Mar 24, 2022 - Sale 2598

Sale 2598 - Lot 273

Price Realized: $ 2,375
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 800 - $ 1,200
(FAMILY PAPERS.) Family album of a 1950s California auto plant worker and avid hunter. 51 photographs and 4 other documents mounted with corners on 8 scrapbook leaves. Oblong 4to, 8 3/4 x 11 inches, hinged wooden boards, skillfully home-made, one screw replaced, minimal wear; minimal wear to contents. California, 1948-1964 and undated
Set Alert for Similar Items

Additional Details

These photographs depict the family of a Black California union auto worker living the 1950s blue-collar American Dream: new cars, stylish outfits, and wholesome recreation. Several depict the compiler and his friends on hunting expeditions, posing with rifles, deer, game birds, and even a raccoon. In one image, an impeccably dressed little girl holds up the head of a deer carcass on her lawn.

4 personal documents give us the compiler's name and occupation. A 1948 hunting license places him in Richmond, CA. A 1961 interim driver's license places his residence in Oakland, and two pay stubs (1953 and undated) show him employed at the Ford Motors plant in San Jose, CA.

Laid into the rear of the volume is a 19 September 1964 strike notice for Local 560 of the United Auto Workers at the Ford plant in nearby Milpitas, CA, explaining the union's strike procedures. The national union signed a new contract that morning, averting a national strike with just 55 minutes to spare.