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First edition.  (1/1,000).  Folio (8-3/8 x 6-1/4), unpaginated; patterned plastic covers with title, author and introduction credit printed in black and riveted to stiff wrappers with photograph of plastic hoses from the Airplayers series.  Minute chip to foot of spine. Fine.  Printed and illustrated leaves of images, multi-textured vinyl sleeves and an illustrated vinyl light-up (with red LED) centerfold evolved out of Armstrong's 1982 kinetic sound sculptures.   In AIRPLAYERS, as in her other work, Armstrong seeks to create parallel visions of the outer world and the human interior:   here the heart of the book becomes an X-ray like double-page photograph of the rib cage with a red human heart beating beneath.  McCormick entitles her introduction "Interface, Hyperspace, Social Grace:  Armstrong's Techno-Morphology of Perception".   Also printed are "Note on AIRPLAYERS" by Robert S. Ross and "Technical Date on AIRPLAYER X"  by Nick Didkovsky.  The artist adds a note on the images.  Also provided are a chronology of AIRPLAYERS and biographies of the contributors.  Sara Garden Armstrong has had a number of solo exhibitions and her work is in the Museum of Modern Art, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Bibliotheque Nationale, etc. and in the collections of General Electric, The Gannet Company and Time.
AIRPLAYERS Introduction by Carlo McCormick
Armstrong, Sara Garden.
New York: Willis, Locker & Owens, (1990).
Price: $95.00
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WOMAN'S WORK IN MUNICIPALITIES National Municipal League Series
Beard, Mary Ritter.
New York and London: D. Appleton and Company, 1915.
Price: $125.00
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First edition.  8vo, 313pp; (including Index); wove blue cloth stamped in gold at the front and spine.  Institutional copy with stamps at the title page (lower right) and front pastedown, fittingly “Packard Commercial School” (Packard Junior College).  Title page separated along gutter (1-1/2”).  Some spotting and rubbing to spine.  About very good.          Helen Campbell (1839-1918), author and reformer, married a surgeon in 1860 and two years later divorced him.  It suggests the remarkable self-possession which characterized her even at age 23.  She wrote children’s stories and then novels and eventually began contributing weekly pieces to THE NEW YORK TRIBUNE.  She appreciated the myriad difficulties which beset women in the work place and in 1887 collected the TRIBUNE essays in PRISONERS OF POVERTY.       Professor Richard Ely introduces WOMEN WAGE-EARNERS by saying, “The importance of the subject with which the present work deals cannot well be over-estimated”.  Campbell provides a salient look at women laborers in the United States from the Colonial period on, discussing factory labor, the rise and growth of trades, labor bureaus, etc. and contrasting working conditions in Europe with those in the United States.  She concludes by reviewing the abuses women are subject to and offering ‘remedies and suggestions’.  The inequality of wages between men and women, not surprisingly, is a key component of her discussion.  The volume also prints three appendices, the third a “Bibliography of Woman’s Labor and of the Woman Question”.  THE FEMINIST COMPANION, p. 175.  Krichmar, 2297.
WOMEN WAGE-EARNERS: Their Past, Their Present, and Their Future
Campbell, Helen [Stuart].
Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1893.
Price: $65.00
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First edition.  First printing.  8vo, 368pp; green cloth stamped in gold front and spine; green dust jacket printed in white, yellow and black; top edge stained yellow.  Touch of wear to foot of spine and slight rubbing to tips and spine.  Jacket a somewhat worn (as usual) with two shallow chips (1/4") at head of spine, to closed tears at top edge and minor wear at heel.  The book is firm and fresh.  Very good.  Carson's denunciation of the use of chemical pesticides was the wake-up call to U.S. environmentalists and resulted in passage of the first anti-pesticide bills here.  At the time of its original publication it received eight awards.  Its influence continues to be profound.  The importance of the book is suggested by its inclusion in the New York Public Library's BOOKS OF THE CENTURY, The NEW YORK TIMES 100 and MASTERPIECES OF WOMEN'S LITERATURE.  And in 1999 The New York University Journalism Department ranked the book #2 in "the best [100] works of 20th-century American journalism".  BOOKS OF THE CENTURY, p. 42. MASTERPIECES OF WOMEN'S LITERATURE, pp. 458-460.   100 MOST INFLUENTIAL WOMEN OF ALL TIME, pp. 104-107.  THE NEW YORK TIMES 100, No. 88.
SILENT SPRING Drawings by Louis and Lois Darling
Carson, Rachel.
Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1961.
