#1895 Ephemera

[princesselisabethofhesse]

1895

Kölnische Zeitung

March 27, 1895

Darmstadt, March 20th. The Hessian princess born on March 11th, the first child of our Grand Duke and his wife Victoria Melita, received her baptism yesterday. She was given the names Elisabeth Marie Alice Victoria after her four godmothers: Grand Duchess Serge of Russia, Crown Princess Marie of Rumania, Empress Alexandra of Russia and Queen Victoria of England. Only one of them was present at the baptism; the grandfather, the Duke of Coburg and Gotha, was entrusted with the representation. The baptism was carried out by the high preacher Dr. Bender with water from the Jordan. A very numerous group attended the family dinner in the New Palace, during which a large group of residents gathered in front the palace to encourage the participation of the ¿vole?.

The general hope is that Princess Elisabeth of Hesse gains a reputation of virtue and beauty, as it happened with her numerous predecessors. Landgravine Karoline of Hesse with her four daughters was called "Great" and a beautiful monument sent by King Friedrich the Great was placed in the Darmstadt Herrengarten with the inscription: Femina sexu, ingenio vir ("a woman by sex, a man by spirit").

source: Zeitungpostal NRW

[postcard-from-the-past]

Richelieu's head photographed 253 after his death in 1895, Church of the Sorbonne University in Paris

French vintage postcard

[muleydoestreasurehoard]

[chocolatepot]

Did just a little bookbinding project this weekend. A few days ago, I came across this prayerbook from 1895 by Lilian Montagu, an important figure in turn of the century Reform Judaism. It's a fascinating primary source and piece of ephemera - written for the needs of busy, young working-class Jewish women, with prayers for things they would expect to deal with such as going into service, having to work on the Sabbath, and getting engaged. The final prayer is for facing antisemitic persecution.

I really love trying to match historic typesets. I retyped this largely in Century Schoolbook, with the numbers in the publishing date and table of contents in Bembo Std in order to get them oldstyle, not on the baseline. (The back copy is also in Bembo Std. I don't know how I obliterated the Renegade Bindery logo.) The blackletter font in 2001 Rotunda Formata, which was the closest match to the original I could find, although it's still unsatisfyingly different in a few ways. And one little ornament on the cover from Sughayer Separates, a very very useful group of fonts for historical typesets.

Unfortunately I'm just noticing now that I messed up the cover! Forgot about the border and the "Price Twopence." But in general, I think this looks quite a lot like the original - a credible piece of late Victorian ephemera.

Because the original is in a nonstandard page size - very tall and thin - I decided to make this version out of a nonstandard page size. I used some paper I'd had cut down to "executive" size a while back ... although I'd forgotten that my printer gets stupid with smaller page sizes, and messes up the margins. Annoying.

[collidepress]

When you think of The Saturday Evening Post, you probably still think of Norman Rockwell. But do you know J.C. Leyendecker?

IYDK, Leyendeck was the go-to commercial artist before Rockwell. He was just as talented (imo), but gayer and more German. Both of which became liabilities after the 1920s.

In the process of researching him and couldn't wait to add his portrait (from 1895) and a few of his selects works from to our "Past" collection.

[dankusner]

H.J. Lutcher Stark Center for Physical Culture 

Lutcher Stark Center for Physical Culture 

‘I NEEDED TO CONTINUE TO THE END’

A Texas man immortalizes his father

You don’t have much time before Father’s Day, which falls on June 16 this year, to match the magnificent gift given by a Texas man, originally from Marlin, who came close to immortalizing his father. 

Jack Robertson, 81, uncovered a treasure trove of old Texas documents, essays, letters, photos and other ephemera in a box of memorabilia that had belonged to his father, Rupert Robertson (1895-1968). h

A University of Texas professor emeritus of accounting, Jack recognized the historical value of Rupert’s descriptive essays written for his English classes at UT from 1914 to 1916, as well as the evidence from his military service during World War I, when Rupert was a balloonist.

Since the elder Robertson starred on the Marlin high school track team and earned his track letter at UT in Austin, his son Jack wanted to preserve his father’s writing at the university’s Lutcher Stark Center for Physical Culture and Sports, a marvelously eccentric museum and archive tucked into the north end of Royal Memorial Stadium.

