Series Americana

With this post the Waterwall continues its focus on American regional studies and reconnects with an earlier post from 2010 to applaud the tremendous contributions of Carol Fitzgerald in collecting and preserving bibliographic material related to American regionalism in her book Series Americana published in 2009 by Oak Knoll Press. Clicking this post's title will link you to Oak Knoll's page for the book where you can then link to their PDF Table of Contents and excerpts. Here is Oak Knoll's profile of the book:

During the years of the Great Depression and the decades that followed, works of    American regional writing became increasingly popular. The thirteen series highlighted in this book were published from 1938 to 1980 and contain 163 titles, providing a broad representation of series Americana published during this span. Taken together, the series constitute a unique and compelling self-portrait of America, encompassing the American people, their history and culture, and the nation's natural treasures-its mountains, plains, and lakes-over a broad sweep of time measured in centuries. Other aspects of America-landmarks, seaports, forts, trails, folkways, customs, society in America, and even regional murders-are also subjects of these series. "Series Americana" continued to fill in the national self-portrait that began with the publication of state guide series by the Federal Writers Project of the WPA (1937--1942), and continued with the Rivers of America series (1937--1974).

Each of the thirteen sections contains an introduction and publishing history, brief biographical sketches of the series editors, authors, and illustrators, a precise bibliographical description of the first edition/first printing of each title in the series, a tabulation of the number of reprints, and a listing of other works by the book's author. There are 242 biographical sketches altogether. With this wealth of relevant information, the books in these series function as guides to the regions or subjects they address. Much of the information presented about these books and their publishers, editors, and authors, has never before been assembled in an organized and usable format. This book will help preserve the memory of the talented American men and women who contributed to these series.

Carol Fitzgerald is the author of The Rivers of America: A Descriptive Bibliography (Oak Knoll Press, 2001). A longtime book collector, she has co-curated several exhibits of books and ephemera from her personal collections of Americana. She is a member of The Grolier Club, the Book Club of California, and the Fontaneda Society and lives in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, with her husband, Jean.

Published in association with the Center for the Book, Library of Congress. (Oak Knoll Press)

See Nate Pedersen's short interview with Ms. Fitzgerald here http://www.finebooksmagazine.com/fine_books_blog/2012/03/list-lust-carol-fitzgerald.phtml

As with their collaborative effort with Fitzgerald's 2001 project American Rivers: A Descriptive Bibliography The Bienes Museum of the Modern Book presented, and made available in digital format*, a comprehensive presentation of Series Americana. For book lovers and book design lovers it is a real treat to peruse all the titles on view. Is Desert Country's spine not a gem? And how equally quintessential in character is the piñon on the spine of the country book named after it? That illustration is highly evocative of the contorted cottonwood in Holling Clancy Hollings book Tree In the Trail - but that's a story for The Waterwall's companion site. 

 

*7/19/23 postscript: since the above was first posted it appears the Museum has overhauled their website and  through a multi-step path through their digital archives I was only able to find a list of special exhibitions but the visual documentation of the exhibition of Series Americana seems to have been removed from the website. Our loss.

The quintessential qualities of these images and their countless contemporaries endlessly interests me as an active agent of the illustration-house treadmills relentlessly churning out idealized iconography from their era. My question is: was it an intentional effect or is it a feature seen in hindsight of a time marked by pervasive faith in America and an uncorrupted visual sensibility attending that faith? Because any broad review of book illustration, particularly book cover design and particularly that of regional material reveals a consistently sanctified treatment of the material.