Speeches and Letters

Object NameBook

Publisher Little Leather Library Corp. Redcroft Edition (American, 1916 - 1925)

Author George Washington

Date1916-1925

OriginUSA New York

MediumLeather and paper

Dimensions4 × 3 × 1/4 in. (10.2 × 7.6 × 0.6 cm)

ClassificationsBooks, Manuscripts, Documents, Personal Symbol & Correspondence

Credit LineGift of Demaris Pease Estate. In the Farm House Museum Collection, Farm House Museum, University Museums, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa.

Object number92.4.11e

Status

On view

Collections

Books, Magazines, & Documents

CultureAmerican

Label TextThe Little Leather Library Corporation was the first company to mass-market inexpensive books in the United States. The corporation, founded in 1916 by Albert Boni, Harry Scherman and Maxwell Sackheim, made available a wide variety of classics by authors including Rudyard Kipling, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, the father of the Arts and Crafts Movement William Morris, William Shakespeare, Edgar Allan Poe, Robert Louis Stevenson, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Henry James, Leo Tolstoy, Oscar Wilde and William Butler Yeats in miniature editions. The books in the collection are brownish-green in color, bound in imitation leather, characteristic of the Redcroft edition published 1920–1924. When first published, the little books were sold at the Woolworth’s chain. By the early 1920s, the books were advertised in popular magazines, selling in National Geographic from 1922 to 1924. Sometimes a miniature classic might appear in a cereal box as a promotion. Robert K. Hass, Inc., Publishers took control of the Little Leather Library Corporation in 1924.

PeriodArts and Crafts

Locations