-Audrey Sage
The Special Collections and University Archives (SCUA) recently received a group of Big Little Books, and other small format books, from the 1930’s. Having been published using wood pulp paper, the pages have not fared well through time, as the acidic content has resulted in the brittle, discolored and fragile state. Our Senior conservator, Audrey Sage, was able to gently mend, repair, reassemble, and restore these many volumes, and provide an archival enclosure for each book, to protect them going forward.
The Big Little Books were first published during the early 1930’s by the Whitman Publishing Company of Wisconsin. These wonderfully small books were fully illustrated, usually an image shown on the right hand page, with story text following along on the left facing page. The stories were often related to comic book characters, popular radio stories, movie characters, and novels. They ranged from over 200 to 400 pages or more, making them, on average 1.5″ thick. These compact and entertaining books were very popular, and soon other publishing companies were adopting this format and venture. They were easily accessible, through drug stores and other places and cost, initially, 10 cents each.
Hairbreadth Harry In Department Q T by J. M. Alexander, Whitman Publishing Co., 1935. It depicted Harry’s many attempts to rescue Beautiful Belinda from the villainous Relentless Rudolph
Radio Patrol, Trailing the Safeblowers –Based on the Famous Newspaper Strip by writer Eddie Sullivan and artist Charlie Schmidt, Whitman Publishing Co., 1937.,
Don Winslow, U.S.N. by Lieut.-Comdr. Frank V. Martinek U.S.N.R., Whitman Publishing, 1935.
Flash Gordon and the Witch Queen of Mongo by Alex Raymond, Whitman Publishing Co., 1936.
In The Name Of The Law, The Thrilling True Story of the War against Crime by William Engle, Whitman Publishing Co., 1937.
Mickey Mouse Sails for Treasure Island, Whitman Publishing Co., 1933.
Each of the books we received, due to its age, and inferior paper quality, has some sort of structural issue. The text block of some volumes were separated into several pieces. The covers on many were broken, separated from their text blocks, and sometimes in three pieces, the front cover, the back cover and the title piece from the spine.
Audrey Sage, our conservator, was able to clean the old brittle glue from the pages, and carefully and archivally reassemble the textblocks. Covers were mended, hinges repaired, and each volume was mended.
The Phantom, Whitman Publishing Co., 1936. Hardcover book containing 428 black and white pages featuring the Phantom story ‘The Singh Brotherhood’ written by Lee Falk and illustrated by Ray Moore.
Mending these brittle pages takes patience and a gentle touch. Audrey carefully rebound these textblocks but they are very fragile to handle and use.
Little Orphan Annie and the Lucky Knife, Little Orphan Annie and Her Dog Sandy, Little Orphan Annie Finds Mickey, all by Harold Gray, Whitman Publishing Co., 1934.
Flash Gordon needed its spine mended and reattached. Rice paste was used to clean and adhere a new piece of super, along with a thin japanese paper hollow, prior to the original spine piece being replaced on the exterior.
Will Rogers by Jerome Beatty, The Saalfield Publishing Co., Aakron Ohio, 1935.
Will Rogers was missing the cover spine, so Audrey fabricated a replacement piece using toned japanese paper to rebuild the cover.