Terence “Terry” Todd, the late director of the Stark Center, and his wife, Jan Todd, current director, welcomed Rupert’s personal papers, many from more than 100 years ago.

“Terry asked me to include a biography of my father, so independent researchers could add the personhood of the author to the context of the stories,” Jack says. “Ten months and 62 pages later, I delivered the biography.” You read that right, the dutiful son produced a biography of his father that weighs in at 62 single-spaced pages, which, while short of being a book, is much more than a bio sketch.

I can’t pretend to have read every word of this opus, but combined with Rupert’s own writing, the world of Texas in the early 20th century became incrementally clearer to me through this gift from Jack Robertson.

A choice essay on Austin from Rupert Robertson

In 1914, Rupert Robertson wrote the following essay about a night on Congress Avenue, one of many he executed for English classes at UT. 

Note the keen details as Rupert’s attention wanders — through various sentence structures — from one sensation to another. 

This was a time when most of the city’s commercial traffic and entertainment venues were concentrated on Congress, but before the Paramount Theatre opened as the Majestic Theatre in 1915.

https://www.thestoryoftexas.com

This particular personal anecdote — and others like it from all over the state — is available digitally to the public at thestoryoftexas.com through the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum as part of the “Help Us Tell the Story of Texas” project.

“The rain is coming down slowly, and it wets the street so that it glistens under the big arc lights like a large mirror.

“The red and yellow drays are bespattered with mud. The streetcars, automobiles and other vehicles are rumbling down the street with such a terrible drum that I would think I was by myself if I could not see the throng of people moving up and down the street.

“Some are gazing at the beautifully lighted show windows which contain various shades of the latest styles of clothing; some are on the inside of the store purchasing articles, and some are looking at the red, white and green moving picture signs, and debate with themselves whether to go in or stay outside and parade the street with the ‘mob.’

“The crowd is composed mostly of university students, but they are not in a hurry tonight. This is unusual, because as a general rule, these fellows are restless, and always go with push and vim wherever they are. But the college spirit is here, for every now and then I hear the jolly laugh of some young man at the joke or remark of one of his companions.

“Boys and girls in couples, clad in their grey and brown rainproof garments, are present in great numbers. There is an air of happiness and success among them as they go down one side of the street and come up the other; the thought of the green-back English book and the brown cloth-covered mathematic text is left behind and forgotten.

“The crowd is divided into groups which represent different fraternities, clubs and various other organizations. Each individual bunch has a characteristic of its own. The Rusticusses wearing big hats, the Phi Gamma Deltas grey mackinaws with a blue stripe, the Sigma Nu’s ties, and the other organizations have some similar distinction.

“The rest of the crowd is compiled of town girls and boys; brown (Mexican American); Negro men and women; and a great part of the Jewish population. Here and there, and at every corner, I see a policeman watching the crowd as a cowboy on horseback watches a herd of cattle.

“The street is as crowded with vehicles as the sidewalks are with people. Along the curbing are many automobiles with their radiators pointing toward the crowd and the rear ends toward the middle of the street. At intervals are found horses and buggies, but not many, because automobiles are rapidly taking their place. “Then there are the candy vendors in their dingy clothing, selling brown peanut and pecan candies. The popcorn man has his wagon driven close to the curbing, and is selling chewing gum, peanuts and pink popcorn. The whole scene has an atmosphere of relaxation and freedom in spite of the gloominess of the weather.”

Rupert Robertson the athlete

“After starting the biography,” Jack Robertson writes, “I needed to continue to the end.”

Rupert Cook Robertson was born March 31, 1895. in the rural town of Kosse, Texas (pop. 500) in southern Limestone County. 

His father, Charles Onward “C.O.” Robertson was born in Alabama in 1867; his mother, Martha Adeline “Mattie” Price Robertson, was born in Blue Ridge in Falls County in 1872.

Rupert was known as a “city boy” in Kosse, where his family owned a general store, but he spent much time on his grandfathere’s farm in Falls County, where “all activity revolved around the fields and seasons.”

