We both love auctions, and attending one of those popular shows would be the ultimate experience for us. We never got the call, the Roadshow came and went, and we could only see the Atlantic City show on TV, watching as others took our spots and showed off items that couldn’t match the treasures we had tucked away somewhere in our closets.

Antiques Roadshow appraiser Don Cresswell examines an item after his behind-the-scenes presentation about the show. Co-owner of the Philadelphia Print Shop, he has been on the show for 12 years.

Little did we know that we were among the gazillion folks not just from our area but around the country who also wanted tickets. I learned that much during a presentation over the weekend by one of the show’s appraisers, Don Cresswell, co-owner of the Philadelphia Print Shop since 1981. Cresswell told about 35 of us that people fly in from all over to be on the six shows held yearly in June, July and August.

That was only one of the revelations that Cresswell offered in his insider’s view of the Roadshow, on which he has appraised antique prints and maps for 12 years. He and the other appraisers – the Roadshow lists more than 180 of them on its website – do not get paid for their services or reimbursed for their expenses by WGBH, the Boston public television station that manages and produces it. What they do get is free publicity for themselves and their companies – which is probably even more lucrative.

Cresswell isn’t the only one dissecting the show. The website offered its own questions and answers and executive producer Marsha Bemko wrote an insider’s guide in 2009.

The soft-spoken Cresswell answered the most commonly asked questions about the Roadshow, interspersing them with anecdotes. At the event sponsored by the Germantown Historical Society in Philadelphia, he also participated in a Roadshow-type panel of experts who looked over our items and offered historical information about them.

Here is some of his presentation:

When is the show coming to my city?

“Probably never,” he said honestly. Your city needs a convention center with 8,000 to 10,000 square feet of space on any given Saturday to accommodate the large number of ticket-holders. When the show came to Philadelphia in its first year in 1996, he recalled, “hardly anyone came. It was foreign to most people. Now it’s huge.”

How can I get to go to a Roadshow?

Through a lottery where, if chosen, you get a timed ticket. It didn’t start out that way: First, it was first-come, first-served, and not a lot of people showed up. Then it became so popular that people would line up two days before. He recalled a Baltimore show where 12,000 people turned out and police had to direct traffic. The line wrapped around the building twice and then across an interstate highway into the downtown area. He said 5,000 of those people didn’t get in.

What happens when you arrive with your ticket?

You stand in line, then check in. Someone connected to the show looks over your item. Some folks bring weapons for appraisal, so firing pins are removed. One person brought a live grenade once, and the bomb squad was called in. Then you are sent to a table of experts based on what you brought. And you stand in line again. “It’s a maximum experience of waiting in an airport,” Cresswell said. “You see the things people bring and you talk to them. People just love that. It’s a wonderful part of the experience.”

How do people get big furniture in?

People send in photos of the furniture before the show, and the producers decide what’s good. The Roadshow crew picks up 15 to 20 pieces and sets them up on a stage. Cresswell recalled seeing families lugging big pieces of furniture to the show.

What does the setup look like inside the big hall?

Table are arranged based on specialties – with two to eight expert appraisers per table - that include historical prints and maps, paintings (2 tables; people bring in a lot of these), books and manuscripts, furniture, musical instruments. About 60 to 80 appraisers are on hand for each show, and their day starts at 7 a.m. and ends around 8 or 9 p.m. “It’s exhausting,” Cresswell said. He loves it, though. “It’s a wonderful experience,” he said. “I’ve been to places I would never have gone to otherwise.” The best city? Grand Rapids, MI, which had the “nicest people.”

How can you get on TV?

That’s up to the appraiser and the producer. WGBH produces three one-hour shows in each city and about 60 to 70 people are chosen. Cresswell chooses people based on three things: If the item is interesting, has value and the owner is “presentable for TV,” meaning the person looks and talks well. Some people want to be on TV, some don’t. “I don’t tell them the worth (of the item). I want to save it for the on-TV reaction.” If the person says yes, he calls over a producer who makes the final decision, and the person is taken away to be readied for the TV appearance.

He told the story of one “darling” couple who brought in a folded Revolutionary War-era letter from Dr. Joseph Warren asking the local militia to allow Paul Revere passage without interference. The letter was a lithographic reproduction that had likely been folded inside a book. The couple agreed to go on TV and Cresswell broke the news to them there. “It was a way of teaching a lesson,” he said. In another case, a woman had an authentic and valuable four-page atlas from the 16th century, but she wanted no part of TV, figuring that Cresswell only wanted to embarrass her. Perturbed, she flat-out asked him what it was worth. With the answer, she said OK to TV, but it was too late.

