Search Results: Social Movements from Downtown Brown Books, ABAA

San Francisco: Los Siete de La Raza, 1970. Ephemera. Very good. A single issue of this short-lived community newspaper which sprang up in San Francisco's Mission District to gather support for Los Siete, a group of Latinos who were then under arrest for the murder of a police officer. The men were ultimately acquitted. This issue includes interviews with the defendants and a long article about a family that was victim to police violence. 16 pages, eleven in English and five In Spanish. 11-3/8 by 17 inches. Very good. Yellowing from age, as expected.

Philadelphia: Association of Friends for the Diffusion of Religious and Useful Knoweledge, 1848. First Edition. Hardcover. Very good. A brief biography of a British Quaker prison reformer, told in part through extended quotations from her writings. Fry was honored in the UK with her picture on the 5-pound note. This is an adaptation of a book published by the London Tract Association. 94 pages. 4-1/8 by 6-1/4 inches. First edition of this text (or the first American edition, revised). A bit of wear to the corners, otherwise a nice copy in the publisher's brown pebbled cloth binding.

Detroit: Randall, Photographer, 1881. Ephemera. Very good. A full-length cabinet card portrait of Sojourner Truth with the caption, "I sell the shadow to support the substance." This is one of Truth's last portraits, taken when she was in her eighties and purchased in bulk to sell at events, hence the caption. During the Civil War, Truth took the unusual step of acquiring the copyright to her portrait, giving her control over both the distribution of her image and the money it generated. The verso (back) of the mount of this photograph includes Truth's copyright statement. Truth (1797-1883), born Isabella Baumfree, was one of the best-known abolitionists and women's rights advocates of the 19th century. She traveled the country for decades giving talks and attending conferences, selling her photographs-her "shadow"-as a primary means of support. The art professor Darcy Grimaldo Grigsby has published an extensive study of Truth's photographs (Enduring Truths, 2015). Based on Grigsby's research into… Read More

1980. An original black-and-white gelatin silver print photograph of Audre Lorde speaking, pictured in three-quarters profile. Lorde (1934-1992) is an influential and popular writer, a self-described, "black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet." The image is inscribed on the back (verso) and signed "Audrey Lorde." Printed on 8 by 10 inch Kodak paper, with the image slightly smaller. The photographer is not identified. The photograph is fine; the signature is a bit faint and hard to read. It says "For ___-and his ___ Audrey Lorde.

Washington, DC: Library of Congress, 1980. Photograph. Fine. In this Lange image, a man and woman, both African American, stand in a field holding hoes or other farming implements. Lange took this image while working for the Resettlement Administration and the Farm Security Administration (two WPA agencies). The most famous image from this period in her career is Migrant Mother, the iconic Depression-era photograph. Lange's images from this era often have descriptive names rather than titles, and they have changed over time. This one is called "Cotton Sharecroppers"... on the Library of Congress website; "Greene County, Georgia" is written in pencil on the back (verso) of this photograph. At the time she took this photograph, Lange was working for the federal government and so the negatives belonged to her employer. For decades they have been on deposit at the Library of Congress and for many years, anyone could ask the library to make prints from the negatives. In this case, the negative (as… Read More

Washington, DC: Library of Congress, 1980. Photograph. Near fine. One of Lange's powerful portraits of destitute farmworkers taken in California in 1936 while she was working for the Resettlement Administration and the Farm Security Administration (two WPA agencies). The most famous image from this period in her career is Migrant Mother, the iconic Depression-era photograph. This image shows Jess Power with his wife Zella (McCann) Power and baby Jesse Power. They were camped in Riverside County, in Southern California, when Lange came upon them. They were three of the Okies, fleeing from the Dust Bowl conditions in Oklahoma, the story told in words by John Steinbeck in The Grapes of Wrath. At the time she took this photograph, Lange was working for the federal government and so the negatives belonged to her employer. For decades they have been on deposit at the Library of Congress and for many years, anyone could ask the library to make prints, directly from Lange's original negatives. This is one… Read More

New York: World Publishing Company, 1971. First Edition. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. The memoirs of the brother of the assassinated civil rights leader Medgar Evers. xii, 196 pages. First edition (stated first printing). Some spotting to the front board, else very good in a very good dust jacket with shallow chipping to the top of the spine. Pages tanned, as usual. Inscribed by the author, "Dear Mrs Benson, Thanks very much, Charles Evers.

