Budd Back Number (1 results)

Soft cover. Condition: Very Good. Elephant Folio - over 15 - 23" tall. (ca.1895) A Very Good copy. Elephant folio (newspaper), 4 pp., illustrated with a portrait of George Washington on the first page, 2nd column. Printed on wood pulp paper, now tanned. On the right margin is printed "Gen. Geo. Washington's Inauguration, Our First President, 1789; and below the title, "Copyright by Back Number Budd, 1280 Broadway, N. Y." In a modern frame with glaze (not examined out of the frame). **** This newspaper has an account of Washington's first inauguration on Thursday, April 30, 1789. As such, has been reprinted several times as the Centennial approached, and after. In this case, this reprint was done by "Back Number" Budd, a colored New York former boot black, who started by collecting news paper accounts of recent Civil War Battles, and would travel to the front to sell them to Union troops who participated in those battles. This small business blossomed until he eventually accumulated several million back issues of newspapers, dating back to the 1820's, with several hundred thousand magazines. He had 3 employees, and was the only source, nation-wide, of back issue daily newspapers, quite the accomplishment for an uneducated, black citizen of the 19th century. Disaster struck shortly after the publication of this Inaugural facsimile, when his warehouse burned down in 1895. Interviewed in The British Printer, Budd laments the loss of over 14 million newspapers, but vows to rebuild from the ashes. ***.