Do people get angry when they disagree with the appraisal?

Yes, they do. “All are not nice,” he said.
Once Cresswell finished, the audience had questions:

What has been the overall accomplishment of the Roadshow?

It has saved a lot of artifacts in America. Dealers say the show has become their enemy because everyone thinks their items are valuable.

What research is done on the floor by the appraisers?

The show provides a cart of reference books and appraisers have access to the internet. But most importantly, they all are experts who have been doing this for years.

Can appraisers solicit people to sell their items independently?

Not on the show. “If I gave (someone) my business card, they’d kick me out,” he said. You can do it later or if someone approaches you. In general, he added, “you don’t buy something you formally appraise.”

Does his firm benefit from him and fellow appraiser and Print Shop co-owner Christopher Lane being on the show?

The first day after they appear on a TV episode, they get 40 telephone calls, and then it fades. They get invited to a lot of antique shows. “You’re famous,” he said. “You touched the Keno twins.” Leigh and Leslie Keno are popular appraisers on the show.

What are some of the most common items brought to the show?

Among prints, it’s mass-produced tourist art (which is of little value). He recalled one show where a number of people brought in a print of the Shroud of Turin, mentioning that when hung on the wall the eyes followed you.

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These photos offered a slice of life at Nazareth College in the mid-1930s: A 1935 commencement of women graduates with a double row of nuns standing on a raised porch in the background. Female students making a daisy chain, planting ivy and posing on a tennis court. Male and female cast members glancing at a script for the play “The Joyous Season” by Philip Barry.  The 1936 queen of the May Day festival and her court.

The caption from the photo: "Commencement 1935 at Nazareth College."

But now, here they were on an auction table, tossed by someone who did not attach much value to them. It’s not unusual for me to find photos of family members from decades ago. These were different, though, because they were college photos and they seemed to have been taken not with a pocket Kodak but by someone who knew photography.

Photos always appeal  to me because they get me to wondering about the people in them: who they were, how they lived, why they turned up here of all places. Like these, they usually show the history of the lives of everyday people (in this instance, at least, those everyday people who could afford college – and dress well, too).

The photos offered a glimpse of the fashions of the day, and the activities and celebrations that were considered important on Nazareth’s campus. Initially, I assumed the school was located in the Philadelphia area (there are so many colleges here that it’s hard to keep up with them). When I Googled, though, the only Nazareth College I could find was in Rochester, NY. It was opened in 1924 by the Sisters of St. Joseph, and its first class consisted of 25 women.

This photo from the album showed the women's styles of the day - from hair to clothing.

The album had likely belonged to someone who had attended the college and valued her time there, because both it and the photos were in very good condition. Most of the photos were of women, and the owner may have been in some of them. The events depicted in the photos were noted in captions but in most cases, the people were not individually identified.

I came upon the photo album while making my preview rounds of the tables at the auction house. It was lying among some other papers and ephemera, including a copy of a guidebook for the 1939 New York World’s Fair (I checked to see if African American sculptor Augusta Savage was mentioned – couldn’t find her name), a product catalog for the Pep Boys car service store and 1930s tour guides of Nova Scotia.

As I flipped through the album, I came upon a program for an event honoring a nun. “Silver Jubilee Greetings to Sister Climacus, Saturday, April 22, 1944,” was typed on the title page. 

It consisted of songs praising the nun and written to the tune of “Jingle Bells,” “Yankee Doodle” and others. One of the songs referred to her as a teacher at St. Anthony’s.

A page of religious-themed stories compiled by Sister M. Climacus.

As soon as I saw Sister Climacus’ name I recognized it. Across the room, it had been typed on the title page in an album of stories, puzzles and exercises that she had apparently compiled in 1946. The stories had a religious theme and they were written by Father Jo, Sister Marcelline and others. In one story, Father Jo had written a fairy tale about Tarzan (who was ubiquitous at the time), and Sister Marcelline had re-told the story of Our Lady of Fatima.

In the top left corner of the title page was a banner with the words “Immaculate Conception.” The stories were on newsprint but there was no indication of what newspaper or other publication they appeared in. I did find news articles from two New York newspapers in the back of the album.

