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The Ephemera Society News

Abram Games: Design

Compiled by Naomi Games and Brian Webb

Published by Antique Collectors' Club the book features nearly 200 illustrations of the work of Abram Games. Best known as WW2's 'Official War Poster Artist' and designer of the Festival of Britain's emblem, he was considered to be one of 20th century Britain's most significant designers

This volume is an intriguing introduction to the graphic work of Abram Games. With images drawn from his personal archive, many less well known, it is possible to follow the social history of 20th-century Britain. For more than six decades Abram worked entirely on his own, always adhering to his personal maxim of 'maximum meaning, minimum means'.

• ISBN: 9781851496778
• Publisher: Antique Collectors' Club
• Size: 214 mm x 140 mm
• Pages: 96
• Illustrations: 200 colour
• Hardback
• www.antiquecollectorsclub.com/

Ephemera Society visit to the National
Maritime Museum

Fully Booked

No more places are available for the visit in June where in addition to seeing ephemera treasures from the collections, members will enjoy guided tours of the Caird Library and one of the Museum galleries.

The Library collections cover every aspect of maritime history, including emigration, navigation, piracy, astronomy, shipping companies, shipwrecks, biographies, horology, both World Wars and the Merchant and Royal Navies.

If anyone wants to know more about participating in these special visits and getting to see and sometimes handle material not usually available to the public, which are for members only, please contact the society.

People of the Horse Nation: Plains Indians
in Early Picture Postcards

Publisher: Spellicans Press, Oxford, UK

Over a prolonged period, their heyday being the early decades of the twentieth century, picture postcards with exotic and colourful themes were mass-produced by the million. They served as a tangible souvenir of people and places seen, unfamiliar to the eventual recipient of the card except in colourful tales of far-off lands.

America’s indigenous people provided a popular theme for such picture postcards, and the images of Plains Indians that feature in this book represent just some of the many thousands portraying Native American subjects from across the North American continent.

Here, in these pages, we see the Native empire halters and their descendants who, rather than being subjugated peoples, are the proud survivors of a brutal contest to control the centre of the North American continent. They are portraits of formidable, dignified adversaries; veterans of the Sioux Wars and other conflicts; survivors of the massacres of Sand Creek and Wounded Knee – people of the Horse Nation.

Pagination: 208 pp · Dimensions: 180 mm x 180 mm
Illustrations: total of 232 vintage postcards illustrated
More details email:

University of Sheffield & British Library
PhD Scholarship

Applications are invited for a PhD scholarship on the project Freedom, oppression and resistance: Evolving stories in South African political ephemera and propaganda, 1948-2004. Informed by a critical geopolitics approach, the project provides for a longitudinal analysis of the changing expressions of power, resistance and participation within the British Library’s holdings of political ephemera.

Supported by the University of Sheffield and British Library, this project draws together South African state and civil-society produced narratives of nationalism, citizenship and participation during the Apartheid (1948-1994) and early post-Apartheid (1994-2004) periods. Focussing upon the political ideals and ideologies expressed through political ephemera, this project will address the evolving nature of political participation within contested public spheres in South Africa. In particular, attention is focused upon the ways in which Apartheid and resistance influenced and were manifest in everyday political life and thought.

Overall, the project will contribute to understandings of the changing nature and role of (un)civil society in South Africa as located within shifting landscapes of invited and invented spaces of public participation.

Deadline for applications: 5pm 31st May 2013.

For more details please visit the University of Sheffield website

Major historical documents and ephemera sale

Tuesday 21 May 2013

Star lots include one of the largest collections of memorabilia relating to Mahatma Gandhi ever to be offered and a version of the Declaration of Irish Independence issued during the 1916 Easter Rising, considered to be the only copy in the world.

The sale also features the diary of one of the British Army commanders during the Easter Rising in Dublin and a scarce poster from the Irish General Election of 1927. The diary, in the hand of Colonel Betram Portal contains details which are so crucial that it is set to change the accepted versions of this historic event.

Also in the sale are two items which are set to take devotees of Sherlock Holmes by storm. They are commemorative brass plates issued by the American Bank Note Company during the legendary meeting of the American Society, the Baker Street Irregulars, in 1940.

A major archive of original military signals which tells the day to day story of the Falklands War in 1982 is also in the sale. This is also set to change accepted versions of events, as it gives precise details on what occurred every day from the arrival of British forces on the islands to the eventual triumphant dispatch to Mrs Thatcher in London that the islands had once again be regained from the Argentine forces.

Further information from Mullock's Ltd:
www.mullocksauctions.co.uk/

The LSE is to become the new home
of The Women’s Library

The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) will be the new custodian of the prestigious Women’s Library collections where it will have space to develop and grow.

London Metropolitan University's Board of Governors approved the nomination of the Selection Committee after its due consideration and consultation with key stakeholder groups.

The expert staff from The Women’s Library and the collections will transfer to LSE’s Lionel Robbins building in central London where it will be open to the public from 2013.

www.londonmet.ac.uk

London Underground: How The Tube Shaped London

In 2013 London Underground, the world's first
underground railway, marks its 150th anniversary

This lavishly illustrated book containing a cast of characters encompassing entrepreneurs, architects, politicians and passengers, tells the story of the Tube. David Bownes, Oliver Green and Sam Mullins draw on previously unused sources and images to produce a new history that celebrates the crucial role of the Underground in the creation and everyday life of modern London.

Blending social history with the story of the pioneering engineers, designers and social reformers who created the system, Underground reflects on the problems of keeping a fast growing city on the move. From providing access to the business heart of the Victorian City of London to the leisure delights of the Edwardian West End, through the growth of the suburbs and the vital role of the Underground as shelter during the Blitz, the story continues through urban regeneration to the challenge of upgrading the original network to meet the needs of the twenty-first century.

Looking at its impact on the city itself, the authors also consider how the London Underground led the way in the world metro systems; what made the 1920s and 30s such as an incredibly inventive era for design, and why paying for the Tube has always been a challenge.

• Authors: David Bownes, Oliver Green, Sam Mullins
• Format: Hardback
• Pages: 286
• Publisher: Penguin Books
• www.ltmuseumshop.co.uk