We begin with a case of whistling in the dark, and the future looked very dark for this business. This is a photo album about the City Ice Company and the South Carolina Ice Manufacturers Association. If this were the turn of the century, that would have been different, but it's from the late 1920s to the mid-1930s. Refrigerators had been invented and were being sold to the public. Nonetheless, the ice manufacturers attempted to make their case. The City Ice Company was formed to deliver ice for various ice makers. Photos show window displays and a showroom displaying such accoutrements as coolers and ice boxes. Icemen with their “attractive” delivery equipment are shown. The iceman cometh, but soon will dissappeareth. An elaborate display from the Carolina State Fair is pictured, with waterfalls, icebergs, penquins and polar bears. A float asks the loaded question, “Is Your Refrigerator Sanitary?” Another reminds us, “A Block of Ice Never Gets Out of Order.” True enough, but then again, a refrigerator never melts. Item 15. Priced at $3,500.
Here is another hopeless cause. It is a national map from 1931 titled Political; Sentiment Map of the United States. What Politicians don't know. It shows how counties voted in 1928, red for Republican Herbert Hoover, black (not blue ) for Democrat Al Smith. Hoover trounced Smith, and except for a concentration of counties in the South, almost all of them are red. The creators were Dr. Annie G. Lyle and Archie Rice, a couple of Hoover's classmates from Stanford. Naturally, they were here to help him out as he sought reelection in 1932. They break down demographics such as literacy, intelligence, prejudices in each state, and KKK membership. They also feature the controversial issue of Prohibition, soon to meet its demise. They posit that a high turnout in the election, especially by women, will ensure a Republican victory in 1932. They claim the Democrats chances of victory would be slim. What they did not take into account was something that didn't exist as an issue in 1928, that Depression thing. Item 42. $750.
The more things change, the more they remain the same. This is a collection of color slide transparencies by photographer Don North. He was a freelance photographer in Vietnam during that war, later joining ABC News. These photographic slides come from a different war, half a century ago. But, that war never really ended. It flares up on occasion with slightly revised parties but they involve the same unresolved issues. They were taken up again during the Yom Kippur War in 1973. Israel was attacked by an alliance of Arab states led by Egypt and Syria on Yom Kippur, the holiest Jewish holiday. They hoped to catch Israel off guard, and made some early gains. However, the Israelis soon reversed the tide. The U.N. engineered a cease fire within three weeks of the war's outbreak and it did result in the first direct Israeli negotiations with the Arabs since Israel's independence, and eventual accords with Egypt. However, as we all know, war in the Mideast flared up again a few months ago and continues now, 50 years later. North's photographs show soldiers and tanks on the move, weapons including rocket launchers being fired, soldiers digging trenches and running barbed wire, an injured soldier being transported, captured POWs, a downed airplane and two bodies, Israeli leaders including Prime Minister Golda Meir, and United Nations troops. Item 29. $3,000.
Coca Cola faced a bit of a conundrum on how to reach the African American market in the early days of the Civil Rights movement. Blacks made up 30% of their market in the South, but in the era of integration, they didn't want to alienate their white customers. Coca Cola's decision was to advertise to the African American market and support some of their organizations, but separately from appeals to whites. Item 1 is a folder of eight sample athletic programs Coca Cola created specifically for black colleges. They were programs these colleges could use, featuring images of African American athletes. The colleges could use these formats to print their own programs, with Coke providing ordering instructions, and contact information for an advertising agency that was ready to assist them. Naturally, the programs contained advertising for Coca Cola, with the expectation the colleges would offer Coke in their stadiums. Item 1. $1,500.
Next is a photo album by J. A. Anderson of pictures taken from 1889-1893. It contains 50 photos of the Rosebud Sioux Indian Reservation in South Dakota. John Alvin Anderson immigrated to America from Sweden as a baby. His family settled in nearby northern Nebraska. While a carpenter by trade, he became interested in photography, bought a camera, and apprenticed with a photographer. He was very interested in the neighboring Sioux, collecting artifacts, and visiting the reservation. He took photographs on his visits, becoming friendly with some of the residents. When Gen. George Crook came to the reservation, he hired Anderson to take photographs, thereby making him a professional photographer. He later published two photobooks of his images from the reservation. Photos show cattle and large crowds coming to receive their allotments (beef was supplied by the government after hunters had wiped out the buffalo herds, their source of food). Others show Sioux on horseback and in covered wagons awaiting supplies, tipis and a slaughter house, meal preparation, dances and religious ceremonies, a dance house, Sioux mounted police, a “modern Indian village,” and more. All was peaceful here, but it was during this time period that the Wounded Knee Massacre took place at the nearby Pine Ridge Reservation. Item 48. $23,500.
Langdon Manor Books may be reached at 713-443-4697 or Orders@Langdonmanorbooks.com. Their website is found at www.langdonmanorbooks.com.