There are probably more of these papers and photos in some back room at the auction house. I do wonder who they belonged to.

The caption on the photo: "Making the Daisy Chain for Class Day 1935," along with the names of the students.

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The buyer had likely purchased it at an auction – in much the same way that I buy people’s personal papers – or at an estate sale. The family members had probably never even considered the papers important and just wanted to get rid of the stuff. Who’d want it, I’m sure they said to each other.

A sailor's scrapbook sold at auction.

In fact, a number of people do. I see African American ephemera snatched up like gold every time it comes up for auction. So much so that I engage in bidding wars just to get my hands on some of it – and most times I lose because the people buying it are hard-core sellers and they know they can make money from it. I’m always buying for keeps, not for sale.

As black people, especially, I don’t think we consider our personal lives worthy of history. We don’t necessarily consider as significant our high school diplomas or college degrees, or our family reunion picnic photos or anything else that chronicles how we lived.

And that’s not only a belief of African Americans. I find many many more papers and photos of white Americans on the auction tables. All of us throw away those signs of a life someone else led, just as our descendants will likely toss ours.

Photos of a couple posing for the camera, sold at auction.

“Early writers were saying, ‘We were here. We existed. We had lives. We had families,” Turner said.

The Blockson collection is seeking documents on the lives of African Americans, said Turner, curator of the Charles L. Blockson Afro-American Collection at Temple University in Philadelphia. She was speaking at a session over the weekend called “Collecting: How to Keep Our History Off the Auction Block.”

Blockson began collecting as a young boy after one of his teachers told him that black folks had never contributed anything to American history. By the time the collection was handed over to Temple in 1984, he had 20,000 pieces defying the teacher’s notion. According to Turner, that number was now at 500,000.

And growing – some from her forays onto eBay, donations from people and organizations (on June 17, the National Association of University Women will donate its papers) and from other sources. Blockson’s is a special collection of ephemera, or paper documents: books, photographs, manuscripts, pamphlets, journals, posters and more.

A scrapbook of papers with Hazel Allen's name carved on the cover. Old newspapers, photo albums, old Ebony magazines and other items were also sold at auction.

Librarian Aslaku Berhanu talked about the history of black collecting – which flourished in the 19th century – and collectors, including Arthur Schomburg, Daniel Murray and Robert Adger. Adger was among the first black collectors in Philadelphia and co-founder of the American Negro Historical Society in 1897. The society initially excluded women until poet Frances E.W. Harper led a public protest.

“Collect things related to yourself and your family,” Turner urged. “Elderly people pass on and family members don’t recognize (what they left behind). They throw it out. Blockson will say our history is important. We’re now trying to educate people in Philadelphia and on the Main Line to have their stuff deposited here at the Blockson Collection.”

The Philadelphia Main Line was known for its old money and huge mansions; one such family was the basis of the 1940 movie “The Philadelphia Story.” Blacks have lived there as far back as 1780, according to a January 2010 story in the Main Line Media News, and developed their own residential communities around the mansions where they worked.

A letter sent by black Union soldier Joseph O. Cross to his wife in Connecticut in 1864. It was sold at auction.

Turner told of one woman who lived in the black community of Mount Pleasant on the Main Line who donated boxes of her documents to the collection. Mazie B. Hall – who apparently loved gardening – lived to be 103 years old, and had kept her certificates, awards and other papers. “We went out and took boxes and got everything of hers,” Turner said. “It was important because it tells you something about the individual.”

Her session reminded me of a conversation I had had a few months ago with a curator of the African American manuscripts auction at Swann Auction Galleries in New York. Wyatt H. Day, the house’s expert on this ephemera, said basically the same thing: that we should be saving those documents and not dumping them.

They both suggested that families check their attics and basements. “Be vigilant about making sure what you have in your homes and relatives’ homes are intact,” she said. And she cautioned, “please don’t store things in basements and attics” where moisture and the elements will destroy them.

A copy of Negro World, official newspaper of Marcus Garvey's United Negro Improvement Association. It was sold at auction along with photos and other documents from an African American family.

Here are some tips she offered:

Place documents in archival boxes. She named two places where you can buy archival materials: Hollinger and Gaylord.

Place papers in clear Kevlar covers

Find companies/organizations that offer workshops on preserving documents

Consider collecting music, such as sheet music or lyrics of songs

Write down the names of people on the backs of photos, the date and who took the photo

Let family members know where you’d like to have your stuff donated.

