchester, Iowa, she was a farm girl who became a highly regarded country school and college teacher; she married a man older than either of her parents, received a college degree later in life, and was committed to both family and career. A gifted writer, she crafted essays, teacher-training guides, and poetry while continuing to write lengthy, introspective entries in her diary, which spans the years from 1873 to 1952. In addition, she gathered extensive information about the quietly tragic life of her mother, Emily, and worked to preserve Emily's own detailed diary. Taken together, Emily's and Sarah's extraordinary diaries span nearly a century and thus form a unique mother/daughter chronicle of daily work and thoughts, interactions with neighbors and friends and colleagues, and the destructive family dynamics that dominated the Gillespies. Sarah's consciousness of the abusive relationship between her mother and father haunts her diary, and this dramatic relationship is duplicated in Sarah's relationship with her brother, Henry, Suzanne Bunkers' skillful editing and analysis of Sarah's diary reveal the legacy of a caring, loving mother reflected in her daughter's work as family member, teacher, and citizen. Clean, bright copy.
Hardcover. New York , W. W. Norton & Company, 1st, 2006, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket. Like many who grew up during the spread of sprawl--with its predictable landscape of housing developments, shopping malls, interstate highways, and big-box construction--acclaimed photographer Jeff Brouws is drawn to places that still embody the vernacular past as well as to those that starkly portray the soulless, franchised American landscape. What began as cultural geography of Main Streets became a visual critique of the myth of upward mobility that created this car-centered, paved-over universe. Some images look outward to the edges of suburbia where sprawl is encroaching upon nature. Others turn inward, documenting the devastated inner cities. All the stunning color photographs reflect the complex beauty and desolation of visual life in our time. 100 color photographs.
Hardcover. NY, W. W. Norton & Company, 1st, 2006, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket. Like many who grew up during the spread of sprawl--with its predictable landscape of housing developments, shopping malls, interstate highways, and big-box construction--acclaimed photographer Jeff Brouws is drawn to places that still embody the vernacular past as well as to those that starkly portray the soulless, franchised American landscape. What began as cultural geography of Main Streets became a visual critique of the myth of upward mobility that created this car-centered, paved-over universe. Some images look outward to the edges of suburbia where sprawl is encroaching upon nature. Others turn inward, documenting the devastated inner cities. All the stunning color photographs reflect the complex beauty and desolation of visual life in our time. 100 color photographs.
Softcover. NY, Little, Brown & Company, reprint, 2014, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 207 pages. Orinally published as a paperback by Lion Books in 1953. From the beginning, Jim Thompson knew he was going to catch hell no matter what he did. And during a childhood spent at the mercy of a father whose schemes put him on the wrong side of the law as often as the right, and a grandfather who knew the bad parts of town like the back of his hand, young Jim learned sin better than any writer had before. From his rabble-rousing adolescencein the American Midwest, to wasted teenage years in the seedy underbelly of the hotel industry, to Thompson's chilling encounter with the real-life inspiration of THE KILLER INSIDE ME, BAD BOY offers a fascinating glimpse at the formative years of the man who would become one of the most famous authors of modern American Noir, in the autobiography-as-novel that follows the birth of the legend himself in the signature style Thompson made famous. Clean, unread copy.
Hardcover. Honesdale, Boyds Mills Press, 1st, 1995, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 31 pages. Hardcover in a bright dust jacket. SIGNED BY ILLUSTRATOR BARRY MOSER ON TITLE PAGE. Full color illustrations. Clean, bright copy.
Hardcover. Chicago, University Of Chicago Press, 1st, 2003, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 320 pages. Light marking to several pages in margins, otherwise clean. In Blue Chicago, David Grazian takes us inside the world of contemporary urban blues clubs to uncover how such images are manufactured and sold to music fans and audiences. Drawing on countless nights in dozens of blues clubs throughout Chicago, Grazian shows how this quest for authenticity has transformed the very shape of the blues experience. He explores the ways in which professional and amateur musicians, club owners, and city boosters define authenticity and dish it out to tourists and bar regulars. He also tracks the changing relations between race and the blues over the past several decades, including the increased frustrations of black musicians forced to slog through the same set of overplayed blues standards for mainly white audiences night after night. In the end, Grazian finds that authenticity lies in the eye of the beholder: a nocturnal fantasy to some, an essential way of life to others, and a frustrating burden to the rest.
Hardcover. Chicago, Chicago Historical Society, 1st, 1977, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, black cloth with silver lettering and design. A comprehensive look at the history of objects made of metal from Chicago between 1844 to 1970. Includes numerous black and white illustrations by Walter W. Krutz. 141 pages. SIGNED BOOKMARK by author laid in. Clean copy. No dust jacket issued.
