Item 1502 is a lengthy (6 page) letter by Bartolomeo Vanzetti, from the Norfolk County (Massachusetts) jail on May 22, 1927. He was executed three months later. Vanzetti and Ferdinando Sacco were convicted of killing a security guard in a robbery. To this day, the debate rages as to whether they were guilty, with some now saying Sacco was but Vanzetti was not. Regardless of whether they were, their conviction was at least partly influenced by prejudice against Italian immigrants and Sacco and Vanzetti's anarchist political views. Their conviction was a major cause all over the world, but despite appeals to overturn the conviction and to grant them clemency, the two were sent to the electric chair. In this letter to supporter Lilly Sarnoff, Vanzetti writes about his situation, the support he received, including a large demonstration in protest of their conviction. Speaking to a question of what the attitude toward them would be if they were fascists instead, Vanzetti writes, “I wanted to write that we would not even have been indicted if instead to be anarchists we would have been blackguards...” $14,750.
Item 2375 is a signed photograph of the crew of the Apollo 11 space mission. The three astronauts, Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, and “Buzz” Aldrin, have each signed their names on the image of their white uniforms. The photograph is dated 1974 on the verso. The Apollo 11 mission of 1969 was the first manned landing on the moon, “one small step for a man...” $8,000.
David Schulson Autographs may be reached at 973-379-3800 or info@schulsonautographs.com. Their website is www.schulsonautographs.com.
