Between the Covers

Hardcover. Quarto album. Contains 61 photographs (carbon prints) laid into oval cardboard sleeves with gold borders. Bound in dark brown leather over boards with a metal clasp, gilt spine and “Bowdoin ‘77” stamped in gold on the front board, white silk moiré endleaves, all edges gilt. With a color lithographic title page: "A.J. Holman & Co.", and bookseller’s ticket: “Bailey & Noyes ... Portland, Me." The leather is rubbed and scuffed at the edges, both hinges are detached, else overall very good, all 61 photographs are near fine. The portrait photographs of Bowdoin graduates are laid-in back-to-back in oval sleeves on the rectos and versos of 35 cardboard leaves. Well over half of the photographs are Signed in ink on facing paper guards: most notably by Bowdoin President Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain (an important Civil War Brigadier/Brevet Major General and 32nd Governor of Maine), and Arctic explorer Robert Edwin Peary.

Also included is a portrait of the album’s original owner, Charles Wyman Morse. His signature appears twice in the album. Known as the "Ice King" early in his career in Maine’s shipping industry, through Tammany Hall corruption Morse had established a near-monopoly of the ice business in New York City. He purchased several shipping companies and moved into high finance, becoming one of Wall Street’s top power brokers of the early 20th Century. “I Am The Panic of 1907” he brazenly declared to *The New York Times*, after being indicted by the United States government for violating federal banking laws.

A printed broadside is laid-down on the front free endpaper: “Class of ’77, Bowdon. Members List, June 1, 1884,” with a printed invitation laid-in: “The Senior Class of Bowdoin College, Class Day Exercises Tuesday, July 10, 1877." Also laid-in is a two-page printed memorial for one of the graduates: “Edward Clarence Metcalf” (1880). A complete list of the names of class members photographed is available on request.

Item #397197