1976: Our Nation's 200th Birthday, the Telephone's 100th Birthday

N.p.: Illinois Bell, 1976. Signed color print. Folio (13¼" X 25½"). Near fine. Superb heavy stock color print of AT & T's most famous telephone directory cover, the 1976 bicentennial cover of which 176,000,000 -- that's right, ONE HUNDRED SEVENTY-SIX MILLION! -- copies were distributed. Depicted are 10 rows of portraits of historic figures and characters (two images per person) speaking on a variety of telephones. In order (spelled out in caption): Benjamin Franklin, the Statue of Liberty, an astronaut, a telephone operator, Thomas Jefferson, a Native American, Abraham Lincoln, Shirley Temple, John D. Rockefeller, an Eskimo, Will Rogers, Frederick Douglass, Norman Rockwell, Paul Revere, a young rebel, Robert E. Lee, a senorita, G.I. Joe, Whistler's Mother, man's best friend, Alexander Graham Bell, Jackie Robinson, Betsy Ross, Mark Twain, child's birthday party, Uncle Sam, the American teenager, a father, a Cub Scout, Marian Anderson, George Washington, a "visual phone of the future." On the large blank lower margin, the artist boldly signs and inscribes in black fineline "to Mr. Arnold Gates / Wouldn't it have been good if Lincoln / Franklin and Jefferson could really have / talked -- with Marilyn Monroe present? / Stanley Meltzoff / picture maker." Gates (1914-93) was a noted Lincoln and Civil War scholar and officer of the New York Civil War Round Table. Meltzoff was a renowned artist and illustrator who began with "Stars & Stripes" during World War II, produced illustrations and covers for "Life," "Saturday Evening Post," "The Atlantic," "Scientific American" (65 covers) and other major magazines before pioneering the field of wildlife painting, becoming the "Father of Fish Painting" in the process. Signed copies of the iconic Ma Bell image are seldom encountered.