Even in the early 20th century, rural Texas remained closer to the rhythms of the 19th century. “His transport was shoe-leather and horse-and-buggy,” his son writes. “His water came from a well. His sanitation was the outhouse. His entertainment was outdoors with family and friends.”

Socially, this was the “segregated South,” with scant interaction between the races, other than the employerworker relationships, Jack reminds readers.

Rupert was not the only Kosse native to make it big in sports. 

David E. “Kosse” Johnson Jr. starred as a halfback on the Rice Institute team during the 1950s and was drafted by the Green Bay Packers.

Another nearby exposure to big-time sports: Pro baseball teams — such as White Sox, Cardinals, Reds, Athletics and Giants — held spring training camps in nearby Marlin, which attracted flocks of tourists because its mineral water promised reputed healing properties.

Rupert attended Marlin High School from 1912 to 1914. 

He lived in a boarding house operated by his aunt Clara Belle Price. 

Even today, one can walk by blocks and blocks of sizable Victorian and farmhouse-style homes in Marlin.

Since his father disapproved of football, Rupert ran track. State high school track meets were held at UT’s Clark Field beginning in 1905. 

The big four regional teams were Belton, San Antonio, Austin and Dallas. According to University of Texas Interscholastic League records, Marlin competed strongly from 1910 to 1915, and the school earned the top spot in 1914. 

As usual, Rupert won individual and team medals. (Jack’s documents on these events are startlingly detailed.)

When Rupert entered UT in 1914, Austin was home to about 30,000 people, and 2,300 of those were members of the university’s student body. 

His freshman class, for which he served as secretarytreasurer, counted 674 members.

Rupert said he wanted to study business in order to take over the family general store in Kosse. 

Jack always imagined that his father was recruited for his track skills, but he also turns up evidence of family and friends who had attended UT, and would have supported Rupert’s collegiate aspiration. 

He belonged to that generation of Texans whose families had survived pioneer life in the country and saw brighter horizons for their children in the cities and through higher education.

Rupert joined an athletic fraternity, Sigma Delta Psi, as well as Kappa Alpha, which included among its brothers athletes who were Rupert’s friends. 

Sports were already big on campus and getting bigger. 

Folks like Billy Disch, L. Theo Bellmont and Clyde Littlefield led what was becoming a dominant college power in football, basketball, track, tennis, gymnastics, wrestling and soccer — Rupert played wing on the soccer team. In track, he did well in high hurdles, mile relay and other events.

Life in the military and its aftermath

UT sports hollowed out, however, once the U.S. entered World War I on April 6, 1917. Athletes were among the first to enlist and the campus opened military training centers, which were later badly stricken by the flu epidemic of 1918-1919.

Rupert enlisted in the Army on Aug. 5, 1917, in Houston. 

Much of what he wrote about his first months is fairly anodyne but still illuminating about Austin and San Antonio, where he trained at Camp Travis, during the war. 

(For instance, Rupert did not pause his habit of dating campus beauties.) 

After basic training, he was assigned to Fort Omaha, Nebraska, on March, 26 1918 to enter the balloon school. 

He qualified to be a spherical balloon pilot.

Rupert’s family expressed concern whenever the press reported any balloon accidents or explosions, but the young man made it through two years in the corps unscathed. 

He skipped the flu, too, at a time when the military was among the sectors in the U.S. hardest hit by the pandemic. 

On Aug. 30, 1918, Rupert was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Air Service. 

After a series of service flights, he was honorably discharged on Aug. 11, 1919, with bronze victory button.

The rest of Rupert’s young adult life was spent working in real estate, insurance and various other Kosse businesses, as well as farming citrus fruit and working for firms in the Rio Grande Valley, Corpus Christi and California. 

In the Valley, he met and married widow Lois Lucille Rose Bartlett; they produced Sara Ellen Robertson Moore and Jack Robertson.

Rupert suffered from various medical conditions, including diabetes and depression, some of them traced to his military service. Lois taught school and the family eventually moved to Marlin, where Jack grew up. 

A good deal of the remaining personal history consists of Jack’s childhood memories of his family while growing up there. 

(We’d need another column or two to do that part justice.)

