About this title: This book is about life in a small turn-of-the-century Wisconsin town. Lesy has collected and arranged photographs taken between 1890 and 1910. Against these are juxtaposed excerpts from the Badger State Banner, from the Mendota State (asylum) Record Book, and occasionally quotations from the writings of Hamlin Garland and Glenway Wescott.
Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque
Date Published: 2000
ISBN-13:9780826321930ISBN:0826321933
Description: Very Good+ Oblong 4to, unpaginated, VG+ in wraps (moderate shelf-wear to covers; clean & tight internally). Profusely illustrated in b&w photographs. Unabridged reprint of the original 1973 edition. Preface by Warren Susman. A classic photobook. read more
Edition: First Thus
Binding: Trade Paperback
Publisher: Anchor Books, New York, New York, U.S.A.
Date Published: 1991
ISBN-13:9780385412155ISBN:0385412150
Description: Very Good. 8vo-over 7¾"-9¾" tall. Minor edge and corner wear, lightly scuffed and scratched, some light shelf wear, overall a very crisp and clean used First Anchor Books Trade Paperback edition! Very very rare and hard-to-find title! Black and white pictorial wrapper with white lettering. Unpaginated, wonderfully illustrated by historic black and white photographs and illustrations! Extremely scarce! "The pictures you're about to see are of people who were once actually alive. The excerpts you ... read more
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: New York: Random House
Date Published: 1973
ISBN-13:9780394709628ISBN:0394709624
Description: Good. Trade paperback. Good; Large, rectangular shaped, rubbed edges, shelfwear to wraps; text block is clean, unmarked. Historian Lesy has incorporated the photographs taken between 1890 and 1910 by Charles Van Schaick of Black River Falls, Wisconsin with newspaper accounts of the time and his own text to give a striking picture of life and death in turn of the century Wisconsin. ISBN: 0394709624. read more
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Univ of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, New Mexico, U.S.A.
Date Published: 2000
ISBN-13:9780826321930ISBN:0826321933
Description: Very Good ++ Reprint Edition. Listed in Roth #101. Preface by Warren Susman. VG++. Softcover, 264 pp, b&w photo illustrations, oblong, light edgewear, else a clean and crisp copy. read more
Edition: First Edition. Second Printing.
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Pantheon Books, New York, New York, U.S.A.
Date Published: 1973
ISBN-13:9780394709628ISBN:0394709624
Description: Good to Very Good. Oblong 4to. Unpaginated. Profusely illustrated. Tight binding, clean pages. A touch of shelf/edge wear to wraps, with a thin reading crease to spine, otherwise Very Good. No inscriptions. No remainder mark. Not ex-library. An excellent copy. read more
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Univ of New Mexico Pr
Date Published: 2000-04-01
ISBN-13:9780826321930ISBN:0826321933
Description: NEW. Softcover. From an inventory that is 100% brand-new, 100% direct from the publishers' distribution channel. We carry NO pre-owned, NO remaindered. We pack in CARDBOARD to ensure the pristine quality is maintained. (Bubble-wrap alone is NOT sufficient to protect from USPS equipment. ) Guaranteed brand-NEW, protected with CARDBOARD, your satisfaction is guaranteed. BKLUVID: 9780826321930. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: University of New Mexico Press
Date Published: 2000
ISBN-13:9780826321930ISBN:0826321933
Description: New. Brand New! Buy with confidence-your satisfaction is guaranteed at B-Logistics! Due to the large scale of our operation, we do not have access to the specific contents/condition of our items. Please note that Expedited shipping is not available at this time. read more
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Pantheon Books:
Date Published: 1973
ISBN-13:9780394709628ISBN:0394709624
Description: Very Good. 4to-over 9¾"-12" Tall, Oblong. First edition softcover stated, illustrated with b&w photographs. "The pictures you're about to see are of people who once actually live. The excerpts you're about to read recount events these people, or people like them, once experienced. None of the account are fictitious. The pictures were taken by a careful, competent town photographer named Charles Van Schaick. The events were recorded by a father named Frank Cooper, and a son named George. " VERY ... read more
Edition: First Paperback Edition, 2nd Printing
Binding: Stiff Card Covers
Publisher: Pantheon Books, New York
Date Published: 1973
Description: Charles Van Schaick. Near Very Good. Psycho-historiography. Oblong 6mo. Oblong pictorial wraps. Unpaginated (about 250 pp. ); profusely illus. in b/w from glass negatives by Jackson County, Wisconsin commercial photographer Charles van Schaick, ca. 1890-1910. An extraordinary book, basis for a film (directed by James Marsh in 2000), an album, songs and even an opera; its themes include crime, disease, mental illness, and urbanization of a small, Edwardian-era, mid-Western U.S. town. read more
Edition: First Softcover Edition
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Pantheon Books, New York, New York, U.S.A.