Turner told of some other items she had found on eBay. One seller was auctioning letters from an African American soldier and selling them individually. She wrote asking about buying them as a group, but she apparently wasn’t able to get them. “They could end up anywhere,” she said.

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My first introduction to her were some complete editions of and clipped articles from the Richmond Afro American newspaper from the 1960s, frayed around the edges and dulled with age. Along with some other papers, a 1923 speech or paper she wrote called “The Object of a Family Reunion” were inside a wooden scrapbook with her named carved on the cover.

Love letters to Hazel Hynes in Richmond, VA, from Jasper Allen in Newport News. The letters were dated 1919 to 1920 while he was working in the shipyards.

Her collection was overwhelming. Items were lying in stacks on tables and crammed in boxes under tables. Scrapbooks of photos and photo albums, Ebony magazines from the 1960s, loose family photos, school certificates, report cards.

It was so much and so personal that it nearly broke my heart to see it all go for change to bidders. It was the type of stuff that we all save for our own reasons but family members toss because it holds no significance for them. There was so much of hers that I understood why the family let some of it go.

One of the most interesting groups of papers were love letters to her dating from August 1919 to July 1920 – the envelopes faded, the stamps missing. She was Hazel Hynes then and her beau was Jasper Allen. I can only assume that they eventually got married.

From what I could surmise from Jasper’s letters, they met in the summer of 1919 in Richmond, VA, where they both lived. In one letter, he mentioned Church Hill, an African American community in the east end of the city. Douglas Wilder, the first black governor of Virginia, was born and raised there. One resident born in 1903 said in an oral history that although some residents were doctors and other professionals, Church Hill was an enclave of poor people who made a living the best they could.

Ebony magazines and other documents.

This was one of those turn-of-the-century communities whose families were 40 years out of slavery with scant resources and many of them with limited education. The neighborhood, as Wilder mentioned in an oral interview, was very close knit and had everything they needed right there.

Jasper went off to Newport News, VA,  around September 1919 or so to work in the shipyards, likely hired by the Newport News Shipbuilding Co. He got a room by himself at a boarding house with a landlady named A. Williams (whom his letters were in “care of”). Workers headed out to the shipyards each morning at the sound of a 7 o’clock bell, according to one letter, and Jasper spent some time home at night writing Hazel.

About four or five months later, he wrote that he fell off a ship and broke his right arm. When he woke up, he was in the hospital, apparently knocked unconscious. His friend Walter wrote his letters to Hazel.

Jasper apparently was lonesome for Hazel and home soon after arriving in Newport News. He had what he called the “Up home blues.” He wrote a lot about missing her.

I arrive saft I have just got work today. I shure do miss you some bad … I want you to be a good little girl till I get thir and I can be good (to) you … I have a good job in the ship yard, help build them.

Hazel Allen's family photos, including one inscribed "My Mother."

Back in Richmond, Hazel was in school. It’s not clear where she lived in Richmond because he asked her to come to Church Hill. Jasper’s letters refer to her “studies” and “school.” They are not very detailed so I’m not sure what schooling she was engaged in. He noted that her studies were giving her headaches, so it must’ve been college.

(In an oral interview, the Church Hill resident born in 1903 said her own schooling followed this path: George Mason for elementary school, Armstrong for high school. She wanted to teach so she went to Normal School, which she described as two years of high school, and then off to practice-teach. College was Virginia Union University for two years.)

A couple times Hazel must have accused Jasper of having another woman and was ready to dump him. He pleaded with her to trust him. Likewise, he accused her of having someone else.

Dear you thank I have some one down hear. when I gave you my word when I left I ment what I said I dont thank you did.. I thank if I had seen someone I love better than I did you I would told you in a good way … If you have found someone that love (you) better please write me one more little letter so I can kiss you good by sor(ry) to my heart that you maid me cry.

A scrapbook of papers with Hazel Allen's name carved on the cover.

Jasper seemed to have marriage on his mind, going so far as telling a friend that he was married to Hazel and making a request of her: “I am coming on so you can meat me. Dont forget that I am going to bring a nother boy with me when I come I told him I was married to you so don’t’ sa(y) nothing when you see him.”

His letters were littered with misspellings and he apologized quite often for his “bad writing,” telling her to take all his mistakes for kisses. There were plenty of them so she’d be smothered in kisses. “I love you to my hart. Hazel you is the only girl I ever realy love in my life I have to tell you whether you believe it or not sugar girl.”

