[Photo Album]: Photo Strips Recording Baby's First Years Beginning in 1935

1937. Hardcover. Very Good. Oblong octavo measuring 10" x 7". String-tied brown leather over paper boards with "Photographs" stamped in gilt on the front board. Contains 85 sepia-toned or black and white gelatin silver photographs, many of which are printed as photo strips, measuring between 1.5" x 1.5" and 4" x 6", with some captions. Album is very good with tiny chips and edgewear with near fine photographs.

A collection of photographs documenting the first two years of a child's life beginning at six weeks in 1935. Roughly half of the photos are printed as photo strips and are mounted in the album in their completed form. Many of the other photos are small format prints as well as images that have been separated from their original strips. The photos show the newborn throughout the years of 1935 to 1937, when he is listed as 2 ½ years old. Throughout the album he is held and pampered by family and friends as he grows into a little boy. The fact that his early years were heavily documented in photo strip prints is unusual as is the volume of this style of prints collected into a single album, especially as the technology and popularity of the strips was relatively new.

The first time a photo booth machine was introduced to the public was at the Paris World's fair in 1889. Although it was a success, the concept wouldn't take widespread popularity until 1925 with the invention of the curtain-closed booth we know today by Russian immigrant Anatol Josepho. It was set up on Broadway in New York City and in the first six months saw around 280,000 visitors. A March 1927 headline of The New York Times read: "Slot Photo Device Brings $1,000,000 to Young Inventor." These photos represent the first decade of modern photo strip prints.

An interesting accumulation of early photo strip prints which have been collected in a large quantity in a single album.