Date Published: 1973
ISBN-13:9780394721392ISBN:039472139X
Description: Very Good + First Softcover Edition. Scarce in this printing. Preface by Warren Susman. VG+. Softcover, pictorial stiff wraps, unpaginated, b&w photographs, oblong, light edgewear with slight creasing to corners, else a clean and crisp copy. A must for Photography collectors. read more
Edition: First Edition
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Pantheon Books, New York, New York, U.S.A.
Date Published: 1973
ISBN-13:9780394483665ISBN:0394483669
Description: Very Good in Very Good jacket. Second printing. Purple cloth binding, gilt titles. Book very good plus with faint spotting to top edge, slight fading to boards at edges. DJ also very good with one small chip at back panel, curling at edges, one 1" tear at top front, price clipped. Unpaginated. read more
Edition: First edition.
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Pantheon Books, New York
Date Published: 1973
ISBN-13:9780394483665ISBN:0394483669
Description: Very good. No dust jacket as issued. Wraps, pre-publication copy from Pantheon with publisher's review slip laid-in. A scarce book and scarce in this format. No marks or names (L5) 1 v. (unpaged) illus. 22 x 28 cm. Includes Illustrations. Originally presented as the author's thesis, Rutgers. Consists chiefly of excerpts from the Badger State banner, Black River Falls, Wis., for the years 1885-1900 and of photos. taken by Charles Van Schaick from 1890 to 1910. Bibliography: [2] p. at end. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Pantheon Books, New York, New York, U.S.A.
Date Published: 1973
ISBN-13:9780394483665ISBN:0394483669
Description: Oversize oblong hardback with dust jacket. First edtion. Very Good with sunning to bottom edge of boards and light bumping to corners in a Very Good dust jacket that has a 1/2" closed tear at foot of spine, some wear and creasing along edges of jacket. *Requires additional postage for international and priority shipping. read more
Edition: First Edition
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Pantheon Books New York, c1973
Description: B/w Photos. Wide 9vo. Unpaginated Fine / VG Purple cloth binding. Dj is slightly curled at top and bottom edges; lightly wrinkled at top of spine. A few tiny closed tears at top and bottom edges. With a preface by Warren Susman. This title is rare in hardcover. read more
Description: Photos. Fair. Many historians have become convinced that there was a major crisis in American life during the 1890s, perhaps a psychic. Crisis, and have attempted to explain its existence or, even more commonly, to use the presumed existence of such a crisis as an explanation for a wide series of developments in American domestic and international political life. Michael Lesy's concern is rather with the psychology of a people in a particular time and place. He believes his first obligation as ... read more
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Univerisity of New Mexico
Date Published: 2000
ISBN-13:9780826321930ISBN:0826321933
Description: Very Good in Lite Wear to cover/edges jacket. Text appears Clean but MAY have Marks or Hi-lights, lite Wear to cover/edges, no loose pages, cover curled----NOTE: Standard/Media-mail can take over 21 business-days to arrive. read more
"Reason for Reading: In the book A Reliable Wife by Roderick Goodwin, the author mentions in a note that this book gave him the idea for the atmosphere to set his own book in. His characters read from the newspaper regularly and his description of this book made want to read it. So I put an ILL request in for it right away.
