Mar 21, 2024 - Sale 2663

Sale 2663 - Lot 84

Price Realized: $ 12,500
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 2,000 - $ 3,000
(BUSINESS--DIRECTORIES.) The Bronze American National Travel Guide, 1963-64 (wrapper title). 162, [2] pages including wrappers. Octavo, 8 x 4¾ inches, original illustrated wrappers, light soiling to backstrip; minimal wear to contents. [Chicago, IL]: Bronze American, 1963
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The last of two known editions of this late competitor to the Green Book, soon to be rendered obsolete by the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This edition has a foreword explaining that "racial discrimination has been and still is a very dominant feature on the American scene" and that this guide "has been specifically designed to eliminate as much as possible the embarrassment of being refused accommodations because of race, creed or color." In a nod to the "urban renewal" craze sweeping the nation, the guide offers a disclaimer that listings may be rendered outdated by "land clearance for highways, project homes, policies of new owners, etc."

Each state section is prefaced with a short summary of tourist attractions, some of them relating to Black history and culture such as the Tuskegee Institute, "Gullah culture on Sea Islands," and Harper's Ferry. The hotel listings are not identical to the Green Book. For example, this guide lists the Lake Mohonk Mountain House in upstate New York, a "very fine resort" which is excluded from this year's Green Book. The advertisements are all for Chicago establishments.

5 of these guides appear in OCLC, but only one example of this 1963 guide, in the Gwendolyn Brooks Papers at the University of Illinois. Only one traced at auction, a 1961 guide at Swann, 25 February 2010, lot 388.