Sale 2466 - Icons & Images: Photographs & Photobooks, February 15, 2018

279 c   (NUCLEAR TESTING—BIKINI ATOLL) Mini-archive with 13 rare photographs illustrating the immense power of the Bikini Atoll atomic bomb tests. With 5 large-format panoramic images as seen from land and sky, showing the frightful potential and sheer nuclear power unleashed by the Baker Day Bomb on Bikini Bay, represented in a 5000-by-2000 foot water column and a barrage of incapacitated vessels. Several smaller photographs depict a number of other dramatic tests, as well as one image showing the large “Bikini Group” of scientists and military personnel during their stay at Hotel Whitcomb in San Francisco the month after the testing. Silver prints, the images measuring 8x10 to 10x18 1 / 4 inches (20.3x25.4 to 25.4x46.4 cm.), the larger with mimeographed caption/date snipes, on verso, and nearly all of the rest with mimeographed captions, identifying the specific bomb and date, and the Joint Army Navy task force credit, on verso. 1946 WITH—A letter to Professor Eugene Starr from the General Manager of Hotel Whitcomb. [6,000/9,000] Originally from the personal collection of Professor Eugene Starr. Starr was a respected electrical engineer and professor at Oregon State University. During WWII he served as a consultant to the National Defense Research Committee and was present during the testing at Bikini Bay.