STEREO CARD OF COTTON PLANTATION
[African American] Strohmeyer & Wyman; Underwood & Underwood, Cotton is King. Plantation Scene, Georgia, U.S.A. New York; London; Toronto; Ottawa, Kan.: Underwood & Underwood. 1895. Photographic print on peach card mount. Stereograph. Mount 9 x 18 cm. Soil to front of mount. Very good. OCLC shows three holdings (Boston Athenaeum; Monash Univ. Lib. & TAMU). A stereo card showing African American men, women, and children picking cotton in a large cotton field. Title printed under right image. Title printed in English and five other languages on verso of mount. Copyright statement printed lower right of recto: Copyright 1895 by Strohmeyer & Wyman. Publisher’s imprint on left margin of recto. Printed on right margin of recto: Works and Studios, Arlington, N.J. Littleton, N.H. Washington D.C. Sun Sculpture Trade Mark. Card mount has rounded corners.
STERO CARD OF COTTON PLANTATION
[African American] Picking Cotton, Georgia. Littleton, N.H.: Littleton View Co., Publishers. [Circa 1890s] Photographic print on peach card mount. Stereograph. Mount 9 x 18 cm. OCLC shows no holdings for this item. A stereo card showing African American men picking cotton in a large cotton field. Title printed under right image. Printed on right margin of recto: Sold only by Underwood & Underwood, Baltimore, Md.- Ottowa, Kn. Publisher’s imprint on left margin of recto. Card mount has rounded corners.
UNRECORDED 1901 RAILROAD LAND SALES
[Alabama] [Mississippi] [Railroads] Mobile and Ohio Railroad Company; Alabama Land & Development Co. Mobile and Ohio Lands in Alabama and Mississippi. Louisville, Ky.: F. C. Nunemacher Press. 1901. Pictorial wraps. 20 cm. Illustrated. There is a 1/2″ separation at bottom of fold on front cover. A little corner and edge wear.
OCLC shows no holdings for this item. There is one holding for a similar item from 1895 (Univ. Alabama). Promotional literature with information about various towns, climate, health, labor rates, tax rates, prices of materials, crops, livestock, how to obtain government land, and other subjects. Also includes letters from northern settlers.
UNRECORDED 1915 ARKANSAS PROMO
[Arkansas] Blytheville. In the Heart of the St. Francis Valley in the State of Arkansas. [Cover title] Blythville, Arkansas: Press of the News for the Business Men’s Club. [Circa 1915] White pictorial wraps. Illustrated. pp. Name and address written on the front cover, staples rusty, else very good. OCLC shows no holdings. A promotional for home seekers. Great photographs. Blytheville in northeastern Arkansas, was founded by Methodist clergyman Henry T. Blythe in 1879. The lumber industry brought sawmills and a rowdy crowd, and the area was known for its disreputable saloon culture during the 1880s and 1890s. The cleared forests enabled cotton farming to take hold, encouraged by ongoing levee building and waterway management; the population grew significantly after 1900.
1891 ARKANSAS BROADSIDE WITH AFRICAN AMERICAN JUROR
[Arkansas] [African Americans] [Law] A B Hillmantle. Trial of A.B. Hillmantle, leader of low prices. A separate verdict wanted from each juror. … Opinion of the judge: upon this verdict, I find A.B. Hillmantle, guilty of selling dry goods notions, boots & shoes, hats & caps, clothing, groceries and general m’dse. Hartman, Ark. [New York]: Elsas, Keller & Co., W. Broadway and Thomas St., N.Y. 1891. Broadside. 50.8 x 35.5 cm. Has been folded. A few small edge tears, light foxing and age toning, else very good.
OCLC shows three holdings (Harvard; Harvard Law Sch. & Univ. Michigan). An advertisement in broadside format, written as jury’s verdict and judge’s opinion in a trial. Illustrated with a courtroom scene that includes a racially mixed jury. Printers Herman Elsas and David Keller were active in New York City by 1891. Hartman is located in southwestern Johnson County, Arkansas. It was settled by German immigrants in the 1880s after railroad service was established. A center of cotton and peach farming, as well as coal production, the city prospered until the Great Depression. – Encyclopedia of Arkansas. A. B. Hillmantle was born in Shiawassee County, Mich., in January, 1855, to parents who were native Germans. He came to Arkansas in 1878. “Mr. Hillmantle is the owner of considerable property, and has done well in his adopted State, so well in fact, that here he expects to make his home for the future. His farm is rented out, and his attention is devoted to merchandising at Hartman, his stock of general merchandise being valued at about $6,000. He also owns residence property in the town worth $500. He is one of the substantial citizens and business men of Hartman, and the post-office, which is kept in his store, is managed by G. C. Henry, who is postmaster, and the father-in-law of Mr. Hillmantle. The latter and his wife are members of the Catholic Church.” – Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Johnson County, Arkansas. 1891.
UNRECORDED 1875 TEXAS COLONIZATION BROADSIDE
[Texas] Texas Land and Colonization Company. Read! Read! If you read this it will surely induce you to secure a home for nothing. Hundreds have already found pleasant and profitable homes within the Lone Star State, such as no other could give them. Oxford, Milam County, Texas follows the example set by old cities of the West nearly a century ago. … [Cincinnati, Ohio?]: Texas Land and Colonization Company. [1875] Broadside. x A few fold splits, small hole, stains. Has been folded. Good.
OCLC shows no holdings for this item or this company. Milam County is in east central Texas and is bordered by Robertson, Burleson, Lee, Williamson, Bell, and Falls counties. Cameron, the county seat, is sixty miles northeast of Austin and 140 miles south of Dallas. Until the first railroad arrived in the 1870s, the county was without a cheap and reliable way to ship or receive products. The International and Great Northern Railroad was built from the Brazos River to Rockdale in 1874 and from Rockdale to Austin in 1876; the towns of Gause, Milano, Rockdale, and Thorndale were soon thriving communities. – Handbook of Texas. The proposed town of Oxford was not so lucky. Despite the unique plan proposed in this circular, to give away free town lots to anyone sending $2.50 postage and handling, it does not seem to have thrived, and I can find no mention of it today. An interesting document from the Texas boom of the 1870s brought on by the railroad’s arrival.