Price: $300.00
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Only edition.  Pamphlet:  5-1/4 x 3-7/8", [12]pp; black wrappers (stapled) with silver lettering and decorations; halftone photographic portrait of the writer at the last page, with facsimile signature.  Very good.  An account of an aged couple who lose their home, despite having worked all of their lives.  At the story's end appears a letter from [Bishop] Frances McConnell as President of the American Association for Old Age Security.  He writes the enactment of a state "Old Age Security Law" could prevent stories such as that of Martin and Bertha.  Obviously written prior to the passage of the Social Security Act, LIGHTS OUT is a sentimental, but effective argument for enabling those earnings have provided them a meager living to grow old in the comfort and dignity of their home.  Jane Addams, who served as a vice president of the Association and was a good friend of Zona Gale, wrote an endorsement of the piece.  The writer's first stories featured two elderly lovers, suggesting her empathy for the elderly throughout her life.  It was after she met Senator Robert M. La Follette in 1913, however, that she became an activist in a variety of causes:  the American Civic Association, the Women's Trade Union League, the General Federation of Women's Clubs, the Wisconsin Peace Society and the Wisconsin Woman Suffrage Association.  As Walter Rideout summarized in his profile of the writer in NOTABLE AMERICAN WOMEN, "A conscientious author, she was equally a conscientious citizen of her nation and her state, both in her devotion to idealistic causes and in her willingness to assume public responsibilities".  LIGHTS OUT is an excellent and unusual example of these qualities.
Pamphlet: LIGHTS OUT A Tragedy
Gale, Zona [and American Association for Social Security].
[New York City: American Association for Old Age Security, ca. 1927-1933?].
Price: $450.00
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First edition.  8vo, 188pp; + a capsule biography of the writer; orange wove cloth with black stamping; orange dust jacket lettered in tan and black.  Spine sunned to a light orange; minor touches to use to jacket.  Very good.  22 prose pieces written during the '60s and '70s reflecting on the racial strife which harried America during this period.  June Jordan (b. 1936), essayist, educator, activist, novelist, biographer, playwright and anthologist, has been one of the African-American communities most versatile and spirited writers.  Her first book of poetry, LOOK AT ME, published in 1969 marked her as an eloquent new voice.  She has since published nearly 20 books, ranging from children's titles such as KIMAKO'S STORY to essays on the African-American experience such as CIVIL WARS and TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES (1992).  THE ESSENTIAL BLACK LITERATURE GUIDE, pp. 202-204.  OXFORD GUIDE TO AFRICAN AMERICAN LITERATURE, pp. 409-410.
CIVIL WARS
Jordan, June.
Boston: Beacon Press, (1981).
Price: $35.00
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First edition.  Square 4to, unpaginated; aqua cloth binding lettered in dark blue at the spine; photographic dust jacket.  Fine.  With an essay by the photographer on "Summer Time".  The book prints 65 full-color photographs by Joel Meyerowitz.  Meyerowitz and his work with color photography is closely associated with Provincetown and Cape Cod as a whole.  The images are at once familiar and haunting:  a golden labrador retriever sitting at water's edge looking out at his family playing in the ocean; a solitary rower; brilliant red roses climbing a white trellis; sandy concrete steps to the lapping ocean below; a cross-and-bible white wooden door flung open to the front door with a summer's day beyond;  a group of friends on a sand dune, their faces lit by the glow of the setting sun.  A wonderful rendering of the season of the sun.
A SUMMER'S DAY
Meyerowitz, Joel.
(New York): TIMES BOOKS, published in association with Floyd A. Yearout, (1985).
Price: $150.00
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BEACON HILL: A Local Poem, Historic and Descriptive. Book I
M[orton], S[arah Wentworth].
Boston: Printed by Manning & Loring for the Author, 1797.
Price: $5,500.00
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Thick 8vo, 528pp; dark red cloth with gilded label at front and spine and elaborate embossing in blind at front and spine; floral endpapers.  Title page printed in blue ink. Decorative initial caps, vignettes and full-page illustrations.  Frontispiece portrait of the author.  Front hinge a little strained; elaborate ownership signature at a front blank; some foxing to edges.  Mild overall use to binding with tips and corners somewhat rubbed; rear panel shows staining and the small remnant of a label (?).  About very good.        The contents are organized into "Women in the Business World" and "Women in the Literary World", the latter includes popular poems and prose pieces such as Lucy Larcom's "Hannah Binding Shoes" and Elizabeth Allen's "Rock Me to Sleep".  Brief biographical sketches accompany many of the selections.  "Women in the Business World" offers chapters  on  "Woman's Work"; "Wages in New York and Elsewhere"; "The Profession of Literature"; "The Profession of Journalism"; "The Profession of Law"; "Government Clerks"; "Women of Enterprise"; "The Profession of Telegraphy"; "Lady Canvassers"; "Raising Poultry"; and "Keeping Boarders" among other topics.  Mrs. Rayne writes in her prefatory note that some five decades earlier, Harriet Martineau reported while visiting Massachusetts that only seven professions were open to women.  In WHAT CAN A WOMAN DO, Mrs. Rayne sets out to "illustrate the many employments given, by facts and curious incidents gathered from various sources and from personal observation".
