RGME Visit to the Lomazow Collection: Report
November 25, 2024 in Manuscript Studies, Reports, Student Friends of Princeton University Library, Visits to Collections
RGME Visit to
Dr. Steven M. Lomazow’s Collection of
American Magazines
Saturday 16 November 2024
(In-Person and by Zoom Meeting)
by Dr. Phillip A. Bernhardt-House and Mildred Budny
On Saturday, November 16, 2024, the Research Group on Manuscript [and Other] Evidence had the rare opportunity to allow a small contingent of in-person visitors, as well as an online group of others joining via Zoom, to be given access to the extensive collection of magazines and other ephemera in the home of Dr. Steven M. Lomazow in West Orange, New Jersey.
Visitors by Zoom came from both near and far. The distances ranged from Washington State, Colorado, and Minnesota, through New York, New Jersey, and Florida, to India.
The in-person attendees included the RGME Director and individuals from the Student Friends of the Princeton University Library (SFPUL), led by Co-Leader Jacqueline Zhou and accompanied by Kurt Lemai. This collaboration with the SFPUL for the first time was most appreciated, and would be of tremendous mutual benefit in the future.
Dr. Lomazow on Screen and in the Room. Photography by Mildred Budny.
A spirited enthusiast for collecting, and part of a lineage that has done the same at least back to his grandfather’s time, Dr. Lomazow treated the online and in-person group over several hours to a small selection of his holdings, with invitations for requests. The holdings number over 80,000 individual pieces in total, and range across a comprehensive variety of subjects within the historic American press from the 18th century onwards.
His collection of American Magazines has been featured in exhibitions at the Grolier Club and online; he has been the subject of segments on CBS This Morning; and he has written several substantial publications on periodicals as a medium, which can be viewed at his website:
Pre-1800
Selections which the assembled audience enjoyed began with parts of Dr. Lomazow’s pre-1800 pieces. Highlights are
- early printings of the Declaration of Independence,
- the original publication of the United States Constitution for public consumption in gradually smaller typeface,
- early engravings depicting the Boston Massacre by British troops and maps of the Pennsylvania territory,
- and magazines published by Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine, and John Peter Zenger.
Dr. Lomazow holds up ‘The American Chronicle’ for 1743-1744 to our audience on Zoom, as seen across the country onscreen by Annabelle House Fox.
Dr. Lomazow also has periodicals containing samples of the poetry of Phyllis Wheatley, the enslaved African-American woman brought from West Africa to Massachusetts. She had a book of poems (Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral) published in London in 1773, was given manumission shortly after, and died at roughly the age of 31 on December 5, 1784. Wheatley first put the idea of Columbia, the Goddess of the United States, into print in a poem for George Washington, “To His Excellency General George Washington,” written in 1775. In stages, Dr. Lomazow was able to reconstruct the entire issue of a magazine containing her poetry by obtaining part of it from a cartography collector who wanted the map in the publication but not the poetry, and the map from an African-Americana collector who was not interested in said map but wanted the poetry! Given the nature of ephemera and publications of this type, such chance finds and selective collecting can yield beneficial results for those who are diligent as well as fortunate.
1800s
Other items in Dr. Lomazow’s collection of tremendous historical interest include publications in broadsheet format by William Lloyd Garrison on emancipation, which helped to launch the Abolitionist movement as it then became known in the early 1800s.
Literary works of the 1800s include several original printings of works by Edgar Allan Poe — such as the poems “The Raven” and “Annabel Lee,” and the short story “The Fall of the House of Usher” — and the original American publications of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes story “The Sign of the Four” and of Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, along with magazines containing stories by Samuel L. Clemens (including the 1852 “The Dandy Frightening the Squatter” from Carpet-Bag) and this author’s first appearance under his more famous sobriquet Mark Twain. One of the desired pieces that Dr. Lomazow does not have in his collection is the first printing of “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County,” though he does have later editions of it.
The ‘gaps’ in the collection seem to be few and far between, given the sheer number and astonishing quality of the specimens, whether as individual issues, groups of issues, or bound volumes — and the collector’s zeal in hunting for the specimens to augment and strengthen the assembly.
1900s
The 19th-century philosophical, literary, religious, and political movement of American Transcendentalism is well represented in Dr. Lomazow’s collection, with a full series of The Dial, other periodicals edited by Margaret Fuller containing the works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, and the original printing of Henry David Thoreau’s widely influential “Civil Disobedience,” which inspired the future activism of individuals ranging from Mahatma Gandhi to Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
2000s
Early twentieth-century literary magazines in Dr. Lomazow’s extensive holdings feature such titles as The Smart Set, which published the early works of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Dashiell Hammett, and had amongst its various editors H. L. Mencken and George Jean Nathan. These editors also published the pulp magazine The Black Mask, which was where Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon was first printed.
Cover Stories
The collection has cover paintings by Norman Rockwell for The Saturday Evening Post, in both printed form as well as originals for them, and other hitherto-unknown magazine covers which Rockwell produced for the Canadian magazine Maclean’s. These items have been the subject of bibliographic works and exhibitions in their own right. Dr. Lomazow had a friendship both with Rockwell and his son in his later years (still living!). Likewise, he enjoys the illustrations and cover art produced by Maxfield Parrish and Alphonse Mucha, both of whose work features prominently in his collection.
