Thursday, March 19, 2009

Another Random Book From The Stacks



Here's an odd duck of a puffball from the biography stacks: Grocery Clerks Who Have Become Successful, a 1925 publication of the Beech-Nut Packing Company. Do you recognize the grocery clerk below? He did become rather successful:
(Hint: imagine him wearing a hat.)
This small volume contains portraits and profiles of 28 individuals. Bohack and Lipton are two of the very few names familiar to me. The rest I will assume are known to mercantile-history experts somewhere. A couple of the biographical sketches are first-hand, long and colorful and "in their own words." Others are short, bland and neutral, having been "compiled from other sources." All exhibit the Horatio Alger spirit evident in such passages as, "Beginning work one morning shortly after daylight many years ago, Mr. Rossell had a salary of nothing a year." The text and illustrations are unattributed, but the book looks to have been rebound in the thirties or forties, and information from the cover or flyleaf might have been lost.
An interesting example of a promotional trade publication, found under 926.58. (Also of interest to middle-schoolers who want a different portrait of you-know-who for the cover of their report.)

2 comments:

Sherry said...

That is FABULOUS! And certainly a regular entry from the stacks is warranted. Maybe Busboys who have won Tony Awards or Cocktail Waitresses who Have Achieved Lasting Celebrity.

Beth Niquette said...

How perfectly amazing! I LOVE this blog!