Washington, DC: Library of Congress, 1980. Photograph. Fine. A copy print, made from a photograph of the original print (see below). In this Lange image, six people wearing long shirts and hats are bent over at the waist tending to rows of lettuce. A dried and cracked furrow fills the left foreground. Lange took this image while working for the Resettlement Administration and the Farm Security Administration (two WPA agencies). The most famous image from this period in her career is Migrant Mother, the iconic Depression-era photograph. Lange's images from this era often have descriptive names rather than titles, and they have changed over time. This one is called Filipinos Cutting Lettuce on the Library of Congress website; Filipinos Working Lettuce Fields is written in pencil on the back (verso) of this photograph. At the time she took this photograph, Lange was working for the federal government and so the negatives belonged to her employer. For decades they have been on deposit at the Library… Read More

Charleston: Steam Power Press of Walker, Evans & Co, 1858. First Edition. Pamphlet. Very Good. A Southerner argues that a revived foreign slave trade was crucial to the Southern economy. Spratt believed that bringing newly enslaved people to the US from Africa would reduce the price of slaves in the United States, lower labor costs, and put enslavement of Africans within the economic reach of the average Southern man. His views were not widely adopted, in large part because existing enslavers did not want to see their property devalued. Indeed, Virginia joined the Confederacy with the condition that the ban on imported slaves would be continued (see Conrad, In the Hands of Strangers, p. 427-428). Sabin 89749. 31 pages. First edition. Very good in original string-tied self wrappers. Old address and postmark on the blank back cover; the postage stamp has been removed.

Stanford, CA: C. P. Times Press, 1984. First Edition. Pamphlet. Near fine. A three-poem chapbook by one of the founders of the Black Panthers. The title poem is about China. [12] pages. 4-1/2 by 6 inches. A near fine copy in wrappers (pamphlet). Staples a bit rusted.

(Stanford): (C. P. Times Press), 1984. First Edition. Pamphlet. Near fine. A single-poem chapbook by one of the founders of the Black Panthers. Here he is critical of Idi Amin. [12] pages. 4-1/2 by 6 inches. First edition (first printing). A near fine copy in wrappers (pamphlet). Staples a touch rusted, very minor spotting to covers.

1969. Ephemera. Fine. A poster publicizing the grape boycott led by Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers by one of the best-known graphic designers of the era. The artwork depicts a bunch of grapes in the shape of a skull with a Chavez quote at the bottom taken from the Plan of Delano: "We are men and women who have suffered and endured much and not only because of our abject poverty but because we have been kept poor. The colors of our skins, the languages of our cultural and native origins, the lack of formal education, the exclusion from the democratic process, the numbers of our slain in recent wars-all these burdens generation after generation have sought to demoralize us, to break our human spirit. But God knows that we are not beasts of burden, we are not agricultural implements or rented slaves, we are men. We are men locked in a death struggle against man's inhumanity to man." Glaser (1929-2020) designed many well-known posters and album covers, especially during the late 1960s and… Read More

Pasadena, CA: Pacific Coast Committee on American Principles and Fair Play, Pasadena Chapter, 1943. First Edition. Pamphlet. Very good. A reprint of an article from Harper's Magazine by a Navy doctor stationed in Hawaii who describes the response of the Japanese-American community to the attack on Pearl Harbor and to the internment of Japanese Americans on the West Coast. Coggins describes their efforts to demonstrate that they were loyal Americans, and he concludes with a report on the overwhelming number of Japanese Americans living in Hawaii who volunteered for the military. The publisher of this reprint was an organization that sprouted up in 1942 to defend the constitutional rights of Japanese Americans and to fight the anti-Japanese prejudice of so many white Americans. This pamphlet includes a brief introduction opposing race prejudice and promoting the patriotism of Japanese Americans. The final page includes a listing of Japanese Americans from Pasadena who had enlisted or volunteered for… Read More