WHAT CAN A WOMAN DO; Or, Her Position in the Business and Literary World
Rayne, Mrs. M[artha] L[ouise].
Detroit, Mich. Cincinnati, O. St. Louis, Mo.: F.B. Dickerson & Co., 1885.
Price: $100.00
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First edition.  16mo, 53pp; + Appendix (pp. 55-99); olive green cloth stamped in gilt front and spine.  Mild spotting front cover; tips and spinal ends lightly worn.  Dampstaining at lower fore-edge and at upper foretip affects a number of text pages.  Good+.       The brainchild of reformer and suffragist Caroline Severance (1820-1914), the New England Woman's Club was established in February 1868 by Severance with Lucy Stone, Julia Ward Howe, Abby May and others of the New England Woman Suffrage Association.   The club movement was a vital part of women's efforts to empower themselves; as a spearhead of that movement, the New England Women's Club was one of the most effective and influential.  A valuable primary source with information on those members of the club, addresses on different subjects made to the club both by club members and non-club members.  The former included  Henry James, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Kate Field, James T. Fields and numerous other 19th c. luminaries.  AMERICAN WOMEN'S HISTORY, pp. 84-86.  NAW II, 227-228; III 265-267.  TIMELINES OF AMERICAN WOMEN'S HISTORY, p. 177.
HISTORY OF THE NEW ENGLAND WOMEN'S CLUB
Sprague, Julia A.
Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1894.
Price: $75.00
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MOONLIGHT SCHOOLS
Stewart, Cora Wilson.
New York: E. P. Dutton & Company, (1922).
Price: $350.00
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First edition.  16mo, 39pp; dark green wove cloth stamped in white with title, author and profile of Abraham Lincoln within a rondel.  Illustrated with color frontispiece and four black-and-white illustrations  by Blendom Campbell.  Small bookseller’s ticket rear pastedown.  Ida Tarbell, best known for her groundbreaking two-volume study on the Standard Oil Company, published a series of articles on Abraham Lincoln which were collected in 1900 as THE LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.  It was a series which considerably enhanced McClure's circulation and Tarbell's reputation.  Fascinated by her subject, Tarbell went on the write seven more books on the martyred president, including several for younger readers, such as this one.  She took her title for this little book from the Civil War song "Father Abraham" and her focus is on Lincoln's concern for the common man and for the common soldier who fought the war.  NAW III, p.428-429.
FATHER ABRAHAM
Tarbell, Ida M[inerva].
New York: Moffat, Yard and Company, 1909.
Price: $75.00
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First edition.  12mo (7-3/8 x 5"), iv, 107pp; + publisher's catalogue; brick cloth stamped in black at front cover and in blind at rear.  Printed endpapers, with publisher offerings.  Touch of wear to tips and ends; occasional pencil markings to text.  Very good.  No. IX of "The Handy-Book Series".  The author discusses:  "Outline History of Costume"; "What We Mean by Dressing Well"; "Things Indispensable"; "Color, Form and Suitability"; "Estimates of Cost"; "How and What to Buy"; and, "Hints on Dress".  The author considers the fashions which men have worn, in some periods more elaborate and fantastical than those for women, with observations such as:  "In France [the whimsies of Fashion] were often more ridiculous than in England; for in that country Fashion has ever been more fickle than elsewhere, and in her haste to adopt the new, she has more often accepted the hideous or the comic". Gale has a sharpish tongue which she enjoys exercising with the advice she dispenses:  "The sylph who scarcely turns the scales at a hundred pounds, cannot carry the flowing mantles which have become necessary to obscure the too expansive outlines of the matron, whose position in a carriage is sufficiently indicated by the condition of the springs".  However, she lays down clear, straightforward guidelines undoubtedly useful to her readers.  "The Handy-Book Series" also includes "How to Educate Yourself", "Social Economy", "The Home", by Frank Stockton, "What to Eat", etc. .  OCLC: 1289101.
HINTS ON DRESS: or, What to Wear, When to Wear It, and How to Buy It
[Advice Literature] Gale, Ethel C..
New York: G. P. Putnam & Sons, 1872.
Price: $175.00
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First printing.  16mo, 43-62pp; buff beige wrappers printed in black and vermilion.  A discussion of contemporary bookplate designs and their designers with illustrations.  Among the designers highlighted:  Jay Chambers, Homer W. Colby, William Edgar Fisher, Elizabeth Hollowell, Mrs. Annie B. Hooper, Theodore Hapgood et al.  Fragile wrappers almost detached; 1/2" triangular piece lacking bottom tip rear panel.  An interesting source on turn-of-the-century bookplates and their artists.