Rupert died Jan. 10, 1968, at age 72

[brooklynmuseum]

We're excited to share news about our upcoming exhibition Modern Gothic: The Inventive Furniture of Kimbel and Cabus, 1863–82. Over the course of their partnership, Anton Kimbel (1822–1895) and Joseph Cabus (1824–1898) developed one of New York City's leading furniture and decorating firms and defined a new take on Modern Gothic design, a style that originated in Britain and was embraced by a growing middle class in the post–Civil War United States. ⁠

Opening July 2, Modern Gothic is the first museum exhibition to trace the duo's American success story with new scholarship and primary sources, offering fresh insight into the history of the enterprising design team, their ambitious marketing practices, and their forward-looking clientele. The exhibition includes rare examples of furniture from their famous chair designs and dramatic, monumental desks to their quirky, smaller forms decorated with fanciful paper panels, as well as books and ephemera.

Kimbel and Cabus (New York, 1863–82). Cabinet-Secretary, circa 1875. Painted cherry, gilding, copper, brass, leather, earthenware. Brooklyn Museum; Bequest of DeLancey Thorn Grant in memory of her mother, Louise Floyd-Jones Thorn, by exchange, 1991.126. (Photo: Gavin Ashworth)

[libraryofva]

Recent Acquisition - Ephemera Collection

First National Bank of Lexington, Virginia. Established in 1895. Bank Building Erected in 1902. ... Statement of Condition, November 1910

[princetonarchives]

Friends and rivals in so many ways, here’s a selection of ephemera related to the connections between Yale and Princeton.

1. Yale-Princeton polo program, June 18, 1892. Scrapbook Collection (AC026), Box 194.

2. Cover of the menu for the Yale-Princeton Banquet, December 6, 1895. This supper was given at the Princeton Inn immediately following the Yale-Princeton debate. At the meal, diners toasted Yale, Princeton, collegiate literary work, and intercollegiate contests. Historical Subject Files (AC109), Box 343, Folder 3.

3. Princeton-Yale baseball program, June 7, 1913. Princeton University Athletic Programs Collection (AC042), Box 14, Folder 1.

4. Yale-Princeton musical clubs concert program, November 14, 1924. Historical Subject Files (AC109), Box 193, Folder 11.

5. Ticket to the Yale-Princeton football game, November 12, 1932.  Historical Subject Files (AC109), Box 143, Folder 4,

6. Princeton-Yale hockey program, February 20, 1965.  1971. Athletic Programs Collection (AC042), Box 15.

7. Princeton-Yale football program, November 13, 1971. Athletic Programs Collection (AC042), Box 8, Folder 5.

8. Jaws-style “PAWS” cartoon from the Daily Princetonian, September 9, 1975.

9. Princeton and Yale’s mascots together, November 1979. Photo from 1980 Bric-a-Brac.

10. Tiger mobile drawing (see the real thing pictured here) with the Yale bulldog in its stomach, 1996. Historical Photograph Collection, Campus Life Series (AC112), Box MP169, Image No. 6064.

[hagleyvault]

Today’s #TradeCardTuesday brings us this ca. 1880? advertisement for Dobbins' Electric Soap, manufactured by Philadelphia’s Isaiah L. Cragin & Company (est’d 1867).

The brand’s name was bestowed upon it by its original manufacturer, John B. Dobbins, a Philadelphia soapmaker who presumably appended the ‘Electric’ to his product to capitalize on popular enthusiasm for the promise of electrification. Dobbins was also the manufacturer of Dobbins Medicated Toilet Soap and Dobbins Electric Boot Polish.

Dobbins appears to have temporarily lost the rights to the soaps that bore his name in 1869, along with use of his trademarks, manufactory, and the materials within it for a period of twenty years as a result of debts owed to Charles I. Cragin, the son of Isiah L. Cragin. This agreement would later result in a vicious court case. In 1890, rather than relinquish the use of the name as their legal agreement required, the Cragin family continued to make use of Dobbins’ brands and trademarks, and even incorporated in New Jersey as the Dobbins Electric Soap Manufacturing Company. Dobbins, described by J. Warren Coulston, the lawyer who drafted the original agreement as “very old” and “very poor”, chose to pursue the matter.

