Unusual and Intriguing Items from Thomas Cullen
The latest collection from Thomas Cullen.
By Michael Stillman
Thomas Cullen, Rockland Bookman has issued his 39th catalogue of Fine Books, Manuscripts & Ephemera. Cullen doesn't specialize in any particular field. What he looks for is the unusual - books not readily found through other sources, and one-of-a-kind manuscripts. The result is a catalogue for everyone, as you never know just what will show up in a Cullen collection. Here are a few samples from the offerings he has for us this month.
But first, Cullen notes the recent, pleasant summer in western New York (he is located in Orchard Park, near Buffalo) and how, while they will get snow, it will melt. They don't experience the extreme disasters of hurricanes, earthquakes, and tsunamis. Hah! Sure it will melt. In July. I know western New York well enough not to be fooled. New Orleans will be rebuilt before the snow melts in Buffalo.
Item 28 was one of the most important books in the days leading up to the Civil War, perhaps even more so than "Uncle Tom's Cabin." The latter was a sentimental, emotional appeal to eliminate slavery. However, The Impending Crisis of the South: How to Meet it, was a logical, statistical dismantling of the institution. What's more, its author, Hinton Helper, was himself a Southerner, raised in North Carolina. It infuriated many in the South and eventually was banned in the region. Helper, using census statistics, demonstrated the decline in the South, which he attributed to the use of slave over free labor. He showed how the North grew in so many respects, including industrially and culturally, while the South lagged far behind. He even hammered the region with the coup de grace, that the North was more advanced even agriculturally, assumed to be the South's greatest strength. Helper argued that no compensation should be paid slaveholders for freeing their slaves. To the contrary, he demonstrated that land in the South was worth a small fraction of that in the North, so that slaveholders were actually indebted to small, non-slave owning southerner landowners for the losses they incurred as a result of this institution. Originally published in 1857 (this copy is an 1860 reprint), this slightly successful treatise would become very popular when Republicans reprinted it and distributed copies free just before the War. This use did not provide Helper with much money, but President Lincoln would reward him with an appointment as Consul to Buenos Aires. However, Helper was no friend of the black man. His concern was with poor white subsistence farmers and laborers. After emancipation, he saw Blacks as poor Whites' major competitors, instead of the old slaveholders, and proceeded to publish a string of virulently racist, anti-Black works. He became an embarrassment to Republicans and extreme even by southern standards. He would next promote the building of a transcontinental railway all the way from Hudson Bay to the tip of South America, but he only lost money on it. Many years after his greatest success, in 1909, Helper committed suicide. Item 28 is priced at $85.
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Unusual and Intriguing Items from Thomas Cullen
Ferocious cats from the Amburgh Circus.
Not all participants in the Civil War were heroic or noble. Item 33 is a collection of 23 letters received by John Minard of Shippen, Pennsylvania, including 16 from his brother Seneca. Seneca enlisted with Pennsylvania volunteers in 1861, but in 1863 deserted to Canada. His letters can be ugly. Writing from Canada he says, "I think it far better to be here than to go to war to free a buck n....." Cullen describes an 1866 letter from Maine as "quite obscene" while sparing us the specifics. Seneca later tried to convince his brother to join him sharecropping in Iowa. $550.
For early collectors of flight, item 1 is My Big Three Flights by Andre Beaumont. "Beaumont" was actually a penname for Jean Conneau, who concealed his identity as his superiors in the French Navy had a low opinion of flying. This 1912 book tells of his victories in major races the previous year. $100.
Item 19 is a grant of 160 acres in Arkansas to Thomas Quillen for his military service. President James Monroe signed it. $550. Item 20 offers another presidential signature, this on a directive to place the U.S. seal on a treaty with Portugal. The signer is the inimitable President Millard Fillmore. $1,200. Why is Fillmore's signature more valuable than Monroe's? Was he a better president? This must be a more important document.
Here is an inexpensive collection with an autograph that was almost as significant as Fillmore's. It consists of over ten items from Major Z.K. Pangborn, founder of the Jersey City Evening Journal. Pangborn used his position as editor of that paper to support abolition and the political career of Abraham Lincoln, positions not always shared by his competitors. The collection includes letters from Postmaster General and famed New Jersey department store tycoon John Wanamaker, and two autographed letters from Vice-President Garrett Hobart. Therein lies the almost Fillmore connection. Fillmore ascended to the presidency when President Zachary Taylor died in office. Hobart's president, William McKinley, also died in office. However, that was during his second term. Hobart did not make it to the second term, dying of heart failure in 1899, a year before he would have been reelected. The result is that Teddy Roosevelt became the next president instead of Hobart. Were it not for that unfortunate turn of events (for Hobart, anyway), you would not be able to buy a collection containing two of Hobart's signatures for just $75. Item 103.
Item 26 is a fascinating look at the circus circa 1845. The title is, A Brief Biographical Sketch of I.A. Amburgh, and an Illustrated and Descriptive History of the Animals Contained in the Mammoth Menagerie and Great Moral Exhibition, Combining More in Number and Greater Variety Than All Other Shows In the United States Combined. Van Amburgh introduced the first circus cat act to America in 1833. He would put his arm in the mouths of the big cats, and even allow his audience to do the same. How did he manage this incredibly risky act without getting sued for every penny he owned? Cullen explains, "The act consisted of hitting the big cats senseless with a crow bar and then putting his arm in their mouths and inviting the audience to participate." And he called this a "Moral Exhibition?" $600.
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Unusual and Intriguing Items from Thomas Cullen
General Sickles' leg, which was replaced by a Palmer leg, on display at Walter Reed.
Item 67 is The Palmer Leg and Arm, adopted for the U.S. Army and Navy, by the Surgeon-General... B. Frank Palmer was a maker of prosthetic devices, and evidently quite expert. This 1865 book contains numerous illustrations and testimonials, including one from controversial Union General Daniel Sickles, who lost a leg in the Civil War due to some of his own incompetent decisions. Sickles' shipped his amputated leg to Washington and reportedly visited it frequently. It was placed on display (and it still is) at Walter Reed hospital. Sickles is also noted for shooting and killing the son of Francis Scott Key, writer of "The Star Spangled Banner," for being too affectionate with his wife. He was acquitted on the grounds of temporary insanity, though his career might suggest that his insanity was more than temporary. $150.
You may reach Thomas Cullen at 716-662-2082 or tomcat@adelphia.net
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