Washington, DC: Library of Congress, 1980. Photograph. Near fine. A portrait of an unidentified migrant farm worker on the edge of the California desert, just north of the Mexican border. He sits on a dirt berm, in a row of other men, suggested only by their elbows, which are visible at the edges of the image. Lange took this image while working for the Resettlement Administration and the Farm Security Administration (two WPA agencies). The most famous image from this period in her career is Migrant Mother, the iconic Depression-era photograph. Lange's original title, typed on a label on the print in the Library of Congress was "Migrant Agricultural Worker". It is sometimes called "Jobless on the Edge of a Peafield" or "Migrant Agricultural Worker, Near Holtville." At the time she took this photograph, Lange was working for the federal government and so the negatives belonged to her employer. For decades they have been on deposit at the Library of Congress and for many years, anyone could ask the… Read More

London: Herbert Jenkins, 1924. First Edition. Hardcover. Near fine/Very good. The title of this novel is taken from H. G. Wells' The Time Machine, in which the Morlocks are the workers of the world, who live underground. In Welsh's novel, "the Morlocks are unofficial secret organizations within the trade unions whose purpose is to stir up revolution. Their activities in the great miners' strike bring disastrous results"-quotes from the summary at the front of the book. Despite the grim nature of the summary, the author was a miner and trade unionist, and he spent two decades as a Member of Parliament for the Scottish Labor Party. First edition (first printing with MCMXXIV on the title page and no indication of later printings). A near fine copy in a very good dust jacket with several areas of restoration visible on the back (verso). The dust jacket is correctly priced at 2'6 on the spine (this is the publication price given in the Guardian newspaper's review, published on June 13, 1924). The top… Read More

New York: L. Gogler, 1886. Ephemera. Very good. A rare original cabinet card of the most well-known portrait of the anarchist and radical labor organizer Lucy Parsons, taken by German immigrant photographer Louis Gogler. Gogler operated a large studio in the Bowery neighborhood in New York City but Parsons obtained the copyright for the image and thus the means of production and control of the distribution of her image. On the photo mount Gogler's name appears in small lettering, below which is printed, Mrs. L. E. Parsons. Copyright and published by herself." This seems to have been Parson's preferred portrait and she distributed it to the press and used it as an illustration in her biography of her husband. It shows her in a three-quarter pose, wearing a striped dress with a rolled scroll of paper in her hands. Parsons (ca. 1853-1942) and her husband Albert were prominent radicals in late 19th century America. Albert was executed in 1887 for his supposed involvement in the Haymarket Riot. After… Read More

Stanford: C. P. Times Press, 1984. First Edition. Pamphlet. Very good. A two-poem chapbook by one of the founders of the Black Panthers. Both poems are critical of the Soviet Union. [7] pages. 4-1/2 by 6 inches. First edition (first printing). A very good copy in wrappers (pamphlet). Staples beginning to rust. A bit of wear to the corners.

Washington, DC: Library of Congress, 1980. Photograph. Fine. In this widely reproduced Lange image, a bulky white man appears to hold court while standing with one foot on the bumper of a car; five thin black men sit and stand behind him on the steps of a clapboard store. In the years immediately after she made the negative, this was one of Lange's most reproduced images: it appeared in U.S. Camera Annual 1939, Richard Wright's 12 Million Black Voices (1941), and Archibald MacLeish's Land of the Free (1938). Most of the time, when this image is reproduced, the glimpse of a young white man holding a cigarette, which appears on the left edge, is cropped out. Lange took this image while working for the Resettlement Administration and the Farm Security Administration (two WPA agencies). The most famous image from this period in her career is Migrant Mother, the iconic Depression-era photograph. Lange's images from this era often have descriptive names rather than titles, and they have changed over… Read More

Berkeley: Ecology Center, 1969. First Edition. Pamphlet. Near fine. An offprint from the Ecology Center magazine and a very uncommon stand-alone Huxley publication, an essay that explores the connections between population growth, contraception, war, and democracy. 7 pages. 8-1/2 by 11 inches. First edition. Near fine in stapled wrappers.

Nizhny Novgorod: M. Dmitriev, 1888. Ephemera. Very good. A cabinet card portrait of the Russian-Ukranian writer and political activist Vladimir Galaktionovich Korolenko. Korolenka was exiled to Nizhny Novgorod, where he met the up-and-coming photographer M. P. Dmitriev. According to Wikipedia, Dmitriev showed this portrait to great acclaim at the 1889 Russian exhibition celebrating the 50th anniversary of the invention of photography. A very good image, with medium contrast. 3-7/8 by 5-1/2 inches on a larger mount. Mount trimmed on one edge. Extensive ink stamps and notations on the back (verso) of the mount.