Fitzgerald Powers Ruth M (1 results)
[An impressive photo album documenting a mining machinist and his wife's travels while working for the Day Mining Co. and Harriman's Georgian Manganese Company in and around Tchiatouri (Ciat'ural) Georgia, and other areas of the Caucasus during the 1920's. The hundreds of well-annotated photos reveal street life, villages, mountain ruins, Armenian refugees, Kurdish villages, along with trips to Moscow a decade after the Russian Revolution, France, Turkey, Palestine, Egypt, Hong Kong, and Japan following World War I.]
[CAUCASUS, GEORGIA, SOVIET UNION, TURKEY & EGYPT -- PHOTO ALBUM]. [POWERS, John "Jack" Albert & FITZGERALD POWERS, Ruth M.?].
Published by Georgian Manganese Mining Co., Day Mining Co., ca. 1925-1929]., [Tchiatouri, Georgia & Wallace, ID:, 1925
- Hardcover
Seller: Zephyr Used & Rare Books, Vancouver, WA, U.S.A.Zephyr Used & Rare Books
Contact seller5-star sellerThick oblong 4to. 11.75 x 8.25 x 2.25 in. [168 pp (unpaginated).], on thick black paper stock. With 635 silver gelatin photographs sized from 2 x 3 in. up to 8 x 10 in., with the majority sized 3.25 x 5.25 in., nearly all annotated below in neat white ink lettering, some w/ annotations, somew/in negative indicating negative numb…er, those partially lifed from black paper have ink & pencil annotations on versos matching the white ink captions, some are RPPC's w/ captions w/in the negatives at lower fore-edges of image, and also present is an 8 page folded manuscript inventory documenting about 400 of the photos, closely matching most of the captions. Contemporary flexible black calf Badger post-binder, black enamel coated screw-posts (a few leaves loose, others proud, some photos overlapping, occasional closed tears, a few inner joints neatly repaired at gutter), still an outstanding exemplar. This exceptional album provides an essential documentary record of the Soviet era Caucasus of Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Abkhazia just a few years after the 11th Red Army invaded Georgia and after a one-week offensive, Georgian Bolsheviks took over the country. The album opens with a composite panoramic photo of Tchiatouri, notably without the rusting overhead tramways installed by Stalin during the 1950's. Following the formation of Georgia SSR, Tchiatouri, and the surrounding regions held some of the largest metallurgical grade manganese in the World, and in the 1920's the Georgian Manganese Company. The subsequent photos depict several of the homes occupied by mine personnel, the surrounding region, and the main company offices. Many of the photos focus on the local peasants, bazaars, markets, Georgian families, fruit markets, animal markets and more. Additional photos depict the foreign ex-patriot life in Batum (Batumi, Adjara) with birds-eye views of the city, Orthodox churches (converted at the time to a Men's Club), as well as tea and banana plantations. Still more photos show Armenian refugees, Jewish cigarette boys, wine merchants carrying wine in pig skins, ox carts, horse-drawn street cars, village blacksmiths, gypsy fortune tellers, trained bears, and even the local kerosene vendor wagon. Mining operations in Seminoff and Karuto are shown with ore being hauled by ox cart, loaded onto rail cars, ore crushing mill, as well as views of Perevisi, Chokruti (Shukrut), and other ore bearing plateaus, their Karuto house. Of additional interest are the photos of the Tchiatouri Monastery, a cliffside still functioning convent known as the Mgviemevi Convent, featuring a 13th-Century two-nave basilica, native village, and connecting ore tramways. A series of photos is also devoted to the old Sachakari (Modinakhe) Castle ruins, both inside, and out, fortifications, and local cave dwellings, all much more severely damaged decades later in the 1991 earthquake. The compiler has also included photos of the market, homes, and street scenes in Tiflis, as well as the old Roman Walls, the local prison, Kurdish homes and camel herds along the railway to Moscow, scenes along the railroad line between Tiflis & Baku, and the Caspian sea port of Russian caviar at Petrovsk. The Harriman Georgian Manganese Co. maintained offices in Moscow, and in fact W. Averell Harriman (1891-1986) himself, negotiated with Leon Trotsky, prior to Lenin's death and the rise of Stalin forcing him into exile in 1929 for the Manganese mining rights. Many of the photos reveal an extended winter trip through Moscow, with a visit to the Kremlin, the newly built Lenin's tomb, Red Square, the Bolshoi Grand Theater, and even a visit to the Polish & Russian Border. After a short trip through France in the midst of rebuilding, and Great Britain, the couple voyage to Greece, Turkey, and Palestine. Photos depict Turkish sailboats, mosques and street views in Samsun, Turkey, Constantinople from the Bosphorus, the Galata Bridge, the Sultan's palace and Seraglio, the Hagia Sophia.