Finding Aid to the Thomas Perry Stricker Papers,
1917-1945
Press coll.Archives.Stricker
Finding aid prepared by Processed by Lori Chin; machine-readable finding aid created by Caroline Cubé
William Andrews Clark Memorial Library
2520 Cimarron Street
Los Angeles, CA, 90018
(323) 731-8529
rfenning@humnet.ucla.edu
© 1998
Title: Thomas Perry Stricker papers,
Identifier/Call Number: Press coll.Archives.Stricker
Contributing Institution:
William Andrews Clark Memorial Library
Language of Material:
English
Physical Description:
5.84 Linear feet
14 boxes, plus 2 scrapbooks, 2 oversize folders
Date (inclusive): 1917-1945
Location: Materials are housed off site at the Southern Regional Library Facility. Please inform Clark staff at least 2 weeks in advance
if you would like to consult this collection.
General Physical Description note:
14 boxes: 7 linear ft.; 2 scrapbooks; 2 oversize folders
creator:
Stricker, Thomas Perry, 1898-1945
Source of Acquisition/Provenance
Gift, Lawrence Clark Powell, 1945.
Gift, Ethel Eaton Stricker, Lawrence Clark Powell, Leo Linder, Donal Charnoek, Gordon Ray Young, Paul Jordon Smith, Jake Zeitlin,
Will Cheney, and Eunice (?) Stricker, 1946.
Preferred Citation
[identification of item], Thomas Perry Stricker Papers. William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, University of California,
Los Angeles.
Biography
Thomas Perry Stricker was born in 1898. Before he became actively interested in printing, Stricker had been an usher in a
small-town movie theater, infantryman in World War I, student at a business college, salesman of canned meats, order-desk
man for a North Dakota wholesale food company, restaurant operator, employee in a circulating library, and a bookseller (under
the guidance of "Doc" Wells) in the book department of Powers Mercantile Company in Minneapolis. In 1928 he moved to Los Angeles
and became night manager of Marchetti's Restaurant, simultaneously acting as advertising manager of the
American Dancer magazine and, later, assistant publisher of
Daily Screen World, while writing for both publications. In 1930, Stricker bought a proof press and taught himself how to set type and run sheets
through the press. From 1930 to 1935, Stricker obtained better printing equipment and more foundry types and did some printing
and publishing of private editions. During the years 1935 to 1938, he was in New York, freelancing, preparing exhibition catalogs
for the American Institute of Graphic Arts and setting up another private press. In 1938 Stricker returned to Los Angeles
to work on promotion for the motion picture,
Marie Antoinette, but continued to print private editions. In 1939 he fell ill, and in 1940, he sold his printing equipment to Ward Ritchie
and joined the Historical Records Survey as state editor. He remained in California until 1943, and then returned to New York
where he died in 1945.
Scope and Content
This collection consists of correspondence, ephemera, original drawings, designs, broadsides, and photographs related to Thomas
Perry Stricker and his activities as a printer in Los Angeles and New York.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Catalogs, Booksellers'--United States.
Printing--United States--20th century
Correspondence, Manuscripts, Biographical Notes
Box 1, Folder 1
Manuscripts:
Recognition Builds, Competition Destroys; "A Voyage to the Islands of the Et Cetereans and Ampersandians";
Elizabeth's Merlin, 1945;
The Hollywood Bowl
Box 1, Folder 2
Stricker memorial: correspondence, 1945
Scope and Contents note
Certified photostat of Stricker's death certificate
Box 1, Folder 3
Drawings by Thomas Perry Stricker
Box 1, Folder 4
Biography, notes on Stricker memorial
Box 1, Folder 5
Thomas Perry Stricker to A.G. Beaman, 1935
Box 1, Folder 6
Stricker to Will Cheney
Scope and Contents note
Cheney to Lawrence Clark Powell and H. Richard Archer
Box 1, Folder 7
Stricker to Ralph Howey, 1936-37
Box 1, Folder 8
Stricker to Paul Jordan Smith, 1936-1937
Box 1, Folder 9
Stricker to Jane Zeitlin, 1936
Box 1, Folder 10
Stricker to Lawrence Clark Powell, 1937-1944
Box 1, Folder 11
Stricker to Gordon Ray Young, 1937
Box 1, Folder 12
Thomas Perry Stricker's copy
Box 1, Folder 13
Synopsis of a Suggested Treatment for Home, Sweet Home
