TVA Models Lunching on Cruiser (Vintage photo album, 1940s)

self-published, 1940s. Very Good. Vintage photo album featuring women in swimsuits having a picnic on a "cruiser" (a yacht), posing in pumps while dockside, dressed in Indian headdress with bow/arrow, playing with a beach ball, wearing hats, and wading in water (the Tennessee River, with sailboats, the Chickamauga Dam, and shoreline dimly seen in the background of a few photos. All photos are rubber-stamped on the verso with Wood's name and address "Oweda Terrace, N. Chattanooga, Tenn." just fifteen minutes from the dam. The first page contains a landscape photo of 8 models, with "TVA models lunching on cruiser" written in holograph white pencil just above, and the following pages contain photos of single models with their names in same white pencil in the margins (being Lorie Coleman, "Pat" Poore, Ethel Williams, Jane Dix, Lillian Long, Delores Tatum, and Betty Murphy, with Poore noted as a "TVA model" and the last pictured model uncredited). Wood had been a prominent trapper along the eastern United States, beginning in the 1920s, and he published stories in contemporary hunting and fishing magazines in the 1930s and 40s, when TVA, the Tennessee Valley Authority, began as a way to "address the Valley's most important issues in energy, environmental stewardship and economic development." Several books have been published on the TVA, and one has been done on Wood by an enthusiast. Wood's association with TVA is negligible, and it could be that this album represents his only project with the company: a collection of vernacular pinup photos those show both how safe it is to swim in the Tennessee River, and swim fashion wear of the mid-century. 24mo., 15 photos mounted in corners, most back-to-back, 7 die-cut leaves, black stock in black leather binding, stamped "Photo Memo Book" in gilt on the front. A small bindery label affixed to the rear pastedown credits the Housh Co. (Boston, MA). Very Good, with several photos loose, several lacking mounting corners, light foxing and toning, and 1-inch loss at the heel.