The Barnum and Bailey program for the season of 1912, with a total of 16 fantastic acts, including: “The Spectacle of Cleopatra”; “Three Royal Riding Acts” (including “Dainty and dexterous displays of principal bareback equitation by the charming exemplar of grace and agility, Miss Victoria Davenport”); “A Complete Number of...
An rare silk broadside announcing the celebration of the U. S. Centennial aboard the excursion steamer “Plymouth Rock,” in Shanghai, China. The day long program included a “Salute of One Hundred Guns at Sunrise,” a “national Salute at 12 Meridian,” a reading of the Declaration of Independence by O. B....
An extensive timetable for “America’s Most Popular Railroad,” connecting Chicago to St. Louis and Kansas City, with extended connections to San Diego, San Francisco, and Seattle. A full sheet railway map appears on the verso, depicting the entire United States, Southern Canada and northern Mexico. The Chicago & Alton line...
An attractive timetable for the “Maple Leaf Route” of the Chicago Great Western Railway. Includes schedules, rates, and general information, as well as a large map illustrating the Route through Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri and Kansas, with a green maple leaf printed over the area of service. The map shows...
Illustrated brochure for the Cody Road into Yellowstone via the Burlington Route of the Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy lines. “Have you ever heard of the Cody Road into Yellowstone Park?” This brochure is happy to educate. Text and photographs “Along the Road” offer something of a guided tour of...
A comprehensive, attractively illustrated look at the transportation provided by the Boston and Bangor, [Maine] Steamship Co. in 1882. Steamers traveled daily to Bangor via Rockland, Camden, Belfast, Searsport, Bucksport and Winterport, with a rail connection to Moosehead Lake, and steamer connections to Mount Desert, Bar Harbor, and beyond. The...
A handsome summer-of-1880 schedule for travel via rail and steamship from Boston to Mt Desert Island, Maine and beyond. For $10.00, one could travel in the “most comfortable and the quickest” manner by rail to Portland and thence by steamer to Bar Harbor, or entirely aboard a steamer for $8.00...
An appealing promotional brochure for a visit to a Maine north woods paradise during the age of the grand hotel. “It almost seems as though nature had fashioned her thousands of other beauty spots throughout the world and made Kineo the climax of all of them.” (Kineo). Once the largest...
One of two handkerchiefs celebrating the character of George Washington that were printed simultaneously at the Germantown Print Works in the first decade of the 19th century. The text consists of what is likely the earliest appearance in verse form of Parson Weems’ famous tale of Washington and the...
An engraved invitation to Lincoln's second inaugural ball, filled out with the name of Mrs. Hugh McCulloch, the wife of Lincoln’s Comptroller of Currency (and later Secretary of the Treasury), accompanied by the original envelope addressed to Hugh McCulloch. Portraits of Lincoln and Andrew Johnson appear above a list...
An railway brochure and map issued in the midst of the Great Dakota Boom. A folding brochure with 8 panels of promotional text and 5 panels of railroad time tables advertising not only its “Low Rates to Settlers and Land Hunters” but also that it “Runs More Through Trains from...
A striking and extensively detailed map of Yellowstone National Park, in a Northern Pacific Railway brochure promoting travel to both Yellowstone and Alaska. This fine map depicts the park and its surrounding areas, with relief represented pictorially. At the top of the map, the Northern Pacific R.R. runs parallel to...
An interesting 19th century labor-related handbill, being a notice to the workmen of Collins & Co. (likely the well-known axe manufacturers) who had abused the trust of their employers, stating: “Our rules have not been enforced. We were willing to see how men would act if left to themselves. The...
Two editions of a satirical manuscript newspaper produced by and for the students of Bath High School. The lead story in both editions of the paper relates to the sixth and final hurricane of the 1867 Atlantic hurricane season. A supposed field report is issued from the shores...
A brochure promoting the Tishomingo region in the decade following the last of the Oklahoma land rushes. The old capital of the Chickasaw Nation and the county seat of Johnson County, Oklahoma, Tishomingo was primed for great things after statehood thanks to its Rock Island-Frisco railway connections, natural resources...
An official printing of an 1845 treaty, concluded and ratified under President James K. Polk, relating to the Creek lands in Florida, rectifying a treaty of 1833 which grouped the Creeks and Seminoles together and misled the Creeks with regard to the lands they would be given. The result was...
A splendid copy of a rare handkerchief printing of the Declaration of Independence. The text of the Declaration is followed by the names of the signers, the text of John Adams’ letter of 5 July 1776 celebrating the Declaration; the dates of the treaty of Peace between Great Britain...
![[American Library Association’s Library War Service Posters, WWI.]. American Library Association.](/pictures/thumb/4608_1.jpg?v=1528835593)
A scarce set of six posters promoting the American Library Association’s Library War Service program during WWI, a wide-ranging and expansive initiative that distributed books and provided library services to U.S. servicemen at home and in Europe. In 1917, during the First World War, the American Library Association established...
A rare brochure promoting the Bardwell Votometer voting machine as a development that ensures a fair vote and an honest count—and safeguards democracy. The Voltometer was among the first voting machines used in America. This brochure spells out many reasons why voting by machine is the most advanced form of...
Broadside detailing the procession and order of events to take place in the city of Lansing, Michigan, on the day of the funeral of the late President Lincoln. The text opens with a proclamation by the Mayor of Lansing, Dr. Ira H. Bartholomew, who relates that the funeral held...
Scarce sheet music sold for the benefit of three children orphaned by the Battle of Gettysburg, illustrated with a lithograph based on an ambrotype portrait of the children found in their dead father’s hand. The music is preceded by a Sketch describing the melancholic scene of the slain and...
A rare sheet music requiem with a fine lithographic portrait of Custer on the title-page, published in the same year as the Battle of Little Bighorn. Although written without lyrics, this memorial composition commences with the directive, Maestoso, meaning intended to be played in a stately and majestic manner. On...
A scarce advertising broadside memorializing Lincoln, issued by the Sangamo Insurance Company of Springfield, illustrated with views of the President’s home and tomb at the top, a portrait in the center, and three scenes from Lincoln’s early life at the bottom, including the “Log Cabin built by Mr. Lincoln in...
![Illinois Central R. R. [manuscript cover title]. Railway Guide for Illinois Shewing All the Stations with their respective distances by shortest route from Chicago to the Junction on Branch Line & from Cairo to Galena on Main Line. January 1st 1855 [map title]. Illinois Central Railroad Co.](/pictures/thumb/4376_1.jpg?v=1532033543)
A rare financial statement of the Illinois Central Railroad Co. with a fine, large railroad map of the entirety of Illinois and portions of Missouri and Indiana. The Illinois Central Railroad Company was established in 1851 as the first land-grant railroad in America. Here the Directors present an end-of-the-year Report...
![By the President of the United States of America. A Proclamation. [proclamation title] Circular No. 36. Department of State, Washington, 9th May, 1863 [letter of transmittal title]. Abraham Lincoln, William H. Seward.](/pictures/thumb/4626_1.jpg?v=1527632104)
Lincoln’s Proclamation stipulating the terms of military conscription for non-naturalized immigrants during the Civil War and ahead of the first federal draft in America. Neither the Union or Confederacy depended on the draft to populate their armies at the outset of the Civil War due to high volumes of...