Based on the Story of John Howard Payne (Jake Zeitlin and Thomas Perry Stricker)
Box 1, Folder 14
Mr. Big of the Boulevard (Anthony Hillyer)
Box 1, Folder 15
Old Fitz's Rubaiyat (Thomas Perry Stricker and Jake Zeitlin)
Files on the American Institute of Graphic Arts and Other Organizations
Box 2, Folder 1
American Institute of Graphic Arts
Box 2, Folder 3
Miscellaneous reference material
Box 2, Folder 4
Invitations, exhibits
Scope and Contents note
(includes Ampersand Dinner, Caxton Club, Grolier Club)
Box 3, Folder 1
KECA: Concert Programs 1936 (January, April, May, June, July, August)
Box 3, Folder 2
Booklets
Scope and Contents note
(
Type Design for the Scholarly Book [Frederic Goudy];
Some Presses You Will Be Glad to Know About, Protest of an Old Timer, 1930 [John Bennett];
John Fiske, Bookman [Lawrence Powell];
Program for the New York Times National Book Fair; Five Centuries of Book Design; The Regeneration of the Book; Five Hundred
Years of Printing 1440-1940; The Philosophy of Limited Editions
[Richard Le Gallienne];
Five Hundred Years of the Printed Book, William Edwin Rudge, 1937)
Box 3, Folder 3
Booklets
Scope and Contents note
(
The 50 Books; Exhibition, 1935; Summary Report on the Hastings Manuscripts; Linotype's Shining Lines, 1937;
American Anderson News, 1935;
The New York Times National Book Fair, 1936;
Great Books in Great Editions, 1940;
In Behalf of Easy Reading; The Beginnings of the American Cities; An Exhibition of Fifty Books, 1935;
Bookbinding and Book Production; Manuscripts: Clark Library)
Box 4, Folder 1
The Private Press of Thomas Perry Stricker (broadside)
Box 4, Folder 5
Booklets
Scope and Contents note
(Excess Gaggage, 1937;
A Confidential Source of Fresh Ideas and Treatments; Enfin: A Poem Hitherto Unpublished by Sir Edwin Arnold, 1936;
Lawrence of Arabia, 1935;
Conference Process; Memoirs of the Extraordinary Life, Works, and Disorders of Martinus Scriblerus; Strephon and Chloe with
Other Poems Selected from the Works of Jonathan Swift; The Path of Culture; One Man's Family
)
Box 4, Folder 6
Booklets
Scope and Contents note
(
Human Touch, 1937;
In Praise of Bacchus Ducal Wine and Brandies [2 copies];
Harlequinade, 1931;
Some Advertising Ideas for "Wings Cigarets" suggested by T.P.S.)
Box 5, Folder 1
Letterheads printed by Thomas Perry Stricker
Box 5, Folder 2
Gift of Emma P. Stricker
Scope and Contents note
(ephemera, correspondence, photograph)
Box 5, Folder 3
Christmas card 1937 (Bauer Type Foundry)
Box 5, Folder 6
Ephemera: ex Libris, business cards, small designs
Box 6, Folder 1
American Institute of Graphic Arts
Box 6, Folder 2
Paul A. Bennett (13 letters), A.G. Beaman (6 letters), Lewis Alliger (7 letters)
Box 6, Folder 3
Paul Jordan Smith (12 letters), Paul Standard (4 letters)
Box 6, Folder 4
Miscellaneous correspondence
Scope and Contents note
(includes Huntington Library, Thomas Fairbanks Co., Frederic Main, Frederic Goudy, Bruce Rogers, William Reydel, Babel Gillis)
Box 7, Folder 1
Ephemera: Gift of Leo Linder, February 1946
Scope and Contents note
(Another Erewhonian Memento; An Erwhonian Memento, & Cetera Symbol of Oblivion; A Voyage of Mr. Gulliver's to the Island of
the Et Cetereans and Ampersandians; Enter the Black Art; Four Poems in Prose; Wines and Liquors Imported and Domestic Horton
and Converse; Typophiles; Lawrence of Arabia; Symbols of God; Oh me A--e!!!; The Flowing Bowl)
Box 7, Folder 2
Manuscripts.
Scope and Contents note
(List of the Letters and Manuscripts of Musicians in the Clark Library; Inventory of the Bixby Records Collection in the Palos
Verdes Library and Art Gallery; Identification of the Persons Mentioned in the Bixby Records Collection; Supplement to the
Manual of Procedure: American Imprints Inventory, the Southern California Historical Records Survey, 1941; The Care and Cataloguing
of Manuscripts, Key to the Manuscripts Collection in the Huntington Library)
Box 7, Folder 3
Individual manuscript forms
Box 8, Folder 1
Booklets
Scope and Contents note
(Canis Libido Lascira; Books and Bindings [4 copies];
Foxhole Fancy; A Prayer [2 copies]; 50 Books of the Year, 1934 [3 copies];
To Ethel My Love, November 1934;
Four Poems in Prose; Wine of Sun; World Court of Wisdom).
