The Cover Story: Evolution of Book Cover and Jacket Design as Viewed Through the ESFL Collections

 

Cataloging the collection at the East Side Freedom Library has exposed all of us to the art involved in the printing world and some of the changes that occurred in that field over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. We found after cataloging several boxes of books that we could guess the decade a book was printed in before opening the cover. Book covers and dust jackets serve as a mirror to the era they were created in, reflecting the zeitgeist of their times. G. Thomas Tanselle in “Dust Jackets, Dealers, and Documentation” claims that “Dust jackets constitute one of the most significant classes of printed ephemera and a basic category of evidence for publishing history.”[1] Through the examples available to us at the East Side Freedom Library we can trace some of that history in both book covers and book jackets.

John P. Feather, in The Book in History and the History of the Book, explains that books became available to a wider audience with the innovations that improved the printing process, beginning in 1780.[2] The Enlightenment value placed on literacy met the technological advances of the Industrial Revolution and the nature of book creation changed. The world of leather-bound tooled and gilded covers made way, reluctantly, for cloth covers and paperbacks. Where once wealthy buyers had purchased their books unbound so that artisans could bind them in leather covers that would match the other volumes in the owner’s library, pre-bound books became the order of the day.

Decoration of pre-bound leather books was a subject of much debate in the late nineteenth century, with various camps making their case for decoration that would, or would not, reflect the subject of the book being covered. Some book artists argued against decoration that would reflect the contents of the book, espousing decoration that was purely decorative. T. J. Cobden-Sanderson, writing in The Studio in 1893, stressed that “a book cover design must not be allegorical or emblematical.”[3] Many of Cobden-Sanderson’s cover designs are floral, a convention popular until around 1909 when it diminished in favor of new motifs.

Ellen Mazur Thomson indicates that along with the technology that supplied a wider audience with books came concerns that popular taste, influenced by advertisers, would be degraded and questions were raised about what the design vocabulary should be for mass-produced books. Early cloth covers carried the same sorts of decoration, the same “design vocabulary,” that leather bound books had displayed. Early cloth bindings were decorated with precise patterns of leaves, flowers and symbols, as not all designers subscribed to Cobden-Sanderson’s boycott of symbolism (in fact he broke his own rule on more than one occasion).

Some graphic artists explored alternative designs. Will Bradley, a graphic designer and book cover artist, suggested that “even trolley cars and golf balls could be reformed, refashioned or in some manner conventionalized into inventive and interesting decoration.”[4] In the ESFL collection the books that best illustrate this early twentieth century change in design direction are Miss. 318 and Miss. 318 and Mr. 37. These stories about Miss 318, a shop clerk, and her beau, Mr. 37, are decorated with the emblems of their occupations; a basket for transporting orders into the stockroom from the sales floor in Miss. 318’s case and the fire hose and badge emblems for Mr. 37. Not only is this a departure from the once popular floral forms, but in the working class heroine and hero of the books, a wider, less elite audience is implied. Feather indicates

We can see printing as only one of many trades that were transformed by new equipment and new techniques. At the same time, we can see it responding to society’s needs and demands, not only economically, but also in the cultural and political spheres.[5]

Books were becoming less of a luxury for the wealthy and more a commodity available to an audience that crossed class lines.

In an effort to appeal to a wider audience, publishers began to make use of images on covers that were more likely to draw the interest of the bookshop browser. Thomson explains that “publishers, who viewed the cover as an advertising tool, were advocates of illustration that they believed promoted sales. The practice of gluing chromolithographic images onto cloth bindings encouraged this style.”[6] Two copies of Uncle Tom’s Cabin in the ESFL collection, both undated, show on the one hand a generic floral cover and on the other a cover with some floral motifs, but used to offset an oval photographic image representing the title character that has been glued onto the binding.

Dust jackets were also undergoing a transformation. Tanselle created a timeline that traced this evolution from the simple printed wrapper that covered the book entirely in the 1830’s, to the jackets with flaps, originating in the 1890’s, which carried the same design as the book beneath. By the 1920’s bindings had become less decorative with the printed jackets as the focus. Jackets were less expensive to produce than decorated bindings which now carried a simplified design, or were not decorated at all, while the jacket carried not only art work but story teasers and advertising for other titles offered by the publisher. Tanselle explains that “from then on the history of book jackets is primarily the story of shifting tastes in graphic design and in advertising style, rather than changes in form or function.”[7] One of the advantages to a publisher of dust jackets was that it gave the publisher the ability to put a new jacket with a fresh design on a book to stimulate sales on older stock, and update the advertising to promote current offerings.