I’d love to read Hazel’s letters to him to see her side of the relationship and her thoughts in her own words.

Interestingly, the 2-cent stamps on the letters had been cut out – either by the auction house or the family. I’m guessing it was the auction house. Those postal used stamps will likely end up on an auction table.

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When did our written history – those paper artifacts that told a once-indifferent world of our accomplishments – become so important? I’m happy that it is finally being realized for its value, but I was a bit surprised.

A hand-made banner for the ministry of Father Divine, sold at auction for $30,000.

It has not always been so. I was at a preview of the African American manuscript auction at Swann Auction Galleries in New York last month when I struck up a conversation with Wyatt H. Day, the house’s expert on this genre. He recalled the year 1995 when he tried to get New York’s venerable auction houses to consider offering such sales. There was no market for it, he was told.

Swann was interested, he said, and he recalled that it was initially difficult to find the products. “I was starting from scratch,” he said.

Since that time, he has managed to rescue some important historical documents either from dumpsters or hiding in homes of families who didn’t realize their value. The tales of his finds are fascinating:

There was the well-known New York abolitionist family – which was involved in the Underground Railroad and is the namesake of a street in Lower Manhattan – with a library of 5,000 books at their home on Staten Island. “They (abolitionist books, the Fireside Poets) went to the town dumpster,” he said, but they were saved.

There was the family in Richmond, VA, which had a log book for a patrol boat outside West Africa.

That family directed him to another that had a rare slave manuscript – the stuff is “always in a shoebox,” Day noted. It had been written in Arabic and translated by missionaries. It was the personal manuscript of an Islamic scholar named Omar ibn Said (1770-1864), who had been kidnapped from Senegal and brought to this country to be a slave. In 1831, he wrote a narrative of his life in Africa and America.

“It was a treasure,” Day said. “We had it translated.” The missionary translation was “off,” he said, adding that the man had not happily embraced Christianity as the  translation had purported. “It was bought by an African American scholar,” said Day. “It went all around the world and  was exhibited at the UN. This is the kind of thing this sale has accomplished.”

There was the manuscript found among papers in a Florida home with the title “The Bondswoman’s Narrative,” written by a black woman in the late 1850s and considered the first. A narrative of the life of Hannah Crafts, it was purchased and authenticated by scholar, historian and editor Henry Louis Gates Jr. and published in 2002.

“Once again, something got rescued,” Day said. “Now I don’t have to make the academic pitch. The monetary pitch works to get stuff out of dresser drawers and attics.”

He also tries to connect to people “viscerally,” he said, to get them beyond the dollars and cents to the meaning of the manuscripts and their historical value.

An 1848 copy of Frederick Douglass' autobiography. It did not sell at auction.

A collector who’s done his share of dumpster-diving, Day owns one of those works. He says he has one of only five copies of “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. An American Slave. Written by Himself.” One was up for sale last month at Swann.

The copies apparently belonged to Douglass, and Day surmised that he may have taken several with him when he parted ways with abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison around the mid-19th century. “It was him reclaiming himself,” Day said. The book was missing the frontspiece (or cover) portrait of Douglass, just like all the others, he said. The autobiography was first published in 1845 and this one had a publication date of 1848.

The starting bid on the Douglass book was $13,000, but there were no takers. Other Douglass memorabilia did sell, including several copies of the Douglass Monthly newspaper – from $1,500 to $4,400 (excluding the 15 percent auction-house premium) – and a carte-de-visite card with a photo for $6,000.

Many of the other manuscripts went for thousands of dollars. This was my first Swann manuscript sale (I have come in the past for the fine art auction), and it was an enlightening experience. Several of the works were purchased by the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, set to open in 2015. The museum is building its collection, and in January, it invited people to bring in their heirlooms for appraisal and possible donation.

Here’s a sample (minus the 15 percent premium) of the prices for other items:

Aaron Douglas stenciled placard for the Wallace Thurman play “Harlem” at the Apollo Theater in 1939. $15,000.

Huey P. Newton in a wicker chair with spear in one hand and gun in another. $16,000.

“Honor King: End Racism” placard from an April 8, 1968, march in Memphis days after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination. $17,000.

Transcript of the first trial of the Scottsboro Boys, April 6, 1931. The transcript was found in a dumpster in Huntsville, AL, about 30 years ago. $17,000.