Box 8, Folder 5
Ephemera
Scope and Contents note
(History of St. James Church Chicago, 1934 [Massey Hamilton Shepherd Jr.];
Wines and Liquors Imported and Domestic Horton and Converse, 1934;
One Man's Family 1932-1939).
Box 9, Folder 1
1944-45 Christmas Keepsake
Box 9, Folder 3
& Cetera: Symbol of Oblivion, 1936 (Lewis Alliger)
Box 9, Folder 4
Book Design (Thomas Perry Stricker)
Box 9, Folder 6
Four Poems in Prose, 1938 (Gordon Ray Young)
Box 9, Folder 9
Science in Religion, 1936;
A Note by Dr. C. Charles Waller; A Fragment in the Manner of Rabelais, 1932 (Thomas Perry Stricker);
Season's Greetings, 1945;
Louis Epstein's Bookshop
Box 9, Folder 11
A Song to David (Christopher Smart)
Box 9, Folder 12
Notes on Printing History Series (Richard Ellis)
Box 10, Folder 1
Left to Their Own Devices: A Postscript, 1938
Box 10, Folder 2
Another Erewhonian Memento, A Letter Hitherto Unpublished from Samuel Butler to Richard Garnett and Christmas Greetings from
the Paul Jordan Smiths of Erewhon III,
1938 (6 copies)
Box 10, Folder 3
A Voyage of
Mr. Gulliver's to the Island of the Et Cetereans and Ampersandians, 1936 [5 copies]
Box 10, Folder 4
An Erewhonian Memento, 1935 [2 copies]
Box 10, Folder 5
A Prayer, Season's Greetings, 1945 [2 copies]
Box 10, Folder 6
An Excerpt from Sir Thomas Browne's Christian Morals, 1939 [4 copies]
Box 10, Folder 7
Midsummer Festival, Jungberg Rancho, 1938 [5 copies]
Box 10, Folder 8
Some Notes on the Making of Grimy Gertrude, Better Known as Dirty Gertie from Bizerte, 1944 (proofs and copy)
Box 10, Folder 9
Enter the Black Art, 1939 [2 copies]
Box 10, Folder 10
Pro Patria, 1940 [7 copies]
Box 10, Folder 11
Elizabeth's Irregular Humorist, 1943 (Sir John Falstaffe)
Box 10, Folder 12
Lawrence of Arabia, 1935 (Julian Biddulph Arnold) [2 copies]
Box 10, Folder 13
Symbols of God, 1932 (Ethel Eaton) [2 copies]
Box 10, Folder 14
3 Tudor Grotesques : Elizabeth's Privy Councillor, 1936 [2 copies]
Box 10, Folder 15
Her Faust and His Goose Flesh, 1940 [5 copies]
Box 10, Folder 16
World Court of Wisdom, 1940 [2 copies]
Box 11, Folder 1
& Ceteras, A Parcel of Notes on Books, Old and New (Number 1, July 1934)
Box 11, Folder 2
The Typophiles Whodunit (proofs)
Box 11, Folder 3
Marginalia to Life, Being Notes from the Private Papers of Anthony Hillyer, 1931 (proofs)
Box 11, Folder 4
A Note, The Printer to the Reader
Box 11, Folder 5
Ephemera
Scope and Contents note
(includes
Sir Edwin Arnold Poet, Orientalist; Journalist, Diplomat [3 copies];
The Officina Bodoni, 1936;
Prospectus for Typophiles; A Sonnet Written by the Noble Knight Sir Philip Sidney and Now Reprinted from the 11th Edition
of his Work, "The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia" London,
1622;
A New Voice; The Drama; Announcements and Descriptions for One Man's Family; A Catalog of First Editions and Rare Books Including
a First Issue of the First Edition of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
, Louis Epstein's Bookshop, July 1931)
Box 12, Folder 1
Prospectuses
Scope and Contents note
(includes A
History of the Printed Book (Limited Editions Club);
At the Birth of an Age; Peter Pauper Press Mount Vernon Summer and Fall 1936;
Typography by Clifford P. Anderson; Holborn House: Reveries of a Bachelor or A Book of the Heart, 1931;
Typologia: Studies in Type Design and Type Making; The Alphabet and Elements of Lettering; The New Book Illustration in France;
Journal of a Voyage Between China and the Northwestern Coast of America Made in 1804 by William Shaler; Prospectus of a Hitherto
Unpublished Work by Herman Melville: Journal up the Straits, now to be published by the
Colophon;
The Boar and Shibboleth with Other Poems; Solstice and Other Poems by Robinson Jeffers, 1935).
