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The FIRST Official U.S. World's Fair  
   (AlmostBetter than Being Here)

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•  Published by subscription and “Embellished with nearly eight hundred illustrations drawn expressly for this work by the most eminent artists in America,” this impressive volume appeared in several forms, including under the title Frank Leslie's Historical Register of the United States Centennial Exposition, and in editions combining descriptions of other exhibitions; the presentdeluxe example is uncommon.

Virtually every display and every event associated with the Exposition is described here, and most are captured in truly extraordinary steel-engraved illustrations — page after page of scenes, portraits, diagrams, reproductions of works of art, and architectural views, all vividly rendered with much attention to the human element; a nearly full-page depiction of “The statue of 'The Freed Slave' in Memorial Hall” focuses on the solemn reactions of the surrounding crowd of well-dressed African-Americans. Scullers on the Schuylkill, wine tasters, Chinese merchants, the Emperor and Empress of Brazil, viewers amazed by the cataract in Machinery Hall, assorted advertisers and their wares (birdcages, corsets, firearms, “Centennial Pop-corn”), arrivals at the Pennsylvania Railroad Centennial Depot, the “Grand Commandery of the United States Knights Templars . . . passing the Masonic Temple in Broad Street, Philadelphia,” and a remarkable range of livestock are all present. A meeting of the Society of the Cincinnati took place during the Centennial, prompting a brief history of that organization here, alongside articles on the early manufacture of earthenware, customs regulations, the Liberty Bell, the operations of the United States Life-saving Service, etc.

A double-page facsimile of the Declaration of Independence is included; the color-printed frontispiece and one other color plate show “Flags of All Nations.”

•  Publisher's pebbled brown cloth, front cover and spine decoratively gilt-stamped, back cover blind-stamped; spine gilt faded, corners and spine extremities slightly rubbed. Pages clean and fresh. A gorgeous volume!  (24674)

We Are in Production!

Pennsylvania Society for the Encouragement of American Manufactures.

•  Founded to "promote the manufacturing interest of our country" in 1787, the Society sent out this communication giving its constitution and list of officers with a report on the present state of manufacturing in the United States. This includes a discussion of growth in domestic raw materials and manufactures—with some detail as to items whose production has increased—and reports decline in the need for imported materials and manufactured goods. The whole ends on a note at once self-congratulatory and restrained: Things are, happily, "in most respects very considerably better than . . . at the first establishment of the Society."

Tench Coxe was the publishing President, Peter A. Browne, the Secretary.

•  Shaw & Shoemaker 7024; Sabin 60367. Publisher's plain blue wrappers, soiled. Dog-earing, with a few chipped corners; some soiling and foxing.

Local Sericulture

Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Culture of theMulberry, and the Raising of Silk Worms.

•  No sooner had this sericulture society founded itself with a constitution than it published a handbook for the would-be worm raiser. The instructions on cultivation of both trees and worms are clear and extensive. The society also here announces prizes ("premiums") for the greatest quantity of thread made from silk raised in Pennsylvania; for "the greatest quantity of good cocoons, raised within this state"; and "for the largest number of the best white mulberry trees, raised within twelve miles of this city." There were also prizes for lesser quantities in those same categories.

•  Shoemaker 34706. Recent quarter off-white cloth, old style, with plain blue-green paper sides. Five-digit number stamped on title-page. Light dust-soiling. A very good copy.

Early AmericanMental Health Hospital

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•  Annual report of the contributors to the Asylum for the Relief of Persons Deprived of the Use of Their Reason (now Friends' Hospital), in Frankford, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1813, the Hospital (which opened in May 1817) was the first private institution in the United States charged specifically with the mission of caring for the mentally ill. It was also the first institution in the United States to use the “moral treatment” approach to mental disorder, which emphasized humane care and occupational therapy.