A 1937 photo of the Scottsboro Boys and two NAACP attorneys, sold at the Swann Auction Galleries auction for $10,000.

Group photo of the Scottsboro Boys with attorneys Juanita E. Jackson and Laura Kellum of the NAACP. Jackson was the first African American woman to pass the bar in Maryland. Kellum was with the Birmingham NAACP youth council. The photo ran in Crisis Magazine in January 1937. $10,000 

Marcus Garvey pen and ink portrait with a written statement by him, 1922. $26,000.

Poster from the first Malcolm X film in 1972. $14,000.

A Night-Club Map of Harlem by E. Simms Campbell. It was a centerfold in the Jan. 8, 1933, issue of Manhattan Magazine, its first issue. $14,000.

Large Father Divine handmade banner in purple and white felt, 54″ x 53″. $30,000.


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Printed on the front of the stamped ticket was:

Exposition Universelle De 1900

Ticket D’entrée

Un Franc

The ticket-holder had apparently been one of the 50 million people who paid one franc to see the 76,000 exhibits at the World’s Fair and venture into what would become some of Paris’ most popular attractions, including the Musee d’Orsay. Like many of us, he or she apparently kept this entrance-ticket stub as a memento.

The 1900 World’s Fair – covering 280 acres on both sides of the Seine River – was held to celebrate the century recently departed and the one just starting. The turnout was the largest for any fair at that time, and 58 countries participated. The fair also was the site of the Second Olympics Games, which were the first to feature women competitors.

I’m sure this ticket-holder looked in awe at the first escalator and the first talking film and the first refracting telescope. But what I found fascinating, in researching the fair, was “The Exhibit of American Negroes,” which at that time had been set up in a plain white building on the banks of the river.

It was assembled by writer, activist and scholar W.E.B. DuBois and Thomas J. Calloway (described as an African American lawyer, as someone working in the War Department and as a Negro special agent) in collaboration with black colleges and universities and Daniel A.P. Murray, an assistant librarian at the Library of Congress. The federal government appropriated $15,000 for the project.

The exhibit included photographs, musical compositions, books, poetry, paintings, models, maps, patents, pamphlets and documents on the contributions of blacks to American culture up to 1900. The 500 or more photos showed blacks as both middle class and prosperous, and a mix of color tones – in direct contrast to how they were portrayed in the mainstream. Well-dressed, they posed for photos at home, in studios, churches and their own businesses.

One section was called “Negro Life in Georgia” (my home state), which had at the time the largest population of blacks in the country. The section offered photos and statistics on living in the state, where DuBois was teaching sociology at Atlanta University.

The exhibition – along with Dubois and Calloway individually – won numerous awards. It was ignored, however, by the European and U.S media, but covered by the black press.

It was, DuBois said:

“an honest straightforward exhibit of a small nation of people, picturing their life and development without apology or gloss, and above all made by themselves. In a way this marks an era in the history of the Negroes of America.”

The exhibit also included the works of Frances Benjamin Johnston, a white woman who was one of the earliest women photographers in this country. In 1899, Hampton Institute had commissioned her to take photographs of its students for the Paris exhibition.  

The ticket stub was not the only auction item that led me to a world’s fair: There were two postally unused postcards for the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition – the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago. The postcards showed a drawing of the Battle Ship Illinois from the U.S. Naval Exhibit. The fair covered 686 acres, drew 27 million visitors and attracted 46 nations as participants.

Blacks were apparently not well-represented although many may have attended. According to my research, two factions arose when blacks were denied full participation (black exhibits had to be approved by an all-white committee): Abolitionist Frederick Douglass felt blacks should take the opportunity to show their successes. Journalist and activist Ida B. Wells felt that the fair should be boycotted.

While most exhibits at the fair presented other cultures in a positive light, awful “fake ‘African villages’” depicted black people as savages. On a day set aside for blacks, organizers insulted them by offering them watermelons. Some of the same happened in 1900 where at least one exhibit presented a diorama called “Living in Madagascar,” showing Africans in the human lineage between apes and humans.

I’m always amazed at how the smallest items in my box lots can turn up such fascinating historical events. These pieces of ephemera have been an enlightening research journey for me. As always. (Photo below, on the website of the Center for Afroamerican and African Studies at the Universty of Michigan, is from the exhibit.)
 

