Omaha TMIE 1898

Omaha: Unknown, 1898. Aluminum. Stab binding -- three holes, with leaves secured with brads that pass through a short, narrow aluminum bar. Front aluminum board or plank opens with a slender metal rod serving as the hinge. No such rod piece in rear, whose aluminum plank is rigid. Near Fine. A most unusual exposition viewbook, not so much because it is a miniature -- those we have seen often enough -- but because of its aluminum binding, which has incised or tooled some decoration (Greek Revival ornament loosely-speaking) and some fancy lettering, the centerpiece being a beautiful but also mystifying monogram as the centerpiece. Such a binding in a miniature book of any kind is not something one sees every day, let alone, in a world's or regional exposition publication such as this. Most of the photos are of buildings, the largest ones of the Beaux Arts design that resemble, perhaps on a smaller scale, the prominent temporary buildings constructed for the 1893 Chicago Fair. More exciting are the last three photos. The first of these is of a pavilion or theatre built for Hagenbach's Wild West Show. Although the building's ostensible design is in keeping with others on the Midway, its signage and painted facade break from the standard aesthetic propriety, and are indicative of the rowdier fun to be found within. Next comes a photo of a stretch of West Midway that shows actual fairgoers, and with some of the amusement park rides in view, has a much more honky tonk atmosphere than everything else. The last photo is the piece-de-resistance. It is a portrait of "The Belle of the Midway", who was a Cuban dwarf known as Chiquita, whose full name was Alize Espiridiona Cenda del Castillo (1869-1945), and thanks to the fair, she became a celebrity for a time. She was a mere 26 inches tall. In fact, she was the subject of an award-winning novel published in 2008 by Antonio Orlando Rodríguez entitled "Chiquita". Fitting perhaps, then, a miniature book celebrating her, with the dimensions of 63 by 108 mm. 28 leaves, with 20 photos of buildings and sights of the fair, all of these on the rectos, and the name of the building, place or attraction on the facing verso page. The last eight leaves are blank, except the first one which has printed on top, and not so easy to see because of the tightness of the binding, the word, "Notes". The last leaf is of a thick card stock, and we suppose this was the back of a notebook bound in -- there is no matching leaf in the front, and we have no reason to believe there ever was. Scarce, four institutional listings on OCLC First Search (Arizona, Fresno, Library Co., Yale), but the listing of the first three libraries indicates only 18 photos, not 20, although there are more blank leaves. We suspect that this was a version issued earlier, and of the sensation of Chiquita and the Animal Show, photos of those phenomena were added. Only the booklet at Yale is the same of this, down to the number of blanks, albeit no mention of the final card blank. One other unusual aspect of the book is its title, or lack of a true title. Instead of giving the full name of the fair on the aluminum cover or having a proper title page, it simply identifies the place, date, and then serves up an acronym of the fair, which is rendered as a monogram with interlaced letters that cleverly uses single strokes or flourishes for more than one letter, as a common practice in the formation of decorative monograms. One can think of the result as the creation of a visual riddle, which doesn't instantaneously reveal itself to someone. So the "TMIE" of this monogram stands for "Trans-Mississippi International Exposition", which was the official name of the fair. Condition: The aluminum has perhaps a small bump or bend, lower front corner. The metal can use a bit of polishing. We did some polishing, which is time-consuming, and satisfied ourselves it could be polished to a truly bright sheen. (Inventory #: 20520)