Ultimately, the New Jersey courts were unimpressed with the Cragins’ argument that the contract’s statement that “they may use his name upon and as descriptive of any soap or blacking they may hereafter make . . .” nullified term limits outlined elsewhere and gave them perpetual rights to the name and trademarks. John B. Dobbins won the case and was awarded nearly one million dollars in royalties that had been denied to him. 

It’s not clear from newspaper accounts whether Dobbins was able to collect those funds, however. By 1895, his soap works at the corner of Susquehanna and Germantown Avenues in Philadelphia were in use by the Quaker City Chocolate Works, later known as the Quaker City Camden Company. Dobbins died not long after, on May 17, 1898 in Camden, New Jersey at the age of 68. The site of his soap works is now a vacant lot. The Cragins, meanwhile, retained operations of the Dobbins Soap Manufacturing Company and continued to use the brand name in advertisements denouncing similarly named products as “mediocre” imitators whose products would “rot and ruin clothes”. 

Isiah, the elder Cragin, died on October 2, 1901. Charles I. Cragin, by then a wealthy man, who had also inherited his wealthy father’s estate, appears to have spent the rest of his life as president of the company and employed as a director of Philadelphia’s Fourth Street National Bank,  though his December 16, 1915 obituary in the city’s Evening Public Ledger noted that he “devoted little time to either enterprise in the last 20 years”, preferring instead to entertain guests in his home in Philadelphia and in Reve D’Ete, his lavish vacation home in Palm Beach, Florida often described in the society pages as “the most luxurious of semi-tropical palaces” and which, in 1891, was touted as the “furthermost south mansion in the United States”.

The Dobbins Soap Manufacturing Company, located at 17th Street and Federal Street, remained in the hands of the Cragin family until 1934, when it was purchased by the Iowa Soap Company. By 1959, the Concord Chemical Company called the manufactory home, remaining there until the late 2000s, when the Concord Chemical Company manufactory became the abandoned Concord Chemical Site. Following intervention from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 2010, the site was burned to the ground in a fire on June 19, 2011. In 2018, the former president and CEO of the by then defunct Concord Chemical Co. was sentenced to six months of home confinement for illegally storing and abandoning hazardous, corrosive, and ignitable waste at the facility.

This trade card is part of Hagley Library’s Carter Litchfield collection on the history of fatty materials (Accession 2007.227). As an organic chemist, Carter Litchfield (1932-2007) studied and specialized in edible fats. Over the course of his career, Litchfield built an important collection about the history of fats and fatty materials. This collection has not been digitized in its entirety. The online collection is a curated selection of items and primarily includes paper ephemera such as ration stamps, tax stamps, trade cards, pamphlets, and trade catalogs. You can view it online now by clicking here.

[princesselisabethofhesse]

1895

THE GENTLEWOMAN. April 20, 1895

Darmstadt, April 13

The Grand Duchess of Hesse has so far recovered that the Duchess of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, accompanied by the Princess Alexandra, left Darmstadt for Coburg last Sunday.

(...)

The Grand Duchess of Hesse took her first drive with her husband on the 2nd inst., and since then has driven out almost daily. Her Royal Highness looks extremely well and is in excellent spirits.

The little Princess Elizabeth thrives apace, and is growing a very pretty baby. The first time I saw her I was much struck with her resemblance to the English Royal Family, but the second time she looked more like the Duchess of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, and like all babies she varies from hour to hour. Her young parents are looking forward with great delight to the Queen's visit, when they can introduce their first-born to her great-grandmother.

