race

The Thompson Trophy air race (1929-1961) was an annual aircraft speed race with a course set up around pylons. It was an especially prestigious event during the great air race period of the 1930s. This unique limited-edition publication covers the year’s winners from 1929 to 1936.  It has a gold cover and colorful illustrations of the winning aircraft, which are beautifully preserved.  Each illustration of a winning aircraft was designed to be suitable for framing. The book is held together with a spiral binding that is a concern for future preservation.

Since its introduction as a slogan in 1966, the term "Black Power" has inspired and shaped African American consciousness in remarkable ways. For many Americans, the idea of Black Power has restructured goals and redefined success. It has also inspired a new generation of activists who continue to build on the potency of these two simple words. Black Power 50 is a captivating introduction to the Black Power movement.

This is one of over 1,600 titles at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Library classified as a pop-up and movable book. Some of these titles have been in the collection since the founding of the Cooper Union Museum in 1897. However, the majority of the pop-up collection was acquired in the 1980s and continues to grow through donations from collectors and select purchases. Spanning over 500 years, these action-packed works of art were intended to calculate, educate, entertain, and amaze. This book is a particularly rare example on astronomy published in the USSR in 1982.

Brown Gold traces the development of African American children’s literature from the 1870s to the 2000s. The book includes literary criticism and pedagogy, as well as literary history and cultural analysis. The author discusses the use and impact of racial terms such as Afro, Negro, African American, and others. The book also focuses on African American illustrations, and on how African Americans were portrayed and caricaturized in children’s picture books. The discussion addresses the impact of these portrayals on the experiences of African Americans in their daily lives.

This book traces the life and legacy of Charlie Wiggins, the “Negro Speed King.” Many people do not know that there were African American heroes on the race track. Charlie Wiggins was a four-time champion (1926, 1929, 1931, and 1932) of the Gold and Glory auto race in Indiana. Due to segregation and persecution in the 1920s, African American auto racers formed the Colored Speedway Association. They were attacked by the Klu Klux Klan, which owned the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

This book is a tragic love story. One of Frederick Douglass’ friends from Germany, feminist Ottilie Assing (1819-1884), traveled to the United States, interviewed him, and translated his autobiography into German. Assing was a journalist by profession. They were about the same age. She fell in love with him, but he said he was wary of the racial divide in the United States. After the death of her sister, Assing returned to Europe to settle the family estate. During this trip, she learned through the newspaper that Frederick Douglass had married another woman seven months prior.

Queensland Art Gallery curators Ted Gott and Kathryn Weir created an exhibit featuring monsters and beasts as depicted in art and entertainment history. The exhibit and accompanying book, Kiss of the Beast: From Paris Salon to King Kong highlights the many ways beasts feature prominently in imaginations of artists and filmmakers. The animal now known as the gorilla came to the attention of modern Europeans in 1847. From that time, gorillas and similar beasts have been popular subjects in sculptures, paintings, books, and movies.