Before the web and glossy architectural periodicals that showcase completed projects, architects had few avenues to advertise their work. Enter the self-published trade catalog, as shown above, a book ‘type’ adjacent to pattern books showing individual motifs. The Redwood already holds a world class collection of the latter, and both types offer the most direct avenue to solidify the Library as a significant research center for architecture, decorative arts, and design for the years 1700-1900.
This new purchase is quite possibly a unique copy, as it figures nowhere in the OCLC/Worldcat, or in any of the usual bibliographic sources. It is a small, oblong, 20-page self-published catalogue (1895), featuring 23 halftone images of Gilded Age residences in upstate New York designed by one G. Edw. Cooper, architect of Utica, NY. Cooper is as elusive as his catalog: a brief entry on Google provides nothing useful.
Nonetheless his catalog, titled Sketches, gives significant comparative visual information to contextualize similar residences here in Newport. It also provides a fascinating view onto the cooperative nexus of architects, tradesmen and artisans that combined to create the majestic cottages we so appreciate today. No doubt to defray the cost of printing, Cooper sold advertising to members of the local building trades by offering the blank versos of the photograph pages as advertising space. Interspersed among Cooper’s opulent villas are adverts for every kind of vendor of the era: chandeliers & lighting, leaded art glass, steam heaters, metal roofing, sanitary plumbing etc.
