Lot 294v
HARRY KUENZEL (active 1905-20)
Presentation album with 580 photographs of The Old Liberty Bell being transported from Philadelphia to San Francisco for the Panama Pacific International Exposition.
A marvelous pictorial narrative that reinforces The Liberty Bell as a beloved populist object of American democracy. The images depict the pomp and circumstance associated with this national symbol, including jubilant parades, military displays, and other photo ops. The multiple train stops en route to the West Coast and its return trip, back east, show thousands of spectactors enthusiastically welcoming the artifact. Silver prints, the images measuring 5x7 to 7 3/4x9 1/2 inches (12.7x17.8 to 18.4x24.1 cm.), and the reverse, mounted recto/verso to pages, with handwritten notations identifying the cities, in ink, on recto. Thick oblong folio, gilt-lettered leatherette; in a custom contemporary clamshell cloth box with a gilt-lettered morocco label. 1915
Estimate $2,000 - 3,000
One of apparently four presentation albums commemorating the historic departure of the Old Liberty Bell to the Panama Pacific Exposition, this copy belonged to Pringle Borthwick (1862-1948), who had served 15 years as a member of the old Common Council of Philadelphia.
Apparently, 500,000 school children in California petitioned the City of Brotherly Love to transport the Liberty Bell to San Francisco. The Bell was ceremoniously removed from its armature and transferred to a flat bed locomotive for cross-country transport. The itinerary included: Western Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Missouri, Kansas, Wyoming, Utah, Oregon, Washington, and Northern California. The return trip back to the East Coast was via a different route. The train stopped in the Southwest and South, then to Texas, Louisiana, Tennessee, Illinois, Kentucky, Ohio, New York, and back to Pennsylvania. The pictures convey a sense of national identity that is firm in its patriotic convictions.