This report includes a “Plan of an asylum,” the constitution of the Contributors to the Asylum, a list of “Monthly meetings [of the Society of Friends] that have subscribed,” a list of contributors, and a financial report. The second section (pp. 19–76) is a “Description of the Retreat, an institution near York, for insane persons of the Society of Friends,” which is an abridged version of Samuel Tuke's work of the same name, published in 1813. It was Tuke who pioneered “moral treatment” in England and founded the York Retreat, which served as a model for the Friends' Asylum. Here, he expounds on the principles of his treatment, arguing that the “mode of management” of patients has a direct bearing on their recovery.

Illustrated with a frontispiece view of the proposed asylum, drawn and engraved by W. Strickland, Philadelphia.

Provenance:  Signature of previous owner (“Ann P. Paschall”) at top margin of title-page.

•  Austin 525; Shaw & Shoemaker 31538 & 32484.   Removed from a nonce volume; inner edge with two stitch holes, not touching text. Moderate foxing throughout.  (22556)

This Philadelphia Bank's Articles of Association . . .

•  Sole edition and very rare. The bank was capitalized with $1,000,000, aimed at making loans to merchants and farmers, and drew its original 16 directors from the powers that were in Philadelphia at that time, both Christian and Jewish.

•  Shaw & Shoemaker 4846. Sewn as issued. Waterstaining to lower margin of most pages; mildew damage to same areas.

. . . and Its Incorporation Philadelphia [National] Bank. Pennsylvania. Laws, statutes, etc. An act to incorporate the Philadelphia Bank. Philadelphia: Pr. by W. W. Woodward, 1804. 8vo. 21, [1 (blank)] pp.
$800.00

•  The legislature enables the Bank to come into existence and prohibits conflicts of interest by barring sitting governors and legislators from serving on its board of directors. This act of incorporation seems to be as rare as the Bank's Articles of Association.

•  Shaw & Shoemaker 7007. Original light boards covered with marbled paper. Back cover and two leaves gnawed by a rodent, with loss of paper.

For more COMMERCE / TRADE /
        FINANCE / ECONOMICS,  click here.

FRIEND-ly Memorials, Male & Female

•  Collection of biographies of devout Quakers, with a special emphasis on their virtues, sufferings, and deaths, published for the edification of the faithful. This work gives an interesting insight into Quaker piety—its simplicity, high moral tone, and reliance on inward inspiration.
•  Shoemaker 5412; Sabin 47736. Contemporary treed calf, worn around the edges, joints cracked and front cover very loose. Spine worn, with chipped red morocco title label. Pp. 91–92 chipped on lower corner; some foxing. Now housed in a simple acid-free phase box (label shown in horizontal image above).

We have a page DEDICATED to the
      FRIENDS/QUAKERS — click here.

EarlyAMERICAN Law Book

•  First American edition of a wildly popular English law vade mecum for the common man and the law clerk. The title-page labels this the “fifth edition, revised and corrected” but that is totally misleading for it is not the fifth edition printed in America, nor the fifth edition overall, nor the fifth revised edition; the puffing “fifth” is simply there to convey that this is a book that many have purchased and therefore “you should too.”

The English and Dublin editions all give as the author on the title-page, “Practitioner in the law,” but the American editions omit it.

Provenance:  Ownership inscription on front fly-leaf: “Michael Conrad, October the 1st, 1785.” Later in the Theological Library of Bucknell University (bookplate), and from that collection transferred to Ambrose Swasey Library of the Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School (its stamp on bottom edge). Deaccessioned.

Uncommon in commerce.

•  Evans 13786; Hildeburn 3140; ESTC W21104.   Contemporary tan sheep, dry, joints cracked. Ex-library: call number on binding, bookplate on front pastedown, rubber- and pressure-stamps, pencilling on verso of title-page. Some spotting, not a great deal; a dried flower laid in. Now sporting a cranberry-colored paper jacket and housed in a red cloth clamshell case with cafe au lait-colored spine labels.  (24514)

TO Part VII . . .

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