Little Bronze Playfellows

Cover of "Little Bronze Playfellows"
Cover of “Little Bronze Playfellows”

In Little Bronze Playfellows (1915), author Stella Perry creates fanciful children’s stories based on several of the bronze statues of children scattered about the grounds of the Palace of Fine Arts. It is one of a dozen books issued by Paul Elder during 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition.

Title page of "Little Bronze Playfellows"
Title page of “Little Bronze Playfellows”

The bronze boys and girls are all gamboling about while perfectly naked. For a statue that was not unusual, as a great deal of the of Fair’s sculptures featured naked adults. But notwithstanding the anachronism of classical statuary in modern times, one senses that statues of naked children wouldn’t be so well received in our politically sensitive age.

The book was issued in gold-colored wraps, with a dozen photographic plates (not tipped-in, as in many other Elder publications). The cover illustration, as well as the plate opposite page 10, is the statue “Wild Flower, by Edward Berge. (The statue also appears on page 140 of Perry’s The Sculpture and Mural Decorations of the Exposition.) Unusually for Elder, the book does not have a colophon.

Frontispiece of "Little Bronze Playfellows"
Frontispiece of “Little Bronze Playfellows”, including a poem printed on the tissue guard

Stella George Stern Perry (1877-1956) was an American author, suffragist, and social reformer. She graduated from Barnard College, where she was one of four co-founders of the Alpha Omicron Pi sorority. She also wrote another children’s book for Paul Elder, The Clever Mouse (1916).

Page 24 of "Little Bronze Playfellows"
Page 24 of “Little Bronze Playfellows”
Page 26 of "Little Bronze Playfellows"
Page 26 of “Little Bronze Playfellows”

The Sculpture and Mural Decorations of the Exposition

Cover of "Sculpture and Mural Decorations of the Exposition"
Cover of “Sculpture and Mural Decorations of the Exposition”

As with the other three books in Paul Elder’s quartet of formal books on the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, The Sculpture and Mural Decorations of the Exposition (1915) consists primarily of tipped-in photographs with accompanying descriptive text. A. Stirling Calder, the “Acting Chief of Sculpture of the Exposition,” has name is on the cover, but his contribution consists of a ten-page Introduction. All of the other text is by author Stella Perry.

A. Stirling Calder working on his "Star Maiden" scupture
A. Stirling Calder working on his “Star Maiden” scupture

Alexander Stirling Calder (1870-1945) was an American sculptor and educator. He was the son of sculptor Alexander Milne Calder, known for his sculptures in Philadelphia City Hall, and the father of Alexander Calder, inventor of the mobile. Calder created many pieces for the Fair, including the well-known “Star Maiden,” which curiously does not appear in this book. The model for Star Maiden was Audrey Munson, who was then at the height of her fame; it has been claimed that she posed for as many as three-quarters of the Fair’s statues. (In 1915, Munson also became the first woman to appear nude in a non-pornographic film.)

Title page & frontispiece of "Sculpture and Mural Decorations of the Exposition"
Title page & frontispiece of “Sculpture and Mural Decorations of the Exposition”

Stella George Stern Perry (1877-1956) was an American author, suffragist, and social reformer. She graduated from Barnard College, where she was one of four co-founders of the Alpha Omicron Pi sorority. She wrote two children’s books for Paul Elder, Little Bronze Playfellows (1915), and Clever Mouse (1916).

 

Page 16 of "Sculpture and Mural Decorations of the Exposition"
Page 16 of “Sculpture and Mural Decorations of the Exposition”. Photos like this one were taken in the studio and the cluttered background subsequently blacked out, disguising the monumental scale of the sculptures.

 

Page 140 of "Sculpture and Mural Decorations of the Exposition"
Page 140 of “Sculpture and Mural Decorations of the Exposition”. This statue also appeared on the cover of Perry’s “Little Bronze Playfellows

 

The Architecture and Landscape Gardening of the Exposition

Cover of "Architecture and Landscape Gardening of the Exposition"
Cover of “Architecture and Landscape Gardening of the Exposition”

Visitors to the Panama-Pacific International Exposition could not help but be awestruck by the monumental scale of the buildings. It was a Fair of Superlatives: the grounds covered 635 acres, the Palace of Horticulture was the largest dome then in existence (larger than St. Peter’s in Rome), the Tower of Jewels rose 435 feet high–forty-three stories!

The Architecture and Landscape Gardening of the Exposition (1915), the third in the quartet of Paul Elder’s survey of the PPIE, is a photographic survey of the buildings and gardens.

Louis Christian Mullgardt (1866-1942) was an American architect associated with the San Francisco Bay Area’s Arts & Crafts period, often called the First Bay Tradition. He designed the Court of the Ages at the PPIE, and lobbied hard to save the Fair after it was over. He told the Commonwealth Club that “when the Exposition buildings are torn down, then we will have destroyed one of the greatest architectural units which has ever been created in the history of the world.” Based partly on his work at the Fair, he was chosen to design the De Young Museum in Golden Gate Park.

Title page & frontispiece of "Architecture and Landscape Gardening of the Exposition"
Title page & frontispiece of “Architecture and Landscape Gardening of the Exposition”

Mullgardt is listed as the author, though his content is limited to the dedication, and a half-page “reflection” and a ten-page introduction. The bulk of the book consists of 95 tipped-in photographs with descriptive texts by Maud Raymond and John Hamlin, who are credited only in the colophon.

Postcard of Mullgardt's Court of Abundance at the PPIE
Postcard of Mullgardt’s Court of Abundance at the PPIE

Maud Mary Wotring was born in Ohio in 1867. She graduated from Hastings College in Hastings, Nebraska in 1890 and taught Greek and Latin at Longmont, Colorado. In 1895 she married Paul Raymond. She was active in Christian missionary work, and in 1913 published The King’s Business: A Study of Increased Efficiency for Women’s Missionary Societies. In 1928 she was still living in San Francisco.

Page 16 of "Architecture and Landscape Gardening of the Exposition"
Page 16 of “Architecture and Landscape Gardening of the Exposition”

John Harold Hamlin (1880-1951) was an author active from the 1920s into the 1940s. He wrote fiction, usually with a Western theme, for both juveniles and adults.

Page 24 of "Architecture and Landscape Gardening of the Exposition"
Page 24 of “Architecture and Landscape Gardening of the Exposition”

 

Page 102 of "Architecture and Landscape Gardening of the Exposition"
Page 102 of “Architecture and Landscape Gardening of the Exposition”