Hardcover. Chicago IL, University of Chicago Press, 1st, 2007, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 263 pages. When the Chicago Daily News closed its doors in March 1978 after over a century of publication, the city mourned the loss of an American original. The Daily News boasted the inventive, aggressive writing of such luminaries as Carl Sandburg and Ben Hecht. It was also one of the first newspapers in the country to feature black-and-white photography. In 1900, staffers from the paper's art department began lugging bulky cameras, heavy glass plates, and explosive flash powder throughout the city. A labor strike, a boxing match, or a crime scene--it was all in a day's work for the Daily News photographer. These cameramen helped sell papers, but, as Mark Jacob and Richard Cahan reveal, they also made art. Chicago under Glass: Early Photographs from the Chicago Daily News is the first collection of images from the photo staff's early years, 1901 to 1930. Jacob and Cahan, seasoned journalists themselves, have selected more than 250 images--many of which have never before been published--from the nearly 57,000 glass negatives housed at the Chicago History Museum. They include rare photographs of a young Buster Keaton with his wife and child, waiting to board a train and the notorious Al Capone outside a courtroom, smoking a cigar and consulting with his lawyer. Each thematic section begins with a fascinating introduction by the authors, and each image is accompanied by insightful historical commentary.
Hardcover. NY, Alfred A. Knopf, 1st, 1955, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover in a lightly worn dust jacket, 293 pages plus index. Illustrated with b&w photos. Dust jacket with fading, mild chipping. Clean copy.
Softcover. Chicago's Books Press, 1st, 2008, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 200 pages, b&w illustrations. CD included. An interesting behind-the-scenes look at the golden age of Midwest radio. This book is a must read if you grew up in the late 1950's and 1960's listening to WLS radio in Chicago. Clark Weber takes us along with him as he starts his radio career in a little daytime station and then progresses to the "Big 89". He chronicles the rise of WLS into a 38 state "Blowtorch" during the 25+ years that the station ruled the midwest airways as THE 'Top 40' radio station. You will hear stories of the 'jocks' that worked with him, how fun it was working the big 'hops' around Chicago and the midwest, his understanding wife, and his lone solo airplane flight that almost ended the fun for him. Clean copy.
Softcover. Lake Forest IL, Shore Line Interurban Historical Society, 1st, 2011, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 11" x 8.5"; 83 pages in b&w and color. Fold-out maps in center.
Hardcover. New Haven CT, Yale University Press,, 1st, 1991, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 235 pages. Includes bibliographical references, index, notes, and numerous black and white and color illustrations and maps. Bright dust jacket. light foxing to text block fore-edge.
Softcover. London, Bemrose & Sons, 1st, 1911, Book: Fair, Dust Jacket: None, 265 pages. Softcover with heavy wear to paper wrappers. Maps and black and white pictures. Previous owner's markings on rear and throughout. Spine paper removed.
Softcover. Chapel Hill NC, University of North Carolina Press, 1st, 1998, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 235 pages, b&w illustrations. Focusing on the porkpacking industry in Iowa, Fink investigates the experience of the rural working class and highlights its significance in shaping the state's economic, political, and social contours. Fink draws both on interviews and on her own firsthand experience working on the production floor of a pork-processing plant. She weaves a fascinating account of the meatpacking industry's history in Iowa--a history, she notes, that has been experienced differently by male and female, immigrant and native-born, white and black workers. Like new.
Softcover. Detroit, Wayne State University Press, 2nd pr., 1974, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 355 pages with index, b&w illustrations. Clean copy.
Hardcover. Merrell, 1st, 2002, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 144 pages. Wright Morris was the poet laureate of Middle America. An icon of the 1940s, he died in 1998. Honored many times for his literary work, Morris twice received the prestigious American Book Award for The Field of Vision (1957) and Plains Song (1981), and pioneered the "photo-text." But Morris also created memorable images capturing the soul and mystique of the Midwest.Morris's images are the expression of his life-long quest to discover a vernacular and imagined America. His images brilliantly subvert such "cliched" motifs as grain elevators, Model T Fords, a farmer's cutlery set, or dusty badlands. Here, for the first time, the full emotional impact of his extraordinarily beautiful photographs-as forceful as his more celebrated writing-has been given free reign.
Softcover. self-published, 1st, 2007, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 150 pages. A collection of random newspaper snippets from the early newspapers in the Sandusky, Ohio area. Not in chronological order, they range from the mid-1800s to late 1920s. Clean copy.
Hardcover. Madison WI, Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 1st, 2014-03-15, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 119 pages, illustrated throughout in color. Clean, unmarked copy with only minor wear to dust jacket. Carl Corey turns his camera on Wisconsin family-owned businesses in existence fifty years or longer. The businesses portrayed here--bakeries and barbecue joints, funeral homes and furniture builders, cheesemakers, fishermen, ferry boat drivers--have survived against all the odds, weathering tough economic times and big-business competition. The owners are loyal to their employees, their families, and themselves. And they are integral to their local economies and social fabric.