Wartime Printing

This was news to me.This is from a book printed in 1943. The printer is Simon and Schuster. It seemed to be a part of the general wartime rationing efforts then I read this:

"Prior to the outbreak of the first World War, at least 90% of dyestuffs were obtained from abroad, mainly from Germany. After the outbreak of hostilities this source was no longer available and problems of supply soon arose."

Well that changes things. It was much more specific to printing. More here. Under President Truman, the Graphic Arts Victory Committee even printed the "Guide to Essential Wartime Printing and Lithography." The book is a bit hard to find, but one catalog describes it as follows:

"...printing in the service of rationing, scrap drives, civilian defense, savings bond drives, moral boosting, etc. etc., with tips on how these themes can be worked into conventional product advertising."

Bookmarks

According to Wikipedia:

"A bookmark is a thin marker, commonly made of paper or card, used to keep one's place in a book and so be able to return to it with ease. Other frequently used materials for bookmarks are leather, metals like silver and brass, silk, wood and fabrics. Many bookmarks can be clipped on a page with the aid of a page-flap."

Like any heavy reader, I accumulate book marks. I've never bought a book mark, at least never one that wasn't already inside a book. (I find odd things inside books) Some are from book stores, or for other book marketing like National Library Week. That pink one above is from a book store in San Bernadino, Beers in Sacramento, the Reading Well somewhere in Canada,another here is the Paperback Trader, a small New England chain of used book stores that no longer exists...


Then things get odd: train tickets, garage parking tags, photo negatives and a strip of birch bark I clearly recall peeling off a log on a beach for lack of any other material.. I do not recall later cutting it square but there it is, clearly so.

Darwin & Gaylord Simpson

Naturalists and anthropologists have a certain view on nature. It's a tad dramatic but also elegant. Darwin usually stayed on topic and on message. He was offering up the greatest idea since science had been founded. Simpson rides that tide, but expresses the same wonderment.

The connection is greater than their shared wonder and academic specialty. In 1983 Simpson wrote The Book of Darwin, expounding on the implications of the then 124 year old Origin of the Species. Here I quote Attending Marvels by Simpson and the Origin of the Species by the master himself.

"It is interesting to contemplate a tangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms so different from each other, and dependent upon each other in so complex a manner, have been produced by the laws acting around us."

"As we came home the sun went out suddenly and the whole world turned a sinister gray, dark and light but without a spot of clor. Streaked vicious clouds poured over us like a flood from the west. the moon rose yellow through the last band of clear sky. Rain began to patter, then to pour. Surf is roaring again on the shores of the lake. beyond this element-tormented spot lies vast, desolate patagonia. Beyond Patagonia lies the world of the seas and plains and mountains for complacent thousands of miles. Beyond the world wheels the dusty universe."