The Queen is now not expected at Darmstadt until the 22nd or 23rd.

source: britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk

photo: Notizen zur Ortsgeschichte

[postcard-from-the-past]

Head of Chinese pirates, decapitated in 1895 near Móng Cái, northern Vietnam

French vintage postcard

[simon-martin]

A happy find: one of today’s tasks has been wrapping vintage dust jackets in acetate to protect them. In this book ‘Shelley in Italy’ designed by Keith Vaughan I was delighted to find a postcard from the author and publisher John Lehmann himself inscribed ‘I hope you will accept this little gift, dear John, more for the spirit in which it is sent than for what it is - John L’. The book itself is dedicated ‘John Morris with affectionate wishes John Lehmann.’ Morris (1895-1980) was a literary figure, who worked at the BBC in the 1940s and 50s. He took part in two attempts to climb Everest in the 1930s (once with Tenzing Norgay as his Sherpa) and in his frank autobiography ‘Hired to Kill’ wrote about coming to terms with his homosexuality whilst in the army. He was Professor of English Literature, Keio University and lecturer at Imperial and Bunrika Universities, Tokyo from 1938. He became head of the BBC Far Eastern Service 1943–1952, and controller for the BBC Third Programme 1952–1958. From February 1943 to October 1943 he worked in the same department as George Orwell, at 200 Oxford Street. Stephen Spender described Morris in his Journals as: “A not very daring promoter of the cause of culture, cruelly teased by his friend E.M. Forster, who referred to him as 'the pudding'.” He was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 1957 New Year Honours, and appeared as a castaway on the BBC Radio programme Desert Island Discs on 16 February 1959 (Favourite track: Sonata in B Flat Minor (Opus 35) by Frédéric Chopin played by Rachmaninov, Book: The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Luxury: Soap and a piano). It joins the dots with Lehman’s Ex Libris bookplate (designed by Vaughan) which I posted on here a couple of weeks ago, and recent thinking about @nancy_cadogan_art and her show in the @keats_shelley_house_rome . I get so excited by these bits of bibliophile ephemera and marginalia as they connect me directly to the authors, artists, publishers and readers, and their friends and loved ones. #bibliophile #bibliophilelife #book #modernbride #keithvaughan #johnlehmann #design #ephemera #bookjacket #queerart #gayart #lgbtqhistory (at Brighton and Hove) https://www.instagram.com/p/CKHMpAEFEki/?igshid=i9oubmiljdj1

[uispeccoll]

#VoicesFromTheStacks

Janet Kimpston, an Iowan hailing from the city of Elkader, was born in 1895. In her mid-20s, she attended the State University of Iowa (now the University of Iowa) from 1919 to 1921.

 Her papers provide a brief glimpse into student life--particularly for young women--at the university in this era. While pursuing her English degree, Kimpston's courses ranged across academic disciplines, including Latin, literary courses on Whitman and Shakespeare, and a home economics course on sewing. Enrolling in geology courses, Kimpston was one of several female students who participated in field courses in 1920 and 1921 in the Midwest and the Black Hills of South Dakota. During field work in the Black Hills in 1920, Janet met Nathaniel Herz, her future husband; the couple would reside in South Dakota after marrying.

Situated in our stacks in the University Archives’ Student Life record group, this collection features ephemera from student life--class notes, projects, and materials from her typography field work. From a scrapbook containing sewing samples and necessary knowhow for darning lace, to book reviews, Latin transcriptions, and geological mapping, Kimpston’s collections speaks of a driven student and adventurer. 

Janet Kimpston Herz Papers  (RG02.0009.012)

Finding Aid  

--Laura 

[ebonetnoir]

(via The Experiment that was PAN Magazine)

The antiquarian book business is a curious one. It is a business that requires curiosity, research and a willingness to follow the threads of obscurity. Often one find will lead me to another and so on. Discoveries made in such a fashion feel serendipitous; like chasing a trail of breadcrumbs to some hidden treasure. The other day while researching an early edition of Sybil with a William Morris cover design I came across a peculiar art magazine called PAN. 

The journal PAN was published in Berlin between 1895 and 1900 and it is regarded as one of the most influential voices of Art Nouveau in Germany. Edited by Otto Julius Bierbaum and Julius Meier-Graefe, the magazine published illustrations by well-known as well as unknown international artists. It also featured full page graphic designs, typographic experiments, poems, vignettes and other ephemera.

