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I'm Jim Camp, the guy behind the synaesthesia press. I'm a letterpress printer, a publisher of limited-edition books and broadsides, and a lifelong book collector. I've been at this for close to 40 years, and most of what I'm offering here has lived on my shelves for decades. Now it's time for these books to move on to new homes. When one finds its way to your shelf, it'll arrive quickly, securely packed, and with no extra fees for shipping or handling. Oh, and don't be afraid to make an offer!Offering: Flood Photographs: Wilkes-Barre, Pa., March 1936. [Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania], 1936. Album of 22 original photographs with handwritten captions.VG+. Original string-bound blue photograph album, approximately 10½ × 7 inches, containing 22 original black-and-white photographs, approximately 5 × 7 inches each, mounted to black album leaves and accompanied by handwritten captions identifying locations. Light wear to album covers and edges consistent with age; photographs generally well preserved. Please see photographs and video.On March 20, 1936, the Susquehanna River at Wilkes-Barre crested at 33.07 feet, a level that remains among the highest recorded there. This remarkable album puts us directly onto the streets during that disaster. Its 22 original photographs document floodwater stretching across neighborhoods, commercial streets and the landscape surrounding the river, with views of South Main Street near Academy Street, Hazel Street, Lee Park Avenue at Division Street, Northampton Street, St. Mary’s Road and other locations. Particularly striking are the elevated views toward Kingston from the Coal Exchange Building, with the monumental Market Street Bridge surrounded by floodwater. These aren't later reproductions assembled as a souvenir: they are period photographs mounted together and carefully captioned as a contemporary visual record of the event.What makes the album especially compelling is its specificity. Street names and viewpoints turn a group of dramatic flood pictures into a photographic map of Wilkes-Barre in March 1936. Storefronts, advertisements, automobiles, utility poles, houses, churches and pedestrians appear amid streets transformed into rivers—small details of everyday Pennsylvania life caught in the middle of a historic natural disaster. The photographs also preserve the city immediately before the construction of the Wilkes-Barre levee project later in 1936. Kept intact for ninety years, this is both a striking piece of vernacular photography and an unusually concentrated piece of Wilkes-Barre and Luzerne County history.
A remarkable, intact photographic eyewitness record of one of the great Susquehanna River floods—and a piece of Wilkes-Barre history that would be nearly impossible to recreate today.
My best pieces never sit around for long, so click the heart on my store page to save me as a seller. I'm also the publisher behind thesynaesthesia press, known for its limited-edition books and broadsides, so when you buy here you're buying from a collector and letterpress printer who's been at this longer than I'd like to admit.
THANKS!