Box 12, Folder 2
A Papermaking Pilgrimage to Japan, Korea, and China, prospectus, 1936 (Dard Hunter)
Box 12, Folder 3
Ephemera
Scope and Contents note
(includes
The Merrymount Press, Boston; We Hired Us a Good Printer [William Rudge],
The Dolphin prospectus;
Contemporary Books, 1935).
Box 12, Folder 4
Reader's Digest, March 1947 (story by Ethel Eaton)
Box 12, Folder 5
Prospectuses
Scope and Contents note
(includes
Life Among the Indians or The Captivity of the Oatman Girls Among the Apache and Mohave Indians, 1935;
Prospectus for Third Year of Signature; Plutarch's Lives; Die Doves Press; The Southworth-Anthoensen Press, Worcester Square
Looking Towards the City Hospital, Boston
)
Box 12, Folder 6
Ephemera
Scope and Contents note
(includes Stefan Zweig,
Aldine Bembo: A Type Face (Argus Press);
Ave Caesar; Ins Handelsregister wurde eingetragen: Buchdruckerei Erich Norberg; Prevzacneho Pisarskeho Umeni; Organization
and Publicity Counsel; Egmont Typeface
).
Box 12, Folder 7
Ephemera (Hawthorn House)
Box 12, Folder 8
Prospectuses
Scope and Contents note
(includes
Candide, 1928 (Voltaire); The Boar's Head Press).
Manuscripts and Miscellaneous
Box 13, Folder 1
The Printer to the Reader (A. Hillyer) (Ms.)
Box 13, Folder 2
Manuscripts
Scope and Contents note
(
True to Type, Family Tree of Letter Forms, Microscopic Types, Some Random Thoughts Regarding the Tradition of Mother Tongue,
California Chronology
, sketches)
Box 13, Folder 3
Manuscripts
Scope and Contents note
(
The Human Touch, Notes on Techniques in Book Publishing, The Physique of the American Textbook, A Brief Chronicle of the Black
Art 1436-1936, A Typographical Wardrobe
)
Box 13, Folder 4
Words and Men / Book and Men (Ms.)
Box 13, Folder 6
Correspondence
Scope and Contents note
(includes Mabel Gillis, L.B. Siegfried)
Box 13, Folder 7
Hollywood Spectacle (Ms.)
Box 13, Folder 8
Newspaper and magazine clippings
Box 13, Folder 11
Lists of works published by Thomas Perry Stricker
Box 13, Folder 13
Copies of articles by Thomas Perry Stricker
Box 13, Folder 15
Irregular Humorist, Privy Councillor, Elizabeth's Merlin (Ms.)
Box 16
Engraver's and Photographer's Proportion Calculator
Newspaper clippings and woodblocks
Provenance
Materials in this series were the gift of Ralph T. Howey, July 1948 (MS.1948.004).
Box 14
Clippings and other printed materials
Scope and Contents note
Includes
Elizabeth's Privy Councillor [2 copies]; newspaper clippings;
A Voyage of Mr. Gulliver's to the Island of the Et Cetereans and Ampersandians; & Cetera Symbol of Oblivion; Enter the Black
Art; A Story for the Children; The Hollywood Bowl; An Excerpt from Sir Thomas Browne's
Christian Morals.
Box 16
Lino block and cast plate for the title page of
The Town Pump: An American Comedy by Charley Grapewin
Three oversized proofs in "S" Map Drawer
Scope and Contents note
The Ethel Eaton Private School of Costume Design (broadside)
A Conspective Bibliography of Trade Marks, 1938 (galley proofs)
Spinach from Many Gardens, 1935 (galley proofs)
Box 17
8 x 10 b/w photograph of Stricker and poem in leather folder
Provenance
Gift of Ethel Eaton Stricker, 1972 (MS.1972.009).
Photograph/scrapbook album from 1917-1919 while a member of the AES in France
Provenance
Gift of Ethel Eaton Stricker, 1972 (MS.1972.009).
Box 17
Scrapbook of ephemera printed by Thomas Perry Stricker