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There were 19 brightly colored stickers, most with the name Rickie Tickie Stickies, the rest labeled “the fantasticks.” I examined the packages closely and saw one set of orange daisy-shaped flowers with pink centers. When I flipped to the back and saw the image, it sparked a memory.

It was a familiar Volkswagen Beetle from the 1970s plastered with daisies. Then I realized that I knew the image but not the name. They were a symbol of Flower Power and the hippie movement of the 1960s. I never knew where these images came from or who invented them.

The peel-and stick decals I got at auction were in their original packaging, unopened and sealed, except for one sleeve of daisies. Someone had apparently bought them 40 years ago, never got around to using all of them and just put them aside. The packaging was in good condition, but aged.

There were pink ladybugs (9 for $2), yellow/pink/royal-blue/lime trains with cars (5 for $1), an array of yellow/orange/hot-pink animals (9 for $2) and pink/orange paisleys (9 for $2). The Stickies were dated 1970. The package warned that they had to be removed within six to eight months or the company wasn’t responsible for any damage. 

On the back was the inscription:

They’re Right Now. They’re Bright Now.

For walls, ceilings, shower enclosures, luggage, notebooks, boats, appliances, raincoats, furniture, bulletin boards, cars, glass doors, garbage cans, gift boxes.

Top Quality Vinyl Decals in The “In” Colors. Easy to Apply, Washable, Non-Permanent.

They were a fad of the late 1960s – that’s how they were described on several websites – that made a man named Don Kracke millions of dollars. Kracke, who was working in an ad agency at the time, saw some hand-drawn flowers on the side of a Volkswagen bus and felt he could do prettier, according to neatorama.com.

He designed his own version of daisies, polka dots and paisleys, and put them on his own car, according to a 1998 story in the Los Angeles Times. Neighborhood kids took to them; so he created 3,000 in hot colors, and peddled them in his neighborhood and to a local hardware store. He didn’t expect the fad to last beyond 1967, he told a reporter.

It took off, especially the daisy sticker, embraced by “flower children” all over the country. By the end of 1968, 90 million Rickie Tickie Stickies had been sold.

“The key is timing,” Kracke is quoted as saying on the website drfad.com. He created the stickers a few months after 1967’s Summer of Love, a defining moment for the hippie movement at its epicenter of San Francisco.

The company lasted for about six years before Kracke sold it to a Minnesota company that no longer exists.

In 1977, he wrote a book – which was republished in 2001 – called “Turn Your Idea or Invention Into Millions.” He has brought 2,500 items to market, and was one of the writers of a 1970s comic strip called Yankee Doodles. Kracke is also a painter; his works were exhibited in 2007 at a Palms Springs, Calif., gallery).

Kracke apparently did not trademark his design, so other companies copied the concept. The fantasticks may have been one of them. I could find nothing about these stickers in my research. They had the same feeling of agedness, so I’m assuming they were from the same period.

I have yellow daises, a little boy with yellow hair and a little girl wearing a lime hat with flowers. They’re described as a ”Home Decorating Kit” with suggestions on the back on where to place them – walls, waste baskets, canister sets, mirrors, glass doors, boats, walls and surfboards. All so very familiar.

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There’s nothing like the real show, however. Sliding into a nice sleek Mercedes, touching the supple leather and turning the wheel was always like magic. And it was the closest I knew that I’d ever get to a $65,000 car.

The replicas? Those were the magazine ads I came across with drawings of vintage cars. In fact, I have a stack of old Life magazine covers whose inside pages contained cars from around a century ago.

The first significant car show was held at Madison Square Garden in New York City in 1900, according to history.com. The owner of the Packard, James Ward Packard, brought three of his cars (he’d built his first Packard the year before), and several new car companies were introduced, according to the site. The show included automotive demonstrations, and the cost of admission was 50 cents. (The cost for tickets for the upcoming New York International Auto Show in April is $14 for adults.)

 The North American International Auto Show, held in Detroit each year, was started in 1907. According to Wikipedia, it is among the largest in North America. The first Chicago show was in 1901.

This is the time of year for car shows. Along with Philadelphia, Houston just ended its show, and Detroit and Washington had theirs in January. Chicago and Cleveland are holding theirs this month.

I thought this was a good time to pull out some of the ephemera I had stashed away of cars from the early 1900s. The date listed after each car below is the magazine publication date. Enjoy the ride.

 
Detroit Electric, Aug. 11, 1910. This car was produced by the Anderson Carriage Co. in Detroit. Production began in 1907. It was sold mostly to women and doctors who didn’t want to do the hand-cranking.

