[EXTENSIVELY ANNOTATED AND PROFUSELY ILLUSTRATED PHOTOGRAPHIC SCRAPBOOK OF AMERICANS TRAVELING IN CENTRAL AND SOUTH AMERICA]

[South America]: [Travel]

Published by [Various locations in Latin America, 1938

[100]pp. containing 230 photographs, as well as postcards, maps, dozens of menus, greeting cards, and other travel ephemera. Thick folio. Contemporary brown paper-covered cloth, string-tied. Boards lightly scuffed and worn. Some leaves loose, moderate edge wear and chipping. Photographs clean and nice, annotations highly legible. Good plus. An illuminating and entertaining illustrated scrapbook documenting the travels of six friends on a trip to Mexico, Panama, and various points in South America, including Colombia, Peru, Chile, Argentina, and Brazil in 1938. One of the opening leaves has four photographs of the travellers, comprised of two elderly couples and two single women captioned, "Rogues to the Pampas!" Throughout the album, there are numerous photographs, both vernacular and professional, a great many capturing locals in native dress, as well as images of scenery and the city streets. The photographs are accompanied by detailed descriptive annotations which are colorful and entertaining, but also display the compilers' uncharitable to openly offensive views towards some of the foreign peoples and cultures they visit. The voyage began January 20, 1938 aboard the Japanese NYK Liner S.S. Bokuyo Maru. There are numerous menus and other ephemera from the ship, as well as a photograph of the Japanese crew signed by the ship's officers. The first photographs depict Manzanillo, Mexico a week later, with captions such as "Worst city we ever saw, says the man from Capetown, South Africa, who has been around the world," and "Sid Thompson says, 'I bet if these Mexicans had a good hot bath they'd find a suit of underwear they didn't know they had!" They picture a "peddler of hats and drink" and a "man carrying load on his head" in the streets of Manzanillo. They then take a train to Colima, Mexico, on which a passenger is noted to say, "Jesus Christ, you'd think they never saw an American before," and where they eat papaya for the first time. In Panama on February 3, they see "a native with an iguana in each hand - we also saw our first sloth and a land crab" and they witnessed "a negro funeral." On February 5, the travellers stop at Buenaventura, Colombia where they experienced an earthquake and their first sight of the Andes, along with a "strong acrid wet odor [that] pervades atmosphere everywhere." There are several photographs of the city and the locals, including one of "natives" fishing, accompanied by significant commentary on the locals: "The natives have plenty of fish which they catch in nets thrown by hand - plenty of bananas and fruits and cocoanuts and will not work enough to buy anything but a little clothing, rice and coffee. There are no public schools in Colombia - a few religious schools inland. All education for boys and girls of better class is in U.S. or Europe.U.S. buys 85% of Colombia's coffee. Population 80% negroes on coast. Government is unstable foreign capital will not make very much of an investment here but Standard Oil Co. has a $52,000,000 pipeline in Colombia. Malaria is the greatest plague here though typhoid is also guarded against in fruits and vegetables. Buenaventura is wholly tropical." The group then proceeds to Lime, Peru, where they arrive "in a dense fog - worst in 10 years." They take numerous snapshots of various cultural sights around the city, images of "guano birds" along the shoreline, and a "Typical Peruvian Indian of the High Andean Plateaus." They stayed three nights at the Hotel Bolivar before proceeding to Cuzco, Tacua, and Mollendo, which they describe as "a dirty town." Still, they took several photographs here, including "Descendants of the Incas at Cuzco," an "Indian woman riding Burro - typical scene" in Tacua, and other street scenes. Chile was next for the group. They were in Santiago by February 23 and shot several images at a street market, such as a soap dealer, the flower market, a corn stand, and other scenes. Shortly thereafter they traveled to Valparaiso, Puerto. Seller Inventory # WRCAM55556

Bibliographic Details

Title: [EXTENSIVELY ANNOTATED AND PROFUSELY ...
Publisher: [Various locations in Latin America
Publication Date: 1938