More than 60 dealers greeted about 750 customers at Ephemera 44 at the Hyatt Regency Greenwich in Greenwich, Conn.
Review & Photos by Z.G. Burnett
GREENWICH, CONN. — The only thing brighter than the almost-spring sunshine outside of the Hyatt Regency Greenwich on March 16 and 17 was vendors’ expressions throughout what was overall an enjoyable and profitable weekend at the Ephemera 44 Paper Fair and Conference. Each of the 60-plus dealers who participated and shared their expertise reported healthy sales and had high praise for the event itself. In addition to the careful selection of fellow businesses, many were impressed by the knowledge and enthusiasm of new customers and those that regularly attend this event, which numbered around 750 attendees throughout the weekend. Ephemera 44 was presented by The Ephemera Society of America (ESA) and was produced and managed by Sanford L. Smith + Associates.
“The theme of this year’s conference is ‘Conflict/Resolution,’ which will explore the ephemera associated with conflicts and, where possible, resolutions,” wrote ESA president David Lilburne in the event’s brochure. “While war may be our first association, our discussions will encompass significant social and political movements where ephemera has been utilized to advance arguments or document events.” With this aim in mind, many dealers brought posters, flyers and other goods associated with historic events and people. Others thought more outside the box, focusing on change that happened behind the scenes of the public eye and away from press coverage of the day.
Unique photographic proofs of the Boy Scouts of America from Underwood & Underwood, 1914-16, brought by David & Cathy Lindburne of Antipodean Books, Maps & Prints, Garrison, N.Y.
David and Cathy Lindburne were at the fair’s entrance, cheerfully greeting customers from their booth, Antipodean Books, Maps & Prints, Garrison, N.Y. Lindburne exhibited everything from colorful lithographic print series to early Twentieth Century sexual health guides, but he drew our attention to a set of photographs from that same era. These were proof sheets of albumen photograph prints from Underwood & Underwood, Ottawa, Kan., which would later be converted into stereoviews. Their subject was early activities of the Boy Scouts of America, formed in 1910 to, as the center image’s caption describes, “[make] good Americans.” Leading up to the United States joining World War I in 1917, these scenes of Camp Archibald Butt on Chesapeake Bay (operational 1914-16) show the Boy Scouts’ original paramilitary purpose with drills, rallies and awards. These proofs were largely unpublished and many of their negatives destroyed, making them the only original images of these events.
Rabelais Inc., Alfred, Maine, specializes in “fine books on food and drink,” and brought a particular menu that exemplified perhaps the most nuanced yet violent conflict of American history. When asked her favorite piece in their booth, Emma Cousins produced an unassuming early American menu from Cataract House, known as the first and largest hotel in Niagara Falls, N.Y. Established in 1825 when the village was known as Manchester, it was purchased in 1835 by General Parkhurst Whitney and known for its expansive bill of fare. It was so well known, shared Cousins, that it was a preferred stopping point for traveling Southern plantation owners. The food and drink must have been irresistible, as Manchester was also a strategic location on the Underground Railroad. Due to its proximity to the Canadian border, enslaved persons would frequently escape here even under their captor’s supervision. From the serene woodcut of the falls, one would never suspect such a history from this unassuming artifact.
Bill of Fare from Cataract House at Niagara Falls, then Manchester, N.Y., circa 1835. This grand hotel was the first of its kind in the area and, despite its popularity with visiting plantation owners, an important Underground Railroad stop for enslaved persons endeavoring to cross into Canada. Rabelais Inc, Printed & Manuscript Cookery, Alfred, Maine.
Other dealers brought more overt material from past struggles, and some that are ongoing. Mare Booksellers, Dover, N.H., specializes in “punk” ephemera, including zines, underground newspapers and art. “While we don’t take ourselves seriously, we do the business of bookselling,” says their website. “It was our first time at the show, and we didn’t know what to expect,” reported owner Richard Erdmann, who added that they had a strong show. In the center of Mare’s display was a striking yellow poster showing a snakelike being, surrounded by bubble letter script. “A cobra has grown slowly through the people’s struggle coiled in our minds/bodies poised to strike/Let us aim with clear precision to plant our venom at the core with the beauty of our rising/New changes being born,” it read. Made by the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA), a far left organization in the United States that carried out various violent crimes and infamous for the kidnapping of Patty Hearst, the poster represents the SLA as the tail of the cobra. Each of its “heads” shows a principle of Kwanzaa, written in Swahili. The small group eventually disbanded due to fatalities in police conflict, incarceration and remaining members living on the lam.