[uncleyarn2-blog]

Ten Things to Do in Chicago This Week

Don’t-miss picks for October 25 through October 31, 2018

1 Night of 1,000 Jack-o’-Lanterns

Seasonal:As the name would indicate, there are, in fact, more than 1,000 pumpkins on display at this family-friendly Halloween standby, each one a carefully carved work of art. In the jack-o’-lanterns’ spectral glow, the gardens take on a spooky and autumnal atmosphere best enjoyed with a hot cup of cocoa or cider (spiked, if you’re a grownup) in hand. Through 10/28. $13–$18. Chicago Botanic Garden. chicagobotanic.org

2 Elton John

Rock:In January, John told Anderson Cooper he would be retiring from touring, stating, “My priorities are now my children and my husband and my family.” It’s a blow to longtime fans, but John won’t make his final exit until he completes a three-year international tour. 10/26–27. $181–$1,392. United Center. ticketmaster.com

3 Jessica Sladek

Art:In this emerging photographer’s Wait-A-While series, a tradition of bucolic landscape imagery (think Ansel Adams) is turned on its head — or rather, its roots. Focusing tightly on dirt, holes, and generally what’s beneath the feet, Sladek has an eye for finding the overlooked beauty of everyday nature. FREE 10/26–12/29. Schneider Gallery. schneidergallerychicago.com

4 Chicago Home Movie Day

Film:Each year, locals dust off and trot out their best (i.e., most pedestrian and mildly amusing) works of amateur film — specifically, those that are actually on film, in a format like 16 mm, 8 mm, or Super 8. Watching someone else’s home movies might sound about as much fun as, well, watching someone else’s home movies, but don’t be surprised if you leave the auditorium misty-eyed: There’s something undeniably powerful about seeing people and places frozen in time. FREE 10/27 at 11 a.m. Chicago History Museum. chicagofilmarchives.org

5 Nine Inch Nails

Rock:Back with its ninth studio album, Bad Witch, after four years away, Trent Reznor’s morbid industrial-rock outfit hasn’t lost any of its creepy power. Gen-X goths and younger fans who’ve flocked to NIN’s music won’t want to miss this rare tour. 10/25–27. $101–$143. Aragon Ballroom. ticketmaster.com

6 Jonathan Richman

Rock:The Modern Lovers produced just one album before dissolving in 1974, and that self-titled work is considered by some critics to be the germ of punk rock. Richman, the band’s idiosyncratic frontman, has developed something of a cult following ever since, even as he turns his back on the aesthetic trappings of punk. Though Richman now favors an acoustic guitar and a tempo more suited to easy listening than a mosh pit, his songwriting remains as strangely compelling as ever. 10/27 at 9 p.m. $18–$28. Thalia Hall. eventbrite.com

7 Keep Moving: Designing Chicago’s Bicycle Culture

Design:The bicycle is a symbol of personal freedom: the open road, the fresh air, the solitary sense of movement and power. This exhibit celebrates design innovations of the humble bike, including ephemera from Chicago’s top manufacturers then and now, like Schwinn, founded here in 1895, as well as reflections on why the local cycling community is so alluring. FREE 10/27–3/3. Design Museum of Chicago. designchicago.org

8 Jeff Arcuri

Comedy:Earlier this year, the standup made his Late Show with Stephen Colbert debut, and now he’s returning to the city where he got his start. Before he headed to New York, the earnest, upbeat comic hosted and produced the Chicago-based showcase This Week’s Show and regularly appeared at Laugh Factory, Comedy Bar, and Zanies, where he’ll be headlining. 10/29–31. $25. Zanies. chicago.zanies.com

9 Ina Garten: The Barefoot Contessa

Food/Lecture:On this tour, the beloved and inescapable restaurateur, cookbook author, and television personality shares stories and recipes from throughout her gastronomic journey and gives a sneak peek at her new book, Cooking Like a Pro — autographed copies of which will be available at the theater. 10/30 at 7:30 p.m. $53–$73. Chicago Theatre. ticketmaster.com

10 Kreutzer Connection

Classical:The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center builds a program around Beethoven’s “Kreutzer,” a violin sonata, and Leoš Janáček’s “Kreutzer Sonata” for string quartet, then interposes a work by the actual Kreutzer, a famous violinist who never actually played the Beethoven piece dedicated to him. 10/30 at 7:30 p.m. $30–$70. Harris Theater. harristheaterchicago.org

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