"Recent American Ex Libris" THE CORNHILL BOOKLET
[Bookplates] Stone, Wilbur Macey.
Boston: Alfred Bartlett, September, 1901.
Price: $35.00
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Leaflet:  8-1/2 x 7", 4pp; printed blue on off-white stock.  Fine.  The leaflet addresses commonly raised questions and issues regarding the Equal Rights Amendment:  What is ERA?; What will ERA do?; How will the ERA become law?; Why do we need ERA?; What do national letters say about ERA?; ERA will equalize Social Security benefits; ERA will not interfere with an individual’s privacy; Will women be drafted under ERA?; ERA will remove discriminatory labor laws; ERA will not do away with laws against rape; How will ERA affect states' rights?;  What happens to women's rights in marriage and divorce under ERA?; and Who supports ERA?   The leaflet offers a succinct overview of the Amendment and addresses myths offered by its opponents.  It points out, for instance, as far as women and the draft:  "With a volunteer army about to go into effect, it's a dead issue for now".  Likewise, it reassures those concerned about the impact of the ERA on states' rights that it "does not take away states' rights", and compares the language of the amendment with the 13th, 14th, 15th, 19th, 23rd, 24th, and 26th amendments.  The leaflet lists numerous organizations which support the ERA, largely women's or labor organizations.   The national leaders they cite as pro-ERA are surprisingly few, just five, two of whom are Senator Strom Thurmond and Governor George Wallace.  Not in OCLC.  ERA literature, in general, is surprisingly uncommon.
Leaflet: THE ERA What It Means to Men and Women
[ERA], [League of Women Voters].
(Washington, D.C.): League of Women Voters of the United States, (ca. 1973).
Price: $75.00
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Two variants of a large leaflet advertising a march and rally in support of women's rights.  Leaflet:  14 x 8-1/2", 1pp; pale yellow stock printed in black (both sides).  With photograph of Bella Abzug speaking at an outdoor rally with a sign interpreter on the dais with her.  Leaflet folded once horizontally; minor crease to lower left corner.  Very good.  A second leaflet printed on white stock, lacking the photograph and with a slightly different listing of "Endorsements & Coalition Participants" at reverse.  Also very good.  The leaflet notes:  "The Day in the Park for Women's Rights has become a Bay Area tradition.  Occurring on or about International Women's Day eac hyear, it provides groups and individuals who support equal rights for women with an opportunity to come together in a visible show of strength, unity, and determination".  A map of the march route is printed as are essentials details for the march and rally.  The key note speakers - Bella Abzug, Ed Asner and Sonia Johnson - are announced in bold type at the front of the leaflet.  Among the organizations endorsing or participating are:  Options for Women Over Forty; Coalition for the Medical Rights of Women; Community United Against Violence; San Francisco Labor Council; National Task Force on Prostitution; Socialist Workers Party; Lesbian Rights Project, Equal Rights Advocates; Richmond Involved in Safe Energy; and, the Human Rights Foundation.  The list eloquently reflects the wide range and disparate missions of grassroots organizations involved in the women's rights movement of the period.  The leaflet also announces "1,000 Equal Rights Amendment bumper stickers will be given away to ERA supporters who consent to display them".  Within the next three years, of course, the ERA amendment would fail.
Leaflet: "6th ANNUAL DAY IN THE PARK FOR WOMEN'S RIGHTS"
[Feminism], S[an] F[rancisco] NOW.
[San Francisco, CA: S.F. NOW, c. 1981].
Price: $150.00
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Important account of the Nat Turner Insurrection.  8vo, 245pp; printed tan wrappers.  Blind owner's stamp front cover; covers edgeworn with spine lacking a 1/4"  at foot and partially detached.  About very good.  This issue contains Part IV of Harriet Beecher Stowe's AGNES OF SORRENTO, as well as articles on Stephen Douglas, the impact of the Civil War, etc.  Most interesting is T.W. Higginson's account of "Nat Turner's Insurrection" of 1831.   Higginson, who would command the first all-black division in the Civil War, was the first serious writer to examine the Turner rebellion.  A well-known abolitionist, Higginson's sympathies with the fiery preacher and slave are clear.  A critical landmark in the literature of the Southampton Insurrection.
ATLANTIC MONTHLY, August, 1861, (Number 46)
[Nat Turner] Higginson, T.W.
Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1861.
Price: $100.00
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8vo, 410pp; dark blue wove cloth with printed black label lettered in gold front panel and smooth black cloth spine stamped in gold (without dust jacket, as issued).  Frontispiece photograph of the playwright.  The standard bibliography for Eugene O'Neill.  Fine.
EUGENE O'NEILL A Descriptive Bibliography
[O'Neill, Eugene] McCabe, Jennifer.
[Pittsburgh]: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1974.
Price: $30.00
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