United States Motor Truck Co. [salesman sample photo catalogue featuring 50 silver gelatin photographs depicting the range of “Liberty” trucks for post-World War I commercial clients, many with the company logos and signage].

[Cincinnati, OH & Chicago, IL]: [Stewart Iron Works], United States Motor Truck Co., [Kaufmann & Fabry Co.], [1920]. Oblong 12mo. 6 x 4.5 in. [10 leaves (unnumbered).], w/ each separately featuring 5 linen-backed silver gelatin mounted photographs (50 in total), sized 3.5 x 5.5 in., rounded corners, many w/ negative no. in lower fore-edge w/in the negative, leporello accordion style black linen hinges for each leaf, mounted w/ linen hinges at gutter margin. Original stamped folding post-binder salesman case, w/ foldover flap, snapped clasp, w/ gilt lettering stamped on front (minor rubbing, shelfwear), still a VG bright copy. First edition, thus, of this exceedingly scarce original salesman sample photo catalogue for the short-lived truck manufacturer. Founded originally in 1862 by Stewart Sr., who opened the business originally in Covington, KY, the company quickly grew, and eventually divided into three separate corporations by 1902. The Stewart company cornered the market on cemetery fencing across America, manufactured the heavy duty trucks used by the US Army during World War I, and installed iron works and benches in New York City’s Central Park, the light fixtures in Congress, fencing and gates at the Panama Canal, the jail cells at Alcatraz, Sing-Sing, and Leavenworth. These sales photographs illustrate many of the companies purchasing heavy trucks from the US Motor Truck Co. division following World War I. Depicted here are flatbed trucks for The Diem & Wing Paper Co. in Cincinnati, OH; Julius J. Bantlin Co. Wholesale Automotive Equipment and Saddlery; panel trucks for Baking companies, w/ delivery doors built into the sides; a freezer, or ice truck for the Niser Ice Cream Co., featuring curved cab similar to trolleys, and other rail cars; or a dump truck for T.W. Spinks Co., featuring a Lehigh lift bed. The Stewart Iron Works truck division would continue until 1928 and also was a key truck supplier for Dow Drug Stores, the Cincinnati Enquirer, Cincinnati Post, Firestone Tire & Rubber Co., and many others. Kaufmann & Fabry was an active commercial photographic firm specializing in architectural photography in Chicago from before 1910, and are still an active company. Founders were Charles D. Kaufmann (b. 1888), an Austrian-American, and Herman Fabry (1879-1955) German-American, who are perhaps best remembered as the official photographers of the 1933 Century of Progress World’s Fair, and were awarded not only the rights for publishing and distributing photographs and photos in publications, but also operated a camera shop and film processing lab on the Exhibition grounds through 1933 and 1934. No copies of similar photographic catalogues could be located in institutional holdings, or Worldcat, and in fact, almost no contemporary sales literature of the short-lived United States Motor Truck Co. division appears to have survived.