Book design is not a primary focus of the ESFL, nor of the scholars whose collections make up the library, but when the collections blend together they become more than the sum of their parts. Book design is just one of countless research opportunities that present themselves when you browse through the shelves…and I hope you will. The covers of the books referenced in this post can be found, along with many others, in Photo Gallery – Book Covers.

[1] Tanselle, G. Thomas. Dust Jackets, Dealers, and Documentation. 46.

[2] Feather, John P. The Book in History and the History of the Book. 17.

[3] Thomson, Ellen Mazur. Aesthetic Issues in Book Cover Design, 1880-1910. 38.

[4] Thomson, Ellen Mazur. Aesthetic Issues in Book Cover Design, 1880-1910.242.

[5] Feather, John P. The Book in History and the History of the Book. 18.

[6] Thomson, Ellen Mazur. Aesthetic Issues in Book Cover Design, 1880-1910.233.

[7] Tanselle, G. Thomas. Dust Jackets, Dealers, and Documentation. 89.

Photo Gallery – Book Covers

1886

Copyright 1887, this copy is a reprint, 1971.

1883

Undated.

Undated.

Undated.

1901

1903

1907

1908

Common Sense of Socialism. 1911. Proceedings of the New Jersey Socialist Unity Conference, 1906.

1910

1910

Miss 318, 1911. Miss 318 and Mr. 37, 1912.

1922

The Jungle, Upton Sinclair, copyright 1906, this copy 1926.

1934

1936

1936

1937

1939

1941

1944

Copyright 1933, this copy 1944.

1947

A River of Books

Tim Kostohroyz and Paul Gullerud

Our cataloging efforts have been successful, we’re running out of books! The first of several shipments of books from Peter’s collection arrived today. Thanks to the work of Tim Kostohroyz and Paul Gullerud, we now have 75 boxes in the storeroom at ESFL. The Rachleff collection, over 4,000 books in all, will be keeping us busy for weeks to come. Peter is looking forward to seeing his books again, and the catalogers are looking forward to adding to their reading lists. I don’t think I’ve ever left a shift at the library without having added a few more titles to my list, and I’m looking forward to opening these boxes and finding more.

 

Origins of the Arlington Hills Carnegie Library

 

The Carnegie Library building that now houses the East Side Freedom Library was opened in 1917 along with two other Carnegie Libraries, the St. Anthony Library in St. Anthony Park and the Riverview Library on the West Side. All three were designed by Charles Hausler, the St. Paul City Architect, and all share the same neoclassical, Beaux-Arts style. The Arlington Hills branch replaced what was called a “library deposit,” or a circulating collection of library materials, that had occupied a portion of Bodin’s Drug Store at 896 Payne Ave since February of 1905. Lending libraries tucked into the corner of commercial spaces was a common practice. The Minneapolis Athenaeum, which would eventually become the Minneapolis Public Library, had begun in a corner of the bookstore owned by T. H. Williams, the Athenaeum librarian. When the idea of dedicated spaces for libraries arose not everyone thought that a beautiful building for the community would be worth the expense involved.  In St, Paul, the offer of a Carnegie Foundation Grant proved too tempting to refuse.

The history of the Arlington Hills. Carnegie Library began on the eve of World War I. Early in 1914 the St. Paul library board initiated informal correspondence with the Carnegie Foundation. They wrote about the building of a new Central Library and the gift of 700,000 dollars from James J. Hill to build a reference library next to the new Central Library. Clearly this was a city that valued books and libraries, making it an ideal home for a series of branch libraries funded by the Carnegie Foundation! Serious negotiations followed and C. W. Ames, library board member, announced in the St. Paul Dispatch in May of 1915 that an offer had been received from the Carnegie Foundation to grant 75,000 dollars for the construction of three libraries in the city of St. Paul.

As Scott mentioned in his post about Andrew Carnegie, these gifts came with strings attached. The communities that were awarded the grant had to provide the site the library would be built on and agreements had to be signed that ensured the community would provide funds totaling 10 percent of the cost of construction to cover building maintenance, staffing, and materials. Not everyone on the City Council appreciated this offer, or thought it was in the best interests of the community. Reasons given for this reluctance included worry about an anticipated increase in the tax levy the following year, a general feeling that there were more pressing interests for the city to address before it funded libraries, and the philosophy, expressed by councilman Henry McColl in the May 17th 1914 issue of the St Paul Dispatch, that “it was not right for a city of this size to take advantage of the Carnegie Library plan.”

