PBA Galleries

6 x 9”, 43pp. in original pictorial wrappers. Scarce. Included in this lot is a piece of memorabilia from the Chicago Exposition, a 1 x 1.5” box of safety matches, reproducing on both covers the color image of the now-iconic Expo Poster by Chicago WPA artist Robert S. Pious

Organized to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, the Detroit Exposition has been virtually forgotten, being overshadowed by the landmark American Negro Exposition in Chicago – sometimes called the Negro “World’s Fair” –  which began three months later, on the 4th of July, and lasted throughout the summer of 1940.

The Detroit booklet Includes a 6-page Program of Events for the 9-day Expo and two essays: “The Story of Negro Progress in the United States” by the eminent scholar Wesley (first Black man to receive a Ph.D. in History from Harvard; Dean of the Graduate School at Howard University; and President of Wilberforce University); and “The Negro People in Michigan” by Dancy, Executive Secretary of the Detroit Urban League.