Comments: This is a very unusual book. It is a collection of both photographs and newspaper clippings from the period of 1895 to 1900 from a newspaper called the Badger State Banner which covered local Jackson County news as well as having access to state wide news. During this period, the author contends that a certain presence of death, and tragedy loomed over the agricultural towns of the American Midwest. What became a mundane part of their everyday lives as reported in the newspapers, now, to us looking back, seems to be a macabre era of history.
The newspaper articles which run from one-liners to several paragraphs report on suicides, diphtheria deaths, baby deaths, insane declarations, window smashers, arsonists, found dead bodies, deaths, funerals, charges of obscene letters sent through the mail and much more plus repeated instances of the same over and over with each one different and many the same. Suicides are rampant, men shooting themselves in the head, hanging themselves in the barn and one guy blew his head off with dynamite. Women poisoned themselves with the plenty of rodent killers found on the farm, drowned themselves in barrels and rivers or set themselves on fire, one lady in a bath of kerosene. The asylum must have been filled to the rafters with all the reports of committed people. How many times I read of women with 8 to 13 children being committed as insane with symptoms of despondency and men who lost their jobs and wouldn't do anything were declared insane. Of course then there were also the usual religious insanity, the tobacco insanity, the "thinks the neighbours are after him" insanity, too. All this and the other topics make for absolutely fascinating reading of a time when life must have been a hard road to travel.
Then along with the text between each year, are sections of photographs which were taken by a local studio photographer, Charley Van Schaick. It was the finding of the glass negative slides that prompted the compilation of this book. None of the photos are snapshots, they are all photos taken because someone wanted them taken. They are very striking and range from the morbid dead babies in coffins and old women who are scary to look at to studio shots of people but whose eyes are strangely lifeless and there are even some photos of picnics and local businesses. The way they have been arranged though is not just a sequence of photos but is an artistic presentation. I almost felt as if I were watching a silent movie at times.
The combination of the text and the photos together presents an unusual artistic viewing of social history in a manner not likely to be seen again. I think this is only something to come about from the mindset of the seventies. Both the preface and the authors ending thesis (this was originally presented as his thesis at Rutgers) suffer from a lot of seventies psycho-babble but the history presented is unblemished and fascinating ... and macabre. This is the type of book that would be a pleasure to own and dip into or just to come back to over and over for the pictures alone. While not for everyone I highly recommended it for those who, like me, enjoy this sort of thing."
"A little dark, but fairly interesting. A photo essay of Wisconsin in the distant past. Many death related photos -funerals, coffins etc., plus other unusual things."
"Has some eerie parallels with events from recent years, such as the woman who drowned all her children because she believed the Devil was after them. It's shocking to read about diphtheria and other contagious diseases wiping out entire families.
Wisconsin Death Trip shows that insanity and crime are problems in the country as well as the city. "Gov. Schofield will take steps to provide, if necessary, for the care of Mary Sweeny who has caused so much trouble . . . by smashing plate glass windows. This woman. . . . once taught school in Marquette, Michigan, and Stevens Point in this state. . . . Mary says she doesn't know why she breaks windows and only does it when the craze seizes her. She uses cocaine liberally on such occasions, saying it quiets her nerves. (April 1897)" Not an easy book, but a worthwhile one."
"I picked up this book after reading that it served as the inspiration for "A Reliable Wife," but it was just a bit too strange for me. As a history buff, I appreciated the photographic portraits and newspaper stories demonstrating the dark side of rural, turn-of-the-century Wisconsin. But it felt as if the author was trying too hard to present the book as an experimental, sociological art project, which sometimes worked well, but sometimes bordered on the ridiculous."
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