By July 23 Commissioner Anthony Yeorg after taking the advice of Corporation Attorney D. H. O’Neill, introduced an ordinance to the City Council for the acceptance of the Carnegie Foundation gift along with his recommendation that it be approved. Further support for the Carnegie Library plan arrived in the pages of the St. Paul Dispatch one week later with Dr. Dawson Johnston, librarian, weighing in with statistics that indicated that children who did not live within a mile of the library were far less likely to use it. He also attributed the higher use of libraries in Minneapolis to the fact that they had 16 branches and, perhaps as a direct answer to Henry McColl, pointed out that the Franklin Library in Minneapolis was built with Carnegie funds. The rivalry between Minneapolis and St. Paul was clearly a lever in this appeal to the City Council. It was also reported that “E. A. Young, former member of the library board, said that Mr. Carnegie’s money was as good as any other rich person’s and he saw no reason for refusing it.” No mention was made of any arguments put forward objecting to accepting money from Andrew Carnegie, specifically.

The City Council did vote in favor of accepting the Carnegie Foundation gift. A letter circulated by the Library Committee to the residents of the East Side exhorted the community to support the gift of “Andrew Carnegie, the Library Builder” by raising funds to buy the land the library would be built on, in the case of the Arlington Hills the corner of Greenbrier and Jessamine streets, and a week-long fundraising effort was initiated to coincide with Library Week in November. The letter advised

You may expect to be approached as regards your donation toward the sum needed. For your own sake, for the uplift of the community and particularly because of the value this shall be to our children, the committee asks your hearty support to the work.

The land was purchased for 1,800 dollars and deeded to the city on February 2, 1916.

Working with the Carnegie Foundation, Charles Hauser designed all three buildings to the same basic floor plan with differences in their exterior decoration. The Carnegie Foundation did not approve all aspects of the plans as initially submitted and instructed Hauser to make changes changes, such as the height of the ceilings, and these may have been the changes that led to a delay in the construction of the buildings. The St. Paul Dispatch on March 30^th reported that Attorney O’Neill believed the process that awarded the bid to Cameron and Company was illegal because changes had been made to the plans after bidding on the project had ended. The bidding process would have to be repeated, allowing all the bidders access to accurate information. Ultimately Cameron and Company was awarded the project and signed a contract with the City of St. Paul on April 5^th, 1916.

By September of 1917 all three libraries were completed, as was the new Central Library in downtown St. Paul, and all four libraries formally opened the week of October 10^th when the State Librarians association held its convention in St. Paul. Speeches by dignitaries, musical performances, parades of children, and orations were some of the offerings given to celebrate the building dedications during what was being called “Library Week.” There was a great deal of excitement surrounding these libraries and they were quickly embraced by their communities. The Arlington Hills branch had been so busy in the few weeks it had been open before the dedication that it had been necessary to send to the Central Library every two days for more books as the shelves emptied almost as soon as they were filled.

The Arlington Hills Library continued to be popular long after the dust of the celebrations had settled. In 1931 a report noted that 1,193 new borrowers had been registered, that every day students from all levels – elementary school to college – visited the library, and books were provided for patrons in Polish, German, and Scandinavian languages. The East Side Freedom Library will continue the tradition of providing a welcoming space for immigrants. Rather than providing reading material in many languages, the ESFL will be gathering stories and providing a place where people who have traveled here from many countries and cultures, as well as those people whose families have lived in this community since the library was built, can share their stories with one another.

Early Days

We’ve started to gather momentum from the tentative beginning when we were meeting with one another over coffee and gathering information about the basic needs for the project, to now having some structure in place and a routine for the work taking shape. The building now has wifi, we have an OCLC (Online Computer Library Center) account, and Bruce Willms, retired Dean of the Metropolitan State University Library, has shown our crew of volunteers and interns the basics of cataloging. This week we uploaded our first record to WorldCat, which will allow the record for that book to be found through searches originating from anywhere in the world. We’re on the map! The shelves are steadily filling with books from the collection of David Montgomery, whom we’ll profile in a future post. Stay tuned…