Rare Books
The Sri Lankan loxodrome
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Works and projects
Manuscripts
Towards the Primeval Lightning Field; Sri Lankan Loxodrome; Secrets Prior to the Sun; notes on Wanda Coleman; Gherasim Luca; Inscrutable Visibility; "Saturate with Refined Enigmas", research: Antonin Artaud; Singing in Magnetic Hoofbeat; Notes on Kaufman. Folder 13 also includes letters to editors with related essays.
mssAlexanderw
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Sri Lanka
Rare Books
This collection consists of railroad photographs, ephemera and publications, 1829-2010, with the bulk of material from the early- to mid-20th century. The focus is chiefly locomotives and trains (steam and diesel) of major railroads and interurban electric railways of the United States and Canada. Also represented in the collection are smaller shortline and narrow-gauge railroads; other foreign railroads; streetcars (or trolleys); and burgeoning light rail and subway systems. Most of the ephemera is printed material produced by railroad companies for promotional and business purposes, such as annual reports, brochures, route maps and guides, timetables, tickets, dining menus, stationery, stock certificates, bond coupons and other items. There are also many city and state tourist guidebooks describing sights along rail routes or promoting land available for farming, mining or home-building across the United States. Also included are items produced for or by railroad employees, such as instruction and safety manuals, train orders, freight bills and in-house newsletters. Railroad industry publications, statistics and reports can be found in the American Association of Railroads files, which are part of Donald Duke's subject files on railroad-related topics. Throughout the ephemera files are newspaper and journal clippings, often from scarce small press and trade publications such as The Railway and Engineering Review, The Railroad Gazette, The Santa Fe Magazine, The Western Railroader, Railway Age and others. In addition to railroad history, other topics of social and cultural historical interest in the ephemera are: Depictions of African Americans and Native Americans in mass-marketed train travel brochures. There are many examples that reflect American cultural and class stereotypes in the early- to mid-20th century. Selected files are noted in the container list. Occupational safety and health: See railroad worker safety manuals and accident prevention literature in ephemera files. History of food and drink: See numerous dining and beverage menus throughout Railroads and Foreign Railroads ephemera files (not always noted in container list). History of graphic design and typography: See examples of early- and mid- 20th century popular styles in printed ephemera throughout collection. Photographs and negatives: The photographs depict locomotives, freight and passenger trains, logging railroads, electric interurbans and streetcars across the United States. This was primarily a publishers file of ready-for-press photographs, which are almost all 8 x 10-inch black-and-white prints, made approximately 1950s-1980s. The photographs were made chiefly by various amateur train photographers, including Donald Duke, but most are uncredited. There are some copy prints (photographs of other photographs), and a few original photographs from the late 19th-early 20th century. Some photographs have locations and dates written on the back, but many are unidentified other than the name of the railroad. There are a few files on Ward Kimball (1914-2002), one of the original animators for Walt Disney Studios and an avid rail enthusiast. There are some photographs, biographical materials, and a file on his personal backyard narrow-gauge steam railroad, Grizzly Flats Railroad, in San Gabriel, California.
645950
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Atmos
Rare Books
"The Rhône River, which flows south from the Swiss Alps through the center of France, formed a broad delta of 60,000 hectares at its mouth where it empties into the Mediterranean. This plain is called the Camargue ... in the broad expanse of the Camargue ... [a] small cloud could be seen rising ... from a steel factory at the eastern edge of the delta. At the factory, coke used in making steel is taken red-hot from the furnace, then drenched all at once with twenty tons of water. Dozens of times every day, this immense amount of water turns instantaneously to steam and goes rising into the sky over the Camargue ... The etymology of 'atmosphere' is the ancient Greek works for vapor (atmos) and sphere (sphaira). Once I learned this, the air that filled the Camargue and the steam from the steel factory seemed to fuse into one before my eyes. It no longer felt strange to see signs of humanity in the sky and the land, nor to sense nature in the cloud of steam from the factory. And I began to feel that it would no longer be possible to draw a clear line at the border between nature and the artificial"--From artist's statement.
653084
Old Warehouse - Dock Square, Boston. : Built 1860. Taken down 1860
Visual Materials
Image of an elevated street view of the stores and buildings in Dock Square in Boston, Massachusetts, centered on the Charles J. Lovejoy clothing warehouse, with the storefront awnings lined with suits, and busy cobblestone streets filled with horse-drawn carts, a Citizens Line trolley car, and people; the side of Faneuil Hall is visible on the right.
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Pasadena from Bacon's Hill
Visual Materials
A narrow road runs through an expanse of flat, empty land, orchards, and vineyards around Pasadena, California, as seen from Bacon's Hill, located on the (modern-day) border between Pasadena and South Pasadena. A two-story residence sits near orchard to the left of road; with the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains in the background.
photCL 74 (616)
View of verandah at Milflores, Spanish-style home of Harrison Gray Otis
Manuscripts
Black and white photograph of one of the verandahs at Milflores, Harrison Gray Otis' Spanish-style home in the San Fernando Valley. Patio is covered, with a slanted, slatted ceiling. Several fitness rings dangling from rafters. Line of pillars; seven are visible, wicker basket filled with flowers hanging on first pillar. To right of photo, vegetation visible beyond line of pillars. Storage chest and various chairs visible to left of photo. "Kopec LA, 8" written near lower right corner of photo.
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