Klaxon horn, Jan. 20, 1910. This vintage ad boasted that the president – William Howard Taft at the time – used the Klaxon horn on his official White Steamer, the White House automobile. Is that him in the back seat in the picture?

Willys Knight Touring Car, July 20, 1916. Cost: $1,125; Roadster $1,095. Made by Willys-Overland Co., Toledo, OH.

Lozier, Aug. 10, 1911. This car was a 1912 model: 6-cylinder $5,000; 4-cylinder $4,700. It was sold as a luxury car for the wealthy and for a while, was the most expensive car sold in the United States, according to Wikipedia. In comparison, Cadillacs sold for $1,600 and Packards for $3,200 at that time.

Lexington, Oct. 25, 1917. This car was assembled from parts provided by different suppliers. It was manufactured by the Lexington Motor Co. in Connersville, ID. One of the most popular Lexingtons was this one: Minute Man Six. Cost: $1,585.

The White, Nov. 26, 1914. This car was produced by the White Co. of Cleveland. The company also made trucks, taxicabs, bicycles, roller skates and sewing machines.

Packard, Jan. 7, 1909. Everyone knows the luxurious Packard. Need I say more.

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In one glass case, I spotted a children’s book with a brown boy on the cover. It was called “Nimbo: Story of an African Boy,” from 1934, first edition written by Josephine Van Dozen Pease, illustrated by Eleanor Mussey Young.

Lying next to it was another book, with a black-and-white cover of images that resembled African masks. Intrigued, I opened it up to take a look. Its title was “Mad Man’s Drums.” On another page, the title was completed: “A Novel in Woodcuts by Lynd Ward.” It was published in 1930.

I flipped the pages and was wowed. A book of beautiful woodcuts. Remarkable.

I had never heard of Lynd Ward, but I was immediately impressed that he has used this artistic medium to tell a story. How imaginative. Not a single word. There weren’t even numbers on the pages. Just the graphic illustrations, more than 100 of them.

I grew even more interested when I saw some of the first woodcuts and realized I could interpret the story without words. They are very detailed and expressive:

In the foreground, an African man pounds a drum among the bushes and trees, and in the background a small figure of a white man (obviously a slave trader) with a sword looks down on him.

The slave trader forces African men and women (one woman carries a baby) toward the shore, where a ship waits on the ocean.

The slave trader and Africans are seen aboard the ship.

An African man is being sold as a slave.

As I flipped through the novel, I never saw the Africans again. The rest of the story appears to be about the man and his relationship with his wife and son. The website beaverpond.com quoted Ward as saying the book is about human relationships and how we deal with them.

Lynd Ward was my latest discovery of an artist, and I’m very very glad I came across him. I had never heard of him before and had never seen any of his works, but I’ll be on the lookout for more of them, especially those with a black theme.

Ward was born in Chicago in 1905 into a home of an activist Methodist minister father. The son attended the Teachers College at Columbia University and sailed to Europe after graduating in 1926. He studied graphic arts in Germany, and came under the influence of illustrators Frans Masereel of Belgium and Otto Nuckel of Germany, who were using woodcuts to tell stories in pictures without words.

Ward created his first woodcuts novel “Gods’ Man” in 1929, followed by “Mad Man’s Drums” in 1930 and “Vertigo” in 1937. He produced six such novels (“Wild Pilgrimage,” “Prelude to a Million Years” and “Song Without Words” ) and illustrated many other books, including some written by his wife May McNeer.

He also created children’s picture books that won the Caldecott Award and other honors. In 2001, Georgetown University held an exhibit of some of his original illustrations, primarily those for children’s books. Ward died in 1985.

Ward was very outspoken (he denounced fascism in the arts in the 1930s and McCarthyism in politics in the 1950s), and carried his passion for activism over into his art. He illustrated a children’s book in 1947 called “North Star Shining: A Pictorial History of the American Negro,” written by Hildegarde Hoyt Swift.

Ward noted in a sketch on “The Book Artist: Today and Tomorrow,” published in 1947, that we need a world:

“without ideas of enslavement and exploitation, of master races and inferior peoples, of special privilege and individual enrichment at the expense of others. Those ideas, and the complicated social and economic practices that stem from them, stand between us and the future. Only in a world completely free shall we be able to fulfill the promise of our heritage from the past.”

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