Dr. Lomazow’s endless enthusiasm and bottomless reservoir of energetic fervor to share his collection were vividly manifest throughout our visit. Among many items that elicited further elaboration was the first cover photograph of one well-known model and actress, Lauren Bacall, which is only known to exist in the example from his collection. The uniqueness of this item caused it to be featured on the Late Show with David Letterman when Bacall appeared on it in the later 1990s. Several items from across the centuries shared with the audience on this visit were described similarly.
Cover of ‘Town and Country Magazine’ (1789). Photograph by Mildred Budny.
Wrappers & Volumes
An important aspect of periodical collecting that was highlighted by Dr. Lomazow at many points in the visit was that the paper wrappers which traditionally enclose issues of magazines are often not preserved, and are even discarded by some libraries and collectors (particularly on more recent publications) as being of no worth, when in fact they often contain exquisite examples of typography and calligraphy, engravings, and other valuable historical data, as well as being of value in themselves.
Examples among many are issues of ‘The Gentleman’s Magazine’; ‘The Bee’ (1765), whose author has a pleasingly appropriate mellifluous name (William Honeycombe); and a publication whose very title inspired Dr. Lomazow to be sure to show our RGME visit: ‘The Manuscript’ (1837).
‘The Manuscript’ Magazine in original cover. Photograph by Mildred Budny.
True examples of the term “ephemera,” such wrappers (including some made of thin leather in 18th century publications!) proliferate in this extraordinary collection in such frequency that their uniqueness of preservation was almost diminished by how many examples of such preservation exist and were shared from Dr. Lomazow’s trove of treasures. Among the apt and worthwhile questions along the way, it was possible to wonder, for example, “If a publication was intended to have more than one issue, but only printed a single issue, is it a magazine/periodical?” Whatever the case, it is to be admired that these ‘solitary’ witnesses to the publication of individual serials also have a place in the collection.
Selections and Themes
From bookcases, boxes, and wall-displays were brought many examples of bound volumes or individual issues. By request, they included, for example, children’s magazines, botanical magazines, movie magazines, highlights of graphic design and calligraphy, and publications of momentous historical events. Indeed, the visit demonstrated Dr. Lomazow’s observation that his collections contain, or touch upon, “everything”.
Contents of the Children’s Magazine for February 1789.
The survival, assembly, and preservation under one roof in Dr. Lomazow’s collection of so many witnesses to the multifold production of magazines in the United States, in English and other languages, bridging very many subjects and interests, in publications large and small, in quality of production spanning a wide range from informal to highly polished, provide an extraordinary opportunity to examine specimens in their own right and their wider context.
The generosity of Dr. Lomazow and his wife Suze Bienaimee in welcoming the RGME both in person and in virtual company created an experience long to be praised.
Front Cover of American Periodicals: A Collector’s Manual and Reference Guide. An annotated catalog of a collection by Steven Lomazow, M.D. (1996).
Souvenirs
As souvenirs of the in-person visit, Dr. Lomazow presented a copy of his publication on American Periodicals, an important reference work, to each attendee. Each copy was inscribed for the recipient, and the company joined in the shared signing by adding a personalized inscription for each recipient’s copy. Thus these copies represent unique souvenirs, representing a co-ordinated set of guestbooks to remember the occasion.
Tip of the Iceberg
In an anniversary year filled with landmark events, stellar presentations, and no small amount of fun and fellowship along with learning and teaching, this visit by the RGME to an archive-quality collection that would be the envy of both museums and university libraries in Dr. Lomazow’s home was one not to be forgotten by those who were able to experience it. Dr. Lomazow observed that there is enough material therein to constitute at least another five such visits for highlights alone.
The presentation of materials in truly rapid-fire fashion, resonating with enthusiasm to consider as many specimens as possible, responding to requests and expressions of interest on the occasions, gave attendees the sense of wishing further to process and to savor the gravity of the materials being exhibited on the occasion in terms of their historical and literary significance alone, much less the conditions of their preservation.
While we certainly wish that such further visits may take place, whether in hybrid format or on Zoom, this particular occasion with its exceptional opportunity for the RGME to bring both in-person visitors and online attendees, in co-ordination for the first time with the Student Friends of the Princeton University Library, and to listen to Dr. Lomazow’s formidable knowledge about his collection and its ramifications will stand as not only noteworthy, but legendary.
Bridges
In keeping with the RGME’s Theme of Bridges for our 2024 Anniversary Year, we honor the wide scope of Dr. Lomozow’s collection of American Magazines and other materials with a show of famous bridges spanning a vast continent by their locations in Brooklyn and San Francisco respectively.
The Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, California, as seen from Battery East. Photograph © Frank Schulenburg / CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons.
New York, Brooklyn Bridge viewed from Manhattan. Photograph (29 June 2009) by Suiseiseki, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.
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