Ephemera enthusiasts may be accustomed to seeing Nineteenth Century broadsides from the American Temperance movement, but DeWolfe & Wood Rare Books, Alfred, Maine, brought Russian posters from the mid-Twentieth Century condemning the consumption of alcohol. One colorful 1960s example showed a groovily dressed man with a ruddy face drinking straight from a bottle, shadowed by his future drunken fury. The poster’s message: “Everyone knows that drunkenness is a disaster. Its consequences are even more terrible!” Its illustrator was the Soviet-born Ukrainian cartoonist Mark Aleksandrovich Abramov (1913-1994), who began publishing his cartoons in the 1930s under the pseudonym “Moa.” He later created more than 15 posters for the war effort in World War II and was bestowed the title Honored Worker of Arts of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic in 1964.
Russian anti-alcohol poster from the 1960s, illustrated by Mark Aleksandrovich Abramov or “Moa” (Ukraine, 1913-1994). DeWolfe & Wood Rare Books, Alfred, Maine.
Another political cartoonist who may be more familiar to our readers appeared in the Boston Rare Maps, Southfield, Mass., group, an 1813 etching by George Cruikshank (English, 1792-1878) titled “Preparing John Bull For General Congress.” The caricature of John Bull, established personification of Great Britain, being accosted by the kingdom’s various external conflicts was created in response to that year’s Congress of Prague, during which Britain’s Austrian allies tried to negotiate peace with Napoleon who is seated far right. At left is the USS President, representing the United States as it fires a cannonball at Bull’s “West Indies” leg. President Michael Buehler usually deals in maps but enjoys participating in the ephemera fairs as they are a “known quantity” for unusual Americana.
Many maps were offered in the show, especially in the booth of Carol J. Spack, Framingham, Mass., and sold a few showpieces over the weekend. However, it was three miniature globes that she was most excited to show us. Each was made from the 1830s to the 1870s and were dated according to the geographical locations and shifting national boundaries they displayed. One terrestrial globe showed a label from the Kildare Place Educational Depository in Dublin, which opened in 1811 and closed in 1878. As a Protestant institution, the globe’s existence is a peek into Ireland’s religious and political turmoil during this time. Another was a celestial globe restored by the Green Dragon Bindery, Shrewsbury, Mass. The second terrestrial globe in the display was unusually mounted in what appeared to be a Nineteenth Century, homemade base. Spack believes that its globe probably came from a grandfather clock, due to incisions on its equator where it would have been attached in the case.
Three miniature Nineteenth Century globes, from left: a Dublin-made terrestrial globe from an Irish Protestant educational institution, a possibly repurposed globe from a grandfather clock with homemade frame and a celestial globe. Carol J. Pack Original Antique Maps, Framingham, Mass.
M. Callen of Haec City / Also Books, Pittsburgh, Penn., was also enjoying their first show with the ESA fair. Named for “haecceity” or “thisness,” Haec City specializes in the evolving visual and material cultures of the Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries, including education, decorative arts and textiles. Sample books of the latter were prominently displayed; some were very small, such as a 1900-20 homemade French notebook of hand-crocheted lace specimens, and some quite large like a purpose-made binder filled with samples of Nottingham lace. This design was patented by Priestley & Swan, allowing the swatches to be switched out and rearranged. Callen also had a number of 1950s French textile workbooks, filled with functional sewing skill panels and sketches. The booth attracted a steady stream of customers and Callen was happy with their premier showing and sales in Greenwich.
The Hyatt Regency Greenwich is at 1800 West Putnam Avenue. Ephemera 45 will occur March 14-16, 2025. For more information, www.ephemerasociety.org or www.esafair.com.
