Autograph Album of Julia C. Mack of Garnet-Patterson Junior High School

Washington, DC: Garnet-Patterson Junior High School, 1950. Hardcover. Good. Oblong 12mo. Blue cloth over padded boards with name of the school printed in silver, with zipper closure along the edges of the boards. Zipper is partly detached, boards are rubbed and worn, internally near fine, overall about very good. Partially printed autograph album with title page and frontispiece pictures of the school and the principal, with blank leaves for autographs and black leaves for photographs. Ownership signature of Julia C. Mack dated at the end of the 1950 school year. Most of the leaves have been autographed with sentiments, all over the course of three or four days in June, and many embellished by Mack with what look like small yearbook-type photographs, and which seem to confirm that the students were almost all (or perhaps were all) African-Americans, and with indications of who each student was - her boyfriend, her best friends, basketball players, etc. Several of the students have also indicated what high school they were bound for - most often Dunbar High School or Cardozo Senior High School (Mack went to Dunbar). Additionally the album is signed by several faculty members, and near the end the album contains the autograph of jazz legend Louis Armstrong: "To Julia, Ol' Satchmo, Louis Armstrong." The black album pages at the end contain other yearbook-type printed images. A nice little slice-of-life illuminating the school years of a young black teenager.