Focke E G (1 results)

Hardcover. Condition: Good. Square octavo. Commercial "Souvenir Album" published in New York by Leavitt & Allen, illustrated with engraved plates. Contains a few full-page manuscript entries, autographs, two mounted ferns, and 21 original photographs: 20 salted paper prints and one albumen print, mounted throughout the album. Compiled by "Miss Focke," a young woman scholar from Massillon, Ohio, the album was presented to her teacher "Millie". The manuscript entries date from 1860-61, a few photographs have captions and dates written in ink or pencil, most are unidentified. Bound in brown morocco over boards, with a decorative design blocked in gold and in blind, all edges gilt. Both covers are worn, lacking leather spine, front cover loose but holding firm by the stitches, else internally very good with some light scattered foxing to the tissue guards. An unusual album that can be viewed as an early prototype of a school yearbook, with portrait photographs of young male and female students, together with a few other persons, likely teachers or administrators of the school, which is not identified in the album. Among the photographs are two oval salt paper portraits of two young men mounted below a Union Civil War patriotic cover cut-out of Lady Liberty. One portrait is dated October 7, 1861: both portraits were likely taken soon before both men were mustered into the Union Army. An unusual, scarce survival from Ohio.